A Geek History of Time - Episode 368 - The Hero's Journey Trope Part I

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the appeal. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because, you know, who's the boss? You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can to many.

to everybody possible. And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Laylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. and yesterday, last night, actually, my wife and I ran our first event for our son's school. And I say that my wife and I did it. I am lying. My wife did 90% of the work and had parents come up to her at the end of the evening and tell her that this year's event was the best one they've ever been to. my wife completely knocked it out of the fucking park um she is absolutely a badass I married up so hard I could not begin to tell you

and understand she did all of this in an evening after I had told her earlier in the day that a meeting I'd been in had led to one of my coworkers uh being feeling really bad having a really rough morning uh in this meeting and my wife without me really saying anything other than that. My wife said, you know, it sounds like she could use flowers. And so my wife showed up at my school office with a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store.

And now everybody in the front office in my school knows exactly how awesome my wife is. And my next door neighbor at work just about cried when she heard that my wife had done this for her. So yeah, I'm just bragging on my wife. I married up. She's awesome. And so that's where I'm at. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony.

I am a U.S. history and government teacher here in the Northern California at the high school level. And today I did something that is entirely in line with my ethics. In fact, it's kind of one of those codes that I tend to live by. So you know how I have just two rules in my house. Be kind, to be honest, right? Right. And I tend to have very few rules for how I live my life. But one of the more specific ones is if a friend needs help moving, you help that friend move.

Okay. And that's just how it is. And it's not even as general as if someone needs help you help them. It's no. Specifically, if somebody needs help moving and you're capable. of helping them schedule-wise, then you make that happen. Right. So, and as I age, that gets to be less and less of an opportunity to practice that,

just because everybody settles in, right? Yeah, right. But as you recall, I helped you move. You did. Yes. And I have several colleagues at work, whom I have helped move back in the earlier parts of our careers. So a friend of mine, she's going to be moving in with her family. kind of doing a multi-generational home thing.

Okay. And she's a grandma. And by the way, at the age that we're at, you know, we know grandparents. Yeah, yeah, we do. Who are only, you know, a few years older than us. Or not. Or close to our own age, depending on when people chose to have kids. Like, you know.

Very true. Very true. But so, yeah, I helped my friend move. I go over there. Her son-in-law is there. and he's helping her and doing stuff. And I said, all right, you've got me for two and a half hours because I need to get back to my kids and stuff. Yeah. Okay.

But in that two and a half hours, put me to work. And so there was many, many times of my God, I owe you. I'm like, no, you don't. No, you don't owe me. This is literally, this is the thing. I offer you accepted. We are done. But, you know, it's so helpful.

I'm like, that's great. But we're friends. this is part of being friends. I need you to understand. This is where the bar is. Yeah. I am meeting the bar. You don't owe me shit.

Yeah. Now, so the, all of that to say this, when I got home, I immediately threw down four ibuprofen prophylactivity. Because I'm that age. Because we are at the age where we know people who are grandparents who are not very much older than we are. That's exactly it. So we will see if I need to do it again before bed.

It's probably a good idea. Yeah. So it should be noted that I just talked about, you know, when a bad ass my wife was yesterday. We got home and she immediately tossed down to ibuprofen. And she's been walking around today stiffly. I'm trying to remember when it was that I, what do you call it, that I, what do you call it, that I started before I went on a hike taking ibuprofen. You know, like just, just, yeah, just as the acceptance and the resignation.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Probably sometime, you were probably at about the same point in your life when you started doing that as I was when I started remembering consistently coming home from a party that, you know what? I better drink like three glasses of water and take a couple of aspirin before I go to bed. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like, it's, it's around the same age.

Oh, wow. It's the same. It's the same complex. Okay. Wait, wait, okay. How many old fashions did I have tonight? One, two, three. Yeah, okay.

I better, I better make sure I hyperhydrate. And if I have to get up to go to the bathroom in the morning, that's okay. So be it. Yeah. I'd rather, I'd rather do that than, you know, have a hangover. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

And the funny thing is, I've only had a couple of, like, hangovers in my life. And they've been bad enough that I don't ever want to do that again. So, yeah. Cool. But, yeah, it was probably around the same. You and Hikes was probably around the same time as me and after a night of drinking. Like, I better think about that. Yeah.

So. Well, that's fun. So, what do you got for us? Because I got nothing. Okay. Well, I have another trope-O-Rama. Oh, lovely. And this one...

You are to tropes. Yeah. What I am to annotating documents that no one's ever read. Okay. Yeah, I could... Like, you're like, I have another trope Roma. I'm like, I'm almost done annotating a 1956 essay by a French anarchist. By a French anarchist nihilist.

No, no, he's more of a... A civil libertarian, actually. Oh, fuck. All right. Great. That'll be a barrel of monkeys, I'm sure. Well, the term libertarian is a very different term in 1956, France, among anarchist circles. Yeah, I know, I'm sure.

I'm, yeah. And like, on an intellectual level, I'm like, okay, I'm ready for this. But, you know, emotionally, I'm like, oh, I better make sure I get the special beer for that episode. So yeah, but it's another trooperama And I'm going to ask you What do Luke Skywalker Gawain of Vorkney And the boy

Who we won't name because the author is a turf Right All have in common I don't know if Gawain lived with his uncle. So I'm You know? Yeah.

Shit. You bring that up and I'm like, well, damn, way to cut to the chase there. Fuck. He did? And, is this like you're mentioning authors in the, in the 50s and I'm like,

were they part of the Navy? Because then I know they wrote sci-fi. Fuck. You know, it's worse than that. It's worse than that because that's something that like you've noticed over a over a long like period of time trend

that like for whatever reason when I was doing the research I just you know I just noted it down and didn't pay any attention to it until like the fourth author at which point I was like oh shit Damien's gonna make that joke yeah you know no in this case it's just no you you plucked that out of thin air and um god damn it well since Arthur was Gawain's uncle Yes Oh

But that's not the one I was looking for Right, right, okay Okay The kid, the guy Did Gawain get scarred on his face in any way? No Okay, did Okay, so

Because the boy Yeah And Luke, yeah Okay Um, did Gawain watch his two best friends fuck each other? Ew. And no. Okay.

Okay. So that's different, too. Um, I've never, I've never thought of Mr. Potter sitting in the cuck chair before, but now, I mean,

damn it. You know, that, yeah, yeah, no, we're moving on. All right. Yes.

Uh, let's see. Um, did Gawain, because I know the other two really well. Um, did Gawain have, have

um oh was he guarded by a large hairy friend hmm oh that's a good parallel no okay no Gawain was not

okay no did he have oh did he have a guy who seemed like a good guy who could do magic but actually he was planning to use him to sacrifice to save the world

not to sacrifice to save the world no Okay. Let's see. I'm running low here. Oh, was there a pale person who stayed a antagonist until the end and then ended up saving him? Oh. Ooh. No. No. No. No. Gawain stands out from the other two on those points. Then the only commonality I can think of is that they're all part of the same hero's journey.

Fuck you Yes And that is And that is the trope for this evening Is the hero's journey Okay Because all three of them are textbook examples Yeah

And Arthur Your lack of Your lack of Frodo in that list Is what clued me into it being the hero's journey Oh Yeah Okay Because see

Frodo is on it too But there are some very significant differences in the way that Tolkien wound up wound up interpreting for lack of a better word the hero's journey for his magnum opus

and also I just wanted to try to stay away from Tolkien because like you know Tolkien is kind of my go-to and I wanted to try to stay sort of out of that comfort zone I mean if you'd push the idea that Samwise was part of the group could have done could have done some cool stuff there because he's much more on the hero's journey than I think Frodo was. Frodo is his tragic psychopomp for his hero's journey.

