Latest / Honey Badger Radio / Fantasy is dead, how women killed it | Maintaining Frame 182

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Fantasy is dead, how women killed it | Maintaining Frame 182 · Honey Badger Radio

• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Just jumping right into it. Hello, everybody, and welcome to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Honeybadger Radio. What hy oh? Are you trying to step
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: away already?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: No? No, no, all right, I'm back. I'm here already.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, Hello, we're live. Welcome, this is live hence the Shenanigans.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome Tony Badger Radio. My name is Brian here Allison,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and this is maintaining frame number one eighty two. Actually
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I could have made this a cinema.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably, probably.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We haven't done because we are talking about media. But
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Paul Fantasy is dead. How women killed it? And we're
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: gonna be reacting to another video by the second Story
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: YouTuber that talks about writing because she is a writer
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and so.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: From a very normy perspective.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, yeah, she's she's not like, well no,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I think she just really cares about the craft of writing.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, it's it's it is definitely no perspective,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's nice to be that ignorant that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you can just No, I don't mean it as an insult.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like I missed the days of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: when I was ignorant your.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Way, you know, but then but then you would be
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: asking yourself, why is this happening?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, why is everything going to crap? And and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't have a working theory, nor would you have
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: been braced like myself I was. I was like I
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: was praying for the world in twenty nineteen, you know,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: like I hope everybody gets through this because it ain't
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: gonna be fun. And then everything blew up in twenty twenty. So,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that the benefit of our do
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: you want do do? We say its cynicism.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not cynical. I'm just saying, insight, it's a tremendous
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: it's a tremendous burden. It is is a tremendous burden.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, our burdens are tremendous, heavy, substantial, dense, They're very
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: they evolve a lot of gravity. But at the very least,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: you know it does you know, nothing surprises us anymore.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: We got the spoilers. We downloaded the script before even
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the series was made, So there you go. Okay, So
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the title of this is a bit of a misnomer,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: and I will explain that forthwith. Yes, Well, I I
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: analyzed it like I went through I got the summary,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I read the transcript most of the transcripts, so she
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: specifically talks about ye olden days when fiction was formulaic
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and uh, fantasy basically epic fantasy was basically a young
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: man defeats evil, right, and and you know that that's
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: sold very well. But she's saying that the reason why
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: we haven't had another Lord of the Rings is because
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of the rise of this formulaic kind of fantasy. And
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: she points the finger at Delray Delray, was it del Yeah,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Delray Okay, tour gets a pass with this and and
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and she says that that's why we haven't had another.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a few, Yeah, there's a few people if
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: she talks about, Yeah, Lester Delray and his wife that
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: started the Delray publishing and they and Lester Delray was
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: primarily interested in pasting after the sort of mania that
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Tolkien made with his Lord of the Rings movie or books, sorry,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: his Lord of the Rings books, and they wanted that,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: so he saw opportunities and so they started publishing. I
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: think we're sort of like saying her video for her
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: though we should, we should get into it, let her
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: speak for herself and then add our thoughts after. But
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be looking at this video. It's called this
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: is Why we Never got another Lord of the Rings.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: It's talking about writing from the craft perspective with a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: little bit of history, and she gives her thoughts on
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: on that, and we'll give ours as well. And yeah,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: before we get into that, I guess you should do
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the things.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, So, if you would like to send us a
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• 5:19
  Speaker 2: multiple times a week for now twelve years, twelve uninterrupted
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: years of bringing attention to this particular analysis of why
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: everything is going to crap. So, if you'd like to
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• 6:27
  Speaker 2: the month we are doing our monthly fundraiser, and I
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: believe we're still at sixteen hundred and forty five dollars
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: left with you know, a few hours left on the clock.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: It's unusual that it comes to the wire like this.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's also been a difficult month for
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: funding because we did our meetup, which I think was
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: very successful. You see this, This is the meetup graphic
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: perhaps you can see it. And I thought it was
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: very successful. People said it was a little intense, but
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: fun and you know, you got to talk to other
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: people who are life minded. Monique specifically said it was
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: a relief to talk to people who are who are
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: who are like minded to just get that pressure off.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: She is the director of Parental Alienation Canada. I believe,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: and also, you know, shout out to Monique. She's may
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: be able to do testimony at the National Coalition of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Women or National Organization of Women in Canada because they
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: are actually opposing the latest shared custody initiative as always,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: because you know, they assert that there is bias against
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: women in family law. That's why we shouldn't erase the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: bias by having a presumption of shared custody. Go figure, huh. Anyway,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: so they're opposing that, Monique is trying to fight for it,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: and she's going to be doing some testimony at the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: committee about it, which is headed by the National Organization
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: for Women in Canada actually leading I think it's the
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: National Women's Lawyers Association of Canada. If you can believe it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: If you can believe it, like that's like two conflicts
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: of interest, people who directly feed off of divorce lawyers
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: and women who are currently enjoying bias for them in
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: divorce proceedings. So there you go, please support her. I
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: believe they have a website. It's a little bit confusing,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: the stuff she sends me sometimes. So just take a look.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Parental alienation Canada, I believe is what it is. And yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I'll give you more information if you're in the discord.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: The information should be in the Actions Opportunities channel. Uh so, wow,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: what a tangent. I did want to bring attention to that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: So but yeah, okay, just just cut it off. Cut
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: it off before I go anything.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the video. I'm gonna let it play
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the intro. I do have some
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: time codes, so you know, don't worry. We're not going
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to go through the whole thing. But uh, okay, here
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: we go.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: If you've been following me for any length of time,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: then by now you should know how I feel about formulas.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Not to overstate things, but formulas in terms of their
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: overall impact on literature, the book industry, and storytelling as
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: a craft and an art destroy everything. But in this video,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: what I want to focus on in particular is the
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: fantasy genre. I don't know if you know this, but
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: fantasy as a literary genre, with its section in the bookstore,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: it's actually pretty new. There are some of you who
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: probably even remember a time before the fantasy genre. Not
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: that fantasy literature and storytelling didn't exist before. It certainly did.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm not just talking about mythological tales and fairy stories,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: but fantastical, inventive, groundbreaking, epic fantasy. But what I'm saying
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: is that fantasy as a type of story that people
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: tell has always existed.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: Fantasy.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just pausing it there. Yeah, so sort of setting
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: it up. We're not talking about comics, although she does,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: uh have an understanding that the that the problems with
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: storytelling is not limited to fantasy. It's not limited to books.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: She knows that it's a problem in film, television, games, yes,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: even video games, comics, all of that. So you know,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: she's pretty fair.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: What where did it come from? Well, where did the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: wholesale destruction and smoking craters left behind?
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: What?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: What are the what are the footprints? What's the foot
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: what's the monsters? You see these craters, gigantic monster footprints.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I wonder what left those?
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, that that's uh, that's something that she's not
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: touching on. I don't know if it's because she doesn't
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: know it or because she refuses to see it that way.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people have blinders. But yes,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: it's true. So like there's this guy or she's gonna
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: get into and to jump ahead, we.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Do have a message from Zarenx. Member.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Is it a super chat? What is it?
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: It's it's like it's just in the chat.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's like a member.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's a member. It's a member message. Yeah, because
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: sometimes those things, those are weird because they don't show up. Yeah,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: we said they haven't taken me out yet. As long
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: as I can breathe, I can think. As long as
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I can think, I can create as poorly or nearly
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I can. All right, thank you for that. Okay, So yeah,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: she's gonna be talking about Lester del Rey, the publisher
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: that was sort of like on the coattails of Tolkien
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to like make a buck basically, and and it gets
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: kind of this is the thing that it always bothers
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: me when I see it where something is just like,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: oh there was greed, suddenly greed and that changes everything.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I just think it's a little bit of an oversimplification
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: because if somebody was simply greedy, they would just do
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the thing that would make the most money that would
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: also attract the most people. So if you took greed
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and mixed it with like, say, laziness, then yeah, maybe
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you have a problem, but that probably has more to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: do with the laziness than the greed.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: And the greed well, I mean, you can even look
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: at it this way. Capitalism gives people what they want. Yeah,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: late stage capitalism, I guess tells people what they want,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: but that usually requires some government interference.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, whatever they mean by capitalism. Property rights basically,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: which even my dog understands property rights.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my dog understands property rights too. What's his
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: is his? Yeah?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And fairness. You know, if you if you you offer
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: a treat and then snap it in half, he's like,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: what what's that? I'm sorry that that's not that's not
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: fair exchange. You know, if you if you give him
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: a full treat for a trick, and then the next
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: time you give him half a treat, He's like, no, no, no, no,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: that's not equipal in exchange. There, I deserve a full treat.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: They know, they understand stuff like that, So they have
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the basics of a property system, a private property system.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Most animals do, because it's something that's deeply instinctive. Fairness
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and ownership are somethings that are fundamental to a lot,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: like I think most mammals. Okay, so shall we continue?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's jump ahead.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: So let's start. We're all discussions of the fantasy genre. Start.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: Lord of the Rings just the father of all modern fantasy.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: We are Tolkien essentially created modern fantasy.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: Wrong.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Tolkien didn't create anything but a world and some stories
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: that took place in it. The fantasy genre was not
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: only not created by Tolkien, it had nothing at all
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: to do with Tolkien. While the modern fantasy genre as
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: we know it was being created, Tolkien was hanging out
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: with his buddy C. S. Lewis in England, teaching classes,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: raising his kids, painting, and you know, doing Tolkien things
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: like talking to trees or whatever. But Martin's opinion here
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: is indicative of what is generally accepted to be true.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: That fantasy as we know it today is the product
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: of J. R. R. Tolkien, But it's not. Have you
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: ever stopped to wonder why we've never had another Tolkien,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: another Lord of the Rings, another universally captivating fantasy master work.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: It's been almost one hundred years since The Lord of
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the Rings was initially published in England and since that time,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the fantasy genre has, for one thing, come into existence,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: but also has blossomed into a massive phenomenon all its own.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: All right, So, uh no, I don't look, don't she's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: not insulting Tolkien. No, be saying that because this is
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the thing. She gets into it a little bit later.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: What she's saying is that Tolkien didn't create the modern
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: thing fantasy genre. He was just making fantasy without the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: intention of altering the future. It's the people who stood
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: on his shoulders later that built what people call the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: modern fantasy genre. And they say that Tolkien did it.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: It was almost like the state of modern fantasy is
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the fault of Tolkien, is how it's usually put. But
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Tolkien didn't do that because what he did could not
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: be replaced, or at least hasn't been yet. And that's
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: what she's saying, Like, has there been anything? Have we
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: had a Lord of the Ring since Lord of the Rings?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: And some people will say it's like, you know, what
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is it the Game of Thrones books. I don't know
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: what the book series is called, but that's not it either.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: That will be forgotten. It's not going to have the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: lasting power of Lord of the rings, it's already losing
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: kind of like you know, it's luster, and it's not
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: just because of the TV adaptations. It's because it doesn't well,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get into it now, but yeah,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that's I'm just saying, like, let's I'm being I'm trying
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to explain her position so that we're not uncharitable, because
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: she's not shitting on Tolkien. She's not, but she is.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: She is contextualizing him, and she's right like the there
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: there were other fantasy writers before Tolkien, and there were
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: establishing tropes, so he he codified in a way, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: of course had a tremendous amount of original inspiration.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And although fairy tales are basically old fantasy stories.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and there were other writers who were who
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: were writing like fantasy in the form of like fairy tales,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: like Lewis Carrol. I think that's Alison. Yeah, and there
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: were others. I've read them. I forget the names. I'm
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: really bad at names. But there were others who were
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: doing these kinds of fantasy fairy tale adventure stories. And
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: he kind of codified this epic fantasy trope while inventing
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. But there was other there were
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the tropes that he pulled out from already existed, and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: you could argue that things like uh, the Nibelung, I
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: don't know how to pronounce that, but or the opera Wagner,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I believe the ring. Let me just okay, just give
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: me a second. I will codify all of this and
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: get all of the names correct.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, when Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think he was If you asked him, I
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: don't think he would have said it's a fantasy. He
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was trying to create an Anglo centric myth.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Poet, poet, poet, Well, he was trying to create an
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Anglo centric a myth for the UK, and he was
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: drawing from Norse, Germanic and Anglo Saxon mythologies and uh,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: and a lot of the stuff he was drawing from
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: was like Norse mythology specifically. You'll even a lot of
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the names are comes directly from like the poet Eda,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: also Beowulf, and yeah, and uh, let's see the Battle
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: of Meldon. Okay, so old English literay, epic literature. And
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: then okay, so where is the okay? There was there
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: was works with a Nourse background or nurse uh drawn
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: from Norse nourse mythology because there was some stuff that
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: he took from opera.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was taking from all over and he was
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: bringing it together as one thing. And he but like that.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Well again, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. But
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Norwegian in the chat says Norwegian Black Templar said, Gandolf
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: means staff elf in Old Norse. So yeah, I mean
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you can see. I mean, and he was like a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: he was a wasn't he like a language professor? And
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: that was like he used that to like write create
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: his own languages because that's how detailed his worlds were.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Anybody else, I mean, maybe there are. I'm not saying
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not throwing shade at any other writers, but I'm
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: not sure that anyone else put as much dense detail
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: into their world building as Tolkien did. Yeah. I read
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Silmarillion and I basically walked away holding on to very
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: like it's too much, too much to keep track of.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you did make a corkboard with a bunch
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of threads. I know who's what's what, but it didn't work, so.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Okay. So Wagner was another one. I think that specifically
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Opera the wing of the Nibelung. And I think that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: was another one that I mean, if you look at
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: fantasy is sort of like a direct parallel of fairy
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: tales and mythology, then those things were setting the foundation
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: for it. But I think ultimately her point is that
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: there were other authors working in this genre establishing a
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: lot of the tropes Tolkien made his world, and it
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: really was just sort of like the I think the
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: best story. I mean, it wasn't just the world building,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: because I'm sure a lot of other people were doing
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of world building, or maybe they weren't doing
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: it in the same way. Maybe they were drawing it
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: much more directly from what preceded it, the fairy tales
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: and the mythology, and they weren't really thinking about making
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: this a living breathe or something that felt like a living,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: breathing world at war. And Tolkien did that. And then
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: also the story that he set in this world was
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of unmatched. But I think her overall
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: point is that he is part of a continuity too. Yeah,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: and you know, and because of that, Okay, well, let let's.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Get her, let's let her, let's never some more kind
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of like lay it out, But I'm just saying she's
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: not condemning or attacking Tolkien. She's basically like adding context
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to this claim that Martin is making, or and other
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: contemporaries have made all.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: The fantasy works and megaworks that get published every year,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Why has there never been one that was so unique,
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: so genuine, so pure in terms of creativity that it
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: became an overnight defining work of an entire civilization.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I know, but also it wasn't overnight one of them.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: She says, Game of Thrones does not count, But go ahead, Allison.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I will sort of agree with her with that Tolkien
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: wasn't an overnight success. It took time, like I can,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I can, uh, It took time for him to achieve
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the success that he did for things to permeate, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: the people that he initially appealed to was part of
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that success because I'm pretty sure he initially appealed to
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: basically students' college students. We can continue. I mean, I'm
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: just yeah, I'm just aggressive typing because I'm right.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: The first biggest issues I would like to point out
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: is that as wonderful and I mean wonderful as Tolkien is,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: he didn't do anything that unusual. His books are absolutely magical.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: His world building is god teer. But at a certain
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: point you have to take a step back and look
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: at it. At that point you realize that Tolkien's work,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: while special and beloved and perfectly crafted, is not as
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: special as I think we've come to understand, in the
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: sense that it was never really intended to be one
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: of a kind. The main thing that kind of tricks
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: us into thinking his work is so one of a
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: kind is that there has never been anything like him since.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: My question is why is that?
