WEBVTT - From the Vault: Talos 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.840 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.520 I think we're supposed to venture into the vault, but 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.640 I'm hearing some odd creaking and squealing of metal in 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.840 there that is giving me pause. Ah. Yes, we're going 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:26.040 to be talking about Talos, the the automaton of of 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.360 Greek myth in this episode. This, I have to say, 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.680 Uh an episode that air January two, two thousand eighteen. 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.800 One of my favorite episodes of I think one of 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:36.880 mine too. This one was a lot of fun. Uh. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.160 And you know who would have thought that the best 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.280 traditions of thinking about robot life go all the way 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.000 back to ancient Greece. It's true. Let's pull the plug 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:51.320 out let that ecore drain. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:51.360 --> 0:01:00.120 your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey are 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:01.920 you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.640 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.959 gonna be talking about themes of technology in ancient Greek literature. 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.240 But before we get there, we have to go to 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.320 the slightly related, actually very related topic of what's your 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.520 favorite killer robot movie, Robert? Oh, well, you know, outside 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.399 of some of the obvious choices from say, you know, 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.160 the Terminator movies, can't say Terminator or even the RoboCop movies, 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.160 you get into a weird territory. Is that a robot? 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.240 Is it a cyborg? Right? I would say my easy 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.560 pick is the killer red robot Maximilian from the Disney 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.959 movie The Black Hole. Oh yeah, I've never seen it. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.920 Oh he's terrifying because he just he floats around feet 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.119 do not touch the surface of the ship and has 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.120 his menacing red visor that just peers into your soul 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.640 and has the spinning blade hands that it utilizes to 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.680 at one point murder Anthony Perkins and cold Blood No 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.920 Anthony Perkins. Yeah, well after Psycho, I guess he had it. Well, 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:02.880 you know, and this movie is great. In this movie, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.040 you felt sorry for him if he showed up showing 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:06.840 up in Psycho. Other than that would that would be 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.840 a different matter altogether. Now I have probably got to 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:15.120 go to the movie. Chopping Mall is a eighties robots 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.440 slasher set in a shopping mall at night where security 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.800 robots go haywire. I think their computer gets struck by 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.880 lightning or something, and then they decide, well, they've got 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.000 to kill all the people who are hanging out overnight 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.960 in the in the mall. That is a delicious movie. Yeah. 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.440 But also, how about You'll Brenner in the original West World. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:34.960 Oh yeah, he's super menacing and I'm up until his 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.160 face falls off, I guess. But before Westworld was like 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.440 a thoughtful HBO series, it was a cheesy old movie 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.760 with your You'll Brenner pulling guns on people. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.200 he was. He was terrifying. He I mean, you Brenner 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.400 was always entertaining, but he was kind of made to 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.360 play a killer, emotionless robot. I would say some of 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.960 the best killer robots stuff in movies. When killer robots 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.200 are scary, the fact that they're scary comes in not 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.680 from malice or ill intent like it might in a 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.839 monster or in a human villain or something like that. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.160 The great thing about a killer robot in a scary 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.800 movie is that it's terror is derived from the fact 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.079 that it has no will of its own or no intention. 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.760 It's just sort of like an efficient, emotionless killing machine. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.440 All it has is directive and it it absolutely will 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.680 not stop until it achieves it. Now, we obviously think 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.639 of themes like this emerging in the fiction primarily of 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.359 the twentieth century. Right, that's when we think science fiction 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.200 in earnest really shows up the way we know it now. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.280 I know you have Jules Verned before that, but the 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.400 twentieth century is when you really start getting your killer 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.040 robots everywhere. But today we're going to go back. Oh yes, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.960 we're gonna go back to a fabulous example of what 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:53.360 is perhaps the very first killer robot that humans ever 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.520 dreamt up. And it it's not from the twentieth century. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.160 It's not from the nineteenth or even eight. It is 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:05.640 from the ancient Greek world. And its name is Talos. Talos, yes, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.520 the man of Bronze, the bronze automaton. I want to 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.760 quote from Edith Hamilton's version of the Classic story of 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.520 the Quest for the Golden Fleece, now Edith Hamilton's Classic Mythology, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.400 that this is a great old textbook on Greek mythology. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:23.960 If you haven't had a chance to check it out, 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.760 it's just wonderful to leave through. Every personal library needs 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.480 a copy of this. But so she does a really 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.760 good job of taking disparate elements of story traditions and 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.760 sort of pasting them together into composite, synthetic versions of 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.160 the stories. So I want to sort of summarize the 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.279 Quest for the Golden Fleece. You can't hit all the 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.640 great points, but here's how it goes. So you've got 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:49.120 this young hero Jason, and in order to reclaim his 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.640 rightful kingdom from a usurper king, Jason is on a 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.920 quest to retrieve a sacred artifact, which is a golden 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.760 fleece from a magic ram that saved the life of 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.839 a Greek prints long ago. And he's accompanied by a 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.160 crew of other heroes known as the Argonauts. This is 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.039 where we get Jason and the Argonauts, and on the 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.640 way to retrieve the artifact, he has to face many 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.080 trials with his companions. One of the trials that Hamilton's 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.000 talks about is how Hercules is on the on the 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.919 ship with him and hercules friend gets yanked down into 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.480 a spring by this nymph type creature and Hercules is 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.799 roaming around the woods trying to find him and eventually 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.400 gets lost and wanders off. So you would think, you know, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.760 you got Hercules and your crew, You're set but it 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.960 turns out he's easily distracted. Yes. Another trial is when 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.279 Jason and the Argonauts have to battle with evil harpies 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.720 on behalf of this wretched old man who has the 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.440 gift of future site. So the old man is a prophet, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.560 but he's been cursed so that anytime he goes to 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.919 eat some food, harpies zoomed down down out of the 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.279 sky and they terrorize him, and they foul the food 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.440 he's eating. I'm not sure exactly what they do to it. 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.400 It's they're described as foul smelling, so maybe they just 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.160 put him off fit well, and I'm just imagining just 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:07.240 a tussle of harpy feathers and and harpy excrement and 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:09.880 just all manner of nastiness. Yeah, And so they have 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.640 to sail their ship through some crashing rocks and all 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.440 all kinds of stuff like that. But eventually Jason is 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.120 able to capture the artifacts the Golden Fleece, but only 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.400 with the help of the powerful witch Princess Medea. Uh, 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.120 one of the greatest sorceresses in all of fiction media. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.760 Is awesome. So she has fallen in love with him, 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.400 but not entirely of her own volition, because she was 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:38.200 compelled into love by an arrow of Cupid, because Aphrodite 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.760 intervened on his behalf. So after they get the fleece, 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.640 Jason and Medeia and the rest of the crew of 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.440 the Argo or sailing towards Jason's home. And on the 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.839 journey they passed by the island of Crete, and here 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.560 I want to read a direct quote from Hamilton's telling 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.760 of the story. Next came Crete, where they would have 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.720 landed but for Medea. She told them that Talus lived there, 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.440 the last man left of the ancient Bronze race, a 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:10.240 creature made all of bronze except one ankle, where alone 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.680 he was vulnerable. Even as she spoke, he appeared terrible 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.920 to behold, and threatened to crush the ship with rocks 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.440 if they drew nearer. They rested on their oars, and Medea, kneeling, 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.360 prayed to the hounds of Hades to come and destroy him. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.880 The dread powers of evil heard her, as the bronze 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.240 man lifted a pointed crag to hurl it at the Argo. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.080 He grazed his ankle and the blood gushed forth until 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.360 he sank and died. Then the heroes could land and 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.920 refresh themselves for the voyage still before them. Now, this 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.480 is only one telling of the story of Talos, the 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.000 mighty Man of Bronze, And to get a little bit 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.360 more detail, I think we should look at a translation 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.560 of the text of the story as told by Apollonius 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.480 of Rhodes in his work the Argonautica, which is one 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.520 version of of this story I've just been talking about. Yes, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.760 Apollonius rights he was of the stock of bronze, of 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.520 the men's spring from ash trees, the last left among 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.280 the sons of the gods, and the sons of Chronos 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.360 gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.800 and destride around the island thrice a day with his 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.040 feet of bronze. Now, in all the rest of his 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.520 body and limbs he was fashioned of bronze and invulnerable. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.920 But beneath the sinew of his ankle was a blood 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.480 red vein, and this, with its issue of life and death, 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.800 was covered by a thin skin. Now, so you've got 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.920 a bronze guy. You got a bronze guy, and he 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.920 has this weak point in his his his ankle, very 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.079 much like Achilles. The legend of Achilles also weak only 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.800 in his ankle, his heel, right, because that's where he 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.640 was held as he was dipped into into the river sticks. 