MOVIES:
You know how in a movie depicting a) a viking type culture or b) an alien type culture that represents a culture foreign to us as Americans, a great warrior or important person that dies, gets a special sendoff. In these movies, they will lay the deceased in a canoe or raft of some sort, throw some kindling and firewood in there and pack it all up nice and tight. A few words are generally spoken, then they push the raft into the sea/river/lake. Once the raft has reached a distance of... 100 yards or so? They light an arrow on fire and an archer fires it into the air and it lights the raft on fire... this has been used in movies and TV.
Here is a youtube video of this very scene.
"First Knight" - King Arthur
My thought is this; how often does the archer miss the raft? I mean, it's not exactly close... its drifting off in the wind and the archer aims the bow up into the air... I feel like there is a large margin for error in this practice.
In my head I play out the scenes leading up to this and they are as follows:
1) in the scene where our deceased is actually killed, it's usually a battle of some sort.. Which means your archers are also in battle and some are also dying. My guess is that the archer that is chosen to fire the arrow at the raft is likely chosen because he is the best, and will likely hit the target right? well what if he is killed in battle too? So in this new scene that is created in Chris's head, we have the funeral being planned and they say "ok, so Sir Hammatime is going to fire the arrow into the raft" Then a dude pulls out a piece of paper and says "Actually, Sir Hammatime was killed in battle as well" Then they start naming off other archers and all of them are dead... Finally its like "Ok... so Greg is going to do it? How long has he been an archer?" Then the guy says "Well, he's fairly new... but he has a great head on his shoulders and always shows up on time..."
Scene 2) They tell Greg he is going to fire the shot at King Whatshisname and everybody in the god damn kingdom is going to be there... Greg is like "ohhhhh f***, listen, I didn't want to say anything because I was pretty sure that nobody would ever know, but I am nearly certain that I didn't even hit a single enemy with an arrow the other day" and they try to calm him down because he is pretty much their only option "No no no, you did great, and this is a breeze. the raft is nearly the size of the (names some stupid ship in their fleet) it will be easy." As soon as Greg turns around to leave the dude makes a face to ... whoever is there, like [yeah this is going to be awful].
Scene 3) This is the actual ceremony... It takes him like 15 shots to hit the raft... everybody is relieved and just want to go home. End of movie.
NOT TO MENTION, in my search for info on this, I found out its nearly entirely fabricated anyway... The Vikings most often had ground ceremonies where they MIGHT burn the bodies, and they MIGHT burn them in a boat... but the boat was on land, not the water. Stupid Hollywood making me think Vikings were cooler than they really were.
BOOKS:
When did they start making movies into books? Like, helllooooo, I already know how it ends because I saw it in the theater! No but seriously, apparently there is a website called Thriftbooks
www.thriftbooks.com where you can buy... you guessed it, cheap used books. Go there people. Make yourselves look more intellectual than you really are. Buy 4 books you will never read and refuse to let your friends borrow them.
POLITICS:
Just kidding, I am not ready to discuss this topic yet. But rest assured, I will be.
"Thanks Obama" clip
You know how in a movie depicting a) a viking type culture or b) an alien type culture that represents a culture foreign to us as Americans, a great warrior or important person that dies, gets a special sendoff. In these movies, they will lay the deceased in a canoe or raft of some sort, throw some kindling and firewood in there and pack it all up nice and tight. A few words are generally spoken, then they push the raft into the sea/river/lake. Once the raft has reached a distance of... 100 yards or so? They light an arrow on fire and an archer fires it into the air and it lights the raft on fire... this has been used in movies and TV.
"First Knight" - King Arthur
My thought is this; how often does the archer miss the raft? I mean, it's not exactly close... its drifting off in the wind and the archer aims the bow up into the air... I feel like there is a large margin for error in this practice.
In my head I play out the scenes leading up to this and they are as follows:
1) in the scene where our deceased is actually killed, it's usually a battle of some sort.. Which means your archers are also in battle and some are also dying. My guess is that the archer that is chosen to fire the arrow at the raft is likely chosen because he is the best, and will likely hit the target right? well what if he is killed in battle too? So in this new scene that is created in Chris's head, we have the funeral being planned and they say "ok, so Sir Hammatime is going to fire the arrow into the raft" Then a dude pulls out a piece of paper and says "Actually, Sir Hammatime was killed in battle as well" Then they start naming off other archers and all of them are dead... Finally its like "Ok... so Greg is going to do it? How long has he been an archer?" Then the guy says "Well, he's fairly new... but he has a great head on his shoulders and always shows up on time..."
Scene 2) They tell Greg he is going to fire the shot at King Whatshisname and everybody in the god damn kingdom is going to be there... Greg is like "ohhhhh f***, listen, I didn't want to say anything because I was pretty sure that nobody would ever know, but I am nearly certain that I didn't even hit a single enemy with an arrow the other day" and they try to calm him down because he is pretty much their only option "No no no, you did great, and this is a breeze. the raft is nearly the size of the (names some stupid ship in their fleet) it will be easy." As soon as Greg turns around to leave the dude makes a face to ... whoever is there, like [yeah this is going to be awful].
Scene 3) This is the actual ceremony... It takes him like 15 shots to hit the raft... everybody is relieved and just want to go home. End of movie.
NOT TO MENTION, in my search for info on this, I found out its nearly entirely fabricated anyway... The Vikings most often had ground ceremonies where they MIGHT burn the bodies, and they MIGHT burn them in a boat... but the boat was on land, not the water. Stupid Hollywood making me think Vikings were cooler than they really were.
BOOKS:
When did they start making movies into books? Like, helllooooo, I already know how it ends because I saw it in the theater! No but seriously, apparently there is a website called Thriftbooks
www.thriftbooks.com where you can buy... you guessed it, cheap used books. Go there people. Make yourselves look more intellectual than you really are. Buy 4 books you will never read and refuse to let your friends borrow them.
POLITICS:
Just kidding, I am not ready to discuss this topic yet. But rest assured, I will be.
"Thanks Obama" clip