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: But that's okay.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: I have a few things to say. His success was
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: not immediate. I don't know. I'm pretty sure that there
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: was a strong suggestion that it was. His initial run
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: of The Hobbits of fifteen hundred books did sell out,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and it became a steady seller for the next couple decades.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: His Lord of the Rings sold modestly in the UK,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: about fifteen hundred sets by twenty nineteen sixty. And apparently
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the breakthrough, like I was saying, was when there was
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: an unauthorized paperback edition created and the books became cheap
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: enough to be purchased more widely, and it got into
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: the college scene and the counter cultural scene, and then
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: these people were the ones that really drove the phenomenon
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: that is Tolkien.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, and he mentions that it blew up on college
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: campuses to the point where it was like the thing
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to read, which you know, it creates parallels to Harry
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Potter in that sense. I don't know if Harry Potter
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: is going whoop to see if it like continues to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: remain like a massive phenomenon. But that's probably like the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: second biggest or like another example of something that could
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: have the same kind of like you know, impact. But
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I think with Lord of the Rings though, there's a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: timing to it too. And this is something that when
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: she says, because I was talking about this with Lindsay today,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: when she says, why hasn't there been one since? And
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm inclined to agree, and I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: think the reason is because honestly, we the modern today
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: live in such comfort, or at least the ones that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: are like out here publishing books, right, they it's hard
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: for them to draw from personal experience to write. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: what I mean is like Tolkien was in World War
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: One and was he was in the Psalm, which was
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: like the most brutal part of World War One as
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: far as I know, and he got out of there,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and so like, there's no way. And then you add
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: on top of that that he was like a devout
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Christian Anglican, and that he was involved with language, and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: he had his own family and his children, all of
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: those factors, and there's no way that someone that's been
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: through as much as he did couldn't write something amazing,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: even if when he was asked by like journalists and interviewers,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, oh, is this an allegory for something?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: You're trying to say something and he would be like, no,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: it's not allegorical. But like, there's no way that his
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: personal experiences in the war and you know, with everything
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: else and his faith and everything did not in any
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: way play a role, especially because he did come home
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: after all of that. And I think that like people
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: who have these experiences, when they apply them in their writing,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and they don't have to like do a self insert,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: but like they're applying what they saw in their writing
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and they're good with language, you're going to get like
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: something one of a kind, right, one in a lifetime thing.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: And I think with JK. Rowling, there's some there are
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: some parallels too, because if I remember correctly, and maybe
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but wasn't JK. Rowling like homeless at some point?
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: She had like a really hard life and then she
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: wrote those books. So like, I think that's the thing.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: There's like something authentic that comes out of your writing
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: based on your own life experience and the timing of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: all of that with what Tolkien to put out there,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: plus what was happening in the world even after World
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: War One, you know, and we got World War Two,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and then we got like, you know, all these all
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: this other sort of like the Bolshevik re revolution, et cetera.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And the books feel timely because of everything that was happening,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: which is why I think it resonated with college campuses,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: like those kids were you know, there was like all
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of these sixties like revolution things were going on, the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Cold War was going on, and so it all felt
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: really relevant. It was almost like being creative and making
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: fiction around that time period was it was almost like
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the perfect moment to have something come out, right. I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: think that was That's why I think that's one of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the reasons why Tolkien's book it was not to say
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that it's a complete like that he's lucky that everything
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: like he happened to be right in a story at
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that time. But what I'm saying is is that all
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: of these factors probably came together to make it just
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the right time for a story like that to come along.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm you know, it's why I think the Marvel
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: comics took off too, because again it was the timing.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It was like they were taking the furniture out of
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the studio and Stanley was about to lose everything, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: his wife said, just make whatever you want, and he
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: decided to write something that was like of the time
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: he made The Fantastic Four, and it blew up, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in particular, it blew up on college campuses amongst the counterculture,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: and so it became a really big thing for that.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And then like in the seventies, just last example, you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: when we were at a time of economic disparities and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: everything was really bad, like it was after Vietnam and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the American economy was in the toilet and everybody was poor,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and Sylvester Salone releases Rocky, which is exactly what the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: story that people needed at that moment. And around the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: same time, we got the Superman movie, so like, when
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you look at the stuff that succeeded, it was always
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like at the right time, done by the right people
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: because it's what we needed. And I think that's that's
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: also true with this anyway. That's all.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Sorry, So I'm actually talking to Mike. We had a
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: potential recording disaster, but I think that it's been resolved.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: We actually went through The King of the Hill for
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: its woke elements, and then we looked at the ick
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: list and it was like a two hour project and
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh shit, I don't see it in
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: descript But then I just I like, look through the
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: and I finally found it. So I just told Mike
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: because Mike is like, where is it? Where is it? Woman?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, no, I got it. I got it.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't. I didn't screw up. So sorry,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: that was what I was dealing with. Most likely. I
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: agreed with everything you said.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Brian, No problem, no problem. I was just saying, I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: think it's just like like that. I think that's what
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: it is. But this is why I think that Martin's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: books are well, we're going to get into that, because
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: she does talk about Martin but let's go back a
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: teeny bit.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Here we go certain things that are different than what
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: I would do.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you, but I find all this
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: incredibly teap Let's.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Look at these headlines because she this. You didn't read
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: this because you look at the transcript. But this is
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: like what the issue is. So you have like a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: bunch of like more modern authors, or at least post
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Tolkien authors, and they're all kind of like comparing themselves
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to Tolkien. Now this again, I don't think this is
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Tolkien's doing. I think this is like the industry reacting
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to Tolkien's work, and then you have other authors reacting
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: to the industry through Tolkien, like, oh, I'm not like him,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I'm doing something different. Right, So Pratchett, Terry Pratchett takes
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: swipe at Tolkien as he wins his first award. Okay, again,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: if you like Discworld, I get it, Like they're clever books.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: But this is just like the dynamic that's at play here. Okay, yes,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: this is Philip Pullman. I don't know what he wrote,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: but I guess he's an author. Tolkien is thin stuff.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be the ant Michael moore Cock. I
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: think he's the guy who wrote el Rick. Yeah, I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: think Tolkien was a crypto fascist. Just what we needed
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to hear, Michael.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: A massive self insert. Yeah, I think that your Champion,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Eternal Champion is like just a series of self inserts. Okay, wow, sorry, no,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: it's okay.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I never read Elrick, but I remember. I remember my
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: kind of like edgy high school friends were like really
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: into him, and I was like, looks a little try
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: hard to me. I don't know, but if you guys
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have read el Rick or any of those books, let
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: me know what you know. Am I completely off the
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: mark or what? So Pullman wrote the Golden Compass? I see, Yes,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Tolkien was a war veteran. I know that. I think
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that means something, you know, like Tom Clancy wasn't he
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: also like a veteran too, or in the Secret Service
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: or something. And that's why his books are really popular. Like,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I guess he brings something authentic to the storytelling because
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: he has personal experience. So Kirkster not says and lost
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: respect for more cock. Yeah, okay, I got a super chow.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I know. As soon as you start saying so and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: so is a crypto fascist, that's like, uh, I'm checked out.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Zarring says for five it could be comfort dulling us.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: That's made it so, there's no other author on Tolkien's level.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: It could be the Prussian school system destroys childhood creativity.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: There's also walls put up with the idea of protracting children,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: therefore prolonging adolescence. See how so many come up with
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: ideas to gate various things because the mind fully forms
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: around twenty five years old through though college graduate students
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: read essays written by fifteen year olds. The last bit
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: comes from former New York City teacher John Taylor, Gotto,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: we reduce the world around children, create isolation, and somehow
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: we're surprised with what's currently happening. Weird. Weird. Yes, that's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying when I said, I think it's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: because we have it. It's too safe. Our world is
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: too safe. It's weird as that sounds. I know people
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: are thinking we're still kind of in a PSD stamp
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: TSD state from the last probably like seven years, but
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I think that's true. So all right, anyway, do you
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: want me to play some more? Do you have something
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: at well?
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: I think I.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Triggered someone in the In the special chat, Hayden's like,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: this is a bad take, probably referring to the title
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: fantasy is Dead, how women killed it? Because I can
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: name a dozen high quality authors making male focused fantasy
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: without trying. Nobody is gatekeeping Maslin or Red Rising or
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Sun Eater. You know, they also didn't start in the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: last five years. They're massive and talked about NonStop for
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the very reasons you were saying are dead. Okay, you
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: don't like that, do you that I said that fantasy
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: is dead and I'm blaming women for it. You don't
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: like that? You don't like it? Okay, let's keep going.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: All right, Let's keep going.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: And then oh, I'm going to be the ant the grim.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Dark genre and why I hate it? So the grip
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the grim dark? Okay, r Martin Hope punk. This is
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: something I saw this term hope punk. Did you guys hear?
