Transcript
Speaker: Shade.
Speaker: Yeah, we just sat under there and I made us grilled cheese sandwiches.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: We it was great.
Speaker: And we sat in our rockers and had lunch in red for an hour or two.
Speaker: It was just wonderful.
Speaker: It was wonderful.
Speaker: Oh, that's lovely.
Speaker: It was a good spring day today.
Speaker: We celebrated spring in a big way today.
Speaker: It was terrific.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: You know who else celebrates spring?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: Alongside me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today we've got a brand new series.
Speaker: We're celebrating the start of spring.
Speaker: Actually, it's like a few weeks into spring by the time you're hearing this.
Speaker: Scratch that.
Speaker: We're celebrating spring, though, with a book, a new series.
Speaker: Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Fathers.
Speaker: Your copy's in really nice condition.
Speaker: I got a really nice copy.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I don't think anyone has... You get it from thrift books?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think this has been cracked.
Speaker: This is not... Yeah, that was just found on a shelf after 30 years.
Speaker: Literally.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: When did this book come out?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: 97?
Speaker: 97?
Speaker: Okay, it's...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, 97.
Speaker: Very good year.
Speaker: It's just set in 93.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: A little bit before that, yeah.
Speaker: When did the game come out?
Speaker: Oh, we'll get into that.
Speaker: We'll get into that.
Speaker: We'll get into it.
Speaker: We'll get into it.
Speaker: We'll get into it.
Speaker: Yeah, so Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father.
Speaker: It's... It's...
Speaker: It was written by a Gene Jensen and it is based on a series, the Gabriel Knight series that was from Sierra online.
Speaker: Yeah, it came out in 1993.
Speaker: It is a point and click adventure game.
Speaker: And it was a CD-ROM point and click adventure game.
Speaker: So it had actual full vocal lines and tracks.
Speaker: In fact, Tim Curry and Mark Hamill were in the game.
Speaker: It's a hell of a cast.
Speaker: And Leah Remini.
Speaker: Michael Dorn.
Speaker: Michael Dorn, that is a beefy cast.
Speaker: So yeah, third person, point and click adventure.
Speaker: If you had played any of the games of that era, you know what you're in for.
Speaker: Sierra's interface was a little bit different than the Lucas...
Speaker: interface i know but yeah by 1993 actually i want to say lucas arts had even moved away from the verbs being on the screen oh yeah i i think i want to say it was a it was just a cursor with like four good with like sam and max hit the road i want to say it was just like instead of verbs being on the screen it was just like
Speaker: you had the cursor itself, you could just right click the cursor into being like look or touch or taste or whatever.
Speaker: Taste, yeah.
Speaker: The general senses, yeah.
Speaker: The general senses.
Speaker: Yeah, so that was, and there was just a little box in the corner for your inventory.
Speaker: This had a lot more, this interface had a lot more going on with it.
Speaker: But yeah, so that's Gabriel Knight's Sins of the Father.
Speaker: I mean, as far as I know from what I've read of the book so far, the plot of the book is the plot of the game.
Speaker: So we really don't need to differentiate right now.
Speaker: But Phil, if you can tell us a little bit about Jane Jensen, the author.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, Jane Jensen, as you just pointed out, she is a game writer.
Speaker: She worked with Sierra Online for a while.
Speaker: She wrote for Police Quest 3.
Speaker: She wrote for Eco Quest, and she actually co-designed King's Quest 3.
Speaker: six air today gone tomorrow, which is appropriate because that one stars the son of Graham who was in the King's quest book.
Speaker: We most recently finished.
Speaker: And for the record, I didn't think about the fact that I was putting two Sierra online game books so close together.
Speaker: It only occurred to me as I was reading this, I was like, Oh, we just did this.
Speaker: We just did a Sierra online game book novelization.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so she wrote, she created Gabriel Knight.
Speaker: Like she created the character.
Speaker: This was her first like solo, this is my baby kind of thing.
Speaker: And she made Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Fathers, The Beast Within, a Gabriel Knight mystery, which from what I've seen is more of an interactive movie.
Speaker: And Gabriel Knight 3, Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.
Speaker: And they are- Ooh, that's two bloods for the price of one.
Speaker: Two bloods.
Speaker: Two different bloods.
Speaker: She is nothing if not frugal.
Speaker: And it's pretty terrific.
Speaker: And the sequels were FMV games, or one of them was.
Speaker: Oh my God, I just clicked on the Beast Within.
Speaker: I've seen that cover art.
Speaker: Oh, I bet you have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the, that's the thing.
Speaker: Gabriel Knight, I'm sure a lot of people who are joining us, not just because our audience tends to skew a little younger than we do, but a lot of people are going, Gabriel Knight, what the fuck is Gabriel Knight?
Speaker: And that's because it is kind of this clunky,
Speaker: critical darling.
Speaker: It's very well loved amongst the really hard adventure people and the critics and they all loved it even though the game itself, I don't think they did particularly well compared to any to other Sierra online games anyway.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: In 1993, the first Gabriel Knight came out and in 1997, she wrote this novelization or she published it anyway.
Speaker: And as we're going to find out, she... Now, I played the first Gabriel Knight, but that was years ago.
Speaker: But just reading through this, Kevin pointed out to me when we were offline here that it feels like a walkthrough of the game.
Speaker: And it is.
Speaker: And my guess is that they were thinking, well, it's four years later, no one's going to care if we spoil certain ass, but it feels, and we're going to get into it, but this is very clearly, I think this is her first book, like her first book book.
Speaker: And this is clearly her,
Speaker: like getting her footing with that stuff and using, falling back on this outline, the story she'd already written.
Speaker: She did get better though.
Speaker: I mean, her fourth book was a book called Dante's Equation, which came out in 2003 and actually was nominated for a Philip K. Dick award.
Speaker: So she definitely found her footing over time, but
Speaker: Since then, she has mostly been dedicated to games.
Speaker: She wrote for a lot of casual games, casual stuff.
Speaker: She worked for Zynga.
Speaker: She did some adventure game stuff, Grey Matter.
Speaker: She was a story consultant for this game called Cognition, an Erica Reed thriller.
Speaker: So you can see she's got a type.
Speaker: She's got
Speaker: She's got a game type for these kind of mystery sort of games.
Speaker: And Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Fathers got a 20th anniversary edition that I believe they released on a Kickstarter.
Speaker: And it got fully, the game got fully revoiced and reworked for a lot of different things to the point where, very disappointingly, if you're playing Gabriel Knight on Steam, for example, you're not going to get to hear Tim Curry and you're not going to hear the original canon.
Speaker: Oh, the only version available is the, the remake cast.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: It's, it's a real shame, especially because now don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Tim Curry is the king of ham and he has turned in some sketch ass performances, uh, in the past, but the guy who plays Gabriel Knight in the remake, it's like this drawly new Orleans cartoon character.
Speaker: Uh, and it's hard.
Speaker: It's very hard to listen to.
Speaker: That's, that's, yeah.
Speaker: So, cause I was just looking into that a little bit as you were talking, there's a, cause Jane Jensen founded a studio called Pinkerton road studio much later on.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, based in Mount joy, um, Pennsylvania.
Speaker: And she is a, she is from your side of Pennsylvania.
Speaker: Yes, indeed.
Speaker: And, uh, so they created a game called Mobius empire rising, uh,
Speaker: which there's not a whole lot as the graphic adventure and the remake of Sins of the Father.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: Oh, okay, sorry.
Speaker: Nevermind.
Speaker: I saw Grey Matter and I thought Grey Matter, Grey Matter was a studio that made first person shooters.
Speaker: In this instance, it was just referring to a game called Grey Matter that Gene Jensen made.
Speaker: Yes, that's different.
Speaker: That's different.
Speaker: Oh, and another little point that's fun.
Speaker: You also pointed out, Kevin, that this cover is just a clusterfuck.
Speaker: It is awful.
Speaker: There's a lot going on in here.
Speaker: We don't know.
Speaker: We've got two different art styles, and this is from the FMV sequel game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: When I looked at it, so here's the thing.
Speaker: I know nothing about Gabriel Knight going into this, right?
Speaker: So when I picked it up and I saw CD-ROM game and I saw this picture, I assumed that the first one was an FMV game, but it's not.
