A Geek History of Time - Episode 162 - Villians Who Aren't; Heroes Who Aren't vol. II

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

Like they they advertise one match when crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. Not a total victory of Russia, which now we're seeing. He goes on. He's a gigantic bag of flaccid dicks. Sorry, contidence. Which when you open them up, you find out that they're all cockroaches and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to laugh this hard at anything we say.

We can actually both look out my window right now and see some very pretty yellow flowers that I'm going to be eradicating. 1.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1- This is a gig history of time. Where we connect an Ergory to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher and English teacher here in Northern California. And just within the last couple of days, my professional life and my life here on this podcast have kind of intersected slightly because I just started a unit in my English classes where I'm teaching Sherlock Holmes to my kids. And I'm having an awful lot of fun with it. I wish I could say they were too. But Arthur Conan Doyle's language is not easy to translate to 21st century sixth graders. So there's an awful lot of time I'm spending acting as an

interpreter. Partly just because the the flowery nature of his language and also partly because these kids haven't really been in a classroom for two years. And so they are pretty much universally behind in their ability to handle complex sentence structure. And he uses a lot of it. Like the first paragraph we're reading the speckled band and it's a convoluted mystery story. But the first paragraph is, you consist of basically five sentences,

but it takes up an entire page. So there's a lot of simplification that has to be done there. And I'm afraid that's taking away from their ability to get into it and enjoy it. But I'm having a lot of fun. So that's what I have going on right now. How about you?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher and a drama teacher up here in Northern California. And the news that I've got is next year I won't be a drama teacher. And I will likely be a history teacher and a little smidgen of Latin on hospice care. Or what's it called when like they're actually on their way out? I because hospice is here. Palette of care. There you go. This is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is, is this is, is this is, is, is this is, is, is this is, is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is, is, is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is, is, is, is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is this is, is, is, is this, is this is depending on if you take certain freeways, it might be down to like 67 miles away.

The next class is one is in a Rinda. That's a public school. Private schools, there are a few, although I just heard that one of our main private schools is also dropping Latin. Oh, who? Jesuit. Oh, shit. That's what I thought. Okay. No. No. Yes. I'm sorry. I got a right letter to somebody.

Because I should. I actually am a Catholic. I know. No. I know. If you're a Jesuit flip in high school, you got to teach what?

And Latin one would think. Yeah. You know, yeah, you can't lick. Yeah. And it's funny that when I'm talking about Jezote high school, I can't bring myself to say the word fucking but like the rest of the time I swear like a sailor on a bender, but yeah You know your cap's like which which means a hypocrite so

Wow Am I wrong? Again, rule number one, a 30-year-old tent means dick. Rule number two is not tired, it doesn't have a long shelf life. Rule number three, that is fucked up. But it's not wrong. Is that a line, but he's not wrong? Yeah. Well, speaking of groups that you think are heroes and that I think are villains. I think it's time to get back to heroes who weren't and villains who weren't. Okay, I'm down. I'm hoping that I remember to drop in a sound there, and you're to like, you know, pop out about something.

So I've got some villains who weren't and some heroes who weren't and I get you you do too. So as I am a codependent who doesn't like making his own choices if I can avoid it, would you like to hear about a villain who isn't or a hero who isn't to start the night? Let's let's start with a villain who isn't a villain who isn't okay. Let's talk about Dr. Doom. Okay. All right. I can I can get into this. All right. Victor von Doom. Yeah. And I get it. I totally get it. He is a bad guy. He is he tries to kill the fantastic four murder not okay. Even if it's read Richards. Um, he tries to take are we sure about that last part, even if it's read, Richard?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, again, it's that, that distinction between you have it coming, but you don't deserve it. Okay. Right. Yeah. He tries to take over the world repeatedly.

I get it. He's a villain. Megalamania. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But is he really a villain? He's certainly a tyrant.

I will, I will grant you. He is a tyrant. But he's a tyrant in a country where there's no poverty, no starvation, no crime, and no disease. There is full free secondary education, high speed internet everywhere. There's good food. The lat varying culture is allowed to thrive. Now, grant you he might be controlling what's coming out of there. He might be censoring the press. We've certainly seen that in the past. But at one point, Dr. Strange has to work with him. And he and Doom go back to Latvaria

and Dr. Strange secretly mind reads everyone. And nobody was being compelled to be too loved, Dr. Doom, and they loved Dr. Doom. They just loved him. So that tells me that his citizens clearly value the security and the safety he brought to Latvaria, no matter his method. And he does care for his fellow humans. He just keeps that care restricted strictly to Latvaria because every time other people try to fuck with him, it's always outside of Latvaria or they're trying to invade his

sovereign territory He's got a greater reach than Daredevil or Luke Cage trifor. That's true, but so does Tachala and we don't give Tachala shit And he's taking over the world sure absolutely. I could see that being a problem, right? He tries to take over the world a number of times But he's doing for the same reason that Tony Stark tries to encase the Earth in a suit of iron. So at worst, he's motivated by the same overcharged ego that Tony Stark is. Well, intentions extremist. Yeah. And you know, it is the whole end is to protect the world.

And he kind of just thinks that he's the best one for the job therefore he should. He's also fought with the literal devil and one and he did it to fight for his mommy's soul. So we're talking about victories over both Mephisto and Galactus because in the secret wars he defeated Galactus with the help of Claw. All right. I mean, you know, the only person I know who holds those kinds of victories, squirrel girl. Squirrel girl. Yeah, that's the most powerful here on the Marvel Universe.

So, you know, and now not many people can paint both of those guys on the side of his car, you know. All is true. And he succeeded, We're both cap and Spider-Man failed. So he's clearly capable of some serious heroic activity. And when the zombie outbreak happened, who did Nick Fury come to for help? He saw it out, Dr. Doom. How many heroes did that happen to? So he's clearly recognized by other heroes for his capabilities and his powers. But not only

that, Nick Fury wouldn't have reached out if he thought that Doom was a guaranteed no, or if he thought that Doom didn't ultimately have humanity's goodness in his heart. So he has the respect of his fellow heroes, and therefore per se is more dependable than the Hulk. therefore per se is more dependable than the Hulk. Okay, yeah. I'm not saying he's incapable of tremendous cruelty. Again, he sliced claw into discs in order to steal the life essence and power from Galactus. That's a real cruel tofer.

He's certainly a flawed hero. I will give you that. He's done unspeakable things to his enemies. So is Wolverine. So has read Richards. And I mean, Dr. Doom never turned people into cows and then refused to protect them from getting slaughtered because Dr. Doom has a goddamn limit. Okay, back up.

Okay. Turn people into cows and then didn't protect them from being slaughtered. Read Richards did that to the first game. Because of course, we read Richards. Yeah, that's like who else would have been. And when they got slaughtered, the read Richards are Hank Pym. And like, he had to be one of the two of them. Eating scroll cows made it so the people who ate scroll cows were able to see scrolls,

which if you had no context for that, that fucked with your brain completely. So it had like a knock on secondary trauma that read Richards smart as he was, either didn't account for it to not give a shit about it. Or more likely didn't give a shit about it. But I've got more on the read Richards later. Yeah. Of course you do. Of course he is in the opposite category.

Yeah. But Dr. Dume, I submit to you, not a villain, but a hero, flawed hero, but a hero. Okay. Who you got? Okay. Well, I'm going to answer your not a villain, but a hero with not a hero, but a villain. Okay. And, and I don't know, this might kind of be cheating because this is from Warhammer 40k where Jesus, you're going to have to be a lot of here. Here are heroes

are hard to come by. Yeah. But if you ask them to face south, it's a lot easier to finish. Nice. Thank you. So I like it. See that stain that's my grandfather's There's a piece of my family in this armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah Wow See that stain that was my brother. He's older than me. Okay, there you go. Well, he would have been my brother. He would have been. Yeah, would have been. Yeah potential brother right So in in the war him or 40k universe humanity as a whole

worships The god emperor of mankind Because he give them lettuce. Okay, while they're swimming around in their lagoons. Okay, right? Manatee, oh, the Emperor, nice of humanity. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, humankind.

Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no humankind. The God Emperor of humankind is worshiped by humans across the galaxy. As their protector, their savior, there are any number of motto associated with this, but the most obvious one is the Emperor protects. Okay, sure. And it is only according to the, the, Adeptus Terra, the Ecclesiarchy, who are his priesthood and simultaneously,

the operators of the vast bureaucracy of the human imperium, according to them, it is only through his constant and agonizing sacrifice over the last 10,000 years that humanity has been protected from the ravages of the alien, the mutant and the heretic. Are those, is that an unholy treaded based in one or is that three separate groups? That's three separate's three separate things,

the alien, the mutant and the heretic. And what they don't mention to ordinary humans, and this is part of heady emperor is not a hero, they don't mention the gods of chaos because the vast majority of humanity don't know about the existence of the gods of chaos because to let most of humanity know about the existence of the gods of chaos, because to let most of humanity know about that would risk humanity turning to them as possibly figures of worship or

and there's and there's just to some extent the idea that even thinking about the gods of chaos gives them power because they are a femoral and dwell in the war, but are creatures of emotion and I thought. Okay. I think they did that in supernatural, forget what it was called. Kind of. Roodleew or something like that. Well, there was the Tulpa. Tulpa, that's what it was.

Yeah. Construct. That's kind of the same concept, but on a much larger scale. Well, of course, this is a, uh, uh, many star reaching empire. So yeah. So, um, so the emperor, according to the word 40k, and I'm going to try to keep this as short as I can. Sure. Um, it has, has existed or did exist before the great crusade. He existed for several thousand years, um, operating as this kind of within human history,

steering humanity in a particular direction because he was the most powerful psychic ever born in human society. Okay, yeah. And he was actually a guest-alt creation. At some point Like an late stone age a group of powerful psychics the shaman Gathered together and they combined their essences into one being

To create the So yes, essentially from the shaman. Yeah Yeah. So they essentially dissipated and they all collectively became the emperor. Oh, I saw this in Transformers, Devastate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of the same concept. Sure. So the emperor then guided humanity for thousands of years kind of from behind the scenes. And then eventually, years kind of from behind the scenes. And then eventually, after multiple dark ages and the human diaspora to the stars, the emperor foresaw the extinction of humanity that if somebody didn't go out and reconquer and reunify humanity into one force,

then piecemeal humanity would be taken apart. Okay, yeah, by alien races and by other forces. United we stand divided. United we stand. Wow, how British, like how common was it? Yeah, very common. Okay, okay. And so he conquered, he conquered Terra, holy Tara, he conquered the planet and then created the

space marine legions, the Adepticist Artees. They will be my space marines and they shall know no fear. Okay. Now the very first part of his creation of them, and this is where we really get into the part where he starts becoming not a hero. His, he, he toyed around with human genetics and his first experiments were the thunder warriors

who were these titanic men who had been genetically modified in order to be these massive giants and capable of standing incredible punishment and could fight. We're the equivalent of, you know, 100 men in a fight. So it's like Nunean Song stuff. Kind of, yeah. But he or no, I'm sorry, But he or no, no, I'm sorry. Khan. Yeah. Yeah. What's what was his name? Con. A con.

