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One Piece, 543-545 · Spoil Me! One Piece

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This is an unspoiled network podcast. This is spoil Me covering one piece episodes.
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Oh here we go, guys, I'm gonna say the right ones this
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time on the first try. Five forty three, five forty four, and
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five forty five, The Death of the Hero, A Shocking Truth of Tiger,
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the Sun Pirates Split, Jimbei versus R Long, and Shaking fish Man
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Island. A celestial dragon drifts in. In these episodes, we really just
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don't get much evidence that human beings are worth anything in these episodes. I
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have to admit that I don't side with R Long, but I get it.
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Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha.
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Thank you very much to Florian for commissioning this episode. Florian, I
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don't know if you were able to make it today, but if not,
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appreciate you, sir. These episodes, guys, it was so funny because
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like the story that's being told here, which is not unusual, it's the
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story of two different peoples who have the feelings they have about each other for
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varyingly valid reasons, basically trying to decide if there's like a way through and
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past that or whether there is just no hope for it, and that it's
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either like the annihilation of one or the other or that they have to like
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be segregated forever. And the thing about this that is so difficult is that
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I know if I feel like there was a time in which I would have
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seen this as a very cartoonish portrayal of this sort of dilemma, and like
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now that I have grown older and I've grown to understand the depths of the
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systemic racism in our country and around the world as well, and that I've
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grown to understand even like setting aside race, but class as well, and
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I have heard like some of the things that people have said when they don't
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think anyone else is listening. I can't even like comfort myself with calling this
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a cartoonish portrayal, because this is so close to the truth, because the
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truth is so ghastly that we don't face it very often because it's that bad,
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you know what I'm saying. So, like, there was something really
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disturbing about watching this because all I could think of was just how the way
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that Arlong was on Nami's island, and how repulsive and horrible his actions were.
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And then recontextualize it after finding out the ways that he had been treated,
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the ways that he saw his friends being treated, and I don't want
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to like say, oh, well, you know what else was going to
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happen. Of course he was going to turn into this kind of person,
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because we all, no matter how many bad things happen to us, we
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all make choices. And he made the choices that he made, and other
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people who were also mistreated didn't turn out to be the like maniacs that he
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did. But I can understand how somebody who has like a particular rageful streak
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and who feels as if they have been overlooked or mistreated their whole lives for
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a variety of reasons. I can definitely understand how it would manifest in this
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sort of almost like militant anti human sentiment. And I really can't because I
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am not somebody who has suffered this type of marginalization. I don't feel comfortable
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saying whether everything he ever did is right or wrong. There are things that
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I think cross a line, But also who the fuck am I to say
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that? You know what I'm saying? This is something that I've really,
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like, I have had to come to terms within myself over you know,
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not just like dealing with the revelations of the black experience in America, but
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also like just finding out the we a lot of us, I think we're
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unaware of the extent of the segregation and genocide and the ghettos in Palace,
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and there are just so many things that while I can sit back and say
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that this like retaliation seems horrific, I also feel like I don't really get
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a say, you know, like I am not sitting here condemning Hamas,
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for example, because was what they did like just grotesque, Yes, but
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what's been being done to them and endorsed and ignored that is just as grotesque,
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if not more so. So there's a sort of feeling of guilt for
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me of like I didn't know the extent of what was happening, and if
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they hadn't like suddenly snapped and lashed out and gotten the world's attention, I
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don't know if I ever would have found out, because it was not something
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that I I think, I am so overwhelmed by what's going on in the
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United States. I don't think it would have reached out to find out that
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kind of history and that kind of current events as well. So I just
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you know, this is this sort of thing that comes up a lot in
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the X Men as well, when people talk about like the experience of Magneto
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and actually having been in a concentration camp. And there's a lot of like
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merch and t shirts out there that say Magneto was right. And there was
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a podcast that my husband used to listen to recently and they came out with
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some merch that said Magneto had some valid points. And I think that's the
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best way to say this is like, if there are people out there who
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hate us human beings, like you know, in this universe, have we
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done literally anything to change the way they feel about us in a real way.
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Because I'm not seeing it, and so our alongs like continued rage about
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this. I I can't help but feel like what was gonna get anybody's attention,
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you know? So anyway, I'm sorry, guys, I'm talking around
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the topic here. But let's start off with five forty three Death of the
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Hero A shocking truth of Tiger. And I do want to mention to anybody
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who's like, you know, not sure what's going on here, but the
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uh episode five forty two was marked as a filler episode on the spreadsheet for
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what I'm to cover, and it's also just not on the Hulu feed at
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all. Episode five forty two is straight up missing. So I guess that
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that's about like Hulu knowing what's filler episodes and deciding not to include them.
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But I do think it's really weird that they don't let us determine what's a
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filler episode, and that they simply don't let us watch it even if we
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are interested in the filler. I don't know, unless it's something where like
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it was removed from everywhere, because there are some episodes of TV shows that
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get scrubbed later because they contained something that was like potentially pretty offensive, So
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maybe that's the situation. But anyway, so episode five forty three is when
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we're really getting like a look at the events that that kicked off. What
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winds up happening between Jimbei and Arlong and the little girl whose name is Kowala,
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which is so strange, but she is being brought back to her home
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by the uh Sun Pirates, and there's a real like nervousness about this.
