Beowulf and Talos

[Aarah ●]

I was watching the new series 'Beowulf: Return to the Sheildlands' the other day, and I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity between a statue seen in the episode, and the statue of Talos seen in Skyrim.

Hidden:

Same beard, winged helmet, cloak, sword and hand positions.

I haven't read the Beowulf poem, and I don't know if there is any mention of such a statue in it (or who the statue is of). Is it just a coincidence or could there be some kind of link in lore between whoever the statue is depicting, and Talos?

Of course, the statue may have just been something fancy to add for the tv programme, but the similarity is odd. (Unless the attire and pose is rather common.)

Either way, I'm curious to hear what those with more knowledge may think.

[MetaCthulhu ●]

I don't recall a statue being mention specifically, but the original story has born torn apart, put back together, translated, and re-translated so many times it's hard to say definitively. When I searched for "Scandinavian statue" there was a few statues with a similar pose, but none that had the pose, hat, and cloak.

I'll keep looking.

[Dark Spark ●]

Beowulf died fighting a dragon, I recall, and the story ends with a statue of him being made.

[Aarah ●]

In the episode, Beowulf was there, so the statue must have been of someone else.

[Starfang ●]

Talos would be Beowulf had they deified him

[Pilaf The Defiler ●]

Beowulf was a Geat. The first two monsters he killed in the land of the Danes, but he killed the Dragon in Geatland. Both groups of people kept similar gods, from the Odinist pantheon.

In all honesty, though, it doesn't even have to be a statue of a god. It could be a statue of a generic Viking male warrior, or a male hero of the people of Beowulf's time period, like Shield Sheafson, who is mentioned several times in the poem. Judging by the name of this series with its reference to the Shieldlands, I'd say this is likely.

[Aarah ●]

You're probably right, Pilaf. It's likely just a depiction of a warrior. It was chopped off the picture in the OP, but there was also a female warrior on the opposite side.

Hidden:

Inside looks like there's some kind of tomb, so perhaps they are acting as 'guards' for whomever is dead (presumably someone important ).
So seems like the similarity between the statue here and the Talos statue is likely just due to the Scandinavian influences of both.

[Starfang ●]

Bethesda definitely drew inspiration at least from that statue as they're too similar to be coincidence.

[Pilaf The Defiler ●]

Bethesda have powerful time-traveling abilities, then, since Netflix lists this as a show from 2016.

In this case, if anyone copied anyone, it was the producers of this show. It might be a coincidence, as all the individual elements of this statue were pretty common, but the figures with winged helms that I've seen generally wield axes, or sometimes hammers when they're supposed to represent Thor. The leaning on a sword thing or driving a sword into the ground are also pretty common, but most of the statues you'll see doing that have horned helmets. This one looks similar enough to the Talos statue for me to suspect someone in the design department of the new Beowulf show was a Skyrim fan, and added it as an homage. The only real difference is that Talos' sword is turned another way, and he's slaying a rather large serpent.

[Dark Spark ●]

Now we wait for the knee references.

[Pilaf The Defiler ●]

You have no idea how sick I got of those "knee" jokes five years ago. I'm still having to correct people to this day who try to "inform me" about the "old Scandinavian saying" that's totally bunk. People believe any hackneyed BS they're told, without doing any research themselves. Luckily for the world, for every mistruth there is a Defiler to smack it back into place.

[ProphetDragon ●]

Bethesda gets all their inspirations from historical objects. You can see the Norse designs on many buildings in Whiterun and of course, Whiterun itself is inspired from Edoras.

[MARS ●]

Norse Mythology was inspired by Bethesda, clearly, especially that Norse Beowulf guy.

Really though, I doubt the statue of Talos is first iteration of that design. It's not really a copying contest when dealing with motifs that have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The stoic stance with the sword pointing downward isn't even a distinctly Norse thing, and...neither is Talos. This all just goes to show that historical inspiration is a wildfire of misinformation and re-interpretation, which isn't always a bad thing, it only starts being one when people who aren't actual historians start acting like they know what they're talking about because they read some books and played some video games. Kind of like I'm doing right now. See? I'm proving my own point by demonstration.

What we can safely say is: Talos and Beowulf don't have too much in common. Obviously, however, Beowulf is a very influential figure of myth, and the tropes and plot points of his story have influenced many, many character/story designs.

[ProphetDragon ●]

Norse Mythology was inspired by Bethesda.

A little confusing, Bethesda was formed in the 20th Century and the Nords and Vikings arrived a 1000 years age.

[MARS ●]

That was the joke.

[Pilaf The Defiler ●]

The absolute worst in this fandom is when people make the "Imperials must be Romans" type assumptions because of superficial resemblances. They'll make long, complicated lists based off aesthetics and try to assign some deeper meaning to it. The way I like to put it is that if "Nords are essentially Vikings", they're only such in the ways they clearly are, and not the many ways they're clearly something completely different and unique. Same for all the races and cultures, really. There's gonna be some nods to real world cultures because that's our point of reference as human beings, and that's a simple way to represent what something is like at a glance. You might make a certain mental association between the Forsworn and various tribal groups of Earth based on their dress and weapons, for instance, and that's a type of lore in and of itself, that type of visual aesthetic, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

I think Todd Howard even suggested such a thing in the "Making of Skyrim" documentary. He was describing how his initial inspiration for making Skyrim was in a Conan the Barbarian action figure on his desk. He said something to the effect of "How do you feel when you look at this image?" and displayed an image of the figure, then says something along the lines of "that's the essence we wanted to capture with Skyrim." So, Skyrim isn't literally Cimmeria, obviously, but there was that basic aesthetic feeling. Same with feelings you get when you see that Talos statue. It evokes associations of things you've seen or read about in other places, without having to actually represent those things. Rather, it's a representation of how they make you feel. It's "the days of high adventure" personified. Trying to be an armchair historian and assign a deeper meaning to it, or some real world parallel misses the point of the emotion it's supposed to instill into you as a gamer/explorer.

[ProphetDragon ●]

Anyways; Bethesda made a good game, one of the best games to ever exist. The graphics and visuals look good without any mods at all. This game is the eight wonder of the world.

[MARS ●]

Is that a Beowulf quote?

[ProphetDragon ●]

I don't know, I only watched the animation film.

[Walker Jones ●]

This game is the eight wonder of the world.

This game isn't even in top 8 of TES series.

[MARS ●]

Guys, come on, save it for the General Discussion threads.

[ProphetDragon ●]

"I may run out of bullets but I never run out of wits" — Me

I don't know where this quote came from. It just popped up in my head.

[Dark Spark ●]

"Guns run out of bullets. Swords never run out of sword."

That's in Beowulf, right?

[ProphetDragon ●]

Guns in Beowulf? Not a very humorous joke, not a very good Chuck Norris joke either. I'm sorry.

[MARS ●]

Guys, come on, save it for the General Discussion threads.

Are you all trying to annoy me, or do I need to start expressing myself in short shouts?