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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it

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Speaker 1: is Saturday. Time to go into the vault for a

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Speaker 1: classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: an old episode from an October maybe last October, right,

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Speaker 1: it's October of last year. Okay, Well this was our

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Speaker 1: episode about the monster Slayer. Yeah. Yeah, So this one's

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Speaker 1: full of monsters and the heroes who slay them, and

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Speaker 1: we kind of tease apart what this means, what we

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Speaker 1: can take home from this, like what are the ultimately

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Speaker 1: like what are some of the religious um uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: aspects of even the modern slasher story. I remember feeling

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Speaker 1: very very fondly about this one when we first did it.

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Speaker 1: So we hope you enjoy this classic episode of Halloween

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind from how stopworks dot Com. Hey you welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert

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Speaker 1: lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, and I want to tell

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Speaker 1: you a story about a monster slayer. Robert, are you game? Okay? So,

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Speaker 1: once upon a time in medieval Japan, there was a

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Speaker 1: warrior named Minamoto no Raiko, who was a daring swordsman,

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Speaker 1: and he was famous everywhere for his bravery and his resolve.

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Speaker 1: And Raiko had in his service a companion named Watanabe

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Speaker 1: note Suna, who was also courageous, and he was a

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Speaker 1: formidable fighter in his own right, and he wielded a

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Speaker 1: bow and arrow and wore a suit of armor. And

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Speaker 1: one day, Raiko and Suna were traveling on the road

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Speaker 1: to kita Yama when they saw a skull floating in

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Speaker 1: the sky, flying in and out of the clouds above.

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Speaker 1: Now Ricco and Sooner were curious how such a thing

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Speaker 1: could be, so they decided let's follow the skull, and

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Speaker 1: they followed the flying skull all the way to Kagaroka,

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Speaker 1: where it led the to a crumbling old mansion from

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Speaker 1: ancient times. The decaying manner was surrounded by wild, overgrown

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Speaker 1: weeds and an old gate choked by vines. So Rico

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Speaker 1: ordered Souna to wait for him outside, and Rico entered

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Speaker 1: the mansion alone. As he approached the threshold, he started

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Speaker 1: to become aware of her presence. There was an old

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Speaker 1: woman lurking behind the door, and he called out, who

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Speaker 1: are you? She replied I've been living here for a

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Speaker 1: good long time. I am two hundred and ninety years old,

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Speaker 1: and have served in their turn nine lords of this house.

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Speaker 1: And then Rico saw her. She was a horrible sight

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Speaker 1: to behold before the warrior's eyes. The old woman grasped

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Speaker 1: her own eyelids with a tool, and she flipped her

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Speaker 1: eyelids back over the top of her head like a hat.

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Speaker 1: Then she pushed her mouth open with a large hairpin,

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Speaker 1: and her lips became gigantic, and she took her lips

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Speaker 1: and she tied them around her own neck, and her

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Speaker 1: breasts began to sag down into her lap like rags.

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Speaker 1: The old woman began to speak again. She said, Spring

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Speaker 1: comes and autumn goes, but my sad thoughts remained the same.

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Speaker 1: Years begin an end, but my misery is eternal. This

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Speaker 1: place is a demon's den. No human dares passed through

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Speaker 1: our gates. My sorrowful youth has gone, but my old

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Speaker 1: self sadly remains. I lament that bush warbler's depart, and

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Speaker 1: swallows on the beam fly off. In her sorrow, the

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Speaker 1: wretched old woman begged Rycho to kill her with his

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Speaker 1: sword and put her out of her misery. Raiko could

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Speaker 1: see that the old woman was out of her mind,

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Speaker 1: so he left her alone, and he instead decided to

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Speaker 1: go into the house to see what had happened and

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Speaker 1: solve the mystery of the flying skull and what was

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Speaker 1: afflicting this woman and making her think she lived in

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Speaker 1: a demon's den. So he went inside the house, and

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Speaker 1: outside the sky grew dark and fierce, and winds began

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Speaker 1: to blow. But Sooner waited loyally for his master, and

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Speaker 1: inside the house, Rycho began to hear the sounds of

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Speaker 1: footsteps echoing like the beat of a hand drum. Then

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Speaker 1: he saw a coterie of spirits and goblins coming into

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Speaker 1: the room with him, but the creatures didn't attack. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they only danced around and then laughed at his fear

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Speaker 1: before passing out through another door. In their place, there

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Speaker 1: came into the room a tiny woman, no more than

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Speaker 1: three ft tall, but with a gigantic face more than

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Speaker 1: two thirds of her whole height, and she had thick,

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Speaker 1: heavy eyebrows, and when she opened her mouth, Rycho could

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Speaker 1: see that her front teeth were black. She wore a

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Speaker 1: purple hat and a red hakama with nothing underneath. Her

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Speaker 1: arms were so thin they were like strings, and her

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Speaker 1: skin was as pale as snowfall. Then that woman disappeared,

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Speaker 1: and Raiko realized dawn was nearing. Almost as soon as

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Speaker 1: the strange woman had left, another woman came into the room.

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Speaker 1: This time the woman was graceful and calm, and so

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Speaker 1: beautiful that Reicho could barely believe his eyes. He thought

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Speaker 1: that this woman must be the true mistress of the

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Speaker 1: old house, finally coming out to welcome him, and her

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Speaker 1: eyes shone as bright as the reflection of a bonfire

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Speaker 1: and black lacquer. But when Rico was distracted by the

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Speaker 1: woman's beauty, she got the better of him. She lifted

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Speaker 1: up the hymn of her hakama, and from underneath it

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Speaker 1: she heaved at the swordsman some kind of material what

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Speaker 1: looks like balls of white cloud, and the balls of

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Speaker 1: white cloud blinded him. They got in his eyes, and

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Speaker 1: in a rage, Raiko drew his sword and he slashed

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Speaker 1: at the woman, but she evaporated into thin air. He

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Speaker 1: slashed so mightily that his sword passed through the floorboards

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Speaker 1: and cut a foundation stone, and the tip of the

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Speaker 1: blade broke off where the woman had been. There was

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Speaker 1: now nothing but a pool of white blood. On the floor,

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Speaker 1: with a trail of more white blood leading off somewhere else.

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Speaker 1: Riicho and soon had joined together again, and they followed

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Speaker 1: the trail of white blood out of the house and

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Speaker 1: up into the mountains, and finally to the mouth of

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Speaker 1: a dark cave out of which white blood was flowing

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Speaker 1: like a river. As soon as suggestion, the two of

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Speaker 1: them made an figi of ratan and vines in the

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Speaker 1: shape of a man, and they carried it before them

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Speaker 1: as they entered the cave. Inside the cave, they found

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Speaker 1: a gigantic monster in the form of a mountain spider,

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Speaker 1: but nearly two hundred feet tall, and it wore a

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Speaker 1: brocade on its head. Its eyes were as bright as

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Speaker 1: the sun and the moon. The giant monster bellowed, what

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Speaker 1: has happened to my body? It is so painful. Then

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Speaker 1: the monster hurled something at them in the dark, and

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Speaker 1: the projectile hit the effigy that they carried in front

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Speaker 1: of them and knocked it down. Rico and Sona examined

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Speaker 1: the object that the monster had shot at them, and

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Speaker 1: they discovered that it was the broken tip of Rico's sword.

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Speaker 1: Together they took hold of the creature and they began

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Speaker 1: to drag it out of the cave, and the monster

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Speaker 1: put up a good fight, and it was a terrible monster, indeed,

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Speaker 1: strong enough to move boulders with its legs. So Rico

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Speaker 1: said a prayer to the sun goddess Amaterasu and asked

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Speaker 1: her for aid with the fight. Rico and Sona pulled

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Speaker 1: and pulled, an Eventually the monster collapsed and fell belly

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Speaker 1: up on the earth without hesitation. Rycho drew his sword

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Speaker 1: and chopped off the monster's head. Sooner ran to slash

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Speaker 1: open the monster's belly, but found when he got there

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Speaker 1: that it had already been opened by a deep gash.

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Speaker 1: This was the wound Riicho had given it inside the

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Speaker 1: house when it was in the form of the woman,

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Speaker 1: and this proved that the giant spider truly was the

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Speaker 1: beautiful woman that he had seen. From the gash in

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Speaker 1: the giant Spider's belly, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: heads tumbled out onto the ground. The warriors cut open

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Speaker 1: another part of the spider's body, and many smaller spider

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Speaker 1: monsters swarmed out, each about the size of a seven

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Speaker 1: or eight year old child. When the warriors looked further

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Speaker 1: in the stomach of the spider beast, they found twenty

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Speaker 1: human skulls. Knowing what had to be done, Riicho and

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Speaker 1: soon A dug a grave in the ground and buried

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Speaker 1: the twenty skulls and then burned the Giant Spider's din.

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Speaker 1: When the Emperor heard what Rycho and Soona had done

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Speaker 1: in the eliminating this heinous monster that had been plaguing

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Speaker 1: the country, he gave them promotions and appointed them governors

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Speaker 1: of their own provinces. And this is the story of

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Speaker 1: Minamoto no Raiko and the Giant Spider. That is a

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Speaker 1: fabulous story. I love it, just like the the the

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Speaker 1: layers of the adventure and then just the the revelations

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Speaker 1: about the horrific monstrosity that they're faced with. I like

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Speaker 1: how it's weird and rambling, like it takes a long

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Speaker 1: time to get to the final form of the monster.

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Speaker 1: You don't really know where it's gonna go. It takes

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Speaker 1: you to a haunted house first. Uh. Something about that

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Speaker 1: feels both unusual and intuitive. Um so that they start

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Speaker 1: off seeing the skull, and I have to assume that

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Speaker 1: I guess the skull was some form of the monster.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. But but also I like how in

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Speaker 1: a lot of the monster slayer stories you come across,

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Speaker 1: there's a more specific reason that the that the hero

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Speaker 1: must undergo the quest to slay the monster, they have

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Speaker 1: to like rescue a princess or something. This time, they're

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Speaker 1: just detectives investigating something weird that they saw, and it

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Speaker 1: eventually leads them into the monster's cave to kill it,

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Speaker 1: which also ultimately kind of makes you feel bad for

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Speaker 1: the monster, Like it didn't even kidnap anybody they knew.

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Speaker 1: They just like made their way to it. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was it seems to be entirely recreational on their part. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it kind of makes them like

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Speaker 1: some kind of roving police force almost in a way.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe they just needed the experience points. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's true. So this giant spider story comes from

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Speaker 1: an early fourteenth century Japanese picture scroll called the Sushi

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Speaker 1: Gumo Sushi, and the version of the story that I

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Speaker 1: read is as translated by the scholar Dr Nariko t

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Speaker 1: writer who we've referenced on the show before, I think

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Speaker 1: in our episode about cuteness and monstrosity sense. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that so my version of the story I just told

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Speaker 1: was based on her translation of this fourteenth century scroll.

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Speaker 1: And this is not the only legend about giant spiders

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Speaker 1: in early modern Japan. The sushi gumo or earth spider

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Speaker 1: was a common monster found in no plays and in

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Speaker 1: supernatural narratives in the following centuries. But there are also

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Speaker 1: other spider monsters, like the ushi on e, which was

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Speaker 1: sometimes described as like a giant spider with the head

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Speaker 1: of a bull, and it attacks fishermen at the water's edge.

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Speaker 1: And then there's also the juro gumo, which is the

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Speaker 1: literally the prostitute spider, and it's another sort of ghost

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Speaker 1: like creature that appears in the literature of the Ato period,

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Speaker 1: shape shifting like the sushi gumo, between the forms of

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Speaker 1: a beautiful woman and a voracious arachneid, luring men to

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Speaker 1: their deaths. So a classic trope of of monsters appearing

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Speaker 1: as is desirable humans or even non human entities, of course,

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Speaker 1: and you see that too in in the Sushi Gumo

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Speaker 1: in the story where the spider monster appears as this

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Speaker 1: beautiful woman in the house and distracts the swordsman with

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Speaker 1: her beauty just long enough to throw clouds of white

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Speaker 1: matter in his eyes, who knows what that's supposed to be.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I guess it's the silk, right, Oh? Maybe, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know it's supposed to be said. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's described as literally like clouds, so it's hard

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Speaker 1: to know exactly what it's referring to. It seems to

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Speaker 1: be some kind of magical substance. But yeah, So we're

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Speaker 1: doing something a little bit different today than we usually

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Speaker 1: do in our October episodes, where we love to focus

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Speaker 1: on monsters. Today we wanted to take a look at

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Speaker 1: the immortal enemy of our beloved monsters, the monster slayer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's often an essential part of the story and

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Speaker 1: sometimes the thing sometimes they define define each other, right,

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the monster is really the thing that defines the hero.

