#hate on historic/catholic history inaccuracies

[catholicminded]

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[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

Couple of takeaways and opinions and reactions from watching the series Blood & Treasure.

FIrst off- Warning- I watched this show purely for the Oded Fehr content( the hot, now silver fox Isreali actor who played Ardeth Bae Bay in the Mummy) and I am more than happy and willing to RIP into any and all historical inaccuracies with a bloodthirsty vengeance. Even if this is a campy ripoff of all inaccurate ‘history movies’. I am History’s paramour, don’t @ me. I will be referencing The Mummy a lot. ( A strangely accurate-ish movie, I’ll save that for another time.) ALSO, none of this follows the order of the series. ANNNNDDDDD, I didn’t watch the whole thing yet, so more fun insights to come.

If you actually read this, please be aware that I do not hate nor wish ill on anyone because of race, religion or size. I also don’t hate terrorists( because they are still human beings, not because I agree with them), sorry if that kind of disgusts you.  If anything seems offensive, it is not my intent. Merely observational. Let’s keep the drama in the private dm’s.

Warning again- I am a wh*re for Karim Farouk( a.k.a. Oded Fehr).

 - Alright, so Oded Fehr has officially turned a whole 180 and instead of protecting these cursed tombs (ala The Mummy) he is now the greedy treasure hunter/grave robber/terrorist and you know what, it’s good look on him, it works...Well, I got so annoyed in the 2.3 minutes that we had to watch the archeologists right at the beginning be so awful and let’s act like a military group instead of what they really are(nerds) and oh-look-this-is-where-the-lever-was-now-help-me-open-this-with-zero-safety-measures-in-place ( It’s a modern ‘dig’ like come on)  that I’m cool with him (Oded Fehr’s bad guy character) waltzing in there all evil and he shoots some people, kills some people, kidnaps some people, blows up some pyramids which mildly pissed me off but I also kinda understood why? and he’s commanding and doesn’t waste his time like other villains and he’s all unfairly sexy in his tac gear and...I’m drooling now and weirdly rooting for the bad guy. Not a great start to a show which wants you to root for the ‘good guys’.

- Oh...HELL NO!!! ( groans in despair) GOODY-TWO-SHOES EX-AGENT OF CIAROKJSNDKENF!!!!WHATEVER. FuCK he’s irritating... AAAANNNNNNDDDD, the lead...figures. I hate those types.

- The priest is a good priest. Nice touch. Too bad he’s Jesuit. Believe you me, modern and post-modern Jesuits are not really a good sort. The old/original Jesuits were cool and brave and all ( and sooooooo not like this stupid series tries to make us believe.) They never had coded Bibles, you dicks.

- I honestly don’t know if this series wants to be taken as a serious history lesson or as fantastical historical fiction. The latter is fine I guess. It sure as Hell ain’t the former. (They do throw in enough actual history to confuse you on that bit.) I mean, the curse on Cleopatra’s tomb isn’t a blatantly made-up apocalyptic resurrection of a bad CGI mummy who was Hom-Dai ‘ed 3000 years ago, so it could be taken as actual history by anyone who may not know better. But it isn’t actual history, not by a long shot. Don’t believe this series, I beg of you.

 - The Jesuits were never secret-keepers of cult knowledge and they never infiltrated the Nazi Occultists ranks and there may be secret passages out of the Vatican to be used in an emergency by the Swiss Guards( and ensemble) if necessary, but I doubt that it’s hidden in such a Angels and Demons- esque way and OH HELL, the pop culture references BTW are driving me up the wall! These guys are trying to be the Gilmore Girls and are failing miserably.

- Again, stop using the Vatican as such a cache of culty knowl...you know what, I give up on this arguement. Peace out. MF’s.

- There is something so clandestinely delicious about seeing the heart-throbbing silver fox which is Oded Fehr in a turtleneck sweater and blazer with that scar on the side of his face and just... no thoughts, only dominating dangerous dilf. I want to have his child. I don’t care if he’s the evil terrorist( or is he?), he is still a thousand times sexier than anyone else in this sh*tty show. Prove me wrong I dare you.

 - Lexi I can stand because she is truthfully alot of fun to watch at the beginning. And she’s actually awesome in the -I care about people and they don’t know it kinda way.- One tiny little thing though. Never knew I was weirded out by thigh gaps until this girl walks in in skinny jeans and leggings. I shouldn’t find it weird and I usually don’t but some of the angles they use in this show creeps me out for some inexplicable reason. Very odd. They should keep her in dresses and maybe like, non-skinny jeans.

- 1000 points for Oded Fehr walking around in grey camo cargo pants and jacket with aviator sunglasses in the rocky desert. this man I swear😳

- Omar, come on man, NOT THE OLD LADY!

-Of course, Lexi is the descendant of Anthony and Cleopatra. Because this show wasn’t fucking predictable enough as it is.

-Good guys becoming obsessed with treasure is valid I will give them that. And gives me an excuse to root for Karim Farouk/Oded Fehr.

-The score reminds me of Indiana Jones and the like. Not bad.

-Ugh, I hate seeing mummies. Leave these poor people in their graves, please!

- Yeah right, Danny survived that fall down the elevator shaft. I totally believe you.

-Blowing up the pyramid to distract the world from the black market sales of Cleopatra’s items is very smart. STOP MAKING ME LIKE THE VILLAIN!

- Karim Farouk is way too smart to have just grabbed those cases without checking them all to ensure that everything was as it should be. Give the man some credit. They make him super smart and sly at the beginning, but then when crunch-time arrives and our ‘heroes’ need plot boosts, Karim gets uncharacteristically sloppy.

- As soon as it was revealed that Karim was doing all this stuff out of revenge, I knew it was over a bombing or something by the US of A and his family or almost all his family was wiped out, and that grief and anger had developed into stone cold hate.

- And I was right.

- Using Karim’s niece as bait is cruel AF.

-No fucking way that he brought his niece a present in a bag with a location on it and drops it where our ‘heroes’ conveniently find it and track him to said location.

- This fucking predictable plot I SWEAR!

-Side note: DEATH FROM SUPERNATURAL IS IN HERE! YOOHOO! Great actor.

- Lexi’s Coptic Christian mother was allowed to marry her Muslim father how?????????? Mixed marriages between Muslims and Catholics are kind of forbidden.