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She's been cleaned up, she's been given like a cute dress to wear,
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and she doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. There's a point
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where they like are telling her how glad her family will be to see her,
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and she just like grabs a rag and starts scrubbing the floor again and
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just saying, I need to clean. And it's like this this compulsion with
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her after the way that she was treated, and this is so I'm really
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curious about this because, like I believe that this could be the manifestation of
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that kind of like trauma and stress. But I'm wondering if there are people
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out there's a part of me that kind of wishes in some way has said
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I had a more productive reaction to triggers, you know, because like cleaning,
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as much as this can be carried to extremes, of course, I
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feel like it's better than like overeating or self isolation. But the I was
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sort of worried at this point that maybe and I really didn't like think that
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this was going to be true. But I kind of if this had been
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the way it went, it wouldn't have felt out of the question for me.
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But I was worried that when she was brought home by fishmen, that
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it was going to be some sort of like thing where her family didn't want
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her back because they felt like she had associated with these these creatures that they
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looked down on, or that maybe they didn't like because it's so unusual,
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it seems like for human beings to be taken as slaves. I was sort
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of like, did they sell her? And she thinks that like I got
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got when in fact, her family like gave her up, because that is
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not an unheard of thing amongst people who live in poverty, is selling their
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children because they can't feed them all and because they need money to stay alive,
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and so they'll trade their kid and send it off to god knows where.
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But it doesn't turn out to be that, And honestly, I was
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pretty relieved because I didn't know how I was going to feel about it.
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This character Koala has just been put through it so bad already. I was
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kind of like, maybe I don't need to see that. That feels a
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little bit excessive, Like I give this girl a break, you know,
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I'm saying so uh. We have a confrontation on the ship here between Arlong
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and a character named Aladdin, which is just so very uh that's a real
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choice. But Arlong comes up to Aladdin, who is a former slave,
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and is basically like, hey, uh, I don't know how you can
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be okay with this when she is from the same race of people that did
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the horrible things to you that you ran away from. She may not be
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a bigot right now, but when she goes home to her bigot family,
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they're going to turn her into another one of them. She may think that
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fish men are kind and generous right now, but eventually they'll warp her mind
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like they do to everyone, and she'll learn to hate us. And none
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of this is ever going to change. We have to take them down a
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peg if we want anything like any sort of respect. And he says,
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you've seen the way they look at us. They have fear and contempt in
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their eyes. And I think it's Jimbey who chimes in and is like,
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basically, he asks Koala a question about like, why are you afraid of
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us? And she says, well, I don't really know anything about you,
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And Jimbay says, I see, it's not contempt, it's ignorance.
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Maybe they just need to learn more about who we are. This is so
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tough y'all, because like, I can understand and admire the mindset that Jimbey
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is displaying here, but I can't. And this is like one of those
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things that it's sort of I know, we all wish this, Natasha,
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but that's not how the world is. So I fully acknowledge before I even
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say this, I am wanting an ideal that isn't real. But I really
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hate the whole Like, let's campaign to let people realize that we are also
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people that deserve respect simply by virtue of being alive beings, sentient beings,
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and the fact that anybody has to be like, have it explained to them.
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We also need to eat, We also bleed, We also have families,
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We also you know, all of these things. I can't help but
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feel like it's so demeaning to have to start from that place talking to people,
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and it is demeaning, you know, like my feeling here it's valid,
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but also the assumption of like, well, it comes from ignorance.
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It isn't incorrect always, but it is incorrect when so let's just talk about
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I'm gonna just completely put this whole story into the framework of like slavery in
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America, the fishmen are captured and used as slaves. I believe it's a
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chattel slavery setup where if they give birth to children, those children are automatically
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slaves. And the thing about the way that we have set ourselves up in
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the US and our whole system is based on the backs of marginalized people,
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black people and people of color. They're unpaid labor and torture. The idea
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that it's like, well, we just need to show them that we are
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people too. It assumes that the folks who are oppressing these groups don't know
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or believe that in a really sort of pure, in a vacuum sense.
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And I have always kind of felt like, is it really that people don't
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believe it? Or is it that people tell themselves this story because they want
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the free labor and they want people to mistreat and so there's this very easy
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story that they have begun to recite to themselves about how well really were the
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superior race and this is what these people were meant for. And I don't
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really know because of the way that the the uh, the dynamic with the
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fishmen is that they can just be roaming around on ships, they can be
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doing their own thing, and the humans will encounter them occasionally. But you
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know, in the way that things worked in the United States, black people
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were on a whole other continent, and so the only exposure a lot of
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Americans had to black people was via slavery. It wasn't like they were able
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to have encounters of their own with free blacks and be like, oh,
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these people are monsters. It was like the all of the dogma about what
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these people are really like is filtered through them being like servants and slaves and
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in this particular class. And it's sort of an odd thing because like there
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certainly was the narrative of like, oh, well, we're actually giving them
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a better life. We're actually taking them from these hovels and pagan backgrounds and
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bringing them to a godly land where they will learn the true faith. And
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it would you know, there's always but there is just a slight difference here
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with the way that that works and the fact that he's like talking about how
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people look at us with contempt and and they don't understand who we are.
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I feel like it's a really generous reading of humans that I'm not sure is
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really true. There's times that I stop though and I think, like,
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there's a podcast that I listen to and it's actually it's like a spooky podcast.