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Speaker 1: Other times there's not a lot to say about the

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Speaker 1: monster itself except that a certain hero of note gave

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Speaker 1: it a good slaying at some point. Yeah, And it's

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Speaker 1: almost as deep and as old as the monster mythology itself, right,

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Speaker 1: the oldest monster stories you can find when you go

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Speaker 1: back in time. Very often our monster or slayers stories,

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Speaker 1: there's a monster and there's a hero who must venture out,

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Speaker 1: often alone or with a faithful companion uh to face

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Speaker 1: the monster and destroy it. And the monster slayer archetype

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Speaker 1: is actually classed as a particular type of like you know,

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Speaker 1: myth archetype, the princess and the dragon type story, which

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Speaker 1: appears all over the world in different cultures. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: you know, and that's the very broad take. You know

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Speaker 1: that there's like a princess who's being held captive or

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Speaker 1: being threatened by some kind of monster, and a hero

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Speaker 1: must venture out with courage and face the monster. Though

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Speaker 1: of course, clearly not all the monsters in these types

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Speaker 1: of stories are dragons. And then there's just the bigger

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Speaker 1: myth architecture of whether or not there's a princess, there's

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Speaker 1: very often a slayer who must face down the beast. Right,

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Speaker 1: and and we're gonna we're gonna explore some different versions

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Speaker 1: of this where the beast has you know, varying degrees

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Speaker 1: of symbolic uh power. I guess you would say, uh

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Speaker 1: in other times less so. Uh. Again, it often comes

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Speaker 1: down to like why is why why is this hero

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Speaker 1: killing this monster? That's often the question, like what is

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Speaker 1: gained by this story? Uh? And in doing that you

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Speaker 1: have to look at what the monster represents what the

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Speaker 1: hero represents, and then there are certain complexities that seem

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Speaker 1: to come along just as storytelling evolves. Yeah. So another

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Speaker 1: one I wanted to focus on to go even much

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Speaker 1: deeper into history is the story of mar Duke the

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Speaker 1: Monster Slayer. Now mar Duke, of course, is an ancient

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Speaker 1: Near Eastern god, uh, and I want to I want

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Speaker 1: to focus on the story of mar Duke the Monster

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Speaker 1: Slayer as told from the Enema a Leash the ancient

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Speaker 1: Babylonian Epic of Creation, which of course is a great

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Speaker 1: story We've explored on the podcast before and I'm excited

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Speaker 1: to explore it again. So the general story, Robert, you

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Speaker 1: remember the outlines. You've got the primordial creators in the

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Speaker 1: Babylonian Epic, right, You've got Tiamat and Apsu, which represents

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Speaker 1: salt water and freshwater respectively. They're these gods and also

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Speaker 1: kind of monster creatures. They're sort of dragon gods that

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Speaker 1: are also saltwater and freshwater, and they and they embody

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Speaker 1: a lot of natural might, a lot of are also

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Speaker 1: potentially chaotic might, right, Yeah. Yeah, they represent the sort

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Speaker 1: of chaos before the creation of the order of the

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Speaker 1: world today and what they do is uh the sweetwater

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Speaker 1: in the saltwater. Together, they create a race of gods,

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Speaker 1: but end up finding those gods they've created unpleasant and loud,

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Speaker 1: and eventually um the gods turn on their creators and

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Speaker 1: they slay Opsu, the sort of freshwater deity, and Tiamat,

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Speaker 1: the saltwater deity. She is enraged, and she tries to

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Speaker 1: make revenge on the gods for slaying Opsu, attacking them

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Speaker 1: in the form of a giant sea monster, a saltwater dragon,

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Speaker 1: and making a team of evil monsters to do wickedness

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Speaker 1: on her behalf and the gods. Of course, because of

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Speaker 1: her power, they're too afraid to go out and fight

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Speaker 1: Tiamat themselves, but eventually they convinced the storm god mar

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Speaker 1: Duke to go out himself and fight her on their behalf. So,

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Speaker 1: in exchange for risking his life in this fight, mar

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Speaker 1: Duke's what's in it for Marduke? Right? Mar Duke demands

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Speaker 1: that the gods make him their king, so he that

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Speaker 1: that's the deal, right, I'll go out and slay the

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Speaker 1: monster if you guys make me the boss, which sounds

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Speaker 1: like a good deal. You need a king, you want

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Speaker 1: one that's going to actually slay your monsters, right, So

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Speaker 1: mar Duke is armed with special weapons imbued with some

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Speaker 1: kind of storm power, a bow and arrow, a mace

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Speaker 1: and net. And then there are these powers of the

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Speaker 1: winds that he commands, including the winds of the cardinal

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Speaker 1: directions north, south, east, and west, but also these other

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Speaker 1: kinds of wind magic. Like there's one wind weapon he

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Speaker 1: has just called the Evil Wind. And I guess we're

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Speaker 1: supposed to imagine some sort of like cosmic fart here um.

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Speaker 1: The fart jokes do kind of present themselves at this point.

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Speaker 1: So from here I think I will just read some

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Speaker 1: lines from the enemy aliash as the as translated by E. A.

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Speaker 1: Spicer Robert. Would you like to read with me, of course?

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Speaker 1: Then the Lord raised up the Floodstorm, his mighty weapon.

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Speaker 1: He mounted the storm chariot, irresistible and terrifying. He harnessed

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Speaker 1: and yoked it to a team of four, the Killer,

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Speaker 1: the Relentless, the trampler, the swift sharp, where their poison

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Speaker 1: bearing teeth they were versed in ravage, skilled and destruction.

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Speaker 1: On his right he posted the smider, fearsome in battle.

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Speaker 1: On the left, the combat which repels all the zealous.

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Speaker 1: His cloak was an armor of terror. His head was

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Speaker 1: turbaned with his fearsome halo. The Lord went forth and

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Speaker 1: followed his course. He set his face towards the raging Tiamat.

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Speaker 1: He held a spell between his lips. A plant to

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Speaker 1: put out poison was grasp in his hand. And then

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Speaker 1: we'll skip a bit. Marduk approaches U and Tiamat's consort, Kingu.

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Speaker 1: This monster Kingu and her allied gods and monsters become fearful,

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Speaker 1: and then Tiamat taunts Marduke, and then Marduke gives a

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Speaker 1: speech rebuking Tiamat and challenging her to single combat. And

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Speaker 1: then we'll pick up with the lines again. When Tiamat

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Speaker 1: heard this, she was like one possessed. She took leave

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Speaker 1: of her senses. In fury. Tiamat cried aloud to the

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Speaker 1: roots of her legs, shook both together. She recites a charm,

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Speaker 1: keeps casting her spell while the gods of battle sharpen

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Speaker 1: their weapons. Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of God's, then joined battle.

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Speaker 1: They strove in single combat. Locked in conflict, the Lord

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Speaker 1: spread out his net to unfold her. He let loosen

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Speaker 1: her face the evil wind, which followed behind. When Tiamat

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Speaker 1: opened her mouth to consume him, he drove in the

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Speaker 1: evil wind, and she could not close her lips as

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Speaker 1: the fierce winds encumbered her belly. Her body was distended

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Speaker 1: and her mouth was wide open. He released an air.

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Speaker 1: It tore her belly, It cut through her inside, splitting

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Speaker 1: her heart. Having subdued her, he blotted out her life.

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Speaker 1: He threw down her carcass and stood upon it. Oh,

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Speaker 1: you gotta stand on it. That's that's just uh, that's

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Speaker 1: absolutely necessary. Well, we've hit on this before, like the

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Speaker 1: they see that trope in both the Western and Eastern

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Speaker 1: art with a demon or devil or monster trampled beneath

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Speaker 1: the feet or sat upon as if it were thrown.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's still a thing when you see I mean,

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Speaker 1: I almost hate to bring this up because it makes

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Speaker 1: me mad whenever I see it. But like those like

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Speaker 1: Safari hunting pictures where people like shoot a lion or

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Speaker 1: something like that and then they're like standing there with

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Speaker 1: their foot on it. Yes I am not crazy about

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Speaker 1: that either, but they put their foot on it. It's

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Speaker 1: still a thing. It's like you are now earth. It's

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Speaker 1: it's like it's instinctive almost. I put my foot on

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Speaker 1: this thing to show I have beaten it. And then,

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Speaker 1: of course the next thing in this story, because it

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Speaker 1: becomes of course the epic of creation, is that mar

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Speaker 1: Duke makes the things in the earth out of Tiamat's

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Speaker 1: dead body. Ah. This is another thing we see time

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Speaker 1: and time again in different uh myths, the idea of

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Speaker 1: some primordial being being overcome and then their body being

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Speaker 1: repurposed in creation. Yeah, it is. It's an interesting repeating theme,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know. I wonder what that says, Like,

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Speaker 1: why do we have the the inherent suspicion that the

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Speaker 1: ground on which we walk was once a living being?

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Speaker 1: We should come back and doing a whole episode on

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Speaker 1: dead gods at some point. Oh absolutely. Now Here's another

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Speaker 1: thing I was thinking about, which is that in most

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Speaker 1: of these pre modern stories, the monster slayers always a dude.

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Speaker 1: It's always male, not always. I want to get to

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Speaker 1: a counter example that I was able to find. And

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Speaker 1: it's also not uncommon for the monster that is getting

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Speaker 1: slain to be female. Think about the Sushi Gumo, the

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Speaker 1: woman in the house and slayed by the swordsman tim

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Speaker 1: At the female monster slayed by Marduke per Uh and

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Speaker 1: the Medusa. Yeah we can. We can discuss more about

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Speaker 1: what is meant by that in a bit. But I

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Speaker 1: was on the hunt for some good pre modern ancient

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Speaker 1: female monster slayers, and I think I found at least

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Speaker 1: one good example that that I turned up sort of

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Speaker 1: a pre Buffy Buffy if you will, right, Well, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the many great things about Buffy. Of course, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she's she's one of the greatest vampire slayers, monster slayers

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Speaker 1: of all time. But then she is a she has

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Speaker 1: a female, which you, as you pointed out, you don't

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Speaker 1: see a lot of in the ancient myth cycles. It's

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Speaker 1: a nice change up on the gender dynamics of that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But so another ancient Mesopotamian monster slayer would be in

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Speaker 1: an A, the Glorious in an A crusher of heads.

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Speaker 1: In Anna was a Sumerian goddess also known as the

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Speaker 1: Accadian ishtar got us of many things. We we've mentioned

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Speaker 1: her on the podcast before, but you know, got us

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Speaker 1: of the storehouse and the products of agriculture, but also

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Speaker 1: it seems of fertility, sex, war and slaughter, and in

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Speaker 1: Anna is maybe my favorite ancient god or goddess due

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Speaker 1: to those awesome hymns in her praise written by the

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Speaker 1: priestess in Heduana. Perhaps the earliest known piece of writing

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Speaker 1: with a named author in Heduana was a twenty third

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Speaker 1: century b c. Mesopotamian high priestess and poet, the daughter

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Speaker 1: of the Accadian king Sargon the Great. And so she

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Speaker 1: wrote these hymns to Anna that are just spectacular to read. Um,

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Speaker 1: But okay, what kind of monster slang does Innanna do? Well?

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Speaker 1: The story here is more obscure, more complex, but it's

386
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Speaker 1: also interesting. It comes down to this Sumerian concept called kor.

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Speaker 1: And my source here is a couple of pieces by

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century ancient Neary scholar Samuel In Kramer. So

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Speaker 1: everything I'm saying here comes from Kramer. Kramer writes that

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Speaker 1: kur can be a really confusing word in ancient Sumerian

391
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Speaker 1: literature because of its many different meanings. First of all,

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Speaker 1: it seems to have a primary literal meaning of mountain, right,

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Speaker 1: so got coor the mountain. It's also used to mean

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Speaker 1: foreign land, presumably because the peoples of the mountains board

395
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Speaker 1: Ring Summer were a constant threat. But then Core also

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Speaker 1: appears to just mean land in general, like territory. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but also it has cosmic and religious connotations. So the

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Speaker 1: word Core is also used to signify the Great Below

399
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Speaker 1: or the nether world quote the empty space between the

400
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Speaker 1: Earth's crust and the prime evil Sea. And Kramer writes,

401
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Speaker 1: quote Moreover, it is not improbable that the monstrous creature

402
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Speaker 1: that lived at the bottom of the Great Below immediately

403
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Speaker 1: over the primeval waters is also called Core. If so,

404
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: this monster Core would correspond to a certain extent to

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Speaker 1: the Babylonian Tiamat. So this is another version of the

406
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Speaker 1: Tiamat sea monster legend. And Kramer writes about kind of

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Speaker 1: in the tradition of Marduk, that there are multiple ancient

408
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Speaker 1: stories and fragments of stories we have in which monster

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Speaker 1: slayers attack the monster Core. In one the hero is

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Speaker 1: the god Enki, in another one it's Ninerta. But in

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Speaker 1: a third it appears to be in Anna. And so

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Speaker 1: there's this passage where Anna threatens the Core who does

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Speaker 1: who does not recognize her might? And an Anna says,

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Speaker 1: the long spear I shall hurl upon it, the throwing

415
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 1: stick the weapon I shall direct against it at its

416
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: neighboring forests. I shall strike up fire at its And

417
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: then there's an illusion. I shall set up the bronze

418
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Speaker 1: axe all its waters like Jibil, the fire god, the purifier.

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Speaker 1: I shall dry up, like the mountain Rata, which no

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Speaker 1: hand can reach. I shall And then there's another illusion,

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Speaker 1: like a city cursed by a new it will not

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Speaker 1: be restored, like a city on which in lill frowns,

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Speaker 1: it shall not rise up. And then the god Anu

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Speaker 1: warns her how terrible the core monster is quote against

425
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,400
Speaker 1: the standing place of the gods. It has directed its

426
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: terror in the sitting place of the Anu. KNOCKI it

427
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: has led forth fearfulness. It's fearful terror. It has hurled

428
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: upon Sumer, it's fearful glory. It has directed against all

429
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: the lands. But of course, mighty and Anna is not discouraged.

430
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: And she quote opens the house of battle against the

431
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: cour and slays the monster, and stands upon it and

432
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: speaks to him to her own magnificence, These ancient goddesses

433
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: where serious business. Yeah, that's awesome, uh, and I love

434
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: But she stands on it too. She's still doing putting

435
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,679
Speaker 1: her foot on It's got that's got to happen um.

436
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 1: And so I think the issue that Kramer highlights with

437
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: the different meanings of the word cour here is very illuminating.

438
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 1: According to Kramer, again, it literally means mountain, also means

439
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: enemy territory, also just means land or territory in general.

440
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: Also means the nether world or the underworld. Also the

441
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: name of the monster that inhabits the nether world and

442
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 1: and brings destruction against sum Air. So when you hear

443
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: the story of in Hona slaying the cour if you're

444
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,919
Speaker 1: hearing it in the original language, you would be directly

445
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: receiving all of these connotations. She conquers the mountain, she

446
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 1: conquers the enemy lands, she conquers the land itself, she

447
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: conquers the realm of the dead and maybe death. Um.

