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Comment by tdsamardzhiev | Hacker News Reader

You're supposed to see the world through the memories of a 9th century Viking (who also happens to be a great figure of the Nordic mythology), of course the invasion of England will be portrayed in a positive light and Anglo-Saxons would be seen as inferior people. It's a Triple-A game featuring gods, diverse Vikings, and a dude with an axe in his head; if one takes it as a reputable historical source, I say the problem is them, not the game (although IMHO there's many things wrong with the game in general).

Anyway, perhaps it's a fair point to make if your blog is called "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry"...

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As the blog post points out within a decade of the 'great heathen army' and just four years after this game is supposedly set a majority of these vikings had converted to Christianity including prominent leaders among them. That's a very different picture than what the game portrays.

There is also a difference between what the characters say and believe and what the environment depicts - e.g. there's not a problem with the norse thinking that they're doing good but rather with how the game constructs places which reinforce that narrative. e.g. the uninhabited river valley, the lack of slave trading

Seems like the only way for this to work out at all is for the hero to go home after a year (ie before converting): grow old. The entire setting needs to be an old man telling young kids about the old glory and trying to convert them from Christianity. That is about the only way you can justify only showing those actions: his memory, and latter life surrounded by Christian means he wants to remember only those parts. But now you really need to get the player to realize that this his a romanticized past - the player must spend a lot of time seeing contradictions in the player (that is it becomes obvious some things didn't happen the way the player played them!). There are a lot more implications of this line that I can figure out in a few minutes.

So many things in the blog post I didn't know - but fascinating and makes you think.... it's like the Spaniards and Portugese would have adopted Native American religions at one point.

By the logic of showing you the warped perspective of a 9th century Viking, slavery should be presented in a positive light, not minimized.

But of course that's not going to fly.

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