That's an interesting interpretation of that. Yeah. I think the way I would describe it is that they are both on a parallel hero's journey. Okay. In a very, excuse me, in a very Victorian. in English class class distinction

kind of way okay um I think that bears shit that might be an episode in and of itself but here we're just talking about the hero's journey as as a

as a thing because I'm the reason why I'm like kind of staunch on Frodo didn't do the hero's journey because he doesn't complete it he he veers off of it like it steps 10 through 12 kind of thing. And I'm generalizing there.

But again, he's the tragic dark carnival version of it. He's hero's journey gone wrong on some levels. Like he's hero's journey and you didn't heal enough to finish the journey. Oh, okay. Because he just kind of spends his last X amount of years disassociating and then he goes west. Yeah, and then he goes to the west. Yeah. That's why I think Sam Wise actually, because he's,

reintegrates into the community. Yeah, I see that. Okay, that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. And actually, I apologize. Actually, because of what we see in episode seven and eight, I don't know that we can say that Luke, well, okay, Luke's retirement is post-heroes journey, we could say. Yes.

But if you take the whole overarching story of Luke, then it actually doesn't hero's journey because he ends up isolating and doing the Frodo thing. Well, no, here's the deal. And this is, this is what's, this is where I'm going to, I'm going to staunchly differ from you. Okay. He, like in the first movie, he completes a hero's journey. He does. Yeah.

In the first movie, he completes a hero's journey. And then. Then he lapsed everybody in episodes five and six. And does it, does it again in five and six. And then he completes the hero's. and he graduates to the position of Oh, the, the mentor figure. Yeah, you're right.

Okay. Yeah. Because that's, because that's, because that's, become the, yeah, okay. Yeah, you live long enough to become Merlin. Yeah. Um, okay. That's fair.

So yeah, Luke still gets, Luke gets credit for two heroes journeys. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, and, and it only makes sense that he would because he was explicitly written to follow. Right. type.

Like, Lucas, if only Lucas had read enough, had read as much Buddhism as he did, Joseph Campbell, like the whole Star Wars universe would be dramatically different. But so all three of these examples that I gave, Gawain, the boy who shall not be named, and Luke Skywalker are textbook examples of the hero's journey. And when I say that Gawain is a textbook example, I'm talking about a specific legend of Gawain. Okay. Because really all of the, nearly all of the Knights of the Roundtable at some point undergo a hero's journey. Arthur himself undergoes a very long hero's journey.

And, you know, this is a very, very old trope. And the thing is, the hero's journey itself, what we have come to recognize as the hero's journey is older than feudalism, which is itself a trope. But it's also older than dirt. Like if you look at the epic of Gilgamesh, it's there. Yeah. And that's kind of part of the point of the codified trope is the idea that this is. a like almost an ingrained since we began telling stories

kind of arc that recurs over and over and over and over again and Joseph Campbell's theory about it his interpretation his explanation of it when it was actually codified would say that it is universal across culture And there's an argument to be made there, but we'll get into that in a little bit.

In order to talk about it, though, we've got to talk about the codification of the trope. And the codification of it, even though this is something that you can look at obviously Greek myths, Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey, all of these follow this kind of arc. Although the Odyssey Interestingly Departs from it in some Interesting ways But it's it's still the arc is still there The codification though again is the part that's new

And to talk about that we got to talk about Joseph Campbell Okay And so Joseph Campbell was born in 1904 In White Plains New York In an Irish Catholic family He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Dartmouth in 1925, followed by a master's in medieval literature in 1927.

While on a trip... That's really old. Yes. Yes. While on a trip to Europe in 1924, so this is while he was earning... Yeah, while he was still in his undergrad, he went with his family. His family was well to do.

The whole family went on a trip to Europe. And on that trip on the ship, because this is that old, he met Jidu Krishna-Morti, the Messiah elect of the Theosophical Society. And this meeting developed for him, developed an interest in Hinduism and Eastern religion. Now, keep in mind, this is in the 1920s. This is pre-World War II. Uh-huh. when he came home

got got you know came came home from this trip and he went to the uh his his faculty advisor you know he's working on this he's going to be working on his master's he expressed his desire to study Sanskrit and modern art alongside medieval literature

his faculty advisors denied his request they said no look you're working on medieval literature stick to medieval literature this other stuff that's that's that's that's perhaps broadening your scope a little bit too far, right? You know, right.

He chose to drop out of the doctorate program. So he got his master's. And then he said, you know, as while I'm, you know, working toward a doctorate, I want to try to get, you know, study this other stuff. And they went, yeah, are you familiar with the amount of reading you're already going to need to do? Like, have you, have you looked at what's really involved in a doctorate program? Right. And, you know, they said, we don't think that's a good idea.

And he just said, well, you know, fuck all y'all and dropped out. Okay. And he spent a year in California in the midst of a period of intense private study. So he left, he left the university back east, he came out to California and just buried his nose in every book he could get his hands on basically about all the stuff he was interested in. and he became friends with John Steinbeck. Oh, okay. The articles that I read about his biography indicated he had an affair with Steinbeck's wife. Okay.

So, you know, in one of the many ways in which Joseph Campbell was kind of a precursor, a herald, perhaps, of the hippie, like, and when I say hippie, I don't mean hate Ashbury. I mean like the original hippie movement. Okay. That counterculture. In the 50s, counterculture. Campbell, like the thing that kept striking me was like in the 20s and then in the 30s, he was just doing these things that like we associate with Ginsburg and like, you know,

the Eastern religion and the, you know, free love. kind of ideas and all this kind of stuff. Like he was he was ahead of the curve on these things in his own personal life, if that makes sense. Which is going to become interesting in a minute. So he returned to New York.

And so this is in 1933. He was out in California. In 1934, he got a job as a literature professor at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers. So this is and and this like Again as somebody who is working toward my master's degree right now And knowing what I know about how people get jobs as professors today You know having friends through this show who are university professors

I'm like so this motherfucker got a master's degree Dropped out of his doctorate program and he just walked in and got a job as a lit professor Yeah, it was a nice time Like, yeah, how different was the world back then? Like, Gimony, Christmas. I can tell you, I know somebody whose aunt wanted. And so, I mean, we're talking, well, you'll tell by when I'm, what I say. Yeah.

She decided on a Friday that she wanted to go to UC Berkeley, so she called them. And they said, sure, show up on Monday. Bring 50 bucks. like so that's around this that's around this time is what you're saying it's like 20 years later but yeah still like christmas yeah the point of entry is like yeah no we got room sure come on down yeah yeah yeah now like you've got it you've got to win a knife fight against a group of you know intellectuals to even get in and i mean a literal knife fight by the way i'm talking about like strapping each other up like you know uh john luthgow and ricochet yeah yeah

so um and so he was working as literature literature professor uh at this university and he was pursuing his own studies on the side and in 1949 he published the hero with a thousand faces which was after he had been studying Eastern religion and Eastern myth, and he'd gotten into looking at Greek myth, and he'd gotten into looking at all of, you know, and he was teaching medieval literature. So obviously the Arthurian stories that I've referred to already, you know, he knew probably like the back of his hand by this point.

