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Well, the physical media movement has been going strong for years and I’ve always approved of it in theory, but in practice I’ve been pretty happy in my digital life. However, after modding my iPod and digging up my old CDs I’ve been feeling a certain itch and, finally, I’ve decided to take the plunge. Today I’m revisiting four physical media formats, because I want to figure out what this resurgence really means.

CD – The Thrill of the Hunt

I love charity shops and usually I’d head straight for the books, but lately I’ve been starting in a different section.

Now is a good time to get back into CDs, mostly because of the price. You might not be able to thrift everything but even actual record stores will sell CDs at a steal. The Arctic Monkeys’ debut album was important to me growing up – I think my band covered every single song – but back then I probably only heard it as a playlist of low-quality mp3s. Now I have it in lossless audio quality for 3 pound.

A lot of people on my last video asked why I didn’t just pirate everything. First of all, I do want CD-level quality which isn’t always available online (unless you’re in very niche communities that I’m not part of) but, regardless, where’s the joy in entering a name into a search bar? That doesn’t feel like real collecting.

I’ve been enjoying rooting around for old favourites: There’s a high when you come across something you’ve been hoping for, or maybe something you’ve forgotten about – like the Scrubs season 1 soundtrack! I know Zach Braff memed his own music taste to death in Garden State, but him bringing weird CDs onto the set of Scrubs turned the show into a compilation of non-stop early 2000s indie bangers. That soundtrack isn’t something you’d stumble across on a streaming service – in fact, I looked it up on Apple Music and most of the songs couldn’t even be played. Stumbling across the Scrubs soundtrack gave me an intense dopamine hit – it felt like I’d won the jackpot on a slotmachine and, in terms of brain chemistry, that’s exactly what happened.

Let me explain thorugh the lens of dog training. You’d think the best way to reinforce a dog’s behaviour would be to reward it every time – that’s how Pavlov got his dogs to drool, after all – and it is usually considered the best way to initiate a behaviour, but once a habit is learned, the best way to maintain it is with a variable ratio of reinforcement, where the reward for you action only comes sometimes.

This is equally true for dogs and humans. If you always get rewarded for a certain behaviour, you might get tired of the reward, but if you only get rewarded sometimes then the behaviour itself becomes addictive. That’s why it’s so hard to put down TikTok, not because every single video is fantastic, but because the next video might be fantastic –and you’ll only know if you keep swiping! All major social media platforms use the same behavioural science to keep users addicted, and it’s no coincidence that swiping a screen to refresh is similar to pulling the arm of a slot machine, because this is the same behavioural science that keeps people addicted to gambling.

Like many people, I’m trying to spend less time on my smartphone, less time swiping, and it turns out that my charity shop visits have offered an alternative. In my search for CDs, I have inadvertently created a gambling-like scenario that allows me to get that dopamine hit without damaging my mental health or (with the price of CDs these days) my bank account. I think this is the first big appeal of “physical media” – you get to indulge in the act of collecting, that addictive hunt for albums and artists.

However, I have to admit that CDs aren’t the first physical media format I’ve gotten back into.

Vinyl - The Medium is the Message

For years, me and my partner joked that we’re the kind of douche bags for whom a record player would eventually appear in our home (whether we wanted it or not) so we may as well stop fighting it. Vinyl, however, has a distinct disadvantage against CDs in that they’re not dirt cheap – usually. That’s why most of my vinyl records are from one spot – Bragehall second hand in Leksand. If you’re digging for vinyl in Sweden you’ll mostly find old “dansband” records (a genre of country pop designed to make you want to rip your ears off) but Bragehall actually have the good stuff, and a lot of it ranges from 60–100 crowns (about 4–10 euro), so except for some purchases directly from artists, this is where my small record collection is from.

You can’t talk about the physical media resurgence without talking about vinyl. While CD sales might have grown modestly in 2023, vinyl sales have grown consistenly for 17 years. After giving way to cassettes in the 1980s, vinyl sales disappeared almost entirely for two decades before, in 2008, suddenly starting to grow, a fact often accredited to the rise of the “hipster”. Vinyl now makes up 8% of music revenue; more than any other physical music format and its highest revenue share since 1988.

I find the timing here very interesting – mp3 players and smartphones were decimating CD sales and yet somehow vinyl came back? It suddenly thrived while other physical media formats evaporated, so we have to assume that vinyl records were able to provide something that digital downloads and music streaming could not.

You’ve probably heard the term “the medium is the message”. It’s the first chapter in Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 hit book “Understanding Media”, which he followed up with the confusingly titled “The Medium is the Massage” a few years later. McLuhan posits that “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.” He describes the ‘content’ as a distraction, and says that the true “‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.”

For example, the introduction of the railway created completely new cities, and new ways of life, and it did so regardless of what specific freight any particular train might be carrying. Similarly, if you lose your factory job due to increased automation, it doesn’t really matter if the factory is churning out cornflakes or Cadillacs – you’re still out of a job. To McLuhan, any technology has inherent effects based on its design and the same expensive champagne will taste quite different depending on if you’re drinking it out of a fancy glass or a dirty shoe.

And what is vinyl, if not a fancy glass?

Vinyl is big and concrete and I think that’s why it took off around the same time as the abstract format that is music streaming. For decades, music formats got smaller and smaller in the name of convenience, until finally they disappeared, replaced by mp3-players and then smartphones – but when we started being able to listen to any song in the world at will, eventually people found that there was something missing. Because if the medium is the message then music streaming has its own message, and it is this:

Music is not important.

Streaming giants emphasize lean-back listening, they shuffle real artists out in favour of stock music, and they swindle musicians out of royalties whenever they can, all while tracking your every move and boasting to advertisers about how they can manipulate you.

Vinyl records don’t do any of that shit! It’s not even easy to skip tracks; it’s an inconvenient format, and that is the point. I started my humble collection after visiting some friends, chatting all night and taking turns picking records to play from their collection. I enjoyed flipping through their LPs, seeing where our tastes overlapped, and finding interesting surprises – I saw albums I’d forgotten, now writ large and made important. It was a completely different experience from adding songs to a Spotify queue or even passing around an Aux cable (which was the “Spotify” of my younger days). That night I don’t think I looked at my phone once – unless it was to research how much a record player cost.

McLuhan would say that the sound cannot be separated from the method, and the physical experience of interacting with the object is part of the album. This is the second reason that physical media is in resurgence – it’s bringing back the importance of the object itself, something that modern technology has replaced with a convenience, yes, but also an undercurrent of unease.

Cassette Tapes - Democratising Media

Cassettes are a format I thought I’d left far behind. I grew up surrounded by them, literally, because my dad recorded audiobooks, and while cassettes were no longer a new technology when I was growing up, they were still everywhere – and dirt cheap, like CDs are now – so it was a technology I used a lot, recording “radio shows” with my friends around age 10, and later, as a teenager, recording our punk rock band. This, more than any, is a format where I remember the imperfections; the hassle of carrying dozens of cassettes just to listen to one audiobook; the fact that you could often faintly hear the other side of the tape. I did try buying some new cassettes for this video but it didn’t make me feel much. No, my best cassette-related memories are the ones where I’m making things.

And making things was – and is – the magic of cassettes.

It’s hard to grasp how revolutionary the cassette tape was; as Canadian scholar Paul Théberge wrote in 2001:

There are whole sub-cultures and music genres that wouldn’t exist without the humble cassette. and everyday users could suddenly record their own records, or the radio, or just copy tapes and share them. The mixtape became a cultural phenemenon and it’s no wonder, because it was an entirely new way of interacting creatively with music that you love.

As you might expect, this democratising power freaked out record industry middlemen and in the early ‘80s the “British Phonographic Industry” launched a propaganda campaign with the slogan “Home Taping Is Killing Music”. They added the line “and it’s illegal” which was largely wishful thinking, and you might recognise the logo from the many times it’s been parodied and referenced over the years. Some governments kowtowed to the record industry and imposed levies on the sale of blank cassettes and recorders, but the tide of culture could not be stemmed. As the Dead Kennedys wrote on one of their cassettes: ”Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help.”

Outside the wealthy global north, cassettes became even more important because pressing vinyl required up-front investments and specialised labour but as Roger Wallis and Krister Malm wrote in “ Big Sounds from Small Peoples” in 1984: “The most isolated village can get its first cassette recorder before it has running water or mains electricity.” Of course, cassettes were used to spread “western” music but they also revitalised local music traditions, like in Sri Lanca, where intellectuals argued about whether the radio should play more traditional drumming or North Indian art music – all while the public bought cassettes of “Balia” music, a “lower” form of folk culture that you wouldn’t hear on the radio, at least not back then – it has long since entered Sri Lancan mainstream culture, and I think the cassette definitely helped.

Cassettes aren’t the only format to embody these creative and democratising powers, but they were the first – for decades they gave people the power to capture and interact with media, whether that’s my mother making a mixtape off the radio in the 80s, my brother playing commodore 64 games in the 90s, or me in the year 2000 recording the entirety of “Muppet Treasure Island”. This is the third reason that physical media is coming back: it allows you to use your taste and creativity to build a collection, and if you do it right, it’s your life on a shelf.

DVD - Escaping Liquid Modernity

I wasn’t going to get back into DVDs.

I mean, they’re not even in HD resolution, and the standard has long sincemoved to 4K so why would I bother?

Then I saw a Hornblower boxset in a charity shop.

This 1998 adaptation of C. S. Forester’s Hornblower series follows the adventures of a British Royal Navy officer during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Horatio is very much an Imperial Wonder Boy and the whole production has a tinge of propaganda to it but by jove is it entertaining! And while it is available on youtube, I now own the highest quality version of this show that exists, even though, it’s “just a DVD.” Resolution isn’t everything when it comes to quality; equally important is the amount of data contained in each second of footage. video streamers and digital pirates alike are incentiviced to compress video files so that they transfer smoothly, but each standard DVD contains over 4 GB of data, so while the resolution might be lower, there’s more information per pixel.

There’s an more important reason to pick up DVDs, especially of TV shows from the 90s and early 2000s, because these were generally produced in a 4:3 aspect ratio to match the shape of TVs at the time. Nowadays media rights holders will often crop these shows to match the widescreen format of today’s TVs, and those are usually the only versions you can find on streaming platforms – this absolutely infuriates me and it should infuriate you. There are, of course, egregious examples of jokes and important information being cropped out but, besides that, what you choose to put in the frame is always important. How you balance and compose your shot, these are key parts of the artistic expression of the visual medium – and messing with that is the same ripping random pages out of a book!

DVDs cannot be changed after the fact. They are solid; which is increasingly rare now that we’ve entered a time of great uncertainty, characterised by fleeting experiences and relationships. At least that’s how Zygmunt Bauman describes our present era, which he calls “Liquid Modernity”. According to Bauman, this great uncertainty is the result of 20th century elites untying the economy from any political or ethical entanglements, and letting market logic dominate not just the economy, but culture and morality and identity as well. While this economic order isn’t open to other options, our everyday lives are paralyzed by choice. We’re trapped in a game of musical chairs, changing our jobs, locations, partners – all without the promise of ever achieving fulfilment. Older generations often cannot fathom why young people don’t just stay in the same business for their entire career, or just save up and buy a house like they did back in the day. They fail to grasp that by allowing the “economy” (in other words, the ultra rich) to reign supreme, ordinary people are made disposable.

Bauman writes that solid social structures have melted placing the “burden of pattern-weaving and the responsibility for failure […] on the individual’s shoulders”. If we get sick, it’s because we weren’t following a good enough health regime, if we stay unemployed it’s because we didn’t try hard enough or we’re simply lazy. Everywhere we are encouraged to find biographical solutions to systemic problems as if we can actually fix environmental damage by putting plastic in the green bin.

As Bauman puts it: “There is a nasty fly of impotence in the tasty ointment of freedom.”

Bauman made this analysis in the early 2000s and, arguably, things have only gotten worse. Work has been shattered into “gig work”, which famously promises employees freedom, while trapping them in deals that only get worse and worse over time – and, of course, films, music and TV have all become “content” that we rent from corporate overlords who have the freedom to alter or remove any of that culture as they see fit.

DVDs are the antidote to that, both in terms of their physical permanence and their bonus features, which were a huge part of their appeal. The immediacy of digital living has turned all entertainment into an endless stream of disposable stimuli. Media can still get popular, but make no mistake: We are a hoard of locusts, quickly moving from one property to the next, and we’ll only think about Tiger King or whatever for as long as it takes to strip every morsel of flesh off Joe Exotic’s bones.

But DVDs can give works of art the weight and context that they deserve, and they provide autonomy over media, free from licensing, deletions, or algorithmic interference. And that is my fourth and final reason that physical media is coming back.

There’s just one problem with DVDs: How do I stop buying them?

HOARDING

Hoarding and physical media can go hand in hand, except that unlike everything else we’ve discussed, hoarding is bad both for you, and bad for the media. Hoarding is accumulation to stave off anxiety – and when you see value in everything, it means you don’t actually value anything. At the same time, I get it – when I see 5 DVDs for 1 EUR I want to buy all the DVDs…

So how can we balance this?

Before Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “flow” he co-authored “The Meaning of Things”, a study on how we relate to objects in our home. The book is from 1981 but it feels strangely resonant today, especially the parts that talk about attention. Whether you want to reach for a cup of coffee, or write a novel, you can only achieve your goals by directing your attention, so how we choose to direct our attention defines who we are.

“When someone invests psychic energy in an object […] that object becomes “charged with the energy of the agent. […] this lost energy can turn into a gain if as a result of the investment the agent achieves a goal he or she has set for his or herself.”

I think “attention economy” is too generous a term to describe the reality we find ourselves in. It’s a system that thrives on distraction, addiction and compulsion, all factors that disable our ability to construct our own identities. As they put in “The Meaning of Things”:

In other words, surround yourself with objects that give you purpose and direction, but make sure you’re deliberate with your curation and attention, otherwise you’ll end up surrounded by CDs you never listen to.

Conclusion

We’ve talked about CD, vinyl, cassettes and DVD, and the reasons each have returned but, really, the four reasons I’ve outlined apply across all, and across many other archaic formats that people are picking back up again. (Shout outs to all the minidisc heads out there!) Each of these formats will have afficionados that swear by them, and who might rightly point out that I’m not doing everything to get the perfect sound. I’ve only dipped my toe into each of these ponds, to understand their current-day appeal first hand, and the main thing this experiment has brought to light is what they all have in common:

There’s always a friction to using these older physical media formats. This stands in opposition to streaming services that provide such a smooth experience that you don’t even need to choose what to play – but streaming services also flatten us into nothing but consumers, something we recognise as inherently wrong, because we know that there are real people out there; human beings who decided to spend their limited time on Earth making you laugh, or dance, or think. And they put in so much attention on the creation side – the least they deserve is a fraction of that effort on our end.

Ritual is the word that comes to mind. Whether it’s a dusty cassette or a scratched CD, the effort you put into playing a physical media format imbues that media with importance and meaning. Streaming is surface level interaction because it’s designed by dorks and suits who don’t think culture is important, but it is! It deserves pomp and circumstance: The telling a story, the singing a song, these are some of the deepest and oldest ways for humans to connect.

We’ve only been able to capture sound and video for a century and a half. We’re figuring out how these recordings fit into our lives. But if there’s one thing that the return of physical media shows, it is this: Some things are worth holding onto, even if it takes some effort.

Jakob Burrows

August 2025

I never meant to actually buy one but I went a lot further down the rabbit hole than I intended — and I definitely ran into some problems along the way. So come with me on a journey of nostalgia, physical media, algorithmic anxiety and, of course, music.

Join me as we try to answer why are people buying iPods again?

iPod modding has been a thing for years but it seems to have exploded in popularity lately, and I’ve identified four main reasons why.

1. Pause

Why did I buy an iPod given that it’s a lot more convenient, not to mention cheaper, to just listen to music on your phone? Smartphones are incredible; they’re versatile devices able to perform functions that, in the past, would require a dozen different tools. And while Apple, Google and Spotify might push you towards their music streaming subscriptions, you can still put mp3-files on your phone, so why spend money, time and attention on a secondary, less able device?

Well, listening to music on your phone might be convenient, but you know what’s even more convenient? Checking that notification, or email, or opening social media. that’s the funnel you enter as soon as you pick up your smartphone, and setting aside the fact that they’re distraction machines, your smartphone also functions as a sensor, detecting your every move, your every swipe. and that data is funnelled into a vast machinery that aims to predict and manipulate your actions, all at the expense of your time, attention and mental health.

We’re all aware of this, we’re all upset about it, and yet very little is done to change it, and I’m sure you know why — big tech corporations earn unfathomable sums of money, and they only need to use a small chunk of it to legally bribe politicians into not passing meaningful legislation to regulate their behaviour.

In short, the ultimate goal of the software on your smartphone is to extract value from you.

Do you know what the ultimate goal of the software on the ipod is? To play audio files.

I think we’ve reached a tipping point where a lot of people feel the need to get away from their smartphones. This has led to an increased interest in dumbphones, “digital minimalism” and, yes, iPods. That’s the first reason that iPods are making a come-back. there’s a society-wide desire to put a pause on the relentless connectivity of every day life. And what better way to detach than to put your phone away and listen to an album from start to finish?

2. Curation

My music taste is pretty all-over the place, which I probably have my brother to thank for. When I was real young he worked for a record company and whenever he’d visit he’d bring loads of random “promotional use only” CDs that were just lying around his office. This is how I got into Gisli, Maximo Park, The Magic Numbers. And with my tastes all over the place, I never found algorithms that great at finding things I would love. Sure, they can find things I might enjoy, but things I love? that usually comes from suggestions from other humans or intentional digging. but maybe that’s not just me.

In his book Filterworld, Kyle Chayka describes this as an era of algorithmic culture. These days, most of the art and information we consume is curated by recommendation systems. and the purpose of those systems is not to find you the best or most interesting match; it’s to make money. There are obvious signs of this, like Amazon recommending its own brands over the products that they pirate and clone, but it happens in more subtle ways when it comes to culture.

When you play a song on Spotify, the platform will by default queue up more tracks that its algorithm has supposedly hand-picked for you based on your unique listening habits. But in 2024 many people noticed that no matter what song they played, Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso would always play next. Quite a coincidence given that Spotify is in part owned by Universal Music Group! But this might not technically be a case of “payola” but rather a function of how algorithmic recommendations, just by virtue of how they work, are really boring. They’re averaging machines that box us in rather than help us discover — and the result is a cookie cutter culture. As Chayka writes, “our net behaviors are aggregated by an algorithm, then crunched and averaged and spit back out to create templates of consumption that are imposed on other people.”

One researcher tried to get Spotify to please recommend a country song made by a woman. They set up an account that only listened to songs by women, and it still took 120 country songs by men before a single song by a woman popped up. Y’all never heard of Dolly Parton?!

The most compelling part of Filterworld is its vision for the future, as Chayka urges us to become active curators of our own cultural diets. And that’s the second reason that iPods are on the come-up. To use one, you have to find and collect the music that you like — which will probably force you to explore new media and maybe even expand your tastes. There’s a friction to it that increases the value of the music itself, which stands in contrast to how platforms like Spotify treat musicians as disposable. Where algorithms divide us, person-to-person recommendations bring us together, and iPods are part of the trend towards physical media as opposed to streaming. They open the door for a future guided not by “corporate algorithms” but by “community and curation”.

3. Modding

I have a confession to make: I’ve been down this path before, and last time, it was Game Boys. I grew up with the Game Boy and never really let go of it. In my 20s I took a notion to start modding them, and I learned a lot about it, even bought some used ones to tinker with, but I never pulled the trigger on the actual modding.

One reason was that the Analogue Pocket came onto the market, offering everything I wanted in a perfect Game Boy, all without me needing to learn how to solder. So I bought it and used it for a while, but it’s mostly been gathering dust, and I think a main reason why is that I didn’t make it. I didn’t work on it myself, I just bought my way into the perfect Game Boy. So while it’s a cool device, I don’t feel any personal connection to it.

A 2011 study defined the “IKEA effect”, a cognitive bias we have towards products we’ve put effort into. They had people assemble IKEA products and then assess their monetary value, with a control group assessing the value without working on assembly. They did this with lego and origami too and the results were consistent; people assign a higher value to things they’ve worked on. As the study says “labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one’s labor.” Maybe this isn’t surprising; we’re all familiar with the satisfaction of a job well done. but it turns out that it doesn’t matter if the job is well done. The study found that this effect was so strong that “consumers believe that their self-made products rival those of experts”

This is the third aspect of the iPod’s renewed appeal: the modding process itself. While you can buy a pre-modded iPod or, if you’re lucky, find one with the battery still working, using an iPod these days will usually involve a bit of tinkering; which as the IKEA effect shows, will raise the value mentally of the thing you’re working on. In other words, if you’ve spent time and effort creating an alternate way to listen to music, you’re way more likely to actually use it.

Despite me making it look very difficult in the video version of this post, modding iPods is very accessible; you don’t even need a soldering iron for the most basic mods. Unlike today’s Apple products, iPods like my 5th generation model were designed to be repairable, so for people who are pretty bad at hardware (like me), this is a great entry-level mod. You get a chance to breathe life into old technology while working with your hands, learning new skills and, maybe, gaining a deeper understanding of the everyday tech that surrounds us.

4. Nostalgia

It’s been over a month so — have I been using the ipod? The short answer is yes, though I have run into some problems. First, if I leave it alone for a day or so, it just won’t switch on, which you’d think means the battery is empty but no, as soon as you plug it in, it switches on fine and the battery is usually almost full. I don’t know why this happens, but it’s extremely annoying and it stops me from just casually throwing it in my bag and taking it with me. I assume it’s a battery issue but let me know if you have other ideas.

Secondly, while the iPod closed up neatly at the start, the friction of carrying it means it’s almost always half popped open, so if I do replace the battery, I’ll probably get the thicker back to go with it as well. You can also see that the replacement shell isn’t as high quality as the original; it’s already getting pretty scratched up.

Besides the battery thing, these are all nitpicks, because overall I’m much more likely to listen to music now, which was the whole point. For all its faults, it still makes me happy to hold my iPdo, which is rare for a piece of tech these days. And sure, a lot of that is probably nostalgia. That’s the elephant in the room, isn't it? Are these devices actually good or do we look back at them with rose-tinted glasses. The same question holds for old digital cameras, which are also having a moment right now. I grew up nostalgic for the film photography of my parents but I didn’t think the jpg-artefact littered images of my youth would come back into fashion, but they have, and why shouldn’t they?

Based on media from these past couple of decades, nostalgia seems to have become more popular than ever before, and “in their ceaseless search for new marketable objects of nostalgia the media now do little but devour themselves.” Except that’s not a new thing, and I can prove it, because that right there is a quote from 1979!

In his book Yearning for Yesterday sociologist Fred Davis talks about “The Nostalgia Orgy of the Nineteen-Seventies” and he poses the question of “why is there so much nostalgia right now?” his answer is that nostalgia is a means by which we “assuage apprehension of the future by retrieving the worth of the past” and he believes we’re extra susceptible to trends of nostalgia when we face “untoward historic events and intrusive social change”

the popularity in the 1970s of Grease, Happy Days and other US media romanticising the ‘50s and ‘60s, can, by that logic, be understood as a reaction to the Vietnam war, the assassination of national leaders, riots, protests, and the collapse of faith in government that came from Watergate. It’s not difficult to apply the same logic today, with similar crisis fuelling our obsession with the ‘80s, ‘90s and, now, early 2000s. the most popular creator of iPod videos rose to prominence in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and there’s no shortage of wars, terror attacks, and civil unrest to choose from. As for watergate parallels, the 2021 attempted coup in the US seems appropriate, except y’all re-elected Nixon this time, I guess? Add to that some wage stagnation, skyrocketing costs of living, impending climate disaster and… well, is it any wonder that we look towards the past rather than the future?

