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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lan and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today our October journey continues. If you're new to

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Speaker 3: the show, we spend all of October covering spooky subjects,

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Speaker 3: and we are plowing right on toward Halloween at a

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Speaker 3: frightening pace, at such a pace that by the time

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Speaker 3: we reach it, our skin may be seared by the wind.

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Speaker 3: But today we wanted to embark on a new series

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Speaker 3: of Halloween related episodes about shadows. Before we started, I

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Speaker 3: was thinking about the series on necromancy that we published

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Speaker 3: earlier this month, in which we explored a lot of

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Speaker 3: ancient accounts of people summoning the dead, especially to get

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Speaker 3: information about the future or some of the kind of

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Speaker 3: hidden information from them. And we talked about stories that

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Speaker 3: assumed the ancient and Greek model of the afterlife a

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Speaker 3: subterranean realm of darkness called hades, where the souls of

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Speaker 3: the dead dwell in a weak, pitiable and insubstantial form.

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Speaker 3: So this would be unlike modern Christian notions of the

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Speaker 3: dead dwelling either in heavenly bliss or infernal punishment had

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Speaker 3: seems to be most often thought of as a gloomy,

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Speaker 3: forlorn dungeon where your spirit is locked away forever, more

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Speaker 3: like a slowly fading memory. It's not really a punishment,

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Speaker 3: and basically everybody goes there, but it's not good. It's

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Speaker 3: better to be alive. I guess the only real exception

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Speaker 3: seems to be like if you're turned into a god,

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Speaker 3: which occasionally happens if you're really cool.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but you got to have you gotta have an

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Speaker 2: end for that. Yeah, not just they don't have that

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Speaker 2: out there, just anybody.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, relevant to our topic in this next series

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Speaker 3: of episodes, I was thinking about how in English translations,

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Speaker 3: for example, of the Homeric myths, these dead souls that

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Speaker 3: populate the underworld here are sometimes known as shades. I

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Speaker 3: think this terminology comes up in the story, for example,

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Speaker 3: in the Odyssey, where Odysseus goes to the edge of

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Speaker 3: the underworld in order to summon up shades. I think

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Speaker 3: he wants to speak to the shade of Tyresius.

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Speaker 2: I believe that's right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, But he sees his mom, he sees a bunch

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Speaker 3: of people, He waves a sword at him, he slaughters

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Speaker 3: a ram and all that. And I was wondering, when

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Speaker 3: the English translations use the word shade here, does that

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Speaker 3: mean shadows just in the regular sense of shadow, And

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Speaker 3: does that usage, if so, go back to the original Greek,

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Speaker 3: as best I can tell, it does I'm not a

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Speaker 3: Greek scholar here, but I was looking up some Greek

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Speaker 3: English lexical sources, and from what I could find, it

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Speaker 3: looks like the Greek word used here is skia, the

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Speaker 3: Latin equivalent being umbra. And this word does indeed carry

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Speaker 3: these multiple meanings. It could be used to refer to ghosts,

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Speaker 3: to spirits of the dead, like the kind that are

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Speaker 3: called forth to drink the blood of the Ram and

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Speaker 3: tell the future to Odysseus. Or it could refer to

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Speaker 3: the utterly mundane shade and shadow cast by a tree

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Speaker 3: or a mountain, or a person, just whatever blocks out

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Speaker 3: the sun. And I thought this double meaning was very interesting.

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Speaker 3: What is it about the mundane shadows we experience every

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Speaker 3: single day that would cause people to give them this

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Speaker 3: hair raising secondary meaning?

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Speaker 2: This is a great question, Yeah, because shadows are everywhere

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Speaker 2: there that you know, we encounter our own shadow every day,

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Speaker 2: and yet the term shadow. The idea of a shadow

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Speaker 2: carries a lot of weight, certainly supernaturally and fictionally and folklorically,

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Speaker 2: as we'll get into in a bit here, but just

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Speaker 2: linguistically it does a lot of legwork, you know. I

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Speaker 2: decided to turn to brewers Dictionary of Phrase and fable

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Speaker 2: on this one. It's often a fun way to sort

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Speaker 2: of into not just the meaning of words, but also

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Speaker 2: just like antiquated usages of those words. So the author

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Speaker 2: here reminds us that shadow is a word with numerous

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Speaker 2: figurative and applied meanings. A shadow may be a ghost,

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Speaker 2: as we see in Macbeth hence horrible shadow. It may

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Speaker 2: also be a faint representation, as in a shadow of

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Speaker 2: a doubt. It may also mean a constant attendant. And

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Speaker 2: Brewers specifically references Milton's paradise lost here sin and her

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Speaker 2: shadow death.

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Speaker 3: It's hard for me to imagine that pearing of her

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Speaker 3: shadow death does not in some sense derived from its

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Speaker 3: usage in the Bible walk through the Valley of the

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Speaker 3: Shadow of Death exactly.

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Speaker 2: And of course, we often use the term shadow as

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Speaker 2: a verb to follow someone around and sort of learn

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Speaker 2: from them. To shadow someone at work, generally when that

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Speaker 2: is used, there are no haunting connotations, but shadow may

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Speaker 2: also be a moral darkness or gloom now Brewers, Like

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Speaker 2: I said, is also always great for some antiquated sayings.

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Speaker 2: Here are a few examples gone to the bad for

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Speaker 2: the shadow of an ass aka, choose your battles and

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Speaker 2: don't battle for something as dumb as the shadow of

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Speaker 2: a donkey?

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Speaker 3: Does that go back to a story? I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I have no additional context, but feel free to start

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Speaker 2: incorporating it into your daily conversations. Listeners. There's another one,

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Speaker 2: May your shadow grow less? This one apparently has Eastern

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Speaker 2: origins according to Brewers. And I'll get back to this

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Speaker 2: one in a bit. And then the idea of being

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Speaker 2: reduced to a shadow or emaciated. You so so slender,

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Speaker 2: so starved that even your shadow is reduced. But you know,

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Speaker 2: obviously your shadow would be reduced if your body was reduced.

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Speaker 2: But it is also not that simple, right, because shadows

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Speaker 2: can be manipulated. We can cast a very long shadow

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Speaker 2: depending on where we are in reference to the sun. Joe,

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Speaker 2: I don't know about your experiences with this as a father,

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Speaker 2: but I remember when my son was a mere toddler

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Speaker 2: that we would have some fun with our own shadows

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Speaker 2: in the park, especially in the way that a child

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Speaker 2: can be shown to manipulate their own shadow, to cast

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Speaker 2: a long shadow, to cast a big shadow, and also

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Speaker 2: have it interact with other shadows, like have your shadow

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Speaker 2: dinosaur hand, you know, bite another person's shadow, and that

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Speaker 2: sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know how much consciousness my daughter has

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Speaker 3: of her own shadow yet, but I have done some

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Speaker 3: shadow puppet shows for her in the light of the

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Speaker 3: setting sun, and it's interesting to watch because I think

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Speaker 3: the few times I've done this, my daughter has tried

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Speaker 3: to reach out and touch the shadows projected on the

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Speaker 3: floor or on the wall, but of course there's nothing

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Speaker 3: to touch, but she perceives that this moving display of

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Speaker 3: shapes must be some kind of object that she could grasp.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something about shadow. I think a child's fascination

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Speaker 2: with them perhaps reveals much about what remains there, at

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Speaker 2: least in some part of our mind. Even after we

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Speaker 2: have grown accustomed to them, once they've become old hat,

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Speaker 2: there are still going to be moments where we notice

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Speaker 2: the peculiar when it comes to the shadow, that a

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Speaker 2: shadow doesn't necessarily tell the truth but also at the

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Speaker 2: same time, a shadow can reveal things that are there

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Speaker 2: that you know, perhaps you can't see an individual, but

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Speaker 2: you can see their shadow that sort of thing. So

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Speaker 2: there's there's obviously a lot of rich room for interpretation.