And so in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he set down the idea of the monomyth. and the ubiquitous hero's journey. And he argued in his thesis to simplify all of the hero stories across human history in all cultures were built from the same blueprints. And you say he did this in 34? This is 49.

49. This is after World War II. Our common human experience meant that we all held, the same union archetypes in our subconscious. And so our stories reflect this commonality. The book was the fifth most popular book in the United States in the year that it was published. And hold on. Sorry.

Let's see. I lost my notes for a second here. And it went on to become a part of the background noise of the counterculture. And I can't get to the chat cleanly right now. to go take a break. And I just dropped, I realize, a couple of terms that we might kind of need to talk about. Yes. Jungian archetypes, actually one term I just dropped that I feel like we might need to visit for a moment before we, before I go into more about Campbell.

So first of all, Jung, for those who are not familiar with the name or the term Jungian, it was a refers to Jung, a student of Sigmund Freud. Mm-hmm. And Freud developed a

I mean, is essentially the father of modern psychotherapy and psychiatry. And there's an awful lot of his stuff that's been abandoned

largely because he got up to a point and then ran screaming from his point because the implications of what he was discovering were not something he could he could live with.

And the short version of that is as he was interviewing a whole bunch of patients, as he was, you know, helping them figure out what their problems were, he came to the conclusion or he started realizing that a lot of his bourgeois and aristocratic, like upper class clients were all victimized as children. And he ran screaming from that because that was not, that was just, he could not accept the reality of that. And so he wound up developing a whole bunch of bullshit pseudo, pseudoscience kind of stuff that that modern psychiatry has wisely abandoned.

And that's, that's painting with a very broad brush, wildly. oversimplifying at some point. Yeah. When we have a friend of the show, Sean Beck on, he actually has a degree in psychology, and he can talk about that in more depth. But that's the short version of it. And one of his students was Young. And one of the things that Young built out off of Freud's theories was Young got very much into

to simplify, he got very heavily into what is the landscape of the subconscious. And what with his interest in the subconscious, he developed a whole lot of ideas about dreams and dreaming. He was very, very big into dream analysis and the meanings of symbols and symbolism and dreams. And one of the things that he developed, one of the ideas that he came up with is this idea that there are archetypes in our psychology. And we dream in archetypes. When is Jung doing this? This would have been, I want to say, around the turn of the century, because Freud was. was in 1890s, if I remember correctly.

And, I mean, I can look it up. No, that's fine. The ballpark is fine. Yeah. So this is, you know, 10 or 20 years before Campbell is going into his undergrad. Jung is developing these ideas about the subconscious and about archetypes. Okay. And so we dream in archetypes or archetypes are the symbols that keep coming up in our dreams.

So and he didn't ever say that, okay, you know, this is the archetype of and like name them and say this, this is that thing. He just said that we have these common ideas or these common themes that wind up. that wind up showing up in our subconscious. And Jung also got into some ideas about collective subconscious and this kind of stuff. But, you know, archetypes are... Didn't Jung talk about like there's the trickster and the child, or is this like Jung

being applied to literary stuff? This is in my understanding. And if anybody out there listening, you know, realizes I'm wrong, feel free to let me know. I'll submit a retraction. But the archetypes that you're talking about are coming out of the hero's journey. And that is Campbell. Okay.

That is Campbell literatizing, literary. Making literature. Making literary. Crossing the psychology literary, literacy or literary blood barrier kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

blood barrier. That's a good way of describing it. Yeah. Crossing that membrane. Yeah. And so, so Young developed this idea that there are these archetypes and that humans all, you know, that we all have similar fears. We all have similar desires. You know, we all want companionship.

We all want, you know, recognition, whether that's fame or just being recognized by those around us. We all want material comfort. You know, we all want sex. You know, we all fear death. We all fear loss. We all fear, you know, we have, we have these things in common. And in our subconscious, these things are represented by symbols. When you, when you are dreaming and you dream about, you know, loss, there is a, there's a language of symbol that your, your subconscious uses to describe that.

Oh, like when people have. dreams that their teeth are falling out. There's like, that's typically, uh, you have, you're having anxieties about powerlessness. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, when you, when you have that dream where you suddenly realize it's the middle of the day and you're out on your lunch break and you're stark naked. That's, that's, you know, vulnerability. Right. You know, or, you know, you're afraid of embarrassment, whatever. Sure. Sure. And so this is the kind of thing that as, you know, somebody as an intellectual in the time period in which he was doing his study. And Campbell saw this stuff and was reading these things.

And so when he set down the hero's journey, this was this was a big part of the DNA of the idea that there is a monomyth. I got to ask again, can you tell me again when he wrote? wrote the Hero of a Thousand Faces or? A Hero of A Thousand Faces were published in 49. Okay. So he's right at the very beginning of what we would, what we would call the counterculture. Okay. So I meant to look up, but I didn't when it was that Ginsburg published Howl.

Okay. I'm going to assume that was sometime in the 50s because it's Ginsburg. Yeah. But more to my point. he publishes that in 49 Claude Levy Strauss published his book on kinship I forget the name of it is the elementary structures

of kinship I think in 49 and in that book he writes about it much much more codified later like 10 years later in structural anthropology Todd Levi Strauss by the way born 1908 So these guys are like contemporaneous. In 49, Levi Strauss does the, what I say?

The elementary structures and kinship. He basically lays out the concept of structuralism in a very clear way. And it's fascinating to me that in 1949, both of these guys are basically creating these incredibly seminal works. Right. Upon which many other people will draw from, or from which many people will draw, or to which many people will respond and say, no, no, no, no, it's not that. It's this. Right. Because, like, he creates structuralism, which is essentially all humanity does things the same way.

The way that they do it may differ. It is kind of a weird thing, but, like, the way I've always explained it is everybody, has a recipe for chicken. That's good. And nobody's, nobody's recipe for chicken is the same. Culturally, almost everybody eats some sort of bird. Right. And culturally, no two groups eat it the same way.

And what he basically said was, and I think he really says this in cultural anthropology, or in, what do I call it, structural anthropology? Right. where he says what was it eating is natural dining is cultural oh that's good

and I might be Damien phrasing but it's the whole the need to consume food is absolutely human thing but the way that we do it the cultural ways that we and culture informs those things that that's where the difference lay

but at the end of the day we're all doing the same thing we're all running a playbook. We're all playing by the same rules. How do you create the food so that you can share it? But the way that we go about doing that, that matters what spices you've got. That matters, what clean water you've got. That matters all these different kinds of things. Yeah, yeah. And here you've got a guy saying, like, well, in every culture, there's these myths. And you've got another guy saying, well, in every culture, there's recipes. Yeah. And so, oh, your fire bringer myth involves like taking it from a god's

knee. This firebringer myth involves, you know, taking it from the God's house. You're both bringing it back to the people and you're both doing, you know, these general things, you know, you do chicken this way. You do chicken this way. And I mean, ultimately, there's going to be people who respond to Campbell and say, no, no, no, you got it wrong. It's actually this thing. Just like after, after Claudeauly Stras, you get Derry-Daw, you get the deconstructionist. You got the, you know, you've got Michelle Foucault, and you've got post-moder. And they're all responding. But this idea, I mean, you even had Noam Chomsky talking about universal grammar. Right, right.