Fred Davis speaks of the US in the 70s as a time of “collective identity crisis, of a period of radical discontinuity in a people's sense of who and what they are,” and that’s when nostalgia becomes useful. No wonder we need it now!

Conclusion

The objects and tools we surround ourselves with are statement about the type of world we want to live in, and in the case of iPods, the four factors we’ve discussed come together beautifully:

• In the now they gives us a way to PAUSE, to escape toxic algorithms, and be more present.
• But they can also help us build a future where music is CURATED, recommended and collected by humans instead of leased back to us via streaming.
• Then there’s the MODDING aspect; cracking these things open and customising them, even just buying them second hand, it’s the opposite to how big corporations want us to interact with tech. We all want tech to be repairable but it benefits them to make it disposable, at the expense of the environment and our wallets.
• And finally there’s the nostalgia for the past. It might sound like a cheap reason to like something, but I think it’s good to be nostalgic for the world of tech and world-wide-web as it was when iPods first came out. That internet was an open frontier, an unincorporated space where we were all just excited to share. I’m still holding on to that, much like I’m holding on to the iPod; that’s why I’ve maintained this personal website for the last *looks at watch* 17 years.

I’m glad I went on this journey but it should go without saying that it doesn’t have to be an iPod. You can strive for all of these ideals in different ways and ultimately, it’s just an object, and an imperfect one at that. But the technologies we use do shape our lives, and I’m sorry to say that going with the default usually means being taken advantage of. Music streaming means musicians are taken advantage of, while the music itself is reduced to “content”.

Ultimately,I haven’t thought this much about music in a long time, and that’s probably the biggest benefit of this little project. I’m paying attention to what goes into my ears, which feels just as important as making conscious decisions about what I eat, read and believe.

So, whether it’s with an iPod or not, my advice is this:

Turn the content off, and put the music back on.

Jakob Burrows

March, 2025

Screenplays are less like novels and more like blueprints, and at the start you haven’t built anything yet, so the first season of a show is often written “blind” in a way that later seasons simply are not. So, just as you might see big changes comparing a pilot to episode two, a first season can act as a pilot for the rest of the series; a starting point to be improved upon.

And there are, of course, many ways that Buffy Season 1 might have been improved upon, including special effects and fight choreography, factors that couldn’t yet match the high ambition of the script. Even the most die hard Buffy fan will admit that, compared to later seasons, Buffy Season 1 is different and I’ve even seen people recommend which episodes to skip to get to the good seasons, something that might well have seemed reasonable to my past self. However, I wrote this essay because on my most recent re-watch I had an epiphany, and it is this: My past was an idiot, Season 1 is just as good as later seasons, and I got the proof, baby!

WELCOME TO MY TED TALK

Welcome to the Hellmouth

From the very first shot we’re introduced to a Sunnydale High wreathed in shadows, with a camera that meanders through the halls in the point-of-view tradition of 80s horror flicks. Welcome to the cold open, the bit before the intro, the part where someone is usually murdered! That’s the main function, teasing a mystery to catch your interest, but a great cold open should also be thematically relevant. Screenwriting 101 will tell you that the first scene should work as a microcosm of the whole story, just as the first page of a novel gives you a good idea of what to expect, and the first scene in Buffy does just that as we’re introduced to Darla, a seeming victim who turns out to be the monster – and this tells us exactly what to expect, not just from the episode, but from the whole show.

The creation of Buffy started with the idea to invert the trope of ”the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie”. In Buffy, that girl is the hunter, and this is only the first in a cavalcade of tropes we’ll be playing around with. Hell, this show is probably the reason you know what a “trope” even is, as TVTropes.org was created specifically to keep track of how Buffy played with genre conventions, after which the website branched out and became a repository that covers all known media from Gilmore Girls to Gilgamesh.

A lot of writers would do well to remember that just throwing a bunch of tropes together does not automatically create a story. And the basic conceit of “what if that blonde girl was actually the hunter” — that’s not a story. It’s a twist, but it’s not a foundation that you can create episode after episode from. For that you need a springboard, a mechanism by which you can launch a thousand plots. And in Buffy that mechanism is: What if that slayer had to fight a different monster every week? Now you have an external plot but that’s still not a story because there’s nothing internal happening there. For that, we need to get to the foundational mythic core upon which all of Buffy is built. Which Buffy’s mother helpfully lays out in the two-part pilot:

“Everything is life and death when you’re a 16 year old girl.”

That right there is the thesis, because each monster that Buffy fights serves as a heightened version of some real-life relatable problem that teenagers go through. That’s what all good fantasy does; monsters are always stand-ins for real-life problems, whether that’s Godzilla representing our fear of nuclear fallout or witches representing our fear of, you know, women. If a hero fights a monster without a real-life anxiety attached to it, that’s just a pointless action sequence, but when a hero can punch a monster and, at the same time, punch the concept of bullying — well, hot damn, that’s what storytelling is all about!

For example: In the third episode, The Witch, Buffy perceives her mother as overbearing, attempting to take over her life. Turns out there’s another girl, Amy, whose mother is literally taking over her life, having Freaky Fridayed the two of them with dark magic so she can re-live her glory days — and she’s not afraid to set fire to a few cheerleaders to get there. Thus, the natural, every-day problem that Buffy is dealing with has been elevated into the supernatural, allowing her to physically fight and defeat it, and bringing us neatly to a reconciliation with her mother at the end, as Buffy has learned something through this experience. Now, that’s a story!

Bullying is tackled in the sixth episode, The Pack, where the idea of teens acting despicably due to pack mentality is elevated into the supernatural when Xander is inflicted with a Hyena spirit, and in Out of Sight, Out of Mind, a perpetually ignored girl feels invisible to her peers, and the demonic radiation of the Hellmouth causes her to become actually invisible, which drives her to take revenge against those who ignored her. Of course, in that episode, Buffy herself is dealing with feelings of alienation; her real-life problems let her identify with her opponents, which allows her to change and grow once she understands the psychological impulse of the monster and either kicks its ass or rehabilitates it (often both).

Look, I know I’m not breaking any new ground here, you probably knew that Buffy fights teenage problems made manifest and if you didn’t, you could grasp it by watching pretty much any episode. That deeper meaning might not always seem so deep (some of the monsters are pretty on the nose) but this central aspect still infuses the show with a mythic quality. Myths are our way of making sense of the world, and through the show we follow Buffy as she makes sense of everyday problems by punching them in the face. The fact that these are relatable problems we all have to face when growing up is what makes it such a highly resonant show.

The coupling of the monster stuff and the teen stuff allows this show to create something new, where each elevates the other. We get the best of both worlds, as the sun-drenched Sunnydale High stands in contrast to world of shadows in which the teenage subconscious goes into battles far greater than what can be seen on the surface. Teen dramas and creature features both have a plethora of conventions to pull from and in Buffy Season 1 these genres come crashing together in such a spectacular fashion that they fuse, creating something entirely new. It might not seem so revolutionary now, but the list of shows, movies, comics and other creative works that wouldn’t exist at all without Buffy’s first season is incredibly long. And of course that list starts with Buffy seasons 2-7.

Because despite any of its faults — which we’ll get to— Buffy Season 1 lays an extremely solid foundation.

The Importance of a Solid Foundation

Later seasons would go on to complicate the relationship between the natural and supernatural world in ways that brought more depth to the storytelling, but none of that would be possible without a solid foundation to stand on. You cannot start out with complexity which, again, is something that modern TV needs to remember.

Back in the early 2000s, we were fatigued with shows resetting their status quo at the end of each episode, we longed for longer-form storytelling and our culture has been enriched by great writers pulling that off to perfection, but we’ve also seen how a longer runtime can get squandered. How often have you watched a Netflix show with a plot that probably would have worked well as a feature film, but instead they stretched it into a dozen episodes? The business priorities behind TV production have shifted; it’s now less important to lure viewers back after commercial breaks, and more important to produce an endless stream of CONTENT for people to leave on while they’re on their phones.

Netflix is sending scripts back to writers with requests that the characters announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have the show on in the background can follow along. They’re literally asking writers to tell, not show, because they don’t expect people to pay attention. You might say, “well Jakob, bad shows have always existed, you need to seek out shows that are made for smart people who like to pay attention”. But guess what, most of these “smart” shows people tell me to watch shy away from honest, old-fashioned storytelling and instead rely on unanswered questions and endless flashback episodes in hopes of luring people back with some great mystery. Remember Westworld? I’m proud to say that I saw where that shit was going from the very start — absolutely nowhere!

I bet if Buffy Season 1 was made today, the full 12 episodes would be used to solve ONE mystery, with action set pieces at the end of each episode to make it feel like something’s happening. But that’s not what Buffy is; compared to your average Netflix show, the amount of plot packed into each episode should be overwhelming but it’s not. And it gets the balance between episodic and long-form storytelling just right. Sure, as later seasons got more episodes they could take that further but I’m shocked at the confidence with which Buffy the Vampire Slayer explodes onto the screen in its first season.

They got so many things right from the very start, like the charm, comedy and genuine emotion that Sarah Michelle Gellar brings to the character from the get go. Screw it, ditto that for the whole ensemble cast with Giles’ sincerity, Willow’s awkwardness hiding steel underneath, Xander’s… let’s not talk about Xander. So much of what you like about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was there from the get-go; when Giles and Buffy clash in the first episode, it’s funny but there’s a hint of something more. There’s already a sense that she needs him to navigate this, and that she doesn’t have a choice because she’s linked to this other world of darkness, much as she would prefer to walk in the light.

Of course, there’s one counter-argument you could make: You could say that all this myth nonsense is well and good, but the show still looks terrible. It’s full of rubbery monster mask, sub-par fight scenes and production shortcomings they’ve tried to cover up with editing. The good stuff is good, but there’s also a lot of bad stuff, more bad stuff than in later seasons, so how can you say it’s just as good?!

Well, to answer that question, I need to tell you about another institution built atop the gates of hell: Darkplace Hospital.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is an 80s low-budget monster-of-the-week horror show created by and starring author, dreamweaver and visionary Garth Marenghi… OR IS IT?

No, no it isn’t — Darkplace is actually a parody of cheesy 80s horror and action shows, created by Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness. It’s a different take on the mockumentary format brought to prominence by The Office in 1999. Matthew Holness plays horror author Garth Marenghi, a self-obsessed and delusional parody version of Stephen King who, in the universe of the show, made a terrible TV show in the 1980s that never saw the light of day. Then, in 2004 they finally broadcast the show, interwoven with present-day interviews with the cast and crew, discussing what absolute visionaries they were back in the day, which is juxtaposed with the wonderfully terrible show that they made.

What makes Darkplace shine is the attention to detail; every aspect of the show lives and breathes "this was shot in somebody's garage\”. The intentionally bad sets, continuity errors, editing to cover up bad acting and sub-par special effects all make it a pitch-perfect send-up of cheesy old television shows. In the plot of the fake 80s show, Garth Marenghi plays Doctor Rick Daglass, a former warlock who opened a portal to hell under his hospital and who is now fighting back the demons and occult occurrences he’s unleashed, together with a rag-tag group of hospital employees.

All of that is funny, but it should get quickly – what keeps you interested is that in the same way that Buffy heightens real-world teen problems into the supernatural, each episode of Darkplace offers new insight into the warped mind of Garth himself. His twisted worldview is baked into the structure of the show, allowing each episode to explore some new, horrible aspect of his personality.

For example, he elevates his racism against Scottish people into the supernatural in The Scotch Mist and in Hell Hath Fury Garth elevates the real-world nightmare of “a woman you know being on her period” by turning Doctor Liz into a psychotic psychic who can make your head explode with a scream. Throughout it all, Garth writes himself to be the coolest dude ever; every episode ends with him standing atop Darkplace Hospital, gazing into the distance and brooding on a Boreanaz level while inner monologuing about what he’s learned. At its core, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is a character study of a delusional egomaniac, packaged as a parody.

But why am I telling you all this? Well, because watching Darkplace fills me with an unbridled joy. The cheesiness, the jank, the barely-held-together narratives, I find them all incredibly charming. It’s clear that the creators are very technically talented — because you have to be really good to make something look this bad — and that they have a deep love for the “cheesy” and “bad” media that they’re making fun of. I have that love as well, because this particular flavour of bad is often the result of humans being profoundly creative, and way more ambitious than what they’re able to pull off. It has the same charm as the action movie my older brother shot when he was, like, 14 years old, which, when I saw it, was a big part of me going “wait a minute, you can make movies?” And Buffy Season 1 fills you with the same energy and purpose — it makes you go “wait, you can tell stories like this?”

Usually, something made to be intentionally bad, like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, can never be as satisfying as the genuine article — but guess what, Buffy Season 1 is the genuine article. The biggest and most understandable criticism of Season 1 is that the production quality isn’t quite there yet and, as a result, the show is simply too cheesy. But I’m here to tell you: The cheese has matured.

I Robot, You Jane

One of my favourite episodes of Buffy is one that often appears when people list their worst episodes; namely S01E08: I Robot, You Jane. The concept is absolutely bonkers and could pretty much be an episode of Darkplace. It starts with a demon getting trapped in a book in the 1400s, and the book winds up in Giles’ collection, which is being scanned and digitised as a project run by computer teacher Jenny Calendar. This means that the usually deserted library is invaded by a brigade of nerd students hopped up on cyberspace hype, much to Giles’ horror.

I want a tattoo of that whole speech.

Willow scans the book which releases the trapped demon onto the internet, and as a malevolent ghost in the machine, Moloch the demon poses as “Malcolm” a nice boy that Willow meets in an online chat room and quickly falls for. (This was back when the idea of meeting a potential romantic partner online was very strange, far from the standard that it is today.) Buffy and Xander are wigged out and try to investigate this Malcolm, only to be thwarted by the nerd brigade who are being mind controlled by Moloch. Nice nerd boy Dave tries to fight this mind control and his murder is staged as if he died by suicide.

Everything comes to a head as it turns out Moloch has taken over the minds of scientists at a computer research lab, where he’s having them build him a new body. He reveals his true nature to Willow, who understandably isn’t down with the whole mind-control and murder thing, and as per tradition Buffy gets to punch this problem in the face.

I love every part of this strange and ridiculous piece of television. From the corny fantasy/sci-fi mix to the on-the-nose commentary on online stranger danger. On the surface it’s goofy fun, and under the surface is a genuine core to the story that lets you get something out of it, even nearly 30 years later. Willow’s nerdy peers are mind-controlled by Moloch in a way that now feels very incel-coded; the more “jacked in” they are, the more susceptible they are to Moloch’s manipulation.

And there are the two great appeals of Buffy season 1; the surface silliness combined with the deeper, genuine core. Sure, maybe they were going for something more serious, we’re supposed to be thrilled by the fight scenes, not laughing at them and if you don’t see the appeal of I Robot, You Jane, I understand why Season 1 might be a bore. But if you enjoy the corny camp, the outright Garth Marenghi-style silliness, then Buffy Season 1 is a high, not a low.

The Problem with The Master

I have a few concessions to make before we wrap this up, starting with The Master. Let’s be honest, there’s no comparing The Master with Spike, or Glory, or even Adam. The Master is a completely impotent antagonist who’s trapped underground for the whole season and never really does anything. He exists as an idea of a looming, greater threat, which is fine, but it’s never going to be as interesting as an active antagonist that engages with the world. Even in the final fight he can only beat Buffy through some sort of mind control bullshit that I don’t think we even knew he could do? And then, once Buffy’s back from the dead, she handily dispatches in the epitome of underwhelming fight scenes.

The Master does manage to acquire “The Anointed One” but again that feels more like an idea than a well-executed concept. It’s the trope of the haunted creepy child, except all we get is an awkward-looking kid doing an impression of an emotionless vampire. They hype up his great purpose but all he ever does is show Buffy where to go in the finale, a task that any underling could have performed. To be fair, the writers fully realised this misstep and The Anointed One finally fills a function in early season 2 when Spike promptly murders him and we go whoa, this guy’s way cooler than The Master; he’s actually gonna do stuff.

I don’t want you to think that I’m blind to the imperfections of the season, but rather I think that those imperfections have, with time, become part of its charm. The swish-swoosh sound effects to mediocre acrobatics, the dramatic saccharine score, the low-key lighting used to hide all the things they couldn’t afford. If you look at the vampire dusting effect and compare it to later seasons, you’ll understand why they made the most of what they had at hand — like, crossfades.

Doesn’t it make you feel all cozy and nostalgic? I know I’m biassed because I actually did watch the show when it came out, though Teacher’s Pet scared me so much I had to step away for a number of episodes. But I enjoy Season 1 more now than I did 10-20 years ago, probably because you can’t see how wonderfully “of its time” a work of art is when you’re also of that time.

Conclusion

You’ve heard my arguments:

Firstly, a lot of what you like about Buffy was there from the get go, more than you’d expect.

Secondly, later seasons add more complexity, but they couldn’t have done so without the solid foundation that Season 1 lays down.

And thirdly, there are ways that the season is “bad” but those constitute a particular kind of cheese that has only matured over time. It’s enjoyable to me in the same way that a corny 80s movie is enjoyable; the technical faults have a charm that elevate the viewing experience. Later seasons may have higher production values, but they also have less cheese, and I enjoy both those things in different ways, meaning that they balance each other out and allow this technically inferior season to reach the same high levels.

I have one last caveat: None of what I said is true if you watch the HD remaster, which tragically crops away half the screen and fails to apply any of the same color correction, meaning that the moody dark atmosphere is completely swept away. Find the 4:3 DVD version and thank me later. And also, past self, please remember that it’s only 12 episodes. That’s not a slog.

You should watch it, and don’t skip any episodes. Not even the puppet one.

Jakob Burrows

Video published January, 2025

Text published March, 2025

However, Polymatter’s recent video concerning Apple has not received the usual response, with a dislike rate nearing 50%. It's about the antitrust lawsuit filed by the US government against Apple Inc., and many viewers seem to think that Polymatter makes bad faith arguments in this video, leaves out important context, and overall comes across as having a strong bias in Apple’s favour. Some even accuse Polymatter of taking money from Apple on the sly, which I think is insane – but I do think there’s much more to the story of this lawsuit than what Polymatter chooses to tell, which is why I’ve made this video.

Today we’re going to look at the complaint put forward by the US government against Apple, and see how Polymatter’s video holds up under closer examination. And in the interest of not being a total hypocrite, let me be clear about one thing: I largely agree with the points put forward by the US government. In other words, if Polymatter’s video is biased, then my video certainly is. My intent is not to present both sides of the argument with equal credence and weight, but rather to turn the legal jargon of the complaint into something more digestible, and to create a counter-balance to the allegedly biased presentation in the Polymatter video. I will also make my own assessment about whether the Polymatter video actually is biased or not so keep reading for that tasty drama.

But to have a chance of understanding this at all, we’re going to have to start with a history lesson.

1. Playing Fair: A History Lesson

Apple in the 1990s was a struggling company in the personal computer market where there was one dominant player: Microsoft. Apple had been first to create an operating system with a graphical user interface but by the mid-1980s, Microsoft had followed suit – or as Apple would say, Microsoft had copied them. Bill Gates set the aim that “only applications that take advantage of Windows [should] be competitive in the long run” and by the 90s, their operating system was gaining traction while Apple fell behind, preoccupied with a bloated and confusing product line. I know you’ve heard of the iPad, but have you heard of the Newton MessagePad? How about the Pippin?

By 1997, Apple was reporting losses of hundreds of millions of dollars – per quarter – and though Apple and Microsoft struck a deal that helped turn things around, Steve Jobs still criticised Microsoft for dirty monopoly tactics and Apple went to the Department of Justice in hopes of getting Microsoft “to play fair.” Microsoft, meanwhile, was doing very well, with their Windows 95 taking great strides in OS design and taking the market by storm.

Microsoft had one threat looming on the horizon, but it wasn’t Apple — it was Netscape.

Before most people had access to the internet, what mattered was what YOUR computer could do. The hardware and software you owned shaped your digital experience, which, given Windows’ dominant position, meant that Microsoft shaped your experience. But in the 1990s, the Internet was becoming a mainstream platform for communication and commerce; it was a new way to use your computer and it was outside of Microsoft’s control. The most popular browser was created by Netscape, a small company founded in 1994 which quickly grew an enormous valuation. This did not sit right with Microsoft, who used their dominant position to insert their own web browser as the default on all Windows devices.

If you’ve ever used Internet Explorer, this should piss you off.

In 1998, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that the company had abused its monopoly power to stifle competition, maintaining its dominance at the expense of innovation and the choice of consumers. One of the witnesses who testified was Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering who said that Microsoft “[had written] steps into its operating system to ensure that a QuickTime file [Apple’s video format] will not operate reliably on Windows,” thereby “trick[ing] the user into believing that QuickTime technology is part of the problem actually caused by the Windows operating system.”

The court found Microsoft guilty and ordered the company to be broken up into two separate entities, which, as you may have noticed, didn’t happen. Microsoft appealed and reached a settlement agreement under which they had to be more open about allowing other software on their OS, specifically sharing access to their application programming interfaces (or APIs) with third-party companies.

Apple meanwhile was starting to do OK; they got some momentum with the release of the iMac in 98, but they wouldn’t catch lightning in a bottle until the release of the first iPod. Actually, the first iPod sold fine but it wasn’t a smash hit, in part because it was only compatible with Mac computers. It was the second generation iPod that introduced Windows compatibility, allowing this new MP3-player to be adopted outside Apple’s existing user base, and it was from there that things really took off for Apple, later leading to the iPhone.

Would the iPod’s Windows compatibility have been possible without the settlement agreement between the Department of Justice and Microsoft? Probably, but you can be sure that with the DOJ breathing down their neck, Microsoft wasn’t going to intentionally suffocate the Windows version of iTunes, the way they’d tried to do to QuickTime and Netscape. And note that though Windows was the dominant OS, Microsoft wasn’t taking a 30% cut of every song you bought on the Windows version of iTunes.

Why did Microsoft make these questionable decisions? Why was Netscape such a threat? Well, web browsers were platform-independent, a type of “middleware” that made users less reliant on the operating system that was Microsoft’s cash cow. If software and services moved to the web, the underlying operating system and hardware didn’t matter as much, and users wouldn’t be as tied to the Windows ecosystem.

You can probably see where I’m going with this, right?

Web browsers made devices more interoperable, and interoperability, I would argue, is empirically a good thing for consumers, no matter how bad it might be for monopolistic tech giants interested in exponential profit growth.

I want you to remember what Apple had to say about Microsoft intentionally breaking Quicktime and making it worse on the Windows platform. Because they are doing exactly the same thing to competitors and independent developers today!

2. Cloud Rent: The Apple Tax

Before we get into Fitbits and Green Bubbles, let’s clarify what’s actually being alleged. Apple has a goal of locking users into their ecosystem – and creating a great ecosystem of hardware and software that makes people want to stick around is not illegal. The question, rather, is whether they’ve used their dominant position to screw people over.

