Get Played - Viking Games with “The Viking Professor” Terri Barnes

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Heather's former professor and medievalist historian Terri Barnes joins Matt, Heather & Nick to discuss vikings and viking based video games, how accurate they are to history, and more! What we're playing: Pokémon TCG Pocket, Balatro and Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania. Check out the podcast Terri co-hosts called Vikingology: The Art and Science of the Viking Age and her Youtube channel Shieldmaiden in the Kitchen. This month's We Play, You Play: Metaphor ReFantazio!Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod.Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com.Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com.Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. With the $5 meal deal at McDonald's, you pick a McDouble or a McChicken, then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Price and participation may vary for a limited time only. I'm really excited. I'm kind of nervous this week, Matt. I don't know. Nick is late.

But I'm anxious because this is my former professor that we're going to have on the show. Extremely cool. I'm excited to hopefully learn a little bit and I just to put you at ease because I know you are nervous. I'm going to try not to mess this up or like joke around too much. Okay. I'm being honest. Okay, great.

Hey, sorry, sorry I'm late. Yeah, but the train got delayed. There's like something on the track. But I'm so excited for this episode. Yeah, yeah, me too. And you know, I don't wanna steal the conversation too much, but I got a lot of questions about cherry, blueberry, apple, of course, you know, Dutch apple, coconut cream.

Hang on. Chess. I'm not sure I know where this is going. Are you naming fruits here? I don't understand what you prepared. These sound like ingredients. Sorry, I thought we were talking to a pie king. The king of pies, shepherd's pie, it's a savory one.

Minced meat pie. Hang on, hang on. Nick, shut the fuck up for a second. I'm mad. What do you think a fucking pie king is? I don't know, like a person who's incredibly good at pies, like an expert on pies, like a king of pies. Someone who's good at pies?

Yeah, knows everything about pies, Is gonna be great at making pies. Maybe won some sort of bake-off, but got the title of king. First off, you should know that we booked a professor, not a king. Yeah, a professor of pie king. Yeah, a professional fesser. Wait, what?

What? Wait, you're dumber? Wait, what? You're dumber? No. Well, it's a fesser. I don't know. No, we have- You're dumber. We have a Viking- You're're dumber? Wait, what? You're dumber? No! Well, it's a fesser. No, we have- Yeah, you're dumber. We have a Viking- You're even dumber.

No. Professor, a Viking professor, not a Piking professor. Both of you, both of you, no. Sorry, I think I understand, I understand. We're gonna ask all sorts of questions about pedals, What? About seats, What? About handlebars, about frames, about wheels. What?

We're talking to a biking professor, right? No. We stan a biking. What? I mean sure. It's a Viking professor. A Viking professor. Vikings. Do you know what Vikings are? Not Vikings not Vikings and professors are teachers Matt. They're teachers. I don't think I should let her on the show I think she's gonna be really disappointed in you too I you know, I think this is just a good this is like actually really good for us to get somebody in here

Who's gonna actually teach us something and I just want to say Heather It's not fair that we just don't know everything that you know okay sorry we're fucking dumb idiots sorry we're fucking don't know things sorry we hear words and think they're different and I know that if you bonk Nick and I's heads together you make a hollow coconut sound that's not our fault. Is that true? Can I try it? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Holy shit! We don historically inaccurate helmets and yell at our sons, so we discuss Viking games with an actual Viking professor this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Appadocka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where I am extremely nervous

about today's podcast, because I, so I because one of my former teachers is here today and there's nothing that makes me more uncomfortable than the idea of a teacher seeing me in my regular life and judging every moment of what I've done. But it's gonna be a lot of fun and it's gonna be kind of a little bit different for our listeners than our typical deep dive into a game. We're gonna be kind of deep diving into a concept and a genre. But it also will be kind of the same because we also do that.

Yeah. It'll be kind of the same but also kind of different. Main difference being you might actually learn something. But also sometimes you learn something from a regular episode, so in that way it's kind of insane. I don't think anybody's ever learned anything from this show. No, they've learned like bad information. It's like misinformation.

Hey, here's some real non-misinformation. This month's We Play, You Play is Metaphor Rifantasia, which we will be talking about at length, in depth, Monday, November 25. Very, very excited for that episode. I'm so glad we're doing it. I'm so glad. I can't wait to talk about this game. And I can't wait to talk with today's guest.

Our guest today is a medievalist historian who co-hosts the podcast Vikingology, the art and science of the Viking age, and has a YouTube channel, Shield Maiden in the Kitchen. Please welcome the Viking professor, Terry Barnes. Hi, Terry. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for making time for us.

We have a bunch of Viking questions, which we will get to, but I want to start generally, which is that you were saying before we began recording that a lot of your students, including Heather, have come to you as fans of Viking video games. Is that correct? Yes. Yes.

And actually other themed games as well. I mean, as a historian, a lot of them will tell me, okay, what I know about the history of X period is what I've learned from video games. Wow. I mean, that's certainly the case for me with some of the Viking-related video games I've played. So, but you're not a gamer. You're not someone who ever really played games

growing up or you don't play games currently correct and and what are you so what are your interests beyond Vikings like what do you do to pass the time oh I'm one of those unidimensional people. That was the only thing I liked, to be fair. Well, I like cooking. I'm a runner, I do that. I like traveling. I spend a fair amount of time in Iceland every year because that's Viking territory.

Yeah. You know, other places Vikings went. So yeah, I mean, those are the main things. And when you're not traveling, you're in Vikings went. So yeah, I mean, those are the main things. And when you're not traveling, you're in Portland, which you mentioned you like cooking, Portland, a great food city. Do you have any local food favorites?

Oh no. See, this is a terrible thing about actually being a person who likes to cook. I actually like that. And so my favorite restaurant is my kitchen. Hey, that's the dream. I feel like the last few years was a great chance to really dig into our kitchens too.

It's true. Why would it happen? What? Yeah, how do you possibly not know that, Matt? I don't believe for a second you don't know what happened. I'm trying to think of where I've eaten in, in the Portland area. Obviously when Voodoo Donuts was only there, I had visited that.

Well, I mean, I think the big Portland institution is Burgerville. Oh, Burgerville. Are you much of a Burgerville fan? Yeah, I'm not a fast food person, but Burgerville would be one that I would do because yeah, they're pretty much all like, you know Sourcing local and stuff like that. So yeah, and they're their union now, which is they've recognized the Burgerville Union. So that's that's great Yeah, I like to move to Burgerville. That sounds pretty good They're a flavor town Yeah, I could have a dual citizenship in both residences. Well we have another question that we asked to everybody Terry and this one may not apply

to you specifically but we'll have something to talk about. The question is what are you playing? What are you playing? Hey it's me the Resident Evil Merchant. Wait, wait man, why are you shaking your head? We have an academic on the show yeah I'm flattered that you think of me that way it just didn't it didn't like a no I appreciate that intro I, yeah, I don't know. I'm having a hard time with you.

Oh, all right. To be fair, I have a hard time with me as well. Guys, I'm here to ask you the question of the week as the Resident Evil Merchant, and that's, what are you playing? Nick Weigert, what are you playing? Oh, wow, Resident Evil Merchant, thanks so much for the question.

I am playing- He's a professor Resident Evil Merchant. Okay, okay, professor resident evil merchant now. Okay, okay, professor. Professor merchant. Vampire Survivors Ode to Castlevania DLC is what I've been playing. This is the new DLC for the game Vampire Survivors that came out a couple years ago that I really love and was a really innovative obviously game, kind kind of gave us the the bullet heaven genre.

I love when the Ouroboros of influence folds back in on itself. This is like them doing a Castlevania DLC for something that is so aesthetically influenced by Castlevania, you know, the art, the tone of it, the weapons, a lot of weapons are just directly pulled from Castlevania, the music certainly. It's like, I don't know a great comparison. It's kind of like the Fantastic Four showing up in The Incredibles, you know what I mean? It's like this is the thing that influenced the thing and now it's just like part of it. So it's, even though the gameplay owes more to like rogue likes like Binding of Isaac and Schmups, it's still such a Castlevania homage.

And so it's kind of awesome that they say this happened And I will say it's really well done. I haven't messed around with all the vampire survivors DLC I have bought it all be to support the developer a punkle or punk lay. However, you say that however The Castlevania one is very well realized and really like like fits in with and is very well realized and really like fits in with the franchise that it's integrating into Vampire Survivors. The one thing it does is it introduces more of a real like actual map progression and some real boss fight elements.

It's like you go to a discrete part, there's a boss fight, you unlock something. It's got a little bit more of a... It's not hyper linear, but it's got a little bit more of like an actual sort of structure to it than a typical vampire survivors level Where you're just sort of like doing this time attack thing where you're where you're wandering around something of a void There's also some side scrolling sections with really basic jump physics Which is like just mixes it up, and I was I was surprised to see it out again I don't know if that's in any other DLC, but there's side-scrolling in

Yeah, there's some sections where you go and the physics change and so all of a sudden you're like walking along, you know, like like a You're walking around one plane and then yeah, you can jump as well. So it's it's it's interesting And the other thing is that you can unlock actual Castlevania characters Which is funny because so many the vampire survivors characters are like royalty free Belmont So it's like you're just seeing like oh wow that this guy Who's called like you know? Like Grover Belmond now now Trevor Belmont is coexisting with them But I think it rules. It's awesome

And one of the reasons it rules is one of the reasons Castlevania itself rules. It has a massive soundtrack of Castlevania music remixes. It's hard to pick just one, but I thought I'd play a little bit of the beginning. I believe this track is from Castlevania III, originally composed by Konami Kukeya Club, which is Konami's internal composition team.