448
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: It's interesting the way that you know, we go later

449
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: into monster slang legends, looking for the allegories and saying, like,

450
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 1: you know, what, does what does this monster represent? It

451
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,479
Speaker 1: usually does seem to represent something more than just a beast,

452
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: either intentionally or accidentally. Yeah, But but here it's like

453
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 1: you've got all these connotations of the same word, meaning

454
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,160
Speaker 1: that it's almost just completely baked into the story at

455
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: the face value level. That is fascinating. It's like the

456
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: idea of the monster has yet to like congeal, you know,

457
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: it's still more free flowing well the monster. I mean,

458
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: you usually think of ancient stories as being more concrete

459
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: and modern storytelling is being more abstract, but I wonder

460
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's always the case. Yeah, this

461
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: really flies in the face of those some of the

462
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 1: ideas we've discussed where like, oh, the monster is inspired

463
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: by a fossil, you know, or or something to that effect,

464
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: Like like this is more the it's ideas, Uh that

465
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: are you know, congealing into a symbolic Yeah, I would

466
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: say this might be inspired less by a fossil and

467
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,760
Speaker 1: more by a family of concepts, all of which cause

468
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: discomfort and fear, and the fear is key. Fear will

469
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: definitely come into play later in this episode. All right, well,

470
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and when

471
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: we come back, we will explore more monsters and monster

472
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:26,919
Speaker 1: slayers than Alright, we're back. So another famous monster and

473
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: slayer combo that this is a combo that we could

474
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: easily do the whole podcast on. You could do multiple

475
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: podcast on because a lot of people have written about

476
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: this duo. Yeah, I'm talking about Beowulf and Grendel, the

477
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: Great romance of Anglo Saxon literature. Yes, I don't probably

478
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 1: don't have to remind everyone about this too much. It's

479
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: a the violent tale in which a brutish automaton of

480
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 1: a human disrupts an ancient and terminally endangered creature in

481
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: the process of its predation. Predation I should remind everyone

482
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: that targets only the loudest, fittest in warlike human males

483
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: for the most part. Uh. The brute ends up tearing

484
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: the arm off of the creature and then follows it

485
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 1: home as it retreats to its layer and then dies.

486
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, our hero follows. The blood follows the

487
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: you know, the howls of pain, dives down to the

488
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: deep layer, and there kills the creature's mother as well.

489
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: It's uh, I'm being a little cheeky in my description

490
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: because it isn't. You're just accurately describing the story. Beowolf

491
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,439
Speaker 1: is a jerk. He's well, he is, he's kind of

492
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: the mind kind of you know, partial, I guess to

493
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: John Gardner's Grenville, who plays up these themes a lot

494
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: by humanizing the monster well at the same time retaining

495
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: its monstrous qualities, but portraying Beowulf is just this this

496
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: holy wrath of a character. Yeah, I I guess it's

497
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: a it's a modern thing for us to sympathize more

498
00:27:57,240 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: with the monster. And why why is it like that now?

499
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,440
Speaker 1: Do we sympathize with the monster more these days? I'm

500
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: not sure? I mean, well, part of it is that, Yeah,

501
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: tales like this kind of speak to all of us

502
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: and continue to resonate today, but it's it's still a

503
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: tale that was speaking to a probably more specific audience

504
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: as opposed to know humanity in general. Maybe the reason

505
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: that we're more inclined to sympathize with Grendel and sympathize

506
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: with monsters these days is that we more people now

507
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 1: are sort of conditioned to the idea that history as

508
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: written might not always be fair. You know, that it

509
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: maybe is written to benefit the people who are writing

510
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: it and make them look good. Unless you always kind

511
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: of wonder when you get a heroic tale of a slaying,

512
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: is it actually a tale of an unfair and undeserved slaughter? Yeah?

513
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: Or sometimes maybe a monster just doesn't need slaying. Anymore. Um.

514
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: I was looking around, and again, there's a tremendous amount

515
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: of literature about Grendel, theo Wolf. Tons of people have

516
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: written about a are Tolkien wrote about Beowulf and Grendel.

517
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: I was looking at one particular author, though, English professor

518
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: and also medieval dragon expert, Joyce Tally uh lion urns,

519
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: I believe it is her last name, and she points

520
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: out that there's a lot to be said in interpreting

521
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: Grendel and his mother. Uh. And some of the earlier

522
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: interpretations were certainly more seeing them as personifications of natural threats,

523
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: very much in keeping with what we discussed in the

524
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: mar Duke's story. Already there what's outside the firelight? They

525
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: are the wilderness and body, yeah, they're the wilderness. They're

526
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: the dark. They are perhaps more specifically the north Sea,

527
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: of the Bog, the marsh, long winter nights. I mean,

528
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: ultimately a cousin of Jenny green Teeth in many respects. Right. Uh.

529
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: And then the monster dies and Spring emerges again. While

530
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: Beowulf's eventual death battling a dragon is the tale of

531
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: Autumn's descent, A lot of people don't, Uh, I mean,

532
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: I guess this is referenced in the most recent film adaptation.

533
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: But a lot of people forget about the dragon. Yeah,

534
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: this is this second half of the story. But Beowolf

535
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: grows old, and in the second half of the story,

536
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: he a young young Wiggloff has to take up the

537
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: mantle of the monster slayer because Beowulf can't hack it anymore. Literally,

538
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: can't hack into those monster hides like he used to,

539
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: can't tear those arms off like you used to. Um,

540
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. I can't help but be reminded and

541
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: thinking about like these older monster stories, monster and slayer tales,

542
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: and then trying to think about their their analogs and

543
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: uh in modern uh popular culture. I can't help but

544
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: think of a little story in which a band of

545
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: professional warmakers and Central America are targeted by an alien

546
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: hunter that that only praise on the fittest and warlike

547
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: of its target species. But only through through trickery does

548
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: the human a man named Dutch prevail. Oh he's Dutch.

549
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what his name is Dutch? I don't know.

550
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: Is he supposed to be Dutch? I thought? Maybe? Who

551
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, But that's sort of solidifies the

552
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:06,719
Speaker 1: Baowolf connection. Oh, well interesting, But anyway, Dutch ends up

553
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: probably dying from radiation exposure, I think since the monster

554
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: self deatoname. But I'm of course talking about the film Predator. Man,

555
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: you have taken me to a sacred and surprising place today.

556
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: I never expected to connect Predator and Beowulf, but but

557
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: I see it. I mean there, I think there are

558
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: certain connections you can make. But at the same time,

559
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: the contrast is very interesting because Grindel is fearsome but

560
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: is ultimately easily overcome by the hero. Right. Predator is

561
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: fearsome and basically wins. I mean, he slays everybody except Dutch,

562
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: and Dutch is really only able to barely achieve victory

563
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: in the end. He tricks him trickery. Trickery, yeah, which

564
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: is which is also something you see a lot of times,

565
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, and we're talking about like the masculinity

566
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: of the hero. It's very hard to find examples, especially

567
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: in the older stories, where the hero is something other

568
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: than than first of all male, but also the warrior,

569
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: the soldier, you know, and perhaps the soldier ends up

570
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: using trickery or enchanted items, and both of those may

571
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: be actually given to him by the gods. Or in

572
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: some cases a gods. But in any effect, I feel

573
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: like they tend to have tended to have an easier

574
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: time of it, whereas nowadays, really I'm gonna I'm personally

575
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: going to be disappointed if the hero uh really takes

576
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: out the monster too soon. I mean, you want to

577
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: see the struggle, right, Well, right, I mean maybe now

578
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: people are more likely to want to see different values like, uh,

579
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: maybe now you put more emphasis on, say, the courage

580
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: and cleverness of a hero than on just like they're

581
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: absolutely unbeatable strength, or certainly maybe just the the things

582
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: that the monsters represent for us now are less severe,

583
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: Like maybe it's like if grin Tho is representing just

584
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: the harsh realities beyond the campfire. Maybe you want to

585
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: hear you need a hero that just tears into it

586
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: like a nightmare. You know, you don't want to you

587
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: don't want a weak hero that's gonna, you know, take

588
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,479
Speaker 1: a beating for forty five minutes before building a proper

589
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: bow and arrow out of twigs. Well, I say, I

590
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: certainly appreciate vulnerable heroes. I mean I find stories where

591
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: the hero is too powerful and too good and too

592
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: strong very boring and then you run the risk of

593
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: the monster being more relatable. Yeah, well you y'all out

594
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: there no our monster sympathies, so we can't pretend to

595
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: hide that. So of course in talking about slayers, we

596
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: can't help but talk about dragon slayers. And there's one

597
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: particular dragon slayer that it's probably, if not the definitely

598
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: one of the most famous dragon slayers in Western traditions,

599
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: of course, and this is St. George. Yes, the subject

600
00:33:54,640 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: of many a painting and engraving often link to make

601
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: the dragon fearsome. Yeah, the dragon that kill the slaying

602
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: of the dragon I I find, and some of these

603
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: paintings it often feels more like the execution of a

604
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: pet salamander or something, you know, like there's a dog

605
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: like quality to this small creature that is crushed under

606
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: the heel of a of a giant horse and a

607
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: top and there's a mounted night atop just you know,

608
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: skewering it with a sword or a spear. Yeah, there's

609
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: one image I attached here or St. George's attacking. It

610
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,720
Speaker 1: is snarling, but it does look like a dog with wings.

611
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar, maybe I should go ahead and

612
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: tell the story of St. George. You ready for that, Robert, Okay,

613
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: so this comes. So, now here's one thing actually about

614
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: the legend of St. George as a Christian saint long

615
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: predates any written version of this story of the dragon

616
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: slaying we have, uh the as far as I know,

617
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: the earliest written version of the dragon Slaying comes from

618
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: the Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, compiled by

619
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: Jacobus Devoregene, Archbishop of Genoa, in twelve seventy five, and

620
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 1: the first edition in English was published in fourteen seventy,

621
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: translated by William Caxton. But here's the story. Okay, So

622
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: you got St. George, and St. George's a wandering knight.

623
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,919
Speaker 1: He's a he's a soldier, and he's a knight. He's

624
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: born in a Cappadocia, which is a region of Turkey,

625
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: which Robert, have you ever seen the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia,

626
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: I believe so. Yes, they're beautiful looking. I mean it

627
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: looks you just look up the landscape of this place

628
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: and you can imagine it's the kind of place a

629
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: magical hero would come from. So he comes from Cappadocia

630
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: and as a traveling night. One day he wandered into

631
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: the vicinity of a city called Silene, which was in

632
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: the province of Libya. Now by the city of Silene

633
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: was a great pond where there was a dragon that

634
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: quote in venomed all the country, and it would attack

635
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 1: the city mercilessly, breathing venom that sickened and killed the people.

636
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 1: And the citizens of Silene had tried to slay the dragon.

637
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: So terrible was the beast and so poisonous was its

638
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: breath that the fighters all ran away before they could

639
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: fight it, And so all that was left to do

640
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: was to try to bribe the dragon to leave them alone.

641
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: At first, they would feed it too sheep every day,

642
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: but eventually this failed, so they started to feed the

643
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: dragon a man into sheep each day, and eventually they

644
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: decided that they had to offer their children, one at

645
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: a time to keep the dragon at bay. So the

646
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: king made an ordinance that each day there would be

647
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: a lottery of the children in the town, and whichever

648
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: child the lot fell to, whether rich or poor, would

649
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 1: be offered up to the dragon. But then one day

650
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: the lot fell to the princess, to the king's own daughter,

651
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,399
Speaker 1: and he begged the people saying, quote, for the love

652
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: of the gods, take gold and silver and all that

653
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: I have, but let me have my daughter. And the

654
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,760
Speaker 1: people answered, how sir, ye have made and ordained the law,

655
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: and our children be now dead, and ye would do

656
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: the contrary. Your daughter shall be given in or else

657
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 1: we shall burn you and your house, I said, was

658
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: a reasonable response to this policy? Yeah, yeah, I mean

659
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: he can. He can set the policy, but then doesn't

660
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: want it to apply to him. Uh so yeah. So

661
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: then the king was very sad. He wept and begged

662
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: for eight days respite. The people granted that to him,

663
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: but in those eight days the dragon in venom to

664
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: the city terribly. So when the time was up, the

665
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: king dressed his daughter up as a bride, and he

666
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 1: kissed her, and he gave her a benediction, and then

667
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: led her out to the dragon's lair at the pond.

668
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: So the princess is alone at the pond, dressed in

669
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: a bridal gown, waiting to be eaten by the dragon.

670
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: But then St. George happens to pass by, and he

671
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: asked her what she's doing out there by herself in

672
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: the wilderness, and she says, go ye your way, fair

673
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: young man that ye perish not also, and he replies

674
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: by asking why she's crying, and eventually she tells him

675
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: the truth that she had been delivered as a tribute

676
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: to the dragon. Uh. And then, to quote from the

677
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 1: this version of the Golden Lives, UH, then said St. George,

678
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: fair daughter, doubt ye no thing hereof for I shall

679
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: help thee in the name of ya Zu Christ. She said,

680
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 1: for God's sake, good night, go your way, and abide

681
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: not with me, for ye may not deliver me. So

682
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: she's doubting his power, but he's got to display it

683
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: because he's already sworn in the name of yat Zu

684
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: crease so that he can do it. So as they're speaking,

685
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: the dragon suddenly appears and it begins to charge at them.

686
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: And then so St. George draws his sword and he

687
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: makes the sign of the cross, and then he quote

688
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: rode heartily against the dragon, which came toward him and

689
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and

690
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 1: threw him to the ground. So the dragon is mortally injured.

691
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: And then George asks the princess to remove her girdle

692
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 1: and tie it around the neck of the dragon. Quote

693
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: when she had done so, the dragon followed her as

694
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: it had been a meek beast and debonair. Then she

695
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: led him into the city, and the people fled by

696
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 1: mountains and valleys and alas, alas, we shall all be dead.

697
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 1: Then St. George said to them, nay, doubt no thing

698
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: without more, believe ye in God, YESU Christ, and do

699
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: ye to be baptized, and I shall slay the dragon.

700
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: So the king then and all his people got baptized

701
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: as Christians, and quote St. George slew the dragon and

702
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 1: smote off his head and commanded that he should be

703
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: thrown in the fields. And they took four cards with

704
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: oxen that drew him out of the city. And as

705
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: a result of this, there's a whole bunch of people

706
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 1: get baptized become Christians, and then there's a bunch of

707
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: like healings of the sick and stuff. And then of

708
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: course the legend goes on and tells about the martyrdom

709
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: of St. George after that. But that's the story of St. George,

710
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: the Princess and the Dragon. It's pretty good. I enjoyed

711
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: the build up more than the payoff. I think, you know.

