Transcript
Speaker: Content warning.
Speaker: This episode contains descriptions of sexual and domestic violence.
Speaker: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker: We love the Welsh.
Speaker: Our logo designer is Welsh.
Speaker: You guys have one of the coolest flags.
Speaker: And just one of the greatest languages that I'll never in a million years be able to understand.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: It's so cool.
Speaker: I may be 66% Irish, but I am 100%.
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hey guys.
Speaker: Today we're talking Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: That sweet breath of fresh air.
Speaker: This is our third episode on it.
Speaker: I'm gonna need to check this out.
Speaker: This is my little gift for the opening of the show.
Speaker: This is a Venturi.
Speaker: It oxygenates your wine and it makes the coolest sound and I want to see if it can pick up for the people the sound it makes.
Speaker: I heard that.
Speaker: I think that, yeah, I definitely heard something there.
Speaker: That was weird.
Speaker: Was that for our ASMR folk that listened to us?
Speaker: For those of you who like gadgets, wine, and ASMR, you're welcome.
Speaker: I don't know if there's any real ASMR folk that listened, because we both kind of talk at a yell.
Speaker: Yeah, it would be bad for them.
Speaker: This heavy breathing and loud.
Speaker: It's not like we're, it's not like we're, okay, now I'm going to talk really down here.
Speaker: So Andrew Ryan.
Speaker: We're kind of loud people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I, I, every time I'm done one of these, I go downstairs and my wife is downstairs and she, she says, you're really loud.
Speaker: She says, she's like, she's like, you guys have fun, don't you?
Speaker: And I was like, what did, what do you mean?
Speaker: She goes, you just laugh and laugh and laugh.
Speaker: You think it's cute now?
Speaker: Just wait till it's our wait till it's our full time job, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just wait for that.
Speaker: That's going to be.
Speaker: And we are putting that out in the world.
Speaker: That is that is out in the universe now.
Speaker: It is happening.
Speaker: You know, this is going to be one of the last episodes of the year.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Timing wise, I suppose.
Speaker: Timing wise, it's going to be the third episode.
Speaker: Yeah, this will be the third episode.
Speaker: So one, two, three.
Speaker: Yeah, it actually might be our last regular episode of the year, depending on what we're doing on the 22nd.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: We're getting there.
Speaker: We are making out the year.
Speaker: Guys, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: We usually say that.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: This is actually, we're just past our six-month anniversary as of this episode.
Speaker: Isn't that mind-blowing?
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: We've got to think of something to do for the year anniversary.
Speaker: Got to start planning now.
Speaker: You've got to start planning the year anniversary at about six months before the year anniversary, or else that year anniversary is just going to feel like
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Limp.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We know you guys are listening, but we were just talking about it.
Speaker: We were watching the numbers and the numbers are good.
Speaker: The numbers are good.
Speaker: People are starting to listen to us.
Speaker: You're out there.
Speaker: You're listening.
Speaker: And it's so freaking cool.
Speaker: Because let's face facts.
Speaker: This was this was me and Kevin's equivalent of dad's garage band.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's like, let's get together and do a cover of, you know,
Speaker: Pearl jam or something like that.
Speaker: Let's let's really try to nail black hole sun.
Speaker: Right now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you guys are actually showing up and actually listening.
Speaker: And holy fuck.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: Like this is, this is way better than the epiphone, uh, explorer that I would have bought for myself if we had done a band instead.
Speaker: Like believe it or not, this podcast beats the fuck out of a mediocre pointy guitar.
Speaker: yeah yeah and i don't play the guitar so it would have been really wasted on me it would have been yeah it would have been it would have been awkward yeah yeah so where are we we're in as far as i'm i'm aware um we're in chapter nine uh lower wharf neptune's bouncy march 1953 um so we got a chief solvent chapter
Speaker: And he's down there.
Speaker: He's he's investigating.
Speaker: He's he's looking around because this Fontaine character, he's up to no good.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he he gets Sullivan ends up being attacked by a man and they they tussle a bit.
Speaker: And Sullivan's partner, Karlosky, ends up shooting the man dead.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And basically the man has, has all this information on him as if he is the, the, the, he is running the smuggling operation.
Speaker: It's like, it's like this neat little package that Fontaine has set up to draw suspicion, very too good to be true.
