Your most pointless TV/movie/book nitpicks

[Ruin Explorer]

It’s like the persistent idea (at least online) that the English somehow won the Hundred Years’ War

I can't really blame people for the delusion, because it's so well-supported by the tiny exposure modern British people tend to have to that war, which usually boils down to:

1) Some Agincourt-related media and/or teaching. Longbow longbows longbows as you say.

2) Henry V by Shakespeare, usually the Branagh version.

As we won in both of those (no matter it's the same battle!), surely we won overall??? Rite?!?! < Extremely loud incorrect buzzer >

Yeah, the Harrying of the North was definitely a genocide, but calling it that upsets a lot of English people who think genocides only happen to other people and are sure that if there had been a genocide they’d have been told about it in history class 30 years ago.

Yeah I think it's a combination of "genocides only happen to other people" and relentless pro-Norman (and pro-Roman, for that matter) propaganda over the last few decades (which I will admit seems to be changing a bit in the last ten years or so, I've seen more stuff which questioned the Romans or Normans than in the preceding thirty - it ain't much but it's some). Surely the man who made Britain cannot have been a French-Viking psycho who had contempt for the people of Britain? It's hard enough to choke down that he spoke French!

Talking of nitpicking Rivers of London, I might have mentioned this, but I'll mention it again - kinda-spoilers so look away if you're still reading them and care about villain motivations - one of the most major villains is motivated by a desire to return Britain to a "better time". Okay, makes sense, always a good villain motivation.

Trouble is, he's a Gen Xer who is upper-middle-class, a public schoolboy, and went to Oxford (presumably in the 1980s/very early 1990s). That's still a fine motivation, but there are only three periods in British history someone like that is going to potentially consider "a better time", maybe four at the outside:

1) Roman Britain - Someone with that background and who is mainstream will be relentlessly and extremely pro-Roman unless they're a least a tad open-minded/contrarian.

2) Norman Britain - People in that age/education bracket are often very pro-Norman, esp. ones aristo-adjacent.

3) Victorian Britain - the most likely, realistically, I think only dodged because "Victorian values" would be too on the nose for a guy who represents a half-hearted critique of the Establishment.

The fourth would be maybe the Enlightenment but I honestly doubt it.

But Aaronovitch seems unable to escape his pro-Roman programming, so insanely has this guy be pro-Celtic/pro-Arthuriana, which absolutely no way. None. Arthuriana was deeply declassee and almost American-coded to those people (esp. when he was growning up), as is being pro-Celtic - especially if you aren't Welsh/Scots/Irish (and he isn't, in any way), and also has him as like, anti-Roman. Again, impossible. Literally not possible. This guy's whole education would be about building the Romans up, and he's completely establishment-coded (which is pro-Roman). You'd need a specific reason why he was different and Aaronovitch almost goes out of his way to avoid giving one.

I don't think this is so much an error of knowledge as writing oneself into a corner and being unable to accept reality because you don't like it. Like, I think Aaronovitch knows on some level this wouldn't happen, but he seems to have decided the Romans were "good guys of British history" (I can't pretend to be surprised, British culture insisted they were such and anyone who disagreed some kind of literally-communist lunatic ("a spart") when he was younger) and had already written that in to the books. He probably should have picked Norman Britain though, or better yet made both him and Peter kind of Roman-friendly so Peter would have to question his own beliefs.

 

[jian]

I can't really blame people for the delusion, because it's so well-supported by the tiny exposure modern British people tend to have to that war, which usually boils down to:

1) Some Agincourt-related media and/or teaching. Longbow longbows longbows as you say.

2) Henry V by Shakespeare, usually the Branagh version.

As we won in both of those (no matter it's the same battle!), surely we won overall??? Rite?!?! < Extremely loud incorrect buzzer >


Yeah I think it's a combination of "genocides only happen to other people" and relentless pro-Norman (and pro-Roman, for that matter) propaganda over the last few decades (which I will admit seems to be changing a bit in the last ten years or so, I've seen more stuff which questioned the Romans or Normans than in the preceding thirty - it ain't much but it's some). Surely the man who made Britain cannot have been a French-Viking psycho who had contempt for the people of Britain? It's hard enough to choke down that he spoke French!