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It's called Spooked and the host of the show, at the beginning of
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the episode will often tell a story about his own life, and there was
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one episode He's a black man who grew up I think, in Georgia in
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a really really rural area amongst a lot of white folks that had literally never
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seen a black person before, and he had. He said that people would
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actually come up to them, like after they moved in, trying to be
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friendly with like casse roles and stuff, and they would say things like,
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y'all eat regular food, right, So you know, on the one hand,
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I'm like, are we just telling ourselves this so that we can have
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our free labor? But then they're out there folks like that who really are
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just like, what do you think do you think they eat like kibble?
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What are you fucking saying? So maybe there is some truth to this,
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it's just what I take issue with, And again, this is kind of
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always the crux is that it puts all of the onus on the marginalized people.
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It's you know, now they have to be the ones that are ambassadors
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to their own race, explaining that they are valid beings that deserve respect,
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and I just hate that for them. It is so unfair and like I
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said, it's demeaning, and it's like the advocating for your own personhood is
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just the most exhausting thing I can imagine. So anyway, he uh,
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the there's like a weird moment with Hachi doing a magic trick with her,
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and it was a bit of I think, just supposed to be like a
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game to get her mind off of things and to stop her from being afraid.
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But I sort of thought there was going to be more to this,
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and it looks like there's not. So we have them dropping her off and
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everybody is sort of tense about how this is going. The most of the
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actual pirates on the ship are crying about her leaving. It's very very cute,
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but like the main dudes that are sort of the backbone of this crew,
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they are very divided. You know, our Lung is on the ship.
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He's not waving goodbye. He's just like huddled in a corner with his
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arms crossed. And Tiger is coming with Koala to to drop her off and
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see if there's like any way that he can begin to like open the door
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of I don't know if I want to say negotiations, because that's like two
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formal but just communication, I guess. And Koala's mom is so delighted to
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see her, so happy that she is back. But that's like immediately followed
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by all of the human beings turning and looking at Tiger with like genuine anger
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in their eyes, and they're all sweating, and there's a real sense of
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like something could pop off any second, you know, any of them is
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going to be they like about to walk up to him and throw a punch.
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And this is when Koala is saying, like, I made friends with
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the fishmen. Everyone said they're bad, but that's because they don't know any
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of them. I met a whole bunch of nice fishmen. And her mom
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says, I think you're confused right now. They're the ones who brought me
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here. I sailed for a long time with Uncle Tiger and all his friends.
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If you got to know them, you'd like it them too, that's
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all it takes. And Tiger is walking away from this just seems sort of
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resigned to the fact that like they're just gonna lash out if I try and
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like involve myself, so I'm just gonna make myself scarce. And as he's
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walking away, Koala waves after him and says, thank you so much,
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Uncle Tiger. I won't forget you or Hachi or Aladdin for the rest of
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my life, even if we never see each other again, in my heart,
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will always be friends, okay. And he waves his hand and has
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his back turn and she's like, thanks for everything you taught me. And
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he as he turns back around saying, I hope like eventually our people can
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get along. He is surrounded by Marines and I was genuinely taken aback by
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this. I was full on thinking that if anything went wrong, it was
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going to be the townsfolk here. It didn't occur to me that the Marines
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would be following him. And honestly, like, in a way, it's
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sort of better that it's the Marines than the townspeople, because them turning on
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these guys after they had brought this little girl home that really would have been
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pretty tough. So it being the Marines is like slightly less heartbreaking. But
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there's something about him having just gone out of his way to do this good
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deed and then these guys just surrounding him like this and acting like he's a
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piece of shit. That is so awful to watch, and the like the
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whole way that I was. So he says that girl was prop of the
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celestial dragons, but we're going to look the other way on that matter,
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at least for the time being. You guys, straight up, when he's
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like, you stole property, I really didn't think it was gonna go that
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way, because I'm a Dodo who keeps forgetting that the celestial dragons aren't considered
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like monsters that we should ignore. They run things, and I keep forgetting
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that and then thinking that, like, the Marines are going to be hard
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on anybody who has slaves, because like my brain just won't accept it,
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you know what I'm saying. But then he says, the village elders were
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more than willing to sell you out as long as we spared her. Do
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you know why I'm here? So this is the thing that I'm confused about,
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guys, because I was sort of like, oh, good, it's
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not these people who did it. And then he says village elders and I
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there's a scene earlier where they are like buying a bunch of stuff from a
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uh like a supply port in an at An island? Are those the people
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that that snitched on him? Because it was sort of like it felt to
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me as if what this man was saying was that these elders here snitched,
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but they like just got here. So I mean, I guess they could
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have like a transponder snail or something and have as soon as they saw the
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ship, they could have like called the marines, But how would they know
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that the ship carried Koala as well? That's the part that I keep getting
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sort of mixed up on. So I don't know. There's nobody in the
27:52
chat today, but yeah, he says, this is rather generous all things
27:57
considered, but you're facing two charges assault and escape. All these marines have
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their guns trained on him and Tiger. It's so funny because we hear gunshots
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and I am full on thinking this is going to be where Tiger dies,
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like right now, and no it's not. It's a fucking like him putting
28:26
down everybody in a giant so like he's injured, you know, he's got
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blood on him, but he's like pretty much okay, are long for his
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part he's like kind of taking the worst view of this, and he says
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that the little girl, the brat was nothing but a ploy to lure us
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here. They played us for fools. We show them an ounce of kindness,
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and this happens. Is that what happened was she just like was was
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she a trap from the start? Or did somebody at one of the ports
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they stopped in for supplies see her and then like report because they were thinking
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that do you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't know whether or
29:23
not ar Lung's interpretation is correct, and even if it, like if it
29:30
is correct, that's just like, how do you ever trust these people?