We all verb, we all noun, and it hits in the same way, no matter the culture, no matter the language. It's this kind of unifying theory. And I just find it fascinating that right after there was a war started by fascists who were like, the world is all about eat or be eaten. and it's the will to power and it's Nietzsche, but we don't understand Nietzsche, so we're just going to be racist. And we're going to murder the fuck out of everybody.

And then you've got this intelligentsia group who's like, we are so much more alike than anything. It's like this really wonderful rubber band effect. Yeah, it's a really powerful response. And, you know, you're talking about the, the structuralism. Mm-hmm. The thought that occurred to me was a, a shorter, pithier version of it that comes from Tumblr.

Uh, in the modern era of the internet is, uh, all cultures, uh, forged swords and all cultures fried dough. Yeah. Dumpling and, dumpling and pointy stick. Yeah, dumpling and pointy stick. Every, every culture has its, every culture has its sword and every culture has its dumpling. and like, yeah. And, you know, the fascinating thing is that, you know,

these, you know, Campbell and what was your guy's name? Oh, Claude Levy Strauss. Levy Strauss. Yeah. So Campbell and Levy Strauss are both operating in the same intellectual environment. Mm-hmm. And they're both coming out of the same global kind of catastrophe. And a part of the same response to it, which is United Nations.

Yeah. A universal definition of what is a refugee. Right. The universal definition now of human rights. Like all humans get these rights. Yeah. International court, all this. And the universal acceptance that, yes, in fact,

a welfare state is what's needed to stop this shit from ever happening again. Right. And how it pairs out is going to be different things. But like, you know, Nixon famously said, we are all Kinzians now. Right. Like, you know, you have like this thing. And by the way, the United Nations Council on Human Rights, I believe, finished its work and like codified what that was in 49. Yeah, 49 was a big year.

Big fucking year. Big year in modern, I'd say, I would call it a big year in modern philosophy. Yeah, because the year before you have the Truman Doctrine. So it's like, it feels like this Marxist reaction to everything and going like, see, we fucking told you. Yeah, I think, I feel like calling it Marxist is, is reductive. maybe um yeah in in collectivist i would say i would say it's a collective it just marks was very obsessed with structures oh no i i totally i get it like i understand but i'm i'm just i'm quibbling over the over the syntax more than less the less the idea than the syntax if that makes

sense sure um but no i i 100% get what you're saying and and there was this in in the post war period and especially in the immediate, you know, half decade after the war ended, there was this very universalist, this very structuralist idea that like we can put together institutions and we can build coalitions and we can do these things to prevent this from ever happening again. The European coal and steel community. Yeah. Right? I mean, that's, yeah.

Yes. Yeah. In Great Britain on a smaller scale, the post-war consensus. Both parties basically saying, okay, look, we're going to disagree about these things, but we all recognize that, you know, the NHS will happen. Yeah. The National Health Service is going to happen and neither is going to fuck with it. And, you know, public housing programs and this, that, and the other thing. Like, we're all going to do this and we understand old age pensions and this and that and the other thing.

And like, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, disagree about things farther out on the edges, but this is the core of everything we're going to agree on. You know, it's the same, it's the same phenomenon in a, in a national scale where the other stuff we're seeing is on an international scale. Yeah. But like also you see the GI Bill. You see the opening up of the academy to everyone. You see, yeah, you see all of these kinds of these things of like all of, all of these things that are bulwarks against fascism.

Yeah, that are bullwarks against authoritarianism. Yeah, they play out philosophically in these ways that you're discussing. Yeah. And they play out, you know, economically and physically and all kinds of other ways. But it's all kind of from the same soup. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And then what's interesting is we have this happen.

And then Campbell and all of these other thinkers then get picked up by people like Ginsburg and later on by George Lucas and all of these other people. And they become a part of a cultural movement that says to many of these same institutions, these institutions that have been founded as a way to. prevent authoritarianism, they then get told, well, you're authoritarian. You know, by by a younger generation that that that inherits these ideas when they're still brand spanking new. But, you know, it's it's now it's now younger people coming up and looking at these institutions and going, well, you know, but I don't want to to, you know, over simplify in a big way. but you know and and so and then we have

you know Campbell one of one of Campbell's tag lines like his biggest tagline was follow your bliss and and that if there is not a better

one liner for the boomer generation Yeah I can't Like if there's a better one I can't think of it Oh uh tune in turn on and drop out drop out Okay good point um

But your point still stands Yeah and and Campbell in an interview Got got asked by you know what do you mean When you say follow your bliss what does that mean And Campbell said that somewhere Along the way in his in his travel somewhere he was on a on a train with with other people and just in conversation there was a

40-something year old guy uh who was some kind of salesman and campbell remembers this guy saying you know i don't think i've ever done a single thing in my life that i wanted to do oh wow and campbell said and that is an example of someone who never followed his bliss. And that's, that's a really powerful kind of moment and, and kind of a statement there. And so this idea of, you know, self-actualization, this idea of, uh, your, your inner, inner happiness, inner joy, inner fulfillment, whatever you want to call it. is it becomes a really powerful part of the boomer generation's way of moving through the world. I'm trying to phrase that in a way that doesn't make it sound like I'm crapping on boomers.

No, in many ways, they are they are the keepers of the promise of the defeat. of evil. What's the fucking point of bombing a wasteland if you're not going to create paradise afterwards? Like if you look at cities in Poland that were 95% rubble after it was done, they rebuilt their city with the needs of humanity encoded in the building. So it was no longer its tradition. So we just have to deal with the roads being this stupid. They decided what would go at the center of their city. Yeah. And I think the follow your bliss part of that is inherent in that.

Yeah. The idea of human rights and people having the same rights to human dignity and all that is tied to that. It maybe not be as explicit. Yeah. But it's absolutely there. It's not just, okay, everybody has these rights. Now everyone stands around wearing the same jumpsuits.

No. Everybody has these rights so that you can go do that. college is open to everybody because of the GI Bill. Not because, like, I mean, yes, because it's a good promise and it's good for economics and stuff like that. But there's an inherent, like, what is life worth if you're not going to enjoy it? There's a, I almost want to say, a solemn acceptance of the duty to carry forward the sentiment that people fought for when they defeated fascism. I remember when the blitz was happening in England, they kept theater going. And somebody asked, isn't that dangerous?

And Churchill's like, what's the point of fighting if we're not going to have theater? Yeah. If we don't keep the torch of culture and art and expression alive, then why are we bothering? Yeah. I mean, more cynically, we stole all this shit. We should really get to enjoy it. But like, come on, we looted everything from everybody to put in the museum. We have to keep the museum open.

You know, but less cynically, like, there is that layer. I mean, I remember there was the woman whose son died in World War. I think he died early in World War II. He might have died in World War I. And he died never knowing the touch of a woman. And his mom thought that was tragic. And so she made sure that there was theater during World War II, I want to say. She made sure that there was theater that was topless and nude.

Right. And it was absolutely, I mean, her tragedy, where her mind went with that. But like, that's fucking wonderful. As a man who loves tits, like, that's wonderful. But also, that's wonderful. Just in general. Yeah. That's at the Dickens Fair for years.

They don't do it anymore. But for yeah, yeah, I know the joke. But at the, for those outside of Northern California, the Dickens Fair is an annual Christmas fair that happens up here in this region. and they turn the Cow Palace, an auction space and public event area. They turn the interior of this massive warehouse building into Dickensian London on Christmas Eve.