712
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: The lottery system was pretty engaging. Well, there's no I

713
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 1: mean St. George doesn't have a trick up his sleeve

714
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: except prayer. That seems to be the thing. He's just like, well,

715
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: he praised and Yazu Creast comes through and it slays

716
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: the dragon. He doesn't have a trick, you know, or

717
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: maybe prayer is like a trick here. I'm not sure. Yeah,

718
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: I guess prayer is the trick. I mean again, in

719
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories, you look at some of

720
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: the Greek myths, to defeat the monster, one must use

721
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: wisdom or weapons that are a gift of the gods. Yeah,

722
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: so what is the difference I guess ultimately between that

723
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 1: in prayer? Right, Well, I guess it would just make

724
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: a better story. Like if Yezu Creast came down and

725
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: gave him a magical weapon or something. Yeah, give him

726
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: you know, the armor of Christ or something, or you know,

727
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: some sort of fancy sword, and then we can get

728
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,399
Speaker 1: the idea. It's like, oh, yeah, if you're on God's side,

729
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: you can slay dragons. I get the same message, but

730
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: it's a little more entertaining at least, you know, from me. Right,

731
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: But of course, as we mentioned earlier, this is sort

732
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: of part of a genre of stories that proliferate around

733
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,320
Speaker 1: the world. They are all these dragon slaying stories, especially

734
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: there of course, medieval dragon slaying stories. Yeah, and I

735
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: mentioned Joyce tally land Rand's earlier. I mentioned that she

736
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: was an expert on medieval dragon slangs and medieval dragons.

737
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: I was reading on uh something she wrote titled the

738
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: Sign of a Hero theodo Ic Saga of burn uh

739
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: and Uh. In this she points out, and I'm a

740
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: number of interesting things about some of the tales we've discussed,

741
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: though more specifically Theodoric, Theodoric, the Great Beowulf and Siegfried.

742
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 1: So she points out that in German literature, especially, dragon

743
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: slain becomes something of a defining characteristic of any hero.

744
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: But so like you're like, I'm a hero. It's like,

745
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 1: I don't know to just lay a dragon? Well exactly,

746
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: I mean that's the that's the problem, because then how

747
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: do you draw the line between standard heroes and truly

748
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: mighty heroes if they're all monster slangs, And in doing so,

749
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: also that the act of slaying a dragon ends up

750
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: serving perhaps less of a symbolic u uh purpose, right,

751
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not defeating chaos or the devil or

752
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 1: the the you know, the powers of the dark um or.

753
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: It's not serving as a you know, mark of passage

754
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: into adulthood. It's just like a necessary um upgrade in

755
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: the arms race of storytelling. So, uh, in the particular

756
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 1: old Norse saga that she's dealing with here in this paper,

757
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: she points out, uh, that tackles the problems of including

758
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: both Theodoric the Great and Sigfried in the same story.

759
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 1: So what the what the story does is it makes

760
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: Sigfried into Theodoric's vassal and makes them kind of the sidekick, right,

761
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 1: kind of wiglof kind of kind yeah, but also gives

762
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: Theodoric two dragons and three baby dragons to kill. So

763
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: in doing this, you know, killing a dragon becomes less

764
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: an impressive acting and of itself. A real hero has

765
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 1: to kill like upwards of five dragons. This is how

766
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: we get Blade, where you've got monster monster slayers that

767
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: are like the vampire slayers, they gotta kill tons of vampires. Well, yeah,

768
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: I think also you're touching on something. You get like

769
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: maybe you get specific types of monster slayers and specific

770
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: types of monsters like oh, that's a good point. Yeah,

771
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: Like you know, I guess in the Marvel universe, I

772
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: imagine Captain America could kill a vampire, but if you're

773
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: dealing with multiple vampires, it's got to be blayed every time. Right, Yeah, Yeah,

774
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: he's he's specialized labor. You know, he's got all the

775
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: tricks and the tools and the knowledge. So in this paper,

776
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: she also points out there's a distinction in the types

777
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: of dragons dealt with, some natural and other supernatural. Some

778
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 1: flightless worms and other winged some and others are winged beasts. Uh.

779
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: Demonica connotations, for example, are reserved in this tale for

780
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: the oto Ys dragon foes. Well, yeah, I mean that's

781
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: when in the original version of the King George story

782
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: that I was reading up there, did we receive any

783
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: indication that the dragon could even fly? I mean, it

784
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: might have just been like a big poison crocodile, for right.

785
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: I mean that makes would would certainly match up with

786
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 1: these depictions in which it is very much on the

787
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:01,839
Speaker 1: ground beneath the horse. Yeah. By the way, in particular story, um, uh,

788
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: these two heroes eventually dual, and of course, uh, Theodoric

789
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,800
Speaker 1: the Great wins, Theodoric kills Siegfried. Well, no, no, just

790
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: defeats him. I would say to death they're not. But

791
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: it's interesting that they're kind of dealing with some of

792
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: the probably some of the problems that that the comic

793
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:20,240
Speaker 1: books have dealt with in modern times, like what happens

794
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 1: when you when you have two heroes in the same story.

795
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: How do you how do you balance their powers or

796
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: how do you show clear? Um, how do you have

797
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: positioned one above the other in a way that doesn't

798
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 1: diminish the other one too much? Well, you gotta have

799
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: what Captain America and Iron Man fight. Yeah, it's kind

800
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: of the same deal, right, Yeah? Or is it Thor

801
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: and Iron Man. I don't keep up with those, Um,

802
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: I think may and I don't mean. I guess they've

803
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: all fought each other. You can't help but have heroes

804
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 1: fight each other. But I I believe Captain America and

805
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,720
Speaker 1: Iron Man they're the ones who who end up fighting

806
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:55,719
Speaker 1: each other in the movie. You know another thing I

807
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: was thinking about when you mentioned how Lion Arn's highlighted

808
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: that eventually they have to start killing more and more

809
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: monsters to show how great they are, because it's just

810
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: killing one monster, and yeah, it's not that impressive anymore.

811
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: I obviously have to go to Hercules. Hercules had a

812
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: bunch of what what percent of his twelve labors were

813
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,919
Speaker 1: monster slayings, A lot of them. Right, Well, we're about

814
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: to go through them, so let's find out. Okay, everyone

815
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: can keep track at home and uh and and do

816
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: do the math, please show your work. Hercules or Heracles

817
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: is of course one of the greatest monsters slayers in

818
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman traditions. Now, granted he didn't take out Medusa.

819
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: That was Perseus, who of course used a goddess given

820
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: tactics and weapons to overcome the Gorgon. But he eat

821
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: did a hell of a lot during the labors of Hercules.

822
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: And there's I should point out. There's a wonderful video

823
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 1: game themed short about this from ted Ed. If you

824
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 1: go to you know, YouTube or the ted ed website

825
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: you will find it. It's absolutely delightful. Yeah, it's like,

826
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: so you say, video game themed, it's like pixel art.

827
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: It looks like a classic Nintendo game. Yeah, they are

828
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: some sort of sixteen bit thing. I'm not sure. I'm

829
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: not sure exactly which bit it would be, but it

830
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 1: looks like a fabulous game. It makes me want to

831
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: play it. So basically here's the rundown. You have Hercules

832
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: this uh, this, you know, a semi divine hero. You know.

833
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: I like to picture the classic uh cinema Hercules with

834
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: the big beard and the big muscles. You know, he's

835
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: very much in the you know, the class of of

836
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 1: masculine warrior heroes. And so he ends up going on

837
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: these labors. And these labors are an act of atonement

838
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: after the goddess Hera drives him mad, resulting in the

839
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 1: murder of his own children, and these labors were assigned

840
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 1: to him by his nimus nemesis Eurystheus. So these are

841
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:48,399
Speaker 1: the labors. First labor, uh, he has to take out

842
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: the Nimean Lion, which is a monstrous lion. Yeah. Second

843
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: labor is the Learnaean hydra, and this is a classic

844
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: monster that is sometimes described as a mere multi headed

845
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: snake monster, but later it takes on regenerative features as well.

846
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, you cut off one head to grow back

847
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: in its place. Big Hurk had to get hell from

848
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: his nephew on this one belief, So yes, uh, And

849
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: the solution here is is a fabulous work of team

850
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: a bit of teamwork. Hirk slices off the head and

851
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: then the nephew jumps in and burns the stump. Third

852
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 1: labor Serenian hind. Not a monster really, but a very

853
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: special deer. Fourth labor is the Aramathean boar, which is

854
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 1: a monstrous boar, just another giant sized animal for him

855
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:38,319
Speaker 1: to deal with. Fifth labor he cleans out the Agean stables,

856
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,800
Speaker 1: so just lots of animal poop. Uh. Not a monster,

857
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: but a monstrous task exactly. Uh. Sixth labor were the

858
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: Stemfalian birds. Uh, these were pretty monsters. These were the

859
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: sacred metal war birds of aries bronze of beak and feather,

860
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: and they could launch their their metal feathers like flying daggers.

861
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: Seventh labor was the Cretan bull. Which is there any

862
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: connection with the minotaur there? I? I mean, I would

863
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,839
Speaker 1: assume we're talking about crete, right, yeah, and it's a bull. Yeah,

864
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: but it's just a monstrous bull. It's not a minotaur. Um.

865
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,919
Speaker 1: Then the eighth labor was were the mayors of Diometes.

866
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:21,760
Speaker 1: And these were flesh eating horses. So they're pretty monsters

867
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: down granted they were they were trained to eat flesh,

868
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,359
Speaker 1: they were encouraged to eat flesh. And uh, and he's

869
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 1: able to overcome this one and essentially gets their their

870
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: masters are eating instead. Ninth labor the belt of Hippolyta,

871
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 1: monster the Amazon queen right. Tenth labor the cattle of Garyon,

872
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: and Garon was a giant with three faces. Eleventh labor

873
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: the golden apples of Hesperides, and then twelfth labor uh Serebus,

874
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: the three headed hellhound. So here we have a good

875
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: monster for him to to tackle and literally tackle and

876
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: wrestle and overcome. So these are all these are all

877
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:02,919
Speaker 1: fun little adventures and uh, we would need a lot

878
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: more time to really talk about all of them in

879
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:07,839
Speaker 1: depth and what they mean, etcetera. Um, you know, and heck,

880
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: we have a full episode on Hydras in the vault.

881
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: But one of the things that strikes me here is

882
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: that that her Again, it's very much a male warrior hero,

883
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: and he uses strength and cunning to overcome his enemies.

884
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,320
Speaker 1: But at the same time herc is a divine being.

885
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,439
Speaker 1: He's a demigod, a hybrid born of the god Zeus

886
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: and immortal Mother. So he's touched by the otherworldly and

887
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 1: therefore the perfect slayer of other worldly enemies. I mean

888
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:34,800
Speaker 1: this highlights a couple of different ways that monster slayers

889
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,879
Speaker 1: can be. One is the courageous type, and the other

890
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 1: is the fearless type, which is a very different thing. Right. Uh,

891
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: I mean, does is there ever any indication that Herchiles

892
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: feels fear when he goes to fight these monsters? Or

893
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: does his godlike nature, the fact that he's half god

894
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: sort of make him able to face these with a

895
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: sense of invulnerability? Yeah? I feel like it's it's a

896
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: fearless uh situation, fearless and largely invulnerable because he is

897
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: half god. Um. You know, I can't help me reminded

898
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:13,800
Speaker 1: again of Blade? Uh, the specifically the Wesley Snipes blade. Uh?

899
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: Is there another Blade? And there was like a TV

900
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: Blade played by what sticky Fingers I think or fingers? Uh?

901
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: The rapper played him? Uh? And I don't know, I

902
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 1: never saw the show, but uh, as far as I'm concerned,

903
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: Wesley Snipes is the only Blade. Um, but in that

904
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: he is half vampire, so he has I think it's

905
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: said that he has um all of their strengths but

906
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: none of their weaknesses. Right, so he's the day Walker? Yeah, well,

907
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: who who else but the DayWalker? The DayWalker is the

908
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:46,439
Speaker 1: perfect slayer of all of these vampires. Now, Robert, I'm

909
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: sure you would love to talk about some of the

910
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 1: monster slayers of Chinese myth and legend. Oh yeah, there

911
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:54,720
Speaker 1: there are some good ones. One of them is actually

912
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: a character we've talked about on the show before, uh

913
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: in our episode on the Great Flood, because we've talked

914
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: about the Chinese mythic hero Uh You the Great or

915
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: die You. Um. He's also you know, emperor and founded

916
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:16,959
Speaker 1: uh the Shiah dynasty, which was cea. We talked about

917
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: him on the show before about in regards to his

918
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: his his role in overcoming the ravages of the Great Flood,

919
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,839
Speaker 1: not by building a boat or anything like we see

920
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: in Mesopotamian and Old Testament traditions, but by sort of

921
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: tackling it with irrigation and engineering, uh, but also through

922
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: like having his father having pilfered the secrets from the gods.

923
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: So there's this Promethean vibe to it as well. But

924
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: he was also something of a monster slayer. Uh. He

925
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: said to have killed the nine headed serpent sheng Lu,

926
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: who is a minister of the defeated chaotic water deity

927
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: Gong Gong uh and who was defeated in a battle

928
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: for divine in supremacy against the against Jean Zoo, the

929
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: grandson of the mythical Yellow Emperor. As described by the

930
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: authors Young and On in Handbook of Chinese Mythology, jiang Lu,

931
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,320
Speaker 1: the Great backs Black serpent here had nine human heads,

932
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 1: and the nine heads eight food from the nine mountains,

933
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:24,719
Speaker 1: and everywhere it went it left impassable marshes in hostile

934
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:28,799
Speaker 1: gullies in its path. Now do you think that the

935
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 1: the idea of like the nine heads but they're they're

936
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:34,399
Speaker 1: sort of snaking necks, has anything to do with rivers there,

937
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 1: with river imagery, I assume, yeah, I didn't. I didn't.

938
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 1: They didn't go into into an even more extended detail

939
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: on the possible symbolism of the of the of the

940
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: nine heads, et cetera. But it does bring to mind

941
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 1: this idea of like branching rivers, doesn't it. Now? Obviously,

942
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: I think everyone can see where we're going here, Like you,

943
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: the Great overcomes floods and the dangers of flood and

944
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 1: here we have the monster personification of floods and flood hazards.

945
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 1: So you end up slaying the monster, but the creature's

946
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 1: blood is so poisonous, that it poisons the spot where

947
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 1: it dies so that life can find no purchase there.

948
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,280
Speaker 1: And you wants to overcome this so so the crops

949
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,360
Speaker 1: can be grown there and and dug and so he

950
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: digs out the poisoned earth not once, not twice, but

951
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:23,800
Speaker 1: three times. In each time the blood sinks down even deeper.

