Why fantasy shills vikings so much? They were so fucking awful

>>48976532
you know what a siege is, right?

>>48976532
>losing when besieging despite numbers

I mean, sturdy walls are really fucking useful, who knew, right?

>>48976532
Fantasy shills vikings because Swedes lack any sort of military prowess of their own from the last 200 years, and they can't deal with their colonial past (Baltics, Finland), so rape and pillage it is - just like today.

That said, I like runes and runic writing.

>>48977244
>I like runes and runic writing.

This, I also like blonde haired blue eyed chicks with fat, pale titties.

>>48977244
>Fantasy shills vikings because Swedes lack any sort of military prowess of their own from the last 200 years
Swedish Empire?

Don't diss Vikings for this defeat.
You grossly underestimate the savagery of average Frenchman when he's left without any option of surrender or escape.

>>48977318
Longer ago

Sweden hasn't even participated in a war for the last 200 jears

>>48977318
I said they can't handle that.
>they can't into thinking that they've been racist towards non-swedes
>they can, however, claim that all of their power was racist and patriarchal
>with vikings, all that goes out of the window since they can pretend to be pre-civilization
>honest approach to what they are and what they were
Swedes have a culture of "don't rock the boat", so they are naturally very, very politically correct. Since the political paradigm has it that they can't possibly be racist towards Finns, Baltics, Poles... They can't have history beyond that. Then there is the fact that it was Christian era, more or less, and therefore evil shitlords were involved and there is no getting proud of them. Remember the 30 year war? Yeah.

>there won't be Reconquista or Inquisition games that have Europeans as the good guys
>everything has to portray Enlightened ideals, including 'the noble savage' - meaning vikings are the only accepted history swedes will ever have

>>48976532
Why is a small band of autists so obsessed with the vikings?

>>48976532
It's a shame a not!Great Northern War could be a really interesting setting

>>48976532
2.5:1 ratio in a siege pretty far from the homeland (and thus any hope of resupply outside of foraging).

Yeah seems bout right to me.

>>48976619
>>48976711
>>48978302
>wow, it only took 20,000 of you to besiege me

>>48976532
Vikings were pretty shit when they weren't attacking undefended villages but they had bags of style.

>>48978478
Jesus, you really have no idea what a siege is. It isn't just running up and having vicious open warfare at the gate. In real life sieges lasted a long time, unless the attackers could somehow breach the walls, either through siege engines (things that, correct me if I'm wrong, the Norsemen sucked at), or sappers. Literally digging their walls down.

So in a siege you may have to literally use shovels to get in. Far from home you would often be talking about issues regarding resupplying on both sides.

So unless you know of some Viking stereotype that they're good at math or at waiting patiently, then seems like your example sucks.

Enough with the rampant axe-viking shitposting already

>>48978645
To add to what he was saying, in most of the Big Books of War, including I think Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, you're supposed to have a 5-1 advantage going into a siege, and 3-1 going into an open field battle. This is a rule that I think is generally accepted in warfare- not that you CAN'T win without that, but you really need at least 5-1 advantage in a siege before you can launch an assault, and it can get pretty rough even if you never launch an assault, due to harassment of the siege forces, disease, and hunger.

>>48977244
ironically, modern swedes gone so retardedly liberal they are likely to be ashamed of their viking past, or something

>>48978569
This. Why do you think fantasy vikings use horned helmets? In fantasy, especially fantasy role playing games, style is more important then realism.

>>48981754
Sure?

Thank you /pol/ for your contribution to the topic.

>>48981900
you're welcome

>>48976532
They were a big deal cuz most of europe's wealth was wrapped up in churches and monasteries that just assumed no-one would attack them cuz basically everyone who mattered was a Christian.

>>48979703
*Jumps into time machine*
*Comes back, looking worse for wear*
So, I just asked everybody across 1000 years of European history, and none of them have heard of Clausewitz or Sun Tzu.
I guess nobody reads the same books you do, anon. I'm sure that makes you the smartest person in the room.
Is that enough (You) for you?

>>48982642
... why would you ask Europeans in the last 1000 years if they've read Sun Tzu or Clausewitz?

Clausewitz wrote On War over fifteen years and it was published in 1832.

Sun Tzu is - as the name might sort of suggest - Chinese.

How the fuck do you expect the average European Noble of 1532 to have even heard of either of those?