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Again? I can't even be mad, you know. So, Yeah,
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the Marines are like surrounding their ship and firing on them. We see the
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boat rocking wildly and they are along, is like, all right, well,
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they fucked our ship up, so we're going to go and take one
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of theirs. And we cut back to Tiger, who has just taken down
30:03
like half of the Marines that were surrounding him, and one of the guys
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says, we're plugging him full of bullets and he's just shrugging it off.
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How is he still alive, and he calls him a monster, and Tiger
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says, you humans think I'm a monster. We'll see and uh Kowala hears
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the gunshots and is like, wait, what's going on? It was so
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weird, you guys. She hears this noise and the camera is closed up
30:37
on her face, but when the camera sort of turns around, all of
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the townspeople are cheering and fist pumping. So they were they were the ones
30:48
that specifically like set this up or sold them out. She says, did
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you hear that noise? Mom? And her mom says what noise? And
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you can see this like kind of confused expression because she like it's very clear
31:04
her mom is lying to her, so it has to be them. I
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don't know how, like I didn't put that reaction of the townspeople together,
31:14
but that reaction I think that on the first watch, I was thinking they
31:19
were celebrating her being home, that this was like a fist pumping, like,
31:26
you know, the girls come back and she's safe, and we're gonna
31:29
celebrate. We've got booze, we've got food. And it seems like in
31:34
the context of everything and the timing of it all, it seems like they
31:40
are cheering the fact that the fishmen are being attacked. So that's just such
31:47
a bummer. And Jim Bay we come back to the present and he says
31:52
that ar Lung was able to take one of the marine's ships and then and
31:59
he and he says, then his head drops in a way that suggests some
32:04
real shame. We have the scene where Tiger is refusing to take the blood
32:15
of humans. And it's so interesting, you guys, because Tiger is the
32:22
one that is so insistent keep your hate and your rage about what the humans
32:30
have done to yourselves. You've got to keep it inside and work toward them.
32:37
This understanding. And yet at the same time, when it suggested that
32:45
he have human blood because that's all that's in stock on this ship, the
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one from the Marines, he says, I don't want that filth inside me.
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And it was just surprising because like he's endorsing unity, but he also
33:13
I would rather die than live with their blood. I can't I can't figure
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this man out. He's very complicated. The blood of the bastards who tried
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to kill me, And this is when he says, I won't take their
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mercy. I will not owe them. I won't give into any human I
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won't. And I'm thinking that he's gonna give Arlong basically his blessing, that
33:47
he's gonna have been turned around on his opinion of human beings by this experience.
33:54
And Arlo is saying to him, like something had to have changed for
33:58
you to say this stuff, and he says, I didn't want to tell
34:01
you guys this, but and you know, he mentions about how like on
34:07
his last trip and he goes to see the royals and tells them I saw
34:13
human nature. He says, soon after I started my journey, they captured
34:17
me in Mariegeois. They made me a slave, and none of them knew
34:24
this about him. And I really love the fact that he isn't just leading
34:31
this whole thing as somebody who's from the outside seeing that this is wrong.
34:37
He got to like experience the reality of what this is like. And he
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says, I got to experience true depravity. I barely escaped, but then
34:50
I kept thinking about those other slaves. So I went back, and you
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know, I was sort of thinking that he we just went to a place
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and broke a bunch of people out, not that he was returning back.
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He says, I lived how I chose to and against o tahom oh too.
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I can't remember uh against her will, but I still believe in her.
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I believe that she's right. This is the Queen. Everyone wants peace,
35:25
humans and fishmen alike. But our generation can't bring that peace. We're
35:31
bound to an ugly past. Only children like Kowala, free of that history,
35:37
can change the world. And again, like, I don't know,
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guys, I don't know, it's so simplistic, he says, Please,
35:51
you can't tell them. You have to hold it in our tragedy and our
35:57
hatred. They must die with us. And this is when our along freaks
36:01
out and it's just like, no, that's fucked up. And he says,
36:07
you have to promise me. Some humans are kind. They know we're
36:10
not so different. I know it too, And because I've met so many
36:15
compassionate humans, I realize it's foolish to leave nothing but hatred as legacy when
36:22
I die. But even though my mind understands that there's a devil in my
36:28
heart that cannot forgive, that fills me with rage, my very flesh rejects
36:36
them. And like I can't, I really enjoy this, despite all I've
36:45
fought for, I cannot love them. I'm sorry. And this is just
36:52
a very like real sort of moment. I think about this a lot.