- Oded Fehr is again in a turtleneck with blazer. 🥵

-I never knew I needed Oded Fehr driving a forklift in my life, but here we are I guess...

- Have I mentioned how much I appreciate Oded Fehr in this????????

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That’s it for now. Might post another one one I finish the season.

[mccoyyy]

Bring historical accuracy to Carlisle's early life, pretty please 🥰

absolutely (and thank you @pandabooraccoon and the other two anons who asked something similar to this too I love you so much). I'm putting this under a read more cause, yeah

ok, to start of with I am nowhere near an expert, but this time period in history really fascinates me cause there was so much going on. 

so Carlisle was born in 1640′s London, and at the time there was a shit tonne of religious and political upheaval going on. You had the Union of Crowns, disagreements over the Church systems, covenanting, Civil War and Cromwell, Executions and the removal and restoration of the Monarchy. Shit was mad. But I’m gonna start with Carlisle’s dad (I’m going to call him Abraham but full credit for that one goes to @panlight​) cause I have so many thoughts

Abraham was a pastor in 1640. He most likely started working when he was breached and then took over as Pastor (Preacher) after his dad died. I’m going to say he was born around 1620, married in 1639ish and then Carlisle was born a year later. So he would be what, 20 when Carlisle was born. 

First of the bat, there is no way that Abraham would still be alive and kicking when Carlisle was 23. The life expectancy back then was just under 40, so a 43 year old Abraham cutting about burning witches (and we’ll get to that in just a moment) just isn’t realistic but neither are vampires so oh well. In terms of religion if were being historically accurate, then Abraham would have most likely been an Anglican pastor as that was the dominant form of church in England at the time and he would have been fucked up by the mob/church/general public/all of the above for being anything else

However, it gets sticky when you bring in the idea of Puritanism. I firmly believe that Abraham would have loved Cromwell and puritanism (cause I like to headcanon him as an utter dick) but if were doing that then it creates a problem. If Abe was a devout Protestant Anglican, he would have believed in the divine right of kings (a monarch has no authority other than the word of god and therefore doesn't need to listen to anyone else) and therefore seen Charles I as the mouth of God, and had issues with the whole execution thing, so if Abe was a Puritan, then he would probably have to be a Presbyterian (dominant form of church in Scotland and also the parliamentarians) but again, this causes problems cause no one really liked Presbyterianism (understatement). It’s possible that he could have been influenced by Cromwell and switched from Anglicanism but religion back then was very different to what it was now, it took a lot to get people to change their ideas over faith (see the plague) so I’m gonna go out on a limb and blame Charles I who first started to undermine parliament and try to start Absolutism which lead Abe to change his loyalties. Either that or he supported Cromwell’s agenda but didn’t agree with execution which is the most likely option tbh.

With Abraham out of the way, we can now move on to our boy. Carlisle, the son of a pastor in 1640, there is no fucking way that this dude didn’t know the year/date he was born. Know why? cause dates were recorded by none other than the fucking church. aka his father. Carlisle is just bad with dates but that's ok buddy i guess that happens when your like 300. Secondly, his dad wouldn’t have raised him. It would have been left up to his mum, but cause she wasn't around he would have been raised by a wet nurse until he was breeched and entered the adult world at the ripe and grown up age of six (at least I think but I’m not 100% sure) when he would have started helping his father with sermons, and received an education of some form (probably a clerics education). Either way, he would have been helping his father at a very young age and exposed to so much shit

Back to Abraham for a wee second. Smeyer writes that he hunted down and burned vampires but again, this isn’t likely. Vampire hunters did exist but not in London. They were most common in Bulgarian/Serbian beliefs and even then they were very different to the modern idea of vampire hunters. And secondly, they wouldn’t have been burned! pyres weren’t used in the 1600s and instead would probably have been killed through hangings, torture or trials to determine whether they were a witch or not. So the good news is, Carlisle didn’t have to watch women being burned alive from the age of like six, he would only have to watch women being drowned, tortured, disembowelled, branded and hanged! and not just women accused of being witches, but most likely Catholics too!

We don’t know much about Carlisle’s life from his birth to his ‘death’, so I’m gonna take creative liberty and make some stuff up. London in the 1640s was utterly awful. It was dark, bleak, and really smelly. He was pretty lucky in terms of the plague cause the only major outbreaks occurred just before him and just after him (1603, 25 and 65) but there would have been the odd outbreak. I like to believe that Carlisle was an argumentative little shit and from the age of like 10 argued with his dad about literally everything. Canon says that Carlisle didn’t agree with his fathers particular brand of faith, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that whilst he was still a protestant, and most likely Anglican, he probably followed an early form of religious tolerance at the least. Lutheranism didn’t reach England until around the enlightenment so I don't want to call him that but it was in existence in Germany at the same time so others had probably moved towards it a little, it just didn't have a name. His tolerance probably came from watching his father punish Catholics from the age of six, and their main argument as he got older was probably regarding tolerance of Catholicism. As much as I hate to say it, its low key unrealistic that Carlisle wasn’t married as a human so that would probably have been another point of contest between Carlisle and Abraham.

During Cromwell’s puritan reign was the most prominent witch-hunting years too, so if were being really nit-picky then Abraham would probably have only started hunting witches or at least started doing it a lot more frequently than he previously did round about here.

Cromwell died in 1658, and the monarchy was restored in England in 1660, but Carlisle’s dad most likely still followed puritan ideals and was not happy with the restoration period, and again, the revival of Christmas, theatre and fun was something that 20 year old Carlisle and Abraham would have disagreed over. Carlisle would have taken over a lot of his fathers duties round about this time, leading sermons and all that because Abraham should have been dead by now so I guess smeyer can have that one.

And now we get up to our boy’s final years. And this is like shooting still targets. Carlisle was hunting vampires in London sewers when he got bit, and then crawled into a potato cellar where he writhed in agony for 3-4 days. Firstly, sewers. The London sewage system wasn’t built for one or two hundred years. London was so fucking smelly. Like so much so that if it was sunny the house of commons/Westminster had to be evacuated cause the (literal) shite in the Thames would have warmed up and became especially pungent, and it was only when it started to affect MP’s that they though that maybe they should do something about it (which is probably another reason that super-senses-vampire Carlisle boosted to France as soon as possible). So he wouldn’t have been fighting vampires in sewage systems, but instead an alley, slums, or even along or near the Thames if you want to keep the sewage aspect. 

