A Geek History of Time - Episode 145 - Three Hundred Problems But Historical Accuracy Ain't One Part I

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

I said good days sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla nabish name. Well you know works are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gall, a gall, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think done Henley.

Ha-ha-ha! This is a geek history of time. Where we connect Nurgere to the real world, my name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And in news, I'm really excited about just in the last few days we've been seeing new new stuff being revealed in regard to new releases for Warhammer 40,000, which longtime listeners to the show will know that this is like all my thing and not Damien's. But my first army that I ever actually like fully painted up on my own and played was a craft world Eldar army, so think space elves. Okay.

Asshole space elves. But not evil space elves, there's a difference. And they have been languishing with old models since the turn of the century, basically, for several editions of the game. And it has just been revealed in the last few days that they are going to be getting some new models that are absolutely hot, like absolutely gorgeous. And I'm just way too excited to be able to now that I'm a homeowner once our office is in a condition where I can get my desk in there. I'm looking forward to actually being able to get to work on some of these models in, you know, sometime in the not too terribly

distant future. So that's my big nerd news. Who are you and what have you got going on? I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and Drama and at some point in the Far Flung Future, that is anytime after this week is the Far Flung Future, but I'm hoping starting next year, I'll be back to being a history teacher as well. Ray! Yay! So knock on the wood. There we go. Of course, yes. But yeah, I've got that hopefully to look forward to fingers crossed. As far as what I've got going on, awesome miniatures based. My daughter has discovered hero forge and you're in trouble. Oh, it's awesome because it's only something I'll let her do with me. So we have the computer together. All right. And we're making all the characters from the adventure that

we finished. So nice. Yeah, and I told her, as I hear, is the specs from the NPC, the Paladin who who became the captain of the guard, who you had to fight and all that. It's actually your friend and you rescued him. She made him. I was like, okay, I think also the color of the kingdom that he was serving was this. She went back and made that. She's really enjoying doing that. My son, as of this recording, is going to be in a couple days. So by the

time this releases, we're probably a few weeks past it. But also, there'll be another one coming up. We're actually going to have a fully masked everybody's double waxed eating outdoors only. He's going to have friends over for the first time literally in his life and he's super stoked about it. Oh wow that's awesome. That is a big fucking deal. That's very, very cool. I was looking at it and the friends that he has made it is a who's who of kids that an atheist it's kind of funny as friends with? He's got himself described atheists or anything, but he's been raised to know that there are guys

by you. Yeah, like respectful. Yeah. But his friends were coming over, a Muslim. So I had to talk to him about keeping whole all for their sake. He's got another friend who the next time they all get together, is they said,

oh, we'll bring him over after church and there were several references to God in their texts. And I was like, okay, cool. Okay. He's got two out of the three, and then I'm wondering if his other friend, who's, I'm not gonna name names, but it is the most wasp first name of a child

that you could have. So I'm wondering where he falls on the religious spectrum. But it's kind of funny. But my son's gonna get to play video games, maybe watch some movies. He asked me for supplies so that he could cook for his friends. And then he said, do you think they'd want to cook with me? I said, well, possibly, but we should get some stuff done ahead of time. He's like, but I'd really like to share that with them. And so

it's really cool. It's really cool. That's awesome. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that's like. And by the way, speaking as the believer of the two of us, the religious one, as much as that counts for anything between the two of us, the answer to having the most white bread first name, it's almost definitely a Presbyterian family. Okay, good to know. Gonna gonna gonna throw that one out there. Okay, either that or maybe maybe a piscopalian but yeah, probably probably presbyter. Oh wait, no, no, no, could be Mormon. Could be, could be with the Wasby ass name like that. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. But yeah, but I'm looking forward to it.

They're all good pals. My son seems to really enjoy their company. And so I'll see how it all, yeah, it all takes out. So all right. Good, good. So last time we talked, we did V for Vendetta, the rest we did. And so I was wondering if you'd had any chance to pruse any other comic books that might be worth discussing? Yes. And here's the thing. V for Vendetta is an amazing work of ideology. Sure. That was very consciously a work of ideology.

Like Alan more specifically said, I was writing this, to be a comparison of the two extremes of, you know, anarchism versus state authoritarianism, fascism. Yeah. And after we discussed that, and we talked about, you know, the differences between the movie and the comic

and like the changing context in the time between the comic and when the film came out. After a day or two, you know, it would be cool. It would be a comic that got turned into a movie again. Well, remarkably enough, we're coming to do that again. But two things kind of happened at the same time. Are we going to do swamp thing? I wish. Because you said there's a thing.

Yeah, no. Well, then it could be a fantastic fourth then. It could be so. But no, we had our episodes about Viva Videtta. And I was thinking about all of that. And then in my professional capacity as a wherpper of young might, I mean, as a history teacher,

my sixth graders started their unit on ancient Greece. And of course, the automatic dichotomy that has been taught in ancient history at the elementary, late elementary, early middle level since forever, at least in the United States. I don't know if it's this way elsewhere in the world, but here in the US that dichotomy we all grow up with is Athens Athens being compared to Sparta. Right. Um, for a variety of reasons. And um, and, and I immediately started, you know, talking in, in teaching my kids about the two city states, the way some of my students' eyes lit up talking about the Spartans. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It became very clear that many of them had prior knowledge on this subject,

and the sad fact of it is their prior knowledge came from a comic book source. Now, anybody who listens to the show knows I'm not one to be down on comic books as a form of literature, but in this case it's disappointing because the comic book in question is 300. And here's the thing. I keep advertising that and then you don't deliver. Yeah, this is turning out great. I do keep using that phrase and it is deceptive and I apologize. I do keep using that phrase and it is deceptive and I apologize. No, I don't. I have a deep and unabashed attraction to. I don't want to say love for, but I really, really, really got a kick out of 300.

It was a fun movie. It's a fun movie on the surface. On the surface, it's a fun movie. It's a fun movie. On the surface. On the surface, it's a fun movie. It is visually orgasmic. I mean, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like is comparable to and probably even truer than the adaptation of Watchmen to the screen. Which, yeah, I would agree, because Watchmen took liberties with the story. Yeah, where is it?

Yeah, but there are a lot of sequences in Watchmen that are, no, no, we're going to take the fucking panel structure. Yeah, well, and we're going to, and we're going to recreate it with cuts, like, you know, this, this shot to this shot to this shot. We're going to do the repetition thing that they did in the book. And like, I mean, it's amazing. But, but Snyder's rendition of 300 is like, no, no, I'm going to take the comic book. And I'm going to put that on the screen. And it's going to have the same oversaturation, like monochrome, you know, two tones on

the page, you know, kind of amazing visual positioning. Yeah, I mean, and the scene, yeah. Yeah, I mean, just, just absolutely, it's a thrilling visual work. And the legend of 300 is a stirring, wonderful story. Yeah, it's a propulsive myth. I mean, it's amazing.

