The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 25: Pyramids Pt.3 (Allegory, And This Time I Mean It)

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 3 of our recap of “Pyramids”. Mythology! Philosophy! Linguistically! 101 Things A Boy Can Do! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we should blather on about:Juneteenth Black Lives Matter Black Trans Lives MatterUk Black PrideAnti-Racism charities in the UKBlack Trans Lives - Actions in Solidarity Things we blathered on about:The Oxter English DictionaryThe Annotated Pratchett File, PyramidsHerodotus HistoriesZeno’s paradoxesDiscworld calendar yearsAesopAntiphon of RhamnusSocratic DialogueSphinx (Greek)Fall of Civilizations PodcastOde on a Grecian UrnWine, Women, and Wisdom: The Symposia of Ancient GreeceNekhbetEgyptian VultureOzymandiasHigh Priest of AmunBrendan FraserEgyptian languageMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I like your top. It's a it's Buffy Pajamas. I just turned level 30 on Pokemon Go as I was waiting for. Thank you for the delay. I'm now smug. Congratulations. I'm very proud of you. It takes a long time once you're up in past 25, didn't it? Yeah, it's like a million experience points for me to get up to level 34 now. I'm still loving Pokemon Go. I wish the battle thing was back since you told me it was a thing. I was playing it like all the time. Yeah. I'm trying to watch how much I'm playing it because if it starts feeling like an obligation, it starts stressing me out. Yeah. The daily tasks at least aren't very time consuming. Yeah, catch and poke are still fine because they expanded the radius slightly. So now the two

within reach of my house are within reach of my house. When I had to leave the house for it, it was very good when I was hermiting and needed a reason to leave the house every day, but it became the source of stress. Yeah. Pokemon is one of those very few nostalgia things that still absolutely hooks me. I think Neanderth was very clever. It is very, very well done. I have no words to say. It's full of fucking bugs. If you go on the Reddit, the Silphrode, I think it's called like people hate it. But at the end of the day, I can't imagine designing a game like that and making it work 20% of the time. Yeah. No, I think it does really well. Considering it's very rare, they have to

close huge parts of the game for server maintenance as well. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I found myself going down an internet rabbit hole where I was reading a lot about game design and game writing, which is something like, on paper, I would love to get into, but realistically, it's impossible to get into without being incredibly low level and not really paid for years. The writing aspect of it, I'm not really interested in the technical aspects of coding and game design. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm more interested in the writing aspect, but you need to know some of the coding because you've got to know how the medium you're writing for works. Same way like writing for theatre, you need to know. Sure. Yeah, you need to know

what's possible. Yeah. And it was one of those, oh, I could get very into this if I had a bit more time. The coding side of that is one of those cliffs of expertise I was on about like, you're like, oh, this is interesting. This is interesting. Shit, I'm on the edge of this drop. I do not have time to devote my entire life to that right now. Yeah. The reason I started looking at it was someone was Chris asking, like one of the writers for Dragon Age was doing like an AMA thing on Twitter. And someone was asking, why aren't there more conversations with companions on this topic? Why aren't there more conversations outside of the romance line? Why don't you get a sex scene

where this guy takes his helmet off? And he was trying to explain like, this is the size team we need for writing that sort of thing. This is how many people it takes to make a scene like that happen. And then if you consider that would be very specific to romancing him, only about 20% of the players of the game would actually then get to that scene. And we'd have to pull people off other scenes to make that one happen. And he was talking about how these dialogue trees work and how you have like conversations with NPCs that don't repeat and how you can have all these different dialogue chains with characters based on background conversation that they overhear and stuff. It's huge. It's a huge giant complicated web. It's

really fascinating. Was that just on normal AMA, the Reddit? No, no, it was just a chat on Twitter thing. It was like an unofficial. I'm here for 10 minutes, asking questions. And he spent most to the 10 minutes answering questions about the writing, because obviously, it was an interesting thing to talk about. My oxter English dictionary arrived. Ah, it's very nice. It's from 1985. I've had a chance to have more of a flick through it than last time I talked to you. And whoever put it together, I think was a bit horny. Not only are there a lot of sexual words, but a lot of the non sexual words, the quotes they've used to put them in context are rather post water shunned. But I haven't highlighted those ones because

we are not post water shunned today. No, it's very early. It's very early. And it's 10 o'clock in the morning, which is, let's be honest, five hours earlier than we normally start. So well done, us. Let's forget why. We don't talk about the episode we forgot to record. I mean, I already told all our Twitter followers. But yeah, so I highlighted a couple of the cool obscure words, a couple of my favorites. I really like the fact that apparently lapidate means to throw rocks at. So dilapidate is rocks falling off. Yeah. Yeah. So like a dilapidated building is very casually throwing rocks at you, I guess. So I'm just thinking of like the most dilapidated thing we have in our town, which is the ruins of the old Abbey. And I'm just picturing the ruins like

pelting rocks at tourists. Well, maybe they're like, I don't even remember which Pratchett book this is in, but the very old trees that kind of blink and a season's past. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like that in building form. So really, they are assaulting us, but we don't notice. I can't believe I got beaten up by a building. I know it's terrible. Another one I rather liked is cetaceously, and I picked this because it has a silent P and is therefore relevant. Marvellous. But it means like or of a parrot. So perhaps there's a word you would dress in beautiful, colourful clothes, you would be dressed cetaceously or in a citizen fashion. I'm really happy that there's a word for like or of a parrot. I know. I don't know how many of these,

by the way, are neologian. Thank you, yes. I just made up for whatever they found it in. But I don't really care. I didn't realise that Oxter was the word for it was like a slang term for armpit. Oh, yeah, I should have mentioned that. Yeah, English dialect, but I can't remember where did you find out? Northern. Northern and Scottish, I think. There's one about Twitter followers mentioned it. And then one of our other Twitter followers mentioned that it's a very similar word in Dutch, which means Northern would make sense. Yes, yes, it would. The trade is, my listeners can't see me vaguely indicating that I think there's some trade routes between the Dutch and up of the country. That the vague hand gestures show a deep knowledge of geography

and historical diplomatic ties. Just trust us. Can't verbalise it. Believe me, it's there in the gestures. And the last one I highlighted was a vespitine, which is having to do with twilight. And so like cropuscular, but sounds less like it should be something to do with an insect. Those are all perfectly Cromulant words. Exactly. Yeah, I read. Oh, well, I just turned to the end, and I really like this one as well. So you go bonus. Zeppelinically, swollen in the sense of being filled with gas like a zeppelin. Zeppelinically. Zeppelinically. Oh, God, that's gorgeous. Yeah. Oh, wow. Zeppelinically. Okay. Well, I'm going to work that into my next bit of writing, even if it is about fucking broadband or whatever. It would be a good way to refer to someone's ego.

Oh, yeah. This ego swells zeppelinically. Yeah. I'm going to try and write that into my feed blog. You should. Doesn't actually exist yet. Yeah. But it's a proto food blog. I have seen a post for it. About cake. Have you decided what your blog is going to be called yet? I'm thinking Two Huts Cook, because I'm Two Huts Joe. Yeah. Never explain why. No. Shall we make a podcast? Oh, yes. Let's make a podcast. All right. Hello, and welcome to the Two Shall Make Keyfret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book in the Discworld series by Terry Bratchett, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part three of our discussion

of Pyramids, the seventh Discworld novel. And part three encapsulates book three and four of Pyramids, which is fairly uniquely structured. Yes, we've got the book of the new sun and the book of 101 things a boy can do. Sun's belt with an O to make a subtle but effective pun. Yeah, some of the written puns really get lost on our audio only podcast. Yeah. Fuck me. This is a full of puns book, though, isn't it? Like, I genuinely found myself rolling my eyes once, which I don't think I've ever done. It was the air today gone tomorrow. Oh, yeah, that one. Yeah. I rolled my eyes, but then I thought of Terry Bratchett writing it and giggling to himself,

and it made me really pleased. Yeah, no, that's fair. My loathing of puns varies a lot. Sometimes I really hate them. Sometimes I can cope. Normally I'm good with them with Terry Bratchett, but it's lucky you have some level of tolerance, because otherwise I don't think our friendship would have lasted this long. No, no. But you are at least decent enough to accompany all of your puns with an awkward think guns and then feel shame afterwards. If I knew there was some audio equivalent of finger guns, it's probably my awkward laugh that I do after terrible jokes. I love your little awkward laugh after terrible jokes, it pleases me. Alright, notes on spoilers. This is a spoiler like podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the

book we're on, Pyramids, but we'll avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld Novels, and we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld Novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there so you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Indeed. I managed to do that well in one breath. Well done. Do you have anything else to follow up on from last week? I don't. Probably, but if I do, I didn't write it down. Excellent. So I'm organized and professional. Previously on Pyramids, Tepik takes his place on the throne of Jelly Baby and quickly realizes that the power lies with the

priest. An architectural standoff ends in the new king ordering a massive pyramid with all the trimmings for his annoyed father, Rackett's deceased. Construction progresses impossibly quickly in several dimensions, despite royal attempts of bonomy ending in amputation. Meanwhile, Ex-Handmason Tracy is sentenced to death by crocs, but finds herself whisked away from her cell by a mysterious assassin. Spoiler, it's Tepik. She isn't impressed. Still, after a bit of funereal hide and seek, she joins the rebellious young monarch on Camelback and escapes a vengeful deos. The pair leave the kingdom just in time as it promptly vanishes. Must be something to do with all that geometry.

