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Law of Surprise (Witcher: The Last Wish - Part 2)
14 Plays4 months ago
We got SURPRISES in this episode, but they are really awkward and probably problematic in any civil society.
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Book SynopsisGeralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless hunter. Yet he is no ordinary killer. His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world.
But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good . . . and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.
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Transcript
Introduction and Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
That's that's what I want.
00:00:02
Speaker
I feel like that's what I'm best qualified for being a hobbit myself.
00:00:06
Speaker
I feel like that's what I am best qualified for.
00:00:09
Speaker
I have always said that if I ever get a boat, I'm naming it the second breakfast.
00:00:13
Speaker
Like I I know this world, damn it.
00:00:18
Speaker
And come on, Black Library.
00:00:20
Speaker
Trust me with your precious, precious cargo.
00:00:23
Speaker
Precious cargo.
00:00:24
Speaker
You know who else has precious cargo?
00:00:26
Speaker
Who's that?
00:00:27
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
Today's Topic: Witcher, The Last Wish
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:28
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:29
Speaker
With me, as always, is Phil.
00:00:31
Speaker
And on today's show, Witcher, The Last Wish, part deux, we got two more short stories to cover and a few more interstitials in between those short stories.
00:00:44
Speaker
But before we get to all that fun stuff...
Community Engagement and Support
00:00:47
Speaker
I got to tell you about a website.
00:00:48
Speaker
What website?
00:00:49
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
00:00:51
Speaker
You know, you want to go to it.
00:00:52
Speaker
You can follow us for free and you can also hop into our Discord from there.
00:00:57
Speaker
Discord's a great place to chat and meet others who like, like-minded people who enjoy the company of one Phil Keeling and Kevin Earhart.
00:01:08
Speaker
Otherwise, we got three paid tiers.
00:01:12
Speaker
$1, $5, $10, $5 gets you access to the bonus episodes that we record before each episode.
00:01:17
Speaker
And $10 gets your name shouted out in the episode.
00:01:22
Speaker
To that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman Ruth, Smutter Middle Things, Sigma Sal, Chuck Beaks, Demi, Thick, and Friendly Friend.
00:01:29
Speaker
Thank you so much for being a friend.
00:01:33
Speaker
All right.
00:01:33
Speaker
So, yeah, it's amazing how fast I can like kind of rattle through the I'm really coming into my own as a. And you know what?
00:01:43
Speaker
I think to the credit of our fans, it's because you get a lot of practice.
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, we've got lovely people who support us and have supported us for a good long while.
00:01:51
Speaker
So
Fantasy TV Series Discussion
00:01:52
Speaker
that helps.
00:01:52
Speaker
Good.
00:01:52
Speaker
long while so it helps it helps um so yeah we got part two coming up uh coming out today uh we're and you might recognize if you've seen so that's the thing if you watched the witcher the netflix series a lot of these stories gonna seem familiar uh because so far i believe all of them were in season one
00:02:17
Speaker
See, I never watched the show.
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
So I'm excited.
00:02:22
Speaker
After we're done with Game of Thrones, I told Emily, I said, we're just going to keep that fantasy train rolling and watch The Witcher.
00:02:27
Speaker
Just keep that fantasy train rolling.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:30
Speaker
It's fine.
00:02:32
Speaker
It's good at times.
00:02:34
Speaker
Fine most of the time.
00:02:36
Speaker
And then increasingly worse as it goes on.
00:02:40
Speaker
But, you know, that's basically a lot of TV shows anyway.
00:02:43
Speaker
It's like eating Hardee's.
00:02:45
Speaker
I get it.
00:02:45
Speaker
You know?
00:02:47
Speaker
It's really good at first.
00:02:48
Speaker
The more you go on, the more you're like, I may have made a mistake here.
Nostalgia and Food Stories
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, you didn't need to stop at Sonic.
00:02:55
Speaker
No.
00:02:57
Speaker
No one ever does.
00:02:58
Speaker
And yet, still in business.
00:03:02
Speaker
Sonic still, I mean, it's built.
00:03:06
Speaker
It seems like it should still have the people on roller skates serving you the food, but there's no roller skates anymore.
00:03:13
Speaker
Do they not do that anymore?
00:03:14
Speaker
They just walk out now.
00:03:16
Speaker
I think they just walk out now.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:19
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:03:19
Speaker
Maybe it was it might not even have been a Sonic.
00:03:21
Speaker
I just remember.
00:03:23
Speaker
I feel like I remember people actually doing the skates.
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh, well, maybe it was it was like a kitschy place that wasn't Sonic.
00:03:31
Speaker
I don't maybe maybe it's wrong.
00:03:35
Speaker
To be honest, I don't think I don't think I've ever actually been to a Sonic.
00:03:38
Speaker
I might have.
00:03:40
Speaker
I think the last time I was at a Sonic was when me and Keeler, old school friend of the pod, friend of friend of the guys.
00:03:50
Speaker
We were moving, I want to say.
00:03:53
Speaker
And we're just like loading up.
00:03:54
Speaker
I don't remember what it was.
00:03:55
Speaker
We were loading a bunch of shit and we were exhausted and we were broke and we were starving.
00:04:00
Speaker
And we like basically went to the Sonic and went to see how far we could stretch as many dollars as possible.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
And this this guy is the master of
00:04:12
Speaker
getting as much food out of his little money as possible.
00:04:16
Speaker
He can stretch a dollar.
00:04:18
Speaker
Holy shit.
00:04:20
Speaker
He's the master.
00:04:21
Speaker
And yeah, I remember us sitting there both really tired and really, really that good.
00:04:26
Speaker
Like you've had a long, hard day kind of hungry where you're just like, okay, I'm honest hungry.
00:04:32
Speaker
I'm not just fat boy hungry.
00:04:34
Speaker
I'm hungry.
00:04:34
Speaker
I could eat whatever and not feel guilty.
00:04:36
Speaker
Right, exactly.
00:04:37
Speaker
And we just sat in my car and just consumed.
00:04:42
Speaker
I feel like there were a lot of wraps.
00:04:43
Speaker
I feel like a lot of tortillas were consumed.
00:04:49
Speaker
I think that might have been the last time I rated a Sonic to be completely.
00:04:51
Speaker
My favorite.
00:04:52
Speaker
And that was a long time ago.
00:04:53
Speaker
My favorite Lee Keeler moment for after post fast food was when he was in a drive through at Taco Bell and only could only order like five dollars worth of food.
00:05:06
Speaker
But then when he went to the window, they gave him the wrong bag and the bag that he got clearly had thirty dollars worth of of Taco Bell food.
00:05:15
Speaker
God, he praised that bag of food.
00:05:19
Speaker
Sometimes we please the gods, you know, sometimes we please the gods and they feed us more Taco Bell than we deserve.
00:05:28
Speaker
More Taco Bell than we deserve.
00:05:30
Speaker
Which is like the Venn diagram of more Taco Bell than I deserve and too much Taco Bell for any human being.
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm just going to say it overlaps a lot.
00:05:42
Speaker
It overlaps a lot.
00:05:44
Speaker
There's really just tiny slivers on both ends.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
A little bit.
00:05:50
Speaker
A little bit.
00:05:50
Speaker
So how about we put more bodies in the marsh than we deserve?
00:05:55
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:05:55
Speaker
All right, Marshies.
Podcast Fan Interactions
00:05:57
Speaker
Are you guys ready?
00:05:57
Speaker
We're putting more bodies in there.
00:05:59
Speaker
Marshies.
00:06:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:06:00
Speaker
Is that what we decided?
00:06:01
Speaker
I think we decided on Marshies, but I also I'm kind of I like the marshmallows.
00:06:07
Speaker
Marshmallows is good, too.
00:06:08
Speaker
Marshmallows is good, too.
00:06:10
Speaker
Anyway, we're putting the body in the marsh.
00:06:12
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
00:06:22
Speaker
I think...
00:06:24
Speaker
what we hit at this point, because after the two stories we're going to read today, uh, we have one story left and it's a very long story.
00:06:33
Speaker
So it seems appropriate to end it on.
00:06:35
Speaker
Um, but I have hit the realization, um, that the marketing for the Witcher is lying to me, uh, lying to my face.
Witcher Themes Exploration
00:06:46
Speaker
Um,
00:06:47
Speaker
Because if you look at not the edition I have, the edition I have is kind of like a TV tie in kind of.
00:06:52
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:54
Speaker
But if you look at one of the other editions, the cover of this is is Geralt fighting a dragon or something.
00:07:00
Speaker
There's flames going everywhere.
00:07:01
Speaker
And it's very classic sword and sorcery kind of shit.
00:07:04
Speaker
And what you're going to see in these next two stories and then when you compare them to the last three stories we read, you
00:07:13
Speaker
This is that is not the series we're talking about here.
00:07:16
Speaker
It might happen later.
00:07:17
Speaker
I mean, it might happen in the books, the full novels and stuff.
00:07:22
Speaker
This is not a Geralt guy who goes out like, yes, theoretically, he is a he's a monster slayer.
00:07:28
Speaker
That's his whole job.
00:07:29
Speaker
Somehow in every story so far, he manages to get around killing the monster because the real monster is.
00:07:39
Speaker
It's us.
00:07:40
Speaker
It's us.
00:07:41
Speaker
It's us.
00:07:42
Speaker
The real monster is man.
00:07:45
Speaker
It's man.
00:07:47
Speaker
He doesn't kill people.
00:07:48
Speaker
That's like, no, like without, you know, self-defense or whatever.
00:07:53
Speaker
Right.
00:07:53
Speaker
Right.
00:07:54
Speaker
Well, that's just it.
00:07:55
Speaker
Like we opened the book with him murdering the shit out of three people.