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Speaker 2: But then also just coming back to the linguistics of it,

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Speaker 2: certainly when you get into translation. I know we are

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Speaker 2: looking around for possible shadow poems to read at the

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Speaker 2: top of this episode, and I was looking at some

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Speaker 2: Borges poems in translation, of course, and for instance, there's

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Speaker 2: one titled to the One who is Reading Me, which

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Speaker 2: is a nice haunting poem with a number of different

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Speaker 2: Borges sort of trademarks in it. But some translations will

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Speaker 2: use shadow and others will not, So you know, it

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Speaker 2: seems like a shat the shadow is one of those

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Speaker 2: words that likely we've been saying it refers to so

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Speaker 2: many things it may be invoked in translation, even if

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Speaker 2: that was perhaps not the author or the poet's original intent.

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Speaker 3: Well, coming back to the representation of shadows in our minds,

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Speaker 3: I dug up what I thought were a couple of

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Speaker 3: pretty interesting cognitive science papers about shadow consciousness. So the

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Speaker 3: first one I was looking at was a short paper

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Speaker 3: published in Trendsing Cognitive Sciences in two thousand and six

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Speaker 3: by Roberto Cassadi, an Italian professor. This paper is called

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Speaker 3: the Cognitive Science of Holes and cast Shadows and this

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Speaker 3: was published in two thousand and six. This paper asked

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Speaker 3: an interesting question. It was what can quasi objects or

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Speaker 3: negative objects such as shadows and holes tell us about

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Speaker 3: how human brains perceive and understand physical objects. Of course,

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Speaker 3: holes and cast shadows are interesting because they are not

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Speaker 3: objects in themselves. They're actually just absences, in one case

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Speaker 3: the absence of solid physical substance and in the other

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Speaker 3: a relative absence of light. But despite the fact that

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Speaker 3: things like holes and shadows are just absences, we intuitively

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Speaker 3: often think of them as substances in themselves. Kasati writes, quote,

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Speaker 3: both holes and cast shadows are dependent features. They cannot

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Speaker 3: exist without objects hosting or casting them. Both shadows and

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Speaker 3: holes are somewhere between being regions of space and fully

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Speaker 3: fledged material objects. They are similar enough to bounded regions

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Speaker 3: of space that they have a location, a shape, a size,

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Speaker 3: and are as immaterial as space is, but are more

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Speaker 3: object like as they can persist over time and move.

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Speaker 3: And I think it's this ambiguity between being an object

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Speaker 3: and not being an object that makes a shadow counterintuitive.

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Speaker 3: One example I've seen is people to talking about the

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Speaker 3: interesting fact that a shadow could technically move faster than

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Speaker 3: the speed of light. How would that be possible? The

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Speaker 3: example would often be given that like, if you have

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Speaker 3: a source of light that you can project across the

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Speaker 3: entire surface of a planet, maybe the surface of the moon,

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Speaker 3: and then you, standing right next to that source of light,

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Speaker 3: move your finger quickly in front of it, you could

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Speaker 3: actually make your shadow travel across the surface of that

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Speaker 3: distant object faster than light would be able to travel

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Speaker 3: if it were going from one side of that object

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Speaker 3: to the other. Though, of course nothing is actually traveling

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Speaker 3: in the case of how you're altering the shadow there,

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Speaker 3: so it's not actually a violation of the laws of physics.

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Speaker 3: It's not any object going faster than the speed of light.

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Speaker 3: But is it is a change propagating through space in

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Speaker 3: some sense from our perspective, faster than the speed of light.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, So absence in a sense travels faster than anything material.

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Speaker 3: So I wanted to bring up a couple things mentioned

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Speaker 3: in this paper that start me as interesting. One of

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Speaker 3: them is a reference to another paper published a couple

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Speaker 3: of years before this in the journal Perception, called Impossible

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Speaker 3: Shadows and the Shadow Correspondence Problem by Pascal Mamasian published

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, and the background on this

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Speaker 3: paper is the observation that we can and do use

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Speaker 3: shadows to estimate information about a scene. So we can

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Speaker 3: use shadows to infer properties of both the light source

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Speaker 3: where light is coming from and a scene we're looking

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Speaker 3: at and the object casting the shadow. But getting information

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Speaker 3: this way is not a computationally trivial task. It's actually

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Speaker 3: somewhat difficult. Mamasian rites quote. In order to use that information,

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Speaker 3: our visual system has first to segment regions in the image,

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Speaker 3: decide that these regions are potential shadows rather than say,

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Speaker 3: in blots, and then match these shadow candidates with objects

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Speaker 3: in the scene. We call this last processing stage the

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Speaker 3: shadow correspondence problem. It is reminiscent of the correspondence problem

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Speaker 3: in stereopsis, and stereopsis is how the brain infers depth

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Speaker 3: in our vision by comparing the images produced by our

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Speaker 3: two different eyes and then going on they say quote

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Speaker 3: or motion perception, where one has to match features between

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Speaker 3: the left and right images or between consecutive frames of

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Speaker 3: a movie. So inferring real accurate information about a scene

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Speaker 3: you're looking at in a photograph or in front of

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Speaker 3: you based on shadows is computationally intensive. We use shadows

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Speaker 3: to get information, but it's a complex problem with multiple variables,

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Speaker 3: and it's taxing on the brain. And so the author

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Speaker 3: of this paper describes some experiments leading to the conclusion

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Speaker 3: that we actually only infer information from shadows using a

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Speaker 3: rough system. And one piece of evidence for that is

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Speaker 3: that people usually seemed not to notice when projected shadows

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Speaker 3: put in front of them were physically impossible. Rob I'd like,

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Speaker 3: I've got an illustration for you to look at here

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Speaker 3: that I pulled out of this paper. So there are

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Speaker 3: a series of six objects shown that are kind of there.

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Speaker 3: There are ray, a white to sort of like pole

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Speaker 3: with an arm at the top, and then a shadow

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Speaker 3: being cast by that object, And so you could try

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Speaker 3: to infer some information about where the source of light

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Speaker 3: is in relation to this object. But four of these

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Speaker 3: are possible shadows that could be cast by an object

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Speaker 3: of the shape, and two of them are impossible shadows.

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Speaker 2: Wow, So just looking at these six images here is

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Speaker 2: it is a little taxing. It can feel the mental strain,

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Speaker 2: because you know, I'm instantly trying to imagine light approaching

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Speaker 2: the object from different directions at different angles. And when

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Speaker 2: I start sort of doing that three dimensional computation in

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Speaker 2: my head, I mean, it seems like all of them

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Speaker 2: are probable, Like none of them are really standing out

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Speaker 2: to me as necessarily impossible. I don't know, maybe gosh,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe number two. Oh yeah, two is

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Speaker 2: the only one that I'm that I'm thinking is even

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Speaker 2: just a little bit suspect here. But yeah, this is

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Speaker 2: this is this is This is rough to think about.