Never trust geometry. Good. So do you want to summarize what happens in this bit and then we'll talk about it in our usual fashion? Yes, I apologize. This is something of a lengthy summary because quite a lot happens. It does. So we begin in book three with Tepik and Tracy on the Ephebian border staring at a distinct lack of old kingdom while you bastard choose Hortley. Side note, love and adverb. Tracy gives Tepik a massage as they contemplate making water. Meanwhile, back at the gel, T'Klasp wanders through the wreckage of the Great Pyramid. He discovers his son, 2A, has gone a bit sideways. He's got a touch of the old dimensional displacement, don't you know? Tepik, Tracy and Hugh bastard meet some philosophers.

The gods of the old kingdom manifest. Deos panics and priests start getting literal as gods play for control of the sun. Kumi attempts a coup, but Deos rallies around his rage and starts screaming at the impersonate gods. Mood. Tepik goes to the tavern with his new philosophy friends. King Tepakymon wakes up back in his well-preserved body and attempts some reassembly, terrifying, dill and gurn. At a raucous symposium, Pathagonal explains to Tepik that pyramids use up new time and the Great Pyramid has turned the dimensions through 90 degrees, meaning gels had to pop out of the universe for a mow. Tepik briefly wanders if the tortoise Tracy is feeding is in fact a god. Call forward. As they contemplate their next move, they bump into Tepik's old friend Chidda.

To clasp in his sons, hide from vut, the vulture-headed god. Tepik and Tracy have dinner on Chidda's boat. Chidda suggests using Tepik's missing country for a cheeky bit of tax evasion. A wine-soaked Tepik dreams of kuft, the founder. Tepik gets a few illusions shattered as kuft theorizes that the camel's probably called gel into being because they were a bit thirsty. The next morning, Tepik goes for a swim and collects his camel. King Tepakymon starts releasing his relatives from their pyramids. Tepik takes a look at the front lines as sort and a feep prepare for war. He uses severe dehydration and a stick to convince you bastard to complete the complicated mathematics needed to re-enter the old kingdom. End of book three. The beginning of book four

sees Tepik and you bastard in the dimension of the Sphinx. After applying logic to riddles, a dangerous pastime, they make it back to the gel. Dios agrees to intercede with the gods as battalions of dead kings begin to march. Well, lurch. The army of the dead finds kuft's pyramid empty. Back on home turf, Tepik finds himself empowered by the people's belief and successfully parts the gel as the flailing crocodiles get stoned. The legions of the dead run into some translation trouble at kuft's pyramid. The armies of sort and a feep face off as Tepik runs to the necropolis, now well populated with the reanimated corpses of artisans, etc. The soldiers wait in wooden horses as Tepik entrants to clasp and tries to turn off the overturned pyramid.

Cumi faces off against the dead monarchs. It's revealed that Dios is in fact 7000 years old. The footnote keeper of history has been killing time to preserve the rituals. The immense belief in Dios allows him to pause the petulant rulers and the gods he created approach as Tepik tries to flare the great pyramid with a little help from his ancestors. Things go boom. In the aftermath, gel reappears, surprising the armies in their wooden horses. And as a boat arrives in gel, the kingdom begins to repair itself with Tepik overseeing. Chidron Tracy surprised Tepik with a bit of carpet. Tepik discovers Tracy is in fact his sister and abdicates the throne to her. She starts to make some changes, ordering a bridge over the gel that cheers the two clasps up,

if not the crocodiles. Dil discovers olive stuffing. Death moves on the monarchs. Tepik says is for wells and Dios goes back. Wow. That is a lot for what, just over 100 pages? I mean this is a longer book than some of them. I was comparing it to you dropped off the next book for me the other day and this is a lot thicker. Helicopter and loincloth watch. Page 290 in my edition as Tepik is talking to Kovt in his dream. Kovt says that's just public relations, he said. I mean look at me. Do I look patriarchal? Tepik gave him a critical appraisal, not in that loincloth, he admitted. It's a bit well ragged. So we've got a ragged loincloth. I think a ragged loincloth is quite a patriarchal costume.

I think we can call anything. I don't. I'm just being contrarious. I don't have anything to back that up, I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting to have opinions on loincloths today, so there we are. Well you know that seems like why we have the corner. It's not so I can have opinions on loincloths, it's just so I can highlight that loincloths and helicopters turn up fairly often in tariff ratchet books. Oh I forgot to write it down, but there are elephants mentioned, war elephants. They kept breeding bigger elephants. Which aren't actually really helpful. Yeah I didn't read much about it because I have a feeling researching war elephants will upset me. Yes that's fair. So let's just assume everybody was fine.

Our irrelevant elephant corner this week consists of we don't want to know if the elephants were unhappy. Yes. So what's next? Favorite quote. I'm not sure which of the youth came first because our editions are so drastically different. So I'll do mine because it's short. And I think you've been foreshadowing for the last two episodes a fairly lengthy extra. It's a little lengthy. So this is when Dil and Gern and Tepiqui Monta recently deceased, a kind of coming to the realization that if he's now awake, then his ancestors may be as well. It has already been remarked that Dil had a very poor imagination. In a job like his, a poor imagination was essential. But his mind's eye opened on a panorama of pyramids stretching

along the river and his mind's ear swooped and curved through solid doors that no thief could penetrate. And it heard the scrabbling. And it heard the hammering. And it heard the muffled shouting. I just think that's a very good drug pause of a paragraph. I enjoy that. Yeah. Me too. And then they go and smash their way in. Yes. I do like the slow, creepy horror, horror, horror, smash. Yes. So if you would like to take a very deep breath. I did. Like as soon as I read the whole book the first time, I knew I was going to do this and I'm not even slightly sorry. So this is Kapoloma at the Symposium, telling the story of the sortie in wars. And this is the greatest storyteller in all of Ephie, right? Yeah. I think

Kapoloma is meant to be like a weird combination of Herodotus and Homer, because this is a story that Homer would tell, but this is very much written. Herodotus was somewhat, I don't know if you've ever read Herodotus' histories. Some, it extracts from the room almost everything about classical history, but I've never sat down and read a full volume. I've never sat down and read a full volume because life is short, but he had a very rambling style. I tried reading them because of American gods, their reference near the beginning. Yes. Anyway. Anyway. So yes, the greatest storyteller on the disk. You see what happened was he'd taken her back home and her father, this wasn't the old king, this was the one before, the one with the wasname. He married

some girl from Avarela Rea boy, she had a squint. What was her name now? Again with a P or a NL. One of them letters anyway. Her father owned an island out on the bay there, Papalos, I think it was. No, tell a lie, it was Krynix. Anyway, the king, the other king, he raised an army and they, Eleanor, that was her name. She had a squint, you know, but quite attractive this day. When I say married, I trust I do not have to spell it out for you. I mean, it was a bit unofficial. Anyway, there was this wooden horse. And after they got in, did I tell you about this horse? It was a horse. I'm pretty sure it was a horse or maybe it was a chicken. Forget my own name next. It was what's the name's idea, the one with the limp. Yes, the limp in his leg. I mean, did I mention him?