And so it's like a Renaissance Fair only Victorian era, Dickensian era. Yeah, yeah, it's indoors. so yeah, dimmer. And it is an absolute delight. But for many years, one of the features of it was in the evenings, they would have the tableau, which was a recreation of the shows that you're describing with this woman put on.

Shit, if you told me that, I would have been at the Dickens Fair. I'm sure you would have been. And if I remember the thing was that, At the time, it was if the women weren't moving, if they were standing still, it was art. But if they were moving, it became pornography and it was illegal. So the way the show always worked is at the Dickens Ferry anyway, the way it always worked was there would be this skit with, you know, a family, you know, having these conversations. and then somebody would say a line that was like an obvious double entendre. And then everything would pause.

And they had a scrim at the back of the stage and they would light everything up behind the scrim. And there would be this scene of people, you know, half naked. Nice. And then, and then, you know, go back and then they'd have another scene with the half naked people and then, you know, go back to the regular play and then whatever. And because it was tableau, because they were all standing still. it wasn't obscene. See. Right.

Which was the dodge that that woman used to get around the censors because it was like, you know, these boys are going to be going off to war. Like, this is the least we can do for him was kind of part of her. Exactly.

Outlook on it. There's a defiance and a follow your bliss to that that I love. Now, the boomers, I don't think we're following their bliss defiantly. I think, but I also don't want to say they were just a bunch of selfish assholes. That didn't come until the 80s.

Yeah, that was later. Yeah. But I do think that there is an importance to recognize that following your bliss was the gift of, I'm going to use the term the greatest generation. Yeah. To the baby boom. Like the baby boom exists because everybody came home and fucked a lot. A lot. Yeah.

That's following your bliss, you know. Yeah. Boy, ain't it. Yeah. Now, real quick, you mentioned that this was in the Cow Palace. Yes. I need to just share with you this fun little story of the Cow Palace. Okay, so pro wrestling, really important in San Francisco in like the 50s and 60s and stuff.

The Cow Palace became the place where at the end of the year, they would always have the big battle royal. Oh, wow. Okay. Roy Shire's territory. And that was a big fucking deal. And by the way, Samoan wrestlers were always really important in the, in the San Francisco and the Northern California territory. I mean, it makes sense that

they would, you know, geographically, but yeah. Yeah. So anyway, the Cow Palace. You've been to the Cow Palace. There's one way in and one way out. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it was built in a time

where they didn't, they didn't think that it was going to wind up having crowds as large as as attended. Right. So it takes goddamn forever for a wrestling audience to get in there. Now, in 2004, Eddie Guerrero wrestled Brock Lesnar at the Cow Palace for the championship.

Okay. And he won. And this is right. Now, it's at the pay-per-view called No Way Out. And I remember thinking that if there was a fire at the Cow Palace, that that pay-per-view would live up to its name. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of all the, like, did the promoters think, oh, hey, we're doing this in the Cow Palace. What's a good title? No way out. No way out was a name for the pay-per-view, like going back a few years to.

All right. All right. But, like, of all the places to hold, no way out. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's basically, it's basically just a gigantic barn. Yeah.

It's a Cow Palace. I mean, it's, yeah. well I mean it's called that because the first the what it was originally built for was livestock auctions which tells you just how old it is since it's in you know south san francisco oh yeah you know but so anyway um the hero's journey back to the trope yeah um you know so so the the idea that that uh campbell was was trying to get at or the argument that campbell was making was that there is this arc that hero stories that a particular kind of myth always follows.

And he was in the book, he essentially goes through and he describes the elements that are part of this arc and he describes examples of how this story gets told around the world. And so the beginning of this our hero, whoever our hero is, you know, he starts his journey in the ordinary world. And so, you know, the classic example, uh, because it was written to follow this, this, this arc is Luke Skywalker, right? At the beginning of episode four, uh, he says, if there's a bright light at the center of the universe, this is the point farthest from it. Right. Right.

You don't get more ordinary, at least in Luke Skywalker's mind, than Tatouin. Right. You know, it is. And what he's doing is very peasanty. Yes. Like, so very ordinary. Yeah. Yes.

And it is, it is, it is so mundane that to a modern audience watching it looks exotic. if if that makes sense like it's it's it's it's it's so boring that it's got to be deliberate right yeah it's got to be deliberate right like come on and uh so so this this is his world it is it is a desert there is nothing marvelous to him anyway about it we look at it and we're like wow this is a shit hole uh you know and um and he's he he he wants to get out. Luke is an example of a hero who who like wants to get the hell out. Um,

in deleted scenes, you know, Bigs shows up and talks about, you know, being in the academy and being out in the wider universe and then talks about, you know, there's a bunch of us, the academy that like,

we don't like what the empire is doing, you know. And that all got cut out of, out of the theatrical release. We don't see any of that. But we do see that Luke is, champing at the bit to to have some kind of an adventure.

He wants to get out of there. Well, they keep that in. Oh, yeah, they do. It just isn't fair. Biggs is right. I'm never getting out of here. I'm never getting out of here. Yeah.

And you know, it's funny. When you watch the movie as a kid, Luke comes across one way. And then you watch the movie as a grown adult. You're like, God, you're a whiny little bastard. Yeah. Like, like, you know. No, dude.

But anyway, I'm editorializing. But so he has this incredibly mundane setting around him. Similarly, I'm not going to go into deeply the example of the orphan boy living in a very, very aggressively mundane household in a cupboard under the stairs. Right. But I'll skip over that. to go to the nephew of the king, who is a young knight in his uncle's court, amongst other nobles in, you know, what was a standard setting for the people that would listen to that story. Mm-hmm. When it was being told, Gawain is a knight.

He is in a court. He is connected to the king, and he's part of this elite group of warriors. But, you know, it's the, it's the. that's the way the world is. That's, you know, if you're a warrior, you're part of a comitatus, and your king is or king or your liege, Lord is your leader. And, you know, often there's a kinship tie there. And that's, that's totally normal.

Well, so that's where we start our story. And then, according to Campbell, the next step is that a herald arrives to bring the supernatural to the attention of the hero. Yeah. Basically, you're part of a bigger world and there's special things in it. Yes. And so Luke Skywalker winds up finding out that one of the droids he's just bought or his uncle has just bought. Right.

Has this hollow message in his memory banks with this incredibly beautiful, literally spectral. Yeah. When we first see her, she is literally a spirit. She is a spectral vision. When Luke first sees her, we actually see her doing the recording. That's true. But I think your point still stands because she's wearing like all the white and all the flowing. Like it has the same image effect.

It's just more distilled when Luke sees it because it's a hologram. But yes. And so, you know, Luke wants to try to figure out what's going on here. Clearly this this woman had a message that needed to get to somebody. So and then she's saying she's talking about Kenobi and well, there's that weird ago Ben Kenobi who's kind of been stalking me like all my life. Maybe we can go,

which I'm, you know, retro into the story because we've seen stuff since. But you know, but we can go, we'll go see if Ben Kenobi knows anything about it. And they go. and Ben Kenobi says well of course I know him he's me

hang on hang on they don't go he gets the call to action his uncle refuses it for him that's a good point that man's just a crazy old wizard or crazy old herman yeah and you have you have mundane duties you fucking handle those and then and then Luke is like

resigns to that does the really beautiful looking at the two sons thing right and then goes back in And then it's Artu who runs off. Yes. That's a good point. Yeah. That is a very good point.