After being bitten, it would have been pretty difficult for Carlisle to drag himself into a potato cellar because he’d be crawling for quite some time. Potatoes didn't become a staple crop in society for quite a while. They were about and people ate them, but were largely seen as food for the lower classes in society, and there certainly wouldn't have been cellars filled with them.

Also just as a little end note, plague devastated London 5 years after he was turned so literally my favourite headcanon to give Carlisle is that he blamed the outbreak on himself. Yes, he may have went along with the miasmic theory that Plague was caused by bad air instead of his fathers ‘divine punishment’ theories, but there’s nothing like a good bit of puritan guilt am I right? seeing and maybe helping with the plague (masks and so many herbs stuffed inside them would have blocked the smell of blood) is also what I like to think made Carlisle want to go into medicine.

And there you have it. A (sort of) accurate version of Carlisle’s and Abraham’s life. and again, disclaimer, I am nowhere near an expert, so there might be inaccuracies and mistakes here. But basically, smeyer please. Google is free. 

[militant-holy-knight]

Kingdom of Heaven Review: Secular Agnostic Humanist Crusader Edition

Whenever the topic of Ridley Scott’s 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven comes up, it invariably brings up how it’s one of his most mediocre movies and that “the Director’s Cut is better”. This makes sense since the movie actually had a very mixed reception when it was first released on theaters, as critics lambasted the cliched plot and characters and overall being all style and no substance. As it turns out, several changes were made behind the scenes by executives who felt the movie ran too long and cut scenes they felt were appropriate, but actually improved the story.

I’ve heard so many people praising the Director’s Cut to the point they even said it was an “whole different movie”, which was very confusing to me, and made me wonder if they actually saw it and aren’t parroting someone else. Now don’t get me wrong: it’s true that the Director’s Cut is the superior version to the theatrical one and does fix issues like character motivations and actions, it doesn’t even come close to fixing the foundation which it was built on: an extremely politically-biased and revisionist distortion, product of someone molded by their own time period than anything else. 

The characters have anachronistic attitudes that are out of place specially at the heart of an holy war. The sympathetic characters - whether Christians or Muslims - can be identified as secular humanists that express religious tolerance and would rather live and let live, whereas antagonistic characters are characterized by their religious fanaticism. Baldwin IV and Saladin would rather live in peace with each other, but are beleaguered by the circumstances of their followers who clamor for war. This portrayal couldn’t be more absurd and further from the truth because the “peace” between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubi Caliphate was not meant to last forever, but more until both sides regrouped and rearmed to resume hostilities like an armistice, not to mention the fact both monarchs were extremely pious in their faiths (Catholicism and Sunni Islam, respectively) and considered themselves their staunch defenders. 

This is no accident. Ridley Scott is an agnostic and has admitted at multiple occasions that he used it as an opportunity to criticize religion. Perhaps the most illustrative moment where this attitude sweeps in is during the climax when Jerusalem is eventually besieged and Balian delivers an speech to the army that boils down to “Jerusalem belongs to everyone”, which simply wouldn’t fly with the Christians at the time. Consider in that era where even people of their own faiths struggled among each other (The Kingdom of Jerusalem was Latin Catholic and other Christians like Orthodox, Armenians and Copts were often regarded as schismatics, while Sunnis and Shias were at war with each other like they always do), can you imagine if someone actually said that in regards to other religions?!?

A particularly inconvenient aspect of the movie that is clear for everyone who sees it is that only the Christian side is the only one truly hit with the fanaticism issue, whereas Muslims comes off as cleaner. When you really come down to it, the crusader side is filled with more despicable villains who are named, whereas the Muslim side has one token nameless mullah who is an asshole to Saladin, threatening him that if he doesn’t give them Jerusalem, they will kill him and find someone who can - that is about the extent of his villainy. There is also a Saracen rider that wants to duel Balian at one point, but he is just some random threat thrown in, and it’s later revealed he was an slave masquerading as someone else. 

Now compare this with Balian’s asshole priest brother who steals his wife’s crucifix, the slimy Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Guy of Gisborne and Raynald of Chatillon, both of whom are generic warmongers that just want to kill infidels for no reason, the former kills an emissary which constitutes as an offense worthy of Genghis Khan’s wrath while the latter rapes and kills Saladin’s sister. What makes this worse is that none of these are true: The Patriarch actually helped ransom people during the Siege of Jerusalem, Guy wasn’t particularly better or worse than his contemporaries and if anything, he was regarded as an weakling rather than a bloodthirsty thug, whereas Raynald never even attacked Saladin’s sister (according to Arab sources) and while he was still a very violent man, it was the result of being held 16 years in a prison under Muslims in Aleppo and in the end, he died like a Christian martyr to jihadist terrorism - being told by Saladin to convert to Islam or die, which he picked the latter. 

You can tell when certain fedoralords say they hate religion actually hate Christianity only, and this is the tone that oozes from this movie. No wonder a historian once called this movie “al-Qaeda’s version of the story” because Christians commit horrible atrocities against innocent Muslims hence Muslim aggression by Saladin is justified. If anything Bin Laden likely envisioned himself as an modern-day Saladin, hoping to unite the Muslim world against the “Eternal Crusader”. The lionizing of Saladin is laughable given the fact that until recent memory he was an obscure figure on account of being Kurdish, but was co-opted by Arab Muslims as their hero. I wonder how would audiences feel that Saladin had half Jerusalem’s population enslaved which is something he actually did in real life instead of letting them go like in the movie.....

There are also other problems with the movie besides religion that even the Director’s Cut couldn’t fix like Balian’s character. I already went over how he is representative of the movies’s secular humanist themes, but there is a lot more wrong with him beyond that. Simply put, he is the most vanilla flavor protagonist, devoid of charisma or flaws, and comes across as a Marty Stu when you think about it: a nobody who is revealed to be the bastard son of some crusader baron that just so happens to be influential enough with Jerusalem’s nobility that everyone good immediately befriends him. He has a tragic backstory that makes him an atheist, but is perfect and devoid of any flaws and is written in such way that serves as a surrogate for the audience. By contrast, his historical counterpart was a knight born and raised in Jerusalem who was actually devout and politically shrewd, which comes across as more interesting and Arab Muslims agreed since they wrote “he was like a king”. But nope. Can’t have that because Balian is actually Scott’s self-insert by his own admission and we can’t have a guy like real-life Balian because modern audiences can’t identify with him.

