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Monday Mini Classics: The Intriguing World of Secret Agent Women and Female Assassins · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Smantha. I'm not coome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you a production of by Heart Radio
0:18
Speaker 1: and in our continuing bringing back of classics for women's
0:22
Speaker 1: history months that are very history related, we were talking
0:26
Speaker 1: about women assassins, secret agents.
0:32
Speaker 2: This was fascinating to me too.
0:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was a good one one. This was a
0:37
Speaker 3: good one.
0:39
Speaker 1: And you know, I realized we completely blew past International
0:44
Speaker 1: Women's Day.
0:44
Speaker 3: Yeah we did, we did. But as we've said, it
0:49
Speaker 3: feels we talk about it all the time.
0:52
Speaker 2: That's who we are.
0:53
Speaker 1: That's who we are. We are upfront about who we are,
0:58
Speaker 1: unlike women who are assassinate.
1:02
Speaker 2: Exactly by what a transition.
1:05
Speaker 4: Thank you, Please endore this classic episode. Hey, this is
1:14
Speaker 4: Annie and Samantha and holcome to Steffan never told you
1:17
Speaker 4: protective iHeart Radio.
1:27
Speaker 2: So Annie, I already know this. What is your favorite
1:34
Speaker 2: spy character to dress up as?
1:37
Speaker 3: Spy character to dress up as?
1:40
Speaker 2: I feel like you already have right.
1:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well it's a Winter Soldier.
1:44
Speaker 2: I thought, so, I thought, so I knew you had that.
1:48
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but I do have Black Widow and I
1:52
Speaker 1: also have a catwoman, which I'm not sure counts as
1:56
Speaker 1: a spy.
1:56
Speaker 3: She's not going to be in that arena.
1:58
Speaker 2: She's a cat burglar. She's a cat excuse me, she's
2:01
Speaker 2: a cat burglar. That ended up being like trying to
2:04
Speaker 2: be an assassin later, But she's technically a cat burglar.
2:07
Speaker 1: I like how you emphasized cat that.
2:11
Speaker 2: Well, because it needed to be emphasized. I don't know
2:13
Speaker 2: if you didn't know who she was, you know she is, yes,
2:18
Speaker 2: but yeah, she's technically a cat burglar who they try
2:21
Speaker 2: to wrangle in kill Batman obviously, which she does not
2:25
Speaker 2: fall for.
2:26
Speaker 3: No, because it's catwoman, hel.
2:28
Speaker 2: No, because it catwoman. Which by the way, I watched
2:30
Speaker 2: an interview with Michelle Pfeiffer recently and she brought out
2:35
Speaker 2: her whip. She actually had it in her closet. It
2:37
Speaker 2: was one of the most fantastic things. Yes, I've ever seen.
2:42
Speaker 3: Yes, that's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, what's my character?
2:46
Speaker 3: Do you like to dress up as?
2:48
Speaker 2: You know, I don't dress up as much, so I
2:50
Speaker 2: really don't have a character that I would dress up as.
2:54
Speaker 2: But I think my favorites buy something along the lines of, like,
2:57
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, black Widow probably one of my favorites.
3:00
Speaker 2: Playing a game right now. The pandemic game is surprisingly enough,
3:04
Speaker 2: and the season zero goes back to the Cold War,
3:09
Speaker 2: so having all that, instead of being like just diseases,
3:12
Speaker 2: they're spies.
3:14
Speaker 3: Yeah.
3:14
Speaker 1: I love these pictures of our like terrible disguises we created.
3:18
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we did this wrong. At one point,
3:22
Speaker 2: my partner, who plays with us as well, was like,
3:25
Speaker 2: they're supposed to be the same person. You can't disguise
3:27
Speaker 2: into different races during the Cold War, And I was like, oh.
3:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes we really messed up.
3:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, we kind of messed up on that one, but
3:37
Speaker 2: it made it more interesting. I will say, I feel
3:40
Speaker 2: like they purposely made our people look goofy because the
3:42
Speaker 2: forehead is way too high for some of those hairdooes.
3:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I put the hat like not on the head,
3:48
Speaker 1: but on top of that.
3:50
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it would be a good assumption
3:53
Speaker 2: to think that we're not good spies already.
3:56
Speaker 3: No.
3:57
Speaker 1: And actually I was thinking about this because this is
3:59
Speaker 1: Samantha Sugg and we've both been very excited to talk
4:02
Speaker 1: about women in the world of assassins and spies for
4:04
Speaker 1: a while. And I know I've mentioned before on the
4:06
Speaker 1: show that I actually went to college thinking I would
4:10
Speaker 1: be working for the CIA or a diplomat.
4:13
Speaker 3: I really wanted to be a diplomat.
4:14
Speaker 1: But as we talk through this, and as I have
4:17
Speaker 1: recently for this episode, watched a lot of spy and
4:21
Speaker 1: assassin thrillers, I would have been terrible. I would have
4:26
Speaker 1: been absolutely terrible. And actually it kind of freaked me
4:31
Speaker 1: out because I was like, how can you exist in
4:34
Speaker 1: this world where you can trust no one right, and
4:39
Speaker 1: also especially in our modern times, that they can just
4:42
Speaker 1: be like, oh, at four pm every day she reads
4:45
Speaker 1: fan fiction and cries for an hour.
4:47
Speaker 3: Like, I don't want to be a part of this.
4:49
Speaker 3: I don't.
4:50
Speaker 2: I think you have to be birthed in the red room.
4:53
Speaker 2: Your ceremony is in the red room. You can't exactly
4:56
Speaker 2: can't exist technically. I guess I could have been the
4:59
Speaker 2: perfect spy because I did live in an orphanage. My
5:01
Speaker 2: origins started as an orphanage. Man, I feel like my
5:06
Speaker 2: life turned radically different than what it could have been.
5:09
Speaker 2: But yes, if you've been listening to our show in
5:12
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, you know we love badass women,
5:16
Speaker 2: and we decided we needed to talk about some of
5:18
Speaker 2: those badass women who made history in the spy assassin world. Okay,
5:23
Speaker 2: just to put this cab out here, I went historical,
5:27
Speaker 2: so more of the spies and assassins I think of
5:32
Speaker 2: like World War two and before. Yeah, so in that
5:36
Speaker 2: time period, just to give you that caveat, so we
5:39
Speaker 2: don't have any like the modern Cold War spies, not
5:42
Speaker 2: that that's modern, but you know, newer ish because there's
5:46
Speaker 2: definitely a lot of controversy on that. There's definitely a
5:49
Speaker 2: lot of like I found women that were hit women,
5:52
Speaker 2: like it was pretty intriguing, Like it made me sad
5:55
Speaker 2: because of course when we talk of loss of life,
5:57
Speaker 2: there's so much to unpack there, because you know, we
6:00
Speaker 2: want to be sensitive to that, but at the same time,
6:02
Speaker 2: to live in that world, as you said, it is
6:05
Speaker 2: so fascinating, like how do you even come to this point?
6:08
Speaker 2: But yes, of course we had to do it Samantha
6:11
Speaker 2: Andy style, sam ann if you will, Yeah, yeah, I
6:16
Speaker 2: gave us a a what are those nickname? A couple names.
6:21
Speaker 3: Momento.
6:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple names, a couple names right here,
6:26
Speaker 2: and we made it like this our style by talking
6:29
Speaker 2: about both historical figures and fictional figures. So we wanted
6:33
Speaker 2: to add those two together We even added a couple
6:36
Speaker 2: of bonuses in here so that we're not going to
6:39
Speaker 2: go into as deeply as some of the others. So,
6:41
Speaker 2: of course, there are many many women we can talk about,
6:45
Speaker 2: and we decided to narrow it down to just five
6:49
Speaker 2: plus those bonuses for today's episode. Yes, and I even
6:52
Speaker 2: put that on. Annie told her she could not do
6:54
Speaker 2: more than five because I knew what was happening. It
6:58
Speaker 2: would be a ten part episode about all of our
7:00
Speaker 2: favorite characters and we would push the rules. She sure
7:05
Speaker 2: did by saying there were quote bonuses or you know,
7:09
Speaker 2: shout outs. Yeah, but if you want us to dig
7:11
Speaker 2: into more even have requests for specific women, uh, you know,
7:15
Speaker 2: we're always now to do a part two. Just let
7:17
Speaker 2: us know. We just don't want to drag out things
7:19
Speaker 2: that you're like, h what.
7:22
Speaker 1: Yes, And if any of these women you want us
7:24
Speaker 1: to dig more into, especially well, I can't speak for Samantha,
7:27
Speaker 1: but in my fictional women world, I did kind of
7:30
Speaker 1: do baseline, superficial right facts.