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Speaker 3: You're in the same situation as most of the people

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Speaker 3: who participated in this experiment. So most of the shadows

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Speaker 3: given here are possible given the correct light source position,

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Speaker 3: But the two on the right side of the image

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Speaker 3: are impossible. If you look at them, you can see

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Speaker 3: that the arm of the figure is pointed the wrong

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Speaker 3: way in both of those cases.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating, I guess, I'm I'm this is why I've always

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Speaker 2: been so forgiving too with video games, especially the ones

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Speaker 2: where you could choose whether you wanted complex shadows or

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Speaker 2: just sort of like the circle shadow like circle shadows

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Speaker 2: good enough. If I'm having any kind of system issues,

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Speaker 2: let's just go with this simple shadow.

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Speaker 3: That might be a good instinct. We'll get to some

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Speaker 3: reasoning about that in a second. So a couple of

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Speaker 3: these images are not possible shadows. But I think I

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Speaker 3: don't know. I already knew that I've read about it

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Speaker 3: before I looked at the image, So I can't really

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Speaker 3: know what my reaction would be. But you had the

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Speaker 3: same reaction a lot of the people in the study did.

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Speaker 3: They just didn't notice. People seemed not to notice that

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Speaker 3: these shadows were not possible. It had to be explained

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Speaker 3: to them afterwards by the experimenters, And so they used

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Speaker 3: these bits of impossible geometry to infer mundane information about

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Speaker 3: physical objects, space, and light sources, just like normal. So

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Speaker 3: in the end here the author says that this is

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Speaker 3: evidence that our brains use a quick mechanism or what

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Speaker 3: is called a quote course representation course meaning rough to

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Speaker 3: solve the shadow correspondence problem. And another thing that gets

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Speaker 3: pointed out in the discussion is surrealist art that makes

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Speaker 3: use of impossible shadows. There is a painting called Indefinite

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Speaker 3: Divisibility by a painter named eve TONGI. Again, that's called

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Speaker 3: indefinite divisibility. If you want to look it up yourself.

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Speaker 3: It is a sort of dolliesque surreal painting with these

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Speaker 3: strange objects standing up in a landscape with very stark,

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Speaker 3: you know, high contrast shadows that are falling long across

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Speaker 3: the fading background. So there seems to be a strong

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Speaker 3: directionally oriented source of light sort of where where the

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Speaker 3: observer would be casting these long shadows. But in this

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Speaker 3: paper there is a zoom in and some lines you

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Speaker 3: can see if you scroll down in our outline here

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Speaker 3: Rob showing that the shadows cast in this painting are

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Speaker 3: again impossible. They don't line up the way they would

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Speaker 3: if there were actually a single consistent point of light.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is fascinating. Yeah, once you start looking at

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Speaker 2: it and really comparing object to shadow, then yeah, you

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Speaker 2: start seeing you hit the problems here.

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Speaker 3: And yet I wouldn't noticed at all. So this raises

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Speaker 3: a question like, were the impossible shadows in this painting

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Speaker 3: included simply by accident because most people wouldn't notice, or

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Speaker 3: is it an intended surreal effect to I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Reward careful study of the painting for you to realize like, oh,

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Speaker 3: wait a minute, this is not physically possible.

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Speaker 2: It's got to be the latter, right, I mean, it

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Speaker 2: seems like the amount of work that would go into

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Speaker 2: a piece like this, and being a surrealist piece, that

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Speaker 2: would that would make sense to intentionally distort the shadows,

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Speaker 2: even if it was done in such a way that

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Speaker 2: many viewers of the painting would not notice.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so short story there. We do use shadows to

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Speaker 3: get relevant information about a scene we're looking at, but

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Speaker 3: we only look so close because we apparently do not

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Speaker 3: detect when shadows violate the laws of physics or geometry. However,

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Speaker 3: coming back to that paper I mentioned by Cassatti, shadows also,

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Speaker 3: in addition to providing relevant information, they also represent noise.

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Speaker 3: We might not think about this often, but in reality,

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Speaker 3: it would be quite easy to mistake a shadow for

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Speaker 3: a physical object or the outline of such to interpret,

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Speaker 3: to misinterpret a shadow falling across an object as a

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Speaker 3: contour on that object and the and Kasati points out

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Speaker 3: this is one reason it is so difficult to represent

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Speaker 3: shadows in line drawings. So Kasati says, our brains deal

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Speaker 3: with this noise threat by mostly tuning out shadows as

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Speaker 3: visual representations unless we suddenly decide to focus on them.

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Speaker 3: And that seemed very true to me. You know, we

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Speaker 3: we see shadows all the time. We are constantly surrounded

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Speaker 3: by shadows, but our brain sort of makes them cognitively

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Speaker 3: invisible unless we decide for some reason to focus on them.

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Speaker 3: And Kasati calls this having quote limited conscious access to shadow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is fascinating. So there is data there in

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Speaker 2: the shadow, but there's just too much noise really to

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Speaker 2: depend on it too heavily, and there's ultimately better visual

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Speaker 2: and other sense data to go off of in any

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Speaker 2: given situation that involves a shadow, I'm assuming.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I found that really interesting that as a

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Speaker 3: form of visual information, shadows exist in this middle realm

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Speaker 3: where we can get useful information from them, but we're

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Speaker 3: never looking too close, or at least not naturally unless

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Speaker 3: we're like really forced to, because a lot of times

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Speaker 3: we don't even notice if the shadow is eldritch in nature,

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Speaker 3: it's doing something geometry can't do or wouldn't be justified

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Speaker 3: by how light works. But secondarily, most of the time,

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Speaker 3: even though we're looking right at shadows, we don't see them.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm literally looking right at shadows right now,

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Speaker 3: and I don't see them as shadows unless I notice

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Speaker 3: to look at the shadows there. They don't, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: strike my visualste them as relevant, and so I'm just like,

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Speaker 3: I tune them out.

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Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, we kind of have shadow blindness to

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Speaker 2: a large degree, which I guess makes it even more

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Speaker 2: fascinating to think that there might be other beings out

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Speaker 2: there who can see shadows in ways that can appreciate

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Speaker 2: shadows in ways that human beings cannot. I would like

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Speaker 2: to at this point turn our attention to various fictional, legendary, folkloric,

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Speaker 2: and literary examples of shadowless wizards, demons, and vampires, and

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Speaker 2: much more in the shadows that may or may not

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Speaker 2: be cast by these various individuals. So I've mentioned my

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Speaker 2: fondness for the horror fantasy of Weird Tales era author

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Speaker 2: Clark Ashton Smith before, and one of my all time

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Speaker 2: favorites is a short story title The Double Shadow, about

355
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Speaker 2: a pair of wizards who on Earth ancient dark magic

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Speaker 2: that in turn dooms them both to a horrible death.

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Speaker 2: Smith's own summary of the tale via eldrich Dark dot com,

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Speaker 2: which is a great website that has just all of

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Speaker 2: his writings available. This is how the author himself summarized it. Quote.