The remix, which is awesome, is by Keyjen Church. Ranch, can we play a little bit of the beginning? That's extremely good and we're not even in it yet Anyway, just full of full of this sort. This is, yeah, this is awesome. If you fell off on Vampire Survivors or you just haven't played it in a while, I think the Ode to Castlevania DLC is worth checking out because I think it's a great new spin on the formula.

And also again, just awesome to see all that Castlevania stuff in there. That's what I've been playing. All right. You, should I, you want, maybe I should go. Yeah, you can go. Yeah, go for it. Heather, what are you playing? Well, you guys suggested it, so I picked it up.

I've been playing Bellatro. Wow. And I know that Bellatro is not my kind of game. It is a card game. It is on my phone. Both of those things I've never talked about doing on the show before. Maybe with the exception of Final Fantasy Record Keeper, right?

Yeah. And another one. But you guys, huh? First Soldier as well. That wasn't on my phone. Wasn't on phone? No, it wasn't on my phone. It was a mobile game, but I played on my iPad.

You could also play it, anyway, it doesn't matter. iPad's big phone. It is big phone. What the heck? You trying to tell me your phone? You know what, you're right, Matt. You're totally right. You don't know what anything is. I don't even know your name.

But I've been playing Bellatro, and you guys were right. It's a fantastic game. The Bellata Fun. What? Nick. What? What is that? He said it's a Bellata Fun.

Oh. The professor left. Yeah, she just signed off on that joke. She tore her degree in half? So as you've heard, it's a kind of a deck building, poker based game that the boys have talked about on the show, so I don't really have to go into the mechanics that much. What I do want to say is that the aesthetic of the game is really appealing. It has sprite-based presentation with false scan

lines, and one of my favorite parts of the game is that when cards are put down on the table, the screen shakes. So it has this sort of presentation of an action game, but the concepts of a poker game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's nice that each time you play it, it's completely randomized, totally different game. You're constantly seeing new effects and new jokers that you can unlock that have really bizarre, some of them are really bizarre powers. Yeah, some of these are really bizarre powers. Yeah, some of these jokers are really crazy. Yeah, they're crazy jokers.

Kind of twisted. But I want to also say, cause I said this to you, Matt, and you were upset, but I want to say it to the audience, which is that I did beat- You're gonna hurt my feelings again? I did beat your ass.

No, I beat the game and felt no more compulsion to continue playing it. You mean you finished a run. Yeah, I finished a run. And you were like, I'm satisfied, I don't need to keep iterating on this to try to beat my, to see how far,

if I can get there again, or if I can best my score or what have you. You smoked the entire pack of cigarettes as a punishment. Yes, I smoked the pack of cigarettes and was then like, well, I'm no longer compelled to play this and so I deleted it from my phone But it was a free download because it's on Apple Arcade right now. Mm-hmm But thank you guys for the recommendation. I enjoyed it. I'm done

Uh, I can't wait to play another one that you guys recommend like Bolotro Probably good for your sanity and your screen time that you deleted Bolotro I did the same because it was just like, it's too addicting. But I will say, like for me with the roguelikes, I do wanna play it again after I finish a run. Cause I'm like, oh, I finished a run. I want to, let's see, let's see if I can do this again.

Or let's see what, if I can replicate it. Well, my experience with vampire survivors was the same way. When I finished it, I was like, uh, okay. Well, I guess I'm done now. And then I don't have, and the same with Hades. Hades, yeah, no, I remember this with Hades. Yeah. And Hades even has a story to keep you going.

Yeah, once I complete what should be the finishing of an arc, it's hard for me to let that game get its hooks into me again. Interesting. Matt, what have you been playing? Well, I've been playing a lot of metaphor, of course, but I won't get into that. I've been loving it.

It's fantastic. But I'm also playing a phone game, and it is called Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket. And so what this is, it's a Pokemon trading card game on my phone, you see. And so there's... You get these, I'm just gonna go ahead and get out in front of this.

There are microtransactions, I'm never going to spend any money on this. Okay. How much money have you spent so far? $1,000. None, no money so far, but what it is, it's like a collection and you can battle friends on here using the trading card game rules.

And so every day you get like... Everything's on a timer. So you can open packs on an hourly timer. It's not hourly necessarily, but it's like every 8 hours or so you get the ability to open new packs and things like that. And so then half of it is just a serotonin boost or dopamine hit rather because you just get to see what cards you get and so you're just like oh look those are I like those cards yes and sometimes they're nice cards and so right now I would say I have I've been playing it since it came

out on the 30th I have 250 cards here. You get about five cards in each pack. And you just, like, it's not really a game unless you like do the, like battling and trading is gonna get unlocked later, I guess when I level up or whatever. I'm level nine currently. Man, get on the ball. Nick.

Gotta get those numbers up. I know, I wish there wasn't something else I was looking at on my phone. But, I'm finding this to be incredibly enjoyable and soothing. Some of the cards, if you hold, not all the cards, but there's one card that I saw on our pal Ify Wadiwe'sile that it had the ability to hold it down And if you held down on this card it would show you like a little animation of the art on the card I'm like it went to like it went inward and you got to see the art around outside You know in the frame 3d effect. Yeah, I loved I loved it

Yeah, they got some of our little snap cards that do that. I loved I loved it. Yeah, they got some Marvel snap cards that do that I loved I loved it so much because I wanted to see what else Pikachu was seeing So that was really nice And yeah, you can spend money in here and did I look at the screen and be like how much could I spend in this? Really, but like I I don't think I I just can't I can't do it I can't have another Simpsons tapped out situation on my hands here I did see that it would take two years to get all the cards in the current set without spending any money.

So I don't know how much longer I'll be playing this, but it is extremely fun to just look at the cards. Maybe it'd be even more fun to engage in battling people. I put my friend code into Discord, so that's in there if people want to Want to have a yeah? Yeah? Yeah? I haven't I haven't done any of the social aspects really, but it's a good I don't know it's cool. It seems like it's people have been wanting something like this for a while So it's a pretty exciting stuff Matt. Are you caseless?

No, my case is just really thin. Oh, okay. I was shocked. I was shocked that you might be caseless. I'm caseless and I hold my phone by the very corner when I walk around. I simply just do not care. This thing should come with a case. That's all I'm going to say. But then you wouldn't be able to choose your case. There should be a default case that it comes with. That's like saying a child should come with shoes.

I believe that too. Why do we even need them? We should have evolved to this point to not need shoes? Maybe if we had never taken up shoes. Yeah, I've evolved Gross rougher sturdier feet. Yeah like hoves on them. I have the ability to open a pack right now, but I'm not gonna do it Yes, if I if I download this game, you'll you'll battle with me Yeah All right

Then I might give it a run because I used to love the Pokemon card game and some of the art is from like the cards That you remember so it is like just very nice to be like hey look at this. I'm into Spending money no Is Alienware's biggest sale of the year! Don't miss these limited time deals on the latest gaming PCs! Get ready to stream, create, and compete at the highest levels while pushing your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. It's the perfect time to upgrade your gaming setup

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when you use code GETPLAYED at checkout. That's 20% off with the code GETPLAYED at publicwreck.com. After you purchase the last square you heard about them, please support our show and tell them we sent you. Say goodbye to pants that put up a fight, because when comfort meets style, you've found public rec. I don't know if I call my own professor Terry or not. I guess on the podcast, I'll call you Terry and never again.

Terry, so this is about where we've been playing, but you have a cooking channel on YouTube. So I guess I wanna ask you. Shield made it in the kitchen. What you've been cooking. What I've been cooking? Well, the show is, or not the show, see now you've got me thinking about this show. The channel is, you know, just one of these weird fluky mashups of things that I like to do. And so

it was kind of like, yeah, let's like, Scorpay round hole, let's smash cooking into Viking history. Right. And so, yeah, I cook things that I somehow twist so that I can talk about Vikings. I think the latest one I did was I made sourdough English muffins. But then I talked about how Vikings were responsible for creating the Kingdom of England. So their fault. Yeah, exactly. There's a rando theory out there that King Harold Bluetooth, you know, the Bluetooth guy was that way because he liked blueberries. So I'm like, all right, blueberry muffins.

That's what it is. So when they talk about the history of Danish kings. Wow. So yeah. I think I watched an episode once where you made Skier. Am I misremembering that? No, no. Yeah.

That was one of my early ones and I still do. I make it every couple of weeks. Ski-dear listener is sort of a Viking Nordic yogurt that is a thicker, they have it at the grocery store now. You can like get Ski-er in the dairy section. But yeah, you made it from scratch, which was the idea of making anything from anything. Like the idea that a human could make butter

in their house is overwhelming to me. I'd do that. I'd do that too. Just take heavy cream, pour it in like a jar with a lid and then sit there and shake it for like 20 minutes and voila, you got butter. That's impossible. Wow.

That's impossible. It's not impossible. This reminds me of what I tell my students of like, if you got plunked down into the Viking age, you wouldn't last a week. Yeah, sure. You don't know how to do anything. No, no, I would for sure get killed

for making somebody mad. Um. Um. Um. Terry, when you're not cooking for content, what do you like to make? Like, what are some of your favorite go-tos just in your home? Oh, boy.

I'm a pretty, like, simple eater. I like simple, clean food. So, you know, grilled vegetables and I'm an omnivore, so I couldn't probably survive without sausages of some kind. So I make it my own Italian sausage and stuff for pasta and all that. So, yeah, I'm one of those kind of weird, funny people. Right. Yeah, I totally believe in the whole like, if I know what's in it, then I know what's in it. No, 100 percent.

Is there like some sort of Viking soup? We talk about soup a lot on this show. Yeah. Well, actually, I mean, okay, so like the vikings, you know, live in this period of time from say roughly the mid 700s to around 1100. And for most of that, they're in oral culture. So that means that, you know, other than these kind of, you know, cryptic runic inscriptions, they didn't write anything down themselves. So we don't have any kind of like book books that survived.

