History Film / Agora

* BlackAndBlackMorality: Neither the Christians, nor the Romans, nor the Jews are portrayed in what could be described a positive way - all are violent and ignorant.

* AllJewsAreAshkenazi: Probably the main fault of the movie was to portray Jews as Caucasian.

* AffablyEvil/NobleBigot: Christians in the movie are genuinely good people... unless you belong to any religion but theirs.

* AffablyEvil: Christians in the movie are genuinely good people... unless you belong to any religion but theirs.

* ForeignLookingFont: On the posters, the pseudo-Greek font uses Lambdas in place of Latin alphabet 'A's or Alphas in Greek meaning that if we ignore the fact that a Latin alphabet 'R' is used in place of the correct Greek Rho (which looks like a 'P') and that a Latin 'G' is used in place of a Greek Gamma then the film's title reads; LGORL.
* GoodColorsEvilColors: The Christians and Jews dress mostly in black or grey (with some clerical orders using white) while pagans use white. Fun fact: '''none are truly good'''; in fact, the only color associated with good is red, which is both used by the Roman army and Hypatia herself after Alexandria's library's demise. Justified because its historically accurate.

* KnightTemplar: the parabolani.

* TheEmpire: Literally, since its the Roman Empire we're talking about.

* PrettyBoy: Bishop Synesius of Cyrene, played by the British actor RupertEvans

''Ágora'' (written and directed by your favorite LGBT Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar) is a movie portraying the life of the female philosopher Hypatia (played by RachelWeisz), from the destruction of Alexandria to her death at the hands of fanatical Christians. It takes a number of liberties with the history it's trying to depict, so take it with a grain of salt.

''Ágora'' (written and directed by your favourite LGBT Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar) is a movie portraying the life of the female philosopher Hypatia (played by RachelWeisz), from the destruction of Alexandria to her death at the hands of fanatical Christians. It takes a number of liberties with the history it's trying to depict, so take it with a grain of salt.

* CorruptChurch: Subverted; it's not corrupt, but very fanatical.

* TheDogBitesBack: Hypatia calls Davus an "idiot" while packing. This drives him to participate in the sacking of the library; and he [[spoiler: is only barely able to restrain himself from sexually assaulting her when next they meet]].

* GoodColoursEvilColours: The Christians and Jews dress mostly in black or grey (with some clerical orders using white) while pagans use white. Fun fact: '''none are truly good'''; in fact, the only colour associated with good is red, which is both used by the Roman army and Hypatia herself after Alexandria's library's demise. Justified because its historically accurate.

* HollywoodOld: Hypatia, looking like 30 even at the last part of the movie when the real Hypatia was over 60. (Rachel Weisz was nearly 40 at the time of filming, too.) Other sources identified Hypatia's age to be about 40, and given the liberties taken by the film, maybe they even deliberately made her younger.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: The film contains [[http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html a number]] [[http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html of myths]] about Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria that are so common in pop-culture that the real history sounds implausible to many people. To what degree the movie is guilty of spreading historical myths is, however, somewhat [[http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/08/agora-review.html open to debate]].

* OneWomanWail: At the start, at the end, and many times in between.

* ForeignLookingFont: On the posters, the pseudo-Grecian font uses Lambdas in place of Latin alphabet 'A's or Alphas in Greek meaning that if we ignore the fact that a Latin alphabet 'R' is used in place of the correct Greek Rho (which looks like a 'P') and that a Latin 'G' is used in place of a Greek Gamma then the film's title reads; LGORL.

* KnightTemplar

* ForeignLookingFont: On the posters, the psuedo-Grecian font uses Lambdas in place of Latin alphabet 'A's or Alphas in Greek meaning that if we ignore the fact that a Latin alphabet 'R' is used in place of the correct Greek Rho (which looks like a 'P') and that a Latin 'G' is used in place of a Greek Gamma then the film's title reads; LGORL.

''Ágora'' (written and directed by your favourite LGBT Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar) is a movie portraying the life of the the female philosopher Hypatia (played by RachelWeisz), from the destruction of Alexandria to her death at the hands of fanatical Christians. It takes a number of liberties with the history it's trying to depict, so take it with a grain of salt.

* AffablyEvil: Christians in the movie are genuinely good people...unless you belong to any religion but theirs.
* AllJewsAreAshkenazi: Probably the main fault of the movie was to portray Jews as caucasian.
* AllMonksKnowKungFu: All monks (parabolani) know how to stone you to death, skin you alive and generally kill you in the most unpleasant ways.
* YouFailHistoryForever: See HollywoodHistory.

