Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello and welcome to Cautionary Tales. I am Tim Harford.
Speaker 1: This is one of our Cautionary Conversations episodes. We are
Speaker 1: sponsored this week by Amazon Prime, the creators of the
Speaker 1: Rings of Power. And I'm actually so excited i could pop.
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio with Alice Fin's Cautionary Tales series producer.
Speaker 1: And why am I so excited? Alis?
Speaker 2: You're so excited because we're about to do a massive
Speaker 2: rundown of all your favorite cautionary tales and the works
Speaker 2: of your favorite author, Tolkien.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're going to talk about Gerah Tolkien. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the Rings of Power, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about cautionary tales. It's like all my birthdays
Speaker 1: and Christmas have come at the same time. I'm in
Speaker 1: case you haven't guessed, I'm an absolutely massive fan of Tolkien.
Speaker 1: I've been a massive fan of Tolkien for approximately forty
Speaker 1: five years. And I think that Tolkien is full of
Speaker 1: cautionary tales. And this new series, Rings of Power is
Speaker 1: also full of cautioning tales. So that is what we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about.
Speaker 2: And I am this side of the glass today as
Speaker 2: a non expert enthusiast who has also watched Rings of
Speaker 2: Power and is also very excited to speak about it. Now,
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen Rings of Power yet, there's something
Speaker 2: for everyone in the mix. It's an action story, it's
Speaker 2: a psychological thriller. It's a fantasy story. So make sure
Speaker 2: you go and watch it.
Speaker 1: My whole life has built up to this moment I've
Speaker 1: been I sense that for you this is amazing. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's a fantasy about elves and orcs and all things
Speaker 1: Tolkien esk, and we will get into that. But it
Speaker 1: is also full of cautionary tales. It is full of
Speaker 1: the kind of ideas that we explore in caution retales.
Speaker 1: And as I was watching it, all kinds of things
Speaker 1: sprung to mind, and I imagine they sprung to your
Speaker 1: mind as well.
Speaker 2: They certainly did.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we should probably begin with a little bit
Speaker 1: of background. The Rings of Power is a prequel to
Speaker 1: the events of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: It is set thousands of years before those events. Tolkien
Speaker 1: wrote enormous amounts of law, so this is a new
Speaker 1: story set thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: We do meet some of the characters in the Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings. For example, we meet el Rond, we
Speaker 1: meet Galadriel. They are elves, Elands, half Elven. They lived
Speaker 1: for thousands of years, so you know you can meet
Speaker 1: them as their younger selves before they became those later characters.
Speaker 2: Yes, so l Rond we know later as an elf
Speaker 2: ruler in Rivendell. Galadriel a very powerful royal Elf. They
Speaker 2: are played by Robert Rameo and Morphind Clark rather brilliantly.
Speaker 2: So Rings of Power gives us their origin stories. And
Speaker 2: it's also the origin story of the Rings of Power
Speaker 2: themselves and the One Ring, which there's quite a lot
Speaker 2: of fuss about. So tim, what is going on with
Speaker 2: those Well.
Speaker 1: A lot of fuss about. This is about the Ring
Speaker 1: and the quest to destroy the One Ring. The Rings
Speaker 1: of Power were made under the influence of the Big
Speaker 1: Baddie Saron. There were three made by and four the elves.
Speaker 1: There were seven for the dwarves. There were nine immortal
Speaker 1: men and wrought by himself the One Ring. And this
Speaker 1: is a source of ultimate evil and corruption in the
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. So in the Rings of Power
Speaker 1: we get to see, well, why were these things made?
Speaker 1: Who made them? And I imagine in season two, which
Speaker 1: we haven't watched yet, we're going to see a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the consequences of making them.
Speaker 2: We actually see quite a few sort of mini origin
Speaker 2: stories peppered throughout season one. So someone else we meet
Speaker 2: is an ancestor of Aragon Izildon, who actually.
Speaker 1: Sorry to correct you there, Alison Aragon is actually descended
Speaker 1: from an Arian who is Isolu's brother, Thank you so,
Speaker 1: But yes, Isldure, we know, from the Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: famous tool who fails to destroy the One Ring when
Speaker 1: he could have destroyed the One Ring. And he's you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a muppet in the Rings of
Speaker 1: Power as well, isn't he.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, if I'm honest, it's not
Speaker 2: looking good for him.
Speaker 1: No, no, but there you go. I mean, the character
Speaker 1: arc is consistent. You know, he makes mistakes. He's going
Speaker 1: to make mistakes in the future. So we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the characters, and we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about the cautionary tales they bring to mind
Speaker 1: from the social science behind what happens in the Rings
Speaker 1: of Power and some of the things that occur in
Speaker 1: the Rings of Power that echo true stories that we
Speaker 1: have told in cautionary tales, I should say there are
Speaker 1: going to be some spoilers for season one. There are
Speaker 1: not going to be any sort of spoilers for season
Speaker 1: two because we haven't seen season two. It is out
Speaker 1: on the twenty ninth of August on Amazon Prime. I
Speaker 1: for one, am eagerly looking forward to it. So we
Speaker 1: should begin with one of the key protagonists, the heroine,
Speaker 1: one of the heroines of the Rings of Power, Galadriel.
Speaker 1: We see her in The Lord of the Rings. Here
Speaker 1: we see her as a child and then later as
Speaker 1: an incredibly determined pursuer of evil. I say determined, I
Speaker 1: mean maybe it's determined, Maybe it's obsessive, maybe it's irrational.
Speaker 1: Everyone else seems to think that she's completely unhinged. Saron
Speaker 1: has long since disappeared from the world, and yet Galadriel
Speaker 1: will not give up the hunt for him.
Speaker 2: So early on in the series covers a few centuries
Speaker 2: of Galadriel's life. We see Gladriel and her beloved brother
Speaker 2: Finrod battling Morgoth, who is a kind of evil entity
Speaker 2: demonic actually who.
Speaker 1: Moth Saron's boss, so he when he was defeated, Saron
Speaker 1: took up the Baton and continued the pursuit of evil
Speaker 1: in Middle Earth.