There'd been this fight. No, that was the other one, I think. Yes. Anyway, this wooden pig, damn clever idea. They made it out of thing, tipped my tongue, wood. But that was later, you know, the fight. Yes, nearly forgot the fight. Yes, damn good fight. Everyone's banging on their shields and yelling, what's name's armor, shone like shining armor, fight and a half that fight between thing, not the one with the limp, the other one, what's name, had red hair. You know, tall fellow, talk with a lisp. Hold on, just remembered, he was from some other island, not him, the other one, the one with the limp, didn't want to go, said he was mad. Of course, he was bloody mad. I mean, it wouldn't cow, like what's name said, the king, no, not that king,

the other one, he saw the goat, he said, I fear the aphibians, especially when they're mad enough to leave bloody, great wooden livestock on the doorstep, talk about nerve. They must think we were born yesterday, set fire to it. And of course, what's name had nipped him around the back and put everyone to the sword, talk about a laugh. They say she had a squint, they say she was prissy, but it takes all sorts. Yes, anyway, that's how it happened. Now, of course, what's name, I think he's called mellicanus, had a limp. He wanted to go home, we would, they'd been there for years, he wasn't getting any younger. That's why he dreamt up the thing about the wooden wasname. Yes, I tell you lie, Leveilus was the one with the knee. Pretty good fight, that fight. Take it from me.

Staring stuff. Inspiring storytelling, really. It is. I'm very impressed you got through that. I've had like six cups of coffee already today, that helped. But it's the thing I've talked about a whole bunch in this podcast, my favorite comedy thing of like how long can you continue to ramble and throw in little details like our Susan, who we don't talk to because of what happened at our Covent's baptism and we still don't give the good shimer. Yes, I mean, we talk to Karen now, but we don't let her borrow the good tuckerware, obviously. I mean, you wouldn't, would you not

with someone who's got a haircut like that? And she's got one of those nose rings, which we'd find with. And breathe. We're recording very early in the morning. I've had to film myself, I mean, I say very early, it's nearly 11. I've had to film myself with coffee. All right, let's talk characters. Yeah, we've got a lot of characters considering this is the last part of our look at pyramids, but let's start with philosophers. Yes. I had fun researching this whole section, because like I said, I have a vague, my brain has wandered into the realms of old Greek philosophy in the past. Oh, I'm very sorry. Yes, I briefly studied it. It's really hard to talk about because so much of what's being joked

about here isn't just the philosophical concepts themselves, but the way philosophy was taught and discussed and spoken about. And it was a very weird mix of art and theater. Yeah, when I was researching stoicism, I kind of went down a little rabbit hole of how public philosophy was. And, you know, you'd go into the town square and shout your ideas out and have people shout back. And you were saying it was theater? Yeah, you'd have these theater pieces. I'll talk about that a bit when we talk about symposiums and stuff. The idea was that you'd have these performances that were really a framework for investigating a philosophical concept where these philosophers would be writing their peers as characters into these pieces

and then using them as mouthpieces for their own ideas. And there were big debates. And the idea was always metaphors and allegories to try and communicate ideas. I mean, it's all kind of a precursor to physics, well, trying to understand how the world works. Take off allegory on the true Shamaiki fret bingo card listeners. I think I've been pretty good about not misusing allegory recently. I actually mean it this time. Allegory. And this time I mean it. Well, it was allegorical. That's for each man to decide for himself. We won't hold it against you. Sorry. So Xeno. Xeno, Xeno. So this bit made me laugh so much. This is the axiom testing station

and Xeno trying to prove that tortoises are very far. So this is a reference to Xeno with Zed's paradoxes. So an axiom is a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted or self-evidently true. So an axiom is something you can use as the crux of your argument because it is widely accepted. Got something. It falls. Yes. That kind of thing. But gravity. Philosophy. Philosophy. More philosophical. So Xeno had these three paradoxes and from what I understand and someone offered to explain them paradoxes. Paradoxy pods. Someone offered to explain them to me in a lot more detail yesterday

that I pointed out. I understand them just enough for it to be funny when I plan to explain it. I don't want to learn anymore. But these were written kind of in response to some Socratic thoughts and the idea is not to really prove things as such but to question things with these. Okay. So there are three main ones. I suppose you have the arrow paradox which is where Xeno states that for motion to occur an object must change the position which it occupies. And he gives the example of an arrow in flight. Okay. In any one durationous instant of time the arrow is not moving to where it is or from where it isn't. Sure. And it can't move to where it is because no time elapses for it to move there.

Yeah. It can't move to where it is not because no time elapses for it to move there. It can't remain where it is because it's already, it can't move to where it is because it's already there. So every instant of time there's no motion occurring. Okay. And if there's everything is motionless every instant and time is composed entirely of instance you cannot have motion. So motion doesn't exist. I think stop motion animators would have something to say about that. Yes, quite possibly. Well, they can argue with ancient Greek philosophers if they want. They may well do. I think a lot of them are quite mad. I'm now just imagining at Ardman Studios them regularly holding séances to yell at Zeno

for saying that motion doesn't exist. So where did tortoises come in? Sorry, I think I missed a bit about the tortoise. Also, there's two more paradoxes. There's a paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, which is where we get the speedy tortoise idea from. Achilles is in a foot race with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise's head start of 100 meters. If each racer starts running at some constant speed, one faster than the other, after some finite time Achilles will have run 100 meters, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. But during that time, the tortoises run a bit further. It will then take Achilles some time to further run that distance by the time the tortoise will advance further and then more time to reach the third point.

So whenever Achilles arrives somewhere the tortoise is being, he still has some distance to go before he can reach the tortoise. Now in our Axiom testing station with unresolved postulates, we are using arrows in the place of Achilles probably because Achilles wasn't handy. So because the arrow shouldn't be able to move because there's no such thing as motion, because it needs to catch up to the tortoise who is constantly moving, the tortoise should always be faster than the arrow. I see. This is the longest explanation of a joke we've done so far. I'm liking it, but I'm not going to pretend I 100% get it.

Oh no, me neither. It's all to do with the uncertainty principle. Oh, that. Well, you know, the uncertainty principle, the whole point is to not guess it, isn't it? Or to be at least a little iffy about it. This is like proto-proto physics. It's all very odd. The third paradox is the dichotomy paradox, which is that distance basically repeatedly splits into smaller and smaller parts, and it's therefore infinite. And therefore there's no such thing as motion. Yes. Yeah. So these are the very long-winded way of explaining why you're late to work. Yeah, this is, well, as motion is technically impossible, and there was a tortoise in front

of me, the fact that I got here at all. Exactly. I'm only half an hour late, and the distance here was infinite. So frankly, I think you should give me a raise. Yeah. I'm going to try that and see what happens. Let me know. Probably my boss will start wanting to discuss theoretical physics with me, and I don't need that kind of negativity in my life, frankly. So on top of the philosophers, we had a couple of mathematicians. We did. There's some fun little references. So you've got Pythagoras, Esop, which has also corrected in the show notes to Europe, but Esop is referenced to Esop and his fables, and there's a nice reference where they talk

about the tortoise beating the hare in a race, which is obviously the tortoise and the hare. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Well, it was Esop. Was he ancient Greek as well, then? Yeah, I think he was Greek. Probably not fully contemporary with Plato and Achilles. I've never really looked into the background of Esop, to be fair. No, I've got a book of his fables. I've got one with some lovely illustrations. Nice. I was looking at one, but, you know, my four things I will barely look at.

Yeah. There's also one called Antiphon, which so I double-checked the annotated pratchettial space thing to check some of my references. And they mentioned that Antiphon is probably a reference to Aristophan, who was a very famous ancient Greek playwright. But Antiphon was also, there was a guy called Antiphon, who was a very well known orator in ancient Greek times. He was one of the earliest proponents of rhetoric. Oh, we like rhetoric. Yes, we like rhetoric and logic. And he was a big rhetoric and logic guy back in the ancient Greek times. Also, and Antiphon is a term for call and response singing.

So Antiphon is call and response. Like what should we do with the drunken sailor? Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah. So Antiphon, the word for sort of, the word Antiphon comes from Antiphon. And it's, like I said, it's call and response. Which brings us kind of on to end as the listener. So in Socrates' plays, which like I said, were kind of a mechanism for explaining philosophical concepts, he would have something of a call and response character where he'd say something and the character's response would be, yes Socrates, tell me more Socrates, I'm listening Socrates.