In their video, Polymatter spends a lot of time on what Apple customers think of Apple products, and the DOJ does allege that Apple’s goal of stifling competitors leads to it making its own products worse, but the complaint focuses on “Apple’s use of its dominance to impose contracts and rules that restrict the behaviour and design decisions of companies other than Apple.”

So what contracts and rules are they talking about?

Well, the iPhone that launched in 2007 had limited functionality compared to what we’re used to today. There were no third-party apps, just the ones made by the company. But within a year, Apple had launched their App Store with 500 applications from independent developers – a number that has since grown into the millions. Because this was such a new type of technology, there were no regulations forcing Apple to open up its new platform and allow developers in, but they chose to do so – and it was a good choice, both for consumers and for Apple. Without having to do the hard work of programming themselves, they had turned their phone with an iPod into a device that could do seemingly anything!

But the lack of regulation meant that there was no oversight for how Apple wielded their newfound power. Whenever a new innovative app came into being – through someone else’s hard work – Apple didn’t just benefit from the increased value brought to the iPhone, they also took a 30% cut of the sales price of the app. And if you made any purchases in that app or started any subscriptions, Apple took a cut of that as well.

This is why you can’t start a Spotify subscription in their app – Spotify doesn’t want to give away 30% of its revenue. And who could blame them? What exactly are developers getting for that 30%? For years, Apple told them they were paying for promotion in the app, but then they started charging additional fees for promotion – and if you don’t pay up, your competitor probably will and, don’t worry, we’ll put them right at the top when someone is searching for your app. But hey, at least Apple got another 4.4 billion dollars for these new ads (in 2022).

What you’re actually paying is what the DOJ calls a “monopoly rent”, meaning one set without competition and unrelated to the actual cost of the service provided by Apple. This “Apple tax”, as some call it, is one of the three main ways that Apple illegally exploits its monopoly, according to the DOJ, and it doesn’t come up at all in the Polymatter video.

In his book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis calls this “cloud rent” and describes the App Store as the first “cloud fief”. In a feudal system, all the land belongs to the monarch who grants lords custody of parcels of land, with the responsibility of extracting value from that land and the associated peasantry, all while paying taxes back to the top. Varoufakis’ thesis is that capitalism is dead and we’re back in that system, with cloudalist monarchs like Apple and Amazon exploiting the lords beneath them who in turn exploit the peasantry — meaning us. He describes how:

Varoufakis claims Amazon and the App Store aren’t marketplaces because monopolies have long since been established, and companies like Nokia, Sony and Blackberry never built their own app stores was that it was too late — with Apple quickly cornering the market, third-party developers couldn’t waste resources developing for platforms with fewer users — especially not while giving up 30% of their profits to their overlord.

Now, if only there was a way that apps could work across platforms!

3. Super Apps & Cloud Streaming: Barbarians at the Gates

The second way that Apple illegally exploits their monopoly — according to the DOJ — is that they use their control over app distribution to enforce “rules and contractual restrictions that stop or delay developers from innovating in ways that threaten Apple’s power.” Two examples of this are the restrictions they’ve imposed on so-called Super Apps and Cloud Streaming. Though these are different technologies, both are a type of “middleware” that open new possibilities for users and thereby threaten Apple in the same way that web browsers like Netscape threatened Microsoft in the 1990s. They weaken the user’s dependence on the Apple ecosystem, Super Apps on the software side, and Cloud Streaming on the hardware side.

A “super app” is one that can serve as a platform for many smaller apps, but it’s not the same as just putting a bunch of apps in a folder. Unlike apps from the App Store, these smaller programs can be created using cross-platform languages like HTML5 and JavaScript, meaning that you only need to create one version of each and it would run just fine on any operating system or browser. So besides making it easier for consumers to switch phones, the versatility of super apps could be a real boon to developers looking to tap into economies of scale across both iOS and Android. But it won’t surprise you to learn that Apple only wants you to program using their approved programming languages and hardware, meaning that your work can’t be easily ported elsewhere.

The complaint quotes one Apple manager who stated that allowing super apps to become “the main gateway where people play games, book a car, make payments, etc.” would “let the barbarians in at the gate.” (p. 30)

While there’s no “official” ban on super apps, Apple has a habit of imposing restrictions that make it practically impossible to do what they don’t want you to. For example, they’ve blocked mini programs from using Apple’s payment system (even if you wanted to pay the 30% Apple tax) and they’ve banned super apps from using icons or graphics to display their mini programs. In practice, this means that there are no real super apps available to US customers.

The main example of a super app that people bring up, and the one described as a nightmare scenario by Polymatter, is China’s WeChat. Polymatter says:

”the DOJ is right, super apps are bad for apple [the DOJs] mistake is assuming that super apps must be good for users […] Super apps merely replace one monopolist with another […] Would you want all 10-20-100 of the apps on your phone squeezed into one? For most people this would simply add an additional layer of complexity […] In the world the DOJ imagines, one super app reigns supreme across all platforms […] Restricting superapps is good for users”

I really think it’s weird that Polymatter tries to make it seem like the DOJ would force you to use super apps? And, just so you know, all these proclamations are set to very ominous music.”

The internet is designed differently for different cultures — just look at any Japanese website. I don’t personally see the appeal of super apps designed for Asian markets. I prefer software designed to do one thing well, unlike what, say, Instagram and TikTok have become. But due to Apple’s restrictions, we have not seen what a proper “designed for Americans” super app would look like. And that is entirely the DOJs point. I’m not a huge fan of this whole capitalism thing, but surely if you are, you can see how the “free market” is restrained here?

In the same way that Super Apps could make easier to switch from Apple software, cloud streaming could reduce people’s reliance on Apple hardware. Given where internet speeds and cloud computing is at, there’s no need to carry around expensive, high performance computers in our pockets. Whether you want to play games, edit video or just work, we’re at a point where the computing can happen remotely. As one Apple manager is quoted in the complaint:

“Imagine buying a [expletive] Android for 25 bux at a garage sale and it works fine . . . . And you have a solid cloud computing device. Imagine how many cases like that there are.”

Yes, indeed, imagine. But what’s good for consumers here is bad for Apple (even Polymatter agrees on this one) so Apple has done the same thing they did to super apps. While there may be no explicit ban they’ve complicated their rules and app moderation to choke out this whole field of apps before it could ever bloom.

Polymatter says that Super Apps would be bad for consumers and cloud streaming would be good. But even if you’re solely focused on “what’s better for consumers”, which is a deeply flawed way of approaching antitrust, please consider that both types of technology could increase competition and thereby force Apple to lower their prices. Which the company would be fully able to do given that their profit margin per iPhone is more than double that of other phone manufacturers.

4. “Green Bubbles”

The third complaint is that Apple doesn’t just attract users to their ecosystem with superior products, they actively work to “[drive] iPhone users away from products and services that compete with or threaten Apple”. This is where the complaints about Messaging, Smart Watches and Digital Wallets come into play. Let’s start with messaging.

In 2022, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was asked whether Apple would fix its broken iPhone-to-Android messaging. “It’s tough,” the questioner said,” not to make it personal but I can’t send my mom certain videos.” What did Tim Cook have to say in response? “Buy your mom an iPhone.” A line that will, hopefully, haunt him forever.

The DOJ’s complaint about iMessage is two-fold. In Apple’s own messaging App, they allow both carrier-based messages (SMS) and more complex messages when you contact someone else with an iPhone. This means that, using iMessage, you can literally contact anyone with a phone number. But Apple does not allow third-party messaging apps to use SMS, meaning that you can only reach people who have signed up to use that same app. Through this and other methods, Apple allegedly degrades apps created by their competitors to encourage people to only use their own default.

The second iMessage complaint relates to the famous “green bubbles”. If an iPhone user messages a non-iPhone user, the conversation thread appears as green, rather than the usual blue, and the functionality is severely limited with pixilated videos and unencrypted messages. Now, I don’t think it’s crazy to change the bubble colour to indicate when messages are less secure, but I do think it’s crazy that Apple is choosing to make these messages less secure. They’re still using SMS rather than RCS, the industry standard for carrier-based texting, which would allow encryption and higher functionality no matter who you’re messaging.

SMS is an ancient technology that we’ve long-since outgrown and yet Apple makes you use it if you’re texting anyone without an iPhone, making the conversation less secure and convenient for everyone involved. Why? To quote from the complaint: ”This signals to users that rival smartphones are lower quality because the experience of messaging friends and family who do not own iPhones is worse—even though Apple, not the rival smartphone, is the cause of that degraded user experience.”

Hey, isn’t that what Windows did with QuickTime? Apple has been able to fix this problem for years but it’s not been in their best interests because it would make it easier for “iPhone families to give their kids Android phones”. The DOJ references user surveys that reveal that “one of the biggest reasons iPhone users do not switch to rival smartphones today is to avoid the problems Apple has created for cross-platform messaging”

Now, to be fair, Apple has finally stated that they’re going to incorporate an older version of RCS into iMessage, but make no mistake, this is solely in response to regulatory pressure — and at the time of this writing, they haven’t actually done it yet. Given their track record of malicious compliance I’m not convinced that they will actually fix this problem in any meaningful way and, regardless, third-party apps still won’t be allowed to use RCS or SMS.

Polymatter calls the whole messaging argument weak, and says that green bubbles serve a purpose because they let you know that the conversation is unencrypted. This completely misses the point, which is that Apple chooses to make the conversation unencrypted (something that doesn’t come up in the Polymatter video).

If I’m honest, I think the argument that any app should be able to handle SMS isn’t the strongest. I can see the benefit of having one dedicated app for texting, as opposed to online messaging. But with iMessage, Apple has bundled a separate service, which would otherwise have few advantages over competitors, into their dedicated texting app. That makes the DOJ’s argument stronger, and I think the real kicker is that they made this the default messaging app. Install whatever apps you want, but if you try to message someone through your contact list, Apple takes the reins – and of course you’re not allowed to change the default. Except in the EU because we decided that’s illegal.

4. Smartwatches

I’ve been pretty hard on Apple so far, so let me tell you a quick story that will doubtless put a smile on Tim Cook’s face. In a former job of mine, I won an award for fulfilling some corporate value, and they gave me an Apple Watch. I would have preferred a pay increase, but I thought, at least it’s something? Except I was surprised to learn that my new device wouldn’t function at all with the Android phone I used at the time. It’s a big part of why my next phone, was an iPhone. While this was annoying, it didn’t seem illegal (not with current regulation, anyway), but let me tell you a different story:

Years ago, for my partner’s birthday, I got her the Fitbit that she wanted. It worked great and she loved it, until she got an iPhone. At that point her experience became glitchy, it wouldn’t sync properly and she’d always be missing steps in the Fitbit app, which would often crash. It was such a bad user experience that she eventually caved, bought an Apple Watch, and gave the Fitbit away.

It’s fine if devices from other companies work badly with iPhones if this is the fault of the other company, but if Apple intentionally limits the functionality of devices from other companies, as the DOJ alleges, then that does seem genuinely anticompetitive. And it’s simply a fact that they don’t give third parties access to the advanced APIs they use for their own products, so for smartwatches you can only respond to a message or accept a calendar invite using an Apple Watch. It’s not because Apple tech is superior, it’s simply because Apple doesn’t allow it. They also stop your third-party watch from easily maintaining a reliable connection with your iPhone, which is probably why my partner was missing those steps. Polymatter has this to say:

“The DOJ is right. This is pretty clearly anticompetitive.”

That’s great, let’s move to the next section —

“a completely level playing field would mean less of the deep integration that consumers love about apple”

…what??

“The DOJ never acknowledges this trade-off”

Maybe that’s because you made it up, Mr. Polymatter? No one is asking Apple to make their products work less well with one another? Or to remove features that they’ve built? They don’t even need to divert their money and attention into making products from other companies work better on their platform — all they need to do is open their APIs and other companies will work to make it function because they want access to Apple’s userbase.

5. Digital Wallets

Apple has a digital wallet that you can add your card details to and use to pay for things in everyday life, using the iPhone’s NFC chip. Apple have decided not to let any other developer to use this technology, even though there’s no reason that another app, like Google Pay or one created by your bank, shouldn’t work on iOS. Why have they done this? It’s the same reason as always: Money. For every credit card transaction, Apple charges banks 0.15% – with more and more people going contactless and leaving their wallets at home, Apple estimates that such fees will earn them around 1 billion dollars in revenue in 2025. Note that payment apps from Samsung and Google are free to issuing banks.

You might be saying “Jakob, as long as this fee affects my bank and not me, I don’t give a shit. Besides, don’t you want banks first against the wall when the revolution comes?” Valid points. But setting aside the fact that these fees do get passed on to you, let’s look to the future that Apple is trying to build. They want the Apple Wallet to be the tool you use for everything from shopping to opening your car, using public transport, getting on a flight and identifying yourself. Right now, if I got an Android phone, I’d be OK as I still have physical cards that I could put in an Android Wallet, but in the future that Apple imagines, that would not be possible, just like my Apple Watch would be useless without my iPhone.

Banks are rightly concerned. Seven major banks have come together to try to compete with their own digital wallet (PAZE) but they have little chance without access to the tap-to-pay technology that Apple is hoarding. Simply by limiting this access, Apple can extract monopoly rents from banks for access to the Apple userbase, while at the same time making that userbase more reliant on Apple in the long-term. If Apple had actually produced a superior digital wallet that people chose over competitors, this would not be an issue – but it is only superior, and Apple can only get those extra billions, by locking competitors out and limiting how we use the expensive-ass pieces of tech that we fucking own.

I’m no staunch defender of banks, but I don’t think that Apple eating up more and more of the overall economy would ultimately be better for “consumers”. In the end, we will be the ones paying; that’s how monopolies work. They undercut competitors and leverage their size to grow, and then they drive up prices. It may sound like a good deal in the short run, but someone ultimately has to pay because the goal under capitalism is always unfettered growth.

Just one more thing on Wallets – in an ideal world, my bank and I are the only ones that know my card details. That certainly seems like the most private and secure option. But if I want to tap my phone to make a payment, Apple won’t let my bank manage that transaction – the company inserts itself into the process and demands that I share my card details directly with them, adding a fun new point of failure. Apple often touts itself as a champion of privacy but, something’s not quite adding up here…

6. The Privacy & Security Argument

I’ve always been a privacy advocate, and I find the Surveillance Capitalist society we live in absolutely absurd and mind-numbingly infuriating, so I’m onboard with the small wins Apple has given us to support their marketing claim of being privacy-focused. No other tech company has so successfully tied their brand to the value of “Privacy”. But make no mistake; this is marketing. No corporation’s ultimate goal is privacy, it’s to make money.

For example, I like that you can easily turn off tracking for most apps in iOS – generally speaking, anything that upsets Mark Zuckerberg is probably a good thing – but this is no great sacrifice for Apple. They are simply preventing other companies from modifying the behaviour of their users; something Apple prefer to do themselves. They spend a lot of money advertising themselves as privacy champions while choosing to compromise your privacy and security in order to up their revenue. We’ve already talked about how:

1. Apple forces you to use outdated, unencrypted messages when texting in order to get you to to “buy your mom an iPhone.”
2. They force you to share your financial information with them if you want to use your phone to tap-to-pay, even though that information could easily remain confidential between you and your bank (or a different third party).
3. Apple accept billions of dollars from Google to make them the default search engine on iOS, even though Google are the original surveillance capitalists and there are many more private search engines, a fact Apple is well aware of.

That last one is part of why Google has already been judged to be an illegal monopoly in a US court. We’ll see how that shakes out in appeals but, hey, it’s a start – and maybe, just maybe, these could be the winds of change.

7. The Winds of Change

Though I agree with a lot of what the DOJ is saying, I don’t think their case is a slam dunk. It would be a clean case if Apple simply banned cross-platform smartwatches, for example, but Apple has gone for a subtler approach, exercising control by tangling you up in fees and red tape. The DOJ alleges that the five items in the Polymatter video are only examples of an illegal pattern of behaviour that has a cumulative anti-competitive effect. They also reference Apple’s long history of malicious compliance – once cornered by regulators, Apple will “allow” something but make it so difficult or expensive that it becomes unfeasible. For example, there’s the Spotify problem that Polymatter brings up:

”You can’t subscribe to an app like Spotify in the Spotify app. Until recently, Spotify was prohibited from offering a button that takes users to its website where they can subscribe. Spotify is banned from telling you this with words. It can’t even communicate freely with its own users.”

After a 5 year legal battle, the European Commission ruled against Apple on this matter, slapping them with a 1.8 billion EUR fine. Apple’s response was to change their rules so that, yes, you are now allowed to include an external link in your app – but they also invented a new 27% “core technology fee” for payments made outside the app, hardly an improvement over the 30% fee in the app. When Spotify decided not to include a link and instead just display the lower prices you could pay via your web browser, Apple said no, we’re not going to allow that – you have to pay 27% or you can’t even tell people the price in your app. So the matter has now gone back to the European Commission.

By the way, Polymatter says that this Spotify problem is only brought up once in the complaint, which is technically true, but whole the source of the problem is the 30% Apple tax which is referenced throughout the complaint, and ignored by Polymatter, who instead brings up measures that Apple has taken recently to shift their policies. And it is true that Apple is currently making moves to:

• Adopt RCS (in iMessage only)
• Allow other app stores (in the EU only)
• Allow web browser to use their own engines, rather than apple’s webkit (in the EU only)
• Allow changing default apps on phones (in the EU only)

But it’s also true that this is solely in response to regulatory pressure, specifically the introduction of the Digital Markets Act in the EU, which has made many of Apple’s behaviours outright illegal. It’s why many of these things are only happening in the EU, and even here, regulators will need to drag Apple kicking and screaming every step of the way. For example, while they’ve been forced to allow other app stores on their platform, Apple has invented another new fee to charge for installations and updates of any apps that get popular in these new app stores. As a developer, you would get charged 50 cent per user over a million, even if your app is free or freemium, meaning that if you have 10 million downloads and 10 million in sales, Apple would charge you $515,942 per month, adding up to over 6 million per year, so 60% of your revenue instead of 30%. And I know these numbers are correct, because Apple helpfully created an official fee calculator.

This is a deterrent to get people to stay in their lane and do what Apple wants. That is what Apple does. They fight for the right to subjugate their competitors, drain them of resources with bogus fees and use Apple defaults to edge them out. You can be damn sure that Apple doesn’t charge itself a 30% fee when you set up Apple Music instead of Spotify!

Because Apple holds this dominant position, and because they’re the highest valued company in the world, they can afford to be this belligerent. Other companies can’t put up a fair fight, meaning that it’s up to our governments – and we are, right now, seeing land mark cases against giant tech companies. But policymakers around the world will only continue this work for as long as it is popular, which is why public opinion matters, which brings us back to Polymatter and the question of bias.

8. Polymatter Matters

For explainer channels with high production value it can be easy to forget that there’s always a person and a perspective behind what you’re consuming. Especially when the topics seem fact-based, like Polymatter’s “How Cruise Ships Work” and “Why Car Dealerships Exist”. But Polymatter got interested in geopolitics and business via high school debate, where, of course, your job is to write a convincing case. I think the backlash against Polymatter’s Apple video comes from a whiplash of people realising that someone you thought was just “telling you about something” is actually setting out to convince you of something.

To me, Polymatter sounds like someone who has only ever owned an iPhone. I could be wrong about that, but that’s the type of thinking that infuses the video. For me, it’s an un-relatable perspective, as someone who’s presumably a bit older and from a country where Apple doesn’t have a smartphone monopoly. I don’t think Polymatter’s video is intentionally biased, but rather I think it shows the power that large corporations wield in influencing us. Your culture and background is always going to affect how you think, and when corporations get powerful enough to shape law and culture, that can make their influence, though ever-present, seem invisible. Does the fish know that it’s in water? Or, in this case, does the fish know that the stream it swims through is designed by decades of neoliberal policies aimed exploiting common people in order to centralise wealth and power in a class of corporate elites?

I’m very tempted to get into the history of antitrust in the US but after my Knight’s Tale video my partner has threatened to move out if I spend another six months on one single topic, so I’ll leave that for a potential future video, but I do want to clarify why I think the question that Polymatter poses, is a wrong one. When scoping the video, Polymatter says that they’re going to focus on the effect of the suit on “consumers”. But, to quote Cory Doctorow:

Even if you want to focus just on prices, remember that monopolies up their prices when alternatives have been smashed. That’s simply how they work. Polymatter calls the suit tragic, saying it focuses on the wrong things, but don’t underestimate the effect even of an imperfect antitrust suit. In 1970, the US DoJ sued IBM, the big tech monopoly of the time. After a 12 year legal battle, IBM won, but they emerged a transformed company, much less eager to take what could be perceived as anti-competitive actions. That’s why, when they made their PC in 1980, they didn’t tie their own software to the hardware – instead they looked around for someone else to supply the software and what they found was a young, small company by the name of Micro-Soft.

So stay with me here:

• DOJ v. IBM in 1970s ➜ Microsoft flourishes in 1980s
• DOJ v. Microsoft in 1990s ➜ Apple flourishes in 2000s
• DOJ v. Apple in 2020s ➜ ???

What new revolutionary technology might this lawsuit help bring about? If you think cool new tech can only come from Apple, please consider that they spend more than twice as much on stock buy backs as they do on research and development. In the future that Apple wants, they will use their monopoly to continue gobbling up the market and remain the highest valued company forever. But I don’t think that would benefit us, neither as consumers nor as human beings eager to develop our culture, society and planet with revolutionary new technologies. In one future, Apple wins. In another, we might.

What future do you want?

Video published September, 2024

Text published March, 2025

And that is exactly what we’re doing today, using A Knight's Tale as a jumping off point to discuss: What was life actually like for a knight? Where does myth and reality diverge? What was the war raging in the background of this film - and who were the real people that lent their names to the characters? All this and more as we explore... The Real History of A Knight's Tale.

This is my longest video to date, and the longest blog post on this website (around 15,000 words), so if you want a more light-weight intro to the topic of medieval knights, check out my podcast Reel History, where we use historical movies and TV shows to learn about true historical events. Our episode on A Knight's Tale from 2021 was what inspired me to dig deeper into this topic!

Index

1. Film Summary & Establishing the Year
2. The 100 Years War
3. The Battle of Poitiers
4. Legacy of the 100 Years War
5. The Origin of Knights
6. How to Become a Knight
7. Life as a Knight – At Home
8. Life as a Knight - At War
9. Chivalry & Romance
10. Christianity
11. Knightly Ideals
12. Knights & Class
13. Early Tournaments
14. From Mêlée to Joust
15. Ulrich von Lichtenstein
16. The Black Prince
17. Adhemar & The Free Companies
18. Geoffrey Chaucer
19. A Quick one on Wat Tyler
20. Chaucer's Old Age
21. Conclusion

Film Summary & Establishing the Year

The plot of A Knight's Tale revolves around William, a young squire whose knight passes away in the middle of a joust. William dons his master's armour and pretends to be him in order to finish the joust and get him and his fellow squires Roland and Wat the coin they need for food. After surviving the joust, William - who is from a poor background and who has always wanted to "change his stars" - convinces Roland and Wat to start a get-rich-quick scheme where William pretends to be a noble knight in order to compete in tournaments for prize money.

