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SMNTY Classics: A Tale of Two Short Stories · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I want my stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you protection to Buyheart Radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And today we're bringing back a classic that I've just
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: been thinking about now that we're in Halloween times. It
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: was a book club we did that I actually want
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to do this again, where we talked about two different
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: short stories. Yes, we talked about a Neil Gaman short story,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: The Problem with Susan, that's about Susan and the Chronicles
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: of Narnia. And then we talked about a very important
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: short story to my life that it seems most people
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: have never heard of, but.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It was about Smooties.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: It was about basically like loving a food item so
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: much and even though you know it's bad for you, you
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: keep eating it and kind of unhealthy thoughts around wait
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: around it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And I was thinking.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: About it because, yes, over on my other podcast, Saver,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: we just did Twizzlers, but we're also doing an episode
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: on the menu, which I think we should talk about
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: on here.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'd be excited about that one.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And I was just thinking about that kind of when
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: food is like not food or kind of gets divorced
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: from being just something you eat for sustenance.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: I went to a restaurant recentthing like that. Mmm, I
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: have opinions, just kidding, I don't want have too many
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: opinions because it was my birthday dinner and I chose
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: it and I feel kind of guilty bday.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we should talk about it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: But I mean also, just like, it's a creepy Storypy,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: it's creepy, and I love a good creepy story around
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: this time, anytime really, but definitely around this time.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Anny
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and Samantha, and welcome to stuff. I never told you
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: a protection of iHeart. So before we get into this
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: one quick content warning. We are going to be discussing
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: issues around weight, weight loss, fad diets, and some violence,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: some grief. Not so much on those last two, but
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the first three like weight weight loss a lot. So
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: if that's something that's triggering for you, or especially now
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: when we're in the time of resolutions and a lot
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: of those often do involve dieting and weight, then I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: would probably skip this one, or at least skip the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: first half. Yes, because we are doing something interesting today
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: where we're talking about two short stories that really had
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: a big impact on me when I was younger, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I guess now because I still think about them. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: we'll talk more about that in a second. But Samantha,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: do you have any short stories that you read in
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: high school or just when you were younger that really
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: stuck with you?
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the ones that traumatized me were the ones that
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I remember the most. Yeah, A Rose for Emily I
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: told you about, which is the William Faulkner one that
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I was like, what is this? And then A good
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Man is Hard to Find, which is the Flanney O'Connor.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: And I've actually really went through all her short collection
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: because she's a Georgia person and so I felt like
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I needed to connect and I love Southern Gothic like
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: that is probably some of my favorite genre books. Like
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Flannie O'Connor, she's okay and all, but Carson McCullers was
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: my person and love her stories, So things like that
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: really got into it. But those were the ones that
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: pierced my brain the most, of like what is happening?
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Why did I read this? Why? Like that? Typically, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: I guess it's probably a sign of a great book.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: And that's the same thing I've always said. It's like, yes,
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I hate them but they're amazing writers because they are
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: the worst for putting this in my head and I
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: can't to go. So those two are short stories stick
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: with me the most from high school. I do love
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: a good novella, so like Cosson, McCullers has a couple
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: of really good short novellas. I also read of My
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Some Men in middle school and cried for three days
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: very much. But I do love Steinbeck as well, who
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: was not necessarily a Southern Gothic but was kind of
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: in that timeframe. So those are the stories that I remember.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking about this because we're
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: today we're talking about one that I imagine most of you
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: haven't heard of, called Lose Now Pay Later.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I've never heard of the story.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Me and my friends we read it in ninth grade,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I think, and we still talk about it. And then
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: we're talking about Neil Gaiman's The Problem with Susan, The
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Problem of Susan, Excuse me, And I do think it's
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: really fascinating that when I there were a lot of
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: literature stories that I read, short stories I read in
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: literature class that they stuck out to me and I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: remember them to this day.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And when I was in tenth grade.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: We did a whole section on religious stories from around
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the world, and that actually had a huge impact on
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: me and my because I grew up very religious, but
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I was kind of stepping away and that was part
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: of that where I was like, this story is essentially
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the same as Noah's arc, and it was written way
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: earlier as being very like logical about it and annoying
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: about it. But yeah, and then there was another story
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: that I still think of to this day. I can't
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: remember like any of the details other than the main
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: character was he was a male teenager and he was
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: kind of a jerk, and he kind of went out
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and did all this stuff and cut his family out
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and really burnt them, left them burnt. And then he
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: went through all this like trauma, and he came back
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and the family just accepted him and they were so
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: happy to see him again.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And I just remember, for some reason that really stuck
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Another one Harrison Bergeron, which was written by Kurt Vonnegut
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty one.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I reread it. It's really short, just.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Kind of because I found it online when I was
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: doing research for this, and it's got a lot of
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: interesting stuff in Mary that might be a maybe we'll
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: come back if we ever do another short story thing again.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I'll say Kurt Vonnicut's short stories are so different from
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: his novels that it threw me when I first read it,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: because I was expecting one thing, but I loved it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait, it was almost reminiscent of Truman
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Capoti and his short stories as well. That I was like, wait,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: wait what, But I know that's not the case necessarily
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: because they're very different styles, very beautiful in each of
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: its way. But I really enjoyed his short stories. It
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: did go more into that literary world that I knew
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: because I'm not a big sci fi fan, and honestly,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I don't think Kurt Vonnegut is super sci fi. He
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: does have the futuristic vibe to everything he does, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: that's why I think I like his stuff. I think
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: he's hilarious. But his actual short stories are very reminiscent
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: to the literary works to me of Trim and Capoti's
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: like kind of very lyrical way, but don't get me started.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I want to get you started. Oh my gosh, it's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: so fun.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I really enjoyed it and I'm glad I
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: reread it, and yeah, there's just a lot of stuff
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: we could talk about now, especially in our modern context,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: because it is very fascinating to me to read a
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: story that's set in the future when we're kind of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: approaching that date.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: It's right, oh, where are we when.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It comes to that, which is a good segue into
