We’ve just finished the first season of the Barbarians on Netflix.
It’s made in German and normally we would watch an original soundtrack with subtitles. This time we watched with English dubbing, which wasn’t too obvious and didn’t take anything away from the experience.
I can’t resist googling these historical series to find out how close to the story they might be. And the Barbarians is based around real historical events. Many of the main characters were real people; Arminius, Thesnelda, Varus and others.
The Battle of Teutoburg Forest was also a real event which took place around 9 CE. The Germanic army was led by Arminius against the Romans who were trying to turn Germania into part of the Roman Empire.
And Arminius really was sent to Rome when he was a child and became a Roman soldier. He used his knowledge of Roman strategy betraying the Romans to secure a victory for the Germanic people.
Not surprisingly, given the subject, there is a lot of violence and gore. A few times I covered my eyes and put my fingers in my ears.
But that hasn’t stopped me looking forward to season 2 which is already out on Netflix. I think I’m going to watch with the original German and English subtitles this time.