7:34
Speaker 3: So if you want us to go more detail, right,
7:36
Speaker 3: you are happy to.
7:37
Speaker 2: And yeah, So what we're going to do is un
7:41
Speaker 2: to take turns Annie and I. So I'm going to
7:43
Speaker 2: start out with my historical people, which, by the way,
7:46
Speaker 2: if there were spies and there were actually good spies,
7:48
Speaker 2: the likeli of them not having a lot of information
7:51
Speaker 2: is high. Just put that out there, so I may
7:55
Speaker 2: not have as much information as you do because you
7:57
Speaker 2: have character development as a where these historical figures do
8:02
Speaker 2: not want their characters to be known. But of course
8:04
Speaker 2: there are some that have been celebrated because they were
8:06
Speaker 2: war heroes, so that is something to be said. And yeah,
8:10
Speaker 2: and of course just with this, and I think this
8:12
Speaker 2: also applies to the fictional characters. One of the reasons
8:17
Speaker 2: may talk about why they're such a fascination with the
8:20
Speaker 2: female and women spies and assassins is because of the
8:24
Speaker 2: fact that they are unassumingly out there. People don't assume
8:28
Speaker 2: that they would be harsh, mean killers and or spy
8:32
Speaker 2: intellects like any of those things. And so they just
8:35
Speaker 2: are either the mother, the sister, or the prostitute, which
8:40
Speaker 2: has been used throughout apparently not only in the fictional
8:43
Speaker 2: world but in the real world. Yeah, so just have
8:47
Speaker 2: that pushed out there as well, write any anything else
8:50
Speaker 2: I've forgetting.
8:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just going along with that, especially when we
8:54
Speaker 1: talk about the fictional characters. If you all remember the
8:58
Speaker 1: episode we did on What Is and What Should Be,
9:01
Speaker 1: this is kind of one of the things I had
9:03
Speaker 1: in mind of we're going to talk about sexpionage and
9:07
Speaker 1: women being coerced into using that or using that because
9:11
Speaker 1: that is the world that we live in, and examining
9:14
Speaker 1: kind of the complexity therein of women having to use
9:18
Speaker 1: that and therefore perpetuating this kind of seductious stereotype that
9:25
Speaker 1: that's where women's power is. But there is power there
9:28
Speaker 1: and that's where it gets really messy. Right, But yeah,
9:30
Speaker 1: that's going to come up a lot in this story
9:33
Speaker 1: of all these women.
9:34
Speaker 2: And as in fact, that's a great segue in our
9:37
Speaker 2: first historical figure, who was known as Matahari Margharita Gertruda
9:41
Speaker 2: Zella born in the Netherlands in eighteen seventy six was
9:45
Speaker 2: a pretty big and well known spy. There's been movies
9:48
Speaker 2: made of her. Greta Garbo portrayed her later on. Yeah, yeah,
9:52
Speaker 2: it's pretty big. She married pretty young to an abusive
9:56
Speaker 2: military officer. She was trying to get away from her
9:58
Speaker 2: home which not so great, so at a young age,
10:01
Speaker 2: at eighteen, she married this abusive military officer after the
10:04
Speaker 2: marriage deteriator. One of her children had been poisoned, apparently
10:08
Speaker 2: for reasons unknown, and then when she and her husband split,
10:12
Speaker 2: he took the child after giving like gossipy news to
10:17
Speaker 2: the world to make her look really bad. Yeah, it
10:19
Speaker 2: was weird. The whole thing was odd. He took the
10:22
Speaker 2: other child and left, and so she was on her own,
10:25
Speaker 2: and she moved to Paris to become a mistress to
10:28
Speaker 2: a French diplomat. So she she you know, made it
10:31
Speaker 2: however she could. But soon after she became a dancer.
10:35
Speaker 2: And just so you know, when we talk about her
10:37
Speaker 2: and when we see descriptives of her, they talk about
10:40
Speaker 2: how she was dark haired, black blue hair with dark
10:43
Speaker 2: complexion olive complexion, So even though she was born in
10:47
Speaker 2: the Netherlands, they attributed exotic features to her, as we
10:51
Speaker 2: would say. And she became pretty famous for her exotic performances,
10:55
Speaker 2: which she created by taking from different cultural and religious
10:58
Speaker 2: practices and symbolism she had learned in the Indies, where
11:01
Speaker 2: she had lived with her first husband. She became known
11:03
Speaker 2: as an exotic dancer of the East and was renamed
11:07
Speaker 2: as Madahara, which meant I of the day and of course,
11:10
Speaker 2: there's also the story that another man actually put her
11:13
Speaker 2: on this pathway and told her, you know, this should
11:17
Speaker 2: be your name. There's a little conflict of who said
11:19
Speaker 2: what and who started what. Unfortunately, as she became older,
11:23
Speaker 2: her popularity waned, and she soon supplemented her income by
11:26
Speaker 2: quote seducing men. Of course I'm saying this nicely in
11:29
Speaker 2: the government and military. And because she was a Holland citizen,
11:32
Speaker 2: she was able to travel wherever. She had a neutral citizenship,
11:35
Speaker 2: she was not involved in the wartime stuff, and she
11:39
Speaker 2: was able to travel abroad. And here is where we
11:42
Speaker 2: begin to talk about her entreaty in becoming a spy.
11:45
Speaker 2: Although famous, she was not necessarily the best of spies,
11:50
Speaker 2: and there seems to be a lot of different stories
11:53
Speaker 2: about whether or not it was her fault or whether
11:56
Speaker 2: she was completely set up. And because she was willing
11:59
Speaker 2: to travel from man to man, from area to area,
12:02
Speaker 2: they thought she was a good candidate to get information
12:05
Speaker 2: that they needed during that time during the war, and
12:08
Speaker 2: she tried to work away into the German commands like
12:11
Speaker 2: she was trying to work for the French and try
12:14
Speaker 2: to get these conversations and information and try to get
12:17
Speaker 2: some secrets, but she was soon accused of being a
12:20
Speaker 2: double agent after some intercepted communications it seemed to state
12:24
Speaker 2: that Matahari was a spy for Germany as well, but
12:29
Speaker 2: some say it was a setup by both the Germans
12:32
Speaker 2: in order to have the French arrest her after they realized, oh,
12:35
Speaker 2: she's trying to be a spy, but also possibly from
12:39
Speaker 2: the man who originally helped her become a spy, so
12:42
Speaker 2: that's a whole different story. And it was later discovered
12:45
Speaker 2: that she had taken twenty thousand francs from a German
12:48
Speaker 2: diplomat in exchange for information. However, she stated, because she
12:52
Speaker 2: did go on child for this, that she never had
12:54
Speaker 2: any intent to actually spy and give information to the Germans,
12:59
Speaker 2: but was getting camensation for the items that had been
13:01
Speaker 2: taken from her by German guards at one point in time,
13:04
Speaker 2: so she was just trying to you know, take her
13:06
Speaker 2: money back essentially, right, And no one really seems to
13:09
Speaker 2: know Madahi's actual role outside of trying to be a spy,
13:12
Speaker 2: whether or not she was a double agent or just
13:15
Speaker 2: an unsuccessful one for the French. And like I said,
13:17
Speaker 2: many say that she had been set up by Captain
13:20
Speaker 2: George Ladeux who actually again started her on the journey.
13:23
Speaker 2: He was the one that fed into this idea, Oh
13:25
Speaker 2: you have access, let's get some information. And when questioned,
13:29
Speaker 2: he stated he had only hired her to root her
13:32
Speaker 2: out as a German spy, so he was saying from
13:34
Speaker 2: the very jump he thought she was a spy, though
13:36
Speaker 2: there was no indication of this. Later, when different messages
13:40
Speaker 2: were intercepted that contained the statements to incriminate Madahara, it
13:43
Speaker 2: was LaDou who translated these messages, at which time the
13:47
Speaker 2: originals disappeared and the only thing they had for evidence
13:50
Speaker 2: was that translated version that he had obtained or he
13:53
Speaker 2: had translated, and that was it. And by the way,
13:57
Speaker 2: Ledoux was actually accused of being a double agent at himself,
14:00
Speaker 2: and I believe he was actually incarcerated for it too.