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the first story we're going to read, well, not read
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: that we read and we're going to talk about, which
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: you can find for free online, and it is called
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: los Now Pay Later. So yes, I did. I read
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: this in ninth grade literature. It's by Carol Farley. I
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: think it was published in nineteen ninety one, but it
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: was surprisingly hard to check down.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I guess it's just like me and my friend group
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that remember the story so well. I like it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely got some language we get in trouble
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: for using on this podcast, like crazy and dumb in it.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't find too much about the author, but
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: here's hoping she isn't a terrible human being. But me
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: and my friends, yeah, we talk about the story pretty frequently,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: and since it's all about fad diets gone really really wrong,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: we thought it was sort of appropriate for all this
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: New Year, New you messaging. And let's get into the plot.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: So it is about two girls, Deb and Trinda, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing on how to pronounce that it's tri n Ja.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And they encounter this news story at a mall selling
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: something called Swooties.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And this is another reason.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's nineteen ninety one is probably correct because
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: it feels very nineties to me. So the shop sounds
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: like the fanciest frozen yogurt shop you've ever heard of.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it reminds me of the fro yo trend
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: which was taking off in the in the nineteen nineties
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: in America. So very bright, very clean, but no employees
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: in sight. There's a sign inside the shop that reads
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: sweets plus goodies equals Swooties. I'm pronouncing it sooties, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: I guess it would be sweeties.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I'm saying swooties. I'm sticking with it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Soudies came in a variety of flavors peanut butter crunch,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: butter rum, pecan, coconut, almond, marshmallow, and chocolate nut mint.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And best of all, they were free.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I feel like those flavors are very adult flavors. Because
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: as a kid, I would never go for the coconut almond.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I'd be like, what what is this?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I might, but it would be for the coconut and
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: not the almond, if that makes sense.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I really love coconut so like butter fudge crunch, even
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: though like, yeah, that sounds like it would be a
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: lot more U friendly, but whatever. So deb the narrator,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: is suspicious, a little on edge about how bright and
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: empty the story is, and doubtful that they are truly free.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Trenja is really excited about it, though so dev mentioned
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: she's on a diet and is therefore always thinking about food.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: The smell lures them in and they try some from
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the automated machine that dispenses a chocolate covered cone and
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: then a swirl of something with a similar consistency to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: a soft serf, which, by the way, I still can't
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: quite grasp this. By all accounts, they're delicious, and they
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: the pair try every flavor before leaving, Trenja vowing the
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: diet for a whole year to make up for it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: As they exit, they tell others passing by to go
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: and try some.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, So this is the thing we talk about the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: most is the descriptions of how good they taste like,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: we still think about how good they sounded. We want them,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So here's a quote. So swooties aren't cold like ice
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: cream or warm like cooked pudding, but they are blending
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: of both in temperature and texture. The flavor melts instantly,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: and your whole mouth and brain are flooded with taste
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: and impressions. Like the first swoodie I tried coconut almond marshmallow. Suddenly,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: as my mouth separated the individual taste, my brain bursted
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: into memories associated.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: With each flavor.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I felt as if I were lying on a warm beach,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: all covered with coconut suntan oil. Then I heard myself
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: giggling and singing as a group of us roasted marshmallows
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: around a campfire. Then I lived the long ago moments
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: of biding into the special Christmas cookies with almonds my
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: grandmother made when I was little. And that's something we
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: have talked about, is this kind of nostalgia of food
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: and how powerful that can be. So yeah, swooties takeoff,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: and despite achieving widespread popularity, the product remains free. People
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: are so excited about swooties that nobody really asked any
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: questions about it, someone was paying the rent, and the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: product was determined to be safe for human consumption. People
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: lined up to get their hands on some swooties, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: the machines never seem to run out, and everyone who
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: partakes starts to gain weight. Trinja and Deb complain about it,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: knowing the swooties are to blame, leading Deb to ask aloud,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: if only there was some easy way to eat all
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the swooties we want and still not gain any weight.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Well, ask and you shall receive.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Deb almost immediately notices a new fixture in the mall
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: parking lot, a tall, white telephone booth sized box. A
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: flashing light next to it reads the Slimmer, and a thin, tan,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: short woman with a quote strange sounding voice is standing
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: outside of it, telling the girls that it is a
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: machine to make you slimmer and that if they step
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: inside they'll lose unwanted fat. Deb is taken aback at
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: this woman's confidence, knowing that quote. In the old days,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: people believed they could lose weight quickly, but in twenty
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: forty one they weren't that gullible. They knew fad diets
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: don't work, and that's fat the woman explains that it
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: is a new process and that instant removal of fat
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: costs twenty five yen per pound.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Was this supposed to be based in China or.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: No, so oh, Japan?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So I think because of the time it was written,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Japan was a big economic power, and that's actually one
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: of the reasons we see so many damaging stereotypes Asian
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: stereotypes and eighties nineties movies was to kind of combat that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So, I think because when this was.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Written, she was imagining that in the future, Japan was
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the power to Vanagut.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I also thought that way too, I think,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: but it was more China at that point in his books,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: but that they would be in power in future, which
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: maybe they're not wrong, though they are both dubious that
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the woman's confidence convinces Depth to give it a go,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: digging up one hundred and thirty yen literally, they just say, well,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, how much money do you have? And the
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: woman pushes it, takes some money and pushes in. Then
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: and the woman pushes Deb inside the booth, slams the
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: door behind her. There's a humming sound. I before Deb
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: can scream, Trinja opens the door yelling at the woman
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: when she says that five pounds are gone. In a daze,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Dev says her genes felt loose, but Trenja says it's
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: in her all in her imagination. However, when deb waste herself,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: it turns out to be true.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: So Yes.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Excited, the girls scrounge up as much money as they
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: can and head back to the mall. The woman reveals,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: for every ten pounds you lose, because you know I
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Trenja did more than just five, she has to prick
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: your wrist, leaving behind a tiny little mark for quote
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: safety reasons, and the girls are so relieved at the
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: weight loss and the prospect of never having to diet
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: again they accept this without question.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, and soon after slimmers start appearing all over the world,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: right next to swootie stores. Everyone loves them and the
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: population at large gets skinnier. Some people have four or
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: five pinpricks around their wrist, but no one really understands
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: how the machines work. The machine attendants, who are all
