Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we thought we would get back
Speaker 1: into the science of a movie from the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: that seems to be something we've been into lately. We
Speaker 1: did Science of Highlander two. It was a great success.
Speaker 1: We did we we talked about almost the Labyrinth, not
Speaker 1: Labyrinth the Dark Crystal Um. Of course. Months earlier we
Speaker 1: also did two thousand one of Space Odyssey. Oh that's right.
Speaker 1: Well that's kind of a different story there. But Robert,
Speaker 1: you've been badgering me to pick a movie, and so
Speaker 1: I was thinking. I was thinking. I was thinking, and
Speaker 1: then I realized, you know, snake science is always great
Speaker 1: to talk about, and we could we could also discuss
Speaker 1: some great myths if we were to revisit a movie
Speaker 1: I loved when I was younger, Conan the Barbarian the
Speaker 1: nineteen eight two John Millie Is directed Arnold Schwarzenegger starring
Speaker 1: take on the Conan lore by Robert E. Howard. I
Speaker 1: think it's a very different take from what I can
Speaker 1: tell I'm not really into the old literature, but I
Speaker 1: was thinking, Yeah, I wonder how this movie holds up.
Speaker 1: It's time to view Conan again, right, So yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're just joining stuff to blow your mind, like if
Speaker 1: you just clicked on us that, I don't want to
Speaker 1: check out this science podcast they're all about. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is something we've been doing, trying to do like
Speaker 1: one a month. So what we're gonna do is we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about this movie. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's it's it's actors, it's plot,
Speaker 1: it's some of its more serpentine features. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: use that as a springboard to discuss a little bit
Speaker 1: of science, a little bit of myth, a little bit
Speaker 1: of biology, all of that and uh, you know, all
Speaker 1: under the you know, the loose heading of of the
Speaker 1: science of Falsa Doom, Falsa Doom being the the principal
Speaker 1: antagonist in this film. Now that I've rewatched it, I
Speaker 1: agree with my much earlier assessment, which is clearly the
Speaker 1: best part of the movie. The villain Thulsa Doom, played
Speaker 1: by James Earl Jones. Now this is like, this is
Speaker 1: like Pete James Earl Jones because this in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: he had been the voice of Darth Vader. So James
Speaker 1: Earl Jones has like has like the greatest voice of
Speaker 1: the greatest villain in genre cinema of the day, and
Speaker 1: so they're like, why not bring him in to play
Speaker 1: this this awesome charismatic cult leader. And he is still
Speaker 1: just supernaturally intense in the movie in a beautiful and
Speaker 1: hilarious way. Uh. Now, I remember I love this movie
Speaker 1: when I was younger, for it's like epic silliness and
Speaker 1: like the incomprehensible meat mouth Arnold performance in it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got some hilarious facial expressions, some hilarious
Speaker 1: line delivery, but there's also a kind of beautiful operatic atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. I mean, I believe director and writer John
Speaker 1: Eilius has has cited you know, Wagner as being one
Speaker 1: of the influences on the on the on the film.
Speaker 1: That's kind of not surprising having gone back and seen it,
Speaker 1: seeing it more recently and now being aware that there
Speaker 1: are people who sort of criticized it as being fascist
Speaker 1: when it came out, I can't say I think those
Speaker 1: critics are wrong, and this is, I think, not a
Speaker 1: movie that one should let shape their values. No. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a film that I've I've loved
Speaker 1: for a long time and uh and I didn't watch
Speaker 1: it in its entirety for this episode, so it's still
Speaker 1: been a few years since I've seen it. But I
Speaker 1: went back and watched most of the Fulsa Doom segments.
Speaker 1: Um so, so I'm not speaking to do a recent
Speaker 1: rewatch of it. But yeah, this is this is a
Speaker 1: film that I if you asked me, do you love
Speaker 1: Conan the barband, say yes? If if if you had
Speaker 1: asked me, is this is it a part of your
Speaker 1: your core philosophical outlook and you should be worried if
Speaker 1: it is. Somebody's right because we don't live in a
Speaker 1: sword and sorcery world for starters, and nor should we
Speaker 1: want to. I mean, this is a kind of world
Speaker 1: where there is just a ton there's like all this
Speaker 1: blockhead macho violence and cruelty. I think about one thing
Speaker 1: that was shocking on rewatching it is how many scene
Speaker 1: of there are of Conan just like punching animals. There's
Speaker 1: like a scene where he punches a camel in the head.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why that's in there. Of course, the
Speaker 1: the I mean, it goes without saying it's like the
Speaker 1: textbook example of objectification of women in film. So the
Speaker 1: treatment of women and it is just kind of vile.
Speaker 1: And there's this like it's the movie is just greased
Speaker 1: up and down with fetishization of some weird version of
Speaker 1: masculinity and obsession with weapons, technology and murder. So I
Speaker 1: don't know all the critics who saw the authoritarian stuff
Speaker 1: in there, the weirdness of it. It begins with like
Speaker 1: a Nietzscheck quote. So it seems that John Milius obviously
Speaker 1: the director. You were telling me, he's the he's the
Speaker 1: person that the character of Walter and The Big Lebowski
Speaker 1: is based on. That's what I've always heard. I don't
Speaker 1: know to to what extent, but clearly they look a
Speaker 1: lot of like they're there. They're there. The look of
Speaker 1: the characters very much patterned Don Milius. That made everything
Speaker 1: click for me. I was like, this is a movie
Speaker 1: that was made by Walter from The Big Lebowski. Before
Speaker 1: we go any further, let's actually just hear a sample
Speaker 1: from the trailer, just to get it to remind everybody, uh,
Speaker 1: you know about what we're talking about here, Warrior feel alright,
Speaker 1: So we got a taste of the drama there, a
Speaker 1: taste of the music. The score is is beautiful in
Speaker 1: this film. This is one of the few, um you know,
Speaker 1: you know, orchestra scores that I can really get behind.
