A Geek History of Time - Episode 155 - Batrachomyomachia and Thor's Time as a Frog

Episode Date: April 23, 2022

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' which is a trickle, you know, baby. You know what it's called? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's part of the oldest Muckle.

I'm a bit of a sore, a little bit of a sore. So yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah, I'm able to open people up You will yeah anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah, so my cleave landing will make me a cavalier If syscloth it was empty headed Plabian trash Really good I thought it was empty headed, plebeum trash. It's really good and gruey. Because cannibalism and murder pull back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads.

And it's a little bit of a ground tunnel. A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit. Some people stay seeing a lot of the rats. But it just... This is a geek history of time. Where we connect memory to the real world. My name is Ed Blolock, I'm the world history and English teacher at the Ed school level here in Northern California.

And yeah, home ownership continues to be an adventure. We're getting all kinds of stuff done and we're watching the budget that we had when we first moved in here for getting things done. We're watching that dollar amount dwindle. This time goes on and that's, that's, we're starting to have to make decisions now about, okay, so like what are we going to do and what are we not going to do? And so that's, that's kind of where, where we are with all of that. And that's, that's what I've got to share this episode. Who are you and what have you got going on?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and drama teacher up here in Northern California, all around Union Thug. So I got a question, does it feel like an accomplishment seeing that number go down? Or is there an impending sense of panic seeing that number go down? Because you're seeing very material changes

happening to your house. The accomplishment comes from seeing the stuff happening with the house. Ah, OK. The dollar amount shrinking is a sense of impending panic because we kind of look like there are things we still want to get done. That we know now we're not going to have all the money to do. And so now it's not mean forever, or is that just in this round?

And then in a few years, you can come around to the next thing. It, I mean, ultimately it means in this round, but it feels a little bit like forever. Kind of like, okay, and now anything we do from here is going to be a major upheaval because this is setting like the concrete is now set Yeah, yeah, the cement the cement is gonna harden. We're putting we're getting the flooring finished and like Because I mean like for example one of the things we want to do is there's there's a wall

separating our kitchen and our living room mm-hmm and We really want to take that wall out. Well, take half of it out. Yeah. And that's kind of where we're at. Is like we're having to make the decision about, well, do we settle for just putting in a cutout or do we wait until we can do the whole thing? Because if we put in a cutout right now, what you know, the thing is if we put in the cutout, that means in five years, seven years, whatever it is, the amount of work we'll have to do and the cost of, you know, knocking the wall out is still going

to be the whole cost of knocking the wall out is still going to be the whole cost of knocking the wall out. So we're spending a couple of thousand dollars to put a hole in the wall now. And then we're going to have to spend if we decide we still want to knock the wall out, which we probably do. We're going to wind up having to spend all the money again later on, if that makes sense. No, I get that. That's certainly a decision that two of you have to come to. You know, and so it's just, it's kind of a, you know, and the other thing is that it, if we leave part of the wall in that has an effect on what we're going to do with the flooring, okay, yeah.

You know, and if we decide later on that we want to knock the whole wall out, then that may lead to, well, okay, if we do that, then we're going to have to rip out part of the flooring and redo the rest of it. You know, that kind of thing. You know, it's an issue of, you know, ripping the whole bandaid off now or not. Kind of thing. And we're getting to the point where we have to make the hard decisions, but we're going to do with that. So it's, you know, it's a hard decision. Yeah, I'm going to avoid it entirely and just like rewatch Loki.

There you go, fair enough. Yeah. I mean, you know, if I could get away with that, I would too. Mm-hmm. But here we go. Do you remember in Loki where like that, like they did that under, like they're going under the ground thing and like you see the Thanos copter and you see like the little frog with the Thor's hammer and.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, like the alligator Loki. Yeah, it's just, I kind of, I want to see if they have Easter eggs like that in the Captain America and Winter Soldier. Okay. I don't know. Just, you know, yeah. I especially since Marvel just put all of their mature content on there as well. Okay. It means the Luke Cage, the Daredevil and all that kind of stuff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I found that fun. At first, I called it adult content. And then I was like, you know what? There's enough of that online of Disney. So anyway. Yeah. Hey, um,

this is leading somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. I heard. Because I've never heard of the, but of the Betrocco, myomacia. Betrocco, myomacia. Okay, so there are two possibilities going on here. One, you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. Possible. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation that's different from Latin it.

And so you have no idea how to say it properly. It's Greek. So, actually, you have... Okay. So you know, okay. You're right. So yeah, I got no idea what you're talking about. Well, the Greek word, Betrocco means frog, and the Greek word,

Mice means mouse, and the Greek word for battle means Mace. So if you put it all together, the Betrocco Miyomakia is the battle of the frogs and the mice. Okay, no, I am still no. And you're going to fly. I'm on some of the words. Take the Iliad and make it make it animals and it's it's by the way Just just so that we have something more fun to play with I love words. Oh, okay the German version is fresh moukskrieg That sounds very German. Yes, yes, that makes

That sounds very German. Okay. And many will attribute it to Homer, although there's no actual evidence that Homer existed. So I would love it to be true. But yeah, Homer, as far as we can figure, Homer might be kind of a synthetic individual. Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of a. What's a composite? Yes Yes. Yeah composite figure for any number of pre pre writing But let's let's pretend for a second that he did write the Iliad on the Odyssey and then he turned around and said But what if there were frogs and mice instead of like Greeks and Trojans?

Okay, I would love to live in that world, but it's obviously doubly dubious. Yeah, and I know it's stepping on tradition in a big way, but there is no real documentary evidence that the man ever existed. Outside of the Ilya and the Odyssey being attributed to him, there's only oral tradition. Herodotist mentioned Homer. Well, I'm sorry, not oral tradition. There's just only tradition that he expressed. Yeah. Like it's a common thing that he exists. Yeah. Yeah. Herodotus mentioned him, Ardemon of Clas Menai. Sorry, Clas Omenai spoke of a pupil of Homer's, but it's all just traditional like we all accept that he exists. Okay, kind of in the same way that he exists. Okay, kind of in the same way as other notable figures. Yeah, yeah, in early history, you know, Bronze Age or Little Late?

Yeah, I'm trying to remember Plato. Is it Plato or Socrates that we're not sure? Socrates, we're not sure. Aristotle, we know for sure, theoretically, he and Plato wrote about a guy, Socrates. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Socrates is the one. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So, we're the obvious one thing. Well, yes, I appreciate the, you know, gentleness to my own, to my own,

predilections. Yeah. And so in many myths and traditions and legends, it's said that he's blind or that he's the product of a water nymph, a critase and the water or in the river, melis, and that he himself was a blind bard on the western coast of Anatolia. Okay. So kind of cool. Water nymph, the water nymph thing I was not familiar with. I know. I it kind of makes sense given how many people came from water nymphs back then.

You know, just kind of a thing. Regardless of his existence, the betrocomyomachia is attributed to him, but but actually not only to him, the Romans attributed it to him, but that's basically because there were Romans and they copied whatever the Greeks did. Plutarch, a Greek who was living under Roman rule and eventually granted Roman citizenship, who wrote literal tomes. He attributed the Batrocco Miyomaki to an author named P. Grace of Hallaconarsis, who was an ally to Zerxes. And there is stylistic connective tissue from his other works to the way that the Betrocco Miyomaki was written, this guy Peegrace. So an ally of Zerxes, meaning a Persian stuporizer. Yeah. Others will attribute it. Yeah, that's a good one for Pfizer. Yeah. Pfizer. Okay.

Others will attribute it. Yeah. That's a good point for it. Yeah. Others attribute it to anonymous authors at the time of Alexander. Okay. So we're kind of in that realm. Even a Lucien of Somosada, who is a Syrian poet, who adopted Greek culture,

who is the satirist, who had all the good fortune to live during the time of the good emperors of Rome. He occasionally gets credit. I find that really hard to believe. Other than the fact that he's a satirist, it just doesn't make any damn sense to me. Like, yeah. And besides, this is parody, not satire.

And Roman satire was specific in its flavor of satire, which Lucian absolutely did and this ain't it. But what we do know is that it's probably was written between the 8th and 5th century BCE. Okay. Now, regardless of its author, regardless of its age, the betrocchio mio macchia is about 300 lines long. It holds true to epic meter, which is dectilic examiner.

If you wanna know dectilic examiner is, listen to public enemies, bring the noise. That rhythm. It mostly clung to Homer style. That's a remarkably, I wanna say contemporary, but it's 1989. Yeah, but comparatively contemporary. Yeah, well, yeah, just okay.

Granted, since we're talking about, you know, the Mycenaean era, practically. Yeah, that's just the dichotomy there. Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Yeah. Okay. It's like, hey, you want to know how Homer sounded? Listen to Chuck D. You know, which makes me think Homer would have been so much cooler with Terminator X, like spinning records behind him. That would have been rad. Wouldn't everybody have been though? Yeah. I mean, I still would like to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so it clung to

Homer style, and word choice whenever possible. In the Byzantine era, so we're talking from like the three thirties to the seven hundreds. So grammar, for understanding a big poetry, for understanding meter, all those things. Okay. That's a really long time to be a school text, and they saw a lot of value in that. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it's an interesting thing to consider anything being a text for that long a period of time when the idea, like our whole paradigm of schooling is, you know, 200 years old. If that, we're kind of stretching it pretty hard.

