Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

It's time for Genesis! Ketho and Asha are joined by Trevor from The History of Persia to talk about the 6th book in the Narnia series, "The Magician's Nephew", in which Alastair Crowley tricks children into multiverse travel, Jadis tries to girl-boss London, and we discuss the academic obsession with Atlantis. Also Jesus gets bonked on the head with a pipe.Please check out Trevor's podcast @HistoryofPersiapatreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

I'm editing Trevor's podcast enough I almost did Trevor's opening to the podcast and I'm like that's not this is not that podcast what a surprise hello everyone and welcome back to the history of Persia I'm Trevor Bro. bro are you fucking real man come on hello everyone uh Welcome back to Sword, Sorcery, and Socialism. I think we're going to do it. As always. I'm Ash, and I'm joined by my co-host, Ketho. How's it going, Ketho?

Howdy. And we're also joined by a guest whose podcast opening I'm doing instead of my own. It's Trevor from the History of Persia. How's it going, Trevor? Hello, everybody. I'm all right. It's okay. We're collectively losing our shit.

It's fine. It's a Saturday morning. There's a civil war happening. It's very warm in my room. It's fine. Yeah, we're not even into the book about a theosophist magician sending children to other dimensions. We are here

to continue our series on the Chronicles of Narnia, and as opposed to the previous episodes where we cover multiple books, today we only have time to talk about one. We're here to talk about Genesis, also known as The Magician's Nephew. also known as the magician's nephew

also known as where narnia came from and what happened there uh the source of all evil the uh the temptation in the garden of eden uh redemption and original sin all sorts of fun things that happen yeah when a theosophist magician sends children across the multiverse and and essentially a decent chunk of fan service for people who had read the line which in the wardrobe first and they're like oh yeah there's the wardrobe oh yeah this is that guy oh yeah this is that Well, because this is him retroactively making those pieces fit. He went back and was like, where did the lamppost come from?

And then in building that was like, ah, but the person who did this was actually the man who ends up the professor from the first book and the wardrobe is from the tree that was planted. Also, the first king of Narnia was a London cabbie. And also, a lot of old man yells at Cloud.

Just constantly, and in those days, everything was much better, you know. Look, I can't help it because it's me and we're going to do comparisons throughout the episode but for someone who's friends with tolkien and shared the like the past was better somehow lewis seems to be more annoying about it than tolkien in terms of things used to be good and now they're shit it's it's hilarious to me how both lord of the rings and to i think a greater extent this book kind of proved the whole like every generation thinks a long time ago was better um shtick

where it's just like now was it really better or were you just young yeah was it really better or were you just young? Yeah, was it really better or was it just 1900 and you were six or whatever? Yeah. Were you just a child and things were simpler? So we are here to talk about The Magician's Nephew. In terms of order in which they were released, This is the sixth book of seven. And I read there is an entire debate about the order because apparently the order got switched around from, for a long time it was published in the order that they,

or they were in a box set. They were put together in the order in which they were released, which is the order we're doing the books in. But apparently that was changed when Harper Collins bought the rights to it in America. And they were the ones that decided to put the books in Narnia chronological order, which puts the magician's nephew first,

but as pointed out by some people that kind of weird because magician's nephew sort of relies on you having read the line, the witch and the wardrobe already to kind of understand who the hell they're talking about. So whatever. Yeah. This is a lot of, the wardrobe already to kind of understand who the hell they're talking about so whatever yeah this is a lot of a lot of the stuff in here would kind of go over your head if you weren't already familiar with narnia and stuff like that um it it it's kind of like in in a weird way like the star wars prequels where it's like if you watch the prequels first it kind of gives away the whole luke darth vader connection yeah like and you're like huh well it's just not as interesting

to watch this in chronological order as opposed to watching it in release order yeah the i am your father twist isn't that important if you like watched him be born uh so we have joined by trevor for this episode because likely like alex in the first episode we need experts to help us understand what the hell is happening in this book and with the weird theology of the world that lewis has uh created so uh trevor q tell me first how did you read these as a kid, like the rest of us? Yes, I was a child after whenever these were published. No, I was especially a child when the movies started coming out. And on top of that, a child whose family was really involved at church.

So, this was everywhere. Yeah. It was the first time my parents told me I had to read a book before I could go see the movie adaptation. Which has been a great policy for the rest of my life. But, like, it's also just Jesus. Like, I had already read that book. But you'd already heard the story of Genesis, so when you got to Magician's Nephew, you were like, ah, okay.

Well, the first time I read Magician's Nephew was literally with a church group to do, like, a book study, book report thing as a little kid doing a comparison of like what elements of genesis are in this book and it's like well most like the first three or four chapters like that's interesting but like you did it with a church group that's wild i for reference between the ages of 9 and 18 i did basically everything with a church group? That's wild. For reference, between the ages of 9 and 18, I did basically everything with a church group. Which sounds like Red Flag City. My church damn near schismed over LGBT rights when I was in high school.

So, good folks and bad so you can be like the church i grew up in who just had that who just had that schism like last year well yeah on the the national level that's the same church uh i think actually you and i have a weirdly similar religious background methodists methodists that's I was literally about to be like, is this the Methodist church? Because it's the one that I know of that split real hard over... Well, they did it recently.

The Lutherans split over gay people like a while ago, and that's where you get the evangelical Lutherans from. But yeah. So I was like, this was a big part of my childhood and i have i have my second box set because my siblings and i read the first box set to tatters and they're beautiful books too like if you just want pretty books on a shelf the If you just want pretty books on a shelf, the Narnia box set. I've been digging for...