Speaker 1: I love the music in it. Yeah, And I do
Speaker 1: think in the same way that it was sort of
Speaker 1: a breakout performance for Arnold Schwarzenegger. I have read about
Speaker 1: it being an important stepping stone stone for the composer
Speaker 1: of the film as well. Oh yes, so yeah, obviously
Speaker 1: we have Arnold Schwartzenegger as Roberty Howard's pulled pair of
Speaker 1: Barbarian alongside other newcomers. Because that's one of the things
Speaker 1: to keep in mind here is like arnoldly have been
Speaker 1: in virtually nothing at this point, um, and you've been
Speaker 1: in some movies where you literally couldn't understand a single thing.
Speaker 1: He said, right, so this was this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: This this is a film that kind of made Arnold.
Speaker 1: And then I'll you also have these other kind of
Speaker 1: newcomers sandel bergman, isn't it uh? Jerry Lopez, who mostly
Speaker 1: made his name and still has a name as a surfer.
Speaker 1: And then alongside him he had veteran actors Mako, Max
Speaker 1: Von Sido and then of course James Earl Jones as
Speaker 1: Tulsa Doom. But I'm not to discount the hinchman in
Speaker 1: this film as well. He has a couple of henchmen
Speaker 1: and their rex Or and thor Gram and they're played
Speaker 1: by s then Olie Thorson, who's in a classic in
Speaker 1: every Arnold film, is this bodybuilder with this just just uh,
Speaker 1: he's just got a face like somebody ate his lunch
Speaker 1: and it stayed that way forever. And he he's he's
Speaker 1: the villain in a really funny B movie called Abraxas
Speaker 1: Guardian of the Universe and stars s Ventura. They should
Speaker 1: have gotten Jesse Ventura to play a role in uh,
Speaker 1: I don't think he was ready for it. But but
Speaker 1: then the other henchman is played by Ben Davidson, who
Speaker 1: is this enormous, uh like really haggard looking, mustachioed football
Speaker 1: player and uh, and you know he basically another case. Really,
Speaker 1: all these actors outside of Mako and Maximum Sido and
Speaker 1: some of the supporting players, you know, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people that were brought on because they uh
Speaker 1: you know, they had some sort of natural and or
Speaker 1: physical charisma and uh and they somehow made them work
Speaker 1: in the film like they they For instance, Ben Davidson
Speaker 1: not really it was not really known for his acting ability,
Speaker 1: just like looked like a tough guy. Um and he's
Speaker 1: just grimaces a lot in this film. But he has
Speaker 1: this one part where he always says, is you And
Speaker 1: it's perfectly executed in this film, like like a few
Speaker 1: there are a few times where a character in a
Speaker 1: film just says a single word and it's played perfectly.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how aren't Schwarzenegger is right? I mean,
Speaker 1: he's not much of an actor. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he ever really became much of an actor, but he's
Speaker 1: definitely not an actor in this movie. He's just he's
Speaker 1: just sort of playing himself. But uh, well he's he does.
Speaker 1: I think he does a good job in this film.
Speaker 1: But at times it does feel kind of like if
Speaker 1: I'm watching us an Italian horror movie where a child
Speaker 1: is being menaced by a monster or something. The child
Speaker 1: is screaming, and I start worrying if the child would
Speaker 1: like they just said, we'll just go scare the child.
Speaker 1: We don't have to worry about the child. Acting will
Speaker 1: just terrify them, like to are they just really beating
Speaker 1: the hell out of Arnold? And then that's how they
Speaker 1: filmed the scene, you know. Um, But that's what makes
Speaker 1: it hilarious to see bloopers from the production of Conan
Speaker 1: the Barbarian where like they're supposed to be wild dogs
Speaker 1: chasing him and they catch him and then they don't
Speaker 1: actually hurt him, but he's like, so the basic plot
Speaker 1: of the film is that it's it's set during a
Speaker 1: time before the oceans drank Atlantis, in an age of
Speaker 1: high adventure, and you have this young boy, Uh, the
Speaker 1: young Conan Uh, and his village is decimated by this
Speaker 1: vicious war band. His parents are murdered, his father's sword
Speaker 1: is taken by the villains Uh, and the boy enters
Speaker 1: a grueling life of servitude, labor, and finally gladiatorial combat.