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Speaker 2: A man sees a monstrous shadow following his own and

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Speaker 2: merging with it gradually day by day, while coincidentally with

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Speaker 2: this merging, he loses his own entity and becomes possessed

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Speaker 2: by an evil thing from unknown worlds in his personality.

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Speaker 2: The hideous invading spirit takes form and becomes manifest till

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Speaker 2: his shadow is that which had followed him. And the

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00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:45,919
Speaker 2: story itself is very haunting, and the ending is really awesome,

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Speaker 2: with the Doomed Wizard, the last of the doomed wizards,

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Speaker 2: writing his last personal testimony in a locked study while

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Speaker 2: his while this monstrous shadow crawls ever closer closes. As follows, so,

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Speaker 2: knowing that the time is brief, I have shut myself

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Speaker 2: in the room of volumes and books and have written

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Speaker 2: this account. And I have taken the bright triangular tablet,

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Speaker 2: whose solution was our undoing, and have cast it from

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Speaker 2: the window into the sea, hoping that none will find

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Speaker 2: it after us. And now I must make an end

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Speaker 2: and enclose this writing in the sealed cylinder of ourcallum,

377
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Speaker 2: and fling it forth to drift upon the wave, for

378
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Speaker 2: the space between my shadow and the shadow of the

379
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 2: horror is strained momently, and the space is no wider

380
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 2: than the thickness of a wizard's pin. Now I had

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Speaker 2: long thought that this was mere fantastic invention on Smith's part,

382
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 2: and it doesn't just detract it all from the success

383
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Speaker 2: of the story and the effect of the story. But

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Speaker 2: based on what I was reading in Brewers, it would

385
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Speaker 2: seem that he may have based this detail on that

386
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:01,440
Speaker 2: example of so called Eastern origin. This is, of course

387
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 2: spectacularly vague and hartly limits the search too much. It

388
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 2: just means that it must have originated outside of ancient Greece,

389
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,719
Speaker 2: Ancient Rome, and European traditions. But the idea is explained

390
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:17,640
Speaker 2: in Brewers is that wizards studying the Black Arts, after

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Speaker 2: they reach a certain advanced stage in their studies, are

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Speaker 2: chased through a subterranean hall by the devil. I don't

393
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Speaker 2: know if this is supposed to be in real life

394
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Speaker 2: or in a dream, etc. But then the idea is,

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Speaker 2: if the devil catches you, well, I guess maybe you're

396
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Speaker 2: done for. But if the devil catches only your shadow

397
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Speaker 2: or part of it, then you lose all over part

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Speaker 2: of your shadow, but in doing so, you become a

399
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Speaker 2: first rate wizard. And so therefore you might identify a

400
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:52,119
Speaker 2: wizard because the wizard's shadow will be uncanny, It'll be

401
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 2: incomplete to some extent, or perhaps it will be missing altogether.

402
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 3: Oh but I wonder if most people would notice that,

403
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 3: since we often don't notice impossible shadows.

404
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 2: That's right, That's right. It's almost kind of a safe bet, right.

405
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: It's like, well, okay, if I lose part of my shadow,

406
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Speaker 2: or even the whole thing, I'm probably going to be

407
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 2: all right. Besides, I have all these dark magical spells

408
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 2: to fall back on. Now, setting aside this vague claim

409
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 2: of Eastern origins for a moment, we do see another

410
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 2: variation of this idea in Icelandic traditions. And my source

411
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 2: here is demonic magic in the Icelandic Wizard Legends by

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Speaker 2: Mark Hanford. This was published in the Scottish Society for

413
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Speaker 2: Northern Studies twenty nine back in nineteen ninety two. Now,

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00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 2: Hanford's paper concerns a figure known as Samond Sigfisen or

415
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,959
Speaker 2: Semond the learned. This individual what was it is well

416
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 2: to explain here was an historic individual. This is someone

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00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 2: who actually lived, but there are also various legends about them,

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Speaker 2: legends in which they are described as a gulderman, a

419
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 2: type of wizard that was distinct from pagan slash evil

420
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 2: magicians in early medieval Christian writings.

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Speaker 3: Yes, because despite so many of the legends of him

422
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 3: having to deal with interactions with the devil, Semond was

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Speaker 3: a Christian priest.

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Speaker 2: That's right, right, And apparently these guldermen were generally classified

425
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 2: as priests in addition to wizards, they are generally strong

426
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Speaker 2: Christian elements in their stories, and Hanford writes that Salmond

427
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 2: is the earliest of the Icelandic wizards in this tradition, so,

428
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:34,399
Speaker 2: first of all, the real Seman according to the various annals,

429
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 2: Salmon was born in ten fifty six and educated in France.

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Speaker 2: He returned to Iceland around ten seventy six, built a

431
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 2: church in the south of Iceland, and then went on

432
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Speaker 2: to be very influential in ecclesiastical law and politics of

433
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Speaker 2: the day, so he was able to raise his own

434
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 2: family's position in the country to a position of power

435
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 2: for many generations to come. He wrote important histories such

436
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 2: as the Lost but Off sited history of the Kings

437
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 2: of Normal. He died in eleven thirty three at the

438
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 2: age of seventy seven, And yeah, that's that's the short

439
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 2: version of the historical Semand. But he also takes on

440
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: different powers within the realm of icelandic.

441
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 3: Legend, one of the many legends about Semand is that

442
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 3: he was able to get control of his parish in

443
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 3: southern Iceland because there were a group of I don't know,

444
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 3: learned men or candidates who were brought before the King

445
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 3: of Norway. King of Norway was like, okay, there's a

446
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 3: parish in Iceland, and whichever one of you gets there

447
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 3: first can have it. So Semond goes to the beach.

448
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 3: He goes to the shore, and he calls up the

449
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 3: devil and he says, okay, I need you to give

450
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 3: me a ride to Iceland without getting my coat tails wet.

451
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 3: And if you take me there without getting my coattails wet,

452
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 3: then you can have my soul. So the devil transforms

453
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 3: into a seal and let's Semond ride him all the

454
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 3: way to Iceland. They're almost there, but then the devil

455
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 3: is outsmarted because Semond beats the seal. The devil seal

456
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,679
Speaker 3: on the head with the salter I think either a

457
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 3: bible or assalter. The devil is knocked unconscious and sinks

458
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 3: under the water, and then of course the coattails get

459
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 3: wet because he falls into the water. Therefore the pact

460
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 3: is invalidated. So he outsmarted him with a good whack

461
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: to the head.

462
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: In this outlandish story. Really does sum up a lot

463
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 2: of the character of Samon in these legends, because he's

464
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 2: nothing short of the ultimate demonic wizard in the classical

465
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 2: Fostian sense. Yet while fast makes overall terrible deals with

466
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 2: the devil, they come back to plague him. Samon is

467
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 2: essentially he's like a wise trickster who knows how to

468
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 2: outwit the devil himself when it comes to various contracts.

469
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 2: You know, that sort of outlawyer the devil, I guess

470
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 2: and even and as he goes on in legend, he's

471
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 2: able to aid others in litigation of their own deals

472
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 2: with the devil. So he got into a bad deal

473
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 2: with the devil, Well, maybe Salmon will be able to

474
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 2: help you. The author here says Samon is presented as

475
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 2: an ambiguous character, one who uses diabolical means to do

476
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 2: good against the forces of evil.

477
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 3: Oh, he's like Christopher Lee and the devil rides out.