00:07:59
Speaker
And that's kind of it so far.
00:08:02
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:08:03
Speaker
That's the end of his body.
00:08:04
Speaker
And even like him being, he's the butcher of Blaviken Blaviken.
00:08:09
Speaker
And, and, and even that is just, it's not a misunderstanding so much as it's, but it's not, it doesn't tell the whole story.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
And so it's,
00:08:18
Speaker
Which
Summary of 'A Question of Price'
00:08:19
Speaker
now here's the thing.
00:08:19
Speaker
I'm not complaining.
00:08:21
Speaker
This makes the stories way more interesting and way more compelling.
00:08:24
Speaker
And really, I just I'm just shocked.
00:08:27
Speaker
That's all I'm saying.
00:08:29
Speaker
So we're going to start with a question of price.
00:08:33
Speaker
This one starts out.
00:08:34
Speaker
This kind of made me think of your classic D&D game where you've got your.
00:08:39
Speaker
grubby, uh, uh, hero.
00:08:41
Speaker
And he is basically being cleaned and washed and shaved.
00:08:47
Speaker
Uh, and he has been invited, um, to a ball, uh, at this Royal family's castle.
00:08:54
Speaker
Your murder hobo has been put in an on the rails, uh, experience by the DM and the DM is not taking any shit right now.
00:09:06
Speaker
Bingo, bingo, all social roles, you know, keep your sword and your goddamn scabbard.
00:09:13
Speaker
It's that, it's that level.
00:09:16
Speaker
And, uh, and so he is being given like, he's, they're playing real fast and loose with like why they're hiring him.
00:09:22
Speaker
He's asking questions, you know, like what, what do you want?
00:09:25
Speaker
We just need you.
00:09:26
Speaker
We just, we just trust us.
00:09:27
Speaker
We just need you.
00:09:27
Speaker
We're shaving your face.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker
Just trust us.
00:09:30
Speaker
We just need you.
00:09:31
Speaker
And he's all right, fine, because he's theoretically is going to get paid.
00:09:35
Speaker
So whatever.
00:09:37
Speaker
And he's been given this backstory to give him a new name and a backstory.
00:09:41
Speaker
You're this other guy.
00:09:43
Speaker
See, and and that doesn't last very long.
00:09:46
Speaker
It doesn't go.
00:09:47
Speaker
You're from this place.
00:09:48
Speaker
And Geralt's like, I've never heard of that place.
00:09:49
Speaker
And he's like, it's very far away.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, cool.
00:09:53
Speaker
It's like, don't worry.
00:09:54
Speaker
No one else has.
00:09:56
Speaker
So no big deal.
00:09:58
Speaker
He ends up at this party and he's sitting next to the queen.
00:10:02
Speaker
Queen Calenthe, I want to say.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, Queen Calenthe.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:06
Speaker
Calenthe.
00:10:07
Speaker
All right.
00:10:07
Speaker
So he's sitting next to her and we get once again a
00:10:11
Speaker
It sounds like I'm putting it down, but it's very compelling.
00:10:14
Speaker
A long winded kind of philosophical conversation.
00:10:18
Speaker
It's more of a girl spends more time battling with words.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:10:24
Speaker
Then swords.
00:10:26
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:10:28
Speaker
And this is a great example because the whole discussion is about what does a witcher do?
00:10:35
Speaker
And he seems to think that you're just – because the idea is that her daughter, they want to marry her off to this important family.
00:10:48
Speaker
It'll create an alliance.
00:10:49
Speaker
To somebody from Skellige.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:52
Speaker
And we need to create this alliance.
00:10:54
Speaker
And I feel like there's going to be trouble.
00:10:57
Speaker
And he's like, you misunderstand.
00:10:58
Speaker
I'm not a hired assassin.
00:11:01
Speaker
Like, that's not what I do.
00:11:03
Speaker
I'm not a bodyguard.
00:11:04
Speaker
Right.
00:11:05
Speaker
Right.
00:11:06
Speaker
And she's very coy with the whole situation.
00:11:08
Speaker
Says, no, trust me.
00:11:09
Speaker
This is this is a monster you're going to deal with.
00:11:11
Speaker
Don't worry about it.
00:11:12
Speaker
You're you're you're going to deal with this.
00:11:15
Speaker
So and we meet all kinds of weird characters.
00:11:19
Speaker
Kudkudak, who is this bizarre man who does animal impressions.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:28
Speaker
That's his whole thing.
00:11:30
Speaker
He will he will do random, very specific animal impressions.
00:11:36
Speaker
to entertain everybody else throughout this story, throughout the whole thing.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:42
Speaker
At one point he's talking about like he's like doing an impression of a parrot or something like that.
00:11:47
Speaker
And Geralt's like, I don't know what that is.
00:11:49
Speaker
Right.
00:11:50
Speaker
Right.
00:11:51
Speaker
Everyone else seems to be having a blast with it, though.
00:11:55
Speaker
It's a very fish out of water kind of thing.
00:11:57
Speaker
Everyone's laughing their tits off.
00:11:59
Speaker
And Geralt's like, I don't want to be here.
00:12:03
Speaker
So it really is.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's just the rich people making merry and Geralt being uncomfortable.
00:12:08
Speaker
And, you know, the princess shows up.
00:12:11
Speaker
Exceedingly poor Geralt being very uncomfortable.
00:12:14
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:14
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:16
Speaker
It truly is.
00:12:16
Speaker
It's murder hobo trying to schmooze.
00:12:19
Speaker
And he doesn't have his bard with him yet.
00:12:21
Speaker
So he's got, he's kind of on his own on here.
00:12:25
Speaker
So the princess shows up and we get to see her.
00:12:28
Speaker
She's very kind of standoffish and reserved.
00:12:32
Speaker
We also meet the Skellig man who was supposed to be her husband.
00:12:36
Speaker
He's this kind of, they're all kind of brash, shitty, brash.
00:12:42
Speaker
dudes like bro kind of guys.
00:12:45
Speaker
So they're they're basically trying to figure out who's going to be married off to her, essentially.
00:12:52
Speaker
So at a certain point in the evening, this knight walks in and he's wearing full plate armor.
00:13:01
Speaker
It's and it's you know what?
00:13:03
Speaker
Let's keep the Warhammer references going.
00:13:05
Speaker
It's full chaos regalia.
00:13:08
Speaker
It's just spikes on spikes.
00:13:11
Speaker
It just ever like like if you hugged him, you would die, which might be the point.
00:13:18
Speaker
And he's got the helmet with a like a grill mask.
00:13:21
Speaker
So you can't see him underneath that.
00:13:24
Speaker
And he it's it actually made me think a lot of the Green Knight in a way.
00:13:29
Speaker
Have you seen that one?
00:13:30
Speaker
Have you seen the Green Knight?
00:13:31
Speaker
I haven't, but it has.
00:13:33
Speaker
What's his name in it?
00:13:35
Speaker
Dev Patel, right?
00:13:36
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yes, it does.
00:13:40
Speaker
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful man.
00:13:42
Speaker
Is a beautiful man.
00:13:45
Speaker
I'm straight, but not stupid.
00:13:47
Speaker
That's that's.
00:13:51
Speaker
I wanted to I want to rent the other movie that just came out recently on on demand, which is the monkey man.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty good.
00:14:04
Speaker
That was pretty good.
00:14:05
Speaker
You saw it.
00:14:05
Speaker
OK, yeah, yeah, that was pretty good.
00:14:09
Speaker
It was a little deeper than we expected it to be.
00:14:11
Speaker
But when you come down to it, it was still a really solid action kind of movie.
00:14:17
Speaker
John Wick kind of thing.
00:14:18
Speaker
It was cool.
00:14:20
Speaker
I feel like he's been around forever.
00:14:22
Speaker
He's only 35.
00:14:22
Speaker
I think the first time I ever noticed him was Green Knight.
00:14:27
Speaker
But the same year he did that.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker
Charles Dickens thing, right?
00:14:34
Speaker
Uh, uh, he did another movie that same year, which I still haven't seen.
00:14:38
Speaker
So it's like a couple of years earlier.
00:14:39
Speaker
He did David Copperfield.
00:14:41
Speaker
Was it a couple of years early?
00:14:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:42
Speaker
It felt like they came out at the same time.
00:14:45
Speaker
And so wait, he was, uh, he was 18 in slumdog millionaire.
00:14:52
Speaker
Oh, see, I never watched slumdog millionaire.
00:14:54
Speaker
I didn't realize that was him.
00:14:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
I would explain it then.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
I, I never saw that movie.
00:14:59
Speaker
Um,
00:15:01
Speaker
And now I don't I still don't want to.
00:15:03
Speaker
Actually, I was about to say now maybe I kind of want.
00:15:05
Speaker
No, I still don't.
00:15:06
Speaker
I don't really care.
00:15:09
Speaker
No interest in that movie.
00:15:13
Speaker
So, yes.
00:15:13
Speaker
So if you remember the Green Knight, you've got you've got the eponymous Green Knight showing up during.
00:15:22
Speaker
a big collection of the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur and everything, and it causes a stir.
00:15:26
Speaker
It's very similar.
00:15:27
Speaker
It's got a similar vibe.
00:15:30
Speaker
So he shows up and explains that he saved the queen's dead husband, the former king.
00:15:40
Speaker
He saved his life.
00:15:42
Speaker
And that the king offered him a reward said, you know, he said, you ask me for anything you want.
00:15:49
Speaker
And the knight says, well, I want to marry your daughter when she's of age, when it's appropriate and everything like that.
00:15:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, he and it's it's very specific.
00:15:59
Speaker
And this is something that comes up later.