Yes. So and we're getting to a point that is another part of the cycle is, um, the refusal of the call. Right. And in and the interesting thing is the refusal isn't always there. In Luke's case, it's a little bit of a twist in that. The refusal is done by his uncle. Right. Which is I'm now realizing an interesting parallel to the story I'm not really going to talk about.

Mm-hmm. Because his uncle, right. When when mysterious letters start showing up, his uncle is like, you know what I love about Sunday? There's no post on Sundays. Yep. And it's his uncle who does, who fights, I have to admit, quite valiantly against the forces of the supernatural to try to resist the call. So in both of those cases, we have a refusal, but the hero isn't the one who refuses

it in those two cases. It's refused by proxy. It's refused by proxy. That's, that's, I hadn't even, that hadn't even twig to me. Yeah. But the hero, the hero acquiesces to it, though. Oh, that's interesting because the lack of self autonomy that that shows, that that shows that the mundane world requires of our hero.

That's a good point. That's true. But when given the opportunity, both of those heroes leap at the call. When forced to the call, though, that's the thing. Well, okay, there's a trope that says, I'm trying to remember what the name of it is. We've been trying to reach you about your call to action. We've been trying to reach you about your hero's call. Yes.

Uh, that's, that's really good, uh, for the boy who I'm not going to name. Uh, that's a great way of describing it in, in Luke's case, his call winds up turning into almost something taken out of the revenge arc, which is another semi-universal. Yeah. Okay, we have some crossover there. Yeah. Um, because Luke gets pulled into the call by having to go recover this uppity fucking droid, right? Right. And then he gets attacked by the Tuscan Raiders. They get attacked, he gets attacked by Tuscan Raiders and gets rescued by, by old Ben, yeah.

By old Ben. Who. So that's the meeting of the mentor. That's the meeting of the mentor, which is another part of this process. And then he finds out, you know, oh, you have this connection to this larger world. Your father was a Jedi knight and all this, that and the other thing. and he's like, well, you know, my uncle isn't going to like this. You know, I really want to, you know.

Again, the lack of autonomy there is still there. Yeah. Well, there's there's a sense of responsibility. There's a sense of duty to the mundane world. Right. Going on there. Right. And I think I want to paint it in a slightly more positive light than

a lack of autonomy. I feel like it's a sense of responsibility. It's a sense of obligation. Okay. But he's not choosing for himself. He is defaulting to that. That's why I'm saying it's a lack of autonomy. Okay. Okay. I want to kind of put a more pro-social spin on it, I guess, is what I'm sure kind of getting at. But I do see, I do see what you mean there. And this is kind of where the whole follow your bliss thing comes into it. Right. so now with gawain there is no refusal of the call there's that doesn't even happen uh goain goane goane leaps at the call so gawain is having a good time with his bros um at at court and it is

trying to remember recording the way the original story was told was it christmas or was it easter tied. Easter was usually much more important to Christians at that time. Yeah, but Christmas was a bigger, was, in the original Arthurian legends, Christmas and the way Arthur's court celebrated Christmas had more echoes of pagan stuff tied to it. And I think this one is a Christmas court. and I think it may vary between who's telling the story. But Arthur, according to

trying to remember which source, I want to say Oh damn it, now I can't remember his name. The French guy. Yeah, the knight who ended up spending a whole bunch of time in jail for being a smart ass and a debtor and was generally just a terrible person. Really doesn't narrow it down. Yeah, but Lamorton, anyway, Lamartes, Arthur is the cycle I'm thinking of. Right.

In the Mort, if I'm remembering the source right. Yeah. That's the way it's referred to in the scholarly discussion of the Mortarthur. Yeah, I know. In the death. It's the easiest one. Thomas Mallory. Thomas Mallory.

Thank you. And yeah, and I think it's in the Mallory version. It's Christmas, it's Christmas tide. court at Camelot. And Arthur has this tradition. He has this kind of thing they do that we are not, we will not begin our feasting until we have seen a wonder. Something has to show up and something has to kick the party off with something

remarkable has to happen. And so they're all sitting around waiting and presumably, you know, drinking meat or whatever, and waiting for something to happen. And something happens. A gigantic night on a massive horse who is solid green from head to toe. Okay. Except for where he's got a, he's got a laurel of holly. Yes, it's a Christmas myth because holly or Christmas legend.

He has a wreath of holly around his head. So the holly berries of this crimson red. But from head to toe, everything about him, his armor, his beard, his skin, everything is shades of emeraldine green. Okay. And he rides in, and he's huge, big guy. And he has an axe that he's got over one shoulder. And he rides in and he dismounts and he says, Arthur, I have a challenge for you or your knights. I think you're all a bunch of lily-livered cowards.

And I don't think anybody's going to take me up on this. but I will let, whichever one of your men is brave enough to do it, strike me a blow with this axe under the terms that in a year and a day, I get to give the same blow back to him. Okay. And everybody, and the whole room goes dead silent. And, you know, courage and knightly pride is a huge big deal. But everybody around the table knows.

well, okay, if I hit him, I don't want to get hit with an axe. But, you know, and as the silence drags out, the night starts, you know, shit talking. Mm-hmm. To put a modern spin

on what happens here. And Gawain of Orkney, who was known for his short temper, finally says, you know what? Yeah, fuck you. You're calling us all these names. I'll take your challenge. And he comes down from his seat and the giant laughs like he's having a great time.

And he says, all right, just remember whatever you do, I'll do back to you in a year's time. Right. Gawain gets out of his chair, goes down. And the night, the green knight bends down, puts his head on the table. And Gawain hauls off with both hands and swacks the knight's head, clean off of his shoulders. Like, he can't make me answer for it if he's dead. right? Right. And as everyone, and there's a moment's silence,

it's a great spurting of blood. And there's a moment's silences everybody's like, well, okay, that was weird. And then it gets weirder because the knight reaches down, or the knight's body reaches down with both of his hands, picks the head up, tucks it under his arm. And while tucked under his own arm,

the knight says from his severed head, going of Orkney, I will see you at the, siege perilous in a year and a day. Okay. With his head still tucked under his fucking arm, he remounts his horse and rides out. So Gawain never balked at the call. Right.

So that's the beginning of that story. Okay. So in all three of these cases, we have a herald arriving who gives them evidence of a supernatural world, a larger world than the one they're coming from. Right. Now, Gawain also, not only does Gawain never, like, resist the call, Gawain never has a crisis that forces him to leave the mundane world. In the Skywalker story, his home gets destroyed and his aunt and uncle as caretakers are killed.

Right. And he and his mentor figure are very clearly wanted men. And so they can't stay there. Yeah. So now, I think that, I personally think that it's the death of his aunt and his uncle that is the crossing of the threshold, the first threshold. But you could make the argument that it's actually getting off the planet that's the crossing of the first threshold for Luke. I tend to think that it's not just a journey, like an actual physical journey, a separation from, a physical separation of you from your mundane, but it's an untethering of you to your obligations anymore. With his aunt and his uncle dead, he has nothing tying him to the farm, and therefore his travel is easier.

It's not like, oh, God, the boy that we're not naming, taking a train. That one's obvious. that's the crossing of the threshold. You literally went through the membrane that is the post in the train station and now you're on a train. It's taking you on. Or now that I think about it, Katness,

taking the train to the Capitol. Those are both. Oh, Katness. Oh, shit. Yes. And now we can talk about Katness in a little bit when we talk about how gender-coded Campbell's interpretation of all of this is.