Public schooling, like we're talking maybe, like any massive numbers. 150? Yeah. You know, essentially, even a half and best. Yeah. Even that is there,

there's a need, but we don't have the capabilities. So like, well, even there, there's a need and we don't have the capability and a regionalism. Yes. You know, certainly within, within the United States.

Yeah. I mean, if we, if we look at European models of, well, okay, we want to start working on public education. We're looking at, you know, post-Napoleonic era, for sure. Yeah. And even that only for the rich. Yeah, certainly. It's where we're beginning. Yeah. Yeah, certainly it's really at the very beginning. Yeah. But, you know, we're looking at, yeah, I forgot where I was gonna go with that.

But, you know, I mean, I'm just so humble to be used for that long and long. Yeah, well, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of a country. It's probably, well, it's longer than we've had a country. It's longer than public schooling has been a paradigm. Yeah. And so this was something that bore a remarkable weight of tradition.

Yes. Quite the same. You know, like, okay, so this is what we learn how to do this with is this work. Mm-hmm. Yeah. but this is what we learn how to do this with is this work. Yeah. Okay, just through force of cultural inertia. Yeah, and I think inertia is a really good word for it because that's another word for tradition.

A inertia means you don't go anywhere. Tradition means you don't go anywhere. Very. So don't innovate with this works, especially with the Roman model of we're gonna beat creativity out of you. But also hear something about Froggy's and Mike's. So, they did, and like it was,

it was if Biff was in charge of school, like that's Rome. I love that analogy. It's a charge of school. You know, and so, all right, but there's a whole lot of questions occurring to me, but I don't want to tread all over wherever you're planning on going with this. So, so, okay, so this was used for for 400 years. Give it a take. Yeah. As as the, this is how we're going to

teach you grammar and epic poetry and all these structures. It was certainly as a, this is how we're gonna do it. They also made them read the N-E-I-D. And stuff like that. So you can understand what the jokes are. Yeah, you have to. Okay. All right. So now the whole of the battle takes place in one day ending at sundown. So 10 years down to one day. The initiating event wasn't so much the stealing of a woman, but that the mouse prince, the grandson to the mouse king, named Cicarpax, also known as Crumfilcher, or Crum Snatcher. He hitches a ride on the back of the frog king who is called Fissignatis, also known as Puff Cheeks, who is the son of Pelion, Muddy, and Hydro Medusa, Water Queen. Any hitches a ride with him across the river.

Crum filter spends a lot of time bragging about how much he eats good foods and how fearlessly he annoys the humans. And now I'm going to, there's an Americanized version or an anglicized version of it that kind of tries to keep to the meter and the verse. So I'll try to be as faithful to as possible, but I'm not going to sacrifice understanding. So, uh, quote, the floods are thine abode where I, while I partake with with man man his sustenance, the basket stored with wheat and loaves, thrice needed, scrapes me not, escapes me not nor wafer broad enriched with balmy sweets, nor ham and slices spread nor liver wrapped in tunic silver white nor curds expressed from sweetest milk nor sweeter still the full honeycomb coveted by kings themselves

nor odd by skillful cook invented yet of sauce or seasoning for the delight of man sweetest milk, nor sweet or still the full honeycomb coveted by kings themselves, nor odd by skillful cook invented yet of sauce or seasoning for the delight of man. I am brave also and shrink not at sound of glorious war, but rushing to the van, mix with the foremost combatants, no fear of man himself shakes me vast as he is, but to his bed I steal and make me sport nibbling his fingers and, or with sharp tooth, fretting his heel so neatly that he sleeps profound the while unconscious of the bite. So that's crumb filter bragging that he bugs the humans. Okay. There's a whole train of thought that leads me to something.

It's interesting that so much of epic poetry in the Western tradition, because it has these very similar themes of breaking about what a badass I am. Yeah, it's because because this is a parody of something that we see in the Aenean. Yes. And this sounds almost entirely like something that we would hear Baal Wolf bragging about in the Mead Hall at Harrow before he fights against Grendel. And there is a separation in time between them, because the Trojan War is the Achaens, which is Bronze Age, and Bay Wolf is early Iron Age. And so we're talking several centuries in difference, at least.

But I just find it interesting that it's the same theme. It's in warrior culture. Even you see your praises ahead of time. So that they know who they're fighting. Yeah. And so that they either back the fuck down or they step the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So just, yeah. And I go back to even and even in parody. Yeah. Well, yeah, because you're doing a parody is being very faithful to the brand. That's true. You know, weird Al does not just like get lazy when he's, you know, doing other people's music. That's true. Yeah, white and nerdy. You know, yeah. light nerdy. You know, yeah. So what do you call it Chuck D in bring the noise. It's, you know, never better than bad, you know, he, he, he just goes and goes for lines. Oh, yeah, about,

you know, how you can expect that this is, this is me here, they go again, you know, now puff cheeks gently rebuts him, he says stranger, now, Vance rebutts him. He says stranger. Now, Vaughn's much the identity fair, but both on shore and in the lake, we boast our dainty's also. And such fights as much would move thy wonder. For by gift from Joe, we leap as well as swim can range the land for food or diving, seek it in the deep. So cool, man. I can swim and climb so I'm a talk shorter Yeah, yeah, and then he puff cheeks asks him says, you know, basically hop aboard and come with me across lake Check out my place and it first crumbed filter is

the son of Trixartis by the way, so he's a grandson of the king, but he's the son of Trixartis, also known as breadmuntcher, and Likomile, Likmiel, which oddly sounds exactly like it. Yeah, and the grandson of Ternoch Trotas on his mom's side, also known as Traw Bacon. He's hesitant to take such a ride. But in his discussions with the lakes,

or at the lakes shore, Crumb filter is persuaded by puff cheeks and that all will be well, and it'll be well worth the journey. So Crumb filter climbs aboard and does find so long as he can see the shore, but as they get further out, Crumb filter does get more and more frightened. And he drags his tail and it acts like a rudder and he has some control over how

they go because he's a little freaked out. But after they get to the point where he can't see the shore, they get assailed by a water snake. And when puff cheeks panics and dives for safety to escape the danger, he abandons Krumphilchur to drowning. A fact which he will later deny when confronted. And as Krumphilchur drowns, he curses Puffcheeks for his cowardice and his abandon. He likens it to a betrayal. And he says, though, has to release thy shoulder at my cost, Fisignathus, unfailing as the rock,

but not unnoticed by the gods above. Ah, worst of traitors, on dry land, Iween thou hadst not soiled me, whether in the race or the wrestling match or at whatever game thou hast by fraud prevailed, casting me off into the waters, but not, but an eye divine sees all, nor hope thou to escape the host of mice who thaw,

air long, who shall air long avenge the deed. So you son of a bitch, you're going to pay for this. Yeah, son of a bitch must pay. Right. And then he drowns. Yeah. Now, this was witnessed by Likopinox, also known as Likdish, who heard and saw everything from a different shore. He quickly brings word back to the mice, reporting the treachery. This was, after all their prints. The mice were furious and summoned to counsel to the house of breadmuncher, the king of the mice to petition for war. Breadmuncher was easily persuaded given his rage at the loss of his kin. Breadmuncher says, ah, friends, although my damage from the frog sustained to be greatest yet is yours not small. The three children I have lost, wretched that I am, all sons,

a merciless and hungry cat, finding my eldest son abroad, surprised and few him, lured into a wooden snare, new machinations of unfailing man for slaughter of our race and unnamed a trap. My second died. And now as you have heard,

my third, his mothers and my darling, him, Fisignatus. Yes, Fisignatus, have drowned in Yanabis, haste therefore, and in gallant armor bright, attired, March 4th, you might now seek the foe. Okay. And then one of my favorite parts comes in. They get ready for battle with the help of the God of War aries. And what I love about it is the clothing that they wear is so adorable. So their grieves and their shin coverings are green bean pods that were split into two

and nod out. The breastplates were actually from a flayed ferret or weasel, depending on the translation, their tan skin, which is stretched over reads. So they're basically, you know, putting them on like laminate. All right. Their shields were the centerpiece of a lamp, which it took me a bit to figure that out. Best I could figure figure it's an amerylis. We'd know it as a lily. Oh, okay. So their shields are lilies. Nice.

So, okay, I want to go back to the whole flayed weasel. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. That's actually really fucking hardcore. Yeah. Because weasels eat mice. Yes. So they is a group whoopdass on a weasel.

And then parted it out. That's that's that's that is that is death metal shit. Right. Yeah. That's honestly, you know, those those simmitas that go up and Baghdad. Yeah. It's at the base of those simmitas.

