Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: I want to tell you a story about a monster slayer. Robert,
Speaker 1: are you game? Okay? So, once upon a time in
Speaker 1: medieval Japan, there was a warrior named Minamoto no Ko
Speaker 1: who was a daring swordsman, and he was famous everywhere
Speaker 1: for his bravery and his resolve. And Raiko had in
Speaker 1: his service a companion named Watanabe note Suna, who was
Speaker 1: also courageous, and he was a formidable fighter in his
Speaker 1: own right, and he wielded a bow and arrow and
Speaker 1: wore a suit of armor. And one day Raiko and
Speaker 1: Suna were traveling on the road to Kita Yama when
Speaker 1: they saw a skull floating in the sky, flying in
Speaker 1: and out of the clouds above. Now Rico and Sooner
Speaker 1: were curious how such a thing could be, so they
Speaker 1: decided let's follow the skull, and they followed the flying
Speaker 1: skull all the way to Cagaroka, where it led them
Speaker 1: to a crumbling old mansion from ancient times. The decaying
Speaker 1: manner was surrounded by wild overgrown weeds and an old
Speaker 1: gate choked by vines. So Rico ordered Souna to wait
Speaker 1: for him outside, and Rico entered the mansion alone. As
Speaker 1: he approached the threshold, he started to become aware of
Speaker 1: a presence. There was an old woman lurking behind the door,
Speaker 1: and he called out, who are you? She replied, I've
Speaker 1: been living here for a good long time. I am
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety years old and have served in
Speaker 1: their turn nine lords of this house. And then Rico
Speaker 1: saw her. She was a horrible sight to behold before
Speaker 1: the warrior's eyes. The old woman grasped her own eyelids
Speaker 1: with a tool, and she flipped her eyelids back over
Speaker 1: the top of her head like a hat. Then she
Speaker 1: pushed her mouth open with a large hairpin, and her
Speaker 1: lips became gigantic, and she took her lips and she
Speaker 1: tied them around her own neck, and her breasts began
Speaker 1: to sag down into her lap like rags. The old
Speaker 1: woman began to speak again. She said, spring comes and
Speaker 1: autumn goes, but my sad thoughts remained the same. Years
Speaker 1: begin an end, but my misery is eternal. This place
Speaker 1: is a demon's den. No human dares passed through our gates.
Speaker 1: My sorrowful youth has gone, but my old self sadly remains.
Speaker 1: I lament that bush warbler's depart, and swallows on the
Speaker 1: beam fly off. In her sorrow, the wretched old woman
Speaker 1: begged Rycho to kill her with his sword and put
Speaker 1: her out of her misery. Rycho could see that the
Speaker 1: old woman was out of her mind, so he left
Speaker 1: her alone, and he instead decided to go into the
Speaker 1: house to see what had happened and solve the mystery
Speaker 1: of the flying skull and what was afflicting this woman
Speaker 1: and making her think she lived in a demon's den.
Speaker 1: So he went inside the house, and outside the sky
Speaker 1: dark and fierce, and winds began to blow. But Sooner
Speaker 1: waited loyally for his master, And inside the house, Rycho
Speaker 1: began to hear the sounds of footsteps echoing like the
Speaker 1: beat of a hand drum. Then he saw a coterie
Speaker 1: of spirits and goblins coming into the room with him,
Speaker 1: but the creatures didn't attack. Instead, they only danced around
Speaker 1: and then laughed at his fear before passing out through
Speaker 1: another door. In their place, there came into the room
Speaker 1: a tiny woman, no more than three ft tall, but
Speaker 1: with a gigantic face more than two thirds of her
Speaker 1: whole height. And she had thick, heavy eyebrows, and when
Speaker 1: she opened her mouth, Rycho could see that her front
Speaker 1: teeth were black. She wore a purple hat and a
Speaker 1: red hakama with nothing underneath. Her arms were so thin
Speaker 1: they were like strings, and her skin was as pale
Speaker 1: as snowfall. Then that woman disappeared, and Raiko realized dawn
Speaker 1: was nearing. Almost as soon as the strange woman had left,
Speaker 1: another woman came into the room. This time the woman
Speaker 1: was graceful and calm, and so beautiful that Rycho could
Speaker 1: barely believe his eyes. He thought that this woman must
Speaker 1: be the true mistress of the old house, finally coming
Speaker 1: out to welcome him, and her eyes shone as bright
Speaker 1: as the reflection of a bonfire and black lacquer. But
Speaker 1: when Rico was distracted by the woman's beauty, she got
Speaker 1: the better of him. She lifted up the hymn of
Speaker 1: her hakama, and from underneath it she heaved at the
Speaker 1: swordsman some kind of material what looks like balls of
Speaker 1: white cloud, And the balls of white cloud blinded him.
Speaker 1: They got in his eyes, and in a rage, Raiko
Speaker 1: drew his sword and he slashed at the woman, but
Speaker 1: she evaporated into thin air. He slashed so mightily that
Speaker 1: his sword passed through the floorboards and cut a foundation stone,
Speaker 1: and the tip of the blade broke off where the
Speaker 1: woman had been. There was now nothing but a pool
Speaker 1: of white blood on the floor, with a trail of
Speaker 1: more white blood leading off somewhere else. Raiko and soon
Speaker 1: had joined together again, and they followed the trail of
Speaker 1: white blood out of the house and up into the mountains,
Speaker 1: and finally to the mouth of a dark cave, out
Speaker 1: of which white blood was flowing like a river. As
Speaker 1: soon as suggestion, the two of them made an effigy
Speaker 1: of ratan and vines in the shape of a man,
Speaker 1: and they carried it before them as they entered the cave.
Speaker 1: Inside the cave, they found a gigantic monster in the
Speaker 1: form of a mountain spider, but nearly two hundred feet tall,
Speaker 1: and it wore a brocade on its head. Its eyes
Speaker 1: were as bright as the sun and the moon. The
Speaker 1: giant monster bellowed, what has happened to my body? It
Speaker 1: is so painful. Then the monster hurled something at them
Speaker 1: in the dark, and the projectile hit the effigy that
Speaker 1: they carried in front of them and knocked it down.
Speaker 1: Rico and Sona examined the object that the monster had
Speaker 1: shot at them, and they discovered that it was the
Speaker 1: broken tip of Rico's sword. Together, they took hold of
Speaker 1: the creature and they began to drag it out of
Speaker 1: the cave. And the monster put up a good fight,
Speaker 1: and it was a terrible monster. Indeed, it's strong enough
Speaker 1: to move boulders with its legs. So Rico said a
Speaker 1: prayer to the sun goddess Amaterasu and asked her for
Speaker 1: aid with the fight. Rico and Sooner pulled and pulled,
Speaker 1: and eventually the monster collapsed and fell belly up on
Speaker 1: the earth without hesitation. Rico drew his sword and chopped
Speaker 1: off the monster's head. Sooner ran to slash open the
Speaker 1: monster's belly, but found when he got there that it
Speaker 1: had already been opened by a deep gash. This was
Speaker 1: the wound Richo had given it inside the house when
Speaker 1: it was in the form of the woman, and this
Speaker 1: proved that the giant spider truly was the beautiful woman
Speaker 1: that he had seen from the gash in the giant
Speaker 1: spider's belly, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety heads tumbled
Speaker 1: out onto the ground. The warriors cut open another part
Speaker 1: of the spider's body, and many smaller spider monsters swarmed out,
Speaker 1: each about the size of a seven or eight year
Speaker 1: old child. When the warriors looked further in the stomach
Speaker 1: of the spider beast, they found twenty human skulls. Knowing
Speaker 1: it had to be done, Riicho and soon a dug
Speaker 1: a grave in the ground and buried the twenty skulls,
Speaker 1: and then burned the giant spider's din. When the Emperor
Speaker 1: heard what Richo and Suna had done in eliminating this
Speaker 1: heinous monster that had been plaguing the country, he gave
Speaker 1: them promotions and appointed them governors of their own provinces.
Speaker 1: And this is the story of Minamoto no Riiko and
Speaker 1: the Giant Spider. That is a fabulous story. I love it,
Speaker 1: just like the the the layers of the adventure and
Speaker 1: then just the the revelations about the horrific monstrosity that
Speaker 1: they're faced with. I like how it's weird and rambling,
Speaker 1: like it takes a long time to get to the
Speaker 1: final form of the monster. You don't really know where
Speaker 1: it's gonna go. It takes you to a haunted house first.
Speaker 1: Uh something about that feels both unusual and intuitive. Um
Speaker 1: So that they start off seeing the skull, and I
Speaker 1: have to assume that I guess the skull was some
Speaker 1: form of the monster. I don't know. But but also
Speaker 1: I like how in a lot of the monster slayer
Speaker 1: stories you come across, there's a more specific reason that
Speaker 1: the that the hero must undergo the quest to slay
Speaker 1: the monster. They have to rescue a princess or something. Here,
Speaker 1: this time, they're just detectives investigating something weird that they saw,
Speaker 1: and it eventually leads them into the monster's cave to
Speaker 1: kill it, which also ultimately kind of makes you feel
Speaker 1: bad for the monster, Like it didn't even kidnap anybody
Speaker 1: they knew, They just like made their way to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It seems to be entirely recreational on their part. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it kind of makes them like
Speaker 1: some kind of roving police force almost in a way.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they just needed the experience points. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. Uh So, this giant spider story comes
Speaker 1: from an early fourteenth century Japanese picture scroll called the
Speaker 1: Sushi Gumo Soshi, and the version of the story that
Speaker 1: I read is as translated by the scholar Dr. Nariko
Speaker 1: t writer who we've referenced on the show before. I
Speaker 1: think in our episode about cuteness and strocity. That make sense?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so that so my version of the story
Speaker 1: I just told was based on her translation of this
Speaker 1: fourteenth century scroll. And this is not the only legend
Speaker 1: about giant spiders in early modern Japan. The sushi gumo
Speaker 1: or earth spider, was a common monster found in no
Speaker 1: plays and in supernatural narratives in the following centuries. But
Speaker 1: there are also other spider monsters like the ushi one,
Speaker 1: which was sometimes described as like a giant spider with
Speaker 1: the head of a bull, and it attacks fishermen at
Speaker 1: the water's edge. And then there's also the juro gumo,
Speaker 1: which is the literally the prostitute spider, and it's another
Speaker 1: sort of ghost like creature that appears in the literature
Speaker 1: of the Ato period, shape shifting like the sushi gumo
Speaker 1: between the forms of a beautiful woman and a voracious arachneid,
Speaker 1: luring men to their deaths. So a classic trope of
Speaker 1: of monsters appearing as is desirable humans or even non
Speaker 1: human entities, of course, and you see that too in
Speaker 1: in the Sushi Gumo in the story where the spider
Speaker 1: monster appears as this beautiful woman in the house and
Speaker 1: distracts the swordsman with her beauty just long enough to
Speaker 1: throw clouds of white matter in his eyes. Who knows
Speaker 1: what that's supposed to be. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: guess it's the silk, right, Oh? Maybe? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know it's supposed to be said. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: described as literally like clouds, so it's hard to know
Speaker 1: exactly what it's referring to. It seems to be some
Speaker 1: kind of magical substance. But yeah, So we're doing something
Speaker 1: a little bit different today than we usually do in
Speaker 1: our October episodes where we love to focus on monsters.
Speaker 1: Today we wanted to take a look at the immortal
Speaker 1: enemy of our beloved monsters, the monster Slayer. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's often an essential part of the story and sometimes
Speaker 1: the thing sometimes they define like define each other, right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes the monster is really the thing that defines the hero.
Speaker 1: Other times there's not a lot to say about the
Speaker 1: monster itself, except that a certain hero of note gave
Speaker 1: it a good slaying at some point. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: almost as deep and as old as the monster mythology itself. Right.