Because that's a whole other, that's another, that's another. kettle of fish, but that's a great example. I would personally say, I think that for the boy we're not talking about,

the crossing of the threshold is diagonal alley. Oh, you think it's that far? I, well, because diagonal is before he gets on the train. I know, but see, I think that's the, hey, there's a world that's

like so supernatural. Well, I think the arrival of the herald is his giant effectively godfather. Yeah. Like he should have been recognized as his godfather anyway. But, you know, his big hairy mentor figure. Right. Showing up. I think that is that he is the herald of that.

And I think the. Okay. I always had him as like the first mentor. Yeah, okay Yeah See, the thing is And this is one of the things That is both brilliant and infuriating

About about About this particular trope And the way that Campbell defined it Oh, it's very prescriptive And not descriptive, isn't it? It's really, really prescriptive Yeah And there are so many ways in which it's vague

Like he really, in the book, he really like pins this stuff down and like when you're actually reading actual stories like you know any any story that isn't obviously written to try to follow beat for beat this arc looking at you george lucas which i mean that sounds more judgmental than i mean it to be but it is what it is um you know any any story that that follows this arc but isn't built intentionally around this arc creates these weird gray areas you know

and story and part of it is yeah story fades into itself like it yeah yeah and that's part of what makes it fun to talk about is because we can have these debates right sure so we have the the hero having to

at this point having received the call having responded to the call finally, whether he resists it. Now, it's interesting that there are also plenty of stories in which the hero tries to avoid the call. Like, I don't want to get involved in this. This isn't anything. Yeah. I mean, Luke does.

This isn't for me. Yeah. Yeah. And many of his cat and this does, too, now that I think about it. Now, since I brought her up, she also kind of tries to refuse it. Mm-hmm. Until her sister gets reaped. And then she's like, oh, fuck that noise.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, there are just as many stories. There are stories where the hero leaps at the call. Right. Stories where the call is refused. No, sorry. You got the wrong guy.

Not me. Thank you. And then there are others where the hero tries to hide from it. One of the examples that gets used for this is Achilles trying to disguise himself as a woman to get away with not going off on the Trojan War. Or Odysseus pretending to be mad. Yes. Yeah. Miss plowing in the field.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there are all kinds of modern examples that we could go into. But one way or the other, eventually he has to cross a threshold, which, I mean, we just kind of, you mentioned crossing the threshold as a thing. He travels from the mundane world into. the wider supernatural realm. Yes.

Now this can be physical, but it can also be metaphysical, right? Yes, it can be physical. It can be metaphysical. Celtic stories in particular really like to make this very explicit. Going into caves, Orpheus, not a Celtic example,

but a Western European example, you know, Orpheus descending literally into the underworld. Right. Louis dying and seeing his last sunset or sunrise sunset yes yes yeah yeah um and so he he crosses the threshold and this is the point at which the journey begins and so like you said you could look at uncle own and aunt Baru's death as the crossing of the threshold

you could also look at the crossing of the threshold as happening for Luke after he meets a couple of the archetypical characters in his journey who we're going to get into in our next episode but I think having gotten to this point this is a good place to kind of wrap things up

so you've gotten us to the threshold yes so yeah So yeah, and we can cross it next week. Yeah. So what do you think? What are you gleaning at this point? Without, honestly, I want to ask a series of where's the threshold questions.

So I'm just going to rapid fire you. Okay. Without sounding too blasphemic, the 40 days in the desert, is that the threshold? No. The 40 days in the threshold is a point late. in the Ark. Okay. Is it the baptism by his cousin?

That's a good candidate. Okay. Yes. Yes. All right. I mean, you could make a case for, well, no, no. The crossing of the threshold is, yes, yes. The crossing of the threshold is baptism.

I was going to say that a case could be made for when his mother and father had to rush back to Jerusalem because they realized he wasn't with them and they found him in the temple, but that's not. Yeah. That's not crossing the threshold. The threshold is baptism because that's when he began his ministry. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So, oh, there was another one. Deciding to not go that way, to never go that way. And then instead her turning the other way. Because if she kept on going down that way, she had gone straight to that castle was her taking the worm's advice

Sarah's crossing of the threshold taking of the worm I'm Labroth she was trying to do without naming names yeah because then she meets Hoggle

shortly after that the question is whether it's then because that's a really good, like, that's an amazing example. But there's just the point at which she finds, like, I would kind of argue

she crossed the threshold even before there, like when she found herself on the path trying to get to the castle. Yeah, that's fair. She was already, she was already on the journey to try to rescue her little brother. So. Yeah, because that absolutely

was answering the call. And, yeah. yeah okay so maybe the worm was her first mentor then the worm could have been her first mentor worm could have been a trickster figure I think hoggle well no hoggle and he he fulfills most of the mentor shit so yeah okay um Sam wise stepping one further step than he's ever been is literally crossing the threshold Is for Tolkien a remarkably on the nose hero's journey moment? Like that, that is so perfectly. And the thing is that's such a brilliantly done moment in the movies.

Yes. That is one of the most amazing directorial and acting like moments, just the series of choices that were part of that. And there's a part of me that's trying to remember whether or not that was in the book. Oh, okay. Because that might, and I've got to go back and check now, because that might actually be one of those places where Peter Jackson added something that was certainly for the art form that he was adapting. Right. An amazing improvement over the text.

If that was added, then I have to give Jackson credit for that being absolutely a pitch perfect. moment there okay um i'm trying to think of any others i think that's that's probably enough for now because we can certainly oh those they're all good ones yeah yeah um so yeah i i i think i mean the nice thing about a trope is that it is descriptive inherently and yet it becomes proscriptive just by our desire and need to see the pattern and everything yeah Um, and, uh, you know, that, that, that to me makes it more fun. It's kind of like, um, you know, somebody came up with the unified theory of food, the cube theory of food. Right. Have you heard of this? Oh, I have. Yeah. I have. Okay. I am fully on board because it's dogmatic. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I love that. My, my fencing coach, uh, Ted Elzner, I'll just throw his name out there because he deserves the recognition.

Number one, he's an amazing fencing instructor, but he's also a chef. And he looked at the cube theory of food and said, I understand what this is trying to do, but this is fundamentally wrong. Oh. And he has developed a genus species, family genus species system. Oh, okay. I love a good taxonomy. Yeah, it's, it's, and. And he is brilliant enough that if you throw something at him, he will, he knows enough about food.

He's a knowledgeable enough chef that he will be able to just tell you, okay, no, that that's actually not that thing. It's actually part of this genus, but it's part of this species and subspecies because of this thing. Okay. And, and yeah, it's amazing. But yeah, no, the cube, the cube root or the cube of food is itself, I think, a very clever way of systematizing. Yes. But I think, I think Ted's system is, for me anyway, Ted's system strikes me, is more elegant. Okay.

I like it because it's upsetting and unassailable. Like, by that definition, I'm sorry, but Nagiri is toast. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. See? It's upsetting. But it's also unassailable. No.

Yeah. Just like a burrito is a calzone. And so is a burrito. Okay. Yes. A burrito being a calzone. All right. I'm fine with that.

But no about Nagiri. No. The thing is on top of the carbohydrate. Done. It's one layer. But the oversimplifying everything to on top of a carbohydrate, that only works if you accept all of the definitions that go behind that system. And now I'm going to have to get postmodern.

And you know how much I hate getting postmodern is about anything. But again, how can you assail X stacked on top of Y so that five surfaces of X are not. not covered by carbohydrate. Done. That's toast. I hate you so much. I know.