And it, you'd have like, in ancient Greek theatre in general, you'd have this, the Greek chorus who would, who would have responses to certain things. So it ties in nicely with Antiphon. And then you've got this character of endos the listener, who is effectively that character from Socratic dialogues. It's the second man in the dialogue. So one person can explain and the other person can go, hmm, yes, interesting. This is kind of highlighting how ridiculous that would be in a non-structured conversation. Yeah. I mean, you say that, but both of us have a tendency to go on at length for the other person interjects with, hmm, well, interesting. Yeah, that becomes awfully apparent when I have to

write one track of our conversation. I'm just going to mention that I love Saganel's hatred of maths, because it very much reflects, yeah, it very much reflects my own feelings about advanced mathematics, which is kind of a confused flailing of the mind. The diameter divides into the circumference, you know, it ought to be three times. You think so, wouldn't you? But does it? No. 3.141 and lots of other figures. There's no end to the buggers. Do you know how pissed off that makes me? Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel. That's good. Some other characters. We've got Kumi, that's his little coup. Second evil priest. Yes. He's kind of fun because, like, Dios was kind of the antagonist in the last section. And then he's not so antagonistic here. He's just trying to sort

of maintain order. Like, he's very well-intentioned. And Kumi comes off as this, I'm going to be sneaky and evil. And he wants power for the sake of power. He wants change, but he also wants everything to stay the same. There's a lot more human motivation behind him. Like, in the last section I was on about the cleverness of Dios being exposed as completely non-corrupt, whereas Kumi is the evil priest one would expect in this situation. Yeah. And I like that, you know, Kumi becomes this high priest at the end, and Tracy is having none of it. Speaking of Tracy. Speaking of Tracy? It's time for Purple Post-It 2, Electric Boogaloo. Purple Post-It 2. This time it's personal. Two purple, two post-it. The long-awaited sequel. Okay, so I said last week,

when I was complaining about the writing of Tracy, that I was going to contradict myself a bit. So there's this excerpt from, I think we're still in book three. She was definitely flowering. Back in the Old Kingdom, she'd never apparently had any... Flowering isn't all for her to use about. Yes, it is. Back in the Old Kingdom, she'd never apparently had any original thoughts beyond the choice of the next grape to peel. But since she was outside, she seemed to have changed. Her jaw hadn't changed, it was still quite small, and he had to admit very pretty. But somehow it was more noticeable. She used to look at the ground when she spayed him. She still didn't always look at him when she spayed to him, but now it's because she was

thinking about something else. So I think what's kind of trying to happen here is that she's very stereotypical and trophy in the first few sections of the book. Because when you take her out of the stale time of the Old Kingdom and put her somewhere fresh, she becomes able to be intelligent and communicate because she's outside of that. So she's a stereotype when she's in old stale time. Now she's got new life breathed into her. She manages to be a lot more than a stereotype, which is a really clever idea when you look at the whole themes of the book and needing time to change and move on. And you look at what Patrick was trying to do. He's parodying fantasy. And that's what I was saying. Is it parody? If you're just doing the thing, it kind of works.

Yeah, it was parody. He was doing the thing. But I would say the stereotype trope, but as I said last week, it wasn't really the bit I had an issue with. Who knows, the ridiculous sexualizing, which if he'd done it so, she's ridiculously sexualized and all the women are in the, while the book is in gel, and then when you come out of gel into fresh time, the women get to be more well rounded characters that aren't sexualized. That would be a better way to do that. But you get, you get to a few pages later, and this is when they're on Shiddah's boat and she's not dressed. She'd chosen a red court dress such as being the fashion in Angkor Port 10 years previously with puff sleeves and vast concealed unpinning and roughs the size of

millstones. Tepik learned something new, which was that attractive women dressed in a few strips of gourds and a few yards of silk can actually look far more desirable when fully clad from neck to ankle. I think it's like, it really seems like Pratchett wanted to get that preference across, didn't it? Because it said Tepik learned something new. We literally explicitly went over that preference in the last section. And the section before. Yeah, like, okay, we get it, like, women can look nice in dresses and we don't think they should be in tiny strips of gourds. Like, okay. Yeah. It's this really like, I'm very anti any kind of toxic men at all, because there's been so much shit coming out in the last few days about loads of toxic men in comedy. And

yes, just stay off the internet. It's better. It's this whole, well, I'm a woke feminist, you know, I don't like to look at scantily clad women, I don't feel like they should have to get their tits out for me to look at them. You're still looking at them based on how attracted you are to them. They're still bodies first and people's second. And that's almost every woman in this book is talked about in relation to her attractiveness, like the only ones that aren't like the dead queens, like dead relatives get to be non sexualized pretty much everyone else that's kind of dirty. That's because they get kicked back into the Madonna part of the Madonna Hall complex. Exactly. And like, this isn't this huge Terry Pratchett was a dickhead and he's cancelled.

This is like, he can do so much better. So it's very surprise. Yeah, this is not the podcast for that. This is just that he could do so much better. We know he could and does so much better. So it's hard to read a book where even where we sort of trying to do better and it looks like he's trying to play with a stereotype, it's still there as appearance first. And yeah, I know I do like this is over 20 years ago and things improve, things get better. Yeah, all I the only reason I even noticed this kind of stuff in this book is because it's Pratchett, like the bar for Pratchett is just set about a mile higher than for almost every other male writer I like. And that would go completely under the radar for me if I was reading it in Ben Oronovich or

whatever. But also, you know, to give some of our listeners perspective who haven't thought about how it feels to be a woman reading this sort of book, it is upsetting to get every woman in this book sexualized because as I said last week, it makes you feel like it's not really for you get out of our treehouse. So yeah, so that was my little Tracy. But I really love, I really love her ending. I like her and Chidda. I like her very much taking control and going, fuck you, Kumi, I'm having a bath. Well, that's it. Like I said, I mean, you had a bit more of an issue with the propy bit than I did. Apart from the weird physical descriptions. I didn't have any issue with Tracy. I really liked her as a character mostly throughout. Like I liked

the specifically ditzy nature of her. Unless I have an issue with the tropiness is I wanted to point it out because what he's trying to do with the tropiness is clever. She's not being tropy when she comes out of the old kingdom. Yeah. And yeah, I do like her as a character. I like the way she very much owns her power at the end, that whatever relationship she ends up having with Chidda, who I also have a massive soft spot for, will probably be a bit wouldn't be them getting married and running a kingdom together, be fine, you're in port. But also, can you do me a trade deal while you're here? Oh, yes, absolutely.

Um, kuft. Kuft. Yeah, the founder. Didn't have like a whole lot to say about him. But you know, I quite like the idea of these founding myths. Nobleness tacked on years later when really it was just a bit of a thief running away with his family and coming across the river and thought, fuck it, we'll sit down. And then the Sphinx, I was wrong. I'm glad it didn't kill you for it. Well, no, I didn't actually have to go into a bit of riddling. So I was talking last week about the fact that the riddle of the Sphinx is this whole idea of what's this in the morning, this in

the evening, blah, blah, blah. And that might be tied into the belief that Ra lived an entire lifetime in a single day. But I lit the Sphinx up in my handy Brewer's Guide to Phrase and Fable. You say handy, that's the size of your head. You gave it to me. I know. I've marked this with the... I've got paper back. I've marked this page with the Five of Spades.

Is that a significanted anyway? No, it was the first one I pulled out. It was my card. Sphinx of Greek mythology is quite distinct from the Egyptian Sphinx. It was a monster with the head and breast of a woman, body of a dog or a lion, the wings of a bird, a serpent's tail and lion's paws. Had a human voice and was said to be the daughter of Orthos and Typhon, or the Chimera. She inhabited the vicinity of Thebes, setting the inhabitants riddles and devouring those unable to find solutions. The Thebans were told by the oracles she'd kill herself if the following riddle was solved. What goes on four feet, on two feet, and three,

but the more feet it goes on the weaker it be. And I was right that this did have some links to Oedipus because Oedipus is the one who solves the riddle, which is that it's a man. Typhon and what's it? Are they your, you know what I mean, Titans? Or were they... I don't know. I don't know enough about ancient Greek mythology to answer that question. So yeah, so it's distinct from the Egyptian, but there probably was overlap because obviously a lot of the ancient Greek Empire was, like Thebes kind of almost was Egypt. Thebes was Egypt.

Yes, but it was daughter of as ancient Greek within that context of the Sphinx, if you know what I mean. Okay, yeah, yeah. Thebes was like the religious capital of Egypt for a very long time. You know, my knowledge of geography in ancient Greek Empires is limited at best. So apparently it's distinct from the Egyptians Sphinx, but I assume there is obviously some overlap and that's where the riddle comes from. Yeah, like I said, it's in Oedipus, Oedipus is the one who solves the riddle. Excellent.