Noonian Singh. Con. Noonian Singh. There we go. Yeah. And so after he had unified Tara under his control, he turned on his own Thunder warriors and had them exterminated because now that the Unification Wars were over, he didn't need them anymore.

And they were a threat to stick. No retirement plan for no retirement plan. No. So. Now that the Unification Wars were over, he didn't need them anymore and they were a threat to stick on. There's no retirement plan for them. No retirement plan. No plan. So he turned on them and destroyed them. But then he took what he had discovered about human genetics and he began experimenting in order to create even more powerful beings.

And he was going, and he called them his primarchs. Okay. And there were 20 of them. Okay. And they were the templates from which the 20 space marine legions were then created. So a primarch was a single individual. Okay. And they're again, 20 of them, actually 21 because the 20th split into twins. Okay. Part of the tour. Yeah. So, but anyway, he created the primarks.

And in the process of creating the primarks, he ran into problems that he couldn't solve with the manipulation of the genetic code, trying to find ways to accomplish what he wanted. His experiments kept failing, and his experiments kept failing. And eventually, he reached out into the warp, into the parallel dimension of psychics and faster than light travel. And he found entities

they're waiting for him who wanted to make a deal. Okay. The chaos gods. And he made he the Emperor made a deal with them. Okay. Because the Chaos Gods probably zinch the changer of ways. The Chaos God of fate and scheming. Sure. Saw, there's a lot of potential in this idea for pulling wacky shit. Mm-hmm. So yeah, all right, I'll help you out. Mm-hmm.

Well, the Emperor made this deal. And then in some way that unless you spend an awful lot of time reading a whole bunch of novels in the Horace Harris series, you don't really find out. He, he, he, he, re-nigged on this deal. The emperor did? Yeah, the emperor re-nigged on the deal with a God isically. Yeah, he he basically He never intended to keep his end of the deal. He thought he was powerful enough That he could make the deal and then break it because he he recognized from the beginning that these entities that the cast gods were not Friendly to humanity

is that the cast gods were not friendly to humanity. Okay. But he made a deal with them because he thought that he could use their knowledge and their, their, their, who do to accomplish what he needed and then, you know, turn on them and deal with them separately. Okay. So I mean, at this point, first off, thank God you went with a short version.

Secondly, there's, there's, yeah, I'm sure there is. But at this point, I'm seeing that he is guilty. He is at best a very flawed hero because we've seen hubris. We're seeing a willingness to Welsh on your deals, which is kind of one of the most you don't get to do that kind of moves that you typically see in villains. Villains are the ones that break their word. So now he's an oath-breaker. And at best it's heubristic, at worst it's a calculated maneuver, which I assume it fails him, but we'll find out as you continue. Yes. Because the cast gods, and now depending on which source within the lore you look to, maybe both sides intended on fucking each other over from the very beginning, it might have been that kind of situation. Yeah, you can get in some David Hume level shit here though. Like, and you don't know they were going to until they did. And you didn't

give them a chance to because you did. Yeah, so yeah, so either because they were always planning to or because, you know, fuck you, the chaos gods or a chaos god, we don't know. Basically gathered up the infant primarks in their gestational cloning tubes and then flung them. Okay. Relativistic means psychic weird mojo, you know, psychic god magic. Sure. Flung them all out into the galaxy galaxy before the emperor was able to completely finish birthing them. Okay. And so the emperor then had to go, okay, well, I got to reconquer the galaxy somehow. So I'm going to take what I have left. The bits of their genetic material that I have left. I'm going to use to now genetically engineer all of the organs that I'm going to implant into my super soldiers

and they are going to be the space marines. And so each of the primarcks had a legion who were essentially their gene sons, their genetic, you know, the space marines literally carry the genes of their primarchs. And so we took these legions and he said, off into the stars, we're going to go, we're going to reunite humanity. And then they went out and they killed the shit out of a whole lot of humans because they showed up on planets and they said, we represent the emperor of humanity. We are here to bring unity. And And you know, because we're humans,

most people went, oh, I, right, what do we go in that for us? You can follow the light of the imperial truth and pay ties to the emperor and be united with the rest of humanity. And, you know, but you've got to give up all of your native religion because by the way, religion is a trap of the chaos gods and rationality is the way of doing things. So there is no religion in the Emperor's ideal universe. This sounds very, very Henry Kissinger. Kind of. I am the smartest man in the galaxy.

I am the smartest man in the world. Power is the greatest stuff from DJI. It's bad, it's right. Yeah. But he probably said it half as fast. Yeah, probably. Because he and Larry Flint, I would love to have heard a debate between the two of them. All you have to do is ask one question.

And in two hours, you'll finally have an answer from both. The whole evening is shot. Yeah. Yeah. So. But you know, you get, you get the benefit of now being part of the Imperium. However, in order to get that, you have to give up basically your

culture because you're, you're going to embrace the Imperial truth. Oh, well, okay, no, we don't want that. All right, well, then we're gonna kill everybody, how many of you we have to until you accept that. And so the space marine legions went out and literally reconquer the humanity. Further on. So yeah, well, yeah, obviously, right?

Okay. So now we have that aspect to this whole crusade thing. Is you know, a whole lot of people didn't really want it, but they got it forced on them at the barrel of a gun. So gradually over time, as his crusade spreads out from terror, he rediscoveres his primarchs. He finds them on the planets where they got deposited by the cascads and each one of the primarchs has become a ruler and a great mighty chieftain and a great king. Okay. You know, in one way or another and in another episode, I can spend a lot of time talking about the primarchs. One way or another, and in another episode, I can spend a lot of time talking about the primarchs. But there are a couple of notable examples that show just exactly what a dick the emperor

was when he rediscovered them. And I think the most instructive of them is when he finds Angron, the primarch of the Legion that became the world eaters. Now at this time they were referred, they called themselves the warhounds, they were one of the later legions to find their primark. And to again cut the story short, when Angeron had arrived on his planet, he was immediately captured by slavers who saw this child who was clearly still a child, but was the size of a grown man. Okay. And they said, Oh, okay, we can take this kid and turn him into an arena fighter. And they beat him and, until he

turned his anger on, yeah, yes, and turned him him into a champion in the arena. And then they fucked with his brain. Using dark age of technology tech, they put a, put a stimulator in his brain that constantly stimulated the anger center of his brain. Okay. That could when when circumstances when his body were right, turned him into a berserker. And that combined with his natural size and his innate physical superiority

because of him being a genetically engineered creature for fighting made him a champion gladiator slave. He eventually led a rebellion of gladiator slaves like Spartacus. Okay. And he killed the shit out of thousands of slaveholders. But his mortal followers were not as powerful as he was. And his, what probably would have been his innate strategic understanding because of what he was created to be had been fucked with by the by the anger implant.

And so he didn't understand how to lead his mortal followers effectively. So they all got murdered. And it was just him and the few remaining survivors of this uprising. And that was the point at which the emperor showed up in orbit over the planet. Okay. And the emperor teleported Angron and only Angron from the surface of the planet onto his work, Ruzer, said, you are my son. But you have not, you know, my, my others, I have found my other sons. My other sons have been kings and great strategists and they've done all of these things. They've built these amazing civilizations. my other sons, my other sons have been kings and great strategists and they've done all of these things.

They've built these amazing civilizations. They've been architects and they've been scholars. And here you are. But you are my son. And I created you to lead in war. Here is your legion. Meanwhile, on the planet, the people that Angron had learned to love and had led into the jaws of rebellion were being murdered, and the emperor did nothing to stop it.

Okay, now I'm starting to see the villain part. Previously, it was like he's a dick, he's hebristic, he's an oathbreaker, these are all villainy type things, but now he's passed the point and overturned for me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, and then he conquered the planet with, you know, and then he said, here's your legion, conquered the planet. And you're on conquered the planet, but by that time, all of the people who had been, you know, his followers were dead. Sure. And they had just been, you know, ignored because was the emperor care. Right. What are they? Right. You know. And, and, and then the emperor didn't bother to fix Angron's brain.

Okay. And so that leads ultimately when there is a civil war amongst the space marine legions, half of the legions turn to chaos and anger on and his world leaders dedicate themselves to the chaos god of war and rage, corn. And there you have the roots of that particular betrayal. The thing is though, the seeds of that betrayal were planted in Angron by that particular activity. They were they were seated in other primarchs by the Emperor's attitude toward his sons. While he was leading them, he cultivated this idea with them that they were his sons, that he made them, and they had some of him in them and they were his children. Well, spoiler alert, at the end of this Civil War, the emperor is reduced to somewhere between death and life and he's strapped into the golden throne on Tara and he spends

10,000 years with people not really knowing whether he's actually alive or not. You know, what exactly his status is. Well, then in the most recent edition of the game, when they updated, finally, updated the timeline of the setting, one of the primarchs who had been essentially dead dead is resurrected, Ruput Gulliman, who's the whole other character. But anyway, he winds up going into the Emperor's palace where the Emperor has been essentially

entombed for 10,000 years. And he being a primarch is innately psychically sensitive. He goes into the room where the emperor is sitting, and the emperor is actually psychically still aware. The emperor is still there. There is a psychic presence there. Okay. And Gullumman has this psychic commune with him. And in that moment of contact, the emperor is not able to hide his actual emotional state. He can't be manipulative, he can't be smooth, because he just doesn't have the limitations to do that. He doesn't have the capacity to limit himself that way. And what

Golem and Realizes in that moment is that he and all of his brothers were never viewed by the emperor as anything other than tools. Okay. So just you have a final reveal of the depths of his depravity there. Okay. And so the whole you are my son, bullshit. And allowing those people to die was was compounded by that. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a manipulation. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And who thinks this guy's a hero? All of humanity. And gollum and here's the deal. Gollum and leaves the room. Go's out and talks with a bunch of mortal, you know, imperial, you know, high ranking imperial people. And he doesn't say anything to anybody about it. Because the revelation would destroy the Imperium and lead to,

I've heard of this before. Absolutely chaos and dissolution. So why you let Nickson cheat in the election. Yeah, it is. And commit trees and in order to get elected. Okay, so then what about the audience who's actually consuming this material? Do you all ever think that this dude was the hero?

