If Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is really based on historical events, as its introductory screen says, is based very vag. However, to simplify and distort the Viking invasions of Britain, there is one thing the game describes. really good: the idea that the history of England is one of immigration.
It hasn’t been a great decade for the UK. Successive Conservative governments, apparently willing to exploit their own country at all costs to its people, have watched two extremely divisive and unnecessary referendums, the first on Scotland’s independence, the second and much more disastrous on the country’s departure from the European Union. the entire UK economy in the toilet in the process.
The government of Boris Johnson, in particular, proved to be extremely unskilled for this job, he and his colleagues do not succeed so badly in Covid’s response that an island nation with one of the best public health systems in the world. he found another one of the deadliest epicenters of the pandemic.
And yet! This incompetent gang of rich rich people and sweaty palm grifters has had its own success, insofar as they can continue to be elected, partly to the dysfunction of the British opposition Labor Party, but also because they are the standard bearers who hiss at their dogs. a reappearance (or calcification among older demographics) of a certain idea. A rejection of the country Britain has become since the 1990s, of the rapidly changing modern world, in favor of a Britain that I remember with childhood fog, or stories from parents or old postcards or biscuit boxes.
Instead of remaining a part of the European Union and all that it represents, there is a considerable part of the UK population – not everyone who voted for Brexit, but is there – who would prefer “Britain to be for the British”. And when I say that, because of the obvious influence of its larger population on the politics of the nation, they really mean “England for the English.”
This is … a direct racist approach, reflected in fact that fears about immigration were one of the key policies for “leaving” voters in the Brexit referendum. To believe that England is for the English is based on the fact that there is primarily a definition of “English”. “Others” who arrived in the UK in the last century after successive waves of immigration, whether from the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, Africa or more recently from continental Europe (and especially Eastern Europe), do not fit this thing and so I am not welcome.
But what does it mean to be English? Who qualifies for this prestigious group? Did a people crawl out of the mud one day, step on green hills, and claim empty earth? Of course not. British history is defined through immigration, relocation and multiculturalism, sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent, something that, for all other endeavors Assassin’s Creed Valhalla becomes very straight and which serves as an excellent reminder – and in a timely manner.
Valhalla he seldom mentions the idea of an “England,” other than as a geographical entity. Instead, he knows that ninth-century England was a place of extraordinary social and political revolt, presenting a series of disparate and often hostile groups, some of whom had been there much longer than others.
The main game is two kingdoms – Mercia and Wessex – that hate each other and are predominantly Saxon, a group that did not begin to arrive on the British shores until the fifth century. There are British, at play with modern Welsh accents, a people who lived in England much longer than the Saxons. There are paintings in the north, with modern Scottish accents and a strong barbaric energy, brief mentions of the Irish (who are saved for further expansion) and, finally, the newest people on the shores of England, the Vikings (or Danes, as it is called more precisely, even if Eivor must continue to correct people that it is in fact Norwegian).
In this way, England is rarely presented as of anyone rightly at home, especially since you spend so much time among the Saxons and Danes. Located in the middle of the remains of Rome’s departure and before the arrival of the Normans, it is shown in Valhalla– and quite precisely, given how history has turned out – as a prize that people are fighting for, whether or not they are ancient inhabitants.
In addition to all those people who live side by side – or push others – there are their beliefs. The Danes have brought their pagan beliefs, and the Saxons are devout Christians (whose coexistence is again directly reflected in some minor quests), but the game is also full of older religions that persist on the edges of the map and even in a single fire the story bleeds into Christian practices. Of Valhalla the architecture tells about the same story, with collapsed Roman ruins mingling with Saxon huts around long Viking houses, all resting side by side in the same towns and cities on the map.
While Assassin’s Creed Syndicate took place at the height of the imperial power of Great Britain and, as such, is immediately recognized, Valhalla it is in an almost foreign England, with little presence in architecture or people that we can show 1000 years later and let’s say, yes, this is what we would define as “English” today. In this way Valhalla shows a kind of story of national origin, a look at its genesis through a coalition of people and ideas.
As the Saxons finally emerged as the dominant group in this battle, they would have the greatest power in the politics and early language of England, so we see an emerging approach towards the end of the game’s story, one that places the Saxons as guardians of the earth to the exclusion of all others, a philosophy that is then injected into the core values of the series’ aromanians, the Templars.
After a battle in a church, King Aelfred Goodwin’s colleague, exasperated, practically says “England is for the English”, emphasizing Eivor’s foreignness and spitting “This island will never be your home”, ignoring the fact that his people were relatively recent arrivals per se. It’s almost literally the same thing you see today in the racist uncle’s Facebook comments section.
However, opposite to this view are the multicultural successes of the Viking colonies described in the game and the work of people like Stowe (below), who, as you can see below, had a more brilliant approach to the Scandinavian settlement, one that speaks of the fact that, although the popular idea (and to be clear, historically accurate) of northern raids and larger invasions were destructive incursions, Viking colonization could often be a more harmonious affair, as evidenced by the continuation of genetic inheritance. of the weather, especially in the north of England and Scotland.
I’m not saying that Valhalla it was created specifically in response to Brexit-type beliefs, or even taken into account when writing the game. But careful exploration of the game on the demographics of the weather is still incredibly useful in today’s climate, as an example that history in an environment like this, no matter how poorly applied in some areas, can still be an incredibly valuable educational tool in others. . .