The problem is that Miller is wrong. And there we have our pieces. Like like from a historical standpoint. First off, Miller point. First off Miller based his comic series, which got turned into the graphic novel. He based his comic series on Herodotus and the other legends that had grown up around the battle, which were colored by the politics of the individuals who wrote those stories down and were themselves flawed. I mean, for example, and I'll get into this more detail, but Herodotus and I didn't write down the name of the other ancient source, but the other major source from the ancient, no, a name I didn't recognize, like another, but the main sources

that other historians then built from, from the ancient period, both overestimated the size of the Persian army by a factor of a hundred. Hi, Beth. You know, Herodotus wanted to say that it was an army of like four million, marching from Persia across Macedon. And I'll get into, you know, what modern historians think the numbers were like later. I mean, it was still by the standard of the day.

It was, it might as well have been millions because it was the biggest army ever. Anybody had ever fucking seen up to that point. But, um, but anyway, so those, those, was it the adoris? No, was this a psyllium? Seneca, cynicus, somebody. Okay. I, I, I, I, sorry, I do have interrupted. No, no, no, no, no, we're both, we're both historicity. It's like, so I like, like, like, Eddie, I, we're both we're both Historicity Yeah, like I got to get in name. What was the source? Yeah, I know I get it

But but so so Miller first off Miller started with Herodotus who is you know in Western tradition is kind of the father of history Which is great and all but he's not always a reliable source. It's not an historian. I love livy. But he's not a historian. Yeah, I mean, by any modern standard, they're just. Yeah, and I'm going to judge them by modern standards. Yeah, well, yeah, and, you know, and that's fair. Cause we're talking about scholarship. So yes. But so and and and then Miller,

for reasons that that I want to kind of try to tease out with you, because I kind of have my theories, but I'm not 100% sure. Like like we always do, I want to spend some time, you know, contextualizing the comic book in its time in history and kind of figure out if you jive with me on why I think you did this. But Miller then took erotitis stories and the legends that had grown up around the Spartans. And he then wound up taking those things and adding his own spin on them. And so what winds up happening is the comic book wound up being an ideological work.

But the problem is, and this is a problem. Like if you're gonna write an ideological work as a critic of history and as a study of these things, as a student of this stuff, like by all means, right, by ideological work. But if you're going to write it, know that that's what you're doing from the beginning, because if you're not doing, and admit it, because if you don't do that from the beginning, you wind up distorting the picture you're trying to create without realizing it.

Yeah, and two secondary teachers on a sixth rate podcast are going to come for you. Yeah, well, yeah. Hell yeah. Damn right. You better quake in your goddamn boots. So, um, and, and, and, and, and are you also going to talk about the movie? That's going to, I want to have that be part of the discussion. We're going to talk about the movie? That's gonna, I wanna have that be part of the discussion when we talk about the context of the comic, but because the thing is, and now I'm gonna get into starting with the comic, 300 was originally published between May and September of 1998.

Wow, that's late. Like most stuff gets turned into a movie that seems to have this kind of feel. It felt like it was from the 80s type stuff like be for vendetta watch. I guess, you know, the Batman's. Yeah, you know, yeah, stuff like that. Yeah. But while that feels late, it is, it is. That's that's part of what like struck me. I was expecting it to either be earlier or in retrospect I was expecting it to be later. Right. I mean as macho watcho as it is I expected it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It would not have shown up in the late 90s.

Well, it's Frank Miller and we can talk about the fourth, the creator here in a little bit. But so it was published originally in 98. And then 10 years later, the film came out. So there's there's a couple of very important events that took place in the middle there that change that even though Snyder's movie is a literal shot for shot recreation of the comic, the cultural context surrounding it. Also the career context, like, did you go into any detail on the director's career and his frustrations? Oh my God. He was so frustrated from like 2005, uh, actually about 2003 forward that he

was like, fuck it. I'm not doing it like this anymore like we are not gonna take it And he was telling studio no, we're not gonna take it Zach Snyder not D Zach Snyder not the Snyder I got it twisted sorry. Yeah. Yeah, sister So nice by the way, thank you Time check on that. Well, we were talking for a little while about Battle Tech prior to recording.

So let's say 15 minutes. Okay. I was waiting for a good spot to put that in there, though. Like I could sit on it for the last eight minutes. So I've actually done. Thank you. So, but there were, but there were several very notable events in the real world that made what exactly they were putting

on the screen hit differently than they did when the comment came out. Very true. And so I think the politics of the film, well, we can talk about the difference. 100% informed by what was going on. Well, yeah, we're totally informed, but anyway, so the comic book tells a version of the classical story of the Battle of Thermopylai. And Miller really focuses,

his viewpoint character is Leonidas I, the leader of the Spartan force. Right. That is his main viewpoint character is Leonidas the first, the leader of the Spartan force. Right. That is his main viewpoint character, and he really sets out to make Leonidas really the unalloyed hero of the piece. Mm-hmm. Okay. And I'm going to get into why this is historically deeply iffy. But anyway.

Sure. And the whole book opens, and here's the deal. And again, again, there's so many things about the comic that I love. I absolutely love. Miller is an amazingly talented storyteller when he's not tripping over his own dick being a douchebag sure sure and and the opening structure of the comic is absolutely brilliant because it it we see Leonidas remembering his own time in his what was called the cryptea which i'll talk about in detail when I get to try actually

like coming of age stuff, right? Yeah, it's it's coming of age graduation for military school kind of thing. Sure. And he encounters this gigantic wolf. And it's really clear in in in the comic, this is his recollection of it. Okay. And so And so the wolf is this dimotic huge giant beast. It's the thing from the never ending story. Yeah, essentially. And, and, you know, and he he is clearly, you know, terrified, but he overcomes it and he prevails. And that metaphor of him as the boy facing this terrifying beast then gets is that is that is the the microcosm of then the battle of the model. It's it's it's it's this foreshadowing device. I mean, like as a storytelling thing, it's absolutely brilliant.

Oh, yeah. And his art is as it always is, it's incredibly compelling and propulsive. And you can't help but have some kind of visceral emotional reaction to it. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's it's fucking amazing. And how he takes this wolf like and and basically, it's this huge thing that's in front of him. And by the time he's defeated it, it's no thing. Yes. Here's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Tied with you and the never running story reference.

Nice. Nice. Nice. Well done. I'm not not even mad about that one. Yeah. I'm not even mad about that one. So he does it with his good strong hands.

Okay. Now you're back to being nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good good day back to being nice. Yeah, good day, sir. So now within the time that he wrote the comic, this is, oh, I totally get it. it because in 98 the year before Titanic happened and the boat sank and he was upset that Leo died. And so now he's like, so now he's in the early morning and now he's like, no, Leo Knight S. I said good day. I said, good day. So, but he's, he turns that, well, he doesn't really have to turn it into, he frames it.