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's a new genre of writing conceived of as the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: opposite of grim dark. Works in the hope punk subgenre
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: have characters fighting for positive change, radical kindness, and communal
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: responses to challenges. So they're good guys. So this is
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: like the way we've been telling stories forever and it's back.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: It's Hope Punk. I like how they're always rebranding things.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Is something new that's obviously not new? Wait wait, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: got this great idea. We're going to have heroes that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: are good and they're going to fight for what's right,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and they're going to work hard through all kinds of
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: tribulations no matter what, but they're going to come out
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: on top in the end. What do you think, Oh
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: my god, I've never heard of this before, Hope Punk.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: It's so silly, guys, Maybe you could just write your
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: damn story. The main thing to look at here is
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: that Martin, like most or all modern fantasy writers, has
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: defined himself in part by how different he is from
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: what he sees as the legacy of J. R. R.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Tolkien.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: That right there is a pretty decent encapsulation of the
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: current fantasy publishing industry. It is a bottomless salad of
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: tropes and formulas and then some verted tropes and counter formulas,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: with nothing unique or original or even just purely the
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: creation of its author.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: But how did we get here?
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: How did we arrive in a world where people proudly
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: refer to Game of Thrones as the American Lord of
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: the rings something that's seriously concerns me in a way.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: However, yeah, no way. I never liked Game of Thrones.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I tried to watch the first episode. I had to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: watch the first season, and I was just not interested.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I just didn't like anyone in it. And I was like, yeah,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I can't I don't have any better root for I'm
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: not watching this. And people were like, oh man, it's
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: so different though, so yeah, that's probably why it's bad.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, But what were we gonna say.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I originally watched like an episode in I think the
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: first season with my father, and I was like, this
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: is the most boring stuff I've ever watched, and then
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I never watched anything now. But then I ended up,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: for the sake of integrity, watching all the seasons, all
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: of them, and I can definitively say that it is
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: not my cup of tea. That I enjoyed very little
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: of it. However, I can recognize that Martin is good
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: at subversion. He's good at creating very memorable characters with
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: interesting dialogue that nevertheless are quite nasty, and he had
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: there was a few moments where there was like a
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: few few subplots that I thought were entertaining. Unlike most people,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I couldn't stand Ned Stark. I think that's one of
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: the big things that makes me different than the detractors
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and the reason why I'm like, I'm totally one hundred
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: percent in in the Robert. I am a Robert stan
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I think Robert was misunderstood. He knew what was up,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: he knew what to focus on. He was totally fucked
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: by being married to brother screwer and generally unpleasant human being. Seriously,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: and uh, I my, my real the big tragedy of
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: their first season wasn't Ned's death, It was Robert, Like again,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: what really aggravated me about it? It was Robert was
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: one right about Denarius. She had to be neutralized. She
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: was basically a nuclear threat walking around and Ned was like, ah,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: as well, oh girl, I'm like what what what do
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: you think she's She's raising an army, even moron, and
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Robert correctly identified that that was a huge threat and
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: it needed to be neutralized. And what did everybody do, Oh,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Robert's the bad guy, Niel's the good guy, or Ned's
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the good guy. Ned was a damn hypocrite and he
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: didn't know what the hell he was doing. There's a
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: difference between being good and being stupid, all right, I know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people like Ned, so.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: But yeah, even the people who don't like the show
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: liked Ned so and they ended the show because Ned
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: died and I was like, no, this is I always
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: got the feeling that Ned was a pretense or sort
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: of like a construction, as if, oh, well, this is
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: going to be a subversion, like the good guy's supposed
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: to win and make it no, no, no, And I
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: always never trusted Ned because of that. Maybe it's just
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: not necessarily on the level of the character Ned, just
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the written quality Ned. But anyway, there's my game.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Is trying to be subversive, but you can make predictions
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: based on your understanding of what, like you're able to
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: predict the subversive nature. Does it fail at being subversive then?
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Because I said when I watched the first season and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: people were like talking about how, oh my god, anybody
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: could die at anytime, you just don't know. And I said,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: you know, who I think is gonna live to the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: end and they were like who, And I was like,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the dwarf is going to look at the end And
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: they were like, well, how do you know. It's like,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: because I can tell that Martin likes this character because
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: he has all the best lines, and he was like
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: an immediate favorite because he always knew what to say.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: And he's also the least likely to survive, just based
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: on the fact that he's this little tiny, like not
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: even like a magical dwarf, just like a short person,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you know. And he did. He lived to the end.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I told you, like, it's always like,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: well what oh, and who they make King the crippled
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: guy that the kid that got crippled in the beginning
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of the show, he was the one who ends up.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the way the book is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: supposed to end, but probably you know. And John snow
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: was was not going to become even though like he
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: was completely set up to, like, you know, become like
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the guy. And I was like, no, it's not going
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: to be him. They want us to think that, but
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: we know that he's being subversive. So because we know
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: that he's being subversive, then this is impossible. So like
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying is is that this becomes and that's
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: what she's saying too. So you don't like a formula
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: of storytelling, like and we're in this case talking about
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: fantasy storytelling, right, which because it comes out of or
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: is inspired by Tolkien set up, and they create a
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: formula of fantasy storytelling. And there are things that that
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: are that you know, these publishers del rey the book.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: The book publishers are expecting everyone has to follow because
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: they want the same success that Lord of the Rings had.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And then you get like people who are like, well,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the opposite of that, and so they
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: do is they invert everything and they do the reverse.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: But that just becomes its own formula. So you can
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: just predict things because now you know they're working with
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the in opposite world and bizarre world, and you can
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: just make predictions based on that. And then it's almost like, well,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: then what's the purpose of subversion if you can predict it?
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, I mean I don't know. I'm not
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: saying you can't use it. I just think that it's
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: not it's it's it's not done well a lot of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the time. So anyway, watch some more.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: I mean I was gonna say that I don't think
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: that Sun Rising Sun Eater is comparable to Lord of
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the Rings in this manner.
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: But.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I guess it did pretty well. Okay, let's keep going.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: It was published in nineteen eight or sorry, twenty eighteen.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: The other sun Eater, Yeah, the other suggestions in that
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: list were either were published in nineteen ninety nine was
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: started and Maslin was started in nineteen ninety line, and
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: the other one was started in twenty fourteen, which had
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: very different publishing environments than today. So if it would
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: even argue that twenty eighteen was a very different published environment,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: but let's continue.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: I almost can't even blame Martin. After all, he is
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: the inheritor of a genre that was killed in the crib.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Fantasy as a literary genre never had a chance. The
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: road that Tolkien opened up for writers and publishers with
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: the megapopularity of The Lord of the Rings was then
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: paved by writers and publishers eager to explore this new
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: literary concept, but by an opportunistic salesman who looked at
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: the Lord of the Rings growing popularity and saw only
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: dollar signs. I'm talking about Lester del Rey. This is
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: the man who made fantasy into a serious and marketable
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: literary genre, and who also killed fantasy before it ever
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: even had a chance to come into its own Let's
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: back up a little bit to nineteen fifty bold words.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Huh yeah, I think she makes a good case though. Okay,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk about the paperbacks of You mentioned
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the paperbacks that blew up Lord of the Rings and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: made it into a gigantic phenomenon, probably because it was
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: affordable to young people. So yeah, let's keep going.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Volume of Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Ring was published in hardcover.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: In America, quickly by the Rest trilogy.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this, but when this happened,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: it was a massive cultural phenomenon. Newspapers were compared the
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: fanatical popularity of Tolkien's masterpiece to Beatlemania, especially on campuses,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: where the book had become the novel of choice for
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: youth in general, supplanting even the Catcher in the rye.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: America was experiencing major cultural unrest that would change Western
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: civilization forever. JFK had just been assassinated, America was entering
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: the war in Vietnam. Rock music was gaining ground, and
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: evolving racial issues were consuming the news. Morals were shifting,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: The sexual revolution was shifting into high gear. The cultural
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: landscape of America was changing seismically. Now throw into that
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: mess this deceptively simple and incredible book, a story that
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: resonated with almost everyone across almost all demographics. Even if
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: you weren't there, you can still imagine how this cosmically
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: perfect timing resulted in something that hadn't ever happened, at
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: least not in America and not recently. The Lord of
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: the Rings affected everything culturally, And by culturally I.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Mean mainly the arts.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Elves and orcs and dark lords were suddenly everywhere. That
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: was in the earliest days of this phenomenon due exclusively
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: to the immense popularity of Tolkien's Lord of the Ranks.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Just to give you an idea of how huge this
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: book was, imagine Harry Potter and Game of Thrones rolled
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: into one and dominating like two entire decades. This that is,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: the mid nineteen sixties was also the time when publishing
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: in America was drastically changing. Publishing houses had previously been
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: companies owned by their founders or their founders heirs.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just jump ahead a little bit because she
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: just talks about how there was bookstores and stuff like that,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and then she goes into the Delrays. I don't know
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: if that's super important. Essentially, she's saying that the Delrays.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: That that would be I'm sorry, I gotta find his
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: name again, that would be Lesser Delray and his wife,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Judy Lynne del Rey, started their you know what is
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: it a publishing house, del Ray Books, and the husband
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: focused on fantasy and the why focused on science fiction,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and they were kind of gatekeepers as well. So they
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: were kind of like saying that this is how your
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: books have to be, you know, like organized, because the
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: claim is that they wanted to get that same success
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that Lord of the Rings had and so they were
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: trying to copy the the sort of like elements or
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: like the They were trying to like sort of reverse
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: engineer Tolkien's books and say, oh, here's what he had
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: in his books, and we're going to put these elements
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: in our books. And it was kind of like the
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: you could say the I don't want to call it
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the mono Myth because it wasn't quite the Hero's Journey,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: but they were just looking at the steps, you know,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: because the Monomoth is older and that goes way back
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: to like, you know, nights fighting dragons medieval's stories of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: heroism and stuff. But it's something like that. So I
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: want to get to let's see the maybe it's Ray
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: here or they talk about the Delrays.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Locked into Frodo lives Fever. Random House under the control
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: of RCA acquired Ballentine Books.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: At that time.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: The senior editor at Ballentine Books was this woman, Judy
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Lynn del Rey, the fourth wife of Lester del Rey.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Now in the future, after the establishment of the del
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Rey imprint and the establishment of the Delray's control over
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: speculative fiction in America, Judy Lynne del Rey would mainly
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: be seen as the science fiction side of things, while
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: her husband, Lester was fantasy.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: It's worth noticing they were editors. That's what they were.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: They were editors. So and Slay credits him as the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: man who hadvanted fantasy. I mean in a way because
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: they basically created the category. But obviously, like when Lord
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of the Rings came out, people didn't call it a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: fantasy book. They just call it Lord of the Rings.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So the genre that with the way we see at
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the Umbrella called fantasy, I think it was created by
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: this guy. He was basically mass producing, cranking out edited books.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: That followed that formula. That's that's what she means. Why
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: when she says that, you know, this guy killed fantasy,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: but then the other woman killed science fiction. And by
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the way, I talked about science fiction with oh I
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: can't remember is say Jay Ishiro It was on my
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: channel and kat Rocha and they wrote a book called
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Booz of Steel. But I also talked to them about
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the printing, and they were talking about how they were
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I think it was like four science fiction authors that
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: were essentially gatekeeping all of science fiction and basically making
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it to where all books had to follow a certain
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: formula like they were. I guess yeah, they were engaging
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in kind of gatekeeping Isaac Asimov and a couple of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: other guys. So that was also a problem in science
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: fiction as well. It was almost like there was control
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: over the way stories have to be told and limiting
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: their potential. It doesn't mean that there weren't any good books, obviously,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: but they had to work within a certain certain boundaries.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So all right.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: Anyway, however, that both were equally important in the destruction
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: of American speculative fiction. Something that has always bothered me
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: about the del Reys and their undeniable impact on genre
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: publishing in America is that this is almost always presented
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: as a good thing. Judy Lynn is said to have
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: revolutionized the fantasy genre, and Lester is even sometimes called
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: the creator of the fantasy genre. In a sense, all
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: of that is true, but none of it is good.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Just about the only good thing Judy Lynn might have
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: done for genre fiction was to acquire the rights for
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Star Wars novels before Star Wars had even been released. Nevertheless,
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: even this good deed comes with a caveat. Having established
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Star Wars as the money printing machine at Ballentine, she
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: ensured that the science fiction genre going forward was modeled
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: on that formula, just like Lester and Low the Rings.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Prior to
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: the Judy Lynn era at Ballentine, Betty Ballentine had attempted
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: to capitalize on the popularity of Lord of the Rings.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: As you probably know, when Lord of the Rings was
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: published in America, it was Ballentine who had secured the
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: rights to do so so already they were.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Ninety cents for that book. Is that crazy? Ninety five
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: cents for that that Lord of the Rings paperback printing money?