Yeah. So a lot of it is based on like, okay, where did they live? What kind of animals did they raise? All right. This is what they could have eaten. In Iceland today, which Iceland is, you know, settled by Vikings in the eight seventies. And so and it's got the probably the sort of purest line of the history that still exists. Icelandic, modern Icelandic is the closest thing to the Old Norse that the Vikings spoke and stuff. And they actually have what they call meat soup, or kjottsuppa, and it is usually largely lamb based.

But yeah, it's just basically like a meat soup with kind of a broth and carrots and potatoes and things like that. So that would probably be the closest thing to Viking soup see this is the most information we've ever had on the show It's a good it's a good transition into we could talk about Viking video games, that's right Which is why we have you on the show and I think we could start by playing the trailer for Assassin's Creed Valhalla I think we could start by playing the trailer for Assassin's Creed Valhalla,

both to re-familiarize you, Terry, with the look and the feel of the game, and also because I'm not sure that you guys have played it, Matt and Nick. I think I played about, I would say, 30 hours of it. Wow, really? But I don't know how productive the hours were. It was just me going around and you know

Doing stuff doing just doing stuff. I wasn't really following. I that was one of those games where I Liked what was going on in it quite a bit. However, I couldn't I Couldn't just do the the like the main stuff I was like, oh like all the side stuff keeps popping out. And like, just like doing raids was so fun. I loved it. They are heartless. Godless. Is this a live action commercial notes that's what the game looks like and those are CG guys CG guys those are CG guys are pretty clearly CG guys home, it's your typical Ubisoft CG trailer. You've got a setting of the main protagonists of the game,

which are, you know, Vikings. And the action of the game is largely set on invading and raiding pre-England settlements. Like Northumbria, which I remember from the game and my class, or Saxony, I think. But you get a lot of these Vikings in outfits that have been made popular by television shows like Vikings or movies like The Northmen. And I am excited to find out from Terry, the first impressions you have of this trailer, what is the

most inaccurate thing that you see on screen during all of this trailer. What is the most inaccurate thing that you see on screen during all of this? Is it the is it the outfits? Is it the makeup? Of course, it's the language. Oh, the most inaccurate. I don't know about that. I mean, the the the part there that they just are what that was Alfred the Great, I guess, the king of Wessex who's like talking about them and he's... Oh yeah. Whatever the king was there, I assumed that to him. And they murder and kill.

And my initial response to that is, yeah, well, so did everybody else. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the middle ages, so it's a pretty crappy time to be alive from that violent standpoint, you know? It's just, you know, violence and killing and whatever. It's like Thursday, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So also I think, you know, it's definitely like looks like it's from a Christian point of view, but Alfred was a Christian king. So I guess, you know, that's what it's coming from. But I mean, I don't know. I absolutely like the visual of it and the feel of it. You thought it was live action too, right? Like I did. It does look more like a movie.

Yeah. And then because, yeah, like I said, I was watching my niece play it and yeah, the stuff like you were just mentioning before, like with all the stuff that pops up and everything, I'm just like, all right, that's just such noise. Like, I just want to sort of go and do the thing. But I mean, I don't know, it looks like the standard kind of Viking costumes and dress that, you know, we don't actually know that much about that kind of stuff because, you know, as you probably know, I mean, clothing doesn't survive very well under, you know, usual circumstances. And so.

Especially if you buy it from Old Navy. Nick. Nick. What? Best fashion. Doesn't have a long shelf life. You think the Viking helmets were coming from Old Navy? H, what? Best fashion. Does it have a long shelf life? You think the Viking helmets were coming from Old Navy? H&M or something. Yeah, I have one friend who's like a reenactor that talks about people that look like that and the thing is like, oh yeah, you know, they got their ITA rugs on their shoulders. Yeah, I mean, but it's, it's a trope that gets created in like the 19th century and you know, just like the horned helmets and we just started to run with it, you know, can't seem to shake

it. And I don't know if this is apocryphal, but the thing I heard about the horned helmets, which I feel like a lot of modern, we don't really see them in the Northmen at all. It feels like there's been more of a little bit more of a, we're going to try to make things a little bit less glaring, we're gonna try to make things a little bit less glaringly inaccurate, less obviously just fictional. But the horn helmets were, did that come about from a Wagner production?

Is that what, was that the original source? Yeah, in part, that was a little bit later in the 19th century. Okay, got it. And we do know that there was an earlier, a saga that was published in like the 1820s and some of the illustrations in that saga also had this kind of horned or slash kind of winged looking helmets and stuff. But yeah, like I always say to my students, blame the 19th century for everything that's

terrible, because that's what I do. Ranch, can we bring up some of the images that I've pulled from the game so we can talk more specifically about, Ubisoft always prides itself on their historical accuracies in these games. Not only that they've done a lot of their research hand in hand with the most modern interpretations

of arche archaeological records, but also that they are, that they have versions of these games. You have the typical game where you run out and you do all your quests, but you also have an educational version of these games where you just have voiceover and documentary experiences of the games. But maybe you can elaborate a little bit for us. I think what we're looking at here is an English settlement. And it has these like tall priapets and thatched roofs.

I think those are thatched roofs. Would you say that this is an accurate English settlement or is it a little bit, does it lean a little bit more into fantasy? Wow, probably the latter. I mean, they're going to mash up a bunch of stuff, you know, periods of time and things like that, these big stone walls and fortification. I mean, the stuff that they would have been encountering and they like being Vikings when they first start really hammering the place in say the late eight hundreds, I think England is still has what this old kind of what they

call Mott Bailey. So they're not into these big stone fortified castles yet. That doesn't come until actually after 1066 with Norman England, when it's a descendant of a Viking who then travels across the English channel and kills the English king and changes English history forever. So it's kind of like a weird Viking thing that comes back around.

But at the time of, I don't know if y'all ever saw back in the day, that old movie, Braveheart. And there's- Oh yeah. Yeah, so there's like, you know, the Martin Bailey, like the guy who's like the local Lord who comes down, you know, and he's going to take the first night, you know, sleeping with the woman, he just got married or whatever.

And he, but he's living in this place that's kind of has this keep that's sort of up on this hill and it's surrounded by this, you know, basically, you know, timber fence pickets, you know, with pointy tops on them or whatever. I mean, this is kind of a more primitive, which, you know, tended to be what would be more around at that time. Although that's not to say that because I think West, was it Winchester or Westminster anyway, it was around with Alfred, but it still doesn't look anything like it does now. So, you know, yeah, they're mashing

up various styles here. One of the things also that. So, you know, they're mashing up various styles here. One of the things also that I keep, you know, in mind about architecture from, you know, the olden days, and especially this is true, like in Scandinavia with the Viking age, is that, you know, when you have excavated ruins and stuff, a lot of times, mostly what you have are just these, you know, sort of impressions in the ground. And so you may have, you know, like evidence of where post holes were and things like that, or maybe where the central fire was. you may have, you know, like evidence of where post holes were and things like that, or maybe where the central fire was. But then also, you know, there can be like bits of a stone foundation.

And other everything other than that, like in archaeology, I always say, like basically, you know, from the foundation up, it's all just a figment of your imagination because it doesn't survive. And so then they have to just sort of kind of do their best guess about how to recreate the actual building that you see. If they didn't get the English settlements correct, did they at least get the Viking settlements correct? We have like some of the images here from the Viking settlements.

I think this is like a private home. And then- This is an A-frame house. It kind of looks like an old IHOP. And then they also- Yeah. And then they also showcase a long house as like your main gathering and cultural center. Looks like a cheesecake factory.

Yes. Right. To my eyes, and again, I'm just, I'm only an enthusiast, I'm not a professor, this looks awfully elaborate. Were longhouses this fancy? They were. Yeah, some of them definitely. Yeah, some of them could be for sure. By the time you get to actually even some that predates the Viking age, go back like

history nerd on you here for a second, like the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 400s and you've got this period of time then for roughly say 500 to 700, 750, whatever. So like the 200 or so years after the fall of the Roman Empire is this period where a lot of the stuff that develops was called hall culture. And you know, so the Mead Hall, the big hall that you see here where the chieftain and all of his bros hang out and feast and drink and do all that stuff. And so we do have, you know, excavated ruins from big halls from, from actually even before

the Viking age. And I'm talking big, like there's one in Uppsala in Sweden that is 165 feet long and 40 feet wide. So it's like basically like a 6,600 square foot building. Holy cow. Yeah, and there's a couple of others that are that long in, well, one in Denmark for sure, but there's also another one in Norway that's even longer.

It's all over 260 feet long. Some of these could get pretty huge. We do know with some of the remnants that have survived, metal survives better than wood, that some of the decorations, how they made the hinges on the doors out of spearheads and things like that. So these would be just, you know, it's almost like they're manufactured out of weapons in some way. With those, you know, being sort of in the posts in the walls and things like that. So, I mean, some of this, yeah, is right. I mean, although again, I mean, it's going to be based on, you know, sort of, you know, a fantasy, even things that you can go and see now in Denmark that look kind of like this.

For instance, recreated longhouse at the Trelleborg Fortress, one of King Harold Bluetooth fortresses that it kind of resembles, the roof line resembles sort of an overturned ship, right? You know, sitting on top of the building. And so there's a sense of maybe potentially that kind of architecture having been a style. But you know, some of it we don't know. And then also it could be in mind too that it just depends on where you are in Scandinavia because if you get to places, you know, farther west, like say out in Iceland, I mean, they don't have as much timber as they did in other places, like say in Norway. And so they're building out of sod and turf and stone and a little bit of wood,

but not quite as much as like what you see here. But yeah, I mean, I would give this one a passing grade probably. Mm-hmm. Hey buddy, with new year's fast approaching, it's time to get those resolutions in order, bub. My resolution? Well, it starts with this.

