Reading/watching some commentary & reviews of Eggers' The Northman again, & striking is how often reviewers label the film as "exaggerated", "polemical", "juiced up", as if it were some amped-up Viking fantasy.

Well, no. It's actually the most realistic portrayal put to film. pic.twitter.com/wyLZipCFfB

— Tristan S. Rapp (@Hieraaetus) June 18, 2023

That it is. Again, it goes back to the fact that most people — even most “intellectuals” — cannot at all imagine that other people have and have had really, really different minds and ways of understanding the world.