WEBVTT - Part Two: Dungeons & Dragons: The History of Some Great and Terrible Nerdery 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:06.720 Hello, and welcome to cool people do cool stuff, but 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.080 your weekly reminder that I'm a nerd. I'm your host, 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:14.280 Maria Kiljoy and with me today is my guest Edza 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:19.840 Trun who's the host of Better Offline. Hi. Hi ho 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.360 h Offline Just life. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.600 Absolutely just flawless introduction from me, and I'm just unable 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.280 to communicate with the human Yeah. 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.400 That's that's why we get paid the big bucks. 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:33.559 That's why we told good Macron. 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.720 Yeah, because they told us we had faces for radio, 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.960 and then here we are. Our producer today is Sharene 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.680 Hi Sharen. Hi, I'm back, Sharene. When did you play 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.720 D and D? What was it like? How'd it go? 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:52.080 I mean, if I'm being honest, it was like maybe 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.000 twelve thirteen years ago. It was a long time ago. 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.520 Oh yeah, And if I'm being honest, I thought it 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.520 was a little boring. Yeah, really long. It's like the 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.480 Baseball of games. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.520 It takes a way to yeah. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.679 And I don't it's hard to pay attention and most 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.040 people are really into it, so if you're not, it's 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:15.360 just kind of a weird vibe. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.280 But that makes a lot of sense to me. I 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.400 feel like it might be they just like not into it. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:23.840 And there's also that I think that a lot of 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.120 people running games just sort of take it for granted 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.280 that everyone's having fun. Whereas I was reading this thing 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.199 I really liked while I was doing research for this episode, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.679 where I was talking about how like people are used 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.720 to coming into games where it's like this team versus 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.520 that team, but the players are working together, and then 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.280 the game master's goal isn't to kill all the players, 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:47.560 it's to make them have fun. And that's like your 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:48.320 win condition. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:50.120 Punish them. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.360 Yeah, I mean, I guy gaxit's punish them. 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.640 I'm obsessed with games. I love any kind of game, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.320 I love any kind of puzzle, but I just need 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.280 able to have and I'm very competitive. At the same time, 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.880 I understand people being into something. But D and D 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.040 has a it's a little too much for me. Maybe 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:09.680 there's just a little too much of a. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:11.400 It feels like. 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.799 Something that's very variable based on the group you have. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.960 My best mate, it's very true, plays. 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:17.959 D and D. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.000 He's a great dungeon master and also apparently very horrible 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.359 to people during it in a fun way. But I imagine 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.280 if you get kind of a half ost group or 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.320 you get like a guy gag style guy. Yeah, the 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.640 guy's like, ah, but the book was the book was cursed. 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.040 You opened and read the cursed book, you fucking idiot. 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.040 How didn't you know that? Yeah? And I get I 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.640 guess maybe there's some sort of line to drive from. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.480 Was Guy GaX a very paranoid guy? 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:47.720 Yes? I was after him. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.640 Okay, so he may legitimately have just been trying to 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.880 teach people or just lived his life in his constant stay. Well, 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.000 is this dangerous? Is there a centipede in there? 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.280 Gary? Gary, we're in an Albertson. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:03.360 We'll get buying groceries imilipeds in it? 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.280 Dangerous reason. I got really excited when I found out 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.880 the first game of D and d Ever had centipedes 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.560 as the the monster. Was that in the game that 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.560 I wrote the number city, the like generic first enemy 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:21.520 for the players to fight is giant centipedes. Yeah, if 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:21.920 you don't know what. 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.680 In most games, I mean not pretty sure worm you know, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.280 like Zelda had like the worm that in the sand 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:30.120 like it was. 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.560 Yeah, like the slimes and dragon, I mean I'm pretty 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.640 sure that they were in early EverQuest. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.360 Whatever. The someone listening to this is going to correct 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.680 me here. Pretty sure what the second zone of Western 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.080 Commons after knos Quinos. It was Sony EQ backwards. I'm 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.760 pretty sure that there were some there, but it might 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.040 also have been the later expansion. If you email me 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.680 and want to talk about EverQuest, I will talk to 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.720 you all day. I got a lot of depression in 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:57.280 that game. 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.200 I am very grateful that I am old enough that 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.760 World of Warcraft came out after I was done with 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:06.720 high school. Yeah, it was. 