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You mentioned that, you know, it's only, and I never think of it this way, it's only like four or 500 years after like Roman conquest of these areas. Part of what Assassin's Creed shows is a lot of Roman ruins. You'll see statues, you'll see aqueducts, you'll see like even some semi-intact temples. Do you think that that's accurate

or do you think that that was just a way of the game to demonstrate how close in time those two eras were? Like if you were walking around in Viking times, how likely is it that you would see gigantic Roman ruins in England? Oh, in England, there definitely could be some because the Romans were in England. You can even still go today in southwest England in a town called Bath and see the Roman baths that are there. On Hadrian's Wall, which effectively is this historic wall that separates Scotland and

England up there in the north of England. I mean, that was built by a Roman emperor. Yeah. So, yeah. It's like a praising wall. I don't know. People talk about other walls. Hadrian's wall is pretty good. It just lost that tree. I got really emotional when that tree was cut down. Oh, really? There was a big tree that was, I think think featured in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's this beautiful tree that you would see on posters, usually like inspirational posters that would be like, ambition, the desire to keep going. Oh yeah, sure, right. There's always this famous tree that's beautiful and it's all along the wall in between these two hills. And Vandals cut down the tree. Oh, Vandals did it.

Yeah, they just cut it down recently, like within the last two years. You can't do that. Yeah. No. Leave them there. Yeah, it's a beautiful famous tree. You don't mean Vandals in the historical sense.

You mean modern Vandals. No, this I can't, In the most recent two years. Yes, yeah, wow. Nick's trying to get extra credit. Ah, fully noted. Fully noted. Can I ask? Yeah, I mean, so the answer is like, yeah, in England, yeah, but in Scandinavia, no.

I mean, this is one of the unique things about Vikings is that Scandinavia was never part of the Roman Empire. You mentioned that using re-appropriating spearheads to be used as door hinges. What was the metalworking like? Because so much of playing any sort of Viking game, I mean, they tend to be very combat or military focused, whether we're dealing with action games or grand strategy games, they tend to be very much focused on combat.

What was the metalworking like in that era? Like, did they have access to steel? Were these iron weapons? What were they mostly working with? Yeah, so I mean, the Viking Age is considered the late iron age. So most of what they have is iron. We do know that they seem to have coveted a particular

blade that was not made in Scandinavia, it was made on the continent somewhere. We don't exactly know for sure, but you know, potentially in the area that's now Germany, there was a workshop there, they're known as Ulfberht swords. And's several hundred of them, I think a couple hundred or so that have been found in archaeology in Scandinavia. So it appears that at least some warriors coveted them and got them traded for them or whatever from abroad. But they were supposedly made of a kind of a Damascus steel or some kind of a steel that had higher carbon content. So the blades were probably a little bit better, but yeah, so, but most things are iron.

And what kind of weapons were like, you know, the standard, because I feel like you see a lot of shields, you see a lot of axes when you're seeing these things depicted, you see, you know, thrown weapons as opposed to missile weapons. What were the main weapons of war of Vikings of this age? Probably primary weapon was a spear, a long spear, like say six to nine feet or so.

Some of the spearheads anywhere from eight to 24 inches long that have survived. Oh, wow. God. Yeah. And then definitely kind of more for thrusting, not for throwing, because only a stupid Viking would throw his spear away to his enemy. So you want to keep a hold of it. Yeah. And then, yeah, axes, battle axes that would be a little bit different than just sort of your ordinary axe for the household use, like for chopping wood or something. And some bow and arrow, but not necessarily for weapons really. And then of course the sword.

The shield is shield very important as far as not only defense, but offense, with a certain proper hit, you could kill somebody with the shield, so. Right. Why don't we see, this is maybe a question for everybody, but why don't we see more spears in movies or in video games? Because I think spears are cool. Spears were like such a dominant weapon of war

for a long time, you know? And I feel like there's never like, oh, the hero has a spear that they wield. I feel like unless you're watching, say, kung fu action movies where you'll get a little bit more spear combat. Yeah, some more pole arm action, sure. I think that, my guess is that there's not a lot

of choreography that looks presentational and theatrical with spears because you don't get the big sweeping arcs. You don't get the clang of metal on metal. Like it's like, stay away from me, stay away from me. It's a pointy stick. Yeah, and somebody else being like, no, you stay away from me. Right.

But when you get the sword combat, you're like up in each other's faces, you can have your small moments of dialogue as the swords clash and you're locked in combat with one another, that's my guess, but I don't know. Not gonna worry about Nick bringing a spear to the recording. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we see some of these outfits that they wear in this game? So we're looking at, I don't know, it's a combination of leather and tunics, a long skirt. Two nicks, my nightmare. What? How dare you.

Two nicks, oh my god. It's awful. Awful. But also my God. It's awful, awful. But also my nightmare. So I think this is a Christian knight or warrior's outfit. It's sort of a pleated leather skirt and some kind of shoulder harness, also made out of leather,

and then like a cloth cunic cape that is bunched up. Dude loves straps. I think there's a lady. Oh, so whoever this is loves straps. I don't know, maybe it's a dude. I guess it doesn't matter. I can't tell, they love straps. They're a video game person.

Yeah. Is this a historically accurate Christian night's clothing? Oh man, a Christian night's clothing. Well, yeah, I guess he's got his cross around his neck, doesn't he there, so he or she, whatever. Oh, and then in the one on the, well I guess actually in all three of them, it looks like he's got his little like Bible hanging off the side of his hip or something. It's like a book. Yeah he does.

He's got a Bible. I better wear my belt, my book carrier. He's holding it like a gun. Don't move, I have a Bible. The thing that's interesting, I think about that though, is that we know, I think for, pretty much, that the main thing that was a significant factor in what people wore was wealth and status. And so if you had nice stuff, you wanted people to know it. And this person with the book on the belt was like going the extra mile of like, yeah, and I can read too.

Right. Yay, yeah, that's pretty cool. How about, Ranch, can you pull up, there's somebody in a tunic. And I remember from class that you said that, yeah, that one right there, that often they would wear long tunics. And I thought, is this the kind of tunic that you were talking about on this character here? Yeah, that looks more, yeah, probably.

Yeah. And that kind of, that pin that he's got that's holding it together, definitely some of those survives in the archaeology. One of the interesting things about, I think about the Viking stuff is that, you know, other than the two pictures that you just showed before, which were pretty brightly colored, I mean, most people kind of tend to think it's all this sort of this, you know, variation on brown or some boring color. And that it's a lot of wool, including in the underwear. And there was some of that, but actually,

I think we know a bit about their preference for linen. And then also because they traveled so far in wide and traded in some pretty rich areas that there was silk that was involved. Oh, wow. Yeah, as well. So yeah, it's, I mean, it's so, but again, I mean, it's so difficult because we don't really have a ton of clothing that survives from that period of time.

So there is also a lot of guesswork in it as well. You know, some of that stuff like what he's got, whatever that pin, and then whatever's just below it, some kind of a pendant, that round gold thing. That those types of things, you know, as they survive in the archaeology, then sometimes if you're lucky, the metal salts from those, you know, from those metal pieces actually does have an effect on helping to preserve little, you know, fabric fragments that are, you that are near it or behind it or whatever. And so that's one way that we actually have some tiny fragments to at least see what were

these pieces of clothing made out of. But otherwise, yeah, I mean, it's going to be some pretty basic stuff. So those previous images might be a little bit of overkill with all the different layers of leather and belts and this and that and whatever. Now, recently in the news, there was story of, and again, listener, so first off, Terry, can you explain what a saga is to our listeners

who probably don't have as much experience in Viking history so that then I can explain what we recently discovered and then ask my question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so a saga is, the word saga comes from the Old Norse word sekja, which means basically essentially just to speak or to say, which gives you a sense of the world nature of the culture prior to Christianity going to Scandinavia and bringing kind of the written word or the book tradition with it. And so people are telling stories. So sagas are stories and they're told, they're

performed. And the biggest sort of corpus of sagas as stories, because they're all, you know, these narrative, you know, stories about people during the Viking age come from Iceland. Iceland has an unbelievable written tradition, even still to this day, they hold the record in the world for like the most published authors. And so a saga is written roughly in the 1200s, so some in the 1300s. Again, this is getting a century or more after the end of the Viking Age.

It's recounting stories of people and places and stuff that existed during the Viking Age. Sometimes people will question, like, the sagas are just these literary fictions. They're just stories and they don't really tell us anything about history. But one of the interesting things about just sort of the etymology of the word saga even is that a derivative of it is sugu, which is the word history. So saga and history, story and history are like two things that are the same. They're very interlinked in this tradition. But so these kinds of stories, the Icelandic sagas are one of the surviving sources that

we have from near to the time that give us a sense of how people were living, what they were doing. A lot of it is they were getting pissed off at each other and killing each other and doing various biking kinds of things like that, going off and sailing here and there and what have you. But yeah, so it's just a body of pretty important sources for what we know about the time. And then recently there was a body found in a well

that seemed to allude to a saga where a Viking battle had taken place and in order to poison the water supply, the invading group had thrown a body into a well and then bricked it up. And then I think in the last few weeks, they've discovered this body, which seems to lend credit to the historical accuracy

of the saga itself. I don't know if you did. I'm sure you've you heard that recently in the news. Yeah. And then I also have a couple of good friends who are archaeologists who worked on exactly that type of issue in Iceland. And it's you know, when I first started going to Iceland several years ago, it's one of the reasons why I like live where I do when I'm there, because it's right there in the valley across the street, basically, from the site that they excavated for a number of years. And there's a very famous saga, the saga of Eil Skátha Brímsson.

