Knightfail

I finally caught up with Vikings and have been watching it in real time (Ewww! Commercials?) along with everyone else. More on that below. But today I wanted to ramble a little bit about the History Channel's new show, Knightfall. I'm a day late, but maybe some of you still haven't seen it. After reading this, you may not want to.

Knightfall is about the Knights Templar; a monastic order founded in the 12th century to protect and assist Christian pilgrims on the trail to the Holy Land after the Crusades had been initiated and the various Christian states had emerged in the Levant. Their official name is The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Over time, they became known as the Knights of the Temple or simply Templars, in the same way that the similar Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem became known as the Hospitallers. Nicknames are far from a modern invention. The Templars were a warrior order and one of the more effective fighting forces on the Christian side during the two centuries that it took the Muslims to expel the Europeans from the region. That being said, they were still a monastic order, which meant that they lived like monks often did, spending a lot of time at prayer and taking vows of poverty (they are the "Poor Fellows"), chastity, and so forth. It's the poverty angle that usually comes up in any historical discussion about them.

Since they were on the leading edge against the infidels, they became a favored charity inside the church (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was their most prominent advocate) and received not only money but businesses and land (i.e. wealth.) With the rapid growth of their order, the actual warriors soon became a relatively small fraction of the whole organization and they designed an early method of banking, where pilgrims could leave their money at a Templar fortress in Europe, travel to the Holy Land with a letter of credit, and receive the same sum from a fortress in Jerusalem or Acre or wherever they ended up. The purpose of the organization soon became money management, rather than bringing the word (and sword) of God to the infidel. This ramped up when the Crusader states were destroyed and the Templars returned to Europe without much else to do. In the end, they became a primary lender to various monarchs, most notably Philip IV of France, whose own activities following on the heels of his father, Philip III, had plunged the state into debt and who went to the Templars to get a bailout. All good so far?

OK. So here's where we get to the show, somewhere around 1306. Instead of, say, doing a show like Vikings, where the founding of the order is displayed and we see the daily struggles, battles, and politics of the Levant in the Crusader era; or simply a show just about the extremely complex politics surrounding the post-Acre period in France and the order's eventual destruction, the driving plot element for our main characters at the center of those political machinations is... the Holy Grail.

Yes. That Holy Grail. With the magic and the healing and the voices booming down from the heavens and yadda, yadda, yadda. So, Vikings took a few figures from legend and many from the historical record, most prominently Ragnar Lodbrok, and has successfully woven it into a fairly accurate portrayal of history (There's that word.). Knightfall, OTOH, is taking a well-documented segment of that same historical record and weaving a legend into it that doesn't become prominent for another couple hundred years and then has more to do with silly English knnnniggets than a monastic order. The Grail was first mentioned in a poem in Flanders in the 12th century, but it was regarded as a work of fiction and it didn't have any of the trappings of being the cup of Christ or anything like that. All of that came later when someone thought it'd be a cool spin. In short, the Templars had absolutely zero to do with it and riding that horse means veering away from the quite interesting story of the Templars themselves and into Dan Brown Da Vinci Code stuff which just detracts from the whole picture. In the first episode, we already have the secret compartment in the sword of Godfrey with the gemstone that was somehow carved years ago to indicate that the Grail had made it to France. This is like the goofy side of Indiana Jones, where objects of extreme veneration and surrounded by ancient cities filled with devout believers are placed in rooms that are so dangerous that no one would ever go in there to worship the deity in question. Similarly, no one would "hide" the location of the grail by carving a gemstone to reveal the first clue in the puzzle unless they wanted said gemstone to be a plot device in a TV show. Try finding evidence of that in your nearest medieval epic.

That's pulp adventure stuff, which is absolutely fine if that's what you want. I love Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a great film. But there are also no illusions about what it is: an adventure film, as opposed to a TV series that is ostensibly about the Knights Templar, but seems intent on sidelining much of their interesting and complex history (there's that word again) for magical fireworks. They're not doing the Templars. They're doing King Arthur and calling it the Knights Templar. Seriously, we already have our Perceval (Bobby Schofield; young lad, innocent, true believer, not jaded) and our Lancelot. They call him "Landry" (Tom Cullen) but that was probably a writing room goof: "This guy, the not-quite-leader, best warrior, we'll call him Lannnn... dry. Yeah." How do I know he's Lancelot? Because the devoted monk is breaking his vows of chastity in the most spectacular way possible by screwing the king's wife!