Speaker 1: The oldest monster stories you can find when you go
Speaker 1: back in time very often are monster slayers stories. There's
Speaker 1: a monster, and there's a hero who must venture out,
Speaker 1: often alone or with a faithful companion, uh, to face
Speaker 1: the monster and destroy it. And the monster slayer archetype
Speaker 1: is actually classed as a particular type of like you know,
Speaker 1: myth archetype, the the princess and the dragon type story
Speaker 1: which appears all over the world in different cultures. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and that that's the very broad take.
Speaker 1: You know, that there's like a princess who's being held
Speaker 1: captive or being threatened by some kind of monster, and
Speaker 1: a hero must venture out with courage and face the monster,
Speaker 1: though of course clearly not all the monsters in these
Speaker 1: types of stories are dragons. And then there's just the
Speaker 1: bigger myth architecture of whether or not there's a princess,
Speaker 1: there's very often a slayer who must face down the beast.
Speaker 1: And and we're gonna, we're gonna explore some different versions
Speaker 1: of this where the beast has you know, varying degrees
Speaker 1: of symbolic uh power. I guess you would say uh
Speaker 1: in other times less so uh. Again, it often comes
Speaker 1: down to like why is why? Why is this hero
Speaker 1: killing this monster? That's often the question, like what is
Speaker 1: gained by this story? Uh? And in doing that you
Speaker 1: have to look at what the monster represents, what the
Speaker 1: hero represents. And then there are certain complexities that seemed
Speaker 1: to come along just as storytelling evolves. Yeah. So, another
Speaker 1: one I wanted to focus on, to go even much
Speaker 1: deeper into history is the story of mar Duke the
Speaker 1: Monster Slayer. Now mar Duke, of course, is an ancient
Speaker 1: Near Eastern god uh, and I want to I want
Speaker 1: to focus on the story of mar Duke the Monster
Speaker 1: Slayer as told from the Enema a Leash the ancient
Speaker 1: Babylonian Epic of Creation, which of course is a great
Speaker 1: story we've explored on the podcast before and I'm excited
Speaker 1: to explore it again. So the general story, Robert, you're
Speaker 1: remember the outlines. You've got the primordial creators in the
Speaker 1: Babylonian epic, right, You've got Tiamat and Opsu, which represents
Speaker 1: saltwater and freshwater respectively. They're these gods and also kind
Speaker 1: of monster creatures. They're sort of dragon gods that are
Speaker 1: also saltwater and freshwater, and they and they embody a
Speaker 1: lot of natural might, a lot of are also potentially
Speaker 1: chaotic might, right, yeah, yeah. They represent the sort of
Speaker 1: chaos before the creation of the order of the world today.
Speaker 1: And what they do is uh the sweetwater in the saltwater.
Speaker 1: Together they create a race of gods, but end up
Speaker 1: finding those gods they've created unpleasant and loud, and eventually,
Speaker 1: um the gods turn on their creators and they slay Opsu,
Speaker 1: the sort of freshwater deity, and Tiamat, the saltwater deity.
Speaker 1: She is enraged, and she tries to make revenge on
Speaker 1: the gods for slaying Opsu, attacking them in the form
Speaker 1: of a giant sea monster or a salt water dragon
Speaker 1: and making a team of evil monsters to do wickedness
Speaker 1: on her behalf and the gods. Of course, because of
Speaker 1: her power, they're too afraid to go out and fight
Speaker 1: Tiamat themselves, but eventually they convinced the storm god mar
Speaker 1: Duke to go out himself and fight her on their behalf.
Speaker 1: So in exchange for risking his life in this fight,
Speaker 1: mar Duke's what's in it for Marduke? Right? Mar Duke
Speaker 1: demands that the gods make him their king, so he
Speaker 1: that that's the deal. Right, I'll go out and slay
Speaker 1: the monster if you guys make me the boss, which
Speaker 1: sounds like a good deal. You need a king, you
Speaker 1: want one that's going to actually slay your monsters, right.
Speaker 1: So mar Duke is armed with special weapons imbued with
Speaker 1: some kind of storm power, a bow and arrow, a
Speaker 1: mace and net, and then there are these powers of
Speaker 1: the winds that he commands, including the winds of the
Speaker 1: cardinal directions north, southeast and west, but also these other
Speaker 1: kinds of wind magic, Like there's one wind weapon he
Speaker 1: has just called the Evil Wind. And I guess we're
Speaker 1: supposed to imagine just some sort of like cosmic fart
Speaker 1: here um. The fart jokes do kind of present themselves
Speaker 1: at this point. So from here, I think I will
Speaker 1: just read some lines from the enemy Alish has the
Speaker 1: as translated by E. A. Spicer, Robert, would you like
Speaker 1: to read with me? Of course? Then the Lord raised
Speaker 1: up the floodstorm, his mighty weapon he mounted the storm chariot,
Speaker 1: irresistible and terrifying. He harnessed and yoked it to a
Speaker 1: team of four, the Killer, the Relentless, the trampler, the
Speaker 1: swift sharp, where their poison bearing teeth they were versed
Speaker 1: in ravage, skilled, and destruction. On his right he posted
Speaker 1: the smider, fearsome in battle. On the left, the combat
Speaker 1: which repels all the zealous. His cloak was an armor
Speaker 1: of terror. His head was turbaned with his fearsome halo.
Speaker 1: The lord went forth and followed his course. He set
Speaker 1: his face towards the raging Tiamat. He held a spell
Speaker 1: between his lips. A plant to put out poison was
Speaker 1: grasp in his hand. And then we'll skip a bit.
Speaker 1: Marduk approaches Uh and Tiamat's consort, Kingu. This monster Kingu
Speaker 1: and her allied gods and monsters become fearful, and then
Speaker 1: Tiamat taunts Marduk, and then Marduke gives a speech rebuking
Speaker 1: Tiamat and challenging her to single combat. And then we'll
Speaker 1: pick up with the lines again. When Tiamat heard this,
Speaker 1: she was like one possessed. She took leave of her
Speaker 1: senses in fury, Tiamat cried aloud to the roots of
Speaker 1: her legs, shook both together. She recites a charm, keeps
Speaker 1: casting her spell while the gods of battle sharpen their weapons.
Speaker 1: Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of God's, then joined battle. They
Speaker 1: strove in single combat. Locked in conflict, the lord spread
Speaker 1: out his net to unfold her. He let loose in
Speaker 1: her face the evil wind, which followed behind. When Tiamat
Speaker 1: opened her mouth to consume him, he drove in the
Speaker 1: evil wind, and she could not close her lips. As
Speaker 1: the fierce winds encumbered her belly. Her body was distended
Speaker 1: and her mouth was wide open. He released an arrow.
Speaker 1: It tore her belly, It cut through her inside, splitting
Speaker 1: her heart. Having subdued her, he blotted out her life.
Speaker 1: He threw down her carcass and stood upon it. Oh,
Speaker 1: you gotta stand on it. That's that's just uh, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary. Well, we've hit on this before, like the
Speaker 1: they see that trope in both the Western and Eastern
Speaker 1: art with a demon or devil or monster trampled beneath
Speaker 1: the feet or sat upon as if it were thrown.
Speaker 1: You know, it's still a thing when you see. I mean,
Speaker 1: I almost hate to bring this up because it makes
Speaker 1: me mad whenever I see it. But like those like
Speaker 1: Safari hunting pictures where people like shoot a lion or
Speaker 1: something like that, and then they're like standing there with
Speaker 1: their foot on it. Yes, I am not crazy about
Speaker 1: that either, but they put their foot on it. This
Speaker 1: is still a thing. It's like you and now Earth.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's instinctive. Almost. I put my foot
Speaker 1: on this thing to show I have beaten it. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, the next thing in this story, because it
Speaker 1: becomes of course, the epic of creation is that mar
Speaker 1: Duke makes the heavens and the earth out of Tiamat's
Speaker 1: dead body. Ah. This is another thing we see time
Speaker 1: and time again in different uh myths, the idea of
Speaker 1: some primordial being being overcome and then their body being
Speaker 1: repurposed in creation. Yeah, it is. It's an interesting repeating theme.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I wonder what that says, Like,
Speaker 1: why do we have the the inherent suspicion that the
Speaker 1: ground on which we walk was once a living being?
Speaker 1: We should come back and doing a whole episode on
Speaker 1: dead gods at some point. Oh, absolutely, now here's another
Speaker 1: thing I was thinking about, which is that in most
Speaker 1: of these pre modern stories, the monster slayers always a dude.
Speaker 1: It's always male. Not always. I want to get to
Speaker 1: a counter example that I was able to find. And
Speaker 1: it's also not uncommon for the monster that is getting
Speaker 1: slain to be female. Think about the Sushi Gumo, the
Speaker 1: woman in the house and slayed by the swordsman Tiamat,
Speaker 1: the female monster slayed by marduk Uh and the Medusa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can. We can discuss more about what is meant
Speaker 1: by that in a bit. But I was on the
Speaker 1: hunt for some good pre modern, ancient female monster slayers,
Speaker 1: and I think I found at least one good example
Speaker 1: that that I turned up sort of a pre Buffy
Speaker 1: Buffy if you will, right, Well, I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one of the many great things about Buffy. Of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's one of the greatest vampire slayers monster slayers
Speaker 1: of all time. But then she is she has a
Speaker 1: female which you, as you pointed out, you don't see
Speaker 1: a lot of in the ancient myth cycles. It's a
Speaker 1: nice change up on the gender dynamics of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so another ancient Mesopotamian monster slayer would be in
Speaker 1: an A the glorious and ann a crusher of heads.
Speaker 1: In Anna was a Sumerian goddess also known as the
Speaker 1: Accadian ishtar got us of many things. We we've mentioned
Speaker 1: her on the podcast before, but you know, got us
Speaker 1: of the storehouse and the products of ag culture, but
Speaker 1: also it seems of fertility, sex, war and slaughter. And
Speaker 1: in Anna is maybe my favorite ancient god or goddess
Speaker 1: due to those awesome hymns in her praise written by
Speaker 1: the priestess in Headuana, perhaps the earliest known piece of
Speaker 1: writing with a named author. In Headuana was a twenty
Speaker 1: third century b c. Mesopotamian high priestess and poet, the
Speaker 1: daughter of the Acadian king Sargon the Great. And so
Speaker 1: she wrote these hymns to Anna that are just spectacular
Speaker 1: to read. Um, But okay, what kind of monster slang
Speaker 1: does Anna do? Well? The story here is more obscure,
Speaker 1: more complex, but it's also interesting. It comes down to
Speaker 1: this Sumerian concept called kor And my source here is
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces by the twentieth century ancient Neary
Speaker 1: scholar Samuel in Kramer. So everything I'm saying here comes
Speaker 1: from Kramer. Kramer writes that kore can be a really
Speaker 1: confusing word in ancient Sumerian literature because of its many
Speaker 1: different meanings. First of all, it seems to have a
Speaker 1: primary literal meaning of mountain, right, so got coor the mountain.
Speaker 1: It's also used to mean foreign land, presumably because the
Speaker 1: peoples of the mountains bordering Summer were a constant threat.
Speaker 1: But then core also appears to just mean land in general,
Speaker 1: like territory. Uh. But also it has cosmic and religious connotations.
Speaker 1: So the word core is also used to signify the
Speaker 1: Great Below or the nether world, to quote, the empty
Speaker 1: space between the Earth's crust and the primeval sea, and
Speaker 1: Kramer writes quote Moreover, it is not improbable that the
Speaker 1: monstrous creature that lived at the bottom of the Great
Speaker 1: Below immediately over the primeval waters is also called cour if.