As a clash of civilization story. This is, this is 100% a story of the clash of civilizations. Persia representing this totalitarian or antidespotic force and the free Spartans at once menacing and feminine too like there is Okay, I'm good good to get into that and then everd Said And in the free Spartans free Spartans right are like the defenders. Oh, there's I'll get into the new ones there. But

but the the Spartans as the defenders of Western values who give their lives and and defense of the ideal of freedom. And manliness, which is which is like a steaming pile of Reagan horse shit. Um, which and yet it's 98. Well, yeah, and it is the thing. What, so continue, I got to continue with my else, because I don't want to get to the punchline too fast, but he also, like, turns it into this, there's this ethos and social Darwinist ubermasculinity involved. Zerxes is this heavily pierced and drodginess giant. Literally.

Literally. Yes. Literally. Literally giant and piercings like the art, I don't know what point he's trying to, like it's clear that he's going for this idea of Incredible decadence and like power gone mad Tune out between things going on there There is because like all of you

United's takes the pain in a manly way this guy clearly does it for kinky pleasure Yeah, Leonidas is nipples are just as visible, but they're not pleasure devices. Yes, you know, they're their weapons to use against the Persia Glass those things You know, it is it so And and I want to talk about the character of fjolties here The patch guy. Yeah, no fjolties is the hunchback. Oh And I want to talk about the character of Fee Alties here. The patch guy. Yeah, no. Fee Alties is the hunchback.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now here's the thing. Fee Alties is part of the original history from Herodotus. It was, he is named as one of the figures who was suspected of being the one who sold the Greeks out to the Persians, can return for payment and position of importance. Nobody, literally nobody had said word one about feralties ever having been physically not able

in any way until Miller. Frank Miller is the first source to turn F. E. Alties into a cripple. Is Frank and I'm using Frank Miller's language there. Sure. Is Frank Miller British or is he American? No, he's American. He's American. Okay. He's because obnoxiously fucking America. Yeah, actually, it sounds like it. Because it seems to me that he did, it's just, there's this like revolving like, agro's planetarium kind of feel to this because if he all these gets morphed into a hunchback, if you remember Richard III, into a hunchback. If you remember Richard the third, yes, he was famous for having a deformed

spine. Yeah, he gets morphed into an egg. Humpty Dumpty. I haven't heard that. That's your fourth dumpty Richard. The hurts. The third horse was called the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great sat on a wall. Really? Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the Kingsmen could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Nowhere is he mentioned as an egg. And yet when you think Humpty Dumpty, I guarantee you you think an egg with trousers. Maybe. Yeah. Right. Because of an illustration sometime in the 19th century, if I remember right. Yeah. Yeah. But so you took one hundred back and turn him into an egg and you took another man You'll turn him. Oh, you get nothing, sir. Oh my God. We watched that movie just the other day. Yeah. And Julia turned to me and shot daggers from her eyes when he said, you get nothing good day, sir. And she's like, she knows you say that to me all the time. Oh, yeah. Just about daily. And so, yeah. So, so F. E. Altese is crippled.

Is is physically crippled. He is a hunchback, but it's not just the classical, medieval idea of, you know, outward, outward flaw to reflect inner character flaw. He's twisted and that's easy. That's easy. It goes beyond that. In Miller's telling, F.I.A.L.T. shows up saying, you know, my parents fled Sparta because they couldn't kill me. I want to be one of you,

and Leonidas basically tells him, you never could be one of us. Go away, cripple. You can't carry a shield. And then that drives F. Yolte's to betray the Spartans. Right. So, so wanting to be a Spartan

and to being a cripple are inventions of Frank Miller attached to this historical character to serve an agenda But but like I'm not 100% sure what the agenda is and This is where I where I said what I said about having a conscious I'm not 100% sure what the agenda is. And this is where I said what I said about having a conscious political viewpoint. If you're gonna write a work of political philosophy, be aware that you're doing it, I don't think Miller realized that that's what he was doing.

I think he wants, he's subconsciously trying to make a point about masculinity. He's subconsciously trying to make a point about the virtue of the Spartans as a society. And so it's not enough to have this Greek from a different tribe at Petraeum. It has to be that this other Greek because he's got to make the Spartans look even better ass. Right. So like, no, this other guy wanted to be one of them, but he couldn't be because he just wasn't good enough.

And so that drove him to Petraeum, right? That certainly took. I had a coworker who she's famous for just like kids these days, you know, that kind of thinking, which as a language teacher, I understand on some levels, because I got to get them to the next level kind of. Yeah. As a teacher, I also certainly have seen kids over the last entirety of my career jump on the bar until administration lowers it. Those things are true. Yes.

However, her approach is like, when she saw that, she's like, I really liked it because like, there's just some people that just aren't gonna make the mark. And I'm like, that's a lot harsher than we need to be in this world. Wow. And it also led to the reundation of the, like, did you miss the part with that projection?

Like, you could have made him happy and given him the prime spot and served both your needs there. Yeah. Wouldn't have gotten betrayed. You would have had a very fleshy meet shield. But instead, you're instead. No, no, you aren't good enough. Right. You're not good enough. And I understand that because of how a failings works and all that kind of shit. I get it. But at the same time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, um, me, I always saw that as Leonidas's tragic inflexibility. That could be. Yeah. I mean, that's like to anybody who's not Frank Miller. I think, but the deal is right everywhere else in the film and everywhere else in the comic, he's like jacking off to what a bad ass right and and what a what a paragon of of righteousness right and all things and all things manly. Yeah, I also never knew that he was a real character in her own his history because I'd never got to that part

But so I thought that yeah, I knew that they'd found goat paths and just found a way around I didn't you know, and I thought that was like a director or a comic book artists Convention to yeah to show. Oh, okay. This is out because that adds trauma to it Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I didn't realize that he was a real character, much less. You know, hunchback or not. Yeah, no. He was in fact, he was in fact a historical figure. And now the thing is, he's the one most often mentioned by sources

at named as being the betrayer of the Greeks. Right. He's not the only one. There are other candidates who might have been the one to sell them out, or it might have been a group of several of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as such things work historically, but you know, that's the name that comes up most often. Sure.

And so that's the deal is. And we're going to kind of come back and forth to talking about the comic and talking about the actual history of it here as we go along. But the deal is there is this incredible level of, there's all this work that Miller goes to throughout the story. And I'm going to get into more details, more specifics of it as we talk about it. There's all this water that Miller carries for the Spartans. And so now I kind of want to talk for a second before we get into the history of that. I want to try to think about where is it other than just Miller being himself a sexist douchebag? What is what was going on in the world that like this story occurred to this sexist douchebag at

this time? Now here's the deal, 1998. It's the late Clinton administration. Yep, right? It's the late Clinton administration. Yep, right. It's post the first Gulf War that was 92, 91, 91 into 92. And we are now in a post cold where kind of situation. It's also post Mogadishu and post Rwanda. This is true. So you're seeing our hegemonic impudence, ultimately.