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: just kind of slightly off, will explain it, but it's
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: too technical to really understand, and in the words of Trinja,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: people really didn't care how they worked because it meant
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: they could eat swooties all day long and not gain
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: an ounce, and that's what mattered. Everyone seems to love
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: swooties and slimmers, except for Deb's ten year old brother, Trevor.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: He theorizes that they are.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: The plot of aliens from outer space who are plumping
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: people up with swooties and then harvesting the fat collected
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: from slimmers for fuel. That once the dots circle someone's
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: risk completely, they will be cold.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: They're fat, content, no longer of value.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Of course, Deb in Trinja dismiss him, deb thinking quote,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: humans would never sacrifice their freedom and dignity just so
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: they could eat and still be thin. Even aliens ought
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: to know that I could quit eating sweeties and using
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: those slimmers anytime I want. But all those little blue
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: marks TRENCHA and I have are beginning to look like
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: delicate tattooed bracelets, and we both think they look really
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: neat on our wrist.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And that's the end. Yeah.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So it was interesting to reread this because it's been
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: what two decades almost since I'd read.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: It, and I couldn't find it and why One.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Night I just was determined to find it and I
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: think I texted you about it.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Then I was like, we got to talk about this.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: But one thing in there I kind of wanted to
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: talk about because I moll culture is kind of dying,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: has been dying.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But when I was grown up, this was a thing.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: You you go to the mall.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: You would get your your frozen yogurt or whatever it was,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: and there's just so much.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: The pretzels are so good. Yes, I know exactly what
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you're talking about. I love them too.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And you would kind of hang out with
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: your friends and do this, and I think probably in
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: middle school to high school I would.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I would hang out with friends at the mall sometimes.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: But you know, we both grew up in small towns,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: so this was a big endeavor, Like you had to
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: get out. Yeah, it was like at least an hour
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: away to get to to a mall. But I do
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: think throughout this and even we just see it everywhere,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: is this kind of fad diet idea, this diet culture thing,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: this fat phobia of people wanting to eat these delicious
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: sounding things but not wanting to gain any weight from it.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't think I've ever done a fad diet
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: per se but I've dieted.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I've definitely done some extreme diet, right.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I would think that I did not do many fad
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: diets because I just that too too much discipline and
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I didn't have that meaning like whatever. The whole thirty
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I think existed. And I know Atkins was a huge
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: thing when I was in college, and so people were
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: all about it, and I'd like, there's no way only
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: eating meat is healthy for you. There's no way.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: But again, like I was like, whatever, people do what
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: they need to do. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: push or judge or anything. But I could not do it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: But I was all about the calorie counting, like that
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: is something that I have been really dangerously obsessed with,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: like keeping underneath a certain amount, And that's my session,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: was that instead of just necessarily like and I guess
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Caldari accounting is a fad of itself, like kind of
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: a trend in itself tactic, but yeah, it's the whole
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: level of like, Okay, this level of obsession, Yeah, there's
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: something to be concerned about.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I was the same, And I think I told you
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: for a while I was keeping I was using an
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: app to keep track, and the app actually sent me
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: a message and it said, if this is true, this
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: is dangerous.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is so pervasive, and we've talked about it
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a lot, but especially for younger girls who are kind
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of observing through perhaps our moms or other people in
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: our lives are entertainment, Like maybe we're not directly getting
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the messages, which we usually are, but there's also just
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: this underlying everywhere you look or everything you hear, that
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: you should look this way. And I think for me,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: it's still hard to just enjoy something, to just enjoy,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Like if I had a swootie, I would be thinking
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: like a whole day like guilt. I'd be feeling guilty
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and like how can I counteract that, which is just
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: not a fun I'm not saying you shouldn't be aware
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: of what you're putting in your body, but I think
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: it goes beyond that.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: It goes to you can't.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Have those, You can't have anything without feeling guilty about it,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: to be honest, right, yeah, and sort of that whole
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: idea at the end of where they say, you know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: we would never give up everything just to look this.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Way, and.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Kind of I've been thinking about that in terms of
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: what we talked about recently with the pandemic and health
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and how you and I were saying, like, we know
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to pay for this, just like the title
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: of the story is like we know I'm not going
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: into the dentist. I need to go to the dentist
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: for this later, but kind of that putting off of
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: right now, I would rather look this way and I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: will deal with the impacts later, which is very not
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: eating disorder territory.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: And then another big theme throughout this is sort of
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the whole idea if it sounds too good to be true,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: it probably is. There is a whole Seinfeld episode about
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: actually frozen yogurt and this very thing.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: There's not aliens.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Involved, but there is lying about content in the ingredients.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Also this whole idea of no such thing as a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: free lunch.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: You know, they're giving away this free yogurt and people
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: aren't really asking questions because they like it.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So it's a big theme throughout.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And then just because you know, I love this, Santa,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I wanted to touch on some of the old teck
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: because this takes place in twenty forty one, right, but
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: you can tell it's a bit very much an imagined
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: future that is the product of its time.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Also, it was written for children.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: It was specifically aimed towards I think it was I
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: read it high school, but I think it was aimed
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: towards like seventh and eighth grade.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: But there's the fax machine. I love that.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: In the eighties and nineties we thought the facts machines.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: That's the whole like the future for back to the
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: fututure literally is how they communicate is via TV, which
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: they weren't wrong because they can do that the whole
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: like computer like skyping video which didn't exist at that
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: point in time. But also the fact machine that was
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: in every room, that every household had, that was the
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: prediction of the future.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I know, it cracks me up every time.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Also, yes, that malls would still be kind of this
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: place where we congregate and hang out.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: And maybe mam also make a comeback. I don't know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: but right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Now, I don't they seem to be on their way
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: out right, Yes, And then yeah, Japan has an economic power,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: So I just I find all that interesting when people
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: are imagining the future, and I mean, twenty forty one
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: isn't that far away, as scary as that is, right,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it's just sort of interesting to see where