Iranian skulls. No shit. No shit. No shit. My brother served in Iraq. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, it's some fucked up shit right there. Wow. Yeah, it's not too different, you know, I mean, in D&D, what are we doing when we

slay a dragon? We use it scales as armor and feel. Yeah, okay. I had a ranger who wore black dragon armor. There you go. Yeah, okay. But they're helmets for peanuts somehow or shells, by the way, okay, which is just so cute. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm still getting over the weasel. The weasel. Because shirts. Damn. Yeah, somehow when it's nice doing it, it's really, really cold. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Their spirits were long bronze needles, which I really like because they live in a world of man. Yeah. Well, yeah. So the frogs find out about this through the advancing sounds of the mice because they can hear the mice advancing on them. And the frogs call their own war can council. And when this council gathers, the mice sent a herald, And when this council gathers, the mice sent a herald, whose name is ambicitiratos. I'm sorry, ambicitiros, sorry. Also known as pot stalker, who was the son of Teoroglifus, cheese scooper.

He came to declare war. And so I love giving the actual Greek names for these and then giving you what they mean. Yeah. I just, I was tickled to do that. So here's what he announces. Yefrogs, the host of mice, send you by me, menaces and defiance, arm, they say, for furious fight, for they have seen the prince, psychar, uh, psychar packs, well-tring on the wars and drowned by king Fysignathus. Ye then the chiefs and leaders of a host of frogs put on the wars and drowned by King Fissignathus. Ye then the chiefs and leaders of a host of frogs

put on your armor and draw forth your bands to battle. There's another translation that says draw forth your variegated arms. So yeah, send the herald, he declares the war for you. Very, very, I mean, we're talking like this is the formal way of declaring war. Hey, you've got it coming. Here we go. Yeah, now King Puff cheeks Press by his counsel denied having killed Krumstacher here. He falters. He says My friends and neither drowned the mouse nor saw his drowning doubtless when

he strove in sport to imitate the swimming of frogs he sank and died. Thus blame is none in me, and these injurious slanders do me wrong. Consult me therefore how we may destroy the subtle mice, which thus we will perform. Armed and adorned for battle, we will wait. They're coming where our coast is more most abrupt. Then soon as they shall rush to the assault, seizing them by the helmet as they come, we will precipitate them. Arms and all into the lake. Unskillful as they are to swim, their suffocation there is sure. And we will build a trophy to record the great mouse massacre for ever more. So they're going to come and we're going to kangaroo the shit out of their dingo.

Okay. We're going to grab them and drown them. And then he bade them to arm up. So frogs transform. Their shins were armored by malo leaves that were wrapped all the way around. Okay. Their chest pieces were green beet leaves. Their helmets were cockle shells and their spears were sharp reads, and their shields were cabbage leaves. Hmm, it's just so cute. I'm just gonna say I'm betting on the bronze needle here.

Okay, fair enough. Like, you know, from a strictly material science tab slowly will get through the cabbage leaf. There you go. Well, yes, yes, yes, the slow, the slow needle pierces the shield. Yes, we know this because we've read Dune. Right. What I have to kind of mention here is, and again, the parallels to other literature in the Western canon, you're talking about the marbles, the mouse heralds talking to the frogs. It reminds me very strongly of Henry V.

And the question to Exeter, what does the English King say to the Doe fan? You know, what message does he send to the Doe fan? And the response from Accidur and Brian Blessed, by the way, in the, oh, no, I'm completely forgetting. Anyway, in Henry V, one of the best performances as Accidur. Oh, is this the, uh, Grand Blessed Kenneth Bronowan? Kenneth Bronowan, thank you. I totally blanked on Kenneth Branow's name, but scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,

and anything that may not misbecome mighty center, Dorothy Prize, you at, the says, my king. You know, like, no, I, Dothi Prize you at, the says my king. You know, like, no, I, because it's one of those wonderful, like, okay, and now we really see that Shakespeare is an anguish man through and through in his characterization of the French prince stand. Well, you know, I'm not him,

but you know, what does the king say to the doffan and extras like, no, it not him, but you know, what does the king say to the doffan and extras like, I know it's you. Fuck you. Yeah. You know, I speak to doffan. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Fuck you. Yeah. You know, um, and again, the, the theme of, I'm the messenger and what I'm here to say is I'm the messenger and what I'm here to say is fuck all y'all. Right. Like, oh, yeah. We're like, no, I'm fully taking advantage of the tradition that like you don't cut the head off the messenger because it allows me to say, no fuck you.

Yeah. So the frogs failings up. They actually failings up and they await the mice on the shore. Okay. Now at this point Zeus Declares that the God should probably take sides because this argument is quickly turning into a donnie broke Now Zeus says let's take sides in this one Yeah, right what did he say in the Iliad? You remember? I don't remember. Let's not take sides. They all took sides and he's like, you all, we're getting hurt. This is not cool. This is this is not acceptable. Yeah. So he's take sides and he suggests to Athena,

hey, you should side with the mice. And she rebuffs him him citing that a God could get wounded by such warriors This is not done jokingly. This is not ha ha ha This is no like these guys are fucking hurt us and more importantly the mice annoyed her a lot and so did the frogs but the mice even more so So like all of these guys are assholes with the mice or like bigger cells. Yeah, and here's what she says. She says, my father suffer as they may. The mice shall have no aid for me, whom much they wrong,

marring my wreaths, a plundering of the oil of my lamps. But this of all their impiestides offends me most, that they have eaten holes in my best mantle, which with curious art divine, I woe of light, easy delicate. And now the artificer whom I employed to mend it, clamoring demands a price, exorbitant,

which moves me much to wrath for I obtained on the trust of those costly threads and I have not wherewithal to pay the arrear. So they chewed through my favorite shit. No, I'm not helping them. And then she goes on because they gave her specific annoyances with the frogs as well, explaining why she's going to stay neutral in this. She says, quote, nor love I more the frogs on purpose, more to sucker even them, since they, not less, doles as they are and destitute of thought,

have incommoted me. For when of late returning from a fight weary and faint, I needed rest and would have slept, no sleep found I, the ceaseless croakers of the lake, noise that perverse or bidding me a wing. Sleepless and with an aching head, I lay therefor until the crowing of the cock. So the mice chewed my shit up to fuck them.

Yep. The frogs kept me awake, still fuck them too. Yes. I'm out. Yeah. Okay. But she also, oh, gone. I can't, I just have to say as somebody who regularly has to deal with, you know, six and seventh graders talking about how one another

have wronged each other. I can't have to say I have never identified with a Greek goddess more. Yeah, like I hate most of you. Fuck off. I'm rooting for injuries. I'm rooting. It's like when Dallas plays the Raiders. Like no, I want, I just want to see people hurt. Right.

But she also has defensive reasons. Like straight up defensive reasons. She states that such warriors could actually harm the gods, making it not worth the risk, equating them essentially to who's the guy that wounded Venus to sort of democlase, right? Yeah, democlase, yeah. So they all got hurt in the Iliad, but they didn't give a fuck. They were like, well, this is new, but let's do that it. And then Zeus is like, not tweet everybody of their own corners.

You have to watch now. Yeah. And in the Iliad, and in this one, she's like, no, man, these guys will fuck us up. So, um, so witness was written. Was this, was this heresy? No, this was this was parody. Okay. And, and again parody. This was parody. And again, here's the thing.

Warriors coming all shapes and sizes. Wars happen in the very big and the very small and the gods are affected by all things. Okay. So here's what she says, by my advice then, oh ye gods, move not, nor interfere favoring either side, lest ye be wounded for both hosts alike are valiant, nor would scruple to assail even ourselves, suffice it, suffice it therefore, hence to view the battle safe and at our ease. So this is kind of a fixed fix. Like, well, okay, within within fan

fix. Yes. One of the one of the subgenres of fan fiction is the fix, fix. Ah, yes. Where fans, where fans look at something and the author is done and gone, that's what is fucking stupid. Right. Like why why would you do that yes in a way this is kind of a fix fix where you know whoever whoever the author of this was was like okay Zeus is gonna be a dick and he's gonna be saying all right everybody we got him gonna take a side we got to get involved and Athena being you know the smart one is gonna be like no that's a shitty idea Athena being, you know, the smart one is gonna be like, no, that's a shitty idea. That's gonna go really badly. Everybody stay the fuck out. Right. Whereas in the Iliad, she was like, oh, yeah, fuck, I'll take sides.

Oh, he's what's hide do you want? Fuck you. I'm on the other side. Yeah, well, yeah. You know what? Which is so awesome. And is like the entire reason that whole families of border rivers would choose the side whenever England went to war with Scotland, it'd be like, okay, what what are the bells doing? The bells are going with England. Okay, we're scots this time. Right, right. Fuck that. We're like, say Andrew all the fucking away. Fuck St. George. Right. No, like fucking away fuck St. George right no like no no You know we're we're wearing the salt higher than you everybody get rid of your red cross shit

We're wearing the we're wearing the we're wearing the white X like right You know um, it's like oh, so that's the side you're taking okay. I'm on on the other one. Thaw you. Right. Yeah. And in this one, but here, because it's a parody and a fix-fick, it's like, no, she's the goddess of wisdom. Yeah. No, this is a bad idea. Yeah. Don't get involved.