Speaker 1: So this monster Core would correspond to a certain extent
Speaker 1: to the Babylonian Tiamat. So this is another version of
Speaker 1: the Tiamat sea monster legend. And Kramer writes about kind
Speaker 1: of in the tradition of Marduk, that there are multiple
Speaker 1: ancient stories and fragments of stories we have in which
Speaker 1: monster slayers attack the monster Core. In one the hero
Speaker 1: is the god Inky, in another one it's Ninerta. But
Speaker 1: in a third it appears to be in Anna. And
Speaker 1: so there's this passage where Anna threatens the Core who
Speaker 1: does who does not recognize her might? And in Anna says,
Speaker 1: the long spear, I shall hurl upon it the throwing stick,
Speaker 1: the weapon I shall direct against it, at its neighboring forests.
Speaker 1: I shall strike up fire at its And then there's
Speaker 1: an illusion. I shall set up the bronze axe all
Speaker 1: its waters, like Jibil, the fire god, the purifier, I
Speaker 1: shall dry up, like the mountain Rata, which no hand
Speaker 1: can reach. I shall And then there's another illusion, like
Speaker 1: a city cursed by Anu. It will not be restored,
Speaker 1: like a city on which in Lill frowns, it shall
Speaker 1: not rise up. And then the god Anu warns her
Speaker 1: how terrible the Core monster is quote against the standing
Speaker 1: place of the gods. It has directed its terror in
Speaker 1: the sitting place of the ann Hockey. It has led
Speaker 1: forth fearfulness. It's fearful terror. It has hurled upon Sumer.
Speaker 1: It's fearful glory. It has directed against all the lands.
Speaker 1: But of course, mighty and Anna is not discouraged, and
Speaker 1: she quote opens the house of battle against the Core
Speaker 1: and slays the monster and stands upon it and speaks
Speaker 1: to him. To her own magnificence. These ancient goddesses were
Speaker 1: serious business. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, and I love But
Speaker 1: she stands on it too. She's still doing putting her
Speaker 1: foot on it. It's got that's got to happen. Um.
Speaker 1: And So I think the issue that Kramer highlights with
Speaker 1: the different meanings of the word cour here is very illuminating.
Speaker 1: According to Kramer, again, it literally means mountain, also means
Speaker 1: enemy territory, also just means lander. Territory in general, also
Speaker 1: means the nether world or the underworld. Also the name
Speaker 1: of the monster that inhabits the nether world and brings
Speaker 1: destruction against Summer. So when you hear the story of
Speaker 1: in Hona slaying the cour if you're hearing it in
Speaker 1: the original language, you would be directly receiving all of
Speaker 1: these connotations. She conquers the mountain, she conquers the enemy lands,
Speaker 1: she conquers the land itself, she conquers the realm of
Speaker 1: the dead and maybe death. Um. It's interesting the way
Speaker 1: that you know, we go later into monster slang legends,
Speaker 1: looking for the allegories and saying like, you know, what,
Speaker 1: does what does this monster represent? It usually does seem
Speaker 1: to represent something more than just a beast, either intentionally
Speaker 1: or accidentally. Yeah, but but here it's like you've got
Speaker 1: all these connotations of the same word, meaning that it's
Speaker 1: almost just completely baked into the story at the face
Speaker 1: value level. That is fascinating. It's like the idea of
Speaker 1: the monster has yet to like congeal, you know, it's
Speaker 1: still more free flowing well the monster. I mean, you
Speaker 1: usually think of ancient stories as being more concrete and
Speaker 1: modern storytelling is being more abstract. But I wonder, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's always the case. Yeah, this really
Speaker 1: flies in the face of those some of the ideas
Speaker 1: we've discussed where like, oh, the monster is inspired by
Speaker 1: a hustle, you know, or or something to that effect,
Speaker 1: Like like this is more the it's ideas, uh that
Speaker 1: are you know, congealing into a symbolic form. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say this might be inspired less by a fossil
Speaker 1: and more by a family of concepts, all of which
Speaker 1: cause discomfort and fear, And the fear is key. Fear
Speaker 1: will definitely come into play later in this episode. All Right, well,
Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we come back we will explore more monsters and monster
Speaker 1: slayers than all right, we're back. So another famous monster
Speaker 1: and slayer combo that this is a combo that we
Speaker 1: could easily do the whole podcast on. You could do
Speaker 1: multiple podcasts on, because a lot of people have written
Speaker 1: about this duo. I'm talking about Beowulf and Grendel, the
Speaker 1: great romance of Anglo Saxon literature. Yes, I don't probably
Speaker 1: don't have to remind everyone about this too much. It's
Speaker 1: a a violent tale in which a brutish automaton of
Speaker 1: a human disrupts an ancient and terminally endangered creature in
Speaker 1: the process of its predation. Predation I should remind everyone
Speaker 1: that targets only the loudest, fittest, and warlike human males
Speaker 1: for the most part. Uh. The brute ends up tearing
Speaker 1: the arm off of the creature and then follows it
Speaker 1: home as it retreats to its layer and then dies.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, our hero follows. The blood follows the
Speaker 1: you know, the howls of pain, dives down to the
Speaker 1: deep layer and there kills the creature's mother as well.
Speaker 1: It's uh, I'm being a little cheeky in my description,
Speaker 1: because it is you're just accurately describing the story. Beowulf
Speaker 1: is a jerk, He's well, he is, he's kind of
Speaker 1: the mind kind of you know, partial. I guess to
Speaker 1: John Gardner's Grendel, who plays up these themes a lot
Speaker 1: by humanizing the monster well at the same time retaining
Speaker 1: its monstrous qualities, but portraying Beowulf is just is this
Speaker 1: holy wrath of a character? Yeah, I I guess it's
Speaker 1: a it's a modern thing for us to sympathize more
Speaker 1: with the monster. And why why is it like that now?
Speaker 1: Why do we sympathize with the monster more these days?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure? I mean, well, part of it is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: tales like this kind of speak to all of us
Speaker 1: and continue to resonate today, but it's it's still a
Speaker 1: tale that was speaking to a probably more specific audience
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, humanity in general. Maybe the
Speaker 1: reason that we're more inclined to sympathize with Grendel and
Speaker 1: sympathize with monsters these days is that we more people
Speaker 1: now are sort of conditioned to the idea that history
Speaker 1: as written might not always be fair. You know that
Speaker 1: it maybe is written to benefit the people who are
Speaker 1: writing it and make them look good. Unless you always
Speaker 1: kind of wonder when you get a heroic tale of
Speaker 1: a slaying, is it actually a tale of an unfair
Speaker 1: and undeserved slaughter? Yeah? Or sometimes maybe a monster just
Speaker 1: doesn't need slay anymore. Um. I was looking around, and again,
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous amount of literature about Grindel and Beowolf.
Speaker 1: Tons of people have written about J. R. Tolkien wrote
Speaker 1: about Beowulf and Grendel. I was looking at one particular author,
Speaker 1: though English professor and also a medieval dragon expert, Joyce
Speaker 1: Tally uh lion urns I believe it is her last name,
Speaker 1: and she points out that there's a lot to be
Speaker 1: said in interpreting Grendel and his mother Uh And some
Speaker 1: of the earlier interpretations were certainly more seeing them as
Speaker 1: personifications of natural threats, very much in keeping with what
Speaker 1: we discussed in the mar Duke's story. Already there what's
Speaker 1: outside the firelight? They are the wilderness and bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the wilderness, they're the dark. They are perhaps more
Speaker 1: specifically the North Sea of the Bog, the marsh long
Speaker 1: winter nights, I mean, ultimately a cousin of Jenny Green
Speaker 1: Teeth in many respects, right. Uh. And then the monster
Speaker 1: dies and Spring emerges again, while Beowulf's eventual death battling
Speaker 1: a Aagon is a tale of Autumn's descent. A lot
Speaker 1: of people don't uh. I mean, I guess this is
Speaker 1: referenced in the most recent film adaptation. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people forget about the dragon. Yeah, this is the
Speaker 1: second half of the story. But Beowolf grows old, and
Speaker 1: in the second half of the story, a young a
Speaker 1: young Wiggloff has to take up the mantle of the
Speaker 1: monster Slayer because Beowolf can't hack it anymore. Literally, can't
Speaker 1: hack into those monster hides like you used to, can't
Speaker 1: tear those arms off like you used to. Um, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: I can't help but be reminded and thinking about like
Speaker 1: these older monster stories, monster and slayer tales, and then
Speaker 1: trying to think about their their analogs and uh in
Speaker 1: modern popular culture. I can't help but think of a
Speaker 1: little story in which a band of professional warmakers and
Speaker 1: Central America are targeted by an alien hunter that that
Speaker 1: only praise on the fittest and warlike of its target species.
Speaker 1: But only through through trick career does the human A
Speaker 1: man named Dutch prevail. Oh he's Dutch. Oh yeah, one
Speaker 1: of his name is Dutch. I don't know. Is he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be Dutch? I thought, maybe who? I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that sort of solidifies the Baowolf connection.
Speaker 1: Oh well, interesting, But anyway, Dutch ends up probably dying
Speaker 1: from radiation exposure, I think, since the monster self detonation.
Speaker 1: But I of course talking about the film Predator, man,
Speaker 1: you have taken me to a sacred and surprising place today.
Speaker 1: I never expected to connect Predator and Beowulf, but but
Speaker 1: I see it. I mean there, I think there are
Speaker 1: certain connections you can make. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the contrast is very interesting because Grendel is fearsome but
Speaker 1: is ultimately easily overcome by the hero. Right. Predator is
Speaker 1: fearsome and basically wins. I mean, he slays everybody except Dutch,
Speaker 1: and Dutch is really only able to barely achieve victor
Speaker 1: in the end. He tricks him trickery. Trickery, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is which is also something you see a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, and we're talking about like the masculinity
Speaker 1: of the hero, that it's very hard to find examples,
Speaker 1: especially in the older stories where the hero is something
Speaker 1: other than than first of all male, but also the warrior,
Speaker 1: the soldier, you know, and perhaps the soldier ends up
Speaker 1: using trickery or enchanted items, and both of those may
Speaker 1: be actually given to him by the gods or in
Speaker 1: some cases a gods, But in any effect, I feel
Speaker 1: like they tend to have tended to have an easier
Speaker 1: time of it, whereas nowadays, really I'm gonna I'm personally
Speaker 1: going to be disappointed if the hero uh really takes
Speaker 1: out the monster too soon. I mean, you want to
Speaker 1: see the struggle, right, well, right, I mean maybe now
Speaker 1: people are more likely to want to see different values
Speaker 1: like uh, maybe now you put more emphasis on, say
Speaker 1: the courage and cleverness of a hero than on just
Speaker 1: like they're absolutely unbeatable strength, or certainly maybe just the
Speaker 1: things that the monsters represent for us now are less severe,
Speaker 1: like maybe it's like if Grendel is representing just the
Speaker 1: the harsh realities behind the campfire, maybe you want to
Speaker 1: hear you need a hero that just tears into it
Speaker 1: like a nightmare. You know, you don't want to. You
Speaker 1: don't want a weak hero that's gonna, you know, take
Speaker 1: a beating for forty five minutes before building a proper
Speaker 1: bow and arrow out of twigs. Well, I say, I
Speaker 1: certainly appreciate vulnerable heroes. I mean, I find stories where
Speaker 1: the hero is too powerful and too good and too strong,
Speaker 1: very boring, and then you run the risk of the
Speaker 1: monster being more relatable. Yeah, well you y'all out there
Speaker 1: no our monster sympathies, so we can't pretend to hide that.
