Anyone think the barbarians and vikings were the good guys?

Question

Anyone think the barbarians and vikings were the good guys?

Answer 1

They must have been the good guys because at the end the good wins over evil and they won...

Answer 2

The Vikings & Barbarians were not bad people. They were of a different culture and way of life. In Britain, Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty. The chronicles of medieval England had always portrayed them as rapacious 'wolves among sheep'. During the nineteenth century public perceptions changed. In 1920 a winged-helmeted Viking was introduced as a radiator cap figure on a new Rover car. That marked the cultural rehabilitation of the Vikings in Britain.Both the Vikings and Barbarians raided neighbors. The Vikings that traveled extensivly for their time They went to western and eastern Europe were essentially from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled Iceland, Greenland and (briefly) North America. It is believed that the trade practices of Christians at that time lead to raiding parties and plundering their concept of honor both in combat and justice lead credence to this idea. The reason barbarians are often considered "bad guys" due to the fact they refused to change their way of life. they chose to stick by their gods and customs. Most did not live in suburban settlements but lived as observes like to say "like animals in the fields" Any civilization who did not meet "civilized standards" were considered a "barbaric" people.  

Answer 3

The barbarians and the vikings thought they were good guys.

Answer 4

There were some things bad about them.  But overall they were good people.  They were mainly defending their homes from the likes of the romans.  

The Vikings, they did attack and raid villages and cities, but the cities they took over become magnificent places of trade, boosting the economy of these places by tenfold.

Answer 5

Yeah! I have Viking blood in my veins so why would I call myself a bad guy?

Answer 6

Good guys and bad guys?  History is not so simple.  The Germans that sacked Rome, for example, were, on the one hand, Pagans who had resisted the imposition of Christianity, and who had been shoved back and had fought (successfully) the conquiest of the Romans beyond the Rhine.  That they made war against Rome was certainly an understandable thing, and that they conquered Rome wasn't so bad, either, from many people's perspectives.  On the other hand, the breaking of the Roman Empire led, inevitably, to the long dark teatime of Europe, so to speak, and the only thing that kept any of the intellectual and civil gains of Rome alive was the Arab libraries and the monestaries of Ireland.  

The Vikings were mostly farmers and traders, and it was only relatively few of them that went "A-Viking."  Those that did were raiders and mauraders, and it's hard to find much lovable about them, I'll grant you.  However, the Norse who were traders helped spread cultures and peoples around, and probably helped keep Ireland from being conquered by Anglo-Saxon war bands.  The later Danish (which was one of the sources of Vikings in earlier times, after all) invasion of Britain was harder to judge as good or bad.  The Saxon and Angle invaders had taken over and replaced the Romano-British culture (or at least had blended with it) and had succeeded in largely eradicating the Celtic cultures except in the fringes.  The Danish invasion and qunquest of most of modern England was just more of the same, in many ways.  

I have no particular love for either the Anglo-Saxon monarchs and petty kings of England in the time of the Viking raids and the Danish invasions, nor do I have any reason to especially love the Roman Empire at the time of the first and second sackings of Rome.  The good or bad of each of those events comes from one's point of view, and for me is about the loss of treasured books and even more valuable knowledge.  Unfortunately, the Holy Roman Empire and the Church did a lot of that sort of destruction as well, and so, if I were to lump the Norse and a Barbarians into "bad guys," I would also lump the Dark ages Church in there, as well.