Well, it depends on which edition of the game you're talking about. Okay. Early on in the history of the game, it was really clear, like I've said before, I've talked about the history of the meta. It was really clear. This is all so incredibly arch and way over the top. And we're satirizing, Dune, and we're satirizing Michael Moorecock, and we're taking all these things and throwing them all together. And it was this very baroque kind of kind of panto kind of tone to the whole thing.

And so the emperor wasn't really a hero because the emperor wasn't really a character. The emperor was like a background element. Okay. And then in later editions, we actually started seeing the emperor portrayed as a character. And there was kind of some heroic like, well, you know, he's the emperor. He's, you know, the leader of humanity and the emperor.

But at this time, I mean, you got Star Wars out and Emperor is not a good thing. So, yeah, I know. So, and even at that point are the people consuming it in any way unerronically thinking that he is a hero. has been a percentage of the consuming public or within within the fandom. Yeah, there there has been an unquestioning percentage. Let me like if you're always with an A group, you know, but but who have been like, oh, man, the emperor, the emperor had the right idea, like, you know, kind of kind of of unify humanity. Whatever you had to do. Those are, you know, countercultural twists, though, like fans, right? Kind of bullshit. Yeah, not.

Okay. Yeah, but they mean it. So, you know, right, right. You know, just, you know, it's people that are like, what if we are the disease? Like that kind of bullshit. Oh, yeah. Like, that kind of crap. You know, who they fully believe that, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you're an idiot, but okay.

So, okay. Well, yeah. So within, within his own lore though, the emperor is revered by millions, billions. Sure, sure. You know, and turns out, no. No, it's not at all.

I gotta say, it feels a little like in front of the veil, everything you said, yeah, but like behind the veil, which is what literally everybody who consumes this stuff, they already kind of know he's a bad guy. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, it's not. Okay. You know, I think the revelation for most of us was the,

the extent to which he actually was like no shit. Yeah. So he wasn't, he wasn't a flawed hero who turned bad. This fucker was bad from the jump. Yeah. No, this is the thing I was, I get that. Like there was an ideology that drove him to this. It was, it was. ideology that drove him to this. It was inality.

Yeah, his, and you go, and in the, the revelation that the primarchs were nothing but tools to him was really new. Okay. Like the idea that no, these were his sons. Right, right. Was something that was accepted as part of lore by by fans for a long time. So yeah. Okay. So there's my first one. All right. Well, I've got a few

more villains who weren't or I could scroll down enough to find a hero who wasn't. What would you like? Whatever you want to do. Okay. Well, I'm good either way. Then let's see. Last one was a comic book guy. This will be a movie guy. It's another guy. All right. So I want you to think back to the Halcyon days of the mid 1990s. I want you to think of a man who so clearly was in the wrong and and who held an entire city hostage For his own nefarious ends and then who was consumed by his own followers Who took it a step further who took it a step further. I want you to think about Brigadier General, General Francis X Hummel from the rock.

You know what? I was there. I figured that out. I actually like it was the whole way. We, okay. This dude was misunderstood. Like everybody thinks he's the villain and I mean we the audience think he's the villain because I always go from the audience

Respect yeah, yeah, um general Hummel was a Brigadier general for the Marines He served three tours in Vietnam Panama Grenada and Desert Storm He also ended up in northern Laos and southern China during his time running black ops for the US government He followed orders and he was responsible for over 200 hostile kills. He received three purple hearts, two silver stars and the Congressional model, Medal of Honor. Clearly a hero. Yeah. So why is he villainized? Quite simple. He saw the way he and his men were used in wars of expansion and colonialism. The Pentagon shockingly in a movie made in 1995 was showing a capricious lack of concern

for their fallen soldiers. The commendations, the compensation and the military benefits due to a soldier who performed his duty for his country were denied to Humbles Men. This happened so much that he could not stand by idly and accept that the government that he had answered to refused to take care of the men who made a danger to hand it gotten killed. Hummel told the truth and he sought to write wrong.

You can't do that with a colonial power. And he even started by trying to go through proper channels. He tried doing it the right way. And he was denied repeatedly. And he was given this denial over and over again to the point where since he was the general who assigned many of these men to these far off places, he was the one who had to speak those denials to their families. And once he couldn't make the government's leaders see reason through the established normal channels, he had little choice

but to escalate their thinking, which is exactly what he told his wife, his wife being the words that are carved on her tombstone at her gravesite. No name, just his wife. How 90s? Yeah. So he gathered to himself, like minded individuals, who would help him to write this wrong. The most effective way was to steal 15 VX gas rockets from the Naval weapons depot and find an isolated place with as minimal as possible hostages,

whom he held in good care, and from which he was able to extort the right thing from the government. This was his plan. He asked for a hundred million dollars in payment, from which he could privately dole out to his men and the families of 83 Marines who lost their lives for operations. They were denied compensations and benefits. I'd also like to point out that he actually made sure that the children who were on Alcatraz commonly referred to as the rock weren't on the island when he took it over. He told them to go get their teacher and get off the island. And he didn't even ask the government to raise taxes, by the way. He said to do it out of an illegal military slush fund that was used to fund abuses overseas.

Anyways, yeah, unfortunately he did not vet his men enough and this leads to his death because two of the mutinied when he showed compassion toward the city of San Francisco. In the mutinie, he dies, but he tells the FBI agent where to find the last rocket helping to end the crisis that had clearly spun out of his control. This was a crisis that frankly would not have happened, had the Pentagon and the government simply done the right thing to begin with. So I think Francis X Hummel, Brigadier General of the United States Marines, now deceased, I think he was a hero. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And again, a well-intentioned extreme, Mr. Yes. Yeah. Well, driven to extremes. Yeah. I do have a type. I very clearly have a type. Although my next one, quite honestly, is, uh, is, is not of the same type.

Okay. So why don't I give you this one and then we'll hear from you again. Okay, that sounds good. Let's talk about Admiral Kendall Ozzel. Okay. You might you might remember him. Legally. Well, let me explain this. This will help you. He is not as clumsy as he is stupid. Okay. Kendall Ozzel is a deep cover operative of the rebellion in the Galactic Empire.

Saves them, saves them as a crucial time and he is a class trader. He is a hero, not a villain. He was the one that was the admiral in charge of Vader's flagship. Oh, okay. Over the battle of Hoff charge of Vader's flagship. Oh, okay. Over the battle of Hoff and the Adoet system. Okay, right.

Kendall Ozzel was born into a wealthy family on, family on Curidia or Carrieda and he definitely, he definitely lived in the silver spoon kind of life that one could expect of an upper class, twin child. During, during the Clone Wars, he was the captain in the Grand Army of the Republic, and he worked with the clones on multiple missions. It was definitely his bloodline, not his competence that kept him moving forward, however, and many ways he's the Peter Principle of the Star Wars universe.

And since those who can't do and those who can't teach, he became an instructor for a time at the Military Academy of Korea. He worked alongside the Jedi and the Clone Wars and he ended up gaining command of the Republic forces when the Jedi in charge, man named Ta-Hoot, or Ta-Hoot was assassinated. After fighting against overwhelming odds, he surrendered his troops and himself

invoking the conventions of civilized systems. However, that was rebuffed by a sage Ventress who began executing clones immediately. This broke Ozil while he was at POW and he didn't recover for some time. Ozil was even personally recognized by Palpatine who preferred the propaganda victory of his escape and the subsequent victory by Kit Fisto against separatist forces. Now I do not want to come out saying that Oslo was a competent man. He was not a competent man by any stretch of the imagination.

He was not a man, an imaginative man either. He was in many ways the Claudius of the Empire. Okay. He ended up even teaching languages and history. He never should have been given command again, quite frankly. So of course, Peter Principle, all the same, the Empire is nothing if not consistent.

And thus, he rose to the rank of Admiral through his own scheming and blundering, fell over backward into success as so many did in the Empire. Yeah. Now at one point, there's a group of stormtroopers who actually desert and he seeks to cover the whole thing up because again he's a goddamn moron. This was honestly the first glimpse though that he's actually been feigning this incompetence the entire time because Ozzel and another officer conspired in an unsanctioned scheme to kill Mara J. at the emperor's hand after discovering

that she had access to ship's personnel files, bridge logs and flight logs. See he thought that Mara Jade, the Emperor's hand, after discovering that she had access to ship's personnel files, bridge logs, and flight log. See, he thought that Mara Jade, Ozil thought that Mara Jade was there to investigate him, but she'd claimed to be there to investigate and eliminate pirates. Since Jade was the Emperor's hand, Ozil figured she wouldn't be sent on a trivial mission to eliminate pirates,

and then he figured out that she was using that as a cover to investigate stormtroopers who deserted. So he tried to kill her, despite knowing that such an act would carry grave repercussions, should he be discovered? You could say that this was naked ambition. Surely the other officer saw him as an incompetent and ambitious officer.

So, but how else could you attempt to kill a deadly agent of Palpatine if you didn't have a good cover story? Okay. And he jumped into the system where Marjade was seeking pirates, but was not successful in capturing or even intercepting them. Or she wasn't. He weaponized his incompetence so well that most folks thought he was simply an idiot again. However, Marjade is much, much crafter and much smarter. She suggests to Darth Vader that he actually keep an eye on Ozil because she saw that nobody could rise to that level of power,

keep it and still remain that ineffectual. Okay. She sniffed it out and she said, Devater, quote, keep an eye on Ozzyl, I suppose. I don't know if the man is just loyal, easily manipulated or just plain stupid, but I think he bears watching. So. Okay. So what I'm saying is, you can't be that bad without actually being really, really

good. Right. It's got to be an act. Nobody is that bad and that dumb. You would fall over on to success at least once or twice. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to remember, Jack Benny did a bit in his radio show. And I think you carried it over into his TV show where he'd played the violin.

And the gag was that he was absolutely awful. That like he was like making a cat's screech. Like just terrible. And I don't remember who the musician was, but it was some, I wanna say it's like Pearlman, but I don't know if I'm even right about him being a violinist. But there's a story of him just falling this concert violinist, falling over,

like loving to watch Jack Benny do this. Because the way he was so bad was a glue to the fact that he was actually really good at playing violin. And so to this concert violinist, it was hysterical to see the ways that he was consciously torturing his instruments. Right. You know, and then T.H. White similarly has a thing in the once-in-future king about Lancelot would go off to compete in tournaments. And he would conceal his identity. He'd be, you know, the black knight.