Speaker: It's a standard point and click, and...
Speaker: Honestly, all of them probably should have been because I just looked at screenshots of the FMV ones and they look atrocious.
Speaker: It's like phantasmagoria levels of like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the third one was 3D.
Speaker: So all three of them have a completely different format.
Speaker: And the only one that's aged well is the first one.
Speaker: If you look at the screen caps of Sins of the Fathers,
Speaker: It's pretty good.
Speaker: Like it's good artwork.
Speaker: It's good classic 2D adventure Sierra style artwork.
Speaker: The sound design's pretty great too.
Speaker: It's got those classic kind of midi, like just kind of muddy sounding textures and stuff.
Speaker: It hits all of the little synapses in my brain.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: But it's a tough game to come back to.
Speaker: I tried playing a little bit more of it just to get back into that zone.
Speaker: And it is, man, these games talked a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and it isn't just a Gabriel Knight problem.
Speaker: And it's not even these games problem, it's a me problem because I have moved on from the era of games that were basically interactive books.
Speaker: And now I play games that have like a five second cut scene and I get back on with fighting zombies.
Speaker: And so my attention span shot to shit.
Speaker: I hear you.
Speaker: I remember a few years ago, you and I were working on a project and we played one of those.
Speaker: It was like an adaptation of an HP Lovecraft game.
Speaker: Do you remember which one that was?
Speaker: It was for the...
Speaker: Oh, oh, yeah.
Speaker: It was one of the old, it was, hold on, I know which one it was.
Speaker: But yeah, that game.
Speaker: That was a classic.
Speaker: That game talked at me so much and I didn't want it to.
Speaker: I wanted it to stop talking so much, but it kept talking.
Speaker: It was Shadow of the Comet.
Speaker: Shadow of the Comet.
Speaker: That's what we played.
Speaker: Please stop talking to me, game.
Speaker: a classic, uh, it was developed by chaosium who still has, or chaosium, I don't know how you say it, uh, who still has the rights to making call of Cthulhu and all that shit.
Speaker: Um, it's, it's, it's like supposed to be like the gold standard for like HP Lovecraft adaptations and oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
Speaker: I mean, that was fine, but, you know.
Speaker: It was all right.
Speaker: But, yeah.
Speaker: So that's kind of where we're at to start it.
Speaker: So let's put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
Speaker: And, hey, there's plenty of marshy land around where this book is.
Speaker: There is so much marshy.
Speaker: book is set because we're going down to New Orleans.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: It's hot and it's sweaty and everybody's down there.
Speaker: It's hot and sweaty and hot.
Speaker: Two different and hot.
Speaker: Two different hots there.
Speaker: So we're starting off with chapter one.
Speaker: We're only covering three chapters, but they're big, big beefy boy chapters.
Speaker: Beefy boy chapters.
Speaker: No, they're these are chapters that sit on the porch and they they're just looking for the mint juleps and
Speaker: They got an oversized handkerchief with which to swab their fat folds.
Speaker: Just to dab the forehead.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: It's a chapter one.
Speaker: We're scene one.
Speaker: I just I decided to, like, break my notes out into scenes because that's smart.
Speaker: God, there's so many.
Speaker: We start out in Gabriel's bedroom and the book starts off right.
Speaker: If it wanted to get me on its side, it shouldn't have started with a dream sequence.
Speaker: But it did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it did.
Speaker: And I was not happy about it.
Speaker: So basically Gabriel's having a dream about some sort of a ritual and there's a woman there and she's hot and then she turns into a leopard.
Speaker: And there's also a man in black there.
Speaker: There's lots of symbols and stuff that will probably reappear later or not.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But then Gabriel sees an image of his own death by hanging.
Speaker: And then there's a lightning bolt that would make the men of Con Edison happy, which is a weird reference for Gabriel Knight to be making because he's from New Orleans and Con Edison is the power company that runs New York City.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know what that was all about because I don't think she ever lived in New York City.
Speaker: I don't know where that comes from.
Speaker: It's just because, like, I was like, what's a power company that everyone will know?
Speaker: Like, Con Edison?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: Maybe she was watching Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Maybe she's watching Ghostbusters 2, where they're... Actually, Con Edison does appear in both Ghostbusters.
Speaker: They pose as Con Edison guys in Ghostbusters 2 when they're drilling into the street.
Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about.
Speaker: I think this came from the sky.
Speaker: Oh man, we are already referencing other material.
Speaker: We're off.
Speaker: We're off and running.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: He wakes up and he's, we're at St.
Speaker: George's books, which is, that's where he lives too, right?
Speaker: That's his house as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He lives above it or something like that.
Speaker: I think he lives above it or behind it or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, he's there and he's grumpy.
Speaker: He owns the bookstore, from what we can gather, and it's around 10 a.m.
Speaker: And we're introduced to Grace Nakamura, the bookstore manager who is on the phone speaking with what seems to be a former one-night stand of Gabriel's named Bunny.
Speaker: We get a lot of descriptions of Grace.
Speaker: Pretty much the book says she's hot but doesn't know it.
Speaker: Oh, God, yeah, all but that.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: And this is, let's see.
Speaker: Jane Jensen woman is the author.
Speaker: Managed to write one of the most misogynistic characters.
Speaker: It's one of you characters I've read in a while, which maybe, maybe that, I mean, she is a woman, so she probably understands the misogyny better on a, like a, on a certain level more.
Speaker: Doesn't make it any more fun to read for your character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: It's really heavy handed in some scenes.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Like it's, it's, it is such a difficult thing to make.
Speaker: We all, we all have the, the charming rake character that we adore your, you know, your doc holidays, your gambits, your, you know, all these, all these things.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And, and they're anti heroes in a way, but they're so damn charming and they mean well, and that is a tough tight rope to walk.
Speaker: And I never played any of the other games, but based on this first impression, I, the first time around didn't work out.
Speaker: That's just a fact.
Speaker: He's not, he's not, he's not the, the, the, yeah, right.
Speaker: He's not the doc holiday or the gambit, the, the fun Southern charm misogynist.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which, I mean, it's still bad, but there's a charm.
Speaker: There's an intent of charm there, and there's nothing here with this guy.
Speaker: When someone tells you they like that character, you go, yeah, I get it.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not so much with this.
Speaker: It confounds me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To quote another New Orleans detective.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: See, now that, now that, let's take, let's turn Sins of the Father into a Knives Out mystery.
Speaker: Into a Benoit Blanc mystery and we'll... Oh, baby.
Speaker: I'm in.
Speaker: And you replace the hot piece of ass who works for him rolling her eyes at him with Hugh Grant.
Speaker: Yeah, with Hugh Grant.
Speaker: I'm in.
Speaker: Baking a cake or something.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Oh, fuck.
Speaker: I'm in.
Speaker: I'm so in.
Speaker: I'm in.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Let's rewrite this.
Speaker: Put on your fez and sit in the bath.
Speaker: So Grace has been doing research for Gabriel.
Speaker: By the way, this happens a lot.
Speaker: And you start to wonder what Gabriel actually does, because it seems like it seems like Grace magically does all his work for him in between days.
Speaker: Anyway, and she mentions, by the way, that she hasn't she hasn't been paid in like a month.
Speaker: She hasn't been paid in a month.
Speaker: She's a New Yorker who, and maybe that's where he got the Con Edison reference from, who is, he talks, he refers to her as an Easterner, which is weird.
Speaker: It's not, that's not, that's not a, that's not a,
Speaker: North, we're going to be going for a while with this book because there's so many weird goddamn things about the way it's written.
Speaker: Easterner, okay.
Speaker: Northeasterner would be like a specific, like you can paint an image with Northeasterner, right?
Speaker: With, you get it like a guy from Philly and New York, Boston, you know, the go, go, go, like let's take care of business attitude.
Speaker: If you said Grace was from the Northeast, you're like,
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: And we're like, an Easterner?
Speaker: We're like, cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Easterner, you're like, all right.
Speaker: So anywhere from...
Speaker: Florida to Maine, Florida to Maine.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Like that's, I, I have a theory on this one.
Speaker: I think because as, as you know, this is written by a Pennsylvania Yankee and I think she wanted to say Yankee.