Speaker: You know, too good to be true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're trying to, and they, and they figure, they see right through it.
Speaker: You know, they, they realize that basically what this is, is,
Speaker: kind of this guy's been treated as a stool pigeon, so they'll stop looking for the smuggling guy, assuming like, well, we got him, he's dead.
Speaker: And so if that's what Fontaine is doing, it doesn't really seem to work.
Speaker: Yeah, and we get a little, and written right into the text, we have a little Russian-Ukrainian racism because Karlovsky is Russian, I believe, and the man that they shoot, Mike Lasko, is Ukrainian, and Karlovsky has very strong words for how he feels about Ukrainians.
Speaker: There's not a, and if any of you have met Ukrainians, they don't always have kind words for Russians.
Speaker: Yeah, Ukrainians and Russians tend to have words.
Speaker: I'm not stepping in the middle of that.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: I'm not because, yeah, no.
Speaker: If you crack the spine on a history book, you'll know there's plenty of grievances to be held there.
Speaker: To be had, yeah.
Speaker: And I don't get between Russians and Ukrainians and slobs in general.
Speaker: I don't have that kind of courage in me.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I just don't.
Speaker: I don't either.
Speaker: That is...
Speaker: As a wise man once said, this is not my floor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we get a little bit of old fashioned Euro racism, which we as we haven't seen in a long time as modern day Americans.
Speaker: We haven't we have not gotten a lot of Euro racism in our day to day lives.
Speaker: If you know, it's almost wistful.
Speaker: Italians, Italians get it on, you know, on occasion.
Speaker: Yeah, still.
Speaker: But other than that, yeah, it's not super common.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that brings us to Fontaine with his recently acquired scientists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He made a science acquisition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it looks like they're making big daddies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It, it, and that's the thing is it doesn't say it.
Speaker: No, like outright, but it felt like a, it seemed like a big daddy that they were, they were working on.
Speaker: Yeah, they're basically testing out all these abilities.
Speaker: They're fusing flesh to metal, that whole thing.
Speaker: And this is the chapter, or the chapter, the section of the chapter, where we get Adam, Eve, and plasmids really kind of explained to us, where these weird sea slugs, which, what a random-ass thing to ascribe...
Speaker: the discovery of Adam and everything like that to like just see slugs.
Speaker: Okay, fine.
Speaker: Uh, so they develop these special stem cells from the slugs, which can heal and alter the body.
Speaker: They basically tear open this guy, uh, you know, inject him with some Adam.
Speaker: And after a minute,
Speaker: The wound stitches itself together.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they call it Adam, which is what the gives you the powers.
Speaker: And another sort of chemical called Eve, which restores those powers, because the most important thing to remember is this power is finite.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You can come up with it.
Speaker: You can come up with all kinds of powers and they do right now.
Speaker: It's just healing and some basic vague alterations.
Speaker: And you can do all kinds of cool things with that, Adam, but you need Eve to recharge yourself.
Speaker: The power doesn't stick around forever, which leads to Sushong piping in that.
Speaker: That's probably pretty addictive stuff for a lot of reasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not the least of which is the amazing power.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Fontaine immediately has the dollar signs.
Speaker: His eyes turn into dollar signs.
Speaker: Yeah, immediately like a Looney Tunes cartoon.
Speaker: Just like someone turns an arm on his head and it turns into a slot machine and he starts spitting up coins.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So in the next part of the chapter, we have a character who is, if you've played Bioshock, he gets killed off.
Speaker: He's your first boss.
Speaker: Yeah, you meet him pretty early.
Speaker: You meet him pretty early.
Speaker: He is the first boss of the game.
Speaker: You knock him, you take him out pretty quickly.
Speaker: Actually, one of the few bosses of the game.
Speaker: That was the thing about Bioshock is when you play it, there's only a couple bosses and he is one of them.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You fight him maybe in the first 45 minutes or something like that.
Speaker: This is guy, Dr. Steinman, and he's a Steinman.
Speaker: He is a plastic surgeon who has lost his goddamn mind.
Speaker: Just out of his mind.
Speaker: The thing about him is that.
Speaker: You don't realize how far back until you read the book, you don't realize how far back he had lost his mind.
Speaker: This is 1953, seven years before the events of the game.
Speaker: And he is already talking.
