Hey look, there's a new Robin Hood show coming with Sean Bean as the Sheriff!

[jian]

Any Robin Hood does have to thread the needle between the various versions. He kind of started out as a generic criminal and robber (it was a common pseudonym or byword for robbers in medieval England, a bit like John Doe) and then a robber who robbed the rich and gave to the poor in folktales, and then he got made a nobleman so as not to upset rich people. There’s also the actual political background of whenever you set his stories (12th century with Richard and John is commonest but a lot of the stories are set earlier or later).

I quite like the idea from Once and Future (Kieron Gillen) that Robin Hood is the part of English mythology that fights for poor people against the elite, including kings (the Richard bit is much later, like Robin actually being the dispossessed Earl of Huntingdon, which are both 17th century IIRC). As such, he’s ideally placed to fight the idea of King Arthur.

 

[Dioltach]

As such, he’s ideally placed to fight the idea of King Arthur.

Have you ever read Lachamon's Brut? He goes on for 16,000 lines about "the Britons", and King Arthur, and in the very last line all of as sudden it's "And one day Arthur will return to save the English." Not the Britons - the Anglo-Saxons, the downtrodden after the Norman Conquest.

 

[Morrus]

And you thought that the Robin Hood one with Taren Egerton was as bad as it could get. You really yearn for that now, right?

I've never seen that art before, but that has not happened in the show (yet). I suspect it was just some advertising bod getting too jiggy with photoshop.

 

[jian]

Have you ever read Lachamon's Brut? He goes on for 16,000 lines about "the Britons", and King Arthur, and in the very last line all of as sudden it's "And one day Arthur will return to save the English." Not the Britons - the Anglo-Saxons, the downtrodden after the Norman Conquest.

Obligatory reference to Once and Future again, when some English nationalists summon Arthur (who’s undead) and he kills them all because they’re Saxons.

 

[jian]

What, by all that's holy, is happening in that picture? Marian is drawing Robin's bow?! Have the people who made that abomination ever actually held a bow, let alone a 100# plus pull warbow?

I don’t think she’s actually bending the bow? The string is apparently made of elastic.

Worth noting that Robin using a longbow definitely doesn’t turn up til later (19th century, I think, along with early Victorian ideas about chivalry and the Hundred Years’ War) and would make no sense in the 12th century anyway. He’s probably using a normal hunting bow, which could be as little as 30lbs.

 

[Ryujin]

I don’t think she’s actually bending the bow? The string is apparently made of elastic.

Worth noting that Robin using a longbow definitely doesn’t turn up til later (19th century, I think, along with early Victorian ideas about chivalry and the Hundred Years’ War) and would make no sense in the 12th century anyway. He’s probably using a normal hunting bow, which could be as little as 30lbs.

English longbow use started int he 12th Century but you're right, it would more likely be a less powerful flatbow. Unless he was Welsh and snuck in.

 

[jian]

English longbow use started int he 12th Century but you're right, it would more likely be a less powerful flatbow. Unless he was Welsh and snuck in.

“What’s your name, heroic outlaw?”

“Rhydderch ap Euffydd.”

“Rhy… rach… sod it, we’ll call you Robin.”

 

[Ryujin]

“What’s your name, heroic outlaw?”

“Rhydderch ap Euffydd.”

“Rhy… rach… sod it, we’ll call you Robin.”

And the bit is that “Rhydderch ap Euffydd" is the spelling, but it's phonetically "Robin Hood."

 

[jian]

And the bit is that “Rhydderch ap Euffydd" is the spelling, but it's phonetically "Robin Hood."

Azeem: "And now you know how I feel."

Is it just me, or are Azeem (Morgan Freeman's character in RHPoT) and various similar Saracen characters in Robin Hood (Kemal in the 1997 TV series, Dhaq in the 2006 TV series, Yahya in the 2018 film, and of course Achoo in Men in Tights) all descended from Nasir in Robin of Sherwood, who's not even played by a PoC?

(Despite that, I loved Nasir. He was so obviously played by the guy who wants to play something different in a medieval D&D campaign and has also just read Unearthed Arcana. "I'm a Saracen assassin who dual wields scimitars!")

 

[Ryujin]

Azeem: "And now you know how I feel."

Is it just me, or are Azeem (Morgan Freeman's character in RHPoT) and various similar Saracen characters in Robin Hood (Kemal in the 1997 TV series, Dhaq in the 2006 TV series, Yahya in the 2018 film, and of course Achoo in Men in Tights) all descended from Nasir in Robin of Sherwood, who's not even played by a PoC?

(Despite that, I loved Nasir. He was so obviously played by the guy who wants to play something different in a medieval D&D campaign and has also just read Unearthed Arcana. "I'm a Saracen assassin who dual wields scimitars!")

Nasir is a legend. Love that character and he might have been inspiration for more than one of my characters, down through the years

I could definitely believe that all those other characters are, in some way, directly inspired by Nasir.