So yeah, I pretty much stopped blogging over the winter holidays. I was stressed, sick, and overwhelmed.
But last night was the Sleepy Hollow finale, so I thought maybe I should catch up on the blogging.
Episodes 10 & 11, way back in early December and then last week moved the plot forward mostly in this world, so there wasn't a lot of history to poke around at. However, there are still problems with how this series is handling Christianity and now Judaism, which came out in these episodes, so let's dig in!
First problem: There are more kinds of Christian than Roman Catholics. And most of them were here in the colonies during the Revolution. It's like the writers/directors/producers of the show think Americans won't know what a church is unless it has candles, and altar, a crucifix, and stained glass windows. Also, there are more clergy than Roman Catholic priests. Although I will suppose there aren't many Protestants that retain the old Medieval trappings of things like exorcisms.
Second problem: they obviously have no idea who Quakers are. Katrina tells Ichabod she comes to the memory of a the church and lights a candle in memoriam and prays for their son's soul. Quakers don't pray for the souls of the dead (or even the souls of the presumed dead - there was a big reveal about their son in the finale last night, but it was pretty obvious in ep 10 that he maybe wasn't dead). Quakers don't really pray at all. They more meditate. Also, they don't light candles in memoriam. Quaker belief is marked by a lack of ritual and accoutrement. They have very simple practises that, well, mostly consist of meditation and waiting in silence. At this point, I'm just ready to give up on the whole Katrina-is-a-Quaker-nurse thing.
Third problem: what the hell kind of professor was Ichabod anyway? He says he's more or less a history professor, but in ep 10, he references golems in the Talmud, and in ep 11, he says the demon is speaking ancient Aramaic. I am 90-95% sure no Oxford professor before maybe the end of the 19th century even saw a Talmud, much less could read it. Christians spent more time forbidding Jews from reading it than reading it themselves. Even by the Enlightenment, the anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe was fairly strong. I guess if he can read the Talmud, he can recognize ancient Aramaic, because that's what the Talmud's written in, mostly, but it seriously defies belief that he would recognize it spoken. I know a little Aramaic anyway, and whatever the demon was speaking, it wasn't Aramaic. The word for negation (no/not) wasn't there. But hey.
And one final note. What the hell was up with the creepy doll???