Speaker: He sees and talks to the goddess Aphrodite.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's basically looking for the perfect face.
Speaker: He's trying to express the beauty of Aphrodite to please her in his work.
Speaker: And it becomes very clear and it gets more clear as time goes on.
Speaker: But he doesn't care what you want done.
Speaker: to your face.
Speaker: He has some restraint for now, but he sees every person who's under his knife as kind of a potential experiment.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Not really, I guess.
Speaker: So not an experiment, but clay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a mold, something to mold, an artistic endeavor.
Speaker: And he's clearly doing good work.
Speaker: We see him, you know, showing off, you know, some of his work to a woman who just got her face lifted, got some nose work done, that kind of thing.
Speaker: And they're flummoxed.
Speaker: They love it.
Speaker: They love his work.
Speaker: He's amazing.
Speaker: And he's clearly, it's not enough for him.
Speaker: He's really, really not thrilled with it.
Speaker: There's another really strange thing in this chapter I highlighted that they kind of fly right past, which I found to be very frustrating because I wanted more information on this.
Speaker: Steinman took a cigarette from the box on the coral desk, lit it with a silver lighter shaped like a human nose, and got up to open the curtains of his office porthole.
Speaker: Where can I have a cigarette lighter the shape of a human nose, please?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I feel like that's information that perhaps we should have.
Speaker: There should be a hyperlink or or just like an extra couple sentences.
Speaker: I will go back to that later.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't smoke.
Speaker: I don't have any, I don't really have a lot of use for a cigarette lighter, but to have a silver cigarette lighter in the shape of a human nose, just sitting on my desk where anyone, where God and anybody else can see it.
Speaker: I need that kind of insanity in my life.
Speaker: It's just a little detail, but it's very important to me.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is a, it is a, what a chaotic neutral item of power right there, which is the vibes I'm always trying to give off.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we get that's our that's our first.
Speaker: That's our introduction to it.
Speaker: That's our first introduction to Steinman in the book so far.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He shows up a couple more times in part two, but he's kind of his chapters are kind of mixed in there to represent the kind of.
Speaker: best people that Ryan has brought down are not are.
Speaker: He's clearly one of the best plastic surgeons.
Speaker: Clearly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But he's just.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: He represents something cracked behind that mirror.
Speaker: Rotten foundation.
Speaker: And then we cut back to Fontaine and Fontaine is having a little sexy time with Bridget Tenenbaum with Tenenbaum.
Speaker: Like what the hell man like do not look they make a point of saying that she's beautiful and she's beautiful But and kind of like but also kind of like the nutty professor She's crazy like she's she's she's a she's a she's a Nazi.
Speaker: Yeah Don't don't fucking you know don't stick your dick in eugenics.
Speaker: There is so many words
Speaker: You just don't do it.
Speaker: And I got to say, John Shirley writes around it in such a way that that Tenenbaum is never really described as a Nazi.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But she is a German who worked for the Nazis.
Speaker: Who is very... Who is very... Who is very into eugenics and experimenting on people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, it's okay.
Speaker: I know she turns out to be kind of like one of the protagonists of Bioshock.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's okay that you write her as she is...
Speaker: Which is a eugenics obsessed Nazi.
Speaker: A Nazi.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She is not a good person.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And neither is Fontaine.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And we do get, and this, and this actually, we do get a very, another very Randian moment here where essentially she's telling him what, how she likes it.
Speaker: They haven't had sex yet.
Speaker: He says, you look kind of scared.
Speaker: He said, are you sure about this?
Speaker: I do not like to be touched, she said, but I need it when the feelings of desire come.
Speaker: What I dream of is a man who who simply takes me.
Speaker: I will make some token resistance, but it will not be real.
Speaker: I must fight a little.
Speaker: I can do only do it that way, which is another kind of Ayn Rand staple.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: There is a lot of rapey.
Speaker: sex stuff in Ayn Rand's work.
Speaker: It's I believe we're still we're still talking about this one actually is the fountainhead.
Speaker: There is a scene where our male protagonist
Speaker: takes the female protagonist, uh, and she, uh, tries to fight him off and he exerts his power upon her.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, and, and she even calls it right, but she's kind of into it at the same time.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, it's, and, and basically anybody who's ever read I'd ran knows that the woman was a freak and I'm not here to yuck your yum, you know, and I say freak in the friendliest
Speaker: possible way that I can mean it, but there, there is a, a, a constant underlying theme of, um, basically Iran was a sub.