Right. Like, no. And one of the gods ever said that other than to be dicks. Never. Right. And here they're like, fuck, know, we'll get the popcorn. We're just watching. I'm out. And get a badass up every one. Listened everyone. He did her wisdom. And as a group, they all sat it out and watched a war that was to come.

And then Zeus cracked the thunder and it's on, baby. Um, so the first blow was from Frog to Mouse. Heapsy Boas, also known as Loud Croaker, wounded Lycanor, Lyckman, in the belly, where the chest piece doesn't quite protect and pierced his liver and killed him. Which, okay, that is a spot on Homeric reference, because Homer loves to tell us exactly which organs get carried through somebody's body and out their shoulder. And based on the story, certain body parts get focused. In the Iliad, it was mostly hip shots, which is basically grinds, going shots, because it was all about two people who wanted to fuck. In the Odyssey, it was a lot of headshots

because it's Odysseus. Yeah. And Virgil, his credit, fanboy that he was, he did the I need it. It was a lot of chest shots because I need us the pious. It's his heart. So in this one, you get a lot of liver shots, I guess. I don't know, let's keep track. So then, Trogla Dites, a whole creeper in the mouse, a whole creeper is his name, the mouse. He hurled his bronze needle and pierced Pelion muddy, deep in his heart, killing him. So the King of the Frogs is now dead. No way.

The dad of the King of the Frogs is now dead., to Latest, no, so Tilt Lios, beat man, the frog, then killed, embossicure toast, the pot stalker. Okay, right, okay. Truxartes, breadmuncher, the mouse king, whacked polyphonos, whose name is great talker or loud talker in the, who died from the blow. But then, Liminocaris, Marsh lover, saw this killing blow, and he smashed whole creeper

with a millstone in the middle of the neck from behind and knocked him the fuck out. There is so much fun fighting in this, I'm going to read to you a few, a few stanzas here. At him, Likinor hurled the glittering lance, nor aired, but pierced his liver, trembling, fled. Crambofagus at the dread site and plunged over the precipice into the lake. Yet even there found refuge none for brave Likinor

following, following smote him even there. So fell Crambofagus and and from that fall never arose, but reddening with his blood, the wave, and the wallowing in the strings, and the slime of his own vitals near the bank expired. There was courage, there was cowardice, and there was royal assassination. Take a look. Limnisius on the grassy shore struck down Tyroglyphus, but at the view alone of terrible Tyroglyphus, a pod fled Kalamintius, cast away his shield, a far and headlong plunged into the lake.

Hydrocarys with a vast stone, assailed the king Tyroglyphagus, the rugged mass descending on his pole crushed it. The brain coased through the nostrils drip by drop and all the bank around was spattered with his blood. Yeah, no mincing of words here. Like, and there was even a drowning someone actually like because the frogs can take advantage of, you know, they, they, they got a swim speed and a run speed, right?

Prasophagus with vengeful notice marked Kriso, the octas, seizing with one hand his foot and with the other hand his neck and plunged and held him plunge till drowned he died. But there was one who stood out amongst all of them. Quote, there was a mouse, young, beautiful and brave, passed all on earth, son of the valiant chief, Arte Piboulous. Like another Mars, he fought, and Mary Darpaks was his name, a mouse among all mice without up here. Now who are we really talking about? And really talking about Achilles here. Yes, because I mean obviously. Yes. Now his name means slice snatcher or wealth share plunderer. So basically he takes the part.

The the our packs means one who grabs things. Okay. He would have been the end of the frogs if he were to be allowed to fight on an uninterrupted and he had genocide on his mind. He took a like so many like so many Greek heroes. Yes, let's let's not mince words. That's that rage. Like yeah, that's that's. I'm a jerk. Yeah. Yeah. So he he took a chestnut husk and tore it into two parts and then wore them as kestuses So fuck yeah, like you ever like it is hard core. Yes, it is It like if you ever like tried to crack open a chestnut without a nut cracker? Uh, yeah. That's just impossible. And he's like single handed and then he's like, these are my fists.

That's like the European version of ripping a coconut in half with your bare hands. Yeah. Yeah. Basically as a mouse. And then you like, and I'm going to punch people with this shit now. It's like, well, because what else are you going to do? I mean, really? on. Yeah. Okay. I guess use it to hold your giant fucking balls. Well, there's that. Yes. So the only thing

that stopped him as all the frogs were charging forth to their death was that Zeus stepped in and stopped it all. Like a cock blocky asshole. but notice this is such an inversion of the Iliad where Zeus was like, now hold that gate open. This shit's going to end here. He's like, nope. And he says, quote, I see a prodigy. Yee powers divine. And with no small amazement, smitten here, Prince Mary, married our packsaks menacing the frogs with general exturpation, haste, be quick, dispatch we palace, terrible in sight,

nor her alone, but also Mars to quill with force, the combined, with force combined, the sanguineary chief. So I'm sending both of my children who are gods of war to stop this one mouse. He's literally asking, yeah, he's asking Athena and Erie's both gods of war to intervene and stop this mouse who fights better than anyone, lest he completely destroy the frogs. It's going to take two gods to stop him. And not just any gods, the gods of war. Yeah, no, I'm now I'm now fanboy or this mouse. Yes, like in a big way. So this next part, it's interesting because in different translations, it's attributed to Juno or Hera and other times

it's attributed to Mars, Erie's. I like it better if the war God himself said it, so I'm going to stick with that. I'm going to pull my liberty card. He says, I think he says, quote, neither the force of palace, Paul is another word for Athena, nor the force of Mars, Ojo will save the destined frogs from swift destruction. Let us all descend to aid them or or lest all suffice not, grasp and send abroad thy biggest bolt, thy bolt tempestuous terror of the Titan race, by which those daring enemies thou flust, and didst coerced with the adamantine chains and Cléados, and all that monstrous brood. So in other words, Aries sees all this shit, and he goes, we can't do this ourselves, dad. You're going to need to use your biggest Titan killing thunderbolt to stop this mouse.

Get out the 44 mags. Yes, we can't. Yeah, you know that thing that you used to actually stop a Titan? We're gonna need it again. Yeah, bring that out. And even that didn't do it. again. Yeah. Bring that out. And even that didn't do it. Um, quote, yet cease not even at that shock, the mice from battle, but with double arter flew to the destruction of the frogs, whom Joe from the Olympian Heights sun crowned again, viewing compassionate, uh, compassionate

their distress and sent them AIDS. Suddenly they came, broad-backed. They were and smooth like anvils, sickle-clod. So the thunderbolt didn't do it, so he had to send something else. See if you can figure out what is broad-backed, smooth-like anvils, and sickle-clod. Scydling in gate, their mouths with pinchers armed, shell-clad, cooked need, protruding far before their long hands and horns, with eyeballs in the breast, legs in quaternion ranged on either side and crabs their name. I spoiled it for you though. They seizing by his leg, his arm, his tail, a mouse, cropped it and snapped his polished

spear. A pall that such a foe, the miserable knife stood not, but fled heartless, discompeted, and now the sun descending closed the warfare of a day. Rabs? Yeah. The gods saw the destruction of the frogs and realized the champion of the mice, Meredith, uh, our packs would destroy them to a frog and not even Zeus's thunderbolt would stop it. So it's time to send in the crabs. And that's literally where it ended. Like, I think there's a few other lines, but um, the war took one day and it's a very satisfying poem. Not, not cats. not not cats. No. The fact that was kind of the reason that Crumstatcher was or Crumfilture was at the water because he just escaped either a cat or a

weasel. It depends on your translation. Yeah. And that's why he's at the water talking with the king of the frogs puff cheeks because he's like, oh god, damn, I'm tired from running from that cat or weasel. But no, crabs. This is a funny term for me to use. Sure. Because like, it's kind of obvious, but I feel like that's kind of a Deus Ex Machina ending. Like, we're not even going to pull in, we're not even going to pull in like a natural predator of mice. No, no, we're going to go straight to, you know, uh, you know, sea spiders. But they're armored to the point where bronze won't pierce it. I okay. And they can shingles and they can snap things. Okay. Yeah, but yeah, it's it's it's a little it feels a little out of left field. Well, they are in a marsh.

Okay, there's water. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not saying it's impossible, but I feel like that's that's weird. That's a weird direction for the poet to go. Yeah. Of all things you could have brought in, like, okay, so Zeus's Thunderbolt fails to do the trick. Right. And you don't bring in like owls, no, or hawks, no, or cats, which I already mentioned, or, you know, any number of other natural predators of mice.

Right. No, instead you're going to go straight to, to crabs, to like bugs of the ocean. And you're going to, okay. Yeah. Like, all right. Cool. Now, that's not where this podcast ends because. No.