You invented a time machien for just this purpose, then proceeded to do the most staggeringly stupid thing when you could have been out there fucking assassinating Hitler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv2qb66PbUg

>>48982642
Are you retarded? He's saying that it's not strange if a siege only 'tilted' 2.5:1 is going to end in a victory for the defenders, and you'd have to not know how sieges work to be surprised

>>48976532
It was a siege that ended with a treaty that gave Rollo and his men large tracts of land in france?

>>48983517
A swamp yeah.

>>48983526
Not that I don't believe you're right, but you must've dug deep to find out the region was a swamp, almost like you were specifically looking for a reason the vikings were bad.
Since ctrl+f'ing the treaty, neustria and normandy gave me no such result.

>>48983517
I see you want to turn it into a military achievement but that's more about frogs being fucking tards than vikangz being good at warfare.

>>48976532
Because giant stonewalled castles where created to prevent the type of warfare the vikings used? Seriously the vikings where still using the inter tribal warfare style that the various Germanic tribes used when Rome was just getting started.

>>48983582
ALSO fantasy shills vikings so much because they are the stereotypical barbarian. It's got nothing to do with how well they did on the field of battle.

>>48983582
>''warfare'
>attacking unarmed people

are modern gangsters warriors as well?

>>48983600
Because of Nazis. Seriously. Before that vikings were considered as cowardly degenerate rapists who showed up to rape priests and kidnap goats after the Romans fell. Later, proto-Nazis decided they needed a more glorious founding myth and latched on to Vikings. They even used "Viking Rape Babies" to justify taking in so called non-Aryans into the SS.

>>48983614
Wow where did the viking touch you anon.

>>48983686
That doesn't answer my question.

>>48983677
Actually it was because of 19th century norwegian romanticists (in fact pretty much every dumb fucking misconception can be traced back to 19th century romanticists).

>>48983693
Okay here. Read the OP you fucking dumbass.

>>48983714
No.

>>48983556
>I see you want to turn it into a military achievement
No I don't want that.
Why you see that is beyond me though.

>frogs
>vikangz
lol

>>48983677
Eh the Danelaw, North Sea Empire and achievements of the Normans are nothing to sniff at, but yeah, Vikings were certainly pillagers and rapists... because that's literally what a Viking is, it's a job: a merchant-pirate that raids

Also that one guy from the Battle of Stamford Bridge was pretty cool, but whatever

>>48983736
That guy wasn't even mentioned by Norwegians so he's bullshit.

Vikangz r sht thrds

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>>48983801
Fuck. Forgot image.

>>48983748
Are you implying that the enemy made up the story about how a single man kept their entire army held up at a bridge?

>>48983748
Admittedly, the primary source he's found in is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and we know for sure they're not entirely accurate, but he's badass enough that I'm perfectly happy to believe he existed

>>48983843
Yes. Vikings made up Wolf the Qaurrelsome, the supposed brother of Brian Boru so why Saxons wouldn't want to dramatize things as well? How the fuck can someone ''shrug off arrows''? Also a soldier apparently had to float under the bridge in a barrel like in a cartoon and stab him in the balls. That's fucking impossible.

>>48983886
It's not impossible to stab someone in the balls

>>48983907
It's impossible to float in a fucking barrel.

>>48984066
>it's impossible to weigh less than 300 lbs
americans everyone

>>48977678
Is that the one when sweden beat back 3 invaders at once?

>>48981754
Hejhej! Actual swede here and no one is ashamed of vikings here. People only think that being obsessed with them is somewhat embarrassing.

>>48983546
Jesus you're dumb.

>>48983041
>then proceeded to do the most staggeringly stupid thing when you could have been out there fucking assassinating Hitler.

Wait wait wait, wouldn't the smartest thing to do with a Time Machine is stop World War 1, or at the very least stop it from ending with such a crushing defeat for Germany?

>>48983704
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geatish_Society

These guys only lasting heritage is using "hej" as a greeting

>>48977453
>there won't be Reconquista or Inquisition games that have Europeans as the good guys
>History is about good and evil

I actually been thinking about how a strategy game about the Reconquista should play out: Lot's of back stabbing. Flip-flopping through religions to keep whichever rights you prefer and revolting against your allies (Berber revolts against Arabs and the birth of Portugal through stabbing Leon and Castille, for instance) should be encouraged.

