----- Original Message ----- From: Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net
Neil, you're going to hate me :).
Tanned flesh on Xena is just there to make her look sexy. She's a babe. I'm not into babes. For a supposedly experienced warrior it seems a bit daft to have all limbs exposed to any sharp edge that might be flying around. Mediaeval warriors plastered themselves with every last bit of metal plating they could stand up in (sometimes even two helmets, one on
top
of the other). Xena (like Conan in the De Laurentiis movies) is all
image.
Erm, actually I'd like to point out that the ancient Greeks fought in short linen tunics, and the Celts fought more or less naked (which had a fantastic psychological impact on their enemies, as the implication was that these people had no fear of being wounded or killed). The word "berserker" comes, IIRC, from the old Scandinavian phrase "bear sark" or "bearskin shirt," referring to warriors who would go into battle wearing nothing but a bearskin. More recently, the Zulu fought wearing only animal skins, though they did carry really big shields (and if anyone starts making noises about "primitives," I'd like to point out that the 19th-century Zulu were an urbanised state society and had access, if only through trade, to European weapons technology).
American accents are fine, but not in a Dark Age or Mediaeval Europe where there weren't any.
Someone on another list to which I belong recently pointed out that Standard American English is actually closer to Shakespearian English than modern English Received Pronunciation. So who's to say :).
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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