* {{Bishounen}}: Bishop Synesius of Cyrene, played by the British actor RupertEvans, a rare case of a western example.

* TheHeretic: Hypatia, after paganism became illegal.
** Considering she was a principled atheist ("You do not question what you believe; you cannot. I must."), she was technically a heretic from the beginning.

* HollywoodHistory: There was no second Great Library, Hypatia was killed because she was a supporter of a rival politician instead of for religious reasons, and her side wasn't nearly so blameless, either.
** But there ''was'' a Serapeum in which was housed an academy (and it is mentioned that the great library burned to the ground, and the Serapeum contains texts rescued from the blaze) and Hypatia's death was engineered by someone with political motives but carried out by people with a religious axe to grind.
*** Whether the Serapeum actually carried any rescued books is highly questionable though, as contemporary evidence suggests [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria#Attack_of_Aurelian.2C_3rd_century the collection was considered a thing of the past by 378 C.E.]] and Socretes, no enemy of knowledge, only mentioned religious artifacts being destroyed by the Christians, not books.
** Hypatia was actually well-respected by everyone in the community, including Christians, and pretty much everyone was horrified by the news of her death.
* HollywoodOld: Hypatia, looking like 30 even at the last part of the movie when the real Hypatia was over 60. (Rachel Weisz was nearly 40 at the time of filming, too.)
** Other sources identified Hypatia's age to be about 40, and given the liberties taken by the film, maybe they even deliberately made her younger.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: The film contains [[http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html a number]] [[http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html of myths]] about Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria that are so common in pop-culture that the real history sounds implausible to many people.
** To what degree the movie is guilty of spreading historical myths is, however, somewhat [[http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/08/agora-review.html open to debate]].
*** Though given the criticism that the part about the library being previously destroyed being a throwaway line designed to be missed by the audience, saying "I couldn't hear the full line about how the Great Library bought it..." is not exactly a stirring defense. Also, his point was that the departures from historical record were unintentional, unimportant or justified, not that they didn't happen; it said he noticed "a lot".

* [[AFatherToHisMen A Mother To Her Students]]: Or, in Orestes and Davus' case, actually a LoveInterest.

* MrFanservice
** RachelWeisz could be considered Testosterone Brigade Bait.

* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The Christians and Jews dress mostly in black or grey (with some clerical orders using white) while pagans use white. Fun fact: '''none are truly good'''; in fact, the only colour associated with good is red, which is both used by the Roman army and Hypatia herself after Alexandria's library's demise. Justified because its historically accurate.

** To what degree the movie is guilty of spreading historical myths is, however, somewhat [[http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/08/agora-review.html open to debate]].

* ForeignLookingFont: On the posters it overlaps shockingly with {{Did Not Do The Research}} because the psuedo-Grecian font uses Lambdas in place of Latin alphabet 'A's or Alphas in Greek meaning that if we ignore the fact that a Latin alphabet 'R' is used in place of the correct Greek Rho (which looks like a 'P') and that a Latin 'G' is used in place of a Greek Gamma then the film's title reads; LGORL.

* CorruptChurch: Subverted; its not corrupt, but very fanatical.

* TheEmpire: literally, since its the Roman Empire we're talking about.

* HoYay: Occasionally averted because christian males were much more close than nowadays (for instance, kissing another man's hand was a sign of respect, not homosexuality), but there's some genuinely suspicious examples here and there. For the record, the director is homosexual...

* YouFailHistoryForever: See HollywoodHistory above

* EstrogenBrigadeBait

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: And how! Hypatia, an ardent pagan in RealLife becomes something of an agnostic or atheist in the film (presumably so the faith vs. science controversy will be clear). This allows her to use empiracle reasoning, which in real life was [[http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-07-28/#feature contrary to her school of thought and religion.]] Consequently, she is shown making astronomical advances which rely on these methods (despite there being no comptemporary evidence tying her to these advances in RealLife).

** But there ''was'' a Sarapeum in which was housed an academy (and it is mentioned that the great library burned to the ground, and the Sarapeum contains texts rescued from the blaze) and Hypatia's death was engineered by someone with political motives but carried out by people with a religious axe to grind.
*** Whether the Sarapeum actually carried any rescued books is highly questionable though, as contemporary evidence suggests [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria#Attack_of_Aurelian.2C_3rd_century the collection was considered a thing of the past by 378 C.E.]] and Socretes, no enemy of knowledge, only mentioned religious artifacts being destroyed by the Christians, not books.

* KarmaHoudini: Cyril became always remembered as a saint, despite how horrible his actions were.

* TheBible