Ooh, yeah, you know, okay. So here's the deal. So we're seeing this decay of our power as lone superpower. We don't have, in the popular imagination at the time, we were the lone superpower. We don't have the Soviets looming in the distance as this source of totalitarian threat anymore. Right. Now, the dark knight, the opus that really made Miller famous originally is very clearly a product of the Cold War. Like you can you can see, you know, uh, uh, uh, the Reagan. It's lined up. You know, Batman. You got good guy bad guy. I mean, you got

Batman. You've got, uh, Joker. You've got, you know, yeah, someone who represents order and someone who represents chaos. And in our zeitgeist at that time, absolutely definitely cold war thing. So, so now we don't we don't have that dichotomy anymore. And so, and and we're by 98, by the late 90s We're starting to see in our own culture more acceptance of People who don't fit the Reaganite 80s mold of this is what you know stand up Americans look like Yeah, I mean in wrestling. I will tell you as I always do of course wrestling, you've had got Hulk Hogan turned bad guy in 96, June of 96. You've got Goldberg is on the scene, kick and ask with his big bald head and his super jack traps up to his ears.

And just, you know, three minute matches, just laying waste to everybody with the jackhammer. Yeah, Steve Austin is a scrappy, vicious, good guy fighting against his boss. He's always outnumbered. He's always fighting teaming hordes of people. So we got that. Um, and just before that back, if you go back to 96, 95, you had one of the main bad guys being gold dust, who was in drodgenrogynous, who really pushed the homophobia button a lot. And you had other heroes that were fading out of the comic book hero, type wrestlers and into the more realistic and gritty heroes.

And all of the ones who stuck around, they took on a more gritty thing. They were not as comic bookie. Undertaker himself by 98 is much more while he goes with the demon Lord thing. They were not as comic bookie. Undertaker himself by 98 is much more while he goes with the demon lord thing. He's also much more basic maneuvers. He's much less supernatural shit as more culty stuff. Like wrestling, you've got a huge shift to away from comic book hyper masculine Hulk Hogan with the primary colors to gritty ass kickers wearing black trunks. Right. Yeah. Okay. And you've gotten away from a lot of the character based stuff. And now it's much, well, a lot of the comic book character based stuff and much more of the personalized character based stuff. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. and that's happening from 96. Again, you got the

NWO a huge horror. Right. They're too invade, by the way. Yeah. You know, you've got all that and you're playing waste to everybody. So you've got all that happening 96 to 98 as well. Okay. So, so we're seeing in 300 and in wrestling, is, which we've established over the course of this podcast, is a bellweather for the condition of our dominant national subconscious. We have this feeling of being overwhelmed, this feeling of control not being there anymore. And I think for somebody who likes to identify as a libertarian or a free thinker, but really solidly leans toward right wing. Let's not kid about it Reagan. I kind of kind of outlook on the world like Frank Miller. Everybody who claims to lean libertarian tends that way. Well, yes. But for somebody who has the

leanings that like we've heard Frank Miller kind of express, I think he was writing this as a pushback against what he saw as the invasion. This is the beginning of pushback against, pushback by conservatives against multiculturalism. We need to cling to the virtues that the West has found it on, kind of stuff. And his incredibly hyper-masculine idea of masculinity, I think, is a reaction to the trends within dominant culture where the dominant, the majority of Americans were starting to come around, or we were moving toward a majority of Americans coming around to an acceptance of LGBTQ issues. And to somebody who is the kind of person Frank Miller seems to be, that's a threat to masculinity. And so this is his pay-in. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. The is epic poem in praise of traditional,

you know, hyper masculine values and, you know, violent war here, culture and all these kinds of things. Yeah, I can see that. I mean, he also, he was really famous for his work in Daredevil, obviously as well. Yes. Yes. And then if I recall correctly, he wrote at least

one Robocop script, not the first one, but I think he did one of the sequels. Like we're talking some super masculine shit here. Oh, oh, yeah. He wrote Daredevil, I think, with Chris Claremont. Like he, yes, was with Claremont. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. He wrote Wolverine. I mean, with Chris Claremont. I think I said Daredevil. Yeah. You did say Daredevil. Okay, okay. But he did do a lot of work on Daredevil. Because he created a lecture as a character and killed her. Yes.

Spoiler alert. Yeah. He created her and killed her. And I think he was also the creator of Stick. That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. So like he's responsible for a lot of the lore surrounding that character for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so like he's responsible for a lot of the lot of the

the lore surrounding that character for sure. Right. But like if you look at the the ways that the the writing that he has done it has been on fairly masculineized characters. Oh yeah. You know, so that was always he was always is the word Kenning that way. No, probably no, Kenning. Kenning. He was keening. He was friends with Charles Keating. That's what I always. Yeah. Yeah. No. He was always keening that way toward the hyper masculine. So maybe yes, I see what you're saying, but also could it just be that like this is always been who this guy is. Right. And so he just been. And he's in packs of that. Yeah. Like we're seeing like his, the, okay, Frank, go ahead.

Give us what you really want to give us. And he's like, oh, here we go. All right. Yeah. You know, I think, I think it could be that it's a little bit of a confluence of both. Okay. Yeah. And again, I'm going to, I'm'm gonna go back to the idea that he wrote an ideological work without understanding the events what he was doing. Yeah. Because what I have written down here, what I have written down here as my thesis,

and I think it's safe to dig this out here as kind of the punchline before we move forward, is my thesis is 300 is fascist, but it's not consciously so. It's fascist because it is consciously, culturally showvenist, homophobic, toxically masculine, and ableist as fuck. Yes, because Frank Miller is a brilliant douchebag.

And anti-oreal, gentle, I will say. That's where I'm getting my culturally show. That's kind of, you know, I, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You're using, yeah, yeah, yeah, Western values with a capital W kind of culture. Hyper-oxidental. Yes, yes. It is oxidantally fascist. Yes, yes, there you go. But aren't most fascists? Yes. You know, I mean, it's kind of a thing. By the way, I'm, I'm, and this is one of those like I'm always kind of upset by this fact every time I remember it.

Frank Miller. Yeah. And Mark Miller. Yeah. Come on. Like, you know, easy as to confuse these two guys. Oh, yeah. And they're writing very different things.

Oh, very. But like, you know, as soon as you're like, and he did this, and I'm like, and he did Civil War. I'm like, wait, no, wait. No, that was Mar-a-lar. Mar-a-lar. Yeah, N-A-R-R. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, yeah. It's like mixing up David Keith and Keith David. Yes. You know, that's a good analogy. All right. Yeah. That's not even the bill Pullman build Paxton thing. Oh, like like. Oh, shit. Yeah. I always I always wondered after Bill Paxton died if like, hella people sent flowers to Bill Pullman's wife by accident. That would suck if they did. It really would be. That would be real. He's like, honey, they did it again. They did it again.

Yeah. So, now the thing is, and now we want to get into, get into, now that we've established all of that, yeah. I think in order to flesh all of that out, we need to actually talk about the actual history of Sparta and Thermopylae. Awesome.

OK. OK. And now if we're going to talk about Thermopylae, we actually have to talk about Marathon first. OK. And if we talk about Marathon, we actually have to start with the Persian conquest of Ionia in 547 BC. Do you mind working your own side of the street here? You know, okay, okay, I see a trick that works. I'm gonna really I'm gonna steal it. So let's talk about a 1980s cartoon. Okay, puppetry in the 1800s is France.