And Eil was this guy who was this warrior poet. And he was sort of the picture of this badass Viking. But he was also a complete jerk. But he lived in this place called Mosbel, and he, with his family, well, he was living there as an older guy with his niece and her family. But part of the story was like, oh, he dies and buried in the mound, and then Christianity comes to Iceland, and then he's exhumed from his pagan burial and then buried in the mound and then Christianity comes to Iceland and then he's exhumed from his pagan burial and then buried in the church grounds and all of this. They excavated the site, which was a chieftain's hall. I think it's the second largest chieftain's

hall in all of Iceland. And then right next to it was a burial mound in the shape of a ship. So the mound is kind of ship-shaped that had a cremation burial in it of a guy. And then there was a little church that got built right there next to that on the property as well that had its own little cemetery that had like, I think, of 27 skeletons that they were able to find there in total. But there was some stuff there too that was very similar to like, oh, and look, you know, the church, we've got, you know, the story of Ael, you know, being exhumed from his pagan grave and buried like underneath the altar of the church on the family farm. And then sure enough, there were bones there when they excavated it on the farm. And some other things that they, you

know, one of the leads directors of the DIG, a guy named Jesse Biak out of DCLA actually, wrote an article about it where he was like, you know, doing that thing where he was sort of like trying to medically diagnose people of the past and suggested that if it is ale, which we don't know 100% sure, so it's just hypothesizing, but that maybe he had this thing called Paget's disease, which is like, I think what is this, like a thickening of the bone, the bony structure of, you know, so the skull that they found had, you know, kind of evidence of that. And there was, I think, some similarities to the song as well. So, I mean, and this is again,

this is one of these things where typically, you know, in years past, there's been discussion in the scholarly community of like, you know, the people who are on one camp who say, yeah, the sagas are just stories and you can't believe anything they say or very little or whatever. And then there's other people who are like, well, no, there might be something there. And you know, I'm always like living in the middle because I think that's where life really happens. And it's like, they can be both. I mean, they are stories and stories are meant to entertain.

And so they could be embellished and all of that, like stories always are, no matter where you are in the world. But, but also that they are about people that we know did exist in some cases and certainly places that still exist there. Um, so you can, you know can learn a few things from it without other evidence or something written coming to light saying, yeah, that's ale that's buried right there. We may never know.

But again, I mean, it's similar to what you're just saying about the well. It's like, oh, look at this. We have this, and we have the saga that says this. It's like, this thing's pretty coincidental. So that being said, one of the features of Assassin's Creed Valhalla is finding these legendary weapons.

And I know that there are sort of legendary weapons featured in some of the sagas. Is there a weapon or a story of a weapon that you think might live somewhere in that middle where there is an actual sword that somebody I know that there's a saga about a woman who goes or a son or a woman I'm not sure if I remember because I'm a bad student who goes and digs up their father's sword and it ends up helping them win this big war. Do you think that that's apocryphal or do you think that there are these legendary weapons

out there waiting for us to find them? Oh, I'm sure there probably are. I mean, this is one of the things, I mean, a lot of the news that you'll see, I mean, it'll be like, oh, some kids like metal detectering in his family farm in Norway and like, oh, there's a Viking sword, kind of thing. And so, I mean, certainly that stuff gets found

and the silver hordes and all of that. So, I mean, I don't know if, you know, kind of thing. And so, I mean, certainly that stuff gets found and the silver hordes and all of that. So, I mean, I don't know if, I mean, if you're talking about like Excalibur kind of stuff. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not so sure about that. But I mean, there's definitely weapons in the ground and in other places because we know that they were a people who did weapon sacrifice in places that they felt had spiritual significance like bodies of water and stuff like that. So if you want to gift your weapon to the gods, you toss it into the lake or stuff like that.

lake or what have you, you know, stuff like that. I mean, there's been a lot of finds, you know, across the Viking world actually, in places like, you know, that do stuff like that. So yeah, sure, that stuff is definitely there to be found. Actually, I mean, in the treasure stuff, like, you know, one of the parts about Aeol's saga is he gets old, which is the worst thing you want to do as a Viking. The culture was pretty specific about being young and virile and all of that. And then when you age out of that, it's like, okay, we're done with you. Like, you know, whatever.

And then- Reminds me of Hollywood. Nick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. And the worst part is like the women are in the house making fun of him and kicking him around because he's old and he's blind and this and that. Well, he tries to get revenge on them.

He's got this silver hoard that he says was given to him by a king and he decides he wants to go to the big public assembly meeting and basically throw it out to everybody. Like just totally being an ass, you know, just like and watching them all fight and scrap over the money. And his family's like, no, old man, you're not going to the public assembly. And he's like, okay, fine. So he gets two slaves and a horse and he gets them and he's blind, remember, to take him out into the countryside. So he's going to bury his treasure. And you know, basically this is kind of like, you know, spoiler alert, like kind of how the saga ends. And the next day, his family spots him wandering around the countryside with his horse. And they so they go out and get him and bring him back home. The slaves are nowhere to be

found and neither is the silver. But then there's this sort of legend, even to this day in Iceland, that somewhere out there in that valley is a buried Ailes silver hoard. And so, some treasure hunters and stuff kind of like to think maybe they would find it. Personally, I think the slaves took off with it.

And they're like, we're out here with a blind old man wandering around, he'll never know. Like some back bay. Yeah. So Terry, a lot of my experience with Viking video games I was realizing is through the Civilization franchise. And the Civilization games are, you know, strategy games where basically you are taking

the entirety of a civilization's lifespan and simulating it and you can do things like you know take the Aztecs start in prehistory build settlements and eventually enter the modern age where you're the point where you're doing the Apollo project you know with The Apollo program with the with the Aztecs Vikings are very often a presence in these games Sometimes they're they're distinct Viking civilizations. There are times where they've been like, you know, Denmark or Norway That's meant as like kind of a proxy for Viking or has some elements of Viking culture But one there's a couple commonalities throughout these games. One of them is that the most common leader you will see in these games for your civilization, and this is a character who's also depicted in the anime Vinland Saga, which we're big

fans of, is Canute. Can you give us some historical context for Canute? He was a historical figure. Yes, he was a historical figure. And yeah, I may not be a gamer, but I have seen Vinland's look. Right, right. Hell yeah. Yeah, and as a matter of fact, yes, the writer or creator or whatever that, Yuki Murom, right?

Yeah. One of the things that I saw in an interview with him and he said that the Vikings, because they were asking him why Vikings? And he said, no other people lack love to their degree. And I was like, what the? This is not cool. But anyway, all right, so wait, repeat your question. Yeah, I was curious about, could you tell us about Canute?

Yeah, Canute, Canute, yeah. So Canute, well, I mentioned Harold Bluetooth earlier. And so Knute is effectively Harold Bluetooth's grandson. And his father was Wayne Forkbeard, and this is the days before surnames, so it's like they're using these kinds of words to describe people. But yeah, I mean, you know, so it's like they're using these kinds of words to describe people. But yeah, I mean, they were, well, I mean, Harold Bluetooth was the king of Denmark and

possibly parts of Norway. And then Svein, his son, you know, supposedly, we don't know for sure, but some of the stories talk about some kind of insurrection or at least some kind of conflict in which Harold Bluetooth dies. So his son has a hand in his death somehow. And then becomes even the bigger king because Spain takes a bunch of Vikings and goes off and effectively conquers England and takes over. And he becomes the king of England as well. And then when he dies, his descendants take over. So that's where Canute comes in. He's actually seen as a very good king until he becomes king in like 1016 and he dies. It ends with his death in like 1035. And he's very solidly a Christian king. So he's more kind of in the tradition

of an Anglo-Saxon king than an actual kind of Viking king, but he certainly, you know, he comes from Viking stock. So he's real. Terry talks about Viking history with the same sort of authority that we talk about, like level one, one of Mario Brothers. What? I told you I'm a one dimensional person. What? What? Like just like the way.

It's all a one dimensional picture. No, this is great. This is awesome. It's fantastic. So you've seen Vinland Saga, I know that Nick has as well. Matt, did you ever watch Vinland Saga? No, I did not.

Oh dude, it was so fun. I'm back. I needed to watch it though, because it seems like it's exactly what I would like. It's exactly what you would like. Yeah. Vinland Saga is supposed to be historically inspired. We have a sister podcast called Get Animated.

When you were watching it, were you like, oh, this is a pretty good depiction of Viking warfare and Viking culture? Or were you like, ah, this is more like the way, you wouldn't describe American history as Marvel movies. Like you'd be like, oh, there's American cities in those films, but it isn't history. Is that what you experienced with Vinland Saga?

Or were you like, oh, this is kind of on point? Yeah, I think the latter, yeah. Well, and to be fair, I've watched all of season one and probably only about a third of season two. But yeah, I mean, I think that they actually do a pretty good job of getting some of the contours right. One of the things that's sort of weird, at least as far as I've watched it so far, is that the Vinland Saga is not

really about the Vinland Saga. It's rarely about Vinland. I mean, it's there kind of a little bit in the background. So, it is this kind of interesting story that's more about, at least in the first one, about Knute's and all of that. But I think, yeah, as far as how people lived in general, warrior ethos, honor coded society, and yeah, some of the housing, you know, different things that we've been talking about so far with the Assassin's Creed. I mean, I think that there is something to it. The thing that they do there, though, it's sort of like the original, you know, History Channel Vikings, which is what now on Netflix or whatever, that ran for like six seasons, is the compression of time and people.

Right. Right? So it's like, okay, hang on. So yeah, Thorfinn, the main, you know, character is like a real person from sagas and, you know, Canute we know is the king and all this kind of stuff and Spain Forkbeard and everything. But those people were not like together, you know, at the time that it sort of makes it look like in the, in the show. But I mean, most people are not going to nitpick like that, right?