Well, okay, because of course not. In 1986, Simon Walter was a human who had been cursed to become a frog by some unknown mystical witch destined to live his days out in Central Park as a frog named puddle gulp. He was as contented as one could be in such a situation. All you do in your day is you flee from the rats as they encroach on your territory, you eat out a living and you live as long as life as an amphibian can in such situations. He even was the advisor to the King of the Frogs at that time in Central

Park, a guy named Glugwort. But one day he met a frog so massive, so strong that it would change their destinies forever. This is a Thorke, I guess. Yes, it is. Yeah. And now we get to the title. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

That's right. That's right. wanting to do this episode since then. Because of course you have. Yeah. Okay. Because I saw that. And I was like, wait a minute, didn't Thor fight mice? And then I was like, wait a minute, isn't that a poem that's attributed to Homer? And there you go. And there it is. So yeah, okay. Okay, so wait, hold on. Are we trying to say are you trying to pin this word? Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. This is a bronze needle. With a bronze needle. I'm going to pin this word along. Now are you trying to say that the Marvel writers responsible for frog Thor were inspired by this poem?

Why don't you ask that? That's what most of this one is about. Okay. So, uh, Thor 363 to 366 features Thor as a frog. Uh, his brother Loki turned him into a frog ahead of a ceremony of succession because, uh, Odin was, uh, disappeared. I forget exactly what. Um, and, and Loki was making a bid for power and

Asgard. And he's trying to and Thor is trying to get back to Asgard after just defeating Kirsten going down to help. Yeah. But along the way, because Thor gets turned into a frog using Sirter's sword, as I recall, a little bit of magic, a little bit of science. Um, a little bit of magic, a little bit of science. Uh, and he beams a beam and it turns Thor into a frog, which means Thor can't come to this succession ceremony, which means Loki is probably the only one that can succeed his father. Makes sense. Yeah.

So, but Thor is trying to get back to Asgard as a frog, but because he speaks frog, uh, he runs into a huge offensive that the rats are planning against his fellow frogs. He cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of any creature big or small. Well, of course not because he's a warrior god. And like, no, he's a good align warrior god. Yes, he is. No, you can't. No, you don't. Yeah. No, puddle, puddle gulp, guide store through Central Park. And the two are late to protect the King Glegg Whart from an ambush of rats.

And they're there just in time to see, to chase off the rats, but the damage has been done. And Glegg Whart noticed the store's giant size. He's like the size of what did they see? He was the size of. He was the size of like a football. That's what it was. Okay. And most, most frogs are not big.

Yes. That's a big. That's a big. A frog. Yes. That baby. Having, okay, I'm just going to say, you know, real life experience spending several years in Hawaii, we had cane toads, which are toads and not frogs, obviously. But like the biggest one, and this is strictly visual, but the biggest one that I ever saw directly

was probably the size, was spread out fingers size. So like a frog, the size of an actual regulation football is three times that, two, three times that. Easily. Yeah. Like fucking huge. Yes. So yeah. Okay. Now, uh, Thor is like, so essentially Thor introduces himself to the dying king. Yeah. The king, you know, notices a lot about Thor right away. It's just promised me that you will protect my kingdom and my absence and Thor basically promises. Now, there's a bit of an inter-annuran fighting that happens shortly thereafter, but by and large, all the frogs do their best to fight off the rats. Now, there is an advisor who's like,

oh, you probably killed him and Thor is like, man, you remind me and my brother. Now, Thor meets a more-locked type character named The Piper at the end of one of the issues, who is a bardic ally, and he bardically beguiles him briefly below Broadway in New York Sewers. Okay. Yeah. And with the power of the Piper's prideryte properly procured promptly Thor brings the alligators of New York sewer system back as reinforcements against the rats who started a multi-pronged offensive against the frogs Basically Thor is at once seduced by the Piper's

Fluke playing and jumps toward the toe toward the alligators and he's like wait a minute I'm fucking Thor and he beats the shit out of the alligators as a frog. And then he steals the pipe of the piper. And then he's like, follow me alligators. And then they go to Central Park. Okay. And they, yeah, within the context of a Marvel comic book, this all makes perfect sense. Yep. So within the context of a D&D game. Yes, this all makes perfect. Oh, absolutely. Like I'm on board. So you have an inverted parallel here. Both battles took a day, both involved the death of the king on one side. In this instance, the frogs are the honorable ones, not the mice and the rats.

The mice and the rats have ridiculous New York based names. There's one I think whose name streets, another one named like Broadway or stuff like that. And still, there's a bearded fellow who has to intervene less to one side get completely destroyed by the battle. And there are larger, more deadly armored creatures who intervene on behalf of the frogs to avoid their slaughter. So it's a lot of parallels. The job, the job is done. Thor heads for the

resolution of the story in which he becomes a much bigger frog version of himself for a while. So he doesn't he doesn't thorify, but he he becomes a large frog like a six foot six frog Thor. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the one that you see jumping in that little jar as you go down to the underground and the Tisha Loki. Yeah. Not what we're talking about yet. Now we don't see much of a frog Thor for a while after this, right? So he gets turned back into Thor pretty short of the thereafter, but it's pretty bad as to watch him as a giant frog.

But in 2009, Puddlegulp recovers a small sliver of mionere. He's able to pick it up, which means he's worthy. And in so doing, he goes from being Puddlegulp, Donald Blake, to being Throg Thor. Okay. You have the same transformation. Okay. And he is as throg in 2009. That's really the first time you see throg as such. Okay. Now, you could say that Thor frog was Thor frog. And you could say that was throg. And aesthetically very close. But honestly, it's 2009 where you see Throg.

And he's wielding the mighty Frog Yall near. Okay, that's, that's awkward. I'm, you know, like, it probably reads easier than it says. Well, yes, yeah, there's that. But yeah, yeah, okay. Now he and and Thor interact a few more times through the years after that He alerts Thor to the slaughter of the more locks and the marauders or by the marauders Okay, yeah, which is kind of interesting thing because the more locks are very much an X-Men thing but they are also the under the sewers people in the 1980s for the X-Men right and the more orders do slaughter them and Thor is alerted to this by Throg. And even later, Throg becomes an integral part of the Thor Corps in battle world,

when Dr. Doom takes over everything and he creates all kinds of good realms. One of them is the Thor Corps. And it's this think hard-boiled Thor detectives of every Thor that ever there was. Okay. But it's like hard-boiled detectives detectives of every Thor that ever there was. Okay. But it's like hard-boiled detectives, but they're all Thor-core. Like every Thor that you've ever seen a version of,

Beta Rebille, Throg, Thor, Girl Thor, Jane Austen Thor, whatever. Yeah. Like all the Thor's and they're the Thor-core and they're basically the police force of that, of that realm. And they're solving mysteries. It's bizarre. It's fun. I would not fucking J walk. You know, kidding. In that realm.

Actually, no, J walk, because you know what, they're all thores. They're all going to be hell of chill about that. Like, nah, you know, okay. But you do, you do worship. You're, you're, you're in for a sign. Oh, yeah, no, they will hammer you. The whole. So now frog ends up joining the Asgardians of the galaxy.

And while he's gone with the Asgardians of the galaxy, fire goblins wipe out all of his frog friends. It's totally tragic. These things happened. Yeah, that's awful. Yeah. Why would you why would you do that to to to give them pathos? Does it kill amphibian? Why have you got to do that? Okay, so so what so what you're saying here is to Harkin back to our last episode, we explained fridging. They just fridged all those amphibians. Yes. Wow. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah, Jesus. Now, I want to talk about Walter Simonson, for whom Puddlegulp was named. He wrote Thor as a frog because he felt he could,

like he's the guy writing Thor for a large for like about five years, six years. Yeah, yeah, he had a long run, yeah. And I think ultimately this Thor as a frog story was a let me up story and just for people that didn't think I could do it, that was a professional wrestling reference. Let me up, match is the match that comes in after the really,

like the big feud so that you can let the audience up for air emotionally before they invest in the main event. So it's when you have, and I'm going to use the term that they use because it's still in use. You have the midget wrestling, you have the gimmick matches, you have the women wrestling before they were taken. Seriously, you have all of these popcorn match is another word for it where you can go get some food,

come back. It's right me up. It's whole, you know, it is when in deep space nine, they did the heist on the hollow deck. After Nog lost his leg. Right. You gotta let me up, dude. And I think PS9 was so good.

I need a break. Yes. Yes. Oh, oh, so in supernatural, the Scooby-Doo episode. Haven't seen it yet. Oh, she's in nine. Okay, there were others though. When they did the black and white episode

or they did the, we're in TV, you land episode. Yeah, oh, okay, yeah, the Gabriel episode was TV land. I'm going to kind of reach you a lesser extent. I'm gonna say the fear ghost episode. Which one was that one? They run into a, and it's like an infectious curse. Yes. It's the one that leads to the famous clip. It's one of my favorite things on the internet, ever, of Jensen-Ackles doing, I have the tiger on the Impala is, you know, the, you know,

being getting the one who is like, I'm afraid of nothing and nobody being afraid of literally fucking everything for an episode. Right. And it's, and it's like because supernatural can pull it off. It's legit scary, but it's also hysterically funny. It's can't be. Yeah. Or just the one where he channels the ability to talk to a dog.

Yeah. Yeah, let me have episodes. They're important. They're right. Thor had just suffered a huge loss. and he was literally scarred physically. And frankly, we needed a way to get past his scar and breathe for a bit in 1986. And then you could kind of use that transformation as a way of healing his scar and giving him a beard because this is where you start to get a blonde bearded Thor.