Speaker: I think she wanted to call me and somebody said, no, Oh, that's a little, can we, can we come up with something?
Speaker: else for him to call them like uh well we can call him a northerner like so how about easterner like because that's because you know we don't want to make allusions to the civil war you know
Speaker: It's like, I mean, yes, yes, Louisiana is farther afield from the east, but I, yeah, anyway.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: We have to choose our battles with this one, or this is going to be a four-hour episode.
Speaker: Around like page seven.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is not a short book, by the way.
Speaker: Only 147 more to go.
Speaker: So Grace has been doing research for him on the voodoo murders, which are a thing that's been happening around town, and gives him two locations to check out that reference voodoo.
Speaker: That there's only two locations in New Orleans fucking baffled me for like 20 pages.
Speaker: But anyway, she mentions, also mentions,
Speaker: That a man named Wolfgang Ritter has been calling and is claiming that he is a relative.
Speaker: Grace also mentions that Detective Mosley called and has some photos for him to look at.
Speaker: So that's his to-do list for the day.
Speaker: By the way, he's a writer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Gabriel Knight is not a cop.
Speaker: He's a writer.
Speaker: He's a writer.
Speaker: And not a very good one, apparently.
Speaker: Like, he's not a successful one anyway.
Speaker: He calls himself a bad writer and he's also unsuccessful.
Speaker: Well, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: He does make a point of saying that.
Speaker: So we have a little scene change right over to the police station.
Speaker: Gabriel goes to the police station, top of his to-do list, and he has a brief war words with Officer Frick.
Speaker: Mosley isn't there because there was another murder.
Speaker: And in the envelope that Mosley left him is a photo of one of the voodoo murder crime scenes.
Speaker: And also a picture of Mosley as a kid for some reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not explained.
Speaker: Not explained.
Speaker: Not explained.
Speaker: We move along to Jackson Square.
Speaker: He's in Jackson Square.
Speaker: Gabriel goes to Jackson Square to figure out his next move.
Speaker: There's just a lot of stuff going on, and he describes all of it.
Speaker: There's a brass band playing some music.
Speaker: There's people.
Speaker: There's a cop nearby on a motorbike, and Gabriel can overhear radio chatter on the cop's radio about the location of the murder, but he can't quite make it out.
Speaker: And the cop is very protective of his radio as he would be.
Speaker: So Gabriel does the point and click adventure solving puzzle hat on.
Speaker: He sees a mime.
Speaker: And what does he do?
Speaker: He's like, well, what if I act silly?
Speaker: And that'll get the mime's attention.
Speaker: So he starts like marching around all macho in Jackson Square.
Speaker: And the mime starts walking around after him and marching around.
Speaker: So he walks back and around Jackson Square and he walks too close to the cop with the mime.
Speaker: And the cop's like trying to get the mime to get back up because he doesn't like the mime.
Speaker: While he's dealing with the mime,
Speaker: Gabriel Knight gets to the bike, calls dispatch for the location of the murder, and they give it to him.
Speaker: And then the cop's like, hey, stop touching that.
Speaker: And Gabriel Knight's like, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.
Speaker: You know, he's good works away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is the most adventure game.
Speaker: This is where it starts, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: This is where it begins.
Speaker: This is our first instance of a like, okay, you just narrated an adventure game sequence because it's complete with moon logic of like, where did you come up with that fucking idea?
Speaker: And it ends in much, like you can see it playing in your head.
Speaker: It's so clear.
Speaker: It's a great slash standard bit of adventure gamery, but it is a weird thing to put in your novel.
Speaker: It's truly strange because it requires people to act like human beings do not act.
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: Requires a lot of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Gabriel goes to Lake Ponchartrain.
Speaker: I was saying that right?
Speaker: Lake Ponchartrain?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: Oh, I have no idea.
Speaker: I'm assuming that's right.
Speaker: Any people from New Orleans, feel free to correct me.
Speaker: So night arrives, Gabriel Knight arrives, and he startles Mosley.
Speaker: And he's like, hey, can I see the body?
Speaker: And Mosley's like, ah, Gabriel.
Speaker: Fine, I'll show you the body.
Speaker: Yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah, fine, whatever.
Speaker: And it's definitely the same same MO as the other voodoo murders.
Speaker: And just to point out at this point, it's like there's several characters who have said, like, it's not real voodoo.
Speaker: Yes, they are very quick to point that out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Despite what the media, the newspapers are calling it, any other characters like, but it's not real voodoo.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they are interrupted by Malia Getty, her limo, and she lives nearby.
Speaker: She's like, hey, what's going on here?
Speaker: And they're like, hey, it's a murder.
Speaker: And then Gabriel Knight sees her.
Speaker: And you know that scene from Wayne's World when Wayne sees Tia Carrera's character for the first time?
Speaker: Dream weaver.
Speaker: She's a babe.
Speaker: Swing.
Speaker: That's exactly what.
Speaker: No, you couldn't have put it better, my friend.
Speaker: That is exactly what happens.
Speaker: It is so weird.
Speaker: And that's the only motivation for every step that I am going to say that Gabriel takes regarding this character for this episode and probably the rest of the book, I'm assuming, is just based on him seeing her once in the back of a limousine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And... Why don't you just go talk to her?
Speaker: And I'll tell you what, and the narrative that surrounds it, it skips the whole for squared sight.
Speaker: I never saw true beauty for this night.
Speaker: Like he just it's just straight up like, fuck.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So, yeah, after the cops leave, Gabriel hangs around the crime scene a little bit more.
Speaker: And he's he takes out his magnifying glass that he carries with him.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Several times.
Speaker: He has his magnifying glass and it's a thing that he uses.
Speaker: And he finds a... Listen, he's not an investigator of any shape or form.
Speaker: Pride or this, he's never done this.
Speaker: He's never investigated a day in his life.
Speaker: He's here to research a book.
Speaker: That's his whole thing.
Speaker: He's researching a book.
Speaker: Anyway, he finds a scale nearby, but he's not sure if it's a fish or a snake scale.
Speaker: Let's table that.
Speaker: He also notices a pattern that looked like it had been smudged away around the area that the body was laying.
Speaker: Oh, well, moving on.
Speaker: He goes to his grandmother's house.
Speaker: Ha, ha, ha!
Speaker: He goes to his grandmother's house because he needs to help her clear out her attic.
Speaker: We get some background in Knight family curse, like his parents died, his grandfather died young, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: And while sorting through the stuff, Gabriel finds a book of poetry by someone named Heinz Ritter, and he takes it.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Anybody take German one?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Able to put that last name together?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He also sees some of his father's artwork and he's like, oh, damn, my dad was a good artist.
Speaker: So back at St.
Speaker: George's Bookshop, Gabe asks Grace for any information she can find on Malia Getty, because clearly Grace is the only one who knows how to look in a phone book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: This is... Gabriel Knight is incompetent on a level that is like... First off, why are they letting him around crime scenes anyway?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Second off, if there was a civilian you were going to let around crime scenes, it would not be this guy.
Speaker: For so many reasons.
Speaker: So many reasons.
Speaker: Beyond the fact that he tried to fuck the corpse at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean... Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter two.
Speaker: That was the shortest chapter.
Speaker: Yes, it was.
Speaker: So we're back at St.
Speaker: George's Bookshop.
Speaker: We never left.
Speaker: Gabe has the same dream again.
Speaker: I'm just going to call him Gabe from now on.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Just because I feel like he would hate it.
Speaker: He probably would.
Speaker: Grace gives Gabe the info on Malia Getty and tells him that she's rich and probably not someone that he should interact with ever.
Speaker: Grace warns him.
Speaker: She's like, don't try it.
Speaker: And he's like, I'm going to try it.
Speaker: And what does he do?
Speaker: She drives straight over to her house.
Speaker: And he just goes to her house and he knocks on the door and the butler is like,
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Who are you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's like written as such a dick about it.
Speaker: And it's like, no, he's doing a good job.
Speaker: He's keeping this strange random person out of his... A strange random person who knocked on the door of his boss's house.
Speaker: He's, you know...
Speaker: Anyway, Gabriel goes to the police station to talk to Mosley.
