(by all accounts Baldwin was a decent enough king as the crusader royals went, afaik.) Saladin has the other problem - he conquered Jerusalem & as was typical for the area enslaved many of the conquered, but ransomed an unusual number & then freed others, which FOR THE TIME was most magnanimous.

But obviously this doesn't translate, nor does the relatively great honor & courage that Balian of Ibelin showed in the siege (or the patriarch of Jerusalem who the film turns into a symbol of wicked religion) so the film needs to translate them into modern standards.

... Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed. I don't know why my brain conflated the two.

I need to go commit seppeku.

Amusing, Saladin himself was largely forgotten in most of the Muslim world until the colonial era, though the European world liked him quite a lot, and when he WAS given new life as a historic Levantine hero, had a lot of HIS flaws glossed over.

That's *true!* Right, hold on, let me get my head screwed on straight: (Ahem) Right, Saladin is a great example of someone who's been given a romanticized afterlife in our cultural memory, glossing over his penchant for slavery and other wartime atrocities because...

... hey, I get it, the Crusaders sucked! But insert here about two wrongs.

Well also any historical drama runs into the problem of "broadly, the ethics of the past sucked."

Almost certainly.

It is worth remembering it was LITERALLY considered more reputable to loot wealth than to earn it through trade.

... God, I'm still so embarrassed, how the fuck did I conflate the two? Gaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

**GAAAHHHHHH**

should have played Age of Empires II more www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkvd...

Ha! I guess I should have. But damn, man, brain farts; they're a real thing.

and Saladin himself I knew first from Age of Empires 2 actually