At one point the hero commits what seems like an open-and-shut case of unprovoked murder, and the citations start scrolling up until they fill the entire screen.

There's a series of sequels which each focus on a different affirmative defence to the charge of murder. Reviews regard the "mistake of fact" instalment as especially contrived even by the standards of the franchise.

More news from xenophobia island and why I'm feeling particularly heated about Icelandic xenophobia today:

My day started with me going to a class that had *one* person of foreign origin in it. This person of foreign origin spoke Icelandic well enough to fully participate in the class and understand everything being said and respond clearly, and despite that, was not treated kindly by the rest of the class. I witnessed this person repeatedly patronized, ignored, and excluded by the rest of the class. After she had to leave class early I heard my other classmates talking about "why is there a foreigner in this class who can barely speak Icelandic? (hint: she didn't *barely* speak Icelandic, she spoke it well IMHO, just with a noticeable but understandable accent) and didn't she know that her presence in this class was a hindrance to the good hardworking Icelandic students of this class who have to navigate class discussions with a foreigner who can barely speak Icelandic (sic)?" This particular woman of foreign origin in this class was a white USAmerican, so being a white westerner definitely on the higher end of privilege for people of foreign origin here. I can't even imagine how much nastier her treatment and the words spoken behind her back would have been had she been a woman of color, and especially from a non-western country.

After that I went to physiotherapy, where my physiotherapist told me in all seriousness that one of the most difficult and heartbreaking experiences of her life was when her son had a foreign woman who spoke Icelandic with an accent as his kindergarten teacher, and one day her son came home from kindergarten and mispronounced his own name because he'd heard his kindergarten teacher mispronounce it. Yes, you read that right, this was one of the most difficult and heartbreaking experiences of her life. She then told me how happy and relieved she was that her son was moved to a different group with all Icelandic classmates and teachers after she complained to the school. Yes, don't worry, I will be switching physiotherapists after that.

Don't even get me started about how I had a co-worker at my last job who used to work in a kindergarten, but quit when her Icelandic co-workers kept denying snacks and drinks to immigrant children who couldn't speak Icelandic based on the fact that they were immigrant children who couldn't speak Icelandic.

After physiotherapy I went to a coffee shop to try to get some work done on my laptop. At the table next to me were two middle aged women talking about foreigners who date and/or marry Icelanders, and how those foreigners often get so "uppity" about feeling excluded and ignored by their Icelandic in-laws at family gatherings (something I have heard myself many, many times from people of foreign origin partnering with Icelanders, especially if the said person of foreign origin is a woman), and why do those foreigners expect to just be talked to and acknowledged at family gatherings, I mean they're foreigners after all, being partnered to an Icelander doesn't just make them part of an Icelandic family! Don't they know how frightening and frustrating it can be for an Icelander to actually have to talk to someone from a different country at a family gathering! (I guess fuck those people of foreign origin and however scary it might be for them to be the only immigrant at a family gathering and getting ignored and excluded by all their in-laws ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯)

I genuinely believe that a much too large fraction of the Icelandic population doesn't believe anyone of foreign origin is actually fully human. Which is actually pretty insane when there's like, 400,000 Icelanders total max, to actually believe that's the only chunk of the 8 billion people in the world who are actual real human beings.

RE: the thing about the kindergarten teacher with a foreign accent. Just like the low wage service industry jobs, a lot of people of foreign origin work as kindergarten teachers because these are one of the few places willing to hire anyone of foreign origin (since like the low wage service industry jobs it's a job that Icelanders don't want to work).

So actually, this is far from the first time I've heard an Icelander complain and get upset that their child had a foreigner as a kindergarten teacher.

Nevermind that a lot of these kindergarten teachers of foreign origin have degrees like a masters in computer engineering or they were a dentist in their home country, but of course too many Icelanders aren't willing to hire a foreigner in jobs that are well paid and have a somewhat prestigious image, so their only option is working as a kindergarten teacher where they can become some Icelandic mom's sob story about "my baby had to endure hearing his name pronounced with a foreign accent! 😭"

Also RE: the thing about people of foreign origin with an Icelandic partner being routinely ignored and excluded by their in-laws, don't even get me started on the stories of horrifying treatment by Icelandic in-laws I've heard from/about people of foreign origin, especially women.

I had a Ukrainian classmate at one point who had an Icelandic boyfriend. She told me that the way she was treated by her in-laws led her to genuinely believe that when an Icelander's son or brother is dating a woman of foreign origin, they never really view it as a real relationship the way they would if he was partnered with an Icelandic woman, it's more like they see their son or brother having a cute little pet who's not actually a person.

However, that didn't stop her in-laws from constantly laying pressure on her to give them a grandbaby. Whenever they saw her they never spoke to her to acknowledged her, except to ask when she was going to have children with their son.

