The Last Kingdom is great. If you fast forward past the fighting scenes. It's in parts Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon level. The politics is accurate. They even call the Vikings the right thing, ie "Danes". Viking is a modern term for them. The word viking was the Norse word for going on a raid. They themselves did not identify with being Vikings and neither did other people call them that.
But they screw up the Viking equipment, just as much as the Vikings series. The vikings fought in massed ranks. Similar to the ancient Greeks. Or any ancient army. That's... you know... how they won battles. Ancient battles rely on discipline and training. Not on getting drunk and flailing wildly. The Norse shield wall was a popular viking tactic. Shield walls require extreme discipline, which they wouldn't have been able to consistently succeed with if they weren't well disciplined.
The Last Kingdom at least treats the cultural conflicts well. And tries to explain it. In the Vikings it's just flavour. For all practical purposes Ragnra Lothbrok, (in the series) is a modern man gone back in time in a time machine.
Shield walls are a very frightening experience. My understanding is drunkenness was encouraged at times just to get the army to engage.
Yes, they all drank alcohol all the time (because water in communities wasn't safe). But they didn't have fancy brewing techniques of today. The result is that the alcohol was weak. But how weak it was we'll likely never know. This is information lost in history. Beer recipes was at this point state secrets, for complicated tax collecting reasons. When they figured out how to brew beer using hops, the old recipes were just thrown out. So we don't know them, and therefore can't replicate them. Probably just drunk enough to take the edge off. And sober enough to be able to fight well. Because that's the smart thing to do and these people were good at winning fights.
It's also true that they would eat magical mushrooms and go crazy. But not in battle. These were shamanic religious rituals carried out at various religious sacred places. It was similar to Greek Pagan festivals. These were mystery cults where you had to swear secrecy when partaking. So these are also all lost in history.
The image of the Viking as a drunken savage comes from Christian portrayals of them. These were made for propaganda purposes to justify and get support for attacks on them. A big explanation to the spread of Christianity among the vikings were that the pope forbade war between Christian kings as well as guaranteeing that the ruling family would stay in power forever. If you're a king in a country with non-hereditary kingship, where kings are elected and where borders between kingdoms is extremely vague, this sounds great. Pagan Viking kings had no qualms about attacking each other. So the savage image of vikings was spread.
The wicker man myth for example is based on Christian anti-pagan propaganda. You don't need to be a genius to figure out that it's wildly exaggerated. Most likely the wicker man didn't have any people in it at all. Pagans did practice human sacrifice. But caging a bunch of people into a towering wicker statue and then burning them alive sounds implausible. A child can probably escape a wicker cage with little motivation.
Vikings themselves encouraged this image, because it made life easier for them to. It's much easier to fight an opponent who is terrified or even better, runs away. Vikings traded primarily in slaves. The job is way easier if your opponents are too scared to fight. That's btw why they were covered in silver jewellery and beads. That's their wallet. It's a real handy way of carrying around vast wealth.
Bah... all my frustration of not seeing a proper Viking film or TV-series is pouring out of my little Swedish soul. A real historical drama, based on true events, and with historically accurate equipment... wouldn't be any more expensive than the shit they're churning out now. It would be just as fun, because the real Vikings were quite the characters. There was loads of complex politics, backstabbing and vengeance = fun.
edit: One note though. In the defence of Vikings, The Viking TV-series is based on the Norse myth of Ragnar Lodbrok. It's an accurate portrayal of the myth. So they're not trying to show history. They're showing events that we've always known were bullshit. I'm pretty sure the confused faces of Ragnar's own crew tipped his people off it was bullshit that first time Ragnar spiced up the stories on their first re-telling.
In ancient mythic retelling of warfare the massed ranks are often replaced with descriptions of one-on-one duels between the two commanders. Or other critical personalities. It just lends to a more interesting re-telling. These were ballads intended to be sung and poetic licence was accepted.
So having one-on-one duels in the Vikings (or Last Kingdom) is being faithful to the myth.
But if they're doing myths, why not add magical creatures to them? Or have divine interventions? Or whatever makes it clear it's mythic. Right now I get the feeling they're trying to pass off myth as historicity. Which just leaves me feeling uneasy.