That's what I love about that. I love every second of it. I do because I also, I also have like these intuitive desires to be like, no, no, sushi's not a sandwich, you know, and it's like, or. You know what?

Sushi being a sandwich doesn't piss me off, but Nogiri being toast completely fucks with me. Actually, I don't think a sushi is a sandwich. Sushi is a burrito. No, sushi is sushi. It's its own category because four sides are covered by the carbohydrate. Oh, right.

And a burrito would require it to be all. Right. And the burrito being all six. Yeah. Sushi is its own super category. Whereas a sandwich is only two are covered because you have all of the edges. But see, here's the thing. There are so many actual sandwiches where that kind of gets obviated.

How do you mean? I'm trying to remember. Well, there are there are sandwiches in which like the one, I'm trying to remember the name of the one I'm thinking of, but there's a sandwich. Essentially like a hoagie. Yeah, that's a taco because that's three surfaces are covered. Three surfaces. See, and that's what I love is like it answers all of them. And that and that's why I just, I'm like, oh, it's a calzone.

Got it. Burrito's a calzone. And. No. No, I'm from Southern California. Fuck that. A Calzone is a burrito. Okay, I'm fine with that.

Like, no. I'm fine with that. You got to get the primacy, correct. Okay. I'm totally okay with that. It's still functionally the same. Um, but, okay, so I've got one for you. In the Matrix, yeah, Neo taking the pill, there's your threshold.

Oh, wow. Oh, no. Yeah. No, that's his answering the call because, that's answering the call. And getting unjacked is the threshold because he literally travels between two worlds there and they pulled the thing out of his head. So that's okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, oh, man. And, oh, man. Because the other thing is you could argue, well, no, that's not the threshold yet. He, he, there's an, oh, Jesus. See, now you're, now you're messing with me. All right. So Neo is an interesting case because, okay, so he's trying to remember the order of operations in the beginning of that film because there's the message about follow the rabbit. Follow the white rabbit.

Yeah. And he does. And I'm trying to remember where exactly he winds up going. Trinity at an S&M dance. Right. Okay. Meets Trinity. She tells him, she exposes him to the fact that he's part of a larger world.

Right. So that's that. Okay. So she winds up acting as his Harold. Yes. Which is an interesting, like kind of double dipping there. But anyway, she. Well, she acts as mentor, I guess.

Well, is she first mentor or is. Morpheus? Morpheus. Morpheus is very much a mentor. He is. But she's the one. even and he's even a mentor who's willing to sacrifice him for the sake of the world. That's very true.

Okay. So I would say then that she is the herald. She is the exposure to the call. Like she lets him know that this. Yeah. And then. And then he's kind of in and he winds up spending time like a lot of heroes do in an interesting kind of interstitial kind of circumstance where he's aware of there being a larger world. Right.

And that larger world is like doing shit to him. Yeah. But he hasn't accepted the call yet and he hasn't crossed the threshold yet. Because he literally like gives up the phone and gets arrested. Right. And yeah. And then and then he gets the pill. They suck the thing out of his belly.

He gets the pill. And then he touches the mirror. Right. Literally go that is a threshold. That's the membrane. And he gets unjacked from the matrix. So I would say that. crossing the threshold.

Yeah, I think you're right. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy crosses the threshold when she actually sets herself on the yellow brick road. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't think we can disagree with that one. Yeah.

All right. Cool. Well, we could do this all night, but I want to let people. There's plenty of other things we're going to do this with in the next episode. Yeah. I continue talking about the parts of this arc. I want to let people get into their house. Yeah.

So. Cool. What are you going to recommend to people? I am going to recommend The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Campbell. Joseph Campbell, like modernly, there's plenty of stuff that you can look at and say, you know, that's a little problematic. But his analysis and his codification of this arc is something that has had a profound effect on our awareness of the way we tell stories. I don't want to say that it's changed the way we tell them because what he was describing is something

we've been doing since dirt, you know, but he, I really think that this book is kind of the beginning of the really nascent beginning of meta-awareness of, of storytelling as a broad cultural kind of thing. Like literary professors knew this stuff before Campbell published the book, right? Right. Philosophy professors knew this stuff.

Linguists maybe you could say knew this stuff, anthropologists. But the broader public, this wasn't something that people spent time thinking about, right? Right. And then he published this book. And now, and it was like, it was, it was a way of showing the pattern on the wallpaper to the zeitgeist. And now we are living in a time where we are kind of saturated with our own awareness of these things. Yeah. And, and so I think for that reason alone, the book is worth reading.

It is also a fascinating read in and of itself. and so I recommend you go out and find yourself access to a copy of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. How about you? I'm going to recommend that people rewatch The Matrix. I think that the first one is a complete movie because it's very similar to Star Wars in that you didn't know you're getting the sequel. And I actually think that the sequel and the sequel or the sequel and the following sequel

are worth watching. And I fully acknowledge that they get shittier and shittier. But there's enough good meat on the bone for those. Yeah. So I always said that the Matrix was for anybody who speed read through Descartes.

And the... That's a great description. The second Matrix was anybody who speed read through Second Daniel. Oh, wow. Okay. And the third one was for anybody who read part of the way through Revelation. Yeah, that all fits.

Yeah. That all. That all fits. And I like them all for it. Yeah. And I like them all for it. Yeah. So, yeah.

Anyway, recommending the Matrix. It's a Warner Brothers thing. So the odds are you're going to be able to find it on most streaming. Yeah. Cool. Well, uh, yeah. Where, uh, where can they find us? We can collectively be found on our website at wubblewobobba.gookhistorytime.com.

We can be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, and on Amazon, I said it right, and on Spotify. And by the time all of you lovely people are hearing this, you can also find us on YouTube. Yes. We have a YouTube channel with the same name, a geek history of time. And my esteemed partner is putting in the time and the effort to put our episodes up with just a static background. But they can be listened to via YouTube going all the way back to episode one. So if you want to hear me slamming on the table and. drinking ice water

during recordings. Yeah, I think at one point there's me going through my cupboards because I'm really hungry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was,

man, we were, God, that was back when we were recording in the same room. Yeah, that was, talk about the good old days.

But yeah, that's also when, when we're going over things like, you know, comic books and McCarthy, and such like that. The really, you know, core DNA of our whole enterprise. Yes.

Is back there. So more and more episodes are going to be going up there as time goes on. We'll catch up to ourselves, basically. Eventually we will catch up to ourselves. For right now, it's good archive. Yeah, right now. It's amazing archive right now. So, yeah, please, please take the time to check us out there.

Please take the time to subscribe anywhere that it is that you've found us and give us the five-star review that, you know, we deserve. You know what? Actually, please go subscribe to the YouTube. That's the newest one. That's, yeah, please. Please, please, please. Yes. And so that's us collectively.

Where can you be found, sir? Oh, let's see. I'm going to say that you missed the April 3rd show of Capital Punishment. so go to the May 1st show and the June 5th show and the July 3rd show of Capital Punishment. All of those will be at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in Sacramento 9 p.m. on those dates. It's always the first Friday of the month. Get your tickets at saccommodyspot.com. Or at Sacramento ComedySpot.com.

And go to the calendar section and find the show. But yeah, go take a look at Capital Punishment. You owe it to yourself, the show. By the time you get to the July show, the show will have been 10 years old. Damn. Yeah, I've been at it. Nice. Nice.

Anyway, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.