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: But Hoping to turn a single book into an industry,
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Betty and her husband started the adult fantasy line at
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Ballentine and hired Lynn Carter to be the editor. Over
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: the next several years, they attempted to reproduce the tol
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: King Mightning Strike by bringing other older fantasy works of
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: possibly equal quality into the public's view, works such as
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: Urvin Peaks, Gorman Gas Trilogy, GK. Chesterton is The Man
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Who Was Thursday.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: All right, I don't know if you've read any of those,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: but they are at the show offs.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've read some of Gorman Gasts. I actually enjoyed it,
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: but I just sort of wandered away from it because
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: I was doing other things at the time. Yeah, it's
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: definitely different. It's much more insular, lots of interesting character studies. Uh,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: it's it's a little more eccentric. Shall we say this.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: The Man who was thirty No?
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Uh, Gorman Guest Oh, okay, yep, and.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Lord Dunstany is the King of Elflin's daughter. These efforts
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: were largely unsuccessful. In fact, the Ballentine Adult Fantasy imprint
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: had been more or less abandoned by the time Judy
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: Lynn took.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: Over but who were these Delrays.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: Lester del Rey, who often liked to claim that this
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: was his full name, was born Leonard Knapp in Minnesota
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifteen. He had written prolifically in sci fi
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: pulp magazines with a teenage target audience. In the forties,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: he became an editor and continued in that work for
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: almost thirty years. Judy Lynn had also been an editor,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: also for science fiction magazines, and had gradually worked her
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: way up the ladder until Betty Ballentine named her as
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: her successor. Thus, in the early nineteen seventies, when America
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: was still in the heat of Tolkien fever, Judy Linne
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: del Rey became the senior editor for Valentine Books, and
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: while she worked to revitalize the publisher's science fiction line,
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: she brought in her husband, Lester to address the neglected
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: husk that was the fantasy line. It was nineteen seventy
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: four and things were about to change forever. That year,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: a manuscript made it to Judy Lynn's desk, but seeing
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: as it was fantasy and not her usual science fiction,
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: she gave it to her husband, Lester. This manuscript, Terry
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Brooks The Sword of Shannara, Have I ever.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Read The Sword of Shannara?
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I did.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I now, okay, let's keep going.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Anyone who's even.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Loosely familiar with this book knows that it's pretty much
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: a straight imitation of Tolkien. Most publishers decried such as
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: shamelessly derivative work, but not Lester. When he read The
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Sword of Shanara, he recognized it for what it really was,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: minor details aside, a relatively well told Tolkien ripoff, and
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: unlike his more traditional minded competitors in the industry, he
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: didn't see a shameless knockoff. He saw dollar science. The
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: manuscript needed a lot of work, and among the many things,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Lester insisted that brooks Altar was any hint at the
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: possibility of a science fiction element, as the story was
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: meant to take place in the distant future of Earth
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: after a nuclear apocalypse had decimated and then altered civilization, which,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: by the way, probably would have made the Sort of
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: Shannara more of its own unique original work and less
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: of an imitation.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: But no, no, said Lester.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: Science fiction and fantasy must never mix.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Never the Dell.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Race don't cross the streams. Where does the doff between
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: whatever should the two ever meet. But yeah, anyway, they
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: had rules, but go ahead.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: They lost Okay, So eventually they lost their gay caping
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: status and now we have this is it better? Like
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: really it lost the what their gatekeeping, their role as gatekeepers,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: and now we have well.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: They don't care. They made their money, so yeah.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: I guess you're right. But also they wouldn't have made
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: money if there wasn't a market for it, Like you
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: can't expect there to people to only publish Tolkien, right,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: and people who have the same kind of innovative approach
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: as Tolkien them, we're going to be seeing a book
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: once every fifty years, right, And he established this genre,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: and other people wanted more adventures in that genre.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe I think that I think that what I think
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: they did was they saw that Lord of the Rings
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: was popular. They presumed that no one could ever make
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: anything else that was different from that and still be
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: as popular. So they decided that what they would do
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: is demand that everyone who wants to get work in,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you know, writing fiction. Because they were the editors, and
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I think that made them into gatekeepers. They were saying, well,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: you what you have to do is you have to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: try to make something like Lord of the Rings, and
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I think that she gets into this a little bit
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: later to establish like what the formula is. It's in
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the next time code that they all had to follow,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and I think, what what the del Reys were doing?
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: But lesser Delray in this case, But I think that
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the the other Delray had her own formula approach was
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: they were okay with oversaturating the market with similar stories,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: making a buck and then just leaving the husk that
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: remains because they didn't care about the culture itself. They
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: just wanted, you know, to essentially oversaturate the market with that.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of what happened with does bear with me? Okay?
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: In gaming? All right? I think it's Activision. They bought
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the rights to Guitar Hero, which was a massive success
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and it was very creative and very popular when it
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: first came out, and it was put up by Harmonics
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: and then Activision. I think it was Activision. I'm pretty
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: sure it was. They bought the rights to Guitar Hero
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and then they released Guitar Hero games every six months,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and they did it because they just wanted to, like
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: they knew the They basically was like, this is a
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: fad it's gonna die off. We're gonna make as much
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: money as we can. And they just oversaturated the market
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: with guitar hero games, made people pay full price for
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: each installment or at least close to it, and then
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: when it actually did end up dying, they just like
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: ignored it. They abandoned it after that. And I think
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: this is like that, but it's like a much larger
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: scale because it's like involving like everyone else's work, but
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: it's a similar thing, right, Like they know, oh, this
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: stuff's just a fad, we're gonna take advantage of it,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: and we're just gonna like run it through the ground.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately they did this without a care for the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: creative process, is what I That's what I think.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, so oh certainly, And maybe that's a that's
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: a like that's a general problem with the industry or
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: industry's period.
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: I mean some people would say that it's just giving
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: people what they want. But the thing is, though, you
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: have to remember that at one point in time, there
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't a Lord of the Rings, and so like you
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: couldn't say that people wanted Lord of the Rings when
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a Lord of the Rings until there was
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: one and then they were like, oh, I love this,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: I want more of this, and.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: So not even it wasn't it didn't even start when
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: it when it first started.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: It did, it took a while to get going yet going.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: So that's what I and I think the same. Like
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say, you know, like Hollywood, right now,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: everything is sequels and reboots and remakes and remasters or whatever,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: and they and they say it's because the consumers are
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: dumb and they just want more of the same. But
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I think that the creativity
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is just not there. And it doesn't mean that there
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: aren't people willing to do something, because I think that
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are very hungry that
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: to create stories, but they're just not they're not able
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to because these like you know, gigantic studios that have
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: all kinds of money to burn, and they're just spending
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: on stuff that they find safe because they think like,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: if I'm gonna you know, let's just do another alien series,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: let's do another thing based on Predator, let's do another
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: thing based on Terminator whatever. And the thing is that
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: they forget is that at one point in history there
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't a Terminator movie. There wasn't an alien movie. Somebody
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: had to make that and then it and you know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes it doesn't take our right away, but and then
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: it makes a cultural impact and then we care about
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: it for a while. But that doesn't mean that someone
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't come up with something new. I know people could, right,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: It's just that we don't have those people creating things.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: So I think this same you know, like you, because
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: if you start believing that there will never be another
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, then we're basically cooked creatively. That
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: means that we can't do it. And I just don't
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: think that's true. I think there are plenty of people
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: who are ready to make something and they have ideas
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: and we just need to nurture that in them.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I think I'm just defending her with this flirt pole thing.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: What well, you know, the cat's supposed to like play
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: with it, and she's just like letting it fall into
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: her face and then looking at me like, well she's
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: playing with it a little bit, yes, get her to
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: just chill out perhaps some Yeah.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a That's another thing somebody pointed out, like,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: look what happened to happen to Star Wars. She mentioned
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Star Wars. It's it's nothing but a poor, subversive copy
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: of of of its old self. And that's simply because
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the people who are now the stewards of that intellectual property,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: because that's the thing, like you don't it doesn't belong
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: to you, but you are responsible for it. And if
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: you are going to be responsible for something like this,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: then you have to love what it was. They're not
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: able to, so instead they just turn it into this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: subversive trash where they self insert or they put their
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: own personal beliefs into it or their own value system
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: into it, without any regard for what it was actually about,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: without understanding where it came from. And that's that doesn't work.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, yes, there are some culture junkies that will
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: watch anything you put in front of them, but that
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: they're starting to die off, like even they're waking up
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: to this, so yeah, okay.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Anyway, tended to use this book and the subsequent franchise
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: as the launching point for both their imprint del Rey
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: books and their entire philosophy. Colleagues of the del Reys
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: stated that Brooks's is Shanara book was like their baby
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: and Lester knew exactly what he was doing, capitalizing on
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: the overt Tolkien imitation. Instead of advising Brooks to tone
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: it down, Lester decided to lean into it. He even
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: went as far as hiring the brothers Hildebrandt, who had
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: done numerous iconic illustrations for The Lord of the Rings,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: to do the cover art for The Sort of Shanara,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: and the del Ray's investment paid off. The Sort of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Shanara was a major commercial success. It is generally regarded
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: as the book that ushered in the modern age of
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: commercially lucrative fantasy fiction.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: But so it wasn't Lord of the Rings. It was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Sort of Shannara. But even then, even then it was like, so,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think the original authors of The Sort of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Shannara intended that to be the case.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: Is del Rey the only publishing house.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: For he was. They were editors, but no, there was
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Random House and stuff like that. But they were kind
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: of like the I guess they were like the leaders
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: in fantasy and science fiction.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: So because the other thing is I wanted to point
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: out and this is this speaks to the title of
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: our video. Right, Okay, there's a this is something that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: is across the board. Creativity has declined since like the fifties,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: I think the I mean there it's I think it's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: the fifties, but definitely the seventies. The entire world that
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: we exist within now is predicated on the theoretic the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: theoretical foundation of one man. Right, and what if the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: reason we don't have a toll Kien is the same
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: reason why since let me just give me a question.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get his name.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Are you talking about right.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: On digit communications?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: So I just need to get his name, all right,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: because for as soon as I get in front of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: a camera, my brain turns off. I'm sorry, guys, Cloud
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: East Shannon, right, And he wrote that it's another thing
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: that really didn't gain traction. He wrote it in I
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: believe the twenties of the thirties, No, the thirties. Uh yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: He wrote digital circuit Design, which formed the foundation of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: the digital revolution, and he also wrote a paper on
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: digital communication, and his work is we exist within it basically,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: just like the entire fantasy genre. The almost all of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: the fantasy genre exists within the tropes that Tolkien created.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: We exist within the concepts of Cloud Shannon. So all
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: of our prosperity, all of our innovation, all of our
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: technology comes back to the foundation he built. Now, what
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: if we're not seeing a radical although I am hearing
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: an echo and I don't know why. What if we're
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: not seeing that kind of a radically innovative mind for
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: the same reason, Like the same reason we're not seeing
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: it in fantasy or in science fiction is the same
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: reason we're not seeing it now in technology. Now I
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: mean completely radical. In other words, Cloud Shannon is the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: foundation of not just one type of technology, but an
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: entire industry, multiple industries of technology. Tolkien didn't just write
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: a singular fantasy world. He wrote tropes that activated so
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: many additional and further fantasy worlds there were based on
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: the framework that he created. Maybe what's happening? Is there
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: some kind of current that's causing both both types of
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: men and both types of endeavor to disappear? And I
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: before I spoke at length about how Cloud Shannon, the
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: reason why we might not have had another Cloud Shannon
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: is because is there a reason why we're getting an echo?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: It's really bucking the hell out of me. Yeah, I'm
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: hearing myself. Why am I hearing myself.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know anyway.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: My thesis for why we don't have another cloud Shannon
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: and why creativity overall is declining because she's talking about this,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: and this isn't just about writing, This isn't just about fantasy,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: it's not just about science fiction. Creativity is declining overall
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: in every single field that you can identify. We are
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: becoming less creative. We are not questioning these foundational ideas.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: We're not developing entirely new modes of thought or new genres.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: We're not doing that anymore. We're not as creative as
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: we once were. And it's across the board. Now she's
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: focusing on one element of it, but when you step
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: back and you see that this is something that's going everywhere,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: where is it coming from? And to be honest, it's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: far as I can tell, it's mainly men who create
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: these foundational shifts and how we approach things. So where
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: are they? Where did they go? Well? My going theory
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: is we decided to basically attack masculinity, which is where
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of this kind of risk taking and thinking
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: comes from. And we decided to attack masculinity because we
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: didn't like the idea that girls didn't weren't able to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: we didn't have access to everything. This is what I've seen.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: People don't want to identify anything unique, any unique value
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: that men have as a result of masculinity or masculinity,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: because that unique value might exclude women and girls from something,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: and they don't want to do that because just we
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: just know right that means we're basically stealing the last
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: crust of bread from a starving girl's mouth if we
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: do that. But that has led to overt attacks on
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: masculinity in all the school at every level, from preschool
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: to college. I mean in the nineties. Christina Hoff Summers,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: who wrote The War on Boys, details how boys or
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: feminists started to influence the curriculum to teach boys or
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: presented this conjecture that the reason that boys behave in
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: the way they do and the kind of risk taking,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: the kind of pushing boundaries that result in people who
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: can result in great works like Shannon Cloud's thesis and
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: papers on the digital circuit design and communication, or Tolkien's
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: innovative approach to storytelling and were building, that we are
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: punishing the qualities that caused these things to emerge, which
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: we're basically stomping on the garden and punishing boys for
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: the risk taking, the boundary breaking and all of that
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: other And I don't mean sexual boundary breaking. I mean
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: like jumping the fence and going off into the woods
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: to explore boundary breaking. We're punishing boys for that, and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: because of that, we're seeing an overt decline in creativity
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: in our society across the board. Now, this is just
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: one segment that she's talking about. So maybe the reason
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: why we don't have haven't had another Tolkien has nothing
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: to do with the Delrays, because I'm sure they would
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: be happy to for if another Tolkien emerged from the
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: grass roots, which is where Tolkien emerged. Didn't emerge because
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: a del Rays, a prototypical Delray picked him up and said,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: oh hey, you are going to be our new wonder kid.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: He emerged from grassroots in interest from word of mouth. Right,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: maybe we don't have another Tolkien because we don't have
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: another Tolkien, just like we don't have another Cloud Shannon,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: because we have actively gone to war against the impulses
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: and behaviors and the type of mind that creates that
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: kind of large scale risk taking aka masculinity. Right there
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: you go, that's my thesis. I'm tying it back to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: the title, and we can continue to listen to what
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: she has to say. But consider, consider that the reason
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: why we haven't had another Tolkien is because we haven't
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: had another Tolkien. And had we had another Tolkien of
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: another kind, the Delrays would have been happy to exploit
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: the storytelling, the world building, and whatever else this guy
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: created for them to exploit. So maybe they're not to blame.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Maybe something else, and maybe that's something else is to
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: blame for a lot more than just the lack of
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: truly innovative epic fantasy storytelling. Okay, I shall get off
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: my podium, all.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Right, Uh send us some super childs. Guys, if you
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: want to say anything to this, someone has super child
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: I read.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, well let me poke the roles. But we
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: do have a thank you to give. All right, Guys,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: are not I don't know you guys aren't entertained today.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: I mean it's it's it's pretty I mean it's it's
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: not as quiet as it was on Monday. Monday was
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: like depressingly quiet. But let's see.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Good, Well, we are talking about something that I think
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: has people. Uh do you animated.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Or you don't have to disagree, But do you have
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: thoughts on what I just said?