Speaker 2: So Galadriel vows to take up her brother's mission, and
Speaker 2: she spends centuries seeking out Sourn and this intangible evil
Speaker 2: that she believes is there, And eventually others stop rallying
Speaker 2: around the cause. She starts to seem like she might
Speaker 2: just be kind of a lone zealot. And it all
Speaker 2: comes to a head when she leads her company to
Speaker 2: this sort of snowy wasteland.
Speaker 1: It looks absolutely miserable, but because they're elves, I guess
Speaker 1: they don't die of cold.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. She thinks that she is seeing signs of Salon,
Speaker 2: but others don't really believe that that's what she's seeing.
Speaker 1: There are signs, right, but the signs are are centuries old.
Speaker 1: So the fact that somebody wrote a sign hundreds of
Speaker 1: years ago, what does that tell you now?
Speaker 2: Right exactly? The threat is not imminent. There's this brush
Speaker 2: with the snow troll. They lose faith in her, they
Speaker 2: stop following her, and when they go home, she's commended
Speaker 2: for her bravery. But it's all kind of a bit hollow.
Speaker 1: It's very hollow. So the King of the Els, Gilgallard,
Speaker 1: rewards her with a one way trip to Valenore, which.
Speaker 2: Is false retirement, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of elf heaven, and I mean it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a big reward, but it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like a reward to her. Feels like she's basically being,
Speaker 1: as you say, forcibly, retired and stripped of her duties,
Speaker 1: and it feels like a punishment to her. It becomes
Speaker 1: apparent later that Gilgalad did this deliberately. It's not just
Speaker 1: that he meant to reward her, but she didn't really
Speaker 1: view it as a reward. He wanted to take her
Speaker 1: out of the picture. Because it becomes clear that Gilgallard,
Speaker 1: the elf king, he thinks that Gladrial is actually the problem,
Speaker 1: like the fact that there is still evil in the world.
Speaker 1: There's evil in the world because Gladriuel is so obsessed
Speaker 1: with evil. There's a line that a wind that can
Speaker 1: blow out a fire can also fan the flames. One
Speaker 1: of the things that really struck me here is Galadril
Speaker 1: is treated a little bit like our whistle blowing hero
Speaker 1: in Whistleblower on the twenty eighth Floor, which is our
Speaker 1: episode about the equity finance fraud the equity finance Forward
Speaker 1: was effectively the equivalent of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme only
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. And the man who identified that
Speaker 1: this fraud was taking place and delivered the evidence of
Speaker 1: this fraud to the SEC cur it as an Exchange Commission,
Speaker 1: the US financial regulator. He was then prosecuted by the SEC,
Speaker 1: and obviously gladually is a rather more dynamic and compelling
Speaker 1: and charismatic figure than Ray Dirk's. But the way that
Speaker 1: we punish the people who are trying to alert us
Speaker 1: to danger, I think is a is a theme in
Speaker 1: certain caution detales, and very strongly a theme in the
Speaker 1: early episode ser Rings of Power.
Speaker 2: Yes, A key takeaway in that episode, the Whistleblower on
Speaker 2: the twenty eighth Floor, is that whistleblowing is often far
Speaker 2: more trouble than it's worth. You might be shunned, it
Speaker 2: may be hard to find employment after. People don't like
Speaker 2: bad news. Essentially, you lose your friends because your friends
Speaker 2: are people from work.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to survive financially and emotionally. They don't like
Speaker 1: bad news, and also they often blame the messenger, not
Speaker 1: because they don't just dislike the bad news, but because
Speaker 1: the people who are willing to defy that social pressure
Speaker 1: are often quite awkward. Whistleblower once contacted my colleagues at
Speaker 1: the Financial Times. When my journalistic colleague picked up the phone,
Speaker 1: the first line the whistleblower uttered was, my name is Tarantula.
Speaker 1: That is not my real name. You just sound mad.
Speaker 1: That's just who phone's a journalist and says my name
Speaker 1: is Tarantela. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You might not endear yourself to people by.
Speaker 1: Doing that, really not. But it turns out, actually it
Speaker 1: was a very important fraud that this person was blowing
Speaker 1: the whistle on, and Ray Dirk's was a kind of
Speaker 1: awkward character and glad Youel is in many ways extremely
Speaker 1: obnoxious in this series. She rubs people up the wrong way.
Speaker 1: She's absolutely convinced she's right. She doesn't hesitate to let
Speaker 1: other people know that she thinks they're idiots, and this
Speaker 1: turns out to be quite common behavior from whistleblowers.
Speaker 2: She is right, but there are moments where you think, oh,
Speaker 2: take a day off. We talk in that episode, particularly
Speaker 2: about anti money laundering officers in banks, and there are
Speaker 2: these examples of how when you blow the whistle on
Speaker 2: a bank. You're blowing the whistle on regulatory failure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're blowing the whistle on everyone not doing what they're
Speaker 2: supposed to do.
Speaker 1: You're telling people that they screwed up. This organization screwed up.
Speaker 1: You screwed up. And my job is to tell you
Speaker 1: that you screwed up. And it turns out that that's
Speaker 1: your job title, but your actual job is to tick
Speaker 1: some boxes, not make a fuss.
Speaker 2: Don't rock the boat. And Gladriel is absolutely rocking the boat, right.
Speaker 2: She's pointing to everyone's collective failure to vanquish evil and
Speaker 2: to stay regilant. And it's a lot easier to dismiss
Speaker 2: that lone voice that's screaming into the wind than to say, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe we do actually have a problem here.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean there is another way of seeing this.
Speaker 1: As anybody who's read The Lord of the Rings knows
Speaker 1: Saron did not disappear. Saron comes back. We know Saron
Speaker 1: comes back, and even if we haven't read The Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, we kind of guess that Saron is
Speaker 1: still out there, so we kind of narratively we know
Speaker 1: Gladriel's right. And so there is such a thing as
Speaker 1: as hindsight bias, and I think it's hard to avoid
Speaker 1: that as a viewer of the series. So the classic
Speaker 1: example of outcome bias is an experiment run by a
Speaker 1: couple of psychologists in nineteen eighty eight Baron and Hershey.
