Athelstan and Cleopatra – historical fiction's problem with history.

George William Rolls

Apr 30

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I've been thinking a lot about perceptions of the past, in the media in particular, but also more generally. Unless you are a bit of a history nerd, (guilty), the main way that most people learn about history is through the consumption of historical fiction.

For some reason, the world loves Old Norse stuff at the moment, so we have seen the market swamped with Old Norse content, from TV shows like Vikings and The Last Kingdom, to films like Thor (yes, this still counts) and The Northman and video games like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and God of War. It's getting to the point of oversaturation for me, and I'm sure this boom of content is bound to slow down -- although Vikings are cool fighty dudes and people generally like that kind of thing, so maybe I'm wrong.

The way consumers perceive Viking society (and indeed Anglo-Saxon society) is shaped inevitably by the shows they watch. How many more millions of people know who King Alfred was compared to ten years ago? What about King Athelstan? I'd guess quite a few down to the viewership of The Last Kingdom, alone.

The future King Athelstan, as portrayed by Harry Gilby in The Last Kingdom.

Some of the most well-known figures of British history, e.g., Henry V, Macbeth, Richard III, undoubtedly have William Shakespeare to thank in large part for their fame, as well as their historical reputation. Posterity does not recall Richard or Macbeth well for their nefarious depictions in Shakespeare's historical fiction.

Drawing a line.

Indeed, Historical fiction can be a powerful tool for revealing the past, but also for shaping how we think about the past. Dramatic licence makes everyone fair game, and I'm not saying there should be a history police to tell you what you can and can't change about someone's character, but there certainly seems to be line which you can't cross without pissing someone off.

And that line is different for everyone.

Sticking with the example of The Last Kingdom, in its epilogue film, King Athelstan is portrayed as having a sexual relationship with another man. This sparked the usual outrage on the internet that culture-warriors love to feast upon, the dreaded "woke-agenda" that (if anyone could define it) is terribly awful for civilisation, or something. For the sake of completeness, I will accept their arguments in good faith. This is, simply, their line beyond historicity which they can't accept. (Notwithstanding the fact this decision was made by Bernard Cornwell, the author of the books this series was based on, and not by the writers of the film.)

Now, Athelstan probably wasn't gay, and if he did ever have sexual encounters with men, it isn't documented. Historical Athelstan never married, and scholars have debated why for centuries. It isn't beyond the realm of possibilities that he was sexually attracted to men, but even if he was, he almost certainly wasn't gay in the modern sense. He was a deeply pious man, after all, and in the spiritual world he lived in, ideas of sexual preference were more than taboo. Lines by Uhtred in the film that he doesn't care who Athelstan has sex with reek of anachronism, but if I'm being honest, I don't think that, or Athelstan's sexuality really matters.

You are already watching a made-up character called Uhtred, played by a German man, filmed in Hungary, with all the characters speaking modern English with all of our French loanwords, and not Old English, Old Norse, or Old Gaelic. The period from the accession of Alfred the Great in 871 A.D., to the accession of Athelstan as King of England in 927 spans 56 years. Uhtred, who has been of fighting age throughout, is hardly portrayed as a 75+ year old man in Seven Kings Must Die.

None of this actually matters, at least to most people, because of dramatic licence. Like all stories, you are suspending your disbelief to buy in to the narrative. The Netflix show Barbarians (Barbaren, auf Deutsch) did something quite novel by having their Germanic tribes speak German, while the Romans are speaking Latin, bringing a new level of immersion to the content. But they are still speaking modern German. And they are still taking a stance by portraying Arminius as a freedom fighter, and the Romans as basically all evil. Anachronistic, again, but also again, not really a problem.

Russell Crowe portraying the fictional general Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator (2000).

Films like Gladiator feature incredibly anachronistic ideas such as enlightened philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius advocating a return to the old Roman Republic. Why? Was it too much of a leap to accept the truth that Marcus Aurelius advocated autocratic rule? There's a story that Ridley Scott removed parts of the script containing gladiator advertisements, because it felt anachronistic, despite it being historically accurate.

All this is to say is that we, as consumers, look past made-up stuff all the time in historical fiction. Why does it matter that Athelstan is portrayed as gay in this one show? It isn't impossible. Make one where he isn't!

The visual element.

Arguably a bigger taboo than this is a recent trend to race-swap various historical figures. Naturally soaked in culture-war rhetoric, too. Yawn. However, this isn't really the same thing in many instances. Casting a black woman as Anne Boleyn in a recent Channel 5 adaption, as well as the multi-race-swapping Hamilton, are as a result of colour-blind casting, choosing people for roles based on their acting ability rather than on their race.

Anne Boleyn, as portrayed by Jodie Turner-Smith for the Channel 5 miniseries.

This isn't trying to suggest Anne Boleyn was a black woman, or that Aaron Burr was a black man. Everyone knows this would be a ridiculous conceit. It's not even dramatic licence, but a reflection of multi-ethnic societies we happen to live in.

In the case of the 2019 David Copperfield film, or Bridgerton, which also come up in this debate, race is functionally irrelevant because it features fictional characters.
Not historical fiction.

Cleopatra VII Philopator.

The final elephant in the room is where I draw the line. And I do draw the line somewhere, like everyone. If changing someone's sexuality, race, or other characteristic affects the story being told in a major* way, then I don't think you should change them.

(*major, being a wholly subjective factor)

Going back to where I started this article, consumers can learn a lot of history from historical fiction, and it does shape how you think about the events and characters involved. Athelstan could have been gay, however unlikely.

This brings me to a hill I will die on.

It seems we are cursed as a species to have a debate every few months about the ethnicity of a certain Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra VII. To be clear, Cleopatra was a Greek Macedonian, from a famously inbred family, although she possibly had some Persian ancestry. Her status as a Greek is so fundamental to her character and to her world that portraying her as anything else alters the entire dynamic of the kingdom she ruled. She was not an Egyptian. She was not an African. She was a European coloniser queen in a country where Greeks came first and natives came second. It is telling that she was the first of her dynasty (who had ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years), to have learnt the local language.

This is, if you spend a bit of time online, apparently up for debate. It should not be. There was uproar when Gal Gadot was cast in the role and, although I am not sure whether this film is still happening, Gal Gadot as a Mediterranean is probably not far off the mark.

*Above - depictions of Cleopatra throughout time. The first is likely influenced by Roman ideals, the second by North European/American dominance of film industry. The last appears to be plausible.

Adele James as Cleopatra, in the new Netflix "documentary".

Now, the latest iteration of a depiction of Cleopatra is in the trailer for a new Netflix documentary. She is portrayed by Adele James, a black woman. More fundamental than this is the suggestion within the trailer that the real Cleopatra was a black woman. In a documentary! I think even outside of a documentary this would be a mistake, because it paints Cleopatra as some kind of Egyptian freedom fighter, and not the upholder of a two-class inequitable society.

But that's just where I draw the line. Yours may be different. You might not think it matters, and that the story isn't changed too much by this. I'm sure we'll continue arguing about Cleopatra for the rest of time.

(P.S., for a series about African queens, why have they done one about Cleopatra, when native African queen Nefertiti is right there?!)

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