And quite frankly, I'm actually not one of those historians either who sits there and goes well, I can watch it and, you know, take, take from it, whatever. The one thing I will say, I have to say, probably to me is not a nice thing to say, but it's like, there's like this weird piano music that they use that I really hate. Like, it's just like, oh, okay, this is the time when we're supposed to be like

being deep and thoughtful or sad or something like that. And it makes it sound like really crappy funeral music or something. Like if you were, you know, just this weird, anyway. So it starts kind of almost off-putting in some ways. Like it just feels like it doesn't go. But otherwise, yeah, the aesthetic of it and stuff I like. Another feature of the Civilization games

is that each civilization has a unique unit that like kind of, you know, is that they have a standard sort of slate of military units that are shared across all civilizations, but there are some unique units that are specific to civilization. The Vikings and the Viking, you know, the Asc civilizations tend to have berserkers. Can you tell us about berserkers? Yeah, berserkers are one of those things that become larger than life in modern pop culture. You know, I'm probably for good reason. Why not?

You know, it's like, especially nowadays with all of the, you know, more mainstreaming of psychedelics and stuff, people like, yeah, these guys like eat mushrooms and people or whatever. It's like, you know, there's like literally zero evidence at all that they ever did that. But they were supposedly these warriors who then, you know, were like super, you know, psyched, hyped up and, you know, kind of get into the sort of battle frenzy kind of state. And then, you know, were sort of, you know, obviously feared, you know, because of that. And then, you know, kind of had to come down for a while after, you know, they got done because they were just so amped up and stuff. So, but, you know, there's always been this sort of sense of like, you know, they probably, you know, maybe

ingested something, but again, you know, to put them in that state, but we just, we don't have any evidence for that. There's also these little figurines that you can see that survived. They're chess pieces actually, the Lewis chessmen that are these little warriors who are biting their shield. And you know, those are, that was part of the berserker thing too, you know, they're like, they're so crazy, like, ah, biting their shields, you know, getting into, into. So or, or the best, actually the word, I mean, it is where we get our word berserk from, because, you know, this kind of crazy frenzy thing, but best in in Old Norse is like, either what we don't know is sort of contested if they they're a bear shirt, or bear shirt shirt as in bear as in a bear skin

They wore into battle or they were bear shirted without Without a shirt or you know without a garment on at all and kind of went into the you know, the battle in that way I don't know. Yeah, right I think at least a couple of scholars sort of lean towards the actual without the shirt on thing. But we don't really know. But yeah, so the Berserkers, yeah, they're kind of one of those legendary things. And the reason that would be terrifying if you were in the opposing forces, everybody shows up at these battles with whatever armor that your family has. Like you're putting on like your dad's helmet and you have like, your neighbor can loan you a chain-meal shirt or something. So you go to these battles terrified,

and in essentially a junkyard assembly of clothing, and you see across the field a dude who showed up essentially naked, you'd be like, oh, this guy has no fear of, like, not being the best on the on the field Yeah, that do writing is she'll Yeah We should acknowledge I just just because we're talking about Viking games and I know we have listeners who are

Who are who play this game? It's not a game that I've played a survival game Valheim has a huge fandom, comes from a Swedish developer. But the premise of Valheim, again I haven't played this game, my understanding it's a survival game set in a realm where dead Vikings are trying to prove themselves worthy of Valhalla. From what we know of the culture, because, like, because you see, you hear about Valhalla a lot. It's a subtitle of the Assassin's Creed game.

Like, like, was that like at the forefront of like their, you know, mythology of their, of their religion? Yeah, I mean, to the extent that we can know that, you know, with 100%, I mean, we can't, you know, and again, like, like the sag like the sagas, these things are written down after. Most of what we know about what we call Norse mythology, a Viking would have never called it that. What they have thought of it as their religion, or what they have thought of it as their kind of their mysticism,

or just a part of their culture? Yeah. I mean, more the latter. I mean, it's interesting. I just actually gave that talk this week with my college students. a part of their culture. Yeah. I mean, more the latter. I mean, it's interesting. I just actually gave that talk this week with my college students. It's hard for people to understand because in modern pop culture, we sort of have this thing, the Viking religion, you know, it's nice mythology, whatever. And it's like, they appear to have lived in a world that, you know, I mean, it's not religion as like, here's this separate thing that I believe in that. And here's the book that describes what that's about and the rules

and the doctrine and how to be a person who's a practitioner of that. It's more like they have an understanding of it. It's in an older tradition that was even existed in like ancient Rome and other places that's called animism, you know, and so it's just this idea that the world is just kind of this alive place, you know, and everything is alive. Rocks, trees, bodies of water, everything has this sort of spirit presence to it, animals, whatever, and then human beings just kind of live in that world as well. And so it's more about a kind of a worldview of human beings and their place in it and Rather than you know kind of this I don't want to say, you know kind of Manufactured thing about religion because that's not really fair either

But you know what I mean like this sort of human construct that's just sort of separate thing of like here You should believe in this it's it's like and I think even one Heather you've read Neil Price I mean, he says I think really well where it's like, you know, they didn't believe in these things, they knew them to be true. So it's deeper than that. And they're living in a world for them that is alive, not only with human beings, but elves and trolls and dwarves and all these other kind of weird, weird things as well. And so, you know, in Valheim, that whole idea about Valhalla, it sort of plays into this larger belief system too, about like, okay, then what happens to you after you die, right? In the afterworld and preparation for that, if there is one and such. They did believe in a certain type of afterworld, it appears.

Several of them actually, depending on how you died. So Valhalla famously, as far as the surviving stories go that we have, is this place where half of the slain warriors go to live with Odin, the god in his hall, which is Valhalla or Valhull in Old Norse. And so, you know, it's a pretty exclusive boys club. And in that way, it very much, you know, like lots of religions do cross-culturally in the world, right? I mean, it reflects who the people are who believe in that thing. And so, and what I mean by that is like, this is a warrior culture. These guys are, you know, trying to, you know to do the best they can to improve themselves, their wealth, their

status, their influence, their power, all of that. They are like a band of brothers. You have a chieftain that you're loyal to and you're his thing man and you guys fight and raid and go to war with each other and all of that. You feast with each other and then when you die, if you get to go to Valhalla, you like live that life there as well. I mean, Odin is nothing more than just sort of the best chief than there is. And his hall, Valhalla, is the hall like the buildings we were looking at in Assassin's Creed. And they feast, they drink, they fight, and they prepare for Ragnarok.

And that's what they do. So basically the whole Valhalla ideal is that the afterlife is just a more ideal version of the life that you live here on Earth. Wow. Yeah, it was important to them. So this is making me think of a video game franchise that I in particular really, really love. Everybody likes it. I'm not unique for liking this everybody likes it. It's good, but you're but this is this is a game They really yeah, this is Matt's game. Yeah, this is my game

It's called it's called God of War and I guess the thing to explain about it Is that it started off as a franchise where this character a fictional character Kratos? Went around in in Greek mythology times and killed all the Greek gods, and then somehow ended up in the realm of Norse mythology and is now basically doing the same thing. So is there an instance like of that ever actually happened? Actually, you know what? That's not as far-fetched as it may sound. I just had this meeting with one of my students. Each of my students, they're writing an essay about a particular aspect of the Viking Age that interests them, and then I could pile it into a book. We actually

write a little book of history. What she's doing is looking at Vinland's song and how real it is and whatever. We were talking about that with regard to the relationship to some of these older pantheons of gods and goddesses and stuff, particularly with the Greeks. And she's kind of like, oh, sort of far-fetched, maybe, that no connection there or whatever. I'm like, well, actually. Snorri Sturluson character that I just mentioned, who's the historian and author in Iceland that wrote most of what we know about those belief systems, the myths and stuff, recounts this story of how the Nordic gods, and keep in mind too, this is not unique to Vikings. The Nordic gods like Odin, Zor, and all these, Freyja, and all that Loki are part of an older kind of pan-Germanic tradition that predates the biking age even.

And so, but the story that Snorri kind of tells is like Odin and a bunch of the gods actually originate in what is now Turkey. So like over near the Middle East. And so that there was some sort of relationship there to or involvement with like Agamemnon, the king and Priam and the Trojan War and all of that, you know, in Greek history. But then at a certain point, and I can't remember the details about why now, the Odin and a bunch of the other gods pick up stakes and migrate and head north. And then that's when they go to Scandinavia. So they have their origins back in that place in time, at least according to Snorri. And that part of that is believed by scholars is that, you

know, as the mythology was sort of developing, these stories were developing in Scandinavia and you've got again, like these chieftains who are really kind of on the make and interested in becoming legit kings and you know, along with that usually comes well, the word I just said, legit. They want to legitimize themselves and their rule and their family lines and one of the main ways to do that is to be able to trace it all the way back to these other really important gods or places or whatever like the Greeks. So, yeah, I mean, there is some connection there in the surviving mythology. Yeah.

That's the most insane answer that could have been to your question. Yeah, the most, like, yeah. I am gonna stunned, honestly. It is just like- The one that is Turkish. Yeah. So yeah, so that's where maybe Kratos is going next I'm gonna stunned honestly. It is just like- The one that is Turkish. So yeah, so that's where maybe Kratos is going next to finish the job.