Before shouting his mother, I assume. Cool, so locations. Yeah, speaking of Thebes, we're in a Thebe. Hey. I really, so a Thebe is like we already mentioned the ancient Greece parallel with philosophers running amok. Darling, we've got philosophers again called the exterminator. How would one go about getting rid of a philosopher infestation, do you think?

Throw a tortoise at it. Excellent, you know, I think I might have been wrong. I think you're right about Thebes. And I know, sorry, I'm looking this up because I think we're both right in different millennia. Cool. That's what really matters. So. Oh, no, no, there's two.

I think there's a Thebes comma Greece and a Thebes comma Egypt. Look, there we go. We have been so vague on a lot of things that I'm sure our listeners know a lot more about than we do. I'm assuming we'll get some emails on this one. I know, but I don't want to perpetuate the confusion. We are both right. There are just two of them.

I'll perpetuate your confusion, darling. Is that a threat or a promise? Darling. Darling. Historical imperative of what? Yes, that's the one. It just made me laugh when they realised the gel's gone so sort and if he'd have to go to war and tepics like, but why is that historical imperative,

isn't it? Yeah. It's what we do. We have wars. I also really like the only other location thing was the reference to the lost city of E in the Great Neff. Yes, I thought might have been Atlantis reference. But as you pointed out in the episode, we didn't record.

Probably there were lots that we don't talk about. Yeah, there are lots of lost cities. And I imagine a lot surrounding cities in the desert. If you think of where the most ancient cities are, we're looking at the Middle East. And a lot of massive climatic climate changes, destroyed civilisations and things. I've been listening to a podcast called Fall of Civilisations and it's very good. If any of our listeners have any room in their schedules for very long podcasts. So yeah, but that was, I mean, that should have been more of a little thing I liked,

which is what we're going to talk about next. There's a line I really like and sorry, I'm finding pages again. They're talking about to clasp two way and how he's been flattened slash dimensionally challenged. You could clean the ice off winds, looking forward to a life of cleaning the ice off windscreens and sleeping cheaply in trouser presses in hotel bedrooms. And there's just a little footnote saying, well, this is a loose translation because obviously to class didn't know the words for ice, windscreens or hotel bread bedrooms.

But squiggle eagle, eagle vase, wavy line duck translates directly as a press for barbarian leg coverings. And I like the fact that there's lots of round world metaphors in these Discworld books. And the footnote just sort of acknowledges obviously they don't actually know what these things are, but it works for the sake of description. Yeah, I like the fact that he doesn't try and force his metaphors to fit the set because that would get tired. And especially this early in the series where there isn't a lot

to build on to then make these sort of metaphors from like in later books. I think he does do it a bit more because then you've got 30 books of world building to draw on. We'll keep an eye out. This is just a TV tiny bit. We're just talking about leaving a fee to try and go back to jelly baby. And Tracy says, I went down to the harbor. There's those things like big rafts, you know, camels of the sea ships, said Tefic,

which I like because it's just a direct inversion of camels being ships of the desert. And I enjoy camel related wordplay as I've discovered this month. Yes, I enjoy that. So my new specific niche. Okay, good. Don't get the hump with me if I don't enjoy it. Oh, Jesus.

I was going to try to not make a hump joke for this entire podcast and I just couldn't do it front soon. Finger guns. Well, it's not as bad as the hump joke I assumed you would have made. So we're good. Yeah, I was trying. Well, it is pre-water shed. Yeah, there's a, well, they're at the symposium.

A fight breaks out of a tree. What was it? A philosopher had a verse that although truth was beauty, beauty was not necessarily truth and a fight was breaking out. What is a symposium exactly? So a symposium was like a big thing in ancient Greece. And it was the, these were like formal gatherings of say less than 10. They would have rooms in their houses specifically for this would stay for sort of around the

outside where everyone sits and discusses things. These were like, so when they say it's a 9 from 40, that's not far away from the truth. Like they'd drink a lot, eat a lot and talk about these higher concepts. No, no women were allowed. This was the only thing because obviously everyone knows. Brains, brains. Brains, never hating anyone. Yeah, they didn't develop enough to really cope with philosophy until like the late 18th

century, I think. I can hear my womb screaming at the thought. Yes. Well, mine's gone for a wander again. So symposiums were a very real established thing. But as I was saying, so the truth, beauty thing, I thought it was may have, it was also a reference to the Keats poem, which is something like O2 agree, Greek earn, something like a Greek earn, which ends with the line.

Beauty is truth, truth, beauty. That is all you know on earth and all you need to know. But Plato, obviously, as I said, theater would exist to examine philosophical concepts. So Plato's symposium was a play that discussed the nature of beauty. So it was a play about a symposium rather than just being like, Plato had a symposium where they talked about this. Yeah, a play about symposium where he basically wrote in his philosophy buddies and the Socrates that Plato has written concludes that the highest form of love is the love of

true beauty. It's the ideal essence of beauty, the unchanging perfect form of beauty. Platonic ideal. Yes, because this wasn't something Socrates said, this is something the Socrates that Plato wrote said. This is where it all gets very confusing whenever I try and look into philosophy. It's like, wait, no, that's quoted Socrates comma. Plato basically wrote fanfiction about his own philosophy buddies.

Like Plato wrote Socrates fanfiction. This is how it's a primus. It's like if after we had a disagreement on a point on this podcast, I went and wrote a chapter of a book where he agreed with me instead. Well, I think it's more realistic if you said this. I feel like we really haven't done a good job of explaining ancient Greek philosophy or understanding it, but to be perfectly honest. Well, that's not really the subject of this podcast.

Well, there is that. And I'm very open to our listeners emailing us and explaining how we're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. If you could then summarize the emails for me afterwards, we'll be grilled golden. Who about said we'd be grilled cheese? And I really want a cheese toast too. Yeah.

Well, you're going to have a grilled cheese toastie. I'm having a baked tomato and mozzarella for catch thing. That is not relevant. Vulture headed gods, Francie. What about them? Oh, that's mine, isn't it? All right. Yeah.

Yeah. So Vut, did he say his name was? Yeah. Vut, the vault headed God is just a fun recurring joke throughout this book where they're trying to get rid of an ugly statue, which in itself I quite liked. But I thought I'd have a quick look to see any vulture gods in ancient Egypt. And unsurprisingly, there is at least one. Yeah.

Oh, interestingly, in ancient Egypt, vultures weren't seen as they are in our culture. So vultures are kind of a metaphor for swooping in and taking advantage of a bad situation. Now, yeah, yeah. Whereas they were seen as quite pure nurturing animals in ancient Egypt, often assumed to all be female, interestingly. But Necbet was an early goddess that kind of evolved in importance. And she was kind of the protector over the pharaohs. So when you see the pharaoh depicted or a symbol of the pharaoh depicted,

quite often you'll see a vulture over him. And that's not as one, a modern person might think like, you know, vultures hovering. It's a vulture predict. It attacked, most importantly, it snack on carrion. Lovely. Lovely. I've really got to stop dead meming. But anyway, she was actually eventually the patron goddess of Upper Egypt.

And if you look, I don't know, you've got the internet, haven't you? If you look up, Egyptian vultures, they are quite pretty. I'm not going to go off. I'll bring one up and show you. Because I will start up a bit. Oh, yes, they are quite sweet. Yeah, I'll link one in the show notes. But they look like just like bald-faced, cute chickens.

Chickens aren't cute, Francine. Yeah, that's why I added the modifier. Yeah, terrifying. Evil little dinosaur blasters. Yeah, fair one. They do smell and steal your cigarette if you sit down in the back door. We both have very specific thoughts. Your mileage may vary.

So yeah, Ozzy Mandias you've put down. I have. That was a brief reference near the end, wasn't it? Yeah, so we already had a little Keats reference with the truth and beauty thing. So we're going to talk about another romantic poet because I will shoehorn them into everything. Go wildly from era to era.

Yep. Well, the romantic poets, there was a lot of weird obsession with ancient cultures because of, you know, where we were, England was being very colonial and taking places at the time and ransacking them for bits of history without concept. Especially Byron travelled through Greece and fought in Greek wars of independence

that were happening at the time. Right. Yeah, and like hoarded relics and things. He was an old fish, wasn't he? He was a very old fish. I do highly recommend the podcast I mentioned before, You're Dead to Me, The History, the episode on Byron and the episode on Mary Shelley.

