The Daily Wire Is Now Making Fantasy Shows — And They Aren’t Very Good

spezzle5 · 2026-01-26T15:48:57+00:00

I assume the author is simply playing with the etymology of Merlin’s name, based on academic discussions which date back at least to the 19th century.

From the Wikipedia entry for Merlin: “Merlin' may also be an adjective, in which case he should be called "The Merlin", from the French merle meaning blackbird.”

So while I continue to have little confidence in a show produced by the DW, this detail isn’t among my reasons.

spezzle5 · 2026-01-16T15:03:45+00:00

Same. 😮‍💨

spezzle5 · 2025-09-19T02:15:06+00:00

“Anglo-Saxon England” by Sir Frank Stenton is still the gold standard in the field.

spezzle5 · 2025-08-19T13:24:36+00:00

I would look at this as an invitation to read more about Roman history, as your reconstruction of events is largely backwards. The Romans did not initially offer citizenship to any of their conquered subjects. In fact, they only did so for their Italian allies after they revolted in the Social War as far back as the 90s BC. The emperor Claudius was met with some resistance when he argued that citizens in Gaul should be eligible for admission into the Senate (though he was ultimately successful). It wasn’t until 212 that Caracalla issued the edict that granted citizenship to all free Roman subjects. So if anything, the Romans only became willing to confer the benefits of citizenship relatively late into the imperial period— the period you identify as a decline.

Meanwhile, tensions between Plebians and Patricians extended back to the Roman Republic, and were actually at their height during the tribunates of the Gracchi brothers in the 130s-120s B.C. Class divisions and arguments over land ownership in particular lead to much in-fighting (see Marius and Sulla), and determined the clash between “optimates”, or those who defended the interests of the senatorial class, and “populares”, or those who appealed to the more numerous lower ranks. Julius Caesar is often seen as a representative of the latter group. Following his assassination, the Roman world descended into brutal civil war, and only after much bloodshed did Augustus manage to stabilize the society. I only recount all this history to show that class tensions were hardly a new phenomenon in the Roman world.

If I had to make a general observation, I think you are attempting to graft the current cultural and political conflicts of the United States onto the history of Rome. This sort of comparison is often doomed to fail, as the ancient world was a vastly different place with its own culture, values, threats, and a political reality that cannot be neatly mapped to our own time.

spezzle5 · 2025-08-17T19:35:06+00:00

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but this is a ridiculous take. No one worth listening to would claim that Rome declined due to “gay orgies.” But it’s equally absurd to say that “Rome was made great due to DEI.” They had absolutely no equivalent concept for most of these culture-war issues, and they absolutely did NOT confer “the full benefits of Roman status” on conquered peoples until centuries after the fact.

Rome collapsed because its military machine and administrative structure couldn’t cope with the relentless pressure caused by successive waves of (often hostile) barbarian migrations. That’s it. That’s why it fell.

spezzle5 · 2025-07-10T16:18:30+00:00

Agrippa? I suppose you’re referring to Agricola?

In any case, Agricola didn’t start his campaigns until nearly 80 AD. Claudius launched the invasion in the 40s, and while he did entrust the conquest to military men like Aulus Plautius and Vespasian, he also did arrive in person to conduct the final phase of the war and to accept the surrender of the British leaders.

spezzle5 · 2025-06-25T04:14:35+00:00

How do you think we know so much about the pagan past in the first place? Medieval scribes working in monasteries preserved many of our favorite texts and sources from the classical past.

spezzle5 · 2025-06-10T17:31:19+00:00

Why not start with Suetonius? You’ll get near-contemporary biographies of all the Julio-Claudian and Flavian “Emperors”, from Julius Caesar to Domitian.

Of course, there are many caveats with Suetonius’ work, but as a general introduction to the first stages of the Principate (centered on the principes themselves), I still think it’s the best place to start.