Scott seriously misunderstood the Knight Templars. Naturally like our lead villains they are also genocidal maniacs, but also appear to be a secular noble/warrior class of some kind since Guy and Raynald are affiliated with them (they weren’t in real life), and it’s a plot point that Guy is engaged with Baldwin’s sister Princess Sybilla. Templars made vows of chastity and poverty, schewing all property and titles so it makes no sense for either of them being part of the order, much less for a Templar to become king. (Afonso Henriques of Portugal was at least a former Templar).

And then there are the geo-politics... Even though Scott denied that the movie was an metaphor, it certainly comes across this way with characters talking about how much wealth they made from the campaigns as if this was the American intervention in the Middle-East for oil. Jerusalem had no resources, no real treasures except maybe the True Cross which had great emotional value for the Christians and in fact, it was the other way around: it was far more expensive, having to secure resources, armor and weaponry to join the crusade with the likely risk of death with no returning home with the only comfort being remission of sins in case of falling in battle.

The Crusades were precipitated by Muslim aggression in the first place, namely the Seljuk Turks who crushed the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Mazinkert and began persecuting Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, not to mention the subhuman conditions that Eastern Christians found themselves as dhimmis under Islamic rule. When framed this manner, the wrath of Latin Catholics hearing the atrocities carried out by the Turks is quite justified. Could Scott himself say this is justified compared to how much Muslim caravans were attacked by Templars on his movie?

So to sum things up: we have liberal political bias that portrays one side as the assholes while the others justified in retaliating, a perfect protagonist that is clearly a self-insert, generic villains that are evil for no reason other than being Christian, historical inaccuracies, white-washing certain figures while removing all nuance and depth from others, honestly embarrassing analogies with modern topics that stick out like a sore thumb. And in the end, for you to walk away with not much. I am sorry but even the Director’s Edition didn’t make things significantly better because the movie’s issues lies at their conceptual form: Balian is still a Marty Stu, the Christians are largely one-dimensional evil, the Muslims are honorable and enlightened, etc. You can’t make a story engaging when the setting is revolving around religious conflict and the leads are all secularists, or else it shows how much “smarter than thou” attitude you have.

I’ve heard about how Scott got into a spat with the British historian community who made very clear how his movie was bollocks. A common defense on his behalf is that he isn’t obligated to tell history like how it was and he made the movie he felt best, which is honestly just baffling because it’s very insulting towards the audience. I am not saying that the audience should be challenged (at least not in a Rian Johnson way), but imagine if Raynald’s captivity was brought up and his death was portrayed in redemptive fashion after all his atrocities, imagine Saladin preaching jihad against the crusaders, imagine Balian breaking his oath, etc. Now that would have made an more memorable movie instead of the one who is remembered for his slightly better version released separately. Certainly history had a better story to tell than Ridley Scott.

Like what Amin Maalouf, author of “The Crusades through Arab Eyes” once said.

It does not do any good to distort history, even if you believe you are distorting it in a good way. Cruelty was not on one side but on all.

[j-femmescoli]

as both a theater nerd and a history nerd with a special interest in the tudor era, there are a few inaccuracies in “six the musical”

of course it’s not 100% historically accurate as it is a dramatization of the events, but here are some fun facts about the actual six tudor women!! 

- catherine of aragon never went to a nunnery.  it was suggested when henry wanted to divorce her, but she stood up against him and lived the rest of her life insisting that she was the true queen.  she died in one of her palaces after henry had married anne boleyn.  henry did indeed also have a bastard son, henry fitzroy (the traditional bastard surname), whom he named duke of richmond.

- anne boleyn was not beheaded just for being annoying and saying things, although that was a big reason why henry and his advisors started to want to get rid of her -- also because he was starting to fall for jane seymour and wanted to remarry. so they accused anne boleyn of adultery and incest with her brother and sentenced her to death.  

- jane seymour was indeed the only one he truly loved, although part of that may have been because she actually gave him a son.  

--> sidenote: his three legitimate children were edward (of jane seymour), who ruled after henry died but died in his teens; mary (his firstborn of catherine of aragon), who was strictly catholic and hated the church of england/protestant revolution and therefore became known as “bloody mary” for her persecution of protestants; and finally elizabeth (his second-born of anne boleyn), who reigned after mary and was one of the best-loved monarchs in history.  

- anna of cleves was in fact dumped because she was not as pretty as her picture.  henry achieved his divorce by saying that he thought she wasn’t a virgin, therefore not worthy of being his wife.  she in fact was, even after the marriage, because henry never slept with her.  because of her strict religious upbringing she didn’t even know what sex was, and when asked if henry had consummated the marriage she replied that they slept in the same bed every night and he kissed her every morning, wasn’t that enough?  when they explained sex to her, she was scandalized.  she lived the rest of henry’s life in one of his other castles and he referred to her as his “good-sister,” or step-sister.  once he died she returned to cleves.  

- katherine howard was in fact fifteen when she had an affair with her music teacher (not much better than 13, especially when the man was 23, but whatever.)  she indeed started to have an emotional affair with one of the men of henry’s court and that was why she got beheaded.  she was actually anne boleyn’s cousin, and her father came under a lot of suspicion for being related to the two “adulterous” queens who both got beheaded.  

- catherine parr was so much younger than henry viii that she was probably named after his first wife, catherine of aragon.  she was indeed married twice before, but was childless from those marriages, so it was curious why henry wanted to marry her, since his focus was a son.  she ended up remarrying after henry died to the man she truly loved.  

some fun facts about the dynamic interesting and unique women of six!!! most of this information came from the book “the wives of henry viii” by lady antonia fraser.  she’s one of my favorite historical writers -- she also has a book on mary queen of scotts, henry’s cousin’s granddaughter (i think), which i have yet to read but i am very excited to.  please correct me if something is wrong!!

