Talk:Crusades trilogy

Merge
I suggest that the article Arn Magnusson be merged here. --Tony Sidaway 07:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Assuming that is a series character - might be a good idea. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  09:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Arn is the main character of the series :) I agree with the merge since the Arn Magnusson article is just a plot summary of the series. DarkAvenger (talk) 17:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I also agree. Birtitia (talk) 10:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * agree did the merge. --Stefan talk 13:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Possible inspirations for the character
Since Arn is supposed to be grandfather of Birger Jarl, that would effectively mean that his character is, in fact, based on Bengt Snivil, and Cecilia would then be Sigrid Björnsdotter, who also happens to have a half-sister to fit the plot of the books. The article in question also makes an uncited reference to romantic literature, which begs the question of How was Bengt Snivil actually depicted in literature? and How much of that Jan Guillou actually borrowed? So, there's some fact-finding to do for someone interested in Swedish literature. 94.101.5.97 (talk) 13:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Swedish/Nordic Templar Knights
There is no evidence that there were ever any Swedish or Nordic templar knights. The cross on the current day Skara cathedral is probably a Maltese cross, not a templar cross. The whole premise is the series is false. Compare this series to Sigrid Undset's Kristen Lavrensdatter, another fictional Nordic (Norwegian) protagonist of a trilogy. Some of the "Templar Rules" set forth in the trilogy are not based on fact. For example, Templar knights were never barred from playing chess. Wikipedia even has a picture from a medievel manuscript showing two knights playing chess in its article re Templar knights. I wonder how much research Jan Guillou did before writing these popular and for me very entertaining books? I am leary of putting the information re lack of Nordic templar knights in the narrative as all templar records were destroyed after the dissolution of the order and we do not know the names of every Templar knight who took holy orders, let alone ones like Arn who only were members of the order for a stated period of time.

If anyone thinks that it's worthwhile to indicate the lack of evidence of Nordic templar knights in the article, I would be happy to write it with sources. FrancisDane (talk) 21:13, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think there is a missunderstanding here. The books are fiction, not history. VsanoJ (talk) 13:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Historical Inaccuracies
Even though these are historical NOVELS which do count as work of fictions, there are certain freedoms authors are not generally entitled to take for themselves when writing such works.

The warfare depicted in the novels is very wrong, and I don't just say this from the point of view of a medieval combat expert, which I cannot even claim I am. The longbows cited at the end of the 2nd book were only introduced *100* years after the events in which they are described to have been deployed. Honest authors do put a historical note to mention what liberties they took.

I think it would be good to add a short paragraph in the article to warn readers of such grave mistakes, which I won't describe here in their entirety. If anyone can confirm this would be ok I shall proceed. Anyway, in short: -the aforementioned longbow problem -the wrong description of the battle of Acre in 1189 were crossbows are given a primary role - the author should have specified the Templars are not even mentioned because he wanted to give the impression they had been erased; my assumption. In reality they fought most of the battle and were responsible for the success of the Christians. -many characters are depicted as evil and ignorant, or as extremely positive, cultivated and sensitive, some traits of their personalities described by the narrator as if they were real history. Such as all the fuss about Saladin's tears. No background is evident here, not even on arab-muslim-islamic websites concerning the "Prophet". Other examples are Heraclius being described as a corrupt degenerate and whoremonger.

While I personally enjoy historical fiction, authors making mistakes because of their ploblematic sources, personal biases, or because they did not bother to research key details are pretty common in the genre. Wikipedia editors can not add their own opinions on flaws or perceived flaws of any given work. See: No original research. We require external sources that point out these things for us. Dimadick (talk) 08:30, 30 September 2017 (UTC)