They're both fascinating. Okay. If you look at the Noble Blood podcast, they've got one on Elizabeth Lam. So we could trio it up. Yes. So yeah, it is just a throwaway line really. The bird said more with a simple bow movement

than Ozzy Mandaius ever managed to say. But it's one of my absolute favourite sonnets ever. So I'm going to read it out anyway. Oh, yes. The whole thing, please. Because it's not too long. That's definitely in the public domain. It's quite old.

But yeah, I'm a massive Shelley fan. Right, poem. I met a traveller from an ancient land who said, Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them on the sand half sunk shattered visage lies Whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that it sculptor well those passions red Which yet survives stamped on these lifeless things

The hand that mocks them and the heart that fed And on the pedestal these words appear My name is Ozzy Mandaius, king of kings Look on my works ye mighty and despair Nothing beside remains Round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless And bare the lone and level sands stretch far away God, it's a good poem.

It is such a good poem. It's a general theme I love as well. Just tenuous links to the far, far, far away past Is very much my aesthetic. So this is a cool thing. Again, I was checking references on the annotated Pratchett, which we'll link to in the show notes. It's amazing if you want.

Thank you, L-Space. Thank you, L-Space. And the guy annotating it pointed out that Ozzy Mandaius was actually written in like a little competition Shelley was having with another poet. They both had to write a sonnet on this topic. Sonnet duel. Yes.

So Shelley's sonnet is called Ozzy Mandaius. I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote the other one. I'm not going to read it out. It's a quite nice sonnet. But the title on a stupendous leg of granite discovered standing by itself in the deserts of Egypt with the inscription inserted below. I fucking love that title.

I really like long, descriptive, absurd Victorian titles for things. He's not even Korean, is he? Is he? Shit. Where's Shelley? Early 1800s. So. Okay.

Yeah. But yeah, I love those like the three line headlines and the ridiculous subtitles in old books. That's. Oh yeah, no. It's brilliant. So if we take the Shelley sonnet and give it that other dude's title.

Perfect poem. I was about to call it Perfect Little Frankenstein of a Poem, which, you know, calls back to us like that. What's in the thing? Is it a thing? The only other little thing I wanted to point out is that they're discussing whether it's the century of the cobra or the century of the fruit bat.

And this is a fun thing that this is one of the earliest mentions of it. The centuries all have ridiculous names like the cobra and the fruit bat. And the years get silly names as well. And now the discord Emporium like announces the name for the year. I can't remember what this year's is now. It's something to do with a trout, I think.

Yeah, maybe I can't. Because it's so weird to try and figure out how time has actually moved within the disc world. But it's a lot, but also nothing happens over the span of like 40 years. I thought it'd be fun to keep an eye on what century we're in. OK, so which are we in? Fuck no, it's cobra or fruit bat. So we'll start next time.

I'm going to drag this country kicking and screaming into the century of the fruit bat. Cobra, said Gern. So we're going into the century of the cobra, but I think it'll be the century of the fruit bat. It's not very consistent. Yeah. Yeah.

And so going on to slightly longer talking points, Dios as a character is very interesting in general. By the way, what a fucking depressing ending for him. Yeah, I don't know. You're depressing. He doesn't like change. He doesn't want to move on and sort of having the opportunity to continue and do the whole cycle again.

Might be what he was like. I couldn't really imagine Dios relaxing in an afterlife. Perhaps it's not depressing for him so much as just the concept of it is very depressing. Oh, yeah, very much so. The idea that all this ridiculous, heart-sake and crocodile throwing is going to, but you know, throwing to the crocodiles,

I don't think they throw the crocodiles, is going to repeat itself while this later in the browser of time. Sorry, I'm just imagining Dios. Taylor's off into the distance. God, oh no, I've gone to a time travel metaphor. Abort, abort. Egyptian high priests. Sorry, I'm still imagining Dios just yeeting across the crocodile.

Sorry. Egyptian high priests. The high priest meant the teeth priest for any god, so it wasn't like a priest in charge of all the priests. It would be the high priest of Ophela, the crocodile god or whatever. The most powerful ones were the high priests of Amun and Amun was another very early god that evolved hugely in importance and power

if of the millennia, I guess. He eventually fused with Ra to become Amun Ra. Right. But he's mentioned in the very earliest Egyptian texts and as he grew in importance, the high priests of Amun grew in importance. And at one point from about 1080 BC to about 940 BC, they were effectively the rulers of Upper Egypt.

They had so much power. And so it was almost like two forms of government with the figurehead of the Pharaoh and the priest of Amun making all the actual decisions. So it was more of a political position than a religious one? Yeah, exactly. And there were kind of dynasties within the priesthoods and like so someone who's steward of this Pharaoh,

his son might then become the high priest of Amun or something. And it was all very cartelish, probably. So yeah, I thought that was particularly interesting. And then as I was looking that up, I found something called the Karnak Temple Complex, which is apparently one of the main tourist attractions in Egypt at the moment still, because it's like a massive sprawl of temples

and monuments and chapels for different gods. And as different gods grew in importance, Pharaohs were dedicates in time and money into building up their bit of this huge complex. And it's incredible. I mean, it was under construction from like 2000 BC to about 300 BC. Wow.

Yeah, I know. Most of the grandest buildings are from the new dynasty, which is like when those high priests were at the most powerful. And so there's a lot of stuff devoted to Amun. And yeah, basically ends in a fun little circular fact, which is Karnak is the secret lair of the antagonist of Watchmen, who is...

Bias. Yeah, finger guns, which is a pleasing little book and to my wiki rabbit hole. Yes, I do like Watchmen. You should really watch the TV series. It's very good. I know, I want to reread the graphic novel first, because it's been a decade since I did.

And I thought we had a copy and we don't. And it's getting new priorities. Yeah. So, democracy. So, democracy. Moving on to light and light. Democracy, yes. Not totalitarian priests.

I assume they were all a bit totalitarian. Oh, yeah, I mean, I think that's an assumption. This is one of my favorite comedy devices, which is the comedy of ignorance and trying to explain something that the character trying to explain something that they don't really understand, the reader obviously does.

And this is Tepic trying to explain democracy in a fee to Tracy. So, they've got something called democracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new tyrant is. One man, one vet for electing. And there's a joke about doing something with balls that I'm assuming is a kind of word.

Some of the early balls, did they say? No, balls. Oh, balls. There's like a castration joke about balls, hence the jokes about vets, but I don't really understand how it sounds like. Oh, I see, right. Because like some early democracies,

you went and put balls in a certain tube. Yeah. And in fact, in some places now, they're still... Yeah, there was balls in a certain tube, or it was just a show of hands and they'd just guess. Cool. Yeah, but he's explaining who can vote and saying, yeah, everyone has to vote except for women,

children, criminals, slaves, stupid people, people of foreign extraction, and people we don't like to look of for various reasons and lots of other people. Yep, sounds about right. So, I had to look into some old voting rights stuff. Yeah. Which was entertaining.

Returning to a previous topic. Yes, should we get a bit suffragette? Oh, get your purple rosette out, love. For the lads, for the lads. I've got a votes for women badge somewhere. So, in the UK, prior to 1832, only men over 21 who owned property over a certain value could vote.

And in 1832, there was the Great Reform Act. After the Great Reform Act, property allowances were expanded. So, it was also householders who were paying over £10 a year in rent, which in today's money is £780. So, more men over 21... Rent market went mental, didn't it? Yeah.

More men over 21 could vote after the Great Reform Act. The property allowances were expanded, and then broadened even further in the 1860s and 1880s. And then, it was 1918, it was women's suffrage. And then it was changed so that there were no property requirements for men. Women over 30 who met those property requirements that had previously existed for men could vote. And then men in the armed forces who were over 19 were able to vote.

So, yeah. So, when people talk about women getting the vote... Some white, rich women got the vote. Um, 1928 was the Equal Franchise Act, which made women equal to men in voting rights, in that everyone was 21 plus with no property requirements. And 1969 was the second representation of the People Act, which is when it became everyone over 18 plus.