Speaker 1: So of course I'm talking about slayers. We can't help
Speaker 1: but talk about dragon slayers. And there's one particular dragon
Speaker 1: slayer that it's probably, if not the definitely one of
Speaker 1: the most famous dragon slayers in Western traditions, of course,
Speaker 1: and this is St. George, Yes, the the subject of
Speaker 1: many a painting and engraving, often failing to make the
Speaker 1: dragon fearsome. Yeah, the dragon, the kill, the slaying of
Speaker 1: the dragon, I I find, and some of these paintings
Speaker 1: it often feels more like the execution of a pet
Speaker 1: salamander or something, you know, like there's a dog like
Speaker 1: quality to this small creature. That is crushed under the
Speaker 1: heel of a of a giant horse and a top
Speaker 1: and there's a mounted night atop just you know, skewering
Speaker 1: it with a sword or a spear. Yeah, there's one
Speaker 1: image I attached here or St George's attacking It is snarling,
Speaker 1: but it does look like a dog with wings. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar, maybe I should go ahead and tell
Speaker 1: the story of St. George. You ready for that? Okay,
Speaker 1: so this comes. So now here's one thing actually about
Speaker 1: the legend of St. George as a Christian saint long
Speaker 1: predates any written version of this story of the dragon slaying.
Speaker 1: We have, uh the as far as I know, the
Speaker 1: earliest written version of the dragon slaying comes from the
Speaker 1: Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, compiled by Jacobus Devourogene,
Speaker 1: Archbishop of Genoa, in twelve seventy five, and the first
Speaker 1: edition in English was published in fourteen seventy, translated by
Speaker 1: William Caxton. But here's the story. Okay, So you got St. George,
Speaker 1: and St George's a wandering knight. He's a he's a soldier,
Speaker 1: and he's a knight. He's born in a Cappadocia, which
Speaker 1: is a region of Turkey, which Robert, have you ever
Speaker 1: seen the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, I believe so yes,
Speaker 1: they're beautiful looking. I mean it looks you just look
Speaker 1: up the landscape of this place and you can imagine
Speaker 1: it's the kind of place a magical hero would come from.
Speaker 1: So he comes from Cappadocia, and as a traveling night,
Speaker 1: one day he wandered into the vicinity of a city
Speaker 1: called Silene, which was in the province of Libya. Now
Speaker 1: by the city of Silene was a great pond where
Speaker 1: there was a dragon that and venomed all the country,
Speaker 1: and it would attack the city mercilessly, breathing venom that
Speaker 1: sickened and killed the people. And the citizens of Silene
Speaker 1: had tried to slay the dragon, but so terrible was
Speaker 1: the beast, and so poisonous was its breath that the
Speaker 1: fighters all ran away before they could fight it. So
Speaker 1: all that was left to do was to try to
Speaker 1: bribe the dragon to leave them alone. At first, they
Speaker 1: would feed it too sheep every day, but eventually this failed,
Speaker 1: so they started to feed the dragon a man into
Speaker 1: sheep each day, and Eventually they decided that they had
Speaker 1: to offer their children one at a time to keep
Speaker 1: the dragon at bay. So the king made an ordinance
Speaker 1: that each day there would be a lottery of the
Speaker 1: children in the town, and whichever child the lot fell to,
Speaker 1: whether rich or poor, would be offered up to the dragon.
Speaker 1: But then one day the lot fell to the princess,
Speaker 1: to the king's own daughter, and he begged the people, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: for the love of the gods, take gold and silver
Speaker 1: and all that I have, but let me have my daughter.
Speaker 1: And the people answered, how sir, ye have made and
Speaker 1: ordained the law, and our children be now dead, and
Speaker 1: ye would do the contrary. Your daughter shall be given,
Speaker 1: or else we shall burn you and your house. There
Speaker 1: was a reasonable response to this policy. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he can, he can set the policy, but then
Speaker 1: doesn't want it to apply to him. Uh so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So then the king was very sad. He wept and
Speaker 1: begged for eight days respite. The people granted that to him,
Speaker 1: but in those eight days the dragon envenomed the city terribly.
Speaker 1: So when the time was up, the king dressed his
Speaker 1: daughter up as a bride, and he kissed her, and
Speaker 1: he gave her a benediction and then led her out
Speaker 1: to the dragon's lair at the pond. So the princess
Speaker 1: is alone at the pond, dressed in a bridal gown,
Speaker 1: waiting to be eaten by the dragon. But then St.
Speaker 1: George happens to pass by, and he asked her what
Speaker 1: she's doing out there by herself in the wilderness, and
Speaker 1: she says, go ye your way, fair young man, that
Speaker 1: ye perish not also, and he applies by, asking why
Speaker 1: she's crying, and eventually she tells him the truth that
Speaker 1: she had been delivered as a tribute to the dragon. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then, to quote from the this version of the
Speaker 1: Golden Lives, Uh then said St. George, fair daughter, doubt
Speaker 1: ye no thing hereof for I shall help thee in
Speaker 1: the name of Ya Zu Christ. She said, for God's sake,
Speaker 1: good night, go your way and abide not with me,
Speaker 1: for ye may not deliver me. So she's doubting his power,
Speaker 1: but he's got to display it because he's already sworn
Speaker 1: in the name of ye Zu Crease to that he
Speaker 1: can do it. So as they're speaking, the dragon suddenly
Speaker 1: appears and it begins to charge at them. And then
Speaker 1: so St. George draws his sword and he makes the
Speaker 1: sign of the cross. And then he quote rode heartily
Speaker 1: against the dragon, which came toward him and smote him
Speaker 1: with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him
Speaker 1: to the ground. So the dragon is mortally injured. And
Speaker 1: then George asks the princess to remove her girdle and
Speaker 1: tie it around the neck of the dragon. Quote. When
Speaker 1: she had done so, the dragon followed her as it
Speaker 1: had been a meek beast, and debonair. Then she led
Speaker 1: him into the city, and the people fled by mountains
Speaker 1: and valleys and said, alas alas, we shall all be dead.
Speaker 1: Then St. George said to them, nay, ye doubt no
Speaker 1: thing without more, believe ye in God, YESU Christ, and
Speaker 1: do ye to be baptized, and I shall slay the dragon.
Speaker 1: So the king then and all his people got baptized
Speaker 1: as Christians. And quote St. George slew the dragon and
Speaker 1: smote off his head and commanded that he should be
Speaker 1: thrown in the fields. And they took four carts with
Speaker 1: oxen that drew him out of the city. And as
Speaker 1: a result of this, there's a whole bunch of people
Speaker 1: get baptized become Christians, and then there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: like healings of the sick and stuff, and then of
Speaker 1: course the legend goes on and tells about the martyrdom
Speaker 1: of St. George after that. But that's the story of St. George,
Speaker 1: the Princess and the Dragon. It's pretty good. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the build up more than the payoff. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the lot ree system was pretty engaging. Well, there's no
Speaker 1: I mean St. George doesn't have a trick up his
Speaker 1: sleeve except prayer. That seems to be the thing. He's
Speaker 1: just like, well, he prays and yay zu Chreast comes
Speaker 1: through and it slays the dragon. He doesn't have a trick,
Speaker 1: you know, or maybe prayer is like a trick here.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess prayer is the trick.
Speaker 1: I mean again, a lot of these stories, you look
Speaker 1: at some of the Greek myths, to defeat the monster,
Speaker 1: one must use wisdom or weapons that are a gift
Speaker 1: of the gods. So what is the difference I guess
Speaker 1: ultimately between that in prayer right, Well, I guess it
Speaker 1: would just make a better story, like if ye zu
Speaker 1: Chreast came down and gave him a magical weapon or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: given a you know, the the Armor of Christ or something,
Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of fancy sword, and then
Speaker 1: we can get the idea. It's like, oh, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're on God's side, you can slay dragons. I get
Speaker 1: the same message, but it's a little more entertaining at
Speaker 1: least you know, from me, right. But of course, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, this is sort of part of a
Speaker 1: genre of stories that pro liferate around the world. There
Speaker 1: are all these dragon slang stories especially there of course,
Speaker 1: medieval dragon slaying stories. Yeah, and I mentioned Joyce tally
Speaker 1: land Rand's earlier. I mentioned that she was an expert
Speaker 1: on medieval dragon slangs and medieval dragons. I was reading
Speaker 1: on uh something she wrote titled the Sign of a
Speaker 1: Hero Theodoric Saga of Burn uh and uh. In this
Speaker 1: she points out, and I'm a number of interesting things
Speaker 1: about some of the tales we've discussed, though more specifically Theodoric, Theodoric,
Speaker 1: the Great Beowulf and Siegfried. So she points out that
Speaker 1: in German literature, especially, dragon slaying becomes something of a
Speaker 1: defining characteristic of any hero. But so like you're like
Speaker 1: I'm a hero. It's like, I don't know, did just
Speaker 1: lay a dragon? Exactly? I mean, that's the that's the problem,
Speaker 1: because then how do you draw the line between standard
Speaker 1: heroes and truly mighty heroes if they're all monster slangs?
Speaker 1: And in doing so, also that the act of swaying
Speaker 1: a dragon ends up serving perhaps less of a symbolic
Speaker 1: uh purpose, right, I mean, you're not defeating chaos or
Speaker 1: the devil or the the you know, the powers of
Speaker 1: the dark um or. It's not serving as a you know,
Speaker 1: mark of passage into adulthood. It's just like a necessary
Speaker 1: um upgrade in the arms race of storytelling. So uh.
Speaker 1: In the particular old Norse saga that she's dealing with
Speaker 1: here in this paper, she points out, uh that it
Speaker 1: tackles the problems of including both Theodoric the Great and
Speaker 1: Sigfried in the same story. So what the what the
Speaker 1: story does is it makes Siegfried into Theodoric's vassal and
Speaker 1: makes him kind of the sidekick, right, kind of wig
Speaker 1: kind of kind yeah, but also gives Theodoric two dragons
Speaker 1: and three baby dragons to kill. So in doing this,
Speaker 1: you know, killing a dragon becomes less an impressive act
Speaker 1: in and of itself. A real hero has to kill
Speaker 1: like upwards of five dragons. This is how we get
Speaker 1: Blade where you've got monster monster slayers that are like
Speaker 1: the vampire slayers, they gotta kill tons of vampires. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I think also you're touched on something you get like
Speaker 1: maybe you get specific types of monster slayers and specific
Speaker 1: types of monsters. Like, oh, that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I guess in the Marvel universe, I
Speaker 1: imagine Captain America could kill a vampire, but if you're
Speaker 1: dealing with multiple vampires, it's got to be blayed every time, right, Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's specialized labor. You know, he's got all the
Speaker 1: tricks and the tools and the knowledge. So in this
Speaker 1: paper she also points out there's a distinction in the
Speaker 1: types of dragons dealt with, some natural and other supernatural,
Speaker 1: some flightless worms and other winged some and others are
Speaker 1: winged beasts. Uh. Demonica connotations, for example, are reserved in
Speaker 1: this tale for the otter Ricks dragon foes. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's when in the original version of the
Speaker 1: King George story that I was reading up there, did
Speaker 1: we receive any indication that the dragon could even fly.
Speaker 1: I mean it might have just been like a big
Speaker 1: poison crocodile for right. I mean that makes would would
Speaker 1: certainly match up with these depictions in which it is
Speaker 1: very much on the ground beneath the horse. By the way,
Speaker 1: in that particular story, um uh, these two heroes eventually dual,
Speaker 1: and of course, uh, theoto Ic the Great wins, Theodoric
Speaker 1: kills Siegfried. Well, no, no, just defeats him. I could say,
Speaker 1: to the death. They're not okay, But it's interesting that
Speaker 1: they're kind of dealing with some of the probably some
Speaker 1: of the problems that that the comic books have dealt
Speaker 1: with in modern times, Like what happens when you when
Speaker 1: you have two heroes in the same story, How do
Speaker 1: you how do you balance their powers or how do
Speaker 1: you show clear? Um, how do you have positioned one
Speaker 1: above the other in a way that doesn't diminish the
Speaker 1: other one too much? Well, you've gotta have what Captain
Speaker 1: America and Iron Man fight. Yeah, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: same deal, right, yeah? Or is it Thor and Iron Man?