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: we are versus what people imagined would be the future. Okay,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: so I do recommend like if as long as you're
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: not going to be triggered by Await issues, which I
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: totally understand if you are, and it's definitely I would
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: say don't risk it, although you've already come through this,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: so I recommend it. Like I said, you can find
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: you can find it for free online. It's really short,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: it's like seven pages. But moving on, let's talk about
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the Album of Susan, which is a Neil game and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: short story you can also find online for free. But
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: it's also a whole concept now and we're going to
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: talk about that a bit. And I did think, you know,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: we don't normally try to highlight works by men in
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: this segment, but because it did become this whole thing
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: to describe this issue which we are going to talk
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: about if you haven't heard of it, I also thought
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: about Forever Winter Never Christmas, which is kind of the
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: whole thing of the Lion, which and Wardrobe, right is
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Narnia's Forever Winter Never Christmas, and as a lot of
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: us are preparing to enter a weekend of snow and chills.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I thought it was appropriate. So did you ever read
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: the Chronicles of Narniasmantha?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I actually had the old school
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: version of it where it begins with the Lion, the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Witch and the wardrobe, right, all of the sixties drawings
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: and his glory. I lost it in a fire, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: I've been on the search for that type of that
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: specific series because I don't like this new switch up
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: with the Magician's Nephew, which we know is a prequel.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I know, but it doesn't belong in there like that.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: He wrote it like that for a reason. I'm weirdly
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: purist about that. I don't know why necessarily so. But
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I really have been trying to find the old school
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: versions of it because I really loved those books. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: it wasn't until you brought this back up that I
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: forgot the last battle. I completely forgot what happened out
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: of my head. I don't know, because you know, it's
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: been so long, and it's been a long long time,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: and I used these books when I was teaching the
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Bible as part of my curriculum, in talking about each
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: of the characters and I really did forget about Susan's
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: character at the end, and I was like, oh, oh yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Oh so there's a whole level of like trying to
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: remember where we came from with this. Also in the
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: movie Ben Barnes. That's where I was introduced to Ben Barnes.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: In the second movie Who is Westworld? Yeah, he was
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: a bad guy in Westworld?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then he was Yeah, he.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Was in several other movies, and he's in several other
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: shows that I absolutely love. He was in He's one
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: of the marvel ones. Is it Iron Fists? I think
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: he's in Iron Fist, which is forgettable. But any of
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: those things I can't remember. But I loved Ben Barnes
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: and I think he's fantastic. But this, I remember them
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: trying to pair him and Susan up of like, ew, yeah,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: he's twenty years older than her. Sof this that's the
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: sidetracking of all of Chronicles of Narnia. But yes, I
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: loved it, loved it, loved it. I loved C. S.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Lewis during that time in my wondering because he also
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: wasn't as a big snob as Tolkien. I'm sorry when
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: it comes to English literature. I know people are very
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: very like Purest in that mode too, and so therefore
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: felt like he was a little more open. Do I agree.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Like thinking back on it now and I'm like, oh,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I have a whole different perspective, but yeah, yeah, but
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: a lot to me at that point in time.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved them when I was a kid, I
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: loved There was an animated lion Whige and The Wardrobe
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I loved, and I went through such an intense period
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of loving them that I actually wrote fan fiction for it.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Of course you don't, yeah, but I mean it's pretty
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: It's kind of rare. There are things that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I love, love, love more than I loved that that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I never wrote fan fiction for. But I wrote fan
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: fiction for it, and that's that's pretty indicative of how
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: much I loved it. I If in case anyone doesn't
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: know what we're talking about, I'm gonna explain it more
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: in a second. But depending on when you bought these
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: are a book series of seven books. I bought them
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: at the time when The Magician's Nephew was the first
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: in the series, but for people before me, U Lion,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: which in The Wardrobe came first.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: So if you're confused by that. I did.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I loved it, and then I just got so weird
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: about religion and then I kind of just turned away.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: But I do remember them pretty well, and we're gonna, yeah,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: we're gonna get into all of this, but okay, for
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: anyone who doesn't know, The Chronicles of Narnia is yes,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: a seven book series written by C. S. Lewis, first
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: published in nineteen fifty through nineteen fifty six, and there
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: have since been animated and live adaptions for the screen.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: We're not going to go too deeply into the plot.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Weirdly enough, you can check out the Savor podcast that
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I do. We did an episode on fictional foods of
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Narnia for more information.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: We really want to stortish to light then tell me
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: that because I have a weird picture in my head.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And then when someone told me what it was, I
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: was like, wait.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: What Yeah, So it's kind of a gelatine based It's
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: usually lightly sweet with like rose and it's got some
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: chagrin top.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: But it's sort of a gelatine light dessert.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Now, Okay, that being said, a lot of people have
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: said it's kind of represents drugs. Drugs casey, yes, because
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: it is something that the witch gives out to Edmund
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: in particular in this case, to kind of get him
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: hooked anyway, I love Anybody who.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Doesn't know what we're talking about must be what is
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: going on here.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: There's so many there is literal Christian workbooks that go
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: along with the series to talk about and analyze the
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: depth of the pretty much the origin story. So it's
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: kind of like saying this is a Higgin Genesis into
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: a modern daytail, which is also why Tokien didn't like it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: He was like, as you're hitting there being too obvious
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: and over the top.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Right back to right, which we'll touch on in a
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: second more a little bit. But Okay, despite the fact
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that Lewis, who yes, wrote a lot about religion, was
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: adamant these books weren't an allegory a religious allegory and
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: specific they have often been interpreted through your religious lens,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: with Narnia being Heaven and Aslan being God and or Jesus.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: There's even a whole magic apple temptation thing that goes on. Yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: there's a lot we could get into, but that would
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: be a different podcast. So for our purposes, we're focusing
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: on the Pevensey children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, who
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: have adventures and become royalty in Narnia.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: However, as Susan grows.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Older, she is quote no longer a friend of Narnia
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: AKA for a lot of people, yep, heaven. Even though yes,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Lewis disputed this and said perhaps one day Susan could
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: find her way.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's the.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Second oldest, she's the oldest daughter of this group. But
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: so why is she no longer a friend of Narnia?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Here we go, here's the whole exchange from the book
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: The Last Battle, which is the final book My sister,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Susan answered Peter shortly and gravely.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Is no longer a friend of Narnia?