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.400 It was a tough time to have to be around 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:10.320 for the high school. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.960 Time of Wow. Yeah, I was. 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.640 I was EverQuest in high school. Wow. In the beginning 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.360 of Carl Wow. Wow. Towards the end, do you know 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.839 how World of Warcraft actually got started? Though? Just taking 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.839 the show. But there's a very short story. Okay, so 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.600 well towards the EverQuest is still going for some reason day. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.480 But what happened towards the end in the name they 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:38.680 keep claiming it the end of the Shadows of Lukelin expansion, 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.040 which was set on the moon, or maybe it was 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:43.520 the Planes of Power there was, Yeah, it was the 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.240 Planes of Power expansion, and the game was kind of 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.279 very obviously starting to fall apart. 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:48.680 Like. 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.520 It was obvious that the developers kind of weren't fucking 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.919 sure what to sell people anymore. And there was this 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.839 final level raide level called Planes of Time and a group, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.800 one of the bigger groups, Fires of Heaven, one of 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.279 the they went to it. They got to the thing 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.400 and it just didn't work. It was very obvious that 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.159 Sony did not expect Sony Online Entiment did not expect 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.760 people to get there. Guy called four Or got very 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.640 pissy about it. Another guy called tig old Bitties was 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.680 his name, and on the nameless I believe Legacy. 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.880 A classic English name. Both of these two guys. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:28.479 Insult the culture, insult them all away. Jeff Kaplan who 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.800 played tig Ole Bitties. He is now senior at Blizzard 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.760 Activision Blizzard, so is Rob Pardo, who I believe is 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.640 also on Legacy of Steel, as well as Furor, who 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.000 I can't remember the real name of. I've actually also 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.000 been a weird guy. Nevertheless, what World of Warcraft did 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:46.720 and what Blizzard did, because they used to be quite 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.240 a smart company, was they just hired people from the 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.680 EverQuest forums whoa okay, they hired them and they went 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.520 and they everyone I've met a Blizzard really not like 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.680 World of Walcroff was actually founded on something kind of cool, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.320 which is these people actually played the game. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.840 It's crazy idea, yeah fans. Yeah, but all of. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.280 This, like mailing people's stuff and all of this like 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.239 really petty shit, kind of reminds me of the Fires 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.960 of Heaven days when people just went on there like well, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.000 that's actually the conflict needs being and it was usually 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.560 just directed at the game developers, who are in this 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.360 thankless job of just knowing that they had to make 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:25.120 these people happy, but knowing that this was like twenty people, yeah, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.400 in a game with hundreds of thousands, if not millions 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.240 of players, and you just had to make these very 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.320 loud people who people just agreed with. Anyway, that's my story. 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:35.120 No that sorry for that. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.800 No, it's a good like nothing ever changes about nerds thing, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.120 you know, And again for all my like, well, I 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.120 think I started this episode by saying I'm a nerd, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:50.400 I'm whatever. So in case you're just joining now, which 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:52.040 would be a very strange thing for you to do. 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.680 This is part two of a two parter about the 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.200 history of Dungeons and Dragons and role playing games in general. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.920 Where we last left our heroes, they were working for 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.560 minimum wage for a monster who invented D and D, 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.400 swimming around a man who wait, he can't sue me, 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:16.160 he's dead buildings. Yeah. D and d's early heyday is 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.560 the mid nineteen seventies of the mid nineteen eighties, and 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:24.320 this is a time when, especially for white American culture, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.040 it's obsessively and we talked with this last time, almost 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.400 pathologically non political. Don't talk about politics is of course 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.840 a political position, one that reinforced the status quote capitalism, consumerism, 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:35.960 and shit. Everyone in twenty twenty four knows that fucking shit, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.680 but people didn't want to hear it back then. The 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.840 thing is, though, the cultural influences on D and D 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.200 and RPGs more broadly way way the fuck political in 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.400 all kinds of ways, both good ways and bad ways. 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.040 You don't live through the forties or the sixties without 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.920 paying attention to how the world works and noticing that 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.040 there's a lot of people trying to make very dramatic 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:02.120 changes in how the world works. There are all kinds 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.239 of influences on Dungeons and Dragons, of course, high fantasy 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.600 and epic fantasy. We're really getting going by the nineteen sixties. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.840 But two of the most present and clear influences are 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.400 two authors I've paid a lot of attention to as 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.160 relates to their political positions. J R. Tolkien, who's probably 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.680 from the same town as you because he's British, and 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.800 fucking Michael Moorcock, who is also British. I assume people 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.920 have heard of Tolkien, and if people are first hearing 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.040 about Morcock just now, you're going to be in this 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.200 stage for about a year where you can't say his 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:37.160 name without laughing. 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.600 Oh fuck, he was he was born He wasn't even 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:41.760 born in England, j R. R. 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:42.360 Tolkien. 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:43.840 He was born in South Africa. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.640 Oh shit, really that makes sense. 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.199 He died in Bournemouth, which is where my mother was born. 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:52.480 And I thought I was about to be very embarrassed, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.600 like the technically we all kind of from the same place. 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.640 No, yeah, I love that. You know this British guy 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.200 and you're like, yeah, of course there's three people on 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.360 this island and no one's angry. 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.840 Yeah hate each other. So wait, there's a fellow called 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:09.880 Morecock in England. 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:11.559 Yeah, Michael Moorcock. 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.959 Yeah, that's got a rough ross secondary school for that man. 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.360 Either we are if they all read any more Cock, No, 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.120 I've had plenty. Thanks, yeah, I will. I won't expect 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.920 any of you to say his name yet. In a 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.920 year he'll be able to say his name. Just too 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.080 hard to pronounce anyway. 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.400 I think Michael Moorcock might have actually grown up near me. Yeah, 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.640 he lives in Texas now, born in London and thirty 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.680 nine of the landscape of London, particularly the er in 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.240 notting Hill and Labort Grove. Labbort Grove is very close 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:44.000 to where I grew up. 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.720 Okay. Yeah, See there's three people in England and none 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:49.280 of them live there, and one of them is here. 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.080 Yeah, beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:55.679 I'm not gonna go too deep on talking because he's 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.600 probably gonna get his own episodes one of these days 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.240 when I'm because, but I'm gonna say a few things 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.920 about him first. Anyone isn't aware of J. R. Tolkien. 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:05.760 This is the guy who wrote Lord of the Rings, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.560 which is basically where modern fantasy fiction comes from. He 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.319 didn't invent the genre, but he breathed life into it. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.520 Another one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, said about 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.679 who's also British God damn it said about Tolkien and 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.840 his influence quote j R. R. Tolkien has become a 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.000 sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy, the way 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.400 that Mount Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.920 it's big and up close, sometimes it's just shape on 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.800 the horizon. Sometimes it's not there at all, which means 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.199 either of the artist has either made a deliberate decision 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.840 against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:47.520 in fact standing on Mount Fuji. So whenever there isn't 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:53.000 Tolkien in fantasy, it is a conscious choice, right Terry, Yeah, 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.719 Terry Bratchet is probably the most blameless of all these. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.880 People, one of the few people I'll say whatever, Yeah, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:01.679 I got nothing bad to say about Terry. 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:06.000 No, the only good cop he know is uh Vimes. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.280 Vimes. Yeah, it was luck how he didn't like being 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.360 He didn't like other people to shave him. WHOA. 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.800 When that other British author decided to come out as 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.800 a massive transphobe a couple of years ago, there's this 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.199 Everyone was like, oh God, this is sad and horrible. 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.720 And then this person told a story, this trans woman 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.920 told a story about meeting Terry Pratchett and getting her 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.000 book signed by Terry Pratchett and being like, well, my 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.080 name is actually and then gave a boy's name, but 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.920 I'm trying to change my name to girl's name, and 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.679 Terry Pratchett was like, oh great, and signed it to 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.319 the girl's name and was like that, good luck with 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:40.839 every name. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.240 Yeah. What a legend. Yeah, and so I have no 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.319 idea what the other author is. But if I did, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.280 they get it by a big truck. 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.600 An obscure lady that no one pays attention to anymore. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.240 Tolkien has earned his detractors. He is an English Catholic 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.280 who's obsessed with Norse mythology, so his monumental impact on 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.920 fantasy has made it extra hard for non European fantasy 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.480 and medieval stuff to really break through culturally. And his writing, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.120 while I would argue it's well intentioned, is absolutely racist. 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.040 In a short story I wrote back a while back, 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.320 a character calls him the most influential, subconsciously racist author 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.720 of the twentieth century, and I stand by that completely. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:24.760 It makes say it was the World War One veteran 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:26.600 as well. Yeah, he grew up in like. 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.079 The Golden Age, of British racism. Yeah, and he tried 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:37.040 not to be. And he actively worked against racism while 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:44.560 unconsciously absolutely encouraging racism fairly our a bias. His villains 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.720 are basically Middle Eastern coded and Orcs are like born 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.440 bad and all kinds of other shit. He was also 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.880 vocally anti Nazi. The Nazis wrote saying they wanted to 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.240 translate his stuff into German, but they wanted to make 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.680 sure he wasn't Jewish first, and he told his publisher, 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.439 as far as I'm concerned, they can go hang. And 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.719 he told Nazis, if I am to understand that you 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.040 are inquiring whether or not I am of Jewish origin, 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.320 I can only reply that I regret that I appeared 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.959 to have no ancestors of that gifted people nice And 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.480 so Nazi Germany did not publish translations of his books. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.760 He also wrote some of the most compelling critiques of 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.640 political power ever written, and he wasn't subtle when he 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:30.480 named the ring of power the ring of power which 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:32.760 is not to be used but instead cast into the 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.440 fires of Mount Doom. Near the end of his life, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.520 he wrote a letter to his son saying this politics 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.319 were moving more and more towards anarchism. He wrote a 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.679 world full of elves and dwarves and hobbits, which is 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.079 what D and D is, except D and D had 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.599 to change it's the name of hobbits to halflings to 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.319 avoid a lawsuit. He basically set up all the fucking 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.520 tropes of modern fantasy, well a lot of them, because 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:04.360 actually all these other writers did too, and hippies love Tolkien. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.880 So you have all these like crazy radicals through the 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.079 sixties and seventies, like kind of doing shit and naming 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.840 it after shit from Lord of the Rings and shit. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.160 Hippies love Tolkien, but not all of them. One fantasy 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.680 author writing during that time whose influence on D and 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.560 D is just as apparent when you dig into it, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.360 is the anarchist author Michael Moorcock. Morcock is mostly known 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.200 today for writing el Rick, maybe the first anti hero 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.920 the fantasy genre. Morcock also invented the chaos star, that 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.360 eight pointed star that everyone either loves or hates, and 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.840 there's always annoying discourse about on the Internet unless you 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:42.680 live in a blessed corner of the Internet that doesn't 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.880 care about the sort of thing, which case I'm envious 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.600 all kinds of shit from him ended up in D 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.920 and D and D and D. There's like this, and 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.000 some of it's like bad and annoying stuff in D 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.080 and D, Like basically everyone speaks this language called Common, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.000 which is more or less like English. Like if you're 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.200 like an elf, you speak Elvin and Common. If you're 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.640 a human, you just speak Common. So just fucking Americans 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.680 in English, you know, right. That comes from Michael Morcock. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.040 He had the common tongue that he wrote into things. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.360 Also drinking a potion that makes you immune to edged weapons, 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.080 which is some obscure, random gamey shit. He wrote gamey 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.760 ass fiction like it was just full of game stuff. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.200 Put on a ring that makes you move twice as fast, 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.600 that kind of fancy writing. Yeah, all these new moods. 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.520 Sound one hundred years old, these new movies, it's all 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.560 like interconnected shit. Oh, it's got to be a franchise thing. Now, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.560 why didn't you get cart I took a poshm. Yeah, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.280 why are we in a fancy world if we can't 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.360 use the easy tree? The fuck that it has? 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:45.680 It's fantasy? Yeah, yeah, I have some. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.120 Fun with everything. Some fucking dull these days. 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:51.280 He might like his writing, his writing is like kind 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.800 of edgy, but pulpy and well, not edgy. If he 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.280 took the potion, that's true, it's immune. Well, people can 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.160 be as edgy as they want around him, He's immune 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:04.680 to it. He also cynical talking swords comes from fucking 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:09.400 Michael Morricock. And maybe most importantly, he frames his book 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.880 as books a lot of them as this like weird 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.520 theological war between the universal forces of law and chaos, 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.680 only he's not in favor of law. His hero is 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.040 a chaos paragon. The D and D alignment system of 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.360 morality used to just be law versus chaos. Eventually it 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.000 became a two axis chart of law and chaos and 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.520 good and evil. Morcock also wasn't a big fan of Tolkien. 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.040 He didn't like cozy moral stories of good and evil. 