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.200 But we get a different explanation for the vulnerability in 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.640 this story. Now it's a technological vulnerability. Yeah, And I 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:58.079 think this is this is the key, and this is 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.400 something we're going to discuss over and over in in 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:05.160 this episode. Is that it's easy to just dismiss this 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.720 tale because Talus does not have other adventures. He basically 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.640 shows up kind of like a Dungeon and Dragons random 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.240 encounter and he's dispatched. The main story about him is 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.199 his death right. And you can also say, well, Italy 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.080 sounds a lot like Achilles. It's kind of like a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.760 bronze It's like a robot knockoff of Achilles to a 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.400 certain extent. But when you really start digging into it, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.280 the technological aspect of this is absolutely phenomenal. Now, one 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.000 great source on the tradition of the Talus character is 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.199 the author Merlin Paris, who wrote the article Talos and Dadalus, 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.000 a Review of the authorship of the Abominable Bronze Man 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.439 in the Ceylon Journal of Humanities from nineteen seventy one 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.320 and this is a fantastic article, so we will bring 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.040 him up several times throughout this episode. Now, one thing 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.280 Paris points out is that not all versions of the 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.000 Talus story described Talus exactly the same. Sometimes his body 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.920 he has different features or characteristics depending on who the 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.240 author is, Yes, and is we'll discuss. Even the size fluctuates. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.160 One thing we always have to remember with Greek myths 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.920 in particular is that they evolve. I mean, all myths 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.960 are subject to change over time and over place, depending 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.760 on who's telling the tale and when they are telling it. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.200 And that's certainly the case with Greek mythology. So for example, 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.199 Apollonius of Rhodes, who was writing in the third century, 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.600 had said that this this vein, this vein inside him, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.199 was only apparent under the sinew of his ankle, right, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.800 the one ankle. Yeah, But then there are other accounts 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.080 that say that it's stretched from the neck down to 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.640 both ankles. So that was Appolodorus, right, Yes, So this 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.360 vein is full of what's known as ichor, which in 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.440 Greek myth is the lifeblood of the gods. Sometimes it's 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.080 described as golden instead of red, though, and most of 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.440 the stories I've seen about tall Us. It is described 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.840 as red in the Iliad. When the gods, for example Aphrodite, 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.800 are cut or dabbed with spears. They can be harmed, 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.440 their skin can be pierced, and they leak fluid. But 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.320 the fluid they leak is not blood but ecore. So 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.440 to quote from the Iliad, quote the point tore through 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.400 the ambrosial robe which the graces had woven for Aphrodite, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.480 and pierce the skin between her wrist and the palm 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.760 of her hand, so that the immortal blood or echore 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.160 that flows in the veins of the blessed gods came 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.200 pouring from the wound. For the gods do not eat 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.640 bread nor drink wine, hence they have no blood such 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.680 as ours and our immortal. I love the conflicting ideas here, 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.520 like the idea that the god can be injured and 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.640 the god can bleed, but they are in some sense immortal. 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.400 They have bodies, they can leak fluid, they can be hurt, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.079 but the idea of immortality is somehow more bound up 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.000 in what goes into their body and what comes out 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.120 of it than what can be done to it. Yes, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.719 and it's it's important to note here that this does 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.360 not mean Talus is a god. All all of counts 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.080 indicate that he is a manufactured thing. But of course 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.440 the manufacturer changes depending on the different tales. But but 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.120 still he is. He is like this artificial creation that 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.040 has been filled with life because he's been filled with 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.080 the core. So the ecre maybe for for the bronze men, 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.920 Talus is not essential to his nature, but is something 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.960 that has been used to give him the properties he has, 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.160 maybe the properties of life for animation. Right, yeah, this 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:31.160 it's the gasoline for your large bronze death gollum, the 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.560 oil in the car. Now this makes me think about 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.439 how both monsters and robots and fiction are often identified 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.040 by the different color of their blood. I think about 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.600 like the Aliens and the X Files that have green blood, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.000 or you know, it's not just the X Files. I 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.520 think about it. There's a great scene in Fright Night 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.400 where there's a guy who you just think is like 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.200 a normal vampire, is familiar, but then he starts bleeding 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.480 and I think his blood is green? Is that right? 