And so here's what Simon said, quote, honestly, that story is kind of a parody of heroic fiction in general and of my own stories in some way, but it's told completely straight. One of the lessons I got from Stan and Jack in their comics, not only in Thor, but fantastic for and other works they did, was that really in those books, in that time and place, you could do almost anything

so long as you kept a straight face. He goes on. My feeling is you tell the story you want to tell, keep faith with the reader all the way through, and pretty much go anywhere you want if you can do that well. So in the Thor frog story and in fairy tales everywhere, there's a lot of folk and fairy tale stuff in the Malachith tales which are based in part on Celtic fairy stuff. So I could use any of the fairy tale stuff as grist for my mill. You go back to the brother's grimm and people often get changed into frogs,

princes and stuff. So it was a standard trope so I decided a frog was the way to go. About the time I did this, I was living on a block from Central Park, about a block from Central Park. We were a little south of the reservoir where the action takes place, but I knew the park pretty well and they were always putting in rap poison to kill the rats, and they were always putting up signs saying, rap poison, don't let dogs eat anything. That's the kind of stuff. So the background, how fantastical the story itself was, was quite real. And I think that that was what gave this story a little gravity. So far, no mention whatsoever of the very clear antecedent of the

Betrachio Miyomakia. I'm sorry, the Betrachio Miyomakia. So he comes by the rats because he lives near Central Park. He comes by the rats because he lives near Central Park. He comes by the frogs because he likes Grimm's fairy tales and people get turned into frogs all the time. In fact, the thing that turns Thor, who slams me all near as a frog on the ground, then he turns into 6 foot 6 frog Thor. After that, I believe that's the point at which yes, a woman comes and kisses him to thank him. Just very Deus Ex Machina and then he turns back into Prince Thor. Wow. Okay. So the mention of Maliketh. Yes.

Send me off on a tangent. Okay. I have to look it up because I knew I recognized the name. Oh, yeah, the Dark Elf. Yeah. And he is the, you know, Malikith the accursed appears. And he's the primary antagonist in the second Thor movie, Dark World.

Oh, yeah. They're pulling hugely from Simon's and stuff for all three of the Thor movies. Oh, yeah, and a real I'm going I'm gonna throw this out there a real waste of Christopher Eccleson Eccleson everybody said so yeah, I just like oh my god But the funny part was I I immediately went to a, I heard the name Malaceth and I thought of a figure out of where he were, where he were fantasy, who I haven't been able to back it up. There's also dark elf anti-hero in a series

of Warhammer fantasy comic books. Okay. But yeah, so now I'm trying to remember in the comics, what was it that Maliketh had done to Thor? Because we're talking about the trauma that he had suffered. And he was not happening. I believe he took his eye or his hand at one point. He handicapped him literally.

Okay. Which you see in the movie. Like that's the whole cutting off Loki's hand thing. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So that's an 86. Yes.

Because now Thor just has this bad habit of like losing appendages in the NEMC hue. He does because it's because otherwise how is he interesting? He's a fucking god. Yeah, well, it's a good point. Yeah. Because that's also a major part of, and I'm forgetting the full title, but when he winds up facing off against hella in the movies. Oh, I'm wrong. Yeah, Ragnarok. He loses an eye. He loses an eye. Right.

I believe it's Malikip that takes his eye, although it could be mistaken. I could. It could have been his hand. A friend of the show Gabriel Cruz could correct us on either thing. Easily. Yes, I'm sure without even having to think about it. But he he in because in the comics, I were you know, the war Thor. Also winds up, I'm trying to remember whether it's a hand or an eye. that he loses at the same time as in the in the comics, the, you know, half hammer, half axe version of Miao Nier.

Right. Showing the story. Stormbreaker, which is actually that's the name of the Miao Nier that they give to Betere Bill so that he can get Miao Nier back to Thor. Back to. And so that's the kind of cool thing there because in in Ragnarok, you see Baderay Bill's face on one of the buildings, as well as he uses Stormbreaker in Infinity War. So anyway, sorry, I got off on a tangent there, just because I was trying to remember

what the wound was that we were getting a let me up from. Right, well, the war walks around with his face completely covered. So I think there's this facial scarring that happens too. Like he, and it's this red cloth that wraps around his head lengthwise and then around his mouth. So he almost looks like a 1980s G.I. Joe villain,

but in red. So, so again, no mention of the antecedent, which is so clearly paralleled here, because I think he fell over backward onto it. Here's another quote. Once again, it was set against stuff that had basis in reality as goofy as the idea was. And of course, I went for the urban myth, which wasn't Norse or God knows anywhere else, or God knows where else, like the crocodiles in the New York sewers. Tall tales and legends of any sort, I love them. Animal fables going back to Asop, so it seemed to work pretty well. It fit perfectly in the plot as it was evolving in that point with Loki.

And I am still really pleased how that story worked out, especially the last issue where Thor is really the large frog, but the business was switching hammers and how they all worked out. I was really pleased how that was able to turn out as a series of plot threads that all came together at the end. As a matter of fact, I think he fully fell over back because I can find zero direct purposeful connective tissue between the Batrocco Miyomakia and the Thor as Frog Run. Simonson doesn't even seem to have read it anywhere. He mentions ASOP and Fables.

And you can hear his quotes above. He wanted to satirize heroism in general, which is what the Betrocco Miyomakiya did, with his own personal New York existence, serving as the tent pole to that. And yet, the parallels and inversions are so clearly there, the academics have already had their past at the storyline. And the connections are clearly there. their past at the storyline and the connections are clearly there. So this is parallel evolution. Yeah. Um, and, and like, so there's this guy who's paper I read, it was like 15 pages, which I really enjoyed. Uh, and in Thor, Thor, and you, and you always talk about how like you you I'm just I'm referring back to our last episode because like you know, I'm the one where we interviewed author Bishop O'Connell

About his his very tells us about about his work and then that's fun. Yeah, it was was awesome. Which Coming out on May 31st. Yes. I'm I'm very excited Um, but we were talking about this weekend. Yeah, in our last episode, and you, you, you, you, you almost want to brag about, about how you don't, you don't read fiction. But like, then we come to an episode like this one and he's like, oh yeah, no, this guy wrote this 15 page academic paper or that, yeah. You know, the, the, I'm not even going to try to say the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the 1980s run in, you know, Marvel four. Right. Like I don't even know how to find that shit. I'm going to, I'm going to freely admit, as the one of the two of us who does not have a master's degree, I don't know how to find that.

Like, I don't even, like, where do I begin looking? You know, but that you've read. Oh, yeah. You know, but that you've read. Oh, yeah. Anything, anything actual nonfiction historical, like research of anything you've done 25 pages of before we, before we record an episode, which is why, you know, you promised to be this was going to be a one shot. And I'm like, are you sure?

Yeah. And now, maybe I'm shooting that in the foot, but like, No, we're going okay, we're doing okay. Yeah. But, you know, like, dude. This is, it's, there's a reason I have a reflection. I have all this other bullshit to read. You're spending all your time doing, you know.

Reading academic papers that the, the bibliography for that paper accounted was like 65 source, no, there were like 71 different footnotes. And it was a 15 page paper. I'm like, Jesus, this is fun. The fuck? And I was enjoying the hell out of it. Yeah.

Well, I'm sure, because I'm listening to that. I'm like, okay, you know, I kind of want to find that because it would be interesting to read. okay, you know, I kind of want to find that because it would be interesting to read. But you know, this is clearly somebody who comes from the Brent Tannahill School of Union to cite all of your scripts. Right. You know, why end notes? You know, um, oh, it is, it's a good paper, too.

Like, but yeah, but I've never read Heinlein and I have no interest in it. Like, I'm just, I'm, you know, you know what? I figured it out. You're the sysco and I'm the ebert. Oh, wow. I'm the straight-laced one. You're the syscule and I'm the ebert. Oh, wow. I'm the straight-laced one. You're the syscule. I guess I'm the ebert.

You're well, okay. No, I get you. I'm not going to say the straight-laced one. Yeah. I mean, I'm the one bound by, you know, I need desperately to be a pal in it or I don't know what else my identity is. Right. But, you know, but you're the, you're the, no, no, this, I'm, I'm looking into

this, you know, deep literary reference. Right. Here's the academia to it. Here's the academia to it. And I'm like, no, I'm, I'm the pills. Very doughboy. If you push me in the belly button and go, he, he, and like, I did run into this when I was directing plays.

Like, there'd be a line. It's a fig for that, you know, in a, in a, a play called hotel paradiso. And the students were like, what does that mean? And I was like, oh, let me, I'll come back to you next rehearsal. And like I came back with like four pages as to what, what if it for that means, you know, it's basically, oh, I don't really care. Yeah. And it's, you know, on and on. Or like the phrase, I'm your Huckleberry. Yeah. I figured out what the hell that meant. I, I don't figure it out.

I researched what the hell that meant. And a Huckleberry is just the right size for a thing. Therefore, I will fit perfectly for what you need. Okay. That's what I'm your Huckleberry means. Okay. Which then I was like, what does that mean for Huckleberry Hound?