14:03
Speaker 2: So hello, And after being under harsh interrogations and being
14:07
Speaker 2: represented by an elderly lawyer who apparently was the lover
14:10
Speaker 2: of hers at one point in time, who had never
14:12
Speaker 2: tried a military case, Maata Harra was convicted within like
14:15
Speaker 2: forty five minutes after the trial and executed a few
14:19
Speaker 2: days later by firing squad. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't just the
14:23
Speaker 2: concerns and misleading information that led her to this conviction,
14:26
Speaker 2: but her lifestyle as well. So they used her because
14:30
Speaker 2: she had that type of excess through all her relationships,
14:33
Speaker 2: but that also was part of her downfall, and they
14:35
Speaker 2: used that morality against her to get her convicted as
14:38
Speaker 2: a double agent. And the prosecutor stated during her trial
14:41
Speaker 2: quote without scruples, accustomed to make use of men. She
14:44
Speaker 2: is a type of woman who was born to be
14:46
Speaker 2: a spy. And she proclaimed her innocence until the end,
14:50
Speaker 2: apparently the last two a couple of days she had
14:53
Speaker 2: a dance party with the nuns, not dance party, but
14:56
Speaker 2: she had a dance off with the nuns who actually
14:58
Speaker 2: were watching her. Because she didn't want to be remembered
15:01
Speaker 2: as someone who is a prisoner and who has been dejected,
15:04
Speaker 2: but going out in her like joy and dance and
15:08
Speaker 2: what she was known for originally. And she said during
15:11
Speaker 2: her trial a courtesan, I met a spy. Never. I
15:14
Speaker 2: have always lived for love and pleasure. So she was
15:17
Speaker 2: trying to let them know she never did it. And again,
15:19
Speaker 2: like I said, there's a lot of conversation of who
15:22
Speaker 2: was that fault and who did what?
15:24
Speaker 1: Hmmmm ah, that kind of stuff annoys me because we'll
15:28
Speaker 1: never know and I want to know, right, but we.
15:31
Speaker 2: Can't because of that information. That dude, Oh he was
15:34
Speaker 2: going after her pretty hard.
15:37
Speaker 3: See, this is what I've learned about the spy and
15:41
Speaker 3: assassin world. No friends.
15:44
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about fictional assassins for my first entry.
15:50
Speaker 1: But here's a brief intro. So typically women and leather
15:54
Speaker 1: corsets that are very monetoed and flat. That's what been
15:56
Speaker 1: the representation of these fictional assassins. But a lot new
16:00
Speaker 1: assassins and pop culture are challenging that or at the
16:02
Speaker 1: very least occasionally subverting it. And researching these characters, there
16:06
Speaker 1: are a lot of similar elements.
16:09
Speaker 3: I found dark.
16:10
Speaker 1: Past trauma, chameleons, weird, traumatic training, beautiful and willing to
16:17
Speaker 1: use that beauty as a weapon.
16:18
Speaker 3: Top notch wardrobe.
16:20
Speaker 1: It's very stylish, languages, knowing a lot of languages, often
16:24
Speaker 1: using people's lowered expectations of them because they're women and girls,
16:27
Speaker 1: like you said, Samantha, trust issues, oh wow, manipulation, good liars,
16:34
Speaker 1: good at reading people, smart, cunning, thinking quickly on their feet.
16:37
Speaker 1: There many times where I'm like, how did you realize this?
16:39
Speaker 1: In the space of one second. This is impossible, very
16:43
Speaker 1: much a lot of betrayal, but also realizing who can
16:46
Speaker 1: still be of use to you. So just because someone
16:48
Speaker 1: betrays you, you might still work with them. That's just
16:51
Speaker 1: the world you live in, right. A lot of Russians
16:54
Speaker 1: on this list, seems like no one wants to actually.
16:57
Speaker 3: Be an assassin on this list.
17:00
Speaker 1: Sort of started it in childhood and we're manipulated into it.
17:04
Speaker 1: So I did choose five popular female assathens and media
17:07
Speaker 1: with an audible mentioned am bonuses because I'm the worst
17:09
Speaker 1: and you can't control me, Samantha, But I did. I
17:12
Speaker 1: did keep them brief. I did, I did, and all
17:15
Speaker 1: of them could be their own episodes. As we said,
17:17
Speaker 1: I also try to get a good sampling. And we're
17:20
Speaker 1: not going to talk about the Bride from Quentin Tarantino,
17:22
Speaker 1: Uma Thurman's iconic character, because we did talk about her
17:26
Speaker 1: in our Women in Revenge episode, although she is definitely
17:29
Speaker 1: like up there when you're talking about women in this
17:31
Speaker 1: whole squad. Oh yeah, pretty much anybody in that movie,
17:34
Speaker 1: any woman in that movie. But we're gonna start with
17:36
Speaker 1: villain L because pretty much every list mentions Villa and
17:41
Speaker 1: L from the BBC show Killing Eve, which it's really
17:45
Speaker 1: funny this show. This recording of this episode got delayed
17:49
Speaker 1: by like a week, and at the time I'd never
17:52
Speaker 1: seen this show, but listeners, I have now binge watched it.
17:54
Speaker 3: I have now seen everybody every movie.
17:57
Speaker 1: And show I mentioned for these five women, and I
18:00
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it.
18:01
Speaker 2: Sandra, Oh my girl, my girl, Oh my Girl's great,
18:05
Speaker 2: just saying so yes.
18:07
Speaker 1: Villain L is the code name for a higher assassin Oxana,
18:10
Speaker 1: played by Jody Comer and Phoebe waller Bridge is one
18:14
Speaker 1: of the writers. The show is loosely based on four
18:17
Speaker 1: short novels by Luke Jennings called Code Name Villain.
18:20
Speaker 3: L and Villain L is brutal and.
18:24
Speaker 1: Unpredictable, very fashionable, often called a sociopath psychopathy something going
18:32
Speaker 1: on there. Of the five plus bonus women that I've chosen,
18:37
Speaker 1: she's probably the one who most enjoys being assassin. I
18:42
Speaker 1: guess I should have said spoilers, but spoilers. That does change.
18:46
Speaker 3: She wants to move up in the world, so she.
18:49
Speaker 1: Is hunted by m I five security officer Eve pol
18:52
Speaker 1: Lastree and they become all obsessed with each other and
18:55
Speaker 1: it's sort of a romantically sexually charged obsession where they
18:59
Speaker 1: like kind of this game of chasing and being chased
19:02
Speaker 1: and also discovering I guess you're dark.
19:07
Speaker 2: There's similarities, right.
19:09
Speaker 1: Similarities and just human nature, dark side of human nature
19:13
Speaker 1: and villain l really did shake up the female assassin
19:16
Speaker 1: stereotype in pop culture. She's funny, she's endearing, she's charming,
19:21
Speaker 1: but she's also deadly dangerous and frankly quite terrifying. Her
19:24
Speaker 1: backstory is real messed up and no surprise there. She
19:27
Speaker 1: was a violent orphan who crastrated a man out of
19:29
Speaker 1: jealousy and then went on to work for the mysterious
19:33
Speaker 1: organization The twelve. She really doesn't have too many in
19:37
Speaker 1: the ways of loyalty. There's not too many people if
19:40
Speaker 1: any guess you can argue that point there.
19:42
Speaker 3: She's an excellent marks person.
19:44
Speaker 1: She's very creative and how she kills people, and she
19:46
Speaker 1: speaks multiple languages flawlessly. She's great at reading like your
19:50
Speaker 1: weaknesses and your wants and needs. Also, because you mentioned
19:55
Speaker 1: this recently on the show, Samantha, I almost texted you
19:58
Speaker 1: about this immediately, but I was like, don't do it.
20:00
Speaker 3: Weird, but my superpower with fonts.
20:02
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, there's an episode where they bring in, like
20:07
Speaker 1: am I six brings in this guy gives a horrible
20:11
Speaker 1: presentation on psychopathy and it's meant to be horrible, but
20:15
Speaker 1: he uses Papyrus font and I laughed.
20:19
Speaker 3: Aloud because it's like, oh, you know exactly what you're doing.
20:22
Speaker 3: That's a font that's ridiculed throughout the font world. There's
20:25
Speaker 3: a whole SNL skate word.
20:27
Speaker 1: Brian Gosling tries to chase down who used Papyrus for
20:30
Speaker 1: avatar y, but I laughed aloud.
20:33
Speaker 3: Anyway, I enjoyed that.
20:35
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for that. Yes, it's your superpower.
20:38
Speaker 2: I'm very impressed and at the same time, like, I
20:41
Speaker 2: don't know if I quite believe you. We're have to
20:42
Speaker 2: have a test one day. Yeah, we should do that
20:46
Speaker 2: as an Instagram video where I just test you on
20:49
Speaker 2: your superpower.
20:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:50
Speaker 2: I love that show. I've only sent through the first season,
20:55
Speaker 2: but it's gut winching and uh Sandra, oh again my girl.