[lakecountylibrary]

Mary Queen of Scots vs Reign

During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, many considered her cousin, Mary Stuart, the true queen of England. Mary was the daughter of James V and Mary of Guise and a Catholic. There were major conflicts between Protestants and Catholics during this time. Mary and Elizabeth, on opposite sides, maintained a distant but intriguing relationship as both blood and enemy.

Mary Queen of Scots

Quick stats: - Illusion of being an accurate retelling - Rushed (especially towards the end) - Exceptional acting by female leads - Excellent costumes - Mary is a redhead - Focused timeline on Scotland

The film Mary Queen of Scots features the relationship of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. Mary, considered by Catholic Scots and English to be the true queen of England, returns to Scotland, a homeland she left as a child. Her cousin, Elizabeth, has taken the throne but it is a delicate balance of power. 

Starring Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart and Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth, this film tries to cram a lot of history into a short film. The acting is solid and the leads are well matched but the film feels rushed and leaves the viewer with many questions about these historic events as well as about the accuracy of the story.

Reign

Quick stats: - Apparent from beginning that liberties are taken - Stretches over 4 seasons - Exceptional acting by entire cast - Unique and creative costuming - Mary is a brunette - Timeline starts in France as a teen (with childhood flashbacks) and advances

The tv drama Reign had been on my radar for a bit so I decided to give it a try. Originally aired on The CW, this is a dramatized telling of the life of Mary Queen of Scots. Many, many liberties are taken in this version but it is endlessly entertaining. Adelaide Kane gives an exceptional rendition of Mary. 

Performances may very well enchant the viewer and while some subplots are unbelievable, viewers will choose to watch. I was much more willing to accept the historical inaccuracies in this tv telling as from the start of the show, it is obvious they are not choosing accuracy over drama. The costuming is amazing and it is definitely worth watching.

Both viewings allow the non-historian an opportunity to be intrigued and hopefully dig more into actual history research!

Which will you choose? Like both? One more than the other? Hate both?

See more of Beth’s recs...

[markrmorrisjr]

I grew up fundy, I’ve had to face it. I’ve tried to put all kinds of spins on it, conservative, mainline traditional, but facts are facts, and although I didn’t see it, and still don’t remember my parents or grandparents as cruel, or hateful in any  way, that’s what it was.

From the time I was born until the age of fourteen, my dad was a Church of Christ preacher. I never experienced any kind of racism, or bigotry, toward anyone who came into the congregations where he preached, or in our home. Everyone was welcome, no matter their heritage,  status, “orientation” or “lifestyle” ( I use these terms in quotes, because this is the language that was used to describe the “others”) they were always treated with love and respect and we tried to help everyone we could.

That being said, there was a fair bit of proselytizing, which only makes sense in the circumstances, but never any condemnation from them toward anyone that I witnessed,. Regardless of their beliefs. Maybe this is why I was able to hide from my own concerns for so long. There was never any doubt that they believed whole-heartedly that without a meaningful conversion experience to Christ, everyone was lost and going to a literal, real hell.

I know what some of you are thinking, what kind of monsters were they? But, you likely have had some beliefs in your life that you were forced to reconsider, and I fully believe, had they lived long enough, this would have been one for them. My dad admitted at the end of his life that I had convinced him that hell definitely wasn’t what he’d thought. But, that’s a story for another time.

About the time I turned fourteen, my dad’s theology changed, but not necessarily for the better. We dived headlong out of the mega conservative, no instrumental music in worship, COC, into the hotbed of the Charismatic Renewal in 1985. Rock bands, and tambourines, if you couldn’t speak in tongues, you might not be saved, kind of places. The Sunday services would run for hours!

From there, I ran through the gamut of “non-denominational” churches, but everywhere I went, a certain arrogant ignorance pervaded the leadership.  Most of them had only a rudimentary knowledge of scripture. Which, for a COC kid was appalling, after all, we basically treated the Bible as a defacto minister of God. It was inerrant, and perfect in every way, after all, it was just up to us to study it hard enough to suss out the answers.

There’s a certain level of death to intellectual curiosity that comes with accepting that the Bible, is, in your mind, inerrant. Although this is a relatively new idea, in the scheme of things, it has been pervasive through most of American Evangelical Christianity for the past century or so. Even in places where it wasn’t considered quite as literal and concrete as I’d been taught as a child (6 literal days of creation, and so on) those ideas were almost never expressed from the pulpit. There was a tacit understanding that the book was the book, and whatever it said, and whoever was in charge agreed to interpret is as meaning, stood.

So, what’s so wrong with that? Well, I don’t know all of the answers to this question, but here are ten things I picked up on later in life that led to a whole bunch of questions that ended up with me thinking there is no hell, and gay people are okay with Jesus and maybe a lot of the other rules we made for ourselves didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the whole thing was really about being good to people in the first place.

Here they are, the ten things they never told me.

The best description of God in the Bible is a metaphor.

That’s right. We’ve fought wars over these poetic understandings, though. So, they must be able to be understood and taken literally, right? See, the idea is this, God is so big (and if there is a single intelligence behind the universe, it would have to be) that we simply cannot understand, and so, we have to resort to metaphorical language to compare God to things we can know. God is ineffable in essence. But, if this is true, why did I see so much anger for people who insisted on seeing the feminine in the divine, or had another name for God?

God is not a man.

At best, the divine is a blend of genders. It says so right in the first two chapters, but we overlook that and default to father, although he’s also described as animals, a woman, forces of nature, and even inanimate objects. As science begins to unfold what it means for humans to have gender, they are discovering that even on a measurable level, there is very little evidence for the strict binary definitions we’ve applied until very recently. To me, this binary understanding has been used primarily to hold half of the population in check. Yes, women, you’ve been robbed of your rightful place, because some guys decided that some other guys, who wrote all this stuff down, said guys were put in charge by the head guy himself, God, and it’s not true.

There’s very little history, outside of the Bible itself, to back up much of what is in it.

Sorry, whatever they told you at Bible college, might need to be reconfirmed, as awful as it sounds a whole lot of lies have been told to prop up doctrine. I don’t know a lot about this. It is true there is as much evidence for the existence of some of the personalities in the Bible as for other historical figures, but much of what is told within its pages cannot be confirmed through other historical records.

