Talk:The Long Ships

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I would like to discuss this entry in the main book description:

"Mainly the plot gives a flattering image of Christianity, but the Christians are not portrayed in a more favourable light than Muslims, Jews and pagans."

My impression was that the author slyly mocks Christianity. Most of the conversions take place under the influence of alcohol, the direct promise of material gain or the fact that if your King said you were now a Christian, it was unhealthy to your well-being to contradict him.

Indeed, Orm's building of a church was based on a promise he made if certain earthly issues were resolved in a way most beneficial to himself.

In the book, the Vikings seemed to treat Christianity in the same manner as they did their indigenous "pagan" beliefs. Whether you sacrificed a goat or built a church, the actions efficacy was judged by the material return visited upon the pleader.

I do not think that "religion" is a central theme at all; the book rather tries to capture the pragmatic and non-regligious Norse pagan worldview, and if the some factions are divided along confessional lines, that simply mirrors the geopolitical situation at the time. dab (ᛏ) 08:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

In the section Politics the article says (without giving the source) that "there had been considerable attempts to obscure Skåneland's pre-1658 affiliation to Denmark". That is a strange statement. "Everybody" in Sweden is taught the actual historical facts at school, and nothing is hidden. Mkch 14:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC). See Skåneland for further accounts on this border country between Denmark and Sweden. Mkch 18:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Politics

There is a few weird statements in this section. For example this: "when Sweden's neighbors Denmark and Norway were occupied and quite a few Swedes tended to accommodate themselves to Nazi Germany in various ways".

This sentence makes it seem like there was some kind of general German support during WWII, which is frankly nonsense. The Nazis had their supporters in Sweden, just as everywhere else, but they were in no way close of being in majority. I think the sentence should be at least rewritten, and was there really any controverses in the contemporary Sweden about the Jew in the book? The part about Skåne is also errononeous, just as already mentioned. There has never been any attempts to hide its Danish origins. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.237.233.175 (talk) 13:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

"Accomodation" is not an unreasonable wording - while Swedish foreign policy was not pro-German, the Swedish government went to great lengths not to antagonize Nazi Germany, including censorship of the press and breaches of neutrality. The common term in Swedish is "eftergiftspolitik", which translates nicely into "policy of accomodation". Johan L 21:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)