Knights: more like Tony Soprano than Lancelot ~the History Channel

[Emirikol]

I was watching a show on the history channel about the dark ages. One of the quotes that stuck out in my mind was that "Knights were more like Tony Soprano than Lancelot." Their job was to be enforcers and raiders. The only code was from the church that knew that they couldn't collect enough money whilst local lords were constantly pounding on each other.

I think that let's D&D paladins and knights off the hook!

Thoughts?

jh

 

[green slime]

I was watching a show on the history channel about the dark ages. One of the quotes that stuck out in my mind was that "Knights were more like Tony Soprano than Lancelot." Their job was to be enforcers and raiders. The only code was from the church that knew that they couldn't collect enough money whilst local lords were constantly pounding on each other.

I think that let's D&D paladins and knights off the hook!

Thoughts?

jh

Not paladins. Knights, on the other hand; some were chivalrous, others were downright greedy, petty, boring, boorish, ignoble, weak-bladdered, pains-in-the-posterior. Like most people in general.

 

[Henry]

Yeah, I enjoyed that line, too.

Lovely Pig Farm ya got there. Shame if sumpin' happened to it..."

 

[sjmiller]

Since this show claims, like a sadly large number of Romano-centric histories, that Alaric burned down Rome (which he didn't) I found it hard to watch the show. I didn't have time to pick it all apart and refute it point by point because they glossed over things a bit quickly.

 

[Numion]

I think that George RR Martins fantasy books have a nice width of knightly characters. Some are good, some are monsters. Most are somewhere between those two.

It's the peasants that take the blunt of the suffering in war, though.

 

[green slime]

It's the peasants that take the blunt of the suffering in war, though.

No, no, no. Its the loosing side's peasants that take the blunt of the suffering in war.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If all these peasants are sitting around smoking blunts, no wonder they're taking the brunt of the suffering in the war.

 

[Numion]

No, no, no. Its the loosing side's peasants that take the blunt of the suffering in war.

In the books it was about anyone who happened to be on the path of a knights marauding warband.

 

[Cam Banks]

Me, I wish they'd stop using the term "Dark Ages."

Cheers,
Cam

 

[green slime]

If all these peasants are sitting around smoking blunts, no wonder they're taking the brunt of the suffering in the war.

Well, what else is there to do, while they are getting pillaged and raped?