There's still lots of voting restrictions, though. If you don't hold a British passport, even if you live here full-time, you can't vote. People in prison can't... That's pretty normal, though, isn't it? Like, six cents of whichever countries are generally the only voters. Yeah. There was talk of whether or not EU citizens

would have been allowed to vote. And obviously, they're not going to be able to now. Yeah. But incarcerated people voting is something that's been... And previously incarcerated people voting, that's something that's been discussed and debated in some circles. And how much of your rights as a citizen do you give up and for how long? Let's not go into...

No, I was going to say something on the topic, and then I thought, actually, we don't have all day, literally. So that is a whole tangent for another time. You want me to go off on a very long rant about that, then we can schedule it. So I had a look at Ancient Greece and Athens, which was sort of the birthplace of democracy, and the only people who could vote were males,

free... Shock. Originally propertied, later also had to be born to two Athenian-born parents. So when you say free, is that not slave? Basically. They were the only ones who could become citizens, and it was only citizens who could vote, but those potential voting citizens

were limited to those without a personal or inherited mark against them, an otimia. So that could be... Subjective. Yeah, your parent did something fucky and you're not allowed to become a citizen. And how bad the mark has to be to become inheritable. But it wasn't even the full pool of these potential citizens who could vote.

These were... We don't like the look of it. They up to 3,000, and it would be those 3,000 people who were voting. Oh. Yeah, and it would... There's lots of stuff about how it varied, but yeah, so I thought that was interesting. I still kind of like the idea of picking someone randomly

to be the leader of a country every year. I know that would be very impractical, but I'd like to watch from a distance. Yeah, I'd be interested to look at what it does to a society long term if everyone knows that they could become a leader at any time. Yeah, if we had a spare planet to play Sims with. Yes, maybe next reality, darling. So, if we could veer back into Egypt,

you wanted to talk about mummies in horror, and I'm well up for that because it's one of the coolest horror tropes. Yeah, well, your quote was more about the horror of being trapped inside them, but it's very much a horror moment. And the whole idea of this lurching mummy zombie army, it's a very horror thing. Yeah, in a way that was not put across in a horrific manner in this particular school.

Making comedy out of something that would be a horror thing. So, I had to look at the background of Egyptian mummies in fiction, not just horror. So, we're looking at like 19th century in French, British colonization of Egypt and Africa. And at that point, as mummies start appearing in fiction, it's really like a weird, often feminine sex object thing. It's that whole colonial romanticism, like the exotic foreign thing.

But corpse. But corpse. But there'd be things of sort of mind control, and they're coming back to life, and they're perfectly preserved under the bandages. I mean, that's still... Still all very icky. One of the, funnily enough, one of the...

Perfectly preserved for a corpse really isn't the same as a person. Like, if you look at the perfectly preserved corpses, pulled out of bogs in various places, like... Yeah, still not super attractive, to be honest. Well, we take off the bandages, and there's a new bar of young Egyptian woman underneath who opened her eyes and is so happy to have been rescued from her tomb. This sort of bollocks was...

Right, okay, yeah, yeah. There in this magic... New angle on the dam. Guess who did one? Guess who did one? What wankers do we have? Oh, God, I don't know. Bram Stoker.

Oh! I don't know if I've mentioned... I don't know if he did a fucking ancient Egyptian book. Jewel of the Seven Stars is about an archaeologist. I did not read it because I don't hate myself. I don't know if I've mentioned on this podcast before how much I fucking hate Bram Stoker, but I really...

I feel like we talked about that last week somehow. I'm not sure how we got that in. But we've definitely slagged off Dracula. Yes, we've definitely slagged off Dracula. So, yeah, Bram Stoker. Right, the Jewel of the Seven Stars, and that was something to do with some mind control Egyptian artifact and an archaeologist.

And there was definitely a new bar young woman in there somewhere. Queen Tira. Yes. Bram, I don't want to read about Bram Stoker. She only... No, there was also an Arthur Conan Doyle story, Ring of Thoth.

So this was a popular thing. You start getting the monster stuff in the 1930s with Boris Karloff's The Mummy, and it kind of joins the zombie-tropy Dracula-undead Frankenstein canon, the Hammerhouse of Horror stuff. Yeah, at which point it becomes cool. Yeah, I mean...

Yeah, I would say that there's some issues to do... There's still some issues with exoticism, but it gets such almost the exact same treatment as Dracula and Frankenstein that I don't think it's quite so bad with the cultural appropriation as the weird sexual stuff is, to be honest. Does it count as cultural appropriation

if you're looking at an ancient imperial force? I don't think so, no. When we get into imperialist versus imperialist, who's culture is appropriate? How can one be woke over several millennia is my question. My genuine question, I don't... I really don't know. I'm not trying to be a dick.

I don't want to say it's not problematic that mummies became a horror trait, but I feel it was less problematic. Like... And being a weird sex thing, yeah. At least it's only problematic on the one level. There's not misogyny in there as well. And there was, you know, lots of horror

is based on the dead coming back to life, hence Frankenstein, hence Dracula, and hence mummies, which were dead bodies reanimating. Sexy, sexy dead bodies reanimating. The 90s mummy films are amazing. I feel like... Oh, yeah, fuck yes. Because Brennan Fraser.

I love Brennan Fraser so much. Oh, he's so cool. He's so precious. I need to see him in something more recent, because I... Well, he stopped acting the last thing I saw him in. Oh, well, that might be why. Yeah, I think he's just starting to get back into it now. There was a whole long form, really lovely interview with him

that if I can find, I'll send you. Oh, please do, yes. Yeah, he had a bit of, like, an unpleasant time from the sound of it and stopped, but he's getting back into it. But yeah, I love the mummy movie. But yeah, so mummies started getting romanticised again in the late 20th century,

and to add to my Bram Stoker just like, also, Anne Rice can fuck all the way off. All the way. All the way. Fucking hate, Anne Rice. All the way off her fucking turrets. Absolutely, Dick Edds. She wrote...

I don't think she's the only one who's done this, but she's definitely one of the ones I found a big reference to, and this is, like, late 80s, early 90s. I can't remember the name of the book now, because just reading the synopsis pissed me off, but it involved Ramses, who was a mummy that had come back to life,

and now he was immortal, but still really liked to fuck, and then there was an angry... Immortal Pharaoh, down to fuck. There was, like, an angry... Like, which way did he swipe for yes? I have no idea. I've never...

I got in this relationship before Tinder was a thing, and then I got married, so... Yeah, did I? Ramses, the damned, the passion of Cleopatra. Yeah, there's, like, a zombie Cleopatra. He gets some, like, sort of life spilled on her, but she's, like, half-mummy still or something. I read the synopsis and hated it.

This is 2017. It's a series to Ramses the damned in 1989. Yeah. So, yeah, mummies have become less of a horror trope, and apparently more of a romanticised thing again, which, again, it's corpses, dudes. Yeah. I know vampires are technically corpses as well,

and they're not super down on the vampire fucking, apart from Damon Savitar and the vampire diaries, because he and Summer Holder's really hot. See, I thought that was interesting, and I really wanted to end on the point that I fucking hate Anne Rice. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point to end on. He's also, like, a psycho who gets in massive fights

on the internet, refuses to have an editor. Refuses to have an editor? Yeah, she doesn't like her novels being edited. Well, she's a... Which explains why they're all... Jesus Christ, who doesn't have an editor? She also wrote a really, really bad, like, kinky Sleeping Beauty series

that is, like, the least sexy thing I've ever read. And I consent things. I don't know. It's kind of kink within a weird fantasy setting, so everyone's into it, obviously, but, like, a lot of it just doesn't make physical sense. Oh. And there is just, like, so much spanking.

Yeah. Not in a good way. Like I said, they're the least sexy books I've ever read. But you read them plural. I wanted to see if it got better. I had, like, a sick, sick curiosity. Anyway, moving on from kinky and rice-sleeping beauty. Language in it.

Well, we're in ancient Egypt, Francine. I'm not sure how we're going to segue to that, so let's just go right into it. Was there much spanking in ancient Egyptian language? Not in the hieroglyphs I looked at, but I did not get very far in my goal to learn hieroglyphs in the last few days, I'm afraid. I can't believe you didn't learn an entire ancient written language

in two days, Francine. What the fuck? Well, it turns out there's a lot of them which I shouldn't have been surprised about because it's, again, millennia we are talking about. So, basically, I started looking into this because there's the whole bit where they go into the first tomb which turns out to be diocese rather than kufts.