20:59
Speaker 2: But we're gonna throw it back now to well, I
21:03
Speaker 2: think she's historical, but let's go ahead and get into it.
21:06
Speaker 2: We want to talk about the first female Ninja or
21:08
Speaker 2: Kunoucci assassin spy Matizuki chium. Of course, information on her
21:14
Speaker 2: life and her work and her history is a bit foggy,
21:17
Speaker 2: even to the point mini debate if she existed, So
21:22
Speaker 2: we don't actually know. And again, much like many of
21:25
Speaker 2: the other spies, you don't want men your information, and
21:27
Speaker 2: if you know the history of ninja's they should not exist.
21:30
Speaker 2: You should not actually know who they are. So these
21:34
Speaker 2: are soldiers who are supposed to be in the background.
21:36
Speaker 2: So there's a debate. Was she real or was she
21:40
Speaker 2: just kind of a legend? But here is some historical
21:44
Speaker 2: ideas about her, and some of the other theories include
21:48
Speaker 2: that maybe it wasn't just one woman, maybe it was
21:51
Speaker 2: several women who used this name, or that James Bond yeah,
21:55
Speaker 2: or that she did exist but the stories and legends
21:58
Speaker 2: were overly exaggerated to make them legends. Who knows. But
22:02
Speaker 2: what is said about Mochizuki's chiyum. According to some chiyum
22:06
Speaker 2: was a noble woman married to a samurai in the
22:08
Speaker 2: Saku district of Shinnano in the sixteenth century and was
22:12
Speaker 2: a descendant of the ninja Machuzuki Iszumu no Kami, so
22:16
Speaker 2: she has a lineage and after the death of her
22:19
Speaker 2: husband during a battle, she was approached by Takita Shingen
22:22
Speaker 2: of the Takita clan to become a ninja and to
22:24
Speaker 2: find other women to build a secret group of female ninjas,
22:28
Speaker 2: which she did and train these women to collect information,
22:31
Speaker 2: seduce men, and even kill if needed. The women were
22:33
Speaker 2: trained to act as they were needed, whether it was
22:36
Speaker 2: to be a priestess, a maid, or even a prostitute.
22:39
Speaker 2: Disguises in lying to fit apart or major part of
22:42
Speaker 2: their training, so not only did they get all these
22:44
Speaker 2: ninja skills, but to become whatever woman they needed to be.
22:49
Speaker 2: And from the outside world, this coalition seemed to be
22:51
Speaker 2: just a shelter for young women who were in need
22:53
Speaker 2: of help, whether trying to survive or were orphaned, and
22:56
Speaker 2: many thought chiyum was a motherly figure trying to shelter
23:00
Speaker 2: these women and give them what they need and care
23:03
Speaker 2: for them, when in actuality, she created this fierce organization
23:06
Speaker 2: of women ninjas, which some say grew up to be
23:09
Speaker 2: over three hundred women in the organization, they were forced
23:13
Speaker 2: to be raken with and the Takeda clan became very powerful.
23:17
Speaker 2: Of course, the story goes on to talk about how
23:19
Speaker 2: Takeda Shingen was actually killed, and they don't know who
23:23
Speaker 2: killed him. There's different stories whether it was actually Chium
23:27
Speaker 2: herself or whether he was assassined by the more powerful
23:32
Speaker 2: clans or opposing clans. She eventually disappears in history, and
23:35
Speaker 2: again there's a lot of rumors to what happened to
23:37
Speaker 2: her and her organizations, including maybe she was violently assassinated.
23:41
Speaker 2: So there's again more theories, but of course there are
23:43
Speaker 2: no records to show of them or how it came
23:47
Speaker 2: to an end. So this is a big mystery. And
23:49
Speaker 2: it also has been movies and she's actually shown up
23:52
Speaker 2: as characters in different video games, Assassin video games, so
23:55
Speaker 2: it was very interesting to see. But she was the
23:58
Speaker 2: reason I wanted to do this episode talk because I'm like,
24:01
Speaker 2: oh my god, it's a female ninja and we need
24:04
Speaker 2: to talk about her. Again. I don't have a lot
24:08
Speaker 2: of information, and there's different people saying different things, and
24:11
Speaker 2: a lot of it are just blog posts and or hopes,
24:14
Speaker 2: especially for those who are fascinated by the Japanese culture
24:17
Speaker 2: and the ninja culture, which is fascinating, let's be real, honest,
24:20
Speaker 2: which is why we have so many ninja karate movies throughout,
24:24
Speaker 2: but yeah, have her as possibly a historical figure who
24:28
Speaker 2: ran an all women's ninja organization.
24:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, terrifying. I'm telling you, that's what I've learned through
24:34
Speaker 1: watching these movies and shows. They're like, this is the
24:36
Speaker 1: scariest please. So we did want to talk about the
24:41
Speaker 1: next fictional intrigue, but first we're gonna pause for a
24:44
Speaker 1: quick break for words from our sponsors, and we're back.
25:00
Speaker 3: Thank you sponsored.
25:01
Speaker 1: So before we go into the next person on my
25:05
Speaker 1: fictional female assassins, the spies list, I did want to
25:07
Speaker 1: say there is some debate over the definition of spies
25:12
Speaker 1: and assassin, right right, especially assassin in this case, I
25:15
Speaker 1: would say, but and there are some in the Shout
25:19
Speaker 1: Out Slash Bonus list that I actually would not say
25:23
Speaker 1: are assassins, but people included them on their lists a lot,
25:26
Speaker 1: so at least in some people's size.
25:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I told you it was interesting to
25:31
Speaker 2: go through my list because they confused assassin with just killers.
25:35
Speaker 3: Serial killers.
25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, serial killers. So I was like, that's not what
25:38
Speaker 2: I would consider assassin because you know that has sometimes
25:40
Speaker 2: political leaning typically so and again, a lot of spies
25:45
Speaker 2: and we don't talk about too many of them. Well, actually,
25:48
Speaker 2: I guess when we talk about chiom they were taught
25:51
Speaker 2: to kill if necessary. They did poison men and or
25:54
Speaker 2: do what they needed to do. It wasn't a primary focus.
25:57
Speaker 2: But some spies have killed so.
26:00
Speaker 3: Right, yes.
26:02
Speaker 1: So for our next fictional assassin slash by, we're talking
26:06
Speaker 1: about Arius Stark from Game of Thrones. So spoilers brief
26:10
Speaker 1: spoilers in here if you haven't caught up. So these
26:13
Speaker 1: are this show's based HBO show based on the gr
26:17
Speaker 1: R Martin books, and Mazie Williams plays Arius Stark, who
26:21
Speaker 1: was this Tom Bloy turned young assassin. After she is
26:26
Speaker 1: pretty much everything, Aria has to adapt to survive, and
26:29
Speaker 1: she becomes obsessed with getting revenge on those who have
26:32
Speaker 1: wronged her, and she recites the names of those she
26:36
Speaker 1: plans to kill each night and throughout the day. Sometimes,
26:40
Speaker 1: although her revenge does not always involve killing, worth pointing out,
26:44
Speaker 1: she ends up training in combat, espionas and assassination. Since
26:48
Speaker 1: she's a young girl, most don't view her as a threat.
26:52
Speaker 1: She's stubborn and patient, dedicated, independent, resistant to gender roles,
26:56
Speaker 1: but as she ages and trained, she becomes lethal and
27:00
Speaker 1: her impatience wanes. While she is in many ways unforgiving
27:04
Speaker 1: and vengeful, she is more empathetic than many in this
27:07
Speaker 1: very rough game of thrones the world and has more
27:11
Speaker 1: of a sense of justice. When much of her trauma happened,
27:14
Speaker 1: she was a child, so when it's fresh, she is
27:17
Speaker 1: quick to promise murder to any slight, any slight against
27:20
Speaker 1: her family. The first man she kills mocked her recently
27:25
Speaker 1: slaughtered older brother, which she has is more than a slight,
27:28
Speaker 1: but she stabs him to death as a knife. But
27:32
Speaker 1: with time, this impulsive vengeful violence lessons, making way for
27:35
Speaker 1: a colder, planned revenge. I think that's one thing that
27:37
Speaker 1: separates her from I think everyone else on this list.
27:40
Speaker 1: She was a kid, and I would argue that she
27:42
Speaker 1: was like traumatized, so she kind of went through this.
27:45
Speaker 3: Assassin face and then like left it right.
27:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, because this is set a fantasy world, she
27:51
Speaker 1: learns how to have no face, meaning she can assume
27:55
Speaker 1: the face of just about anyone. And this is after
27:58
Speaker 1: taking on harsh training under the House of and White,
28:01
Speaker 1: and it takes her a minute to let go of
28:03
Speaker 1: her identity of Arius Stark is something important to her
28:06
Speaker 1: and she never really fully does. She still uses the name.