00:16:01
Speaker
It's he wants he he asked of the king of what like what you have, but you don't know you have yet.
00:16:12
Speaker
And it's called the law of surprise in the Witcher universe.
00:16:17
Speaker
So like, yes, like I'm allowed to ask of you for something that you have that you don't know you have.
00:16:24
Speaker
Thank you.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:16:26
Speaker
And the law of surprise, it's such a funny theme to it.
00:16:31
Speaker
And so he's come to claim Pavetta, the princess, which pisses off a lot of people, including the queen.
00:16:39
Speaker
And it becomes clear that this is basically what she has been nervous about.
00:16:45
Speaker
And that might be why the witcher's here.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, she's been aware of this potentially happening.
00:16:52
Speaker
Right, right.
00:16:53
Speaker
There's also a weird thing going on this entire time.
00:16:56
Speaker
There's like a druid character named Mausak.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:01
Speaker
No, no, it's a great name for a druid.
00:17:03
Speaker
What's cool about Mausak is that he, in the show, a lot of the characters, like the Castellan and all that stuff, they're all combined into, it's just Mausak.
00:17:13
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:17:14
Speaker
Oh, that's fun.
00:17:15
Speaker
It's the one that's like guiding Geralt.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's a composite character.
00:17:20
Speaker
He's a composite character in the show of like a few of the minor characters that like in the beginning of this story, it's like he's talking to a Castellan and the Castellan's giving him the backstory.
00:17:31
Speaker
Right.
00:17:32
Speaker
In the show, it's if I recall correctly, it's all Malzak.
00:17:35
Speaker
That's who's doing all that.
00:17:37
Speaker
Good move.
00:17:38
Speaker
Good move.
00:17:38
Speaker
Because Moussack is a weird character and they've been like been like meaningfully glancing at each other over the table, like little little nods and stuff.
00:17:48
Speaker
They're not flirting as far as I know.
00:17:50
Speaker
But he's been like.
00:17:53
Speaker
fooling with with food and and like making little patterns on the table and making things float and stuff like that.
00:18:01
Speaker
And he's clearly distracted and and not he's expecting something bad to go down and is kind of conveying that to Geralt throughout this whole thing.
00:18:12
Speaker
This is this is the you know, they feel the room filling with magic.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
Geralt.
00:18:17
Speaker
Geralt's like holding his like his medallion and he's feeling he's basically he's feeling some vibes.
00:18:24
Speaker
They're like, there's some vibes in here.
00:18:26
Speaker
I don't know what it is yet.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:28
Speaker
And they do refer to it as the force, which I love, because honestly, that's basically what it is.
00:18:34
Speaker
If you're thinking of Star Wars reference for all intents and purposes without the dreaded name of the midichlorians, that's what we're dealing with here.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
So the queen basically says, no, you're not you're not going to you're not going to run away with with my daughter, my only daughter, this random guy.
00:18:55
Speaker
So she has already she's insisted that he take off his his helmet, take off your mask.
00:19:00
Speaker
You were among friends.
00:19:01
Speaker
And he claims that he has made a vow that he will not take off his helmet until midnight.
00:19:07
Speaker
So midnight rolls around and she says, we'll take off your hat.
00:19:11
Speaker
you know, take it off.
00:19:13
Speaker
And when he takes it off, he's this horrifying creature with fangs and like kind of a, it's like a weird pig creature with big bulging eyes.
00:19:24
Speaker
And he's just horrifying.
00:19:26
Speaker
He's just a real, it's really gross.
00:19:28
Speaker
And kind of the way they describe me, he sounds like a cartoon character in who framed Roger rabbit.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's very over the top, kind of creepy, kind of large Marge kind of shit.
00:19:38
Speaker
That's large Marge judge doom.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:42
Speaker
Big think big, big eyes.
00:19:44
Speaker
You know, just it's it's very, very weird.
00:19:48
Speaker
And so now that he has shown himself to be this hideous thing, the queen says, OK, great.
00:19:55
Speaker
Well, but here's the thing.
00:19:57
Speaker
If the law surprise, she's got to agree to go with you.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:02
Speaker
She can't just be forced to do that, which is totally fair.
00:20:05
Speaker
And she's thinking, of course, like he has exposed himself as this hideous beast.
00:20:09
Speaker
And that's what that's what.
00:20:11
Speaker
Because she she turns that basically turns the floor over to Geralt because Geralt's like, Geralt, then we get a big dump about Geralt's backstory and be like, I was a child of the law of surprise, yada, yada, yada.
00:20:26
Speaker
Like and.
00:20:27
Speaker
We got a lot of – it's a cool moment.
00:20:30
Speaker
It's just very dense because they're talking a lot about like the logistics of destiny.
00:20:36
Speaker
Right, right.
00:20:37
Speaker
Again, we're getting into these like existential philosophical discussions.
00:20:42
Speaker
And it's – here's the thing.
00:20:43
Speaker
It's great.
00:20:44
Speaker
I will say, you know, it sounds –
00:20:48
Speaker
Well, to me anyway, if someone described, oh yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
And then they get into this weird existential conversation about destiny fate.
00:20:54
Speaker
I'd go, oh, spare me.
00:20:55
Speaker
I'm skipping that.
00:20:56
Speaker
But it actually is quite entertaining.
00:20:58
Speaker
And, and, and the dialogue is really solid.
00:21:01
Speaker
There's something to be said for the, for the translator here too, because this was not in English originally.
00:21:08
Speaker
So I need to look up the translator so we can give him his flowers because there's something to be said for that too.
00:21:16
Speaker
So,
00:21:18
Speaker
Basically, you know, it comes down to she's got to pick you and say yes.
00:21:22
Speaker
And the queen's not expecting her to do that.
00:21:24
Speaker
Look at this hideous monster.
00:21:25
Speaker
And then the princess like.
00:21:28
Speaker
says, yeah, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go with him.
00:21:32
Speaker
And that just, and then it just, everything, all the shit hits the fan.
Chaos at the Royal Ball
00:21:36
Speaker
Everyone starts, all the suitors kind of descend upon the knight whose name is Urcheon, which another great name tells you, it just, it sounds like how he's described.
00:21:49
Speaker
He's Urcheon.
00:21:50
Speaker
And, and so this fight breaks out and he's, he is being, you know, ganged up on and the princess is,
00:21:58
Speaker
loses her shit and the powerful energy that Mausak and Geralt have been detecting in the room.
00:22:07
Speaker
It's clearly emanating from her and she just fucking like
00:22:13
Speaker
you know, just explodes, just Zules all over this place.
00:22:18
Speaker
She goes full Tetsuo.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:22:23
Speaker
Just flinging things around like unbridled telekinesis.
00:22:27
Speaker
Things are getting thrown.
00:22:28
Speaker
People are getting thrown around.
00:22:30
Speaker
And it's like, oh, we've got to do something about this.
00:22:33
Speaker
Like she's going to get us get everyone killed.
00:22:36
Speaker
And so Mausak and Geralt kind of like focus their magical ability on her and just kind of snap her out of it, basically, after some time.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
And bring her back to herself.
00:22:50
Speaker
So we learn that basically...
00:22:56
Speaker
she it's a beauty and the beast thing it's once again it's a it's a fairy tale kind of thing and she and and the knight have been speaking you know on the down low for for like a year at this point and they fall in love with each other and she's been waiting for him to show up you know and uh and and the queen's like yeah fine fuck it it's like take her uh okay great if that makes her happy that's fine um
00:23:25
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:27
Speaker
So.
00:23:30
Speaker
And then we get the queen proposed to like.
00:23:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
One of the guys from Skellige goes like, well, you know, let's let's hook up.
00:23:38
Speaker
And the queen's like, yeah, fuck it.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, fine.
00:23:40
Speaker
You wanted you wanted an alliance.
00:23:41
Speaker
We can get married.
00:23:42
Speaker
Doesn't have to be married.
00:23:44
Speaker
I don't have a husband.
00:23:45
Speaker
He's dead.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:46
Speaker
Right.
00:23:46
Speaker
Everyone gets what they want.
00:23:48
Speaker
So it's pretty great.
00:23:50
Speaker
I think one of the fun details about this is like, well, you're there's it's so something you're probably about to point out was hinted at early on when Geralt says, well, a virgin shouldn't be able to use the force.
00:24:06
Speaker
Right.
00:24:07
Speaker
Right.
00:24:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:24:10
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:24:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:24:14
Speaker
Ace Ventura, too.
00:24:15
Speaker
They can tell that.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:20
Speaker
So we get a happy ending and we get, you know, the happy couple basically saying to Geralt, like, thank you for your help and everything like that.
00:24:30
Speaker
And we'll we'll what what do you want in return?
00:24:33
Speaker
And he invokes the law of surprise.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:36
Speaker
That which you have, but you don't know.
00:24:39
Speaker
And and because because it turns out she's pregnant and he says and he requests, all right, raise the kid as a witcher.
00:24:49
Speaker
Make him into a witcher.
00:24:50
Speaker
And that's the story.
00:24:53
Speaker
Terrific story.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's an amazing little story.
00:24:56
Speaker
I love all the little details where like Geralt is he actually is
00:25:04
Speaker
There's a moment where he gives them an out because he knows what he's about to ask them.
00:25:10
Speaker
He goes because they're like, what do you want?
00:25:12
Speaker
And he's like, I'm going to have to stop you and have you ask me that again.
00:25:18
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's like so that it's like everybody hears it.
00:25:23
Speaker
Like everyone, everyone.
00:25:26
Speaker
Everyone, we got witnesses.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, we got witnesses.
00:25:28
Speaker
They asked me what I want.
00:25:29
Speaker
Ask me again.