Speaker: She wanted to be dominated very, very badly.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: She probably, you know, she probably had a rape fantasy, uh, stuff like that.
Speaker: Um, but none of the people that she describes having these moments, uh, expresses it the way 10 and bomb here does.
Speaker: very specifically yes tenenbaum does it right tenenbaum and and fontaine are doing it right she's like i just i want to be taken i want to feel tenenbaum is like here's what i like i am giving you consent to do it right but i like it when it's it's it seems exactly like this yeah which it still feels a even then it still feels dicey the way she's the way it's written um
Speaker: That's not first date fooling around shit.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: The whole scene gave me... I don't know.
Speaker: It's like one of those danger zone moments in the back of my head.
Speaker: Very much so, yes.
Speaker: Moving on from that scene.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Let's go to the amusement park.
Speaker: Let's do.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: Kevin, I love amusement parks.
Speaker: I love amusement parks.
Speaker: Oh, wait.
Speaker: This is...
Speaker: It's Dennis Prager, the ride.
Speaker: It's Dennis Prager.
Speaker: Prager, you has been turned into an amusement park.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Yeah, basically, Bill McDonough decides to ride the rides of the amusement park.
Speaker: And it's the journey to the surface.
Speaker: So it's like it's a ride that is designed to let kids go up to the surface and see above the water and all that stuff.
Speaker: And basically telling them why they shouldn't go up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, into the real world.
Speaker: Uh, and it's just all this, this rapture propaganda.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, about, and it's parasites and all that stuff.
Speaker: It is just shoving it down the kids' throats.
Speaker: You've got, you've got the great businessman who is, uh, destroyed by the parasites.
Speaker: And we talked about this in the last episode, that hand, the hand that comes from above and smashes the hardworking, smashes the tableaus.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: No, says the man in Washington.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I think the funniest one of these is the artist.
Speaker: They do the same thing.
Speaker: It's like the artist wants to make great art.
Speaker: And the person in the government says, you can't say this and you can't do that.
Speaker: You can't make art about that.
Speaker: And it's like, let's really think about this.
Speaker: Like, let's really think about this.
Speaker: Who is the, who is our country's greatest libertarian artist?
Speaker: Vince Vaughn?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Most artists are kind of okay with all this shit that you're saying is holding them down and everything like that.
Speaker: Like the, you know, it's like, that's, that's it.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: artists, artists who don't have a lot of empathy for like, you know, you know, giving some money up here to help kids and school and shit like that.
Speaker: They don't, they don't tend to make stuff that, that really resonates with the population at large, let's say.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Bill is a little bit bummed.
Speaker: He's bummed that he had to see this.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, I don't think I can take my wife on this.
Speaker: No, much less his kid.
Speaker: He's just his kid.
Speaker: He's not going to let his kid.
Speaker: We're starting to see we've been starting to see Bill's apprehension over the world he's helping create.
Speaker: This is another example.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the apprehension is building.
Speaker: And there's there's a lot of things that are slowly coming to a head mean because meanwhile, over in Dionysus Park.
Speaker: Yes, we have Sophia Lamb, who is talking to one of the brothers, Wales, Wales, Simon Wales, and basically kind of trying to get him.
Speaker: on her side because she's talking about she uses the word communal concept and oh yeah that's that right that's that's similar to communism it's awfully awfully close awfully close they're talking treason here my friend they are talking treason on paper treason
Speaker: And we get introduced to Sophia's daughter, Eleanor, who she's keeping away from the other kids.
Speaker: Yes, because she doesn't want because the other kids are brainwashed.
Speaker: She wants to keep her kid nice and pure.
Speaker: And she's playing with Mr. Diary.
Speaker: This is how they kind of introduce the the diary, the audio logs.
Speaker: And there's a cute little scene where it is playing with Mr. Diary and then she ends up stabbing Mr. Diary to death.
Speaker: It, uh, let's see.
Speaker: Hello, Mr. Diary.
Speaker: Want to play?
Speaker: She mimicked his voice.
Speaker: Actually, I'm quite busy right now, Miss Ellador.
Speaker: Maybe later.
Speaker: Well, all right.
Speaker: But do you mind if I take you apart while I wait?