Speaker 1: Whether they're asking people to evaluate decisions. These might be
Speaker 1: medical decisions, for example, or they might be financial decisions,
Speaker 1: but they also explain how things worked out. So here's
Speaker 1: a doctor, this is what the doctor did, and this
Speaker 1: is in the ed what happened to the patient. And
Speaker 1: people find it completely impossible to separate the decision making
Speaker 1: process from the outcome. If you're told the outcome, you
Speaker 1: can't neutually judge the process. And here we know the outcome.
Speaker 1: We know sound's out there, so we know Gladriel's right.
Speaker 1: So I think the storytellers have to work quite hard
Speaker 1: in this series to make Gladriels seem irrational and seem unhinged.
Speaker 2: When she's speaking about this intangible evil being out there,
Speaker 2: what she keeps referencing as this inner intuition, it's not
Speaker 2: really perceptible or measurable by her colleagues. They can only
Speaker 2: kind of work with what's in front of them and
Speaker 2: think about all the other things they need to balance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she thinks she's right. She thinks they're wrong. They
Speaker 1: think the opposite. I mean, who's to judge?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I think there is another reading of Gladriel which is
Speaker 2: possible here, which is that she is a grieving person
Speaker 2: or a grieving elf. She takes on her brother's after
Speaker 2: he dies, She takes his dagger. She says, his vow
Speaker 2: became mine. She's grappling with her relationship with him even
Speaker 2: though he's gone, which is sort of what grieving is.
Speaker 2: There's a sense in which his death ignites this fire
Speaker 2: in her. In her words, it whips up a tempest
Speaker 2: that won't be quelled. Emotion and loss are kind of
Speaker 2: propelling her on for l ron. For people observing her,
Speaker 2: it seems like something's broken in her right. There's a
Speaker 2: sense that emotion and anger are clouding her judgment rather
Speaker 2: than helping her maybe see truths other people can't, which
Speaker 2: reminds me of this trope of the mad woman that
Speaker 2: we see kind of recur in history and in literature,
Speaker 2: a powerful woman in particular whose emotion renders them overly dramatic,
Speaker 2: overly passionate, It automatically undermines them in cautionary tails. It
Speaker 2: reminds me of Anna Marie Jarvis.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Anamary Jarvis. That's that's a deep cut. I
Speaker 1: like that. So, yes, the inventor of Mother's Day? Or
Speaker 1: was she the inventor of Mother's Day? She certainly thought
Speaker 1: she was the inventor of Mother's Day and then was
Speaker 1: incredibly defensive of it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, so her life's work, I mean, Anne Marie Jarvis
Speaker 2: is also a grieving woman, right, Her life's work is
Speaker 2: honoring her dad, mother, and she believes that that. Then
Speaker 2: her day, Mother's Day gets co opted by these sort
Speaker 2: of cynical interests, and she tries to take back what
Speaker 2: she has created, and she's upset. I mean, of course
Speaker 2: she's upset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But she starts writing very vitriolic letters and everything
Speaker 1: is sort of painted as good and evil and sort
Speaker 1: of the noble idea of Mother's Day. And these corrupt florists,
Speaker 1: the evil florists who have you initially of course supported her.
Speaker 4: Why don't you stop fraud against Mother's Day through misrepresentation
Speaker 4: about founder. You know, no person in your town ever
Speaker 4: gave a cent for Mother's Day, nor was its promoter.
Speaker 4: No honest person would make such a claim. Stop the
Speaker 4: deception and game.
Speaker 1: It's a miserable story at the end.
Speaker 2: I think it is so. She does write these letters,
Speaker 2: but it is striking to me that she starts something,
Speaker 2: or she is instrumental in starting something that is still
Speaker 2: recognized in the US today. But in the end, Time
Speaker 2: Magazine remembers her as just this old woman, a busy body,
Speaker 2: a recluse, a bit of a weirdo. And there are many,
Speaker 2: many ways. I think that Galadriel and Anna Marie Jarvis
Speaker 2: are very different, but I do think they are both
Speaker 2: judged very harshly by the societies they live in.
Speaker 1: Did Galadriel ever throw a Mother's Day salad on the floor.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put it past her. But they're judged for
Speaker 2: their extremes of emotion and for the fire that lights
Speaker 2: in them and the missions that gives them.
Speaker 1: I think Gladril is going to come out very well
Speaker 1: in the end. Well, I think we know that she is.
Speaker 1: But I think you're right.
Speaker 2: I will say overall, in Rings of Power, women come
Speaker 2: across very well. They are very powerful, very wise, very brave.
Speaker 1: Yes, But Gladriel, she certainly has an edge to her,
Speaker 1: so Gladriola's Radix, the equity finance whistleblower, gladriel as Anna,
Speaker 1: Marie J. Harvest, the salad hurling creator of Mother's Day.
Speaker 1: These are depths that I had not previously seen in
Speaker 1: the Rings of Power. We will plumb more depths and
Speaker 1: we will explore more parallels after the break.
Speaker 2: Okay, Tim, picture the scene. You're at home in Oxford,
Speaker 2: in your living room, waging a very intriguing dungeons and
Speaker 2: Dragons campaign.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's all too easy to picture all of us
Speaker 1: the typical Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Well, it's all about to change. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's an almighty crash and through the floorboards appears an
Speaker 2: ork who has been undermining your house. What are you
Speaker 2: gonna do?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I'm hid in the cupboard. I think would
Speaker 1: be my reaction.
Speaker 2: That that's fair, because they're terrifying.
Speaker 1: They are absolutely terrifying. In the Wings of Power. We
Speaker 1: should just remind people. I'm Tim Harford, eur Alice find
Speaker 1: we are sponsored by Amazon Prime and the Rings of Power,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about parallels between the Rings of Power
Speaker 1: and cautionary tales. And yes, they are spine chilling.
Speaker 2: Spine chilling. They spend a lot of time digging that
Speaker 2: scene I just described in fact unfolds in the show.