Speaker: And we find out that the reason why Mosley is helping Gabe is that he's promised to write the voodoo murders book with Mosley as the main character in exchange for information.
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: Well, and we like it gets it gets funnier later as to with that.
Speaker: Mosley's theory is that the murders have something to do with the mafia and that the fake voodoo at the scene is a red herring, which feels like I feel to me, it feels like if the if this is not that.
Speaker: I'm disappointed because I feel like it should be, I feel like it should be like this huge buildup to something supernatural.
Speaker: And then we find out that the detective who does his fucking job, it was actually right.
Speaker: And be like, no, it was just these, these mafia hits.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I think in a just and sane world, that's where this would go.
Speaker: It would be, but instead we live in that episode of the Simpsons,
Speaker: where Homer drives the one guy who's competent at his job completely insane.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Frank Grimes.
Speaker: Grimy Grimes.
Speaker: Yes, Frank Grimey Grimes.
Speaker: That's the world we're living in with Gabriel Grimes.
Speaker: Gabriel is Homer, and everybody else is Frank Grimes.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: Yeah, everyone just trying to do their best, and somehow he just gets to...
Speaker: So Gabe then asks Mosley about the patterns around the crime scene that he noticed earlier.
Speaker: Can I see some photos?
Speaker: Mosley's like, I don't know if it's a pattern, but you can look at the other photos.
Speaker: And go talk to Officer Franks, who is also hot.
Speaker: Yes, that's important to remember.
Speaker: Important to remember to take a look at them.
Speaker: So he tries to photocopy the pictures, but Frank stops him.
Speaker: So he point and click at his adventures his way to the photocopier.
Speaker: by noticing that Franks has a camera, convincing Mosley to take author and subject photos for the book, and then stepping out while he and Franks get set up for the photo and photocopying the crime scene photos.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I got to take a drink after that.
Speaker: This is...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is just more of like, it's kind of funny because when you're playing an adventure game and you're doing this shit, you'd feel proud of yourself for like silly adventure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You'd feel proud of yourself for like figuring it out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But when you're reading it in a novel, you're like, this isn't good.
Speaker: This is not okay.
Speaker: Everything about this is really weird and fucked.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's all fucked up.
Speaker: So let's see.
Speaker: Next, he goes to the Historical Museum of Voodoo.
Speaker: And so Gabe visits the museum and he just kind of white boys his way through an interaction with Dr. John, who is the museum's curator.
Speaker: Sure does.
Speaker: The entire scene is uncomfortable, which I assume is the point.
Speaker: But Dr. John tells him a lot about the history of voodoo originating in the slave trade, the islands in New Orleans.
Speaker: And then Gabe manages to piss off Dr. John by just thrusting a crime scene photo on his face.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Dr. John's like, what the, what are you doing?
Speaker: Get away from me.
Speaker: Take that shit away.
Speaker: Get, get out of here.
Speaker: That has nothing to do with voodoo.
Speaker: Please leave.
Speaker: So Gabe is great.
Speaker: St.
Speaker: Louis Cemetery number one.
Speaker: So Dr. John talked a lot about Marie Laveau in his his little speech.
Speaker: So Gabe goes to visit the grave of Marie Laveau, the former voodoo queen of New Orleans, and he copies down some symbols that he finds on her grave.
Speaker: which is probably a thing in the game.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, Marie Laveau, I will say, as much as... Jane Jensen tries very hard to make it clear, like, we're not blaming this on voodoo.
Speaker: Even in 1993, they're making a point of, like, this is not voodoo.
Speaker: Voodoo didn't do this.
Speaker: We know that this is an actual cultural thing that is important to people, and for that reason...
Speaker: the blocks of history that he gets about voodoo at the voodoo museum, including Marie Laveau and stuff like that is all pretty accurate from what I, from my brief research.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But then we go to the graveyard and like, oh, but there are ancient runes scrolled on her.
Speaker: Oh, but maybe it's...
Speaker: Maybe it's voodoo.
Speaker: That's the thing that makes me a little bit uncomfortable with the book.
Speaker: It's like, it's not voodoo, but maybe it is.
Speaker: But we're still going to use the weird air of white people reacting to voodoo.
Speaker: We're going to weaponize that all the same.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: So he also sees the Getty tomb and he realizes that he is a low class schmuck who should not have anything to do with Malia Getty, but he's going to try anyway, you know, just by looking at her family tomb.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the other address, these are the only two locations in all of New Orleans that has anything to do with voodoo, by the way.
Speaker: The other address that he goes to is Dixieland Drugstore.
Speaker: And he goes to the drugstore and begins pestering the owner, Mr. Walker, about voodoo.
Speaker: And Mr. Walker's like, I don't know anything.
Speaker: And all the stuff that he sells that seems voodoo related are just curiosities.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He, again, Gabe thrusts the crime scene photo into a man's face without warning.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: again, Walker is shocked by it and says, mutters the words, and then denies saying it.
Speaker: And then as he's leaving, as Gabe is leaving, a little old lady named Madame Casano comes in and buys some of the curiosities.
Speaker: And Gabe's like, hmm, I should find out more information about this random old woman.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: Gabe then leaves and drives around furiously and he just considers doing crime and assaulting the two men that he just talked to.
Speaker: What the fuck was was this scene?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: He's like, he's like, oh, I want to beat these men and be like, maybe I should kick these guys asses.
Speaker: Like, where is this coming from?
Speaker: What are you doing, Gabe?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Is this our, is this our hero or not?
Speaker: Like, like it's, it's, it just, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Outside of his horniness, nothing about him is consistent.
Speaker: Nothing, nothing is consistent.
Speaker: So Gabe goes back to Jackson square and he lays in the grass and he lets his adrenaline pump them up.
Speaker: And he's like, ah, this is why grace is always on the move.
Speaker: She's, she's addicted to this adrenaline stuff.
Speaker: I'm really, I don't know if that's how it works, Gabe.
Speaker: Um, Gabe.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So there's an architecture student named Max nearby, and he's chasing a drawing of his that has been caught in the wind.
Speaker: And Gabe tries catching it for him, but it gets stuck behind a fence that they can't reach.
Speaker: So Gabe then bribes a hot dog vendor with a coupon for stuff at the bookstore that
Speaker: in return for two hot dogs, and then gives one of the hot dogs to a flexible boy who's doing tricks on the lawn.
Speaker: And then the flexible boy goes through the fence and gets the drawing of Max's and gives it to Gabe.
Speaker: And then Gabe gives the drawing to Max.
Speaker: And then Max agrees to look at the crime scene photos and recreate the
Speaker: recreate the images that have been smudged because like, just try to reconstruct them.
Speaker: That's the ones that are around the crime scene.
Speaker: And Max is like, well, now that I don't have to redo my thing, I have time this evening.
Speaker: So I'll knock it out tonight.
Speaker: And which is once again, a super adventure point and click kind of thing.
Speaker: Like you can hear their voices saying it.
Speaker: But in a book.
Speaker: You can hear it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he goes, Gabe goes back to the police station and first he turns the air conditioning off.
Speaker: I don't understand why.
Speaker: I mean, it helps him get what he wants, but there's no explanation as to why he knows to turn the air conditioning off.
Speaker: It's like he's just solving a puzzle
Speaker: that didn't need to be solved yet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's solving, he's, he's getting ahead of the puzzle.
Speaker: Like if you're playing one of these games with a walkthrough guide and it's like, Hey, just, just before you even, before you even do anything, go ahead.
Speaker: And yeah, like that's pretty much what is novelized here.
Speaker: It's ridiculous.
Speaker: So he then talks to Mosley, who mentions that they found evidence of leopard fibers at the crime scene.
Speaker: You know, like leopard?
Speaker: Like the woman in the dream?
Speaker: It starts getting hot in the office.
Speaker: Mosley goes to get Knight a cup of water.
Speaker: And while Mosley is doing that, Gabe steals his badge, which...
Speaker: Oh, you could go to fucking prison for that so fast.
Speaker: That is, that's a, there's a lot there.
Speaker: So he takes the badge and you, is this, is this being used to like get questions from like Mr. Walker or Dr. John, you know, the threat of police brutality?
Speaker: No, it's the threat of stalking by using the badge to get into Malia's house because that's where we're back, baby.