Through a classic training montage William levels up his knight game and the retinue goes on a romp around the "tournament circuit" in what's now France, expanding the crew to include gambling-addict and writer Geoffrey Chaucer and Kate, a brilliant blacksmith without whose help William would literally fall apart. Under the fake name of Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein, William proves his mettle as a knight while falling in love with Jocelyn, a lady of noble birth, and thereby antagonising tournament champion Count Adhemar. Oh, and he also makes friends with the Edward, the Black Prince of England, who is ALSO hiding his true identity in order to compete.

Everything comes to a head at the "World Championships" in London where William inadvertently reveals his identity by visiting his father after a decade away. The jig is up and William is clamped in the stocks but the Black Prince decides to knight William, allowing him to compete under his own name. Sir William beats that baddie, kisses the girl, and we all live happily ever after. Even though it's the 1300s.

Now, the film doesn't give an exact year but we have a number of clues to work off, the most important being the reference to the Battle of Poitiers where the fictional Count Adhemar and the not-at-all fictional Black Prince are both present. This puts us in 1356, which lines up well with the fact that the pope is French, as we know from a joke in the film: “The pope may be French but Jesus is English!”

This line may seem like a throwaway joke, but it’s actually taken from a contemporary satirical verse: “Now is the Pope a Frenchman born And Christ an Englishman And the world shall see what the Pope can do More than his saviour can.” At this time, conflict between the papacy and the French crown resulted in 7 popes being based in Avignon, in what's now southern France, rather than Rome, and many an Englishman distrusted the fairness of these popes, who seemed to be under French control. This is just one of many details showing how A Knight's Tale is a much more thoughtful film than it might seem.

The only thing that conflicts with the 1356 date is that behind the scenes they talk about taking influence from the 1970s because the film is supposedly set in the 1370s. Hence all the Queen and Bowie, and costume designs that took inspiration from the Rolling Stones 1972 tour. But the film is not too concerned with historical specifics and this “1370s” claim might be more of a vibe than a specific date. Regardless of the specific year, we’re in the mid 1300s which, in this time period, in this area, means one thing: You’re in the middle of the 100 Years War.

The 100 Years War

This is a war with excellent branding I have to say – it sounds like something out of a fantasy novel; how could one war even go on for that long? Well, the truth is that it didn’t, really, as this wasn’t one continuous war. There were breakouts of hostilities and invasions, interspersed with periods of relative peace, but looking back we’ve grouped these together as one war with multiple phases.

It’s a war between England and France, though of course these were not the countries we know today geographically or culturally. The population in England may have spoken Old English but the language of the court was French because in many ways the English ruling class was French. This was hundreds of years after William the Conqueror, the French-speaking Duke of Normandy, came to what’s now England and installed himself as king, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that the invaders might have taken up the local language in those intervening centuries. But William the Conqueror, as per the name, was not coming over to assimilate into the existing Anglo-Saxon culture; he was imposing new norms, establishing the feudal system and redistributing lands from opposing English nobles and clergy to his own French-speaking Norman followers. But the ruling class across what’s now England and France didn’t just speak the same language; a lot of them were actually family as well. There was a patchwork of intermarriage, alliances and overlapping claims of land, making this war more of a family feud, really, than an international matter as we’d know it today. It was through this century of conflict that the national identities of England and France started to form because, after all, a common enemy helps us identify ourselves by what we are not. And that is why, by the end of the 100 Years War, the English nobles spoke English.

The catalyst for the 100 Years War was the death of Charles IV of France in 1328, more specifically the fact that he had no direct heir, sparking a succession crisis where two claimants emerged: a cousin of the dead king, who became Philip VI of Valois, and Edward III of England, who was the nephew of the dead king through his mother, Isabella of France. Now, Isabella deserves a whole video of her own, but I swear I’m trying to keep this as concise as I can so the short version of her story is that only a year earlier Isabella and her presumed lover Roger Mortimer led a rebellion, deposed Edward II and most likely had him killed before installing Isabella’s teenage son on the throne. Something they possibly regretted a few years later, as Edward III had Mortimer executed. Regardless, in 1328 the French nobility recognised Philip VI as king, a decision that Edward III later contested, claiming the French crown for himself.

Realistically Edward III wasn’t necessarily looking to take over all of what’s now France; his focus would have been on the areas of continental Europe that had been in and out of English control for several hundred years. At this time, these areas were held by England but as vassal states of the French crown; a bit of a contradiction since kings don’t want to owe allegiance to other kings unless they really have to. Any English lords installed to rule over these lands could end up with split loyalties and any local lords, should they disagree with the English king, could appeal to the French king who would then summon the English king to their court to resolve any disputes; all in all, an untenable situation as far as the English royals were concerned. This mess had been temporarily fixed by the former English king (Edward II) sending his son to act as a vassal to the French king, while not doing so directly himself - but now, that son who was sent over was king himself, and he thought he had a better claim on the French crown, so he was not going to continue that subservient charade.

What followed was a decade of escalating tensions and diplomatic manoeuvring as Edward sought alliances with European powers to counter French influence while Philip consolidated his power within France. Disputes over taxation and control eventually boiled over and in 1337, Philip confiscated Aquitaine, citing alleged breaches of feudal obligations and Edward’s harbouring of one of Philip’s enemies, leading to the start of the war.

The first years of the war saw a naval campaign by the English alongside French landings in towns on England’s east and south coast. One major engagement from these early years was the Battle of Sluys, fought on June 24th, 1340. This was off the coast of Flanders where the English navy decisively defeated a larger French fleet which, for a time, established English supremacy over the channel and prevented a full-scale invasion of England. It was said that after this battle, the fish drank so much French blood that if God had given them the power of speech, they would have spoken French.

In 1346, Edward III invaded France and on August 26th, the English army, heavily outnumbered but well-trained and equipped, confronted the French army at the Battle of Crécy. English archers, using the longbow to devastating effect, played a crucial role in this English victory - as becomes a theme throughout the 100 Year War.

The Battle of Poitiers

Before I get carried away here – this is not a video on military history. There are many fine creators online sharing their deep knowledge on this topic and I would urge you to seek them out if you want to learn more about the blow-by-blow developments of this extended conflict. However, you cannot understand the Europe that A Knight's Tale takes place in, without a basic grasp on this war, which would come to change the role that a knight plays in society. Before we move on to the average life of a knight in this age, there’s one war-related point we’d be remiss not to mention: The Battle of Poitiers.

This battle is an actual plot point in the film, not so much because we see it but rather because it leads to Adhemar disappearing from the the tournament circuit. The two rivals of the film are both craving a confrontation, with William stating that he’s not really champion until he’s bested Ademar, and with Ademar off fighting the war, getting increasingly frustrated with reports of “Sir Ulrich” winning tourney after tourney in his absence. So why was Ademar called away at this particular point?

Well, it’s 1356, and at this stage of the war, Edward the Black Prince was in his mid-twenties, marching through French territories, looting and pillaging along the way. The French, meanwhile, have a new king, as Philip VI died after 22 years of reign and it’s his son, John II, who leads the French against the English at Poitiers. The French had a much larger force but the English army was well prepared and positioned, so when the French cavalry charged, English longbowmen on higher ground were able to unleash a barrage of arrows, causing chaos and confusion and allowing the English infantry to hold their ground. This was another battle that demonstrated the effectiveness of English longbows and the importance of strategic positioning in medieval warfare. Despite the advantage in numbers, the French suffered heavy casualties and eventually broke ranks, retreating.

This was a resounding victory for the English, especially because King John II of France was captured during the battle, along with many of his nobles. John II was held captive for four years in several locations, including the Tower of London and England and France eventually did negotiated his release in the 1360 Treaty of Brétigny, though when this particular boy was back in town, he faced a lot of unrest and dissatisfaction among both nobles and the general public as the treaty ceded significant territories to England on top of a massive ransom. For England, this was the peak of their dominance during the period - the lands they held on the continent were officially no longer vassal territories of France, making the Duchy of Aquitaine, Bordeaux, Gascony, all fully English. In addition, France surrendered Calais, a strategic port city on the English Channel, which would remain in English control until the mid-16th century, as well as additional territories in the north (Ponthieu and Guînes). So you could see why John II’s return wasn’t met with great excitement in France, which had dissolved into near anarchy in his absence, never mind his enormous ransom that the people had to pay. John II would die just a few years later, having voluntarily returned to England, if you can believe it, but the war would go on, and the tide would turn, and turn again.

Legacy of the 100 Years War

One of my sources is Gordon Corrigan’s “A Great and Glorious Adventure” and I do enjoy the brevity Corrigan manages to bring to this enormous topic but it should be said that this is tinged with a lot of English patriotism. Corrigan expresses pride in these events and overall comes off as what we in Ireland might call “a bit of a Brit”. I suppose I can’t fault him for it, some of the military achievements are impressive, but I do find it interesting how much this time period lives with us to this day. In many ways, this conflict is the foundation for French and English nationalism, and the reason they hate each other.

When Charles de Gaulle was president of France, he had a standing order that while travelling around the country he was never to be within thirty kilometres of Agincourt, the site of a later French defeat. This was 500 years after the fact. And on the other side of the channel, the English claim on the crown of France was only lifted in 1801 and only because the French Republic had been established and England wanted to stop this whole “revolution” thing from spreading. It’s why, for centuries, fleurs-de-lys, symbolising France, featured heavily on England’s coat of arms. This period marked a transition from a fully feudal system to a sort of proto-nation state, making this a fascinating period of development – especially for those who held the rank of knight.

The Origin of Knights

At the time of A Knight's Tale, knights had all manner of customs, rituals and pomp, but to properly understand these mounted warriors, we'll need to rewind to a time before any of this was formalised, a time where “knights” didn't really exist.

In the Roman Empire there was the upper class, patricians, and the lower class, plebeians. However, any citizen who could afford armour, could join the army, which had both patricians and plebs in its ranks. And if you could afford a horse alongside armour and weapons, you could become part of the equestrian class. The property requirement was less than that of the senatorial order, so these were men of significant wealth, but not necessarily of noble birth. They were called Equites, cavalrymen, and today, in English, they’re sometimes referred to as knights. They had the right to distinctive attire, titles, reserved seating at public events and, like medieval knights, they often subscribed to an ethos of heroism and glory. To be clear, these are not the medieval knights of A Knight’s Tale, they differ in many ways – one being that their rank could be passed down hereditarily - but they did set the precedent of a distinct class for mounted warriors, with special privileges and duties.

Several centuries after this, and still centuries before A Knight's Tale, Charlemagne was picking up the pieces of the collapsed western Roman Empire and forging it into his Frankish Empire that included modern-day France, parts of Germany, bits of Holland, bit of Italy – basically it was big, larger than any one realm in Europe for centuries, meaning that Charlemagne needed mobility. So he recruited people wealthy enough to own horses, and re-established this concept of knights. It should be said that these are proto-knights, still a long way off from the fancy knights who played on tournament grounds, but Charlemagne did set up several important concepts. The deal was - agree to serve in his imperial army as a cavalryman, and as a reward you got a benefice, an allotment of land, essentially making you a lord. This was the beginnings of fiefdoms and feudalism as we know it; with an overlord or king assigning parcels of land to individuals who are responsible for running that land, farming it, and producing the wealth – and then paying taxes to their overlord but keeping a good chunk for themselves.

So the medieval knights we know developed from this. They were typically sons, nephews and relatives of noblemen within the feudal system; and indeed, being a noble and being a knight became more or less synonymous for a time. Of course, you could also go into the clergy, and the increasing need for able administrators that meant not every noble had to be a silly boy with a horse and a stick. Common people could occasionally become knights but it was not a usual practice.

But what was life as a knight like, and how did you become one to begin with?

How to Become a Knight

While the down-on-his luck Sir Ector was happy to take on a poor common boy, William really failed at the first step of becoming a knight, which is to be born right; technically you could find yourself a wealthy patron, but usually your family would be part of some kind of nobility. Your father could be a knight but he didn’t have to be, since being a knight isn’t hereditary, it’s something you work to become. The popular form of inheritance was primogeniture, meaning that the first born boy got pretty much everything, so knighthood was a popular path for second sons and beyond since knights enjoyed a great degree of social mobility and could, based on their deeds, rise higher even than their elder siblings.

As a prospective knight, you’d stay in your family home until about the age of 7, probably with female relatives tending to your needs and education; after that you’d be sent to another noble’s household (often a relative) to work as a page. Pages were servants of lords and knights who ran messages, cleaned, served at meals, and this wasn’t seen as demeaning because it was part of your education – you’re learning the ways of the household and in exchange you’ll usually get some basic combat training alongside other skills deemed important to the nobility; like reading and writing, swimming, dancing, courtly manners, and, of course, how to shred on that lute.

Around the age of 14 a page could graduate into the position of squire, making you, in effect, a knight in training. The word squire is derived from a Late Latin word meaning “shield bearer” and that’s exactly what you did; tended to your knight’s supplies, banner, armour, and you would be training with real weapons and armour, not the practice swords of your youth. Squires would travel with their knights and could see a fair share of combat, though their main role would be getting their knight in and out of armour rather than participating themselves.

After another 7 years, around the age of 21, you would be eligible to become a fully fledged knight. The ceremony of creating a knight varied over the centuries and could be more opulent if the knight’s lord was rich, or more religious if the knight’s lord was pious. One thing that remained constant was that knights created other knights. The church did try to worm their way in there, in the same way they controlled ceremonies like marriage and coronations, but knights held fast to their tradition.

The evening before the “dubbing” ceremony, the squire might spend time in vigil in a chapel and/or they could start the day with a bath, both activities designed to cleanse the soul in preparation. Depending on the budget there may be lavish clothes to dress in and extravagant gifts, though for poorer knights this was often limited to just a single new cloak, a symbol of the knight’s new status. Often there was an element of public witness, because ceremonies like this held an integral role within the communal structure of medieval life.

The act of “dubbing” seems to be one of the few universal features, though what dubbing meant changed over time. It comes from a French word meaning “to arm” (“adouber”) and at its core it involved the knight receiving his belt and sword. This may be followed by the “collée”, or accolade, a ritual blow to the body, which could range from a light tap on the shoulder to a forceful cuff of the head. There are arguments over the origins of this; it could have been to help the knight remember their oath, or to symbolise the last blow you ever receive without retaliation. Either way, it’s very similar to what I did to my podcast co-hosts the day we started our history podcast. I smacked them with two microphones, and said LET THIS BE THE LAST TIME THESE MICROPHONES PEAK.

In the 1200s this accolade developed into tapping the flat of a sword blade to the shoulder of a new knight – the image we now think of as dubbing, and the one still performed in England today. Knights would often be dubbed on the eve of a battle. Under English custom there was a special title of “knighthood banneret” which could only be awarded on the field of battle and only in the presence of the king, or at the very least, the king’s standard. Normally knights were entitled to triangular pennons, but these knights were allowed rectangular bannarets and their own coat of arms or heraldic device. While these bannaret knights could set up their own households and have knights serving them, the first career step for most young knights would be to ingratiate yourself to some lord, often the very person who knighted you. Being a knight made you upwardly mobile in society, but it was also a big gamble, because it was extremely expensive and you only got what you wanted if you could prove your worth.

Life as a Knight – At Home

A knight without an income from either their family or their lord would quickly run out of money. Knights were expected to provide their own equipment and multiple horses - often they’d have one for war (called a destrier), one for riding outside of battle (palfrey) and a packhorse for equipment (sumpter). Not all horses are created equal and for the average price of one warhorse in the 1160s could be equivalent to 40 riding horses or 200 packhorses – or 4,500 sheep, if you prefer. That’s four or five times what the average knight might live off in a year.

Whether travelling for war, tournaments or diplomacy, each knight was expected to have a retinue, with a page or squire to look after their armour, a groom to look after their horse and, often manservant to look after the man himself. Of course, you were responsible for making sure your retinue got paid and the most common way of doing that was to join a richer lord’s retinue yourself. A lord’s household armed retinue, or mesnie, made up a trusted set of knightly bodyguards who became like family - in some cases they were literally family but often not. Attaching yourself to a lord as part of his retinue was a great way to advance, as you’d have the lord’s ear to nag for favour and lands, which the lord was expected to deliver. The size of his retinue, therefore, was determined by the lord’s ability to give and a large retinue of knights was an obvious display of power, which, in cutthroat times, could be necessary to retain that power. In other words, size mattered when it came to retinues, and nobles would surround themselves with tens or even hundreds of knights, all vying to be the favourite, because being the favourite meant land.

If you were given stewardship of a parcel of land you would become quite wealthy if you weren’t already and in return you’d swear to serve the lord for a given period of days in a year – but you’re only bound for that specific period of time, and if this sounds like a good deal, just you wait, it gets better, because the number of committed days of service was usually 40. So you only had to be on active duty 40 days in a year, and could spend the rest of your time managing your land, getting bored and getting into sports like jousting.

Now you might be wondering, how could this be the case when some wars famously lasted longer than 40 days. Well, while knights formed the cavalry core of the feudal medieval army, they rarely died in battle for several of reasons. Firstly, battles were generally avoided unless you had overwhelming numbers, so you’d be more likely to spend your time ravaging the countryside of your enemy, or sitting around waiting during a siege. Secondly, if there was a battle, you as a knight had the best armour, making you a bit of an un-killable Robocop, and even if you did lose, your enemy was likely to let you live and hold you for ransom. This was a key way for knights to earn money in times of war so the death of an enemy knight could be extremely annoying. (Never mind the peasants dying in the muck.) So in practice, knights would often serve more than 40 days depending on how successful the campaign was, because if you’re doing well in the looting of whatever country or region you’re in, why would you want to leave?

Of course, knights didn’t spend all their time fighting. A lot of time would be spent in their lord’s great hall, which served as the hub of any aristocratic community. This is where, each day, a meal would be shared - paid for by the lord. Mutton, pork, chicken, beef and fish would make regular appearances at these meals, seasoned with sage, garlic, and mustard. You’d also have mainstays like rough-ground bread, eggs, cheese, peas and beans and ale, though wine was popular in more affluent circles. As for dress, fashion obviously changed during the medieval era but commonly knights and nobles would wear stockings or hose, fashioned from silk or wool, alongside a shirt worn under a tunic. They’d have a coat to wear outdoors along with a mantle or cloak. Over time, it became increasingly popular for lords and families to use distinctive colour schemes in public, a sort of uniform adopted by the retinue.

The dinner in a lord’s hall could be a crowded affair with dogs, birds of prey or even horses welcome - though according to the first ever English book on etiquette, you should refrain from mounting your horse in the hall. The Book of the Civilized Man by Daniel of Beccles gives us a view into proper behaviour at the time, for example you should avoiding urination in the dining hall (unless you’re the host) and you should look to the ceiling if you need to belch. It also held advise about keeping your cards close to your chest, suggesting that you should speak little when eating at the table of the rich, or even “If there is something you do not want people to know, do not tell it to your wife.” Other parts of this book you might recognise from what’s still considered “proper decorum” in many cultures today – such as don’t speak with your mouth full, don’t put your elbows on the table, and don’t pick your teeth or nose.

These rules for proper behaviour got more strict the higher up in society you went; a king’s court would be luxurious but also dangerous for a knight, with skills of intrigue and gossip often playing a more important role than martial prowess. It was very important to control your temperament, as a display of anger could discredit someone as “unbalanced”. As a knight at court, you might therefore have to endure the goading of your enemies while retaining an icy façade. Back in a lower lord’s hall this might be less of a problem but one thing remains the same; no matter where you’re at as a knight, you’re always trying to advance your position by gaining the favour of your lord. And let’s be honest, if you’re a knight, the best way to curry favour with your lord is through war.

Life as a Knight - At War

Knights were brought up with lots of martial training – but they’d be used to fighting as individuals – so in times of war it could be difficult to get them to act as a team. Indeed, people of the “nobility” often didn’t consider themselves under the command of anyone in particular; they might show up as part of their feudal obligation, but beyond that you may need to consult with them and pander to them in degrees relative to their station to get them to actually do what you want. Under the feudal system, nobles and common folk alike served out of obligation, which can be fleeting, or at least limited — note that the 40 day limit also applied to common folk, who understandably wanted to be home to plant and harvest their crops. This was part of what led to an increasing professionalization of the English, and later French armies during the 100 Years War. Once the English started paying their soldiers, it was a lot easier to order them around and to hold onto their loyalty for as long as there was coin. The English were ahead on this development and Edward I, in the first decade of the 1300s, was paying everyone in the army except those at the very top (who we might call generals).

In the earlier medieval period, army tactics relied on well-armoured heavy cavalry who were able to ride through infantry lines with relative ease. This matched the contemporary understanding of the social order; knights probably believed it natural that they could smash through lesser men. However, in reality this had more to do with the infantry’s poor equipment, poor training and poor positioning.

You might recall how Mel Gibson and his painted Scotsmen in Braveheart defeat the English cavalry through the inventive use of pointy sticks. I remember watching that and thinking “oh, yeah, sure, no one has ever thought of sharpening long sticks or digging ditches before,” but there is some truth to it. At the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert the Bruce’s well-organised infantry were able to hold against the normally destructive English cavalry charge, contributing to a decisive Scottish victory. The English took the lesson to heart and deployed it with great results against the French (and also against the Scottish). Paying the army instead of pulling unwilling farmers from their fields allowed the infantry to be well-trained and tactically deployed, turning the tables on the nobles, and allowing English longbowmen to rain down destruction on their French “betters” in battle after battle. After all, if you have 5,000 competent archers firing every 6 seconds, that’s 25,000 arrows in half a minute. If you put those archers in the right place, it doesn’t really matter who your daddy is; you and your horse are both going down (Agincourt numbers).

As focus shifted from cavalry to infantry, the role of the knight developed. Instead of always being part of heavy cavalry, they would fight on foot as men-at-arms. Not all men-at-arms were knights, perhaps one in five, but you’d see a lot of aspiring knights in this group. This was an infantry much better protected than the common folk of past wars; with English men-at-arms wearing mostly chainmail, while their French counterparts wore plate armour. These men-at-arms still had horses, but they were used for transport rather than battle, and of course the horses were essential for the chevauchée, a key component of medieval warfare. A chevauchée is a destructive horse raid where mounted knights conduct various atrocities in enemy territory, destroying crops and settlements before moving on at a fast pace. Quick wins are taken, well-garrisoned forts are ignored, and overall the common people suffer every imaginable horrible fate. Think of the Uruk-hai ransacking Rohan and you’ll have an idea of what these “honourable” knights were up to – except they were on horses so these children certainly wouldn’t have gotten away. It was sadistic and horrible work, which seems to have mattered little to the nobles that carried it out because to them it was an opportunity to loot. And to the wider war effort, it was a way of stripping resources from your enemy - because if the poor can’t reap their harvest, they can’t pay rent to their lord.

Another essential part of medieval warfare was the siege. Just as power was centralised in the upper classes, strongholds were created to safeguard and centralise control over a territory. Most towns or cities were fortified in some way, and disputed regions could end up with numerous forts. The taking of these could involve siege-engines like you usually see in the movies but equally important was the struggle under the surface, as specialised minors would be set tunnelling under the walls. This usually wasn’t to tunnel in, Great Escape style, but rather to create tunnels that you could then collapse by burning the wooden supports, thereby collapsing the wall of the keep above. Often the besiegers would strike a deal with the besieged along the lines of, if no one comes to save your bacon by a certain date, you’ll give up the castle. If the besieged would agree to no such deal, they could face horrific consequences if and when the walls breached.