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, said Eustace. And whenever you try to get her
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: she says, what wonderful memories you have? Fancy you're still
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: thinking about all those funny games we used to play
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: when we were children.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, Susan, said Jill.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipsticks and invitations.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: She always was a jolly sight too, keen on being
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: grown up.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Grown up indeed said the lady Polly, I wish you
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: to be the age she is now, and she'll waste
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Her whole idea is to race onto the silliest time
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: of one's life as quick as she can, and then
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: stop there as long as she can.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Yep, and that's pretty much it.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: That's pretty much the attitude about her from everyone, her
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: family and friends. Notably, Lucy doesn't say anything during this exchange,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Aslyn doesn't sing anything during this exchange, right.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I find it like, again, we'll come back to it.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: But in my mind she at the very first book
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: she was already too grown as well, and they accused
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: her of that from jump, So I found that interesting
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: that that's how it built up. But again I forgot
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: the last battle completely, So.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Well, here we go.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Susan was always the more practical one. She was a caregiver,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: and I feel like that seems on brand, which makes
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: sense because the children had lost their mother and she
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: was always making sure they had their codes and that
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: they ate. She is the oldest girl and referred to
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: as quote little mother. She was kind, gentle, and yes,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: very beautiful. So what's the issue. It seemed to be
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: she's choosing being an adult over Narnia and Aslan the fantasy. Essentially.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Lewis wrote in a letter about her that she was
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: quote a rather silly, conceited young woman, even though that
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: really doesn't seem to match up with everything else we
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: the readers knew about her all though we are supposed
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: to think her annoying. Some believe he did this more
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: out of his need for her to represent something quote
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: the believer that walks away from faith, instead of telling
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: the story true to the character.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: There's this is kind of a tricky conversation actually because
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: and we're going to get into it, but it almost
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: seems like it was just confusion, Like it was kind
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: of out of nowhere. There was no attempt like this.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: There was suspension of her. She's not coming back to
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Narnia and that's it. Like there was no attempt to
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: redeem her or talk to her or anything with her.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: It was just like, oh, never talk about her.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Again, right, yeah again. Like I said to you when
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: we were originally talking about this, I was like I
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: had to go back and figure out what happened because
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't exactly understand what just happened when I read
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: originally read the book and to the point, and we're
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: going to talk about more about this later, I know,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: but was during the time that Passion and Purity was big.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this book. Annie, I'm
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: so sorry. I'm very critical. I'm so sorry for the
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: religious listeners if you're offended by this, but I will
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: say it brought me a lot of pain. This one
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: book that talks about a woman's place in religion. It
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: is very stereotypical in some of the things that I
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: get what they're saying, but at the same time could
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: be really damaging to women. We talked about this during
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: the Purity during our episode, but I think that's what
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Susan represented as being anti Christian woman, right if that
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: means too worldly?
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense, And we're definitely gonna
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: break break some of that down to you and we
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: are one day going to do an episode on religious
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: trauma and that's going to be fun.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Was kind of frightened.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: So another point to make here is Peter, who is
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: older than Susan and was told he was too old
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: to return to Narnia, but he did and she didn't,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: and two male characters get painful redemption arcs, but she
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: does not.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned earlier Smith, right, you see, this is.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: One of the worst characters to me in this entire book.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: And yes, it's supposed to be that he was childish
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: and didn't understand he'd gone through drama, he'd lost his
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: parents too, and was a brat essentially. But yeah, after
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: he just turned into a dragon for his greed and
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: then freedom of that spell, he repents essentially to Laslin
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: and becomes whole again. But yeah, I think it's really
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: interesting because Lucy and Edmund are too old, which is
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: why you see Eustace and Jill come into play, because
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: they're young enough to believe these so they technically aged
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: out too.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and that's there are listeners.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: You might be surprised at how many people have written
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: long essays about this, so so many, and they were
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: all really interesting in a lot of them had different viewpoints,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: which I found interesting too. But somebody was saying, like, essentially,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the message we're supposed to take is that you have
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: to be young and believe, never grow up and never
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: like be an adult and take care of people, or
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you can't go to what has essentially happened.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Right, So it's and I just remember the saying I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: have somewhere in one of my journals. I went through
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: and did a whole dive not only in the books,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: but compared it to specific Bible verses like I went in.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: So yeah, again when I say, these meant a lot
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: to me in that point in time. Yeah, And essentially
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: this is kind of a play into childlike faith, like
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: he was being literal, even though he probably would deny it,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: but it is literal, right.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no oh.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: He's got a lot of interesting quotes about this, CS Lewis.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: But okay, going back to what you were saying about,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: you know, the good Christian woman. I think a lot
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: of folks thought that this whole sort of writing out
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: of Susan was more that she had become shallow. But
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of people point out, and I think we
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: should point out that the things that are listed are
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: feminine things, patriarchal feminine things put on to Susan who
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: has been told she needs to be an adult and
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: take care of her siblings. And I think for a
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: long time my interpretation was that too. Before I kind
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: of got more nuanced as I grow up. Well as
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: a kid, I was.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, she wants to grow up is just gross,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: like so shallow.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: She could go to Narnia and be having fun, but
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: instead she wants to do this. But it is very feminized,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Like we can't turn away from the fact that it
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: is purposely or not.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: That is very feminized things he lists, right.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: But also these are things that he lists when women
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: want to feel good about themselves. The lipstick, the stockings
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: are very specific during a time where you're supposed to
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: be natural and cowering, and so that was too bold
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: of her to be. So I feel like that's to
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: this day that would be listed as a good god
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: the character to dress up for your man only for
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: your man obviously or for your yeah, this man. This
