13th Warrior

Based on the movie "The 13th Warrior" life in Europe during the medieval period seemed to be very barbaric and all about who is the most powerful. Men would crave for battle just to prove they were the strongest and didn't seem to care about life and death. You didn't see too many women in the movie, and that tells me that women didn't play a very large roll in the medieval times. It seemed like they were more of an afterthought to the men. It also appears that whoever was in charge, and therefore had the most power could do anything they wanted too without repercussion. If someone even challenged their opinion about anything then they would be killed such as the one guy in the movie.

The way they act toward each other seemed like everyone was self centered and as if they believed they were the best in everyway possible. The only thing they seemed to value would be power and authority. They constantly made fun of other people in their clan, however everyone seemed to take most of the stuff as a joke. To most people that would seem like rude and childish behavior, but in reality they have probably been friends for so long that this kind of behavior has become accepted. The one time they got upset was when Ibn (Banderas) made fun of one of them, but I assume it was because he was an outsider.

Although I did do a brief research about the Rus, I did find out that they were mostly tall, with what we would call now as perfect bodies. Apparently they all had long blonde hair and tattoos all over their body. Although I do remember some of them being tall with blonde hair, I don't believe all of them did. I also don't recall them having tattoos everywhere. I also don't believe that the character played by Banderas would be able to pick up their language as quickly as he did, however, the movie did not give an accurate timeline of events, so my assumption could be wrong. I do think they did a good job of presenting these men as barbaric, although when we think of barbaric in terms of now, we think of murders and evil people. I feel like despite them being this way, it was also the way of life back then, and pretty normal for men to do nothing but fight other clans and gain authority as a result. One part that was really disgusting was when they passed the water bowl around to "wash up". I felt that they was very gross, and certainly would never happen in today's society. However,