#mediterranean scripts. fascinating stuff

[supercantaloupe]

Not on the asks list, but care to share some hebrew-knower insight?

disclaimer that i'm not really a hebrew-knower, i basically only know enough to get through synagogue services. i'm mostly useless when it comes to modern hebrew.

anyway, you're correct in that hebrew doesn't have j, as a phoneme or as a letter. hebrew has י, which is phonetically equivalent to the english y, although it also sort of functions as a vowel in certain contexts (for example חי "chai" which means life)*.

i guess part of what's tricky about transliterating is that the latin alphabet is used for so many different languages and so many of its letters are not consistent in pronunciation, whether it be between languages or even within the same language. so in english j is typically /dʒ/ while in spanish it's more like /x/ or /h/ depending on dialect, and in german and other languages it's more like /j/. to make matters more confusing of course, that hebrew י is pronounced /j/.

so there's no equivalent to english j in hebrew, but due to, like, linguistic history and hundreds of years of translating the bible, a lot of hebrew words with י in them got changed to j or i in transl(iter)ation. you see this a lot in names: יִצְחָק (yitzhak) -> isaac, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (yerushalayim) -> jerusalem

as far as modern transliteration goes, though, i think english transliterations of hebrew generally use "y" in place of "י". using "j" would be kind of misleading to an english reader considering that "j" represents a different phoneme in english as opposed to other languages. i guess if a german speaker were transliterating hebrew it would make sense. but י in hebrew words/names getting turned into j (/dʒ/) in english is more of a translation than a transliteration.

english j (/dʒ/) can be spelled in modern hebrew but it uses a different letter. it's ג׳. which is like a hard g with a diacritic added. kind of in the same way that english g is hard but softened to /dʒ/ when followed by e or i? it's used for transliteration or loan words, though, it's not really a native hebrew phoneme.

*as a sidenote, ח is pronounced /x/, like the "ch" in german. so i guess if you wanted to piss people off you could transliterate "חי" as "jaj" lol

[ipsomaniac]

Mildly dismayed but not surprised to read that Nolan is adapting The Odyssey. It makes sense; the pomp and ponderousness of his movies often has an Odyssey-ish shape if you squint. Nolan likes a nostos, he likes amnesia, he likes timey-wimey stuff, he likes a voyage through physical space imbued with psychological symbolism. Does he ever. So this isn't out of the blue for him.

On the plus side he's going to have a stonking fat budget so it will probably be cool to look at. Hopefully the fact that The Odyssey takes place in the sunny Mediterranean will impede any attempt to make things visually dark and gritty although Nolan could probably find a way.

But it will suck because Nolan is only really interested in psychology as an arena for playing around with plot mechanics and doesn't really have anything to say about the human experience. The Odyssey is about a famously hard-to-pin-down guy, that is the entire point; every attempt Nolan has ever made to depict "a complicated man" has resulted in the flat archetype of a brooding genius anti-hero. Matt Damon is apparently slated for the lead which could be ok, he's actually a good actor although he doesn't have the right sort of face - but he needs to tap into the darkness he laid down in his Ripley and then some. Everyone loves the scalawag-trickster aspect of Odysseus but he's also a hyperviolent warlord and serial committer of atrocities. I think Damon could probably get there with the right script and direction but hell if Nolan will provide that given that Nolan's films are totally bloodless. He's even less interested in bodily experience and violence than in psychology. He cares about generating a sense of "epicness" (in the modern sense of the word) but he continuously shies away from the unflinching depictions of violence that actually characterise the original Homeric epics.

I'm less worried about Nolan's treatment of the first half of The Odyssey - I think that will actually be pretty fun. Of course there are plenty of potential pitfalls - Nolan cannot write women so I imagine there will be some cringe moments with Calypso, Circe and Nausicaa - but episodic adventure voyages play well to Nolan's strengths, he's usually at his best in that mode. What I'm really worried about is the return to Ithica, the massacre of the suitors and the inherently tricky ending. Nolan is bad at endings in general: he crafts overly-intricate Chinese-box puzzle plots, and then you get to the end and open up the box and what do you find inside? "Love", or, "a man's fragile ego", or "maybe it was all just a dream" or some other lame thing. The end of The Odyssey abounds in certain themes - the shifting sands between familiarity and strangeness, recognition and non-recognition - which require a delicate touch but which Nolan tends to approach with blunt-force-trauma literal-mindedness: time jumps and the like. Meanwhile the motif of a man coming home to his wife is one which Nolan typically turns to sludge. He loves a ponderous husband-and-wife silence (scored by Hans Zimmer and punctuated by black-and-white flashbacks). I am certain he will completely flub all the ambiguity of the second half with his signature 2x combo of sentimental moral kernel + bamboozling cinematic misdirection.