37:00
Like Rashaun and I talk a lot about race, obviously, it's like a
37:05
major topic on our podcast together as well a lot of the time. But
37:09
the struggle that she has with like whether forgiveness is like warranted, and the
37:20
kinds of trauma that she has endured, and that the people out there who
37:25
are unwilling to hear it or unwilling to believe it even you know, and
37:34
living having to keep to yourself, the snap judgments that you make about the
37:40
white people around you because you know that we'll get you in trouble, but
37:45
then being proven right over and over again about those snap judgments, especially in
37:50
the workplace. It's just like a really complex thing. Especially you know,
37:58
we're best friends and I'm white, and so it's not like she has lived
38:05
in white spaces all her life because of being raised in a particular way and
38:12
having a type of personality that white people were much more willing to accept because
38:19
it reflected their own sort of like attitudes and speech patterns, and you know,
38:27
all of that, she was called one of the good ones, that
38:30
kind of thing, and just how do you like move forward when like,
38:39
if not everybody, then many of the people of a certain race have shown
38:46
you that they consider your humanity like kind of not a guaranteed thing, you
38:55
know. When it's when she's proven right over and over again in social situations,
39:02
in workplace situations that these people aren't her friends and don't understand her and
39:10
don't care to. If anything, they see her as a threat for no
39:15
reason beyond their own biases. You can have a white best friend, but
39:24
that doesn't change the feelings that you have about white people in general. So
39:31
anyway, everybody is surrounding him and being like, dude, you have got
39:36
to take this infusion. We need you. You're a symbol of hope.
39:43
And he says that makes me happy then, and I was sort of like,
39:49
oh no, by telling him like you're a symbol of hope to everybody,
39:52
you have just basically made him feel like, yeah, Okay, it's
39:57
safe for me to let myself die because I will have this legacy that lives
40:00
on you know. But yeah, he we get a flashback to him fighting
40:08
in the uh that like kind of bad neighborhood, I think, and throwing
40:14
Jimby down and he says, your blood is my blood. Eye fight for
40:16
every fish man. And then we come back to the present and his hand
40:21
has dropped and he has died. And this just is the schism. This
40:29
is the moment where this united crew, this one man was holding together,
40:36
just fractures because they all just take different things from their experience. Arlong is
40:44
really just like, fuck these people. We've tried and tried, what's the
40:49
point they keep showing us that it's never going to change. Jim Bay,
40:53
for his part, is like I'm going to try and uphold what he expressed
41:01
was his like dying wish, and in order to do that, jim May
41:10
winds up joining up with the Marines. And it's so interesting because like the
41:22
way that everybody looks at him for joining up as a warlord is basically as
41:29
a traitor to his own kind, which I get, you know, I
41:38
like I understand his reasoning. I think that he had thought it through and
41:45
I think it was ultimately probably necessary to do things the way that he is
41:52
imagining them. But also throwing in with the humans and everything that like there's
42:00
no there hasn't even been an overture from the humans of friendship, you know
42:07
what I'm saying, Like, there's we are not in a situation where it's
42:12
like, oh, they keep telling us that they're going to work together with
42:15
us and then screw us over. We are pretending we're going we're like equals
42:21
and peers, and they're just going to find new and exciting ways to oppress
42:24
us. We're not even there yet. We're straight up in y'all are still
42:30
slaves, you know. And so I do understand how everybody is just sort
42:37
of like, you may, what the fuck dude? You know, I
42:42
I the dying wish thing. This is a real tricky one. You know.
42:50
What I like about this is that this is a man who has gone
42:52
through shit, seen some real terrible things, and his dying wish means more
43:00
in my opinion, because he is a person who has really seen every side
43:07
of the issue. I can't help but sort of like feel a bit of
43:13
an eye roll coming on when somebody who hasn't gone through what a lot of
43:15
other characters are, you know, and they are trying to tell folks how
43:21
things are going to be or should be handled. But the nuance of Tiger
43:29
being like, I want you guys to like keep it tamped down, don't
43:35
let it rule your life. But also I can't love them either. You
43:39
know. That's a really impressive like needle to thread. So okay, I'm
43:50
kind of all over the oh Florian's here. Florian says, the duality of
43:53
fish men, I guess, but I love it feels so real. We
43:57
are all complicated and stupid, that is true, but yeah, so are
44:04
along. Here we have the fight between him and Hachi, and he is
44:07
just like there's a real sadness to him that I wasn't expecting. When he
44:15
departs, he because he just leaps off the ship into the water, and
44:20
as he's swimming away, he says, sorry, are along, but you're
44:22
wrong. I'll never forgive them. And I like how when he punches Hatchi
44:29
and he sort of tips his head downward so that his hat is covering his
44:34
face, there's a moment of it like being, oh, it's the rain,
44:38
but I'm pretty sure he's crying still. So he winds up like swimming
44:45
to or one of the marine's other ships out of the rain. By the
44:51
way, so it's established that he has gone a long way and turned and
44:58
gone back to the island where they just attacked. But Arlong is wreaking havoc
45:05
amongst all of these marines when Kiseru shows up and it's just like, man,
45:10
you make a lot of noise. This is a flashback. So Kiseru
45:19
is standing there with a subtitle over him Navy HQ Vice Admiral Borselino, and
45:25
then it says like future Admiral Kisaru. Why does his name change? Guys?
45:35
This is something that I was like, can because you know, like
45:39
in America, you'd be Vice Admiral Kiseru and then you'd be Admiral Kiseru,
45:46
and that would it would just be the title that changed, but not the
45:51
name. And I am really uncertain about how the naming conventions work because are
45:59
you given like a new name as well. I don't know. I'm curious
46:06
about that. So if anybody knows, let me know. But yeah,
46:08
he's he takes down Arlong without too much trouble using his weird light power,
46:15
and uh he looks down at him and it's just like, what are you
46:19
doing here? And our along's like I'm getting back at all the bastards who
46:22
fucked over my captain and he says, oh, so this is about revenge,
46:27
and our along is like, yeah, like, I don't care what
46:30
happens to me, but you guys deserve to die, and Kiseru says,
46:38
well, you can cry if you like, but now you're coming with me,
46:45
and then we jump over back to JIMBEI. Arlong was enraged by brother
46:50
Tiger's death. He took his anger out on humans and was imprisoned as a
46:53
result. There his hatred grew. He had if he had a transfusion,
47:01
he'd be fine, and Steady had to die because they refuse to treat Fishman.