Talking of nitpicking Rivers of London, I might have mentioned this, but I'll mention it again - kinda-spoilers so look away if you're still reading them and care about villain motivations - one of the most major villains is motivated by a desire to return Britain to a "better time". Okay, makes sense, always a good villain motivation.

Trouble is, he's a Gen Xer who is upper-middle-class, a public schoolboy, and went to Oxford (presumably in the 1980s/very early 1990s). That's still a fine motivation, but there are only three periods in British history someone like that is going to potentially consider "a better time", maybe four at the outside:

1) Roman Britain - Someone with that background and who is mainstream will be relentlessly and extremely pro-Roman unless they're a least a tad open-minded/contrarian.

2) Norman Britain - People in that age/education bracket are often very pro-Norman, esp. ones aristo-adjacent.

3) Victorian Britain - the most likely, realistically, I think only dodged because "Victorian values" would be too on the nose for a guy who represents a half-hearted critique of the Establishment.

The fourth would be maybe the Enlightenment but I honestly doubt it.

But Aaronovitch seems unable to escape his pro-Roman programming, so insanely has this guy be pro-Celtic/pro-Arthuriana, which absolutely no way. None. Arthuriana was deeply declassee and almost American-coded to those people (esp. when he was growning up), as is being pro-Celtic - especially if you aren't Welsh/Scots/Irish (and he isn't, in any way), and also has him as like, anti-Roman. Again, impossible. Literally not possible. This guy's whole education would be about building the Romans up, and he's completely establishment-coded (which is pro-Roman). You'd need a specific reason why he was different and Aaronovitch almost goes out of his way to avoid giving one.

I don't think this is so much an error of knowledge as writing oneself into a corner and being unable to accept reality because you don't like it. Like, I think Aaronovitch knows on some level this wouldn't happen, but he seems to have decided the Romans were "good guys of British history" (I can't pretend to be surprised, British culture insisted they were such and anyone who disagreed some kind of literally-communist lunatic ("a spart") when he was younger) and had already written that in to the books. He probably should have picked Norman Britain though, or better yet made both him and Peter kind of Roman-friendly so Peter would have to question his own beliefs.

Honestly given his background I’d more expect him to think that the “better time” was the 1990s. Which would put him in agreement with our entire political class (and probably the political class of most of the Western world). If he had an actual magical solution for taking us back to that brief and overly idealised period when history seemed over and liberal capitalism was the undisputed king, I suspect a great many powerful people would want to talk to him and give him as much money and support as possible. But maybe that’s a little too relevant for Rivers of London.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

agenda'd-seeming argument by a number

The English establishment ultimately derives its authority from the Norman regime, hence the ongoing attempts to suggest that William the Genocidal Dictator was really quite a nice guy who brought good government to those chaotic Saxons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Honestly given his background I’d more expect him to think that the “better time” was the 1990s. Which would put him in agreement with our entire political class (and probably the political class of most of the Western world). If he had an actual magical solution for taking us back to that brief and overly idealised period when history seemed over and liberal capitalism was the undisputed king, I suspect a great many powerful people would want to talk to him and give him as much money and support as possible. But maybe that’s a little too relevant for Rivers of London.

I mean his problem there would be that Aaronovitch almost certainly agrees based on his Twitter (just placing the peak of the 1990s as probably 1997 post-election, or maybe seeing things as peaking at some point before the 2008 crash) so it would be awkward to write his villain that way!

I feel like the bad guys are very like, "grimy fin-de-siecle Tory"-coded up in the first few books, then they take on more Farage-ian shades, until the main guy is defeated, after which they become US tech billionaire coded (which is the most astute coding I would say). Whereas Peter and the powerful Rivers are quite "Cool Britannia"-coded, which can be a little much at times.

The English establishment ultimately derives its authority from the Norman regime, hence the ongoing attempts to suggest that William the Genocidal Dictator was really quite a nice guy who brought good government to those chaotic Saxons.

Definitely a significant part of it, yeah. I kept nearly mentioning the establishment then editing it out as too complicated, but you sorted it in a single sentence!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The English establishment ultimately derives its authority from the Norman regime, hence the ongoing attempts to suggest that William the Genocidal Dictator was really quite a nice guy who brought good government to those chaotic Saxons.

Next you're going to tell me that overlong curtains aren't a good method for accurately conveying real world historical events.