You know a popular contemporary director who is also clearly fascinated by Odyssean themes but who would do a WAY better job? Sam Mendes.

[lisinfleur]

so what do you think about the episode?

I was afraid someone would ask me that bc I have some controversial opinions on the last episode of Vikings… So, let’s see…

First of all: WHERE THE FUCK IS FLOKI? 

I really want to believe they wanted to leave us with the suspense. It is too stupid for me to believe Floki died that idiot way. Such a huge character, such a big person, dying that way was too stupid, even for me. Like Lagertha - who was supposed to be dead LONG AGO and has NO FUCKING AGE to be dressed to battle as she was in the fucking trailer for season 6 - he’s part of the old cast and I really wish to see Floki in season 6, having a better ending than buried in a mountain tricked by the Christian God.

Now… One by one, and the shorters first:

Ubbe Ragnarsson

The meeting with Hvitserk, in the end, was TERRIBLE. I was waiting for any kind of talk, even an angry one, anything. But they didn’t exchange more than glares and Hvitserk’s eyes were pretty confused, not letting me understand if he was sad because of Ubbe’s clear rejection or if he was mad for seeing his older brother there. A weak presence, strangely punctual, with no introduction and bad worked for something we wait through this entire season. I love Jordan’s acting, but in this episode, the script swallowed him.

Lagertha

What in the actual fuck is she still doing in this show? She’s old, tired and has no purpose but spoiling Björn by being alive.

For someone who started this war with a selfish behavior, for a crown that wasn’t hers anymore, placing brother against brother because of her impossibility to accept Ragnar’s current wife - and queen of Kattegat - wasn’t her, killing dozens of people for cowardly refusing a single combat against a crippled sixteen years old boy, and fucking with an entire lineage because of her need to be queen for a couple of months, Lagertha seems to be receiving too much attention and too much care from the writers.

Please, someone send this woman to Valhalla SOON. Love Katherine, but Lagertha was over THOUSANDS of years ago…

Magnus

Do I have to say something about this pitiful attempt to reintroduce the religious conflict into this series? This shit was presented with Athelstan (perfectly, btw), then with Ragnar (ok… good), then with Ubbe (fine, we got it, enough?), then with Hvitserk (what the fuck? Buddhism? And how in the actual fuck you just throw something you liked so bad away like he did with the little Buddha???), and Magnus…

Magnus was a TOTAL throw-away character, a total loss of time, with no real plot, no real participation, who did nothing but confuse the spectator and died without solving the mystery we all wanted to know: Was Ragnar telling the truth about sleeping with Kwenthrith or not? Think we’ll never know…

Amma

I thought she would be with Magnus and give him some plot. Now, idk what to think about her. She seems to be a strong character loyal to Björn, but also, a character who came just for this season finale. Let us see… I hope to see another strong woman in this show, at least.

Gunnhild

FUCK ME, WOMAN! I WANNA MARRY THIS GIRL! She’s amazing! Her battle skills were amazing! Her scene shooting straight to Ivar when everyone was shooting around was amazing! The way she fought EVERYONE to take Björn outta that place was amazing! I will fucking dry my stock of “amazing” with this woman. My favorite woman FOR SURE.

Harald

I have to say I was reticent with Harald since the beginning. I think Peter is a huge actor and gorgeous man and stuff, but Harald always got me with a foot behind… However, this episode showed me he’s trully a loyal man, who sticks to his word even knowing he could be a son of a bitch and warrant his crown by letting Björn die. He was intense in this last episode and I hope to see good things from him in the next season.