47:07
He brought that little girl back to her family, and you repaid that
47:09
by killing him, And I was sort of the way he says, like
47:16
he had to die because you refuse to treat him. I was like,
47:21
that's not how that happened. I don't I mean, I don't doubt that
47:25
humans would refuse to treat him, but that's he refused the So my question
47:34
is is Oarlong a little bit rewriting history in his head or is it just
47:40
a translation kind of muddling what he is saying happened, Because if it's him
47:46
rewriting things in his head. I actually am a little bit fascinated by that.
47:51
And that's not really something that we've seen on the show, Like somebody
47:55
like Tiger honestly isn't something that we have really seen on the show either.
48:00
A person who isn't on a one hundred percent extreme side of an equation,
48:07
but a person who is like aware of their own shortcomings in trying to live
48:12
up to their own ideals and still attempting to live up to them anyway.
48:15
Like, that's a pretty like complicated character, and I would kind of be
48:25
interested in seeing an r along who like sort of in his head changed details
48:34
in a way that's like I don't want to call it self deluding exactly,
48:38
but I guess that's really what it is. It reminds me of like those
48:44
of you who have listened to the coverage of Song of Ice and Fire with
48:50
me and Rashan. There is this weird thing that happens with Sansa later on
48:58
in the story, when she is away from King's Landing. She thinks back
49:01
to this moment that she ran into the hound in the hallway at the Red
49:07
Keep, and she for some reason remembers a kiss that never happened, and
49:15
she is like, whenever she thinks back to that night, she always adds
49:22
that he kissed her. And she says it with no like there's no hint
49:27
to me that she realizes she's embellishing the story. It seems very like she
49:35
has a false memory of things. And I don't know why. So I
49:42
was sort of thinking, like I could understand actually if Arlan was like a
49:49
bit putting the worst possible spin on it all because he is just so angry,
49:54
and that's it's not even something that he realizes he's doing. Let's see,
50:02
Oh, Florian says, I think Arlong is just sees what he wants
50:07
to see. Yeah, maybe that, but yeah, it's and it says
50:13
like the the dies after being denied a transfusion on the headline. Apparently that
50:21
Jimbay ringings later and he says not quite though it is close. So I
50:29
guess it is just supposed to be him, sort of like changing up the
50:32
way that works. Yeah, he says, Arlong lied to them. Why
50:37
would he do such a thing. Okay, I didn't even catch that that,
50:42
he says, ar because again I don't know is it a lie?
50:47
I don't know and Aladdin says, good for him. The truth is a
50:53
lot worse, and I was like, huh, I don't know if it
50:59
is which part, And Aladdin is just sitting there just like honestly a lot
51:08
more what's the word conflicted about all of this? Then I was expecting,
51:17
And he's basically like, let him say what he wants, you know,
51:21
after everything that our captain has been through to die like that, who cares
51:28
if he decides to spend it. Let him do that. And jim Bay
51:35
is like leading our little crew of fishmen pirates into a charge on this other
51:42
ship, and he says, honor his wishes and don't kill anybody, and
51:46
he says, I did my best, you know, I really tried,
51:51
but fighting seemed to be the only thing that our crew was doing. And
51:58
then we go back to Neptune and he's reading a note about like the reality
52:05
of what happened from Jimbei that he had sent to him, and there's a
52:10
sort of like him and his wife are talking about how to handle what is
52:19
inevitably coming. And while it's understandable that she wants peace and believes in this
52:29
sort of gradual acceptance and this movement of like we all have to make an
52:35
effort. It really feels like Neptune is sort of letting her do this without
52:40
a real opinion on his side that he he doesn't I'm not trying to say
52:46
that he's not supportive of her, but what I mean is more like he
52:52
doesn't really see the point, and he is supporting her and he wishes that
52:59
things would go her way, but that he isn't under any delusions about how
53:06
this is ultimately going to work. We get another sequence of the queen going
53:15
around asking for signatures and everybody is showing her this like newspaper article and telling
53:22
her like, why the fuck would we sign this? And she goes home
53:27
and is frustrated about this. It hangs out with her children, and she
53:32
says, I'm just going to keep doing it, keep doing my best.
53:37
And there is like eventually a scene where she's rescuing humans who are shipwrecked,
53:49
but those people rob the city and take off. So eventually, when she
54:01
is going out to collect signatures, there's a group of people that come up
54:06
to her and they evidently had signed this little, you know, petition,
54:12
I don't even know what to call it, and she thinks they're coming back
54:15
to like commiserate on what she's attempting to do and ask like what's your progress?
54:22
YadA, YadA, YadA. And what they're actually here for is to
54:29
ask if they can take their signatures off, because after that robbery, they're
54:38
really feeling a way about these human beings. We fucking saved their lives and
54:47
in return, they robbed us and took off. I can't you guys.