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>>48976532
Because fantasy, by definition, is not reality.

Plus, some people just like Vikings. Some people like samurai, some people like knights, some people like wizards. Some people like Egyptian or Mesopotamian-esque societies, some people like Asian or Mesoamerican societies, some people like Nordic societies.

Personally, I think the Vikings were cool not for being uber hardcore awesome warrior people, but for how widely-traveled they were (they colonized Iceland, had temporary settlements in Greenland and Canada, settled in Russia and may have even reached into Asia), and how democratic their society was.

Law and legal process was a big deal for the Norse, and their Thing meetings are one of the earliest examples of democracy and parliamentary procedure (and, unlike Greece, any free man could show and speak at a Thing, not just the rich aristocracy). The Icelandic Althing is the oldest European Parliament.

Before Scandinavia Feudalized alongside the rest of Europe, a man could choose which Chieftain or Jarl to support- he didn't owe his liege or lord shit. It was the other way around; if a Chieftain wanted to keep his supporters he'd have to treat them well, represent them and their issues at Things, and be generous in his gifts and payments to them.

Plus, there's all sorts of other neat little tidbits, about how Norse women were well protected by law, could divorce their husbands if they were mistreated, and pretty much dominated the household.

>t. an American with no formal education in history beyond high school and community college, and an admitted fetish for anything Viking Age

>>48985396
>t. an American

explains a lot

>>48985408
I'm answering the OP, dude.

If you don't think Vikings are cool that's all good, I was just saying why I thought they were. No need to be a dick.

>>48976532
I wonder when the meme-wheel of contrarianism is going to turn on the vikings.
First it was "vikings were cool and the greatest warriors ever".
Then that opinion became too popular, so now the only way to be a top lad is to spout the complete opposite "vikings were snowniggers and the worst warriors ever".
Eventually this will become the norm, and then it will be in fashion to like vikings again.

>>48985396
As an european who study Norse culture I can say that pretty much all of this is true

>>48985396
>>48985505

I'll also add that I thought it neat how all free men were encouraged to own weapons for personal and home defense.

I think it's obvious why I find that interesting.

>>48984066
are you literally retarded?

>>48977308
>This, I also like blonde haired blue eyed chicks with fat, pale titties.

Seconded.

OP confirmed for bitter Britbong

>>48986914
Was there ever another kind of Britbong?

>>48985396

With Vikings and Mongols both you get people using women's rights to justify rape a murder. Sure, they enslaved and ruined countless womens' lives, but if you were a wealthy woman of the right bloodline you could get a divorce if you wanted. So progressive!

>>>/his/
>>>/int/
>>>/pol/

>>48987701
Pretty much all viking women had protection of the law, their clans treated it very seriously.
Non-viking women had no such equality, but then, non-viking men had no rights either.

>>48987701
Vikings and Mongols were no worse at raiding, pillaging, raping their neighbors than anyone else. They were just more successful at it.

Any group in history, especially medieval or earlier, is going to be raping, sacking, pillaging their neighbors whenever they get the chance.

besides, I wasn't saying 'Oh, how progressive and wonderful! Vikings can do no wrong!' I was just saying I thought it was interesting because it *certainly* wasn't the norm for other European societies at the time.

>>48976532
Bad enough you shit up /his/ with these threads, but now you have to shitpost /tg/ with this meme?

>>48985684
You watch too many Tom and Jerry cartoons retard I doubt soldier in full combat gear would float in a barrel to kill a warrior his own people didn't mention and who supposedly was resistant to arrows (in a battle where vikings were reported to not use any armor since they left it in their ships at that)

>>48984648
The best thing to do is assassinate some Prussians so Germany never happens
>>48987683
Bitter and also racist.

>>48983614
In a way, yes.they have leaders, soldiers, territory, logistical considerations. Gang warfare isn't just a buzzword.

>>48989110
>wanting France to dominate Europe

Personally I'm a fan of the reform Austria in to a federation plan to stop ww 2. That way their leaders won't think bullying Serbia is a good way to distract their people's from their desire for better democratic representation.

>>48978569
They weren't soldiers, they were more like gangsters.

>>48981754
Well, vikings were basically the ISIS of the Dark Ages, anon. What with human sacrifice, rape and shit.

>arabs raided
>wtf savages!
>vikings raided
>fierce warriors

lmao scandicucks

>>48984535
If you count attacking Swedish occupied Germany as invasion I guess, although their victory was pretty short lived and Sweden ended up losing everything but Finland in the end.