28:10
Speaker 1: She hides her beloved sword needle when she was supposed
28:13
Speaker 1: to destroy it. She has to learn how to lie,
28:15
Speaker 1: which is kind of a long lesson for her. She
28:18
Speaker 1: admits she is not ready to be No. One, but
28:20
Speaker 1: she is ready to become someone else. She's also different
28:24
Speaker 1: than the others on the little list because she wants
28:26
Speaker 1: to kill who she wants to kill and is less
28:28
Speaker 1: interested in taking on assignments from a higher power, which
28:32
Speaker 1: gets her into trouble a lot through her training. Her
28:36
Speaker 1: assassin identity or non identity consumes her for a while,
28:39
Speaker 1: but when she deems her training as complete, she reclaims
28:42
Speaker 1: her name and returns home. If you were on her
28:45
Speaker 1: kill list, you were out of luck. You were out
28:47
Speaker 1: of luck. She would kill you after you ate a
28:49
Speaker 1: pie of your own sons. It was just brutal. She
28:53
Speaker 1: did end up killing the show's big bad, the Night King. However, Yeah,
28:57
Speaker 1: she gives up on a question revengeance in the end,
29:00
Speaker 1: moves out of this assassin phase and decides instead to
29:03
Speaker 1: try to protect and becomes an explorer.
29:07
Speaker 3: However, I still would not mess with her no way.
29:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, she definitely had the big moments in Game of Throne,
29:13
Speaker 2: I think.
29:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then all the dudes were like, no way
29:15
Speaker 5: she could do it, she could watch she did, or
29:19
Speaker 5: about that she did, or about that well, I am
29:22
Speaker 5: going to talk about one of the first assassins instead
29:25
Speaker 5: of just the spy here.
29:26
Speaker 2: Charlotte Corday, who was also known as the Angel of
29:29
Speaker 2: Assassination and Charlotte Corday was a noble woman in Normandy
29:33
Speaker 2: who during the French Revolution was part of the Geordan
29:36
Speaker 2: Conservative Party and worked her way into the presence of
29:39
Speaker 2: Jean pal Morat, who was a radical Montagnard. So he
29:43
Speaker 2: was pretty big during this time, and he was the
29:46
Speaker 2: editor of the Lami du Poupla, which is translated the
29:51
Speaker 2: Friend of the People, and it was a newspaper during
29:53
Speaker 2: that time, and was also the author of a Front
29:56
Speaker 2: de la patri or Offering to our Country, So obviously
30:00
Speaker 2: he was a big part of the movement and changing
30:01
Speaker 2: in the Radical party. She, however, under the pretense that
30:05
Speaker 2: she was trying to come and give him some information,
30:07
Speaker 2: was able to see Morale and while he was taking
30:10
Speaker 2: one of his medicinal baths apparently he had a condition
30:12
Speaker 2: which he needed to be bathed often, she proceeded to
30:15
Speaker 2: stab him to death, which by the way, is depicted
30:17
Speaker 2: in a really famous Jacques Louis Davis painting, The Deaths
30:21
Speaker 2: of Morac. I think if you saw this painting you
30:22
Speaker 2: would be like, oh, yeah, I definitely know this one.
30:25
Speaker 2: It is the dude that's hanging out the baptub with
30:26
Speaker 2: the newspaper in his hand. Really gorgeous painting. Of course,
30:30
Speaker 2: four days after he really is four days after the assassination.
30:34
Speaker 2: Corday was executed for our crime. But she became famous
30:38
Speaker 2: because she was unexpected. It's kind of one of those
30:42
Speaker 2: exactly what you sit there that Wow she did that
30:45
Speaker 2: where she came in and felt like her country was
30:49
Speaker 2: being threatened by this man and apparently he was known
30:53
Speaker 2: to be cruel during that point in time, and so
30:55
Speaker 2: she went after him. And because no one assumed this
31:00
Speaker 2: frail young woman could do anything, she got to him
31:04
Speaker 2: and was able. She was the Ariya who ended up
31:07
Speaker 2: dying to be fair and not trained per se, but
31:10
Speaker 2: was able to pull off something but no one else
31:12
Speaker 2: could at that point in time.
31:14
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, now for our next fictional entry. And I
31:19
Speaker 1: love the idea that someone kind of dozed off in
31:20
Speaker 1: the beginning and they wake up and they're like, wait,
31:24
Speaker 1: what is happening.
31:25
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk about Black Widow. There we go.
31:28
Speaker 1: Yes, so disclaimers always with these cog book characters, there
31:31
Speaker 1: are so many multiverses and if for you those keeping
31:34
Speaker 1: up with current Marvel stuff, you know what I'm talking about,
31:37
Speaker 1: it can get real messy. So we're gonna be focusing
31:40
Speaker 1: primarily on the films here. So Natasha Romanov aka Black
31:44
Speaker 1: Widow played by Scarlett Johansson, I mean she like holds
31:49
Speaker 1: her own with the Avengers, goes against quote gods and
31:51
Speaker 1: monsters without powers.
31:53
Speaker 3: So yeah, she was a founding member.
31:55
Speaker 1: After she was recruited by Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.
31:59
Speaker 3: She said, I have a very specific skill set.
32:01
Speaker 1: I didn't care who I used it for or on
32:03
Speaker 1: I got on Shields Radar in a bad way. She
32:06
Speaker 1: was trained from a very young age as a KGB assassin.
32:09
Speaker 3: Also was one time a dancer. That's a recurring theme
32:13
Speaker 3: on this list.
32:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even after she joined Shield and the Avengers,
32:17
Speaker 1: she still utilized her spy, stealth and infiltration skills as
32:21
Speaker 1: well as her combat and weapons training.
32:23
Speaker 3: You can go.
32:24
Speaker 1: Look, because of course someone's compiled all the training she has,
32:27
Speaker 1: and it's pages and pages long. She also uses her weapon,
32:30
Speaker 1: widows Bite, which is that glowing blue electroshock thingy around
32:34
Speaker 1: her wrist.
32:35
Speaker 2: You know.
32:36
Speaker 1: It's a grappling hook, a taser, disc shooter, a charger
32:39
Speaker 1: for expandable batons.
32:40
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, those things like that are why
32:42
Speaker 2: I could not be a spy, because I would have
32:44
Speaker 2: gotten myself, like I just you know, like the menute.
32:49
Speaker 2: I looked at it kind of like the main with
32:50
Speaker 2: Luke looking into his lightsaber. That would be that moment
32:53
Speaker 2: of me is like tasing myself because I'm a cool
32:56
Speaker 2: you know.
32:56
Speaker 1: It's so funny you mentioned that, because a Google does
32:59
Speaker 1: me so well, but it's embarrassing this morning.
33:01
Speaker 3: They are like Mark Cable. So that's what me makes
33:03
Speaker 3: some cringe. And I was like, I know which one.
33:04
Speaker 2: It is, light say, and it.
33:06
Speaker 1: Was which is not in the movie, but all right, Yeah,
33:10
Speaker 1: this thing also has like strangling wires.
33:13
Speaker 3: It's very multifunctional.
33:15
Speaker 1: She was trained in the Red Room, as you said,
33:17
Speaker 1: where the graduation ceremony involved sterilization quote one last thing
33:21
Speaker 1: to worry about makes everything easier, even killing. She was
33:25
Speaker 1: top of her class though she struggled after she was
33:27
Speaker 1: forced to kill an innocent man. She is definitely sexualized
33:30
Speaker 1: and often weaponizes her femininity and the fact that people
33:34
Speaker 1: think she is a woman who can't possibly be that strong.
33:37
Speaker 1: She weaponizes that too. She's pretty manipulative. She's good at
33:40
Speaker 1: lying and reading people. She is interrogating people who believe
33:44
Speaker 1: they are interrogating her. When we first see her in
33:45
Speaker 1: The Avengers, she tricks Loki to find out his motive
33:48
Speaker 1: in that movie too. She's intelligent, good with technology, good
33:51
Speaker 1: at playing roles, pretty sarcastic. She first appeared in the
33:55
Speaker 1: movies in Iron Man two when she goes under cover
33:57
Speaker 1: to spy on Tony Stark, which I thought was very convoluted.
34:01
Speaker 3: Plotline, but whatever.