I have almost all of mine are the Scholastic Book Fair editions. And except for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew. And I think The Magician's Nephew cover I have is ugly as hell. That's got like a new YA like ass cover on it like look look at this weird little silhouette in the middle what's going on so i that's the set i have and the magician's nephew the cover is frankly as weird as the book inside of it the the rest of them are much more aesthetically pleasing cover art yeah i've seen i've seen some of the other ones and they're just a little better,

but I've been digging to try and find the Scholastic Book Fair editions of the first two just so I have all of them in the same. The ones I read growing up were the box set that my mother had from when she was a kid, so they're like the box set from the 60s, and I think the art on them is pretty sick, but they're also ancient, set from like the 60s and i think the art is pretty sick but they're also ancient and like you said uh by yours trevor they have now been read to essentially oblivion

and now they just sit very gently in the box that they came in with nobody touching them because they fall apart if you do one final question before we start because we've talked about this with before what up to this point what was your favorite book of the narnia series or like when you were a kid reading and what was your favorite one which one did you reread okay so that's a weird one because like storytelling wise probably dawn shredder but i'm also on this podcast because ages ago I told you I wanted to come on for the last battle. And I,

that is probably the one I've actually reread the most times because it's interesting. It sure is. And we, that'll be exciting. That will be the grand conclusion to this series. And we'll have Trevor and Alex for that one for the grand conclusion to this series and we'll have Trevor and Alex for that one for the grand conclusion of what the hell is happening here I'm actually so hyped to

read that book because I have not read that since I was a kid I read it once it was like I have no idea what the hell is going on and I never read it again and now I am just I am excited as hell to read that but for today we are one step before that we are at the magician's nephew which is the the the the prequel of the series it is how narnia was made um it for the the brief plot overview is it opens in the summer of 1900 uh two children digg and Polly, meet while playing in the yard. They accidentally go in the study of Diggory's

Uncle Andrew. Uncle Andrew, in a creepy way, tricks Polly into touching a magic ring. She vanishes, and then he's like, LOL, sent her to the netherworld you should go to nephew uh then he goes to via these magic rings they end up in this the the wood between the worlds which

is ripped almost as we mentioned in a previous episode ripped almost directly from william morris where it's it's a wooded area with pools all over that sort of has a narcotically sleepy effect on anyone who hangs out there for too long. Also vaguely reminiscent of what happens in the underworld in Silver Chair for all the creatures that fell asleep and sank into the underworld. These pools take you to other worlds. Before they go back to their own world, they decide to go into some random other pool and end up on a world that's

been completely destroyed they accidentally wake up the jadis who later becomes the white witch the evil witch lady then through some shenanigans they come back out and then they end up in the human world for a little while which i guess i'd kind of forgotten you know minus the lamppost i'd forgotten that they end up like on the streets of London with Jadis swinging in a lamppost. That's my favorite part of the book. It is very... The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lost World for a little bit there.

Like they just have a little adventure where they like bring Jadis into London. She's riding around in like... It's not a cab. It's a horse-drawn carriage that's the predecessor to the London cabs. But they're just like riding around London and she's declaring that she's going to conquer London. She rips a bar off of a lamppost with her bare hand. Mommy.

Sorry. That took longer than expected, I'm going to be honest. She's like she's like expected i'm gonna be honest she's like seven and a half feet tall standing on top of this uh carriage queen queen ripping stuff off and just declaring herself at like empress of the world who's among us i'm like this is like the most badass thing like it's so look i'm sorry i think you mentioned it before we started recording uh kethel but jadis is by far the most interesting character in this story and she's just when she's just the most when she's not in it it's more boring

yeah it's just exciting like she's she you never know what she's gonna do like the first time she wakes up she's like oh yes i killed every single person in existence i win and i do it again she's she's just so like unabashedly evil but doesn't even know she doesn't like understand how evil she is she's just like she's She's just, like, girlbossing it. Gaslight can't keep girlboss Jadis. So after they swing their lamppost around, they get transported to Narnia along with Frank, the cab driver.

But not Narnia. Oh, but not Narnia, because they go to a blank void. They go to the void. And then immediately our front row witnesses to Lewis's interpretation of the Ina Lindalee from the Silmarillion, where Aslan sings the world into existence. And I guess in this role, Jadis is acting as Melkor? I don't, I assume. Then the world is created in front of their eyes.

Aslan gives some animals reason and speech and others not for reasons that are still unclear to me. Possibly we can discover that. Jadis is like, ah you're singing hurts my ears and fucks off for a while she does throw the bar at at aslan first and it just kind of bounces up yeah she throws the bar it hits him and it like the text is like it hits him square between the eyes and it just bounces. Just a little dunk. And nothing happens.

Then she runs away. She freaks out and is like, ah, runs off. They create the world. Aslan is like, hey, Diggory, this is your fault. My world would have been perfect if not for you bringing this bitch here.

So you have to atone for it. You have to go to the Garden of Eden and get some of the forbidden fruit, but not eat it. And Jadis is sitting there munching on it like, hey, do you want some of this? You want some of this, boy? And he's like, it'll heal your mother. And he's like, no, I shall resist the temptation of the serpent.

And leaves. She's so boss. Like, I can't even. Like, you're right. She's just there. Just like, she's so boss. Like I can't even, yeah. Like you're right. She's just there. Just like, these are my apples.

She's like, yeah, I've got ultimate knowledge and immortality. What about it? Hmm. Uh, and then he fucks off. He goes back with the apple.

They plant a tree. Uh, the cabbies wife gets like ripped out of England. Gets conjured, gets conjured out of England. And Frank andured. Gets conjured out of England. And Frank and his wife just get crowned the king and queen of Narnia. Like, okay. And their descendants become the kings and queens of Arkenland.

They're like the founders of all the people of Arkenland, mostly. So this is Adam and Eve. Is Frank the cabbie? Which, you know what why not uh pretty based honestly i mean yeah it's not like you know he's not like actual like hereditary from like some great house he's just like but can we say this is like literal divine right of kings? Oh, yeah. This is literally God saying you're in charge. This is Jesus telling you you are king. Yeah.

And yeah, then Diggory and Polly leave and the magician's like, I'm sorry. I was a piece of shit. I guess. Sorry about it. Then Aslan in return for Diggory not eating of the fruit gives him some of the fruit to heal his mother and then he plants a tree which then later becomes chopped down or falls over in a storm and becomes the wardrobe and yes he is

the professor from the first book okay plot's out of the way Trevor what the hell happened on one level it's a really rote standard, children's fairy tale version of Genesis. You've got the evil tempter, you've got original sin, you've got a tree of life and death. It almost reads a bit like an expression of what C.S. Lewis thought was wrong with either creation in general or the theology about creation.

choices of like the animals are not just intelligent but aslan goes out of his way to clarify with the new divinely appointed king frank that these are sentient beings do not treat them like you would treat animals in your world and that is the vast majority of the population of the world of narnia when it starts it's just these talking animals well yeah it's talking animals and two humans there's no other humans there i mean like he also throws in the fauns and the dwarves and the oh yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, the fairy tale creatures, too. But, like, it's like, yeah, there's two humans, a handful of mythical beings,

a river god for some reason, and a shitload of talking animals. You're right, he goes out of his way to specify, unlike Genesis, that these animals have souls. As do the river and the trees because of the Nyads and the Dryads.