00:25:31
Speaker
What do you want?
00:25:32
Speaker
A law surprise.
00:25:34
Speaker
And Urcheon, whose actual name is Dooney.
00:25:37
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:25:38
Speaker
Dooney.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
Dooney is like, by the way, is now transformed back into a man.
00:25:44
Speaker
Right.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:46
Speaker
Which is a disappointment to most women that I know these days.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker
There are so many monster fuckers these days.
00:25:53
Speaker
It's unreal.
00:25:54
Speaker
Well, that's what's the funny, like the little details, like like Queen Calanthe setting the clock forward an hour so that it strikes at midnight an hour early.
00:26:04
Speaker
So that when he takes off his helmet and reveals himself to be a monster, little stuff like it's like all these little fun little details in the story.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's very it's intricate.
00:26:15
Speaker
in a way that is surprising.
00:26:18
Speaker
Like when you read about this author and they're like, yes, he's very influenced by fairy tales and da-da-da-da.
00:26:25
Speaker
And you go, okay, great.
00:26:26
Speaker
This will be a fun little story.
00:26:28
Speaker
No, these are very intricate stories.
00:26:30
Speaker
thoughtful, you know, he's, I would say, cause I compared him to Conan when we first started reading these.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
I think he has more in common with like Sherlock Holmes, like a character like that.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
You know, it's, it's, it's, he's way more clever than anything else.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
He'll get in there and kill somebody if he's got to, but he really tries to avoid it and he can, you
00:26:56
Speaker
he can work his way around it.
00:26:58
Speaker
Let me tell you, clever guy.
00:27:00
Speaker
He fucking loves cocaine.
00:27:02
Speaker
Oh, I bet.
00:27:03
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:27:04
Speaker
Well, that's why his hair's white.
00:27:05
Speaker
You know, you do that enough.
00:27:08
Speaker
You do it enough in the snow.
00:27:12
Speaker
There's that new show, Watson, with Morris Chestnut playing John Watson.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's set after Reichenbach Falls.
00:27:25
Speaker
Holmes is dead.
00:27:27
Speaker
And Watson has a TBI, traumatic brain injury, from jumping down into the falls after Holmes and Moriarty.
00:27:36
Speaker
Um, but I, I just, in one of the last episodes of the season, he refers to his friend, uh, he refers to Sherlock.
00:27:44
Speaker
He's like, I only know this because of a friend of mine who is really into cocaine.
00:27:51
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:27:53
Speaker
That's good.
00:27:54
Speaker
The side note, the voices, the voice of Sherlock in Watson's mind when he like has like thought about Sherlock occasionally.
00:28:06
Speaker
Matt Barry.
00:28:08
Speaker
Oh, that's perfect.
00:28:11
Speaker
Come on.
00:28:12
Speaker
We've never seen him, but we've heard Watson.
00:28:18
Speaker
One of the great voices.
00:28:19
Speaker
What a great voice.
00:28:21
Speaker
Oh, and Randall Park plays Moriarty in season one.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
Nice.
00:28:28
Speaker
Oh, that's good.
00:28:28
Speaker
That's way better than the BBC Sherlock.
00:28:32
Speaker
And I haven't even seen it.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
Okay, so that's the end of Question of Price.
00:28:39
Speaker
And we cut back to the voice of reason, the interstitial pieces.
Geralt and Dandelion's Dynamic
00:28:44
Speaker
And this is where we meet my favorite character, Dandelion.
00:28:48
Speaker
I love Dandelion.
00:28:51
Speaker
What's funny is I'm listening to the audio version, right?
00:28:56
Speaker
Do you know how they say Dandelion in the audio version?
00:28:59
Speaker
No.
00:29:00
Speaker
Dandelion.
00:29:02
Speaker
Dandelion?
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:05
Speaker
That's so funny.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's so clearly dandelion.
00:29:09
Speaker
I know.
00:29:09
Speaker
That's so funny.
00:29:14
Speaker
And in the original.
00:29:19
Speaker
So in the show, they call him by the name he goes by in the original translation, which is Jaskier.
00:29:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:29
Speaker
So they use, they don't, they don't use the, the, the dandelion.
00:29:34
Speaker
I'm going to be honest.
00:29:34
Speaker
I've got to be, I've got to be honest.
00:29:36
Speaker
I feel like they're missing out on something because dandelion is a great name for this character.
00:29:41
Speaker
He's a dandy.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:43
Speaker
He's a dandy.
00:29:44
Speaker
He is bright and colorful, but ultimately a weed.
00:29:49
Speaker
He is a pain in the ass.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:51
Speaker
He is every level five bard that you had to deal with in D&D.
00:29:56
Speaker
He's hilarious.
00:29:58
Speaker
I love him.
00:30:00
Speaker
They even say during the interstitial that it's almost like he is the exact opposite of Geralt.
00:30:06
Speaker
And yet they are like best friends.
00:30:08
Speaker
Like they get along really well at this point.
00:30:11
Speaker
So he comes by to, you know, check on Geralt.
00:30:16
Speaker
And we get this conversation about
00:30:20
Speaker
kind of how the work of being a witcher has degraded that, you know, used to be these great big monsters that we'd go and kill.
00:30:30
Speaker
And now either we're like, we're never sent to kill these monsters because they're all it's kind of implied that they're all kind of dying out.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker
And, you know, and they're part and now they're like novelties.
00:30:42
Speaker
So, right.
00:30:43
Speaker
Like you don't kill that dragon.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's that's the dragon that the princess of such and such loves or something.
00:30:51
Speaker
Right.
00:30:51
Speaker
My favorite one was the bridge troll and like the bridge troll who like lives under this bridge and he charges a toll for anyone to pass.
00:30:59
Speaker
And anyone who doesn't, he'll like break their legs.
00:31:01
Speaker
He doesn't kill them, but he like he'll hurt them really badly.
00:31:03
Speaker
Right.
00:31:04
Speaker
And so he goes into a town and he's like, I'll take care of that bridge troll for you.
00:31:08
Speaker
And the mayor of the town is like, no, man, like that troll loves that bridge and the level of upkeep that he does for free because he loves that bridge.
00:31:21
Speaker
We save so much money on it.
00:31:24
Speaker
It's worth it to have the occasional guy got to get his legs broke.
00:31:28
Speaker
It's like it's like we would have to charge more for the tolls.
00:31:32
Speaker
Right.
00:31:33
Speaker
Right.
00:31:34
Speaker
It's great.
00:31:35
Speaker
It's and he's just kind of bemoaning that life, how it's all kind of changed out.
00:31:42
Speaker
And so Dandelion and I'm just going to say Dandelion.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, go for it.
00:31:48
Speaker
because I love it because it made me want to create a bard character named Dandelion or something similar.
00:31:56
Speaker
I just I love it.
00:31:57
Speaker
And so he kind of we get started.
00:32:00
Speaker
He asks him about this moment that they had in a previous adventure.
'Edge of the World' Adventure
00:32:07
Speaker
And that brings us to the edge of the world, which is actually I'm just going to say it off the top, my favorite story in this book so far.
00:32:15
Speaker
And there's only one left.
00:32:19
Speaker
So so we we start with Geralt and Dandelion and they are looking for work there.
00:32:24
Speaker
They're on the road.
00:32:26
Speaker
And basically, they just decide, let's just keep going to what they call the edge of the world.
00:32:35
Speaker
And this I'm just going to say up front, this confused me at first.
00:32:39
Speaker
I wasn't sure what they meant.
00:32:41
Speaker
By the edge of the world, they're talking about the frontier.
00:32:44
Speaker
What they mean is the edge of the world as far as humanity is concerned.
00:32:48
Speaker
Right.
00:32:48
Speaker
That anything beyond that is the land of beasties and elves, and it's not been colonized, frankly.
00:32:57
Speaker
That's what they're implying.
00:32:59
Speaker
Right.
00:32:59
Speaker
So they go as far as they can go, and they end up in this kind of
00:33:08
Speaker
I don't know when I say tropical, but it's like this beautifully fertile land that it's just filled with every kind of plant.
00:33:18
Speaker
And they meet this farmer there who's like, yeah, everything grows here.
00:33:21
Speaker
We can grow anything and everything.
00:33:24
Speaker
It's great.
00:33:26
Speaker
The earth provides everything for us.
00:33:30
Speaker
And so they – and he tells them, you know, we got –
00:33:35
Speaker
We got a situation if you want to handle the situation.
00:33:37
Speaker
So he ends up going and meeting up with their the local like town mayor or elder or whatever you want.
00:33:44
Speaker
And they tell him of it.
00:33:48
Speaker
It's pronounced it's it's devil.
00:33:50
Speaker
They're saying devil.
00:33:51
Speaker
But they the way it's spelled is D. D. D.
00:33:56
Speaker
And you'll notice that girl will like correct them and say, just say devil a few times in response.
00:34:08
Speaker
And they're like, do you all?
00:34:10
Speaker
And this is part of a whole thing where they speak in this very archaic way.
00:34:15
Speaker
uh, uh, uh, Dost thou yonder, like very Shakespearean, but not as pretty, uh, kind of thing.
00:34:21
Speaker
And, uh, both he and Dandelion at different points, they get worked up in the conversation and they start talking like them.
00:34:28
Speaker
And the other one goes, Hey, Hey, watch it.
00:34:29
Speaker
It's catching.
00:34:30
Speaker
You know, you gotta, you gotta watch it with these people.
00:34:34
Speaker
They'll, you'll end up talking like them.
00:34:36
Speaker
It just happens.
00:34:37
Speaker
Thanks.
00:34:37
Speaker
Thank you.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:40
Speaker
And it's, it's great.