Speaker: We're back at Malia's house.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You remember how much she said you loved me?
Speaker: Like, oh boy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He went to Malia's house and he goes to the butler and he's like, ha ha, I have a badge now.
Speaker: Butler and the butler's like, I guess I have no other option than to ask if she wants to talk to you.
Speaker: And he's like, that's right.
Speaker: So you got damn right.
Speaker: Butler.
Speaker: You got damn right.
Speaker: Butler.
Speaker: So he, he goes into the library.
Speaker: She meets, she meets him in the library and,
Speaker: He begins asking her questions under the cover of the case.
Speaker: And it's like she sees right through him because he's like, what do you know about the case?
Speaker: And she's like, nothing.
Speaker: What does your husband know about the case then?
Speaker: I'm not married.
Speaker: Oh, very interesting.
Speaker: Do you want to get dinner later?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When we talk about the case, of course.
Speaker: She sees through him and she considers getting him arrested, but then lets him like...
Speaker: Just get out of there.
Speaker: And we're back.
Speaker: It's the end of another day.
Speaker: And back at the bookstore, Grace chides Gabe for giving the hot dog guy a coupon because she was the one who had to deal with it when they didn't have the books that the hot dog guy wanted.
Speaker: And then Gabe's like, oh, I'm sorry, Grace.
Speaker: Can you find me some information on Madame Casino?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Grace, why are you still here?
Speaker: I'm pretty sure that somebody, you could go literally anywhere with your.
Speaker: Yeah, this.
Speaker: You deserve better than this, Grace.
Speaker: You deserve better than this.
Speaker: Grace.
Speaker: Chapter three.
Speaker: We're still at St.
Speaker: George's Books.
Speaker: Wolfgang Ritter, basically Gabe wakes up and Wolfgang Ritter has called again.
Speaker: Ritter, I wonder, have we heard that name before?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Ritter.
Speaker: Ritter, Ritter.
Speaker: Also Mosley called, we also find out that the book that Gabe was writing isn't even a true crime novel and wasn't about Mosley.
Speaker: And she says, does Mosley know that he's a schmuck for believing you yet?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because the book is about an orthodontist who gets caught up in the voodoo murders.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, yeah, Gabe, you are a fucking terrible author.
Speaker: You are awful.
Speaker: You are awful.
Speaker: You are just the worst.
Speaker: Grace gives Gabe multiple listings from multiple casinos.
Speaker: So Gabe doesn't do anything with that right away.
Speaker: He goes to the police station because Mosley called.
Speaker: And Mosley's interrogating some tweaker, a 20-year-old tweaker named Crash, who was afraid to talk about anything related to the murders.
Speaker: Mosley puts him in lockup for the small amount of pot that he had on him.
Speaker: And then Mosley yells at Gabe for stealing his badge.
Speaker: Real quick.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Probably the most accurate part of this book.
Speaker: Like that's that's that's some seriously fine writing of police procedure like police overreach.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, beautiful.
Speaker: Beautifully done.
Speaker: I don't know if it was researched or not, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, then Mosley yells at Gabe for stealing his badge and that Mosley could have gotten fired for that.
Speaker: And then who would he get information from?
Speaker: And Gabe's like, okay.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, Mosley will be fine in a few days.
Speaker: And he leaves and he's like,
Speaker: Gabe just kind of goes through his life and fucks over people and is like hoping that he is going to be forgiven soon.
Speaker: He's the worst.
Speaker: Just the worst.
Speaker: Absolutely the worst.
Speaker: He's back at Jackson Square, which is where he's meeting Max.
Speaker: And Max gives Gabe the recreation of the crime scene pattern that he could figure out.
Speaker: And Max is also like, oh, this is giving me the creeps working on it.
Speaker: You told me that was in Haiti, right?
Speaker: And Gabe's like, yep, this happened in Haiti.
Speaker: Sure did.
Speaker: And then probably the most unhinged scene of the entire book, which is saying a lot.
Speaker: Gabe's then sees a very hot fortune teller with a snake.
Speaker: He says he can't afford to get his fortune read.
Speaker: So instead she starts belly dancing and catches the attention of all the guys in the park.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: This is what's happening in the book.
Speaker: She puts on a fake Hungarian accent and then during the dance her veil falls off.
Speaker: Gabe notices a scale on it and using that scale is able to confirm that the scale that he found at the other crime scene was indeed a snake scale.
Speaker: And he gives it back to the fortune teller.
Speaker: And the fortune teller is like, well, because you gave me my veil back, I'll give you a free fortune reading.
Speaker: And then she absolutely loses her mind and starts screaming about death and stuff.
Speaker: And so that happens.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: That was the most.
Speaker: It's just the most unhinged.
Speaker: There is a lot of description about how hot this fortune teller is in this scene.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In Norton and Mouth.
Speaker: She's in it for like five pages.
Speaker: It is a long scene.
Speaker: And God, the entire sequence is she breasted boobily around the square.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I, I, I, I do know that Jane Jensen, um, wrote most recently, I think one of her most recent novels was actually male on male erotica.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So there might be something to this.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It just takes all kinds, I guess.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: I'm not judging that at all.
Speaker: I'm just.
Speaker: Oh, no, not that.
Speaker: But like.
Speaker: I'm just saying it's funny in this specific context.
Speaker: She might.
Speaker: She just might have like a certain mentality for for dudes being bros that maybe that maybe we somehow lack.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Gabe goes back to the bookstore and begins calling the numbers that Grace gave him.
Speaker: And he finds the one for the old woman, but doesn't get the address out of her.
Speaker: But knowing that she has a dog, he cross-references the local dog groomers and calls one of them, pretending to be her nephew, and cons the address out of the dog groomer.
Speaker: And then, after getting the address, he stops to look at the poetry book that he got from his grandmother's house.
Speaker: There's a poem in the first page that stops him.
Speaker: It's in German.
Speaker: He gives the poem to Grace to figure out because she's the only one actually doing anything.
Speaker: She tells him that in symbolic terms, the first two words are dry drachen and it's three dragons.
Speaker: But in symbolism, dragons and snakes basically mean the same thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she's like, well, it's, you know, Dragon Snake.
Speaker: It's the same deal.
Speaker: So Gabe is like, I'm going to go to check something else out.
Speaker: And he's like, there's a lecture over at Tulane that I got to check out on Vudu.
Speaker: So it goes to Tulane University.
Speaker: Oh, not about voodoo, about voodone, which is the origin, like kind of the progenitor of voodoo, so to speak.
Speaker: I don't know enough about the two of them to speak authoritatively on their relationship.
Speaker: I know that there's some sort of relationship between the two of them, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: If I, again, my brief research is accurate and it might not be.
Speaker: I think like voodone is kind of like,
Speaker: larger, broader, more general aspect of the mysticism.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like there's Voodoo and then Voodoo is basically Catholicism plus Voodoo equals Voodoo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's the idea.
Speaker: It's fascinating.
Speaker: I mean, it really is a fascinating topic, like, cause they really do just kind of absorb all of these, these different,
Speaker: Like wherever there is a new religion, they're like, yeah, sure.
Speaker: You're a part of us now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which the Catholic Church has been doing for hundreds of years.
Speaker: So why not other religions?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So that was kind of it was kind of like a merging, so to speak.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he goes and he he there's a lot of information.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: like a historical encyclopedic information, uh, in this scene, uh, Gabe falls asleep, uh, while he's in the lecture.
Speaker: Um, he has a brief dream.
Speaker: Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Our hero.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He wakes up and he goes to the professor's office that was giving the lecture and the professor agrees to... The professor is somehow even more of a jerk than Gabriel Knight.
Speaker: The professor agrees to look at the crime scene photos and is startled by what he sees.
Speaker: From everything he knows, human sacrifice is theoretically possible, but there's acknowledgement and pleading built into the ceremonies to stop it.
Speaker: And then he recites some information from a Haitian ceremony where basically they're like...