Almost NONE of the source texts come from “original” languages.

In many evangelical circles there is this belief that if you get to the "original" language of the Bible you can make more sense of it. In some cases this is true. It's been mistranslated and misinterpreted. In other places, additional words have simply been made up to make it make what the translator thought was good sense. So, what is the truth

The OT was rewritten into other languages, and then translated back into Hebrew. The Greek that the NT scrolls were written in was not the spoken language of the people who wrote it. Many of them spoke Aramaic, it's believed. Linguistically speaking it’s a stew, and that’s before you even get to the oral tradition being handed down for generations before many of the books were written, or the translation challenges of converting mostly dead languages into somewhat modern English equivalents.

There's more than one "canon" of the "Holy Bible

To say that the “canon” (group of books included in the Bible) of scripture is inspired (directly selected by the Holy Spirit) is a confusing, and misleading statement. There have been many. Hell, there are still many groups of books claiming the title of Bible. Right now there is the 66 book canon of the mainline protestant church, the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which by the way, has the claim of being older than the protestant, just by history and logic. And the Eastern Orthodox canon contains 81 books, and is said to be the oldest canon in church history. So, which one was inspired? Even these canons are disputed.

Not all of the Biblical authors are necessarily who I was taught they were.

For example, Paul seems to have penned the lion’s share of the New Testament. But, some of what has his name on it, most scholars believe, may have been penned by one of his own disciples, using his name to gain authority. As to the ancient texts, some of them have never had an author attributed to them.

Not everything in the Bible is scientifically accurate.

You're probably saying, wow, no kidding? (sarcastically) It is obvious that there are gaps in the understanding of the writers, and some of their observations are plain illogical. But, and here's the thing, we had a 1954 set of World Book encyclopedias as a kid and I wouldn't want to use that as a text book in a modern science class either. So much of the understanding has changed. Honestly, this point only matters if you're expecting the Bible to be completely infallible.

Surprisingly, however, the same pattern claimed as the biological order of ascendance in evolution by Darwin, is the same order used in the Creation Myth in Genesis. I remember a serious debate in our house when my brother found out that whales are not fish and my father attempted to defend the idea that the whale Jonah was “literally” swallowed by, was both a whale and a great fish, as the Bible states. To me, most of these are simply errors in understanding from the author’s point of view. After all, most people still thought of the world as flat, although the Bible describes it as round. But, I don’t need the Bible to be scientifically accurate in every point. Most historical philosophical texts have similar inaccuracies.

The idea that the Bible is perfect is new

Yep, it started less than a hundred years ago, which is funny. You'd think the earliest followers of this book would have been turned onto the fact that it was perfect, unless, maybe, it's not.

I was never told this. I doubt my father ever knew it. Different schools of theological understanding tend to insulate themselves to preserve their way of thinking. You’ll find that two Biblical scholars, both trained to similar levels of education, may have completely different understandings of what the book means on many points and often have never even been confronted with opposing views. The other interesting thing is this, I’ve rarely met a Bible professor who found the Bible to be as black and white as it was nearly always presented from the pulpits I heard it taught from.

There are even problems with the doctrine of "Divine Inspiration"

The idea of the divine inspiration of the Biblical writers doesn’t gel with the idea of free will. Either God creates automatons, even temporarily, to act as mediums ( a practice strictly forbidden in scripture) to transcribe the history and thoughts of God, or men do it willingly. If the former, then what the hell? And was that same possession present when all translation, interpretation, and transcription was done? If not, how would you assume that all of these men (they’re always all considered men) get it all perfectly right, without inserting a single opinion. But, then, we’re given a glimpse into this by Paul, at least once when he tells us straight up this is my opinion, not God speaking.

The Bible’s inerrancy is not only unprovable, but it simply doesn’t matter.

Here’s why. After being in church, literally, since the third day of my life, I’ve come to this conclusion, it does not matter one bit if the Bible is perfect or not. Well, of course it does, some will say, otherwise, we might be living a lie. Well, here’s the thing, you might anyway, even if it’s perfect. Why? Imagine this.

There is an atomic bomb in your front yard. Unless you defuse it, at some point in the future, no one knows exactly when, it will take you and everyone you know out. Never fear! Instructions for defusing this bomb have been delivered. But, here’s the thing. They were written by someone who never saw this bomb. Two thousand years ago. With their untechnological minds. In a foreign language they didn’t speak. That’s not all. Then it was translated from these ancient texts, then transcribed many times, and finally, it was made into an “interpretation” of the original text. But, if you are not precise in every single detail of your defusal process, BOOM!

So, you call in the experts. They can help, right? They’ve devoted their entire lives to studying these instructions and teaching these instructions. They arrive and immediately begin to argue. Why? Because they all have a different idea of how the bomb should be defused and all of them show you in the instructions how their way is right. One says you open the bomb first, then pray, then defuse. Another says, no, pray only, God will defuse the bomb. Another says, dunk the bomb in water, pray, then defuse. And they all have followers who espouse their method. Because, if you don’t get this right, they’re all doomed.

Finally, they resort, not to the original texts, but to commentaries based on other’s understanding of the texts, to solve their disagreements, but this just leads to more disagreements. What do you do? The instructions are perfect, you know that. But, now you’ve got three different versions of them, and tons of peripheral information explaining them and the more you try to make it make sense, the less it does.

That’s why it simply does not matter if the Bible is perfect, infallible, or inerrant. Because, even if it were, we cannot come to a common understanding of what it means.

So, what is the Bible? To me, it’s simply a journal. It’s a journal of men and women who dedicated their entire existence to unravelling the God puzzle, understanding who the creator is, and what our relationship to the divine should be. It records their mistakes, their broken ideas, their imperfect observations, and some of the results. It encourages us to good things, and where it does, we should follow it. Then it has some horrible advice, which is proven wrong. Where this is true, we should learn from it.

But, how do you make peace with all of this? Simple. I’ve come to understand that the bomb (hell) does not exist. There is no lake of eternal fire. God doesn’t torture people eternally for deeds committed on a finite time line. In fact, the Bible doesn’t even say that. But, that’s a story for another time.