Speaker 1: Then he's freed. He finds a new sword and a
Speaker 1: giant's crypt, and then he eventually crosses past with the
Speaker 1: very villains who decimated his family, only now the leader
Speaker 1: of that band, that war band, Thulsa Doom. He's reinvented
Speaker 1: himself now as this charismatic cult leader, and so um
Speaker 1: Conan and some of his friends they enter into the
Speaker 1: service of an aging king, uh to free the king's
Speaker 1: daughter from the snake colts clutches, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: Conan discovers the source of his strength. Uh. He solves
Speaker 1: the rule of steel, he achieves his vengeance. I mean
Speaker 1: really it's basically a simple revenge story. But it's it's
Speaker 1: one that is it's well made, it's well told. You
Speaker 1: know what the basic beats are gonna be, but they're
Speaker 1: they're well delivered. You could pretty much find the same
Speaker 1: plot in any number of westerns. Are certainly in biker films. Oh,
Speaker 1: I absolutely see what you mean with uh. With the
Speaker 1: biker film, like the bizarre kind of like the the
Speaker 1: idolization of the on the road, grungy lifestyle, this like
Speaker 1: sense of fetishization of some feeling about masculine individuality and
Speaker 1: like you know, freedom and will. Yeah, the outlaw were Ethos,
Speaker 1: dangerous hippie religions, that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Falsa Dooms snake cult has all these people showing up
Speaker 1: looking like they're ready for you know, woodstock in the
Speaker 1: late sixties. Uh, that's another way that I mean, if
Speaker 1: you start to count them up, that you really do
Speaker 1: start to notice all the ways that the film seems um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's clearly like an eighties
Speaker 1: reactionary kind of thing. Yeah. Now, I do want to
Speaker 1: stress that I fully support anybody being able to just
Speaker 1: set and enjoy Conan the Barbarian as Conan the Barbarian,
Speaker 1: and I try and I try to do that when
Speaker 1: I when I watch a film like this. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it is an interesting exercise just to
Speaker 1: place a film within the context of its times, take
Speaker 1: apart what it means, what it's saying. You know, what
Speaker 1: is the one is the like the what's the basic
Speaker 1: philosophy of the of the feature? That sort of thing. Well,
Speaker 1: if one we're trying to be generous, you could say
Speaker 1: maybe that like like when you read an ancient myth.
Speaker 1: Ancient myths can be enticing and beautiful because they show
Speaker 1: you something about a mindset from ages past, and they
Speaker 1: show you know, they're imaginative, they give you a different
Speaker 1: way of thinking. But almost no ancient myth that none
Speaker 1: that I can think of, has like values that I
Speaker 1: think are still good and applicable across the board, so
Speaker 1: you could think about Conan in that way. But it's
Speaker 1: also I don't know, I mean, it was made recently,
Speaker 1: but it's supposedly said at a time of like a
Speaker 1: lost past, before any historically recorded civilization. Now, one more
Speaker 1: thing about the legacy of of this film is that
Speaker 1: that obviously it had a huge impact on the fantasy genre,
Speaker 1: the sword and sorcery genre, in the same way that
Speaker 1: Roberty Howard's original stories were highly influential. But this film
Speaker 1: in particularly also was just endlessly copied by various bad
Speaker 1: barbarian films to rise up in its wake, including some
Speaker 1: just truly wonderful Italian barbarian films. Oh Man, the a
Speaker 1: Tor movies. I I just recently, you know what actually
Speaker 1: made me want to go back and watch Conan the
Speaker 1: Barbarian to see if if we could do an episode
Speaker 1: about it, was that I recently watched a movie called
Speaker 1: Your Hunter from the Future, which is a hilarious nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties Conan rip off. Just like Leather Diaper Barbarian movie.
Speaker 1: It's got reb Brown, the guy from Space Mutiny, and
Speaker 1: all the Conan kind of stuff is there, but done
Speaker 1: in a cheaper, less operatic, more hilarious, and more Italian way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean there there's so so many examples
Speaker 1: of this the sort of film that I love, the
Speaker 1: Death Stalker films, um, oh, the Lucio Fulsey film Conquest.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of my favorites. I've seen that one
Speaker 1: far more recently, and that is also a beautiful, uh
Speaker 1: violent film. But because it's fulchy, it's gross. Well it's gross,
Speaker 1: uh but beautiful. Before this episode, I want to focus
Speaker 1: mainly on the idea of Fulsa Doom, not just because
Speaker 1: he's the best character in the movie. And I will
Speaker 1: say I think he's the best character in the movie,
Speaker 1: not really in any way that's on the page. It's
Speaker 1: mostly just that James Earl Jones is awesome in the role.
Speaker 1: He he brings that uh that that Darth Vader gravitas
Speaker 1: I hate, I just used a word. I hate when
Speaker 1: people say I'm sorry, I said gravity tass. He brings
Speaker 1: this power and intensity and subtle dignity to to the
Speaker 1: way he delivers lines about the riddle of steel and
Speaker 1: the power of flesh that normally would get a laugh
Speaker 1: and I think even delivered by another character in the
Speaker 1: same movie would get a laugh. But but Jones just
Speaker 1: nails it. Yeah, And I think it's also a treat
Speaker 1: for a lot of viewers may not be that familiar
Speaker 1: with with Ownes his earlier work and his stage work certainly, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, when you think of James or don't you
Speaker 1: might think of Darth Vader where he's just doing the voice,
Speaker 1: or you're thinking of films in which you had a
Speaker 1: an older James Earl Jones, like more visibly aged James
Speaker 1: Earl Jones. And this he's able to like really be
Speaker 1: physically present and appear you know, physically strong and intimidating, uh,
Speaker 1: in a way that you know you certainly don't see.
Speaker 1: And some of his later films and there are multiple
Speaker 1: scenes where he just stares into the camera and his
Speaker 1: eyes look through you and through a thousand people behind you.
Speaker 1: He's got like the million light year gaze. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful villain performance for sure. And he is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a I think he's a well formulated, uh,
Speaker 1: you know villain. You know, there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: depth to him. I guess you know you're not you're
Speaker 1: not really connecting with him as a as a as
Speaker 1: a human, in part because sometimes he's a giant snake.
Speaker 1: But but well, it's also just not a subtle movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's a worried about it is like, you know,
Speaker 1: the open vistas and the music and the operatic quality.
Speaker 1: I mean, the characters are quite flat and envisioned in
Speaker 1: what I would say, is it kind of an emotionally
Speaker 1: and morally immature way. Um like the you know, it
Speaker 1: takes place in a world where I don't get any
Speaker 1: sense that there's any good or evil. There's just like
Speaker 1: strength and valor and revenge. It's a very like you
Speaker 1: might find this familiar from some thirteen year old boys
Speaker 1: you knew once. Well, you know, I have a couple
Speaker 1: of thoughts on that. I mean, first of all, crom
Speaker 1: laughs at your need for emotional depth in your characters, Joe.