00:34:42
Speaker
And, and so basically they said, there's this devil out in the fields.
00:34:47
Speaker
And he, at first it was like, you know, kind of a novelty and he's, but, but now he's, he's really a problem and we'd like you to take a look.
00:34:57
Speaker
And they're very skeptical.
00:34:58
Speaker
They're like, there are no devils.
00:34:59
Speaker
That's not a thing.
00:35:01
Speaker
You know, so we'll check it out.
00:35:03
Speaker
But, but yeah,
00:35:06
Speaker
They're very skeptical about it.
00:35:07
Speaker
So they end up going out and it's a hemp field.
00:35:10
Speaker
They're very particular on this.
00:35:12
Speaker
And it got to the point where I was actually at work and I was on break and I was just kind of curious.
00:35:18
Speaker
And I was like, hemp, you know, they always hear about it for rope and stuff like that.
00:35:22
Speaker
And they'd spoken of hemp so much that I went ahead and like Googled hemp rope.
00:35:25
Speaker
And the first thing that came up was like clearly marijuana.
00:35:28
Speaker
I was like, God damn it.
00:35:28
Speaker
You're going to get me fucking fired.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:33
Speaker
Just no one's going to look at me and buy it when I say I just wanted to learn about how rope is made from hemp.
00:35:40
Speaker
No one's going to buy it, even though that's the truth.
00:35:43
Speaker
And it's like you think about you're like, oh, like, I know that hemp is the plant is like and marijuana is the same thing.
00:35:53
Speaker
Kind of like it's one of those things that, you know, but you don't realize it until you Google hemp field and you're like fucking marijuana fields.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:03
Speaker
Don't bullshit me.
00:36:03
Speaker
We know what this is.
00:36:06
Speaker
So anyway, they end up out in this hemp field and they find him.
00:36:12
Speaker
And it's this goat man.
00:36:13
Speaker
It's very much it's like a satyr, basically.
00:36:18
Speaker
I'd say, you know, it bleats like a goat.
00:36:20
Speaker
It's got it's got the fuzzy legs and the hooves and that kind of thing.
00:36:25
Speaker
And it's they.
00:36:27
Speaker
And it just like is furious at them and just pissed off immediately right off the bat and starts throwing these iron balls at them.
00:36:37
Speaker
And it's just tell him, get them, get fucked, basically.
00:36:40
Speaker
And it's actually a pretty good shot.
00:36:43
Speaker
And like Dandelion gets the worst of it.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's getting knocked around the head with these fucking iron balls.
00:36:48
Speaker
And they're like, OK, we're going, we're going, we're going.
00:36:50
Speaker
So I want to I want to tell you, every time I make a character in D&D, one of the things that I always add in the characters pack and like this, you know, how you can have like the starter kit things, whatever.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:37:05
Speaker
Is the bag of 1,000 ball bearings.
00:37:08
Speaker
Oh, sure, sure.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:11
Speaker
Get your home alone on.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:14
Speaker
Now, admittedly, this guy's doing one at a time.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:18
Speaker
But they get the hell out of there and go back to the elders and everything.
00:37:23
Speaker
And they're like, what the fuck was that?
00:37:27
Speaker
They're like, that's not – what was that –
00:37:32
Speaker
what did you send us to?
00:37:34
Speaker
Uh, and so when they're there, they meet also, uh, the, this, this, the, this kind of witch, uh, wise woman they'll refer to her later as, uh, named Lil, I think, or Lily, I don't know how they pronounce it.
00:37:47
Speaker
Um,
00:37:49
Speaker
But they start talking about what this creature is and they admit, you know, we did try to get rid of him on our own.
00:37:58
Speaker
And Dandelion freaks out because he's just bruised and battered because he got the worst of it.
00:38:05
Speaker
He asked for these iron balls or whatever.
00:38:08
Speaker
And Dandelion's like, well, why'd you have to give him so many?
00:38:11
Speaker
Right, right, right.
00:38:13
Speaker
Because they have this – and I loved this.
00:38:17
Speaker
This is what kind of sank me into it.
00:38:20
Speaker
They have this great big old book that has been passed down in their village since time immemorial.
00:38:27
Speaker
And it has certain –
00:38:29
Speaker
It's written in the common tongue in a lot of it, but then it has these ancient runes in there.
00:38:35
Speaker
And the wise women of the village are trained not to read the runes, but commit to memory what each runic section says.
00:38:45
Speaker
So they've got this other wise woman, this older woman who seems to be kind of like...
00:38:50
Speaker
training Lily, if you will.
00:38:52
Speaker
And they're like, OK, so what does this say?
00:38:54
Speaker
What does this say?
00:38:55
Speaker
And and she just is reciting it from memory.
00:38:57
Speaker
She's not reading it.
00:38:59
Speaker
And they come to an illustration that's very clearly the devil that they went to.
00:39:04
Speaker
And they find out that it's what they call a sylvan.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's a fawn.
00:39:08
Speaker
And so it has instructions on how to get rid of this fawn.
00:39:13
Speaker
And I love them.
00:39:15
Speaker
So what you do is you go out to where the fawn is and you go out there with a bunch of stuff and you go out and you start and you just hang out, sit under a tree, start eating some nuts and get yourself a bag full of nuts, start eating some nuts.
00:39:28
Speaker
And the Sylvan's going to be real interested and go,
00:39:32
Speaker
Can I have some of those nuts?
00:39:34
Speaker
And so you go, yeah, sure.
00:39:35
Speaker
And you hand him a bag of iron balls.
00:39:38
Speaker
You try to bite those and break all his teeth off and go, oh, God, and just be pissed.
00:39:42
Speaker
And then you start to eat.
00:39:44
Speaker
Then you eat some honey and he gets all interested in the honey.
00:39:47
Speaker
And so you and so can I have some of that honey?
00:39:50
Speaker
You go, oh, yeah, sure.
00:39:51
Speaker
And you hand him up.
00:39:51
Speaker
It's like a sack of pine resin or something.
00:39:54
Speaker
like that.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's like, oh, it's disgusting.
00:39:55
Speaker
Birch tar, that's what it is.
00:39:57
Speaker
And he's like, oh God, it's disgusting.
00:39:59
Speaker
And then finally you start eating some goat cheese and he goes, oh, can I have some of that goat cheese?
00:40:04
Speaker
And you hand him soap.
00:40:06
Speaker
And by the soap, he'll go, fuck this, I'm out.
00:40:10
Speaker
And he should leave.
00:40:12
Speaker
That's the cure-all.
00:40:14
Speaker
I love this so much.
00:40:16
Speaker
This is such a great folksy thing.
00:40:19
Speaker
It's very, you know,
00:40:23
Speaker
Celtic fairy tales like the little people and how do you handle with the fay?
00:40:27
Speaker
This is where Dandelion flips out is like, and who told you to give him so many?
00:40:34
Speaker
It stands written in the book.
00:40:35
Speaker
One fistful to take, yet ye gaveth of balls a sackful.
00:40:40
Speaker
Ye furnished him with ammunition for two years, the fools ye be.
00:40:45
Speaker
And that's when Geralt goes, careful, you're starting to fall into their jargon.
00:40:48
Speaker
You're starting to sound like him.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:52
Speaker
Thank you.
00:40:55
Speaker
It's great.
00:40:56
Speaker
And that's exactly what happened.
00:40:58
Speaker
They just, they just fucked it up because they like overdid it with the iron balls.
00:41:01
Speaker
They armed him is what basically it came down to.
00:41:04
Speaker
So they also have read in there about, there's also a wonderful moment where they find an illustration of this terrible, horrifying looking creature with a monster and a, and a sword.
00:41:16
Speaker
And they're like, this is a witcher.
00:41:18
Speaker
And sometimes you're going to have to deal with the Witcher to help get rid of the monsters.
00:41:23
Speaker
Don't touch the Witchers.
00:41:25
Speaker
Don't pay them any more than the following prices, the following prices.
00:41:29
Speaker
And it's clear that the that inflation has taken hold since then.
00:41:35
Speaker
And Geralt tells him, like, look, I'm going to help you.
00:41:37
Speaker
But if you think I'm going to do this for the fucking amount of money that you're that you're putting in there, you're out of your minds.
00:41:44
Speaker
It's great.
00:41:45
Speaker
It's like a hey penny.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's like three half silvers for every whatever.
00:41:52
Speaker
Even not knowing the monetary system in this world, it's clear like, oh, no, he's being fucked over if that's what he's getting paid.
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
So we cut to Geralt going back out to the hemp fields and he's going to try and outsmart the Sylvan and the Sylvan's fantastic.
00:42:15
Speaker
Another really great character because he's so open about what he's about.
00:42:20
Speaker
Like he wants to play games.
00:42:23
Speaker
And so he says, he says, look, I'll tell you what, you beat me in this game.
00:42:25
Speaker
I'll I'll I'll leave.
00:42:29
Speaker
And Geralt says, we're not going to do that.
00:42:32
Speaker
What if we did this game instead?
00:42:36
Speaker
And the Sylvan's like, oh, absolutely not, because I would totally lose that.
00:42:39
Speaker
And I'm trying to.
00:42:40
Speaker
He's like telling him.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah, he's like, oh, I'm trying.
00:42:43
Speaker
No, I'm trying to outsmart you here.
00:42:45
Speaker
So I'm not going to do that.
00:42:46
Speaker
I wouldn't win if I did that.
00:42:48
Speaker
It's very blatant and hilarious.
00:42:52
Speaker
And so Geralt plays this and he says, all right, we're going to play a game.
00:42:55
Speaker
And it's like it's essentially one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies.
00:42:59
Speaker
But it's don't do unto others what you would not have them do to you.