478
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 3: You know, he can know all the diabolical chants, he

479
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 3: can know all the occult tones because he's using them

480
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 3: for good. But Simon, you can't know about them.

481
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: That's right, Yes, the Holy Warlock figure here. Now, the

482
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 2: context for all of this actually brings us back to

483
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 2: something we were talking about earlier this month regarding necromancy,

484
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 2: and that's clerical access to texts and tones that contain

485
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 2: forbidden knowledge regarding communication with demons and the sometimes acceptable

486
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 2: realm of astral magic, magic concerning the stars. Astral magic

487
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 2: had been imported from the Arab world, so only learned

488
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 2: physicians and clergy members had access to such texts, with

489
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: the clergy especially having access to texts related to the

490
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,719
Speaker 2: command of demons for the purposes of exorcism. And as

491
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 2: we take done previously, it's members of the clergy who

492
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: were frequently accused of demonology or necromancy, or at least

493
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: accused of possessing texts related to these alleged practices. It

494
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 2: was also Hanford stresses here an easy accusation to make

495
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 2: against clergy and physicians by their enemies and or those

496
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: jealous of their success. So you don't like a given

497
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 2: guy who's way up in the clergy, especially one who's

498
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 2: like Samond at foreign educated. Well you just say, well,

499
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 2: of course he's successful. He's a wizard.

500
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 3: He's doing deals with the devil.

501
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 2: Right, And then you know, maybe people are jumping to

502
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: their defense and saying, well, Samon is doing a lot

503
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 2: of great work if he made a deal with the devil.

504
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: I guess he knows what he's doing. Yeah, but that

505
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you should make a deal with the devil.

506
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: Leave it to individuals like Saman to pull it off.

507
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 3: But you know, one of the really interesting legendary motifs

508
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 3: about Saman to the learned is the idea of him

509
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 3: essentially going to devil school.

510
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, again he was. He's farign educated, educated in France,

511
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: and and realistically he would have learned about pagan history,

512
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: he would have learned about mathematics, astrology, and theology. But

513
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 2: Hanford writes that, you know, this gets all stretched in

514
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 2: the popular imagination and it becomes the version that becomes

515
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 2: kind of the folkloric canon. Is that and then this

516
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 2: was this was later recorded in I think seventeenth century

517
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 2: by Arnie Magnuson in the states that Salmon was educated

518
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,479
Speaker 2: at the Black School, and which is of course a

519
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 2: school of dark wizardry, and at the end of one

520
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 2: studies there, the devil would claim the soul of the

521
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 2: last student to leave.

522
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 3: This setting is not unique to stories about this guy's life.

523
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: By the way, there is a more common folk story

524
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 3: motif about the Scholomance or the School of the Devil,

525
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 3: which is in some sense a college were people go

526
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 3: to learn mystical evil magic powers. They are instructed by

527
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 3: the devil, or maybe not by the devil, maybe they

528
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 3: just get to go to this place and there's lots

529
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: of books of forbidden knowledge there. But yes, the devil

530
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 3: will claim at least one of the students of each

531
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: class there to be his personal servant.

532
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like it's kind of the last person

533
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 2: to leave, which I kind of interpreted as being like

534
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 2: the most studious of the children, or not children, I guess,

535
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 2: but his students, the most studious, the biggest wizardry nerd

536
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 2: on campus, that will be the one that the devil

537
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 2: hand selects. So anyway, Samon was very studious and he

538
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: was often the last to leave. And I guess this

539
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 2: was known about him because even back home in Iceland,

540
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 2: they realized this kid is gonna get the devil on

541
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 2: him if someone doesn't help him out. And so that's

542
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: where Iceland's bishop John Augmundsen decides to jump in and

543
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: help him out. He rushes there, he's there to help

544
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 2: him out of the building, throws his coat over Salmon's back.

545
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 2: As he leaves, the devil reaches out for him and

546
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 2: snatches the coat instead of Salmon's soul. So this is

547
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 2: the How does this relate to shadows, Well, we'll get there,

548
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: But in this particular telling, the devil wasn't done though.

549
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: He proclaimed that he had three days to claim Salmon's soul.

550
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 2: So Salmon had to hide himself. He hit himself three

551
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: times in a riverbank, in a boat at sea, and

552
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: buried under a consecrated earth in a churchyard. And these

553
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 2: tactics work, and the devil was thwarted. The idea being

554
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: that like, where is he, Well, I'm getting a sense

555
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: that he's he's he's out here at sea. He must

556
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 2: he must have drowned, or I get the sense that

557
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 2: he's under the earth. He must be dead. And so

558
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 2: he's able to thwart the devil and avoid having his

559
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 2: soul claimed.

560
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 3: The way I understood this, this was also connected to

561
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 3: similar folk tales that weren't directly about the devil but

562
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 3: were about some kind of mass stir of astral magic,

563
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 3: somebody who was like a wicked astrologer who wanted to

564
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 3: capture his student, and the student would evade him by like, yeah,

565
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 3: so he would get his feet wet on the first day,

566
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 3: and so the astrologer would consult the stars and see

567
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 3: that he was wet and be like, oh, okay, he

568
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 3: is drowned. And then another day he does something else

569
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 3: to his body, like he puts blood on his feet

570
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: or something, and then the astrologer consults the stars that

571
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 3: day and sees blood and thinks that he has been killed,

572
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 3: and then yeah, I guess the consecrated earth. The astrologer

573
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 3: consults the stars and finds Ah, he is buried, so

574
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 3: I can no longer claim.

575
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 2: Him right right now. In other versions of this story, though,

576
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 2: it's not Salmond or the bishop's coat that is snatched

577
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: by the devil, but Salmon's shadow, thus removing him of

578
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 2: a shadow for the remainder of his life. So here

579
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: we get back to this idea of wizards being chased

580
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: around by the devil, having part of or their entire

581
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,479
Speaker 2: shadows snatched away, and thus being powerful and having all

582
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 2: of this forbidden knowledge, being able to use it, but

583
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 2: being deprived of something that may or may not be important,

584
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: as we'll get into the shadow.

585
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 3: One version of the story I came across was same

586
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 3: and using trickery. Actually, so he's the last student. He's

587
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 3: trying to get out of the Devil's college, and the

588
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 3: devil tries to reach out and claim him, but he says,

589
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: wait a minute, no, I'm not the last. There is

590
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 3: one more student still there, and he points to his

591
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 3: shadow cast on the wall. So the devil reaches out

592
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 3: to grab that and snatches his shadow away from him

593
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 3: as he bodily makes his escape, but no longer with

594
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 3: his shadow intact.

595
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: That version is good too. I like that. So Hanford

596
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: writes that this escape from the Black School trope is

597
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: a migratory legend, one that is largely unchanged over the

598
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 2: centuries and pops up in different contexts, and the same

599
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 2: can be said for what is known on the the

600
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 2: Arnie Thompson Index of Folk Tale Types as tail type

601
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 2: three twenty nine, a man gives or sell his shadow

602
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 2: to the devil.

603
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I think Hanford says, there's not a lot of

604
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 3: detail on that index type, and I wish there was.