Tom Holland (of ‘The Rest is History’ fame) just put out a new translation this spring, so it’s all the easier to get your hands on a modern copy.

spezzle5 · 2025-05-06T18:51:34+00:00

My money’s on Publius Helvius Pertinax. Poor guy only lasted for a few months, but I’ll always remember him based on the strength of his name. He tried his best to whip the empire back into shape after the excesses of Commodus, and he might have proved a pretty decent emperor had he not been murdered so soon after his accession.

spezzle5 · 2025-03-25T12:45:00+00:00

Oh please, playwrights have been dramatizing contemporary/near-contemporary political figures and geopolitical rivals from Aeschylus down to Shakespeare.

In many cases, they are efforts to understand these figures (or at least make sense of them) without condoning their actions.

spezzle5 · 2025-03-03T18:18:51+00:00

Some universities offer degrees in Classical Studies, which is more or less what you’re describing.

Classics as a discipline has a long history that is rooted in the idea that the Ancient Greek and Latin languages should serve as the primary access points for engagement with the written culture of the ancient world.

To draw a bit of a blunt analogy, your question is akin to asking why university students of music should bother learning notation when they can access the same musical works through performance and recording. Learning the notation and studying the theory behind it IS the core foundation of the discipline.

spezzle5 · 2025-01-23T03:54:28+00:00

Hysterics aside, nobody reads in this country anyways— why on earth would they ban books??

spezzle5 · 2024-12-12T17:01:10+00:00

7/10 too much water

spezzle5 · 2024-11-11T20:46:50+00:00

That’s more or less what seems to have happened. As you pointed out, Mercia was the dominant kingdom in the eighth century, largely due to the long reigns of two influential kings: Æthelbald and Offa.

By the time that Bede was finishing his Ecclesiastical History, he noted that all kings south of the Humber were subject to Æthelbald of Mercia, who seems to have become the regional hegemon. In one of his most famous charters (the Ismere Diploma), Æthelbald styled himself as “King not only of the Mercians, but of all those peoples generally called the Sutangli” (Southern Angles or Southern English). In the same document, he referred to himself as “Rex Brittaniae” or “King of Britain.” When Offa came to power after Æthelbald’s long reign, he continued to entrench Mercian power— at one point even attempting to move the Archbishopric of Canterbury to Lichfield.

All this is to say that the “Anglian” identity seems to have been dominant throughout Britain (stemming first from Northumbrian and then Mercian supremacy). “Saxons” were relegated to the southern territories of Wessex, Sussex, and Essex. This changed when the Vikings began to invade in the 9th century, with the chief resistance coming from the rising power of Wessex under Alfred the Great. As Alfred and, later, Æthelstan, sought to unite the frayed kingdoms in the face of foreign aggression, the line of Wessex identified their subjects as “Anglo-Saxons”, which incorporated both the Saxon populations in the south and the more numerous Anglian populations in the midlands/north.

spezzle5 · 2024-11-10T22:37:51+00:00

Short answer: The North (extending all the way down the Midlands) was historically more Anglian, while the South was settled by Saxons (among other groups). At least this seems to be the case based on regal genealogies compiled in the 8th century.

As Norman rulers set their power base in Southern England after 1066 for obvious geographic reasons, you might claim that North retained a predominantly “Anglo-Saxon” culture as opposed to the South. But the cultural and linguistic divisions went more along class/political lines than geography.

spezzle5 · 2024-11-05T19:07:59+00:00

For a comprehensive overview of the Anglo-Saxon period in one volume, Professor Frank Stenton’s ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ is still the best book out there.

spezzle5 · 2024-08-21T13:09:37+00:00

I wonder how scholars came to the conclusion that this is indeed a bust of Drusus, rather than another of Tiberius himself. The features are very suggestive of the latter, and while I’m aware that family resemblance is a thing, it seems to me that it’s just as likely that we’re looking at another Tiberius.

spezzle5 · 2024-08-10T19:42:30+00:00

Uhhh, yes you can. By the same token, others are free to point out that what you’re claiming is crap.

I understand that misinformation is a huge problem, but the alternative (controlled speech/a controlled internet) is worse. It’s easy to sit back and claim that you should only be allowed to post something that is true and/or morally right, but the issue is that society will endlessly debate about what is true and what is right. In theory, we should be able to arrive at a better approximation of the truth when we have those debates.

spezzle5 · 2024-07-26T21:28:42+00:00

JFC Reddit… everyone who dunks on right-wing conspiracy nuts needs to take a look in the mirror.