952
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: And eventually he just has to build a terrace from

953
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,759
Speaker 1: the excavated soil. Uh and uh and atop this uh

954
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 1: you know it is, it's like a temple that's uh

955
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: devoted to the great gods. Now. Yang and On mentioned

956
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: that this story is not really told that much in

957
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: modern China, but it's Some versions of it still survive,

958
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:46,439
Speaker 1: such as one from Sichuan Province in which jan Zou

959
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: survives battle with the fire god wrong and continues to

960
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: bring flooding and death to the earth, forcing the mother

961
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 1: goddess Nuah to slay it. So here we get to

962
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,879
Speaker 1: a godess getting involved in the slaying again. Um Now

963
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 1: also more famously defeated the Black Dragon, also a being

964
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: of chaotic water and flood energy. I'd also be remiss

965
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: if I didn't mention Um the archer who ye who

966
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 1: killed a number of different monsters, and of course shot

967
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 1: down the nine surplus sons that were roasting the earth,

968
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:24,879
Speaker 1: and in some tellings he actually shot and killed nine

969
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: great crows that carried these sons. Now, it's also interesting

970
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: is that during this age of ten Sons, not only

971
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: is it just really hot and difficult to grow crops,

972
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: it's also said to be a time of cosmic imbalance.

973
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: And during this time a lot of unnatural monsters rise up,

974
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: and so the emperor ends up tasking uh ye the

975
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: archer with their destruction. Uh And so just just a

976
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 1: few of the monsters that he ends up killing include

977
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: uh uh, there's a monster with the dragon's head and

978
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:57,839
Speaker 1: the leopard's body, a monster with teeth as sharp as

979
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 1: chisels that are unbreakable. There is a nine headed monster.

980
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: There's a giant bird, a giant bore, a giant snake.

981
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: Uh So again, all manner of unnatural creatures who rose

982
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: up during a time of cosmic imbalance. He also punishes

983
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 1: a couple of damaging elemental gods with a well placed

984
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 1: to arrow or two. For instance, he shot the damaging

985
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:22,239
Speaker 1: win god he bow in the eye, and he took

986
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 1: out both knees of the damaging river god Fingbo and

987
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: in other versions he kills Fingbo outright. So once again

988
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: we have like river water elemental monsters that have to

989
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 1: be dealt with by a hero. Yeah, and the idea

990
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: of them coming out of a time of cosmic imbalance,

991
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 1: um seems to somehow echoed, you know, the very ancient

992
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: monster concepts of like the chaos monster, like like Tiamata Namsu.

993
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: All right, well, on that note, let's take one more break,

994
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: and when we come back, let's talk about what the

995
00:55:54,680 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: slayer means to us. Thank thank alright, we're back. Okay.

996
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,879
Speaker 1: So we've been looking at a lot of great examples

997
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:08,359
Speaker 1: of monsters and their slayers, the monster slayers stories from

998
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: throughout human history, and now we wanted to take a

999
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 1: look at what the what what the monster slayer means?

1000
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: Why do we keep telling stories like this? Why is

1001
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,399
Speaker 1: this so common? And what purpose psychologically and culturally does

1002
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 1: it serve when we do? Uh So, one of the

1003
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:25,880
Speaker 1: things I want to say at the outside, just as

1004
00:56:25,920 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: a kind of disclaimer, is that, um, I feel like

1005
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 1: when we try to explain what stories and myths mean

1006
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:36,879
Speaker 1: from a kind of evolutionary psychology perspective, we always need

1007
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 1: to remember to understand the difference between like proving a

1008
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 1: theory with direct evidence and so sort of simply telling

1009
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: a plausible story and arguing it to be consistent with

1010
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: what we know now. I'm actually all for having arguments

1011
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 1: over plausible stories and evo psyche and all that, but

1012
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: it's imperative for us to remember that that's what they are.

1013
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people get carried away with this project

1014
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 1: and they jump from I've told a plausible story about

1015
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 1: why we have this cultural thing or the psychological thing too.

1016
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: I have discovered the biological origin of this element of

1017
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 1: human psychology or culture, and we I think we just

1018
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: always need to be careful not to do that. Sometimes

1019
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:20,360
Speaker 1: you see people taking like almost Joseph Campbelly kind of

1020
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: observations to the point of saying like this is just science,

1021
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,800
Speaker 1: and that's you know, you know what I mean that said,

1022
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: all these kind of like Joseph Campbelly sort of observations

1023
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 1: can be a lot of fun, right and and he

1024
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 1: of course had lots to say and think about the

1025
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 1: role of monster slayers. Yeah, I mean, likewise, um, Julian

1026
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: James the bi cameral mind, which I'll actually touched on

1027
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: in a bit like if you if you go entirely

1028
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 1: down the Jane's well of interpreting everything, then yeah, it

1029
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: can be a lot of fun, but then you have

1030
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: cut off all other perspectives on what the thing is. Well,

1031
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: I mean, so one thing that somebody I think, like

1032
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell would say is that the role of the

1033
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 1: monster slayer in fiction is about like facing the ego.

1034
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 1: It's like this ego struggle and that you've got to

1035
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 1: face yourself and overcome your fears and and change something

1036
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: about yourself. You know, that that kind of thing. And

1037
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: so I I do agree at least that it's totally

1038
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 1: plausible that monster slayer stories are very prominent and very

1039
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: common because stories about facing dangers and facing fears are

1040
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: psychologically very salient to us. You know, we're constantly in

1041
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:37,280
Speaker 1: our lives faced with situations where we don't want to

1042
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:40,919
Speaker 1: do something, but in order to get what we want,

1043
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 1: we have to do that thing we don't want to do.

1044
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:45,160
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to face your fears and overcome

1045
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:48,800
Speaker 1: your discomfort to I don't know, save the princess, or

1046
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 1: to do whatever. And I think that's a totally plausible

1047
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 1: basis for for starting a conversation about what monster slayer

1048
00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 1: miths mean. So another way to get deeper on this subject,

1049
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: I guess would be to look a little bit more

1050
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: more at what the monsters in these stories mean. And

1051
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: I want to posit a place for us to start there.

1052
00:59:05,560 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 1: I would posit that the monsters in these stories, most often,

1053
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: I would say, UH, seem to come from a combination

1054
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:22,080
Speaker 1: of two main psychological UH components, biological threats and category confusions.

1055
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,600
Speaker 1: And we've we've talked about category confusion quite a bit

1056
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: on the show. The idea that it's so go back

1057
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: to Hercules, right, Yeah, it's like a snake but it

1058
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 1: has way too many heads, or it's like a boar

1059
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: but it's gigantic. What's going on? Right? And there are

1060
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: reasons I think that would be significant. I'll get to

1061
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:41,120
Speaker 1: that in just a minute now. Obviously, the fear of

1062
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 1: biological threats is pretty straightforward. There's a natural fear of

1063
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:48,640
Speaker 1: predatory or venomous animals and of human rivals. And this

1064
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:51,560
Speaker 1: doesn't need much explaining. In the basic sense, predators are

1065
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: dangerous and thus a deeply ingrained archetype from the natural world.

1066
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:58,800
Speaker 1: But there there are also some relevant questions like why

1067
00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: are certain form such as snakes, which you've seen all

1068
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 1: throughout these monsters and spiders. Also, why are those things

1069
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: readily seen as monstrous or incorporated in parts into chimerical monsters.

1070
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 1: Why so easily a spider monster or a serpentine monster,

1071
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: Why not more often like a bear monster. You might

1072
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 1: have one of those every now and then. That's true because,

1073
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: of course, the argument with the snake or the or

1074
01:00:22,920 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: the spider is that if it bites you, you could die.

1075
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:29,320
Speaker 1: Depending on the variety of snake or spider. If the

1076
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: bear bites you, there's also a very good chance you'll die, right, Yeah,

1077
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is actually long been a question. There's

1078
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: been this big question about whether these common fears, especially

1079
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 1: if things like spiders and snakes, are are learned or

1080
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,080
Speaker 1: in aid. And Robert, I know you've looked at research

1081
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 1: like this too. Obviously, some part of any widespread fear

1082
01:00:48,800 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: will be based on cultural conditioning, So I think it's

1083
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: pretty inarguable that some part of this fear is learned, right,

1084
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 1: But could there also be a biological factor. Could there

1085
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,480
Speaker 1: also be some in built part of the brain that

1086
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:06,920
Speaker 1: is prone to recognize the shapes of spiders and snakes

1087
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: and react fearfully without any prior knowledge or conditioning. And

1088
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: I'd say that the question still isn't totally settled, but

1089
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 1: there's been some interesting research suggesting, especially recently, the yes

1090
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 1: recognition could be an eight. One example is uh study

1091
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:27,960
Speaker 1: from in Frontiers and Psychology called Etsy Bitsy Spider infants

1092
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:31,920
Speaker 1: react with increased arousal spider and snakes, spiders and snakes.

1093
01:01:32,080 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: So of course, what they didn't study here was they

1094
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:37,800
Speaker 1: threw babies into cribs full of spiders and snakes. They

1095
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 1: did not. The study showed six month old infants images

1096
01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:46,720
Speaker 1: with similar shapes and colors, so visually these images were

1097
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 1: very close to each other, but with different ontological content.

1098
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: Some of them were pictures of spiders versus flowers that

1099
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: looked very similar, and others were pictures of snakes versus

1100
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,680
Speaker 1: fish that looked very similar. And the researchers measured the

1101
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:07,000
Speaker 1: baby's differential pupillary response to these images, the dilation of

1102
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:09,800
Speaker 1: the pupils, and that's accepted as a pretty good indicator

1103
01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:13,240
Speaker 1: of activation of the nero draenergenic system, which is a

1104
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:16,840
Speaker 1: physiological fear response. You know, it commands your attention and

1105
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 1: your body responds physiologically uh and the author's right quote,

1106
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 1: infants reacted with increased pupillary dilation, indicating arousal to spiders

1107
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:29,280
Speaker 1: and snakes compared with flowers and fish. Results support the

1108
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 1: notion of an evolved preparedness for developing fear of these

1109
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 1: ancestral threats. So if even six month old babies show

1110
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: a stress response to images of spiders and snakes, it

1111
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: would seem that those forms could in some way be

1112
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 1: hardwired into us. There's at least part of us that

1113
01:02:46,240 --> 01:02:49,720
Speaker 1: is naturally biologically afraid of those things, and it's not

1114
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:54,479
Speaker 1: just cultural conditioning. Uh. And another question there is why

1115
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 1: spiders and snakes, Right, we brought this up a minute ago.

1116
01:02:57,320 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: There are much more dangerous animals. Uh. One possible answer

1117
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:04,880
Speaker 1: offered in a CBC interview by study author Stephanie hull

1118
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 1: is quote, what's really interesting about spiders and snakes is

1119
01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 1: that they have been posing a threat to our ancestors

1120
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 1: for an immensely long time. Spiders and snakes developed venomous

1121
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 1: bites forty to sixty million years ago. This is a

1122
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 1: really long long time of coevolution, and we think that

1123
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,560
Speaker 1: this enables primates not only humans but other primates as well,

1124
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 1: to develop mechanisms that enable us to detect these animals

1125
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:34,760
Speaker 1: very quickly, to respond to them, to put our bodies

1126
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 1: into fight or flight mode. This may really have posed

1127
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: an advantage. Nowadays, it doesn't make so much sense. So

1128
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:44,600
Speaker 1: the idea there is that, well, maybe it's not that

1129
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:47,840
Speaker 1: we naturally respond to spiders and snakes because they're the

1130
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: most dangerous animals, but because they're the dangerous forms we've

1131
01:03:52,560 --> 01:03:55,840
Speaker 1: been around the longest and have stayed looking the same

1132
01:03:56,040 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 1: the longest. Does that make sense. Yeah, the basic formula,

1133
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: the bay sick basic proposition of a snake or spider

1134
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:07,959
Speaker 1: has not changed in human history or even in primate history. Yes,

1135
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: But I might just note. On the other hand, there's

1136
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 1: also some evidence pointing against the hard coded phylogenetic threat hypothesis.

1137
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:16,520
Speaker 1: For example, I found a study from two thousand nine

1138
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: in which adults recognized images of guns just as efficiently

1139
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 1: as they recognized images of snakes. Now, of course, guns

1140
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 1: aren't part of our biological neurohistory, so they couldn't. There

1141
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 1: couldn't be like a hardwired gun response in the brain

1142
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:33,200
Speaker 1: that has to be culturally learned. But then again, maybe

1143
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:36,440
Speaker 1: maybe it's just that are cognitively based or learned fears

1144
01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:40,880
Speaker 1: become every bit as efficient in the brain as the hardwired,

1145
01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 1: evolved ones that could be. How about tulsa dooms bow

1146
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:49,600
Speaker 1: that shoots snakes from common the barbarians that see that

1147
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:53,920
Speaker 1: is the ultimate physiological threat arousal trigger. I mean, I

1148
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:56,920
Speaker 1: couldn't react with anything but worship. There. You know, in

1149
01:04:56,960 --> 01:04:59,959
Speaker 1: that movie. We have another great example of monster slow

1150
01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 1: because one of Conan's early UH trials is the sling

1151
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: of the giant snake that also Doom keeps as a

1152
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 1: pet in one of the temples. Yeah, what is he does?

1153
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 1: He strangle it? He eventually chops its head off. There's

1154
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: some wrestling there, for sure, there's some there's some wrestling,

1155
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: But of course it's a snake. I mean, dragons are

1156
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: essentially snakes. We always have these snake forms reappearing as

1157
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 1: monsters over and over. It's got a snake for a head,

1158
01:05:27,240 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 1: or the whole thing is a snake with wings or

1159
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,479
Speaker 1: you know, well, now in Western traditions, but as we've mentioned,

1160
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:36,280
Speaker 1: in Eastern traditions, there's I feel like there's enhanced UH,

1161
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 1: there's an enhanced hybrid nature to the dragons. Yeah, the

1162
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,560
Speaker 1: the Eastern Dragon becomes, I would argue, an even more

1163
01:05:42,560 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: fascinating creature with more more valences, you know, more like

1164
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:51,000
Speaker 1: it's more like the core maybe and having multiple significances

1165
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 1: at different levels. But I would also think that, you know,

1166
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: the Eastern Dragon tends to be less of a monster,

1167
01:05:57,680 --> 01:06:01,000
Speaker 1: it's more of a I mean, it's it's very very often.