605
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to look around. I found an Irish

606
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: or Irish American tale that reflects this trope. This was

607
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 2: recorded in nineteen seventy by Ruth and Music in Green

608
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 2: Hills of Magic, West Virginia. Folk tales from Europe, and

609
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 2: in this telling, you have a despondent man who's about

610
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 2: to jump from a bridge when a stranger, guess what

611
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 2: it's The devil arrives and says, hey, I'll buy that

612
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 2: shadow off of you. And the man's like, oh, well,

613
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 2: what are you going to give me for it? And

614
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 2: he'll said. He says, well, i'll give you. I'll give

615
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 2: you all the gold you'll ever need. And he's like, well,

616
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 2: that sounds like a good deal. I wasn't using my shadow.

617
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 2: I was about to really not be using it for anything.

618
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,479
Speaker 2: And so the he agrees to this, and the devil

619
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 2: gives him a magic purse that always has coins in it.

620
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 2: So this seems like a great deal, but then the

621
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 2: townsfolk become suspicious of the fact that this guy always

622
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 2: has money, and they also begin to notice, hey, he

623
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 2: does not have a shadow, and so they throw him

624
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 2: in prison I'm not sure on what charges exactly, and

625
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 2: he dies there.

626
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 3: I thought this was going to take a different turn

627
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 3: where he was going to give him all the gold

628
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 3: he'd ever need and then just push him from the bridge,

629
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 3: because once he's dead, he doesn't need gold.

630
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean that's the thing about deals with

631
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 2: the Devil. Yeah, I guess. I guess they tend to

632
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 2: take on the sort of lawful evil character right where

633
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 2: there's some term, there's some detail in the contract. But yeah,

634
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 2: I could have seen it going that darker direction as well.

635
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 3: I guess it's what kind of moral failing on the

636
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 3: part of the protagonist do you want to emphasize In

637
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 3: those kind of stories, it's inattention to detail, it's failure

638
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 3: to read the fine print on the contract. On this

639
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 3: it seems more like an inability to understand that suddenly

640
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 3: being rich but also having something missing of your person

641
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 3: will be noticed by people around you.

642
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 2: This trope is also reflected in The Marvelous Tale of

643
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 2: Peter Schimmel from eighteen forty three by Attlbert von Camisso,

644
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 2: which concerns another despondent young man who also sells his

645
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 2: shadow to the devil and also sells it for a

646
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 2: bottomless wallet. But in this story he ends up wandering

647
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 2: the earth and depends and it spends the rest of

648
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 2: his doomed life. Is kind of a holy fool attempting

649
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 2: to reconnect with nature. Interestingly enough, DeForest Kelly of Star

650
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 2: Trek Fame played this character in a nineteen fifty three

651
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 2: episode of the anthology series Your Favorite Story, an episode

652
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 2: titled The Man Who Sold His Shadow. Now, this trope

653
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 2: pops up other places as well. Probably the most noticeable

654
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 2: and one that a number of you are already thinking of,

655
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: would be Peter Pan. You might remember this especially from

656
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 2: the Disney animated adaptation of Old Peter. Pan is nearly

657
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: caught in Wendy's house and his shadow is ripped off

658
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 2: in the escape, and later they have to stick it

659
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 2: back on, or they try to stick it back on

660
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 2: with like soap and stuff. It doesn't work, they have

661
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 2: to sew it back on.

662
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 3: It is a mischievous, fairy like shadow.

663
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 2: Yes. Now, as for those supposed Eastern influences on the idea,

664
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to find out anything really solid here,

665
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 2: though I was looking at a few different sources. I

666
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 2: found a book titled Folk Traditions of the Arab World,

667
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 2: A Guide to motif Classification, Volume two by Hassan m

668
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 2: el Shami, and the author does mention, at least in passing,

669
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: that one quality of demons is that they cast no shadows.

670
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 2: And I also was reading in Commanding Demons in Gin

671
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: the Sorcerer in Early Islamic Thought by Travis Zeta that

672
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: eleventh century Islamic author Abu al Fado Mohammad al Tabasi

673
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 2: wrote in a book on Devil's in Gin that gin

674
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,240
Speaker 2: could be revealed by their shadows, and by their shadows

675
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 2: only as inn like. You couldn't see the rest of them,

676
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 2: but you could see the shadow of the gin.

677
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 3: Interesting.

678
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 2: So these two ideas are, of course, rather opposite from

679
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 2: one another, and may well speak, you know, of different

680
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 2: traditions and times. We're casting a large umbrello here over

681
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 2: the concept. But they both do get at the idea

682
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 2: of a shadow, or the lack thereof, is something key

683
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 2: to an entity that doesn't completely fit into the human

684
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 2: world or into human perception, and this brings us to

685
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 2: the world of vampires. Ah okay, So I think a

686
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: lot of you are probably up on the fact that

687
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 2: in many tales, at least, vampires have no reflection in

688
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 2: a mirror. That's a classic trope. It's one that's easy

689
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:41,280
Speaker 2: to visually represent in even a lower budget vampire film.

690
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 3: Yes, Gary Oldman comes across Keanu shaving, he hisses like

691
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 3: a snake at the mirror and it shatters.

692
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But at least in some tellings, the vampire

693
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 2: also casts no shadow. And this is actually referenced in

694
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 2: we've already referred to it here, the most influential vampire

695
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 2: novel of all time, Bromstoker's Dracula. I'll read a bit

696
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 2: from it here where this is specifically discussed. Quote. I

697
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 2: was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in

698
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 2: any way since I came into it. I could see

699
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: along the floor in the brilliant moonlight. My own footsteps

700
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 2: marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust

701
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 2: in the moonlight. Opposite me were three young women, ladies

702
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 2: by their dress and manner. I thought at the time

703
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 2: that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for

704
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 2: though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow

705
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 2: on the floor. They came close to me and looked

706
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 2: at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two

707
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 2: or dark and had high aquilang noses like the Count,

708
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 2: and great dark piercing eyes that seemed to be almost

709
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 2: red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. These are,

710
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 2: of course, the brides of Dracula, the three female vampires

711
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 2: that serve him in the book and then various adaptations

712
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 2: of the book and elsewhere. In the Book of Dracula himself,

713
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 2: it is written he throws no shadow, he makes in

714
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 2: the mirror no reflect as again Jonathan observed, though the

715
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 2: Prince of Darkness himself also tells Jonathan, I love the

716
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 2: shade and the shadow.

717
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 3: Well, maybe you love to be in the shade. If

718
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 3: you can make none with your own body.

719
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 2: Maybe so, all right. So we have this idea of

720
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 2: the vampire, which, if you're not familiar, is a is

721
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 2: a monstrous and cursed and corrupted, undead thing that was

722
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: once human but has lost all humanity, and it has

723
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 2: become nothing but supernatural hunger and cruelty and horror, And

724
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 2: at least in some tellings of it, is the thing

725
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 2: that no longer casts a shadow. And then we have

726
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,399
Speaker 2: other variations of this. We we've talked about wizards losing

727
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 2: their shadows, of sort of fairy folk losing their shadows,

728
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: and literary traditions. But then there are also related concepts

729
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 2: like the portrait of Dorian Gray, in which you don't

730
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 2: have a shadow, you have a painting of an individual,

731
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 2: and that representation also has some sort of connection to

732
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 2: the state of their soul. And so these various literary

733
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 2: treatments especially would seem to be linked. And I found

734
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 2: a really cool source on this. This is titled Vampire's

735
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 2: Demons and the Disappearing Shadow in Folkloric Fictions of the

736
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 2: Long nineteenth Century by Sam M. George, published in a

737
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 2: twenty twenty edition of Gothic Studies. Now Dracula, of course,

738
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 2: was the work of an Irish author, and as I

739
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 2: believe we've discussed in the show previously, invokes various Irish

740
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 2: folklore ideas concerning the undead, perhaps in any ways more

741
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 2: than anything that Bromstoker actually absorbed from European traditions. But

742
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: George Wrights of Dracula there may be some links to

743
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 2: actual Romani folkloric beliefs that a vampire was a person's shadow,

744
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 2: for example, and that there was also a practice of

745
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 2: shadow traders, who quote traded shadows to architects who attempted

746
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 2: to secure and wall up a person's shadow to ensure

747
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 2: that their buildings were durable, with the result that after

748
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 2: death that person would become a vampire.

