And frankly, I'm just tired of the Viking Age being used exclusively as a setting to justify depictions of unfettered hypermasculinity, to exercise the same old male-centric anxieties about patriarchy, through the same cookie-cutter male hero archetype, in the same story told over and over and over again.įrankly, I'm just tired of the Viking Age being used exclusively as a setting to justify depictions of unfettered hypermasculinity. Much like movies, history is a story we tell ourselves to make sense of the world. No, the Valkyrie from 'The Northman' isn't wearing braces But exactly which version of history is he giving more weight to - and whose perspective do those versions leave out? I'm all for Robert Eggers' near obsessive fixation on grounding his films in real-world facts as much as possible.
#Female nordic warriors full
But their absence from The Northman, aside from the few seconds afforded to the one proven incontrovertibly real, tells us a lot about which narratives we're inclined to believe today, even in a film full of magic. We don't yet have conclusive answers on how pervasive shieldmaidens were in the Viking Age.
The women written out of the Viking pop culture trend Each side of this debate accuses the other of modern biases, implying that either sexism or feminism clouds the other's objectivity. Many experts still negate the mounting evidence of women being present for the hostile Viking invasions, and discoveries of even more female warrior graves, along with the historical accounts of Viking women joining in warfare - insisting that the statues and depictions of battle-ready Viking women are only symbolic rather than indicative of real-world shieldmaidens. But debate over the Birka female Viking warrior grave only deepened an existing divide within the archeological community over Viking women's role in the social hierarchy. Credit: Focus FeaturesĪfter the skeleton was confirmed to be female, some archeologists jumped to the conclusion that the grave must've never belonged to a military leader in the first place, then, despite containing ample qualifying artifacts. I love a witchy Anya Taylor-Joy, but this representation is missing a war hammer. The impact those biases can have on our understanding of gender dynamics in the Viking Age became very clear in the reaction to the 2017 DNA analysis study of the so-called Birka female Viking warrior's grave. Built on a foundation of facts that rely heavily on the subjective interpretation of artifacts, it's colored by the biases of our modern, male-dominated society. History, particularly prehistory pieced together through thousand-year-old archeological finds, isn't as hard of a science as we want it to be. Until quite recently, women's importance in Viking society was sidelined by history itself too. In all fairness, though, we can't blame the sidelining of warlike Viking women exclusively on The Northman and its ilk. Why is all this Viking warrior woman badassery still kept so squarely in the background of 'The Northman'? Even then, though, getting the option to play as a woman is not the same as getting a story specifically grounded in the perspective of a Viking shieldmaiden. But only 2020's Assassin's Creed: Valhalla video game gives players the option to play as a Viking female protagonist.
#Female nordic warriors tv
The Vikings TV show brings that representation a step closer to home by depicting real-world Viking women battling alongside men. God of War and Thor certainly include the strong mythological female characters central to Norse lore, like the Valkyries and goddess Freya. Just about every other pop culture story set in the Viking Age is guilty of the same oversight. We'll count that as yet another nod to actual archeological evidence that leadership roles in the Viking Age were far more gender-fluid than previously thought.īut for the love of all that is Freya, why is all this Viking warrior woman badassery still kept so squarely in the background of The Northman? In The Northman, Amleth's prophesied demise (delivered by none other than Björk) along with his "King's tree" vision implies that his downfall is only the first chapter in his daughter's larger story, as she fulfills her destiny of becoming a great Viking Queen.
How accurate is 'The Northman' to Viking history? Well, it’s a Robert Eggers film.
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