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: is very also heteronormative in this this idea, but that fact,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: at that point in time, that was even too much,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: and that was being too loud, essentially too proud of
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: what you're looking like. And so for women to be
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: that at that point in time was a sin mm hm.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: And so you see that turn like hmmm.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I mean I think in case we
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: didn't make.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: It clear she's a teenager. I think she maybe twenty,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: she's I.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Think she's early twenty, like getting at school a little.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Bit when this happens. So, I mean, it's just kind
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: of a natural for women.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: But it does feel like when you're reading it, like,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: oh wow, she can't go to Evan because she did this.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's stick.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And as as we said, already C. S Lewis,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: he denies this, but also says she has time to repent,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: like it's not over for her, but also it is
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: for us.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Because no one else wrote that story. We can imagine it.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: We can write the fan fiction if we want.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: But well, speaking of okay, all of this discussion around
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: this character led to Neil Gamean writing The Problem of
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Susan in two thousand and four, and the phrase has
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: yes become sort of a catch all to describe feminist
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: and literary investigation into this character, which, as I said, there's.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: A lot and it's actually really really interesting. I recommend
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: going to look into it more.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: But this whole thing was later turned into a comic.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Both are fairly graphic in terms of violence and sex
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and sexual violence, so just astixet if that's not something
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: you're into, you can definitely read about it and not
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: have to read the whole thing, which is also very short.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So the plot centers on Professor Hastings, an older woman
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: who strongly resembles Susan, who lost her family in a
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: train crash, which is how the Last Battle ended. Susan
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: loses her family in a train crash. It opens with
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: her dreaming that she is with her siblings on a
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: battlefield surrounded by the bodies of dead creatures. Later that day,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: she is interviewed by a student named Greta, who is
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: doing a profile on Hastings for the Literary Chronicle. Hastings
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: is an author known for her work A Quest for
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: the Meanings in Children's Fiction. The two are discussing the
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: history of children's fiction and famous examples when Greta realizes
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: that Hastings lost her entire family in a train accident
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: and says, just like Susan, and she tells Hastings how
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: much that bothered her as a kid, so much so
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: that she spoke to her teacher about it, and the
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: teacher told her Susan still had time to repent not
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: believing and the sin of eve, so that was what
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: the teacher kind of said was her sin was not believing.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Also that whole thing with Eve that we.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: Talked about being a woman. Yes, so all of this
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: prompts Greta to say, there must have been something else
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: wrong with Susan, something they didn't tell us, Otherwise she
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have been damned like that, denied the heaven of
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Further up and further.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: In, Hastings says that she doubted Susan had time for
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: lipstick and nylons after her whole family died, and that quote,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know about the girl in the books, but
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: remaining behind would have also meant that she was able
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: to identify her brothers and her little sister's bodies. There
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: were a lot of people dead in that crash. I
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: was taken to a nearby school. It was the first
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: day of term and they had taken the bodies there.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: My older brother looked okay, like he was asleep. The
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: other two were a bit messier. I remember looking at
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: them and thinking, what if I'm wrong, What if it's
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: not him? After all, my younger brother was decapitated. You know,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: a god who would punish me for liking nylons and
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: parties by making me walk through that school dining room
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: with the flies to identify ed. Well, he's enjoying himself
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: a bit too much as any, like a cat getting
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: the last ounce of enjoyment out of a mouse.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: Right, which is how the story begins, by the way, Yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Hastins cuts the interview short, and that night sleeps in
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: her childhood bed looking through old photos. She notices children's
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: books on the bedside tables and knows she's dreaming because
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: she's never kept these kinds of books around. The One
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: on top of the pile shows two girls weaving daisies
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: into a lion's main Meanwhile, Greta dreams that she is
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: on the same battlefield in Asla and the witch have
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: come to an agreement. She will take the boys and
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: he will take the girls. She understands what must have happened,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: and she runs, but the beast is upon her before
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: she's covered a dozen paces. The lion eats all of
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: her except her head, but this is all in her dream,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: and he leaves the head in one of her hands,
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: just like the house cat at the beginning of the
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: story leaves parts of a mouse it has no desire
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: for for later or as a gift, again referencing how
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Susan found a mouse at the door bats at the
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: beginning of the story.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so that was a lot of that was quote.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Greta watches, unable to shut her eyes as her brothers
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: are transformed into monsters, and the end quote the great
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: beast ate her little sister more slowly, and it seemed
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: to her with more relish and pleasure than it had
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: eaten her. But then her little sister had always been
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: its favorite. Then the witch disrobes and the lion tongues
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: her and they have sex, making Greta slash Susan kind
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: of in this dream a watch before finally eating her head.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Greta wakes up thinking it's true that Susan didn't die.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: This whole thing actually happened. And then here's another quote.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: She imagines the professor waking in the night and listening
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: to the noises coming from the old applewood wardrobe in
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: the corner, to the rustlings of all these gliding ghosts
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: which might be mistaken for the scurries of miser rats,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and to the patting of enormous velvet paws, and the distant,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: dangerous music of a hunting horn. She knows she is
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: being ridiculous, although she will not be surprised when she
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: reads of her professor's demise. Death comes in the night,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: she thinks, before she returns to sleep like a lion.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: The white Witch rides naked on the lion's golden back.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Its muzzle is spotted with fresh scarlet blood. Then the
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: vast pinkness of its tongue wipes around its face, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: once more it is perfectly clean.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Oof.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a lot of things we can discuss
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: about this. Obviously, I did want to include this quote
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Gaman said about it. There is so much in the
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: books that I love, but each time I found the
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: disposal Susan to be intensely problematic and deeply irritating. I
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: suppose I wanted to write a story that would be
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: equally problematic and just as much of an irritant, if
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: from a different direction, and to talk about the remarkable
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: power of children's literature. And He's not the only author
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: to I've spoken out about this. Philip Pullman said, I
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: just don't like the conclusions Lewis comes to after all
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: that analysis, the way he shuts children out from heaven
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is. On the grounds that one girl's