54:54
It's like I get it, I get it. And it's so the the
55:00
way that the moment of them asking to take their signatures off is written so
55:06
well because it's like so awkward and her slowly really understanding what it is that
55:13
they're asking. And then later on there's a group of kids that comes running
55:17
up and she had been teaching all of the kids on the island. Excuse
55:23
me, she had been teaching them all about what the world above was like,
55:29
explaining to them about like trees and dry land, you know. So
55:34
these kids come running up and she thinks they're here for their daily lesson,
55:39
but they're actually here to grab up the petition papers and run off of them.
55:45
They're like, yeah, my mom wanted me to take this piece of
55:49
paper back I found it. Thanks, and then they run off. You
55:52
guys, this was so devastating. And she winds up getting really drunk because
56:00
in the end, the number of signatures she has dwindles to like less than
56:05
half of what it had been earlier that day. So she gets really drunk
56:10
because she's so disheartened and upset, and she gets on the loud speaker that
56:16
they have for the island. I always love this sort of like convention because
56:22
I think that this is a thing in Japan, like that certain villages have
56:28
an announcement system like this, but it's just something I've never seen in the
56:32
US. So every time I hear a voice just echoing, I'm just like
56:37
this, what is this assembly? You know in middle school? What's happening
56:40
here? But she basically in this like drunken monologue, exhorts them to think
56:49
about everything that they are missing from the world above and how we are acting
56:57
like we can live just down here on this island and be okay, but
57:02
we're missing out on everything and unless we find a way to like make nice,
57:10
we're going to be stuck here forever in this place that's like it's fulfilling
57:16
our needs right now. But This isn't supposed to be how everybody like lives
57:24
for the rest of time. We want sun, We want to see you
57:30
know, trees and the sky. Why are you guys resisting this? We
57:37
have a brief moment with Aladdin and another dude I can't remember what his name
57:42
is, and he's talking about how he has his family on Fishman Island but
57:49
he can't go back to them, and he's just feeling like really lonesome and
57:52
he's like, I'm sure my family's doing okay. And jim Bay is shown
57:58
listening in on this conversation and looking kind of like bummed out over it.
58:06
So let's see. This is when we have the report about Jimbay and his
58:12
strength to Kizaru, who is like, oh, yeah, why don't we
58:15
like recruit him? And the overall sentiment from the Fishmen upon getting this request
58:28
is Jimbay saying or is them urging Jimbay to deny the request because then they
58:35
will like the fact that they got this request at all means we're being taken
58:38
seriously and if you reject them, you'll really be making a statement. And
58:45
this is when Jimbe is like, no, you know what I'm gonna do
58:46
it. I'm gonna I heard out the proposal, and then he goes and
58:52
he talks to King Neptune and he's like, there's a lot of people on
58:58
the ship who just don't want to be pirates anymore, but they can't go
59:04
home, and if they come back here and I'm able to like figure something
59:09
out with my being appointed to this role, I feel like that's worth it.
59:15
It's a way for me to take care of my men, and if
59:21
more importantly, if I do become a warlord, it will help the Fishmen
59:25
get closer to the world government, and we need that relationship. I can
59:30
atone for all the trouble that we have caused with the queen, so the
59:39
we have eventually him like getting r Along out of jail and far from r
59:46
Along being like thanks so much, I see it your way now, he's
59:52
like, thanks for getting me out. I'm doing my own thing and I'm
59:57
going to take my men back with me, and Jimba calls him an ignorant
1:00:01
fool, but he doesn't stop him. He doesn't really like, you know,
1:00:07
there's a a I had sort of been like, whether the guys agree
1:00:15
to go with Arlong, like isn't considered. I thought maybe they would say,
1:00:20
well, we don't want to go with you. Arlong is just sort
1:00:22
of saying, these are my guys, and I'm taking them as if they
1:00:25
don't have a say in it. And it's not until Arlong is like,
1:00:30
well, fine, let's fight each other for it. Then I thought I
1:00:37
was just thinking that everybody's voice was going to get heard, and he has
1:00:42
to push it so that he gets in a fight with Jimbae and he really
1:00:47
gets his ass kicked. Man, he really does like Jimbe is nobody to
1:00:51
fuck with, and it seems like Arlong really it's almost like he reacts even
1:01:00
worse because of the way he got slapped down. So some of his men
1:01:06
do go with him, and everybody sort of acknowledges the fact that, like,
1:01:12
one day, we're gonna have to probably stop him because if he keeps
1:01:15
on acting up and the Navy keeps going after him, that that's not going
1:01:20
to help our overall relationship. And we see more guys leaving and they're just
1:01:25
like, hey, good luck to you, but suckers, we're out of
1:01:30
here. And there's no attempt to make these guys stop. There's a moment
1:01:39
where we see Hatchie look over his shoulder and somebody says, literally, Hachie,
1:01:45
you can't look back, just a little hint that he is not fully
1:01:50
in on the whole. I don't want to call it like COO because it's
1:01:55
not quite right, but you know, so Jimmy is like our long Macro
1:02:02
and myself. We're all different captains, and ever since then we've continued going
1:02:07
our separate ways. So then we have and I'm going to talk about the
1:02:14
next episode really briefly because I'm out of time, but I feel like it
1:02:19
really is just one big scene that we can sort of like talk about in
1:02:25
two seconds. So there's a celestial dragon whose ship has crashed, and he
1:02:36
is demanding help and being a real shit about it, using extremely demeaning language,
1:02:43
just generally being terrible, and yet demanding that they like help him because
1:02:49
it's an obligation. Eventually, some former slaves of his come out and are
1:02:54
like, oh, we'll handle this, fucking dude. And when they come
1:03:00
out, and there's a long moment of like are they gonna pull the trigger
1:03:05
or not, they do, but the queen puts herself in front of him
1:03:10
before the shot is fired and winds up getting injured in the arm. She
1:03:16
gets shot. I thought maybe this was going to be like a death scene
1:03:21
for her. And then her children arrive and they're just like we saw our
1:03:25
mom rush out of the palace. Is she down here? And we have
1:03:31
the princess asking the prince like, what are the celestial dragons? What's the
1:03:37
deal with these guys? And her brother says like, not all humans are
1:03:40
bad, but these ones in particular are not to be trusted. So we
1:03:46
see her with her body like thrown over him. Everybody is just like,
1:03:52
what are you doing, queen? Come on, like they've put us through
1:03:57
hell and you're willing to sacrifice yourself. And from far away we see the
1:04:02
princess is like looking over at the celestial dragon who's still on his back,
1:04:11
and the queen is making a speech about how everybody's polluting the minds of their
1:04:16
children with their bigoted thoughts about humans. And as the queen is making this
1:04:25
speech, in the background, you can see the dragon looking at this gold
1:04:30
gun that's right near his hand, and he picks it up and holds her
1:04:36
hostage and basically tells everybody like, I'm going to fuck her up if you
1:04:45
don't help me. He calls her a stinky fish, and she's just another
1:04:53
worthless commoner, an ignoble bottom feeder. The princess who is watching, begins
1:05:03
to cry, and as she cries, the whole place begins to shake.