00:43:06
Speaker
Uh, it, it, it, it's just this, it's, it's, it starts out as like kind of a wordplay trickery kind of thing.
00:43:12
Speaker
And then it just immediately turns into a fight.
00:43:15
Speaker
Uh, and him just trying to, he literally is just like, we're just going to drag you out.
00:43:18
Speaker
I'm going to drag you out of these fucking woods.
00:43:21
Speaker
And he's grabbing him by his goat hooves and he's just kicking them off and kicking them in the head, kicking them in the temple.
00:43:28
Speaker
And, um,
00:43:29
Speaker
And eventually he hears a horse.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I guess it's been part of his plan.
00:43:33
Speaker
The dandelion is going to come in and help take care of the situation.
00:43:37
Speaker
It is not dandelion.
00:43:38
Speaker
And he ends up getting conked on the head.
00:43:40
Speaker
Knocked the fuck out.
00:43:42
Speaker
Knocked the fuck out.
00:43:44
Speaker
He wakes up and he has been tied up.
00:43:48
Speaker
And and here's people speaking the old language.
00:43:52
Speaker
It's like Elvish.
00:43:54
Speaker
And it's very similar to and I had a hunch when I when you look at some of the words they use.
00:43:59
Speaker
And it's very clearly influenced by like Gaelic and Gallic and like all kinds of different Celtic languages and that sort of thing, which is really very interesting.
00:44:09
Speaker
So basically, it's heavily implied that we're talking with elves here.
00:44:15
Speaker
He recognizes one of the voices.
00:44:17
Speaker
It's clearly his his girlfriend who he just got done wrestling with.
00:44:22
Speaker
Who's Tork?
00:44:23
Speaker
His name is Tork.
00:44:25
Speaker
And then he and he's talking to a bunch of other elves.
00:44:27
Speaker
And it's clear basically that they have set up a deal that Tork is out there trying to learn stuff about farming and gather up seeds and vegetables and whatever he can get to help them out.
00:44:42
Speaker
Because at this point, we're not sure that we're not clear on what's going on, but the elves are in dire straits.
00:44:48
Speaker
Right.
00:44:49
Speaker
Tork.
00:44:50
Speaker
Great name for a for a goat man.
00:44:52
Speaker
Great name.
00:44:52
Speaker
Great, great character.
00:44:54
Speaker
I really like him a lot.
00:44:57
Speaker
So he wakes up and he hears Dandelion, you know, shouting at them and he gets a good look and Dandelion has also been tied up.
00:45:08
Speaker
So the elves, when it's clear that they're awake, the elves come in and just talk shit about the humans.
00:45:17
Speaker
They break dandelion's loot.
00:45:20
Speaker
It's heartbreaking.
00:45:22
Speaker
It really, really hurts him.
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:26
Speaker
And, uh, and Geralt just like, he plays this, he's like, yeah, come a little closer, come a little closer.
00:45:33
Speaker
Sure.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:33
Speaker
Come a little closer.
00:45:34
Speaker
And then when they're within range, he just head butts the shit out of one of them and just gets into a fight.
00:45:41
Speaker
And, uh, and, and the big, the big boss elf shows up.
00:45:44
Speaker
Uh, imagine Daenerys Targaryen, but a boy, uh, it's, it's, you know, the, the pale, beautiful horse with the pale, beautiful rider.
00:45:53
Speaker
And, um,
00:45:55
Speaker
He basically.
00:45:56
Speaker
Phil Evandrel is his name.
00:45:59
Speaker
Phil Evandrel.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:00
Speaker
Great names.
00:46:01
Speaker
Great names.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:03
Speaker
And so he basically tells him, like, look, we have to kill you.
00:46:09
Speaker
We have to kill you because you're not meant to know about this stuff.
00:46:13
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:46:13
Speaker
Right.
00:46:15
Speaker
I'm not really.
00:46:17
Speaker
And Geralt kind of accuses him and says, you know, you're just you're pissed
Elves' Struggle and Tense Stand-off
00:46:20
Speaker
off.
00:46:20
Speaker
You're filled with rage because.
00:46:23
Speaker
The humanity took your land.
00:46:26
Speaker
This was once your lands.
00:46:28
Speaker
And we learn a lot about the background of the elves that that elves never had to farm and they don't know how to do it because they were basically in league with the woods themselves, with the goddess of the forest, and that they just offered them food.
00:46:44
Speaker
their fruit and their vegetables and that sort of thing based on the fact that they loved the elves and that humans essentially kind of strong arm their way into the fruits of nature through farming and that sort of thing, which is a really interesting way to look at it.
00:47:04
Speaker
It's basically the difference between foraging and agriculture.
00:47:09
Speaker
And it's very, very interesting.
00:47:12
Speaker
So
00:47:13
Speaker
It's become clear that he says, yeah, you're not supposed to know about any of this.
00:47:16
Speaker
We're going to have to kill you.
00:47:19
Speaker
Right.
00:47:19
Speaker
So we get a tense moment with with it's actually hilarious because Geralt is just kind of I don't I don't know how much of this is Geralt actually meaning what he says and staring down death or or or somehow knowing that something's going to work out.
00:47:36
Speaker
But Geralt is just like, yeah, this is how it's going to go.
00:47:39
Speaker
This is how it's going to go.
00:47:40
Speaker
Then do it.
00:47:40
Speaker
Shut the fuck up.
00:47:41
Speaker
Stop talking and kill it.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
Do it.
00:47:43
Speaker
Do it.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
And Dambelein goes through the five stages of grief very quickly.
00:47:49
Speaker
Basically, it's just like, I don't want to die.
00:47:54
Speaker
Geralt is also like, the way Geralt is talking in this section, it's like he's
00:48:01
Speaker
like a right-wing podcaster almost the way he's like he's like talking about the the elves being like like oh like you know you you lost or whatever he's right he's like he's like shut the fuck up stop whining that right he's like stop whining that you've been colonized or whatever
00:48:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:22
Speaker
It's he's he's he's being very aggressive.
00:48:24
Speaker
You kind of want to go shut up.
00:48:26
Speaker
Shut up.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:27
Speaker
And and and when when Dandelion comes to realize that he starts.
00:48:33
Speaker
Geralt tries to do Dandelion a favor and he says, he says, just let him go.
00:48:38
Speaker
Just let him go.
00:48:39
Speaker
He's not going to do shit.
00:48:40
Speaker
Look at that guy.
00:48:40
Speaker
Look at who you're doing.
00:48:41
Speaker
He's wearing a lilac tunic.
00:48:43
Speaker
He's not going.
00:48:44
Speaker
He's no threat to you.
00:48:45
Speaker
I'm the threat.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:47
Speaker
You know, just let them go.
00:48:48
Speaker
And Daniel, I was like, fuck you.
00:48:50
Speaker
The moment I get out, if you let me go, I'm going to go tell everybody about this show.
00:48:54
Speaker
I'm going to murder everyone.
00:48:56
Speaker
I'm going to tell a whole story about you guys and everyone's going to come up and kill you.
00:48:59
Speaker
Carol's like, you're an idiot.
00:49:02
Speaker
You fucking idiot.
00:49:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:05
Speaker
So they're poised for death.
00:49:07
Speaker
And just in that moment, the goddess Dana Medbe, who is like the goddess of the harvest and fields and that sort of thing, shows up.
00:49:18
Speaker
And it's clear that that's who Lily was.
00:49:21
Speaker
And we do, I skipped over it a little bit, but there is talk of like the wise women in these towns and how when royalty, you know, who runs the town technically, they are afraid of these women.
00:49:34
Speaker
And so they tend to have them executed.
00:49:37
Speaker
And some of the villagers listen to them and believe them and trust in them.
00:49:40
Speaker
And so keep them secret.
00:49:42
Speaker
And it's become clear that Lily's more than just that.
00:49:45
Speaker
She was an avatar of this goddess.
00:49:49
Speaker
And so,
00:49:50
Speaker
She shows up and the elves just bow before her.
00:49:54
Speaker
Right.
00:49:56
Speaker
And while they're doing that, they're communicating telepathically.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:03
Speaker
And while they're doing that, Tork, who has been the entire time going like, please don't kill these guys.
00:50:09
Speaker
These guys are cool.
00:50:09
Speaker
They're all right.
00:50:10
Speaker
He just got done getting into a fist fight with Geralt.
00:50:13
Speaker
He's like, these guys.
00:50:14
Speaker
guys are okay but it's like torque torque knows what's up you know yeah like show us so we got into a fucking fight it's right we were having fun we're having a good time and it's terrific it's another thing that makes me go i fucking love this character and uh he says we're just having a scrap it's no big deal um and so he takes his opportunity and and cuts uh gerald and dandelion free uh uh and and they um
00:50:41
Speaker
Geralt, this is fantastic.
00:50:44
Speaker
Dandelion has passed out and Tork says, what should we do about him?
00:50:48
Speaker
What shall we do about him?
00:50:49
Speaker
He goes, how about you slap him around a little bit?
00:50:52
Speaker
And he goes, yeah, you got it.
00:50:53
Speaker
Right.
00:50:55
Speaker
picks them up, slaps them around.
00:50:57
Speaker
Um, the elves have received their communication.
00:51:01
Speaker
Whatever, uh, is said, uh, has influenced them to move on, uh, and let these, these people go.
00:51:08
Speaker
And, uh, the, uh, the goddess creates this beautiful loot, uh, for Dandelion to replace, uh, the one that, uh, he had before.
00:51:18
Speaker
And, um,
00:51:20
Speaker
And then kind of leaves.
00:51:22
Speaker
And the elves, the head of the elves, Phil of Andrel, they have this discussion where they talk about and he says, you know what, I thought about it and you're right.