To quote from Thomas Asbridge’s “The Greatest Knight”:

While knights could still be part of feudal household retinues, these lost some importance over the course of the 100 Years War, and instead there was a rise in indentured retinues. Anyone of banneret rank or above, in England, could employ knights or esquires via contract, sometimes for a set time period, sometimes for the lord’s entire life. These contracts specified wages, expenses and the type of service to be provided (for example, only within the country or also abroad). Members of an indentured retinue would wear their lord’s badge or uniform and a portion of any ransom or plunder they took would usually go to the lord. This method of contracting knights was sometimes referred to as “bastard feudalism”, not because we had a bunch of Jon Snows running around, but rather because it departed from traditional feudalism with its system of vassals. It allowed knights to be mercenaries without calling them mercenaries.

Regardless, there was still this interesting balance between obligation and privilege; the English government enacted regulations to persuade those with lands worth 40 pound or more a year to accept a knighthood. Which sounds a bit weird - I mean, if you had to go to war, being a knight didn’t hurt, it doubled your pay and if you got into a sticky situation you were likely to be held for ransom rather than killed outright. In fact, transporting and managing captives during a campaign was impractical so sometimes enemy knights would be released on the promise that they would pay their own ransom later - a promise that was often kept but sometimes not. But regardless of these benefits, being a knight was so expensive that some Englishmen actually turned down knighthood – and they were fined for it.

Remember, this was a time where crowns traded hands through warfare as often as succession, so the king was usually a usurper from someone’s point of view. Popular kings therefore might be likely to see people sign up as knights while unpopular ones could be busy trying not to get smothered to death in the Tower of London.

Chivalry & Romance

Let’s talk about chivalry. Was there a really code of conduct for knights and, if so, did they adhere to it? Well, the first thing to note is that chivalry is subjective. If you look at the root of the word it just means to “act like a knight” and there’s no one written law for what it means to be a good knight, it wasn’t that formal. Generally the number one rule is to do whatever your liege lord appreciates, as he’s the one to decide who advances in society. If your lord appreciated ruthlessness from his knights, then forget about any of that soft hearted writing poetry stuff, that’s not going to get you anywhere.

The idea of the honourable and “chivalrous” knight is largely a literary idea, one that existed and was very popular at the time of A Knight's Tale. Just like today, the sense people in the middle ages had of what a knight should be was informed not just by real history, but also by fantasy. During the 1130s, the monk Geoffrey of Monmouth spun up a popular, semi-mythical pseudo-historical past with his “History of the Kings of Britain”, featuring someone you might have heard of: King Arthur. The lacking connection to reality didn’t stop Monmouth’s writing from becoming massively successful and, unlike the 2004 Clive Owen/Keira Knightley vehicle, it created an obsession with King Arthur and his knights and laid the foundation for Arthurian myth. But just because a society tells itself stories about heroes, that doesn’t mean that those heroes are realistic or that they reflect a contemporary truth, just look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe and compare it to your own lived experience today.

These popular stories also contained a lot of romance, specifically in the genre of courtly love which usually themes of infidelity. To knights, noble women were primarily conveyors of property and breeders of children - they were used to expand your lands and to establish your dynasty. Marriage, therefore, was not a thing of romance, so stories of courtly love tended instead to focus on love between a knight and another man’s wife. It sounds strange but this was considered to be a more pure form of love since it could bring no material benefit to the knight. This type of love supposedly improved the man; if he pined after a woman he would do everything to impress her, from simple things like keeping his teeth to more grand ideas of embodying valour and honour. The steps of the romance would start with love at first sight and wind through passionate declarations (which the virtuous lady would reject), and heroic deeds that won the lady’s heart, before a secret consummation, and a tragic climax. Of course, this doesn’t quite add up with the fact that adultery was a crime as well as a sin but these were meant to be titillating stories, not reality.

Not that we need it, knowing human nature, but we do have records of knights being willing to swear whatever oath they might need to, to get into a lady’s garments. Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry wrote “The Book of the Knight of the Tower” as a guide for his daughters on how to avoid smooth-talking men at court. He described a situation where three ladies exchanged opinions on their lovers, only to find that they shared a favourite who had told each of them that he loved her best. They confronted him and he was in no way ashamed, saying “For at that time I spake with each of you, I loved her best that I spake with and thought truly the same”.

Stories of courtly love were a romantic ideal, not meant to be emulated directly. But that seems to be exactly what Jocelyn and William do. The 12th century French poem "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart” introduces the love story between Lancelot and Guinevere, King Arthur’s queen, and in it Guinevere asks Lancelot to lose a tournament to prove his love, something that director Brian Helgeland decided to incorporate into his story. Just like in the film, Guinevere changes her mind, instructing Lancelot to win instead. It makes sense that Jocelyn and William would emulate the love story of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was popular at the time, - our lady is doing the equivalent of asking Will to hold up a boom box in the rain because she saw it in a film.

Christianity

Christianity was another main influence on what was thought to be “chivalrous” as the religion intwined itself with concepts of knighthood over time. In a medieval Christian society, the idea of reward or punishment after death wasn’t some abstract notion; it was actively feared, and while “Thou shalt not kill” isn’t the top commandment, knights would still grapple with the contradiction that their behaviour could end in eternal damnation. The church meanwhile was understandably concerned about the disorder and violence caused by mounted warriors roaming around Europe. Even in times of peace between kings, neighbouring lords would squabble with one another and conduct “private wars” where they decimated one another’s sources of revenue. And by “sources of revenue” I mean people, they would murder each others peasants indiscriminately. I mean these people were absolute bastards, and I suspect Pope Urban II would agree. In 1095, he came up with a nifty solution aimed at minimising violence… in Europe.

He started a holy war.

It was by no means a foregone conclusion that people would answer when the pope called upon good Christian people to recover the sacred city of Jerusalem from Islam – but answer, they most certainly did, in large part because the pope proclaimed that participating in the expedition would cleanse the soul of sin. Knights were therefore able to ply their trade of warfare with the sanction of the church and this was a powerful incentive that affected the development of knights moving forward, including the creation of knightly orders dedicated to Christian ideals such as the Knights Templar, who combined the warrior life with something more akin to monkhood. (Paladins, if you’re into D&D). The taking of Jerusalem in 1099 was a near-miraculous victory that would inspire generations of knights to participate in bloody crusades of their own.

It should be said that while religion was part of the fabric of society, everyone wasn’t necessarily a pious believer. One bishop complained that when rulers were in mass, they took the opportunity to hold audience at the same time, getting a bit of work done - and while you were supposed to partake in communion and confession every week, the average was probably closer to a few times a year, with Easter being the only fixed date. It was at the very end of life that people invariably became pious, paying for people to pray in perpetuity on behalf of their souls, and often giving a lot of their riches to convents, chapels and pilgrimages instead of to their families.

Knightly Ideals

A knight’s devotion to any Christian ideals could certainly vary, but one constant among knights was the respect for your word and the honour of your oath. Once you’d sworn an oath it was very much frowned upon to betray it – I mean, people obviously did, but it was seen as a treason against knighthood itself. Please note, though, that treachery and lying was absolutely fine as long as no oaths were broken. As Barbara Tuchman observed in A Distant Mirror: “When a party of armed knights gained entrance to a walled town by declaring themselves allies and then proceeded to slaughter the defenders, chivalry was evidently not violated, no oath having been made to the burghers.”

You can probably tell that chivalry is a bit of an amorphous concept, but we can get a firmer grasp on what was considered chivalrous by looking at what was generally lauded and praised among knights, such as the 1351 Combat of the Thirty. Now, we’re all familiar with the trope where, on the eve of battle, you make the offer of single combat instead. This didn’t happen as often as its portrayed in films; and if an offer like this was actually made it was often a sort of taunt rather than a serious possibility. But during conflict in Brittany, one French noble challenged his Anglo-Breton counterpart, and when their retinues insisted on joining, they agreed to hold a combat with thirty on each side. This had the formality of a duel, with terms agreed and courtesies exchanged - and they even had a recess to catch their breath in the middle of battle, after a few people had died. During this break in fighting, one of the lords called out for a drink, and the other responded “Drink thy blood […] and thy thirst will pass!”

The Combat of the Thirty only ended when all were injured and one of these nobles lay dead, along with eight of his party. While some viewed this event as a great waste, it was lauded far and wide and survivors who participated would find themselves given great honours. It seems strange that this formal mass duel happened while armies were getting more professional and nobles were mowed down by the arrows of common men – but it shows how nostalgic ideals of chivalry were very much alive in the hearts of medieval men.

If you Google “chivalry” you’ll find no shortage of crispy jpegs that claim to formalise the rules of chivalry. But these often reflect a modern idea that has more to do with the Romantic movement of the 1800s than the actual medieval period. During the 1800s people were very eager to dig up and dust off old stories and archetypes that would help them form a solid national identity. It was a time of idealism, patriotism and romanticising the past. For example, there was a big Viking-craze in Nordic/Germanic countries during the 1800s, and it’s where a lot of modern misconceptions around Vikings would have developed, such as the whole “horns on helmets” thing. Similarly, stories of knights and chivalry were popular in this Romantic movement and it’s where we see the modern idea of chivalry emerging; opening doors for women, acting like “a gentleman”, etc. And though Europe in the 1800s allowed for more social mobility than medieval times, this modern concept of chivalry, just like the courtly manners of actual knights, did serve as a way of distinguishing and separating the wealthy from the poor. It’s not surprising that class divisions survive to this day given how deeply ingrained this thinking is.

Knights & Class

A Knight's Tale does a good job of portraying the classist element that existed in feudal society. It makes sense that William would have to assume the identity of someone in a higher class, and that he would have trouble doing so as he lacks the etiquette, context and understanding of how the upper class talks, behaves – and even thinks. Throughout the film he learns these refined ways, engaging in courtly love, dancing and, of course, developing his natural talent talent for jousting. One could either see this as a savage commoner becoming refined, or we can see how the oppressive class system was holding him back from achieving his full potential, justifying the use of subterfuge to break down those class barriers.

There was actually a degree of class mobility in medieval Europe. About half of all noble families would disappear into obscurity over the course a century, either through failing to produce a male heir or by sinking into the lower classes, and new noble families would rise to take their place. And as Barbara Tuchman writes:

Sumptuary laws were put in place to prevent people of lower class from getting too fancy. For example, peasants might be forbidden from wearing any colour other than black or brown. Bourgeois traders could be forbidden from owning a carriage or wearing ermine. Different ranks and income levels were given limitations on how lavishly they were allowed to present themselves, how many minstrels they might have at a wedding. In an English law of 1363, a merchant worth £200 was entitled to the same clothes and food as a knight worth £100… so you could bend the rules if you had enough cash. But in general these barriers were meant to keep common people in check, just as barriers have always pushed down on oppressed people to allow the hoarding of riches and comfort for the privileged few. And yet we have always spun stories of “rags to riches” underdogs, a sort of “it can happen to you too” lie that keeps people in check and prevents us from properly challenging the status quo. You’ll note that the film doesn’t end with “commoners can participate in tournaments now because William has proven that commoners are just as able,” but rather William is allowed to enter the upper echelons while everyone else should do well to stay put where they are.

Instead of showing the system as inherently broken, with nobles like count Ademar making life tough for commoners across the world, the feudal system is overall shown to be okay – Adhemar may be a bad egg, but at the top of the order is a decent person (in the Black Prince), so things aren’t so bad really. But I suppose wishing for a total reorganisation of society would be both historically inaccurate and too much to ask of a film that is primarily concerned with tournaments.

Early Tournaments

Small-scale tourneys did appear earlier, but the 1100s saw tournaments increase in popularity and scale, especially in what’s now north-east France. These early tournaments were far from the glitz and glamour of A Knight's Tale 200 years later, and while there was an element of flair and pagentry, they were very much war games, played out across large sections of land that could be 50 km (30 miles) wide, with hundreds of knights in opposing teams, which allowed them to practice tactics and gain experience that could actually be useful in war. Interestingly, the teams in these war games naturally divided themselves into factions that might otherwise be fighting wars – so you could easily face down men in a tourney that you would later fight for real.

Knights would arrive the day before the tournament and there might have been some one-on-one jousts or practice matches that evening, but the melee was undoubtedly the main event. Mid-morning, the retinues would gather at two opposing “lists”; which were fences or pens, set up for the occasion. A horn blast would then set things off and the two sides would crash together. To quote from Thomas Asbridge’s The Greatest Knight:

Tournaments were not without risk, both physically and monetarily. We have no indication that these early tournaments used blunted weapons - instead armour was relied upon to protect the knights, and while the armour was good, accidents did happen. Asbridge’s book is about William Marshal and even though he lived centuries before A Knight's Tale, there’s an anecdote that matches up almost perfectly with William Thather’s first tilt: In 1170 after a grand melé there was great debate among the participants about who should get the MVP award. They decided on William Marshal but he was nowhere to be seen – eventually they found him in a forge with his head on an anvil and a blacksmith trying to pry his smashed and battered helmet off his head with an array of hammers, wrenches and pincers.

While William Marshal was commended as the best knight that day, there were few formal prizes to compete for in these early tournaments. Instead you mostly gained financial reward through the capture of opossing knights in the melee, for which you would get ransom money, much like in an actual war. Along with the great expense of participating in the first place, this meant that knights and their families could be ruined by debts incurred through repeated defeats.

Just like in A Knight's Tale, showing off and gaining a reputation was a big part of why you participated in tournaments - but while these war-games were better than the jousts of A Knight's Tale for learning what battles were like, they were much worse for spectators; usually there was a distinct lack of fair maidens to impress because this wasn’t yet a spectator sport. While there could be plenty of common people around at the large fairs that sprang up at tournament grounds, these were merchants, armourers and entertainers that came for trade, not to paint their faces and wave flags. And regardless, those weren’t the people you wanted to impress – you were instead trying to get the attention of your co-competitors. After all, their esteem would be much more valuable than that of any “plebs” who might be watching.

Now, the church did try to stamp out tournaments, even going so far as to forbid those who died in tournaments from being buried on consecrated ground, effectively condemning them to hell, but they only increased in popularity. By the 1160s, events were paused for lent but otherwise occurred regularly throughout the year, sometimes as often as every two weeks. The well-known contests soon formed into a schedule and a circuit of sorts and, over time, the games got more complex.

From Mêlée to Joust

In England, tournaments were banned until Richard I created a licensing system in 1194 which allowed for official, sanctioned tournaments. this was done in part because English knights kept going to France and getting their asses kicked, so no foreign knights were allowed in these English tournaments. you also had to pay a licensing fee, both to hold the tournament and to participate, and they could only be held between specific towns – none of which were in the west or north, where the king’s control was relatively weak. this points to another danger of tournaments: a gathering of armed men is inherently political and tournaments were a good place to conspire against the king, soft launch a rebellion, or try to make political assassinations look like accidents.

Tournaments could also be a dangerous distraction; in the 1290s, England had multiple wars going and the king – otherwise fond of tournaments – had to imprison large numbers of knights for leaving his army and going back to England to attend tournaments during lulls in the fighting. For these reasons, kings banned and unbanned tournaments on and off over the decades and centuries, but, in general, tournaments were more useful than harmful to savvy rulers; they were great places to demonstrate power, build alliances and strengthen feudal bonds — and to build the national identity and pride that would make it easier for kings to get their wars funded. Tournaments therefore came to be held in connection with celebrations of all sorts, from coronations and royal christenings to diplomatic meetings and, above all, weddings.

The church ban was even lifted in 1316 when the French royal family put pressure on their newly minted Avignon pope. The church had tried to scare people off with ghost stories, and tales of knights punished in hell with their armour nailed to their flesh but, in the end, tournaments proved useful to the church as well, as they were great places to recruit knights for their holy wars.

Note that throughout this essay, I’m using the word “tournament” to refer to the whole event – as most people would today – but the word originally referred just to the free-for-all melees. These mock battles were difficult for spectators to follow, even with the addition of easily recognisable armorial bearings and crests, and this is probably part of why jousts — like we see in A Knight's Tale — grew increasingly popular over time and supplanted the melee as the “main event”.

More spectators also meant more risk of injury to onlookers and while some towns simply let knights go at it in their main squares, watching from the windows and roofs above, using fenced in areas became the norm. Often this would be a double fence, with foot soldiers and squires stationed between the two barriers, ready to subdue the crowd or assist their masters, as needed. Around the year 1400 they added a central barrier to separate the combatants, and sometimes there would be additional railings on the “outside” of each knight, to ensure a satisfying collision.

Now, if you were a knight bored with these new jousts and hungering for a taste of old-school combat, you didn’t have to look far — the 100 Years War and wars in Scotland provided a great outlet for aggression and, surprisingly, I’m not talking about battles, I’m talking about “jousts of war”. These were tournaments of sorts but fought between knights on opposing sides during an actual conflict. Most common were single combats with no significant injuries, fought during sieges to entertain both sides, but we have plenty of records of jousts of war that got a bit more out of hand. In 1341, twenty English knights challenged twenty Scottish knights to three days of combat, during which three participants died and many more were injured — even so, heralds awarded prizes to the best performers on each side. Ten years later we saw the famed Combat of the 30, which inspired similar events in Gascony the following year (with twenty French knights fighting mortal combat against twenty Gascon knights) and thirty years later at Rennes (with fifteen English knights facing fifteen French).

Tournaments were popular across much of Europe and its not surprising that different regional styles developed. In the Low Countries, tournaments were held as part of town festivals, special events paid by the city where burghers had the right to carry arms and crests and they jousted alongside the nobility as equals. Perhaps this was in part permitted because these were local affairs where foreign participants were extremely rare. In contrast, Germany in the 1400s had the strictest entry requirements for their melees, only allowing participants who could give evidence of noble birth on both sides of the family for four generations. Interestingly this restriction only applied to the melee; it seems that anyone who could acquire a horse and suit of armour was allowed to joust.

In A Knight's Tale, Adhemar the Antagonist hides a pointed tip in order to injure William. In reality, knights could often choose whether they wanted to jousts with “lances of peace” or “lances of war”. As jousts grew in popularity, more specialised armour and protection was introduced, including a rounded shield with a bite taken out of it to allow easier aiming of the lance. This shield would be shown by a knight awaiting a challenge, often alongside a triangular shield of war, and a challenger would strike the shield of peace or the shield of war to indicate whether they wanted to use blunted or sharp weapons.

Shrovetide, the festival that came before lent, was the most common time to hold tournaments, though Christmas and Easter were other popular dates. Heralds would often be sent out to publicise an upcoming tournament, and those wishing to take part would arrive days before the event, displaying their shields at the windows of their inns. Often events started on Monday or Tuesday, allowing you to fit in three days of jousting before Friday, the day of fast. These events could get quite massive; the Black Prince hosted a tournament celebrating the birth of his eldest son at which there were 154 lords, 706 knights and, supposedly, 18,000 horses present.

Speaking of the Black Prince, it’s funny that in A Knight's Tale he hides his identity to compete because princes and kings often proudly participated in the fighting, though sometimes in more friendly versions of the tournament (called behourd) where they might use boiled leather armour and whalebone swords. where there are records of kings and princes participating in disguise it’s usually part of the pageantry rather than a necessity to be able to compete. The black prince’s parents were both tournament enthusiasts, and his mother’s presence at events encouraged other noble women to attend. Richard Barber and Juliet Barker wrote this in their book “Tournaments”:

For example, after quarrelling with the church, one of the king’s household knights dressed as the pope during a tournament, with twelve companions playing the role of cardinals. And at a later Cheapside tournament, seven knights jousted dressed as the Seven Deadly Sins, much to the horror and titillation of the spectators. To celebrate John of Gaunt’s marriage, the king and his sons, including the Black Prince competed against challengers dressed as the mayor and aldermen of London.

But fancy dress was only the beginning; in the late 1300s, theatres started using scenery and set pieces as major elements in their productions, and tournaments did the same. Such elements weren’t new — as far back as 1267, a wood of trees was built outside a German town, with one tree bearing gold and silver leaves - anyone who broke a spear in a joust was awarded a silver leaf, and anyone who unhorsed their opponent was awarded one of gold, but after the 1300s, these sets grew more elaborate. In 1428, a fortress with a high tower was built in the main square of a Spanish town, with a belfry, a gilded gryphon and four great towers surrounding it, each tower housing a lady in fine dress. In 1446 in France, another wooden castle was built and the jousting opened with a procession that included two Turks dressed in white leading real lions.

That particular event was of a sort that was becoming increasingly popular; a Pas d’armes, where one or several knights would pick a location, often a bridge or city gate, and proclaim that any knight who wished to pass would have to fight, or face disgrace. Often the knights stayed in these locations for months, setting a goal of breaking a certain number of lances in a certain number of days. If this sounds like something out of a fairytale romance, it’s because that’s because that’s where they got the idea. The tournament had a symbiotic relationship with courtly romances and fantastical Arthurian tales; and over time, it transformed into a stage to play out such storylines. if you’ve ever been to modern-day joust you may have noticed similarities with “pro wrestling”; while outcomes might or might not be predetermined, much current-day jousting has a manufactured drama and roleplaying that is not unique to the modern day; far from it, medieval knights would host “Round Tables,” where they would emulate Arthurian tales, dressing up as the knights of the round table and fighting jousts in character.

This increased pageantry, with jousters wearing 20 pounds of pearls, and using spring-loaded shields that flew apart when struck in the right spot, would spell the end of tournaments as we imagine them. In 1559, King Henri II of France died from a splinter that went through his visor, and that was more or less the end of monarchs participating in serious jousts. in the centuries that followed A Knight's Tale, the festivals surrounding jousts became more important than the actual fighting, which was reduced to an equestrian ballet with pre-determined movements and outcomes. As Francis Bacon wrote about tourneys in the 1600s:

Tournaments, once a proving ground for warriors, had transformed into a dramatic display and, in the 1700s, this too would largely come to be replaced by military parades, as a much more straight-forward way for rulers to display their power. But you cannot fully understand tournaments without learning about some of the key players that contributed to their development — one of whom bears a name you might be familiar with.

Ulrich von Lichtenstein

In the film, William Thatcher was a real person who invented a fictional Ulrich von Lichtenstein. In reality, Ulrich von Lichtenstein was a real person – who also invented a fictional Ulrich von Lichtenstein. He was born a century before the film takes place, and he was from what’s now Austria rather than Gelderland. Ulrich is a clever choice for William’s alter ego because the real Ulrich was an extraordinary jouster and a well-known poet.

He wrote a highly fictionalised book of his own adventures, titled Service of Ladies, which largely concerns his pursuit of a married woman, just as the conventions of courtly love dictate. At a young age, he became a page to this lady of a higher status and he grew enamoured with her, conducting little acts of boyish love such as picking her flowers and drinking the water she washed her hands in. You know, normal stuff! He was later knighted and spent years trying to convince the lady in question of his devotion in increasingly silly ways, all while she treated him with seeming contempt. When he heard that she’d rejected him for his “disfigured mouth”, he underwent plastic surgery immediately, not realising that she was probably commenting metaphorically on his imprudent way of speaking, rather than about his mouth’s physical shape. This type of comedy infuses the whole tale – at one of his many jousts in her honour, he injures a finger and she is impressed that he’s lost a finger in her service, but she grows disappointed and accuses him of lying when a doctor helps him fix the problem. What else could Ulrich do but chop off his finger and send it to her as a symbol of his devotion? And this is all before his most over-the-top act of “service”.