34:03
Speaker 1: She later helped recruit Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to
34:05
Speaker 1: join the Avengers in the first Avengers movie, partly motivated
34:08
Speaker 1: by her determination to save Hawkeye from Loki's control, which
34:12
Speaker 1: she eventually does, and she's the one that figures out
34:14
Speaker 1: how to close the portal to stop the Aliens that
34:17
Speaker 1: are attacking from New York. I love explaining to lots
34:19
Speaker 1: of these movies because they sound so weird when.
34:21
Speaker 3: They're like out of context and many ways.
34:25
Speaker 1: She does become the heart of the Avengers. She calls
34:27
Speaker 1: them her family. She helps train the second generation of members.
34:30
Speaker 1: She leaves the Avengers post snap and sacrifices herself so
34:35
Speaker 1: that their mission has a chance of succeeding. She is
34:39
Speaker 1: empathetic and understanding. She doesn't keep up on people. She's
34:42
Speaker 1: sort of a reformed assassin. That's what I'm trying to say.
34:44
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, because when I was reading through this,
34:46
Speaker 1: I'm like, she at one time was, but when we
34:49
Speaker 1: see her that's sort of a past life and she
34:52
Speaker 1: still uses those skills, but not really her thing.
34:56
Speaker 2: Right. Oh, I'm excited about the Black Widow movie.
34:59
Speaker 3: Which I does. I realize it's still not come out.
35:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
35:02
Speaker 1: Oh geez yeah, uh Sminty watch party.
35:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:07
Speaker 1: She's trying to make amends for her past, and that's
35:09
Speaker 1: why the discovery that Shield has been infiltrated by Hydra
35:12
Speaker 1: the Winter Soldier hits her so hard because she realized
35:14
Speaker 1: she didn't know whose fly she was telling.
35:16
Speaker 3: Also common theme in these spy stories.
35:19
Speaker 1: She blows all of her covers at the end and
35:20
Speaker 1: then goes off the grid, and then you see her
35:22
Speaker 1: working through this during Civil War first sighting with Tony
35:25
Speaker 1: Stark over the Socovia Chords, but then helping her friend
35:28
Speaker 1: Captain America, forcing her to once again go off the
35:31
Speaker 1: grid and go on the run with Captain America post
35:33
Speaker 1: snap or the blip, she's the term to keep fighting
35:35
Speaker 1: to make things better, and I do want to put
35:37
Speaker 1: asterix here.
35:39
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe fictional women around the world.
35:41
Speaker 1: I will return to this because a lot of you
35:43
Speaker 1: are probably being like, well, there's a lot of feminist
35:44
Speaker 1: issues you could unpack here about like the serialization thing,
35:48
Speaker 1: the sexualization thing, the fact that she's the one that
35:51
Speaker 1: sacrifices it's like not many women to go around.
35:55
Speaker 3: But yes, we're gonna put a pin in that for
35:57
Speaker 3: now and.
35:58
Speaker 2: Move on, right. I will say I do love her
36:01
Speaker 2: relationship with Captain America Steve Rogers. That is platonic. I
36:04
Speaker 2: do see it remains that way. I'm like, yeah, finally,
36:08
Speaker 2: oh my god, me too. Although they at the beginning
36:11
Speaker 2: it did seem like they were trying to.
36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think they were pretty much with anybody
36:15
Speaker 1: with her at that point.
36:17
Speaker 2: That's true.
36:17
Speaker 3: Maybe this will work, Maybe this will work.
36:20
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to go and take it back to
36:23
Speaker 2: the civil war. Oh yeah, I did that.
36:25
Speaker 3: Okay.
36:25
Speaker 2: So we have a Canadian woman, Sarah Emma Edmunds, who
36:29
Speaker 2: escaped an abusive home an actually an arranged marriage, left
36:33
Speaker 2: and changed her name from Edmunds to Edmund's son, and
36:36
Speaker 2: she eventually made her way into the United States around
36:38
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty eight, when she decided to disguise herself as
36:41
Speaker 2: a man so she could travel across the country and
36:43
Speaker 2: secure a job. She called herself Franklin Thomas and soon
36:46
Speaker 2: worked as a very successful traveling Bible salesman.
36:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
36:50
Speaker 2: As the Civil War began in the States, she decided
36:53
Speaker 2: to enlist as Franklin Thomas to assist in the war
36:56
Speaker 2: on the Union side. By the way, she nursed wounded
36:59
Speaker 2: soldiers in the hospital and worked as an attendant for
37:01
Speaker 2: them for a while, but was moved to becoming a
37:04
Speaker 2: mail carrier during that time for the Union, so she
37:07
Speaker 2: would actually travel in these really dangerous conditions to carry milha.
37:12
Speaker 2: She eventually was asked to be a spy and was
37:15
Speaker 2: sent to get information behind enemy lines the Confederacy. She
37:19
Speaker 2: often disguised herself as a woman, so she was a
37:22
Speaker 2: woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.
37:25
Speaker 2: Which I thought was awesome, or sometimes as an Irish peddler.
37:29
Speaker 2: Of course, not much of this information was found on record,
37:31
Speaker 2: since she was supposed to be a spy, but was
37:35
Speaker 2: part of her own retelling in her memoir Nurse and
37:38
Speaker 2: Spy in the Union Army. She kept seeing some battle
37:41
Speaker 2: time and even getting injured while trying to carry mel
37:43
Speaker 2: but eventually left after being denied furlough when she contracted malaria,
37:47
Speaker 2: and she was afraid of being discovered as a woman
37:50
Speaker 2: if she sought medical attention, and so Franklin Thomas left
37:54
Speaker 2: and was charged with desertion. So she released her memoirs
37:57
Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty four and gave it pretty much a
38:01
Speaker 2: tell all, with some fictional takes on some of the events,
38:03
Speaker 2: so I guess she was kind of embellished, but she
38:06
Speaker 2: gave all the profits she made to different soldiers aid groups,
38:09
Speaker 2: so it wasn't about her. And she actually went to
38:12
Speaker 2: her infantry reunion in eighteen seventy six and was received
38:16
Speaker 2: with open arms and was eventually recognized by the military
38:20
Speaker 2: and cleared of desertion charges as well as given a pension,
38:23
Speaker 2: So she had the backing of her soldiers, which I
38:26
Speaker 2: believe was the second Michigan Battalion that she was able
38:30
Speaker 2: to get her pension, which by the way, apparently literally
38:33
Speaker 2: took an Act of Congress in eighteen eighty four for
38:36
Speaker 2: her to receive. But after her death, she was buried
38:39
Speaker 2: with military honors at Washington Cemetery in Houston, and a
38:42
Speaker 2: year before her death, she was admitted to the Grand
38:44
Speaker 2: Army of the Republic, which made her the one and
38:46
Speaker 2: only female member, which I thought was super cool. So
38:50
Speaker 2: we've talked about different other soldiers and she was another one.
38:54
Speaker 2: To be fair, she was a Canadian woman, so there's
38:56
Speaker 2: a little difference in her story, but she was able
38:59
Speaker 2: to get pension and was able to get recognition for
39:01
Speaker 2: her work.
39:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, hard pivot from the Civil War.
39:08
Speaker 2: I know.
39:09
Speaker 1: Our next fictional character is Hannah, which I just watched
39:14
Speaker 1: last night. And I've been meaning to watch this for
39:17
Speaker 1: a while because people kept saying this is a movie
39:19
Speaker 1: you'd really like, and I'm like, I'm not sure, but
39:23
Speaker 1: I did like it. So this is a film by
39:25
Speaker 1: Joe Wright where Shorsha Ronan plays sixteen year old Hannah Heller,
39:28
Speaker 1: who was raised from a young age to be an
39:30
Speaker 1: assassin trained in the finished Wilderness by her father, who
39:34
Speaker 1: was a former Black Ops officer. The CIA enhanced her
39:38
Speaker 1: DNA to give her exceptional strength as part of a
39:40
Speaker 1: program to create super soldiers. Her father ran away with
39:44
Speaker 1: her and now they're kind of both on this list
39:46
Speaker 1: of you know, must.
39:47
Speaker 3: Kill and she is very deadly.
39:49
Speaker 1: She has weapons training, she can speak multiple languages. Her
39:53
Speaker 1: father's very precise in the training of her, like never
39:57
Speaker 1: lets her sleep without attacking her and always questioning her
40:00
Speaker 1: to answer in these different languages. So while on a
40:03
Speaker 1: mission across Europe handed to her by her father, she
40:06
Speaker 1: is hunted by Marissa Weigler who's played by Kate Blanchette,
40:11
Speaker 1: and she's an intelligent officer that actually Hannah thought she'd killed.
