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It's kind of funny (and kind of annoying) how people assume that, since I'm interested in Norwegian history and culture, I must obviously be a big fan of the viking era and totally into everything viking-related.

In truth, it's one of my least favourite periods of Norwegian history. Sure, the ships and other related archaeological finds from the period are super cool and very interesting, but beyond that, oh my god I don't care.

Partially it's due to pop culture oversimplification and misconception. It's hard to get into the related media when so much of it gets it wrong. Most Norse people weren't vikings. Viking is something you do, not something you are. If someone goes raiding, they were going viking, and when they weren't doing that, they weren't vikings at that time - and most people didn't go raiding. Vikings were basically pirates. They were fucking pirates! Being a viking wasn't like... some kind of unified national banner that they would fight under.

Anyway, when someone shoves American media about vikings under my nose, I tend to feel kind of exasperated.

There's a new spin-off of the Vikings series: Vikings: Valhalla. Someone showed me the trailer, and it was very... what I expected it to be based on previous exposure to similar things (see above). Hoo boy. They're also getting kind of creative with the history; apparently Leif Erikson and Harald Hardrada are best pals in this series, but in actual history, Leif Erikson was long dead before Harald Hardrada became king of Norway.

I would actually be very interested in watching a tv series about Harald Hardrada. But uh, not this one. And, you know, the thing is - the thing is, I wouldn't be grumpy about the existence of a fantastical alternate universe pseudo-historical drama like this if people (mostly in real life) didn't keep poking me about it and saying stuff like "oh since you're interested in Norway, you have to watch this, it's so historically accurate, you'll love it! :D :D :D!"

Nei, takk. Let's not go there.