Speaker 1: But but also we have to remember, just going back
Speaker 1: to the original source material, Roberty Howard Um died at
Speaker 1: the age of thirty, so so all of the stories
Speaker 1: of Conan emerge from you know, from his twenties. I mean,
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: into the full biography of Roberty Howard, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's a case to be that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are these are films that did emerge from an
Speaker 1: extended adolescence and uh, you know, and people people love them,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's part of of of why. You know,
Speaker 1: they speak to a sort of you know, adolescent longing,
Speaker 1: this kind of classic teenage desire to be free and
Speaker 1: control your own destiny. Well, this reminds me of another
Speaker 1: air where you see the influence of of Conan and
Speaker 1: Conan the Barbarian, that being death metal and uh and
Speaker 1: certain you know heavy metal acts where this, you know,
Speaker 1: the sword and sorcery elements and this kind of like
Speaker 1: stark nihilism. Uh, do seem to be wrapped up in
Speaker 1: this adolescent longing. Yeah, I absolutely see that. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of bands that are basically just
Speaker 1: Conan the Barbarian the band. Yeah, there's also falso Doomed
Speaker 1: the Band. Apparently I'm not that familiar with them, but
Speaker 1: I I had to listen to just a little of them,
Speaker 1: get a sample of it before I went in here.
Speaker 1: It's any good. Sounded pretty good. It's not death metal,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear on that, but it's a yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounded all right, maybe we can we can hear
Speaker 1: from fans of Sodom the band, and you guys can
Speaker 1: can educate us more on them. Well, they knew the
Speaker 1: best character from the movie to name to name their
Speaker 1: band after. Because one last thing I'll say about it
Speaker 1: before we move on to the mythology and the science.
Speaker 1: I will say I was shocked to read that in
Speaker 1: reviews at the time the movie came out, which were
Speaker 1: you know, they were mixed. It was like polarizing to critics.
Speaker 1: Um Apparently a lot of critics criticized James Earl Jones
Speaker 1: performance and they were like, this is you know, this
Speaker 1: is unsettled. It's not tasteful. It's camp. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it might be camp, but it's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why. I mean, it's like criticizing Rocky Harror Picture
Speaker 1: Show for all. It's camp, but of course it's got camp.
Speaker 1: That's what I came for. The camp. Tim Curry's really
Speaker 1: over the top. You could have been a lot more stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how you can. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: every criticism of Conan the Barbarian makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: except the one that criticizes James Earl Jones. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like another recent example that really has a lot
Speaker 1: in common with kind of the Barbarian because it's also
Speaker 1: a revenge picture, and certainly it's nostalgic for films of
Speaker 1: this age. Uh Penis Cosmatos is Mandy, which it's also
Speaker 1: a film that probably polarized audiences a bit. Some people
Speaker 1: it seems like a film we either love it or
Speaker 1: you don't really get it. I think one difference there
Speaker 1: is that there's a much clearer ironic distance. It's true
Speaker 1: with the with the creation of Mandy right. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: whereas John Millius is looking to Wagner and other influences,
Speaker 1: uh Panos is looking to the films of yesterday here,
Speaker 1: so there's like a degree of removal. But but that's
Speaker 1: a film where you have you have a charismatic cult
Speaker 1: leader played by a terrific actor, and then you also
Speaker 1: have the you have a hero that's most certainly more
Speaker 1: an established actor and Nicholas Cage. But I don't know
Speaker 1: you can make some comparison between like the raw visceral
Speaker 1: nature of these performances. I guess, yeah, Well, Cage is
Speaker 1: not super subtle in Mandy right, But it's a film
Speaker 1: like both of those performances in Mandy the villain, uh,
Speaker 1: the the antagonist and the protagonist. Yeah, they're both. They
Speaker 1: both have a lot of frenzied energy to them, and
Speaker 1: ultimately I wouldn't want it any other way. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: maybe let me sum up my thoughts. My thoughts are
Speaker 1: Conan in some ways kind of great, still kind of beautiful,
Speaker 1: still kind of excellent camp but also all the criticisms
Speaker 1: make sense. Don't let your sons grow up to be Conan's.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna take a break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're gonna jump into the meat of
Speaker 1: this episode or episodes. Who knows how long it'll go.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll have to split it in half. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll see how it goes here. But when when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to discuss snake magic. Than all right,
Speaker 1: we're back. So Sulsa Doom played by James Earl Jones
Speaker 1: in the film uh as distinguished. I want to be
Speaker 1: clear from Fulsa Doom in the Roberty Howard short stories
Speaker 1: that Conan is based on, which I believe is actually
Speaker 1: a totally different character. I think we basically got sort
Speaker 1: of one type of villain from the Howard stories, but
Speaker 1: with the name of another one. Basically, they pulled a
Speaker 1: Velociraptor denonicus here. Okay, we have one thing and you
Speaker 1: gave them the name of the other. My understanding, and
Speaker 1: I've only read like one or two Roberty Howard stories
Speaker 1: in my life, but my understanding is that the actual
Speaker 1: Falsa doomed character is more like what Skeletor is in
Speaker 1: Masters of the Universe. Okay, but so we're talking about
Speaker 1: the one in the movie played by James Earl Jones.
