From the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991), describe how the situation d

Question

From the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991), describe how the situation described influences the decision making process.

Provide an ethical justification for the actions of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Here is the story:

Nobleman crusader Robin of Locksley (Kevin Costner) breaks out of a Jerusalem prison with the help of Moorish fellow prisoner Azeem (Morgan Freeman) and travels back home to England. But upon arrival he discovers his dead father in the ruins of his family estate, killed by the vicious sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman). Robin and Azeem join forces with outlaws Little John (Nick Brimble) and Will Scarlett (Christian Slater) to save the kingdom from the sheriff's villainy.

Explanation / Answer

I saw Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991, dir. Kevin Reynolds) when it first got here out. I was a budding young medievalist in grad tuition, and i hated the film. Through the years it's got a rather bad fame for its many egregious anachronisms (like Robin Hood's mullet). So I sat down to observe it was once some trepidation. But about 1/2 way via the movie, i spotted that I just couldn't hate it. It's now not that it's a excellent movie; it wasn't when it came out, and it hasn't aged specially good. It's simply that the film so absolutely doesn't take itself even remotely severely. It's no longer a comedy, but the movie just gleefully doesn't provide a rattling about some thing other than the story it desires to tell, even supposing that story isn't primarily excellent. Alan Rickman thoroughly dominates the movie along with his manically villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, who's basically Snidely Whiplash made flesh. This film is occupied with history in regards to the equal means that here Comes Honey Boo Boo was once enthusiastic about skill.

The movie is by and large a paint-through-numbers variation of the Robin Hood story with a few new touches thrown in. Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) is making an attempt to thwart the evil Sheriff, who is planning to depose the absent King Richard via marrying Richard's cousin Marion (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), for you to by some means permit Nottingham to disregard the truth that there are a number of closer claimants to Richard's throne, comparable to his brother John and his nephew Arthur (on the end of the movie, Nottingham is so monomaniacally-fascinated about this purpose that whilst Robin is literally battering down the chapel door to kill him, Nottingham just wishes to conclude forcing Marion to wed him so he can have intercourse along with her. That's actual commitment to villainy). Robin Hood is a former crusader who rescues and brings again to England a black Muslim named Azeem (Morgan Freeman), who many times demonstrates that Islam is extra scientifically developed than late twelfth century England through inventing things that gained't certainly be invented for centuries. And Nottingham is working with a witch, Mortianna (Geraldine McEwan), as a part of some kind of Satanic cult. Oh, and can Scarlett (Christian Slater) is clearly Robin's long-misplaced half-brother.

The highest Ten greatest Anachronisms in the film

Azeem gives Little John's wife Fanny (Soo Druet) an emergency caesarian section. He is aware of how to do this considering he's watched horses delivered this manner. That in itself is possible, for the reason that the earliest-identified c-section was once carried out in 320 BC in India. But what's extra problematical is that Fanny now not simplest survives but is up and jogging round literally the next day to come. Prior to the sixteenth century, c-sections had been most commonly performed simplest when it was once already permitted that the mummy used to be no longer going to outlive the beginning or had definitely died; the process used to be a final-ditch effort to rescue the child. Prior to the 19th century, they had been carried out with out anesthesia or blood transfusions, making them insanely dicy for the mum; most females most likely died of outrage or bloodloss earlier than the process used to be finished. And even supposing the mummy did by hook or by crook live to tell the tale the procedure itself, within the absence of today's hygiene, there used to be a very good danger of extreme infections atmosphere in. (See replace below)
Azeem owns a primitive telescope, two glass lenses than he fits into a leather tube. It's not clear where he bought this; considering that he's first met in a prison and actually escapes with nothing, essentially the most obvious rationalization is that he made it after Robin and he get away. In view that the primary known telescope used to be invented by means of the Dutchman Hans Lippershey in 1608, and the film is set in 1194, Azeems telescope is roughly four hundred years too early.

Azeem and his telescope

Mortianna and the Satanist coven. But that deserves its possess post.
Robins father has a framed portrait of Robin hanging on his wall, which is most often about 200 years too early for framed photographs.
Robin and his men all use the so-known as Welsh Longbow, like normally all other Robin Hoods. Longbows themselves date again to the Neolithic period, the Welsh handiest began to make use of them in the late 12th century (inside a decade or so of 1194), and the English simplest usually got them in the late thirteenth century, after Edward I's conquest of Wales. The bow got here to play an extraordinarily primary function in English conflict within the 14th and fifteenth centuries, and for the reason that the long-established memories of Robin Hood look to originate in exactly that interval, it was once as traditional for Robin to make use of a longbow as it used to be for dirty Harry to use a Smith & Wesson .Forty four magnum. However in 1194, it's about a century out of position except Robin Hood is really only a Welsh bandit wandering round England.