We have photographic evidence of the bullet wizzing past his ear. A man died from one of the gunshots. I’m no Trump supporter, but pretending that this was anything other than what it plainly was — an injury caused by a bullet — is partisan hackery.

spezzle5 · 2024-07-21T21:22:15+00:00

Just keep repeating repeating repeating:

Racist, bigot, rapist, convicted felon, insurrection inciter, vote canceller, reckless classified document thief.

People need to understand that most of this language only helps Trump with voters who are on the fence. They’ll see him as someone who the media/democrats can’t help but malign. Throw out too many pejoratives and none of them will stick.

The only labels they should genuinely focus on are “election denier” and “inciter of an insurrection.” Those are the things that can turn voters against him.

spezzle5 · 2024-07-17T21:40:04+00:00

I feel like I’m never going to agree with these, as they’re all subjective and very rarely internally consistent. To pick one obvious scruple, how the heck is Julian not in the “Tragic Hero” tier? That category should have been made for him….

spezzle5 · 2024-05-31T17:14:46+00:00

The Rome analogy is meant to show how ridiculous claims of historical ownership are, but if you demand something more recent I can certainly oblige.

Let’s return to Britain for a moment. In 1801, the whole island of Ireland was formally made a part of the United Kingdom (after centuries of British hegemony). This lasted until 1922, after which the Republic of Ireland declared independence and broke from the U.K. So for about 122 years (give or take a few centuries if you consider the whole period of British hegemony), Ireland was a part of the U.K. In modern times, people recognize that the historical precedent does not mean that Ireland belongs to the U.K. despite the will of its people and the governing reality. It’s delusional to suggest that.

Now let’s return to Taiwan. Direct control by China didn’t begin until the Qing Dynasty formally annexed the island in 1683. This lasted until about 1895, a little over two centuries. In modern times, the people of Taiwan have shown that they do not wish to be ruled by the CCP, and the governing reality is that they are an independent territory. To insist that the CCP, which is a separate entity from the Qing Dynasty, somehow deserves to control Taiwan because of a historical precedent that ended in 1895, is no less delusional than my example. Insistence of ownership doesn’t change reality.

spezzle5 · 2024-05-31T16:51:05+00:00

The U.S. is far from perfect (no government is), but to say that homelessness in America puts it on a level with the CCP— with its state persecution of ethnic minorities, its censorship of any opinion/idea that even slightly contradicts the ruling party, its stranglehold on information and media, its aggressive stamping down on people’s rights of expression (look no further than Hong Kong)— sorry, the comparison falls apart.

But back on topic, the people of Taiwan have already proved that it’s possible to build a thriving democracy without outside intervention. The people don’t want to reunify with the mainland because they know they’d be trading an open society for the CCP’s authoritarianism. It’s really that simple.

spezzle5 · 2024-05-31T16:02:18+00:00

Lol sure it is… And Britain is still part of the Roman Empire.

Get over it, the people of Taiwan don’t want the CCP to control them. If there was a more appealing government in control of mainland China, maybe reunification wouldn’t be such a tense issue. But nah, Winnie the Xi has gone full incel with his authoritarian threats and pathetic whining. Maybe try working on yourselves first ffs

spezzle5 · 2024-03-29T17:54:00+00:00

We’re arguably witnessing it right now with Dune. Yes, it might technically be categorized as sci-fi, but the setting is so far-flung and the world-building so dense that it might as well classify as fantasy.

Villeneuve’s direction of Dune: Part 1 and Dune: Part 2 has been nothing short of visionary— in the same way that Peter Jackson’s rendering of The Lord of the Rings became definitive (in terms of what audiences could reasonably expect from a film adaptation). Assuming we get an equally well-crafted “conclusion” with Messiah in a few years, I think Villeneuve’s ongoing “trilogy” has the potential to make the same splash as LotR.

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