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Aug 19, 2020

"Britannia" Naked Celts and Romans Form Alliances and Have Hidden Agendas

I have seen the first three episodes of Britannia (2017-):

In 56 BC, Julius Caesar set out to invade Britain, but turned around and ran away when he found the island full of ghosts, demons, and monsters.  In 43 AD, Emperor Claudius tries again, sending the driven, "I don't believe in ghosts" career soldier Aulus Platius (David Morrissey) and 20,000 troops.


He doesn't find any monsters, but he finds the Druids, chthonic beings living amid towers of skulls,  who know how to bend minds and send you on journeys to the undeworld.  They kidnap soldier Antonius (Aaron Pierre), brainwash him, and send him back to camp with a message of doom.  The Romans execute him, but that makes no difference; they send him back with a new message, inviting Aulus on a tour of the underworld to see how futile the Roman cause is.


The Outcast (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), ejected from the Druids when he became possessed by the god Pwka (the origin of Shakespeare's Puck), believes that he is the only one who can stop the Roman invasion. We are not sure if he actually has the power, or if he's just crazy, but he provides comic relief in what is often a grim story.

The Romans must contend with two warring Celtic tribes.

More after the break


The Canti, led by King Pellenor (no connection to the Pellenor who chases the Questing Beast in the Arthurian Mythos}, whose children are struggling for control:
1. Kerra, who had a  Roman grandfather, and tries to negotiate with the Romans.
2. Phelan, married to
3. Amena, who is also married to
4. Gaulish prince Lindon (Stanley Weber) on the Druids' order.

The Regni, led by Queen Antedia, who hates the Cantii after an alliance went wrong.  The Druids ordered her to marry her son Gildas (Joe Armstrong) to Kerra, daughter of the Cantii king, but in their wedding bed Kerra castrated him.



There are several other subplots running around, involving Cait, a refugee from a destroyed Cantii village; Ania, a captured Regni who claims to be a goddess who needs impregnation from Phelan; and Brutus and Philo,, Roman deserters who the Outcast uses for his own ends.

It gets very soap-opera-like, difficult to distinguish between the characters and figure out who is on which side.  Does every Celtic woman have to have a name beginning with A?

Beefcake:  Constant. The Romans tend to have bodybuilder physiques.  The Celts are more scrawny and scraggly, with tattoos everywere.

Other Sights:  It's all forest all the time.

Gore:  Lots.  You get to see people being blinded, flayed alive, buried alive, burned, crucified.  Celts and Romans compete to see who can be the most bloody disgusting.

Gay Characters:  Nothing specified. The Outcast has Brutus and Philo hold hands, but that may be just a requirement for a spell.  The way the head druid grabs at his spirit-journey and mind-control subjects, touches their faces, and straddles them may suggest some homoertic intent, but I think it's just supposed to be creepy.

Heterosexism:  The Romans don't do a lot of male-female canoodling, but the Celts are grabbing on each other all the time.  They don't seem to have the concept of marital fidelity.

Is It Worth The Trip?  The  Druids are interesting, but there are so many characters with so little development that one has a hard time paying attention to the alliances, betrayals, hidden agendas, and miscellaneous schtupping.

Besides, I can't spell Brittannia...um...Britania...um...Britainnia...um

Anyway: spoiler alert: the Romans win.  They control the island for the next 400 years.

1 comment:

  1. Should be more same-sex scenes. Romans obviously, but Celts considered male friends to be closer than man and wife, and who you go to for pleasure.

    ReplyDelete

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