uh... if they kill virgins... just get naughty??
that would be a way to get out of that lottery!
Maybe they made them wear one of those metal girdles with a lock until they got married.
share
MovieChat Forums > Dragonslayer (1981) Discussion > uh... if they kill virgins... just get n...
Fun idea, but I'm afraid they would just change the rules. The old gal who has had half of the men in town might be in trouble. Not nice to pick on virgins real or imaginary.
share"Virgins" might just have been their way of referring to young, unmarried women, (somewhat arrogantly) assuming they were still virgins.
"If you want to kill a public servant, I recommend you buy American."
--Harvey Dent
"The mission in this movie is a simple one, as all fairy-tale missions must be: Galen, a young sorcerer's apprentice (MacNicol) must travel to a faraway kingdom and kill a fearsome dragon who holds the countryside under its fiery scorn. The ruler of the kingdom has meanwhile instituted some stopgap measures. He holds a lottery every year involving all the virgins in his kingdom, and the unlucky virgin who loses the lottery is sacrificed to the dragon. Galen, the dragonslayer, vows to save the virgins by killing the dragon. (There are easier ways of saving a girl from being sacrificed as a virgin, but they didn't call these the Dark Ages for nothing.)
- Roger Ebert, from his review of "Dragonslayer"
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19810101/REV IEWS/101010319/1023
Even the critics got this!
Cheers, ~ MC2
"The reservist formerly known as JO2"
It isn't made clear in the film, but the Dragon would eat any woman put before it. In the novel married women were also sometimes put up for sacrifice.
"Virgins" might just have been their way of referring to young, unmarried women, (somewhat arrogantly) assuming they were still virgins.
What exactly was "arrogant" about that assumption? In tiny villages with absolutely no modern conveniences, everyone knew eveyone else's business. If a young girl was having sex then the village would know about it. Young women were married as virgins to men based on the fact that their hymen was intact (often checked by older women). If their hymen was not intact, they would have been unable to marry into a decent family. It's safe to say that if a girl was put in front of the dragon as a virgin - she was checked as a virgin.
Incidentally; in the dark ages, sex meant diseases (with no cures) or children (and a 50/50 possibility of dying in childbirth). If sex meant children and/or death, disease, an inability to marry, and possibly being ostracised from the community, do you really think 'assuming' virginity would be arrogance? I'd call it 'completely logical'. share
Sacrifice of intact virgins means no orphans for the village to support. A good method of herd management. :D
shareWatch Cherry Falls. The virgins do try to get naughty after they start getting killed off, it doesn't do much good.
Hey kids rock and roll. That's how I lost control...