Speaker 1: I don't keep up with those, Um, I think may
Speaker 1: and I don't mean, I guess they've all fought each other.
Speaker 1: You can't help but have heroes fight each other. But
Speaker 1: I I believe leave Captain America and Iron Man they're
Speaker 1: the ones who who end up fighting each other in
Speaker 1: the movie. You know another thing I was thinking about
Speaker 1: when you mentioned how Lion Arn's highlighted that eventually they
Speaker 1: have to start killing more and more monsters to show
Speaker 1: how great they are, because just killing one monster and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not that impressive anymore. I obviously have to go
Speaker 1: to Hercules. Hercules had a bunch of what what percent
Speaker 1: of his twelve labors were monster slayings, A lot of them, right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're about to go through them, so let's find out. Okay,
Speaker 1: everyone can keep track at home and uh and and
Speaker 1: do do the math, please show your work. Hercules or
Speaker 1: Heracles is of course one of the greatest monsters slayers
Speaker 1: in Greek and Roman traditions. Now granted he didn't take
Speaker 1: out Medusa. That was Perseus, who of course used a
Speaker 1: goddess given tactics and weapons to overcome the Gorgon. But
Speaker 1: he eat did a hell of a lot during the
Speaker 1: labors of Hercules. And there's I should point out, there's
Speaker 1: a wonderful video game themed shore about this from ted Ed.
Speaker 1: If you go to you know, YouTube or the ted
Speaker 1: ed website you will find it. It's absolutely delightful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like so you say, video game themed, it's like
Speaker 1: pixel art. It looks like a classic Nintendo game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are some sort of sixteen bit thing. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly which bit it would be, but
Speaker 1: it looks like a fabulous game. It makes me want
Speaker 1: to play it. So basically, here's the rundown. You have Hercules,
Speaker 1: this uh, this you know, semi divine hero. You know,
Speaker 1: I like to picture the classic uh cinema Hercules with
Speaker 1: the big beard and the big muscles. You know, he's
Speaker 1: very much in the you know, the class of of
Speaker 1: masculine warrior heroes. And so he ends up going on
Speaker 1: these labors. And these labors are an act of atonement
Speaker 1: after the goddess Hera drives him mad, resulting in the
Speaker 1: murder of his own children, and these labors were assigned
Speaker 1: to him by his name Nemesis Eurystheus. So these are
Speaker 1: the labors. First labor, uh, he has to take out
Speaker 1: the Nimi and lion, which is a monstrous lion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Second labor is the Learnaean hydra, and this is a
Speaker 1: classic monster that is sometimes described as a mere multi
Speaker 1: headed snake monster, but later it takes on regenerative features
Speaker 1: as well. So yeah, you cut off one head to
Speaker 1: grow back in its place. Big Hurk had to get
Speaker 1: hell from his nephew on this one, I believe, so
Speaker 1: yes uh. And the solution here is a fabulous work
Speaker 1: of team a bit of teamwork. Hirk slices off the
Speaker 1: head and then the nephew jumps in and burns the stump.
Speaker 1: Third labor Serenian hind. Not a monster really, but a
Speaker 1: very special deer. Fourth labor is the Aramathean boar, which
Speaker 1: is a monstrous boar, just another giant sized animal for
Speaker 1: him to deal with. Fifth labor he cleans out the
Speaker 1: Agean stables, so just lots of animal poop. Uh. Not
Speaker 1: a monster, but a monstrous task. Uh. Sixth labor were
Speaker 1: the Stemfalian bird words. Uh, these were pretty monsters. These
Speaker 1: were the sacred metal war birds of aries bronze of
Speaker 1: beak and feather, and they could launch their their metal
Speaker 1: feathers like flying daggers. Seventh labor was the Cretan bull,
Speaker 1: which is there any connection with the minotaur there. I
Speaker 1: I mean, I would assume we're talking about crete, right,
Speaker 1: and it's a bull. Yeah, but it's just a monstrous bull,
Speaker 1: it's not a minatar um. Then the eighth labor was
Speaker 1: were the mayors of Diometes, and these were flesh eating horses.
Speaker 1: So they're pretty monsters now granted they were they were
Speaker 1: trained to eat flesh, they were encouraged to eat flesh.
Speaker 1: And uh, and he's able to overcome this one and
Speaker 1: essentially gets their their masters eating instead. Ninth labor the
Speaker 1: belt of Hippolyta monster the Amazon queen, right. Tenth labor
Speaker 1: the cattle of Garyon, and Garon was a giant with
Speaker 1: three faces. Eleventh labor the golden apples of Hesperites. And
Speaker 1: then twelve labor, uh Cerebus, the three headed hellhound. So
Speaker 1: here we have a good monster for him to to
Speaker 1: tackle and literally tackle and wrestle and overcome. So these
Speaker 1: are all these are all fun little adventures and uh,
Speaker 1: we would need a lot more time to really talk
Speaker 1: about all of them in depth and what they mean, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and heck, we have a full episode on
Speaker 1: Hydras in the vault. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: strikes me here is that that her Again, it's very
Speaker 1: much a male warrior hero, and he uses strength and
Speaker 1: cunning to overcome his enemies. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: herc is a divine being. He's a demigod, a hybrid
Speaker 1: born of the god Zeus and immortal Mother, so he's
Speaker 1: touched by the other worldly and therefore the perfect slayer
Speaker 1: of other worldly enemies. I mean this highlights a couple
Speaker 1: of different ways that monster slayers can be. One is
Speaker 1: the courageous type, and the other is the fearless type,
Speaker 1: which is a very different thing. Right. Uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: does is there ever any indication that Hercules feels fear
Speaker 1: when he goes to fight these monsters or does his
Speaker 1: godlike nature, the fact that he's half god sort of
Speaker 1: make him able to face these with a sense of invulnerability? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's a fearless uh situation. Fear
Speaker 1: fearless and largely invulnerable because he is half god. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't help me be reminded again of Blade. Uh,
Speaker 1: the specifically the Wesley Snipes blade. Uh? Is there another blade?
Speaker 1: And there was like a TV blade played by what
Speaker 1: sticky fingers I think or Fingers, Uh, the the Rapper
Speaker 1: played him. Uh, and I don't know, I never saw
Speaker 1: the show, but uh, as far as I'm concerned, Wesley
Speaker 1: Snipes is the only blade um but in that he
Speaker 1: is half vampire, so he has I think it's said
Speaker 1: that he has um all of their strengths but none
Speaker 1: of their weaknesses. Right, so he's the day Walker? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well who who else but the day Walker? The DayWalker
Speaker 1: is the perfect slayer of all of these vampires. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would love to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the monster slayers of Chinese myth and legend. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are some good ones. One of them is
Speaker 1: actually a character we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 1: uh in our episode on the Great Flood, because we
Speaker 1: talked about the Chinese mythic hero uh You the Great
Speaker 1: or die you. Um. He's also you know emperor and
Speaker 1: founded uh the Shiah dynasty, which was two b C.
Speaker 1: We talked about him on the show before about in
Speaker 1: regards to his his his role in overcoming the ravages
Speaker 1: of the Great Flood, not by building a boat or
Speaker 1: anything like we see in you know, Mesopotamian and Old
Speaker 1: Testament traditions, but by sort of tackling it with irrigation
Speaker 1: and engineering, uh, but also through like having his father
Speaker 1: having pilfered the secrets from the gods. So there's this
Speaker 1: Promethean vibe to it as well. But he was also
Speaker 1: something of a monster slayer. Uh. He is said to
Speaker 1: have killed then nine headed serpent hng Lu, who is
Speaker 1: a minister of the defeated chaotic water deity Gong Gong
Speaker 1: uh and who was defeated in a battle for divine
Speaker 1: supremacy against the against jen Zou, the grandson of the
Speaker 1: mythical Yellow Emperor. As described by the authors Young and
Speaker 1: On in Handbook of Chinese Mythology, Jiang Lu, the great
Speaker 1: back black serpent here had nine human heads, and the
Speaker 1: nine heads eight food from the nine mountains, and everywhere
Speaker 1: it went it left impassable marshes in hostile gullies in
Speaker 1: its path. Now do you think that the the idea
Speaker 1: of like the nine heads with they're they're sort of
Speaker 1: snaking necks has anything to do with rivers there with
Speaker 1: river imagery, I assume, yeah. I didn't. I didn't. They
Speaker 1: didn't go into into any more extended detail on the
Speaker 1: possible symbolism of the of the of the nine heads, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But it does bring to mind this idea of like
Speaker 1: branching rivers does. Now, obviously, I think everyone can see
Speaker 1: where we're going here. Like you, the Great overcomes floods
Speaker 1: and the dangers of flood and here we have the
Speaker 1: monster personification of floods and flood hazards. So you end
Speaker 1: up slaying the monster. But the creature's blood is so
Speaker 1: poisonous that it poisons the spot where it dies, so
Speaker 1: that life can find no purchase there. And you wants
Speaker 1: to overcome this so so the crops can be grown
Speaker 1: there and and dug and so he digs out the
Speaker 1: poisoned earth not once, not twice, but three times, and
Speaker 1: each time the blood sinks down even deeper. And eventually
Speaker 1: he just has to build a terrace from the excavated soil.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and atop this uh you know it's
Speaker 1: it is. It's like a temple that's uh devoted to
Speaker 1: the great gods. Now. Yang and On mentioned that this
Speaker 1: story is not really told that much in modern China,
Speaker 1: but it's some versions of it still survive, such as
Speaker 1: one from Sichuan Province in which Jen Zou survives battle
Speaker 1: with the our god wrong and continues to bring flooding
Speaker 1: and death to the earth, forcing the mother goddess Nuah
Speaker 1: to slay it. So here we get to a godess
Speaker 1: getting involved in the slaying again. Um Nah also more
Speaker 1: famously defeated the Black Dragon, also a being of chaotic
Speaker 1: water and flood energy. I'd also be remiss if I
Speaker 1: didn't mention the archer who ye who killed a number
Speaker 1: of different monsters, and of course shot down the nine
Speaker 1: surplus sons that were roasting the earth, and in some
Speaker 1: tellings he actually shot and killed nine great crows that
Speaker 1: carried these sons. Now, it's also interesting is that during
Speaker 1: this age of ten Sons, not only is it just
Speaker 1: really hot and difficult to grow crops, it's also said
Speaker 1: to be a time of cosmic imbalance, and during this
Speaker 1: time a lot of unnatural monsters rise up, and so
Speaker 1: the emperor ends up tasking uh ye the archer with
Speaker 1: their destruction uh and us. Just just a few of
Speaker 1: the monsters that he ends up killing include uh uh
Speaker 1: There's a monster with the dragon's head and the leopard's body,
Speaker 1: a monster with teeth a sharp as chisels that are unbreakable.
Speaker 1: There is a nine headed monster, there's a giant bird,
Speaker 1: a giant bore, a giant snake. Uh So again all
Speaker 1: manner of unnatural creatures who rose up during a time
Speaker 1: of cosmic imbalance. He also punishes a couple of damaging
Speaker 1: elemental gods with a well placed to arrow or two.