In the winter of 1226-27 he travelled in secret to Venice where he hired servants who did not know his identity and gathered a great quantity of women’s clothes. He sent a herald ahead of him to let all knights know that Queen Venus, the goddess of love, would travel through their lands to teach them the ways of love, gifting every knight who broke a lance with her a golden ring to give to their beloved. Dressed fabulously in white women’s clothes and with two waist-length braids bound with pearls, he set off with his retinue and caused a great sensation wherever he went, and he broke 307 lances on his journey to Bohemia without ever being unhorsed himself. After this, the lady granted him a meeting, asking him to disguise himself as a leper and mingle with those seeking alms outside her castle, supposedly to allow a surreptitious entry but in actuality more likely designed to humiliate him further. When he was eventually allowed entry to her chamber it was via a loop of bedding lowered from her window, by which he would be hoisted up. Three times the lady dumped him on the ground before he sent his squire up to help with the hoisting. Even after all this, he still didn’t get lucky, and his passion finally withered when the lady committed some awful act, which Ulrich, the author of this story, was too chivalrous to reveal. Given the horrible acts that he did include, one might presume that this act was very awful indeed.

Of course, this story is as real as A Knight's Tale. When I first read about it, I thought it sounded like Ulrich, the author, was slighted in his own mind by some woman and decided to write a series of poems about what a horrible bitch she was and about how he’s the best dude ever. (A tradition male writers have proudly kept up in the intervening centuries.) But to be fair, there’s a bit more to it than that. In the second part of his novel, Ulrich seeks the affection of another lady and completes a similar journey, this time dressing up as King Arthur and inviting knights he broke lances with to his round table. The whole book, in fact, uses the form of an Arthurian romance with events and motifs borrowed from other stories, such as Tristan meeting the queen Isolde disguised as a leper. But Ulrich turns everything on its head, switching up the gender dynamics of these stories for comedic effect – while his first love is painted as contemptuous towards Ulrich, he, ultimately, is the fool of the story, a caricature so committed to courtly love and chivalric ideals that he goes to absurd lengths to prove his love, allowing the author to poke fun at these conventions.

The real Ulrich died in 1275 and while he appears in records of the time, we mostly know him through his writing. Over the years there’s been much speculation about which of his described events might have actually taken place (spoiler alert: probably none of them) and about potential hidden political meanings in the text. But one thing is for certain - given his habit of playing with norms and tropes and the fact that Ulrich, the character, was one driven to overcome insurmountable odds with pig-headed stubbornness and excellent jousting, they truly could not have picked a better name for William Thatcher.

The Black Prince

The Black Prince, born in 1330 to Edward III and Philippa of Heinolt, was heir apparent to the throne, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, the Prince of Wales & Aquitaine and – most importantly – the guy who knights Heath Ledger at the end. He was the eldest of 13 children and though he never became king, he was father to King Richard II. He seems to have been tall, well-built and handsome, and just like in A Knight's Tale, he was fond of tournaments and jousting.

You might be wondering why he was called the Black Prince? Well, he wasn’t actually called that in his lifetime, it was 150 years later that we first saw that moniker written down, and we don’t really know where it came from. Some think it was the colour his armour and shield – in Victorian England they went so far as to paint his monument in Canterbury Cathedral black to fit this theory. Others think it was a French nickname based on his grim reputation in France, which was well deserved.

He would have been campaigning in France with his father from the age of 13; at the Battle of Crécy at age 16 he’s said to have asked the king for reserves and his father responded “let the boy win his spurs”. This probably didn’t happen but you can see why the story is told; it’s a compelling anecdote showing how Edward’s upbringing was one of war. After that battle he honoured the King of Bohemia, who died fighting spectacularly on the French side, by adopting his ostrich feather badge as his personal insignia, with the slogan Ich dien; I serve.

(Quick aside – you know how in films you always see kings rushing headfirst into battle? That’s often not the case but 50-year old John of Bohemia was at least half blind and he was still in the centre of all the fighting because he had his men lead his horse there so he could get in on the action!)

The Black Prince married Joan of Kent, which would have been an unusual match. Given the need to forge alliances with other crowns, no heir to the English throne had taken an English bride since the Norman conquest and, on top of that, Joan was in her thirties and had already had five children from her previous husband. They were also cousins, which wasn’t too unusual though it meant the king had to petition the pope to get permission for them to marry. Joan had an eventful past at that stage; around the age of 12/13 she was married to 26-year-old Sir Thomas Holland and then, when Sir Thomas went off to fight in the war, her family married her to another man, William Montagu, who was, at least, around her same age. It seems the original marriage was kept secret and Sir Thomas made no mention of it, until a few years later when he’d made a name for himself, fighting in France. At that point he brought the matter to the papal court and got his wife back in 1349. Thomas Holland died in 1360, and within a year she was married to the Black Prince. Shortly after their marriage, the two of them packed up in England and headed to Aquitaine which was Prince Edward’s to rule after the Treaty of Brétigny.

It seems fair to say that the Black Prince was better at war and partying than intrigue and administration. The Battle of Poitiers was his greatest military achievement, but there were many others. He was generous to those who served him well – in his early years he took little profit from ransoms, distributing rewards to his companions instead, and in his great hall in Bordeaux he fed over 80 knights and 300 squires every day. He had a massive retinue, loved banquets, hunting and tournaments and, to be fair, this was a good way to maintain the allegiance of those who already liked you. But there were plenty of people in Aquitaine who didn’t like him. He was spending more than he had and it fell on the local population to make up the difference via taxes. While the region had been held by England for a good while, it was still very much on the continent, and they recently had the French crown as their ultimate overlord, so they weren’t too keen on the Black Prince’s perceived arrogance, extravagance, and favour for his own favourites rather than the local lords - all of which led them to turn back towards France.

The war with France never really ended; officially there might have been peace but the Black Prince was down in Spain fighting in a proxy conflict for years. There he grew ill with dysentery, as did many of his men, and his health never recovered. After his return to Aquitaine, tensions only escalated with the local lords, eventually leading to war. King Charles of France was shrewdly negotiating towns and nobles back into the French fold, mostly by promising reduced taxes, and this was a maddening thing for the young warrior prince to watch from his sickbed. One town he might reasonably have considered safe was Limoges, where the bishop was a personal friend and godfather to the Black Prince’s son. However, in 1370, the town swapped allegiance back to France, and the Black Prince became incensed and determined to make an example.

Commanding a siege of the town from a litter, he had miners tunnel in and after a month they were able to collapse sections of the wall. Men-at-arms poured in, blocked the city’s exists and the prince ordered a massacre of the population. A massacre of civilians is always a dick move but it’s even worse because bear in mind that the nobles, the ones who decided to swap allegiances, would have been kept alive for ransom, and the bishop was handed back to the (French) pope. Meanwhile something like 3,000 common men, women and children were dragged out of their houses and had their throats cut. What a cool guy, this Black Prince fellow! (Note that these casualty numbers are disputed by Black Prince fanboys who claim it’s closer to 300.)

Besides being a horrible atrocity, the massacre at Limoges didn’t fill its intended aim. Sure, in the short run it might have stopped some towns from switching over to France, but in the long run it only increased the hatred of the English across the region which, within 50 years, would bring Joan of Arc to Orléans and spell the end of English dominion on the continent. As for the Black Prince, his illness was only getting worse and to top it off, his eldest son died from the plague around this time. The Black Prince handed over Aquitaine to his brother, John of Gaunt, and returned to England where he spent six more years of ill health before passing away in 1376 at the age of 45. His father died just one year later, and the throne passed to the Black Prince’s son Richard, who was then ten years old.

Adhemar & The Free Companies

In A Knight's Tale, another person running around France causing havoc was Count Adhemar. Unlike the Black Prince, Ademar wasn’t real – but he does represent an archetype that’s worth exploring. He’s introduced in the film as “Adhemar, Count of Anjou, son of Philippe de Vitry, son of Gilles, defender of his enormous manhood”. Those titles are a real hodgepodge, but Philippe de Vitry was an actual person, a French composer and bishop who lived at an appropriate time to be Adhemar’s father (31 October 1291 – 9 June 1361). Some sources claim Philippe de Vitry was born in the Champagne region, which kind of makes sense of the “chivalry and champagne” line. Philippe de Vitry was in the court of several French kings, starting with the one whose death sparked the 100 Years War. I can’t find a reference to him ever having any children, let alone a leader of the free companies, so we might assume that this name was picked more or less at random, though Philippe’s eminence makes him an appropriate parent for Adhemar.

Adhemar is described as the count of Anjou, one of the areas disputed during the 100 Years War, though held by the French crown even after the treaty of Brétigny. The actual count of Anjou was Louis, a son of the French king who escaped capture at the Battle of Poitiers. He was one of the hostages sent over to England to secure his father release while France tried to come up with the king’s ransom. Since the country was economically devastated, they had difficulty coming up with that ransom, meaning Louis was stuck in England much longer than he expected, and he decided to escape back to France, which his father the king disapproved of so much that he voluntarily returned into comfortable English captivity himself. Now, did you hear me say that France was economically devastated? Well, that wasn’t just the work of the Black Prince. It also had a lot to do with the Free Companies.

The Free Companies are hard to describe; they’re outlaws who became disciplined mercenaries, they’re English but they’re also French, and honestly, they’re from all over. The main thing that these men had in common was that they could fight and that they saw the appeal of riches and plunder. As I’ve described, violent horse raids across the land were an essential part of warfare at this time, and the men who practiced it under the Black Prince became very good at it. Then, after the Battle of Poitiers, their services in this area were no longer required and when they were released, many gathered around captains in groups of twenty to fifty and in the years that followed these groups would swell, merge and get organised. After all, the French king was in captivity and there were still riches to be reaped from his land.

They would seize castles from which they raided the countryside; wealthy villages paid ransom, poor villages burned. They did not discriminate, robbing religious sites as happily as peasant’s barns. Murder and torture was rife, women were assaulted and abducted. Some members of the Free Companies were French knights who found themselves financially ruined after paying their war ransoms, so now they took part in ravaging their own country. As Barbara Tuchman writes:

Companies like these had existed for hundreds of years, especially in Italy, where the nobility preferred to pay mercenaries rather than get personally involved in warfare, but the free companies of France grew in size and complexity and became an accepted, if horrible, part of life. In time, the Free Companies would have their own lawyers, bankers and clerks alongside blacksmiths, tailors, prostitutes and priests. Their forces could actually be more disciplined and organised than armies made up of knights who sought glory, and different free companies worked for the French and English crowns. As Adhemar is clearly in the employ of England, we can look at a notable English captain of the Free Companies to understand him better.

Sir Robert Knollys gained his knighthood fighting in the Combat of the Thirty, and after the two crowns reached their truce, he stayed behind to plunder Normandy. In the years following the Battle of Poitiers he burned and sacked his way into a huge fortune and took over 40 castles in the valley of the river Loire. It was said that, in one place, people threw themselves into the river when they heard that Knolly’s company was approaching. When Knollys told King Edward that all his castles were at the king’s disposal, King Edward was happy to pardon Knollys, despite the fact that they officially had a truce with France. Knollys then entered the service of the crown, earning high command and renown to rival the Black Prince himself. Throughout his career he would continue his raiding and sacking regardless of political trifles such as whether or not there was technically a war on, and he would eventually retire with great wealth and estates, becoming a benefactor of churches and a founder of charities.

As you can tell, Adhemar was correct in that his behaviour in France was fully what was expected of him, maybe with the exception of plundering churches. When English soldiers burned the Abbey of Saint-Lucien in 1346, King Edward ordered the hanging of those responsible, said to number twenty (Corrigan) During this time, there were many a hare-brained scheme to get rid of the Free Companies, because it wasn’t as easy as just “disbanding“ them, given that they were essentially pirates of the land. And, actually, the way these groups swelled in times of truce is similar to how piracy in the Caribbean shot up in 1713 at the end of the Spanish war of succession, when hostilities between the French, Spanish, Dutch and English suddenly ended after 10 years, leaving loads of skilled warriors with nothing to do and no income.

One last note on Adhemar, he knocks out this great line that repeats throughout the film: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.” As you might guess from how portentous and judgy this sounds, this is a Biblical reference. Specifically to the story of Belshazzar's feast. In the Christian Old Testament, Belshazzar is a Babylonian King who has the audacity to hold a great feast and drink from vessels that had been looted in the destruction of the First Temple, a.ka. Solomon's Temple, which was supposedly destroyed in the Siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. At King Belshazzar's feast, a hand appears and writes on the wall, and none of the king's wise men can interpret the writing until they call for Daniel, who interprets the text. The Christian God has numbered Belshazzar's day, he has been weighed and measured and found wanting (due to his blasphemy). And sure enough, he's soon dead and his kingdom given to the Medes and the Persians. In reality, Belshazzar was the last ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, though he was technically the ruling crown prince and never “king” himself as far as we know. He was presumably killed at the fall of the city of Babylon on October 12, 539 BCE, during Cyrus the Great’s Persian invasion. Fun fact: This is where we get the idiom of being able to “read the writing on the wall”, meaning to understand that something bad is about to happen.

Geoffrey Chaucer

William Thatcher, the boyish knight may be our main hero, but I would argue Paul Bettney’s bombastic performance as Geoffrey Chaucer makes this poet-turned-WWE-ring-announcer the most memorable character of A Knight's Tale. He’s the one member of William’s retinue who knows how the world works and how to manipulate it; and that was also true of the real Geoffrey Chaucer. I mean, his personality may have been the exact opposite of what we see in the film, and he might never have trapsed naked across the French countryside, but he certainly had his misadventures in France, and – they don’t get into this in the film – but alongside being one of England’s most influential writers ever, he was a medieval diplomat and something akin to a spy in the king’s service.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London in the early 1340s, so he’d be about 10 years younger than the Black Prince. His father was a successful vintner who became deputy butler to the king’s household, and his mother was the heiress of a wealthy family. In other words, he had a comfortable upbringing, far from the likes of Wat, Roland and Will, and his formative education was in the royal household where be became a page in 1357. He was in service to Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, who married Prince Lionel, the younger brother of The Black Prince. Chaucer may have had some earlier schooling at home or in a grammar school, but in the royal household he would have learned not just to read or write, but how to compose official documents, how to converse in French and Latin and, crucially, he learned the art of diplomacy.

A royal education didn’t just happen at court; in 1359 he was in Prince Lionel’s company in France, and he was taken captive by the French - not in a grand battle but probably while foraging for food and supplies. He was ransomed back 4 months later for the respectable sum of 16 pounds, and he was back in France 7 months later. His life is unrecorded for some years after the campaign in France - and this was what Brian Helgeland grasped on for the premise of A Knight's Tale. Basically, if we don’t know what he was at, why shouldn’t he be running around with William & co? Not to burst that bubble but records aren’t lacking for any mysterious purposes but rather because his doings weren’t important enough to be written down anywhere. It’s likely that he remained in England, and in 1367 an official document names him as a yeoman of the King’s household; a position he may well have held long before that date, or he could have been in the household of John of Gaunt, who later became his principal patron. Or perhaps he was heralding a young Will Thatcher on the tournament circuit…?

After this unknown period, Chaucer was in the king’s diplomatic service. We don’t know his exact dealings but it’s possible that he had some secret mission related to King Pedro of Castile, who was aligned with the Black Prince but facing invasion from France. He was entrusted with such diplomatic relations while still at the young age of 24, and he continued this work for many years; in 1372 he went to Italy for the first time, officially working on trade negotiations but he could very well have been there to hire mercenaries against the French. In Florence he negotiated on the King’s behalf with the Bardi banking family; a challenging task given that King Edward had defaulted on his debts to that family 30 years earlier. His success in these endeavours cemented his position at court, and his trip to Italy had a great influence on his writing.

Of course, Chaucer is most known as a poet; his contemporary John Gower wrote that “in the floure of his youthe” Chaucer filled the whole land with ditties and glad songs. He was a bit of an inventor and experimenter with the written word; most notably he wrote for his courtly audience in English. Not that there wasn’t English poetry at this time but Chaucer was able to translate and adapt French poetry into an English format, creating something new in the process. By 1369 his previous patron Prince Lionel had died and Chaucer was in France in John of Gaunt’s service. When his new lord’s wife died of the plague, Chaucer composed a poem in her honour; the Book of the Duchess.

Note that with his parents being merchants, Chaucer would be considered a “new man”. He was part of the gentility but with no aristocratic rank, and in his later Canterbury Tales there is debate between his pilgrims about whether it is noble birth or personal virtue that truly makes one noble, all of which makes him an extremely relevant companion to Sir William.

Chaucer inherited off his father, placing him well to marry Philippa de Roet in 1366. She was a lady in the household of Edward III’s consort so this was a career marriage - members of the royal household often united more closely, sort of copying how their patrons would couple up themselves. Fun fact - Chaucer’s wife appears in a deleted scene in A Knight's Tale. They wouldn’t have been married at that point, since this was before the Battle of Poitiers, but I don’t think the scene was cut for historical inaccuracy. It might have had something to do with the fact that it has so much implied nudity that I could barely show it in the video version of this essay, for fear of demonetisation.

In 1374, Chaucer was appointed controller of wool custom and subsidy; an administrative role that granted him a handsome accommodation above one of London’s eastern gates; including both the two towers, the room between them and access to the ramparts. He lived there 12 years and wrote several works, including an early version of “The Knight’s Tale”. His wife Philippa’s did not live with him there; at this point she was an attendant of John of Gaunt’s new wife, the princess Constanza of Castile. Philippa’s sister, was also there. as John of Gaunt’s mistress, and she would later become his wife. Some have suggested that Philippa herself had a liaison with Gaunt and that her children were actually his, not Chaucers. But you know what they say, people love to talk.

We’ve worked our way back to when the Black Prince and the old king passed away. When the boy Richard became King Richard II, it was John of Gaunt that acted as steward of England. With his patron running the country, Chaucer eventually (1382) got a deputy to manage his tax admin work, allowing him much of the income with very little of the inconvenience of working. This was done on the basis that he was greatly occupied with other matters, such as writing poetry and conducting secret business for the king.

A Quick one on Wat Tyler

Before I go any further on Chaucer, here’s a quick note on Wat, our favourite fonger: I was deep into the writing of this when I realised that Wat may well be based on a real person, specifically Wat Tyler, the leader of the “peasant’s revolt” in England in 1381. I couldn’t find any behind the scenes reference to this, he’s just Wat in the credits, but the Wikipedia article links to Wat Tyler and the timeline does line up - and Wat Tyler is known for being very angry.

Specifically he was mad about taxes and wage legislation, as were a lot of common people. After the Black Death, with one third of the population gone, wages should have gone up since the supply of workers was so much lower, but in England this was prevented via legislation. Eventually this boiled over into a revolt where tax collectors and other servants of the young king were murdered, and John of Gaunt’s palace was burned to the ground. (Don’t worry, Philippa was fine.) In London, the young King Richard rode out to meet the rebellion’s leader and the lord mayor of London promptly murdered Wat Tyler on the spot, bringing the rebellion to a surprise end.

The peasants in revolt would have flooded into the city via the very gate Geoffrey Chaucer lived above; Chaucer probably wisely laid low during this time, as was his want. Even if we don’t really know if Wat is meant to be Wat Tyler, and regardless of how detatched from reality the story of the film is, it’s fun to think that two of these characters may be based on two real people who lived at the same time, in the same place and totally could have bumped into one another. And Wat Tyler probably would have wanted to murder Chaucer in real life too, just like in the film!

Chaucer's Old Age

Later in life, Chaucer took up residence in Kent, where his wife had already been living for years in John of Gaunt’s gaff. In 1385 he was appointed justice with the commission of the Peace for Kent, and the following year he was nominated as a Member of Parliament. For a time he was also Clerk of the king’s work, administering all building work on the king’s estates. Chaucer was certainly not retired at this stage, but he was less busy in Kent than he had been in London, and it was here that he wrote the bulk of the Canterbury Tales, his most famous work. It should be said that it’s more of a collection of stories, rather than a full finished work; he kept tinkering on the tales until his last days.

His previous poem of Troilus and Criseyde had gained him much acclaim but this was his first long poem without a courtly setting; it concerned itself with people from all walks of life, using a frame narrative of pilgrims travelling from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims tell each other stories to pass the time, and this allows Chaucer to include different genres with romance and allegory sitting right next to course sex jokes.

Of course, the most important story for the purposes of this video is The Knight’s Tale but I feel like it’ll be a bit of a let down. There’s barely any point in summarising it because it’s so disconnected from the plot of A Knight's Tale, but here we go: Two knights are imprisoned by the Duke of Athens and from their cell they both fall in love with the duke’s sister-in-law Emelye, who they see picking flowers in the garden below their cell. They compete for her affection and their friendship deteriorates. Eventually, they decide to joust for the right to marry Emelye. The knight who wins falls from his horse and dies, and in his dying moments he urges the losing knight to marry the woman they both love, which is how it ends.

As you can tell, this has nothing to do with the plot of A Knight's Tale. We actually see a closer connection to two other Canterbury Tales characters, as Chaucer satirises church representatives; a popular theme at the time. In the Canterbury Tales, The Summoner is grotesque and corrupt, and the Pardoner is an effeminate hypocrite. A summoner was an official appointed by the church to summon people accused of religious offences and a pardoner sold papal indulgences or pardons, documents of the Church that offered forgiveness for sins.

While we don’t know that these two were based on real people, some of the pilgrims definitely were; The Host was Herrt Bailey, a well-known southwark landlord, The Cook was likely Roger of Ware/Hogge of Ware. And, just like the film, Chaucer appears himself as a character within the poem. So while the plot of “The Knight’s Tale” has nothing to do with the plot of “A Knight's Tale” I still come away thinking it’s brilliant to frame A Knight's Tale as the inspiration for Chaucer’s poem. As such, “A Knight's Tale” is an adaptation in the same way that the Charlie Kaufman film “Adaptation” is an adaptation of “The Orchid Thief”.

Conclusion

I know I’m biassed when it comes to A Knight’s Tale. You could easily look at it and say it’s ridiculously over the top Hollywood garbage forcing modern-day concepts into a historical setting, and confusing fantasy with reality. And you would be right. But medieval stories about knights also did all of those things – though it uses the very new art form of film, A Knight's Tale is part of the same cultural canon as every Arthurian romance, every fairy tale of a wandering knight. It might play fast and loose with facts but it does so in a more honest way than most historical fiction, and the story pulls you along, into the world of medieval Europe. A Knight's Tale made me spend six months of my life researching the history of knights and tournaments. That’s what good historical fiction does – it makes you want to learn about the real deal. And if A Knight's Tale didn’t do the same for you, well, at least you got to see Paul Bettany’s bum.

Sources

“Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages” by Richard Barber and Juliet Barker

“The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones” by Thomas Asbridge

“A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara Tuchman

“A Great and Glorious Adventure: A Military History of the Hundred Years War” by Gordon Corrigan

“Chaucer” by Peter Ackroyd

Written by Jakob Burrows

Video published September, 2024, text published April, 2025.

Happy International Women's Day! Here's how a company I used to work at celebrated.

A lot of people, including myself, learn their history through fiction, and maybe you also get that itch after finishing a historical film or show – I just need to learn what actually happened! To that purpose, I started a podcast with two history buffs, and we've covered things like The Irishman, 300, Gladiator and, yes, Hamilton. I'm not a historian but through our conversation and further reading I've acquired a fair understanding of the goings on around the time of the American revolution and how it relates to Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece. So that's what we're talking about today: Life at a time of revolution.