I had a Swiss co-worker at my last job who was dating an Icelandic man. She told me that ever since she started dating him she left every family gathering in tears because of how ignored and excluded her boyfriend's family made her feel, until she eventually had enough and stopped going. She said her breaking point was one Christmas everyone in the family and their partners had gotten presents except her. All of her boyfriend's siblings' partners got gifts and hugs and generally warm treatment like they were part of the family, while she was ignored and excluded as always. Even the dog got a Christmas present. Her breaking point was realizing that being a woman of foreign origin put her at lower status in the family than a dog.

And just like my Ukrainian classmate, only time her in-laws ever spoke to her or acknowledged her was to ask when she was going to start having babies with their son. Her mother-in-law would say "I've started knitting baby blankets and socks for you for when you and (the Icelandic boyfriend) start having babies! Are you thinking of starting soon?" to which the Swiss co-worker would always reply that she had no interest in having children and was happily child free, and the mother in law would just dismissively say "well I'll keep knitting you some baby blankets and socks for when you're ready!"

I've mentioned in other posts that I sometimes do private 1-on-1 language tutoring for English and Icelandic as a sort of "side hustle", so I sometimes talk and network with other language teachers. (Also I work almost exclusively with immigrants, hence why I hear so many chilling stories of how they're treated by Icelanders)

One time I was speaking to a woman who'd been an Icelandic as a second language teacher for a few decades. She told me that towards the beginning of her career she had a student who was a heavily pregnant USAmerican woman married to an Icelandic man. One day her student told her "I'm taking these Icelandic classes because my mother-in-law law told me that I'm not allowed to speak English with her grandchild, and she only wants Icelandic used around her grandchild"

I do wish that this colleague of mine had the forethought and consideration to provide a bucket to vomit in before sharing this story with me. But it does confirm my already existing theory that many Icelanders with a daughter-in-law of foreign origin don't view her as a person, just as a sort of brood mare to produce grandchildren for them.

It's not as bad as this colleague's story, but one time I had a co-worker from Japan who was married to an Icelandic man, and once confided to me that she was only in Icelandic classes because her Icelandic mother-in-law had forced her to (at least partially from the assumption that this woman was going to be having her grandchildren, even though she also told me that she doesn't even want children), and that she actually wanted to stop the classes to focus on her career, but her Icelandic mother-in-law would become aggressive and yell at her if she voiced wanting to stop the Icelandic classes.

You've all probably seen and heard Iceland being praised as "the most gender equal country in the world" and all these videos and articles about what a magical gender equal paradise Iceland is. Let it be known that any semblance of gender equality in Iceland is exclusively reserved for white Icelandic women. Women of foreign origin be damned.

ALT

@havinganormalone sorry, I hope you don't mind me bringing this out of the comments to draw attention to, not just because of how absolutely spot on this is, but also I wanted to talk about how just like the gender equality of Iceland is often extremely overblown and exaggerated in the international media (and what little semblance of it actually exists is exclusively for white Icelandic women) the same can be said of LGBT+ rights in Iceland.

There is definitely quite a bit of homophobia and transphobia in Iceland, but Iceland can be quite good about making sure these stories never get out into international media, only the stories about how what a wonderful magical little paradise of equality Iceland is, where everyone is accepted with open arms! There is no war in Ba Sing Se, There is no inequality in Iceland.

In my D&D group a few years back was a gay man, and at one point he'd just started a new job. When he casually mentioned at one point that he was gay, he was quickly taken aside and told that he "isn't the right fit for the company culture" and was dismissed. The average Icelander responds to this story with "well the boss must have been a foreigner because that's not something an Icelander would do to a gay person, that's just not part of our culture" (spoiler: the boss who fired him for being gay WAS indeed Icelandic!)

There is no war in Ba Sing Se, There is no inequality in Iceland

It was actually very recent that it was in the news here that a trans woman (of foreign origin, who had moved to Iceland because she believed she would be safer here than in her home country) was violently assaulted by a group of Icelandic teenage boys so badly that she had to be hospitalized. She had never met or spoken to these boys before, and it happened while she was leaving the gym and walking to her car in broad daylight. She said in an interview that while the boys were attacking her she genuinely believed that she was going to die.

All of the comment section for this news story was Icelanders saying things so disgustingly xenophobic and transphobic that I don't even feel comfortable repeating them. The very few comments acknowledging how bad this was came from middle aged Icelandic moms saying something along the lines of "They definitely only did this because of influence from foreign social media! Foreigners are polluting the minds of our boys and filling them with hate!"