Speaker 1: For instance, he shot the damaging win god he bow
Speaker 1: in the eye, and he took out both knees of
Speaker 1: the damaging river god Fingbo, and in other versions he
Speaker 1: kills Fingbo outright. So once again we have like river
Speaker 1: water elemental monsters that have to be dealt with by
Speaker 1: a hero. Yeah, and the idea of them coming out
Speaker 1: of a time of cosmic imbalance um seems to somehow echoed,
Speaker 1: you know, the very ancient monster concepts of like the
Speaker 1: chaos monster, like like TMA NAPSU. Al Right, well, on
Speaker 1: that note, let's take one more break and we come back.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what the slayer means to us. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, all right, we're back. Okay. So we've been
Speaker 1: looking at a lot of great examples of monsters and
Speaker 1: their slayers, the monster slayers stories from throughout human history,
Speaker 1: and now we wanted to take a look at what
Speaker 1: what what the monster slayer means? Why do we keep
Speaker 1: telling stories like this? Why is this so common? And
Speaker 1: what purpose psychologically and culturally does it serve when we
Speaker 1: do so. One of the things I want to say
Speaker 1: at the outside, just as a kind of disclaimer, is that, um,
Speaker 1: I feel like when we try to explain what stories
Speaker 1: and myths mean from a kind of evolutionary psychology perspective,
Speaker 1: we always need to remember to understand the difference between
Speaker 1: like proving a theory with direct evidence and sort of
Speaker 1: simply telling a plausible story and arguing it to be
Speaker 1: consistent with what we know now. I'm actually all for
Speaker 1: having arguments over plausible stories and evo psych and all that,
Speaker 1: but it's imperative for us to remember that that's what
Speaker 1: they are. I think sometimes people get carried away with
Speaker 1: this project and they jump from I've told a plausible
Speaker 1: story about why we have this cultural thing or the
Speaker 1: psychological thing too. I have discovered the biological origin of
Speaker 1: this element of human psychology or culture, and we I
Speaker 1: think we just always need to be careful not to
Speaker 1: do that. Sometimes you see people taking like almost Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbelly kind of observations to the point of saying like
Speaker 1: this is just science and that you know, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean that said, all these kind of like
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbelly sort of observations can be a lot of fun, right,
Speaker 1: and and he of course had lots to say and
Speaker 1: think about the role of monster slayers. Yeah, I mean, likewise, um,
Speaker 1: Julian Jays the by camera mind, which I'll actually touch
Speaker 1: on in a bit like if you if you go
Speaker 1: entirely down the Jane's well of interpreting everything, then yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be a lot of fun. Then you have
Speaker 1: cut off all other perspectives on what the thing is. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, so one thing that uh, somebody I think,
Speaker 1: like Joseph Campbell would say is that the role of
Speaker 1: the monster slayer in fiction is about like facing the ego.
Speaker 1: It's like this ego struggle and that you've got to
Speaker 1: face yourself and overcome your fears and and change something
Speaker 1: about yourself. You know that that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: so I I do agree at least that it's totally
Speaker 1: plausible that monster slayer stories are very prominent and very
Speaker 1: common because stories about facing dangers and facing fears are
Speaker 1: psychologically very salient. To us. You know, we're constantly in
Speaker 1: our lives faced with situations where we don't want to
Speaker 1: do something, but in order to to get what we want,
Speaker 1: we have to do that thing we don't want to do.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to face your fears and overcome
Speaker 1: your discomfort to I don't know, save the princess, or
Speaker 1: to do whatever. And I think that's a totally plausible
Speaker 1: basis for for starting a conversation about what monster slayer
Speaker 1: miths mean. So another way to get deeper on this subject,
Speaker 1: I guess would be to look a little bit more
Speaker 1: at what the monsters in these stories mean. And I
Speaker 1: want to posit a place for us to start there.
Speaker 1: I would pose it that the monsters in these stories,
Speaker 1: most often, I would say, UH, seem to come from
Speaker 1: a combination of two main psychological UH components, biological threats
Speaker 1: and category confusions. And if we've talked about category confusion
Speaker 1: quite a bit on the show, the idea that it's
Speaker 1: go back to hercules, right, Yeah, it's like a snake
Speaker 1: but it has way too many heads, or it's like
Speaker 1: a boar but it's gigantic. What's going on? Right? And
Speaker 1: there are reasons I think that would be significant. I'll
Speaker 1: get to that in just a minute now. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: fear of biological threats is pretty straightforward. There's a natural
Speaker 1: fear of predatory or venomous animals and of human rivals.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't need much explaining. In the basic sense,
Speaker 1: predators are dangerous and thus a deeply ingrained archetype from
Speaker 1: the natural world. But there there are also some relevant
Speaker 1: questions like why are certain forms such as snakes, which
Speaker 1: you've seen all throughout these monsters and spiders. Also, why
Speaker 1: are those things readily seen as monstrous or incorporated in
Speaker 1: parts into chimerical monsters? Why so easily a spider monster
Speaker 1: or a serpentine monster, why not more often like a
Speaker 1: bear monster. You might have one of those every now
Speaker 1: and then. That's true, because, of course, the argument with
Speaker 1: the the snake or the or the spider is that
Speaker 1: if it bites you, you could die. Depending on the
Speaker 1: variety of snake or spider, If the bear bites you,
Speaker 1: there's also a very good chance you'll die, right Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, this is actually long been a question.
Speaker 1: There's been this big question about whether these common fears,
Speaker 1: especially if things like spiders and snakes are are learned
Speaker 1: or in aid and Robert, I know you've looked at
Speaker 1: research like this too. Obviously, some part of any widespread
Speaker 1: fear will be based on cultural conditioning, so I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty inarguable that some part of this fear is learned, right,
Speaker 1: But could there also be a biological factor. Could there
Speaker 1: also be some in built part of the brain that
Speaker 1: is prone to recognize the shapes of spiders and snakes
Speaker 1: and react fearfully without any prior knowledge or conditioning. And
Speaker 1: I'd say that the question still isn't totally settled, but
Speaker 1: there's been some interesting research suggesting, especially recently, that yes,
Speaker 1: recognition could be an eight. One example is uh study
Speaker 1: from in Frontiers and Psychology called Etsy Bitsy Spider infants
Speaker 1: react with increased arousal spider and snakes spiders and snakes,
Speaker 1: So of course what they did in the study here
Speaker 1: was they threw babies into cribs full of spiders and
Speaker 1: snakes they did not, And the study showed six month
Speaker 1: old infants images with similar shapes and colors. So visually
Speaker 1: these images were very close to each other, but with
Speaker 1: different ontological content. Some of them were pictures of spiders
Speaker 1: versus flowers. That looked very similar, and others were pictures
Speaker 1: of snakes versus fish that looked very similar. And the
Speaker 1: researchers measured the baby's differential pupillary response to these images,
Speaker 1: the dilation of the pupils, and that's accepted as a
Speaker 1: pretty good indicator of activation of the nero dreenergenic system,
Speaker 1: which is a physiological fear response. You know, it commands
Speaker 1: your attention and your body responds physiologically. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: author's right quote, infants reacted with increased pupillary dilation, indicating
Speaker 1: arousal to spiders and snakes compared with flowers and fish.
Speaker 1: Results support the notion of an evolved preparedness for developing
Speaker 1: fear of these ancestral threats. So if even six month
Speaker 1: old babies show a stress response to images of spiders
Speaker 1: and snakes, it would seem that those forms could in
Speaker 1: some way be hardwired into us. There's at least part
Speaker 1: of us that is naturally biologically afraid of those things,
Speaker 1: and it's not just cultural conditioning. Uh. And another question
Speaker 1: there is why spiders and snakes, Right, we brought this
Speaker 1: up a minute ago. There are much more dangerous animals. Uh.
Speaker 1: One possible answer offered in a CBC interview by study
Speaker 1: author Stephanie hull Is quote, what's really interesting about spiders
Speaker 1: and snakes is that they have been posing a threat
Speaker 1: to our ancestors for an immensely long time. Spiders and
Speaker 1: snakes developed a venomous bites forty to sixty million years ago.
Speaker 1: This is a really long long time of coevolution, and
Speaker 1: we think that this enables primates, not only humans, but
Speaker 1: other primates as well, to develop mechanisms that enable us
Speaker 1: to detect these animals very quickly, to respond to them,
Speaker 1: to put our bodies into fight or flight mode. This
Speaker 1: may really have posed an advantage. Nowadays, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: so much sense. So the idea there is that, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not that we naturally respond to spiders and
Speaker 1: snakes because they're the most dangerous animals, but because they're
Speaker 1: the dangerous forms we've been around the longest and have
Speaker 1: stayed looking the same the longest. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Speaker 1: The the basic formula, the basic the basic uh proposition
Speaker 1: of a snake or spider has not changed in human
Speaker 1: history or even in primate history. Yes, But I might
Speaker 1: just note, on the other hand, there's also some evidence
Speaker 1: pointing against the hard coded phylogenetic threat hypothesis. For example,
Speaker 1: I found a study from two thousand nine in which
Speaker 1: adults recognized images of guns just as efficiently as they
Speaker 1: recognized images of snakes. Now, of course, guns aren't part
Speaker 1: of our biological neurohistory, so they couldn't. There couldn't be
Speaker 1: like a hardwired gun response in the brain that has
Speaker 1: to be culturally learned. But then again, maybe maybe it's
Speaker 1: just that are cognitively based or learned fears become every
Speaker 1: bit as efficient in the brain as the hardwired, evolved ones.
Speaker 1: That could be. How about fulsa dooms bow that shoots
Speaker 1: snakes from common the barbarian that see that is the
Speaker 1: ultimate physiological threat arousal trigger. I mean, I couldn't react
Speaker 1: with anything but worship. There, you know, in that movie
Speaker 1: we have another great example of monster slang because one
Speaker 1: of Conan's early UH trials is the slaying of the
Speaker 1: giant snake that also Doom keeps as a pet in
Speaker 1: one of the temples. Yeah, what is he does? He
Speaker 1: strangle it? He eventually chops its head off. There's some
Speaker 1: wrestling there, for sure, There's some There's some wrestling, But
Speaker 1: of course it's a snake. I mean, dragons are essentially snakes.
Speaker 1: We always have these snake forms reappearing as monsters over
Speaker 1: and over. It's got a snake for a head, or
Speaker 1: the whole thing is a snake with wings or you know. Well, now,
Speaker 1: in Western traditions, but as we've mentioned, in Eastern traditions,
Speaker 1: there's I feel like there's enhanced, uh there's an enhanced
Speaker 1: hybrid nature to the dragons. Yeah, the the Eastern dragon becomes,
Speaker 1: I would argue, an even more fascinating creature with more
Speaker 1: more valences, you know, more like it's more like the
Speaker 1: core maybe and having multiple significances at different levels. But
Speaker 1: I would also think that, you know, the Eastern dragon
Speaker 1: tends to be less of a monster, it's more of
Speaker 1: a I mean, it's it's very very often you know,
Speaker 1: it is definitely an elemental force. It's tied to floods
Speaker 1: and storms and waters in the ocean, but it does
Speaker 1: have more of a divine presence than you find in
Speaker 1: uh in Western traditions. Yeah, uh so, So anyway back
Speaker 1: to the idea of the basis of these monster fears.
Speaker 1: So one, you've got these elements that are so often
Speaker 1: taken from what appear to be at least maybe hard
Speaker 1: coded form threats, phylogenetic threats that are, you know, part
Speaker 1: of our evolutionary history, and they at least at some
Speaker 1: level maybe hard coded in the brain, if not hard
Speaker 1: coded in the brain, very well coded into culture. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, of course, we feel we mentioned
Speaker 1: a minute ago, is the discomfort with category confusion. So
Speaker 1: let's say we're defending ourselves from a natural threat, whether
Speaker 1: that's a venomous snake or a lepard or a wolf.
Speaker 1: One of our greatest defense mechanisms is not our muscles
Speaker 1: but our brains, right awareness and recognition, the ability to
Speaker 1: cognitively pick out signs of threats and avoid them. And then,
Speaker 1: of course also if we must face a threat, like
Speaker 1: cleverness and strategic thinking to overcome the threat. But most
Speaker 1: of our defensive thinking is actually one form or another
Speaker 1: of category sorting. Right, you see a shape and you
Speaker 1: immediately start to sort what kind of thing is that?