And there's some writing on the wall, and they need to translate it through ancient person talking, slightly less ancient person. Slighting to talk about it. Working their way back through this. Do we get us to Tepakimon? Yeah. And I thought that was a very interesting concept.

So, I looked into how much ancient Egyptian writing changed over the centuries. So, if you go all the way back, archaic Egyptian is what we call the very earliest inscriptions which kind of proto-writing. So, they're hieroglyphs that depict things and mean things but they don't have any real complex grammar. And then if we look into what we would call texts,

the oldest texts are in old Egyptian capitalized old. Which along with Sumerians, one of the oldest recorded languages we have. So, there are examples from like 3300 BC. But the first complete sentence, one with a finite verb, which like verb that can be the subject of the sentence, is from 2690 BC.

And it says, hand and squiggly line over cobra and horned viper, two sandy tracks above squiggly line, duck above horned viper, looking blank. Okay, but translator, he has united the two lands for his son, Duel King Peribsen. So, it's talking about the uniting of upper and lower Egypt, which is pretty cool.

First sentence first to have, I wouldn't be surprised if an archaeologist scrubbed something else out so it was fucking read amounts or something. And then, yeah, you move on to Middle Egyptian, which included cursive hieroglyphs, which is not hierotic, which is actually more cursive,

which is not demotic, which is actually more cursive. And obviously, the problem is, we don't know how any of it sounded, which is the point of this whole crash. We're talking millennia. We can only assume the spoken language changed drastically. But people hundreds of years or maybe thousands of years on

would have been able to read stuff their ancestors wrote, to an extent. And even if they wouldn't have been able to hear a word of it. But that is, I think all I had to say about hieroglyphs, although I will link a couple of fun resources I found, including just like a list of all the hieroglyphs. I was going to try and translate a better version of the true Shomaiki threat into hieroglyphs,

but then I ran into things like second-person grammar and gave up fairly swiftly. Again, probably not realistic to learn an entire ancient language in two days. No, I mean, if we wanted to do proper analyses of all of these books, we'd release an episode every year or so. We've done lots of research into references and themes and stuff, but I wanted to bring us back around before our obscure reference

to the kind of overall theme of the book itself. Okay, okay. What's that then? Which is this kind of thematic fear of change and stagnant time. And D.O.S. is convincing everyone to not destroy the pyramids and change everything. The kingdom will be just another small country. All that we hold dear, you'll cast a drifting time,

uncertain and without guidance, changeable. And for D.O.S. that's a porrant. The idea of changing chaos and not having control, but it has made the place stagnant, you need chaos and change to advance. And I thought it was interesting to look at it, like in the context of the book, things become better and healthier,

and maybe Jell loses some of its power outside of the valley when fresh time starts coming in and change starts happening. But maybe it doesn't. But maybe it doesn't. And you get the feeling that a Theban sort sort of look at the country and are, oh, well, it's nice that someone keeps the old ways.

I wouldn't do it, but it's nice that someone does. It's like people you still take tea at a certain time every day. You know, it's nice for them. I wouldn't do it. But it's interesting to look at like in our modern context, because I think we, in our late 20s, nearly early 30s, but we've seen so much change and shift in society and technology in the last,

in just the time we've been alive. And obviously every generation can say that, but it's getting faster and faster where we live now. Yeah, I mean, the fact that Generation Z has grown up in a almost completely online world, and we were in that transitional stage, I think that's going to have like effects on our, on their adult attitudes as compared to ours

in ways we just won't see for another 10 years, but... Yeah, and in some ways, it looks like it could be a good thing. Society becomes more global and less about borders as you grow up constantly online, where there are still borders, but not in the same way. You're going to argue the lefties and the righties by arguing for globalization, Joanna.

Oh, yeah. The lizard people. I don't know. I'm saying it's arguably a good thing. I'm not saying it's easy. Please argue amongst yourselves. Yes, do discuss globalization, dear listeners. But yeah, so, but it made me, you know,

I wasn't super looking forward to going into this book. I thought the story was a bit funny and confusing. I don't understand geometry, but I've really enjoyed it this time round, looking at it through this lens of like how time stagnates and then doesn't. It's really given me and you appreciate from it. I think it's a really interesting, lovely theme.

It is. And because it is such a distinct theme, I mean, a lot later we'll get to a book called Small Gods that revisits quite a lot of the points about religion and ancient Greek, but it doesn't feel like it's a repetition of any of this. No, it looks like you're sort of writing to expand the concept further and play with it a bit more.

Yeah. And I really enjoy it. It is very good. The cleverness of just bits like Visiting a Feet, which is, you know, a sidebar. There's a cameo of a location, but it's just so cleverly done, like the amount of knowledge

and references stuffed into every paragraph. Well, the whole sphinx section and taking that riddle that is very well known and ancient and then going, right, but actually, it's a bit fucking silly, isn't it? Yeah. He was a, God, he was such a clever man. He was.

He was a clever man. Good old Terry. Right, before we completely depress ourselves, Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? Yeah, it's page 202 for me, which again, I don't know why I bothered writing these down, because I don't think this edition actually exists in any other person's reality.

No, not the chances of time again. Exactly. But anyway, it's going on about chidorship, which is called the unnamed, which I didn't even look into properly, whether there was a parallel to that, which is referred to as a gin palace, spelled D-J-I-N-N,

which you had to explain the joke to me, because a gin palace is a Victorian gin shop, was it? Oh. Yeah, it was the gin shop started getting fancier to try and move the reputation away from bathtub gin and mother's ruin, which it was like hipsters in gentrification, but in Victorian times,

nothing much has actually changed. We are just going round in tighter and tighter circles. Oh, gosh. That's a really claustrophobic concept. Yeah, but it's getting faster and faster every time. I think we're a Gordian next week. All right, sweet. I'll check the other hack.

I'm into the tailoring on that. But anyway, the unnamed is referred to as a wallowing Alcazar, and I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up, and an Alcazar is a type of Moorish castle or palace in Spain and Portugal, so the Moors being the Muslim invaders

who ruled parts of Spain and Portugal sometimes. So like the Alhambra in Granada is the best example I can think of, which is a beautiful, beautiful place you should go to if you haven't. I haven't been to Granada, and I should, you're quite right. Again, once this damn pandemic is over.

This damn war. That's cool. I didn't know Alcazar was the word for it. Yeah, and I just like the idea of kind of a wallowing castle with weapons in it anyway. Yeah, I always learn something new with your obscure reference finials. It fills me with joy.

That's the idea. But I'm very bad at fact retention, so I forget it as soon as we stop recording. Well, luckily, I think we've kept most of the show plans in drive, so. Oh, that's good. I can look them up again. So I think that's everything

you could ever say ever about this one book. Yeah, we didn't miss any of the three billion references, I'm sure. Listeners, you should tell us your favourite bits that we missed, and we might follow up on them. Yes, we can do that. That's something we might do.

Tell us if, or just tell us if we were completely wrong about ancient Greek philosophy, but please explain things in small words. With the minimum of mathematics. Yes, I'm quite intelligent, but I'm going to claim dumb assery for the sake of going through our inbox.

So we're going to take next week off and have a little holiday. Yes, it's going to be very hot. Did you look at the forecast? I did. Next week is hot, hot, hot. I'm very glad I haven't gone back to work to be perfectly focused.

I don't have to be in a kitchen. Yeah, so we're going to have a little holiday, take a week off, and then we will be back in July, God, it's July, with Guards, Guards, the eighth discount level. We're very excited about this one. Yeah, it's going to be interesting,

considering in particular at the moment. We're not going to talk about the book until we're recording the episodes on the book because we'll excite ourselves. Yeah, so thank you for listening to The True Shall Make You Threat. Much obliged. If you like, you can follow us on Instagram,

The True Shall Make You Threat. We're on Facebook at The True Shall Make You Threat. You can find us on Twitter at Make You Threat pod. You can email us your thoughts, queries, albatrosses, castles, and snacks, the True Shall Make You Threat pod at gmail.com. Please do think about rating and reviewing us wherever you get your podcasts

because it helps other people find us as we are all slaves to terrible, terrible algorithms. The algorithms. I think they're what came down and built the pyramids, wasn't it? No aliens. Sorry, yes, carry on. And in the meantime, dear listener.

We'll see you out for the last line of the book. Sighing, pulling the remnants of his robes around himself to give himself dignity, using the staff to steady himself. Dios went forth. This is actually the best time of day to get me focused. So you've officially seen me on my best

and I can't claim otherwise.