749
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 3: WHOA, I don't think I've ever heard of this.

750
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was new to me, and I think there

751
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 2: may be sprinklings of this tradition spread elsewhere in European

752
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 2: traditions as well. We may come back to that. But

753
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,439
Speaker 2: what Georgia ultimately argues is that this means that yes,

754
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 2: Dracula and his spawn are all soulless. They have no souls. Again,

755
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 2: they've lost every shred of their humanity, and in doing

756
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,240
Speaker 2: so they have also lost that shadow.

757
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 3: Well, it may be a coincidence, but I mean, obviously

758
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 3: this has the at least superficial connection to the idea

759
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 3: of Greek conceptions of disembodied souls as shades or shadows.

760
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, Now where it gets really interesting with George's

761
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 2: article is that she references J. G. Fraser's The Golden Bough,

762
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 2: the first volume of which I believe came out in

763
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety would have lined up with the writing of

764
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 2: Dracula and some of the other writers and other works

765
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: that invoke similar ideas of shadow or reflection or painting.

766
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 2: Fraser writes of traditional belief systems in which the individual

767
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 2: quote often regards his shadow or reflection as his soul,

768
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 2: or at all events, as a vital part of himself,

769
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 2: and as such it is a source of danger to him,

770
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 2: for if it is trampled upon, struck, or stabbed, he

771
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 2: will feel the injury as if it were done to

772
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 2: his person. And if it is detached from him entirely,

773
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 2: as he believes that it may be, he will die.

774
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 2: And then elsewhere. Fraser writes, as with shadows and reflections,

775
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 2: so with portraits, they are often believed to contain the

776
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 2: soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this belief

777
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 2: are naturally loath to have their likeness taken for if

778
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 2: the portrait is the soul or at least a vital

779
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 2: part of the person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait will

780
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 2: be able to exercise fatal influence over the original of it.

781
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So this can next to a big theme

782
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 3: that Fraser propounds in The Golden Bow, the Golden Bough

783
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 3: is an early attempt at sort of anthropologically categorizing the

784
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 3: different religious practices all around the world, and Fraser characterizes

785
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 3: a lot of it as sympathetic magic, the idea that

786
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 3: you would have an object that is, by connection of

787
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 3: some sort associated with a person, and that like connection

788
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 3: or association can be exploited for magical purposes to have

789
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 3: influence over the person.

790
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, and again George brings us up, though not

791
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 2: to argue at all that like, okay, Fraser is the

792
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 2: authority on all of this. But again, this book would

793
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 2: have come out at just the right time, and the

794
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 2: book was a popular book. But also, she writes, would

795
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 2: have had a certain amount of I wouldn't say maybe

796
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 2: not a taboo quality to it, but there was kind

797
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 2: of like a sense of like, oh, this is hidden knowledge,

798
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 2: this is the good stuff. And if you want insight

799
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 2: into how perhaps monsters and supernatural relationships work, well this

800
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 2: is a book you might well pick up.

801
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it was controversial when it came out.

802
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 3: Was it was a very hot book. A lot of

803
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 3: people were very excited about it. But it also, for example,

804
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 3: set Christian practices in comparison to a lot of other

805
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 3: religious practices around the world, which scandalized many conservative Christians.

806
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine that like that added context

807
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 2: could be interpreted as dangerous to one's own worldview and

808
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 2: belief systems.

809
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, our religion is not like all the other religions now.

810
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 2: George also connects this to Lavatar's theory of physiognomy, which

811
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 2: is more directly a pseudoscientific face reading practice, something that

812
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 2: traces back to the ancient world, but something that then

813
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 2: would there would be a resurgence of in medieval and

814
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 2: Renaissance thought. Renaissance thought and then utilized by Swiss pastor

815
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 2: and Cospar Lavatar, who lived seventeen forty one through eighteen

816
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 2: oh one. And Lavatar argued that the shadow or silhouette

817
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 2: more specifically, I think, could be used to understand a

818
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 2: person's character. And I guess you could compare this easily

819
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 2: to things like you know, alleged ara readings and so forth.

820
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 2: You get into a pseudo scientific idea that like, okay,

821
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: well here's here is the silhouette, here's the shadow. This

822
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 2: is information about the physical person. But also we can

823
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 2: then if we know what we're doing we can read that,

824
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:34,479
Speaker 2: and we can we can we can make all sorts

825
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 2: of judgment calls about, you know, their inner character.

826
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think in the eighteenth and nineteenth century

827
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 3: to some extent, physiognomy or physiognomy had some false scientific cachet,

828
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 3: much like phrenology did. Like it's considered a pseudoscience now,

829
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 3: but I think there were some people at the time

830
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 3: who thought, oh, yeah, this is part of the new learning.

831
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 3: You know, we can study actually the way you are shaped,

832
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 3: or the way your face looks, or the bumps on

833
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 3: your head, and these will tell us whether or not

834
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 3: you're a criminal.

835
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 2: So, citing David Glover's Vampires, Mummies and Liberals, Bram Stoker

836
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 2: and the Politics of Popular Fiction, George notes that quote,

837
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 2: without his shadow or mirror image, Dracula becomes physiognomy's true

838
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 2: vanishing point, a profoundly unsettling figure.

839
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 3: No data. Yeah, that's funny.

840
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 2: I like that. So Dracula is just pure physical existence

841
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: in hunger, no soul, no spirit, no depth beyond the

842
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 2: immediate and all consuming thirst for blood. And of course,

843
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 2: as Dracula resonates through cinematic traditions, the shadow also becomes important.

844
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 2: Not so much in its absence, it's but in its perversion,

845
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 2: as seen especially in nineteen twenty two's nos Veratu, and

846
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 2: also coming back to Francis Ford Coppolo's nineteen ninety two

847
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 2: adaptation of Dracula, we see the shadow of Dracula like

848
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 2: reaching out and seeming to either act independently of the

849
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 2: Prince of Darkness or to sort of telegraph his intense

850
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 2: and hunger, Like his hunger is so intense that the

851
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 2: shadow is reaching out to grasp Jonathan's neck.

852
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 3: By chance, I just happened to rewatch Bram Stoker's Dracula,

853
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:21,399
Speaker 3: the Copola version from ninety two, and oh man, that

854
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 3: movie is so much fun. I don't know exactly how

855
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 3: it was reviewed at the time it came out, but

856
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 3: it is a hoot. Gary Oldman is just wonderful, and

857
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 3: I love all of the shadow play scenes. You're exactly right.