Speaker 1: Is that a harmless bunny or a venomous snake? And
Speaker 1: so perhaps one reason we fear monsters so much is
Speaker 1: that they not only represent aspects of real biological threats
Speaker 1: and predators, but that they defy our normal categorical sorting
Speaker 1: mechanisms by blurring the lines between categories of things. So
Speaker 1: a spider a hundred times bigger than it should be,
Speaker 1: a snake with wings, a lion that can talk uh,
Speaker 1: And by the way, they defy intuitive sorting. These creatures
Speaker 1: resist easy cognitive understanding, and thus they cause discomfort and fear.
Speaker 1: Like a creature that has aspects of biological threats like
Speaker 1: predatory or venomous forms, and also simultaneously messes with our
Speaker 1: cognitive defenses by violating category coherence. That's sort of the
Speaker 1: ultimate threat, right it. It beats your greatest defense, and
Speaker 1: it is the most threatening kind of thing. Thus the
Speaker 1: monster slayer has to overcome more than the normal warrior.
Speaker 1: They have to face primordial fears and square off against
Speaker 1: an enemy that normally makes us feel weak and helpless
Speaker 1: and afraid at the deepest level. And in this respect,
Speaker 1: you can you can sort of look at it. Any
Speaker 1: myth is is simply a situation where you know, you
Speaker 1: sit around the fire and one guy's like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of afraid of the darkness. It seems, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of it seems kind of intense. I mean, who
Speaker 1: knows what's out there, and it's what all that's out there?
Speaker 1: It might try to eat me and one day I'm
Speaker 1: gonna die anyway. And then the the other soldiers sit
Speaker 1: around the fire says, well, let me tell you a story,
Speaker 1: because this story has a hero in it, and all
Speaker 1: that stuff that you're afraid of he just cuts its
Speaker 1: head off. It's that, it's that simple. And so here's
Speaker 1: a hero that you can you can you can ruminate on.
Speaker 1: Do you think that inherently the monster slayer story is
Speaker 1: more often empowering to the audience, to the person listening,
Speaker 1: like you can be like that hero, or is it
Speaker 1: more often uh, commanding kind of submission and obedience, like
Speaker 1: look at what our heroes are like, you must bow
Speaker 1: down before them. I don't know, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Well that it could be like chill out,
Speaker 1: we have it, there's a hero out there doing this
Speaker 1: for you, or chill out like the power behind the
Speaker 1: behind the hero, the god or the gods or the
Speaker 1: goddess that if you're behind that god, then hey, that
Speaker 1: God's got to hero. You don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: But then in later it's certainly more more modern understanding
Speaker 1: is like yeah, I'm kind of like Blade, right, I
Speaker 1: can you know, like at least on some level, like
Speaker 1: we're we're supposed to uh, I mean we're rooting for
Speaker 1: the hero. We're rooting for Blade or Dutch or whoever. Uh,
Speaker 1: And and we are kind of living the story through them.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you kind of leave those those pictures, those
Speaker 1: stories feeling I can slay the monsters in my life,
Speaker 1: the blood suckers in my life. I think they might
Speaker 1: have a steak coming. Quick note, I'm not encouraging anyone
Speaker 1: to stake anybody. Oh no, no, no, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to create Martin's out there or wait no, not Martin's
Speaker 1: what it's Martin's uncle or whatever. Right, are you talking
Speaker 1: about the Romero film? Yeah? Oh yeah, It's been a
Speaker 1: long time since I've seen that. We don't be like
Speaker 1: anybody in that movie. Just don't don't imitate any part
Speaker 1: of it, all right. So in order to overcome the monster, though,
Speaker 1: the hero is probably gonna need a certain amount of courage.
Speaker 1: I mean, arguably, if you're getting into like, are they
Speaker 1: do they have any fear to begin with? If they
Speaker 1: have any amount of fear, they're gonna have to summon
Speaker 1: courage or they're gonna have to exhibit courage that is
Speaker 1: beyond that which the normal person would seem to have, right,
Speaker 1: because if you're Baowulf, otherwise, why would you go into
Speaker 1: the dark, Why would you dive down into the deep
Speaker 1: and find the layer? Well, so there there are a
Speaker 1: couple of different ways you can go in to face
Speaker 1: the monster, right. I guess one would be to to
Speaker 1: have courage to overcome your fear, because I guess that's
Speaker 1: sort of the definition of courage, right. Courage is a
Speaker 1: cognitive overriding of anxiety that prevents the physiological fear response
Speaker 1: or or overcomes the physiological fear response and prevents you
Speaker 1: from running away. It makes you you know you've got
Speaker 1: control and you make yourself face the fear inducing thing
Speaker 1: like the I think a great example of this is
Speaker 1: an Aliens where ripley Uh, well, she certainly she's returning
Speaker 1: to the world of the Zeno more from the first half,
Speaker 1: but in the later half of the film she is
Speaker 1: going back in to save news. She is descending into
Speaker 1: the monster's world in facing something that it has been
Speaker 1: well established she is terrified of. That is that is
Speaker 1: a great example, and in fact, I will say, while
Speaker 1: I have mixed feelings about a lot of monster slayers,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, I don't know if I like Beowulf,
Speaker 1: maybe I think Grendel, grind Maybe Grindel At a point,
Speaker 1: Ripley I think is a is a truly holy monster slayer.
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent behind Ripley in her slaying quest, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a really a straight up Beowolf story
Speaker 1: because she also ends up essentially fighting Grendel's mother. Yes,
Speaker 1: in aliens, Yeah, but if it were terminator versus alien,
Speaker 1: then that that would be the other half, right, that
Speaker 1: would be the the hero that doesn't feel fear to
Speaker 1: begin with. And sometimes you don't know, I mean sometimes
Speaker 1: you kind of feel that way. Is that what Beowulf's like?
Speaker 1: Is that what Herchilles are like? Are these heroes supposed
Speaker 1: to be people who just are incapable of feeling afraid
Speaker 1: in the face of this monster? Uh? You do think?
Speaker 1: You know? You wonder if is mar Duke. Is mar
Speaker 1: Duke courageous or is he just fearless? I wonder if
Speaker 1: mar Duke is actually courageous because mar Duke makes a bargain, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, look if I'm going to put this all
Speaker 1: online and risk it. You at least got to make
Speaker 1: me king of the gods. Or he's just following operating
Speaker 1: for seizure, you know. Yeah maybe oh yeah, maybe he's
Speaker 1: a robot. Yeah, but yeah. So to think about this,
Speaker 1: you can think about it in a couple of ways
Speaker 1: in the brain. So, like, I want to start off
Speaker 1: by mentioning the amygdala, the you know, the little almond
Speaker 1: shaped subcortical brain network of the amygdalas sometimes referred to,
Speaker 1: I think not quite accurately as the brain's fear center
Speaker 1: or something like that. As usual with these kinds of appellations,
Speaker 1: that's a bit of an oversimplication. The brain's fear response
Speaker 1: is complex and it involves multiple brain regions, but there
Speaker 1: are multiple lines of evidence that indicate that the amygdala
Speaker 1: does appear to play some important role in fear. It's
Speaker 1: something it does something important in generating the physiological fear
Speaker 1: response in the body. For example, brain imaging studies show
Speaker 1: that fear inducing images like pictures of animals like spiders
Speaker 1: and snakes, trigger activation in the amygdala, but that the
Speaker 1: brain can also recruit other regions to inhibit a magdala response,
Speaker 1: which seems to be correlated with resistance to the fear response.
Speaker 1: Both animals and people with damage to amygdala's seemed to
Speaker 1: show a diminished sense of the fear response. Like One
Speaker 1: example is the classic case of patient s M I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about on the show so um famous
Speaker 1: case of a woman who experienced bilateral amygdala damage during childhood,
Speaker 1: and she shows very little, if any fear response in
Speaker 1: situations like haunted houses and stuff, and and in response
Speaker 1: to scary movies. She she just lacks a fear response
Speaker 1: that is very common among pretty much everybody else. Uh,
Speaker 1: And this seems to have something to do with the
Speaker 1: damage to her amygdala. Again, this does not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that fear is quote in the amygdala, but it does
Speaker 1: indicate that the amygdala plays this important role in generating
Speaker 1: the threat avoidance behavior we associate with fear. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you saw somebody who inspired you to
Speaker 1: tell a story of somebody like Hercules, Ease or Beowulf
Speaker 1: who was just fearless, not courageous, but fearless. Is this
Speaker 1: I wonder, is this inspired by the idea of somebody
Speaker 1: with the damage to Miguela You know, people who just
Speaker 1: don't even flinch in the face of something scary. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: we do have the you know, additional information about Hercules
Speaker 1: being driven mad and slaying his children. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. That doesn't that perhaps speaks to the possibility
Speaker 1: of additional neurological damage. I want to be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting that Hercules is based on a historical figure
Speaker 1: or something like that. But I mean with all these
Speaker 1: kinds of stories, you wonder if somebody saw something that
Speaker 1: inspired the story or is it just pure creative imagination.
Speaker 1: It could be either one or you know, so you
Speaker 1: see something you or you're looking at somebody being courageous,
Speaker 1: and if all you see is the courageous act, you
Speaker 1: could well interpreted his fearlessness, like look at that guy,
Speaker 1: He's never afraid in his life. You're just not privy
Speaker 1: to the part where after he defeats the enemy, he
Speaker 1: goes back and like vomits and weeps in his tent
Speaker 1: because he's just been through this horrific experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we often talk about the monster slang is
Speaker 1: like this this this rite of passage for the hero.
Speaker 1: You know that it makes them um and this of course,
Speaker 1: reminds me of the you know, the line that which
Speaker 1: does not kill you almost kills you and is therefore
Speaker 1: inherently traumatic. Huh uh well, yeah, I mean that's the
Speaker 1: other model. Maybe it is that somebody saw somebody who
Speaker 1: was just being courageous and facing their fears, and they
Speaker 1: did it so well that people saw that and interpreted
Speaker 1: it as them being fearless, Like they couldn't even see
Speaker 1: through to what the person was feeling. Um, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder, like what's going on in the
Speaker 1: brain with courage. There have actually been studies on this. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was one I was looking at by Uri Neely,
Speaker 1: Haggard Goldberg, Abraham Wiseman, and Yahdin do die in neuron
Speaker 1: in two Thousen called fear thou not activity of frontal
Speaker 1: and temporal circuits in moments of real life courage. So
Speaker 1: this is a snake on a trolley experiment. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta love a good snake on a trolley experiment.
Speaker 1: You the trolley operator is the subject of the experiment.
Speaker 1: They're sitting down in an FMR I. So this is
Speaker 1: an fmr I study. You know, with all the caveats
Speaker 1: we know about some of these neuro imaging studies, assuming
Speaker 1: that their results are are are valid and useful. Here,
Speaker 1: the subject's goal is The subject's goal is to lay
Speaker 1: in the f m R I get the brain imaged
Speaker 1: while they are attempting to move a trolley with a
Speaker 1: snake on it as close as possible to their head
Speaker 1: so it's on a track and they can control it,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to get the snake close to them.
Speaker 1: And the researchers found that courage, overcoming fear and moving
Speaker 1: the snake closer to the head was associated with activity
Speaker 1: in the sub genual anterior singulate cortex or the s
Speaker 1: G A c C, and also in the right temporal
Speaker 1: poll and the author's right quote. Further, activity in the
Speaker 1: s G A c C was positively correl a did
Speaker 1: with the level of fear upon choosing to overcome fear,
Speaker 1: but not upon succumbing to it. So like you've got
Speaker 1: a lot of fear and you overcome it. You say
Speaker 1: like I'm really afraid, I'm terrified of snakes, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep moving the snake closer to my head. That
Speaker 1: was positively correlated with more activity in this region the
Speaker 1: subgenual anterior singulate cortex. And so they finally say that
Speaker 1: the courage behavior seems to attenuate activity in the amygdala
Speaker 1: and other regions associated with fear response, and it inhibits
Speaker 1: the autonomic physiological fear response in that we normally have
Speaker 1: in response to fear inducing stimuli promoting the courage behavior.