Speaker 1: He in the movie is a sorcerer and a high
Speaker 1: priest or, a cult leader in the cult of Set,
Speaker 1: which is a snake based religion. So in the movie mythology,
Speaker 1: Set is a giant snake god. Now, snakes play a
Speaker 1: role in many myths and religions that we've discussed, the
Speaker 1: various primordial world servants on the show before, as well
Speaker 1: as the regenerative themes sometimes associated with the shedding of
Speaker 1: a snake skin because the snake like sheds its old body,
Speaker 1: almost know, it seems to take on new life. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, since Time Out of Mind, people have found
Speaker 1: magic and intrigue in that. I think that's a classic
Speaker 1: example of bio mythology, you know, where biological facts inspire
Speaker 1: mythological archetypes and uh. And this sort of thing has
Speaker 1: been associated with everything from fertility gods to the depictions
Speaker 1: of snakes in the Old Testament. We've seen them as
Speaker 1: creatures of the underworld and the river of lightning and thunder.
Speaker 1: And it shouldn't be surprising that an animal were so
Speaker 1: hardwired to notice should play, you know, would play such
Speaker 1: an important role in our sacred traditions. And we've discussed
Speaker 1: this on the show before, but there are while it
Speaker 1: is still an open question, I think there is still
Speaker 1: some debate. There appears to me to be pretty good
Speaker 1: evidence that we we recognize certain animal forms such as snakes,
Speaker 1: especially including snakes in a kind of hardwired way, like
Speaker 1: their forms attract attention from babies who have not yet
Speaker 1: had time to be conditioned to respond to snakes, and
Speaker 1: so snake really agen's the use of snakes and snakes
Speaker 1: symbolism in various religious practices. It really just it's all
Speaker 1: over the place. I mean, you can even go to
Speaker 1: even more recent adaptations of the symbolisms, or take a
Speaker 1: twentieth century America there's the rise of the appellation, practice
Speaker 1: of snake handling as a test of faith. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and the long ending of the Gospel of Mark in
Speaker 1: the Bible. This is a part of the Gospel of
Speaker 1: Mark that I think is generally considered by Bible scholars
Speaker 1: to not have been a part of the book originally,
Speaker 1: but something that was added on later. But it says
Speaker 1: that people who have faith in Christ will take up
Speaker 1: deadly serpents in their hands and they will not harm them,
Speaker 1: and they drink poison. Yeah, but that's a great indication
Speaker 1: that you know what's thought. Let's like, what, where's the
Speaker 1: first place our brain goes in the idea of defying death,
Speaker 1: you know, the mirror miraculous survival. It's like, well, it's
Speaker 1: being able to hold snakes, which is funny because I
Speaker 1: think most snakes are not actually that dangerous to humans,
Speaker 1: even if you are bitten and venimated. Well yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it depends in a large part on where you
Speaker 1: are in the world. And then also like how you
Speaker 1: know how close you're getting to these snakes? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the god set. So we got the cult of set right, Um,
Speaker 1: there is an actual god in Egyptian religion and mythology
Speaker 1: named Set or Seth. But this god is very different
Speaker 1: from the fictional snake god Set in the Conan movies.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to talk about the real god Set.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Spread the word of Set. Okay. So
Speaker 1: my main source here is Geraldine Pinch's book on Egyptian
Speaker 1: Mythology from Oxford University Press. Uh. And so one thing
Speaker 1: about this is, of course ancient Egypt covers a vast
Speaker 1: time scale, So when you look into the roles of
Speaker 1: different gods or symbols in Egyptian mythology, you're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot of different stories over time. And there's
Speaker 1: not just one story of Set that's the only one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we always have to stress this when we're talking
Speaker 1: about mythology, because even in with something like Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: this is the case. It is not there's not like
Speaker 1: one set pantheon. It's not like here the here's the
Speaker 1: first edition Greek pantheon God and Godess cards. Collect them
Speaker 1: all and know exactly where they rank. No, things are emerging, evolving, geography,
Speaker 1: different regions, different peoples are coming into play, changing traditions
Speaker 1: as well, and that's certainly the case in Egyptian traditions,
Speaker 1: absolutely the case, and and Set or Seth is no example,
Speaker 1: But I just want to talk about some common features
Speaker 1: and things that appear in the texts here and there.
Speaker 1: So set was often understood as a creature of chaos,
Speaker 1: and he was the sometimes enemy of his brother Osiris,
Speaker 1: who is a very important figure in Egyptian religion. Set
Speaker 1: and Osiris are two of the five children of the
Speaker 1: sky goddess newt in Ut and the earth god Gebb,
Speaker 1: and in many texts, Set eventually murders Osiris, either with
Speaker 1: direct violence or through some kind of complicated assassination plot.