1168
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:03,479
Speaker 1: You know, it is definitely an elemental force. It's tied

1169
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,760
Speaker 1: two floods and storms and waters in the ocean, but

1170
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,680
Speaker 1: it does have more of a divine presence than you

1171
01:06:09,760 --> 01:06:13,760
Speaker 1: find in uh in Western traditions. Yeah, uh so, So

1172
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:16,520
Speaker 1: anyway back to the idea of the basis of these

1173
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: monster fears. So, one, you've got these elements that are

1174
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 1: so often taken from what appeared to be at least

1175
01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:28,040
Speaker 1: maybe hard coded form threats, phylogenetic threats that are you know,

1176
01:06:28,160 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 1: part of our evolutionary history, and they at least at

1177
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,560
Speaker 1: some level maybe hard coded in the brain, if not

1178
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: hard coded in the brain, very well coded into culture.

1179
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 1: Uh And the other thing, of course, we feel we

1180
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:43,560
Speaker 1: mentioned a minute ago, is the discomfort with category confusion.

1181
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:46,919
Speaker 1: So let's say we're defending ourselves from a natural threat,

1182
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:49,760
Speaker 1: whether that's a venomous snake or a leopard or a wolf.

1183
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: One of our greatest defense mechanisms is not our muscles

1184
01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: but our brains, right awareness and recognition, the ability to

1185
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:02,160
Speaker 1: cognitively pick out signs of threats and avoid them. And then,

1186
01:07:02,200 --> 01:07:04,840
Speaker 1: of course also if we must face a threat, correct

1187
01:07:05,040 --> 01:07:08,560
Speaker 1: like cleverness and strategic thinking to overcome the threat. But

1188
01:07:08,840 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 1: most of our defensive thinking is actually one form or

1189
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 1: another of category sorting. Right, you see a shape and

1190
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:18,680
Speaker 1: you immediately start to sort what kind of thing is that?

1191
01:07:19,160 --> 01:07:21,880
Speaker 1: Is that a harmless bunny or a venomous snake? And

1192
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: so perhaps one reason we fear monsters so much is

1193
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 1: that they not only represent aspects of real biological threats

1194
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:32,840
Speaker 1: and predators, but that they defy our normal categorical sorting

1195
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 1: mechanisms by blurring the lines between categories of things. So

1196
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:39,200
Speaker 1: a spider a hundred times bigger than it should be,

1197
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:43,360
Speaker 1: a snake with wings, a lion that can talk uh,

1198
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:47,280
Speaker 1: and by the way, they defy intuitive sorting. These creatures

1199
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:51,720
Speaker 1: resist easy cognitive understanding, and thus they cause discomfort and fear.

1200
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:55,600
Speaker 1: Like a creature that has aspects of biological threats like

1201
01:07:55,640 --> 01:08:00,640
Speaker 1: predatory or venomous forms and also simultaneously uses with our

1202
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:04,760
Speaker 1: cognitive defenses by violating category coherence. That's sort of the

1203
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:08,720
Speaker 1: ultimate threat, right it. It beats your greatest defense, and

1204
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:12,040
Speaker 1: it is the most threatening kind of thing. Thus, the

1205
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:15,400
Speaker 1: monster slayer has to overcome more than the normal warrior.

1206
01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:19,200
Speaker 1: They have to face primordial fears and square off against

1207
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 1: an enemy that normally makes us feel weak and helpless

1208
01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:25,799
Speaker 1: and afraid at the deepest level. And in this respect,

1209
01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 1: you can you can sort of look at it. Any

1210
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: myth is is simply a situation where you know, you

1211
01:08:30,160 --> 01:08:33,120
Speaker 1: sit around the fire and one guy's like, yeah, I'm

1212
01:08:33,200 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 1: kind of afraid of the darkness. It seems, you know,

1213
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:38,360
Speaker 1: kind of it seems kind of intense. I mean, who

1214
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:40,920
Speaker 1: knows what's out there, and it's what all of us

1215
01:08:40,960 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 1: out there. It might try to eat me and one

1216
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:45,799
Speaker 1: day I'm gonna die anyway. And then the other soldiers

1217
01:08:45,800 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 1: sit around the fire says, well, let me tell you

1218
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: a story, because this story has a hero in it,

1219
01:08:51,560 --> 01:08:53,920
Speaker 1: and all that stuff that you're afraid of, he just

1220
01:08:53,960 --> 01:08:57,280
Speaker 1: cuts its head off, it says. It's that simple, and

1221
01:08:57,360 --> 01:08:59,600
Speaker 1: so here's a hero that you can you can you

1222
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:04,040
Speaker 1: can ruminate on. Do you think that inherently the monster

1223
01:09:04,200 --> 01:09:08,880
Speaker 1: slayer story is more often empowering to the audience, to

1224
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 1: the person listening, like you can be like that hero,

1225
01:09:12,720 --> 01:09:16,880
Speaker 1: or is it more often uh, commanding kind of submission

1226
01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:19,880
Speaker 1: and obedience, like look at what our heroes are, like

1227
01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:22,559
Speaker 1: you must bow down before them. I don't know, do

1228
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:24,000
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Well, that it could be

1229
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 1: like chill out, we have it, there's a hero out

1230
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:28,320
Speaker 1: there doing this for you, or chill out, like the

1231
01:09:28,840 --> 01:09:32,400
Speaker 1: power behind the behind the hero, the god or the

1232
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:36,120
Speaker 1: gods or the goddess that if you're behind that god,

1233
01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:37,680
Speaker 1: then hey, that God's got to hero. You don't have

1234
01:09:37,680 --> 01:09:39,559
Speaker 1: to worry about it. But then in later it's certainly

1235
01:09:39,600 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 1: more more modern understanding is like, yeah, I'm kind of

1236
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:46,320
Speaker 1: like Blade, right, I can you know, like at least

1237
01:09:46,320 --> 01:09:50,120
Speaker 1: on some level, like we're we're supposed to, uh, I mean,

1238
01:09:50,200 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: we're rooting for the hero. We're rooting for Blade or

1239
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:56,640
Speaker 1: Dutch or whoever. Uh, and and we are kind of

1240
01:09:56,680 --> 01:09:58,960
Speaker 1: living the story through them. And yeah, you kind of

1241
01:09:59,040 --> 01:10:01,800
Speaker 1: leave those those pictures, those stories feeling I can slay

1242
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:05,080
Speaker 1: the monsters in my life, the blood suckers in my life.

1243
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:07,840
Speaker 1: I think they might have a steak coming. Quick note,

1244
01:10:07,880 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 1: I'm not encouraging anyone to stake anybody. Oh no, no, no,

1245
01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 1: we're not trying to create Martin's out there or wait no,

1246
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 1: not Martin's what it's Martin's uncle or whatever. Right, are

1247
01:10:18,200 --> 01:10:21,080
Speaker 1: you talking about the Romero film? Yeah, oh yeah, it's

1248
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:23,000
Speaker 1: been a long time since I've seen that. Well, they

1249
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:25,639
Speaker 1: don't be like anybody in that movie. Just don't don't

1250
01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 1: imitate any part of it, all right. So in order

1251
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:33,240
Speaker 1: to overcome the monster, though, the hero is probably gonna

1252
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 1: need a certain amount of courage. I mean, arguably, if

1253
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,040
Speaker 1: you're getting into like, what are they do they have

1254
01:10:38,080 --> 01:10:40,479
Speaker 1: any fear to begin with? If they have any amount

1255
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:42,400
Speaker 1: of fear, they're gonna have to summon courage or they're

1256
01:10:42,439 --> 01:10:46,679
Speaker 1: gonna have to exhibit courage that is beyond that which

1257
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 1: the normal person would seem to have, right because if

1258
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:51,920
Speaker 1: you're Baio Wolf, otherwise, why would you go into the dark.

1259
01:10:51,920 --> 01:10:54,280
Speaker 1: Why would you dive down into the deep and find

1260
01:10:54,280 --> 01:10:56,559
Speaker 1: the layer? Well, so there there are a couple of

1261
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:59,680
Speaker 1: different ways you can go in to face the monster, right,

1262
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:02,519
Speaker 1: I guess one would be to to have courage to

1263
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:05,000
Speaker 1: overcome your fear because I guess that's sort of the

1264
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:10,000
Speaker 1: definition of courage, right. Courage is a cognitive overriding of

1265
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:15,160
Speaker 1: anxiety that prevents the physiological fear response or or overcomes

1266
01:11:15,200 --> 01:11:18,840
Speaker 1: the physiological fear response and prevents you from running away.

1267
01:11:18,880 --> 01:11:21,439
Speaker 1: It makes you you know you've got control and you

1268
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:24,880
Speaker 1: make yourself face the fear inducing thing like that. I

1269
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:29,160
Speaker 1: think a great example of this is an Aliens where Ripley, uh, well,

1270
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:31,559
Speaker 1: she certainly she's returning to the world of the Xeno

1271
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:33,200
Speaker 1: more from the first half, but in the later half

1272
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:35,799
Speaker 1: of the film, she is going back in to save Newts.

1273
01:11:35,880 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 1: She is descending into the monster's world in facing something

1274
01:11:39,360 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 1: that it has been well established she is terrified of.

1275
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 1: That is that is a great example. And in fact,

1276
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:47,240
Speaker 1: I will say, while I have mixed feelings about a

1277
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:49,679
Speaker 1: lot of monster slayers, you know, I'm like, I don't

1278
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:52,320
Speaker 1: know if I like Beowulf, maybe I think Grendel, grind

1279
01:11:52,560 --> 01:11:55,640
Speaker 1: maybe Grindele. At of point, Ripley I think is A

1280
01:11:55,920 --> 01:11:59,080
Speaker 1: is a truly holy monster slayer. I am one hundred

1281
01:11:59,160 --> 01:12:02,800
Speaker 1: percent behind Ripley in her slaying quest, right, I mean,

1282
01:12:02,840 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: that's really a straight up Beowolf story because she also

1283
01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:09,080
Speaker 1: ends up essentially fighting Grendel's mother. Yes, in aliens. Yeah,

1284
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:12,519
Speaker 1: but if it were Terminator versus Alien, then that that

1285
01:12:12,520 --> 01:12:14,599
Speaker 1: would be the other half, right, that would be the

1286
01:12:14,600 --> 01:12:18,240
Speaker 1: the hero that doesn't feel fear to begin with. And

1287
01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:20,439
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't know, I mean sometimes you kind of

1288
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:22,519
Speaker 1: feel that way. Is that what Beowolve's like? Is that

1289
01:12:22,560 --> 01:12:24,720
Speaker 1: what her Achilles are like? Are these heroes supposed to

1290
01:12:24,760 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: be people who just are incapable of feeling afraid in

1291
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:32,680
Speaker 1: the face of this monster? Uh? You do think, you know,

1292
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,920
Speaker 1: you wonder if is mar Duke. Is mar Duke courageous

1293
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:38,559
Speaker 1: or is he just fearless? I wonder if mar Duke

1294
01:12:38,680 --> 01:12:41,759
Speaker 1: is actually courageous because mar Duke makes a bargain, right,

1295
01:12:42,160 --> 01:12:43,800
Speaker 1: He's like, look, if I'm going to put this all

1296
01:12:43,840 --> 01:12:45,720
Speaker 1: online and risk it, you at least got to make

1297
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:49,360
Speaker 1: me king of the gods. Or he's just following operating procedure,

1298
01:12:49,400 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 1: you know, yeah maybe, or yeah, maybe he's a robot. Yeah,

1299
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:54,840
Speaker 1: but yeah. So to think about this, you can think

1300
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:57,160
Speaker 1: about it in a couple of ways. In the brain, So,

1301
01:12:57,280 --> 01:13:01,040
Speaker 1: like I want to start off by mentioning the amygdala,

1302
01:13:01,160 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: the you know, the little almond shaped subcortical brain network

1303
01:13:04,479 --> 01:13:08,360
Speaker 1: of the amygdalas sometimes referred to, I think not quite

1304
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:11,880
Speaker 1: accurately as the brain's fear center or something like that.

1305
01:13:12,200 --> 01:13:14,800
Speaker 1: As usual with these kinds of appellations, that's a bit

1306
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:18,840
Speaker 1: of an oversimplication. The brain's fear response is complex and

1307
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:22,599
Speaker 1: it involves multiple brain regions, but there are multiple lines

1308
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:25,760
Speaker 1: of evidence that indicate that the amygdala does appear to

1309
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:29,479
Speaker 1: play some important role in fear. It's something it does

1310
01:13:29,600 --> 01:13:34,240
Speaker 1: something important in generating the physiological fear response in the body.

1311
01:13:35,200 --> 01:13:39,679
Speaker 1: For example, brain imaging studies show that fear inducing images

1312
01:13:39,800 --> 01:13:44,000
Speaker 1: like pictures of animals like spiders and snakes, trigger activation

1313
01:13:44,080 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 1: in the amygdala, but that the brain can also recruit

1314
01:13:47,400 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 1: other regions to inhibit amygdala response, which seems to be

1315
01:13:51,080 --> 01:13:55,360
Speaker 1: correlated with resistance to the fear response. Both animals and

1316
01:13:55,400 --> 01:13:58,560
Speaker 1: people with damage to amygdala's seemed to show a diminished

1317
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:01,200
Speaker 1: sense of the fear response like One example is the

1318
01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:03,880
Speaker 1: classic case of patient s M I think we've talked

1319
01:14:03,880 --> 01:14:07,479
Speaker 1: about on the show story um famous case of a

1320
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:13,000
Speaker 1: woman who experienced bilateral amygdala damage during childhood and she

1321
01:14:13,160 --> 01:14:16,920
Speaker 1: shows very little, if any fear response in situations like

1322
01:14:16,960 --> 01:14:21,080
Speaker 1: haunted houses and stuff, and and in response to scary movies,

1323
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:24,800
Speaker 1: she she just lacks a fear response that is very

1324
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:28,320
Speaker 1: common among pretty much everybody else. Uh, and this seems

1325
01:14:28,320 --> 01:14:32,280
Speaker 1: to have something to do with the damage to her amygdala. Again,

1326
01:14:32,400 --> 01:14:35,439
Speaker 1: this does not necessarily mean that fear is quote in

1327
01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:38,360
Speaker 1: the amygdala, but it does indicate that the amigola plays

1328
01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:41,519
Speaker 1: this important role in generating the thread avoidance behavior we

1329
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:44,200
Speaker 1: associate with fear. So, I mean, I wonder if you

1330
01:14:44,439 --> 01:14:47,680
Speaker 1: saw somebody who inspired you to tell a story of

1331
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:53,040
Speaker 1: somebody like Hercules or Beowulf who was just fearless, not courageous,

1332
01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:56,720
Speaker 1: but fearless. Is this I wonder is this inspired by

1333
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,040
Speaker 1: the idea of somebody with a damage to amigola, you know,

1334
01:14:59,120 --> 01:15:02,479
Speaker 1: people who just even flinch in the face of something scary.