Speaker: because it has a lot to do with the LOA and I'm forgetting some of the details so apologies to anyone who may be a practitioner or follower of these beliefs but in the book there is some built in stop gaps for her yeah human sacrifice isn't supposed to happen that's not supposed to happen and basically the professor is like in
Speaker: most protection it's never going to get that far and even in the so-called black voodoo like the dark which has the darker elements they never even get that far and that's supposed to be the the the you know the darker of the three prequel movies you know that's um it's uh the the farthest they get is possibly just like like grave robbing um right yeah
Speaker: So the professor's like, yeah, no, that's not a thing.
Speaker: And so it's another character.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: Here's the thing I start having a little bit of an issue with is like, if you have to protest so much that this is not voodoo,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why even write a goddamn like why write the story to begin with?
Speaker: You know, it is like because, you know, you're you are.
Speaker: Oh, you are right on that goddamn line of being super insensitive to an entire that's diaspora's belief system.
Speaker: And yet.
Speaker: And that's.
Speaker: That's what I meant earlier where it's like, yeah, it's like we're real quick to be like, no, remember, this isn't voodoo, but isn't it still kind of spooky?
Speaker: Like you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: With this one, you know, you're couching your adventure in the book.
Speaker: you know, white interpretations of this, uh, spiritual, you know, mysticism, uh, uh, while, you know, while waving with the other hand, but, but that's not how it goes.
Speaker: It's like, you're taking, you're exploiting it, but, but trying to cover your ass.
Speaker: Uh, so you protect yourself.
Speaker: I think that was what it was, what I, why it was like, I am feeling there's a vibe here.
Speaker: I'm just not digging with the way this book is handling any of, of these, these issues.
Speaker: Um, like, I don't know.
Speaker: I feel, and I feel like there are protagonists is possibly the worst possible person to be seeing this particular story through, you know?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because he is absolutely exploitative.
Speaker: He is absolutely taking advantage of these people and he absolutely only gives a shit about himself.
Speaker: There's no question about that.
Speaker: So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So Gabriel leaves a photocopy of Max's recreation with the professor, and then he goes off to Madame Cosno's.
Speaker: And before he gets there, he has a weird interaction with some potentially underage girls outside of...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The madams, where basically they call him, one of the girls says to another girl, like, ew, he could be your father.
Speaker: And he's like, father?
Speaker: And from this, he decides to dress up as a priest.
Speaker: So he goes to the local church.
Speaker: That's right, yeah.
Speaker: Steals some vestments and then gets some, puts some, you know,
Speaker: some dapper Dan in his hair to slick it back as a priest would.
Speaker: And then through, oh, but there is a good line in here where he says, he steals the stuff from the church and he's like, you know, with the church's involvement in world history, they owe everybody a favor or two.
Speaker: Good line.
Speaker: It's a good line.
Speaker: That's why he's like, I don't feel bad about stealing shit out of a church.
Speaker: It's a good line.
Speaker: Credit where credit's due.
Speaker: So it's a good one.
Speaker: So he puts on an Irish accent question mark.
Speaker: Yeah, and he's unnecessary.
Speaker: He even seems to not understand fully why he's doing this.
Speaker: He's like, aren't priests Irish?
Speaker: Aren't priests Irish?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And then she answers, like, top of the morning to you, lassie.
Speaker: Yeah, he goes fully fucking jacksepticeye on her.
Speaker: Top of the morning to you, tur-de-tur-de-tur.
Speaker: My god.
Speaker: So, um...
Speaker: She's like, so they're talking, and at one point, she won't talk any further about, you know, the subject.
Speaker: And she says something, and I don't know French at all, but she says something like, c'est pour, c'est qui savant?
Speaker: C'est pour, c'est qui savant, or something like that.
Speaker: Basically, that's for the Creole to know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is like, or as Gabriel puts it, it's like a fuck off.
Speaker: It's for me to know and you to find out.
Speaker: It's for us to know and you to not know.
Speaker: That's for the Creole to know.
Speaker: You're not Creole?
Speaker: Too bad.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: And then Gabriel says, does it have anything to do with Kebri Sancor?
Speaker: And she's like, oh, so you know.
Speaker: And then she starts spilling her guts again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot of description in this scene about how old Madame Casano is and how gross she is.
Speaker: not great he's like ah her breath her breath smells like fish and all that and it's like come on man kevin everyone knows that old people are gross i mean it's it's just it's understood at this point understood at this point and here's the thing uh we're on day three uh of hanging out with gabriel he hasn't even fucking changed his clothes from what i can tell um right
Speaker: Or showered, you know?
Speaker: I mean, I think the guy is... I think he's running on a single hot dog in three days.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: Fucking mess.
Speaker: Which, I knew guys like this during our time in Savannah, which is kind of like New Orleans Junior.
Speaker: Hell, I was this guy in certain points in my life in Savannah.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: So the idea of living on nothing but a single hot dog over the course of a few days, it does hold up, but they're leaving out all the booze that you're also consuming to get your caloric content, which feels inauthentic to me.
Speaker: Because that's the thing.
Speaker: That's the one thing.
Speaker: Gabriel Knight should be hammered or painfully hung over at all times during this book.
Speaker: This guy is written like an alcoholic who is not drunk at all in a single scene yet.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: There were so many opportunities.
Speaker: So she talks about her grandmother and how her grandmother was involved in the voodoo rituals as like a white woman who was just kind of there and involved with it.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: But there's also a real voodoo queen, by the way.
Speaker: Marie Laveau was never the voodoo queen.
Speaker: There's a real one out there.
Speaker: And she's been alive.
Speaker: She's alive to this day.
Speaker: and there's some real dark stuff out there.
Speaker: And this is the whole fucking thing about like, oh, voodoo, like that's fake voodoo.
Speaker: That's the real voodoo.
Speaker: Like 1997.
Speaker: This is when that book was written.
Speaker: The game was 1993.
Speaker: It's all just, you wouldn't even, you couldn't even start this goddamn book today without feeling like, without feeling like a massive piece of shit.
Speaker: It ain't great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she shows him a bracelet that she feels might be evil and can't be let out of her apartment.
Speaker: Gabe says he's going to bless it.
Speaker: He goes to get some holy water, but instead he goes to get some clay.
Speaker: And then he forms, while he's blessing it, she has her eyes closed or whatever and praying.
Speaker: And he, like, makes a mold of the bracelet.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: I don't fucking know.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Why he has the foresight to make a mold of a bracelet.
Speaker: Once again, once again, it's like this.
Speaker: Solving a problem before.
Speaker: That you don't even know you have.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Now we're back at St.
Speaker: George's Bookshop.
Speaker: And Bruno is there.
Speaker: And he is a very gay stereotype man.
Speaker: He's gay.
Speaker: He's a gay and he's a... But Kevin, don't worry about it, though, because they point out he's gay and...
Speaker: Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker: Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Speaker: And then follows up by saying he's like a sassy bitch or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, good, fine.
Speaker: Fine, whatever.
Speaker: Honestly, Gabriel deserves, like, I really wish Bruno comes in there every day giving him two buck shots full of sass.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I hope he makes his life miserable.
Speaker: I hope he obliterates...
Speaker: Gabriel every day.
Speaker: It just makes Gabriel feel like an absolute loser every day.
Speaker: I'm on Bruno's side.
Speaker: Actually, where's the Bruno book?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Where's Bruno's book?
Speaker: I hope Bruno Oscar Wilde's all over his ass on a very regular basis.
Speaker: That's all there is to it.
Speaker: Oh, so Bruno's like, hey, can I buy this painting that your dad made?
Speaker: And it has like a skull with three snakes on it.
Speaker: Bruno's like, it's cool.
Speaker: And he's like, I'll pay 75.
Speaker: And Gabriel's like, 100.
Speaker: And Bruno's like, yeah, sold, all right.
Speaker: And Grace is like, what are you doing?
Speaker: Like, you just sold one of your dad's paintings.
Speaker: Like, it was nothing.
Speaker: And Gabe's like...
Speaker: Shrugs.
Speaker: So Gabe goes back to the drugstore and he buys the gator mask from Willie Walker, which we was mentioned in an earlier scene and I didn't write it down then because I didn't realize that the gator mask was necessary and I still don't know why the gator mask is necessary.
Speaker: But he buys, he spends a hundred dollars on it.
Speaker: This is a man who hasn't paid grace.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He hasn't paid his bookstore manager in a month.
