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Into History.

com. Looking to Hollywood for good history is a bad idea, but looking to Hollywood for good storytelling is just fine.

One of the things that storytellers like those in Hollywood must do is simplify.

There's just not too much room in a 120 minute action

adventure film to include exposition on the actual use of salt as a currency in

ancient Rome for instance. Because we've got characters to develop, a plot to advance, stakes to raise.

And usually that film about ancient Rome is likely going to fall into a category of storytelling that stereotypically will be about a palace intrigue and the cost of

hubris or b an underdog fighting for justice just think about gladiator

Ben her Cleopatra Julius Julius Caesar, Barabas, Spartacus, all great films that build out the genre

of ancient Roman stories we put into a sort of canon, historically accurate or not. There are a lot of these historical Hollywood genres,

knights and armor, pirates, powdered wig aristocrats,

cavemen even.

And then there are the Vikings.

Vikings are historical sub-genra that are so powerful that they even exist in the Marvel Cinematic

universe.

But why are Vikings so fascinating from a storytelling point of view?

Well, they're portrayed as barbaric and violent.

Their customs are old and rooted in pagan magic.

They're explorers and conquerors, and they're often very scantily clad for living that far north

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