40:14
Speaker 1: That was her mission was to kill her, but it
40:16
Speaker 1: was a ploy, so she killed the wrong woman. She
40:19
Speaker 1: killed a woman dressed like her. And there is an
40:23
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime show based on the movie with Esma creed
40:26
Speaker 1: Mile as Hannah. Because of how Hannah was raised so isolated,
40:30
Speaker 1: she is quite curious about the outside world, like she's
40:32
Speaker 1: never heard music, she doesn't know what dancing is, those
40:35
Speaker 1: kinds of things. But also she's very very paranoid, which
40:37
Speaker 1: makes sense it's an assassin coming of age story.
40:41
Speaker 2: Okay, so I do know. I didn't. I haven't watched it,
40:43
Speaker 2: but I've seen the previews for the Hannah Amazon Prime
40:47
Speaker 2: show and I was like, hey, I know this. I didn't.
40:49
Speaker 2: I haven't watched either one of those. Yeah, but I
40:51
Speaker 2: do think it's interesting, like the fact that Amazon primetick
40:55
Speaker 2: doesn't made it a series. They did the same thing,
40:57
Speaker 2: not necessarily with a black widow, but chilled and made
41:00
Speaker 2: it a spy show on its own. So I do
41:02
Speaker 2: find that interesting too, because it is it's a very
41:04
Speaker 2: big story that you could take in big rabbit holes
41:08
Speaker 2: like you like think jumps that you don't realize is
41:10
Speaker 2: going to happen.
41:12
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely you can. And we probably have more twist
41:15
Speaker 1: and turns in this episode. But first we have one
41:17
Speaker 1: more quick break for words from our sponsor, Aeric Fact.
41:33
Speaker 3: Thank you sponsor.
41:35
Speaker 2: Twisting turns. Yes, because I am now going to take
41:37
Speaker 2: it back to World War Two. Okay, so we're coming
41:41
Speaker 2: because Hannah was kind of like today, what if she's
41:43
Speaker 2: a spy? Yes, And I'm going to talk about nor
41:45
Speaker 2: any Yacht Khan, who was born to an American mother
41:49
Speaker 2: an Indian father in Moscow in nineteen fourteen, and she
41:52
Speaker 2: was a direct descendant of the eighteenth century Muslim ruler
41:55
Speaker 2: of my Sore Tippoo Sultan. Her father was a musician
41:59
Speaker 2: and a Sufi teacher, and moved the family to London
42:02
Speaker 2: and individually to Paris, where Khan was able to get
42:05
Speaker 2: her education and eventually become a children's writer. After the
42:08
Speaker 2: fall of Paris in nineteen forty, she actually escaped to
42:11
Speaker 2: London where she joined the WAAF or Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
42:17
Speaker 2: It was said her father had instilled in her the
42:19
Speaker 2: desire for nonviolence and the unity of all religions, which
42:22
Speaker 2: is what Sufie was, and that she had learned from
42:24
Speaker 2: an early age to stand up for those who were
42:26
Speaker 2: oppressed and was willing to sacrifice to do so.
42:28
Speaker 5: So.
42:29
Speaker 2: Though she was not a British citizen, she wanted to
42:31
Speaker 2: work and help in this fight. Soon after she joined
42:35
Speaker 2: the WAAF, Con was recruited to join the Special Operations
42:38
Speaker 2: Executive or SOE, which was a secret British organization that
42:42
Speaker 2: since spies in occupied areas of Europe. So with CON's
42:47
Speaker 2: education and her ability to speak French fluently, this was
42:50
Speaker 2: perfect for her, so she against She knew different languages
42:53
Speaker 2: was able to fit in. She became the first woman
42:56
Speaker 2: a wireless operator sent by the UK and she actually
43:00
Speaker 2: went into France and worked with Prosper, which was a
43:03
Speaker 2: French resistance network. But when she first arrived, all of
43:07
Speaker 2: her high ranking agents were captured as well as their
43:09
Speaker 2: equipment by the Nazis, leaving Khan as the only operator
43:13
Speaker 2: for the next few months. Unfortunately, she was eventually arrested
43:18
Speaker 2: by the Gestapo or the Nazi secret police, after one
43:21
Speaker 2: of her colleagues portrayed her. So you have all of
43:23
Speaker 2: these like twists and turns, and there is a movie
43:25
Speaker 2: out by the way that was released last year, I believe,
43:29
Speaker 2: and she was tortured and placed in isolation by the
43:32
Speaker 2: Nazis for information, but she never gave any information and
43:36
Speaker 2: was eventually executed. And as in fact, one of the
43:39
Speaker 2: people who questioned her talked about how impressed he was
43:42
Speaker 2: of her because she was so brave and so steady,
43:46
Speaker 2: So I thought that was really really interesting. In August
43:49
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, nor became the first South Asian woman
43:52
Speaker 2: to be given the Blue Plaque, and there's possible talks
43:55
Speaker 2: of her being on a British coin as well, which
43:57
Speaker 2: would be super cool. She was also awarded the Georgie
44:00
Speaker 2: Cross and the French Digia after her death, and a
44:03
Speaker 2: statue was also enveled in twenty twelve in London honoring
44:06
Speaker 2: what she did for the war. So she is a
44:08
Speaker 2: big figure. And also there's this big conversation of the
44:11
Speaker 2: fact that at that time she was a follower of
44:13
Speaker 2: Mahatma Gandhi and even said, you know, after the war,
44:17
Speaker 2: she would have to side with India over Britain, even
44:20
Speaker 2: though she had fought for and it was, you know,
44:23
Speaker 2: in service of Britain, but because where her heart lies.
44:26
Speaker 2: And again she was about representing for those who were oppressed,
44:30
Speaker 2: and she saw this community as being oppressed and she
44:32
Speaker 2: was absolutely right. But it was really interesting the fact
44:35
Speaker 2: that she's finally being recognized and giving all the accolades
44:38
Speaker 2: that she should be given, and just being and seeing
44:40
Speaker 2: what she had done and that she had died in
44:42
Speaker 2: service for a country that wasn't technically hers.
44:44
Speaker 3: Right.
44:45
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting segue until my next fictional pick,
44:49
Speaker 1: which is Red Sparrow. And I chose this one very
44:52
Speaker 1: specifically because it does include the heavy element of sexpionage,
44:58
Speaker 1: which I think we'd come back and do a whole
45:00
Speaker 1: episode on because the school that they mentioned in this
45:03
Speaker 1: book slash movie that Red Sparrow goes to may.
45:06
Speaker 3: Or may not be real.
45:07
Speaker 1: It might actually be a thing that people went to
45:10
Speaker 1: and learned to basically have sex and have no attachments.
45:13
Speaker 1: So it's a book by Jason Matthews that's set in
45:17
Speaker 1: modern day Russia, which had a movie that came out
45:19
Speaker 1: recently in which the titular character was played by Jennifer Lawrence.
45:24
Speaker 1: I also watched this again last night, and I will
45:25
Speaker 1: tell you it is tough. That was a tough watch.
45:29
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, but all right. So, after famous ballerino
45:33
Speaker 1: Dominica Agarova suffers an injury that ends her dancing career,
45:36
Speaker 1: which was gruesome and on purpose, she is coerced into
45:40
Speaker 1: joining Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SBR, in order to
45:43
Speaker 1: support her ailing mother. She is trained as a sparrow,
45:47
Speaker 1: which is yes, someone who uses their body in seduction
45:49
Speaker 1: as a weapon, also called sexpionage and given the code
45:53
Speaker 1: name Diva. The world she operates in is brutal. There's
45:58
Speaker 1: torture and there's rape, and there's no room for failure.
46:00
Speaker 1: And even if you don't fail, they'll probably torture you.
46:03
Speaker 1: And there's so much backstabbing you really can't trust anybody.
46:08
Speaker 3: And the training for.
46:09
Speaker 1: These pars involves stripping naked and performing sex acts on
46:12
Speaker 1: strangers in front of other strangers, detaching from their bodies.
46:17
Speaker 1: These lessons that are taught by the Unforgiving Matron, and
46:21
Speaker 1: Dominica's main weapon is, as quote, anonymous sex object, even
46:26
Speaker 1: though this obviously limits her and her capabilities, which some
46:29
Speaker 1: have interpreted as a direct criticism of the depiction of
46:32
Speaker 1: women in this genre, Like the movie and book were
46:34
Speaker 1: directly criticizing those things, but in the end she is
46:37
Speaker 1: the one who gets revenge. It's pretty satisfming playing those
46:41
Speaker 1: that thought they were playing her. When I was watching this, though,
46:44
Speaker 1: it's another one of those things, was like, damn, she's smart.