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, I I totally understand what you're saying. But again,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: like it's sort of like works in Tan And what
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I was saying is that uh, Tolkien was able to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: tell the stories because he didn't have See. The thing
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: is is that we have prioritized safetyism and security to
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: such an extent that no one is having experiences that
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: can influence their like creative process that like add to that,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and so they're they're they're the people who are writing
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: are just writing sort of like raw desire or it's
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: derivative because they've been influenced by other people's writings and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: or things that they've experienced, like but that's all like
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: through what they watch on their phone or their TV
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Right, So I think that it's because we're
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: not having like actual adventures in real life, that we're
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: not writing adventures at at home or at least as well.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: So it's an excess of comfort and safetyism, which is
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: like you know, where masculinity thrives basically on the on
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: the the perimeter. And I think that that doesn't mean
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: that we're not going to get anything, because I'm sure
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: there are people who are out there that are going
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: to have something to say, but it's we're not going
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: to see it as sort of normal or like as
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: often as we used to.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, I want to thank Dark World Moon
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: for putting in two hundred and fifty dollars. Thank you,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: Dark Dark and yeah, so now we are at let
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: me just double check, we are at uh thirteen hundred, no, No, twelve, no,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: twelve hundred and ninety five left to go, so very
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: much appreciated. If you put something in, please do it
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: gets a little bit hairy. I want to make sure
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: that we're able to continue to do the meetups because
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: if we can't make our monthly fundraiser goal and do
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: the meetups, then you know one or the other and
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: it can't be the the continuing to do the show.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: So please please please go to feed the Badger dot
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: com slash just the tip no, feed the Badger dot
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: com slash support. That's Feed the Badger dot Com slash
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: support five dollars, ten dollars. Every bit helps. I hope
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: that I clearly explain the connection between the title and
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about, at least the way I see it, okay,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: so and I would honestly say that it's not all women.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: It's the women who seek moral dominance. It is a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: situation where women's sexuality isn't kept under the same raps
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: as men, so entire genres can end up being devoted
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: to fetish content for women, and nobody bats an eye
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: or says this is this is not actually artistic, this
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: is not literature. But you know, and but you could
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: also see it as the same dynamic. The delrays exploited
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: people's desire for tolkienesque literature. They created derivatives that didn't
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: supposedly didn't have much of their own merit or weren't
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: very innovative. And now we're doing the same thing. Because
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: people want to make money, they're going to the lowest
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: common denominator. And people who are just interested in the
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: porn contact of content of literature don't care about grammar,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: they don't care about editing, they don't care about continuity,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: they don't care about character. They just want what, you know,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: their trigger points to arousal. I guess so they don't
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: actually like to appeal to this crowd. The literature The
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: publishing industry doesn't actually have to do much effort. They
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: don't have to edit it. People are not gonna do
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: you think they're really gonna care about proper grammar when
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: this is just smut to get off to do people
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: care about it? Do people care about characterization in porn
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: movies now? So it's like they can completely remove entire
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: branches of quality control and thus having to pay for
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: this content, and they get content that's got vast appeal
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: for many, many, many women, and they'll they'll spend money
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: for it. Like it's it's basically the same kind of thing,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: except I would argue that whatever the del Rays were
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: putting out it probably had more merit than Morning Glory
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: Milking Farm or Dangerous crow Boy Sparkling Plastic Eater, which
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: is the newest thing. Like it's just this is this
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: is porn categories in in written form, while they're porn
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: categories are always in written form, porn categories with extra steps.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: That's it, that's all that modern This modern literature really
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: has become porn categories with extra steps. So it's like
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: and it again, it could be the same thing driving
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: it just money and a collusion between money and the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: fact that we don't tell women no when it comes
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: to their sexuality, like, no, you don't get to have
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: this in public libraries. No, you don't get to have
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: this on book bookshelves at Walmart. No, you don't get
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: to take over entire genres with your porn categories. Ladies. No, No,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: but he sells women know except.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 6: Here on this channel and maybe increasingly other places.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: But anyway, feed the badgert 't com slash support if
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: you want to support telling women no, which is very ironic,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: I realize.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Say no by saying yes, Okay, let's get.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: Back to it cognitive distance by listening to this lady.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Let's jump into the formula. Well, that's right here, So
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I jumped ahead to it already.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: There was a savvy businessman. He couldn't just sit back
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: and hope that a whole host of new writers would
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: just deliver countless manuscripts to him that would meet the
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: same exacting parameters established and tested by Terry Brooks, the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: sort of Ghenara. So he decided to be proactive. It
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: was then that Lester Delray put together his own formula.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: This was the mandatory shape all fantasy books submitted to
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: del Rey must take. The books would be original novels
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: set in invented worlds in which magic works. Each would
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: have a male central character who triumphed over the forces
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: of evil, usually associated with technical knowledge of some variety
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: by innate virtue and with the help of a tutor
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: or tutelary spirit. Other sources include added parameters, such as
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: the detail that the male lead character must always get
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: the girl. But I had trouble verifying those sources completely.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: I've always wondered if this was what Lester Delray really
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: believed was the core of Tolkien's work and therefore the
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: reason for its success, this two sentenced, hyper specific formula,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: or if he simply pared down the simplest and most
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: recognizable elements of Lord of the Rings and derived a
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: straightforward formula within which he would still have a bit
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: of room for variety.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: So if if he was boiling down Lord of the
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Rings to that, I think it was more so looking
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: at the Sword of Shannara though, right so, I don't know.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the sort of Shannara had this.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: But in Lord of the Rings, who who's the main character?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Is it Frodo, is it Aragorn? Is it Sam? I mean,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: if you look at it.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: Huh is the main character, like Proto.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Should be the main Yeah, I mean I think we're
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to think's the main character. But he doesn't
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: get the girl. He ends up No, he ends up
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: being wounded in such a way that it changes him forever,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: and he goes to the West. Aragorn gets the girl,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: but he was kind of always gonna get the girl,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: so that wasn't really in question.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: Sam does get Rosie Cotton at the end, but there's
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: no like it's one of those things where he sees
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: her in the beginning and then he doesn't see her
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: for any of the movies and then at the end
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: they're just married. I'm sure, like coming back from you know,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: saving Middle Earth is gonna get you in good with
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: Rosie Cotton, so he'd be like, yeah, save the world,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: but could you move your at what.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: In your face? Your mic is covering your face? Yeah,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: just yeah, there you go. I'm sorry, I'm really spurgy
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: about things like that. Uh, okay, you're right, they looked
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: at There are significant differences in sort of Genara versus Tolkien.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings is much more difficult in terms
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: of a read and in terms of like I don't
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: want to mean, I don't mean like it's a more
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: fraud look at human nature. I think like it because
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: it's basic and everybody's like, oh, it's got this black
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: and white morality. No, it says that everybody is corruptible
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: if they lose the ability to doubt themselves. You know,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: if they start to believe that they have all the
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: all of everything that needs to be understood and everything
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: that they have, they have the truth right and they
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: are able to they don't doubt themselves, so that they
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: never question what they're doing or why. And that's the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: kind of corruption of the ring is that you know,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: a good person gets the ring and they think they
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: can use it to make the world better. But what
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: ends up happening is the power corrupts them because they
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: cease to doubt that what they're doing is actually making
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: the world better. And so the presentation is that anybody
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: can be corrupted. And so we're following this character.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: And he is trying to prevent himself from being corrupted,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 6: and he eventually loses and he ends up being corrupted.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: And this is like this message that the world is
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 6: stronger than you. I mean, it's almost a depressing message.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 6: That's why I say it's a more difficult book.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: Even though Froto in the end was celebrated for having
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: withstood the ring for as long as he did and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: getting it to the precipice of mortor m h and
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: it's it's yeah, that's it still tainted him.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: It even it was even calling out to Sam a
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: couple of times. But you know, Sam wasn't He didn't
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: have it in his possession as long. And you know
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: what one thing that I was thinking about too. I
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: don't know if people know this, but like why they
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: say the Hobbits were highly resistant, do you guys know
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: why do you know why the Hobbits were resistant? I
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: have a theory. I mean you could like there's probably something.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: It's because of their innocence, Like I think that they're
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: like they were probably the most innocent race or whatever
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: in the setting, So it would take a lot for
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: them to become corrupted. That would be my guess. You know,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: they they live the most simple life. They didn't need
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: or want for a lot, so there wasn't like the
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: temptation just wasn't there as much. But eventually it gets
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: to them too. That would be my thing because Sam
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: was even more innocent than Proto was, so he was
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: probably more resistant.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: I mean my guess, so, yeah, but overall, that's a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: much more difficult storyline for people. It's it's it's uh,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: it makes you question things and you have to and
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: it's it really speaks to the corruption of war and
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: something about like, if you go to war, you will
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: do things that are horrifying. Period, You'll see horrifying things
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: and then you'll be you'll you'll have to do horrifying things.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: So there's no getting out of that corruption. And I
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: think he was I think Tolkien was talking.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 6: About that and then how it impacts you forever and
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: there's no there's no going back, there's no actual happy ending,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: there's no going back from something like this.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: But Proto had to do it because it was for
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: the best of everyone. He's a true hero.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Well, he kind of got conscripted, so that's what I'm
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: meaning by some of the stuff. There's definitely some allusions
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: to Tolkien's actual experience. Frodo didn't want to have anything
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: to do with the Ring, but he got conscripted into,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: you know, into this quest and it was like against
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: as well. And Sam was conscripted along with him, you know,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: by Gandalf. So they were doing something they didn't really
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: want to do, and they and they ended up having
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: to see it through all the way to the end.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: So yes, but that's heroic and it's knowing that whatever
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: you do in the end, you're never going to be
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: able to come back to what you were and it's
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: not going to be just oh, you got these new powers,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: you got the girl you have like a dragon familiar
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: and you're awesome and cool. Frodo was destroyed by the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: task that he took on.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 6: You couldn't even live in Middle East Earth anymore, it'll
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 6: leave because of the wound he received, all right, So
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 6: and he didn't even finish the task. That is really
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 6: that is quite the message to give people. And yet
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 6: it's still hopeful, you know, and in particular it's hopeful
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: because of Sam and what Sam did.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: The hope is in the fraternity between men seeking good.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 6: That's where the hope lies, you know, it's not even
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 6: in a single person. And of course that is definitely
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 6: a soldier's message.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: The other book, it takes I don't know what it does.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, it takes the trappings of of Lord of the Rings,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: and it removes all of the moral like the moral fraughtness,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: the difficulty, like contending, like sort of a short of scenario.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: I doubt would ever find a real fan base in.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: Among the counterculture or the college students, because it's not
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 6: challenging in that way.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: They probably liked it because it was challenging.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 6: And back then, you know, liberal weirdos actually could create
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 6: interesting art or even appreciate interesting art.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: But they liked it because.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: It was challenging.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 6: But that's what is gone in sort of Shanara. As
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 6: far as I can tell, as far as I can remember,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 6: it's just a rollicking good adventure. It actually probably takes
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 6: more from Lewis Lemore's The Walking Drum or something like
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 6: just a boy's adventure, except with a bit of sexuality,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: a lot of sexuality in terms of Walking Drum, you know,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 6: just and things simple, black and white and good good triumphs.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 6: Did good really triumph and doord to the Rings?