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.840 I believe so? Yeah. But anyway, it's it's all all 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:02.720 all over the place in fiction. But it's not just 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.760 monsters as robots too. I think about ash spraying the 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.200 milk white blood everywhere an alien when he gets bashed up, 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.760 and I think this goes to the deep metaphorical understanding 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.160 we have of blood as like the essence of a person, 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.800 in the sense that close family members, which in material 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.760 terms are those animals with which you share the most 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.160 essential genetic similarity, are quote your blood indeed, And of 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.560 course it's also worth noting that I believe film ratings 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.080 sometimes come into play. I've I've read that if you 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.080 have a humanoid spouting green, pink, white, or say amber blood, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.200 you can still earn yourself with PG. Thirteen. But if 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.840 it's if the if the stuff is red, then you're 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.720 probably gonna get an r. Oh wow, you know I 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.520 was gonna say, well, I wonder if that played a 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.160 role in it's in its use in the Iliad, But no, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.400 the iliots full of blood. They didn't shy away from 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.680 blood there. Oh well, without getting into the whole issue 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.840 of of colors in the works of Homer, right, that's 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:03.440 an entirely different maybe for a different day. So Talos, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.200 so we've got him as this bronze man made of 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.480 bronze he's got this vein of ecore somewhere in his body, 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.479 going down to his ankle or both ankles, that contains 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.120 this lifeblood or essential ethereal liquid inside the gods that 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.480 has animated this bronze creature to some extent. And he 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.600 stands on the island throwing rocks at any ship that 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.880 tries to dock. We saw in Apollonius Tail that he 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.000 apparently runs around the island of crete three times a day, 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.760 three times a day, and it is impossible. I was 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:34.640 tempted to do the math on it, or I was 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.280 actually kind of surprised that nobody else has a paper 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.240 out there breaking down exactly how fast and how large 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.680 Talos would have to be to pull this off. But 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:45.800 that's not the only thing that Talous can do. So 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.000 he can curl rocks at your ship, But what if 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.840 you come ashore? Does he still pose a risk? Then? Oh? 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.080 Does he? Ever? He has this this beautifully grotesque superpower 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.600 of being able to apparently jump into the fire, heat 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.520 its body up, and then come out and embrace the enemy. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.160 So here, so the enemy soldiers say they've landed. Here 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.040 comes Talis leaping out of the fire, applies a huge 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.160 bear hug and just immolates you in his embrace. And 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.320 according to that's that's sick, that's amazing. And it gets 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:21.000 even better according to to Merlin Paris. Uh. Some argue 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.320 that the term sardonic grin may have originated with the 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.120 victims of this death. This at least according to Simonides, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.160 who wrote, the Talis resided in Sardinia before coming to Crete, 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.800 and he had already destroyed many of the Sardinians, presumably 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.480 leaving them with peeled back, appealed back grin of of 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:42.880 you know, of of the burnt gag. Yeah, the idea 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.080 of the grimace And and this is a big question 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.800 actually in the etymology of this term. Where does the 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.920 idea of the sardonic grin come from? Or the resist sardonicus, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.840 which I think actually literally means sardonic laughter, not sardonic grin, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.480 But the ideas get conflated in the history of the terms. Um, 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.040 so yeah, yeah, where does this idea come from? Now? 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.840 Another version I've heard, so one is that he is 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.760 crushing the Sardinians, and he's crushing them and burning them 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.360 with his red hot embrace, and that in their death 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.360 their grimaces turned into grins. But then also I Paris 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.080 talks about the idea that the grin goes to the 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.040 robot itself, right that this that Talos would grin have 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.120 this creepy grin when he was hugging people to death 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.280 with his burning arms. Another version of the explanation for this, 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:32.880 which is kind of a side note from Talis. But 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:34.800 I thought it was interesting, so I should bring it up. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.720 No one knows for sure where it came from, but 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.920 the idea of the sardonic grin has also been potentially 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.960 traced to a totally different Sardinian threat. So ancient historians 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.520 told these stories that on the island of Sardinia, the 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.640 pre Roman inhabitants had this ritual custom for dealing with 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:59.240 criminals and for euthanizing elderly people who couldn't care for themselves. 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.120 And what they do is they would drug them with 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.439 an intoxicating poison that caused the victim's facial muscles to 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.359 contract into a creepy grin and become paralyzed, hence the 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.840 sardonic grin of Sardinia. And then while the victims were 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.320 drugged out, they could be thrown off a cliff or 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:20.919 beaten to death. It started offstounding reasonably humane for the 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.919 ancient world, and maybe it still is, depending on how 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.400 you look at it. There's just not much that's reasonably 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.280 humane in the ancient world. But anyway, so in two 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.800 thousand nine, a study by scientists at the University of 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.840 Eastern Piedmont in Italy claimed to trace this story, if true, 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.240 to an herb native to Sardinia called the hemlock water 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:43.840 drop ward or Enanth crocata, also known commonly as water celery. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.399 But this is not a good candidate to stick in 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.399 your bloody mary, because the stem and the root of 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.000 this plant are apparently a significant threat to fatal human poisonings. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.560 One example, sometime in the late nineties, a Sardinian shepherd 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.719 committed suicide by eating water drop ward, and his corpse 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.560 was apparently found grinning. Now, the name en anth means 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:08.280 wine flower, and Crocata in particular has apparently a quote 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.720 paradoxical Swedish and pleasant taste and odor, and this makes 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.320 it more dangerous than a lot of other plants, especially 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.960 plants in the same genus, which are also poisonous but 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.280 have a bitter taste which kind of keeps you from 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.040 eating too much of it, and because of its ability 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.960 to cause the facial muscles to contract into the risus sardonicus, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.920 and because Sardinia is the only place in the Mediterranean 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.119 where this plant commonly grows, the researchers think that it 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.840 is probably the Sardinian death or from the ancient stories, 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.040 and thus the origin of the idea of the sardonic grin. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.000 Now back to Talos though. Okay, so I'm sorry to 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.920 take a sup It's a fascinating diversion, but the bronze 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.160 killer oasis is will explore. There are two key origin 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:56.080 stories for this mechanical marvel. So in some tales he 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.159 had been Really most of the older tales he was 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.240 created by Festus, the god of the forge, the later 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.920 known as Vulcan, the blacksmith god of Olympus. Yeah, the 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:11.639 deformed god who and who. If you visit Birmingham, Alabama, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.400 you get to see his likeness on the horizon because 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.400 they have the statue of Vulcan. I didn't know that. Yeah, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.440 it's it's interesting. It's one of the few I guess 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:25.359 pagan uh tourist stops in the American South. But in 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.920 later tellings, Uh the inventor Dadalists constructs this artificial being. Yeah, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.600 the master inventor, the creator of the Manoan Mayze, the 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:39.960 Wings of Icarus and other marvels, the famed mythical inventor. Yeah, 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.680 and it's but this is interesting as well because Talos, 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:49.040 the the bronze automaton here curiously bears the same name 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.760 as the inventor the Dadalists tried to murder out of 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.639 jealousy earlier on, pushing him out of it out of 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:01.160 a tower, although Athena saves this more total Talus by 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.520 turning him into a partridge so we can fly away. Yeah, 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.960 and his paper Paris talks about the the number of 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.040 stories along these lines. But it's like an Athenian tradition 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.680 that Daedalus was in Athens and he had this pupil 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.880 who was very talented, and he was a little too talented, 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.760 so Dadalus got a little territorial, got a little jealous, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.080 and pushed him off the acropolis. Yeah. That the original Talus, 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.040 if we want to call him that, the mortal Talus. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.560 He's attributed with with inventing the saw really things, So yeah, 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.960 Deedal is the standing. There's like jeezus saw that's genius. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.399 Why didn't I think of that? I just want to 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.960 push you out of a towel, and he does. This 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.200 is a great argument for not showing up your boss 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.320 in a meeting or being too clever. You're gonna get 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.000 pushed out of a tower. You just know it's coming exactly. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.280 No One. Last note about that Talus. That original human 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.320 Talus was apparently also known as Callous in some traditions, 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.040 so there's some differences in the name. But anyway, so 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.600 back to tell Us in the story of the Golden Fleet. 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.000 So you've got Jason and the Argonauts and Dia especially 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.359 now in most of the good versions of the story, 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.600 Media is the one who takes him down right right 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.000 and it and most of them, and has to do 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.840 with the removing of a bronze nail from that ankle again, 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.879 that weak point that's that's connected to the vein that 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.119 runs all the way through Talus's body. Uh, she unplugs it. 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.439 She unplugs the bronze nail, which causes uh the echer 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.640 to pour out of his body, draining him of all 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.840 life and movement. And there's actually a wonderful vase and 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:35.639 Athenian vase from four hundred b C. That illustrates this, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.840 and I'll make sure to include that image on the 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.160 landing page for this episode's Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:42.280 dot Com, you should take a look at this because 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:46.119 it's awesome. Talus has ripped. His pecks are like the 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:51.080 size of cars. But actually, one thing that you might 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.360 notice in this vase is that, so, okay, you've got 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.159 a bronze man and he seems to be stumbling and 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.359 falling down, but he's the same size as all the 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.840 other dudes are round him, which makes sense when you 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.480 think about the the the the embrace, the deadly burning 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.720 bear hug of the giant exactly. So when I read 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.280 this story in the say the version told by Apollonius 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.080 of Rhodes, I think of Talus as this hundred foot 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.679