Speaker 2: I have to say I would back you more than
Speaker 2: most to survive the Orc Apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Any particular reason.
Speaker 2: Your extensive knowledge the enemy, the enemy, you know that weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Yes, well sunlight one of the weekness. Yeah, which which
Speaker 1: indeed the Orcs are planning to do something about that
Speaker 1: particular problem in this series. But no, there they just
Speaker 1: are unsettling. They're like something kind of a horror movie
Speaker 1: rather than an action film. Here, they're thoroughly chilling, which
Speaker 1: I think is is very welcome development in the Rings
Speaker 1: of Power. But yes, so they've got this project though,
Speaker 1: the Orcs, they have a project not just interested in
Speaker 1: butchering livestock and kidnapping people and shooting people full of arrows,
Speaker 1: although they do do plenty of that.
Speaker 2: That's also a hobby. Yeah, I mean, we'll come to
Speaker 2: the project. But I do have a question for you. First.
Speaker 2: Rings of Power sort of elucidates where Orcs come from.
Speaker 2: They are these twisted, tortured elves according to Gladriel. Yes,
Speaker 2: I've not totally got my head around it. There seems
Speaker 2: to be a limitless supply of them. How does this work?
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I think orcs are quite feckened. I think
Speaker 1: orks like to get busy with other orcs, and yes,
Speaker 1: or I mean there are certain scenes where they appear
Speaker 1: to be almost manufactured. But yes, I think they are.
Speaker 1: They breed quickly as a race, and yes, Galadriel says
Speaker 1: they're twisted elves. Tolkien himself actually gave different accounts of
Speaker 1: where orcs came from. I mean, this is almost like
Speaker 1: a theological thing for him. Could the master of all evil,
Speaker 1: mor Goth? Could he create life? Or could he only
Speaker 1: twisted pervert life? And so he had different different views.
Speaker 1: But I think the view that is most popular, that's
Speaker 1: expressed in the Lord of the Rings is that Morgarth
Speaker 1: took elves and then he twisted elves in mockery and
Speaker 1: turned them into into orcs. And that was the worst
Speaker 1: thing he ever did, was to take elves and to
Speaker 1: turn them into too orcs. It was of all the
Speaker 1: evil acts he commits over thousands of years, and he
Speaker 1: gets up to all sorts of mischief, the creation of
Speaker 1: the orcs was that was the worst, the most spiteful
Speaker 1: thing he did. But anyway, wherever they came from, their
Speaker 1: their back and they are undermining, literally undermining human civilization. Serious.
Speaker 2: This sense of them as an inversion of something is
Speaker 2: very interesting. There's something kind of corpse like about them.
Speaker 2: They're sort of bloated, rotting sun, sunken flesh almost kind
Speaker 2: of it's like they shouldn't exist, really, I suppose, which
Speaker 2: is partly what makes them terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they killed, they kill things, so they kill livestock,
Speaker 1: and they chop down tree and for no obvious reason,
Speaker 1: they just destruction for destruction's sake. But in the end
Speaker 1: they do have a plan.
Speaker 2: They have a plan. We see them in prisoning elves
Speaker 2: in what seems to be a kind of prison camp.
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, and we don't know what they're
Speaker 2: building at first. We find out later yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, but both humans and elves are being kidnapped and
Speaker 1: enslaved and put to work on this project. So the
Speaker 1: leader of the Orcs, who is this character called ad.
Speaker 2: Are played terrifyingly by Joseph Moore.
Speaker 1: He is very unsettling and we're trying to work out
Speaker 1: who he is and where he came from and what
Speaker 1: his connection is to Sarah. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: mysteries of the show, But I think you've identified him.
Speaker 1: He's a fair enoughon Brown.
Speaker 2: Isn't Did you want to unpack that a bit?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: As listeners to our epic V two Rocket trilogy will know,
Speaker 1: Von Brown was this not so much brilliant engineer or
Speaker 1: brilliant scientists, but brilliant coordinator of scientists, brilliant project manager
Speaker 1: who had this vision of going to the Moon and
Speaker 1: didn't really care who was hurt in seeing that vision realized.
Speaker 1: And so while it all worked out very well for him,
Speaker 1: in the end, he ended up working for NASA and
Speaker 1: making films with Disney and living the American dream. He
Speaker 1: first of all, was probably the single most important person
Speaker 1: involved in the building of the V two rocket, which
Speaker 1: is a weapon of mass destruction and targeted I mean
Speaker 1: we're not really targeted at all, but to the extent
Speaker 1: that it was even vaguely aimed, it was aimed at civilians.
Speaker 1: So you're trying to kill civilians, and they successfully did
Speaker 1: kill civilians with this rocket, and he didn't seem to
Speaker 1: care because hate he's got funding to build rockets, and
Speaker 1: he wants to build rockets, and in the end he's
Speaker 1: going to go to the Moon. And then the second thing,
Speaker 1: and this is the even closer parallel with the rings
Speaker 1: of power, the use of concentration camp labor in just
Speaker 1: the most appalling conditions, thousands and thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: people dying Indora Middle Bow, and Von Brown basically did
Speaker 1: not seem to care. He was indifferent because he had
Speaker 1: his vision.
Speaker 2: What we discover about the massive construction project that the
Speaker 2: elves and humans are working on is that in a sense,
Speaker 2: it's all leading up to a kind of weapon of
Speaker 2: mass destruction as well. Right, they're digging all these tunnels.
Speaker 2: We don't know what it's for, but they're digging away.
Speaker 2: And eventually in the series we see a kind of
Speaker 2: would be lackey of Souron, who's longing for Souron's return,
Speaker 2: put this sort of like a sword into a landmark
Speaker 2: that triggers floods that run through the tunnels they've been digging,
Speaker 2: that trigger a kind of volcanic eruption, I suppose. And
Speaker 2: what unfolds are these horrendous fiery scenes that are reminiscent
Speaker 2: of a bomb going off.