Speaker: And he goes and he spends $100 on a goddamn paper mache and I think gator skin, gator mask or something like that.
Speaker: It's not even like a taxidermied gator.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: He's just employer of the year.
Speaker: Employer of the year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I also forgot to mention Grace gives Gabe the translation of the poem.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So Walker also throws in a bottle of Lady Luck gambling oil to go with it.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So while driving around, Gabe realizes the thing that bothers him about the bracelet that Casno had was that it only had two snakes on it instead of three.
Speaker: That's what bothered him.
Speaker: That's what's bothering him, I guess.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he goes back to his grandmother's house.
Speaker: And back at his grandmother's house, he finds a clock with a dragon on it.
Speaker: And he sets the time.
Speaker: There's like a Resident Evil fucking puzzle in the middle of this book.
Speaker: It totally is, yeah.
Speaker: He sets the time on it to three and it opens a secret compartment inside, which is a picture of three men.
Speaker: And on the back, it's addressed to Heinz Ritter.
Speaker: And he realizes that Heinz Ritter was his grandfather's German name.
Speaker: His grandfather's name was Harrison Knight, but originally he was Heinz Ritter.
Speaker: And then, dun-dun-dun, the Wolfgang Ritter, who's been calling incessantly, must be actually related because...
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: And then he prods his grandmother for any more information on Harrison slash Heinz's German family.
Speaker: And her grandmother's like, I don't know.
Speaker: He wouldn't talk about it.
Speaker: Like, what do you want me to say?
Speaker: What do you want from me?
Speaker: It's like, I did.
Speaker: He didn't want to talk about him.
Speaker: And I didn't pry because you know what?
Speaker: I was loving and respectful wife.
Speaker: Meanwhile, you're a piece of shit grandson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker: It's your excuse.
Speaker: It's your excuse.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: He goes to Malia's house again.
Speaker: Dave goes to Malia's house again and the butler's like, she's not at home.
Speaker: She's at the cemetery.
Speaker: I don't know why the butler even volunteers any information.
Speaker: to him.
Speaker: Why did he say anything?
Speaker: He was like, she's not here.
Speaker: She's at the cemetery.
Speaker: It's like, well, why did you fucking say that?
Speaker: Why didn't you even offer that information?
Speaker: You know where Mr. Knight's heading next?
Speaker: The CBS.
Speaker: No, he's sorry.
Speaker: You got it wrong.
Speaker: He's gone to St.
Speaker: Louis Cemetery number one.
Speaker: So I was right in front of my face.
Speaker: Stupid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's going to, he's going to stalk Malia for a little bit.
Speaker: And you got to have Bob, some light stalking, you know, you got to have hobbies.
Speaker: And then, um, they run, she runs into him.
Speaker: She's like, why don't you leave me alone?
Speaker: And he's like, you can't just say there and say that, that there's nothing between us.
Speaker: And she's like, there is something between us.
Speaker: And I'm like, when, um,
Speaker: When?
Speaker: When.
Speaker: Other than you being like, she's hot.
Speaker: And she's like, I don't have time to pursue it.
Speaker: I'm a busy woman.
Speaker: And he's like, and she's like, and she leaves.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, that's pretty much the scene.
Speaker: So down on his luck, Gabriel finally goes to a bar, which seems like out of, it seems like he should have been there to begin with.
Speaker: It goes to the Bari Frequents, the Napoleon House, and there's two people playing chess nearby, Sam and Marcus, and they've been playing chess against each other for 10 years, and Sam has never won a game.
Speaker: Sam is also a jeweler.
Speaker: So Marcus is a real piece of shit about constantly beating Sam, but Sam's like, I'm fine with it.
Speaker: You know, I, he, I only need to win once and I've ruined his life.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, I agree.
Speaker: You probably, that's actually, that is pretty good advice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm chill.
Speaker: One of these days I'm going to win and he's probably going to leave and never come back.
Speaker: Gabe gives Sam the gambling oil that Mr. Walker threw in with his purchase of $100 gator mask.
Speaker: And so Sam takes the gambling oil and Sam wins the very next game.
Speaker: And the whole place goes nuts and drinks are happening.
Speaker: And, you know, it's Mickey Rourke playing Bukowski.
Speaker: It's my friends.
Speaker: Oh, my friends.
Speaker: Oh, my friends.
Speaker: Oh, my friends.
Speaker: Oh, my friends.
Speaker: Oh, my friends.
Speaker: That's the thing about Gabe.
Speaker: Normally with a writer character, you can kind of pick up on what the guy's influences are.
Speaker: And I was like, has Gabe ever read a book in his life?
Speaker: I'm not sure he has.
Speaker: I think he might think, I think he thinks he invented writing.
Speaker: It's like, no one's ever done this before.
Speaker: Why would I research it?
Speaker: I own a bookstore and I don't read.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So after the, all my friends die down, he's, Sam's like, ah, what do you, you made my, my life, you're my nights.
Speaker: What do you need from me?
Speaker: And he's like, Gabe's like, funny.
Speaker: I have a mold of a bracelet.
Speaker: I'm not sure why yet.
Speaker: I have a mold of a bracelet.
Speaker: Can you make it into a bracelet for me?
Speaker: And he's like, sure.
Speaker: What do you want?
Speaker: Gold, silver?
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, something that looks like silver, I guess.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, well, then it will be silver.
Speaker: And he's like, OK.
Speaker: Okie doke.
Speaker: Sam is going to, you know, give him a silver bracelet that probably costs a lot more than he deserves to get.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: But once again, it is the most adventure game thing.
Speaker: Most adventure game thing you could do, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're back.
Speaker: We're back to St.
Speaker: George's Bookshop.
Speaker: We're back at the bookshop, baby.
Speaker: Baby.
Speaker: Grace is in a better mood than before and has left him some Chinese food to eat.
Speaker: He also gives her Max's reconstruction of the...
Speaker: the symbols and asks her to look into it.
Speaker: So now it's her and the professor are looking into it.
Speaker: And as Grace is leaving the bookshop, Malia shows up and asks for Gabe and Grace says, he's gone for the night.
Speaker: But then Gabe shows up and pulls her inside and locks the door.
Speaker: And that's the end of chapter three and the end of our section for tonight.
Speaker: And if you're wondering, I am not even going to cliffhanger you guys.
Speaker: Yes, they do bone in the first paragraph of chapter four.
Speaker: Just so you're aware of where this is going.
Speaker: Bonin.
Speaker: Bonin with Gabriel Knight.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: I don't understand the draw, but I haven't understood the draw of a lot of men that I've seen women sleep with.
Speaker: So, but enough about my love life.
Speaker: Didn't I knew that this one was going to be, this is, this is a 400 page book and most of our books max out at about three.
Speaker: Um, I was intrigued enough and this was, this is not one that you hear a lot about to choose it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And it's amazing how little is done in such a long chunk.
Speaker: This is about 140 pages, almost 150 that we went through.
Speaker: And it's like, it's showing you how the sausage is made in a way that I can't imagine any reader actually giving a shit about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't give a shit.
Speaker: But I have to because it's my job.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it's my job.
Speaker: No, I think I told you this earlier and I stand by it.
Speaker: I think
Speaker: I do think it's valuable that we are reading this so soon after the King's Quest book because they come from the same genre.
Speaker: Hell, they come from the same publisher.
Speaker: But I think this is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum from the King's Quest book.
Speaker: book in the sense that the King's Quest book focused so much on details that did not matter, did not give you any of that flavor of adventure game-ness that you expected.
Speaker: Whereas this sticks to it so closely that the book is bloated and intensely dull.
Speaker: Like, I'm sure it's fun to do these puzzles and stuff.
Speaker: Like you said earlier, it's fun to figure it out and you clap yourself on the back a little bit.
Speaker: to read about it.
Speaker: It's just kind of like, you're just scratching your head half the time.
Speaker: Like why, why is he doing that?
Speaker: Like, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not necessary.
Speaker: It's not needed.
Speaker: It's not needed.
Speaker: Um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I have zero additional thoughts other than howdy stranger.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Uh, let's see.
Speaker: Um, I finished two games.
Speaker: Uh, since we talked to last, I finished the shining force game gear game.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: That was playing.