And so, you know, okay. So I was like, what does that mean for Huckleberry Hound? And so, you know, okay. So I was like, yeah, what did Hannah Barbarra have to say? Because yes, because that's the difference between the two of us. So yeah. And you know, like, as of this recording, uh, Stott Hall died, um, yes, earlier this week. And there was a guy on TikTok who talked about what Scott Hall meant and what he meant to masculinity and things like that. And again, friend of the show, Gabriel Cruz directed me to that. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then I asked, I commented on the guy's thing. I said, how does Scott Hall compare to Barry Wyndham in terms of the masculinity? Because their

body types were very different, but attitude and lean, and so we've been having this wonderful back and forth about the career and literal body, physical body of Barry Wyndham. Cause that's what I do. Cause that's just kind of how you roll. Yeah, you should have a reading, I guess, I don't know. I'm not saying it has either or, in my world, apparently, it was either or. Well, this is what I spent

my time. It continues continues to be. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so anyway, all right. So I just had to had to go off on that tangent. Sure. Yeah. Sure. So in Thor, Thor stumbles into a war of the frogs and rats when he and puddle gulp come too late to prevent the assassination of the frog by the rats, right? Frog King by the rats. Yes. The catalyst for the war and the betrachomyomachia is the accidental killing of the prince of the mice by the frog king. So you've got these inversions that keep happening. The rats have also developed a scheme to kill the frogs by dumping rat poison into the reservoir as Simon's had referenced when he was talking about his inspirations. In the Betrachomeo Machia, the frogs are quick to

develop a plan to hold the mice and jump with them into the water thereby drowning them. Well, I mean, you know, tactically, yeah, it's a yeah, but see in each one, the other group is doing the plotting, right? Okay. All right. Thor stops this scheme and both sides fight in in paw to whatever we call Frog's hands combat. The same thing. Lipper. Is it a flipper? I suppose. I don't know.

Anyway, the same thing happens when the frogs fail to enact their drowning plan in the Betracholmiomachia, right? Zeus intervenes. Yeah. Thor and Meridiarpaks. I'm sorry, Meridiarpaks, remember the Achilles. They're both frankly the Achilles of their group. We've talked about this in a previous episode, right? They hold back, and then they begin whooping-ass until the bigger creatures intervene to save the other group from total destruction, with Zeus, it's the crabs, with Thor, it's the

Gators. Yeah. Both stories get their start by a protagonist being laid low. Crumb's nature, or crumb filter, is at the water grabbing a drink because he's tired from escaping a predator. Either a predator or we a weasel a cat or a ferret. It depends on which translation you go. And Thor had just come back from hell, got turned into a frog by his brother and can't get help from the Avengers. He actually goes to the Avengers first, tries to spell out and spill sugar what's going on and Jarvis chases him away.

In both stories, humans are almost entirely absent, allowing us to fully anthropomorphize each group in the literature that they're presented in. And neither story has had any knowledge or known impact on the humans of their world. Humans have no idea that this happened. So in the case of the Miyomakiya, yeah, but you're talking about Miyomakiya. Thank you. There's a reason, there's a clear motive, consciously, for humans not being affected by it, because it's a parody, and because, you know, look at how petty and small this conflict is, we're going to take this petty, small conflict between vermin, effectively. Yes.

And we're going to talk about it in in the you be because we're satirizing the the arch language and right right of the epic form. We're juxtaposing. Yeah. All that is greatness of humans and putting it on these tiny little creatures. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas I because the you know frog Thor you know frog Thor stories are not satire in the same way But they are a satire they are there I mean they, they are, they are a parody. Yes. But and both, both are parodies. They're, I see them, the motive, I feel like the motivation of the original material is to try to make a statement about heroic fiction. to try to make a statement about heroic fiction. Like some love, yeah. You know, there's a critique involved

in that, whereas with Frog Thor, I feel it's just like, hey, let's do something kind of goofy. No, but even Simon said, I'm criticizing the heroic story telling. Okay, he did that. Okay. And honestly, I think by doing that, he did what whichever the author's name was for the betrachomyomachia also did. And again, it doesn't seem to be any connective tissue that I could find. But it allows the story to both be reduced and enlarged all at once. It's reduced in that its scale is such that the battle, the battle doesn't impact us humans at all. But it's enlarged in that in its small scale, it's still an existential

threat to their existence at their scale. So the stakes are remarkably deep for them. That was where I was going to go with it was by making the scale smaller. The stakes get bigger. Exactly. And in the Thor story, the gods have no idea what's going on. Asgard has no clue where he is. So they cannot intervene. The Avengers have no idea what's going on. They cannot intervene on his behalf. This is not unlike the gods specifically choosing to sit out the battle between the mice and the frogs in the Betrocchio Miyomakia, especially given the troubles that they'd suffered in the Iliad. Now again, this is an inversion of the other, right? So here in the Thor story, they had no clue, whichever gods you want to point to, you could say the gods who could fix things would be the Avengers and or as guardians. But in the

Draco Miyamaki, they deliberately set it out. So it's an, do you think there's a difference? Do you think there's a difference in world view or a difference in paradigm regarding gods or divinity. I think since the divinity of Machia is ancient Greek and the other one is very clearly modern. Yeah, because the gods in the Bichakomia Machia are literally gods. They are are literally gods. They are acknowledged as such, whereas in the Thor comic, first off, the gods are the ones in Asgard. They're the dwellers of Asgard. And it's already kind of acknowledged that they're not quite gods. They're as gods to humans. But the divinity of the more powerful beings is far less the deal. It's the fact that they're more powerful. So I would, yeah, I would agree.

And I think that Simon Senn stayed blissfully unaware of any of all of this. Even his inversion of the story of the Bichakomiyia Makia, he's unaware of. Like I said before, he has a woman kiss Thor, which turned him into a frog. Yeah, I think Thor got zapped and then a woman came up and kissed him. That's what it was. I knew I was mixing that up.

In the very beginning, he gets hit by Loki and then a woman kisses him out of the blue. I was like, I just have to thank you, Thor. And then he turns into a frog, uh, which just is I'm a reversal of a very exactly, exactly. Um, and yet it's still fairy tale stuff, right? It's still the trope that he's pointing to. He just reversed there.

But again, he that, that is cinched it for me that he wasn't lying about like, nine or rather the track of me and like it What are you talking about? No, I think he really did go well, what if a woman kissed a prince and turn him into a frog? It's far more likely that this along with the frog and toad books that we all grew up with The wind and the willows Was more of an influence for him than anything else now He could have read pretty deeply into Asop's fables beyond the standard dozen or so that most of us grow up with

because there was a tot in an ox story and there was a frogs wanting a king story if you knew where to read. And if he was really into Asop, he would have found those. So the motif of frogs is having desires and having a life could have worked its way into his brain from the Asop stuff. But I think less so than just the his admitting he really liked the stories of princes and frogs and shit. And in this story, if you base it on the prince

turned into a frog, it accidentally parallels the Betroclamia Machia and helps Thor to regain his humanity and his respect for us mere mortals after his dealings with hell, surter, and the traumas that came from that. I think this is a let me up for Thor as well. Oh well yeah. So all of that leads me back to a really weird root idea, which is where do you know, the frogs having some kind of symbolic reference. Sure. Sure. And rats mice having some kind of symbolic reference. Like it's interesting to me that without any direct connection,

there is still that parallel. You know what I mean? Yeah. Those are the specific creatures that are involved in the story. And the fact that frogs have this very specific role related to like royalty brought low. Yes. You know, prints transformed into specifically into a frog. Right. Yeah, into a toad. Yeah, absolutely. Into a, you know, an amphibious creature. Mm-hmm. One that is neither fish nor foul as ever. Yeah, yeah. That is, that is not, maybe that's part of it. Is the amphibian nature of frogs and toads.

They're not, they're not seen as a boon. Yeah, they're not bound by the water and they're not part of the land. They're in this weird in between space. And I think I think that's absolutely a part of it. They're a bastardization. Yeah. And they're ugly as fuck. Yeah.

And they're and they're not one or the other. Right. And they're ubiquitous They're everywhere. They live and they live in kind of a twilight zone themselves. They live in marshy places Neither neither wet nor dry either wet nor dry And I but I think they're ubiquity if you take a look at your latitude lines goes straight across to the new world Oh, yeah Well, and same with the rats anytime. There's people. There's mice, right? That's why they say mice are the people of the world and

mice are a Constance if you are in if you are involved in agriculture. Yes, you bring dogs Yes, you bring you bring dogs you make partnerships with cats. Yeah, everything you can you bring, you bring dogs, you make partnerships with cats, you do everything you can. You try to keep them under control because they're just fucking everywhere. And they're going to get into literally everything. They're the mammalian version of cockroaches. Yeah.

You know, and, and so there is this, there is this very, I guess what I'm struck by. Is this very profound pair of archetypes that's involved in this. Yeah. And neither is normally when we think of archetypes, we often think of favorable and unfavorable. Yeah. And neither of these are particularly attractive. No, they're not. Yeah. Which means if you're going to do a satire since they're unattractive, do a parody. Again, I parody still reject that this is satire. Okay. All right. Good point. Yes. Meaningful. All right.