Speaker 1: Really yea, it is like somebody just dropped an atomic
Speaker 1: bomb on Middle Earth. That's how it reads. What has
Speaker 1: actually happened is that ad Are and his orcs and
Speaker 1: their slave labor have reactivated Mount Doom. They have taken
Speaker 1: this dormant volcano and they have reactivated it, and it
Speaker 1: explodes absolutely catastrophically, the extraordinary scenes. It's an absolute disaster.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered where Mount Doom comes from. So this
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 1: This is it according to the Rings of Power Cannon,
Speaker 1: so it was originally Ora dro In as a mountain
Speaker 1: at the heart of the Southlands stroke Mordor sort of
Speaker 1: symbiotic with Saron. So when Saron is there in Mordoor
Speaker 1: and powerful Ora dro In is active, and when Saron
Speaker 1: is dormant, oro In is dormant. When in the Rings
Speaker 1: of Power, it's a very deliberate plan by add Are.
Speaker 1: He causes this massive steam explosion and that causes in
Speaker 1: Mount Doom to erupt. And we know, having read Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, that in the end Mount Doom will
Speaker 1: be where Saron's powerful Ring. You know, the ultimate, the
Speaker 1: one Ring is going to be forged in Mount Doom
Speaker 1: and it can only be destroyed in Mount Doom. So,
Speaker 1: as well as being this cataclysmic event, as far as
Speaker 1: the Wings of Power are concerned, we also know that
Speaker 1: this is paving the way for the return of Sarah,
Speaker 1: and it's going to pave the way for the creation
Speaker 1: of the evil.
Speaker 2: That is the one ring, which brings me to another thought,
Speaker 2: which is that there are very big questions in this
Speaker 2: series about what evil is, where it can be found,
Speaker 2: how do we deal with it? Is it something you choose?
Speaker 2: Is it an act of self determination? Is it something
Speaker 2: you inherit? For example, the Southlanders early on, they're not
Speaker 2: to be trusted because in their veins flows the blood
Speaker 2: of their ancestors who allied themselves with More Goth.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, which is very deterministic, right as a sort
Speaker 1: of you know, it's racial determinism. Absolutely, they are the
Speaker 1: descendants of people who serve More Goth and therefore you
Speaker 1: can't trust them.
Speaker 2: It's this concept of evil is something primitive within us,
Speaker 2: I suppose, But also evil maybe something you choose or deny.
Speaker 1: But yes, there is this sense. A lot of the
Speaker 1: people that we see have had their choices predetermined. I mean,
Speaker 1: add are the leader of the Orcs. Interestingly, he argues
Speaker 1: that they have free will and they need to be
Speaker 1: viewed as individuals with names and soone that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why they love him. But I think in
Speaker 1: the in the universe of Tolkien, the Orcs are irredeemably
Speaker 1: evil and the elves are inherently good. But one of
Speaker 1: the really interesting questions is, well, where does that leave
Speaker 1: the humans? And the humans are have moral agency, the
Speaker 1: humans get to choose. The humans have to choose, and
Speaker 1: some of them choose well, and some of them choose
Speaker 1: very badly.
Speaker 2: I did have another thought actually, as I was traveling here,
Speaker 2: Ada is in fact mistaken for Sarin at some point.
Speaker 2: He doesn't take that well. But that points to another
Speaker 2: issue with evil, right.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely so Ada looks very unsettling. He's this scarred
Speaker 1: or corrupted elf. He's coded as a bad guy, and
Speaker 1: he's a bad guy, you know, he he does all
Speaker 1: kinds of terrible things. The Orcs look horrendous. We know
Speaker 1: the Orcs are evil, and the elves look beautiful and
Speaker 1: do good things. So there is in Tolkien's universe, and
Speaker 1: in the universe of the Rings of Power, there is
Speaker 1: this association of people who look beautiful also being morally beautiful.
Speaker 1: And you know, evil is worn on the surface, so
Speaker 1: evil creatures look evil. Except it's not always like that
Speaker 1: it's not always like that in Tolkien, and it's not
Speaker 1: always like that in the Rings of Power, and.
Speaker 2: It's not always like that in real life, I think either.
Speaker 1: I certainly agree that it's not always like that in
Speaker 1: real life. The favorite themes of cautionary tales, which we
Speaker 1: come to again and again is the deceiver, the plausible deceiver.
Speaker 1: So going right back to one of our very first
Speaker 1: cautionary tales, the Rogue dressed as a captain, where this
Speaker 1: impoverished shoemaker and a petty criminal Wilhelm Vot got hold
Speaker 1: of a second hand army captain's uniform. This is in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds in Berlin, and just started bossing
Speaker 1: around a platoon of soldiers he found on the street,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's wearing a captain's uniform, and so
Speaker 1: they do what he says because he looks the part.
Speaker 1: And it's funny, but it's also it's quite dark, because
Speaker 1: we know we understand where this unconditional obedience to people
Speaker 1: in uniform later goes. And then of course there's Harold Shipman,
Speaker 1: who's this kindly trusted community doctor who is one of
Speaker 1: the worst serial killers ever in human history anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world and he you know, he doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a serial killer. He looks like the person who's going
Speaker 1: to take care of your grandmother. So you would think
Speaker 1: that's not part of the way that Tolkien views things,
Speaker 1: that's not part of the way that The Rings of
Speaker 1: Power portrays the world. But then you realize, oh no,
Speaker 1: there are people in this universe who are not what
Speaker 1: they seem. And one of the pleasures of watching this
Speaker 1: season is trying to figure out who looks good and
Speaker 1: is actually good and who's hard to place. And I
Speaker 1: would say, I think, and we said they'd be spoilers
Speaker 1: for the season one, and I don't want to spoil this.
Speaker 1: We know Sarahon's coming back. I think there are four people,
Speaker 1: at least four people in the Rings of Power who
Speaker 1: who plausibly contenders contenders for being Sarah. And one of
Speaker 1: the pleasures is to try to figure out who it
Speaker 1: actually is or maybe it's maybe it's none of those four,
Speaker 1: but yes, none of them well, with the exception of
Speaker 1: ad Are. They don't look like Saron, they don't code
Speaker 1: as Saron. What you're trying to see through is, okay,
Speaker 1: the Orcs look evil, Ada looks evil. Mount doom looks evil,
Speaker 1: that sword looks evil, but Saron himself is the great deceiver,
Speaker 1: and he looks exactly how he chooses to look. And
Speaker 1: that is one of the big challenges.