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: No, well good good triumphed maybe or evil just fuck
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 6: screwed it basically like good I.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: Mean Gollum, I mean it was gollum and proto eventually
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: like where the reason why the Ring was destroyed, but
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: like I mean, yeah, I would say good definitely triumphed.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: It was just it was like every moment in that
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: story when things get their bleakest, there's like a tiny
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: glimmer of something positive, but it's like enough to you know,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: move the needle, enough to like move it towards its
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: ultimate goal, like and all, And if you watch the movies,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: it does this all throughout where you'll see like you know,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: it'll be super dark, they can't see anything, and then
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: Sam will like, look, there's a star. You'll see one
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: star in the sky and then it like disappears or
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: like they're like moving through the forest and there's like,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: you know, a shattered statue and it's covered in like
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: you know, vines and stuff, and it looks all like
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: decrepit and ruined. And then the sun shines through and
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: you see that he's got like a crown of flowers
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: on his head and Sand points it out. It's like
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: that like that's kind of on the nose symbolism of
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: like keep going, keep going right, and and that's kind
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: of what that was. Like. The the message through it
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: all is that, yeah, it gets it's always darkest before
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: the dawn kind of a thing, and then they do
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: that all throughout, like there's all like oh, it's over,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: it's over. Everything looks extremely bad, and then like suddenly
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: there's you know, a clutch moment and and everything turns around,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: or at least they survive for a little bit longer.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: But that's kind of like the full I mean, that's
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like the that's what the theme is, I guess,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: or one of the themes.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: What I was trying to say is that good doesn't
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: triumph in like this grand battle.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: It doesn't come out unscathed harm.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: Or even in being able to fulfill its task. Good
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: triumphs by continuing to stand up and keep going. It
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: basically outlasts evil and wins, not because it directly defeats evil,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: but because it gets to the point where you defeats itself.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: But if good hadn't kept going, evil wouldn't It wouldn't
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: have driven evil to the point where it defeats itself.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: And again, evil is not something outside of yourself in Tolkien, see,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: evil is something within everyone that can be succumbed to.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: So there's no black and white. If anything told, there's
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: only gray and resist. There's only black and resisting the
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: black or dark gray and resisting it right. And there's
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: only behavior you can That message has to come through.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: If the central character ended up being tainted, you know,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: or ended up succumbing to the evil, and yet he
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: survived long enough, and he through the support of his friend,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: kept going long enough that he got it to the
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: point where evil destroyed itself, Like evil screwed itself over.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: I think that was the ultimate message. And yes, it
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: is about seeing the hope even in the most dire
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: of circumstances, which I imagine that Tolkien had experience quite
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: a bit of, and seeing the hope in the camaraderie
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: and the support of your fellow soldiers. You know, that's
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: definitely there. But I think you can't deny that in
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings, good never triumphed through some heroic effort.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: It triumphed through endurance until the point at which evil
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: destroyed itself. That's that's not the same message as I think,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: although somebody think yeah, and it is.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: A Christian message too, is that, like, you know, the
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: the world is evil, Like there is evil in the world,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: and you can't you can't ever really be rid of it.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: You have to constantly it's a it's a lifetime fight basically, Yes.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: And Slytherin Peanut says, the main issue with a lot
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: of Shannaro books, but especially Sword, is the main character
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: is a passive observer. Shia Almsford is the farm example,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: He's protected and shielded by others until something. I don't know,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: See the rest characters. Let me see if no this
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: is but yeah, that doesn't sound. But again, this is
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the because that book did well, and maybe there were
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: people that just wanted more fantasy and they're willing to
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: take whatever. I'm not that I think those those books
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: are probably fine, you know, they're just probably fine.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: But I think that I think there's a misinterpretation of
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: what the Delrays are doing here. I think that sort
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: of Shanara again, yes, it has has superficial Tolkien trappings,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: but I think it removes removes the stuff that makes
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: Tolkien the difficult, like a difficult So it's much more
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: clear good and evil, much more clear triumph of good
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: through heroic action and that kind of thing. And so
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: basically Delray looked at Tolkien and looked at start in Shannara,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: and they saw how retaining some things and then shaping
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: it out around a more of a boy's adventure kind
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: of plot or characterization would make something very popular. And
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: I honestly like, I I don't agree with her. I
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: think it's perfectly fine to have boys adventure. That's basically
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: what it sounds like. Sort of Shanara became it became
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: Tolkien trappings boys adventure type plot, characterization and themes. You
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: know that that.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: Means that well, she kind of was, like, she said
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: it was a pretty good book, but she did say
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: it was basically a copy of Lord of the Rings.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I haven't read those books.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: It's probably not true, but not.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: If it didn't, like, if it doesn't copy like the
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: essential heart of the story, then it's not a copy,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: all right. It's just baking basically taking Lord of the
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: Rings and making it a boy's adventure. That's different. That
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: is not Lord of the Rings, because Lord of the
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: Rings isn't just you know, elves and swords and mythic adventures.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: Because if you're gonna say that there were writers writing
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: those things before Tolkien that Tolkien took from, right, you
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: can look at Okay, let's look at previous writers, all right, so.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: Let's see if I can find that before Tolkien.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: Before Tolkien. Okay, just a second, all right, So first one,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: these are some all right? Uh oops swoopsoops, Okay, where
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: where did we go?
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, Lewis Carroll was prior to Lord of the Rings.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to find my little thing that I got
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: an analysis of Okay. The King of Elfland's Daughter by
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: Lord Dunsei nineteen twenty four a nameless fantasy realm where
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: the mortal land of Earl borders the magical Elfland. A shimmering,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: timeless world of fairy ruled by the King of Elfland.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: It's steeped in dreamlike mythic qualities and enchanted forest unicorns
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: and sifting realities. The men of Earl, craving marvels, send Alvrich,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: son of their lord, to marry Lizerel, the King of
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: Elfland's daughter, ceasing some parallels. Armed with a magic sword,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: Alfred woos her, but their marriage falters as Lizarel stras
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: with mortal life. Their son Ryan grows up coop between worlds,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: hunting and go. Okay, so Dunzil's lyrical prose and archetypal
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: world influenced Tolkien's depiction of ethereal realms like lotherin Lynn.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: All right, So the worm Ora Boris is another one
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: by E. R. Edison to nineteen twenty two. Mercury a
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: fantastical planet, not the real one, hosting the kingdoms of
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: demon Land, which Land, God, and others. It's a baroque,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: pseudo melanieval world of towering mountains, enchanted citadels, and heroic warfare,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: populated by human like races with mythic undertones. Summary. The
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: lords of Demonland, just Gory Got Goldry, Buzz Buzz Go
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: and Brandock Daha battle King Gorris of Witchland after he
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: demands their submission. The conflict spirals into epiquest, including Gorley's
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: kidnapping to a magic mountain, rescues via a hippogriffe, and
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: sorcery driven to betrayals. The narrative loops like the titular
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: Serpent as the heroes victorious wish for eternal conflict. It
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: blends North Sagastyle heroism with Renaissance flare okay significance. Edison's
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: richly detailed world heroic tone and invented nomenclature peer figure
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: prefigure Tolkien's epic scope. Uh tolkienmir the Sky is the Style,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: although he critiqued its amorality. Okay. The Wood on the
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: World by William Morris a medieval inspired fantasy land with
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: enchanted forests, mythical cities, mystical cities, and realms like the
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: bear Folks Savage Hills. The world feels proto Middle Earth,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: with a blend of chivalric romance and fairy tale magic,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: including a mysterious maiden and a malevolent queen. Golden Walter,
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: a young merchant, flees a troubled marriage and sales to
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: the strange land. He encounters a beautiful maiden enslaved by
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: a sorceress queen and her consort, the king's son. Walter
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: and the maiden navigate treachery, magic and wilderness to escape,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: ultimately finding love and a new kingdom. The story is
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: a quest driving romance with lush, archaic prose. M Okay
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: and Then The Well at World's End by Women's Mora
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: William Morris. Ralph, youngest son of the King of Upmeads,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: seeks adventure and the fabled Well of the World's End,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: rumored to grant i immortality. He encounters Lady Ursula, faces trials, bandits, tyrants,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: and a seductive queen, and navigates a war torn land.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: Their quest for the well blends ro man's heroism exploration,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: ending in personal fulfillment overpower. Fantasies by George MacDonald and
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: Oros and Dos A young ann Odos, a young man,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: enters fantasy Fairyland on his twenty first birthday. His journey
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: is a surreal odyssey through enchanted landscapes. Ooh, this is
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: Isachai facing danger, Yskai, facing dangers, pursuing an elusive marble lady,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: and grappling with his own flaws. The narrative, rich and symbolism,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: explores spiritual growth and redemption, ending with Annodos's return to
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: the mortal world.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 6: Significance McDonald's dreamlike world influenced Holkeene's portrayal of mystical places.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 6: For example, mark word.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: Okay so C. S. Lewis cited Fantasies as a key inspiration.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: The Princess and the Goblin Princess Irene, aged eight, discovers
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: a magical thread from her great grandmother, who leads her
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: to rescue Curtel, a miner's son Curtie, a minor son
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: from Goblin's plotting to flood the castle, courteous bravery, and
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: Irene's faithwart the Goblin King and Queen. The story blends
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: adventure with moral lessons set in the proto fantasy world.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think the Princess and the Goblin was animated
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: at one point back in the day. That's really earlier
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: to me. The Princess and the Yes probably was.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: But when you read all of this, these tropes pre
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: exist Tolkien, right sort of. Shannara draws as much from
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: this as Tolkien, and I would argue the thing that
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: Tolkien makes or creates that's different is again that heart,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: that moral heart of his story, which is this this
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: kind of depiction of evil as being able to seduce anyone,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: and that I mean, it's just fraud. It's just something
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: that gives you shivers.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 6: The entire story of frodo you know, and how little
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 6: he got from the burdens he bore, how much sacrifice
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 6: for them, and the fact.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: That he ultimately didn't win. I mean, this is a story.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: This is like something that's just really like it kicks
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: you in the gut. And that is what I think
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: that Tolkien truly did differently. So sort of Shanara, isn't
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: that it sounds like again, it sounds like some of
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: these trappings wrapped around a boy's adventure, and a lot
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: of those trappings, Yeah, they may look like they come
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: from Tolkien, but they equally could have come from these
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: pre existing fantasy stories.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: Well, Tolkien didn't create the blueprint, but I don't think that.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: I think this woman would agree with you, though, because
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: what she's saying is that today, if you ask people
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: like George R. Martin, The's are big writers, or Michael
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: Moorcock about the fantasy genre, they will credit Tolkien as
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: having created it. And she's saying that's not true. But
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: then she goes into del Rey's, who basically created the
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: because the del Reys believed that sort of Shanara was
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: a ripoff of Tolkien. What she agrees with, I guess
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: in terms of like having all the trappings of the
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: surface level things. But I don't think that she thinks
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: that there was nothing before Tolkien. I think that I
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: think that the del Rays were acting as business people
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: on the popularity of Lord of the Rings and then
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: the subsequent popularity of the sort of Shanara for being
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: similar to Lord of the Rings, at least on the surface.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: And I think that the del rays from what I
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: can tell because I looked into their background a bit,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: they are they don't they're not Christians, they are probably atheists,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: and so they don't see the deeper themes like running
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: through it, or they didn't at the time. They just
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: saw like the surface level things like magic and dwarves
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: and men and you know, probably orcs or whatever, dragons,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, this is the same thing
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: without like looking deeper. And I don't know that if
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: the person who wrote sort ofrom shar also had you know,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: maybe like similar religious views or or they were sympathetic
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: to that or whatever, but it sort of doesn't matter.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: I think that without that element in it, you're gonna
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: miss what Tolkien was saying. Also, the Del race probably
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: never been to war, so there's like, you know, there's
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that they didn't see at all,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: because remember they emerged in the nineteen sixties, so this
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: was like well after that, and they probably didn't fight
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: in any wars. I don't know for sure, but I
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: looked into it, and from what I can tell, there
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: isn't a lot of information out there, so but.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, Slitherin Peanut, I've just put the list in ask
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: Allison in our discord, so I hope you're in the discord.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know how else to get it to you
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: because it's gonna be way too big to put in
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: a comment.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: You can get into the discord for free by going
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: to be the Bachelor dot com. What is it? Badgination
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: don online?