Speaker: I promise I'll put you back together.
Speaker: Wait, you can't do that.
Speaker: No, wait, wait, Eleanor.
Speaker: And to Sophia's surprise, Eleanor commenced stabbing at the tape recorder, breaking it apart with a screwdriver.
Speaker: Yeah, she's doing great.
Speaker: Kids doing great.
Speaker: It's doing great.
Speaker: Surely rapture is the place to raise your children.
Speaker: Surely.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: We're back with the trio of trouble here.
Speaker: That's what I'm going to call them.
Speaker: Tenenbaum, Fontaine, and Suchong.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they're talking plasmids.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They're starting to eject this stuff into volunteer subjects here.
Speaker: And they start with electric plasmids, just as we do in the game, just as we do in the game.
Speaker: And and so he has to be tranquilized because it's unlike anything anyone's ever experienced.
Speaker: The electricity shooting out of his hands, he's losing his mind, he's losing control, and they got to tranquilize him.
Speaker: And instead of going, holy fucking shit, we shouldn't give this to anybody, they start discussing its usage and the practical effects for it and how they're going to make it into a big business.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So while they're doing that, Fontaine is...
Speaker: I love this moment.
Speaker: It's kind of cartoonish.
Speaker: Fontaine wants to go into this back room, this specific room.
Speaker: It's kind of like, what y'all got hiding back there?
Speaker: Back where?
Speaker: Back there!
Speaker: Behind that door over there, see?
Speaker: And
Speaker: And they start going, you don't maybe want to go back there.
Speaker: And he goes, well, I'm paying for all this shit.
Speaker: I want to see it.
Speaker: And he goes in and you get basically a clip from alien resurrection where Sigourney Weaver is like half Xenomorph and half human going, kill me.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: It's pretty awful.
Speaker: And Fontaine, Fontaine is, Fontaine hates it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: He thinks it is the worst thing ever.
Speaker: Very, very, what has science wrought?
Speaker: And he's like, you got it under control.
Speaker: And Tenenbaum's like, yeah, we know what we're doing now.
Speaker: And he's like, great.
Speaker: Kill that thing.
Speaker: Kill this, please.
Speaker: Burn it.
Speaker: Get rid of it.
Speaker: Nothing left.
Speaker: No one gets to know about this.
Speaker: More controllable, easy to package, stuff that makes a man smarter, stronger, stuff that makes us money.
Speaker: You understand?
Speaker: Money.
Speaker: And once again, we see the ding, ding, ding.
Speaker: Yeah, just dollar bill signs.
Speaker: He's really he's really recovered from seeing basically a man made made Eldritch Beast.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The cure for that, the cure for seeing an untenable horror before your very eyes is money.
Speaker: Money is the saltines and ginger ale of the soul.
Speaker: And it gets him through it.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: And that brings us to, uh, to lamb.
Speaker: We're back to lamb.
Speaker: I'm starting to think that maybe this name is metaphorical.
Speaker: Kevin, what do you think?
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Uh, if we're, you know what?
Speaker: It's like, um, we were, when we're talking to jam and we're talking about, um, uh, those, those Christian songs, um, like in, in the, yes.
Speaker: And how, um, uh,
Speaker: And I just started thinking of washed in the blood of the lamb.
Speaker: Every time I see every time I see her name, it's, you know, because lamb has deep, deep Christian.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And but but not not Christian now, but Christian like the communal Christian meanings and roots where it's like.
Speaker: We it's a, it's a lot of we stuff and, and, and togetherness and stuff like that.
Speaker: So small town community, Appalachian, a frame churches in the woods kind of, kind of coming together and get to get washed in the blood of the lamb.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Going down to the river to pray like that kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: I, it does have that old school vibe and that's gonna, that's gonna play in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Stanley, it's the stories.
Speaker: This chapter is told from Stanley or section is told from Stanley Pools point of view.
Speaker: Stanley Pools, the reporter, if I recall correctly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes, he's a reporter.
Speaker: He's there to cover.
Speaker: Well, I think he's there to cover giving a speech.
Speaker: Yeah, she's there giving a speech to the working man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it is it is very, very on the nose.
Speaker: Like, I'm surprised that she is still alive by the end.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm amazed that, like, at no point do we get 1950s style, you know,
Speaker: laser sights between her eyes at any point.