So like you said, it does kind of feel like either he's doing it differently just to be different. Or it's like you said, maybe something he had issue with specifically. Because he does make a point to be like like the trees and the river have a soul. These animals have a soul and they have a place in the divine order, not simply as servants. They are still servants, but like not the same kind. there is an element of like animals are more innately good than people, especially with the portrayal of Strawberry the horse slash Fledge the Pegasus after he transitions. I was about to say trans horse.

Trans horse. Trans horse. There is a scene of people catching themselves dead naming this winged horse. Like, that's just what it is. C.S. Lewis unintentionally pro-trans rights. Look, if I tell C.S. Lewis that I transitioned because Aslan made me do it, does that make it okay? The implication of this book series, I think, is that if aslan made you do it it's always okay yes it's just like i feel like it's actually more like the moral of the story is aslan always makes

you do everything there is a yeah there's an element of like almost hard aslan determinism to the entire setting that that was our problem with the horse and his boy it's like one of the few points it's like oh wow this whole thing only happened because aslan did a thing well yeah we talked about that trevor again you won't have heard that when it hasn't come out yet but horse and his boy despite having this really interesting plot of all these cool things happening the plot gets undercut at the end by aslan being like yeah that was all me. I was the lion in the desert that drove you guys together.

I was the lion that attacked you on the road. I was the one that did this. I was the one that did that. And so all of these like cool and interesting character choices and things that happen at the end are all just like days actually. And that takes us back to something we talked about in the first episode, which was, I love the opinion that I don't think free will even exists in the Narnia

world because everything is Aslan. Or at least Aslan knows everything that will happen. So intricately to the point where is, was there ever a choice to begin with um or was this always just going to happen so i think especially thinking more about last battle where it's made extraordinarily clear at the end that aslan is just the singular Jesus who appears in different guises in every dimension of the multiverse that it whatever rules about theology apply to Narnia also have to apply to earth to some degree uh especially because like occasionally Aslan goes over there and kidnaps children to come do his bidding in Narnia.

The, but the, I think what, or not Tolkien, C.S. Lewis was going for here was, or with the horse and his boy, was probably more like, no, their free will is going to lead to the destruction of christendom god has to to jump in and be like no go that way like no no no because it's all him showing up in person to redirect them not like know, not marionette strings. So I think that's probably what C.S. Lewis meant by that, but also in a 100-page children's book,

it's kind of hard to get into the details. Sure. He was too busy being Orientalist to actually explain any of that. Yeah, very much. There's also a lot of, I think, not to all because because i'm gonna probably constantly steer the conversation back to jadis because i think i i do think she's maybe the most interesting yeah because she rules well not just not just because she's a badass girl boss throughout this whole book but also because she um it's just like the weird implications of

who she is and and her introduction into narnia as not really being like diggory brings her there by accident for all intents and purposes um and she comes from without not from within being an interest. I think that's an interesting implication that. Like. The idea of sin coming from without as opposed to from within. I guess I guess I kind of saw it as an argument that like. God's creation itself cannot have fault.

And so all fault like has to come from somewhere else. Aslan wouldn't have created the world with evil in it. The evil has to come through the actions of humans. Did he create Charn too? The actions of Diggory bringing her in. Sure. So one, yeah, he created Charn, and they unlocked the source code of their universe, I guess, and discovered a magic word that was just delete.

The nuclear weapon of Charn. But, like, one of the things that this book establishes is that different universes have been dimension hopping before so there is kind of an implication that yeah evil always comes from without because but that's really funny because this leads to almost like a chicken and egg eventually you just get back to satan I think, in Lewis's logic. Yeah. Because Jadis does say that Charn had conquered other worlds.

Yeah, that is not elaborated on nearly enough. The multidimensional empire. We need a book about Charn, about the history of- The multidimensional ancient empire of Charn. I was thinking about that. I was like, has somebody ever like written a vaguely fanfic novel like you could probably get away with it with just using the name charn and nobody ever noticed that it was connected but that'd be the inspiration i feel like is that i feel like that probably exists somewhere in like the Warhammer universe, I think.

Oh, yeah. I feel like a charred interdimensional empire with like human sacrifice, some with hereditary monarchs. I feel like that's some like Warhammer shit. Yeah, it's, there's, you know, it's spelled with a K in Warhammer. It's just written in the corner of a map by george r martin somewhere like just as yeah that's that's the sort of setting you throw a game of thrones style plot line in lewis wasn't going to touch it with a thousand he meant he literally but he doesn't like shy away from in the text or jadis is like yeah i made the blood of my soldiers run like water well did you you caught the bit at the end where he tells you what that allegory is for

no which bit uh right at the very end of the their time in narnia before aslan sends them home he all but comes out and says very soon you're going to have a couple of world wars and someone's going to come up with nuclear bombs. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He does. It's a very, very like on the nose quote because Polly asks him, is our world like charn? And he's like, not yet, but soon, child.

Well, and he, the bizarre thing to me is he's like, not yet, but soon, child. Well, and he, the bizarre thing to me is, he's like, and this is your warning to prepare your world. And I'm like, Aslan, she is seven. She is a literal child. She will be an adult barely by the time these wars start. adult barely by the time these wars start also no word on what degree was doing during world war one but i'm gonna go out on a limb and guess it was dying at verdun well he would have died except we know he comes back as the professor that's all that's the only reason we know he doesn't die um so he's one of the few survivors no he was he let's let's be honest he was in the shit what was the name for that group's be honest. He was in the.

What was the name for that group that like Tolkien was in with his friends? Were they all writers or whatever? See, this is the first I'm learning of this. The Inklings. That's exciting. The Inklings? Yeah, the Inklings. That's actually kind of awesome. The Inklings is an informal literary discussion group.