1335
01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: I mean, well, we do have the additional information about

1336
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 1: Hercules being driven mad and slaying his children. Oh yeah,

1337
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,760
Speaker 1: I don't know. That doesn't that perhaps speaks to the

1338
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:21,800
Speaker 1: possibility of additional neurological damage. Yeah. I want to be clear,

1339
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:24,920
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that Hercules is based on a historical

1340
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:27,240
Speaker 1: figure or something like that, But I mean, with all

1341
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:31,280
Speaker 1: these kinds of stories, you wonder if somebody saw something

1342
01:15:31,320 --> 01:15:34,480
Speaker 1: that inspired the story or is it just pure creative imagination.

1343
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:36,360
Speaker 1: It could be either one or you know, so you

1344
01:15:36,400 --> 01:15:39,560
Speaker 1: see something you or you're looking at somebody being courageous,

1345
01:15:40,040 --> 01:15:41,960
Speaker 1: and if all you see is the courageous act, you

1346
01:15:42,000 --> 01:15:45,000
Speaker 1: could well interpreted his fearlessness, like, look at that guy,

1347
01:15:45,080 --> 01:15:47,679
Speaker 1: he's never afraid in his life. You're just not privy

1348
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: to the part where after he defeats the enemy, he

1349
01:15:50,360 --> 01:15:53,200
Speaker 1: goes back and like vomits and weeps from his tent

1350
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:57,080
Speaker 1: because he's just been through this horrific experience. I mean,

1351
01:15:57,760 --> 01:15:59,600
Speaker 1: you know, we often talk about the monster slaying is

1352
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:02,320
Speaker 1: like this, this this pet rite of passage for the hero.

1353
01:16:02,840 --> 01:16:05,880
Speaker 1: You know that it makes them um. And this of

1354
01:16:05,880 --> 01:16:08,360
Speaker 1: course reminds me of the you know, the line that

1355
01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:12,679
Speaker 1: which does not kill you almost kills you and therefore

1356
01:16:12,840 --> 01:16:17,080
Speaker 1: inherently traumatic. Huh well, yeah, I mean that's the other model.

1357
01:16:17,160 --> 01:16:20,200
Speaker 1: Maybe it is that somebody saw somebody who was just

1358
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:23,000
Speaker 1: being courageous and facing their fears, and they did it

1359
01:16:23,080 --> 01:16:26,519
Speaker 1: so well that people saw that and interpreted it as

1360
01:16:26,560 --> 01:16:29,400
Speaker 1: them being fearless, Like they couldn't even see through to

1361
01:16:29,520 --> 01:16:32,920
Speaker 1: what the person was feeling. Um. And so you know,

1362
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:35,479
Speaker 1: I wonder like what's going on in the brain with courage.

1363
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:38,120
Speaker 1: There have actually been studies on this. Uh, there was

1364
01:16:38,160 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 1: one I was looking at by Uri Neely, Haggard Goldberg,

1365
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: Abraham Wiseman, and Yahdin to Die in neuron in two

1366
01:16:46,160 --> 01:16:49,519
Speaker 1: thousand ten called fear Thou not Activity of frontal and

1367
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:53,519
Speaker 1: temporal circuits in moments of real life courage. So this

1368
01:16:53,600 --> 01:16:55,560
Speaker 1: is a snake on a trolley experiment. You know, you

1369
01:16:55,640 --> 01:16:57,720
Speaker 1: gotta love a good snake on a trolley experiment. You

1370
01:16:57,800 --> 01:17:01,080
Speaker 1: the trolley operator is the subject of the experiment. They're

1371
01:17:01,120 --> 01:17:03,400
Speaker 1: sitting down in an FMR I. So this is an

1372
01:17:03,439 --> 01:17:05,880
Speaker 1: fmr I study. You know, with all the caveats we

1373
01:17:05,920 --> 01:17:09,559
Speaker 1: know about some of these neuro imaging studies, assuming that

1374
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:12,600
Speaker 1: their results are are are valid and useful. Here the

1375
01:17:12,640 --> 01:17:15,200
Speaker 1: subject's goal is the subject's goal is to lay in

1376
01:17:15,200 --> 01:17:18,000
Speaker 1: the f m R I get the brain imaged while

1377
01:17:18,120 --> 01:17:21,479
Speaker 1: they are attempting to move a trolley with a snake

1378
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:24,360
Speaker 1: on it as close as possible to their head. So

1379
01:17:24,400 --> 01:17:26,720
Speaker 1: it's on a track and they can control it, and

1380
01:17:26,760 --> 01:17:29,360
Speaker 1: they're trying to get the snake close to them. And

1381
01:17:29,439 --> 01:17:33,040
Speaker 1: the researchers found that courage. Overcoming fear and moving the

1382
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:36,519
Speaker 1: snake closer to the head was associated with activity in

1383
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 1: the sub genual anterior singulate cortex or the s G

1384
01:17:40,240 --> 01:17:43,759
Speaker 1: A c C, and also in the right temporal poll

1385
01:17:44,280 --> 01:17:46,840
Speaker 1: and the author's right quote. Further, activity in the s

1386
01:17:46,880 --> 01:17:50,200
Speaker 1: G A c C was positively correlated with the level

1387
01:17:50,280 --> 01:17:54,080
Speaker 1: of fear upon choosing to overcome fear, but not upon

1388
01:17:54,320 --> 01:17:56,479
Speaker 1: succumbing to it. So like you've got a lot of

1389
01:17:56,520 --> 01:17:59,519
Speaker 1: fear and you overcome it, you say like, I'm really

1390
01:17:59,560 --> 01:18:01,640
Speaker 1: afraid it. I'm terrified of snakes, but I'm going to

1391
01:18:01,800 --> 01:18:04,600
Speaker 1: keep moving the snake closer to my head. That was

1392
01:18:04,680 --> 01:18:08,240
Speaker 1: positively correlated with more activity in this region the subgenual

1393
01:18:08,439 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 1: anterior singulate cortex. And so they finally say that the

1394
01:18:11,840 --> 01:18:16,439
Speaker 1: courage behavior seems to attenuate activity in the amygdala and

1395
01:18:16,520 --> 01:18:20,400
Speaker 1: other regions associated with fear response, and it inhibits the

1396
01:18:20,439 --> 01:18:24,840
Speaker 1: autonomic physiological fear response in that we normally have in

1397
01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:29,280
Speaker 1: response to fear inducing stimuli promoting the courage behavior. It's

1398
01:18:29,320 --> 01:18:32,880
Speaker 1: like when you experience courage, that is a process in

1399
01:18:32,920 --> 01:18:35,920
Speaker 1: the brain, and it's one part of the brain apparently

1400
01:18:36,000 --> 01:18:38,960
Speaker 1: inhibiting what would normally be going on in another part

1401
01:18:38,960 --> 01:18:41,560
Speaker 1: of the brain saying shut that down. We're going to

1402
01:18:41,640 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: do it anyway. Now, another illuminating study. This, this is

1403
01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:48,240
Speaker 1: one that that that you found. Uh. This one comes

1404
01:18:48,640 --> 01:18:53,320
Speaker 1: from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from

1405
01:18:53,360 --> 01:18:57,599
Speaker 1: it's by Mobs at All titled Neural activity associated with

1406
01:18:57,680 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 1: monitoring the oscillating threat value of a tarantula. Okay, so

1407
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:05,000
Speaker 1: we get another perhaps a phylogenetic threat here, right, And

1408
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:07,920
Speaker 1: phylogenetic threats these are of course threats that are hardwired

1409
01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:10,960
Speaker 1: into his feo evolution, like we've been discussioning, discussing, especially

1410
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:14,640
Speaker 1: the fear of spiders and snakes, assuming that's correct. So

1411
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:18,599
Speaker 1: if I'm reading this study correctly, what the two thousand

1412
01:19:18,640 --> 01:19:21,200
Speaker 1: ten study is saying is that in their experiment, moving

1413
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:24,080
Speaker 1: the object of fear, a tarantula closer to the subject

1414
01:19:24,320 --> 01:19:27,639
Speaker 1: produced a cascade of fear responses in the brain, including

1415
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:31,960
Speaker 1: activity in the amygdala quote associated with under prediction of

1416
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:36,160
Speaker 1: the tarantula's threat value. Um. Uh. And by the way,

1417
01:19:36,200 --> 01:19:38,360
Speaker 1: one of the authors in the study that the main

1418
01:19:38,400 --> 01:19:41,880
Speaker 1: author here, Dean Mobs, Assistant Professor of cognitive neuroscience at

1419
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:45,360
Speaker 1: cal Tech. He has a two thousand eighteen paper titled

1420
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:50,679
Speaker 1: how cognitive and reactive fear circuits optimize escape decisions in humans,

1421
01:19:51,120 --> 01:19:53,479
Speaker 1: and it drives home how the brain responds to fear

1422
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:56,240
Speaker 1: via or seems to respond to fear via two distinct

1423
01:19:56,320 --> 01:19:59,479
Speaker 1: fear circuits uh studied in the in this study via

1424
01:19:59,600 --> 01:20:03,679
Speaker 1: FMR eye and a virtual predator video game. No connection

1425
01:20:03,720 --> 01:20:08,280
Speaker 1: to Dutch, This would be like a phylogenetic predator, right,

1426
01:20:09,479 --> 01:20:12,400
Speaker 1: So this is what what he lays out. We have

1427
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:17,200
Speaker 1: the cognitive fear circuit. This is distant threats, front brain regions,

1428
01:20:17,400 --> 01:20:21,360
Speaker 1: asserting risk and making decisions. This is a conscious exercise.

1429
01:20:21,960 --> 01:20:24,879
Speaker 1: And then there's the reactive fear circuit. This is a

1430
01:20:24,960 --> 01:20:28,519
Speaker 1: related to central brain structures. This is fight flight or freeze.

1431
01:20:28,760 --> 01:20:32,800
Speaker 1: This is a subconscious respect response. So, in the words

1432
01:20:32,840 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 1: of Mobs quote, you don't think your way out of

1433
01:20:35,920 --> 01:20:38,679
Speaker 1: a tiger attack, all right, So yeah, if you stop

1434
01:20:38,760 --> 01:20:41,160
Speaker 1: to think when a tiger is assaulting you, you're debt

1435
01:20:41,920 --> 01:20:45,400
Speaker 1: You react instead via the reactive fear circuit, which is

1436
01:20:45,400 --> 01:20:48,680
Speaker 1: subconscious and unthinking. Yeah, I mean, that's why fear is

1437
01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:54,800
Speaker 1: often characterized as like a sort of involuntary physiological body response,

1438
01:20:54,920 --> 01:20:59,439
Speaker 1: not just like the thought I am afraid. Yeah, like this,

1439
01:20:59,600 --> 01:21:01,400
Speaker 1: I couldn't help them think about this. In terms of

1440
01:21:01,400 --> 01:21:03,880
Speaker 1: of flying, we one of our other episodes this month,

1441
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:05,960
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about the fear flying, and

1442
01:21:06,000 --> 01:21:10,439
Speaker 1: there is a distinct difference between the fear one will

1443
01:21:10,520 --> 01:21:15,000
Speaker 1: have on the plane and the fear one has um

1444
01:21:15,080 --> 01:21:17,759
Speaker 1: the day before the flight or a different day before,

1445
01:21:17,800 --> 01:21:21,080
Speaker 1: the day before the flighty um. So, you know, I

1446
01:21:21,160 --> 01:21:23,519
Speaker 1: wonder to what extent we might apply this model to

1447
01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:26,960
Speaker 1: our our monsters slang heroes, men or more mostly men

1448
01:21:27,160 --> 01:21:31,559
Speaker 1: of action and reaction. So sometimes they plan, uh, certainly.

1449
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:34,000
Speaker 1: But but but the planning is again oftentimes the work

1450
01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:37,560
Speaker 1: of a god or goddess. And I can't imagine, I

1451
01:21:37,560 --> 01:21:39,760
Speaker 1: can't help but imagine what Julian Jane so I would

1452
01:21:39,760 --> 01:21:41,400
Speaker 1: have would have said about all this, the kind of

1453
01:21:41,400 --> 01:21:43,240
Speaker 1: funny would have would have had with this. I was

1454
01:21:43,280 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 1: looking around. I'm not sure that he ever really tackled

1455
01:21:45,600 --> 01:21:50,519
Speaker 1: monsters and monsters slang specifically, but he was very interested

1456
01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:53,679
Speaker 1: in the role between, of course, heroes and gods. Well, yeah, certainly,

1457
01:21:53,720 --> 01:21:55,720
Speaker 1: I mean what we're saying here, if we're assuming that

1458
01:21:55,800 --> 01:21:58,600
Speaker 1: Mobs is correct about this, that you've got the cognitive

1459
01:21:58,640 --> 01:22:01,840
Speaker 1: fear circuit and the reactive fear circuit. I'm sure James

1460
01:22:01,840 --> 01:22:04,280
Speaker 1: would have imagined that as like, you know, the automatic

1461
01:22:04,360 --> 01:22:08,880
Speaker 1: unconscious brain circuit and then the like the god fear circuit. Yeah, like,

1462
01:22:09,120 --> 01:22:11,000
Speaker 1: did you give you an everyone an idea of like

1463
01:22:11,040 --> 01:22:12,960
Speaker 1: what he might have have said about this kind of thing.