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: Badgination done online? The slytherin Peanut says, this woman would
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: not agree. She already assumed that Shanara was a direct Yeah,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: I like what I'm basically arguing. Yes, she says that
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: there's stuff before Tolkien, and I'm arguing that Shannara may
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: have been inspired by that stuff, or even maybe it
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: did take Tolkien's trappings directly. But what makes what makes
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: Tolkien's work Lord of the Rings separate from that category
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: is the central story of a man with a problem,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: which is Frodo and you know it's the world's problem,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: but he takes on that problem and tries to fix it.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: That central story is what Tolkien added, and it's what
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: makes it so powerful. Other people have done the world building,
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: the Elves, the dwarfs, everything else. Right, that's a lot
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: of Norse mythology, you know. Yeah, But Tolkien created that
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: emotional that that conflict that resonated with so many people.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: And so I'm saying is, even if this guy took
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: the trappings, this isn't a Tolkien rip off because he's
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: leaving the story. He's leaving that essential man with the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: conflict and the type of conflict content. He's focusing on
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: Aragorn or in the other one. What was the first
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: one that was mentioned, which was no, no, no, He's
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: not focusing like short of Shanara, isn't focusing on Frodo.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: He's choosing Aragorn, which is the same as Alvaric in
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: the King Elfland's Daughter or similar to that character. It
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: seems like the story seems to be similar, or even
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: Ulverarick's son Orion, who is part elf and that is
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: from the King of Elfland's Daughter, right, So I mean
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: he's choosing that to focus on. He's completely shifted the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: protagonist because that protagonist is easier to cast in a
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: boy's adventure. And ultimately, if you're gonna have a problem
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: with that, you're gonna have a problem with an entire
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: genre built for boys to enjoy or young men to enjoy.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: And you know, I know that Tolkien had these really
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: deep themes which made him so unique and deep emotional story,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: but I can't say that, you know, they took some
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: of the stuff, turned it into a boy's adventure and
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: then sold a hell of a lot to boys and
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: young men because they enjoyed it so much. I can't
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: have a problem with that. And also, I don't think
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: that stopped another Tolkien from emerging, Because Tolkien didn't emerge
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 2: because a bunch of delray said hey, oh yeah, this
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: is the next big thing. He emerged grassroots by appealing
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: to people who really wanted to read a story about
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: morality framed in that way. Okay, So I mean and
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: I think that pretty much is me disagreeing with the
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: entirety of her thesis. I think she needs to look
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: bigger and consider that they're there's a lot more areas
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: in which we don't have a Tolkien or a Cloud Shannon, like,
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: we we're missing these creatives, and uh, think about think this,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: look at bigger dynamics for this to explain this is
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: what I'm getting at sure. And also I don't think
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: capitalism is to blame.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so either.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: All right, So I mean you can you can agree
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: if you want, like that's uh with her, if you
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: want is this that's my opinion on what she said.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: No, I don't do Yeah, I agree. Uh, let's get so.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: You know she lays at the formula we should cause
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: I got a patron show. I gotta do.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: So here's the counter formula, which is basically the reaction
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: to the formula.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 3: Well Ray formula. This, then, a literary world saturated with
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: Delray's factory produced Tolkien knockoffs and those paperbacks mass produced
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 3: by del Ray's imitators, was the world in which the
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 3: second actor in our drama opened his eyes. Enter Michael Morecock,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: I want to There were a lot of writers who
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: came to react negatively to the proliferation of the del
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: Reys philosophy. The main reason I've singled out Michael Morcock
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 3: is because he's often styled the anti Tolkien, and he
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 3: was particularly viciferous about his dislike of what he deemed
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 3: tolkien ask speculative fiction. He was also very influential. Many
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: other writers took their accused from him. Now this video
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 3: is not concerned with Morcock's work as a writer, but
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 3: rather with his more influential role as an editor and
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: generally a taste maker in the world of speculative fiction.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty four, Morecock became the editor of New Worlds,
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: where he would remain besides a brief five year absence
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: from seventy one to seventy six until nineteen ninety six.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 3: It was here within the pages of New Worlds that
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 3: Morocock would champion what he deemed at counter culture revolution
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 3: against this world that had been by and large created
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 3: by the del Res. His very first essay for New
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 3: world Why did the nineteen sixty four.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: Why does Morcock take aim at Tolkien? Yeah, here's the
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: problem with this, and this is what's really annoying. Tolkien's
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: work is not sort of Shanara. He didn't focus on
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: the same things that sort of shannaras short of Shanara
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: is tolkien trappings or trappings of this kind of Norse
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: based epic fantasy which existed before Tolkien placed in a
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: kind of a boy's adventure type tone. Okay, and yes
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: I agree with her on one level. I find almost
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: all epic fantasy to be boring as hell, I'm not
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: the target audience. Okay, But then Michael Morkawk, instead of
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: taking aim at this literary creation based on sort of
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: shan Shanara, which is again this kind of epic Norse
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: based mythological trappings with a boy's adventure on top, you know,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: or stretched over a boy's adventure skeleton, he takes aim
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: of that and says, I am defying Tolkien. Well, Tolkien
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: never wrote that.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: Well, the truth is, Alison, it's not even the fault
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: of sort of Shanara the writers of that book. It's
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: it because sort of Shannara was a big hit, and
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: there there's a claim that that was inspired by Tolkien,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: but that doesn't really matter because all of the fantasy
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: that followed that. So basically it's like two levels removed
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: from Tolkien. You have Tolkien, you have sort of Scenara,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: then you have all of the slop that came that
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: the Delrays printed. And that's what Michael Moorcock and the
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: counter the counter formula people are rebelling against, and they're
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: calling it Tolkien, but it's not. It's it's this stuff
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: that's two, you know, say, two steps away from Tolkien,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: not even the sort of Shannara books. It's beyond that.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: It's like a copy of those so and they're making
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: the counter formula to that. And I mean that's I
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: guess that that's why those books, I guess are are
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: not going to be at the level of Tolkien, because
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: they're not even at the level of sort of Channa. So,
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, or when he.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: Took over, heavily suggested that he intended to bring a
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: new flavor to science fiction. Interesting is that maybe it
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't really have anything to do with our topic. It
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 3: wasn't until Morcock published his essay Epic Pooh that he
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: really made clear his thoughts on the publishing industry of
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 3: his time. Now, there are a lot of people out
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 3: there who have thoroughly addressed just how wildly nonsensical Morocock's
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 3: poorly written takedown of Tolkien really is. So much so,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 3: in my opinion, that I found myself wondering if the
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: man had actually read Tolkien. But what struck me as
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 3: particularly notable was that Morcock, like George R. R. Martin,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: like so many other critics of fantasy literature at that time,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 3: assumed that this which he loathed with every fiber of
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 3: his being was due solely to the influence of Lord
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 3: of the Rings, as if Tolkien had personally with his
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: own hands formed nineteen sixties and seventies fantasy literature, and
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 3: as I think I've made abundantly clear, Tolkien actually had
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 3: nothing to do with it.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 4: The world of.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: Western fantasy against which Morcock railed so violently was not
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: ruled by the influence of Tolkien, but by the influence
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 3: of Lester del Rey. Now, defending Tolkien's honor isn't really
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 3: the purpose of this video, but I think it is
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 3: worth mentioning that among many of them.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: What well, she pointed out exactly what I said.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I told you.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, all right, sorry, no, it's okay, sorry, redheadedly.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: Let me go to I'm gonna jump ahead. I think
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: we get the point of that.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 3: Even now, many are becoming fatigued by this new game hope.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: Punk, the generational cycles of grim Dark versus Noble Bright.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: Please stop making words up. I'm sorry. Grimdark only applies
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: to Warhammer forty thousand, that's it.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 3: The Thrones era of Bleak Ultra grim Fantasy, and they
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: are responding with a new cycle of subversion and contreriy,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 3: as is the case with Catherine Addison in her.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 4: Horrible, Horrible Thegoblin Emperor.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 3: Which she herself admits was at least in part a
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 3: counter response to Game of Thrones.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 5: It is a book that was quite deliberately trying to
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 5: do several things that fantasy right now has not been doing,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 5: because so much of fantasy right now has been so
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 5: influenced by George R.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: Martin.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 5: But it does mean that things have been very grim
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 5: and bleak and pessimistic and cynical. So it is deliberately
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 5: It's not a utopia, but it is utopianist in that
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 5: it is arguing that doing the right thing will win,
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 5: that if you try your best to be ethical and compassionate,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 5: you will come out on top.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: So as the established fantasy genre evolved, one formula begat
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 3: a predictable counter formula, which begat a predictable counter formula,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 3: and so on forever, eating us now in current year
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 3: to peruse the shelves of our local barns and noble
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 3: and think, golly, this syear is pretty far removed from
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 3: that must be new and unique?
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: Though?
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 3: Is Game of Thrones progressive and intelligent? Just because it's
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: so different from the sort of genera. Does that really
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 3: make one good and one bad?
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 4: For that matter? How far removed really is this from this?
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know these books, but from Blood and Ash
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: by Jennifer l Arment Trout and Dracula in Love, which
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: just based on the title, I don't know. I'm kind
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: of curious about that. That sounds like I mean, this
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: looks like an old book, so it's probably not like
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Anne Rice type shit.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: But okay, anyway, you're a summary of that, you get
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: a summary of that. We'll take a look.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, but.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, okay, So I'm sorry, but most of most
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: stuff is going to be schlock, except now now it's
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: gotten even worse. She wasn't happy with the publishing industry then,
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: and she's not happy with the publishing industry now. It
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: actually invites the question what would make her happy like
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: this individual, because I know I've actually gone over how
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: she's not happy with the current like nobody. I don't
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: think anybody is happy with the current. Well, the publishing
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: industry is poor now, this is what it is. And
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: it's because that's the lowest common denominator and it requires
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: the least amount of effort quality or quality control, and
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: it doesn't cost anything and people have an endless appetite
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: for it. What a surprise, And they even have more
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: of an appetite the more our relationships go to crap.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: But like, what what would make this individual happy?