Now… The polemic ones…

Let us start with Björn…

I grew in hate for Alexander’s character since he started to act as Björn was when he was a child, showing himself an arrogant person, cheating on Torvi like fuck and doing things he reprehended his father for doing - for the ones who don’t remember, he was the one who reprehended Ragnar saying it was disgusting to know his father was fucking another woman that wasn’t his mother (when ubbe was made, btw).

However, I must admit in this last episode he was strong and intense. I would even be fallen for him if it wasn’t my analytic eyes who noticed since the beginning the enormous curve this season made to break Ivar and build Björn under the eyes of the public. So, I’m sorry Alexander - for his actuation is absolutely perfect and he’s good as fuck making Björn - but I still think Björn does not deserve the crown he’s wearing now and if it was to make Björn the king of Kattegat, Lagertha could only have waited until he came back from the Mediterranean bc Aslaug wasn’t denying his birthright and since Ragnar fell ill, she was collaborating with Björn to raise Kattegat into the great market center it became under their hands. So, no war would have been necessary and Björn would have ascended to King of Kattegat anyway. It was a stupid end, tbh. Sorry, sad, but true.

My baby, Hvitserk…

I love to see him fighting, but I’m tired to see Marco’s character being beaten in this show. This episode was a real beat down to his character who was beaten from the beginning to the end. From discovering his beloved Thora was dead burned alive by Ivar, to having his flank defeated in the war, passing by not being able to kill or even reach Ivar and going under his brother Björn’s shadow once again after all he did to prevail by himself, Hvitserk was knocked out in this episode and the last hit was Ubbe’s arrival, embracing Björn and twitching lips to him that disgusting way, causing me chills of anger for seeing such a bad ending for this relationship.

Hvitserk deserves better than live under his brothers’ shadow until the end of this series and the trailer for season 6 really made me have chills about this possibility, since we clearly can see Ivar is proposing Hvitserk to join him again - or forcing a dagger against his throat for a positive answer, which is just worse than just propose.

Hvitserk has been being treated as a game by the writers, being beaten from side to side, failing in finding his destiny whenever he jumps sides and extending a conflict that could have been already solved in his plotline. Every brother has its own side. It is passed time from Hvitserk to grown into an independent character.

Passing it by, the battle scenes with Marco’s growls and marvelous acting are amazing and I can’t wait to see more of his acting - which is actually the only reason why I’m still seeing Vikings.

I gonna be beaten for this, but… Freydis.

Everyone hated her from the beginning because of the bad acting Alicia gave for her. Fine.

Now let us take off Alicia from this show. Put anyone there, idk, anyone you like. Forget the actress. Let us look at the plot story that was presented to us and what it was really supposed to be.

Freydis was a slave girl from Viking people (not Christian origins), a woman who believed in the Gods and, more than anything, who believed deformities were a sign of the Gods’ favor. Period.

When she’s brought to talk to Ivar for the first time, she already knows who he is and she seems pretty fascinated for him - Alicia’s inexpressive face at this point kinda killed this fascination, but when Freydis says “I would do anything you ask me to do” she was supposed to sound fascinated, looking to someone she sees as a God. Ok? - and she says what she really believes about him: that he’s fated to great things since she knows he’s the son of Ragnar, from Odin’s lineage, a God, a man marked by what she believes is the sign of the Gods’ huge favor - since Ivar’s deformity is huge.

Forward, she’s seen looking at Ivar from the other side of his room entrance… As a free woman, she didn’t need to be there to serve him, which means she was there to see him. It gives us the impression that she was observing him, looking at him from some distance - what is proved if you remember the party scene when she’s also looking at him from far away. So, she was a woman with a crush on the new king of Kattegat, who was seeing her crush become everything she thought he would become. Freydis was a fascinated woman, who was noticing some interest from the man she was fascinated with over her.

Their interaction was supposed to be an innocent love starting. She was supposed to be shown as a woman who really was doing everything for the man she loved and believed was a god. Even fucking another man, giving up her own dignity to create an illusion for him to have the child he wanted so bad, just to warrant his dream. Killing to warrant his dream wouldn’t be broken. In her mind, she was really doing a huge sacrifice for Ivar. She was going down and far for him, for his love, for her beliefs. In her mind, when Baldur was born deformed, she received a HUGE gift from the Gods, for her son was marked by their favor and deformed like his foster father. In her mind, the gods were giving her their connivance, marking her child with a deformity so Ivar would never doubt the child was his and her illusion would give him his dreams forever.