Okay, I'm gonna tell you you about this play called Uber Roy. So, so marathon is rooted, the series of events that led to marathon is rooted in the Persian conquest of what had been a Greek-speaking province, Ionia, in 547 BC. The Persians conquered it. Yes in 499 BC The Ionis Alonus was more upset by this because it was a little too Ionic Nice. I really do think oddly enough That one doesn't piss me off. Okay, some strange reason. I don't know ironic that well But it was because he began his reign on his wedding day. Oh,

okay, he was. He could have assassinated his opponent, but he only had 10,000 spoons. Yeah, and he really needed that knife. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. It 499. Okay. I remember that from a sixth grade textbook somewhere. Okay. Yeah. And Darius I of Persia was pissed. Yes. Now there's also, there's also another, another kind of wrinkle to this story.

It was because the goddess Athena used a fish to signal to her through her owl hooting in the bloat blowfish for King Darius. I already said you get nothing right? Yeah that's true. I went there. What are you gonna take for me now? So I should have held that one back. I should have. I should have. But so the Athenians sent aid to the Ionian rebellion. Now part of this, this rivalry, part of this, this backing and forething of, of, you know, fuck you, no fuck you. Right. All right, buddy, I'm not your buddy guy.

I'm not your guy, pal. You know, part of part of this backing andcing between Derrius the Athenians, I heard the story, but I couldn't actually find a specific reference to this, but there was a point years before when the Athenians had actually gone to the governor of Ionia, so that the tyrant appointed by Darious. Okay. The Athenians had gone to this Persian official and said, hey, we're having trouble with one of our own who's causing trouble.

We need help to put this guy down like the rabbit dog. He is. And the Persian satrap said, okay, well, if you want our help, we need you to give us an offering, you know, part of part of what you need to do is give us an offering of land and earth and water. And the Athenian delegation, the diplomats said, okay, not realizing here's the jar verse and here's the jar of water, whatever. And then the person's went, okay, well, now you're our subjects. Wade, hold the fuck up. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, that was diplomatic ritual.

No, that was a ritual of submission. You're ours now. So there's also that layer of this going on. And so in 490, there is sentiphorus to burn Athens to the ground and enslave the Athenians as a message to like everybody that you don't, you're not going to fuck with me. Don't dwell on these deals. Yeah, no, yeah. Okay. And so then in 490, at marathon, So then in 490 at Marathon and Athenian army, primarily Athenian with a few other Greek allies, delivered a surprise defeat to a much larger Persian army by using

terrain to their advantage and timing maneuver to take advantage of kind of being able to spot their moment and go on the offensive and utilize a concentration of force in the right place, the right time on the battle line. That's a major simplification of all of the... Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

But so, and the Athenians had this incredible victory. And the Spartans showed up to Athens a day after the battle was over. And they had to admit that the Athenians had won this incredible victory without them. And it chapped their asses. So now, now I've got to talk about why that why that was such a teeth grittingly infuriatingS, F4s. Okay. We're five of them. Each of them, they served for a year at a time. And they were dictators who could basically tell any of the other branches of Spartan government

Yeno Fucknow. I'm vetoing that. They could give orders to anybody. But they only served for one year at a time. And they were elected each year by the assembly. Mm-hmm. Going to get to the Spartan assembly in a minute.

The Spartans had two kings who were also selected by the assembly. Once you became king, you served for life. And the kings were the military commanders of the Spartan people. So they were, the generals, they were the ultimate military commanders. Right. But it was the EForce who declared war. Okay. Then the Spartans had a council of elders.

You had to be over 60 years of age. And they suggested laws. And then the assembly was made up of all citizens of Sparta, over 30, and they elected the F.O.R.S. every year. They elected the kings when they needed to choose a king. And they were the ones who made laws. So the Council of Hilders suggested laws and the assembly voted on. Okay. Now, this sounds like kind of a pseudo-democracy, right? We're a Democratic elements.

It's okay, right? This includes women in the assembly, which needs to be pointed out in Athens at this time, women were not citizens, women couldn't vote, women socially weren't even allowed to leave their house without their husband or their brother with them. Right. Whereas Sparta gave women, essentially, political equality to men, 30% of the land in Sparta was owned by women. So this, this sounds like freaking progressive as fuck, right? Right. Well, except no. Because because because because there's there's a whole other

whole other layer of this, the part I said about citizens, right. Within Spartan territory, the majority of residents weren't spartiates. They were halots. Right. And that is to say they were slaves. Expendable slaves too, not values. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. And so I linked in my notes the Oxford classical dictionary article on halots. So the thing is, the ancestors of the people who became the Spartans conquered their territory in Lakonia, and they forced the people who were already there into servitude. Every year when the F. Wars took office, they ritually declared war on the Helots. Right. So the Spartans were in a state of

constant war against their own slave population. If I recall correctly the Helots, and if I'm stepping on your toes, if I recall correctly, they were essentially not just slaves, but like surf slaves. They were not mobile slaves because they were the people who'd occupied what was that place called? It was Lakonia? Yeah, the territory of Sparta, Lakonia, the countryside around Sparta. Right. Then they occupied that territory prior to the Spartans really springing up. So it's kind of like these guys were here when we got here. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If I recall correctly, they were like the ultra slaves. Like the double plus maximum slaves. Yeah, the treatment of the halots by the Spartiates, Spartans, was something that other Greeks, that the other city, the other city states of Greece, the people of the other city states of ancient Greece, like noted it as being especially cruel and dominating. And it was, it was like they weren't even valued

as chattel, they were like the training posts. Oh, yes, you know, actually, because here's the thing. So, so the, the heel lots outnumbered the Spartans by a huge number. And that several points over the course of Spartan history, there were a hellot revolts that in some cases took decades to completely squash. And so when, so the Spartans were surrounded by their own slave population.

And so whatever militarist leanings the ancestors of the Spartans had had, the Spartans became a fully militarized state. If you were born male in Sparta, you would be taken from your mother at age seven and sent to living in a barracks and being trained for military service. This training was physically and in psychologically harsh. Discipline was prized above everything else. Physical courage was prized by everything else. And boys being beaten to death in the course of

their training was not uncommon. Right. So it was it was it ridiculous to the standards of the ancient world. It was ridiculously harsh. Yeah. And these were the ones that were not exposed. Yeah, and these were the ones that were not exposed. Yes, yeah, yeah, imagine defect. Yeah, um, girls got trained in wrestling and basic hand to hand combat. They learned how to handle a shield and a spear. Right. Um, and at the age of 18, a Spartan girl in order to become a Spartan woman and hold on to her citizenship had to pass essentially a martial arts belt exam. Right. Because if the men are away fighting and we have a slave revolt, you're going to have to step in there and start murdering them. Okay. Um, quality, see? Yeah. I've already mentioned the A4 is declared war on the Hey, let's every year is part

of their swearing in. Mm-hmm. So they were in a constant state of war against their own slave class. And when a boy got to the age of 18, assuming he survived long enough to get to the age of 18 during his military training, he would go out into the wilderness for the Cryptea. Now mention the Cryptea back at the beginning of talking about the comic 300. It's used as a storytelling device, you know, relating this made-up story from Leonidas' time in the Cryptea. Now, the way the curriculum for California describes the Cryptea curriculum for California describes the Cryptea, is that Spartan boys were sent out into the wilderness to survive for a year in the wilderness.