Speaker 1: Pinch writes that quote Seth acts as a catalyst in
Speaker 1: Egyptian myth His thoughtless actions are bad in themselves, but
Speaker 1: can lead to good outcomes, such as that of Osiris
Speaker 1: becoming the ruler of the underworld. And she also gives
Speaker 1: the example that I'll talk about more in a minute,
Speaker 1: that that sets brute strength is sometimes needed to defend
Speaker 1: the gods against even worse beings. Uh and in other
Speaker 1: later mythologies. To to compare this to it, it it sort
Speaker 1: of reminds me somewhat of the role of Loki in
Speaker 1: Norse mythology, who is a troublemaker and ultimately a great enemy,
Speaker 1: but also in many stories an indispensable ally or a
Speaker 1: catalyst for important developments. Also, like with a lot of
Speaker 1: cultures in history, you see an ancient Egyptian mythology a
Speaker 1: sort of suite of associations between on one hand, you've
Speaker 1: got order and civilization in the homeland, and then on
Speaker 1: the other side you've got chaos, the wilderness or untamed
Speaker 1: nature and foreign lands. And at times there seems to
Speaker 1: be an opposition where Osirius represents a sense of order,
Speaker 1: of civilisation and of Egyptian nous, while Set represents chaos
Speaker 1: and the untamed aspects of nature or the you know,
Speaker 1: the wild desert, and foreigners or foreign nous. And this
Speaker 1: also sort of comes through with the god's consorts. So
Speaker 1: the main consort of Osiris was his sister isis Um,
Speaker 1: but sets consorts include his sister Nephthys, but also goddesses
Speaker 1: from foreign cultures. So sometimes his consorts are goddesses like
Speaker 1: a not or Astarte, who are submitted goddesses from the
Speaker 1: area's northeast of Egypt, like around the Lavant So Set
Speaker 1: Set gets into a lot of trouble. He does bad
Speaker 1: stuff all the time in various texts. He's known for
Speaker 1: breaking taboos, committing crimes. Sometimes he'll chop down a sacred tree,
Speaker 1: or he'll kill a sacred animal you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: mess with. He's also accused of kind of strange sexual taboos,
Speaker 1: like in one story, he attempts to enact some kind
Speaker 1: of sex act on the god Horace, which results in
Speaker 1: the birth of Thought, who is a god of the moon,
Speaker 1: who's associated with like wisdom and scholarship and magic, who
Speaker 1: would seem to sort of represent emerging of order in chaos. Now,
Speaker 1: in that Osiris myth, where where where Set kills his
Speaker 1: brother Osirius, the ancient Egyptian religion placed a lot of
Speaker 1: significance on the power of the dead body of Osiris,
Speaker 1: like that even after death, his body controlled things like
Speaker 1: the crops or the you know, the cycles of flooding
Speaker 1: in the Nile. And so after Set killed him, it
Speaker 1: seems that Set couldn't leave well enough alone, And in
Speaker 1: some tellings, he just continues to try to like tamper
Speaker 1: with and mutilate the body of Osiris, even after he's
Speaker 1: already dead. And so one type of ritual in ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian religion is that you'd have priesthoods that had ritual
Speaker 1: retaliations against Set in which the chaos god would be
Speaker 1: killed and castrated and mutilated in effigy. So, as you
Speaker 1: can see so far, Set is a complex figure. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, he's getting some kind of devil characteristics already. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and that goes on to to extend to this
Speaker 1: this chaos component. Right, He's associated with the wilderness, and
Speaker 1: this means he's he's all the bad vibes of the desert, right,
Speaker 1: He's barren wastes where nothing could grow. He's floods and
Speaker 1: sandstorms and dangerous and unclean wild animals. And he could
Speaker 1: take the form of many known animals like wild cats
Speaker 1: or crocodiles or wild asses. But he also represented uh,
Speaker 1: he's also represented sometimes as a specific, perhaps fictional animal,
Speaker 1: not a snake, but a strange four legged creature with
Speaker 1: a long snout. And we'll come back to that in
Speaker 1: a bit, because that's a really interesting question about the
Speaker 1: mythology of Set. But when placed in opposition to oh
Speaker 1: Syrus or the the other good god Horace, Seth is
Speaker 1: sometimes presented, in um Pinch's words as quote massively strong
Speaker 1: and monumentally stupid. And this is funny because I feel
Speaker 1: like this is kind of how Conan himself reads to
Speaker 1: me in the movie. I know, this is somewhat different
Speaker 1: than the more clever character who's in the original stories
Speaker 1: in the movie. I don't know if you read it differently, Robert,
Speaker 1: but to me, in the movie Thalsa Doom, the villain
Speaker 1: is presented as cunning and subtle and intelligent and complex,
Speaker 1: whereas Conan's supposed virtues seem to be his strength and
Speaker 1: his courage and his lack of cunning or complexity. He's
Speaker 1: the mythical straight shooter, right, you know, he's just kind
Speaker 1: of he is what he is. He's a simple kind
Speaker 1: of man, and he you know, he goes out and
Speaker 1: he's strong and he does what you know, he's like
Speaker 1: will incarnate. Yeah, I mean he has. He has kind
Speaker 1: of an agent of chaos, right, as opposed to Thalsa
Speaker 1: Doom's the order that Thulsa Doom has created in the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's almost kind of a butterfly effect, right. There's this this,
Speaker 1: this this one event, this one massacre, this one child
Speaker 1: that that he allows to let live like this child,
Speaker 1: uh like spins off and becomes this thing that will
Speaker 1: bring about his downfall. This this this this unpredictable chaotic
Speaker 1: element that that just steadily brings everything down in the
Speaker 1: end and is not very not necessarily represented as very
Speaker 1: mentally subtle or complex. And Conan's kind of a meathead. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, that's that's you know, that's definitely part
Speaker 1: of the text, right, He's um, you know, he just
Speaker 1: he knows what he wants and he goes after it,
Speaker 1: be it you know, jewels or women or ultimately vengeance.