I had C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and some of their friends. And a bunch of them, a lot of them died in World War I. I'm saying, so Diggory was part of the Inklings and was off in World War I. I want to pull that quote specifically, Trevor, because you talked about it. It says, Polly asks Aslan if humanity has yet grown as corrupt as Charn, to which he replies, not yet. But you are growing more like it. It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the deplorable word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you

are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the empress jadis let your world beware that is the warning to a child stop the nuclear weapons now yeah i was about to say the deplorable word very like our version of the deplorable world is word is just very clearly the nuclear bomb yeah like our version of the deplorable world is word is just very clearly the nuclear bomb. Like in a way that's also source code of the universe. Like, you know,

you're, you're getting down to the atomic level. So I mean, building blocks of the universe and using them to eradicate. There is an open question to me in the technological, magical difference between our world and charn, where charn is presented as very ancient and medieval but magical and earth is presented as utterly without magic because you know jadis

gets there and her magic doesn't work there but it clearly works in narnia because she goes around the first book turning people to stone and causing eternal winter uh yeah earth is just like entirely non-magical so the only thing she keeps is her is her is her big giant mommy strength so she couldn't use the whatever damnable word or whatever it is uh but like she also doesn't know about guns which i think would make her world-conquering plans very funny. Oh, yeah. In Earth, on, like, Earth, it would be very, very different. Like, she, like, the only thing she has is physical strength greater than everybody else.

She doesn't have magical power greater than, you know. have magical power greater than you know like honestly diggory's uncle has more magical aptitude in the real world than jada well we find out that like her magical powers from her on charn were literally like genetically inherited and that's the reason they were kings and queens is because they were the people on charn that had magic. Well, you know what? Kudos to Lewis for being the only author with magic, hereditary magic in his world to be like, yeah, these people become monstrous dictators. Yeah. Because everyone else is like, and they live in secret societies

and don't talk to anybody. And like, no, if you can kill people with your thoughts, you're going to take over the planet. You are literally going to become... Of course, he's... Credit to him. But he still does it in a very... Again, sort of Tolkien and Lewis-esque fallen world way where, like, he makes it clear that the original kings and queens of charon were like merciful and

good and just and then over time degrade into being evil and twisted and and sadistic because in the past things were good and people were good and then then then it got as things progressed they got worse i i think it's also the implication being that the first kings or queens were chosen directly by yeah that is likely the same way they were in that is the sense i i get from the whole of the magician's nephew is that god jesus aslan goes around the multiverse singing worlds into existence picks out a couple of humans from earth Mark I, I guess, to... Yeah, are we universe prime? I get the sense that that might be the case.

And, or, you know, but goes, grabs a couple of humans from somewhere else in the multiverse, you're king and queen now, rule over this world peacefully. I'm testing out some new ideas here and they are perfect paragons and then he goes away for too long and everything goes to shit this is like a god version of simulation theory where like you set up a new simulation in the new world with like slightly different rules. You make a couple of custom rulers that are perfect, then just set the speed to 4x and leave.

And then you come back after letting it run all night and you're like, what the hell happened? You know what I mean? This is like somebody started a different instance of a Paradox 4x game. And again, you always start with a custom ruler who's like great, but then just like over time, if you're not actively at the controls.

You've got all these RNGs. All the RNGs that eventually end up with like Broken Kingdoms and Sadists. That's a really like, I guess inherently Christian way to view the world. It's a very hyper-monarchist way to view the world. It's definitely hyper-monarchist, which, let's be real, that's what these books are. Oh, yeah.

But also definitely not exclusively Christian because that is the organizing principle of Greek mythological history, too. We start with a golden age, and then there was a silver age, and there was a bronze age, and there was an age of heroes, and now we're in an iron age. Oh, interesting. I guess I didn't realize the Greeks viewed the cyclical degradation of the world as well, I guess. They don't view it as cyclical. They view it as everything will always get worse. Oh, okay. Which is honestly like a very funny outlook. It's just, I mean,

I think that just speaks to something about humanity as being like, I don't know, somewhat incapable of noticing its own bias towards the simplicity of just being younger like it really i think it legitimately is just people were younger and then they and because they were younger and didn't pay as much attention they liked it more um and it's just like an eternal don't you wish things were as good as they were in the 90s no you were just seven. You were seven years old. Says someone who was born in 1989 or something.

And you're like, of course the 90s were better for you. Like, you didn't have to worry about much. And even if there were bad things happening in your life, you were a kid. It was easier for you to compartmentalize those things away. As opposed to when you're an adult and suddenly responsibilities and suddenly a deepening awareness of the way the world looks and what the world has always kind of been and in the case of the generation writing these books exactly the specific degree of how awful human beings can be to one another yes because you know this is this is the generation of world war one and world war two yeah they fought in world

war one and then were just adults during world war two yeah so they got to see their children what they thought they got to see what they thought was the worst of humanity in World War I and then got upstaged by being able to witness what happened in World War II. And so it's understandable to believe that, especially from this perspective. perspective i guess that does make a lot of sense because i don't know if i've read a single fantasy or science fiction series from the 1950s or 60s written by anyone who was alive during that time period that isn't very the past was better um or at the very least isn't well yeah it's either the past was better or some vague cold war allegory, which you also get a lot more when you get more into the sci-fi side of things, too. They're like, ah, yes, after the great fire deluge.

Shout out to Canacliff or Leibowitz. Yeah, that's explicitly what my brain was thinking of. And now, what I wonder, I think this is a good discussion for another episode. And I think we've actually talked to a potential guest about this idea is like sort of talking about how having people like Lewis and Tolkien as some of the early, really, really famous fantasy authors. And this sort of worldview that the past was always better has sort of in not infected, but like been just accepted as rote for essentially all fantasy going forward since then.

Because like even if you're like playing D&D, what are you doing? You're exploring the ruins of other civilizations that had bigger, cooler temples before you got there. You know what i mean and i think we've had someone already want to sort of propose to us an episode about that sort of thing it's a it's a foundational staple of modern fantasy just to have a ancient civilization that was more and it really does just mirror well off, people are getting a lot of it from somebody like Tolkien, who was like, here's the elves are leaving. They used to be way more powerful, and it was way more magical than it is now. But also, like, that's stretching back to romanticization of things like King Arthur. Also, Tolkien and Lewis were both obsessed with Atlantis.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys want to get into that? Yes. I want to talk about Atlantis, please. I never thought I'd be reading the Chronicles of Narnia and going, which Behind the Bastards episode was this? the Bastards episode was this. But like, yeah,

there is some weird hyperborean Atlantis theosophy kind of shit going on with Uncle Andrew. Like, just out and out. There was a perfect hyper-advanced Atlantean civilization

with palaces and towers and temples and slaves at the dawn of time, and they could do magic and travel between worlds, and I have this box that has their dust in it, and that's going to let me forge these... Rings of power! Rings of power together. Yeah. let me forge these rings of power yeah uh also just like quick shout out to the fact that uh aslan creates the trees of valinor at the end of the book um is this is this just um c.s lewis like throwing shade at Tolkien and being like, actually, you're – what's his name?