There is no war in Ba Sing Se, There is no inequality in Iceland (unless of course it's coming from those damn foreigners, coming here and polluting our beautiful pure country with their sexism and homophobia and transphobia! We must keep the damn foreigners out at all costs to protect our beautiful pure white blonde haired blue eyed women and LGBT+ people!)(I do hope you, dear reader, pick up the sarcasm and can see from everything else in this post that Icelanders need no help from foreigners or foreign influence to be bigoted and hateful)

Last addition I swear but in regards to the gender equality in Iceland being exclusively reserved for white Icelandic women, how could I possibly forget my "favorite" (🙄) story abou this.

Several years ago while I was still in retail I had a co-worker (a white Icelandic man, of cours), who told me with a completely straight face that he genuinely believed sexism was only bad against Icelandic women due to "biological" differences between Icelandic women and women of foreign origin

According to him, Icelandic women are just naturally more independent than women from elsewhere, which is why they don't really deserve the same sexist treatment that women of foreign origin do. But women of foreign origin are just naturally more docile and submissive, which doesn't just mean they deserve sexist treatment more than Icelandic women, in fact they enjoy it when you're sexist to them due to their more submissive nature (again, according to him)

This was the same guy that when I was discussing with my co-workers the importance of wearing clothes that shields you from moisture while hiking in Iceland to prevent hypothermia, he chimed in with "Well, maybe foreigners have to worry about that. Icelanders don't really get hypothermia."

When I corrected him about all the cases I personally know of Icelanders getting hypothermia while hiking, his reply was, and I shit you not "Well, I guess some Icelanders can be pussies too"

#I'm half icelandic when I lived on iceland I was heavily bullied for being half swedish#and because i couldn't properly communicate in icelandic#bc like yeah drop a kid with 0 icelandic language skills in an icelandic school they took advantage of bullying me#My mom said during parents meeting the teacher completely ignored her because she wasn't icelandic#but swedish and everyday I heard people tell me to go back to my home country#I cannot stress enough how insane some icelandics are#my grandmother despited polish ppl bc they stole their jobs even if she been an immigrant to sweden when my dad was a kid#Me a pale white person was heavily bullied bc I was half swedish and my mom who is swedish was discriminated against#can't imagine how badly it is with people who aren't white#I had a muslim classmate but at that age I did not really understand immigration#I was also undiagnosed autistic kid tbf#OH YEAH My mom took me to a doctor to get me tested for Dyslexia and the doctor looked her straight in her eyes and said I was just an idiot#guess what I dyslexia lol#But yeah iceland sucked

@lumill3 I hope you don't mind me bringing this out of the tags, but it's interesting because what you're saying mirrors to a T exactly what an old co-worker of mine who was half British and half Icelandic said.

He attended primary school in the U.K., but his parents moved back to Iceland before he started secondary school which he attended here in Iceland.

He said that he was also ruthlessly bullied for being a foreigner, every day people would tell him to go back to his own country, and tell him that having a British dad meant he wasn't a "real" Icelander and doesn't belong here.

He had pale skin, blue eyes, light colored hair, and an Icelandic mom, and was bullied every day for being too foreign. I don't say this to in any way imply white Europeans are less deserving of xenophobia, but to emphasize how heavily xenophobic Iceland really is, that even being half Icelandic and physically looking like most Icelanders doesn't spare you bullying and xenophobia.

Now if this is how white people who are half Icelandic are treated, just imagine how much of a nightmare it is for people of color. The stories I've heard from people of color in Iceland is enough to make your stomach turn.

I once knew a woman from Hong Kong, she was married to an Icelandic man and had children with him. She said it wasn't abnormal when she was out in public for Icelanders to approach her husband and ask him how much he paid for her, right in front of her, because they assumed any Asian woman paired with an Icelandic man is a mail order bride.

Spoiler: she wasn't a mail order bride, she met her husband while they were both studying abroad in the U.K. for their masters degrees. Not that being a mail order bride would justify being spoken about like that right in front of her.

She's had to move her children to different schools because of how much her children were sexually assaulted at school for being half Asian, and the schools typically refuse to do anything about it because, well, her children are half Asian.

It really cannot be emphasized enough how insanely bad the xenophobia and racism in Iceland is.

Me at the start: “Oh! What an interesting way to point out how (assumed) our country treats immigrants, by showing how awful it would be for (assumed) us English speakers to be treated like that.

Me by the third post: “Oh god. Oh no. What the fuck. Jesus Christ.

I think he could do a really good “Hello officer, how are you?” if he had to.

YEAH EXACTLY

Athena is standing behind him whispering the bylaws into his ear.

hold on i need to look this up

it’s been 15 minutes have you finished reading the Odyssey yet?

I walked right into this one like a blind horse into a revolving door.

Atla heritage post

At one point the hero commits what seems like an open-and-shut case of unprovoked murder, and the citations start scrolling up until they fill the entire screen.