Sure. And he would conceal his identity. He'd be, you know, the black knight. Sure. And he would do everything wrong. Like he would, he would sit wrong in the saddle. And he'd, he'd make this huge show of being utterly incompetent. And, and other nights would totally, you know, just completely underestimate him. Right.

We're gonna roll this guy. Right, right until it was the moment of impact at which point he sat down properly, compacted everything up and nailed him. Sure. And and what white said was as they fell out of the saddle, they all thought, ah, Lancelot, went down to the ground. You know, it's it's yeah, it's the same it's the same theory. You can't be that bad without actually being pretty good. Yeah. Okay.

Now his cover was nearly blown, but Bravis he was, he continued helping from within. Vader promoted Ozzle to Fleet Admiral and not just Fleet Admiral, but the commanding officer of the executor, Vader's ship. Now, Ozzle's fame and competence was the ace in the hole that the rebels absolutely needed. Because when the Empire sent probes all over the galaxy looking for rebel alliance high command secret

base, he had an easy cover. I'm in a feet snob who doesn't think very deeply about things. Also, same things true about Ozzles. Shortly after the Battle of Gavin, shortly after the Battle of Gavin, he won the field. But when he did it, he did it so incompetently that the rebels were allowed to scatter. And instead, he was focusing on, he basically had broken their code for an algorithm

for retreat. And so he's following the letter of the law, so to speak, and letting them scatter while saying, no, no, I've got their code. I'm going to follow their broken code. We broke it. Look at my brilliance. I'll know whether they're escaping to, but the Rebels completely scattered and none of them went to there. Okay. So this allows the Rebels to survive and he looks like he's

following protocol. You won't get in trouble following protocol and you keep your job, even as ineffective as it was because how could we possibly do that? Ozzle then begins to cultivate and gather around him and place in the high-ranking positions other incompetent leaders. And again, it's the perfect cover given the Empire's penchant for knocking on doors, finding them locked and then deciding, well, I guess we have to move on for their search. He knew the Peter Principle so well that he continued to weaponize that. Now, Ozzel handled and tried to dismiss pro-reports of the Rebels' bases whereabouts, and he could have easily kept Vader hopping from system to system far away from the Hawth for the remainder

of his time in charge, but for the ambitions of one Captain Piet. So Ozzel gets undone by this. Piett hated Osil and held on to one pro report from an uncharted ice planet until Vader was actually on the bridge. And this time, Osil couldn't stop the discovery, although he still tried. And when it was obvious that they were going to roll up on the rebels and finally extinguish all the hope in the galaxy, Admiral Osil did the one last act of planned incompetence that saved the rebels again. He came out of light speed too close to the system. Claiming that a sudden appearance of an imperial fleet would catch the alliance off guard,

Ozzle brought his fleet, aptly named the Death Squadron, out of light speed in a in close proximity to Hawth, rather than to emerge on the outskirts of the system. Now, this surprised a lot of the rebels at Echo Base to raise an energy shield strong enough to withstand any orbital bombardment and initiated by the orbiting star destroyers. Realizing that death squadron would now have to sacrifice its overwhelming firepower superiority,

which is how you beat the rebels, and enabled the rebels, and enabled the rebels to use their greatest ability, the ability to scatter quickly, as is how he'd been defeated before, instead of fighting a costly and time-consuming ground battle, rather than simply destroying the base from orbit as a result of Oslo's actions.

So now the Empire has to send the ground pounders. Vader had had enough. Now it's not clear whether or not Vader was on to his complicity. He just executed him on the spot, so it might have been because he thinks that Ozil was grossly incompetent. Either way, Ozil took it to his grave that he has been the best fifth columnist for the rebels that nobody ever knew about. He has been the best fifth columnist for the Rebels that nobody ever knew about. Further evidence of this is to recall the fact that he was a teacher and Ozil wrote a manual, innovations in Imperial Naval tactics, and it was so terrible that following these lessons, officers would be at a tremendous disadvantage against the brilliance of Admiral

Ackbar and would only find victory if they had overwhelming numbers in a pitched battle, which is something the rebels never did. Knowing this, as he clearly did, Ozil knew how important dogma and regulation and protocol was, Ozil had spent his whole life and career being a by the book officer. He definitely had to know that this would influence and depress the abilities of the next generations officer corps in the Imperial Navy, allowing the rebels to continue growing with a protracted inconsurrection. Vader himself felt saddled with Ozzel.

Piett, genius that he was, felt held down by Ozzel. Piett, genius that he was, felt held down by Ozzel. Ozzel was the worst thing for morale on both sides of it. Being a ring knocker, he was all polished, no action. He was a career politician who would cast a blame on him, subordinates anytime he failed. All of this was a calculated move. The rebels could not have had a better ally than Admiral Ozzel. Okay. Alright. So, Ozzel fifth-pillumness. Yes.

Ozzel deserves rehabilitation. Okay. Yeah. I can see that. So, who do you got? I got Palpatine. Oh, shit. Who do you got? I got Palpatine. Oh shit.

We don't normally want up each other here, but yeah, just did. Although this is your second emperor. Yeah, well, you know, and I just did my second field commander. Yeah, so, you know, yeah, no. So everybody focuses on the fascism, which is fair, which is totally fair. Yeah, I'm not going to argue that again, I'm not going to argue his data tyrant. And I'm not going to sugarcoat any of that kind of stuff. But I think we need we need to look at You know what exactly the republic looked like in its in its final days

Mm-hmm I think we really need to take a look at at what at what that structure Looked like and how how that operated Sure Because at the beginning of the prequel You know Palpatine is a representative within the Galactic Senate of this little planet out on the edge of the Republic somewhere. In the book. Yeah.

Which has an elected queen who is a minor. Yeah. And like, I don't even know where to begin. Who then appoints a senator? Who then appoints a senator? Yeah. Who then last longer than the elected officially elected monarch? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the weird, weird kind of janky system. Yeah, I would even say Byzantine. Mm-hmm. Looking at the architecture. Yeah, you know, actually, we knew. So, so it's, it's, you know, I mean, it's a bizarre political situation to go on there.

Yeah. I don't know what the deal is with that to begin with. Like how much actual power does does Amidala actually have compared to the men who are all around her is her role mostly ceremonial. Right. Right. Like we don't, but that's just one planet. That's that's not exactly exactly. That's that's exactly exactly. That's not even the focus. Looking at, you know, Louisiana has parishes. I mean, you know, different different states have different things. Yeah. Yeah. Texas has an express lane to capital punishment. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, so, but we do need to look specifically in Naboo because at the beginning of the prequels,

Naboo is under blockade by the trade federation. Yes. Now, we don't really ever get an explanation of whether the trade federation is a group of planets or a yield of some kind or a syndicate, like it seems to have elements of all of the above. It does. Eventually, the trade federation becomes kind of the core around which the separatist movement coalesces. And like their paint is being villains.

Right. But at the same time as, you know, their villainous characteristics, we also kind of have to wrestle with the fact that they were the creation of George Lucas, who was a boomer from, you know, Modesto. Yeah. And so there are some unfortunate overtones.

I would say allegorical representation. Okay. Yeah. That are involved in what the Des Moidians look and sound like. As the primary faces of the trade federation when this whole thing starts. Mm-hmm. You know, but my lord, is that legal? Like, really, George? Really?

Really? And so this trade federation, which might be a corporate entity, or it might be a coalition of other planets, right, has now succeeded like in the beginning of the first film, episode one, they have succeeded in putting a blockade around Naboo that is serious enough that the Nibbunians have to run the blockade to get rid to the Galactic Senate. This is even happening. Right. Right. So, which sounds like a very ineffective

republic when a bank can basically surround Lichtenstein and not get word out. That's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Thank goodness you have weird as a schedic monks who take an interest. Yeah. Right. Who can get sense, who can get sense to investigate what's going on as independent agents, as independent or the, it's really muddy. It's it's desperately, desperately unclear. Like, who has the authority here? Who grants that authority?

Like, they have the authority to do this, like, because they're Jedi. Right. Do they have the authority because they've been deputized somehow by Chancellor Valorum? Do they only get deputized for this specific thing? Do they self deputized? Do they? Are they self appointed? You know, and I mean, you've, you've gone off on the jet, we've both gone off on the jet eye order. Mm hmm. Before about how utterly fucked that is as an institution. Mm hmm. At the time of the prequels. So now you have a republic that is making use of said fucked institution. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because because what other what are the mechanism do they have until they contract to build a clone army? Right. We don't know if the Republic has an army. True. Right. I'm okay with the Republic not having a standing army though. Yeah, no, I know problem there not not going to not going to disagree with you, but like if you don't have a standing army in a

Republic like this, when you have a situation occur like this, you're going to have to rely on janky, weird, you know, clued together methods of enforcement because because nobody's there's no clear rules about that against handled. You know, the other side of that though is if you don't have a standing army, you would better have some really solid and clear institutions in place and they don't. They don't. They don't. There's nothing there.

I assume you're going to get to the courts soon. Um, I would, if we knew enough about the courts, we know that they take longer than the Senate. Right. And so I didn't want to steal your thunder if you're coming to that. But yeah, you've got there's no, there's no legal redress. There's no, yeah, there's no judicial branch to stop where there is judicial branch.ress. There's no, yeah, there's no judicial branch to stop. Or there is judicial branch, but apparently it's so badly mired, it's even worse than the Senate. And the Senate can't do anything

because there's no, there, there, well, even if, even if they're not owned by, the trade federation has their own sedatorial representatives. Yeah, and they can bog down in procedure as well, as they do immediately, they request a committee. Yeah, immediately request a committee

and block everything that they fill a buster. Yeah. And so, I mean, the whole system is fucked. Yeah, that's true. There is no part of the system that isn't just a massive cluster fuck. And like we we eventually find out that like this has all been part of some, you know, fifth dimensional chess game being played by Palpatine behind the scenes. Sure. But like if the system wasn't so fucked to begin

with, he wouldn't be able to do it. So is this one of those where they had it coming, but they didn't necessarily deserve it? Yeah, they had it coming, but they didn't really deserve it. See, because I would actually, and if you've got more on Y Palpatine as a hero here, I'm happy for it. But otherwise, I have something I would like to place into the record as well. Okay, go ahead. I would like to place into the record as well. Okay, go ahead. He knew, because I mean, he was a force user, not bound by the petty dogma of a self-appointed

whacked out branch of a schedix. Whacked out cold. Yeah, but he saw in the force the future and the future included the Yu-Juan Vong invasion. The only way to stop that invasion is to meet it with force. We know because he lost to the rebellion and the rebellion became the new republic and the new republic got rolled by the Eugion von for I the usual for a long time. Yeah. So he knew that that was coming. In fact, that's why he sent thrown out to the unknown regions because he was like, Hey, go talk to your people again. The usual on vonger coming and we're going to need an alliance with the chis, you're a chis,

um, you can bridge that gap. It didn't work because the rebels keep getting good at things. Yeah. Because again, Palpatine's taking over the shadow of a republic that was so rotted from within. He was only working with what he had. So I could absolutely see, you know, again, he's definitely an tyrant. And his motives are not pure. No mean, sure, sure, he sees the

use on Von coming and he's like, okay, no, look, that can't stand because I've got to be the one in charge. Yeah. But isn't that very doctor doom of him of like only I can do it? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, you know, and I mean, of course, the Sith motivation for revenge over the Jedi was a big part of it too, but. But again, maybe they didn't deserve it, but they had it coming. They totally had it coming. And let's, let's take a look at, you know, what exactly happened in the wars between the Jedi and the Sith.

And nobody comes out of that looking good. No, it's, it's an ethnic cleansing at best. Yeah. So, no, I'm kind of on board with this. I think that you've got an argument for Palpatine at the very least, meaning well. Weird things, say. But at the same time, it's very rare that I'm in favor of any kind of ethnic cleansing whatsoever. Well, yeah.

But a self-appointed group of self-important people might top that list. And yeah, again, I come back to he saw a greater evil coming and he needed time to prepare. Yeah. Now, what he would have done afterward might have pushed him back over to evil. Yeah. You know, just like Anakin was keeping that razor-thin balance until he stole the droid. Yeah. At which point, okay, he's irreverably evil. Yeah, because.

All bets are off. But, and not because it led to greater evils. It just it balanced. It was. Yeah, no, property theft. Yeah, we're done. And not so much like that property thefts particularly bad. It's just that you know, you had 50 here and 50 here and this was the one and look where

it fell. So it could be that Palpatine might have actually unbalanced the scales again. That's a good point. Yeah, no, I'm down for this. I agree. I'm going to go back to another commanding officer who was a villain that I think needs rehabilitation. This would be Lieutenant Tom Kuzanski. Okay.

Carl Sine Iceman. All right. All right. He was one of a few select aviators that Navy sent to Top Gunn. Yup. Clearly, and he was very clearly and accepted by all his fact

the best pilot in the Top Gunn class of 1986. Yes. His Rio, short for radar intercept officer, was also a very competent man, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Ron Kerner, call sign slider. Pete Mitchell, a hothead who didn't pay attention to regulations or rules when they were inconvenient, and a very good pilot in his own right would eventually bump heads with Kazanski as the two were competing for the top spot that Kazanski held. It was clear from the beginning of their meeting that there was a difference in philosophies, Lieutenant Junior Grade Nick Bradshaw, Carl Sainte Goose, informed Mitchell, Carl Sainte Maverick, of Kaczynski's abilities. He said, quote,

that's him, ice man. It's the way he flies, ice cold cold no mistakes. He wears you down you get bored frustrated to do something stupid and he's gotcha He goose also acknowledged that iceman was superior Iceman quietly outperforms the rest of his class and takes the top gun trophy with a few theatrics Unlike Maverick who is flying with a lot of skill, but also a lot of attitude Unlike Maverick, who is flying with a lot of skill, but also a lot of attitude. Kuzanskiy, Ken, and does, blandly, outlasts his opponents with monotonous, mistake-free technical mastery. His robotically, unemotional dissection of his opponent's games, even on their best day is what sets him apart.

You may not like him, you cannot deny his skills. How can you hate a guy who flies with such a refined mastery? And how can you hate a guy who understands job in terms best in terms of other safety? By comparison, Maverick is known by everyone to be a great pilot, but he is undisciplined, and that's the whole other danger unto itself. Now, if you take a look at the analysis of Lieutenant Commander Rick Heatherley, call sign jester, he see it, he even says so when discussing Mitchell's emotional capabilities and how they interfere with his flying, quote,

his fitness report says it all flies by the seat of his pants totally unpredictable. The only reason Mitchell had caught Heatherley was due to breaking the rules, Heather Lee admits that Mitchell's skill and and and admires it, but he does not know if he would trust him as a teammate in combat. His Rio and best friend Brad Shaw, co-name Goose, says to Pete Mitchell, quote, every time we go up there, it's like you're flying with a ghost. Yeah, this is this again, iceman is seen as the villain in this movie. Yeah, but the whole time Maverick is clearly coming apart of the scenes.

His other commanding officer, commander Tom Jordan told him quote, you've been busted. You lost your qualifications as section leader three times put in hack twice by me with the history of high speed passes over five air control towers. And also one out most daughter, you're a hell of an instinctive pilot, maybe too good. So he also sees the problem. Yeah. Commander Mike Metcalf calls in Viper, the head instructor at Topgun, who knew Mitchell's father also calls it out, speculating in fact that Mitchell is trying to live up to his idea of his father. Quote, is that why you fly the way you do trying to prove something?

So back to Iceman. Iceman was more technically sound and disciplined and was clearly the better pilot. He didn't leave his wingman unlike Maverick, and he wasn't the only one to bring those concerns to Pete Mitchell. After a tragedy that killed Lieutenant Bradshaw, for which Lieutenant Mitchell was found not negligent, Kazanski was able to pick up and move on. Emotionally he had the temperament to be a solid pilot. Mitchell, on the other hand, was not. He nearly washed out of the flight school. And who was one of the first pilots to reach out to Mitchell?

Tom Kuzanski. Now, it's true that Bradshaw was also his friend, but he wanted to specifically reach out to Lieutenant Mitchell, recognizing their special bond. He said, quote, Maverick, I'm sorry about Goose. Everybody liked him. But he also wanted to give Maverick the space to grief, so then he left. This was also the second time he expressed his condolences on a mutual friend, the first one being Lieutenant Bill Cortell, call sent Cougar,

who'd been like a brother to Kuzansky in flight school and who'd suffered a nervous breakdown during exercises in the Indian Ocean. Now, regardless of the tragedy, Kazanski was focused on the needs of the group and he was taking care of his squadron mate. Even in the flight exercise that ultimately killed Lieutenant Bradshaw, he'd started the whole thing

by checking in on the two of them. He said, quote, you up for this one, Maverick? Now, you call it arrogance, I call it concerned and friendly jiving. Now, all that said, it is Iceman's attempt to help Maverick figure out how to fly safer for his own allies that had me thinking that people have misunderstood Tom Kuzanski. He had learned from their previous confrontations where he told Mitchell, quote, you're everyone's problem.

That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous, which is sparked an emotional reaction from an already volatile pirate or pilot where Maverick actually physically assaulted him briefly. So then Iceman switched gears because the second time around, Kazanski, like a good leader would, address the problem in a way that adjusts to the communication needs of the listener. He'd already noted that Mitchell wasn't a team player and he said quote early on when he met him he says I've heard that about you. You like to work alone.

He doesn't try to embarrass or bluster Mitchell this time either because Ansky isn't trying to embarrass Mitchell in front of the other officers but it is a message that everybody needs to hear so he brings it up in in range of the other officers, but it is a message that everybody needs to hear. So he brings it up in in range of everyone. And he says, Maverick, it's not your flying, it's your attitude, the enemy's dangerous, but right now you're worse than the enemy, you're dangerous and foolish. You may not like the guys flying with you and they may not like you, but who's side or you on? And it clearly had an impact right afterward. Mitchell says that was stupid. I know better than that. Says it to his friend Bradshaw who says, I know, he knew that his emotions got the best of

him and it took the only pilot better than him to point out so that he could hear it. Had Pete Mitchell internalize that message earlier things might have turned out differently for his Rio. Now in their first official mission together, which saw both Mitchell and Kazansky equipped themselves well, wherein Mitchell got three kills and Kazansky got one, Kazansky got the first one, they reconciled their differences. But in the air combat, Mitchell again ruled by his emotions, almost abandoned Kaczynski during the mission, to the point where there were four to five migs to Kaczynski's single F-14. And Kaczynski's skill kept him in the fight until Mitchell came back

to his senses. A lesser pilot would have died. And so I have it that Tom Kazansky is actually hero in this story. All right. He's the Erigorn. Yeah, yeah. The the trope there is we we follow the Hobbit. Yeah, but but Erigorn is the you know king figure who normally would be the hero of the story. Yeah, yeah be the hero of the story. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, no, I can't, you know, as somebody who was of an age to see that movie twice in the theater when it came out. Well, and your dad was Navy, so I was. Naval Navy, so that was part of it too. And who got a flat top haircut after my fifth grade year of school, because you know, it was just that awesome. Yeah, no, I can, now as an adult,

I can look at that and go, yeah, no, that that lines up. That totally tracks. Maverick was kind of a dick. Yeah, like self-absorbed impetuous relied on talent more than learning more than discipline or portraying. Yeah, and And when you go to a school that's specifically there to give you more tricks. Yeah.

Yeah. The number of things that that movie obfuscated, I don't necessarily want to say got wrong, but they they fudged or changed one of my neighbors as a kid had had actually been the father of one of my schoolmates. We had had attended op-gon. He was actually a graduate of the school. And this would have been in the late 70s that he went. And when he was going there, I think he was flying the F4 Phantom. So it might have actually been earlier than that.

I actually saw his plaque because you graduate and you get something. I love me wall. And it had, if I remember right, it had an F4 Phantom on it. Okay. But he alluded to a number of things in that movie being just completely Hollywood. Well, Hollywood was one of the pilots. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. In both man. Yeah. And it's true. Yeah. Wolfman and Hollywood. That's right. Uh, but, um, in, in point of practical fact, nobody at top can actually get to trophy. Right. There is no, there is no competition.

It's no, you're all here and you either graduated or you don't and that's your trophy. Uh-huh. And then you go back to your squadron and you get to teach everybody there. Right. You've learned, uh,, did people get call signs? Oh, is that a codified thing?

Oh, well, it doesn't work quite the way it's portrayed. Do they sense with quote marks in between your first and last name? Yeah. Wow. OK. Or depends on the squron and what happens. But yeah, you'd have your name, rank name,

and then it usually would be your call sign under that. Okay. At least when I saw it, it was just like that. So, add play lock, call sign, the emperor, sometimes. Yeah, call sign, badger. Sure. Or if you ask my aunt possum, but anyway, that's a whole other story. Oh, I'm still shaking my head about that. But,

so like my dad was not a fighter pilot specifically, but he had a call sign. Now, one of the things that is part of that is your nickname, sometimes your nickname would carry with you from assignment to assignment. Sure. And sometimes you'd move from one assignment to another and the guys at your new squadron would be like, no, we're not going to call you that. You're pretty princess or whatever. Right.

You're not badger, you are possum. You're possum, yeah. Right. And the other thing is, one of the lessons my dad taught me or tried to teach me repeatedly because this was such a big thing socially within aviation culture of the Navy. What does never show weakness? Never let anybody know that a nickname bugged you. Don't sell it. Don't, don't, yeah, don't sell it because because the moment, the moment they find out that it annoys you, by the way, that's your nickname now. Right. So a call sign wasn't something

like awesome. Like Maverick and being called Maverick. Yeah, I mean, that's not a positive thing. That's not a positive thing. Like in the movies, played up is like, oh, yeah, no, he's, you know, he plays by his own rules and he's just, he's awesome. No, man, he's called Maverick because everybody's like, you're fucking nuts, man. Yeah, yeah. And Goose got his name because, you know, he's got a neck like, you know. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, Iceman sounds literally really cool. But it's probably people talking about

how robotic and cold fish he is. Yeah, and it probably would piss him off, because it's like, I'm not a fucking robot. I'm good at what I do. Like, yeah, I go home and him off because it's like, I'm not a fucking robot. I'm good. It what I do. Like, yeah, I go home and I fuck it's fine. Yeah, you know, come on. You know, yeah. And yeah, so lighter obviously made small hamburgers. Like, or something. Yeah. You know, whatever you're or, or, you know, managed to, you know, trip over something in front of everybody in the right room. And like, forever, that's his nickname.

And that's how it works. That's the part they don't tell you. Wolfman was exceptionally hairy. Yeah. Yeah. Hollywood was like, you know, struck out in front of women. Exactly.

You know, got humiliated. It was like, oh, hey, look at Hollywood. You know, sundown was because they weren't brave enough to be ultra-racist. Yeah. Yeah. Cougar was because his mom was hot. Merlin was, you know, because, yeah, now I get it. Yeah, I put on my was a Roman hat, but like, you know, um, Viper was because he always kept his windows clean. Here's something. Yeah, you know, God knows. But, Kester was because he was Italian. He always talked with his hands. Oh nice. I like things. Here's something. Yeah, you know, God knows. But tester was because he was Italian. He always talked with his hands. Oh, nice. I like things. That's good. So, you know, like my father, for example,

went through a number of nicknames that were essentially his call sign. Pussy magnet. Yes. No, no, I know. He had a t-shirt that like he only wore very rarely, like it was if it was laundry day, and he had nothing else to wear kicking around the house. He'd put on this shirt that had his name on it in those iron on kind of, you know, coffee letters. It was a relic from, you know, back before I was born. Sure. And it was the name on it. It was like, like you'd have your name on a jersey and it was spunk Meyer.

And I tried to get an explanation of why he had it. And he was clear. He didn't like telling the story. And just like cookies. There's something. Yeah. God, that's like. But, but it, uh, it, it, it had to do with a fake name he'd made up when he was when he was

trying to call it like going on going on shore leave. Some other naval officer named Blalock had apparently done something. Like a few weeks before Dad showed up in that part of the Mediterranean. And dad was trying to make reservations at places for his shore leave and the moment he said his name, they were like, no, fuck you and hung up on it. So we had to come up with that. And we had to come up with a fake name. And it was like, and so, and so, like forever, you know, for the rest of that cruise, that's what he got called. And it just it bugged him. Because we like, look, I had to make this up because it was an inconvenience.

Right. And then in his last tour, he got named O.B., which depending on who you asked, either stood for old bill, because he was the oldest officer in his squadron at that point. Or out of bounds, because everywhere they went, because this was not a fighter squadron. So everywhere they went, they'd be stuck someplace for three weeks at a time and they'd play golf in their time off. And so out of bounds, OB, or, and this was the one that really pissed him off, he was having a really rough day. After this is where never show weakness comes in having a really rough day. And he sat down on the end of his bed in the quarters that they had and were like, it was a barracks.

So, like three or four beds in the room. And he sat down on the edge of the bed and something, something like this straw that broke the camel's back, something had gone wrong. And he sat down on the end of the bed, put his head in his hands and just said, oh, Bill. There you go. Self. Yeah, oh, Bill. There you go. Self. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a pause.

The other from the other side of the room, he heard one of his squadron mates go, Oh, Bill. Like, oh, shit. Yeah. And so that stuck with him for three years. So, you know, but yeah, so there's all kinds of things that they obfuscated or changed or tried to make look cool. Right. But I think the biggest thing they did was the gaslit us into thinking that Maverick was the hero.

Absolutely. You've sold me on that. Yeah, for sure. Cool. All right, so who you got? I've got another hero who wasn't and it's another, another 40k character. Okay. Won't be as long this time I promise. And this one really hurts. Now the last episode that we did, I that we did this on, I talked about Magnus the Red, who was one of the primarchs. Right. And you remember, he was the most psychically powerful of the primarks. Right. And you remember he was the most psychically powerful

of the primarks. He was a sorcerer. And the emperor told him, no, you can't do sorcery. Even though now, of course, I've revealed to you, the emperor had done sorcery, but he's telling his sons, no, you can't do that. Sure. that right? Sure. So okay. And so I, I sucked it up for that episode and I and I towed the line that Magnus did nothing wrong, which hurts for me to say. What hurts even more for me to say is that Laman Russ, the primark of the Space Wolves chapter, the sixth legion of the space wolves chapter, the sixth legion of the Adeptus Astartis is not a hero. He is a maverick figure as a matter of fact. Okay.

Now, as I mentioned already, that of course the primarcks got scattered before they could truly be born out of their clothing tanks. Lehman Russ wound up landing on the world of Fenry and was adopted by a powerful becoming a king. Okay. And before he was found, Russ essentially raised, he was first found by wolves, and was literally raised by the gigantic wolves of Fenry. Okay. Until he was large enough and powerful enough to overcome the pack leader leader and then he became the pack leader because this is based on flawed understanding of wolf biology. Sure. Because of when the meadow was written, but the lore was written. So anyway, he became, he ran through the wilderness

as this gigantic wolf man for a number of years until he was found by this chieftain who then brought him into his home, taught him to be human and then gave him the training and the tools to be a war leader. And layman Russ, layman of the Russ, the tribe were the Russ. Wound up becoming his adoptive father's war leader, Captain essentially led the tribe to victory after victory after victory until his adoptive father died. Laman took over rulership of the tribe and then eventually became high can of Fenry.

And then the emperor showed up. And introduced him to his legion. He immediately sent some of his warriors from his home world to be genetically engineered to become space marines. And then he took, you know, went forward and like an obedient son to his newfound father, he conquered more worlds. And his legion gained a reputation for being very, very disciplined in the hunt. And then once it was time to strike the killing blow,

they struck with great ferocity. So they would, they would, they would essentially stalk the enemy and set everything on and then strike the killing blow. Sure. And so he cultivated this idea of the sixth and himself as being the emperor's executioners. When the emperor needs something done, he sends us because we get it done.

Right. Well, finally, well not really, finally, finally, but as the situation began to disintegrate, leading up to the great civil war between the legions that's referred to as the Horace Heresy. I've already told you the story of Magnus the Red who realized that one of the primarks was going to turn against their father. And he sent a psychic projection of himself to Tara, right, worn the emperor and that caused all kinds of having to all kind. Yeah, blue all kinds of say, screwed up the system. Yeah. And then in the wake of that, the emperor sent a message to Lehman Russ and said, you need to go to Tizca,

the planet of the sorcerers, and you need to sanction your brother. Now, you need to sanction Magnus the Red. I always struggle with the word sanction because it's one of those words like cleave. Yeah, so what does sanction mean in this instance? Well in the sense that the Emperor meant you need to go punish your brother. Okay. Thank you to you need to deliver punishment and you need to bring him to me. Okay. Okay. Cool. Now that was go there. Yeah, punish your brother. That was the message that the emperor sent. Mm hmm. The chaos gods because this message had to be sent essentially via psychics because that's the only way to send messages faster than light. Mm hmm. The chaos gods who live in the dimension that everything psychic happens in intercepted

the message and sent it to Horus. Okay. Who altered it? Hence the Horus, heresy. And then and then sent it on to to layman Russ. Okay. changing the message enough that there was ambiguity about am I capturing him? Oh, okay. Or am I killing him?

Okay. And layman Russ, ultimately, and there's different novels, depict this different ways depending on who's whose viewpoint you're looking from But ultimately the responsibility has to lie with lemon rust for making the decision to interpret the order Okay that We need to destroy the ninth legion

So he to destroy the ninth legion. So he need to destroy the thousand sucks. So he's got orders saying take care of this group of people. And he's like, I guess I have to genocide now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but that's pretty, pretty irredeemable like already sold. And then, and then, so he arrives at this planet and this planet is a Is this beautifully constructed city?

Uh-huh. It's it's it's the library of Alexandria Like that's that's the very clear meta kind of comparison you're supposed to make It is this place of great learning and great sensitivity of culture and great art. And it is built to be beautiful and architecturally perfect. And the sixth legion just instinctively fucking hate it. Like, Legion just instinctively fucking hate it. Like because because it is it is too artful. It is too it reeks of awesomeness. Overly well to them to the to the six then especially to the fenn regions of the the sixth, it reeks of decadence. Remember we've talked about Howard's, Robert E. Howard's ideas about civilization. The Penetrations agreed with Howard. This is decadence. This

thinks of sorcery and this thinks of degradation and decay and softness, and it's dishonest and it's false. And so the space wolves arrive on the planet and they just destroy the shit out of everything. Yeah, and the civilians have all been evacuated off the planet. The only people who are there it off the planet. The only people who are there are the thousand sons and their primark magnus. And Magnus tells his his legion to stand down. We're not going to fight. I remember this emperor has ordered us not to fight. We're not going to fight. Okay. I I fucked up. And we can take ownership of the fact that we fucked up and And like, yeah, we got to take our lumps. We got to take our lumps. Well, his legion doesn't listen to him.

Right. Because, well, no, you were right. So fuck them. Right. Because you were right, you're wrong now, which, you know, that is a great ecology. Yeah. And, and so they turn around and they put up resistance against the wolves and the wolves lay them waste. And it's a blood bath on both

sides because the thousand sons have hundreds of sorcerers in their number and the the sons of Fenry are just these killer animal warriors. And at the very end of it all, Magnus sees that his treasured sons are being slaughter. or being slaughter. So he goes out and now he has to fight and Russ just brutalizes him. Just without without any kind of hesitation because the axe has to fall. Right. And I am the axe. And he just accepts this without any kind of critical thought without any kind of like, okay, maybe there's maybe, you know, this is my brother. Maybe we can, you know, we can talk, we can come to some kind of an understanding. I can tell my guys to, you know, right off and chill out. None of that. No, the axe has to fall. I'm the axe. That's what I'm going to do.

And there's no hesitation. And at the at the climax of the fight with his brother, he lifts his brother up and shatters his brother over his knee. Good Lord. And in that moment, Magnus, that is the moment when Magnus falls to chaos and becomes the chaos lord Magnus the Red. As he cries out for any power to aid him and his sons and zinch the changer of ways, who's been manipulating a whole thing from the high and the scenes from the beginning reaches out and and pulls him into the warp. So his back is broken and but he but he becomes a demon prince And that leaves layman Russ and his legion Standing over the shattered bloody ruins of a once paradisical

paradiosicle paradisicle paradisicle standing over the ruins of a once paradadistical world. And he realizes in that moment, even though his, his, his sons are howling in victory and, and you know, look, we, we defeated, we defeated the Malifakaram, sure, defeated the sorcerers and Russ himself realizes in that moment that a blow has been struck in favor of chaos because now his brother Magnus has been pushed to the other side.

Okay. Yeah. And so Russ never sees himself as a villain. He doesn't take ownership. who doesn't take ownership. He doesn't take ownership of his own a villainy. He is he is regretful of what he what he believes he had to do. But there's never there's never contrition. But there's never there's never contrition. He goes on to then get into fist fights with other primarks on the way to Holy Terra because of ego and whatever else. And yeah. So yeah.

I mean, you had me a genocide, but you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Well, I think you had to do it. Right. This is failing. Yeah. Well, and that's that's the again, when you see yourself as the hero of the story, you'll come up with reasons why you did the evil thing. Yeah. So, all right. Well, for my last one, it's going to be a three-fer, but it's all basically the same character. Okay, it's going to stretch across three different mythos. Gandalf, Obi-Wan, and Dumbledore. Okay, Obi-Wan and Dumbledore. Totally with you, 100%.

I'm interested to see sure you've got in all three stories you've got a young man who lives with his uncle who is very to varying degrees cranky as shit. And then eventually, what's that? There's some qualitative differences between them. But I get a question. Of course, there are. Yeah, I mean, Owen Lars is cranky because he's a moisture farmer on a desert planet. You know, the dursleys are cranky because Harry is a goddamn horse rock. Yeah, a whore crock. So he's corrupted their souls and Bilbo is cranky because they were kind of curling onto the one ring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, but they're all cranky as yet. You have a older wizard character. Yep. Literally an older wizard in all three.

I mean, Ben is an old wizard. He calls him that part of the earth type. But yeah, he shows up disrupts their life, which is fine. This is the call to action. I got no problem with that But all three of these guys well, well, let's let's How do I want to attack this? All three of them essentially hit the same beats that make them villains and and that is essentially they Will not and I understand this is part of that mythic journey. But at the same time, being this kind of a facilitator in that mythic

journey, knowingly being this kind of facilitator in that mythic journey, they all three actively and knowingly place this young person in danger that's well above their pay grade, specifically to sacrifice them for the greater good. And I think anytime you go to sacrifice somebody for the greater good, I got problems with you. Okay, because you are not asking them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. You are making decisions on their behalf that they are not qualified to make yet. Instead of training them up, even up to the point where you die because that's part of the journey, you could still tell them now you have a choice to make. It doesn't fucking do that. Straight up tells Frodo, like, you know, oh, there's shit of foot here

and you just have to go there and do the thing. And he knew that Frodo would fail. It's part of it, You know, that's why he thought Gollum had a bigger price, a bigger role to play. It's Frodo's, it's not Frodo's success that saves the world. It's Gollum's failing. With Harry Potter, Dumbledore, well, I'll get to Dumbledore last because I do think that of the three he's the most evil of them. But Obi-Wan Kenobi throws Luke at the emperor, knowing that Luke's going to have to kill his own father, which is some pretty evil shit. Like, yeah, yeah, I'm really, really bad. Yeah. You know, I'm a Obi-Wan Kenobi stand. So I get, I totally get, yeah, I can, I totally get that argument there. You know what? I'm an Obi-Wan, I'm an Obi-Wan Kenobi stand.

I'm not an old Ben stand. Oh, there you go. Yeah. I like that. That's, yeah. That's, yeah. That word. It helps. I like that distinction. Um, what I know. Okay. So with Dumbledore, you're waiting on Dumbledore to last. Yeah. Well, here's a quote for you. Here's a quote, I have spied for you and I and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter. And this is from the fourth biggest villain in that series. That's how bad Dumbledore is that he pushed in cell Snape down with Umbridge and Voldemort because Dumbledore

is the biggest villain in that whole series. Specifically because every single, for the first 11 years of his life and then every single summer, he sent Harry to live with an abusive family. Yep. That's irredeemable. Sorry. I do not give a shit. And then you want to add to that the fact that he straight up said, yeah, this is to sacrifice him later. So not only are you sending him and do an abusive environment, you're doing it so that you can then use him to plug the hole that you quite frankly made. And that sounds like something I could just say

to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Little less so to Gandalf. Yeah, I'm going to look at you. It's still some very grooming behavior and then throwing these boys to the slaughter. All right. So, Dumbledore, 110% with you. Cool. So we can just move him off the table. Yeah, we can totally move Dumbledore completely off the table because, because based on, based on your angle of analysis. Yeah, like, no, you're entirely correct. All of everything that Dumbledore did in regard to Harry was in order

to turn him into a weapon to point at. Yes. Voldemort. Yes. Yes. Which in the next episode, I'm going to talk about Professor X doing the same thing. But all right. So, so yeah, boy, yeah, let's talk about somebody, you know, using child soldiers. Yeah. So, so, yeah, a Dumbledore, I'm 100% with you. Okay. Can no be old Ben. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I totally see the angle. Mm hmm. Totally, totally see the angle you're taking the degree to which Ben spent time grooming Luke. Mm hmm. Is a lot more limited.

Very true. That makes sense. Yeah, it's,'s essentially it's very compressed. He has been watching him. Yeah, he radicalized him. I don't think he groomed him. Yeah, that said, he did. There's also again, the Jedi had it coming, but they didn't deserve it. Yeah. He took the sun of the man who he's going to then use the son to kill. Um, and took him to the same planet that the dad came from and put him with the family and didn't even change his name. Um, yeah. Well, and he, I mean, he gave Leia a really nice place to live. You're telling me he couldn't have found a nice apartment for somebody somewhere.

You couldn't have found like Jody Dallas of the Star Wars universe in his apartment to raise Luke in a loving environment. Yeah. So I mean, I take putting it, I mean, honestly, Tatooine is a planet that you send people to for exile. Like, yeah, you know, for exile or, or I mean, to, I don't know, maybe be a little bit darker. Sure. Um, it's kind of a place you, you send somebody when you want them to have the soul of a sardicar. What's the sort of hard, them right up. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It'll it'll tough and I'm up like Luke. Luke strikes us as being a whiny little bitch in an episode four, but that's because that's because he's 18. Right. And he's and he's actually remarkably mentally fucking tough. When you think about what he goes through the short period of time,

he goes through it. No man. Well, and the one time we actually see him wine, well, okay, he winds a couple times, never mind. But I mean, it's, you know, his one moment to have a day off and suddenly he's broke back into fucking oyster farming. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, um, and so, you know, he's, he's kind of a snot, but that's because he's 18 and 18. Yeah, he's just. Yeah, yeah. I got a problem with that. But his age appropriate and appropriate behavior.

Yeah, and but he's he's actually tough as nails. Like, you know, you don't you don't see it because he doesn't look weathered. But right. No, he's not going to give up. He has all the plucking in the world. Yeah, and he managed to keep that in a very hardened world. Yeah. And so, you know, yeah, and so it could very well be that Obi-Wan was like, no, you know what? I'm going to need to be a tough motherfucker. Could be, but still don't know without his consent. Yeah, no, I know. I understand. I'm saying I'm saying if we're talking about, you know, the website, sure, sure, could have been part of it. Yeah. Um, you know, and, and so I, I will say,

I kind of want to call the world the edges with, with Obi-Wan. Okay. And, and also I could see this as being tactically very sound because what is the one thing that Darth Vader hates and gets everywhere. what is the one thing that Darth Vader hates and gets everywhere? And especially now that Darth Vader's more machine now than man, that fucker will not want sand anywhere. No, don't want to get that inside the component. So I don't mind rehabilitating that decision. Yeah. But at the same time, change the kid's name to like,

I don't know anything. Starkiller. Any, there you go. Nice. I like it. You know, anything. Yeah. Where we start killer. There you go. Done. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay. So I want I want to quibble with you about Obi-Wan around the edges, but I but I still sawdably see what you're talking about. I am going to quibble pretty hard about Gandalf. Okay, so let's put this in percentages. So double door 110. 100. Yeah. Old Ben Kenobi. Are you with me 75%? I'm yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, 7580. Yeah. If I can get you to 50 with Gandalf unhappy because he is the least of them as far as evil goes. Yeah, I'm okay. So how to put this? So part of the part of the issue is the framing within universe. And the scale of what it is that we're talking about dealing with.

Right. So so Voldemort is peace beyond to his name. Yeah. Nice. He's evil. Like there is no getting around the fact that he is a hateful serial killer. Oh, yeah, you know, megalomaniac blood purity, like, he's still only the third most evil villain. Yeah, no, I know, I know. Yes. But, but as, but he is the big bad, even though he is, you know, third worst villain, he's still the big bad. Yeah, he's the most ambitious of them. He is, yes, he is still Yeah, he's the most ambitious of them. He is, yes, he is still effectively mortal. Like he's found tricks to make himself unkillable without having to do a whole lot of shit.

Like it's, you know, vampire slang with extra steps. Yeah, but he is still, it's basically killing Dracula, right? Mm-hmm. like, but he is still, it's basically killing Dracula, right? Mm-hmm. Palpatine is a galactic level dictator, right? Who's also a space ninja necromancer. Yeah, yeah. So the scale of what we're dealing with is different. And then now we're

going to talk about Sauron, who is literally a fallen angel from the literal beginning of the world. Yeah. Like he is more ancient than any other character in the story that we see. Besides, yeah, yeah, in the movies, yes, as I said, besides Tom Bambadil. Yeah, yeah, besides something, yeah, because yeah. And Tom Bambadil holds a weird position in in in the whole story. So I'm, you know, yeah, I get it. He's the fairy that opens the book in Fracture Fairy Tales. Yeah, basically. Yeah, that's a really good comparison. Yes. And so, and so, but Sauron is the definition of an ancient evil from like the beginning of time. Yes, yes. And his entire goal is absolute dominion over everybody, the extinguishing of freedom of thought,

the extinguishing of light and liberty and joy and happiness and everything. Yeah. Yeah. And it's more to consume than as any kind of a means to an end. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And then along with that, we have the fact that so Gandalf is meddling around the whole role as the medal around the edges to try to make sure that the Sauron doesn't win.

Right. And so he now Gandalf is again he is what an angel what is he he is okay. All right so we're we're kind of talking okay. He is almost as old as Sauron. Right so okay so he was hired later and he is trying to finagle a way to get Sauron fired from the workplace because he doesn't like how Sauron keeps putting his lunch in the fridge on the top shelf all the time. I love you have such a gift for taking something so cosmic and making it sound so petty. That's that's really amazing.

No, no, okay. He's he's actually no, he's been sent from corporate right because the local guy is like, has the local guy is like engaging in slave labor practices and is violating like every environmental regulation on the books and corporate wants him to stop. I also like how you know me because you're like, no, if I could just make this about union shit, then then Damien's going to side against that guy. Yeah. And you're not wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't mind being manipulated like that. Yeah. No. OK. No. The, I appreciate your analogy, but I'm going to come back with one of my own. And, and Gandalf does telfrotto. OK, I figured it out first off. At the beginning of everything, Gandalf does Telfrotto.

Okay, I figured it out first off at the beginning of everything. Gandalf doesn't know. I still think this is about Sauron spilling food and not cleaning it up. Because you know what you get when you have that happen. What? Hence.

Do you want to dream, Ed? Because this is how you get free. Okay. Okay. That's talked to with me. You know, and I can't even get mad about that one. You okay? Yeah. So, and I kind of want to know how long you were like

Was was was that be set up from the minute you talked about food in the fridge or no, okay? Little more so I wouldn't put that past you no, no, I wouldn't either So but but so Gandalf First off Gandalf realizes that one of the things he needs to do is take smog off the board because if Sauron ever manages to get reestablished, smog as a creation of Morgoth, who was Sauron's old boss, is going to be drawn to Sauron and he's quite the weapon. So we got to get him off the table. Okay, so he's now going after endangered animals. Okay. No, no.

Small business owners. Okay, so sovereign citizen. He's going after genetically modified invasive species. Oh, so he's considering the genetics of this creature. And now he's going after it, even though it's fully sentient, he's going to define it as genetically incompatible with the world view that he has. Oh, yeah, that's much better. And then he's going to steal its gold. Is that, is that how he's going to? No, he's much better. And then he's gonna steal its gold. Is that, is that how he's gonna? No, he's not.

Okay, but he's gonna facilitate the theft of its wealth after he's... No, he's going to facilitate the recovery of the wealth that the dragon stole from the people who dug it out of the ground. Oh, I mean. Like the corporate master that he is. The dragon's clearly a a a a job creator.

No, the dragon is a committed of genocide actually. I'm just saying he's he's wiping out the only of its kind so that other people can move in there. That sounds like ethnic cleansing to me yet. Anyway, yeah. So in order to make sure that clearly both sides, yeah, yeah, fine people, very fine people. So to make sure that the literal devil doesn't have access to this powerful weapon. If I can play a devil's advocate for justice. Vade Retro Satana. So he sees that he's got to help Thorin get his homeland back.

And having had some dealings with with Bill Boas, I want to say grandfather, back in the day. He realizes that, hey, this guy might be you know, a good candidate to help out with this. Sure. And then we have the events of the Hobbit. And now in the process of that happening, Bill Boe winds up recovering, you know, this magic ring that he lies about where he got it, which, you know, Gandalf doesn't like. Right. Like, you know, notice is that and that's nice. You're not normally a liar that bothers me, but he doesn't know what the ring is. So he's got to spend a bunch of time doing some research. He's got to talk to his other, you know, university buddies. Sure. He figured out. And so it's not actually until basically after Bilbo has retired. Yeah, let's go say it's even after his birthday, like years later. Yeah, it's years later that he realizes because he essentially figures out that, you know, Sarman is on to something and

his look is sketchy. Right. Another co-worker that he's got a problem with jockeying for position. Yeah. Well, the other co-workers are prick. So anyway, um, and, and boy, you want to talk about anti-union, man, if Sarman holy shit. So, I don't know. I mean, he was rising up all the workers. I mean, he was pulling him up out of the muck. That's true. And he did offer them a quite deal plan. Yeah. So anyway, Gennel finally figures out what the ring is. And then he shows up and says, you know, finally figures out what the ring is. And then he shows up and says, right. You know, now, now that I know what it is, where is it, you know, hide it, keep it away. I got to go deal with some stuff. Right. And then you have a nuke, put it up on your mantle. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then he says, okay, look,

you need to take the ring. I've got to go run interference because I'm pretty sure some other people have figured out what it is and I need to keep them off your back. And I need you to go take the ring to my scholarly buddy drinking pal, Elrond, an Imla dress, I need you to take that there. Then we're all gonna figure out

what the fuck we're going to do with it. Okay. So now here's the deal. He does. I will agree with you. He gives Frodo a job way above his pay grade. Yes. You're knowing you need to be my career and knowing what it's going to do to Frodo in the end.

Hold on. Okay. Gandalf is not all knowing. Okay. Gandalf is not all knowing. Okay. Gandalf is not a god not cajole does not, does not, now he doesn't stop Frodo from volunteering, but he doesn't push Frodo to volunteer. Frodo, being the Christ figure that he is. because it is an allegory. Yes.

Whether told him, whether it be or not, it is one. Frodo says, somebody has to do it. I'll be the one to do it. So somebody else doesn't have to. Right. And so I'm going to agree with you 35% you're not going to get me to 50.

Not with the Frodo stuff. No, no, the Frodo stuff. The abuse of Marion Pippin, the enabling of the oh God what's the guy that eats tomatoes? Oh, dinner. Yeah, the enabling of his shittiness and letting it continue well past where it should until he steps in and actually does shit. Don't get me wrong. He does, but it's also kind of a problem that he allowed to fester and boil.

I am going to point out that he is an angel and a wizard, but his remit is pretty specific in the extent to which he's allowed to directly like interfere in directly interfere in politics. Like he can't do the thing. Kind of a prime directive kind of thing. Kind of, yeah, because he's an agent of God and men having their own decisions. So like he can go to Thayode and he can, you know, not- He can uncursome, yeah.

He can uncursome, so he can think clearly. Sure. He can't order Thayode and to go to Gondor's aid. Right, okay. Or a Gorn has to convince him. Okay. And so, Denathor is a prick prick who's going to burn his own songs. He's going to burn his, oh yeah, I know all of that.

And and fairness, uh, Gandalf does stop, stop him at that point. Yeah. Yes. But up to that point, Denethor is the lawful steward of gondor. And because he is the lawful steward of gondor. And because he is the lawful steward of gondor, he gets to orders men to their death. Okay. You know, get off can try to, can try to cajole him and push him and nag him and do all of that, but he can't, he can't order him to do anything. And in fairness, he does have tons of shit to do. Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. The man has to be everywhere at once. Yeah.

And now when you when you talk about abuse of Mary and Pippin, uh-huh, full of a took, I mean, I mean, that's not a big deal. Yeah. We're all going to fucking die. Yeah. Yeah. And they done fucked up.

I mean, I just, you know, yeah, not saying they did speaking, speaking and somebody who identifies very deeply with paragraph and took on a regular basis. Like, no, I sure that coming like, okay. So you're you're you're going to get maybe to 40. Okay, maybe to 40. I'm not I'm not going to go both 50. So not a dick. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Alright. The other two clearly villains. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll take it. The Dumbledore one. I that's a slam dog. Yeah. Well, there was a long time that I like viscerally wanted to argue against it. But I know. Yeah. We're mandated reporters. You can't argue against. Yeah. Yeah. you. Yeah, cool. Well, looking at the time, we

probably ought to end this one here. And that'll give you time to recharge and find two more guys for more hammer 40 K. Yeah, well, you know, it turns out it was a gray zone for them. Yeah. And I'll just keep attacking comic book heroes. Although I do have some interesting protagonist that I think really are antagonists. Okay. I'll save that for next time. One of which was enforced, come. So that'll be fun. Okay. Yeah. So let's see what you're reading lately. Oh, what am I read? Well, I'm still working work. Well, yeah, I'm sorry, because English teacher. So, you know, that's true every week. Live in the dream. Yeah. But also stranger to strange land. Okay, still going. Yeah, still still know that.

And again, I am, I am going to recommend it. I'm also, well, no, that's, that's the one I'm going to, I'm going to stick to recommending. Cool. Everybody who has not read it yet. What to pick it up. It is, it is a classic of the genre for reasons. So yeah, I highly recommend it. How about you? I want to recommend Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers, John Foster, Dallas, Alan Delas and their secret world war.

If ever there were two guys that were lauded as heroes that are fucking villains, it would be these two. So fucking villains. It would be these two. So they are horrible human beings and you should read all about them. So the brothers by John Foster, Dallas, Alan Dulles, and their secret world war. And maybe it's because I'll be teaching you this history next year. But this is definitely something that that needs reading. So okay. Where can people find you on the social media? I can be found on the social media as eH Blalock on Twitter. And as Mr. Underscore, that's MR underscore Blalock on TikTok. And I actually had a student's find by TikTok account. So she said, Hey, Mr. Blalock, and I responded to her, hi, students name.

I guess I need to make sure I don't swear on this account anymore, huh? Hey, so I just blocked them right away. Yeah. So, yeah. And collectively, the two of us, of course, can be found at geekhistorytime.com. On Twitter, we are geek history time. And you can find us, of course, you're listening to us right now. So you must have found us on either Stitcher or the Apple podcast app, or alternatively at our website. But wherever you found us, please subscribe and please give us a review, give us the five stars that you know we deserve because we're awesome.

And where can you be found? You can find me on Twitter or Insta at Do Harmony, Tiktok at Do Harmony 1. Go ahead and check those things out. Every first Friday of the month, you can find me slinging puns with capital punishment. You can look that one up on Facebook, capital with an O first Friday. If you're in the Sacramento area, got 10 bucks and proof of vaccination,

you should come and see that show. It is hilarious. It's been selling out for, oh, God, going on for five years, although in fairness, we had to take a two year COVID break. But, uh, everybody did. Yeah, we've been selling out since, uh, geez, at least 2018. Um, so come check it out. It's a lot of fun. So that's, yeah, that should do. Um, you can always find me here. But yeah, so for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony.

And until next time, man, I'm Ed Laylock. And until next time, keep it secret, keep it safe.