History Film / TheThirteenthWarrior

* BearsAreBadNews: This part is kept like in the book. However, here is also used ''[[DeathByIrony against them]]''. Ahmad asks the Northmen how do they hunt for bears, thus leading to his realisation that they need to find a cave system large enough for the entire tribe to live in it.

** The Northmen treat Ahmad like an useless FunnyForeigner [[TheLoad load]] at first, but he eventually proves he can actually fight and be useful in their quest.

* AwesomeByAnalysis: Ahmed pieces together the norse language in his head and learns it well enough to speak it fluently just by sitting quietly and listening to the twelve warriors talking for long enough.

* IChoseToStay: Implied. [[spoiler: Herger is the only one of the surviving Northmen to stay in king Hrothgar's realm. If you pay attention during their good-bye scene, on the ship with Ahmad, there are also Edgtho and Weath next to the mast rigging, waving their good-bye to Herger, too]].

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: The movie excises the explicit references to slavery in the book. The HumanSacrifice in the VikingFuneral may or may not be a slave, as she appears willing, and is killed in the fire offscreen. In the book, she was gangraped, throttled, and stabbed beforehand. We are also told that this is an "old way" on the verge of being abandoned by the Vikings. Also unlike in the book, Ahmad has a romance with a free Norse woman instead of raping slaves before the final battle.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: The movie excises all references to slavery in the book. The VikingFuneral in particular has the daughter of the chieftain choosing to commit suicide and accompany him out of love, rather than a slave being killed for it. We also get told that this is an outdated custom that is almost never done anymore by the Vikings.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The number of warriors must be 13, corresponding to the number of months in the Norse year (probably meant to be in ''that specific'' year, as they occasionaly had a 13th month akin to the extra day in a Leap Year). The book further explains that Old Norse culture sees the number 13 as a good thing in general. Then there's the HumanSacrifice of a willing slave at the VikingFuneral.

** The case of the Wendol queen mentioned above. She was originally a fat old woman, embodying the Wendol's "prehistoric Venus" stone figures. It was actually done on Crichton's demand, because he wanted Buliwyf to be DistractedByTheSexy.

* AllCavemenWereNeanderthals: The movie keeps the Wendol's love for bear skins and human meat but oddly subverts this. They have their own language, enough engineering skill to build a solid bridge, and can wage hit-and-run cavalry warfare. It is even debatable if they are still Neanderthals in this version, as while those [[TroubledProduction in the scenes shot]] by [=McTiernan=] have some passable Neanderthal eyebrows and chins, the new mother and the chief added in the reshots by Crichton clearly don't, and their tech only complicates things (see AnachronismStew).

** The Wendol get this even more than in the original book. In addition to the Venuses, they also have body paint (we don't know if Neanderthals did, though they may), cave paintings (very unlikely), and they also fight with horses and throwing javelins (certainly not). However, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality it is not unbelievable]] that they'd pick new technology from their neighbors if they lived for another 31,000 years.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: After Ahmad shows off his skills with a sabre and eventually points his blade at the still sceptical Weath, he, without blinking, asks if he can give the cut-down sword to his daughter after Ahmad gets himself killed. Everyone cracks up, including Ahmad himself.

* OverlyLongName: When asked his name Ahmad starts giving his full lineage. The Vikings get annoyed and decide to call him "Eben" (after the Arabic ibn, "son of") from then on, likely because they heard him repeating the word as he gave his name and assumed that it was an important part of it. Buliwyf does call him "Ahmad" later.

* AdaptationalBadass: While the Ahmad in the book is just a diplomatic on a mission, has no particular skills, and barely manages to keep himself alive in fights, the Ahmad in the movie was banished for his (implied to be unconsummated) love of a woman forced to marry another against her will, and is [[RenaissanceMan a talented equestrian, swordsman and blacksmith]]. He is also capable of learning a language just by careful observation and listening (at least in an immersive environment). He does start the movie about as competent in a fight as his book equivalent, but it turns out it's because he doesn't know how to use that style of sword.

* ShownTheirWork:
** While the movie is historically speaking [[AdaptationDecay a step down]] from the scrupulously researched book since it introduced many [[AnachronismStew anachronisms and errors]], it did have a more or less direct quote from ''Beowulf'':

* HeroesLoveDogs: Buliwyf is accompanied by a large red dog for most of the movie.

* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In the film, Ahmad suddenly reveals that he's a total whiz with an Arabian-style saber, after having spent half the film showing that he's a NonActionGuy.