Speaker 1: It's like when you experience courage, that is a process
Speaker 1: in the brain, and it's one part of the brain
Speaker 1: apparently inhibiting what would normally be going on in another
Speaker 1: part of the brain, saying shut that down. We're going
Speaker 1: to do it anyway. Now, another illuminating study this, this
Speaker 1: is one that that you found. Uh. This one comes
Speaker 1: said from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Speaker 1: from it's by mobs at All titled Neural activity associated
Speaker 1: with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a Tarantula. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we get another perhaps of phylogenetic threat here, right,
Speaker 1: And phylogenetic threats these are of course threats that are
Speaker 1: hardwired into his vo evolution, like we've been discussioning, discussing
Speaker 1: especially the fear of spiders and snakes. Assuming that's correct.
Speaker 1: So if I'm reading the study correctly, what the two
Speaker 1: thousand ten study is saying is that in their experiment,
Speaker 1: moving the object of fear, a tarantula, closer to the
Speaker 1: subject produced a cascade of fear responses in the brain,
Speaker 1: including activity in the amygdala quote associated with under prediction
Speaker 1: of the tarantula's threat value um UH. And by the way,
Speaker 1: one of the authors in the study that the main
Speaker 1: author here Dean Mobs, Assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at
Speaker 1: cal Tech. He has a two thousand eighteen paper titled
Speaker 1: how cognitive and reactive fear circuits optimize escape A decisions
Speaker 1: in humans and it drives home how the brain responds
Speaker 1: to fear via or seems to respond to fear via
Speaker 1: two distinct fear circuits uh studied in the in this
Speaker 1: study via fm R I and a virtual predator video game.
Speaker 1: No connection to Dutch, This would be like a phylogenetic predator, right.
Speaker 1: So this is what what he lays out. We have
Speaker 1: the cognitive fear circuit. This is distant threats front brain regions,
Speaker 1: asserting risk and making decisions. This is a conscious exercise.
Speaker 1: And then there's the reactive fear circuit. This is a
Speaker 1: related to central brain structures. This is fight, flight or freeze.
Speaker 1: This is a subconscious respect response. So, in the words
Speaker 1: of Mobs quote, you don't think your way out of
Speaker 1: a tiger attack, all right, So yeah, if you stop
Speaker 1: to think when a tiger is assaulting you, you're debt.
Speaker 1: You react instead via the reactive fear circuit, which is
Speaker 1: subconscious and unthinking. Yeah. I mean, that's why fear is
Speaker 1: often characterized as like a sort of involuntary physiological body response,
Speaker 1: not just like the thought I am afraid. Yeah, like this,
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but think about this in terms of flying.
Speaker 1: With one of our other episodes this month, we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about the fear flying, and there is
Speaker 1: a distinct difference between the fear one will have on
Speaker 1: the plane and the fear one has um the day
Speaker 1: before the flight or a different day before, the day
Speaker 1: before the flighty um. So, you know, I wonder to
Speaker 1: what extent we might apply this model to where our
Speaker 1: monster slaying heroes men or more mostly men of action
Speaker 1: and reaction. So sometimes they plan, uh, certainly, But but
Speaker 1: but the planning is again oftentimes the work of a
Speaker 1: god or goddess. And I can't imagine, I can't help
Speaker 1: but imagine what Julian Jane so I would have would
Speaker 1: have said about all this, the kind of funny would
Speaker 1: have would have had with this I was looking around.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he ever really tackled monsters and
Speaker 1: monsters slang specifically, but he was very interested in the
Speaker 1: role between of course heroes and gods. Well, yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: I mean what we're saying here, if we're assuming that
Speaker 1: Mobs is correct about this, that you've got the cognitive
Speaker 1: fear circuit and the reactive fear circuit, I'm sure James
Speaker 1: would have imagined that as like, you know, the automatic
Speaker 1: unconscious brain circuit and then the like the god fear circuit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like did to give you an idea everyone, an idea
Speaker 1: of like what he might have said about this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. He did touch on fear and terror in
Speaker 1: his nine essay Remembrance of Things Far Past. He said,
Speaker 1: quote fear and terror, once easily dissipated, stretch out into
Speaker 1: anxiety that can last a lifetime. And all because men
Speaker 1: can now automatically, and even against their wishes, reconstruct and
Speaker 1: hold as if present in this new spatialized time, the
Speaker 1: unalterable experience of the past and its possibility in the future. Now,
Speaker 1: of course that's James playing with the bicameral model. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you don't need to accept the bicameral model to see
Speaker 1: that there's something interesting going on humans. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't get the sense that most animals experience anxiety in
Speaker 1: quite the same way humans do they. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't know for sure, but you don't get the sense
Speaker 1: that they are like cognitively working over their fear scenarios
Speaker 1: the way we do, right, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess there's something to be said for certainly cases
Speaker 1: say zukosis, where an animal is uh is behaving abnormally
Speaker 1: because it is in captivity, where it's kind of undergoing
Speaker 1: a continuous challenge to its mental stability, I guess. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think it's it's safe to say that
Speaker 1: that animals process things these things differently. There's definitely a
Speaker 1: human dimension to the way we deal with threats, in
Speaker 1: the way we respond mentally to them. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: the way so many of these stories we've talked about
Speaker 1: show different people reacting to the threat in different ways,
Speaker 1: like the story of St. George and the Dragon. First,
Speaker 1: the villagers go out to fight the dragon, but then
Speaker 1: they can't overcome their fear and they're forced to run away.
Speaker 1: You know, they think they can fight it, but then
Speaker 1: their fear gets the better of them and we see
Speaker 1: who they really are and they're they're driven back. But St.
Speaker 1: George has the courage, and he has the you know,
Speaker 1: he has Christ on his side. A similar thing I
Speaker 1: think with mar Duke, right, you know, the other gods
Speaker 1: were too afraid to fight Timat, but Marduke overcame his fear, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and did. To come back to to Mob's division of
Speaker 1: the two responses, I can't help but wonder of our
Speaker 1: monster slaying heroes are models of our ideal reactive fear
Speaker 1: network self. So as we engage with our cognitive fear
Speaker 1: network to anticipate threats in the natural world, we ruminate
Speaker 1: on the model and symbol of these embodiments of just
Speaker 1: like pure ideal subconscious reaction, you know, just pure monster
Speaker 1: not only monster slayers, but monster destroyers. Yeah, Like you
Speaker 1: have you ever played with that scenario? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: what would I do if there was like somebody attacking
Speaker 1: me or something like that. You know, you'd like to
Speaker 1: imagine like, oh I do this and that you know,
Speaker 1: I'd i'd be strong, and i'd be smart, and i'd
Speaker 1: be brave. But then, like when that really happens to people,
Speaker 1: you know, the cower and fear, and like you, it's
Speaker 1: a thing that you can't even know what you would do.
Speaker 1: You can hope you would be one way, but you
Speaker 1: can't know until it happens because these involuntary processes take over.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you're saying like that, we're trying to
Speaker 1: imagine the way we hope we would be when those
Speaker 1: automatic processes take over and just guide your action without
Speaker 1: you thinking about it, and maybe to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: were even actively saying, let me be Beowulf when the
Speaker 1: time comes. Hum well, and I can't help but wonder
Speaker 1: if having fictional models makes it more likely. Yeah, that's possible.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let me be the Hulk when the
Speaker 1: time comes, you know. Yeah, like if you've if you've
Speaker 1: had a model that you can picture in your mind,
Speaker 1: does it make it more likely that you will actually
Speaker 1: act that way? I don't know, but it's uh, that's
Speaker 1: interesting food for thought. Uh. Either way, there there there
Speaker 1: is truth to the matter that that when when the
Speaker 1: terror comes, when the monster comes, we don't know unless
Speaker 1: we've rehearsed for it, like actively, not mentally, but like physically.
Speaker 1: You know, we probably don't have a clear idea of
Speaker 1: how we will respond. You know, we have our our
Speaker 1: our intentions and our hopes regarding our response, but maybe
Speaker 1: we haven't actually been tested yet. I'm reminded of a
Speaker 1: quote from Hunter S. Thompson, uh specifically the lyrics he
Speaker 1: wrote for a Warren Zevon song of the of the
Speaker 1: same name, where he said, quote, you're a whole different
Speaker 1: person when you're scared, and so you're saying you want
Speaker 1: to know what that person is going to be, like,
Speaker 1: maybe they can be like Hercules exactly. Yeah, that's why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to picture Hercules in my mind and hopefully
Speaker 1: maybe that is what the gods will make of me
Speaker 1: when the time comes. So I didn't find a study
Speaker 1: like this, but I would be kind of surprised if
Speaker 1: there isn't one somewhere out there, a study of like,
Speaker 1: does thinking about monster slayers or heroes of any kind
Speaker 1: make you more courageous? Do do the snake trolley test again,
Speaker 1: but just like see if there's any difference when you
Speaker 1: like prime people beforehand with the story of a monster
Speaker 1: slayer or something. Be got to watch season two of Buffy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: prior to uh handling the snake trolley. Yeah. Maybe, so
Speaker 1: so you're season two guy? Huh? Well, I mean season
Speaker 1: one is necessary. I love the Master um. But even
Speaker 1: as I was watching it, people were like, you just
Speaker 1: gotta press on three season one and get to season
Speaker 1: two and then yeah from from there, From from there on,
Speaker 1: it's it's gravy. I'd go season three. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: where it really like, that's the Mayor season. Oh, the
Speaker 1: Mayor is good. I forgot about the Mayor. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: need to rewatch some of them. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say all of them, but I do. I should go
Speaker 1: back and rewatch some of There's some great episodes in there. Yeah. Alright.
Speaker 1: So there you have it, the monster slayer, monsters and
Speaker 1: the fabulous slayers who slay them. Uh. This was a
Speaker 1: fun one to put together. Obviously, we couldn't look at
Speaker 1: every amazing monster slay myth or legend or modern interpretation
Speaker 1: out there. There's just so much good stuff. Hey, send us,
Speaker 1: send us your favorite monster slayer stories, and I want
Speaker 1: to hear more of those, especially the ones you hear
Speaker 1: less often, especially ones with great female monster slayers. I
Speaker 1: want to know more of those stories for sure. I
Speaker 1: should also point out there there were some There are
Speaker 1: some really good ones that I ran across in um
Speaker 1: Native American traditions that time will include here. But maybe
Speaker 1: that's something we can do again in the future if
Speaker 1: everyone really digs a good monster slayer tale. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: there's some good ones there all right. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where we'll find all the podcast episodes, uh, as
Speaker 1: well as just a lot of extra monster content, a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of monster blogs that I wrote over the years, UH,
Speaker 1: some Monster Science videos. Links out to our social media
Speaker 1: accounts like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, as well as
Speaker 1: a link for our door go check that out. A
Speaker 1: great way to support the show is to buy some
Speaker 1: of that merchandise. We have one related to release a
Speaker 1: recent episode on the basilisk. You can check that out.
Speaker 1: And if you want to support the show in a
Speaker 1: way that doesn't cost you any money, just rate and
Speaker 1: review us wherever you have the power to do so.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our wonderful audio producers. Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Tarry Harrison. If you'd like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us directly, let us know feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: to let us know about your favorite monster slayer, or
Speaker 1: just to say hi, let us know how you found
Speaker 1: out about the show where you listen from. You can
Speaker 1: email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Well more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. The Four Foo