‘The Last Kingdom’: A Pagan Tale About A Catholic Saint

Alfred the Great, who defended his kingdom of Wessex against the Vikings in the mid- to late-800s, eventually became the first truly dominant ruler of England.

A devout Catholic, Alfred had a reputation for erudition, mercy and having a level-headed nature, while improving England’s education, legal system, military and quality of life. He’s also a Catholic saint.

So, you might think that a big miniseries centered on his reign would have a strong Christian flavor. Well, that depends whose point of view you’re taking.

On Oct. 10, BBC America presents “The Last Kingdom,” described as:

… a contemporary story of redemption, vengeance and self-discovery set against the birth of England. The eight-part drama series follows young warrior and outsider, Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon, American Horror Story), on a fierce mission to reclaim his birthright. The Last Kingdom comes from the award-winning executive producers of Downton Abbey, Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant. Adapted from Bernard Cornwell’s best-selling series of books “The Saxon Stories,” by BAFTA nominated and RTS award-winning writer Stephen Butchard, The Last Kingdom combines real historical figures and events with fiction, re-telling the history of King Alfred the Great and his desire to unite the many separate kingdoms into what would become England.

I’ve been spending the week (and next) at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California — come by, say hi! — at the summer edition of the biannual TV Critics Association Press Tour.

At the BBC America press conference on July 31, here’s what Neame had to say about Uhtred and Alfred (David Dawson).

I think that the contradictions in these characters is what’s so fascinating about them. Uhtred is a fantastic hero, and you really root for him. You follow his journey all the way through these episodes. But he makes numerous mistakes, doesn’t he? He acts too quickly. And that’s the complete opposite with Alfred, who, as David says, is we have this image of this ‑‑ because we kind of think that to be a king, you had to be a muscular king. You had to get there from natural authority.

And the fascinating thing about Alfred was this contradiction of a man who has suffered from a severe illness his entire life. They think he had Crohn’s Disease or colitis or something very ‑‑ it’s something that was very debilitating. So he was original and unique in the sense he didn’t use his muscularity to achieve the crown. It was his intellect. He was a diplomat. He was very pious because, of course, Christianity was not necessarily even dominant at that point. They were spreading Christianity around the country. But I love the contradiction that one of the reasons I think he was quite religious is he couldn’t keep his d*ck in his pants. He had to sort of atone for his sins. And there’s just these wonderful things you don’t really expect with all these characters.

“The Last Kingdom” is based on the “The Saxon Stories” series of novels by Bernard Cornwell (“Sharpe”). In them, Uhtred is no fan of Christianity:

I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at 10 years old, when I was taken into Ragnar’s family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there.

Thor and Odin walked our hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them seem like neighbours. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us.

He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his priests are forever claiming that he loves us. I have never been so stupid as to think that Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them.

I also found where a Patheos Pagan Channel writer addressed Uhtred’s aversion to Christianity, making some interesting points about highly personal neo paganismand the Faith, which builds community for the future:

Uhtred’s reactions to Christianity are hilarious. His conversations with priests are delightful. He is delightfully provocative and belligerent, both with priests he detests and with those he holds in the highest esteem. He mocks their impracticality and the guilelessness. He despises how the church takes precedence over people, over reason, over the nation. Uhtred is the wall against which the empty platitudes of that faith break themselves.

But Uhtred is one man. He is a great man, with a talent for the strategy of war that is unmatched, but he is only one person. Book after book in the series comes out and the progression is obvious. Christianity is building, organizing, building community, growing. Paganism is disorganized, building communities around personalities rather than values, and has no clear hierarchy.

There’s no telling right now how all of this will be handled in “The Last Kingdom.” I hope to be able to talk to Neame closer to premiere and get some more detail.

ABC didn’t have any press conference for the midseason anti-Catholic comedy “The Real O’Neals,” and it didn’t come up in the executive session with network head Paul Lee, so the status of that remains up in the air. I’ll give you my thoughts on that full pilot soon.

I’ve also just seen FX’s “The Bastard Executioner,” about the Middle Ages, from “Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter. FX presents tomorrow, and there’ll be a press conference on it.

Still digesting the two-hour pilot, which came in at the same level of violence-porn brutality that “Sons” exited on. More on that in a bit.

But I’ve seen little to indicate that hardly anyone in Hollywood takes Catholicism (or Christianity) seriously or probably thinks twice about whether or not they’re being fair to us.

They’d love to sell to us, if they don’t have to actually — ick — have positive, realistic Christian characters. But then realistic characters in general are hard to find, especially this season.

Stay tuned …

Here’s a little peek at “The Last Kingdom” (more videos here):