858
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 3: It's not that he doesn't have a shadow, it's that

859
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,919
Speaker 3: he has the wrong shadow. And I guess this comes

860
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 3: back to what we were talking about with impossible shadows.

861
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:46,800
Speaker 3: There are multiple moments in the scene where like Keanu

862
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 3: Reeves is in Dracula's castle and he looks where Dracula's

863
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 3: shadow is, but Dracula's body is not there, and he

864
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 3: turns around and he's on the other side of him,

865
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 3: not where his shadow was, But he just kind of

866
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 3: shrugs it off. That seems funny in the same way

867
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 3: that a lot of things in the movie seem funny,

868
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 3: with him just kind of I don't know, ignoring very

869
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 3: strange things going on at this castle where I guess

870
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 3: he really wants to close that real estate deal. Always

871
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:16,760
Speaker 3: be closing Jonathan Harker. But now that I've read this paper,

872
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 3: it's like, well, I wonder if you would, you know,

873
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 3: in real time, see a totally impossible shadow and not

874
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 3: realize it. It would just kind of like you'd be blind

875
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 3: to it. It would just kind of go into your

876
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 3: mind and go out unrecognized.

877
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be just superseded by the visual information

878
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 2: of the Count's body. Like whatever was weird and uncanny

879
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:39,319
Speaker 2: about the shadow, it's like, oh, well, never mind that

880
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 2: there's the body. This is what we go on as

881
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:42,240
Speaker 2: human beings.

882
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 3: Of course, I don't know that's what would happen and

883
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 3: if this were real life, but I don't know, it

884
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 3: seems more plausible now.

885
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again Dracula is a being of shadow, so

886
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 2: I like this. Whether he casts a shadow or not,

887
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 2: he has some sort of strange relationship with shadows, either

888
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,040
Speaker 2: you know, casting distorted shadows, manipulating shadows, or having no

889
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 2: shadow at all. It all kind of gets around to

890
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 2: the same idea that this is a creature out of

891
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 2: step or out of place in the natural world, you know.

892
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: Coming back to Francis fort Coppolo's Dracula for just a second, though,

893
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it in writing the notes for

894
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 2: this episode, but also in watching one of the Christopher

895
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 2: Lee Dracula films, which we're going to be talking about

896
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 2: in Weird House Cinema this week, and I momentarily had

897
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 2: the thought, it's a shame that Gary Oldman, such a

898
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 2: great actor and such a great Dracula, only got to

899
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 2: play Dracula once, whereas Christopher Lee got to play him

900
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 2: so many times. But then I corrected myself and realized, no,

901
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 2: Gary Oldman doesn't play one Dracula in this film. He

902
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 2: plays multiple Draculas.

903
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 3: That's true.

904
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 2: Each Dracula has a different, slightly different feel and different

905
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 2: visual presentation.

906
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:56,760
Speaker 3: He's got the earthly count VLab from the prologue where

907
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 3: like he stabs the cross and renounces God, and I

908
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 3: guess that's how he becomes a vampire. In the story,

909
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 3: he's old Grandma Gary oldman with the butt hair. He's young,

910
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 3: sexy Gary oldman with the purple sunglasses in London. He's

911
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 3: a lot of vampires.

912
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 2: He's wolf, he's bat. We also get the later version

913
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 2: of the old account where he has instead of the

914
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:21,000
Speaker 2: hair being up, it's all slipped back and long. Oh yeah,

915
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 2: so yeah there, And I may be forgetting one or

916
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,399
Speaker 2: two in the mix. So he ultimately did a whole

917
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 2: franchise is worth of Draculas in just the one picture.

918
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,839
Speaker 3: The ninety two Dracula is far from perfect. I would

919
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 3: say it is a weird in great ways and in

920
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 3: not so great ways. It's flawed, some parts of it

921
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 3: kind of dragged. But it is really really worth watching

922
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 3: just for how amazing Gary Oldman is. Yes, yeah, and

923
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 3: there are other great things too, great sets and some

924
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 3: other performances that are a lot of fun.

925
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, a lot of great performances, great costumes,

926
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:59,800
Speaker 2: great blood, great monsters. And yeah, and Oldman's performance is perfect.

927
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 2: I think I read somewhere that he mainly agreed to

928
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,800
Speaker 2: do it because he wanted to work with Francis Ford Coppola.

929
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 2: But then also he said, once he read the line

930
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 2: I've crossed oceans of time to find you, he was like, well,

931
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 2: I've got to do it. I can't. I can't go

932
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 2: on with my career without saying that line. Yeah.

933
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:17,839
Speaker 3: I feel like Gary Oldman's performance is so good it

934
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,280
Speaker 3: can make you forget that there is no love story

935
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 3: in the novel, or at least not one with Dracula.

936
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 3: Like Dracula and Mina in the novel are not in love. Yeah,

937
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 3: he's just bad in the novel. He's just a he's

938
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 3: just a demon. He's not suave, he's not cool. He

939
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 3: does not take her on a date to pet a

940
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 3: wolf in the cinematograph.

941
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:39,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a good point. And you know, I

942
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 2: and I think if you're if you're out there and

943
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 2: you want more about the nature of Dracula and various

944
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 2: depictions of Dracula, tune in for a Weird House Cinema

945
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 2: this Friday, because I'm sure we'll have a lot to

946
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 2: discuss regarding this and the version of Dracula that will

947
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 2: be experiencing in that film. And as for Shadows, I

948
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:00,959
Speaker 2: believe we'll be back on Thursday with more.

949
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 3: The shadows fall longer and longer, they will not be denied.

950
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close it

951
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 2: up there, but we will remind you that Stuff to

952
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:14,720
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is a science podcast with core episodes

953
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail,

954
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 2: On Wednesdays we do a short form artifactor Monster Fact episode,

955
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to

956
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird Houses Cinema.

957
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 2: And oh, you may have noticed that we have new

958
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,319
Speaker 2: host photos for Stuff to Blow your Mind here if

959
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,600
Speaker 2: you haven't seen them, run by our recently revived social

960
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:38,320
Speaker 2: media presences all linked off of Stuff to Blow Yourmind

961
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 2: dot com and more specifically, we're stbym podcast on Instagram.

962
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 2: Now let me tell you where we have those photos taken.

963
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 2: We visited the Museum of Illusions Atlanta, a delightful and

964
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 2: educational attraction located in Atlantic Station. They feature a whole

965
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,919
Speaker 2: host of visual illusions, including illusion rooms that you can

966
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 2: walk into and interact with, so in a way, you

967
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:04,720
Speaker 2: may feel like a vampire in some of these places

968
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 2: because your reflection especially will not be what you imagined

969
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: it would be, or perhaps the way you look on

970
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 2: your camera or on the cameras that are present in

971
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,680
Speaker 2: the room. The footage will not be right. Something is distorted,

972
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 2: something is out of whack.

973
00:55:20,719 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 3: It's a great place to get to know the stranger

974
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 3: sides of your own reflection and your own shadow.

975
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely and it's fun for all ages. You can learn

976
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 2: more about Museum of Illusions Atlanta at MOI Atlanta dot com.

977
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

978
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

979
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

980
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:42,800
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

981
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

982
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

983
00:55:54,719 --> 00:55:57,640
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

984
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart You Up,

985
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listen to your favorite shows.