1:05:13
And it's like, for a second, I thought that we were going to
1:05:17
get like this guy just being crushed or something, you know, I didn't
1:05:21
know exactly how this was going to manifest. But she screams mother, and
1:05:29
there's this huge wave that like develops underneath the ship. It's like a tsunami
1:05:39
or a but it but not really like it's shooting it in the air.
1:05:45
And the dragon, the celestial dragon, is looking up and being like,
1:05:49
what is happening to my ship? And there's a really really confusing series of
1:05:58
animations here, guys. Eventually I understood that there's like a giant sea king
1:06:03
that came and ate his ship, but the way it's animated, I didn't
1:06:09
get what was going on at all until the camera pulls way out because the
1:06:14
sea kings that we have seen haven't really looked like those, so I got
1:06:18
very very confused. And this, we find out is the reason why uh
1:06:27
Vanderdeck I think that's his name, right. Why he is so fixated on
1:06:32
the princess because evidently his family used to tell a story about like a legendary
1:06:39
princess who was able to control sea kings, and so it makes more sense
1:06:45
now why he's so obsessed with her. I thought it was just purely like
1:06:48
she's beautiful or she's a mermaid or whatever, you know, Like I don't
1:06:51
know, but yeah, he is. Uh like the obsession here. I
1:07:01
like that we're given a more specific reason for it. So eventually Aladdin comes
1:07:08
up to the the Celestial Dragon and is like, I'll treat her if that's
1:07:15
what you want, and I'll take care of your wound. Next, and
1:07:17
we come back to Gimae in the present and he says, once he was
1:07:21
stable enough to travel home, he you know, he disembarked, but the
1:07:27
Queen did something unexpected before he could leave, and we see the prince roll
1:07:33
up or not the Prince king Neptune roll up, and everybody is gathered around
1:07:39
watching the scene. As he's getting onto his ship, he even has a
1:07:43
bubble over his head again because he was like demanding one from everybody. And
1:07:48
as he's getting on his ship, you will pay for this, You damn
1:07:53
filth fish. You insults it and humiliated me despite the fact that I I'm
1:08:00
a respected world noble. Your actions were unforgivable and you will come to regret
1:08:04
them. And everybody is like, we save it's fucking life, and you
1:08:10
fucking threaten us as you leave, like come on, dude, and then
1:08:18
the Queen is like, I'm gonna go with them. I'm gonna show you
1:08:24
all that I can travel amongst the humans and return home safe, that it
1:08:29
can be done, that I have trust in my heart. And I was
1:08:33
like, this is the most asinine thing I've ever heard, Like I really,
1:08:42
you guys, I understand what we're trying to do with this character,
1:08:46
but the foolishness of this cannot be overstated. It's just it felt like there
1:08:55
was there was She's she's like trying to make a point, but that point
1:09:00
is so feeble and in my opinion, won't really prove anything. It just
1:09:11
I hated this, I really did. And I don't know what winds up
1:09:15
happening to her. And you know, like she's waving goodbye to everybody,
1:09:19
and things look like okay for now, But we saw the way the Prince
1:09:24
was talking about her. I keep saying the Prince, but the celestial Dragon.
1:09:30
So like, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't.
1:09:35
No, I'm sorry, but no, that is not somebody that you travel
1:09:40
with and feel safe with and try and have faith in. Like I think
1:09:43
this is idiotic. There's there's making a point, and then there's something like
1:09:48
this that feels like a grand gesture that is almost selfish, you know what
1:09:56
I'm saying. I don't know. I don't know, guys, but the
1:10:00
way this episode ended, I gotta wrap. I'm so far over time.
1:10:02
But thank you guys a lot for listening to my coverage, Thank you Florian
1:10:06
for commissioning this and being here, And until next time to Ulu. Motherfuckers.
1:10:41
That was an unspoiled network podcast.