What's the name of his god of the – Iluvatar? Yeah. Eru Iluvatar is just literally – I don't think it's throwing shade. Jesus. I don't think it's throwing shade. I think it's just him being like, that's a great idea.

I'm going to use it. Well, yeah. That's a great idea. I'm going to use it. Well, yeah, that's a great idea. I'm going to use it. Also, my theology says that even your fantasy universe was technically created by Jesus. His description of the dwarves at the end is also just like an out-and-out parody of Tolkien's dwarves. Yes. But, yeah, there's this hyperborean Atlantean stuff. And it's not something that any kid in the last, I don't know, 80-ish years is going to pick up on.

But Uncle Andrew is very much presented as like a theophicist or, you know, practicing the lemma or something like that. philosophicist or you know practicing dilemma or something like that um and like just described as alistair crowley and jack parsons mashed into one person like yeah i was picking up the alistair crowley down to like maybe some weird latent homophobia uh though i have to admit i couldn't tell if that was in the writing or in Kenneth Branagh's reading of the audiobook. Does he like read Uncle Andrew as like a little bit homosexual? He reads him like a queer coded Disney villain. Of course. Reads him like he's Scar or Hades or whoever.

Yeah, most specifically, he reads him like Sir Hiss and Prince John in Disney's Robin Hood. Like exactly that voice. I'm the king. Yeah. Just everything about him. It's very... These weird, racialized, you know, kind of Aryan race things from the early 20th century. And that's where magic comes from on Earth. In C.S. Lewis's world. Like you, as a kid, I didn't pick up on the weird atlantean you know hyperborean nonsense like i don't know there used to be a world before this one where they did magic

all right whatever that's because we didn't grow up at a time where that sort of mythology was still kind of popular and that sort of esoteric thing was like in the popular consciousness for us right like c.s lewis grew up at the peak of alistair crowley and was writing at the peak of jack parsons doing you have to you have to wonder if there was actually a belief that atlantis did exist like oh there absolutely was um which is i i'm talking mostly about between c.s lewis and i think there really might have been it's hard to tell with a lot of educated early 20th century people because a ton of people believed it like not just weird occultists but like atlantis or hyperborea or some other lost land was proposed as like the

indo-european linguistic homeland like tolkien certainly would have been aware of that oh yeah he they did they because at the time they believed yeah that this sort of language group had to have come from somewhere and since they couldn't figure out where at the time or they didn't want to really figure out where at the time they're like i came from this lost civilization i i i love how that is honestly significantly more convoluted than just thinking that language evolved without civilization being there like you know it's it's so it's so much more messy and it takes so much more like you were saying that sort of arian nonsense um it it does take kind of an inherent superiority complex to believe that sort of thing um and a lack of willingness to believe that anything other than that superiority complex is legitimate

yeah like as someone who has studied where the these ideas came from because they're all tied up in the word aryan that i have to talk about when talking about iran all the time uh there's is like some logic to the initial concept of well they must have come from a very advanced place that we just haven't discovered yet. Because the original idea looked like it was the super conquerors who spread out all over Eurasia in an organized fashion. And then they got a little bit clearer on, like, the sequence of events and the timeline and realized it was much longer. And that idea dropped unless you were a Nazi. And then they were like it started in germany but you can see where originally if they were like okay people all across the world all have a language that

comes from the same base and because i had a very sort of imperialist mindset about history the idea was that they all must have been subject to the same peoples at one time so i guess that kind of makes sense yeah i guess when you think that the time frame is much shorter than it actually was um that makes sense once you realize how long of a time frame we're actually looking at in terms of that language developing um and you're like oh this is like tens of thousands of years of language development. Suddenly, it starts to make less sense, and you start to be able to kind of move that into the past, and like you were saying, unless you're a Nazi. Yeah.

The other thing, since we're on my ancient historian bit for a second, is people who think Atlantis existed don't know shit about where Atlantis comes from. It is an allegory made up by Plato as part of a parable. That's all it is. It's like it is a hypothetical concept to make a point. It's not Greek mythology. It's not religion. It is like looking for physical evidence of the sheep that from that one

parable with from jesus like yeah it is it it's a it's not just a metaphor it's it's like like you're saying it's like a parable it's like looking for uh evidence of anesop fable being real. Yeah. At least with the weirder, more niche version of this with Hyperborea being, like, Arctic Atlantis or wherever Conan the Giant happens to be at the time, or the giant barbarian. Like, that at least, like, is from ancient Greek history as, like, a description of basically Russia. But, yeah, no.

Atlantis, just a dumb idea Plato wrote down in his notes at some point. It's a hypothetical. It's just like a thought experiment. It's like looking for Plato's cave. That's what it is. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. It's like, ooh, where is this cave?

The cave was in Atlantis, obviously. Everyone emerging from the cave are the ones who founded Atlantis when they emerged from the cave we can't put this on the internet people are going to like create a religion out of that you see the first people that emerged from the cave

were the ones chosen by Aslan. There we go. The... Oh, my God. I just... It's... I kind of get why people would want to attach to that, because it's, like, romantic and super... It's just aesthetic really um but i mean that people would really want to latch on look at least tolkien had the balls to like

point out that atlantis wasn't even like the first or best civilization that existed atlantis was already a copy of better ones that had come before it, before it got destroyed. Is everything just copying the kingdom of God? Yes. Yes. Then that is all the way back. Also objectively, like the final chapter of the series is just explaining that everything is copying the kingdom of God.

We're going to talk about that next time. Um, so that, that actually, um, one last thing that also leads me into a question the world between the worlds the wood between the worlds it's i mean yeah we can shrug about it but also it's really interesting that similar to aslan singing, the only most people find it pleasant or at least soporific. Yeah. The case of Jadis and Andrew both despise being in the wood between the worlds. Like like Jadis quite literally gets her strength sapped like she is.

And then she forgets that she was even there. I think part of that is him finding a justification for why Jadis doesn't try and find her way into yet other worlds. Or convenient amnesia. Yeah, convenient amnesia to forget that there are other in-betweens, that there's, like, an in-between. that there's like an in-between um but at the same time there's i feel like there's got to be some sort of significance um that like the wood between the worlds has that like bad people like people with more sin essentially are less at peace there and more in agony well because how could a sinful person be at peace in the kingdom of God? I mean, is it? Yeah.