I guess the thing that's interesting to me about those games is that like, it is obviously, they're rooted in sort of, in mythology and mysticism and stuff, so there is a little bit more magic at play versus an Assassin's Creed, which is trying to take a more, I guess, quote-unquote, like, realistic approach to it. Yeah. Like, for example, I mean, you know, Kratos like wields an axe that can return to him if called. Like that's, which is of course reminiscent of Mjolnir and Thor's main weapon I guess but yeah, well what I think is neat about what Terry said is that I think that the separation for Vikings and I can't wait for her to correct me if I'm wrong

Is that is that the separation between what we think of as their mythology, so the stories that like St. Kratos is interrogating through violence, and the stories of people going to Northumbria and conquering, maybe in a Viking mind, those things are simultaneously true. That it's like, oh, the story of like Balder

and the betrayal and all of that thing would be a thing that you would tell as like, oh, this is the thing that happened. Just like, did you hear what Anderson did when he went across the sea and raided a church? Like maybe those were like simultaneously true to them. Is that? Yeah, why not?

I mean, this is the main thing too that I express to my students that the difference between religion, like what Christianity will bring to them when you have something that is codified in a book, it's standardized, it's got a more of a formality to it. There is a right way and a wrong way to be a Christian, whatever. And there are people there who are authoritative figures who are policing that and helping you be a good Christian and all of that. The Scandinavian

state, they don't have any of that. It's very loose. It's very organic. It's very fluid. Stories will have a kernel that is kind of, you know, okay, yeah, this is the basis of the story. But every time somebody tells it in a different place or to a different audience, it can be, you know, again, it's performed. It can be embellished, it can be changed a little bit. And so, yeah, a lot of those different things can be true. And again, this is such an important part about their world, again, for say 200 years of the 300 years of the Viking Age is that they understand the world through stories.

So myths are, I mean, myth is kind of a weird word for us because, you know, myth, that's a myth, that's a tale, akin almost to a lie, right? But that's not it. Myths are simply stories and they are stories they tell themselves about who they are and, you know, their place in the world and how it's how they understand their world is by communicating these things. And it's also cultural transmission, you know, it's the only way they learn something is by somebody telling them through these stories. And there's good scholarship about the poetry. I mean, that's other things kind of, you know, I mean, who would think Vikings and then automatically think poets? But even like A.L. that I mentioned,

the warrior poet, and that I said he was a jerk, but he would always like recite these poems and he was really well known as a poet that poetry was used as a way to teach and reinforce what it meant to be a warrior in that society. So if you're a young man or even a young boy and you know, you're listening to these stories over and over again about how, look, this is how you do this and you never turn your back on your brothers on the field and you never put down your weapon and on and on and on. It's like, and then you hear that just over and over and over again. I mean, stories are everything. It's absolutely a million percent how they understood and experienced the world.

And the myths, the thing that's cool about the myths too is that, you know, because my students too will always be like, well, but is this part true? And it's like, no, don't, you can't be looking for literal truths like that because it's malleable. And the, you know, the main thing about myths and especially in this kind of pan-Germanic tradition that I'm talking about is that you can never, you can never go back and say, well, here's the original one. Here's where that story started. So here's the true version of that. Because there isn't one, Because there's no record of like, it would be like, well, when was the first time anybody ever told this story? Like, who knows? It's gone, you know? And it has changed over time. And the thing about myths is that they are culturally important. And so they are

told and retold as long as the story is important for some kind of reason. And then once it's not anymore and it sort of, you know, falls out of fashion for lack of a better way of putting it, then it just disappears. So even the surviving myths that we have, like thanks to Snorri, it's probably just a scratch of the surface of, you know, probably hundreds if not thousands of stories that have existed amongst those peoples over time. So yes, Heather, always have a long answer, but yes, those things can all exist. Can all exist at the same time,

and they got no problem with that. There's no cognitive dissonance there. What you're making me think of is this game I played, and I've talked about it on the podcast a few years back called The Forgotten City, this time loop game that's set in ancient Rome. But where The Forgotten City ultimately goes is it lands in a place where – and I'll say this vaguely so as not to spoil the story for anyone who hasn't played it and wants

to play it. It's a really cool game. But it very much like just goes into how like the Roman mythology was derivative of Greek mythology which itself was derivative of another mythology, which itself was derivative of another mythology. It's basically just talking about like all the different layers of like Aries, where that god originally came from was so many civilizations removed, so many cultures removed, so many centuries removed, but it's still recognizable. And it was just interesting to hear those commonalities of just like, all these things are just there's so much cross-pollination, and then everything just kind of gets remixed

for lack of a better term into something that fits that specific culture. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you can never really, it's almost, you know, effectively is impossible because then you're starting to get way back into some of these cultures that, you know, were not literate, you know, in the modern sense. It's like, well, there's nothing to go back and look at to find that manuscript or whatever it is that's the original copy of that story. It just doesn't exist. And I think it's kind of cool that it doesn't, you know, because it's sort of like part of the human experience. It sort of changes and grows and morphs and does what it's going to do.

And, you know, as long as it's sort of relevant and that's cool and it sticks around and once it's not, it doesn't. And yeah. It's like trying to figure out who came up with the knock-knock joke You know what I mean it like it almost doesn't even matter because it'd be interesting But it's just like that's just a thing that exists that that everyone has their own kind of spin on it was me Okay I was basing it on like what if somebody was at your door. Right. It was like a funny thing. Yeah. Yeah. Because like

what if somebody on the other side you didn't know who it was. Yeah that is like such a crazy thing. Yeah. It's so funny. Honestly you should have a lot more money. Very well-known joke. I have a question for you since I haven't played you know basically all of these, any of these games. Has anybody ever been blood-eagled in any of these Viking games? Oh my God, oh my God. I mean, I don't think so.

If that's the reaction Heather's having to that, I know that whatever that is is really bad. It's terrible. It's like the worst, why would you, Matt is scared of everything. So I don't know if you should explain what Blood Eagle is. I wanna know. Nick would love to know.

I know what it is, but no, I don't think I've ever seen it in a game. I'll put it this way, my day can't get worse. So it's. It's probably been a Mortal Kombat fatality or something. But go on. No, it hasn't. Oh, it hasn't been, okay.

Yeah, go ahead. Go explain that to, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, well, and for people who are interested, go back to like the original Vikings series. And it was, I think it was season two, like episode seven. It's actually titled Blood Eagle, and you can watch somebody have this done to them

if you want to, or at least their interpretation of it. But actually, the reason I bring it up is because it's relevant to what we were just saying about the original story and when that would have happened. In modern culture, it's like this thing of like, whoa, okay, if you're going to talk about badass Viking stuff, this is like the poster child for what or these terrible things that they did. It was a method of, supposedly, a method of torture and execution wherein a person's back was cut to the extent of not just, you know, the skin, but clear through.

So, cutting the ribs, pulling the ribs apart, and then reaching in and grabbing the lungs and pulling them out and kind of splaying them like the wings of an eagle. And so hence being called a blood eagle. And again, it supposedly was, you know, torture and execution. So the person was ostensibly supposed to be alive for part of that. But there is an interesting article that was published several years ago now by a scholar who looked at our accounts that survive for this kind of thing to try to determine if it was really real and if it was as bad as it's depicted in modern era and stuff like that. And what she found and argued pretty clearly, I don't even know if you could find a scholar

now who would say anything contrary to this. It was such a landmark article, I think. That it was, what we know now is the result of a super big Viking telephone. And so it's like, look at all of the sources and then look at how it morphs and changes over time in the centuries since the Viking age. And what you find is that, you know,

the farther away we get from the Viking Age, the more crowded in the midst of whatever, and it becomes this worse, more violent, more terrible, more horrific thing all along the way. And she actually sort of calls it the bird that never was because he's like, if they actually did do this thing, it's nothing like what we think it is now in the modern era. We've made it so much more terrible than it was. I think most of the people from the fragmentary accounts of it, and it's coming mostly from poetry actually that are the accounts, but that, you know, it may have been, you know, they would torture somebody by simply incising, you know, the shape of a bird or an eagle or something on somebody's back.

So, you know, taking a weapon or something and scratching it into their back to torture them. But otherwise, you know, it may never have existed at all. But interestingly, talk about sicko people. About two or three years ago, maybe now, there was a team of scholars, and most of them are medical and forensic and things like that, memory serves, who actually did some work, not on a real person, I don't think. But to find out, is it even physically possible to do this to somebody? And furthermore, to do it and have them actually be alive for

part of it. And then they did conclude, yeah, you could do it. Jesus. Yeah. But no, they probably wouldn't stay alive for more than just a few seconds or something like that. But it just sounded really interesting like a sort of scholarly community like it's funding to do that kind of research The combat in in Viking video games is typically hit Hit with hands hit with axe hit with you know, shoot an arrow That's that's typically hit. What did you say?

Yeah, it's not like what would have had to have been like a three hour sequence. Of like very specific button combos. That if you fail, it's just like you drop the sword on the ground and everybody boos you. Yeah, that's it. Blood Eagling was also featured in the film, Midsummer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, to my knowledge, not in a game. It's sick shit, and the most disturbing thing of all was how much Ranch enjoyed hearing the description. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you want the tamer bit of it,

you know, where it's kind of all nice and, you know, not so gruesome, is then, yeah, you know, where it's kind of all nice and, you know, not so gruesome is then, yeah, you go on my cooking channel and I did an episode or whatever where I called it a bloody good scone and I made scones out of blood orange juice. Wow. There you go. And then I talked about the blood eagle because, you know, those things go together. I imagine somebody falling on that cooking channel

not knowing what it is. Yeah. And being like, oh wow, an orange scone recipe, exactly what I was searching for. And then getting this history lesson at the end where they're like, wait, what? What is this? I guess I would prefer that rather than reading

some recipe online and learning about someone's entire life story about the summers they used to take. Like their family. Yeah, I used to take summers with my dad and we would go down to Wisconsin in the Dells. Anyway, we ate an apple pie. Just tell me how much pepper. Yeah.

Terry Barnes, this has been an amazing discussion. Thank you for giving us so much of your time. Thank you so much. The podcast is Vikingology. The YouTube channel is Shield Maiden in the Kitchen. Please, please plug where people can check you out and- And where they can take your class. And where they can take your class.