And they had to show their toughness and their resourcefulness and survival come home. Yeah, it sounds like, you know, harsh, boy scout stuff. Here's the thing, it's not just surviving in the wilderness. The sources that talk about the wilderness mean the country side outside the walls of Sparta, right, which is to say in the territory occupied by the halots.

Yeah, well, expectation was you were going to sneak around and steal your food from the halots. Yeah. You were not allowed to get caught. But if you got caught, it didn't count as getting caught. If you murdered the halots, who or halots, who caught you caught you right and that served a double purpose it prepared Spartan boys to be killers remorseless no hesitation killers right and It provided a constant source of terrorization for the subject, Haylot population. And they knew that it was Cryptea season.

Like, you could tell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, just don't just tell you what, leave a sack of grain outside and just leave it there and don't go out after all. Oh, no. I'm not looking over there.

Yeah. I'm going to very conspicuously not Oh, no. I'm not looking over there. Yeah. I'm going to very conspicuously not look that way and I'm hustling into the house. You know, I think that, you know, we, again, you can tell a lie by using the truth. In our curriculum, it says they go out to live in the wilderness. The implication is that the wilderness is similar

to what we know as the wilderness. So yes, it's tough because it's out there, you know, for a year, but we also have helicopters. We have laws. We have zoning. We have all these criteria and all these things that exist. Yeah. Whereas living in the wilderness is zoning in the middle of that. Oh, yeah.

Well, because it does matter. Yeah. Well, this is a preserve, you know, and I know. I know. We got hunting licenses and all kinds of stuff. We've got, you know, even our wilderness is managed here. Yeah. And so the students are left to think along those sanitized lines.

When in fact, the Crippetayas is, no, you have to, you're from Boston? Okay, you have to go to survive in New York without nutting any New Yorker's CEO, and you're going to kill the fucker if they do. Yeah, good luck. See if you can find some pizza. So what we're saying is it's Ben or Ed Sark's fan. Yeah, in New York. Okay, sure, sure. Got it. All right. Yeah.

Oh, so the Spartan class were no shit slave plantation owners, slave plantation owners who lived in constant existential fear of their slaves rising and revolt. Does this sound familiar? Yeah, yeah, with also back, back closer to the urban center, you've got a form of a republic. Yeah, you have a slave republic. Huh. What a peculiar institution. What a weird, nice choice of language. I like that VMI anyone anyone the citadel anybody anybody yeah second amendment anybody so And and I think

part of the Sanitized Image that we get of the Spartans sanitized image that we get of the Spartans. Comes from the fact that so much of the sources that are used in the history books that we use now, sources that are history books now use were books that were written in the 19th century. Okay, yeah. And in the 19th century, the idea of a conquering class maintaining control over territory through military force and having a group of people that they had doing the work for them was something that on a subconscious or conscious level, the Europeans who wrote those histories looked at it and went, well,

okay, that's like us in India. That's like us all over the continent of Africa. Okay. And so the... It went on so the ugliest parts of it got kind of you know soft penalty idea that well know you're going to go out murder any any healer you see. Right. You know get soft pedal to no sources. Okay. It's kind of gets you know a little bit a little bit of Vaseline on the camera because I'm not going to talk about that. But but what the British Empire did in India, what the Spanish did in the Americas, when everybody had done over the course of the imperialist period of world history, was made, made the Spartans look enough like the cultures that those historians came from,

that the ugliest parts of that story. Well, you know, we're going to, we're going to fudge that because it was a different time. And like, so we get this picture transmitted to the people who wrote our textbooks as well, you know, it was this militaristic, but basically pseudo-democratic republic. You know, because I know, because I know when I got taught about the Spartans, I didn't learn about the existence of the halots, right, until I was an adult. The fact that the sixth grade curriculum I'm using now even mentions the halots is is a is a step toward factual historicity. Alright, so here I want to I want to push back a

little bit because I think that there is another part to this that either you're about to address some stealing thunder again or that I think deserves a look. So yes, all of those things about the Spartans, but let's soften it because all our kids are gonna grow up to do that anyway. Yeah. And you can't sell them on being that brutal until you're there.

And you've got Scotsman as the non-commissioned officer is helping you to do that. Hey. Pointless. Pointless. So. I mean, I'd think it was a dig, but we're both, you know, of the anyway. So, so you've got that. But at the same time, you also have this other aspect, the Athenians.

And we go back to what you said, how the Athenians and the Spartans are seen as, I'm not going to say two sides of the same coin. I'm going to say as these are the two polls in which the policies, even in which democracy was allowed to grow. You had to have the despotic, it is a pseudo-republic, but yes, there's these ugly things that they do, but then you've got these other people who sit around and think all the time. You've got Mars and you've got Athena. You've got two different gods of war. And the idea that Jesus, white British Jesus and then white American Jesus meant for democracy to flourish. That was his gift to us 1800 years prior. And therefore, we're seeing the development from,

clearly spart is the more badass. And when I was a kid, I played with young things and then I had to put that away and become a man and learn diplomacy. Go from the fighty, fighty to the thinky, thinky. And now a good English gentleman, it always wants to think. Yes, we can be more if needs be.

But ultimately the goal is democracy and Americans absolutely jumped on that shit. And we just got out of it. Like with both feet. Yeah. And we just gotten out of a civil war where the fighty fighty really fucking hurts. So let's really work on cultivating this idea of democracy and you start to have history as a course of study in the 1870s in America.

And so this idea of linear history of first came this, then came back and that's a natural progression. And the world we live in was predestined. Right. And now because this is the best possible world, it's just one of the things that was meant to happen. Yeah. And now we have democracy and look at what we came from.

We even can see its roots all the way back then. And now it's better because we've learned the right lessons from the right people. So you have the upward arc of civilization. Exactly. So you have the upward arc of civilization. Exactly. So I think that that's that's that approach. And that is a that is a facet that I didn't have in my notes,

but I think you're right. I think you're on the money. I mean, being in the middle of teaching this unit right now. I think the other thing that's interesting is anybody who knows ancient Greek history knows that spoilers for anybody who doesn't. The Athenians and the Spartans eventually wound up fighting the Peloponnesian War. Right. And the Spartans actually won.

Yes. And what's interesting is all of the historical sources paint the Athenians as the wronged heroes there. Because democracy should always win. Because democracy should always won. What's interesting of course is if you really wanted to try to go that route, you could point out how the Athenians became an imperialist power. Yeah, there's that. But that's too much nuance, so we're just going to say they were this, you know, tragic heroic set of figures. And, you know, and they got beaten by the, you know, crude barbaric Spartans, who actually were pretty keen diplomats themselves as time went on. But anyway, too much nuance to include there.