Speaker 2: Now that you mentioned catching a Killer doctor. Our episode
Speaker 2: about Harold Shipman, I am reminded of Karnaman and Teverski's
Speaker 2: representativeness heuristic and this idea that certain things kind of
Speaker 2: fit into our pre established frameworks. Yeah, and we may
Speaker 2: not question.
Speaker 1: Them, basically, absolutely not, absolutely so. So Shipman just fitted
Speaker 1: into the kindly doctor shaped box that we have in
Speaker 1: our heads. We've got this kind of stereotype of the
Speaker 1: community doctor who goes door to door and is always
Speaker 1: taken care of his patients and nothing's too much trouble.
Speaker 1: And he just fit perfectly into that box, just so.
Speaker 2: Much so that some people were actually thrilled that he
Speaker 2: was coming to comfort their aged relatives. Yes, and the
Speaker 2: dying hours.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, but how how kind that he would he would
Speaker 1: call on them where when no one else was around
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day, and and oh and
Speaker 1: then they died, And how wonderful it was that Shipman,
Speaker 1: of all people, their doctor was there in that moment
Speaker 1: to comfort them. And to be present they didn't die alone.
Speaker 1: Of course was a reason they didn't die alone, which
Speaker 1: because he murdered them and watched them die for reasons
Speaker 1: that are still still unclear and I think will never
Speaker 1: become clear. But yes, that representativeness heuristic is very, very powerful.
Speaker 1: We should take a break, and I think we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about one five theme in Tolkien and
Speaker 1: how that is reflected in some of my some of
Speaker 1: my favorite ideas from cautionary tales. We'll do that after
Speaker 1: the break. We're back. I'm Tim Harford. I'm here in
Speaker 1: the studio with producer Alice Fines. We are being sponsored
Speaker 1: this week by Amazon Primes series The Rings of Power,
Speaker 1: and we're having a cautionary conversation about what cautionary tales
Speaker 1: spring to mind when you watch this epic series set
Speaker 1: in Tolkien's Middle Earth. Alice, what sprung to your mind?
Speaker 2: This isn't strictly a cautionary tale, but something we see
Speaker 2: throughout the series is this idea that evil is somehow contagious,
Speaker 2: so by touching darkness you will be changed. That happens
Speaker 2: to Gladriel. There's kind of a sense in which she's
Speaker 2: changed in wheys she can't quite convey to others, and
Speaker 2: in that sense, knowing evil cuts you off from other people.
Speaker 2: So she says, you have not seen what I've seen,
Speaker 2: and she knows others believe evil infects you as well.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned earlier this idea of the same winds
Speaker 2: that seek to blow out a fire may also cause
Speaker 2: it spread. Which is an interesting problem, yes, because it
Speaker 2: raises a very practical issue, which is how do you
Speaker 2: deal with evil? You know, it's not a single cautionary tail,
Speaker 2: but many of our cautionary tales look at cruelty and
Speaker 2: look at where cruelty comes from, and also how do
Speaker 2: we respond to it?
Speaker 1: Yes, and how the elves want to respond to it
Speaker 1: is to bury their heads in the sand. They are
Speaker 1: very keen at the beginning of this season to conclude
Speaker 1: that makes it evil has been permanently banished, Saren has
Speaker 1: gone forever. Gladual is a problem because Gladiel keeps insisting
Speaker 1: that evil has not been vanquished and Saren has not gone,
Speaker 1: And in the end she gets blamed not just from
Speaker 1: causing a fuss, but maybe she is the source of
Speaker 1: evil in making such a.
Speaker 2: Fuss to somehow perpetuating it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely because of the anger that lives inside her
Speaker 1: this denial. It reminded me of a couple of Caution
Speaker 1: Tales episodes. So one fairly recent episode, How Britain Ignored
Speaker 1: the Mother of All Secrets, which was this extraordinary story
Speaker 1: about how during the Second World War and the British
Speaker 1: were told in some detail by an incredible piece of
Speaker 1: espionade brave intelligence leak. They were told that the Germans
Speaker 1: had defensive radar and therefore if the British flew sorties
Speaker 1: over Germany, the Germans would see them coming and would
Speaker 1: shoot them down as a very very important piece of information,
Speaker 1: and they just would not believe. They see photographs of
Speaker 1: the radar equipment. But they're even told before the war.
Speaker 1: They're told by a German officer. He's on a kind
Speaker 1: of like a I don't know, it's like a student
Speaker 1: exchange kind of thing. He shows up because they were
Speaker 1: how are you chaps getting on with radar? We know
Speaker 1: you are making progress and we're making progress too. In fact,
Speaker 1: we think we're ahead of you, and that that astonishing
Speaker 1: conversational tipbit just gets lost. So there's a there's a
Speaker 1: huge amount of wish for thinking, I think because the
Speaker 1: British want to believe that the Germans don't have this technology.
Speaker 1: They want to believe they're superior. They want to believe
Speaker 1: that their technology is superior, and they want to believe
Speaker 1: that this it would be bad if the Germans had this,
Speaker 1: so they don't want to believe it's true. And that
Speaker 1: denial continues for well over a year after they should
Speaker 1: have realized. And yeah, and the Elves are in the
Speaker 1: same denial. They always wanting to rationalize the way indications
Speaker 1: that Sarahn maybe has returned.
Speaker 2: So, however, we're going to confront evil. It seems that
Speaker 2: acknowledging it's there is the first step.
