Vikings

A few weeks ago, I was bored and looking for something to do, when I remembered a girl in my Advanced Composition class talking about the tv show Vikings. I had been curious about it for a while, and I knew that an actor that I liked was in in, so I went onto History Channel’s website to see if I could watch episodes online. Lo and behold, episodes 4, 5, 6, and 7 were online. I decided that I wanted to watch it right then, instead of waiting for episode 1 to air on the History Channel again, so I started watching episode four. And completely fell in love with the show. The characters are compelling, the drama never gets to be too much, and it stays as accurate as possible to the time period that the show is set in.

My two favorite characters are Lagertha and Athelstan. I like them because neither of them really fit into the Viking culture. Lagertha is a shieldmaiden, or female warrior. When most people think of Vikings, they typically do not picture women. Yet, Lagertha embodies just as many traits associated with Vikings as the men do, and proves herself in battle many times. In fact, her first scene combines the two roles that Lagertha plays in her life. The scene begins with her doing housework and cooking and ends with her single handedly fighting off two would-be rapists by using different objects found around her house.

Athelstan, by contrast, is a monk that Lagertha’s husband, Ragnar, captured on his first raiding expedition to England. Athelstan is meant to be the audience surrogate, as he is just as new to the Vking culture and just as much of an outsider there as the audience is. But, the reason I like him so much is that Athelstan is a very interesting study in faith, and is often used to compare Christianity and the Norse religion, without promoting one religion, which is rare to find these days. Despite his faith wavering from time to time, Athelstan never completely loses it, even when surrounded by Vikings.

My only complaint about the show is the lack of female characters that affect the plot. While there are four females in the main cast, only two of them really affect the plot. The other two exist merely to show the softer side of male characters and to be used as pawns by the men.

Arrow

Back in the fall, my dad and I started watching Arrow on the CW. While we both love superheroes, and found the premise interesting (neither of us read many comic books, so we didn’t know much), but, we didn’t have much hope. Boy, were we wrong. Right now, Arrow is one of my favorite tv shows. I love how it combines the present day action with the flashbacks to show how Oliver became the Arrow. But, Oliver isn’t the only one that changes. Even though the show is only inits first season, no character is the same person they were in the first episode. Plus, the ahow is turning into a Doctor Who reunion, since both John Barrowman and Alex Kingston have joined the cast.

My favorite character in the show is definitely Laurel Lance. I love how fierce and unafraid she is, but at the same time she recognizes her limitations. It’s also awesome how she’s a lawyer. Not many tv shows that portray lawyers have females as lawyers, especially as the main lawyer, so I think it’s awesome that Arrow features this. Plus, having Laurel played by Katie Cassidy was a good choice. I loved Katie as Ruby, so it’s nice to see her on my tv screen again.

All in all, I would highly recommend Arrow to anyone that enjoys superheroes, or even just a good mystery. Arrow has both qualities in spades.