Legends Summarized: Robin Hood

"You speak treason!" "Fluently!"

Wait, so you're telling me "Steal from the rich and give to the poor" is barely a hundred years old, while "Maid Marion is kind of a badass" goes back to the seventeenth century?

I love how the joke of "Little John" being an incredibly large & burly man has seemingly remained consistent since the character's creation. The people know a good joke when they hear it.

I just. I love the version of Maid Marian who's like, "Oh no my boyfriend got exiled, guess I'd better just grab my hiking boots and tramp on into the wilds to find him" and then she's like "Oh no, a recent but already well-known outlaw, guess I'll just beat his ass" and then SHE DOES. And HE LIKES IT. Between this and Little John I think Robin Hood just adores people who can wreck his shit, which, honestly, same.

Got to love that Robin is such a devout catholic he has to sneak into mass, then gets discovered because he's not so devout that he hasn't already robbed the monks of this church before.

"Money can't buy you love, but it can buy you historical documentation." Holy cow, I love this line.

Fun fact: in the Disney version, the sheriff, Prince John, and Sir Hiss are all based on real Disney executives who took over the studio after Walt Disney died. These three were apparently super hated by everyone - including Disney himself back when he was alive, who declared that opening his company to investors was the biggest mistake he ever made.

Watching this again a year later, I think we all forgot the very important factor that Robin Hood sits very comfortably in a position where he can fit into literally anyone's moral code. Religious? Robin Hood fits. Anti-Taxation or hate big government? Robin Hood fits. Don't like authority figures? Robin Hood fits. Patriotic despite the government? Robin Hood fits. I don't know a single person who dislikes Robin Hood because you can reasonably fit him into almost every world view. I've seen well thought out arguments that this dude would, in modern day, be a libertarian, a communist, a conservative, a liberal, even a monarchist or authoritarian due to his opposition to bad kings in favor of good ones. I don't think a figure exists that is so malleable he can fit into almost any world view in a positive light outside of Jesus Christ.

Red: "See Millennials, gettin' a job isn't that hard, just engage your boss in single combat-" Me, under my breath like a hermit: "Defeat them and they'll join your party, video games have trained us for this!"

Mary: “Respect women” Robin Hood: “Hell yeah my gal!”

HOT TAKE: Later versions of the story, when Robin's dedication to the Virgin Mary starts to become less important to the story now have a new character, MAID MARIAN. Virgin Mary, Maid Marian, both important women that Robin is dedicated to in the story. It all fits! (This literally popped into my head while making fajitas and I had to comment on it right away.)

Fun fact: shooting an arrow through another arrow that is already on the target and splitting that on-target arrow in half in the process is called Robin Hooding, kind of obvious how that name came to be but yeah, not only is he the forever dashing and cunning rogue but he is also the most stylish archery champion, so much so that the coolest way to win an archery competition is named after him.

Maid Marian : I want a nice guy who’s cool, charitable and respects women. Robin Hood : I want a girlfriend who can not only kick my ass but would do so upon request

Red: "Why is he our go-to?" Me: Because a character with no attached copyrights, trademarks, etc. is a hell of a lot cheaper than other characters. 😀

When you realize that Robin Hood is basically fan-fiction fodder.

Ive noticed that Robin Hood and Sun Wukong have a lot of similarities as characteristics and their respective personalities, and honestly I just love that

Took a lit class in college exclusively about Robin Hood. We watched several of the adaptations, including Prince of Thieves. There's a scene where Robin Hood is "showering" under a waterfall and everyone is dead silent just watching the movie and one of the guys who'd never spoken all semester piped up and said: "I went 27 years without seeing Kevin Costner's ass." And even the professor lost her shit.

"Mary got him drinking that respect women juice."

I think it would be so funny to have a movie about all the different Robin Hood’s with different backstories meeting and shenanigans ensuing

“Stay humble America, you’ve got a lot to be embarrassed about” Me, former history teacher: OOOOOOOH YEAH!