Part One: Son of a Whore and a Scotsman

Alexander Hamilton was born in 1755 or 57 depending on who you trust. If you believe Hamilton himself it's 57 but there is reason to believe 55, and some people think that by making himself out to be younger, Hamilton hoped to have it easier to get an apprenticeship. What we know for certain is that he was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis.

His parents were Rachel Faucett and James Hamilton, described in Hamilton's opening track as "a whore and a Scotsman". James was certainly a Scotsman, the son of a Laird, but Rachel was not a prostitute, though the slur used by Burr in his opening narration of the musical is probably not a bad representation of what people would have thought at the time. She did, after all, get together with James Hamilton while still technically married to someone else, never mind the fact that she had been imprisoned by her husband for several months.

Alexander's early years play out much as described in the song; his father split and his mother passed away, leaving him orphaned and penniless at 13. Or possibly 11. He starts clerking, picking up a dislike of slavery from seeing how enslaved people are beaten, sold and dehumanized, and he writes a fabulous account of a hurricane, enough that money is collected to send him to the mainland for an education. He'd be arriving in 1772 as a teenager and to understand the world he landed in we're going to have to take a few steps back....

Part Two: What About Boston?

Of course what we regard now as the continental United States does not exist at this point. There are 13 British colonies, as well as colonies from other nations, set up under a mercantile government, meaning that they're run for the financial benefit of the homeland.

These were trading posts and treated as such, but what's essential is that they were highly successful trading posts. The population may be in the range of 2.5 to 3 million Europeans with an enslaved population that's hard to determine, but in the later 1790 census it's shown as about 700,000. They're not micromanaged by European powers, as it would be impossible to do so, and in fact there are constituent assemblies for the different colonies where wealthy white men are elected, in part honestly, probably so they've got something to do while their enslaved folk did all the hard work.

You can broadly split the colonies into the north, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode island; the middle colonies, including Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and the southern colonies, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Out of those states, Virginia is undoubtedly the power house. They have the biggest population and the best land to grow tobacco, and enormous tracts of it to boot. It's no coincidence that most of the well-known profiles in the American revolution came from here. This is where the money is.

Because of the success of the various colonies, European powers are battling for supremacy in the Americas, which leads to what's known in the US as the French and Indian war (1754-1763), part of a larger war between Britain and France that Europeans would refer to as the 7-year war (1756-1763). This is a conflict carried out by the state militia of the British colonies VS. the state militia of the French colonies, and the various native groupings on either side. The French colonial forces are eventually defeated by the British colonial forces but the cost is significant. Britain is essentially bankrupt. So how can that be solved? With further taxes, of course!

They bring in a law called The Stamp Act which may not sound bad but its not just a tax on stamps, it's a tax on many kinds of printing that restricts them to only use paper with a stamp in the corner to show that the tax has been paid. This drives many small businesses in the colonies into bankruptcy and it's so severe that there are riots. The Stamp Act is denounced by public intellectuals such as Patrick Henry (the famous "give me liberty or give me death" guy) and there's a certain colonial militia leader who is also furious about it.

This all turns the 13 colonies into a tinderbox, and there are a couple of things that set it all off. In 1770 there is a massacre by British troops of civilians outside a courthouse in Boston. It started with a protest led by an agitation group called "The Sons of Liberty", of which Hercules Mulligan was a member, by the way. This was a group pushing for independence, one of their leaders being Sam Adams, the famous brewer and, perhaps aptly, someone throws a bottle that hits a British soldier. They open fire and five people are killed, six injured.

This courthouse massacre is referenced by Hamilton in Farmer Refuted in with the line "And what about Boston?" as a response to the farmer's claim that "Chaos and bloodshed are not a solution." What he's saying is, chaos and bloodshed is already here and we didn't start it. 

This becomes a massive scandal across the colonies and a lot of people call for these British troops to be hanged. Massachusetts holds a trial and the public defender brought in is none other than John Adams, who gets the troops off. No one is hanged and it's seen as an outrage by many; others think it's good that the rule of law has prevailed but either way the agitation does not stop - things continue to brew for a few years (excuse the pun) until the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773, where another group of American colonial agitators go to the Boston docks dressed up as indigenous Americans and they throw some tea in the sea. The British, as is their wont, go for a massive, costly over-reaction, sending thousands of troops across the sea, basically to put down a fairly minor riot.

Part Three: The Greatest City in the World

We've worked our way back to the year that Hamilton arrives in New York with brains to burn and nothing to lose. This is a part of the colonies where all the talk on the streets is of revolution, as depicted in the first few songs of the musical. The extremely wide circulation of Thomas Payne's wrote "Common Sense", which basically says that monarchy is nonsense, gives a good idea of the mood. 

It's true that Hamilton was seeking an accelerated course of study at Princeton, as mentioned in Aaron Burr, Sir, but he does not get this course and nor does he punch the bursar. This is only in the musical because it rhymes with "Burr, Sir", and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. So he attends King's College, which has since renamed Columbia, presumably because of the decreasing popularity of, you know, kings. But the institution has held onto their original emblem which is why you'll see a crown in Columbia's crest to this day.

In New York, Hamilton boards with Hercules Mulligan, yes, the tailor's apprentice himself – though actually he would have been a full tailor at this point and he's a fair bit older than Hamilton. As we mentioned he's part of the Sons of Liberty and he definitely has an influence on young Alexander. Mulligan is a fascinating character who is now regarded as the forbearer of the American intelligence community. It's said that he used, among other things, his ability to drink a lot to get information out of people. Mulligan was born in Ireland and as someone who's lived in Ireland several years I can confirm that this is still very much the way Irish people do it when they want to get a secret out of a friend.

This might be a good point to mention that, as you probably assumed, Alexander Hamilton does not meet his crew of friends all in the same night. People in this musical are combined, as are situations. These could technically be called an inaccuracies but it's hardly deceptive. Most of the changes are along these lines; stylistic exaggerations that make sense within the context of the show.

While Hamilton is at King's College things are happening elsewhere that are about to give him his shot.

Part Four: The Room Where it Happens

The First Continental Congress was a collection of delegates from most of the 13 colonies, held in 1774 in Philadelphia, after the British navy instituted a blockade of Boston harbor and Parliament in Britain passed acts to take away Massachusetts' self governance following the Boston Tea party. It's not to be confused with the later Constitutional Convention that Hamilton was so excited to join.

This is where many of the men later given the title founding fathers come together and clash for the first time and, honestly, the more you read about the founding fathers the more you realise what a mess it all is. The United States were hardly formed as depicted in the paintings with wise men around a table saying "yes, this is now written and so it shall be forever remain." In reality it's a chaotic bundle of political compromises, and the founding fathers feel less like untouchable prophets and more like squabbling reality TV stars, which is part of why reading about them is so entertaining.

The Continental Congress eventually imposes an economic boycott on Britain and petition the king to repeal the acts of his parliament, reaffirming the colonies' loyalty to the British monarchy. This is pretty much ignored, and there's a Second Constitutional Congress the next year, sending another petition, which is a last ditch attempt to avoid war. The response is clear enough, a proclamation from King George III that pretty much says"just hand yourselves over, so I can hang you all." Which does the job of uniting the colonies better than any debate between delegates. Franklin  has this great line where he says "We will either hang together or we will most assuredly hang separately"

So John Adams wins the argument he's been making, that they need to adopt the militia as the army of the united colonies and fund them, so the question becomes "who do we appoint to lead them?" From the northern and middle colonies the thinking is that "well, they're adopting our militia as the army but we need them on board" so they actually put forward an eminent southerner as the leader of the army.

Washington is the one person who everyone considers beyond reproach - in modern terms he'd be the host of the reality show where all the other founding fathers are squabbling contestants. He's the central pillar who keeps it all together.

Part Five: Chaos and Bloodshed

I'm not going into great detail on the battles of the American Revolutionary War as there are others much more qualified to do so and this video is already pretty long anyway but there are a few key elements worth discussing in relation to Hamilton, the musical. 

In Right Hand Man, we hear about how New York is taken over by the English. At this point, Hamilton has joined a militia that later becomes known as Hearts of Oak, and he drilled with the company before classes. He led a successful raid for British cannon in the Battery, all while still a student, and he was commissioned to create a new provincial company of artillery. With 60 men and cannon under his command he comes to the attention of higher ups in the army but he refuses offers to join anyone’s staff until the offer comes in from the top dog himself, and he becomes Washington’s aide.

The continental army at this point has taken Boston because they captured cannon and fired at the British from the high ground, as Aaron Burr references in the musical, but Manhattan is a different story. The American army has to run away from the British forces and resort to guerilla warfare tactics that go on for 7 years and it's fairly brutal. The British meanwhile react with over-the-top massacres, perhaps targetting the wrong people, perhaps radicalising even more people to join the continental army.

The French connection, as embodied by Lafayette in the musical, is vital to the war. Lafayette is a fascinating character; a marquis comes to the Americas to fight at the age of 19. The opening chapter of "For Liberty and Glory" portrays Washington as up to his neck in French noblemen trying to make a mark. When Washington met Lafayette this was pretty much the impression he got but over time this frustration turns to appreciation and even a paternal kind of bond, and for his efforts Lafayette has probably more places named after him in America than any other foreigner.

French support is essential because the American navy is almost non-existent. This is what happens at the end of the war in Yorktown, where the British commander Lord Cornwall becomes holed up; the French fleet stop them escaping and the continental army stops any escape by land, so after the big battle there's no choice but surrender.

A final note on the war is that it was expensive for everyone involved. The drawn out nature of the conflict is part of what made it impossible to justify. France, Spain and the Netherlands were all lending money to the continental congress but even so the newly United tates had to print paper money and IOUs to pay their soldiers with, which led to inflation and massive debt which will become important as we discuss the politics after the war.

Part Six: Are you ready for a cabinet meeting?

Now, in the second act of the musical, after the war, we see how the well-nurtured distrust of the controlling British becomes, in the southern colonies, transposed into a distrust New York and the federal government. Years of pivotal American politics and compromises are compressed in Act 2 of the musical and we see the emergence of political parties in the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. While the federalists want to strengthen this fledgling nation by centralising money and power, the democratic republicans think of government as something that should be small, so small you can beat it to death if you need to, and they strongly espouse the separation of church and state.

There's a lot going on but I want to dig into one topic in particular - the assumption of states' debts. What does that actually mean? Why does it matter whether the states or the federal government holds these debts; they'll be paid to someone else either way, right? Well, the thing to understand about Alexander Hamilton is that he's very much on the side of Wall Street and empowering free enterprise. He wants money concentrated, whether it be in a federal bank, or with private entrepreneurs, because he truly believes that they will be a force for good. 

The big positive behind this idea is that if the federal government assumes the debt, then they have money owed to them, which means that the federal government gets credit to take out loans from elsewhere. While more loans would allow them to invest in their new country it would mean that the federal government might take loans from, say, moneylenders in Britain and states could then end up paying British people for the war they just had with Britain, which just seems absurd to Jefferson and Madison and their faction.

Another reason to hesitate was the unbalanced amount of debt; why should a state with small debts be eager to pay off a state that has loads of it? We see a parallel here to the thinking in the European Union during the financial crisis of 2008 – large parts of the EU had taken on the same currency without centralising the debt. So when economies collapsed people were not necessarily eager to bail out another country's debt. In the early United States, Hamilton had his way and the federal government took on the debts, and I think the EU parallel illustrates how necessary that was to keeping the states united now that they were bereft of a common enemy in Britain.

As we look back on history it all seems to be written in stone, and it has this air of inevitability. Obviously during the war this wasn't the case but even afterwards, as they tentatively formed a republic, there was so much uncertainty. There were plots of secession that sound far-fetched in retrospect but everything was unprecedented; attempts to form a democratic republic arguably hadn't arguably been made since the days of the Roman Republic and Greek city states after all. The scale of the founding fathers' ambition here was immense.

Part Seven: Aaron Burr, Sir

We haven't talked much about Aaron Burr. Him and Hamilton are flip sides of the same coin, similar and different at the same time. While you can say that Hamilton came from nothing, Burr is the opposite, his father was the president of Princeton, though he did die in the year after Burr's birth. Both Burr and Hamilton joined the army, with Burr probably doing more actual fighting under general Montgomery and well, in summary, Montgomery got shot and Burr ran into the battlefield, trying to retrieve the body under fire. Though the villain of the Hamilton story, Burr, as a member of the New York assembly, brought forward bills to increase women's rights, which can't really be said for all the founding fathers, and like Hamilton he was opposed to slavery, though they were unable to do very much about it given that the republic pretty much ran on it.

Burr becomes, in the years after the war, what we might call the first modern politician. When elections came up he was canvassing, going door to door, saying "you should vote for me". This was outrageously tasteless and ungentlemanly at the time, because other people should talk about how great you are, not you yourself. Burr was an opportunist, switching political parties and views fairly freely. Hamilton calls Burr an American Catiline (a figure in the Roman republic who tried to overthrow the state). That might not be a harsh insult to us today, but these founding fathers went to college in an era when that meant that you were steeped in the classics, and the influence of Greek and Roman thought is apparat in everything they do. So to them, if you call someone a Catiline it's very obvious what you mean: They cannot be trusted.

Burr runs against Jefferson in the 1800 presidential election. Kind of. There's a deadlock which moves the choice to the House, where the Federalists have control. Now both Burr and Jefferson are Democratic-Republicans so there's not going to be a Federalist president either way but it's thought that Burr might be a better choice given that Jefferson is a divisive figure. The fact that federalists control the House means that Hamilton has a chance to change the stars for Burr and keep him out of the room where it happens.

Now Hamilton, to be honest, had a knack for making enemies. A lot of people hated him; he just wouldn't shut up. Even with his many enemies, Burr turns out to be Alexander Hamilton's nemesis. After another election where Burr believes Hamilton to have used his influence against him, Burr challenges Hamilton to a duel.

Hamilton accepts but does he throw away his shot? Supposedly, yes, but there were two gunshots. And yet as he's taken home, drying, Hamilton tells those around him to be careful with his gun, stating that it's still cocked, seemingly indicating that he believed that he did not fire. It's likely that both the pro-Hamilton and pro-Burr sides twisted the story a bit after the fact but what we know for certain is that Hamilton died and Burr was politically dead, even though he apparently showed remorse immediately. He would refer to his Hamilton as "my friend Alexander Hamilton who I shot."

If you read up on Burr, some of the things he got up to afterwards are hard to believe, but I'll leave you with this: Burr married an heiress and they later fell out and had a divorce that didn't leave Burr with much. And maybe it's appropriate, it almost has a touch of fate, but her representation in the divorce was an eminent lawyer: Alexander Hamilton, Jr.

Conclusion

That pretty much concludes the historical context I'm giving today but there are a few things I'd be remiss not to mention. First of all there's the cat thing. I have to mention it just because Lin-Manuel Miranda turns to the audience and says "That's true" even though he knows it isn't! This is pretty much indicative of all the inaccuracies in the story. They're all there to make the story more tight and entertaining. 

Then there's love triangle with the Schuyler sisters. It's true that Angelica and Alexander were very fond of each other but there's no evidence of a romantic affection and, more importantly, she was married before she ever met Hamilton. In fact Philip Schuyler have 15 children, some of which are sons, making Angelica's line about how she's the oldest and has to marry for money completely untrue. On this point Lin-Manuel Miranda himself says "I forgot and I think my brain wanted me to forget because it's stronger, dramatically if societally she can't marry him."

If you want to dig deeper into the real history I recommend the book Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, and if you like podcasts I think you would enjoy Reel History where I co-host with two people much more knowledgeable about history than myself and we discuss the true story behind movies and television shows. Just search for Reel History on your podcatcher of choice.

Jakob Burrows

Video published July, 2020

Text published March, 2021

In the Beginning

About 500 years ago (okay it was 2017) I saw a Canadian animator looking for collaborators and though I know how time-consuming and painful animation is, the pitch was just too good: We would animate alternate scenes in a story. Without seeing each other's scenes. You might be asking yourself how and why? The latter I'm still trying to work out but the former is what I wanted to shed some light on here.

And if you want to collaborate on future similar nonsense, please go to awesomepedia.org/monkey to sign up. 

The first thing we did was pick a theme; a genre to parody. We went with film noir, detective films from the 40s and 50s with a distinct black-and-white style. We figured that using archetypes such as the hard-boiled detective and femme fatale would help the viewer identify the characters across scenes, even when the designs were different.

The finished product, appropriately named The Exquisite Corpse, is finally ready and available for you to watch!

Telling a Story

If you've seen it you can tell there's a story, a through-line – and you might be wondering how that's possible if it's true that we didn't know what the other people were animating.

Basically I took on the role of story architect and wrote a general outline with eight scenes to be split between the three participating animators. We didn't have a script but we had brief descriptions of what each scene should accomplish, and in particular of how each scene should start and end.

This was a mistake. In several ways, the main being that I got too interested in the story and the concept of alternating scenes like this, it isn't really built to deliver a story, it's far too experimental. The other problem was... Well, I mentioned three animators, right? One of them died. To us. He's dead to us. He is the reason it took 500 years to complete this project; without him it probably only would have taken 480 years or so.

Collaboration Issues

It was clear early on that 2 of us had more dedication than the third. Let's call him Greg. Now if Greg didn't have time to animate we were hardly going to beat him up - and not only because He lived really far away, we also weren't paying. We're doing this because we want to; this is like a band and if you're not showing up for practice, we're fine with finding another drummer.

The problem was this: our very concept relied on us not seeing each other's work, which meant that Greg could just keep telling us he was working on it. Without actually working on it. Even after our scenes are finished he's telling us he's almost done. But he's done nothing, I assume, because Greg starts taking longer and longer to respond, each time finally getting back with "yeah I'm almost done I still definitely want to do this!!"

Until he finally just  d i s a p p e a r s.

We've been creatively ghosted – this is like Tinder all over again, except this time we got fucked.

We've been waiting forever for his scenes and we just have to bite the bullet and animate them ourselves, prolonging things even further.

Lessons Learned

I'm really happy with the finished product but we also learned a lot from it and we've arrived at two rules for online collaboration:

1. Embrace the format. Which for me means, don't try to tell a story. Similar projects have shown that these collaborations work best when you let the absurdity flourish. So in our future animation projects there will be less of a structure.

2. Allow flakes to flake. People sometimes disappear. Life comes in the way (or death - Greg could literally be dead, we have no way of knowing). So for future projects we'll figure out a way to allow that, probably by having scenes that, apart from the beginning and end, work fine out of sequence. That way we could set a deadline and any scenes not finished by then can simply be dropped.

Or maybe there's no deadline, maybe the animation is posted in separate bits and it just keeps growing while there are people interested in going on this weird bizarre adventure with us, practising their animation and making friends along the way.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that getting on Skype and watching our finished film for the first time was one of the top moments of the year for me.

If you'd like to animate with us, please visit awesomepedia.org/monkey a sign up to find out about upcoming projects. And subscribe to Misanthropy Broth on YouTube; if you like anything I've ever made, I'm pretty sure you'll like his brand of bizarre comedy too.

Text published March, 2021

Video published December, 2019

It feels seperate from the story

One central reason people skip fights, is that the story is put on hold, and stands still until the end of the scene. This is a very video game way of writing; the story's happening, but then it stops, and there's a challenge to overcome before the story continues. This works in a video game because you're facing the challenge yourself but that's not the case in movies and TV. So if the script just says "they fight" who could blame you for going to make a sandwich and then popping in to see who won?

In written fiction, which is the main focus of this essay, we don't even have the advantage of a visual spectacle. So how can we make the fight feel like the fight is part of the story, not apart from it?

Solution: Reveal character through action.

Well, by revealing who your characters are, through their actions. A tense moment of physical conflict is likely to show you a lot. Your characters can even find out things they didn't know about themselves. Sure, you can do big, dramatic reveals but there are subtle ways to think about this.

For example, Stephan Krosecz made a breakdown of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (Pirates of the Caribbean - Accidentally Genius), paying particular attention to an early fight scene that tells us a lot about Will and Jack. Details are given in dialogue,such as the fact that Will is a skilled blacksmith's apprentice, but there's more important stuff revealed; things they don’t need to say out loud because they show you. Like the fact that Jack will trick his way out of any situation. And that Will does what he thinks is right even when he has to pay a massive price.

I suggest watching the detailed breakdown in Stephan Krosecz's video --  although you probably have given that it has over 7 million views.

Who wins the fight is important, sure, but it's how you beat your opponent, or not, that reflects your personality and development.

Reveal, confirm, change from the Marie Brennan quote above gives us the bones of a story: Reveal who your character is in a first fight, confirm who they are in a second, and show their change in a third. If you intergrate your fight scenes in such a way, they become essential and pivotal to the story, rather than seperate.

I can't follow what's happening

Being able to follow the action is hugely important, otherwise your fight will just be a big mess. It's hard to care, and keep caring, when you're being assaulted with something unintelligeble.

In my opinion the solution is not to go into massive detail on what's happening (in fact, that's likely to make things more convoluted) but rather I'd suggest paying attention to the setting of your fight.

Solution: Bring the setting to life

Unless it's pistols at dawn in the desert, or a never-ending tournament like in Dragonball, the space will have a huge impact on how your characters achieve their goals. For this reason you should probably make a map of the location, to keep track for yourself. You don't need to explain every inch to the reader, but you need to establish the space.

Show the location before the fight because during the fight there won't be time. Your characters are likely to use any advantage they can get from what's around them. And if you establish those things before the fight, it won't come out of nowhere when they're used to turn the tide. 

There are many good things to be said about the iconic fight between Inigo Montoya and Westley by the Cliffs of Insanity in the Princess Bride, but let's focus just on the setting. In the book, Indigo takes a moment, a single paragraph, to survey the battleground. There's the rocky wooded section, the open space, and the cliff. which is especially well-established as a danger due to the long climb.

When the fight starts it moves between the trees, the open ground, the cliffside, showing the fighter's strengths and weaknesses in different areas. And it's easy to understand that whoever gets pushed closer to the cliff is at a disadvantage.

A fight can also reveal new things about the setting. Are bystanders egging the fight on or shutting their windows and staying indoors? Are they ignoring it, taken aback and unsure, or are they rushing in to pull the combatants apart? It's all very well to say "yes, folks round here hate violence" but it's only when a fight breaks out that you see if that means people run away from violence, or towards it, and that's likely to stick in your reader's mind much longer.

The action is boring

It doesn't really matter how good your setting is if the action starts and it's all kick, punch, kick, punch, kick, punch. A fight feels static if it lacks a distinct punc-and-pull of will.

In short, the word scene is more important than the word fight.

Solution: Make it a problem-solving scene

First, make sure it's clear what problem the main character wants to solve, and why.

Here are some simple, potential problems: I want to get past you to save someone; I want to defeat you to prove something to myself; You have a thing I need, and the ever classic; I don't actually want to fight you!

Within the scene, have your characters try and fail to achieve their goal several times. Make them pay a price for each failure and escalate the conflict. Get inside your character's head and show what's happening there as they get closer or further away from their goal.

Super Eyepatch Wolf has an interesting video on this. Though focused on anime, I definitely recommend his "What Makes" series to anyone interested in writing as it delves into the reasons why some things work, shining a light on universal building blocks that all writers need.