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: interested in boys she's a teenager, it's terrible sex can't
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: have that. Yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah, we've already been
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: That you know a lot about this.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Samantha and I got some background and we have kind
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: of how to impact us. So as we discussed a
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: lot of people took away from this whole thing that
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: feminine things like makeup and stockings are frivolous and sinful
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and worth shutting you out of heaven for and Eve
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: kind of being the representative kind of.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: The first example of that.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And because I feel like my favorite character was Lucy,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: but a lot of people said, like she Susan was
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: their favorite character, and she was generally well liked, even
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: if she wasn't. She wasn't like a hated character, right,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: and have her just suddenly when you know, even she
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: was Queen, she was Susan the gentle and she was,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: you know, taking care of children who needed it and
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: just very kind. And to kind of have that go
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: from that to well, she's gone and that's that's the
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: end of that.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Don't worry.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting too because when we see the
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: flashbacks where they meet the adults. Yeah, and she is
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: being forced into an arranged marriage, right, and she's the
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: one that refuses to do so unless you could pick
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: her own, which would have been seen as valiant. But yet
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: that's not remembered. It's it's quite fascinating how the adult
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: version of her in Narnia does not compare to the
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: adult version of her in the real world, and why
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: would it be so? But I did, I do remember
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: that specific scene because you're like, yeah, girl, go ahead,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: tell them you're not gonna marry anyone, you know, like
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: you can choose because you are the high queen.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You do you?
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: And then we see that flip, But like, yeah, it
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: definitely does feel it needed to be a little bit
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: on the nose, whether it's it was Lewis showing his
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: disapproval for how women were acting during that time and
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: wanted to bring him back to this is religion or not,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: or this is godly and what's not? Or whether he
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: just needed a villain and he found a way to
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: make one of them a villain and it made sense
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: for him, as she is a woman and disposable.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's I'm glad you brought that up because
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: somebody wrote a really interesting essay about kind of that idea,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: where the author was saying, there's sort of a funny
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: thing happening here that game, and comments on directly is
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: that we are really interpreting, like as the audience interpreting
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: it in a way that perhaps he didn't mean it,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't change the fact we're interpreting it that way,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: and that's how impact it does. But the author was saying, like, basically,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: he got kind of lazy, and so he's got four kids,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: got Edmund who is the betrayer who comes back.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: You've got Lucy who is the natural believer.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: You've got Peter, who is like he's Peter at the
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Saint Peter essentially right. And he needed somebody to be
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: the opposite of Edmund, of the person who believed and
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: then walked away, and she was the one that was left,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and so he put it on her.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: But we were all as readers, like, but.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Wait, it doesn't make sense with all this other stuff
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: you said, which which is I thought that was a
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: really interesting take on that. And throughout Gaiman's short story,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: there are these signifiers of sex associated with evil. You've
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: got the witch's lipstick, you've got handset.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Professor hasting sexuality and the dream.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: She notices the dead center's penis and wonders what it
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: would have been like to kiss him. She remembers past
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: sexual experiences with men, making the point that in this framework,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: in this story, Susan is tied to evil for being sexual,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: like this is wrong. There's also, throughout the frivolous desire
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: for youth quote, there are things about herself that the
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Professor despises her smell. For example, she smells like her
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: grandmother smelled like old women smell, and for this she
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: cannot forgive herself. So on waking she baths in scented
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: water and naked and towel dried DAPs several drops of
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: chnaeled toilet water beneath her arms and on her neck.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of like in there two of I
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: guess it feels like a contrast between she wanted to
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: be an adult, that kind of narrative, she always wanted
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: to be an adult, and now that she is one,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: she's also kind of punishing herself and being societally punished
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: for being an older woman. Right.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I just want to put this in here because it
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: stuck out to me how she thought she was old
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: when she quote lost what was left of her virginity
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: at twenty, which I think probably a lot of us
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: can identify with thinking that's old, and then when you
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: get old, thinking oh no, that was so young. Yeah, yeah,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: but you're already exactly exactly. She also Hastings thinks about
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: how young Gretel looks. Another interesting take I read was
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: this kind of idea that like God, the patriarchy comes
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: for us all that if God, in the context of literature,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: is the creation of man, and in this particular case
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: it is if we're saying, like Aslan is the godlike
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: figure and C. S. Lewis is a man of his
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: time that wrote it, and it stands the reason that
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: he is a part of the patriarchy. So this whole
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: idea of like the God in this case Aslan punishing
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Susan for being feminine or not fitting into whatever rules
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: of this patriarchy, I thought that was an interesting an
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: interesting take as well.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Right, and when we again we talk about Susan's role
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: and the individual roles that he has placed on these characters,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: it is very obvious that it is a very male
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: led throughout, whether it's Caspian that we're talking about, Ben Barnes'
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: character that I mentioned earlier coming to find the father,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: and or talking about Aslan being this lion who comes
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: roaring through and Evil being a woman, a witch till
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: the Swinton who played the hell out of that character,
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: the hell out of me. I'm not gonna lie, but like, really,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: obviously again, women leader, evil, bad, there's definitely notes of
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: that that you have. You can't really ignore any of that.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: He does mention to Lucy that she would not be
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: a part of the battle, that she would be the healer,
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: and though actually Susan is a part of the battle.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: She has the bow, but she's also has a call
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: for help, which Peter comes running too. So like there's
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: a lot of things for sure.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's a good point. A lot
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: of people brought that up as well, if like, if
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: you look at the earlier ones, while she was always
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: sort of the practical one, she was also pretty like
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: she wrote on Aazon's back, she was there and he
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: was resurrected, like she was pretty stalwart. So yeah, just
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: not that you can't go from being stalwart to not
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: being stal But again it was just one of those
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: things where people were like, this doesn't track, it doesn't
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: feel right. As we said, there's that whole messaging of
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: being adult equals being.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Bad, especially for women. Then there is trauma.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: So the impetus behind this story that Neil Gaman wrote