* FlatCharacter: Vladimir Kulich, who played ''the lead'', would later lament that one of the reasons why the movie didn't live up to its true potential was because the 13 characters weren't developed properly. Half of them don't even have spoken lines beyond "I shall be the Xth man!" in the choosing of the thirteen scene.
-->'''Vladimir Kulich''': You've got 13 characters that you don't develop fully. So when you start to lose them to the battles, you don't really care, because you are not connected to them. And I made a suggestion, which unfortunately didn't happen, 't was: We are on this boat. All you have to do is take a hand-held cam, walk around the boat as you travel and give each character 20 seconds. (...) But they never got that, so we lost a lot of characters in the first battle. You didn't knew who they were.

* HijackedByJesus: Ahmad's Muslim prayers would sound Christian-lite to a Muslim audience. Muslims do not refer to Allah as their father.

* HollywoodTactics: The Wendol cavalry sends charge after charge against an entrenched enemy and only attacks on one place. When their leader is killed, they immediately retreat to presumably never be heard of again.

* HornyVikings: Averted. The Vikings have their cultural quirks, to be sure, but the helmets worn seem oddly [[ScavengerWorld scavenged]] and the crew are generally [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits motley]].

* InformedAbility: The end credit lists the warriors with their attributes like, for instance, Helfddane (Fat). Apparently, the seer called for men with these attributes in the DebutQueue. But most of this is not displayed on screen, Edgtho the Silent gets more lines than Halga the Wise, Weath the Musician never plays music, Skeld doesn't seem any more superstitious than the others (or than any 10th century norseman would be). The only ones who seem to match their attributes are Heger the Joyous and Rethel the Archer.

* MightyWhitey: Averted. Ibn Fadlan impresses the Vikings with his skills, not least his literacy and horsemanship, but he never surpasses the Vikings in the skills they teach him, and while he is a fairly competent fighter he is nowhere near a match for any of the Vikings. If anything, the Vikings consider him the TagalongKid, even going so far as to call him "little brother". (Even if played straight, it would be rather an inversion, as although he is played by an actor with mostly white genetics, Ahmad ibn Fadlan is an Arab, while the Vikings are the white ones.)

* ARealManIsAKiller: In the novel Ahmad is timid and wimpy until he learns how to fight and be a real man from the Norse warriors. In the movie, it is heavily implied that he already has some skill with a scimitar, and the Norse gain a great deal of respect for him once it becomes apparent he can hold his own.

* ManlyFacialHair: Practically every male adult Viking has a BeardOfBarbarism to contrast the more "civilized" Ahmad's beardlessness (and BarbarianLongHair to contrast his shorter haircut). Notably, the weaselly Prince Wigliff is both beardless and short-haired. Buliwyf himself is beardless, but his long hair, LanternJawOfJustice, and HeroicBuild make up for it visually, and he's still the most badass character in the movie.

* ManlyFacialHair: Practically every male adult Viking has a BeardOfBarbarism to contrast the more "civilized" Ahmad's beardlessness (and BadassLongHair to contrast his shorter haircut). Notably, the weaselly Prince Wigliff is both beardless and short-haired. Buliwyf himself is beardless, but his long hair, LanternJawOfJustice, and HeroicBuild make up for it visually, and he's still the most badass character in the movie.

* OverlyLongName: When asked his name Ahmad starts giving his full lineage. The Vikings get annoyed and decide to call him Ibn (after the Arabic ibn, "son of") from then on, likely because they heard him repeating the word as he gave his name and assumed that it was an important part of it.

* BadassBeard: Many Vikings. Buliwyf is beardless, but he's still the most badass character in this movie.

* MrExposition: The young nurse-like Norse woman and the MadOracle are there just to tell the heroes what's going on and what they should do next.

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons: Subverted and lampshaded. It turned out the "fire wyrm" is just a cavalry column with torches, and Herger said he would have preferred an actual dragon. Of course, given that the size of the fire wyrm in question meant it was comprised of literally ''hundreds'' of warriors, all mounted on horseback and moving independently, his preference for a straight-up lizard is understandable.

* MadOracle: As one of the Vikings sardonically notes, "The perfect adviser."

* TheHorde: The Wendol, who have a number big enough to be taken for a "fire wyrm" when they move with torches in a myst. There are apparently hundreds of them, if not more.

* {{Demythification}}: By removing the dwarf daggers, the movie's version of Buliwyf's fight with the mother weirdly gets closer to the original poem, yet keeps the non-fantastic approach. He decapitates her with his sword (rather than it breaking down and him using another random, older, more powerful sword lying around in the cave to do the did), but he loses it still during the escape from the Wendol's cave (which is more accidented than in the book, where the Wendol guards simply left their posts after the mother was killed).