>>48989110
Again are there any other britbong?

>>48989675
>vikings were basically the ISIS of the Dark Ages
The Vikings sure loved destroying old pre-norse monuments and behead whole villages for not following the laws of their sky faries.

>>48990112
No one gives a fuck about Arab raids. Most of them are just labled as pirates.

>>48989657
Everyone was like gangster back then, and now.

>>48989675
>human sacrifice
>vikings

desu the viking reputation is primarily due to the Varangian Guard kicking literally everyone's ass for like 500 years

but the other vikings weren't bad at the whole murder, rape, steal job either

even if sometimes they were like 'nah senpai desu we just murdered an entire village of slavs up the river so maybe we'll just trade shitty beads in exchange for your gold'

>>48984648
It would be better to have it be a more crushing defeat for Germany than a less crushing one, "we were fighting well but the people who made up what would become the Weimar Government stabbed us in the back at Versailles" is far harder to sell to a public that had seen Entente troops storming Berlin rather than still being in France when the white flag was raised. Taking out the Jews who organised the January strikes might be a good idea if your aim was to avoid muh 6 million as well.

>>48990816
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_religion#Sacrifice

>>48990866
Wow they were good at killing farmers aka unarmed people how impressive.

>>48990866
After 11th century varangian guard was Saxon also
>first members were the Rus

wow slavs who barely had any norsemen by the time varangian guard was a thing how fucking viking like unless you consider Vladimir to be a norse name

>>48991558
You mean viking rape babies?

The ones with the Norse queen?

ok

>>48991582
>Saxons had different culture
>muh vikangz xD

no, kill yourself also memengian guard got decked by turkroaches and the glorious byzantine empire had a history of being stomped time and time again so these shits would call a 5yo with wooden sword a fierce warrior

>>48991582
>You mean viking rape babies?
Vikings left very little impact on eastern Europe, DNA wise. If they were doing any rapine, it was to men.

>>48990866
The Varangian Guard spent 500 years of being a small contingent of largely footslogging bodyguards in an army that either routed the enemy army with a heavy cavalry charge or lost the battle, they were hired because they didn't play Byzantine politics and so the Emperors trusted them no to stab them in the back not because they kicked 'literally everyone's ass'.

>>48982642
*unsheathes katana*
*teleports behind you*

>>48976532
Worse, druids come from Vikings culture and they are actually decent in D&D.

>>48991965
Is this trolling, or just extreme ignorance?

>>48991965
>druids
>viking

kill yourself

>>48991609
Someone's culture got assraped.

>>48991771
Are you literally retarded?

Saint Olga, aka Helga, was literally from what is now Sweden. aka person who basically created modern Slavs. She even trained them wrong as a joke!

>>48992519
Why vikingboos never present any evidence nor arguments and resort to name calling and acting like a mentally ill person? If they are such great warriors surely you can list their feats?

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They were literally just bandits who fucking AVOIDED combat if they could deal with it kids.

>>48992865
I see the wrong training lingers. Does Yandex not know how to find Wikipedia?

>>48992932
>>48992938
haha, oh wow

>>48989110
Best thing to do is assassinate you, so you cease your stupidity.

>>48992865
>If they are such great warriors surely you can list their feats?
Power Attack
Cleave
Weapon Focus: Spear
Skill Focus: Profession (sailor)

>>48984648
It'd be better to tell the stupid Brits and Murcans to follow the French ideas on what to do with a defeated Germany.

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>>48981754
>tfw Snowniggers will be extinct in fewer than 100 years
>tfw Poland will still exist
Enjoy your Deluge, Sven.

>>48981754

Why would liberals be ashamed of killing white people?

>>48978645
British and American army doctrine teachs an investment into a built up area requires a 10 to 1 advantage for example.

>>48986914
Brits were the entire reason Vikings became a thing though. Viking romanticism was started by them and then followed by other Anglos and the Nords.

So much falsehood and blatant racism towards Swedes. Never knew /tg/ to be racist.

>>48998784
Nah it won't. Sweden right now has one of the strictest immigration policies in Europe and over 80k are already being deported with more to come, aswell as a non-socialist majority in parliament. Who knew facts could be useful to have?