So back to the points I'm trying to make about the Spartan society. So they're this militaristic slave owning society. And the Spartan culture became centred around these virtues that you would expect to see as being the cardinal virtues of a culture that lives in the circumstance, to be a Spartan, male or female, really, meant you had to have toughness, physical and mental toughness. You had to be very stoic in the kind of toxic masculine sense of stoic. I just don't feel shit.

I don't know why I owe my feelings. Right. There was this idea of, you, they didn't teach their boys to read and write and think the way the Athenians did, but they did value the virtue of wit. And there are a whole bunch of examples of laconic wit. And by the way, laconic comes from laconia. Right. So we get this, this, this, this is, if you say that somebody has a laconic wit, you are literally comparing them to a

spart. Mm-hmm. Uh, one of one of the most classical examples I've got a couple from from the myth of Thermopylae. Oh, I know this one, but there's but there's actually my favorite one is actually long after Thermopylae. It's when Philip of Macedon was becoming a power after the Peloponnesian war and the Macedonians were starting to conquer Greece. Philip of Macedon sent a message to the Spartans and he said, if I invade Lakonia, you will be destroyed, never to rise again. And the Spartans sent a one word answer to it. If. And that was that was that was their whole response. And, you know, and there's then there's volumes in that if it was just it was it was one big middle finger like, you know,

Better than nuts. Yeah, just I don't know. I kind of like I like. I like that's scrappy and home spun cracker bow. Yeah. And that's scrappy and home spun cracker bow. But if it's just so much like number one is too letter shorter. Yeah. And number two, it's like, which is part and sort of valued.

Right. And it has that unsmiling humor, which is lachonic with. Yeah. And it cuts like a short sword to the solar plexus. Oh, no, I'm not that whatever. So they also obviously valued physical courage, Sure.

rigorous self discipline. Mm-hmm. And they had this weird kind of obsessive, demonstrative fruality. They were the ruling class of their society. They had all of this wealth that was generated by a slave population. But like one of the marks of truly being, like if you were going to be a man's man, a monster, a colleague's in Sparta. When you when you finished your criteria, you would come back and you would be given the red cloak of a Spartan warrior. Right. And if you were really a real Spartan, you would wear that cloak until it literally could not be worn anymore. And it was a mark of admiration

if you were 40 or 50 and your cloak was beat to shit. And so there was this idea of frugality, which I think is tied or was tied in their own self-image to the discipline. Now interestingly, one of the things that they would do is they would force halots to become inebriated as a kind of ritualized demonstration within the, essentially the mess hall that all of the men of Sparta would gather and eat in, they would, they would essentially force the halots to become drunk, which they then used against the halots culturally, as well, you know, that you can't count on the halots. Look at them. They're always, they're always

drunk. They're intemperate. They don't have any self-control. Right. Which they compared to their own self-control and that frugality would then be part of that. And again, I want to point out they made these halas drunk as part of this ritualized thing, which they then turned around and used against him as a cultural stereotype. Fucking must have sucked to be a halat, man. Yeah, it's no shit. So let me ask you this. I know that in Athens, they had a type of taxation wherein if you were really, really rich, you picked the richest taxation thing you could do.

And it's essentially, it wasn't taxation. It was private citizens showing off how much they had by how much cool shit they did for society. Yeah. Public works, building public works, private money, putting on theatrical performances, sponsoring parts. And so if you wanted people to see how rich you were, you built the coolest shit.

And if you wanted to keep your wealth, you fucking hit it. And you dressed like you were poor, which gets to that the Athenian version of the Spartan Tatter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is like, you know, I'm not gonna show off my wealth. And I show off my wealth. I better of something to show for it for everyone to use. It's an interesting weird kind of twist on

I think the same. Yeah, it really does. Some kind of idea going on there. And again, I mean, they're both they share the culture, they share the language they shared. They though the pantheon of God's language. Yeah, I mean, I know. Addick and Greek versus a coin at Greek. No, I mean, they could talk to each other. Okay. Well, I mean, Romans and Greeks could talk to each other too

because they have various languages. No, I'm just, and Roman in Rome versus Roman in the countryside was, I mean, there's a lot of like mutual unintelligibility. It's just everybody had each other's pigeons as well. Well, yeah, okay. Yeah, I get what you're saying. But like there is, there is a, there's an underlying commonality of yes, subconscious cultural shared ideas. And that brings me to the question I was going to ask, is that is that just an accidental Mediterranean thing? Because if you go east of that, well, and again, we're always reading

Greek and Roman historians about the east and how opulent they are. So grain of salt, salt, lick with that one. But like the values that the Romans and the Greeks seem to have was a layer of frugality and the simplicity of the countryside. You do not show off your wealth unless you are also doing a shit ton of patronage for people. So don't get me wrong. You know, Rome had, well, after Augustus, Rome had a lot of rich people showing off how rich they were. Yeah. But it was also like the Aquamarcia is named for Mars by the guy who built it because he'd already built the Appian way. Yeah.

Named after him, you know, like so. Yeah. Like you built shit for the people all the time in Rome and Rome and satire valued frugality, valued countrysideness, you know, and stuff like that. And and you're we're clearly seeing this in Greek culture as well. Spartan and Athenian and I still would even push back a little bit as to what Greek means when they're not being attacked by a group and they all have to band together or they're not attacking a group where they have to band together. But Spartan and Athenian culture did share that commonality, like you said, of frugality. And I'm wondering if that's just, if that's particularly Greek or if that's a,

a accidental Mediterranean thing. I think, I think if you go far enough back, you would probably find that before the, I'm forgetting that the term of it, but the, because right now we're talking about the Helines. I think if you were to go far enough back to the Akans, the Akans, anyway, the, I mean, that is an auspicious. How is it as a vaguarius? Okay, yeah. And the proto-greaks. Right.

If you were, because culturally, the, the, all the people of the Peloponnesis and then the Greek, like ithmas, were descended from essentially the Acans, or had that somewhere in their ancestry and their roots. I think it probably, if we were to go back, we'd probably find it there. Okay. It's going to be my guess. Because, you know, the critique that all of these, and I'm going to say Greeks because they did unite as Greeks to go attack Troy, the critique of Troy was how opulent and wealthy it was, rich it was.

Yeah, decidedly not Greek thing. Yeah. And then they stopped being Greeks as soon as they'd won, and they just scattered back to being their own city states. They went back to their petty kingdoms. Right. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think there is that dichotomy there.