Speaker 1: So I think maybe Conan should have been the one
Speaker 1: aligned with Set in the movie. I think maybe the
Speaker 1: movie got it backwards. Yeah, perhaps, But it also gets
Speaker 1: more complex because there are some stories from Asian Egypt
Speaker 1: to wards. Set is not just a villain or enemy
Speaker 1: of the gods of order. Quote. One of the secrets
Speaker 1: revealed in the Royal Underworld books was the joining of
Speaker 1: the two lords. Uh and that would be Set and
Speaker 1: Horace into one double headed being to combat the forces
Speaker 1: of chaos in the hour of greatest danger. Uh And
Speaker 1: so that's also going to come back in an interesting
Speaker 1: way to some symbology in the movie that we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so Set sometimes joins forces with the supposed
Speaker 1: good guys like Horace or the solar deity Ray to
Speaker 1: defeat the chaos monster that is the serpent a pep
Speaker 1: or a popis. So you may have heard this mytho
Speaker 1: dynamic before, but here's how it basically works. Okay, So
Speaker 1: every day you've got a solar boat. You know, it
Speaker 1: goes across the sky with the Sun. That's how it's
Speaker 1: getting across. Yeah, so it's going across the sky, is
Speaker 1: bearing the god Ray, makes this journey across the sky,
Speaker 1: and then it's sunset, it dips over the horizon. What
Speaker 1: happens when you dip over the horizon where you go
Speaker 1: into the underworld. So every night, the boat bearing Ray
Speaker 1: and the gods and the Sun, it goes over the
Speaker 1: horizon and it has to journey through the underworld and
Speaker 1: this is what night time is. So every night, during
Speaker 1: this treacherous voyage through the underworld, a snake dragon called
Speaker 1: a pep or a popis attacks the boat of the Sun,
Speaker 1: trying to kill Ray and stop the Sun from rising.
Speaker 1: And a pep is like the true snake god. Uh,
Speaker 1: entity from Egyptian mythology. Yeah, exactly, And one of the
Speaker 1: main defenders of the boat, ironically, was Set, the strong
Speaker 1: wild god. He would crush or club or spear or
Speaker 1: bind the snake every night, and then it would revive
Speaker 1: or escape and attack again the next night. So every
Speaker 1: night the earthly priests would perform rituals to help the gods,
Speaker 1: including Set, win over the great snake. And some of
Speaker 1: these rituals involved making models or effigies of the monster,
Speaker 1: and then they would curse the model and destroy it
Speaker 1: or stab it or crush it or burn it with fire.
Speaker 1: So the priests would kind of act out the role
Speaker 1: of the mighty and dangerous chaos god Set in order
Speaker 1: to defeat an even greater and more evil enemy, this
Speaker 1: this monster of chaos apep or Apophis. Now, snakes are
Speaker 1: not always bad or evil in ancient literature. Earlier, Robert
Speaker 1: you mentioned that snakes are often a symbol of something
Speaker 1: like rebirth, and that that appears also in Egyptian literature.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they represent rebirth, sometimes they represent creation or other
Speaker 1: positive attributes. But I would say not here. It seems
Speaker 1: to me that a pepper a popis, is nasty to
Speaker 1: the core. Yeah, and I like the way that the
Speaker 1: character of Set becomes more complex like this over time,
Speaker 1: that you know he he might be a bad guy
Speaker 1: in some ways, but he's he's even if he's monumentally stupid.
Speaker 1: He's big and strong and you need his help to
Speaker 1: defeat the even worse monster. It's kind of like that
Speaker 1: scene in the movie where you have to team up
Speaker 1: with the villain from the previous movie. It's like when
Speaker 1: the X Men have to recruit Magneto to help them,
Speaker 1: which this is a common trope and any kind of
Speaker 1: like multi entry series, right, if you still have a
Speaker 1: villain from an earlier film, like you're running out of
Speaker 1: things to do with them to a certain extent, so
Speaker 1: you have to find new uses for him. But then
Speaker 1: this also ties into the mythic tradition. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: want to come back to the interesting question. Uh we
Speaker 1: alluded to a minute ago from Egyptian mythology, not not
Speaker 1: in the movie, the the Egyptian mythology of Set. What
Speaker 1: was this Set animal? So we know that Set was
Speaker 1: not a snake. In fact, Set was very much involved
Speaker 1: in slaying the Great Evil Snake. What what was this
Speaker 1: animal he was associated with? We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll find out than alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So when you think of the Egyptian gods and goddesses,
Speaker 1: I think one tends to think of those humanoid figures
Speaker 1: with animal heads, and it's and it's easy to just
Speaker 1: work along those lines, right and just think, Okay, this
Speaker 1: animal plus this body equals this god. And for the
Speaker 1: most part, that seems to be how it goes. Um
Speaker 1: you know you you you see the like the jackal
Speaker 1: headed anibus, etcetera. But when we look at Set, the
Speaker 1: weird thing is that this doesn't seem to necessarily be
Speaker 1: an easily identifiable animal. He has this head that I mean,
Speaker 1: you kind of glance at it, you might think it's
Speaker 1: some sort of dog, or maybe it's a bird, but
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's clearly something else. And in fact, uh,
Speaker 1: the crazy thing about Set is that we're still not
Speaker 1: exactly sure what animal Set is supposed to be based upon.
Speaker 1: We can't look at him and say, oh, it's a jackal.
Speaker 1: That's clearly that's the head of a jackal, and then
Speaker 1: we can extrapolate what that symbology might mean. No, with
Speaker 1: the said animal, Oh it's been. There's been so many
Speaker 1: different theories, so so some have said, well, maybe it's
Speaker 1: an art vark or a donkey or a jackal, or
Speaker 1: an ore x, a hair or a taper, even though
Speaker 1: they're non existent in Africa, no matter what you saw
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. Or it's
Speaker 1: a finnick fox. I've also seen some early twentieth century
Speaker 1: writings that speculated that it was a domestic pig, or
Speaker 1: that it's the head of a mythical compound animal, you know,
Speaker 1: some manner of griffin or sphinx, because that's another possibility, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we we don't want to fall into the trap of
Speaker 1: thinking that ancient people had had no imagine nation or
Speaker 1: that they could only work along the lines of like
Speaker 1: real animal head verse plus real person body. Like they
Speaker 1: could also say, well, the head of the mythological animal
Speaker 1: would work here as well. Yeah, and in fact we know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are multiple different kinds of non existent
Speaker 1: animals that were invoked in the beliefs of ancient people's.