Is it just really close to Aslan's country? Is it just Aslan's country? I don't think it is Aslan's country. But I think it's closer to it than most of the other worlds. because of the way Aslan's country is described as like a ring of other worlds that you can like see off in the distance from Aslan's country Narnia is like maybe it's the the space in between like literally the physical place in heaven in between all of the different like worldly divisions that he depicts at the end of the series but i think the like sin angle you can kind of look at the way that uncle andrew is depicted toward the end of the book where he refuses to accept the existence of the talking

animals and of aslan and therefore cannot hear them, which... And boy, is that going to come back also in the next episode, the refusal to accept something. Right. This is almost a thing in Magician's Nephew that is better suited to talking about through the last battle because it does have a lot to say about his perception of sin,

and in Andrew's case, I think, the specific sin of atheism. Like, you are, you so do not want to hear the word of God that you can't hear it, and therefore do bad things, like practice witchcraft. Yeah. It is funny though

that Jadis dunks at him for being a cheap magician. He is a conjurer of cheap tricks. I mean it makes sense because in a lot of especially in Christianity, atheism and apostasy

are both sometimes seen as worse sins than murder. I mean, I guess the refusal to hear could just be seen as, I don't know, worse. But I guess it still doesn't... Like as an actual sin. It still doesn't really quite answer why they feel that way specifically in the wood between the worlds unless it is sort of like we said i don't know as close to aslan's country as you can be without being in it because

you're between all the other created worlds the other sub-created realities or you know maybe it's kind of like that place is absolute perfection you know there's nothing moving there's nothing disturbing the silence there's nothing ugly there's nothing foul there's just kind of a bunch of symmetrical circles and straight lines sure like it's a very basic unflawed place and then these extremely flawed beings can't stand it. I mean, yeah. I think it is just saying something about, I don't know, how C.S. Lewis views sin, in a way. Yeah.

It gets caught up in the weird thing of, like, who and what exactly does he intend Jada's herself to be? Like, is she the devil in the same way that Aslan is Jesus? Is she the snake? Like, she's definitely allegorically the snake, but she's also just a person from another world like and she doesn't refuse to acknowledge god because she interacts with aslan a ton she just doesn't like him like i think well it's it's interesting i mean it's interesting to me

just because if if you if you think about the way that modern Christianity especially kind of perceives Satan as kind of like an actual existent being, as opposed to like older forms of Christianity or even like older forms of Judaism where it's more like an extant force, just like the concept of temptation, and less of a like sub sub god that does bad things um uh it makes a lot of sense as jade is just being like an agent of not necessarily directly an agent of satan but as a um representation of temptation and sin. Is she directly called a daughter of Lilith in any of the books?

Or is that a thing that I see in the commentary? They say that in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. So, yeah, there's... She's a daughter of Adam's first wife, Lilith. Yeah, so there's something there to, like, she is, you know, a form of flawed being inherently.

Like, it is in her nature to be evil. Sort of. It's kind of whack. A lot of the theology of these books is kind of whack, yo. Like, I just... I still think she's the most interesting character in the book. Oh, absolutely. She's the most interesting character in this book and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Like, I don't... Yeah, because she's the only character in either with a background. A background in, like, I'll be honest, agency. She has agency. And there's a good degree of questioning, is that part on purpose? Yeah, that the evil character is the one that, like, has ideas and plans and can act in their own interest and free will all the time. can act in their own free their own interest in free will all the time yeah yeah i mean in in essence she's just perceiving it more as her free will whereas it's still questionable whether she has it or not but it's at the same time she definitely

sees it as more of that than the Pevensey kids do like, or, or the, the Diggory does where for the most part they get told what to do or they do things because that's what they feel is right. Whereas Jada's just does things because she wants to. Well, and the one time one of the Pevensey kids does things just because they

want to, it like almost destroys everybody in Narnia. Cause it's, cause it's Edmund. yeah eating turkish and he's like i'm gonna i'm gonna go to the witch and the second time it happened or a pevensy kid exhibits any autonomy she gets banned from heaven oh yeah yeah susan like this just this almost makes autonomy this makes autonomy seem like a sin kind of because you're acting outside of the will of god right i because i don't think it's in again i don't think it's intended to be like entirely calvinistic predestination so much as like you have to use your free will to do what god wants or else it's bad you can choose yeah but if you do choose wrongly you're

you're in for it you have chosen poorly and you, that also gets into something I was thinking about while listening to the book yesterday, is when Jadis is trying to tempt Diggory to eat the forbidden fruit, or to steal the forbidden fruit and take it home to cure his mom, with all of the information they are given in that situation, that is the objectively ethical choice if you do not know the person giving you orders is a deity. Like, yeah, this will save your dying mom. And, like, I can prove it because I am immortal and healed now.

Right. Like, if you don't know that that lion is god then like why the fuck you should be saving the human life like that is the objectively correct option there and of course afterwards lewis explains like oh well if you had taken it against my orders it would have been a cursed life and well sure man but you could have said that in the first place or you could make the you created those doors 15 minutes ago you could have put the the sign and it's a more explicit language there's no need for all this cryptic shit before you sent digger you could have been like yeah look if you bring it back to me without eating of it and we and

successfully i'll heal your mother it wouldn't. Then it wouldn't be Faith. I think that's the point. Aslan could have said, you bring this back to me and I'll heal your mom. That's still Faith. That's still relying on the promise of another being. True, true. But it's more like direct anyway.

Where Aslan gives him nothing. He's just like, go do it. And then Diggory just has to be like, it is morally wrong for me to go against the will of this lion. I met 15 minutes ago. To be fair. He did just watch the lion create the world. That is true.

Clearly a very powerful lion. He did watch the lion not be bothered by getting hit in the head by a metal rod. The thrown by an extremely strong eight foot tall giantess. Who does magic. You know what it is? It's Old Testament God in Magician's Nephew and New Testament God by the time you get to Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You're right, where he's like, just do the thing.

Yeah, where Aslan is like, oh, maybe they need some more explicit instructions. Lucy, Susan, do this. I think by the time of lying the witch in the wardrobe, Aslan has learned. He's grown. Well, like you said, it's New Testament God. It's the Wardrobe, Aslan has learned. He's grown. Well, like you said, it's New Testament God. It's the loving and kind God by that point. Yeah, not the very vengeful. Not the vengeful one from earlier.

It's also not clear if life appearing in an empty void caused Aslan to show up and create a world. Or if he had like just started singing and these four assholes fell into the middle of his newly created space. That's the way I always interpreted it was they just happened to fall into the space at the moment of creation. But it's not, I guess it's not explicit, but that's always the way I had interpreted it.