[outcast-ofredwall]

My Lady Jane

Author: Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton, Jodie Meadows

Publisher: Harper Teen

Number of Pages: 491 (print)

Rating: 5 Stars

Synopsis: Edward (long live the king) is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d much rather be planning for his first kiss than considering who will inherit his crown… Jane (reads too many books) is Edward’s cousin, and far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately for Jane, Edward has arranged to marry her off to secure the line of succession. And there’s something a little odd about her intended… Gifford (call him G) is a horse. That is, he’s an Eðian (eth-y-un, for the uninitiated). Every day at dawn he becomes a noble chestnut steed—but then he wakes at dusk with a mouthful of hay. It’s all very undignified. The plot thickens as Edward, Jane, and G are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, our heroes will have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it’s off with their heads?

Review: Well, this was fun! And all the historical inaccuracies didn’t make me want to claw the creators’ eyes out, like with the show Reign.

My Lady Jane is the YA historical fiction/fantasy take on Lady Jane Grey and the succession crisis at the end of Edward VI’s reign. Lady Jane Grey happens to be one of my favorite people of all time.

In this universe, there are people known as Edians (in the books it’s spelled with a character that I can’t seem to find, my apologies)—people who can turn into animals. Ones who can’t are called Verities. Verities have hated and persecuted Edians for a very long time. My Lady Jane starts in May of 1553. Edward VI is dying and John Dudley wants to keep the kingdom out of Mary Tudor’s hands (and in his own). In this book, Edians are like the Protestants and Verities are the Catholics. Sort of. That’s how I  read it. Skipping Frances Brandon (Henry VIII’s niece and Jane’s mom), Jane is the closest desirable heir—legitimate and friendly to Edians. And in Dudley’s eyes—malleable.  

I spent this book comparing it to Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir and the Animorphs. Innocent Traitor is historical fiction as well and is my favorite book about Lady Jane Grey. I’m glad Gifford Dudley wasn’t the rapist mama’s boy he was in that book. I actually liked him for once. The Edian’s “changing” is no really “morphing”, and so they’re more like Animagus than Animorph. Edians have only one form and if an Evian gets hurt in human form, changing won’t heal them, but if they get hurt in Evian form, it is less in human form.

I’m going to avoid writing an entire essay about this book and the real history, so I’m going back to the lists: my likes and dislikes:

Likes:

The narrators. They are exactly like my own internal monologue.

The titles of Jane’s books reminded me of Hermione.

How Edward and Jane were close friends. This didn’t happen in real life (as far as I know), and I’ve always wanted it to. Hell, as much as I adore Elizabeth, I wanted Edward and Jane to get married and rule England together.

Elizabeth of York is alive! Yay!

The poisoning plot and Edward not having TB.

Dislikes: 

Where. Is. Robert. Dudley. He may not be important to the book, but he’s important to history!!!

The changing between forms doesn’t heal the person. That’s what I liked about the Animorphs. 

I wanted to see at least some of the final battle.

G being Shakespeare. Made me cringe.

Questions and Observations:

Where were Katherine and Mary Grey, Jane’s sisters?

Having Lord Grey (Jane’s father) already dead was an interesting choice.

I had a great time with this book and demand a sequel! I don’t want to leave this work yet! It’s also made me look forward to their next book: My Plain Jane.

[odinsblog]

No state or federal organization tracks the curriculum being used in private school choice programs. The religious affiliations of schools that participate in these programs are also not always tracked.  

That means there are thousands of kids receiving an extremist and ultraconservative education at the expense of taxpayers.

Several months ago, HuffPost set out to create a database of every private school in the country that receives taxpayer funding. We also tracked the religious affiliation of each school and looked at how many taught from these evangelical Christian textbooks.

Our analysis found that about 75 percent of voucher schools across the country are religious ― usually Christian or Catholic, with about 2 percent identifying as Jewish and 1 percent identifying as Muslim. There were gray areas: At least six schools identified as non-religious but used a curriculum created by the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.

What Their Textbooks Say

ENVIRONMENTALISTS HATE PEOPLE

What the Abeka textbook says: “Radical environmentalists” don’t just appreciate nature, but they “worship” it. In a pursuit of preservation, environmentalists “view mankind as the enemy of nature.” Environmentalists advocate for laws that hinder the advance of technology. 

Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 359

What the academic says: The textbook seems to be suggesting that environmentalists have ulterior motives, says Southern Methodist University history Professor Edward F. Countryman. The passage misrepresents the intentions of environmentalists and promotes a Tea Party view of environmentalism. “That’s party propaganda,” said Countryman of the passage.

NELSON MANDELA WAS MARXIST

What the Abeka textbook says: Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who helped dismantle apartheid, was a “Marxist agitator” who helped move the country toward “Communist tyranny” and a system of “radical ‘affirmative action.’”

Abeka, World History And Cultures, page 450

What the academic says: The Abeka section on Nelson Mandela contains many inaccuracies and attempts to delegitimize Nelson Mandela and his movement, says Southern Methodist University professor Jill Kelly. The term “Marxist agitator is incendiary language to dehumanize him and make his resistance not legitimate,” says Kelly, who specializes in South African history. The affirmative action system put in was not radical and not much different from the system in place in America, says Kelly.

SATAN CREATED PSYCHOLOGY

What the Abeka textbook says: Satan did not want people worshipping God, so in the late 1800s, Satan hatched “the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism (Communism), progressive education, and modern psychology” to counter America’s increased religiosity.

Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 282

What the academic says: “This is not historical explanation. This is invoking something that can neither be proven nor disproven, it’s faith,” says Southern Methodist University professor Ed Countryman.

GOD WANTS ONLY MODEST WOMEN

What the ACE textbook says: After women gained the right to vote in the 1920s and started working more outside the home, they also started behaving in increasingly anti-Christian ways. Women moved from being “obedient to their own husbands as Titus 2:5 instructs” to having the audacity to start cutting their hair and wearing short skirts.

ACE Social Studies, PACE 1131, page 25

What the academic says: In reality, the 1920s were a liberating time for women, says Southern Methodist University history professor Ed Countryman. After World War I, when many women went to work in factories, women gained some financial freedom. Of course women were still expected to be largely passive, but it became more normal for them to assert themselves in and outside the homes. Instead, the textbook’s framing of these developments are “as anti-woman as you can get,” Countryman said.