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: actually was imagining like Susan was a woman who was
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: left behind.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: She lost her whole family.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: And there's a scene at the end where it is
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: kind of confusing, but yeah, they die in this.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Train accident and then they're in Narnia and.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: As the reader, we realize they've died, and yeah, they're
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: in Narnia and you know, they're happy and embracing and
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: all this stuff, and Susan really doesn't not mentioned. So
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: she was just left behind and she's going to deal
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: with this aftermath and some people really hurt that they're
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't even a thought of her. There wasn't even like,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: oh wow, that was exactly.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: But if we're looking at a Christian perspective of heaven,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: that's the intent is that you will forget that trauma,
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: and if she is a trauma, part of that trauma,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: you don't remember her like that is the joy of heaven,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: because honestly, that's one of the things that didn't trek
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: with me. I was really hurt by the idea that
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I would forget everyone I go to heaven, and that
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: is kind of that narrative that you forget everyone. And again,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to go into the religious back and
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: forth about religious religious trauma, which I laughed about earlier
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: because I was like, there's a lot there, but that
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: is one of the thoughts, is yeah, and I think
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: this is why I'm so confused, because I'm still too
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: connected to Well, something bad happened, right that translated into
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: something amazing happening, And yeah, that means they forget everything,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: and so that includes their sister who they had loved,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: and she is no longer a part of the story
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: and not no longer a part of the narrative.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, having heard in this case go to
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: identify the bodies in this short story or like she's
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: going to be dealing with this, right, which is just
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: very very painful. And something else we've already mentioned, and
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: we've mentioned a lot, that these stories are more forgiving
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: to white male characters and their trauma, and people pointed
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: that out a lot of it.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: They was repenting and redeeming for a.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Lot of male characters, but not so much for female characters.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Like you either were always a believer or you did
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: one mistake and you're out exact.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I don't know if I just remember
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: one thing that really bothered me. It had nothing to
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: do with Susan, but when they do return and Lucy
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: was supposed to make them believe, and Aslen got mad
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: at her because she could not convince them and really
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: kind of stayed like called her out again. This is
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: kind of that trauma, religious trauma that whether C. S.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Lewis meant to do it, whether it was just something
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: that was like supposed to be storytelling, but it's very true,
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: like this guilt on Christians in general. Why didn't you
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: con Yeah, you're partially damned them the hell because you
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: could not convince them, right.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I will never forget one time when I was in
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: seventh grade, my algebra teacher told me, it's like I'm
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: watching you walk off a cliff and I just want
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: to save you.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: And I was like, uh oh.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, I had that done at my workplace when I
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: was a DJJ. And she was just like, you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: I love you so much. I don't want this for you.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: And I looked and I was like, I know what
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: you're doing and it's sweet, and I know you made
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: those love but.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Hmm, okay, math teacher, can we go back to now.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: And then really briefly to close this up?
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Because I really I find this so interesting. Legitimately I
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: find this interesting. A lot of people did make this
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: argument of kind of a distinction between what C. S.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Lewis meant and what he said he meant versus what
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: we interpreted and how much which how much it matters
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: or shouldn't matter. I think another interesting point somebody made
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: is unless you went and like researched this and looked
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: up the letters he wrote specifically about Susan that people
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: wrote in about him and like why did you do this?
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: And he would respond, you wouldn't know.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: His respond we only have the books, really, unless you
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: go beyond that, and some people did were saying, like,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: there's just a very interesting line between kind of what
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Gamon was talking about in this short story of researching
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: children's book and searching for meaning like you and I did,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: and then.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe being hurt by that.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Or maybe internalizing these messages that might not have been intended,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: but that did have the impact, right, especially for kids
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: at the young age. So I just I thought that
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: was really interesting. And Lewis once wrote to someone that
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: he thought this person who was concerned about Susan should
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: go write the story of Susan.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Was he being smart, alec I don't think so. He
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: might have been.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: He said it was like older he liked children's literature
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: that was more of an adult thing. But a lot
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: of people did say this was what was missing. We
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: needed the story of Susan after this, like if you're
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: just gonna write her out, we needed something and that's
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: why we're still.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Talking about it today. That's why there's a whole thing
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: called the It is pretty cool.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: He could do a post.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well maybe it's time.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Well not anymore, not anymore, but you and I could
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: get in on this.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Actually we could lawyers and stuff. But this is what
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: that fiction is for, right, But yeah, I have This
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: was a fun conversation. I'm glad we had it. I
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: think we could return to it another day.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I think, especially when it comes to like
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: religious religious fiction and women, the connotations because I read
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: many a religious romance novel, and let me tell you
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: the amount of marital discourse and what women were supposed
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: to do and be. Man, that's dramatizing in itself. I
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: even read one book where she was raped, got left
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: by her pastor husband, but she was accepted by another
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: godly man, so she's okay.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, all right, well we'll come out.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: It was something at the time, and I thought it
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: was something at the time coming back to now, Oh
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: my god, what was I thinking?
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's that's kind of what we're talking about.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Why does somebody say it's like we're searching for meaning
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: or meaning wasn't there, but we made it then. But
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: because of the product of their time and how we're
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: raised and how it was written. Who can blame us?
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Who can blame us? Okay, well, we've talked.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: A lot about this. I love it, so listeners.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: If you have any short stories, are any books to
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: recommend to us for this, or any recommendations at all,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: we love to get them. You can email us a
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: step media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts or on
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: to our superducer Christina the best. Oh Yes, and thanks
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: to you for listening stuff on ever Total is protection
• 59:16
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• 59:19
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