Because there is a line of thought where it's like, well, Aslan, you could have stopped singing for a second and said, get this witch the hell out of here. Yeah, but see, I feel like. You could have eaten her then. You do it later. I mean, he could have done that. He could have done that in the Old Testament and just been like, I'll just take this tree and not put it there. Yeah, but again, I think that gets into,

and I have the same thing when you get in. I mean, this gets into the whole, like, you know, omnipotent God question, you know, like the, you know, why for evil exist question. Problem of evil stuff. Yeah, the problem of evil stuff because like again for my expertise like tolkien has that problem too but just hand waves it a hand waves it by like letting melkor rebel and by god being like you can choose to rebel but in the end it's going to work out for me anyway because i'm bigger and smarter and more powerful than you um but like yeah like could have you know eluvitar stopped the music of creation and just destroyed melkor to let the music be

perfect yes he could have but he doesn't could have aslan have stopped singing to destroy jadis like he absolutely could have but he just doesn't for i think for reasons i think uh Tolkien's mythology in that, his justification is kind of the same justification that Lewis is using. He just doesn't point it out. Because he's not... It's like there's a direct dialogue between Iluvatar and Melkor in... The Anilindales.

Yeah, in the Anilindales. And in this, there's not really direct... No, the direct dialogue is Jadis hitting him in the head with a metal pipe. Yeah. I think at this point, Jesus has dealt with so many interpretations of Satan that he's just like, you're here every time. And he's like, but it doesn't matter because you're part of my creation anyways. And you don't have a choice. Everything you do is going to play into part of my plan anyways.

All you do shall prove but mine instrument. Yeah, I mean, that's in essence what it is because she throws the the bar at him it hits him in the face lands on the ground and grows into the lamppost that ends up being a marker for the pevencies later that is that is very like i would call it tolkien-esque shall prove but my instruments by bimmy type shit in essence jadis is contributing in her own way to Aslan's song, even if it's not as explicit as the way Melkor does it. It's still part of the same. I think it's the same theological underpinning for both of them. And it's obvious that they were pen pals.

The other question that comes to my mind with the relationship between jadis and narnia and this book is what happened to those trees man aslan where'd the trees go how she how'd she conquer this country if you created a bunch of magical protective tree barriers i think i think it's sort of told that like he says that they won't last forever that they'll last for centuries but not forever I mean it's the same thing with the Garden of Eden but that one is direct the aid of the

fruit and the hat were kicked out of the garden but this one it says eventually I'm gonna need four kids yeah like such as the tree will repel her for centuries to come, but not forever. So, like, they will repel her for quite some time,

but eventually they will decline and wither, which I think is just an outgrowth of the fact that civilization will decline in his worldview. That, like, no matter how good you make it, eventually it will fall. Human nature will cause it to collapse. Or in this case, dwarven nature, I think, being the most directly complicit thing. Yes.

Yes. Let's, you know, we'll save that one for next time. Wonder how that happened. Yeah. Yeah, everyone get your cringe ready for talking about dwarven nature and yeah look i'm just i'm just gonna give everyone the forewarning now the antagonists of the last book are dwarves an ape and people with turbans so who worship satan yep Who worships Satan. Yep. Honestly, especially if what I'm remembering of the last battle, the concept design for, isn't Tash the?

God, yeah. The god was legitimately terrifying as a child and was kind of cool. Oh, it's one of those uh mayan death god looking things with like a vulture's head it's crazy super wild um i i hate that every now and again you find in the most problematic parts of the writing some really cool things i hate that jadis is so cool because she's also kind of evil, just straight up evil. Oh, so you went in a different direction with that than I thought you were

because I was going to say, look, the thing that I have learned most from your podcast is that my taste in literature is problematic faves because i i mean i requested the witcher and this and i have a shelf in my attic that is just orson scott card novels um yeah i like good because all the messages in his books are great he's just a piece of shit um yeah yeah like but like that is definitely a factor to the enjoyment of this series it it's it's just like you're you're reading some of it and you're like like the horse and his boy and you're like wow

this is like cool and and interesting and also racist and you're like what the fuck like sure it's a book written before 1970 like it's cool and interesting and racist every book cool the coolest parts of this book are like charlie the world that's named after being a charnel house? Yeah. Seems cool. Some Diablo-ass world? Yeah.

There's some interesting stuff that could be explored here, but it's not being explored with the most tact. Jadis does talk about how her great-grandpa or something invited 700 nobles to a feast and then had them murdered at the feast because they had rebellious thoughts. That's some, like, you know... That is some Game of Thrones medieval-ass shit. My big takeaway here is that, like,

I want the Chronicles of Charn. That would be so much more fun i'll go write it right now uh i do want to bring up one other theological thing uh yeah and that is who causes original sin in this world diggory because it's it's the boy It is the male human Not Polly But it is Diggory's fault For bringing in the female evil Jadis True

As opposed to The masculine gendered snake In Genesis It's a A weird reverse. And I think like partly Jadis is female because witch. Like I don't like, because the first book was not that in depth and then he had to go back and

justify some of it. But I do think it's because he thought just her being a wicked witch was cool. Right. You know, a wicked snow queen. There's a bazillion things about that. Yeah. But it's a very intentional choice to make Diggory be the overly curious one

who rings the bell and the one who takes Jadis by the hand and tricks her into going into narnia and the you know the one who interacts with her and initially thinks it might be a good idea like and is infatuated with her i think i think it's actually kind of a through line because even the first few books which child is it that interacts with Jadis in the first book? It is a betrayer. It's Edmund. Who's the piece of shit in

Voyage of the Dawn Treader? It's Eustace. I feel like it's kind of a thing where like the women or the girls, I should say in a lot of these stories, the girl, human children always tend to be the sensible ones.

Aside from a little bit, the beginning of silver chair, but she like learns pretty quickly. You know what I mean? Like it seems, it seems to be a thing where he makes the, the, the,

the girls be like the sensible, reasonable, compassionate ones. susan well but she is in the first she is until until she gets kicked out and then it's a commentary on adulthood more than adulthood and growing old and losing faith um and i there is a little bit with susan where i think he kind of got wrote it got himself written into a corner with which pevensy to kick out because i was oh sorry i was just thinking about that just now i think she ends up being the one kicked out by default yeah i like i don't think it's actually anything about susan's character and that's why there's only kind of a really vague explanation, because you can't kick out Peter, he's the High King,

and you can't kick out Edmund, because you've already done that arc. And you can't kick out Lucy as the Star Child. He's already been redeemed. Right, and you can't kick out Lucy, because she's the pinnacle of justice and innocence. So it's just Susan. And you need What's-Her-Name from Silverchair and Last Battle to be a character in the book. So Susan's really his only protagonist left at the end of the day to leave out.