Speaker: And that was just a wonderful little, I think.
Speaker: Cause I, you know, dusted off my old three DS and I've been playing it while me and the wife have been watching movies and shit.
Speaker: And I think I have to get a steam deck now.
Speaker: I think I've ruined my own life.
Speaker: Like, cause I'm like, Oh, I could just be playing like any number of my steam games just instead of like,
Speaker: these old retro games on my 3DS or something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's what I took from that ancient game.
Speaker: And I beat Soma.
Speaker: Were you playing it because of Cat's video on it?
Speaker: I played it afterwards.
Speaker: It was one of those games, again, it was on my list of games I ought to play.
Speaker: I like frictional games.
Speaker: I really enjoyed Amnesia.
Speaker: I think this is their masterpiece.
Speaker: I think it's the best game they ever...
Speaker: released.
Speaker: It's so I don't give a shit about the old Philip K. Dick.
Speaker: What is a man?
Speaker: What is a human?
Speaker: What does it mean to be?
Speaker: It's not that it's a bad subject.
Speaker: It's just been so done into the ground that there's very rarely a moment that I'm interested.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: This managed to rejuvenate that.
Speaker: It is a very interesting and unique and bleak take on it.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Super fun.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: And then finally, thanks to your generous ass, I started playing Resident Evil 4.
Speaker: Stranger.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: And I'm super glad I'm playing it too because we were talking about this in an episode earlier where I said, I just played this game for the first time last year.
Speaker: Do you think, is it worth it to play this remake?
Speaker: It's totally worth it because...
Speaker: Now, I understand that for a lot of people who played this back when it was relatively new and stuff, it's like a classic and there are certain changes that maybe they wouldn't want to have messed with.
Speaker: But I have found that all of the changes so far, I'm only into like four or five chapters, are good for me because one of the things that kept taking me out of the original, for example, were the controls.
Speaker: I hated the controls.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it really messes with, I never quite got the hang of them.
Speaker: And now that they're kind of unifying all the controls with these remasters, I'm able to appreciate it more.
Speaker: And now the aesthetic, they're clearly trying to take the aesthetic in the more of the Village Resident Evil 7.
Speaker: Yeah, it kind of fits into the remakes and the new games, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't have quite the camp of the original, but I don't mind that all that much.
Speaker: I'm not a huge camp guy.
Speaker: So but yeah, that's it's been a very good week for me for video games.
Speaker: Very good stuff.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: The only thing I've been playing is Resident Evil 4.
Speaker: And I've already, so I've beaten it once.
Speaker: And I'm doing my second playthrough right now.
Speaker: I'm saving up to buy the infinite rocket launcher, which-
Speaker: That's a Resident Evil staple.
Speaker: That is a Resident Evil staple right there.
Speaker: Just get yourself an infinite rocket launcher.
Speaker: I also need to... I haven't looked into it yet.
Speaker: I know... I think the Chicago typewriter is in the game.
Speaker: And I haven't looked up the unlock conditions for it quite yet.
Speaker: But I can't wait to get my hands on the Chicago typewriter and throw Leon in the 1930s gangster outfit and just, you know...
Speaker: blow up some, shoot some Ganados, you know.
Speaker: That's where the camp went.
Speaker: Like, that's where the camp in Resident Evil, the most recent Resident Evil seems to be in the DLC.
Speaker: Yes, it's on the second playthroughs.
Speaker: It's in the DLC.
Speaker: It's things like that, as opposed to like in the first playthrough, they kind of added in later.
Speaker: So you'd be like, yeah, you could have Ashley running around in a suit of armor.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: you know, Leon, there's options, there's like these options where you can have Ashley and Leon dressed as like these like Anne Rice looking vampires.
Speaker: Yeah, that was what I was thinking of, I saw that.
Speaker: ridiculous they they call it romantic or whatever it is it's amazing oh it's crazy but yeah uh i love it i love it so far um uh leon is still you know this leon is pretty much the same character he's like quippy and yes and has the one-liners hey where's everyone going bingo um you know stuff like that
Speaker: Stuff like that.
Speaker: But the biggest benefits of the remake that I saw are Ashley is a much better character now than she was in the original.
Speaker: She's one of those characters where it's like, if you're gonna have escort missions, you have to make the player want to actually keep the character safe.
Speaker: Aside from like having it be a mission, like mission critical thing.
Speaker: So, and one of the things I think the remake did very well is that, oh, you actually like Ashley in the remake.
Speaker: She's like, she's less of a kind of like a spoiled kid and more of like, she's funny.
Speaker: She has some good lines in there and she's really sweet and nice to Leon for like.
Speaker: Oh, that's good.
Speaker: And Luis was, was,
Speaker: hysterical is when we first saw the remake version of Luis, we were like, ah, he looks kind of like a creeper.
Speaker: A little bit, yeah.
Speaker: But as his plot line, he is, he's like one of the most sympathetic recent Resident Evil characters I've ever seen.
Speaker: And so I really like, I really like the reimagining of Luis.
Speaker: Overall though, it's, it's great.
Speaker: And I'm probably going to play it through a bunch of times, get as many unlocks as I can.
Speaker: That's the fun of it, is that kind of thing.
Speaker: So I imagine that they're probably... They don't have Mercenaries in there right now, from what I can tell.
Speaker: Editor Kevin Year with just a quick update.
Speaker: Mercenaries mode was released not long after the recording of this episode.
Speaker: Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker: I think that's a lot of fun.
Speaker: It's probably going to be the thing I'm playing mostly.
Speaker: I actually, I bought, I went back.
Speaker: So there's three relatively big Resident Evil games that I never played, which were zero.
Speaker: And then Revelations 1 and 2.
Speaker: Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker: And Revelations is the, that's kind of like, Revelations was like the game that Jill was kind of like shunted off into.
Speaker: That's why you really don't play as Jill after Resident Evil 3 is like... I didn't know that.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: They're like not the best and they're not very super.
Speaker: They're a lot more action like, you know, actiony like shoot them up type games with light Resident Evilness to them.
Speaker: They're I think they're designed to be a lot played a lot faster than a typical Resident Evil game.
Speaker: But yeah, so I'm on Resident Evil overload, baby.
Speaker: You're fully Resident Evil.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Fully Residented.
Speaker: Warming up for... He's Rez-pilled.
Speaker: I'm Rez-pilled.
Speaker: Warming up for our 100th anniversary.
Speaker: 100th episode.
Speaker: Coming up soon.
Speaker: Like really soon.
Speaker: Really soon as of this episode.
Speaker: Actually, I think after we finish this series, it's after we're done with this book.
Speaker: After we're done with this book.
Speaker: Will be our 100th episode.
Speaker: And we're going to be back in back in SD Perry Resident Evil land.
Speaker: So look out for that.
Speaker: Hallelujah.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode, though.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: If you can, leave us a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Speaker: Also, go over to our YouTube page and subscribe.
Speaker: We've been getting some subscribers there.
Speaker: If you want to see us when we're talking, it's an option over there.
Speaker: Follow us on Twitter.
Speaker: I left Twitter.
Speaker: You did.
Speaker: I left Twitter.
Speaker: I was like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm leaving.
Speaker: I left Twitter.
Speaker: I left Instagram.
Speaker: I was like, I'm done.
Speaker: I mean, you've been gone from Facebook for a while.
Speaker: I've been gone from Facebook for a while.
Speaker: I had a Facebook account that kind of sat there.
Speaker: I mean, I was friends with you on it, but I had no information on there, and I literally only had it to manage some pages.
Speaker: And then I was like, yeah, I'm done.
Speaker: So I bounced off of social media just because I didn't want to be there.
Speaker: But we still have our Pixel at social media.
Speaker: Please go follow the Pixel at pod, Twitter and Instagram if you are so inclined.
Speaker: I don't anymore, but you can.
Speaker: And I still make sure Kevin sees it if it's good.
Speaker: Yeah, he'll send it to me if it's good.
Speaker: Go to our website, PixletPod.com.
Speaker: Sign up for our newsletter occasionally.
Speaker: Get an episode early when I have them edited early.
Speaker: And you can download the transcripts of our episodes there.
Speaker: That'll do it.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: And have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