>>48999082
>I never knew [a board on 4chan] to be racist

Dude, how new are you? Casual racism is pretty fucking normal here.

>>48999094
Won't help at all.

>>48982642
His point is that military experts recommended a higher ratio of troops than they had when laying siege, not that everybody in Europe was aware of those experts, one of which hadn't even been born yet. Ur dum.

>>48999181
People writing books like these often aren't coming up with exciting new tactics or whatever, they're just putting to written form information that's already well known. This is often the case with lots of older books - they're just writing down things with a much older oral history.

>>48992932
>didn't even consider the viking settlers that went to north america and got their asses speared by injuns
Yeah...

>>48999224
Or moors who demolished them in Spain.

>>48999123
/pol/ and /b/ sure, but to a degree other boards have been spared from fake nonsense.
>>48999130
Right because kicking people out, tearing up their residenceships and cutting gobs won't help at all. We have a 5-10% non white pop, might as well give up already, right? Always funny to hear americucks/mr 60 percenters talk about how one of the whitest countries in Europe is doomed.

>>48992932
Ain't those nice cherries.. you did well in picking them

>>48999130
Christ, /pol/ is aggressively delusional.

>>48992932
>They were literally just bandits who fucking AVOIDED combat if they could deal with it kids.
Otherwise known as "good strategy".

Like it or not, they had multiple large empires.

>>48999417
That's most of their battles recorded. Cherrypicking would be mentioning muh Varangian Guard which also had Rus and Saxons or muh Normans which is like calling Americans British.

>>48999442
Name some of these magical viking empires.

>>48999488
>which is like calling Americans British.
But we pretty much do that -- in terms of lumping the two together for being similar. Anglos &c.

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>>48999496
Oh, gosh, maybe the North Sea Empire? You know, the really famous one?

>>48999502
>empires
>states one

also if attacking unarmed people is a good strategy then you might as well romanticize niggers

>>48999524
You asked for a magical empire. You got one. You want another? Kievan Rus'. That started with Viking conquest, even if it became its own thing later on.

Of course attacking unarmed people is a good strategy. They're unarmed. It's practically auto-win. Sadly, people often weren't completely unarmed.

And yeah, you might as well romanticise niggers. People do that, all the time.

>>48999549
Vikings were INVITED you idiot there was no conquest.

>>48999554
Source, motherfucker. Ignoring the fact that that would be even more impressive.

>>48999569
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27

dumb uneducated pig

>>48999591
You didn't even read your own source.

>>48999596
>They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus'. … The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated.


Retard.

>>48999605
Wow great source. A chronicle written four hundred years later. Are you going to talk about the big white bird which lead the slavs there, next?

>>48999611
That chronicle is the only proof for any viking activity in Russia to begin with. Retard.

>>48999618
It is not. There's etymological proof, to begin with.

Besides, there's nuance to what is reliable and what is not. The fact there were Vikings at all is fairly reliable. The exact details -- how they came to rule -- are not. It would be good for the Vikings to pretend they were invited, would it not? And very good for the contemporary aristocracy.

>>48999640
>details are not clear
>which means they conquered Russia xD

retard

>>48999645
>reading
>comprehension

ebin :))))

>>48999653
>>48999549

I see you're too retarded to remember your own post.

>>48999094
It has a social democrat/green coalition (totally not socialists though) minority government propped up by the ''''conservative'''' alliance in key votes to keep the ''''racist'''' SD out and it's immigration policy is no stricter than that of anyone else in Europe and more lenient than a bunch of them, it certainly isn't anywhere near "if a refugee is Muslim they can get fucked" policies of Eastern Europe and their 80,000 planned deportations are a retarded meme when the vast majority of those they plan to deport just vanish from the system before confirmation that they've left the country.

>>48999094
>fertility rate almost as bad as Germany's, only propped up at all by Muslims
>SD are only just now starting to become serious

If they do survive, it'll be because they drag every Leftist out of their homes, smash their teeth out with hammers, and then drown them in pools of human shit. And really, at that point, the survivors will just be Finns with a gayer language.

>>48999640
Just admit that you got slapped across the room, Mohammed. By a Slav no less.

>The Vikings were shit Meme

History is written by the victors, it's why we think the Saxons were only so-so fighters because they lost to the Normans and Charlemange yet forget they basically held off the Great heathen army from ruling Europe no less that 3 times.

Or that the Norman's were amazing warriors despite only ruling in the very loosest sense any of their own territory.