Yeah. But, no, I think it is interesting you said to specifically make the the uh Diggory the one that like makes sort of creates the fall but I think I think that's just kind of a through line in his work where he makes the boys be sort of the troublesome ones but still the personification of evil is still Jadis you know yeah still usually women if you

count the silver chair dude I never quite understood who the hell that witch was because it is not explained we talked about it a little bit in the other episode it'll be it's implied

that maybe there was a coven that she had or maybe it's just her. Yeah. It sort of implied that in, like, I think pretty sure from Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe that there's, like, a coven of witches. Well, where the fuck did they come from? I think it says they come from the north. They come from, like, the north.

So I think she was, like, a follower of Jadis' coven. Just descendants of Frank and Helen. Just realized that that is the name of a pizza shop near me. Frank and Helen? Uh-huh. I might have to ask the owners about that. Well, no, Frank and Helen's descendants are the people of Arkenland. I mean, I guess some of them could have run off and joined

jadis and learned how to become witches i suppose yeah that's that's what i'm suggesting is like also it doesn't really explain to jadis just like i think she conquered narnia when there were no more human kings and queens of narnia yeah so it's it's so at some point the line of frank and helen stayed the kings and queens of arland, but not the kings and queens of Narnia. I'm just imagining some like centaur warlord for just a small enough window for Jadis to do her thing. Yeah, I want some like, I need some Crusader kings ass shit here where like you split the houses at some point and then there's like competing claims to which house owns the throne. There's got to be a mod for that. Narnia gotta be a mod for that narnia mod for ck narnia mod for ck i don't want to know how racist they make the uh the ottoman stand-ins in that mod you can play the talmarines and actually still keep a seaborne

raiding even once you've futilized anyway uh but yeah like that was something like he does intentionally say that paulie is not the source of original sin which is a distinct choice that he made interesting for all the other you know faults in his way of describing women in the series like they are yeah eve is not the bad guy this time around. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about a little bit and all the other ones. It's just wild how every time there's a fight,

he like goes, has Aslan go out of his way to be like, women don't fight. Men fight. He does that like multiple times. He does that in Prince Caspian. He does it in horse and his boy. Like the only woman who kind of gets to fight is Susan who uses like a bow

sometimes, but like mostly he's like, he like specifically says that like battle is evil when women are in it. You flawed woman, you can fight at a distance. Yeah. It's, it's flawed,

flawed woman. Weird. Yeah. Um, yeah, sorry, go ahead. It's maybe, flawed woman weird yeah um yeah sorry go ahead it's i've maybe i think we're some of that we'll have to do a final follow-up on when we do the last battle just talking about all these sort

of things that are through lines um looking at it uh we're running up on time here because i do have a specific thing i need to do i apologize i have to meet someone who's going to be taking care of my pets while I'm gone for the next day or so for a wedding. So do you have any final thoughts? Do you have any final theology bits that you want to cover for Genesis,

the lion and the giant lady? Or if there are other thoughts that we can save when we talk about the last battle. Only comment I have is that at some point in the writing process for this book, somebody gave Lewis a copy of a book about astrophysics, and he got really into it for a bit, because it's a great baby's first multiverse theory explanation,

and throws in a dying red sun for no reason whatsoever. Which is a totally real thing. Doing the multiverse before the MCU did it, baby! I'm thinking that part of the reason... I mean, he does the dying red sun thing, I think, just to depict how old Charm is. Maybe how long it's been sitting empty no she said the sun was red when she was alive jada says this jada says the sun was red as long

as her people can remember and that's why i noticed it was because i was like oh like you you did a little bit of like actual research here it's not like you just knew they were older you were like this world this whole world is much much older than earth because yeah jay just remembers the sun is dying as well and then she goes oh you have a young son on earth i'm gonna go beat people with a lamppost under it it's kind of reverse superman getting chased by... Inverse Superman. He actually loses her powers. I mean, it's going to stick with me that I'd forgotten that Akabi

becomes the first king of Narnia, from whom all live kings are descended afterwards. I need you now, listeners, as our parting thought, I need you now to keep clear in your mind that the original kings and queens of Narnia, and probably for quite some time after its founding, all spoke like Guy Ritchie characters. Just keep that in mind. The first king of Narnia sounds like Jason Statham from Snatch.

Just think about it. No disputes. Not such a perfect world now, is it, Aslan? His big mistake was choosing to pull in the English. I mean, that's true. Aslan's big fault was picking the English. To be fair, he was pissed off that the English were there. Yeah, he was annoyed. That's true. Aslan's big fault was picking the English. To be fair, he was pissed off that the English were there. Yeah, he was annoyed.

That's true. As are we. He's like, man, I keep making new worlds and new peoples keep showing up. The British are so good at conquering. They show up at worlds at creation to colonize them. Colonizing worlds at creation. And Aslan could kick them out. Fuck who can fucking i'll just come back later all right everyone thank you for listening trevor thank you for joining us everyone if you haven't heard trevor on the show before but you should have trevor

is a host of the history of persia podcast uh one where you can, you know, learn about how, you know, interesting things were happening in ancient Persia. We are now creeping very close to that one big event in Persian history that everybody knows about, you know, the end of the first part. I think that episode is probably coming pretty soon. So, you know, if you want to learn about the accursed king of Macedonia, that's soon enough, I believe. Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know, Asha is my editor. So she will be getting that in like probably a couple of days. You're going to make me talk, listen to the accursed king alexander well first i'm gonna give you the

one about eunuchs and non-binary people that's right pride month baby pride month in the persian empire uh but yeah everyone check out trevor's podcast it's wonderful it's informative and historical um it does and actually has notes so you can read that one for well put together narratives as opposed to the ramblings like we do here but thank you so much for listening and join us in a couple weeks when we come back with trevor and alex for the last battle the the ultimate ultimating of some absolute nonsense i'm excited this is we basically did this entire series so we could talk about the last battle so please join us back there for that again and we will talk to you all soon goodbye see ya

bro bro are you fucking real man come on Thank you.