I'm, I'm, but I would then I'm mixing up my terms. But yeah, if you're going to do a parody, this is the direction you're going to go because, haha, I'm making fun of you. Still, I'm going to go in a direction that is flattering. And so we get mice and frogs, because frogs are gross, and mice are mammalian cockroaches. But also frogs are that, like you said, I really like to be said, royalty-late low. Yeah.

They are bottom feeders, even though they eat the insects, but they are bottom feeders. They skim the surfaces. They're gross and they are nowhere near where we want to be. Mine's on the other hand, and rats are our total vermin. So yes, I think having those two groups fight it out, you can find reasons to cheer the pain of either. You can root for injuries.

Yeah. So, so yeah, Thor, Thor regains his humanity literally. Yeah. And regains his respect for us mortals because he was dealing so much with hell and serter and curse. And in both the Betrakomio Machia and the Thor series, the war is fought in a single day. It's tremendously high stakes that we will never know about and the repudiation of a heroic war fair on some level. It reduces it so much to the ridiculous or you could say the grotesquely small, which is something you might expect in 1986 during the nuclear age. This was also, this was like around March of 86. So that means the challenger had already blown up. We needed to let me up. And in 1985, just the year prior, in no particular order,

you have the following events, which deepened our stakes and and threatened our survival. The first summit between Reagan and Gorbachev had happened. David Lewis Wright, a Christian identity prick, killed a man named Charles Goldmark and his family, which was fucking awful because he did it because he thought the guy was Jewish. There was a there was a huge hit on the New York mafia, which I'd mentioned in the Punisher episodes. Remember, it was an unsanctioned hit that put Gaudi in charge. Yeah, there was a ton. By the way, 85 was called the Year of the Spy. There was a ton of spies that we found in the US. All right. And TWA 847 had gotten hijacked, which was the one that they beat to death the the sailor.

And they I believe they ended up in Uganda. Like it was, no, I might be mixing that one up. But they did beat to death sailor. Yeah. And it was, it was a horrible, horrible story. So all of our stakes were really big and really deep and everything was really goddamn dire for like the several months prior. Thore is going through hell literally. He's fighting curse. He's fighting surter. There's no let me up. So collectively, we need to let me up. So why not take the God of Thunder and make him really small? Because it might help us all to remember humanity's lessons gained from this in a whimsical way. And that is why I think, even though the Batracco Miyomakia and the Thor run where he's a frog are not related on purpose or even

seemingly by accident. There were 100 perlals that were needed at the time that they came out. If you look back to when I said it was possible that it was written during the time of Alexander. That means a fuck ton of warfare. Well, it means a fuck ton of warfare. Well, it means a fuck ton of warfare, and depending when when we're talking about, we're also talking about Alexander's death, which, you know, oh my god, it's usually destabilizing. Speaking of speaking as a teacher of sixth grade world history in the state of California, one of the lessons that I kept breaking up to my kids was on his deathbed,

you know, who's your heir? The strongest, you know, like let's let's talk about an epic hero who was actually a gigantic epic dickbag. Yes. You know, the culminating assignment for my students was was Alexander really that great. I think in census is no he was an asshole. Yes. I was like yeah they get. Yeah. So I mean it's a very destabilizing time in the in chaotic. The Mediterranean. Yeah. Yeah. And well throughout civilization. I mean you, the argument for Alexander deserving the title is a great is that he introduced Hellenic culture to literally fucking everybody. And so when he died, it was destabilizing to the Greek world, the Persian world, like all the way out to Afghanistan and India, I mean, like the civilized fucking

world. Right. You know, and so yeah, if anybody was going to write a parody of the of the Iliad, that was probably the time to do it. Yeah. You know, and you're writing a parody of a earth shattering 10 year war. Yeah. You know, so, so, so you've got that happening and with Thor, you know, it's happening at the same time as all these other things. Yeah. And it's Thor, right, which I've never been very excited by his comic because for the same reason as Captain America, there's no conflict there. There's no inner growth there.

There's just a paragon going and doing paragonical shit. And I love cap. You know that. Yeah. But that's that's how it goes. But Thor, like how else are you gonna, you know, have it let me up, turn them into a frog. So anyway, no huge conclusions, but, but that is my my analysis of the betracholmiomakia and the Thor Thor with his frog phrase. So I like it. What have you gleaned? I'm going to go with the whole Union archetype Western Western culture across a couple of thousand years. across a couple of thousand years, that I mentioned a minute ago, that no matter how far we get from our roots as farmers,

for lack of a better word, there are certain things that have become ingrained in our collective subconscious. Yeah. And, and the idea that, you know, frogs are symbolically something in between and something lowly. And I'm going to stick with my seismomal cockroaches, because I'm in love with my own phrase there. I still say, I still say, they're the humans of the world. Well, well, yeah, I mean, yes, that works too,

and still ties in with what I said. Yes. If you're a John'sist enough, if you're a view of humanity, which like right now, that's easy to be. Yeah. Um, you know, and I think it's remarkable to see the literally the same symbols coming up thousands of years separated from each other.

And in popular. And story. Yeah, in popular myth. Met for children's consumption, by the way. Yes. Yeah. Since we're talking about the 80s and Marvel comics, yes.

Yes, can't disagree with that. And also speaking as an English teacher, I really wish I could get right now is with my six graders in English, I'm taking them through Tom Sawyer. And what's interesting about that is, of course, when it was written, Tom Sawyer was, you know, this example of the the idyllic American boy's childhood, right? And all of my students, well not all, but the overwhelming majority of my students are like this kids and asshole.

Like how I don't like him. Like he's a liar and a cheat and like he dressed to get away with shit all the time and like what the hell? way with shit all the time and like what the hell. And, and, you know, that's, that's what I'm working with. Like, you know, a couple of years ago, when I was teaching eighth graders, I was trying to teach him Fahrenheit 451. And it was like, don't you all fucking get it? No, of course you don't get it your eighth graders. Right. You know, I wish I could do something as I wish I could do, you know,

the work of the mice and the frogs. But. Well, you're district actually might have funds that they could put toward a classroom. I could, and I'm gonna recommend this as a book in just a few seconds. Okay. So I can send you the link to it and hell,

I mean, we got Persepolis back when our district gave us money. Grant, you know, I'm teaching high schoolers, but yeah, absolutely. You can get a class set of Betrocco Miyamakia. All right. Yeah. So, speaking of which, where, what are you reading lately? Well, what I've been reading lately is

we mentioned a minute ago our guest of honor on our last episode of Bishop O'Connell, I've been rereading the American fairy tales series. You know, and one in print, I'm coming on the show and two, just because once I got started reading it, it's you know an amazing series of books and if I can make time to read anything, that's what I want to be reading. So, the stolen, forgotten, and the returned are awesome works. And I highly recommend all of them. So that's what I've been working on.

How about you? Well, I'm actually rereading the battle between the frogs and the mice, a tiny Homeric epic, which was a new translation at the time that it was written by A.E. stallings with illustrations by Grant Silverstein. So you can find that on the Amazon's. You could probably find it elsewhere if you don't want to give money to them. But I strongly recommend it. It is a fun read. It's only 300 lines long, which just by way of comparison, the Odyssey. Now, the I need is 9500 lines long.

This is 300. So this is very tiny. Yeah. Okay. And hell, I've read half of it to you. So, but I strongly, I urge people to read that. So yeah, where can people find you on the social media's? I can be found both social media at Mr. underscore, blalock, bl-a-Y-L-O-C-K on TikTok. I can be found at Mr. Blalock with no underscore on Instagram and I am at E-H Blalock on Twitter and where can you be found online, sir. You can find me at duh Harmony on Twitter and Instagram. You can find me at duh Harmony one on TikTok slinging puns how I and Instagram. You can find me at duh harmony one on TikTok. Slangin puns, how I torture Ed. You can also find me, let's see, by the time this drops, we will have already done our show and we'll probably be on another lockdown to be perfectly honest. But you could still find me in those other places. You could find us collectively at geekhistorytime.com

and you find us on Twitter at geekhistorytime. So you could look for us there. Gee, I think that's about it, right? That is pretty much, that's pretty comprehensive. Cool. Yeah, so go check out those things. Oh, and also you can find this podcast. This is your first time listening, first off, wow, what a treat. Uh, second off, uh, you can we have, we have

so much of a backlog for yes, check out. Yes. Um, so I strongly recommend you go back and urge, urge you to go back and go through the buffet and see what treats you might find there. Uh, if you like books, then look for the episodes where Ed is leading it. If you like big giant robots, look for Ed episodes. If you like really weird-ass connections to ancient history and science fiction, you go find my episodes. So yeah, I mean, it's all in the titles. Go, go look them up.

But you can also subscribe to us on the Apple podcast as well as Stitcher. We were on Spotify, but never mind. So find us on those two places. If you don't want to go to our website all the time for the latest update. And the Apple podcast app. Yes, the Apple podcast app rate, subscribe, review, you know, the drill five stars, because we earned it. And then tell us why.

So cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I am Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s. you