Or why people think the 100 years war was France vs England.

I could go through any culture in history and pull up a big least of battles where the high and mighty warriors get laid low by another band of people who they supposedly have stomped.

>>49000183
Yeah everyone loses sometimes that's natural. But if they lose almost all the fucking time that's rather telling.

>>49000194
Everyone lost almost all the fucking time if they were on Equal footing.

Romans kept getting beaten down by Gauls, but just went after easier tribes until they eventually won. They tried the same in Germania and it utterly failed because Germans, despite being inferior technology wise, actually banded together under the Duress of Roman invasion and made it a pain for the Roman's to hold a foothold unlike Gaul.

When half of your "Famous battles" are formed about a bunch of Raiders trying to sack towns then of course it'll pad out with losses.

When "Viking" only really applies when they loses but "Danish/Nowegian/jutes" counts when they win, it's downright hilarious cherrypicking.

Every vikings discussion should start with a reminder that "viking" wasn't an ethnicity, it was more of a job. Or rather an activity for Scandinavian men. A viking was someone who would go on a expedition as a merchant/pirate, eventually explorer. But mostly merchant actually.
So it's no surprise if vikings rarely won big battles, it's literally wasn't their job. When Scandinavian kingdom wanted to wage wars, they sent actual armies, not just vikings.

>>49000229
Jutes, along with the Angles are counted among the Saxons not the Vikings. By the Viking age they had settled in Britain and were defending their farms and villages rather than raiding them.

>>48999730
Right. A social democrat/green government cut welfare for immigrants removed the possibility for family reunion for most immigrant groups and announced deportations of 80k-100.
SD alone is getting almost enough votes in polls as the government themselves, with SD at like 24- 27% and the government at barely 30 after the big drop in support. The only winner in the last election was SD, everyone else lost votes, especially the former ruling party. The center right alliance has, while begrudgingly, accepted that they need SDs support and together they're easily 60. SD+M is nearly 50% themselves of the popular vote, and SD has even announced plans to tear up already residenceships to send them back. The population is aware that closing the borders is not enough. SD+Alliansen will be a powerful anti-immigration force after the near renewal of Alliansens politics.

>>49000320
Jutes also stayed in the Jutland area of Denmark and were also Vikings.

But like >>49000295
says, Viking was a job.

Technically, those left in Denmark would have been native Saxons, who only became "Vikings" in the Viking age as political names only.

>>49000347
>A social democrat/green government cut welfare for immigrants removed the possibility for family reunion for most immigrant groups and announced deportations of 80k-100.
It did yes.Stefan Löfven is a social democrat, and he acted largely because of the polls you mentioned. As previously stated, the 80,000 deportations are just a meme figure, they don't actually manage to throw out those people and even if they did get them to leave the country when supposedly up for deportation, throwing 80k out of the 150k refugees they got last year is not "closing the boders".

>>48976532
Two reasons: great aesthetics and inspirations. People don't give a shit how effective something is; if it's memorable, they'll remember it.
And fantasy needs raider analogies. It needs agents of change that can show up somewhere and be a vague threat to start events moving. Vikings work great for that, since they were infamous for raids along wide swaths of coasts.

Get over it.

>>49000548
They were Somali pirates of their age.

>>48990877
Or hammer some sense for diplomacy into the british and french - suddenly you have a decent treaty of versailles.
There, even less dead people involved.

>>48998165
Aye french are sore losers and sore winners.

>>48976532
Because these victories against a horde of barbarians in the real world are portrayed as an underdog victory for the civilised "good guys", and you can't have an underdog victory against weaklings so the vikings strengths are exaggerated to make it a better tale.
Kind of like how David vs Goliath was basically a guy with a gun vs a mentally retarded guy suffering from all the negative effects of gigantism, but nobody thinks of it that way; they hype up Goliath rather than David and how powerful slings are.

Great Britain has romanticised pirates, vikings and vampires, what's next?

>>48992932
>avoiding combat if they can
And this is supposed to be a negative or something?

>>49004609
If they are shilled as fierce warriors? Yeah.

>>48999082
I didn't know Sweden was a race.

>>48999219
Exactly

>>49004638
avoiding unnecessary battles is common sense, it doesn't impact their ferocity in the battles they did participate in.

>>49006327
If they got rekt then ferocity means fuck all.