Speaker 1: I think very very important, really helpful to know what
Speaker 1: you're facing. And that, I mean, there's another example of this,
Speaker 1: and this maybe gives you more sympathy for the for
Speaker 1: the elf King's position, which is our pandemic episode that
Speaker 1: turned to Pascagoula, which is all about deer asters that
Speaker 1: are predictable and predicted. So we compare and contrast the
Speaker 1: spread of COVID with Hurricane Katrina. Everyone knew that New
Speaker 1: Orleans was vulnerable. Hurricanes would come over from time to time,
Speaker 1: just a matter of time. People knew there were weaknesses
Speaker 1: and levees. Over and over again, people were told something
Speaker 1: bad could happen, and they just didn't want to believe
Speaker 1: it because the costs of preparedness were so great And
Speaker 1: in fact, in the Rings of Power, we see that
Speaker 1: the elves have been prepared for centuries. They have standing
Speaker 1: garrisons looking over the humans in case the bad guys
Speaker 1: come back, and ironically they abandoned them just before they're needed.
Speaker 1: But the fact that those garrisons are there and there's
Speaker 1: a real cost to maintaining them, there's a cost to
Speaker 1: being prepared, and so you have some sympathy with people
Speaker 1: who go, you know what, maybe this is just a
Speaker 1: waste of money. Maybe this bad thing is never going
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 2: And then, as we've discussed, sometimes evil is hiding in
Speaker 2: plain sight and is unpredictable. Yeah, it's not something we
Speaker 2: can totally prepare for.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely. So you know that pandemics are a risk,
Speaker 1: but you don't know what kind of pandemic, and you
Speaker 1: don't know when you know that hurricanes are a risk,
Speaker 1: or earthquakes, but you don't know when you know there
Speaker 1: are some places they might strike in some places they
Speaker 1: are unlikely to. And then of course there are things
Speaker 1: that we just didn't see coming at all. So some
Speaker 1: of the genocides that the world has suffered since the
Speaker 1: end of the Second World War, some of them have
Speaker 1: become in from us. Some of them, I think are
Speaker 1: barely acknowledged, very hard to see any of them coming
Speaker 1: in advance.
Speaker 2: So what about you, Tim what's brings to mind for you?
Speaker 2: In Rings of Power?
Speaker 1: I think a really important theme in this series and
Speaker 1: in Tolkien in general, is the idea that power corrupts.
Speaker 1: So there's this sword that is a corrupting influence. The
Speaker 1: rings are, of course a corrupting influence. The plantity, these
Speaker 1: seeing stones are a rupting influence, and it's always tempting
Speaker 1: to use them. So the elves attempted to use the rings,
Speaker 1: the humans attempted to use the sword. The Newminorians are
Speaker 1: a human civilization, very high human civilization. They have a
Speaker 1: polante here. They want to look at the polant here
Speaker 1: and use it to see the future, use it to
Speaker 1: see things far off. And everybody is always convincing themselves
Speaker 1: that it'll be for the best, that I won't lose
Speaker 1: control of these things. And yeah, I'm a good person,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use this for good ends and
Speaker 1: with good intentions, and therefore good will result, and good
Speaker 1: does not result. Over and over again. In Tolkien, evil results.
Speaker 1: The inherent power of the object corrupts the user. And
Speaker 1: this really reminded me of a cautioning tale that I
Speaker 1: have not yet written, but I will write because I
Speaker 1: think it's an amazing story. And that is the tale
Speaker 1: of Herman Holloweth.
Speaker 2: Herman Holloweth, I know nothing about Herman Holloweth, Please tell me.
Speaker 1: Herman Hollowith was an engineer American engineer late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: who designed the machine that became known for obviously since
Speaker 1: as the hollow Earth Machine, and the hollow Earth Machine
Speaker 1: was a kind of proto computer. He was trying to
Speaker 1: solve the problem for the US Census, which is that
Speaker 1: you have the census every ten years, and then you
Speaker 1: go and you ask loads of loads of households who
Speaker 1: ask every household in the country lots of questions, and
Speaker 1: then you need to kind of organize all the answers
Speaker 1: and analyze the answers. And it was taking seven or
Speaker 1: eight years to put together the analysis of the answers.
Speaker 1: By the time the eighteen ninety census was being conducted,
Speaker 1: they still would not have finished analyzing the eighteen eighty census,
Speaker 1: the previous census.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to guess Holloth is about to make
Speaker 2: this process much more efficient.
Speaker 1: There's a race. There is a race between man and machine,
Speaker 1: and there are various human teams the Census say, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a competition. Somebody needs to figure
Speaker 1: out how to analyze the census results more quickly. Because
Speaker 1: they are also asking more complicated questions, so they're being
Speaker 1: more and more ambitious. It gets more and more difficult,
Speaker 1: and so there are various human teams involving you know,
Speaker 1: colored cards and various systems and all kinds of clever
Speaker 1: kind of organizational devices. But it's all a bit philo faxy.
Speaker 1: And then there's Holloweth's machine. And Hollowth's machine looks like
Speaker 1: it looks like an upright piano, and it operates using
Speaker 1: punch cards. So you've got these stiff cards with holes
Speaker 1: in them, and the machine has these spring loaded pins
Speaker 1: that dip into little cups of mercury. And so you
Speaker 1: put the punch card in and the pins come down
Speaker 1: and those that hit a hole go through the hole
Speaker 1: and into the cup of mercury, and they complete a
Speaker 1: circuit and those that don't hit a hole are stopped
Speaker 1: by the stiff cardboard. And that's fundamentally how the machine worked.
Speaker 1: And the operator of the machine was like, this is
Speaker 1: like the voice of God producing this amazing insight. Clearly
Speaker 1: was just high on mercury fumes. But the Hollowth machine
Speaker 1: just destroyed the human teams. It wasn't even close. And
Speaker 1: so the Census Bureau adopted the Hollowth machine and they
Speaker 1: all live happily ever after.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a cautionary tail.
Speaker 1: Yes, Because Hollerith retired, his company turned into IBM, and well,
Speaker 1: a couple of things happened. One thing is that IBM
Speaker 1: Germany became quite close with the Nazi regime, who were
Speaker 1: very interested in buying Holloweth machines.
Speaker 2: I see where this is going.