Comparing a fight to a game of chess, Super Eyepatch Wolf divides the writing into a technical narrative (everything on the chess board) and an emotional narrative (everything in the players' head) including what brought them there, and what victory or defeat would mean to each one.

Both narratives need to come together and work in unison. And when they do, your readers are not going to zone out because there's an engaging dialogue going on, even if words aren't spoken.

Too many details!

If you dive too deep into combat technique you might achieve a very niche appeal while leaving the rest of your potential readers, confused or bored.

Your job is not to reproduce the fight in every intricate detail; it is to capture and convey the feeling of the fight, and the best way of doing that is to let the reader work for you.

Solution: Let the reader coreograph the action

Without your reader, your story is just scribbles on a page. They are the ones who bring those scribbles to life and they come willing to do so, eager to imagine these wonders. All they need are some cues to get them started. That's why you don't give every detail in any situation; you leave things to the reader's imagination, and this works especially well in fight scenes.

"Show them early on in the fight how each weapon moves through space—make that vivid and visceral. Make the reader feel as if they could actually pick up that weapon and defend themselves [...] The reader will then be able to fill in the action while you describe what your characters are saying, what they’re thinking, and what’s showing on their faces. In other words, help the reader to choreograph the fight so that you can spend your time on the drama." - Author Sebastien de Castell

I think this is great advice. Go viceral first, set the tone, then feel free to abstract out and let the reader take the reins.

Below is an example from "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" by Howard Pyle. It's his version of the fight between Little John and Robin Hood on a log of wood over the water. There's details that put you in the moment (red) and abstract sections that let you fill in a lot of blanks (the green). Note that the actual fight is less than a paragraph, and that doesn't make it any less memorable of an encounter.

Visual fights are more exciting

We're a visual generation. My video essay is going to be viewed a lot more times than this text version is going to be read. And when we get all our storytelling training from films and TV, it's going to slightly mess up the way we write.

There's nothing wrong with studying and working in different mediums but be aware of the strengths of each one, and don't play to the strengths of film if you're writing a novel, because prose has distinct advantages of its own.

Solution: Use all your senses.

Almost every fight scene describes the visuals, what the fight looks like, and sounds, like dialogue and the crunch of breaking bones. But seeing someone get pummeled is different from feeling it.

What is the touch of asphalt like, when your nails scrape over it as you claw to get away?

What about the stench of manure from the nearby stables?

Your opponents cigarette smoke tickling its way up your nose?

Taste can easily get cliche; how often have you read that someone tasted blood in their mouth? I've written that too, we probably all have, but how about tasting the mud as you're pushed down?Tasting the slick sweat as you bite into your opponents hand in one last desperate attempt to escape.

Boiling it down to the senses is appropriate because. In a stressful situation like a fight, there shouldn't be long flowery description. Your body is getting input faster than your brain can put it together, and using raw sensory data is a great way of pulling the reader into the moment.

Films are limited to visuals and sounds, so you actually have an advantage because your only limit is the reader's imagination. 

And by the way this also means you have an UNLIMITED SPECIAL EFFECTS BUDGET!

This feels unrealistic

Treausre Island isn't a scientific report and Die Hard isn't a documentary. They are roller coasters that don't aim to reproduce reality with perfect accuracy.

So your story doesn't need to be real, but it does need to feel real. And that might be doubly true for fight scenes. If we don't believe there's any danger, it takes the air out it.

Solution: Introduce elements of realism

Here are some things that might annoy martial artists who read your story, as told by Wesley Chu, author, former stunt man, and martial artist:

1. Fight scenes don't last forever. Real fights are fast and brutal.

2. Weapons aren't that light. Unless you're fencing, you're going to want to use your whole body.

3. Training takes time. As Weasly said, during his first two weeks of martial arts training, he just got to walk in a circle. The next two weeks, he walked the other way. Because it's all about building from the ground up, and that takes a lot more time than we think.

4. Then there's recovery time. If you've ever had an injury, sure, the pain sticks in your mind. But the reason we end up frustrated afterwards is the slow, gruelling recovery. Yes, in an action story this might be better off ignored, after a quick "improvised bandages" scene. But in many cases it can be a missed opportunity.

No one would accuse A Song of Ice and Fire of being completely realistic, and the tv adaptation even less so, but having a character perish unexpectedly from an infection, or brought down not by his mighty opponent but by a spear from the back, gives you a certain degree of credibility.

Sometimes you do want things to be larger than life, but sprinkling in some of these elements can make the conflict more tense, dangerous, and interesting.

There's no real reason for the fight

Sometimes character crash together for flimsy reasons because "wouldn't it be cool if" they did. And whenever character motivations bend in unnatural ways to build a situation, it's going to feel wrong.

But that's not going to happen if you root the conflict in who the characters actually are and if you show what they want before they even lay eyes on each other.

Solution: Build tension before the fight

It's like the old Hitchcock bomb thing where if you let the viewer know there's a bomb under the table, they're going to be on the edge of their seat, even if the characters don't know. The bomb equivalent here is to let the reader know a fantastic fight is coming; that will get them turning the page. And you don't need to hammer this home, because the reader is smart.

If you show a badass fighter who wants something that's completely the opposite of what your protagonist wants, that alone will get us imagining and anticipating what will happen when those two forces come into conflict, and it's all rooted in believing in the wants and needs of those characters. If they are believable, the fight will be too.

If we're already excited before the fight starts, the fight itself doesn't need to be drawn out.

Which brings us to...

It's too long!

As mentioned, one element of realistic fighting, is brevity: Fights often end fast.

So if all else fails, make your fights shorter. It won't make them less tense, not if they have proper build-up, and no one has ever skipped a fight scene because it's too short.

But the solution is not to make it one sentence either, so where do you draw the line?

Solution: Keep it focused

In a fight, your characters will be more focused than usual. Your writing should reflect that, with short words, short sentences.

Instead of "they pulled at one another, each trying to get the upper hand." you can simply write "They grappled."

Online you'll find lists of forceful-sounding words. And I'm by no means saying you should stuff all these in but they're good building blocks for short, concrete sentences, and if you build a scene out of sentences like that, you're well on your way.

Conclusion

We started with 8 problems, and now we have 8 opportunities.

Do you need to hit all of these in every single fight scene? No. But if the fight doesn't reveal anything new (no. 1) maybe you should make an extra effort to keep it focused and brief (no. 8). If the fight doesn't have any realistic elements (no. 6), highlight how the characters strive towards their goals (no. 4) because if the conflict works, we'll suspend a lot of disbelief.

As always you're not going to write anything perfect in a first draft. I'd advise flailing at the topic as much as possible. If you're uncertain, write a lot of fight scenes. Pick one of these tips and really focus on nailing that aspect. Because if you really want something, you need to fight for it.

So pick up your pen, and start the battle.

Jakob Burrows

Text published March, 2021

Video published April, 2018

Sources

"Pirates of the Caribbean - Accidentally Genius" by Reality Punch Studios

"What makes a fight scene interesting?" by Super Eyepatch Wolf

"5 Essential Tips for Writing Killer Fight Scenes" by Sebastien de Castell

"Writing Excuses Season 10 Ep 33: Combat, with Marie Brennan"

"Writing Excuses Season 8 Ep 43: Realistic Melee Fighting with Wesley Chu"

As we all know, any comic gets better when you explain the joke:

Today YouTube implemented some changes that make everything harder for video creators who have yet to reach a wide audience. YouTube has recently had a lot of problems with what I'm sure they consider their "top tier" creators and instead of dealing with that, and dealing with how their flawed algorithm encourages the creation of despicable content, they've decided to stomp down smaller creators. They looked at the grassroots of their platform, the foundation they stand on, and decided to rip those grassroots out. Cool.

My main channel got lucky (this time) but if you enjoy stuff I make please consider subscribing to Daydreamers Film which hosts the short films made by me and my friends. Here's a comedy we made! (It has subtitles!)

Also hey I made a comic, that's cool. Been a while.

As any good story sawbones knows you need a diagnosis before you can start cutting, because before we can fix the problems we need to know what's caused them.

Part One: Character VS Plot

Saying a story is driven either by character or plot is an oversimplification but let's agree that a story can be focused more towards plot or towards character. By "plot focus" I mean the external action is the major driving force while "character focus" means the choices and development of the characters are central to what happens next. So a character-focused story doesn't lack a plot but it's less likely to be "ah the evil monsters are attacking" and more "ah my previous decisions have led me to this demise."

So what focus does a Song of Ice and Fire have?

Well, it's character because George R.R. Martin is a tried and true gardener as opposed to a planner. He sows the seeds of the story and it grows before him. On the upside this has led to some of the most memorable moments in fantasy history and on the downside he's happy to let his characters get completely out of hand. This has led to him solving problems by making the story even more complex, throwing more characters in and puzzling over the "Meereenese knot" for 17 years even though most readers would be happy if he just blew up the pyramid and got on with it. Sure, that would not have been elegant but we are willing to suspend a lot of disbelief if it's in the effort of making a better, more fun story.

Which brings us to David Benioff and Dan Weiss who are on the opposite side of the spectrum. They are great visual storytellers and thinkers who for years have acted as editors carving away at Martin's massive work picking the best pieces and sticking them together into a sequence that sometimes has a much stronger plot and momentum than the original. This balance between character and plot – between Martin and Benioff/Weiss – has been one of the strongest features of HBO's Game of Thrones and it's truly been an amazing adaptation, taking what was good about the original and enhancing it by playing to the strengths of its new medium.

Then they caught up with the books.

Granted, there were some missteps before then but this split from the books is undoubtedly a major turning point for the show where suddenly, instead of getting to pick the best of 2 million words, the writers only had some small bullet points and vague outlines to base their story on. And we know that those outlines can't add up completely – there's going to be some fuzzy parts that need to be filled in because otherwise George would have, you know, actually finished it. So it's just not going to be the same, it's going to become something different, something unspeakable, it's going to become...

Part Two: Television

Tons of people have said this; that season 7 felt like an extremely well-made but ordinary fantasy TV show. I think this is because it's leaning more towards plot, and character motivations (which used to be so central) bend this way and that based on whatever needs to happen. It's egregiously obvious in the build-up and climax of episodes 5 & 6, where Tyrion proposes an excursion beyond the wall. This is the part where so many viewers put their feet down and said "we cannot suspend our disbelief any longer, this is ridiculous.

The reason it feels ridiculous is that we've been trained for years in how this world works. It's been a story that delights in subverting expectations and going against the conventions of its own genre in a way that's just refreshing and different, especially on TV, because there's a lot of innovative fantasy novels but the same is not necessarily true for epic fantasy on television.

That's why Game of Thrones has often been described as a gateway into the genre; fantasy for people who don't like fantasy, who don't want to see good brave princes and heroes that always win. This stands a bit in contrast to season 7 where there's good brave princes and evil overlords and heroes that win the day a bit too often to be believable. Granted, we are coming up on the end of the story and there's only so many ways it can go. I mean, if they shocked us by cut off Danny's head in episode 3 that wouldn't necessarily make the story better and despite all my whining I actually think season 7 is quite good. It's just that there are so many details that could have easily been altered to make it all make a whole lot more sense and make it feel a lot more like Game of Thrones.

And the first of those things is...

Part Three: Kill Bronn

Whoa, don't close the tab yet, hear me out, okay?

The loot train attack (S07E04: The Spoils of War) is visually awesome but there's no real price paid on either side. Essentially nothing changes because of this sequence. Daenerys still isn't flying in to take over King's Landing, Drogon doesn't really get hurt and neither does Jamie, Bronn or Tyrion. They even make sure to say all the gold gets into King's Landing, meaning that this blow is pretty insignificant in the war effort. Sure we roast some Tarlys but does anyone care?

There are a couple of ways this sequence could have been more impactful and the first is roasting Bronn alive, which I would do for three main reasons.

First reason: There's too many fake deaths. I don't want to kill off characters just for the sake of it but every fake out death erodes at the feel of the show the sense of danger they've so carefully constructed over the years, and in season 7 there are simply too many.

Second reason: Bronn's been around for ages, adventuring with both Lannister brothers; he's a likeable character and his death would make it feel like the things happening had actual weight. Moreover, with his quips and easy manner he represents the lighter side of Game of Thrones. His very presence often makes you feel like you're watching a fun romp, a buddy cop movie. Killing him would signal the end of that more lighthearted time in Game of Thrones history which is really what we should be doing here with just a few episodes to go until the fate of the world is decided.

Third reason: Bronn's death would not only impact us, the viewers, but also Jamie and especially Tyrion, who for the rest of the season continues to push for a peaceful solution – which is exactly what he's been doing up to this point already. This whole sequence is a fantastic place to put a turning point for Tyrion since he's grown used to commanding from council chambers and now he's face to face with war once again.

What if Tyrion arrives in Westeros and finds that he still has anger in his heart towards his family, towards the nobles who despised him... What if breaking the wheel to him means fulfilling this old fantasy: "I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you! I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it." (Tyrion Lannister in S04E06: The Laws of Gods and Men)

If Tyrion starts out the season full of anger and then sees his own friend burned alive that would be a better motivator for him to push for this alliance that eventually ends up happening. Instead he kind of just wants the same thing through the whole season even though it doesn't add up with the Tyrion we know and love. Those are my reasons for saying bye-bye Bronn but don't think the other half of this power couple is getting off scott-free either!

Part Four: Capture Jamie

After the big loot train battle, didn't anyone wonder where the Kingslayer went? Stakes and consequences used to be so central in Game of Thrones and during the battle Jamie makes the choice to rush straight at a huge, deadly dragon against all odds. I like this decision, it's totally in line with him growing up worshiping tales of knights and honor and chivalry, as we know he did, but in Game of Thrones we're supposed to be deconstructing those tales and if he just swims away after valiantly charging a dragon that's the show telling us that we are now in one of those fairy tales. He doesn't need to die for it but he should at the very least be captured.

It's made very important to Tyrion whether the Tarleys get burned or not but wouldn't that scene have had a lot more sense if one of the people captured was Jaime Lannister? Later on we jump through hoops so that Tyrion and Jamie can have a chat in the bowels of King's Landing but this same dialogue could have been held with Jamie in chains, and it would have afforded some pretty interesting scenes with Dany and Jaime seeing eye-to-eye since, after all, he did kill her father.

Although many people are quick to forgive that sort of thing these days.

Coming face-to-face with Daenerys would mean Jamie confronting his past and it could cause him to alter his present. A captured Jamie would also have been better leverage to make an agreement with Cersei than any ice zombie could possibly be because Cersei doesn't care about zombies; she employs one. The only thing she maybe cares about is her brother-husband and their potential unborn child. Maybe Tyrion even convinces Daenerys to let Jamie go as a show of good faith.

We'd end up in the same place but these action set-pieces would feel a whole lot more important if they brought actual consequences and having Bronn and Jamie both escape, it just feels like David Benioff and Dan Weiss are writing and structuring in a way that does as much as possible to negate the cool moments that they are otherwise so adept at crafting! Speaking of which...

Part Five: Tyrion Is Dumb and Everything He Does Is Dumb

The plan put forward by Tyrion in S07E05: Eastwatch is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Tyrion's writing has taken a downturn ever since the books vanished, most notably his jokes, but even if all that drinking finally caused some brain damage, there's no way this plan is believable. Granted, maybe he doesn't know how tricky it would be to get a zombie; after all Jon's talking like there's an abundance readily available up north, but the fact that Tyrion would think that Cersei would work with a younger, hotter queen under any circumstances -- never mind the absolute burning hatred she has for her own brother -- it's just laughable.

And that's the whole point of this plan -- convinced Cersei Lannister! Let's risk the King in the North and the dragons and everything for that when succeeding will barely accomplish anything and failure comes at a huge price. To make matters worse, they make this decision right after dealing what should have been a major blow against Cersei in the loot train attack. At least if this happened after the setbacks of the previous episodes, an alliance would have made more sense but at this point Cersei's taken such a beating that she's already up for an alliance without the need of a zombie! She says herself: "An accommodation with the Dragon Queen could be in our immediate interest. We have to fight her like father would have." And remember, Tywin generally fought people more powerful than him by marrying his children to them. Cersei wants this truce without seeing any undead and in fact seeing it only makes her more confident in her backstabbing since there's something out there that's gonna weaken her enemies. Cersei not honouring the deal makes sense but Tyrion being stupid enough to put forward this plan does not.

Part Six: The Best Laid Plans of Ice and Men

The lack of stakes I talked about in the loot train attack is also present in the polar bear fight up north in Episode 6. It's fairly obvious why they put it in (because it's awesome) but what does it actually do for the story? What changes by the end of this fight? It shows us that the Hound is afraid of fire which we've seen many times before, and it reminds us that beasts can be turned undead, preparing us for what's to come at the end of the episode, but if it's meant to show that the north is dangerous then utilizing no-name, no-face characters as strawmen in the fight has the opposite effect. It shows us that the main cast is more important and more safe than other people in this world, eroding further away at the core of the show.

It seems the goal of writing this whole escapade beyond the Wall was to get the Night King a Dragon and I do feel like there are better ways. Even just having some extra component to the plan would have helped; if they just had a map of the north drawn with Tormund and wildling help, something like "we're gonna be on this side of the lake, the army's on that side, this will keep us safe." Or what about this? The army of the dead can sense living creatures, smell them or something, but this crew just happens to have two resurrected characters. What if Jon Snow and Beric Dondarrion therefore cannot be sensed by the army and have to infiltrate it? Yes, I'm saying that going Shaun of the Dead would have made more sense than what actually happened.

I'm not married to these ideas but if they just had a plan B and a Plan C and those failed then it would have made sense to go for the ridiculous plan D that involves calling on their last hope, namely sending word to Daenerys to come help even though she's on the other side of the world map!

But wait, why am I trying to patch things up when there's a more obvious fix?

Part Seven: The Mother of Dragons

When Melisandre shows up and talks of an old prophecy there's this awkward translation goof, meaning that "hey maybe the prophecy's about Dany," but instead Dany's reaction should have been "a prophecy, how quaint. I don't care what the past thought about the future. I'm building my own future." She's entitled to be a bit full of herself; she's got the biggest army, actual dragons, the best of all the lands she's travelled and her failures this season have been more or less contrived. I would like her failures to instead be born of overconfidence.

As we've mentioned the reason for this "go north" plan is to convince Cersei but they could have easily made this expedition about Daenerys instead; her support is three dragons more important after all and the bits and pieces of evidence could be enough to convince Daenerys to go and have a look. She can even make a deal with Jon: "I'll burn these frost ghosts of yours and you bend the knee." And it would makes perfect sense for her not to be afraid of these northern ice creatures creatures was she afraid of the Warlocks of Qarth? Was she afraid of the Khals of a great grass sea or the sons of the harpy? So far, burning has been a good solution to most of our problems. Jon Snow on the other hand knows how dangerous the Night King is but he agrees because the might of the Dragons could be exactly what's needed; in Jon's view this will convince Daenerys or even present an opportunity to end the war!

So there's a royal excursion to the north, on dragon back from the start. After some adventuring Jon sees and points out the Night King, Daenerys takes them in for a strafing attack - not only does the fire not affect the night King, he also hurls his spear and that poor lizard out. Maybe John sees what's about to happen he knows the true horror and tries to stop the attack but Daenerys is queen of dragons and she's not afraid of anything. This way her own overconfidence brings down her dragon which will be a greater motivator to change than just seeing the army of the dead and their power. When they're shot down, invincible Daenerys has to come to terms with their own mortality. This is her turning point where she sees death and danger on a level she's not faced since her dragons were born and grown. Of course the other dragons can't save them from this situation because of the danger so just imagine Jon and Daenerys stuck in the ice surrounded by some loyal friends who die, and I mean die, to save them. To get them out you could have Bran do something useful for once, warging into a giant polar bear and coming in just in time to give them an exit. You could even have Benjin integral to saving them just you know give it time and don't pop him in for a combined screen time of 17 seconds.

Tyrion brings up the topic of Daenerys needing an heir which is actually a good point and maybe something that should have been brought up earlier this seaso and given time to grow. We could show how Daenerys sees herself as invincible, refusing to think of the possibility of her dying and then this happens and she sees where her hubris has brought them all. This would be a better reason to go and make a deal with Cersei in the final episode of the season. At least one of their friends would have died in the escape and they're forced to use that friend, turned now into a wight, in their final arguments in the Dragon Pit to wrap up the season. I really feel like this would give Daenerys more of an arc and more character development than just having her fall for Jon Snow faster than Viserion going through that ice.

Part Eight: I am an Idiot

George RR Martin was a TV writer who returned to writing novels specifically because he was tired of all the constraints:

"I've done pilots and TV shows tried to keep him within budget and producible, they never make that, I'm tired of playing that game, I'm gonna you know I have a big imagination I have an epic story I want to tell I'm gonna make it as big as my imagination." (George R.R. Martin)

So we essentially made what is an unadaptable story the fact that it's instead been made into one of the best television shows of all time is remarkable. With a writing project this big there's a lot of moving parts I myself in countless other viewers have thought up ways to "fix" the writing but this is a story with characters and threads spread out over years and years, and maybe making the changes I suggest would have opened up more plot holes in other places. I don't know how making these changes would affect the rest of the storylines or the production constraints of the show and more importantly, I sat around thinking about this for a few hours in my underwear; that's about the level of commitment required from me. I didn't have a deadline which the writers of Game of Thrones have had a million of over the past ten years.That's a long time and I can't help feeling like they've lost some of that glimmer in their eye - but who can blame them! They signed on to spend a decade of their lives on a single project and they haven't even gotten to the finish.

To make matters worse it's very clear that they didn't sign up for this. The series began development in January 2007 and at the time of making any deals the showrunners could be quite confident that they could continue adapting the books up until the end. "Hell, we'll even make book three into two seasons, how about that George? That should do it, right George?!" But it wasn't enough. They didn't have the books anymore and they just had to try to make it make sense. And the pressure of getting it all to add up is exactly what's prevented Martin from finishing this story. The big difference is that he actually can take his time to figure out the next plot movement.

"My very first deadlines on Game of Thrones I blew fairly spectacularly and I've been blowing every deadline I've been given ever since." (George R.R. Martin)

For Benioff and Weiss there's no such excuse, not with hundreds of people's jobs depending on them to deliver with contract signed presumably in blood since they're running the flagship of HBO, not to mention a show that's considered by many people is the best of all time. That's a lot of pressure. And you got to do it in a year. Actually you got to do the writing in a few months because, you know, we got to film it too. They used to have such a wealth of wonderful scenes and dialogue to pick and choose from and now they're on their own. On the detail level, on the structure level, and there's no time.

That's really my conclusion here and what I'm going to try to apply to my own writing: Take your time. Because these fixes were easy from an armchair perspective but not when you imagine cramming all this into seven episodes in a limited period of time. On the other hand, trying to do something just perfect might slow you down to a crawl. Like George.

It's a constant balance and since I see season seven of Game of Thrones as a good story that could have used some more drafts some more feedback I'll conclude by saying that when you have the opportunity share your writing before it's finished, get some feedback and that might fix everything faster and easier than you think.

Jakob Burrows

Text published March, 2021

Video published September, 2017

This is a comic about Stockholm International Comics Festival and about being an idiot. I drew it in the back of that zine I bought in panel one. There were empty pages, so what was I supposed to do? NOT draw comics?! Anyway, Kate Beaton drew this so I'm happy: