A Geek History of Time - Episode 163 - Dwarves! Huh! Good God, Y'all Part I

Episode Date: June 18, 2022

And while we have a through line that states, Authorial intent means dick, right? I don't want to have to have the same haircut, you have dad. Sorry, I'm pretty... Harry, mother fucking tub... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha You know, it's like, okay, probably she's something. Aww. Oh, dude. Aww. So was this before or after the poster and you vomiting all over the couch? For those of you that can't see, Ed's eyes just crossed. It is fucked up.

But it's not wrong. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nursery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher at the middle school level here in Northern California. And my big personal news is I am triumphantly back after fighting off the plague fiends of Nergal last week.

No, I tested positive for COVID. On Mother's Day, I'm going to date this a little bit just, you know, because it's relevant. And I am recovered. I wound, I had to spend five days isolated from my wife and my son, which sucked. But thanks to the miracle of modern vaccines, I only had to isolate for five days. And so I have been telling my students for the last two days since I went back to work that COVID actually took two of my senses.

It normally takes away your sense of smell, and it took mine. And in my case, it also took away my sense of humor. So sit down, follow my instructions, and I have no patients for any of your foolishness. And so my wife, after I told my wife that, she said, except that you're telling them a joke as you say that. It's not a funny one. So, yeah, I just want it's not a funny one. And I said to her, well, you know, see, when I tell you that, it's a joke. When I tell them that, it's an imperative. Is it, is it really a joke? No, I don't, I don't think so. So, so that's me. Who are you? What

do you got going on? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and drama and soon to be history teacher over here in Northern California. I kept your secret. I didn't have your permission to say it to anybody. So as far as everyone else knew, you were on assignment. Okay. Yeah. It was very degrees. You were on assignment to my pillow. Yes. Trying to sleep it away. Yep. So, uh, but what I heard from your story is that the vaccine didn't work because you got COVID.

You fuck you. No. Okay. And in all, in all seriousness, because there are people who are going to take the story that way. Yeah, but not our listeners. Not our, not our listeners. They can think critically.

They're, they're actual, yeah, critical thinkers. Except you, you know, exact, yeah, that's right. You. You know who you are. You know who you are. And you know what you did. That's right. But, but yeah, I am 100% convinced that if I had not been fully vaccinated, if I had not been boosted, the miserable head cold that I had. And it really was genuinely the worst head cold I've had in years. Emerson, yeah. Yeah. It was, it was no walk in the park. I did, I was miserable, but it would have been so much worse, so much worse without all that. So you could, yeah, potentially, yes.

So yeah, but anyway, thank you for, for, you know, being the foil to was actually real. Yeah, no problem. But what else have you had going on? Well, we had a milestone in my house today. I actually had the special treat of getting to normally on recording days. I don't have my kids. That's one of the reasons why we have recording days. Yeah. The blessed joys of being a divorce parent. But today, through a series of happy events,

well, not happy events, actually, a series of rather emergent crises events. I was able to and tended to my children who were both totally fine. In fact, today was my son's first dance. Sixth grader, you see. Oh wow. And so they had a dance. Now I will tell you he's the only child there who had a mask on. So super spreader 2021. Oh yeah. And and by the way, schools all over my area have been having their problems and their senior balls. And then afterwards they're like, we don't know what happened, but so many people have COVID. And it's and they didn't even take the common sense of a step of only our school can come to this dance. They didn't even do that. So it just is ribbing like wildfire.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, hold on. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. They didn't even say this is central city high school to make up a name. You know, this is the central city high school to make up a name. Right. You know, this is a central city high schools from only central to no midtown kids, no midtown kids, no North end kids. They just like, no, everybody come on now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We got we got guest passes. It's good. So. You are. Yes, pass is good.

So fucking kidding. Like, no, why is the why would you? The phrase that comes out of my mouth is you are fucking kidding me, but I know you're not. No, yeah. Why would you? Why would you need that?

Um, when you've already lifted the mask mandate, you see? Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird. Yeah. And then another note came, came home to our teachers saying, like, or in our family saying, we really strongly encourage you to wear masks.

Numbers are going up. And it's like, you could have just had a good policy. That would have been a thing. But anyway, back to the task at hand, my son wanted to go to the dance. I said, no problem. And then I asked him, do you know how to dance? I said, oh, yeah, I can dance. I said, do you know how to slow dance? No. Do you want to know how to slow dance? Meaning cool question. Yes.

Important. Yes. I said, okay. So here's the deal. You might ask somebody if they want to dance the way that you do that is, hi, would you like to dance? And if they say yes, this is how we dance. And I had him put his hands on my hips and my hands on his shoulders. So he's dancing with his giant fat dad with his bean pole has self. And he's like embarrassed, but like taking in the steps and the fact that we're just doing the standard turn in the slow circle. And then I said, now sometimes they will not be comfortable with you putting your hands on the

hips. So sometimes you will put your hands on their shoulders. And I put your hands on my shoulders. And so we did that. I said, now you might ask somebody if they want to dance and they might say no. And you say, okay, thank you. Now, if somebody comes up to you and asks if you've wanted dance and you don't want to dance with them, you say, oh, no, thank you. I'm having a good time on my own right now. Okay. And you just stay polite. And if you get to slow dance with someone, this is how it's done. So I dropped him off.

And I am a big believer of, you know, I love hugging my kids, but like I asked them like, you know, if you don't want to hug me, you know, before you go, before I go, it's totally fine. He gave me a big ass hug right before I took off and dropping him off at the dance. And I came and picked him up. And now we're in a half later. I even asked him, I said, do you want to stay the whole time? Or do you want to come home? He's like, I want to come home early.

I'm like, well, you live nearby. So just walk home. It's fine. But if I don't see you before six, I'll come catch you. So I went and got him. Found him. He was having a good old time. They were dancing to, I don't remember what song.

It was something hip-hop and fun. And then I, as eight, we got to go. OK, cool. So say goodbye to whoever you need to. He went and say goodbye to a teacher. And then he came back, but he gave me a big ol' hug before I left. And I was like, how'd you do?

And he's like, I had such a good time by myself. And I was like, good for you. So my son, 12 years old, has attended his first dance. On the way over, he asked me, Dad, do you remember your first dance? And I lied. I said, yes, I do. Now I remember being around his age going to dances,

but I don't remember the actual first one. I said, yes, I do. He's like, were you nervous before? I said, oh, absolutely, buddy, that's a normal thing. I was like, but what's making you nervous? And he's like, I've just never been in my school at this time of day. I'm like, but what's making you nervous? And he's like, I've just never been in my school at this time of day. I'm like, totally fair, man.

So it was, it was great. The dance was held outside. That good. I was very glad of that. Yeah. It was advertised as being inside. And, but he kept his mask on the whole time. I gave him a 20 spot in case he wanted refreshments.

He gave me $20 back. He did not want refreshments. So it was a wonderful, wonderful moment. I called my mom. I told her I sent her the picture of him being ready for the dance. And I asked him, you're going to wear that to the dance? Or you want to dress up? And he was like, I'm happy with this.

And I was like, OK, cool. T-shirt and car goes. Yeah. So, but yeah, so my son had his first dance. Nice. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. A plus dadding. All of that. Very good. Very well done. So, I don't have uh, let's see. And I have, I have, I have a whole shit ton of notes here. Okay. Uh, but I don't really have a good, like, entry question.

But I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask, I suppose I'm gonna start. Sure. Um, by asking, what? you go with the first and then if you're feeling brave, you work your way over to the middle of the hand. Okay. Okay. All right. All right.

Next question. Yeah. Next question. So what? What when you're playing D&D, this will this will be my entry. Okay. This will be my entry point when you're when you're playing D&D. Mm-hmm. Is there a particular heritage? I'm gonna use the Pathfinder term. Okay. The second edition Pathfinder term is there a particular heritage that you have as a favorite? Are those races? Yeah.

Human, human, elf, half-worked, or what? Mechanically, the variant human is quite attractive to me. But I have a soft spot in my heart. I rarely play gnomes, but I have soft spot in my heart for gnomes. Okay. There's two whimsical for the trials and tribulations of D&D usually. Okay.

Unless I'm playing some sort of like kind of naive to the world, like the one that the party needs to protect. Okay. Then I'll play a cinnamon roll to get to the world. Yeah. Um, I'd like a half elf if I'm playing a bard. Well, yeah. Because then it's like, it's easier.

It's like, what three skills don't I want? Yeah. So it's got a fun. But as far as races go, I got a soft spot in my heart for half works. And I really, and I've never really played one. And I love playing halflings. Okay. So long way around the block, halflings I love playing,

half-works, I think I like the most, half-works and gnomes, I probably like the most. Okay. Yeah. So now, based on what you just said, part of your enjoyment of those groups. Because you said, when you said gnomes, you mentioned gnomes are too whimsical for day-to-day. And you feel like you have to have a certain kind of character archetype that you're playing.

So there's like in your head, there's a no-mish archetype. Right? Yeah. Okay. Do you remember the leprechaun from the Twilight Zone in the 1980s? Vagely. The one who granted their wishes and one wish she had X-ray vision and you got headaches from it. One, they wanted a hot car and it turns out it was stolen and then the other one. Yeah, what my parents do exactly as I say, but like that meant like, now turn the pizza over, now put it in the oven, now close the door, you know, that guy, yeah, that's that's the archetype for me. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. So, so all of these, all of these backgrounds, all of these groups have archetypes that are associated with it. They're all, they're all built out of tropes, right? Sure. Yeah. I was a lily-pusion, basically. Yeah. And we had a whole couple of episodes that we talked about at works, and the development of orc tropes, right? And how that race, how the depiction of that race changed. Yeah.

It was anti-Jerman propaganda. Yeah. Then it became anti-Hungarian propaganda, then anti-orient propaganda. Yeah. Then, you know, throw a little yellow peril in there. Right. And then Native Americans. And then they wound up being noble savages.

Right. And like, okay, we've gone to a stereotype, but now it's a positive stereotype, but it's still dehumanizing and can't we do better? Yeah. And then we also segueed in there into talking about how the dimorphism in modern depictions of male works versus female works is really quite something to see too.

And what I'm going to talk about tonight is similar to that, but the the the arc is very different and the rabbit holes that took me down are very different. So we're going to talk about dwarfs. Oh, well, that's really fun. We're going to talk about the dwarf archetype. And now the whole reason that we're talking about the dwarf archetype is what caught my attention and made me think of, you know, hey, maybe I could do an episode on that is it was very, very exciting for Warhammer 40K fans. And I know there's like three of our listeners who are like, oh, I know what you're gonna talk about right now. On April 1, 2020.

Yeah. Nice, yeah. On April 1, in your shop, put out a teaser video that essentially showed a space dwarf. And everybody went, ha, ha, that's funny April 1st, but there were also a lot of us who went, well, you know, I don't know. There was an awful lot of production value involved in that for to just being able first joke. And I'll go into the details of the backstory of all this, but back at the very

beginning of Warhammer 40k, there were space dwarfs. They were called squads. Squats? Squats. Okay. Squat people. Yeah, short squads. Yeah. It almost sound like squads. So I just wanted to make sure. Okay. No, you can have squads up in the squ can destroy them in squads, right? You know, and so and they had really thick cable like muscles in their legs. So squads, yeah, actually, yeah, they did actually, but yeah. So I'm excited so you'd have a squad squad squad squad squad. Nice.

Thanks. You hadn't tripped over your tongue. I know that would have been great. So that I'll fix it. At the beginning, yeah, there you go. At the beginning of the day, I got caught doing squad, squad, squad, squad squad squad squad squad squad squad squad. Oh, they fish.

Yeah, off of like the aisle of my of white. So there's squad cod squats. Yeah, there you go. Scott squad squats squad. No, it's no. I look I look white isn't, isn't Scotland. I'm sorry. I love Lucy. I apologize. Okay. And oh, nicely done. So there was a semi human non-human race called squats beginning of the game. And everybody liked them. Not a whole lot of people played them. Like they were, like everything else in that generation of the game,

they were over the top and funny. And there was, you know, there was, there was kind of, you know, over the top, you know, kind of dark humor involved in all of it. Right. And then the game went into its third edition and they disappeared. And I'll, and I'll go into the details of, you know, how, how that all developed later on. So then there were not squats. Yeah, they were not squats. And so they were kicked out. They didn't have squatters rights. There you go. And, and they were gone for close to 30 years. Wow.

And anybody who was a fan of the game for way back on message boards and on Facebook, groups and all that kind of stuff, you would joke anytime anybody, like mentioned squats, somebody would put up Idris Elba from... All the movies that he's been in. Well, the giant robot film that I'm Pacific Rim.

Uh, he, he has that moment where, you know, you have the, this is shot of him from Belone. He says, reset the clock. Hmm. And, and we would make jokes about, okay, everybody, you know, reset the clock. Right. We've gone this many days without a squat joke. Well, one, it was me. It is no.

Yeah. Now it's zero days without a squat joke. Well, one, it was me feeling this many days. Yeah, no, it's zero days without a squat joke. Also, the joke was every time you mention them, they're gonna go back to day zero, and it's gonna be however long it's gonna be before they bring them back. Right. So just don't talk about them,

don't say anything about them, and they'll come back. Because then you'll spot the squats. Yes. Yeah. And so then on April 1st, we get this teaser video. And everybody's like, Oh, ha ha. Yeah, right. Whatever. And some of us are like, I don't know. There was a lot of production. Not even that. Sure. And then on April 2nd, they literally had the

headline, April 1st, what's that? And and showed and showed a model. And like the Warhammer 40 came, we collectively lost its fucking mind. Yeah, because it was a whole squat plot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, and we talked about it shortly after that happened. And I was like, you know, I kind of wonder, you know, what can I tie this to in our current moment, you know, I kind of wonder, you know, what, what, what can I tie this to in our current moment?

You know, in history, what is it about what's going on right now? That that is influencing the decision to bring them back. You know, what is it? What are they tugging on? You know, what, what are they related to? Yeah, yeah, that was that work. Paris Hilton's activism. Clearly squat. That's hot. Nice. Nice. Uh, but, uh, oddly, I'm not even mad about that one.

I know I should be. Like, I know that I should be filled with a righteous anger, but I can't be. Let it run out of you like snot. There you go. Um, and so what, what I wound up drifting around to from that initial idea.

As though you were on a yacht. As though I were on a yacht, was the actual idea of the dwarf archetype itself. Okay. And the development of it and kind of how we got to where we are with the leagues of Votan, which is the name that they're now giving this race in the newest edition of the game. And so before I go any further, I want to of a sensitivity, not kind of, she was a

sensitivity reader for me. Because anytime we're talking about non-human races in speculative fiction And we, as people, we as human primates have this habit of applying, applying tropes to other groups of people and having stereotypes about other groups of people that wind up then being ported into our depictions of non-human races in science fiction and fantasy fiction. In other humans, you then kind of associate other races with human groups. Yeah, with different human groups. And, you know, in the same way that Tolkien's images of his first works were heavily related to cartoonish depictions of Austro-Hungarian soldiers during World War One, which has its own anti-Asian, anti- kind of, you know, all kinds of bad, you know, racist kind of, kind of baggage attached to.

all kinds of bad racist kind of baggage attached to it. There is a level on which the dwarf archetype has become entwined with anti-Semitic stereotypes. And Professor Gabriel Cruz has talked about this on his TikTok channel. And so that's part of what I'm going to wind up talking about is like kind of how that connection is. Well, you'll see where I go, but I wind up getting into getting into some history there that Tessa was very helpful in helping me navigate as a Gentile how to talk about that without being an asshole. So I want to say, again, very big thank you to Fred and the show Tessa for that.

And so to start talking about the history of the dwarf archetype, we've got to go back to Norse myth. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, because the the first time that we hear dwarves mentioned, the roots of this fantasy archetype come from Norse mythology. Okay. And in the various earliest earliest sources, various early, anyway, very earliest sources, dwarfs and elves, both inhabit Savart Alheim. And the dividing line between them is really fuzzy.

Some there, there are beings that are clearly Either a dwarf or you know a dark elf, but It's we're not really told we just know they're from sartalfime It you know, I ask this Is that because of the geography of where these myths originated in some valleys Odin and Loki were brothers and in other valleys they were adopted father and adopted son in some valleys Odin and Loki were brothers and in other valleys they were adopted father and adopted son. In some valleys you had you know Thor use an oven mitt and other valleys he didn't. And I remember this being true in in Greek myth too like on some islands you know Mercury is this crash of the old man on other islands he's you know he know, he's fast as fuck. And so like you certainly can,

you get that geographic isolation. Yeah. And I know, I know this from a friend of mine whose parents were from Norway, turns out they were first cousins and didn't know it. Because there was a lot of, you're in one valley. You might have a family member who goes over to and they're the valley, and you never see him again. And so like that over time, you're gonna have different, this is how we do things around here.

Oh yeah, yeah. And there's that slippy floppingness, possibly due to some of that? Well, it could be that, because the source that we have for all of this is the poetic etta and the pros etta, both in which were compiled in the 13th century by a German monk named Dauidos. It was etagata de vidis. Nice. And again, not even mad, although I should be.

Well, he was given, he was the first one to be given the iron butterfly of the Germanic order with a Holy Roman Empire. Yeah. Sure. No, it was Snory Storelessen. Oh, that was my third guess. And Icelandic poet.

Yeah. Poet historian, Skald, kind of all of the above. Essentially the Homer of the Cold Place. Kind of. Yeah. Poet historians called kind of all of the above. Essentially the Homer of the Cold Place. Kind of. Yeah. Kind of. Like a lot of shit gets attributed to Snory if I recall correctly. Like after the Eta, like people are like, oh, and this was clearly influenced

by Snory doing blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and there's this weird thing about both of the Eta's where a significant portion of it is a compilation of clearly much older myths that were coming from an oral tradition. And then there's parts of it that like he wants to be a historian. And so he's talking about the earliest kings of Denmark and Norway and everything. And, and. Is he being an historian or is he being a chronicler? And so he's talking about the earliest kings of Denmark and Norway and everything and and Is he being an historian or is he being a chronicler because I see a lot of people do a lot of chronicling in addition to writing their poems

That's a good point chronic third probably be a better probably better better title Which there was money in chronicling too because hey right down my family's lineage. Oh, yeah, yeah and and a lot of the stuff is clearly exaggerated in a legend of Roland, legends of Charlemagne later on, kind of stuff. Sure, sure. And we were pretty sure that several of the people he talks about are at least semi-mythical.

Like, they're not gods in the story, but we don't think they actually historically existed. Right, no one could slaughter that many people in a single day, their arm would just seize up from the... Well, number one, and number two, I'm looking at you, Lothbrok, Goat goat bridges. We don't don't think you were actually a dude like. Okay, Ragnar Ragnar lot of Brock. It may be made up completely out of whole plot. We don't know. Or at least out of goat cloth. Well, yeah, goat hide. Yeah, so. So anyway, in these earliest myths, be cool if it was zombie hide, get necropancy. Okay, good day.

You've, you've crossed the line now. I think that's actually a nice landing thing though. Like you can give your skin to your friends to wear necropan. What? I think I could have been an another podcast. I mean, I mean, they were joking. Gendinevi Whimmer is very kind to me. Yeah, well, you know, seasonal effective disorder is a thing.

And that's what Joe Joe is so sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what we, when we do hear dwarfs, very clearly identified as dwarfs. They are brewers of meat, they're metal crafters, they are reluctant givers of gifts. And symbolically, they're often guardians of doorways between worlds. Okay. The doorways between the mortal world and the doorway between the mortal world and the underworld, you know, the dream world and the waking world.

Yeah, those kinds of those kinds of portals are there. They're they often have that mythic role. Some sort of yeah, like Sentinel type. Yeah, kind of thing. Let me let me ask you this. And I know you've gotten like maybe three sentences into the whole thing. Yeah, it's what I do. Yeah, yeah.

Dwarves existed. There were little people, little people existed in the world. The Romans fucking had a word for it, a non-noom, which I always got a kick out of work in India as a result. But which is, you know, a wheat de bréuis, a deficuelis-esque, quam Nanum stran, a life is short and hard like a body-building dwarf. So the Romans had a word for it. The little people that existed in all of society, it's a standard thing that happens. Yeah. Why are they put into this spot in this culture?

Here's the thing. That's an interesting point you bring up. The description that we have of dwarves in the earliest stories like the Velospa and other other early stories. I don't have the names, the individual stories out of the edit in front of me right now. But in the earliest stories,

they're frequently, but not always described as looking like old men, long beards, long hair, white, using kind of features. Sometimes they have a childlike appearance. Now, what you're talking about about dwarfs as we know them in our literature today, being short. Little people, right? Much in the way that Irish Faye turned into tiny people with bug wings after Christianization. Oh, okay. Dwarfs got short along the same timeline. Oh, wow.

So because they were lesser mythological creatures, that's lesser in biocrity. That's lesser in Christianity. Shortness. Oh, wow. Okay. Now, it is true that in some of the early stories we do have signs that some of them were short, right?

names of some north stories mentioned tall enough and high and like ironically so being comparatively to a certain, yeah, and so, so being lesser supernatural beings got kind of translated over time into being short, like universally across. Winter mention. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, dear. To get very dramatic about it.

Oh, very dramatic about it. Well, Antid had right just careening into the great, yeah, great into the anti-Semitism. Oh, hey, trolley problem much. Like you strapped yourself to the front of the vehicle, ran into a wall there like holy crap. Oh, man. Uh, but yeah, in a, in a, in a literal sense, because they're also, um, they're also associated with the earth.

They are consistently, carefully down to earth. Yeah. Underground. They're frequently described as being lustful after goddesses. One of them tries to coerce Thor's daughter into marriage. Gimli is like hella down for some gladrull hair. Well, yeah, but it's not lustful, but I mean, that's an echo. It's it's a bit of an echo. Yeah, it's a bit of an echo.

And because Tolkien is so Catholic, not saying, yeah, well, one, it's much more poetic, it's much more romantic. Also, because Tolkien is so Catholic, it fucking hurts. And I say this as a Catholic, sure. There's also a certain level of kind of a redemption story there. Yeah, because he is not, he's not gold greedy. Yeah. He just wants.

Yeah, and, and, and yeah, I mean, I can, I can get into the whole story about the, the, the meaning of, right, and, and gladiars hair. Right. The context of, of middle earth history. But that's not what hair. Yeah. So although there are mentions of daughters of dwarfs, like some of the legends involve a hero trying to marry

the daughter of a dwarf. Okay. Actual female beings are never described as dwarfs in the edis. It was this girl was the dwarf's daughter. And the edis mentioned a lot of women. So yeah. So they're consistently covetous greedy associated with gold and because they're associated with gold, they're associated with greed for it, they're very jealous of their treasures. Is that is the the fact that they live underground tied to the gold as well? Because I mean you're mining for okay. So that's that's kind of duragora. Yeah.

Nice nice and and I'm so far away from even talking about the Duregar yet. But yes. And so now these themes start out in Norse myth. And dwarves are specifically described in the Voluspa as arising at the beginning of the world when the Titan Ymir died. Dwarves emerged as initially being the maggots that were chewing upon his corpse and tunneling through it creating cave networks and thus being miners. The pros, Edda, has a different story getting back to what you talk about. Okay, well, you know, over in this valley, they say this,

over in this valley, they say this other thing. But in both cases, dwarfs are mentioned as being there at the beginning of the world. Okay. Whereas in Norse myth, humanity came along later. Right. And mortal men are all descended from Heimdall. And you know, go Heimdall. Okay, yes. But you know, hold on a second. Sure. So, were the humans the ones that came from, we didn't come from the fingernails, right? That's a different, okay. That's a different thing, yeah. Yeah.

Actually, I want to say the fingernails, no, the fingernails were the pros at talking about the wars. Oh, okay. So I was okay. I think, yeah, you were kind of, you were in the right ballpark with that. Right. So these ideas are what we get,

this is basically the archetype as it sits when we're just looking at Norse myth. Okay. Now the Norse myth descended over time into Germanic legend. And in Germanic legend. And in Germanic lore later on, dwarfs come to play a particularly important role in the Nebelungalied. The what?

The tale of the treasure of the Nebelungs. Nebelungalied. Okay. Which is part of the inspiration for the ring cycle by Wagner. We're we are just anti-semitism is just going to be the car rail. It's it's it's showing up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're the bots dots. Dots. I can't believe I didn't fucking say dots earlier. Yeah. Well, you know, Yeah, that's I can't believe I didn't fucking say dots earlier. Goddamn.

Yeah, well, you know, so, so the Nebelongs were a, were a, were a clan of dwarves or a tribe of dwarves and their treasure is the source of the story central drama. No, okay. In the Nebelongaline. And the tropes mentioned previously are also there. The Nebelongs are greedy, lustful, skilled crafters, and they appear as stunted figures with long beards. But in the case of Alburek, they're, they're kind of. afters, and they appear as stunted figures with long beards, but in the case of Albrich,

they're kind of mostly antagonistic, but in the case of the dwarf Albrich, after the protagonist defeats him, Albrich, then follows and assists the hero kind of as his squire. This is all really uncomfortable. I mean, well, just, but hold on, hold on. Because I'm not like you. They, they, they, they, they, short men with long beards who work under the earth. The story was collected by the brothers, Grimm, in the early 19th century.

And the characterization of the dwarfs have been codified as recognizable to us today. By this time, this is our archetype. She says the seven dwarfs and you're like, yep, know what those are. Okay, totally, totally on board, I know that. Yep. The contemporary fairy tale, Snow White and Rose Red, includes a dwarf who matches that archetype and who turns out to have been the source of a curse on a prince. Okay. Okay.

Okay. And interestingly, Snow White and Rose Red involves a different Snow White. Is that just a title? It's well, it's kind of remember that we're dealing with a time period during which fair skin was a sign that you didn't have to work outdoors. And so you had status, right. And it was, it was considered a sign of beauty. And so a girl having the name Snow White was a way of codifying to your audience

that this is pretty young maiden girl. Right, right, right. So to summarize, the archetypes development to this point, Nor Smith describes them as magical beings, sets the pattern for them being crafters tied to the element of earth. They're greedy and lustful, frequently antagonistic or only grudgingly helpful. Remember, it's dwarves who wind up making the wig that sif wears the golden, literally, sif wears after Loki cuts her hair off. They're the ones who make thorns, hammer,

all that stuff, but they only do it because they're kind of coerced into doing it. For sure. It's almost like you have, this is how you deal with these people. Yeah, pretty much. Right. Oof. Evolved, it evolved from their intramanical folklore into short beings that were greedy, lustful,

and alternately helpful or antagonistic. Okay. And they are heavily connected to the element of earth, mountains, caves, hidden places, which, interestingly, is also related to fairies in general. Right. The folk under the hills being, you know, in British and Irish folklore, you know, the, the, the fair folk, you know, I'm also thinking that kingdoms under the hills. I'm also thinking Cyclopsis. I mean, literally the slaves to Vulcan, living under a hill,

making cheese, but also helping him in his workshop. Yeah. Um, like, and they were there at the beginning of the the the shit too, because they're like, I think their children of titans or something to that effect. Well, they're lesser titans. Yeah, they're lesser titans. So that's right, they're like, I think the children of Titans or something to that effect. Well, they're lesser Titans. Yeah, they're lesser Titans. So that's right. They're the lesser. Instead of instead of being sent down into Tartarus, they were allowed to, you know, stick

around and be right one floor above, you know, but hey, it's a big difference. It really is. Yeah. You know, hey, yeah, it's eye opening. You get nothing. Um, you get nothing. So I, you know, I, I gotta say I took kids up to Mount it back in the four times. Yeah. Cool, cool things about Mount it. No, number one, it is not a single peak.

It is a, it's a caldera. I mean, it clearly blew off at some point, right? Now, now it's a lotdera. I mean it clearly blew off at some point right now now it's a lot of Euclannic glass or volcanic rock They have one quarter of all of Sicily's honey is produced up there really yeah, I'm like 75% of their insurance agents Yeah, at least But no ducks oddly they have to have weird okay, But I made the kids who came up there with me. I said, okay, whatever else we do,

you're gonna sit up there with me for five minutes in total silence with your eyes closed. So we did. Five minutes with your eyes closed is a long fucking time. Yeah. And, but like, it was really cool, cause you're at the tallest spot in the area and you're just listening

and you're just kind of communing, right? We were done, it was a gift that I'd given them. We're done. I was like, all right, how was that? And like, wow, I'm like, you know the best part? Like what, I'm like, you saw things the same way Polyfamous saw things. You were such a dick.

Are so bad. Hey, we were there are the bunch of kids from Connecticut and my kids like, God, damn it, Harmony, if there was a peak, we would throw you off it. Like just, oh, it's so good. So good. Yeah. But anyway, Cyclops is also seem to, so there seems to be a, a, a stratus of, of, um, mythological, I don't know, uh, working, working classness or something where that, that

is occupied by the proletariat of the mythological class. Yeah, there seems to right, right? They've either fallen to the proletariat or they are the proletariat and always have been the proletariat, but and they're grumpy as fuck, but well, because why wouldn't you be sure? Sure. Like, yeah, but like, it seems to be like they exist. There is a there is a working

underclass. Yeah, a lot of mythology. Well, this is one of the ways in which Joseph Campbell was not full of shit. Like if you try to take Campbell's idea of the monometh and apply it to literally to non-western cultures. You get some walkie-ship. Like modern scholarship has come around to understanding that, okay, yeah, he's kind of right, but not like.

It's identically correct. Yeah, nice, yeah. But I do think, I do think there is something to the idea that on some Jungian subconscious kind of level. Yeah. There are these things. There are these things. It is a genuine archetype. And whether it's dwarfs or cyclopies or certain kinds of fairies from Celtic folklore.

It helps to make the shoes kind of shit. Yeah, you know, it's a kind of set of, set of tropes or set of traits that gravitate together. Yeah. And so yeah, I think there is something to that. And now in the development of this trope, we now, we're this archetype, we now need to, you know, talk about Johnny. Johnny Ronald Rool Tolkien.

Oh, I thought you meant the guy that Debbie shot up her entire school for, yeah, no, because the homecoming queen's got a gun. Yeah. Yes. Nice. Did it for Johnny. She did it for Johnny. It was Johnny. Yeah. I think that song age well since we've had so many school shootings now. It really, really, really, really, it kind of is. So Tolkien wrote the Hobbit in the 1930s. He published it first in 1937.

And to kind of take a quick look at what was going on in the world at the time. We're talking about the interwar period. So we have the dissolution of the Russian and Ottoman empires. It depends on who you are. I mean, the Chinese. There's no interwar here. Is it interwar? What's going on for four years? Inter the fuck what? Yeah. But yes, yes. It's an European interwar period. Yeah, for Tolkien, it was the interwar period.

Yeah. And so we have the dissolution of the Russian Ottoman Empire as a result of World War I. There is huge social upheaval. There's a whole lot of concern attached to the restiveness of the working class because of the Russian Revolution. We see lots of unionization efforts, we see socialist and communist political movements gaining traction in the UK and commonwealth countries,

in the United States, even, you know, and kind of on the way in it this point, but they are by the 30s. Yeah, by the 30s, yeah, but they're still out. Yeah. And the Russian Revolution had established Leninism in the USSR after the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1921. Right. Mandatory Palestine was established in 1920 under British control. And there were nascent nationalist movements amongst both Arabs and Jews in that region. There was a very significant Arab revolt in mandatory Palestine in 1936. The Spanish Civil War is going on. Yeah. Where like leftists from all over the world are like, are trying to stop Frank. Yeah.

Trying to stop Franko. Yeah. Edward III abdicated in 1936 to Mary Wallace Simpson. Oh, yeah. Didn't they go like super like pro Nazi? Eventually, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And she has retained a reputation that she had at the time as being a gold digging social climber. Yes. And you know, it's very tempting from an American point of view to look at that and be like, well, you know, they were just pissed because she was an American and they have all their, you know, British noses in the air about social class. I'll ask it. Well, they lost a king doer. Yeah, well, they lost a king to her. Yeah, well, they lost a king to her. But then if you actually read correspondence and like the the the accounts of people who knew the two of them, right.

Sometimes their reputation is earned. Yes. Like, it was clearly a calculated effort on her part. Oh, yeah. Or at least she was like, she was very conscious of it. Like, it was not just a, but we're in love and I don't care what. It's like, now I'm gonna get this bag

and I'm gonna get this bag and I'm gonna get this bag. Yeah. Oh yeah. The Great Depression left Britain relatively unscathed. There were, there were. Yeah, they were already pretty badly hit. But, but reading up on this, the TLDR version is the repockets of serious and long-term employment

within the UK, but the standard of living in the UK overall actually improved because prices went down. Nice, definitely. And they tightened up, and workers got wage protections, and there was some backing and forthing on that, but the the standard living in general actually went up. Good for England. I mean, they had been on the bottom of the world for so long up until that point. Yeah, I know, they've just been just been so down and yeah, I mean, they just went from country to country to country trying to find some sort of help And you know and all they found were monuments that they brought back, you know, they just you know

It's not like the world storage locker. Yeah, I mean, it's not like they brought back that of Ben They didn't bring back commemorative plates. Those are guaranteed to go up in value, but these these things I mean deep cut Yeah, thanks there. I like that. Thank you. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, they, they, who's going to buy an obelisk now? I mean, that was, yeah, that was the NFT of, of England, you know, okay. You mentioned that fts and I, and I have to, I have to mention this because I mean, it's a tangent, but it but you know, um, we're he'll be he'll be even after the mother's day and we don't know. Yeah, we're in FT's they're going to be like, Oh, this was exactly on these days.

I don't know. It's been going on for a while now. But anyway, there was there was a somebody on Twitter had had retweeted some some bit of news about, you know, NFT NFT values falling. Mm hmm. And they showed a picture of two little bulbs. Oh, it's awesome. And they wrote this post and you know, all the oldy English kind of awesome. Yeah, they wrote this post and, you know, oldy, oldy English kind of spelling.

Yeah. You know, about, hey, you know, if your magic coins are losing their value, I have, I have a way to recoup your losses. Oh, that's beautiful. Oh, yeah. No, I nearly shot coffee out my nose. It was just, it was too good. Oh, man, that is, ah, that makes me laugh.

Yeah. So in the middle of all of that going on, in the middle of that being what the world looked like from Tolkien's Garden Window, he wrote the Hobbit. And the Hobbit tells the story of a group of dispossessed nobles and their king, who hire an outside contractor to assist them in returning to and reclaiming their home. There's a lot of layering and coding going on here. Thorin and the dwarves all have pretty traditional North Germanic dwarf style names, Oingloin, Finley, Kylie, Thorin, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Ory, Bore, and so many of those names are actually taken directly out of the pros

edda. Oh, okay. Like, he just he looted the ads. Well, if you are looking for good names, you go to the pros. Yeah, by the way, nice. Thank you. Again, not even mad. And in fact, the name Gandalf is taken from the poetic edda. Oh, it's the name. It's the name of a mythological figure, the wand elf Gandalf. Okay. So, so their names and, you know, a lot of the, yeah, names and some of the like surface traits that we have associated with them are taken straight from Norse mythology and the Norse folklore.

That said, the dwarves in the Hobbit are we're patterned after Tolkien's interpretations of diaspora, sorry I mispronounced that, Jewish communities in Europe. And give me a second here because I got to open this page up real fast. Give me a second here because I got to open this page up real fast. So their portrait as occasionally comedic and bumbling, but largely as honorable, serious-minded, but gold-hungry, proud, and occasionally obficious. Okay. To quote from Wikipedia, Tolkien was now influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history.

The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their homeland in Arabor and living among other groups but retaining their own culture are derived from the medieval image of Jews. Yeah. Whilst according to the Tolkien scholar John D. Radcliffe, their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible. Okay, yeah, a warrior culture that is now living amongst other folk,

usually in urban areas, and you typically only see the men. Yeah. Because of how families are set up and how work is divided. And there's a strong family lineage tied to it. And to ask Rick, yeah, all of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Medieval views of Jews also saw them as having a propensity for making well-crafted and beautiful things

that are shared with Norse dwarves. And remember, you know, far over Misty Mountains cold, you know, the dragon's fire in golden wire. You know, all of everything they sing about about all the beautiful things they made in their homeland is, I mean, it's taken straight from there. It's, it's, yeah, jewelry making was, yeah. Yeah, the dwarf calendar invented for the Hobbit Reflect the Jewish calendars Rochha Shana or the New Year Beginning in late autumn Remember when the thrush knocks on the last day Mm-hmm. That's that's the last day of the dwarfish year. It's in late fall

Okay, right That they know this is interesting that they took Bilbo out of his complacent here, it's in late fall. Okay. Right. That they know this is interesting, that they took Bilbo out of his complacent existence, has been seen as a metaphor for the impoverishment of Western society without Jews. So here's the thing. Tolkien, Tolkien had a great level of admiration and respect for these people based on all of the reading he'd been doing as a medievalist and a linguist. So fetishizing them really.

He's fetishizing. Yeah. Okay. This is positive stereotypes, but it's still stereotypes. It's like the worst kind of phylo Semitism. Anti will repro Semitism. Semitism. Phylo Semitic would be Philly. Simitimphilly. Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. I think it's I think it should be a suffix rather than a prefix, but anyway, because anti is It anti is a prefix, but

Filo yeah, but but Filo is usually the opposite of phobia, which is a Yeah, but you feel like philic is opposed to phobic Right, but you can be um hydro oh hydrophilic. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So somatophilic. Yeah, oh hydrophilic, yeah you're right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so somatophilic. Yeah, somatophilic. Yeah. So, and so it's still problematic, but it's well meaning problematic, if that.

Yeah, yeah, this the the fetishization. It's it's yeah, you know, people absolutely it strikes. Did you ever see that movie? I think it's called Playing by Hearts. And it's David DeCovney and what's her name? The gal with the really strong jowls. She was in everything in the late 90s dark, dark, dark hair, curly, love interest in gross point blank.

Oh, oh, oh. Starts with an M. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Anyway, she was in it. Yeah. So David D'Covny, she's in it. David Allen Greer is in it. Carol O'Connor, Robert Lozia.

Oh, wow. Yeah, so it's a great, great movie. But what it is, is this guy's wife dies and she's an organ donor, so she gives her, you know, her, her heart is given to somebody else, same town. That somebody else is this restaurant owner's mini driver. Many drivers started with a name. Yeah, she was and everything is laid down. Yeah, but and good for her. But so she played the granddaughter of the guy who in the restaurant,

she got a new heart. And so you've got all these old men who are all tied through their love of her mother, who died a while ago and her grandmother, who died a while ago. So it's all these old men that are all tied through their love of her mother who died a while ago and her grandmother who died a while ago. So it's all these old men that take care of her and don't on her. And again, it's like Robert Loja and Carol O'Connor amongst others, you know. Oh, wow. Right. And so, you know, eventually, David Ducovny-Bombs, into her, something feels weird. They definitely have a connection. Turns out she's got his wife's heart.

something feels weird. They definitely have a connection. Turns out she's got his wife's heart. And it's a really well done love story, I think, if not quite contrived. But there's this scene where David Allen Greer is David DeCoubney's best friend in the movie. He's black and all these old men start talking to him about Sammy Davis Jr. They mean well. They absolutely mean well. And they always talk about the rap pack, by the way. They're always comparing like, okay, who did it better? Bobby DARREN or so and so and so. And they did it better. And so, and then, you know, and they're like, and you got to give respect to Sammy Davis Jr. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. You only had one eye.

That's right. Poor one out for all one eye, you know. And so they're talking to David Alinguer, but they're only talking to him about Sammy Davis Jr. And he's just being very patient with these little white guys. Yeah, it has that same vibe. Kind of, you know, yeah. um and and Tolkien tried to work through this and and Dr. Cruz for end of the show Mm-hmm

Um has has done a good job on on his tick-tack channel talking about kind of how how Tolkien tried to try to kind of work through this and try to kind of improve What he was doing with the dwarves in those ways as time went on. But as a language nerd myself, one of the things that I am still finding fascinating and cool is that he built the Dwarvesh language, Kuzdul, to be a Semitic language. It's influenced by Hebrew phonology. I was just gonna say with Kuzdul, you have the KSD to the consonant. Yeah, Kazad, whose Dwarves, Kuzdul is the language.

Okay. Kuzdun, like there are different variations on it, and anything that is Dwarf is Kuzddu. Right, that's just like an Arabic. It's just like an Arabic. there are different variations on it. And anything that is dwarf is kuzidde. Right. That's just like an aerobic. Yeah, just like an aerobic and Hebrew. Right. That's how that works.

Right, right. SLM is some sort of piece. Yeah. Yeah. And so there are all of these parallels of all of these Jewish tropes, or anti-Semitic tropes that show up in how the dwarves are constructed in Middle-earth. And again, you know, he means well. In my notes, I just have Si. Oh, John. Oh, Johnny, my dude.

You know, and I think it, he deserves for it to be pointed out kind of at the same time we were talking about this, that he had very pointed things to say after the Hobbit got published about the anti-Jewish policies of the National Socialist Party. I'm sure a number of our blisters are already familiar with this story, but his book was going to be translated into German and published in Germany. And he received

a request from the German publishing company that because of German law, since the book was going to be, they wanted to publish the book in Germany according to national socialist law at the time, his pedigree as an Aryan needed to be proven. Yeah, that's right. I'm gonna be talking about this. And so now I'm just gonna read his response. I'm going to be talking about this. And so now I'm just going to read his response. I'm going to read the whole letter because I think I think it's a masterpiece.

25th July 1938, 20 Northmore Road, Oxford, Deer Serz. Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by Aresh. I am not of Aryan extraction, that is, Indo-Iranian, as far as I am aware, none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani Persian Gypsy, which is an unfortunate use of the term, but, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are inquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

My great-great-grandfather came to England in the 18th century from Germany. The main part of my descent is therefore purely English and I am an English subject, which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed nonetheless to regard my German name with pride and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war in which I served in the English Army. I cannot, however, forebear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Yeah, that's that's one hell of a shot. Like hold on. Yeah, hold on. Okay. Your inquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper. Even if it had, as it has not, any bearing whatsoever to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had, as it has not, any Mary whatsoever, on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my abstaang mong.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory and remain yours faithfully, J.R.R. Tolkien. Remain you were as faithfully J. R. R. Tolkien. It's a joke that my best friend from college and I used to make whatever we were just like Royally, royally furious with somebody We'd we'd you know riff to each other about the the letter we wanted to write or the email we wanted to write You know just like you shit stained son of a bitch squirrel sucking mother fucker blada blada blada. Right yours in Christ, you know, it's like cutting somebody off when you got the fish sticker on the back. Yeah, you know, and I get that vibe here. Yeah, you know, fuck you and the horse road in on. Yes. Have a lovely day. Yes.

Yours faithfully. You know, I would like to invite you to go and have sex with yourself because I feel that is something you can go and do. Kindness regards. Yes. Pretty much. And so his depiction of the words as Jews, again, is based on what appears to be genuine admiration

for the Jewish people and their contributions to European society, but it is still a caricature. It's literally dehumanizing. Right. And it's something we need to be aware of. And parts of it, especially Thorin's gold madness, the greediness of the dwarves of Moria, Oaken, the ballrog, type straight into negative stereotypes about

Jews that we learned all about in our episodes on Square Dance again, Henry Ford. You're welcome. Yeah. I didn't say thank you. I was talking to you. Okay. Some people like the work I do here, Ed. Yeah, well,

much of the time I do too, but like, those episodes were just one long. Fuck me. Yeah, that's true. Fuck you. Really, you know, it was just so much.

Yeah, that's so much of that same vibe through the whole fortresses. All the goddamn fortresses. Like, how do you think you're the good guy? Yeah. same vibe through the whole fortresses, all the goddamn fortresses. How do you think you're the good guy? Yeah. Fretz, it's baddies. Skulls, Fretz. So, you know, I, I, I fell down a rabbit hole in this point. Okay, that's where the dwarves occupy occupy apparently. Yeah, well, yeah.

Because the question now occurred to me, like, okay, so, so Johnny, Tolkien, can I call you Johnny? Had this thing he did with the dwarves. And, and whether subconsciously he kind of got the idea and then ran with it or whatever, you know, the you immediately like queued onto, oh my God, like anti-Semitism is,

you know, just gonna be the guardrails here. And the thing is what I kind of wanted to try to figure out was did Tolkien make this characterization up on his own, or was there already a Jewish stereotype lying at the roots of the dwarf archetype to begin with? Like how far back does this go? Right. Was the question that animated me,

that led me to looking up the Jewish diaspora. Oh, cool. And we're going to have to do some talking about some stuff there. Now, at this point, I think we're at a place where we might want to want to put a put a pin in it. Right now. Sure. And then pick up from this point, because I think this is a good place to pause and take a breath. Absolutely. yeah.

From what we have talked about so far, what is your takeaway? That the British are really polite and that doesn't excuse them their anti-semitism, just because they're not as loud about it. It's because I think it's really obvious that there's a lot of anti-semitism in trope or in British people's writings when you're dealing with fantastical beings. For instance, the turf who shall not be named. Oh, no, we're going to get there.

Okay, cool. That has its own paragraphs cut out in my notes. Yeah. But like, and so this is not a thing that was only token, and it is also not a thing that is only of the past. Yeah. I think it is an inherent part of British art on some levels is to be smudged with that anti-semitism. It's almost like if you look at continental Europe's churches,

you cannot separate them from anti-semitism. I mean, they're staying glass windows still have blood libel scenes. Yeah. Still. That means somebody had to commission an artist to put together, I used to make staying glass. That shit ain't easy.

No. Someone had to commission an artist to cut and then put together the scenes that told that lie. Anti-Semitism has deep, deep roots, but British anti-Semitism seems to almost always get a pass because they're not continental Europe, they didn't do the Holocaust. It's when you're outshown by the bigger genociders. known by the bigger genociders. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's, yeah.

Well, in the medieval period, the English were no slouches. No, they weren't. They prepared anybody else. They're right. Multiple horrible massacres. And even, even so, the English don't hold the record on massacring the shit out of people

that they considered to be others. Yeah. Even then, like, their massacres, don't get me wrong, I mean, they start 30 million people in India. They caused a couple fucking famines. They start 30 million at one point and then another 10 million down the road. And let's not get into like all the shit they did in Africa, you know, and all that. So I'm not fuck, I mean, they came up with concentration camps,

you know, for the, for the Boers. All of that is true. The British are absolutely the world's bad guy. But they seem to get a pass because there was a really, really specifically brutal attack, spate of anti-Semitism. Yeah, in a short span of time. I think there's that, and I think there's also the fact.

That's the air out of the room. It did, yeah, well, totally did. Yeah. And I think there's also the fact that the Brits managed to come out on top of both world wars. Yeah. And history is written by the victors. And that allows for a certain amount of painting, the other guy as more. Yeah, painting things in such a way that the the other guy is worse.

the other guy is worse than he might be, I mean, in World War II, it's hard to make that argument. But it's also easy for you as the victor to take the Vaseline and smear it over the lens when you're looking at your own side of the picture. Well, and I think the bridge are especially good at that culturally. Oh, yes, yes, yes, that's over here, though. Now, let's talk. And it's like the British East Indies company, can we talk about, you know, and no, no, no, no, we've got this other thing we need to talk about.

Well, and there's also then the fact that they were the 800 pound gorilla around the world for multiple centuries. And so that means an awful lot of the history that we read now went through English, literally English, not just into the English language, but from the UK, you know, went through the hands of English historians to be translated from the ancient world. Yep. Into into modern English, it went through, you know, all of the interpretation of the monuments from other civilizations in all of the places that they conquered.

Mm-hmm. All of that was written by English archaeologists and, you know, or I should say, British because the Scotts and Welsh were part of it. And from that perspective. You know, and yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so that is an awful lot of wallpaper to slap up on the walls.

And also for other people to then have to tear down in order to get a clearer picture of what's going on. Well, and also all of that is true. And the British absolutely would still be the world's worst villains. Were it not for that really concentrated 12 years in the 1940s? Yes. You know, so like they just,

like they got edged out by. Got edged out in the fourth quarter. Right. And it's like, and in such a way that like, how to put this, the guy who has the record for assists in a game is Scott Skiles, I believe. He's got 30 assists in a game.

Now that may have been broken since, I don't think it has though. Okay. Nobody remembers him because he was on the same team as Shaqila Neil You know what I mean like so I mean the British like you said are no slouches And so British art is 100% going to reflect and I'm gonna say promote because all art is propaganda

But it's going to 100% reflect that worldview whether it it means to or not, and as we have proven time and again, that doesn't mean anything. Right, especially when it comes to Tolkien. He's the codifier of that. So, it's in the water. It's why whiskey tastes different in Kentucky than anywhere else, because there's lime in the water. It's the same kind of thing here. The anti-semitism is part of British culture.

And the only reason it's not more painfully obvious is because you had Hitler just a time zone away. So that's my takeaway. OK. Yeah, that's a fair one. Yeah. So you read anything? Well, I've been doing an awful lot of reading about population migrations and haplogroups and genetic stuff.

Give us a couple books then, man, because you also read the edits. Well, actually, what I will recommend to everybody is find a good translation of the poetic edda. Okay. Now, it has, sadly, gotten a bad rap lately, because people have appropriated it and have appropriated, you know, Norse mythology and that culture in order to try to promote a, in order to promote fascism, I'm not even going to try to be, you know, roundabout about it. But in point of practical fact, the Norse and the Vikings in particular amongst the Norse were xenophilic rather than xenophobic. And in some ways, we're a former progressive culture

than the fascists who want to repropriate them would like to have you understand. than the fascists who want to repropriate them would like to have you understand. So I'm gonna recommend the poetic edda. The pros edda gets, it was actually compiled as a textbook. So, and it reads like that. A special kind of person for that. Yeah, it reads like one.

So I'm gonna recommend the find a good translation of the pros edda or poetic edda. book and and give it give it a read because the stories are very powerful and very primal. And it was written literally written down in a time when a snory sterlisten basically saw in a time when a snory stirrless and basically saw the ending of the pagan way of life. It was getting closer. Oh, Christianity. Christianity had arrived in Iceland. And I just clued in on what you said, I'm going to go, you get nothing. you get nothing. But the Ragnarok of their culture was over the horizon and he saw it coming. The Ragnarok of Ages. Indeed. Winter Gleben, Glowson, Globe and so he put in the effort to write these stories down

And so he he he put in the effort to write these stories down. And in a way, it's it's a relic of that's a cool cultural defiance. Yeah, that's a cool like transitional moment. Yeah, yeah, cool. Very powerful. So I so I strongly recommend if you can find a good copy of it, take the time to read it because it's it's powerful stuff. Cool. How about you? I'm I'm going to recommend I'm not reading this right now, I've read it a while ago, I'm going to recommend per our conversation, Tulipomania, the story of the

world's most coveted flower in the extraordinary passions, Christ it's a long title, and the extraordinary passions it aroused by Mike Dash. It's a fun little read. It's if you are looking for like an entry point into the field of world history, which is its own field. Like it's really a fun read because it does. It involves a lot of the world. So I strongly recommend that for reading.

It's all right, it's cool. Where can people find you, follow you, or come see you? I can be found on TikTok as Mr. underscore Blalock. I can be found on Twitter as EH Blalock. We collectively can be found online at geekhistorytime.com. And our Twitter handle is geek history time. And where can you be found, sir? You can find me on Twinsta with Do Harmony.

I don't really have any new content right now upon the TikTok, so I'm not gonna bother plugging that, but I will tell you this on the, let's I'm not gonna bother plugging that, but I will tell you this. On the, let's see, by the time this drops, the last Friday of the month in June, okay. We're having capital punishment, down at Luna's in Sacramento, $10, proof of vaccination. Please come.

I strongly recommend you wear a mask, but I'm not gonna insist, but you do need to have proof of vaccination at the door and $10. They got real good nachos, and we're doing capital punishment. And then we're going to take all of July off, and then we're going to come back for August 5th. Nice. So August 5th and June, I want to say 24th, it's the final Friday.

So come see us for that. You can also listen to us both Ed and myself, the episodes by the time this drops, the episodes will have already dropped. You can listen to us on office hours with Dr. C. There's about three weeks worth of episodes with us talking there. And it's it's a lot, a. So I'll let I'll let you find that and then you can find out what we were talking about. So those are places you can find me find us. So for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock and until next time, keep rolling 20s. you