00:51:32
Speaker
This is this is this.
00:51:34
Speaker
is this is stupid i'm gonna let you guys go but they had talked about how one day they would meet in the middle like when we when when we finally meet it'll be when the elves have finally had enough and they come down to fight the humans in a final all-out battle right uh and so uh phil evangel says like i hope
00:51:55
Speaker
that when that day comes, you don't disappoint me.
00:51:58
Speaker
And that you're there.
00:51:59
Speaker
And Geralt says, I'll try.
00:52:03
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:52:06
Speaker
And finally, we end with them camping out.
00:52:09
Speaker
And then Phil Vandral and Geralt do the handshake from fucking Predator.
00:52:17
Speaker
Predator, yeah, just boom.
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah, just boom.
00:52:21
Speaker
Unnecessarily huge muscles.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:25
Speaker
So, and the story ends with them surrounding a campfire and just kind of like they're Geralt's like reading to them from the book that they've taken from this town.
00:52:39
Speaker
And, and they, and it's just like, okay, well, we've got more adventures to do.
00:52:44
Speaker
I wonder where we're going to end up next.
00:52:45
Speaker
It's that kind of ending.
00:52:47
Speaker
Right.
00:52:47
Speaker
And on that note, that's, that's as far as we're going tonight.
00:52:50
Speaker
And I just love the fact that that so Dandelion and Tork are playing music together as they travel down the road, too.
00:53:02
Speaker
It's just like a it's like a nice touch.
00:53:04
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:53:05
Speaker
And they had many adventures after.
00:53:07
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:53:09
Speaker
And it does end.
00:53:10
Speaker
Hold on.
00:53:10
Speaker
It ends with.
00:53:12
Speaker
I, I, if you had seen this without having read the story, it's a lot more, uh, it's worse than it sounds, but the, the, the story ends with good night said the devil, uh, which I got a real kick out of.
00:53:25
Speaker
Um, it's terrific.
00:53:26
Speaker
It's, and it's just another great example of like, okay, uh,
00:53:30
Speaker
He didn't draw his sword hardly at all.
00:53:33
Speaker
Like this is, this is, it's about wits and being clever.
00:53:36
Speaker
And, and I think what we're getting here, uh, with Geralt is that it's about his own moral code and, and how, if, if, as long as he's true to that, uh, then, then, you know, he's going to live the best kind of life that he can.
00:53:53
Speaker
That certainly seems to be the case.
00:53:55
Speaker
Right.
00:53:55
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
So Kevin, what do you, what do you think so far?
00:53:58
Speaker
I'm liking it.
00:54:00
Speaker
I really enjoy these little stories.
00:54:03
Speaker
I mean, they're a lot of fun.
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah, Geralt is mostly doing battles of wits in these two, as opposed to, like, the first couple had more...
00:54:14
Speaker
you know, straight up fights.
00:54:17
Speaker
These these two are just like he he uses knocks a girl out when she starts using the force to destroy a party and he gets into a little bit of a scrap with Sylvan.
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, he gets in a wrestling match with him.
00:54:37
Speaker
It's, yeah, it's all very... Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker
It's fun, isn't it?
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:42
Speaker
It's just, it's fun.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:46
Speaker
I think it's terrific that I'm actually reading these while I'm watching Game of Thrones because...
00:54:50
Speaker
Whereas Game of Thrones takes itself so goddamn seriously on every little thing.
00:54:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:57
Speaker
Which is fine.
00:54:58
Speaker
That's what they're aiming for.
00:54:59
Speaker
This is kind of the opposite.
00:55:01
Speaker
There's a silliness here.
00:55:02
Speaker
There is an inherent silliness to stories and to the way the characters react to things like.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:11
Speaker
You know, there's Geralt can be kind of funny with the way he deals with things and him playing great.
00:55:17
Speaker
Him playing off Dandelion is also just absolutely hilarious.
00:55:23
Speaker
It's the best.
00:55:25
Speaker
I love their dynamic.
00:55:27
Speaker
I love I love everything about it.
00:55:29
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm with you 100% of the way.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:34
Speaker
So with that in mind, Kevin, I have one last question to ask you.
00:55:39
Speaker
What are you playing?
00:55:42
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:55:43
Speaker
What am I playing?
00:55:45
Speaker
So I played a little bit more of Doom the Dark Ages.
00:55:50
Speaker
And I got to tell you, I don't know.
00:55:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:55:56
Speaker
It's...
00:55:58
Speaker
meh it's fine like it's i just i think i might be hamstrung because it it i it runs well enough where i'm getting like 60 frames and all that stuff but in order to get there it's it's dumbing it down to a real low level of like quality
00:56:19
Speaker
And I don't know, there's something like, okay, I don't know if I'm interested in forcing myself to play through this.
00:56:27
Speaker
It's also seemingly a very long single-player campaign compared to the other games, from what I understand.
00:56:34
Speaker
So, Doom the Dark Ages, I understand people loving it, too, but I'm also...
00:56:44
Speaker
right now i'm kind of at the i don't even know if i'm gonna finish it uh place because it doesn't have the je ne sais quoi of of the others you know you know i didn't even i didn't finish the second one for the same reason it just didn't you know they captured lightning in a bottle with that first doom yeah
00:57:06
Speaker
It was exceptional.
00:57:07
Speaker
What a great game that was.
00:57:08
Speaker
And there's just something about the second one that didn't keep me.
00:57:11
Speaker
And it sounds like you're having the same experience with this.
00:57:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
Not really being kept kept in the gameplay loop for the Doom the Dark Ages.
00:57:19
Speaker
So I'm probably putting that aside for now.
00:57:25
Speaker
Well, since we've been talking about The Witcher and CD Projekt Red had a sale going on.
00:57:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:57:32
Speaker
On Steam.
00:57:33
Speaker
I was like, all right, I'll buy the first two games and see what I. So I got the first.
00:57:37
Speaker
I have I have the three Witcher games.
00:57:40
Speaker
I installed the first one and I was like, all right, let's see how this plays.
00:57:44
Speaker
It does not play well.
00:57:45
Speaker
It is.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:48
Speaker
Does not good.
00:57:50
Speaker
I'll say that.
00:57:51
Speaker
Oh, boy.
00:57:53
Speaker
I don't actually I was playing it with you know it's like how would you like to play mouse only or mouse and keyboard and be like this is a bad first sign weird okay why are you asking me that and it's like all right now like it's it's you you click you use the cursor and you click on the thing that you want to attack and
00:58:17
Speaker
And it's like left click to attack and I would click and it would attack and then it would like wouldn't attack again.
00:58:23
Speaker
And I'm like, am I supposed to be doing something different?
00:58:25
Speaker
And Geralt, when he's standing there with the sword, he's just like waggling it around, just like over his head like this.
00:58:33
Speaker
And I'm like, Geralt, swing the sword.
00:58:35
Speaker
I'm pressing the buttons.
00:58:36
Speaker
And...
00:58:39
Speaker
you know uh tris killed all the enemies in the time that i was trying to uh figure out how to attack and i'm like i'm not playing this uh always for the remake guys i guess or not i i i feel like yeah that's probably the best way to go there's going to be a lot of uh if they do it right anyway you would think there's going to be a lot of um you know uh quality of life uh changes that should help yeah
00:59:05
Speaker
I don't know.
00:59:07
Speaker
I probably actually know since we talked last I beat South of Midnight.
00:59:14
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:59:15
Speaker
Beautiful game.
00:59:17
Speaker
Got me crying a few times.
00:59:19
Speaker
I think it's definitely worth people checking out.
00:59:24
Speaker
It's got so many cool moments.
00:59:28
Speaker
in it that I think it's worth everybody take a look when they get a chance.
00:59:37
Speaker
Let's see.
00:59:40
Speaker
I played a little game called Without a Dawn.
00:59:44
Speaker
So without a Dawn, it's it it's a doesn't take long to be.
00:59:53
Speaker
It takes less than an hour and you.
00:59:59
Speaker
But the art style is really interesting.
01:00:02
Speaker
It uses ASCII art to kind of like generate these these images.
01:00:11
Speaker
It's a really cool game.
01:00:13
Speaker
Tells a really cool story.
01:00:16
Speaker
I mean, the bummer of a story, but it's a neat story about like, you know, kind of like depression and anxiety and, you know, in a horror package.
01:00:27
Speaker
The only critique I would give it is that it seems like a game where you are potentially being given choices that you can like maybe go off on a branching path, but the choices don't actually matter.
01:00:44
Speaker
You're always railroaded back to the main thing.
01:00:47
Speaker
That's a shame.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's but it's it's a it's a neat effort
Game Discussions: 'Without a Dawn' & 'Midnight Snack'
01:00:54
Speaker
and I feel like I'm happy to support this creator, like having bought it and all that stuff.
01:01:04
Speaker
So, yeah, it's gorgeous.
01:01:05
Speaker
This is this is definitely unique.
01:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:11
Speaker
One of the top reviews says it's not a game more like a purely linear linear visual novel that lasts 30 to 40 minutes.
01:01:18
Speaker
And that's that was my experience with it.
01:01:21
Speaker
And yeah, I agree.
01:01:22
Speaker
But it's still still pretty cool.
01:01:28
Speaker
And one other thing I've been playing and I'm surprised that this got me that this sucked me in is Monster Train 2.
01:01:37
Speaker
Okay, okay.
01:01:39
Speaker
So it's a roguelike deck builder.
01:01:42
Speaker
You know, it's kind of Slay the Spire-ish type stuff.
01:01:46
Speaker
You are in a train.
01:01:49
Speaker
You're...