She was a woman, in love, deluded and with a mind broken by her beliefs - someone recognizes it?

A man, wanting love, deluded about himself and broken by his legs’ deformity and disease???

That’s what I’m talking about!

Freydis was supposed to be a pair for Ivar, for real! We were supposed to have suspicious she could be manipulating him, but the acting of Alicia in this character gave us the total opposite, causing us to doubt there was any love in her actions when Freydis was completely in love for Ivar and deluded by his false divinity.

She really believed he was a god! And it all breaks when he kills Baldur for his deformity, showing her he never believed the same she does, her son was never favored by the gods, her sacrifice was nothing for him, and the illusion she fought so hard to create for him was shattered, for he didn’t want to be a merciful and loved god, but he decided to be feared and cruel against his people instead of following her advice.

Baldur’s death killed Freydis heart, her love for Ivar but more than that, her illusions and beliefs. She lost her faith, she realized all she believed about deformities and the Gods’ favor was a lie, and it brought her the realization that all she believed about Ivar was a lie. He was no god, he was just a monster in her vision, a monster who killed her little child and destroyed everything she created for them. She became a broken woman who was supposed to have shown in the end that the love of a mother surpasses everything, by betraying her “beloved” Ivar in order to avenge what he did to her son.

I’m sorry for Alicia’s fans, I have nothing against her, but her acting destroyed Freydis’ plot and she had a REAL GOOD plot in here! She was supposed to be loved, not hated. We were supposed to be mourning for Ivar’s way to kill her love. But here we are, hating and celebrating…

The poor woman deserved better and she really loved Ivar for good. The bad actress’ choice, in this case, swallowed a good plot after all. And I’m sorry for seeing this. With fewer scenes and less interaction, Eve Connolly was able to make us love Thora more than Alicia did for Freydis in an entire season… Sad, again, but true.

And, in the end, but not less important, Ivar

A complete deface. That’s what I saw in this season.

Ivar was built to be a dual character, Alex made a HUGE job to show us his duality and, in order to promote Björn as Ragnar’s little favorite, Hirst defaced Ivar’s duality, feeding his ego, causing him to become a huge motherfucking asshole to make us hate him and open our hearts to sweet Björn’s cause.

Let us put things right here: Ivar was RIGHT. His mother was killed in cold blood by a bitter selfish ex-wife, coward enough to not to accept a single combat against him, coward enough to put brother against brother and kill dozens in a war that could have been solved simply fighting him when his ego wasn’t that swollen and all he wanted was avenging his mother.

Now, the initial purpose completely vanished in the battle of egos this season became and a character who had a real valuable reason to make war is now just being a spoiled little boy crying because his toys do not want to play his game the way he wants.

Sad and ridiculous to see the exact opposite we saw with Freydis: in her case, a good plot destroyed by bad acting. In his case, a huge actor being swallowed into a vortex of bad writing and bad plotting.

Like Jordan and Marco, Alex is being swallowed by the bad writing of the series and even then, he still shows his huge talent, carrying Ivar in his back as a heavy burden, showing us emotions in his eyes, feelings, sensations, breaking the bad plot with his intense actuation and causing us chills whenever he raises his fierce blues towards the camera.

Defaced or not, Ivar is still one of the best interpreted characters of this series and I am sad to see in the trailers that Hirst will go for madness to finish the defacing of Ivar, putting him totally sunk in the role of a villain when he was clearly a dubious character that could have been saved by a better use for Alex’s heavy talent.

Hallucinating with Freydis, forcing Hvitserk to join him as if his brother was nothing but a dog, Ivar is going down and down with the only purpose to allow Björn to glow in the eyes of the public since in season 4B and 5A, Ivar started to carry the series in his back and it was never the intention of Hirst that Björn could lose the position of, in Horik’s words, “Baldur” among the sons of Ragnar.

A sad plot for such a marvelous actor and a huge struggle from Alex to deliver us a phenomenal work from the beginning to the end of this season. Applauses for him and someone please stab the writers or come to fandom for some more ideas.

As Alex said himself: Some theories and stories from fans are “better than what is written”, but he didn’t say that… “Obviously.”

That’s what I think, dear anon! I hope you enjoy!