Robin and his longbow

Azeem manufactures gunpowder so they may be able to blow stuff up in the climactic disagreement at Nottingham castle. Black powder definitely existed; it's going to had been invented in China round 492 advert. The Islamic world bought skills of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, and the earliest European recipe for it dates to round 1300. So Azeem truly has to invent black powder. It appears he's a 12th century Thomas Edison. (See the earlier photo for a fine instance of a Stuff Blows Up scene.)
Nottingham decides to hire some Celtic mercenaries, and what we get is a bunch of Time-visiting Killer Picts. They're wearing ragged furs and kilts and paint their faces, and a few of them sincerely wield Stone Age axes. These guys are much more out of location than the Viking mercanaries King John hires in Ironclad.
Nottingham's guys almost always all put on Norman helmets, a simple bullet-formed steel helmet that left the face and cheeks exposed, but offered a nasal strip to give slightly safety to the nostril and eyes. This sort of helmet was once generally used within the tenth and 11th century, but in the 12th century it gave way to the closed helmet (for many who have been higher prepared) and a helmet that left the face uncovered however furnished protection for the cheeks (for these much less well-geared up). So I feel we might say that Nottingham is only a cheapskate who gave his guys very historical, crappy helmets, but it surely's type of like making a film in regards to the 21st century American army and giving all the soldiers doughboy helmets. (See the above image for a look after in a Norman helmet.)

Christian Slaters generally vain Will Scarlett

After Robin Hood starts offevolved the entire stealing from the rich to offer to the terrible hobbies, Nottingham's guys publish wanted posters (an anachronism in itself) which are written in cutting-edge English and appear beautiful certainly printed as a substitute than hand-written.
Friar Tuck is a friar wandering round England in 1194. St Francis didn't invent the idea of the friar (a wandering monk, basically) until 1209. The Franciscans didn't come to England unless 1224. Tuck seems to be a priest, due to the fact that he presides over Robin and Marion's marriage ceremony on the end of the movie, but the early Franciscans have been often now not priests. So the whole thing about Tuck is incorrect.
Bonus Anachronism 1: Marions female servants are named Rebecca and Sarah, because of this they're Jewish, since in medieval Europe, most historical testomony names had been related to Jewishness (the predominant exceptions being David and Adam). For the reason that English Jews had been a despised minority, Christian females shouldn't have used Jewish names, and Marion would were most unlikely to rent Jewish servants.

Gotta love that wholly non-medieval neckline on Marions dress!

Bonus Anachronism 2: in a single scene, Marion is needlepointing a panel from the Bayeux Tapestry, a now-noted however then fairly imprecise embroidery from the late eleventh century. Marion is Richards cousin, that means she must be French, so I believe we could hypothesize that she paid a discuss with to the bishop of Bayeux at some point and fell in love along with his wall-hanging and did a fast sketch of it, but why trouble truly attempting to explain the little small print? The movie definite doesn't.
Replace: a couple of readers have asserted that Azeem doesn't perform a caesarian part, in basic terms flip the baby. At the begin of the scene, he proclaims that the youngster has now not became and so can't be born. Then he tells Marion to get a needle, thread, and water. Then he says that he has seen some technique used on horses. He certainly not says precisely what he's going to do, nevertheless it's presented as some uncommon center eastern competencies. So I consider there's some room for debate about exactly what the film wishes us to think is going on. Nonetheless, if he's simplest planning to show the child, inquiring for a needle and thread is senseless. That request simplest makes any feel in any respect if he's planning on cutting Fanny open after which sewing her up after the baby is out.

The entire scene is fairly foolish. There is approximately 0% chance that a Muslim man with out specialised scientific training would comprehend whatever about gynecology and midwifery. Even most proficient physicians within the Islamic world knew nothing past some indistinct theories about childbirth, since gender segregation and the observe of ladies veiling supposed that even physicians virtually in no way had physical contact with unrelated females. Actually, Robin Hood had extra hazard of understanding anything about providing a child than a Muslim man did, when you consider that Western guys had quite greater familiarity with women's our bodies (when you consider that veiling and segregation weren't as rigidly enforced within the West as they had been in the center East). Childbirth used to be women's work and no longer some thing men would get worried in.

Moreover, breeched babies are, if not original, still a recognized phenomenon throughout the medieval world. Being capable to appreciate it and deal with it was now not anything that required distinctive core japanese expertise. Marion most of the time would have as a minimum known the proposal, even if she hadn't encountered it before.

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