And I think it is, it is, one of them is a very Athenian take on that idea. One of them is a very Spartan blunt. We're not going to have this additional twist of like, if you're going to spend all this money, then have something to show for it. It's just going to be, no, no, you just don't spend the money. You don't, you know, we're just, you're going to, you're going to look like, you know,

like your clothes are about to fall off your back because you're not going to go spend the money to buy more. Right. And, and I think the Spartan emphasis for it again is on self discipline. The virtue is having the self control that like no, I don't need a new tunic. This one covers me just fine. But also it's a bit of a show off. But also it's a show off. It's a flex. Yeah, it's a flex. Yeah. And so I think based on how long we've gone on this, this is probably a place where I'm gonna pause. There's more that I wanna talk about,

what Spartan society actually looked like as opposed to what, and we can get into kind of how this shows up in 300. Yeah. And kind of where the picture gets warped. And what the agenda is behind that. But I think that's that's kind of where we can go with the next episode. And then to actually talk about the battle itself and how like Miller gets everything fucking wrong.

But based on stopping here, what do you think, where are you with this? It does make sense that he's American now. Let me think about it because he's writing in 1998 at a time where America was fracturing. You had the contract with America in 1994. You had the contract with America at 94. You had the, the a feet, urbans versus the down home countries. And you start to have that really starting to open up in 98 as a Fisher. And I think that you have, with Miller, with him taking a look at Sparta, specifically, like he's kind

of siding with, you know, you can see what side of the culture war he's falling down on. And he's writing about a people as though they were monolithic and heroic, which absolutely gets to honestly on some levels lost cause. And I think, you know, walking on that southern borderlander mentality of ruggedness and manliness and that masculinity being the only thing. So it does make a lot of sense that he's American and not British.

Now that we've gotten this far, I would have guessed that he was American whereas previously I thought he was British, but I think it's because again, I mixed him up with Alan Moore. So Miller, yeah. So, but yeah, that's, that's where I'm at. This, this absolutely does seem like it fits in 1998. Now that you've described all the things you have about Sparta.

Yeah. Why that would be a subjective study for him. Yeah. Well, maybe not study, but a subject for his art. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So yeah, I'm interested in seeing where this goes from there. So cool.

Oh, I can guess it what you're going to recommend to people. But what you're reading. Well, what I'm reading right now is a study in American fascism. And unfortunately, I don't have the author's name in front of me. And I feel really badly about it. We're going to be interviewing here coming up here soon. Oh, yeah. And I'm completely drawing a blank because I had to notes on my phone and then my phone

shut down. And now I can't find them. And I feel really bad because it's a great book. While you're looking for that, I'll tell you what I'm reading. Okay. Give you a chance to look for that. I'm reading incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs, who was writing as Linda Brent. And it is. So, you know, if you've read your Frederick Douglass, it's a really, really good

account. It's a very, it's usually the seminal work, you know, it's the one that you read when you want to read what somebody who lived through slavery lived through. I like this one because it's obviously taken from a one's perspective. And you're going to see a very different thing and she's going to get received very differently by her audience at that time. And it is, well, it's really painful. It hurts to read because of how fucking brutal it is. So I strongly recommend it, especially to anybody living in And it's a really good accounting. It's only a couple hundred pages long, because it was a book written. I believe in the late 1800s.

I'm looking right now. Yeah, I'm going to say it was written in the late 1800s. The first time I was written. It might be early 1900s, because I was going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say it was written in the late 1800s. The first of those was written. It might be early 1900s because a lot of people who survived slavery

lived into the 20th century. Yes, but oh yeah, it was 1861. I was right. Okay. As the fucking war is happening. Yeah, probably a Boston. So yeah, that's what I'm going to are. Yeah, that's what I'm going to recommend. Okay. So you're recommending what, what, what yeah, what I am recommending is American fascism, how the GOP is subverting 250 years of democracy by brand 10 hell is the author. And here's the thing, as I'm, as I'm reading through the book, what I'm, what I'm finding is there's an awful lot of stuff that I'm reading. I'm going, well, okay, yeah. I remember that. And we've talked about that as part of the context of this thing on the podcast. But what what she is doing a remarkably good job of doing or what she does a remarkably good job of doing in the book. I believe they, they, oh, yeah, yes, okay. So my bad, yes,

what they do very well in the book is they tie all of these points together in a way that you may have known about the individual events and you have lived through the corrosive impact of those events. But the way the book is written takes the sharpie and draws the line connecting them all. Yes. In a way that makes it like, you know, I saw that, like, you know, I saw that, but I didn't, I didn't like see that. Right. Until now.

Yeah. And I need another beer, you know? Yeah. And I was gonna say, I've also been reading it and, you know, you stole my wreck for next week, but that's fine. I love that we're both reading it. It'll be stole my wreck for next week but that's fine I love that we're both reading it it'll be make for a much better episode but I also was reading it and I just kept going like well this shit's bleak I got to a

part where it's like the only thing that's ever fixed this kind of shit is a plague I'm like fuck like damn it and then a plague. I'm like, fuck. Like, damn it. And then I look around, I'm like, wait, we're having one. But we're talking about- I use it in any of this getting better. Well, because the plague they're talking about is much more like the Black Death. And I'm like, oh, no.

That's- The Arleithality rate isn't high enough. Right. And what's awful about that is obviously the Lethality rate. Shouldn't have to be that low, but also that the all the garks are largely untouched by it. And it has to kill off the ruled classes instead in huge numbers for anything to change. I'm like, um, so I'm hoping that there might be some, I don't know, you might be further along than I am hoping. No, I think you're further along than I am. I got a couple of chapters into it,

and then I had to put it down. Okay. And I've got to find a way for a while. Yeah. And then I had to pick it back up and kind of go back. Yeah. Because it's been too long. So I'm kind of restarting from beginning.

But yeah, but yeah, no, it's a it's a truly powerful spotlight. Yeah, they did a good job. Yeah, they did a remarkable job. And so I'm very much looking forward to interviewing them. Cool. Because of that. So that's that's that's going to be a recommendation here. All right, cool.

Give us the title again one more time. That would be waiting for my phone to reload again. American Fascism. How the GOP is subverting 250 years of democracy. There we go. All right. Working people find you on the social medias. I can be found on the social medias as eHBlaylock on Twitter

and as Mr. Blaylock on Twitter and as Mr. Blaylock on the Tiki Talk and also as Mr. Blaylock on Instagram. Where can you be found? You can find me at the Harmony on Insta and Twitter. Those are the good places to find me. And that should be enough. I'm on this podcast enough. So you can find me on both of those. I just work on TikTok. I don't actually make anything. I just like looking at other content. Yeah, I'm pretty much the same here,

but I've made a couple of videos. So corporately works and they find us. Corporately, we can be found at Geek History time on Twitter and online at Geek History of Time.com. And also, of course, if you're listening to us right now, then you have found us either on Twitch Spotify or the Apple Podcast application. Stitcher. Sorry, sorry, my bad. Stitcher Spotify or the Apple podcast app, wherever, however, it is you found us, please go in, like, subscribe, and give us the five stars that you know, we are trenching commentary on the battle of Thermopylai.

Yes, please. You know, so there we go. All right. Well, for our bases for a geek history of time, so there we go. Cool. All right, well, for our databases. For a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blanlock. And until next time,

Mulan Labai.