01:01:52
Speaker
characters are sending a train full of soldiers, like angels and demons who are working together to break into heaven and kill a god angel named Seraph who has fallen in with the Titans.
01:02:10
Speaker
This is a cool art style.
01:02:12
Speaker
And the Titans are like, basically the Titans are like outer gods, like
01:02:18
Speaker
It's basically the Earth Celestials trying to take care of Earth business, and the Outer Gods have kind of gotten in the way.
01:02:27
Speaker
Very cool.
01:02:29
Speaker
So yeah, roguelike deck builder, you get... I'm surprised how much it... Because I'm like...
01:02:38
Speaker
I got a real low batting average on roguelike deck builders in terms of liking them.
01:02:44
Speaker
Love Balotro, Slay of the Spire.
01:02:47
Speaker
Okay, it's fine.
01:02:50
Speaker
This game though, I played for an hour and a half today and I didn't even realize it.
01:02:55
Speaker
I was like, oh, I guess I'm just going to keep playing this then.
01:03:00
Speaker
That does say something right there.
01:03:02
Speaker
It does say something.
01:03:05
Speaker
And that is what I have been playing.
01:03:08
Speaker
Excellent.
01:03:09
Speaker
Phil.
01:03:11
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:03:13
Speaker
Oh, it's sounding more like Strong Bad now that I... What are you playing?
01:03:17
Speaker
Can we email?
01:03:19
Speaker
Email.
01:03:20
Speaker
Oh, man.
01:03:21
Speaker
Things were just about to get crazy, GoNuts.
01:03:26
Speaker
The treat is grounded.
01:03:32
Speaker
I played a couple of things.
01:03:34
Speaker
I'm still just coming home and hitting up Tower Dominion.
01:03:40
Speaker
That's become my favorite lately.
01:03:44
Speaker
Just trying, basically trying, all of the achievements are just great.
01:03:48
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it.
01:03:50
Speaker
I played a demo for a game called chorus of Carcosa.
01:03:53
Speaker
Um, and I was like, I'm going to go to the next level of the game.
01:03:55
Speaker
I'm going to go to the next level of the game.
01:03:57
Speaker
I'm going to go to the next level of the game.
01:03:59
Speaker
I'm going to go to the next level of the game.
01:04:01
Speaker
I'm going to go to the next level of the game.
01:04:08
Speaker
This is... Gee, I wonder what that one's about.
01:04:10
Speaker
Right, right.
01:04:13
Speaker
It's a very janky horror adventure kind of thing.
01:04:21
Speaker
It's got a lot of influences from the King in Yellow.
01:04:26
Speaker
And I will give them full credit.
01:04:30
Speaker
It follows the theme pretty well.
01:04:32
Speaker
It has voice acted, full voice acting.
01:04:37
Speaker
It has good atmosphere.
01:04:40
Speaker
It's got...
01:04:42
Speaker
some very standard issue, uh, in the jank where it's like clear they're trying to create this epic atmosphere and they just don't have, uh, uh, the resources to do that.
01:04:55
Speaker
And, and as a result,
01:04:57
Speaker
It's not bad.
01:04:58
Speaker
It's just that there's kind of... You get a look behind the curtain every now and then, and it's just not as good as it could have been.
01:05:05
Speaker
The demo was interesting.
01:05:06
Speaker
I didn't... It was fine.
01:05:09
Speaker
I played it for 30 minutes.
01:05:10
Speaker
It had some good scary moments, some classic, like, literally in the dark moments, which I admired.
01:05:17
Speaker
Right.
01:05:18
Speaker
It's a little janky to play.
01:05:20
Speaker
It's got...
01:05:22
Speaker
ho-hum graphics, but I will admit that I was impressed with a lot of the dialogue and honestly, the voice acting, the voice acting was pretty decent.
01:05:32
Speaker
And the fact that they're going specifically with the King and yellow on the whole, I thought that was really very interesting.
01:05:40
Speaker
So worth at least taking a look at the demo.
01:05:44
Speaker
It's fine.
01:05:44
Speaker
I'm not going to spend any money on it, but it was, it was fine.
01:05:48
Speaker
And then I played a very short game called midnight snack.
01:05:53
Speaker
Um, have you, do you, do you know what I'm talking about with this?
01:05:57
Speaker
No, this is a weird goddamn game.
01:06:00
Speaker
I know big shock.
01:06:02
Speaker
Um, it is free.
01:06:05
Speaker
Uh, it took me 10 minutes to play and beat.
01:06:08
Speaker
Uh, it has four achievements.
01:06:11
Speaker
Uh,
01:06:12
Speaker
It is kind of genius in its own weird way.
01:06:16
Speaker
It is a horror game.
01:06:17
Speaker
It's a first person horror game.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
01:06:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:20
Speaker
You are trying to escape something that's chasing you.
01:06:25
Speaker
The smart thing, the thing that sets it apart is the mechanics are microwave based.
01:06:33
Speaker
You are looking from a microwave, essentially, and you have two...
01:06:38
Speaker
turn.
01:06:39
Speaker
What do you call them?
01:06:40
Speaker
Little wheels, basically, to turn.
01:06:42
Speaker
One of them turns your head 360 and the other one moves you forward and you have to turn it like like an egg timer, basically.
01:06:54
Speaker
And there is a limit.
01:06:55
Speaker
You can't you can't just keep turning it on and you don't want to do that anyway.
01:06:59
Speaker
And it you turn it as far as you think you need to go.
01:07:04
Speaker
And it's got kind of an Alan Wake thing where you're kind of going from one light source to another to protect yourself.
01:07:12
Speaker
And so you don't you want to you're kind of like eyeballing how
01:07:17
Speaker
how far you want to turn the dial.
01:07:20
Speaker
Because if you keep going, you'll go right past the light and into the dark and you're vulnerable again.
01:07:26
Speaker
Very clever.
01:07:27
Speaker
Very.
01:07:28
Speaker
It's a very interesting, unique mechanic that I am glad they didn't try to drag out for longer than like 10 minutes.
01:07:40
Speaker
It's this is this would not have worked even in like an hour long game or something like that.
01:07:46
Speaker
They they were like, no, this is this is 10 minutes, maybe 15, depending on how much you take to it.
01:07:52
Speaker
It's got good spookiness.
01:07:53
Speaker
It's got good atmosphere.
01:07:56
Speaker
The the graphic style is nice and retro and and and it's free and and and there's some really clever
01:08:04
Speaker
stuff in there.
01:08:05
Speaker
It's another example of I've been finding these a lot where it's like, OK, it's by Desboard Games, and this is the only thing they've ever done.
01:08:13
Speaker
And it's like, OK, you know what?
01:08:15
Speaker
Following you, I want to I want to see what's next because it had just enough
01:08:20
Speaker
of a clever bite to it.
01:08:22
Speaker
Um, just enough to set it apart from the usual crap.
01:08:27
Speaker
Um, and not even crap.
01:08:28
Speaker
Like I'll, I'll do a great, great examples comparing it to course of Carcosa.
01:08:34
Speaker
Um, right.
01:08:35
Speaker
There was nothing theoretically wrong with course, Carcosa.
01:08:39
Speaker
Uh, uh, it was a little janky.
01:08:41
Speaker
It's a little, you know, it, it, it,
01:08:44
Speaker
That's it.
01:08:44
Speaker
It's just that it's doing the same fucking thing you've seen every indie horror game do.
01:08:50
Speaker
Right.
01:08:51
Speaker
It's a lot of the same tropes of psychological horror and the same kind of scares, the same kind of spooky things.
01:08:59
Speaker
And ultimately, I like what I could just play a
01:09:05
Speaker
I'm not going to be a better version of this, you know, if I wanted to.
01:09:09
Speaker
Midnight snack is not as scary.
01:09:11
Speaker
It doesn't have it, but it has its own sense of atmosphere and it's going for something very specific.
01:09:19
Speaker
And so 10 minutes of this free game is enough for me to go.
01:09:25
Speaker
I want to see what else they're doing.
01:09:26
Speaker
I want to see what else they're going to do because that was a clever idea.
01:09:30
Speaker
And that's enough for me.
01:09:31
Speaker
I think that's great.
01:09:33
Speaker
So yeah, Midnight Snack.
Closing and Social Media Engagement
01:09:35
Speaker
Check it out.
01:09:36
Speaker
It's again, it's free.
01:09:37
Speaker
Took like 10 minutes to play.
01:09:39
Speaker
Already added it to the thing to my library.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, pretty cool stuff.
01:09:43
Speaker
I think you'll like it.
01:09:44
Speaker
I think you'll like it.
01:09:45
Speaker
um yeah so yeah that's what i've been playing yeah awesome awesome um so that'll do it for tonight's episode uh thank you so much for listening if you can go uh follow us on the socials uh pixel at pod wherever you can find us uh like us on instagram like us on in real life if you see us in real life just like look at us right in the eye and say hey i like you
01:10:09
Speaker
And that'll be more.
01:10:11
Speaker
That's like worth 10,000 likes on Instagram or Facebook or whatever.
01:10:19
Speaker
But I can't remember the exchange rate actually of.
01:10:24
Speaker
It gets complicated.
01:10:25
Speaker
Especially with inflation.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:27
Speaker
With inflation.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, that actually that's actually my question of the night.
01:10:32
Speaker
Phil, what is how do I how do I exchange these?
01:10:39
Speaker
Did you get these doge bucks from Elon in the mail?
01:10:42
Speaker
How do I turn those into actual currency?
01:10:46
Speaker
What's the deal with those?
01:10:48
Speaker
I think the best bet is, you know, it's Elon.
01:10:52
Speaker
So what you're going to do first is grab yourself the nearest book you can find on the history of apartheid, and then you're going to