Speaker 1: There are some things that they believed to be sort
Speaker 1: of like spiritual or other worldly animals, things they wouldn't
Speaker 1: expect to see out in nature. There were also animals
Speaker 1: that they just believed were part of nature that we
Speaker 1: don't have any evidence ever existed, right, And we'll get
Speaker 1: back to that because that raises some interesting questions. Percy E.
Speaker 1: Newberry wrote in Night Then It that it had also
Speaker 1: been suggested that the said animal might be a greyhound
Speaker 1: um because one of the things that like, it has ears,
Speaker 1: and it has this kind of snout, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of a downturned snout. Um. So, so certainly like the
Speaker 1: the art vark comes to mind when you look at
Speaker 1: it looks kind of like a cartoon art vark. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Newberry also brought up the possibility that it was an
Speaker 1: animal that the ancient Egyptians were not that familiar with.
Speaker 1: So I'm reminded of geographically removed depictions of rhinos and
Speaker 1: lions and other animals and ancient traditions where you know,
Speaker 1: some like a Western artist doesn't really know what a
Speaker 1: rhino looks like, they're basing an illustration on descriptions of
Speaker 1: the rhino, or say, lions and Chinese depictions where the
Speaker 1: depiction kind of takes on a life of its own,
Speaker 1: be kind of kind of becomes this thing between reality
Speaker 1: and fantasy, and then another idea that's come up. It's
Speaker 1: just it's the idea that this is an animal that
Speaker 1: had gone extinct, to quote Max Mueller, an Egyptologists from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen writing on this quote, an animal which had
Speaker 1: perhaps become extinct in prehistoric times, or that the figure
Speaker 1: of it had been drawn from an archaic statue of
Speaker 1: so crude a type that it defied all zoological knowledge
Speaker 1: of subsequent artists. So you know, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 1: Both of those are interesting ideas to think of too,
Speaker 1: Like it's either like the telephone game of depictions of things,
Speaker 1: where they're basing it on some other depiction, or yeah,
Speaker 1: what if this is based on some sort of animal
Speaker 1: that went extinct during uh the Egyptian era. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible. I've also read that the curved nose
Speaker 1: might have simply been introduced at some point to distinguish
Speaker 1: um a dog or jackal based set from the jackal
Speaker 1: headed anabus. So it could have been a situation where like, oh, look, guys,
Speaker 1: we can't have two jackal headed gods. This is gonna
Speaker 1: get kind of confusing. Let's give set a downturn nose. Oh,
Speaker 1: this could be yet another case like we talked about
Speaker 1: in a certain possibilities about depictions of the unicorn, where
Speaker 1: sometimes a belief in a mythical animal could be just
Speaker 1: based on some type of artistic convention, like the idea
Speaker 1: that a unicorn idea could have been inspired by somebody
Speaker 1: drawing an ore x. Oh yeah, yeah with a side profile. Yes,
Speaker 1: now I want I can tell this is still something
Speaker 1: of an open question in Egyptology as well, like there's
Speaker 1: there's no clear answer on what the set animal actually was, um.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this is I have to admit I
Speaker 1: really wasn't familiar with these questions about the set animal
Speaker 1: until he started researching this. I always just kind of
Speaker 1: glanced at set. I focus more on sets roles in
Speaker 1: these various uh myths, and I didn't really stop to
Speaker 1: question what he was supposed to be. UM. But but
Speaker 1: now I can look at him and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's kind of a slight Gonzo element there, right,
Speaker 1: Donzo from the Muppets. And I've never read that there
Speaker 1: was any intentional set iconography in Gonzo, because of course
Speaker 1: the Muppet Gonzo is of course considered a a whatever
Speaker 1: I believe is the is is what it is? The
Speaker 1: joke that they often made. Where did they say that?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Um. I think just at various times
Speaker 1: it comes up, like Gonzos or whatever. I think Gonzo
Speaker 1: identifies as being a whatever? Um though they did. I
Speaker 1: think in Nines Muppets from Space they introduced the idea
Speaker 1: that Gonzo as an alien species. So that's a bad move.
Speaker 1: Why not just leave the mystery open? And and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that set was an alien. That's not where
Speaker 1: I'm going. We're not going there at all. But imagine
Speaker 1: future beings examining like an incomplete visual history of the
Speaker 1: centuries on Earth. What would they make of Gonzo? What
Speaker 1: would they make of Goofy and Pluto from the Disney pantheon?
Speaker 1: What would they make of Snoopy or Totoro or you
Speaker 1: know other cartoon animals and animal like creatures. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this is Uh, this is a great point to make.
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is part of what you were
Speaker 1: talking about a minute ago. You know, you never want
Speaker 1: to forget that creative imagination exists. You know, we end
Speaker 1: up saying this a lot just because you see something
Speaker 1: represented in art made by a human doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they saw something like that. And sometimes I think people
Speaker 1: have that impulse. It's like, Wow, what inspired them to
Speaker 1: draw this? Maybe they were just being weird, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're weird. We come up with weird stuff. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: as expected, we're gonna have to break this episode into two,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go ahead and call it for now,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna be back in the next episode where
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the symbol of set in the movie,
Speaker 1: how that relates to both the UH symbolic and mythological
Speaker 1: two headed snakes and real life two headed snakes. We're
Speaker 1: gonna look at at snake arrows, and of course we'll
Speaker 1: turn to the world of natural world giant serpents, We'll
Speaker 1: go all the way down the snake hole. That's right.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out more
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