46:48
Speaker 1: I would have just been like, ugh, I'm screwed. She
46:54
Speaker 1: figures these things out on the fly, and she was
46:56
Speaker 1: really good at reading people. That was kind of her
46:57
Speaker 1: whole thing, that she could immediately figure out that a
47:00
Speaker 1: piece of wants and needs that people had and fit
47:02
Speaker 1: into it. From David Simms at The Atlantic, this is
47:05
Speaker 1: a secret agent story in which the secret agent angrily
47:08
Speaker 1: complains that she got sent to horror school by her government,
47:12
Speaker 1: one that tries to flesh out the undercurrent of misogynistic
47:14
Speaker 1: coercion inherent in so many of these narratives.
47:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of reminds me of the storyline with the Americans.
47:21
Speaker 2: And I only watched a couple of episodes which has
47:24
Speaker 2: Carrie Russell and her now husband, but they are Russian
47:28
Speaker 2: spies that are sent into the US. But they have
47:30
Speaker 2: a small scene where she is being trained and she
47:33
Speaker 2: gets brutally raped by a teacher. But that's being taught.
47:37
Speaker 2: This is what you have to deal with. This is
47:38
Speaker 2: what you're going to have to learn, So you need
47:39
Speaker 2: to learn here. So it's kind of like, oh, what's happening.
47:43
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think, and it was so funny as
47:45
Speaker 2: I was researching it. Red Sparrow did come up, and
47:47
Speaker 2: a lot of different lists of people came into this.
47:51
Speaker 2: And when we talk about the more modern spies, you
47:54
Speaker 2: see that a little more mentioned now not necessarily that
47:56
Speaker 2: it wasn't done because when we talk about the female ninjas,
47:59
Speaker 2: and one of the things they talked about was being
48:00
Speaker 2: gacious and prostitutes and being sent out as well as
48:03
Speaker 2: priestess to be prostitutes, and you know in their presence
48:06
Speaker 2: to get that information, however, you know you need to
48:09
Speaker 2: and they don't expect a prostitute to be a spy necessarily,
48:13
Speaker 2: which we know is a plot line for a lot
48:15
Speaker 2: of the movies because partially it is true, and a
48:17
Speaker 2: lot of the old school spies, whether we're talking about
48:19
Speaker 2: the KGB because I saw KGB references, which again you're
48:23
Speaker 2: not supposed to know much about, but a lot of
48:26
Speaker 2: details of being dancers or hookers or all of these
48:30
Speaker 2: things that you see, it happened a lot more than
48:33
Speaker 2: we know and or that's the part we know about
48:36
Speaker 2: them because that was the public persona. So there's that. Yeah,
48:40
Speaker 2: So that is kind of a conclusion. I do have
48:42
Speaker 2: a little bit of bonus and just got some mentions
48:45
Speaker 2: just to name a few more historical spies that we
48:48
Speaker 2: could dig into later. Christine Grantville, who was Britain's first
48:52
Speaker 2: female special agent, Belle Boyd aka Labill, yes, a spy
48:57
Speaker 2: for the Confederacy during the Civil War the US. And
49:01
Speaker 2: then Jessephine Baker, which I know people know that name,
49:04
Speaker 2: who was an American born French dancer entertainer, was also
49:08
Speaker 2: a French resistant spy.
49:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's plenty.
49:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were so many that I was like, Okay,
49:13
Speaker 2: who am I going to focus on?
49:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was hard to choose, which is why I
49:17
Speaker 1: also have a bonus mension.
49:19
Speaker 3: And then some shout outs of.
49:20
Speaker 2: Course, no, you had to, you had to.
49:24
Speaker 1: I know you had to, and you know I had
49:26
Speaker 1: to include the Star Wars one, which is mar Jade.
49:29
Speaker 1: And actually, I bet she's going to show up in
49:32
Speaker 1: cannon suit, like official Disney cannon.
49:34
Speaker 3: So it's giving you a little heads up.
49:36
Speaker 1: So in the Star Wars Extended Universe slash Legends, which
49:40
Speaker 1: is no longer canon, but before Disney came along, this
49:43
Speaker 1: is what was up. She was a secret assassin, raised
49:46
Speaker 1: and trained by the Emperor himself. She became so deadly
49:50
Speaker 1: that she earned the title the Emperor's Hand, and she
49:53
Speaker 1: hears this prophecy in her head that she will kill
49:56
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker, So of course she hunts him down and
50:00
Speaker 1: then she finds him and catches him and they fall
50:01
Speaker 1: in love and she's like, oh no, I can't kill him,
50:03
Speaker 1: but I must.
50:04
Speaker 3: But Twist, the evil.
50:06
Speaker 1: Wizard, who is now in power, has used Luke's cut
50:11
Speaker 1: off hand to clone Luke and make an evil Luke
50:15
Speaker 1: for two of you Skywalker. So she kills Luke and
50:19
Speaker 1: marries Luke and becomes a Jedi. And this w plot
50:22
Speaker 1: twist is one of my very favorite things ever.
50:24
Speaker 2: Yes, I laugh, laugh and laugh. Yes, I love it
50:27
Speaker 2: and I am definitely laughing.
50:30
Speaker 1: And then bonus, just to I know that they exist.
50:33
Speaker 1: There's Missus Smith the Bride, which we said pretty much
50:36
Speaker 1: anyone in Kill Bill Alias may Day Interview to kill
50:39
Speaker 1: Salts Nikita, Hey, I'm flex Elizabeth Jennings from The Americans, Yep,
50:43
Speaker 1: Samantha Kine played by Geena Davis Tremble long Kiss good Night,
50:46
Speaker 1: which I forgot about. It was a good throwback. Teashi
50:49
Speaker 1: p Henson's Mary Goodwin and Proud Mary. Sure least they're
50:52
Speaker 1: on in Atomic Bond and a bunch of other things.
50:54
Speaker 1: She's an assassin a lot, She's.
50:55
Speaker 2: Assassin a lot.
50:56
Speaker 3: Yes, she is Angelau she could.
50:58
Speaker 2: Do it well and Angelia Jolie. I feel like they
51:01
Speaker 2: actually could do it famous now but like being badasses
51:06
Speaker 2: in general.
51:07
Speaker 3: Yes. And then there's desk Strike Elektra.
51:11
Speaker 1: I say that with a little because I think I
51:13
Speaker 1: would argue whether or not she's assassin depending on which
51:15
Speaker 1: piece of fiction you're reading. But anyway, Lucy Anna Ava
51:20
Speaker 1: and then Genesis, which I just wanted to throw in
51:22
Speaker 1: there is the favorite character I've ever written. And she
51:24
Speaker 1: is weirdly an assassin slush by, but I love her
51:29
Speaker 1: and she's a hot mess and terrifying.
51:32
Speaker 2: I feel like all of them are kind of hot messages. Yeah,
51:34
Speaker 2: so kind of just like, why are these lives so fascinating? Well,
51:39
Speaker 2: We've looked at the many movies and characters that represent
51:42
Speaker 2: the world, and is obvious we can't get enough. They
51:44
Speaker 2: keep coming. I'm eatterly waiting full of Black Widow, Like,
51:48
Speaker 2: I'm so excited for it. And the one thing we
51:50
Speaker 2: saw throughout our research was that many believe because women
51:54
Speaker 2: are seen as mild mannered and often either sexually or motherly,
51:58
Speaker 2: therefore there couldn't be any possible threat from them. Right,
52:01
Speaker 2: They're not real threats, which makes them even more effective.
52:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
52:06
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite slash most annoying things.
52:08
Speaker 1: Watching Red Sparrow last night, it was how many times
52:10
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, you're a Sparrow, you can do
52:12
Speaker 1: like these really sexual things, right, but you're only doing
52:15
Speaker 1: it for your spy thing, right, And then she does
52:17
Speaker 1: it and they like fall for it.
52:18
Speaker 3: I'm like, but you just said you know what she is,
52:22
Speaker 3: that she did it.
52:24
Speaker 2: And you're the dumb ones to volve for it.
52:26
Speaker 1: So okay, yes, yes, please listeners, let us know if
52:31
Speaker 1: we miss anybody, if you want us to go into
52:33
Speaker 1: more detail on any of these characters or historical or fiction.
52:37
Speaker 3: Either way, we would love to hear from you. All right.
52:40
Speaker 1: Email is Stephania mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
52:43
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram at stuff I'm Never Told You.
52:45
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always
52:48
Speaker 1: to our super producer Christina.
52:50
Speaker 2: Thank you Christina, and.
52:51
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You.
52:53
Speaker 1: Prospection of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, it's dieheart
52:56
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or reve you listen to your
52:58
Speaker 1: favorite shows the