THE "WAR BETWEEN THE STATES"

What the ACE textbook says: There were many causes for the “war between the states,” or the Civil War, according to ACE. Slavery is a “likely causal” factor, but not the only one. States’ rights and protective tariffs also played a big role. God may have also been punishing people with the war, as it was preceded by a time of “religious apostasy and cultism.” After the war, the South suffered, but it “rose from the ashes” to become the Bible Belt, “a part of the country that has continued to stand firm on the fundamentals of Christian faith.”

ACE Social Studies, PACE 1126, page 1

What the academic says: The textbook ignores the fact that slavery was the driving factor behind the Civil War, which is clear from the early documents of the confederacy and secession documents, says Southern Methodist University professor Countryman. The textbook also suggests that God created the war as punishment, which is deeply problematic. “That’s like saying Katrina was some sort of punishment on New Orleans. Or Sandy on New York,” said Countryman.

BLACK SUPREMACIST ACTIVISTS

What the Abeka textbook says: During the civil rights movement, some activists belonged to “black supremacist” organizations, which were akin to white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. The most prominent “black supremacist” of the era was Malcolm X.

Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 356

What the academic says: “This is factually wrong,” says Countryman. Malcolm X was not a “black supremacist” but was, for a time, a “separatist,” preaching the cause of a separate nation for African Americans.

A Bob Jones high school world history textbook portrays Islam as a violent religion and contains a title “Islam and Murder.” In the same textbook, when describing the Catholic Reformation, Catholic leaders are described as failing “to see that the root of their problems was doctrinal error.”

When describing the concept of Manifest Destiny, the term used to describe America’s 19th century expansion westward, an ACE textbook referred to the movement essentially as spreading the gospel: “It was considered God’s will that this vastly superior American culture should spread to all corners of the North American continent,” the passage reads. “The benighted Indians would be among the many beneficiaries of God’s provision.”

David Brockman, an expert on world religions, was presented with passages from the Bob Jones and ACE textbooks. Most Protestants would likely disagree with the theological and historical narratives portrayed in the books, he said.

“The textbook simply distorts history,” wrote Brockman, a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, after examining the selections. “And given the biblical command not to bear false witness, I would question whether a distorted history is consistent with Christian teaching.”

With taxpayers footing the bill for religious private schools, the separation of church and state, a cornerstone of American democracy, becomes a murky line. So how did it come to be that taxpayers are footing the bill for an evangelical education?

(continue reading)

[militant-holy-knight]

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Review: Underrated Gem That Still Holds Up

I’ll admit upfront that Robin Hood is not a figure that I am particularly fan of - not that I dislike him, it’s just I preferred other types of legends. I still find him fascinating and I remember Disney’s Robin Hood was one of my favorite movies as a child (I used to love foxes for some reason) until I saw movie starring Kevin Costner and I loved it watching it for the first time. You’d think years later the media you used to enjoy when you were younger would age badly, but having re-watched the movie again under coronavirus quarantine, it actually is still great.

This Robin Hood is a crusader that has fled captivity in the Holy Land and is accompanied by a Saracen named Azeem who owes his life to him. Unfortunately, he returns home only to find it sacked and his father murdered by the Sheriff of Nottinghan, who ruthlessly oppresses England while King Richard the Lionheart is away. Vowing revenge over his father’s death, Robin leads a band of outlaws that become a real thorn on the Sheriff’s side by stealing from him and the rich and distributing it to the poor.

The writing and characterization are the movie’s biggest strengths. The heroic characters are genuinely sympathetic and have distinct personalities - we took for granted the time before all characters were jokesters that cracked puns or one-liners like the MCU. There is comic relief in the movie of course, but it feels natural and  and usually contained to characters meant to be funny like Friar Tuck. The writing is pretty clever as well, pulling foreshadowing in a very subtle and easy to miss way.

Weirdly, King John has been completely taken out of the story despite being traditionally the arch-villain of Robin Hood’s mythos with the Sheriff being elevated to the position, perhaps in order to not clutter the movie with characters and make the story more streamlined. But boy, do they made good use of him because the Sheriff of Nottinghan is a great villain here - he is like Palpatine in the prequels, an absolutely unredeemable piece of shit who you just love to hate. If you thought Disney’s Sheriff was an asshole, this one is a straight-up Devil worshipper given an amazing performance by the late, great Alan Rickman. It’s remarkable how they could make a completely evil villain compelling rather than generic.

Naturally, this movie has flaws: Kevin Costner does a rather lackluster performance as Robin, I felt like he was playing every other Kevin Costner character ever rather than Robin Hood. Likewise, I find his romance with Maid Marian very weak, which sucks because you can tell they invested on it with the movie’s theme song. I would say they could have actually done without it, but I suppose you just need to have RobinXMarian in it and it doesn’t help that becomes a plot point towards the end of the movie.

Also what that stand out to me was the historical inaccuracies like the Sheriff enlisting Celtic pagans to fight the Merry Men, nevermind that paganism had faded completely by the time of the Crusades and Christianity was widespread throughout Europe with the exception of the Baltics, or the fact Robin had his home destroyed while he was away crusading despite all property owned by crusaders being secured by the Catholic Church (even more so for a nobleman like him). 

But I am willing to give a pass to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for all that. What differentiates it from Kingdom of Heaven, a movie I heavily criticized for it’s historical inaccuracies. is that:

Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves never goes out of it’s way to lecture you about anything and it’s just trying to tell a history, 

Kingdom of Heaven is based on factual events whereas Robin Hood is just a legend.

The inaccuracies were not the product of a political agenda so there is no sinister motive, 

There are many ways that this movie could have gone south with Nazeem constantly belittling everyone around him (specially Robin, whom he repeteadly calls “Christian” rather than his own name) which is disarmed by him being actually likable, a corrupt Bishop being used as a commentary about the church is corrupt but Friar Tuck undoes that with his presence, and Little John’s wife insisting on fighting on the side of the men, but again her reasons make sense (she wants to save her children). Things like that would be so horrible in this woke age.

Would I call it the “definitive” Robin Hood movie? Not really. I don’t have a definitive version for a movie specially one inspired by legends with so many interpretations because each has their own merits. But I definitely recommend this movie in case you haven’t seen it already.