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.960 I love Tolkien, but I also love my Morcock's teardown 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:44.480 of the Lord of the Rings, which is called the 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.040 Epic Pooh, which compares Lord of the Rings to the 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.880 Winnie Pooh to the Winny Pooh, Winnie. 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.600 The Pooh, the Winnie the Witty the Pooh. Yeah no, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:17:00.200 the Winnie Pooh has his real name. Yeah, clipp is game. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.080 The other day drunk off his ass yelling at the 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.280 dances got chucked out of the half. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:11.840 Yeah, a fucking winny. So Morcock was part of this 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.800 culture of like free sharing of ideas, that was a 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:21.440 common hippie thing. That was where the juice of D 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.680 and D comes from. I will never call it that again. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.760 Morcock freely gave permission to the founders of D and 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.399 D to use his stuff without credit or payment. He wrote, 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.040 quote when I told the original D and D guys 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.040 they could use elric it was in the spirit of 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.840 the sixties slash seventies, when it seemed to many of 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.119 us that we were sharing in a common culture and 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.120 the products of that culture. Of course, I hadn't anticipated 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.320 that some people would start turning all this stuff into 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.600 commercial businesses. I was even more surprised to see it 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.560 all developing into pretty soulless marketing methods, where companies like 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.520 Warcraft and others began to rip me off and talking 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.280 in particular, I suppose I should have trademarked and copyrighted 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.960 all this stuff sooner, but I'm still unhappy about that 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.720 sort of thing, which goes against all my ethical notions, 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.000 and so, like you know, they ripped him off because 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:16.679 he was like, oh, we're all just sharing, and then 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.199 someone's like yeah, sharing, and then then just say they 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.520 sell this shit, you know, just before it feels like 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:22.080 like a. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:27.719 Real invention of lying situation. They're like, yeah, capitalism doesn't exist, right, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.080 we're all friends here, Gary geigs like, we are not friends. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.520 Yeah, I am going to steal all of this because 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.560 you allowed me to the trap that I hit undunderneath 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.840 the contract. I didn't know the legal contract hidden within. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:48.080 Yeah. As for Tolkien, Gary Geygax hated Tolkien, but not 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.720 for like because he wanted political nuance like more Cock did, 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.200 but for boring like let's not talk about politics, asshole reasons. Also, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.680 I suspect most of what Gygax wrote about how D 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.200 and D how he doesn't even like Tolkien. He only 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.200 threw it in there because fans insisted all of this stuff. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.320 It's because he didn't want to get sued by Tolkien's estate. Yes, 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.280 that's my best guess. I read this like editorial he 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.080 wrote about Tolkien and D and D and years ago, 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.200 and in it he wrote, I found the Ring trilogy 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.399 well tedious, The action dragged, and it smacked of an 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.240 allegory of the struggle of the little common working folk 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.520 of England against the threat of Hitler's Nazi evil. At 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.359 the risk of incurring the wrath of the Professor's dedicated readers, 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:34.960 I must say that I was so bored with his 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.400 tones that it took me nearly three weeks to finish them, 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.400 which is like so many weird levels of bragging. Three 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.720 weeks is a perfectly reasonable length of time to read 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.800 very thick ass fucking books. I was gonna say, am 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.440 I just like an anciently slow reader. No, No, you're not. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.080 I mean, None of the Rings is a fucking long book. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.320 It's not I'm going to come out and say I 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:59.320 do not like that book. It took me forever to 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.840 retook me more than three weeks. Yeah, it is through 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.840 the Earth's Sea books though. Yeah, and the fourth one 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:09.800 with the farming that was not not very good. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.280 I've only read the first two Earth Sea books. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.920 I've been like third one is that the first. I 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.520 don't consider it going further than the third just because 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.560 it gets weird. But the first three is some of 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.280 the best fantasy books ever. Yeah, second one as well. 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.040 The punchline of the second book is so fantastic. It's 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.240 like it's one It's the first time I read something 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.800 where I was like, Wow, I fucking like I get 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:35.240 why fantasy exists. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.040 That's cool because it's not a like it's not pure polp. 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.679 It actually is like specifically saying stuff. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.359 I also just really like the fact that there is 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.119 with these with fantasy novels that including a lot of 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.080 the Rings, just the idea of the costs of power, Yeah, totally. 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:54.840 And I know bringing up anime is probably could have 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.040 pissed someone off, but for my Alchemists, great thing about 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.200