Yeah, well, if you're in the Portland area, you can take my class at Portland Community College or Portland State University. If you are out there in the online world like Heather was, you can go on medievalist.net and we've got online courses through that platform. And so I teach, I have a couple of mine out there that people can take a look at. I've got one on myth busting Vikings and another one on sort of life and society and stuff like that. So yeah, yeah, that's it. But thank you so much for having me. This has been great fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I think we all learned something. It is not

a nice change of pace. It is because usually when you listen to our podcast, knowledge is removed. Your brain becomes smoother, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, it's time for a segment. I'm gonna name some dudes and we'll see if our producer, Ranch, can name them. It's Dude Ranch, Sonic the Hedgehog Edition.

So here's how this will work. I'll say the first name of a character from the Sonic franchise Heather and Matt will guess if a Rochelle Chan ranch our producer can identify them by animal or description I'll give some leeway on this But I'll say the name of the character and then each of you guess if ranch can ID them okay this rocks It's really really good all right first up tails Yes, I think I think think Range can identify tails.

Heather says yes. I mean, well, just to keep it interesting, I will say, I'll say no. And I'm supposed to say the animal? Who is, who is tails? Squirrel. I think I gotta give it to Matt. I think I gotta give it to Matt.

Okay. I think I gotta give it to Matt. I think I gotta give it to Matt. Miles' tails per hour is Sonic's two-tailed fox sidekick. Originally from Sonic 2. My answers for the rest are no. Next up, Knuckles. No. I'm gonna say, I feel like it's like... Knuckles. No. I'm gonna say, I feel like it's like, No way.

It's kind of like part of who he is, so I'm gonna say yeah. All right. You don't really go around saying, Tails the Fox, right? Yes, you don't say, you don't say Tails the Fox. But you might say Knuckles the Blade. No way, absolutely not. Ranch, you don't say tails the fuck. But you might say knuckles the blank. No way, absolutely not.

Ranch, you've had your head buried in your hands, so as not to tell us what's coming. Do you know who Knuckles is? Anteater. Ha ha ha ha. Could you identify? Knuckles the Anteater. Could you identify the color you think Knuckles is?

Orange? Oh no. Who said no, was it Heather? Heather. I gotta give this to Heather. Again, how many points are available? There are how many points available total? I mean, there's 10 of these.

So just give me nine. Because I said no. He's red. He is Echidna, is that how you say it? Echidna? Echidna. Echidna. And Sonic's frenemy who first appeared in Sonic's CD. And here's the thing. Couldn't tell you what an Echidna looks like for a million dollars.

They're like spiny. They're like covered with spines. Gross. Nasty. Nasty little freaks. I believe they have multiple penises. Now I'm starting to like this guy. I thought he was one hogged, didn't know. He's got a couple of them. Knuckles the two hog. Okay, Ranch, the next one to guess

whether or not Ranch knows who this character is, Shadow. No. Heather says no. I think I have to say yes. Rachelle, who is Shadow? Shadow is Skunk. Fuck! He's also a hedgehog.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a black and red male hedgehog. Sometimes has a gun, originally from Sonic Adventure 2. You're not, there's no way she's gonna know any of the rest of these. I don't know if we should do the rest of the game. I guess we might as well. Next up, Big. No, this one's not fair.

Cause there's more to his name. I'm gonna say, well yeah, but there's more to, like Sonic. But if we say the name, it will say, it will be obvious. The name of the thing is. I would say the thing yeah, but there's more to like say the name it will say it will get will be obvious The thing is I would say the thing about this one. That's not fair is that Everybody in the sonic universe calls Sonic Sonic not Sonic the hedgehog Okay But I will say if I'm if I'm in ranch's role in this game and someone's like Nick who is big

I will say I know big and I will give I will be able to Ranch has no idea who this is And I cannot wait to find out what she thinks it could be I'm gonna send a psychic wave through ranch's hands I'm going to give this one to her Ranch who is big? Big the cat I'm psychic Wait the bigger story is that I'm psychic Wait a bigger story is that I'm psychic How do you know big the cat I feel like I've heard big the cat before yeah, I did not know that was from Sonic

Doesn't ask any follow-up I've heard those three words put next to each other before. Oh man. It surprises us back. Doesn't ask any follow-up. Oh shit. Big the cat. Totoro, like cat with a fishing pole originally from Sonic Adventure. Next up, Rouge. Does Ranch know Rouge? No.

I might say yes. I think Rouge has a life outside of Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh yeah, on my hard drive. Oh my God. Who is Rouge? Is Rouge a rat? No, you know what, if we gave you rhyme points, you'd get a half point here, but Rouge the Bat, a very busty anthropomorphic bat

who debuted in Sonic Adventure. Yeah, and they fucking, they covered up her cleavage in the new game, I'm so mad about it Heather gets a point there. All right next up Heather has three Matt has two silver No, I don't know if I do I'm gonna say yes, you do know silver by do you we played this game a ranch who is silver? Fox no silver is a hedgehog silver thehog, a silver-furred hedgehog. Yeah, but Silver the fox, I mean, come on. From a future timeline.

That's pretty good. Originally in Sonic 06. Yeah, Silver the fox is pretty good. I feel like Silver the fox should be the name. I feel like Ranch should get a point. Okay, Ranch gets a point. Ranch is on the board. And maybe like the character, if somebody wants to like draw him, he's like handsome

Okay next up vector no Here's the thing. I mean I have to say no also Ranch who is vector vector the hedgehog It's a fair guess. I think a pretty good guess, honestly. Playing the odds, you both get a point there. Vector the Crocodile from Knuckles Chaotix. He looks pretty funny. Yeah, I like Vector. Vector's got a cool character design. Speaking of cool character design, Charmy.

No, I don't think I know who Charmy is. I'm gonna say yes. Ranch, who's Charmy? Charmy the Rabbit. That makes sense to me, I hear it. Who's Charmy is? I do like it. Who's Charmy?

Charmy B, yeah, Charmy B. He's also from Knuckles K. OX, originally. Nothing, nothing. And I'm probably the only person in the room who's played that game. If you saw Charmy B, I think you'd be like, I recognize Charmy B. Charmy B.

Is Charmy B an animal? A bee. A bee. Oh, Charmy B. Yeah, you'd be like, I recognize Charmy B. Charmy B. Is Charmy B an animal? A bee. A bee. Oh, Charmy B. Yeah, it's one of those ones, they don't say Charmy the Bee for some reason. It's just Charmy B. I can't remember who guessed no there. Did you both guess no?

I guess yes. I guess no. Okay, so Heather gets a point. Heather has five, Matt has three. But also it's funny, now that you've introduced this concept of like, Charmy B has no the, it's funny to think of Big's name as Big Cat. Sonic hedgehog.

That's not that crazy, I guess. Big Cat is better. Big Cat. Two more. Mighty. No. I don't even know Mighty, no. Mighty Mouse.

No, it's not Mighty Mouse, it's Mighty the Armadillo, of course, a black and red. It's mighty the armadillo of course Armadillo from Sega Sonic the Hedgehog for arcade. I've never played Sega Sonic the Hedgehog. Is that the fighting game? It's a it's an arcade game. It's a rolling game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Oh, yeah, no that the what was the Sonic fighters game? Fighters, yeah, we like that Sonic theers. Rolling technology has never really worked for me. That was like Gen 1 though like input methods for you know like arcade games I mean you go back games like missile commander whatever we're using track balls

They were just figuring shit out, but I don't really love track balls. I don't like it either I should be listening to who gets Heather guess no right? Nope. And Matt you also guess no? Matt also get no. Okay, you both get a point Heather's gonna win, but we've got one more point on the board. Heather's got six Matt has five Finally a lease. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope Nick you're a fool I'm gonna say I'm just gonna say yes. There's no way.

Yeah, I mean this is the way you could tie it up, Matt, is if you get, if you, if you guess yes and Ranch defies the odds and knows who this is. I'm gonna send you one of my psychic waves. Ranch, who is Elise? Elise the woman. I think Matt takes it! I think Matt takes it!

What the fuck? Elise is a woman, is a human being with human proportions, a princess from Sonic 06 who also does this, Ranch, if you want to play this clip for us. Did you guess? I guess because Elise does not sound like an animal's name. Alright, we gotta play this clip. Hang on, am I psychic? You might be Okay, us emeralds gems of miracles, please heed my call I

Wish to save this world I wish to cleanse my father's sin, and I wish to talk to Sonic... once again. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things.

You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things.

You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. You have given me so many things. Is that Elise? Yeah, that's Elise. Hahahaha Hahahaha Is that real?

Yeah, that was real. That clip is edited. That clip is edited, but that's a real thing from the game. It does happen. In the very first game we ever covered on this show. Wow. So I guess there's a tie there. Ranch on the board with one point. Hey, that was Dude Ranch.

Who do we talk to about me being psychic? Like, what do I do? Do I talk to FBI or something? Yeah, maybe not. Maybe. They're gonna be in a chair with a crown on you and they're gonna be like, where is he? And you're gonna be like, who? They'll be like, you should know who.

That's Get Played. Our producers, Rich Chen, Ranchyard, underscore, underscore, star. Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com, slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-Headgum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and also our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated, where we are watching Gundam. Gundam Requiem for Vengeance. That's right.

It's the Netflix show that has just premiered recently. The boys said, let's do it. And of course I was on board. We're watching episodes one and two this week on Get Animated. And boy, oh boy, oh boy, am I excited. I really hope it's good. And I have a feeling it might be.

I have a feeling it might be. Gundam, don't let me down. Patreon.com slash get played for the back catalog and for Get Animated. And hey, I think courtesy of the Viking professor Terry Barnes, we all got educated this week instead of played. That was incredible.