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: Like people will write different stories of different quality and
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: they're kind of going, yeah, well, I mean, this is
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: feels like she's railing against just the cycles of creativity.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: People are gonna gonna go this way and that way,
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: and you know.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: She's saying that. No, I think what she's saying is
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: that she's talking about, first of all, the so called
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: cultural leaders, so not like anybody who's trying to write something,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: but the people that are considered to be like the
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: leaders in you know, book writing, the Georgia R. Martin's
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: and Michael Moorcox of the world, like these people who
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: are doing I mean, she doesn't mention jk Rowling at all.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's on purpose or what so,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: but it's it's maybe she is maybe jk Rowling is
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: the exception, and that doesn't that doesn't really get to
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: the heart of what she's trying to say. But what's
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: happened is she's basically saying that we we took something
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: that was like, you know, great and stand out, which
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: is Tolkien's books, and because other people wanted to like
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: get close to that, like they saw it as aspirational
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, I want to make a
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: work like that, and so you got sort of Shannara,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: which I don't think was people being lazy or whatever.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe they were inspired by that. Maybe they read Lord
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: of the Rings and they were inspired by it and
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: it just kind of like came out in their work like, well,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: I guess it looks a little bit a lot like
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: that or whatever. But what happened was you got sort
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: of cynical you know, business people and salespeople that were like,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna take this and we're gonna turn
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: into a money making machine. And they did and that
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: became like everything. And then you got counter culture people
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: that were also part of this establishment, you know of
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: fantasy writing, and they're like, we're gonna do that, but
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna do the opposite of that, and then they
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: started following a formula that they thought was original, but
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: it was just an inverted version of the other formula,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: and then you got like people saying, well, this is
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: also grim dark, and I'm I'm you know, it's nihilistic
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: and I want to do something different, and so they
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: like go back to what, well, the way we used
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: to tell stories, but there's they think it's new because
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: they've been steeped in this darkness for so long. And
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: she's saying that we should stop looking at this as
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: a series of things to react to where you're like, oh,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: I don't like, you know, Lord of the Rings, I'm
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: gonna do the opposite Lord of the Rings. Or I
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: don't like Game of Thrones, I'm gonna do the opposite
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: of Game of Thrones or whatever, because you're not allowing
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: yourself the space to like actually do something different or
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: like at least something that you think is authentic, which
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: is the most important thing. And I that's what she says, like,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you should make something that is authentic and
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: stop worrying about like whether or not it's doing you're
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: doing this right, because that's the problem is that there
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: were these you know, rules, like they were like, well,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: fantasy has to have these things, and they're like, well,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: why does that, like why is that true? And you know,
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: it ended up limiting it, right, And she's saying that
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: it's just become a derivative of a derivative of a derivative,
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: even if it's inverting the the characteristics, and it's it's
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: actually become stagnant and stale. And she's saying that we
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: need to like break out of that cycle basically of
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: you know, move, countermove, countermove right, because that's where it is,
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: right now. That's that's what I think she's saying.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, I'm sure, but it's really not like
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: the thing is that they're just do it like.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: That's what she says at the end. But but like
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: we again we are looking at the state of things now,
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: which she mentions here I'm going to play this bit is.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 3: Mass produced food makes people unhealthy. The same goes for
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 3: mass produced entertainment. We've entered an era when all Western
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 3: entertainment is corporate formula slop, yes, all of it. So
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 3: if even our fantasy literature can only be more mass
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 3: produced entertainment for the sake of entertainment, at some point,
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 3: we're going to reach a kind of twinkie entertainment. Critical
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 3: mass as a civilization if we haven't already now. Don't
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 3: get me wrong, I think stories apps must be entertaining.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 3: I think it is a storyteller's obligation to entertain their audience. However,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 3: if entertainment is the publisher's only aim, then I think
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 3: they've missed the point by a country mile. Also, I
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 3: think allowing a bunch of corporate overlords to decide how
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 3: it is that we are entertained is.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: Troubling. Additionally, there is.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 3: A difference between following popular trends and adhering to an
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 3: industry formula. One is organic and follows its own natural
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 3: path and life cycle. The other is corporate and profit driven.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 3: And the thing is, because that machine and that business
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 3: model exists as the foundation of Western publishing, it's basically
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 3: impossible for anything other than twinkies to ever be published,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 3: and in the rare case that such a book is published,
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 3: it's an absolutely herculean task. Is it possible to save
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 3: western fantasy publishing.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 3: Listen, nothing is stopping you from writing a great fantasy novel.
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 3: Nothing is stopping you from ignoring what is or isn't
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 3: part of the formula and just writing what you want
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 3: to write, Whether or not you'll be able to publish
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 3: it is another matter. But the fantasy publishing world, such
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 3: as it is, is the world that Lester del Rey built,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 3: and it's the one we live in. Maybe we can
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 3: find all and it's a formula engine. Maybe we can't.
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 3: Maybe knowledge like this will lead some writers to despair
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 3: and put down their pens forever. Maybe this knowledge is
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 3: driving force enough to make that one person out there
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 3: right the masterpiece that ends up on the shelf next
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 3: to Lord of the Rings, who knows it's okay.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: I think that's where I agree and disagree. First of all,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: I hope she's not really putting her guns against entertainment,
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: because that's not why everything is awful now because people
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: are like, oh, let's entertain the audience. It's awful because
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: the writers, these these individuals are buying into a moral landscape.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: I call it the intersectional Zigarot, and they that turns
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 2: their work not into entertaining an audience, but dominating the
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: audience morally and trying to get the audience to conform
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: to the static categories in the intersectional ziggurat. So you're
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: on this level, these are the people below you. These
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: are the people love you you stay there and it's
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: not it's like didactic and it's it's it's not about entertainment,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: it's about education, and that is actually made it absolutely
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: appallingly awful. Well, first of all, I don't believe in
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: a static moral system with casts, with a cast structure,
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: so automatically I'm like, yeah, no, I don't believe in
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: the intersectional ziggurat. But also the aim has made it
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: so every bit of craft, which is what makes things entertaining,
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: is gone because it's not compatible with the mentality of
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: the intersectional zigguratte the internet sexual ziggurat does not recognize
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 2: meant people's moral evolution because people exist in static moral
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: categories of oppressor and oppressed. Right, it doesn't recognize the
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 2: necessity of being entertaining over being didactic and showing people
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 2: where they lie in the intersectional stack. Right. So that's
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: what's ruining storytelling, and it's being pushed by yes, corporations,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: but not corporations who want things to be entertaining for
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: the audience. Corporations who want things to reflect virtues like
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: diversity and oppression, oppressed theory, you know, stuff like that.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: This is what's being pushed and they flood the marketplace
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: with their funding that has nothing to do with consumer dollars.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 2: Who the hell knows where it comes from. It probably
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: comes from eventually the government, but it floods the market
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: with funding these projects that are basically didactic teaching us
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: all our moral place on the on the U, on
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: the intersectional zigguratte That's why it's crap today. Like the
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: del Rey's seeking money is almost quaint. It's like, oh,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: we want to make a book by entertaining the audience. Okay,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna get upset over that. I'm not gonna
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: get upset over the fact that they took Tolkien trappings
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: and pulled it over the skeleton as a skin over
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: the skeleton of a boy's adventure story. I'm not gonna
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: get upset over that people were entertained. And that is
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: categorically different than what's happening now. It's either didactic moralizing,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: and it's a set of morals that is incompatible with
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: character arcs, with humor, with people learning things from each other,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: unless you're you're an oppressor learning checking your privilege and
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: you're the oppressed learning how much has been taken from you?
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: Or their crap like that like there's then that's why
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: the plots seem to be divorced from the actual character evolution,
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: because they can't write character evolution. The intersectional ziggurad is
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: like a freaking endless dumbing down of people's understanding of
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: each other into the most simplistic dichotomy. And you can't write.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: You can't write complex character interactions. You can't write complex
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: character evolution or even simple character evolution, because it all
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: is subsumed into the intersectional ziggurad. I should draw this
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: stuff out someday and like do it stand alone to
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: explain it. But anyway, you can't do it like this.
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: Their morality is incompatible with the craft necessary to make
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: good stories. That's probably another reason why I told you,
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: oh yeah.
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: I mean yes. I think they need something a little
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: bit higher to aim for than the intersectional religion and
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: uh and like apply apply something more, let's say, transcendent
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: in their thinking. This might be the reason why Tolkien
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: was successful where so many others failed, and C. S.
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: Lewis for that matter, because the Chronicles on Arnia is
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: still a big deal. The other thing I would say
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: about the Delrays is that there the problem was not
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: that they were greedy or seek profit above all else.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: The problem was that they were risk averse and that
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: and so like because of that, they wanted to play
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: it safe, and they were concerned with safety, which stifles creativity.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: So you know, that's pretty simple the way I see it.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And in terms of in terms of what
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, it's incompatible with character arcs because in order
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: to write character arcs, you have to, like as a writer,
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: you have to be willing to understand people who disagree
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: with you or who are genuinely different than you, and
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: not in a check your privilege way, but extend yourself
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: to understand how people think who are not you. And
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: if you know anything about intersectionality, you know everybody who
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 2: disagrees with you is actually in a moral demon who
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: deserves to be politically executed, like this is they they don't,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: I said, like, you know, they don't regard people who
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: disagree with them as legitimate, so they have no they
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: have no tools to really model someone else. I mean,
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: in fact that they did, they probably be socially ostracized
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: by their fellow travelers. So it's like it's it's an endless,
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 2: stupefying stultifying, and You're right, it's risk adverse and it's
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: also very dumb and it does not lend itself to
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: good craft. And I don't like, Like I said, I
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: think the del Rays are the least of it, point
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 2: the least of it, and I don't think you can
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: blame them for not having another.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: Total I could have. Their whole framework could have been
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: abandoned a long time ago, but instead everyone operating within it.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: So that's why we're in We're in the place where
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: in now because people are still referencing it through that
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: paradigm and all they got to do is escape the paradigm,
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: just walk away. Yeah, they could like write things again,
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: so but I got to published. Yeah, okay thet show.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: This has gone longer than I expected. But I will
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: ask this though, because I was talking to maybe I'll
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: do this in the Patron show talk about this. I'm
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: I was talking thinking about like what books could have
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: could also really make for good film or TV adaptations
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: that are fantasy that you know like just like don't
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: say anything now, but I want you guys to think
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: about it, Like what's a fantasy book that you're like
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: and look not with current year Hollywood. I mean like
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: when they you know, because we got like all kinds
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: of new people, like young hungry people that want to
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: make movies, they want to make shows, they want to
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: make video games, whatever, and they're looking they need material,
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: and I think that there's a lot of old material
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: that's very rich and you know, could could create a
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: brand new sort of interest in these things. What are
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: some that you thought about. I would like to see
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: the Ice wind Dale trilogy or the dragon Lance books adapted,
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: for example. I think that could be really cool. But
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: just let me know what you guys think in the comments.
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: So do you have any more thank you?
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we do are. Richard Beer put in five
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 2: hundred bucks, So.
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Richard.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: That means we are at yeah, actually this is this
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: is a very heavy month, so thank you for doing
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of the heavy lifting everybody who did. Big
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: thanks for Richard, and big thanks to OKFS for two
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 2: fifty and I think we are.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: That was before the show Dark World Moon. Thank you
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: for Dark World Moon for two fifty and I believe
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 2: that would put us at about eight hundred and ninety five.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 2: I think about there eight hundred and ninety five left
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 2: to go. Hopefully we make it. It's got a little
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: bit of time left on the clock. If anybody wants
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: to put in some more on, you know, in at
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: the last moment, that would be great, and feed Thebadger
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 2: dot com slash support to do so. And again, maybe
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 2: I will just do a standalone that just explains the
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 2: intersectional ziggurat and how it destroys creativity and writing. That
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: might be interesting for people, because I think they're the
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: people who are there, like the people in the writing
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: sphere that aren't wrapped around l Woke so tightly that
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: they're sucking their own whatevers. I think they're noticing that
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 2: something is really wrong, really wrong, but they haven't quite
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: got to the point to realize what it is where
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: the stink is coming from. So maybe I'll do at
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: some point in the future feed the Badger dot com
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: slash support to help us continue to create this content.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: And I think feed the Badger dot com slash just
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: the tip if you want to actually send us a
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: message with a tip, and Badger Nation dot online if
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 2: you want to join us in the Badger discord. I'll
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 2: do one last check and then I'm gonna hand it
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 2: back to you. Brian to take us out one last
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: poke of the roles. I don't see anything, so back
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: to you, Brian.
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if you guys like this video, please hit
• 2:08:31
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• 2:08:34
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• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: think about what we talked about on the show today,
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: and please please please share this video because sharing is caring.
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for coming on today's episode
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: of Maintaining Frame. I should have been Red Pill Cinema,
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you guys in the next one.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 7: Men's rite activists are machines, dude. Okay, they are literal machines.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 7: They are talking point machines. They are impossible to fucking
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 7: deal with, especially if you have especially if you like
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 7: have good memory. On top of that too, holy shit,
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 7: you're fucked