1464
01:22:13,479 --> 01:22:15,599
Speaker 1: He did touch on fear and terror in his nine

1465
01:22:16,560 --> 01:22:20,920
Speaker 1: essay Remembrance of Things Far Past. He said, quote fear

1466
01:22:20,960 --> 01:22:24,720
Speaker 1: and terror, once easily dissipated, stretch out into anxiety that

1467
01:22:24,760 --> 01:22:28,760
Speaker 1: can last a lifetime, and all because men can now automatically,

1468
01:22:28,880 --> 01:22:33,240
Speaker 1: and even against their wishes, reconstruct and hold as if

1469
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:37,880
Speaker 1: present in this new spatialized time, the unalterable experience of

1470
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:41,639
Speaker 1: the past and its possibility in the future. Now, of course,

1471
01:22:41,640 --> 01:22:45,000
Speaker 1: that's James playing with the bicameral model. Obviously, you don't

1472
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:47,519
Speaker 1: need to accept the bicameral model to see that there's

1473
01:22:47,560 --> 01:22:51,040
Speaker 1: something interesting going on with humans. You know, you don't

1474
01:22:51,160 --> 01:22:56,960
Speaker 1: get the sense that most animals experience anxiety in quite

1475
01:22:57,000 --> 01:22:59,439
Speaker 1: the same way humans do. The guy. I mean, you

1476
01:22:59,479 --> 01:23:01,360
Speaker 1: can't know for sure, but you don't get the sense

1477
01:23:01,400 --> 01:23:05,880
Speaker 1: that they are like cognitively working over their fear scenarios.

1478
01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:08,400
Speaker 1: The way we do, right, I mean, I don't know.

1479
01:23:08,400 --> 01:23:10,519
Speaker 1: I guess there's something to be said for certainly cases

1480
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:15,200
Speaker 1: say zukosis, where an animal is uh is behaving at

1481
01:23:15,240 --> 01:23:17,400
Speaker 1: normally because it is in captivity, where it's kind of

1482
01:23:17,479 --> 01:23:21,120
Speaker 1: undergoing a continuous challenge to its mental stability, I guess.

1483
01:23:22,040 --> 01:23:24,960
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I think it's it's safe to say

1484
01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:28,120
Speaker 1: that that animals process things these things differently. There's definitely

1485
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:31,960
Speaker 1: a human dimension to the way we deal with threats

1486
01:23:31,960 --> 01:23:35,360
Speaker 1: in the way we respond mentally too. And it's interesting

1487
01:23:35,400 --> 01:23:38,439
Speaker 1: the way so many of these stories we've talked about

1488
01:23:38,600 --> 01:23:42,000
Speaker 1: show different people reacting to the threat in different ways.

1489
01:23:42,000 --> 01:23:44,200
Speaker 1: Like the story of St. George and the Dragon. First,

1490
01:23:44,240 --> 01:23:46,439
Speaker 1: the villagers go out to fight the dragon, but then

1491
01:23:46,479 --> 01:23:49,360
Speaker 1: they can't overcome their fear and they're forced to run away.

1492
01:23:49,840 --> 01:23:51,800
Speaker 1: You know, they think they can fight it, but then

1493
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:53,800
Speaker 1: their fear gets the better of them. We see who

1494
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:57,360
Speaker 1: they really are, and they're they're driven back. But St.

1495
01:23:57,360 --> 01:23:59,680
Speaker 1: George has the courage and he has the you know,

1496
01:23:59,760 --> 01:24:01,960
Speaker 1: he has Christ on his side. A similar thing I

1497
01:24:01,960 --> 01:24:04,040
Speaker 1: think with mar Duke, right, you know, the other gods

1498
01:24:04,080 --> 01:24:09,280
Speaker 1: were too afraid to fight Tiamat, but Marduke overcame his fear. Yeah,

1499
01:24:09,320 --> 01:24:12,040
Speaker 1: and did. To come back to to Mob's division of

1500
01:24:12,080 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 1: the two responses, I can't help but wonder of our

1501
01:24:14,600 --> 01:24:19,519
Speaker 1: monster slaying heroes are models of our ideal reactive fear

1502
01:24:19,600 --> 01:24:23,160
Speaker 1: network self. So as we engage with our cognitive fear

1503
01:24:23,200 --> 01:24:26,879
Speaker 1: network to anticipate threats in the natural world, we ruminate

1504
01:24:26,920 --> 01:24:30,320
Speaker 1: on the model and symbol of these embodiments of just

1505
01:24:30,360 --> 01:24:35,400
Speaker 1: like pure ideal subconscious reaction, you know, just pure monster

1506
01:24:35,560 --> 01:24:40,000
Speaker 1: not only monster slayers, but monster destroyers. Yeah, Like have

1507
01:24:40,080 --> 01:24:43,360
Speaker 1: you ever played with that scenario? Um, you know, what

1508
01:24:43,400 --> 01:24:46,200
Speaker 1: would I do if there was like somebody attacking me

1509
01:24:46,320 --> 01:24:49,000
Speaker 1: or something like that. You know, you like to imagine like,

1510
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:51,519
Speaker 1: oh I do this and that, you know, I'd I'd

1511
01:24:51,600 --> 01:24:54,120
Speaker 1: be strong, and I'd be smart and I'd be brave.

1512
01:24:54,520 --> 01:24:56,680
Speaker 1: But then like when that really happens to people, you know,

1513
01:24:56,720 --> 01:24:59,720
Speaker 1: they cower and fear, and like you, it's a thing

1514
01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:02,960
Speaker 1: that you can't even know what you would do. You

1515
01:25:03,000 --> 01:25:05,240
Speaker 1: can hope you would be one way, but you can't

1516
01:25:05,320 --> 01:25:08,880
Speaker 1: know until it happens because these involuntary processes take over.

1517
01:25:08,920 --> 01:25:11,439
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you're saying like that, we're trying to

1518
01:25:11,520 --> 01:25:15,559
Speaker 1: imagine the way we hope we would be when those

1519
01:25:16,240 --> 01:25:20,080
Speaker 1: automatic processes take over and just guide your action without

1520
01:25:20,120 --> 01:25:23,360
Speaker 1: you thinking about it. Yeah, and maybe to a certain extent,

1521
01:25:23,439 --> 01:25:27,280
Speaker 1: were even actively saying, let me be Beayowolf when the

1522
01:25:27,320 --> 01:25:31,479
Speaker 1: time comes. Um, well, and I can't help but wonder

1523
01:25:31,560 --> 01:25:36,360
Speaker 1: if having fictional models makes it more likely. Yeah, that's possible.

1524
01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:38,360
Speaker 1: I don't know, let me be the Hulk when the

1525
01:25:38,360 --> 01:25:41,040
Speaker 1: time comes, you know. Yeah, like if you've if you've

1526
01:25:41,040 --> 01:25:43,840
Speaker 1: had a model that you can picture in your mind,

1527
01:25:43,840 --> 01:25:46,520
Speaker 1: does it make it more likely that you will actually

1528
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:50,840
Speaker 1: act that way? I don't know, but it's uh, that's

1529
01:25:50,880 --> 01:25:54,760
Speaker 1: interesting food for thought. Uh. Either way, there there there

1530
01:25:54,920 --> 01:25:57,960
Speaker 1: is truth to the matter that that when when the

1531
01:25:58,720 --> 01:26:02,080
Speaker 1: terror comes, when the monster comes, we don't know unless

1532
01:26:02,080 --> 01:26:05,640
Speaker 1: we've rehearsed for it, like actively, not mentally, but like physically.

1533
01:26:06,240 --> 01:26:09,000
Speaker 1: You know, we probably don't have a clear idea of

1534
01:26:09,040 --> 01:26:11,320
Speaker 1: how we will respond. You know, we have our our

1535
01:26:11,880 --> 01:26:15,320
Speaker 1: our intentions and our hopes regarding our response, but maybe

1536
01:26:15,400 --> 01:26:19,000
Speaker 1: we haven't actually been tested yet. I'm reminded of a

1537
01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:22,680
Speaker 1: quote from Hunter S. Thompson, Uh, specifically the lyrics he

1538
01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:25,080
Speaker 1: wrote for a Warren Zevon song of the of the

1539
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:27,960
Speaker 1: same name, where he said, quote, you're a whole different

1540
01:26:27,960 --> 01:26:31,760
Speaker 1: person when you're scared. It's true. Yeah, And so you're

1541
01:26:31,760 --> 01:26:34,240
Speaker 1: saying you want to know what that person is going

1542
01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:37,919
Speaker 1: to be, like maybe they can be like Hercules exactly. Yeah,

1543
01:26:38,080 --> 01:26:40,479
Speaker 1: that's why. Yeah, I'm going to picture Hercules in my

1544
01:26:40,520 --> 01:26:42,960
Speaker 1: mind and hopefully maybe that is what the gods will

1545
01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:45,360
Speaker 1: make of me when the time comes. So I didn't

1546
01:26:45,439 --> 01:26:47,599
Speaker 1: find a study like this, but I would be kind

1547
01:26:47,600 --> 01:26:50,400
Speaker 1: of surprised if there isn't one somewhere out there, a

1548
01:26:50,439 --> 01:26:55,360
Speaker 1: study of like, does thinking about monster slayers or heroes

1549
01:26:55,400 --> 01:26:58,400
Speaker 1: of any kind make you more courageous? Do do the

1550
01:26:58,439 --> 01:27:02,000
Speaker 1: snake trolley test again, but just like see if there's

1551
01:27:02,040 --> 01:27:05,280
Speaker 1: any difference when you like prime people beforehand with the

1552
01:27:05,320 --> 01:27:08,240
Speaker 1: story of a monster slayer or something. BE got to

1553
01:27:08,240 --> 01:27:12,600
Speaker 1: watch season two of Buffy prior to uh handling the

1554
01:27:12,640 --> 01:27:17,960
Speaker 1: snake trolley. Yeah maybe, so so you're season two guy? Huh? Well,

1555
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:21,720
Speaker 1: I mean season one is necessary. I love the Master um,

1556
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:24,200
Speaker 1: but even as I was watching it, people were like,

1557
01:27:24,439 --> 01:27:26,200
Speaker 1: you just gotta press on three season one and get

1558
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:29,439
Speaker 1: to season two and then yeah from from there, from

1559
01:27:29,439 --> 01:27:33,400
Speaker 1: from there on, it's it's gravy. I'd go season three. Yeah. Yeah,

1560
01:27:33,520 --> 01:27:36,760
Speaker 1: that's where it really like, that's the Mayor season. Oh,

1561
01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:39,800
Speaker 1: the Mayor is good. I forgot about the Mayor. Yeah,

1562
01:27:39,800 --> 01:27:41,800
Speaker 1: I need to rewatch some of them. I'm not going

1563
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:43,400
Speaker 1: to say all of them, but I do. I should

1564
01:27:43,439 --> 01:27:45,120
Speaker 1: go back and rewatch some of them. There's some great

1565
01:27:45,120 --> 01:27:47,880
Speaker 1: episodes in there. Yeah, alright, So there you have it,

1566
01:27:48,520 --> 01:27:53,639
Speaker 1: the monster slayer monsters and the fabulous slayers who slay them. Uh,

1567
01:27:53,800 --> 01:27:55,400
Speaker 1: this was a fun one to put together. Obviously, we

1568
01:27:55,400 --> 01:27:59,479
Speaker 1: couldn't look at every amazing monster slaying myth, their legend

1569
01:27:59,680 --> 01:28:02,160
Speaker 1: or honor and interpretation out there. There's just so much

1570
01:28:02,200 --> 01:28:05,920
Speaker 1: good stuff. Hey, send us, send us your favorite monster

1571
01:28:06,000 --> 01:28:08,040
Speaker 1: slayers stories, and I want to hear more of those,

1572
01:28:08,320 --> 01:28:10,880
Speaker 1: especially the ones you hear less often, especially ones with

1573
01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:13,080
Speaker 1: great female monster slayers. I want to know more of

1574
01:28:13,080 --> 01:28:16,200
Speaker 1: those stories for I should also point out there there

1575
01:28:16,240 --> 01:28:17,720
Speaker 1: were some There are some really good ones that I

1576
01:28:17,800 --> 01:28:21,840
Speaker 1: ran across in um Native American traditions that time will

1577
01:28:21,840 --> 01:28:24,280
Speaker 1: include here. But maybe that's something we can do again

1578
01:28:24,280 --> 01:28:27,120
Speaker 1: in the future if everyone really digs a good monster

1579
01:28:27,160 --> 01:28:31,160
Speaker 1: slayer tail. Yeah, there there's some good ones there all right.

1580
01:28:31,200 --> 01:28:32,800
Speaker 1: In the meantime, head on over to stuff to blow

1581
01:28:32,840 --> 01:28:34,600
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where we'll find all the

1582
01:28:34,640 --> 01:28:37,760
Speaker 1: podcast episodes uh, as well as just a lot of

1583
01:28:37,800 --> 01:28:40,160
Speaker 1: extra monster content, a whole bunch of monster blogs that

1584
01:28:40,200 --> 01:28:43,960
Speaker 1: I wrote over the years, UH, some Monster Science videos.

1585
01:28:44,280 --> 01:28:46,600
Speaker 1: Links out to our social media accounts like Facebook and

1586
01:28:46,600 --> 01:28:49,280
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram, as well as a link for our store.

1587
01:28:49,800 --> 01:28:51,559
Speaker 1: UH go check that out. A great way to support

1588
01:28:51,600 --> 01:28:54,120
Speaker 1: the show is to buy some of that merchandise. We

1589
01:28:54,160 --> 01:28:57,800
Speaker 1: have one related to release a recent episode on the basilisk.

1590
01:28:58,600 --> 01:29:00,160
Speaker 1: You can check that out. And if you want to

1591
01:29:00,160 --> 01:29:01,760
Speaker 1: support the show in a way that doesn't cost you

1592
01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:04,600
Speaker 1: any money, just rate and review us wherever you have

1593
01:29:04,680 --> 01:29:07,320
Speaker 1: the power to do so. Huge thanks as always to

1594
01:29:07,360 --> 01:29:11,280
Speaker 1: our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If

1595
01:29:11,280 --> 01:29:13,240
Speaker 1: you'd like to get in touch with us directly let

1596
01:29:13,320 --> 01:29:15,559
Speaker 1: us know feedback on this episode or any other, to

1597
01:29:16,080 --> 01:29:18,280
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for the future, to let us know

1598
01:29:18,360 --> 01:29:22,200
Speaker 1: about your favorite monster slayer, or just to say hi,

1599
01:29:22,360 --> 01:29:24,040
Speaker 1: let us know how you found out about the show

1600
01:29:24,080 --> 01:29:26,599
Speaker 1: where you listen from. You can email us at blow

1601
01:29:26,720 --> 01:29:39,000
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

1602
01:29:39,080 --> 01:29:41,360
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

1603
01:29:41,400 --> 01:30:02,680
Speaker 1: Stuff works dot Com PA had a town by a

1604
01:30:02,800 --> 01:30:02,840
Speaker 1: p