Speaker 1: Well, it is disputed exactly how important the machine was
Speaker 1: to the Nazi project of genocide, and were perfectly capable
Speaker 1: of murdering enormous quantities of people without a machine to
Speaker 1: count them. But I mean, the German Census Bureau was
Speaker 1: utterly co opted by the Nazi state and they were very,
Speaker 1: very interested in trying to identify who was Jewish who
Speaker 1: was not, and so having these machines be so powerful
Speaker 1: it kind of.
Speaker 2: Helped, may have expedited the process.
Speaker 1: It may have expedited the process. And also the US
Speaker 1: Census Bureau for decades denied that it had helped the
Speaker 1: administration find US citizens of Japanese descent for decades and
Speaker 1: decades and decades, said, we know the Census Bureau is
Speaker 1: stands alone and is separate, and is independent and does
Speaker 1: not do this kind of thing. We're just here to
Speaker 1: count the people. And then in two thousand and six
Speaker 1: Margo Anderson, historian found the smoking gun that in fact,
Speaker 1: the Census Bureau had told the Roosevelt administration exactly where
Speaker 1: all the Japanese Americans were living, and they were all
Speaker 1: of course chipped off to interment camps. So again, you
Speaker 1: see this machine. It's very powerful machine, designed for good,
Speaker 1: supposed to be used for good. But then once you
Speaker 1: have that power, are you really going to resist the temptation.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, though, you can't always tell what's going
Speaker 2: to happen to an invention. I'm thinking of our episode
Speaker 2: the hero who wrote his segue off a cliff Jimmy
Speaker 2: Hesselden invents the Hesko gabions, these concert tinas for shoring
Speaker 2: up coastlines to manage flood risks. Ultimately, they're used in
Speaker 2: places like Kosovo and Iraq filled with sand to protect
Speaker 2: people from bomb blast. Now you could argue that they
Speaker 2: are co opted as instruments of war, I suppose, But
Speaker 2: you can't tell how an invention will travel once you
Speaker 2: invent it. Maybe it can also do good, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: not just evil. So what's the answer.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the answer for Tolkien. Tolkien was quite
Speaker 1: conservative in his writings, and I think the answer for
Speaker 1: Tolkien is that you shouldn't take the risk. And in general,
Speaker 1: technology is shown as being not a progressive force. It's
Speaker 1: a potentially destructive force. So whenever you have new technology,
Speaker 1: it could potentially be used for evil, and therefore people
Speaker 1: will be tempted to use it for evil, and most
Speaker 1: people are not strong enough to resist that temptation. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of exceptions, but they're very, very minor exceptions.
Speaker 1: They're the exceptions that I think serve to highlight the
Speaker 1: rule in Tolkien. There's another interesting parallel along these lines.
Speaker 1: I mean, Tolkien strongly rejected the idea that Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings was an allegory. He hated the idea that
Speaker 1: the Wandering, for example, was really the atomic bomb. He
Speaker 1: once wrote, if Order the Things was an allegory, that
Speaker 1: the Elves would have used the Wandering immediately, which, of
Speaker 1: course I guess is true, because the Allies use the
Speaker 1: atomic bomb.
Speaker 2: So there are allegories, and then there are drawing. There's
Speaker 2: drawing on ideas which are in the zeitgeist at the time, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's As a watcher of
Speaker 1: the Rings of Power, it is hard not to be
Speaker 1: tempted by that parallel and in particular the character of
Speaker 1: Keller Brimble, the Great elf Smith as a kind of
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer figure or a von Brown figure, and Herman Hollowith.
Speaker 1: You see these characters, these these brilliant creators who cause
Speaker 1: all kinds of trouble for the world. They definitely have
Speaker 1: resonances in the Rings of Power.
Speaker 2: Tim This has been very fun and very interesting, But
Speaker 2: if I'm honest, also a bit of a downer. Do
Speaker 2: you think there is hope that things will get better
Speaker 2: in series two of Rings of Power?
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will be ups and downs in series two,
Speaker 1: as there always are. But I was reflecting on this.
Speaker 1: I think Tolkien is a very It is really a
Speaker 1: soulmate of cautionary tales. And because Tolkien he was fascinated
Speaker 1: by fairy stories, he was the person who brought really
Speaker 1: be a Wolf to prominence. Be a Wolf is not
Speaker 1: a story with a happy ending. A lot of fairy
Speaker 1: tales don't actually have happy endings, a lot of cautionary
Speaker 1: tales don't have happy endings, And a lot of Tolkien
Speaker 1: stories are about yes, evil is defeated, but it comes
Speaker 1: back and often comes back stronger. There is a sense
Speaker 1: in Tolkien of often of diminishment, of loss, of death,
Speaker 1: and he wants us to look at that and reflect
Speaker 1: on it and learn from it. And in cautioning tales,
Speaker 1: we want people to look at diminishment and loss and
Speaker 1: death and to learn from it. So I want to
Speaker 1: paint too close a parallel, But there's definitely what.
Speaker 2: You're saying is you are basically Tolkien. Is that what
Speaker 2: you're telling me?
Speaker 1: Well, all I'm saying is that Toulkien died September nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. I was born September nineteen seventy three. I've
Speaker 1: often reflected on this fact.
Speaker 3: He's speechless, absolutely speechless, the sheer gall of that there
Speaker 3: are no words, There are no there are no words,
Speaker 3: big fat. I love watching this. I really did love
Speaker 3: watching this, and I'm looking forward to season two. And
Speaker 3: just a reminder, you can watch season two of the
Speaker 3: Rings of Power on Amazon Prime starting August the twenty ninth.
Speaker 3: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.
Speaker 3: It's produced by Alice Fines with support from Marilyn Rust.
Speaker 3: The sound design and original music is the work of
Speaker 3: Pascal Wise.
Speaker 1: Sarah Nix edited the scripts. It features the voice talents
Speaker 1: of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge, Tella Harford, Jammas Saunders and
Speaker 1: Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without
Speaker 1: the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohene, Eric Handler,
Speaker 1: Carrie Brody and Christina Sullivan. Cautionary Tales is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios in London
Speaker 1: by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember
Speaker 1: to share, rate and review, tell your friends, and if
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