Really? This is how we explain the eventual decision by Philip to exterminate the Templars, not because he was a right bastard and figured that rubbing out his lenders was better than actually paying his debts (they didn't call him the "Iron King" for nothing; of course, some people also called him "the Fair"...) but because he's going to be mad that his wife is screwing his best friend? As soon as Merlin walks in with a prophecy, we should be good to go, yeah? The problem with the story of the Templars is the same one that afflicted the samurai in the later Shogunate era: with no enemy to fight (or at least, the lack of will to do so), the warrior class reverts to other activities. The Templars became bankers that prayed a lot. The samurai became clerks and bureaucrats who carried swords. Both groups tried to maintain the very martial and focused outlook that their original role demanded, but it became impossible. The Hospitallers became little more than pirates in their waning days, for that matter. I think that's enough story material to drive the series forward without invoking the Arthurian legend in ways large or small.

Plus, there's way too much of this "knight in shining armor" stuff. No one walks around in plate armor. It's heavy and uncomfortable and you certainly don't keep it on your horse if you're hurrying into the countryside at the last minute. There's no way your horse would have been armored like that in the middle of Paris, so why should you grab it from the stable in full plate regalia? But then when the moment comes to display just why the Templars were so feared, they dropped the ball. The Knights were prominent in the Levant because wearing that much metal made them the medieval equivalent of a tank. They would charge, shatter lines, and then the infantry would clean up. This was showed to decent effect during the siege of Acre scene at the beginning. But when they rush out of Paris to save the Jews, they come down the road on the flank of the mercenaries. That's a prime target. Take the charge and the mercs won't even have time to turn their spears properly. That's an easy win. Instead, they ride around to the front of the enemy's formation (i.e. its strongest point) and dismount. Za? You're knights. The word goes back to the equestrian order of the Romans. Your advantage is that you're on horseback. But you decide to abandon that advantage and slug it out on the ground. OK.

None of the performances stuck out in any marked way. There's no interesting character like Ragnar or quirky character like Floki or even frustrated, simmering character like Rollo. Lance- uh, Landry is simmering in frustration, but it's so drowned in angst that it's hard to be sympathetic. Plus, he's decided to relieve some stress by shacking up with Joan of Navarre. The real Joan was reportedly a highly intelligent and shrewd woman, so it's a natural fit if the showrunners wanted a strong female character. But the real Joan had also grown up with Philip and they were very fond of each other, in contrast to many other medieval marriages. But I could live with all of that. I could live with the "love interest" routine and the need for sex in a "mature" series and so forth. It's all good. Maybe Joan of Navarre was getting horizontal with the master of the Templars. But all of those little failings pale in significance to the fact that the series is going to be driven forward by the chase for the magic chalice. They chose... poorly. I'll probably watch the second episode just to see what happens, but it's not likely I'll go past that.

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On Vikings, I thought they did really well with a lot of the time compression and the eventual introduction of the Great Heathen Army. It remained interesting and Ragnar's constant, driving need for glory and legacy was a very human motivation that made waves for everyone around him. I thought that Floki's realization in Algeciras that the Muslims were ignoring the invaders because of their devotion to their god and the practice of their religion was a highlight of the whole series; a very moving moment. The first couple episodes of season 5 have been a little rocky. I think everyone- cast, writer, and fans -knew that it was going to be difficult to replace the energy not just of Ragnar, but Travis Fimmel and the void is definitely there. Neither Lagertha, Bjorn, Harald, or Ivar can be the central focus that Ragnar/Fimmel was. None of the other actors have that charisma and writer, Michael Hirst, has taken advantage of that void to present all of those people striving to fill the gap that Ragnar left them. It's much easier to do method when a change in production basically demands it. The one exception is Floki. His travels to and around Iceland have been interesting and have carried a lot of subtle excitement and emotion. I don't think Vikings will ever carry the weight and quality that other legendary shows have. I'm watching not because I'm fascinated by the story or the people playing it, but because I already know the story and I'm interested to see it brought to life on the screen.

Anyway, next I'll return to Westworld. Yes, I've finally gotten through the majority of it and I might as well put down some perspective before the new season arrives in the new year. There's no guarantee I'll actually watch the new season, but I'll get to that next time.