Speaker: She goes left of Che Guevara on this one.
Speaker: She's talking cooperation, which is down in Rapture.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: She is.
Speaker: She is.
Speaker: deep into it.
Speaker: A house divided cannot stand.
Speaker: Competition is division, my friends, and a house divided cannot stand quoting, quoting Lincoln there.
Speaker: And but and she has an land and whales not whales pool notices that she is basically just as charismatic as Andrew Ryan.
Speaker: Yeah, she's a great speaker, a great speaker, dynamic speaker, just
Speaker: completely different, like opposite end of the political spectrum, but charismatic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's another person there who notices the exact same thing.
Speaker: Fontaine.
Speaker: Fontaine.
Speaker: And it's money.
Speaker: It's kind of, it's kind of, well, yeah, it's kind of hilarious because he loves her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He thinks she's great, not for her message, but because he sees it as he thinks she's a con artist like him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so it's like, oh, this is another grifter.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's like, oh, games game respects game.
Speaker: That's really what we get here.
Speaker: And he says this Dr. Lamb was going to be too much competition, of course, in time, you'd have to see to it that Ryan got the info he needed to arrest her.
Speaker: Meantime, she was inspiring him along with the crowd, only not the same way.
Speaker: basically he keeps his eye on the prize.
Speaker: He's like, I gotta take care of my shit and Ryan and everything like that first.
Speaker: But along the way, I'm going to have to, you know, drop a few fleas in, in, in Ryan's ear about this woman.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I can't, cause she's awesome.
Speaker: And that means I gotta get rid of her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's another thing that just makes, I love Fontaine as a character so much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's such a scumbag, but there's just massive,
Speaker: pile of shit, but you can't help, but kind of root for him.
Speaker: It's like, it's like, like Ryan is, they, they kind of want the same thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we've discussed this before, but it's like, Ryan, isn't having fun with it.
Speaker: Ryan doesn't enjoy it.
Speaker: He's like, he, he kind of, he feels himself yoked to it.
Speaker: Some, he's all stress.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He gets more and more paranoid and Fontaine is just having more and more fun.
Speaker: And it is because Fontaine has no rules.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, and, and, uh, no rules just right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And he sees lamb as the oversized can of fosters, uh, that he, that just refreshes him in the moment that he's eventually going to have to crumble up and throw into the recycling bin.
Speaker: But for now, for now, but for now,
Speaker: He's sipping that, Foster's, and he's having a good time.
Speaker: Australian for capitalism.
Speaker: Foster's.
Speaker: Australian for capitalism.
Speaker: Aye.
Speaker: Aye.
Speaker: I don't know if we have any Aussie listeners yet.
Speaker: Oh, I want Aussie listeners.
Speaker: Oh, wait, Cat.
Speaker: Well, we had Cat.
Speaker: Well, we do have Cat.
Speaker: Yeah, Cat counts.
Speaker: Cat counts.
Speaker: That was pretty good, right?
Speaker: We honored your country in the proper way.
Speaker: We honored your country and heritage.
Speaker: Fosters, that's your favorite beer, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Australians.
Speaker: You guys only drink that and eat Bloomin' Onions for breakfast.
Speaker: Bloomin' Onions and Fosters.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's the diet of champions.
Speaker: That does sound good.
Speaker: Sounds good, but also like a huge mistake.
Speaker: Like I can see, I can foresee, I have the power of foreseeing into the future 30 minutes after that.
Speaker: It's an important power.
Speaker: It's an important power.
Speaker: 30 minutes beyond that trouble.
Speaker: Not so good.
Speaker: Only darkness lies down that path.
Speaker: Just the darkness, the dark side and the dark end of a toilet.
Speaker: And when I say darkness, I mean, you're sitting in the toilet in the dark because you're so ashamed of what's coming out of your body.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You don't even have the lights on in the bathroom.
Speaker: You're just like, you just want to be in a void.
Speaker: You don't want to see yourself.
Speaker: You don't want to see your own arms and legs because you're afraid of how much sweat is going to be on them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Andrew Ryan, not afraid of of pooping in the light, though, because he is a man is a man's man who poops, who who poops in the open.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So, yeah, he's hanging out with Bill, some more come along Bill moments.
Speaker: And Sullivan is showing them.
Speaker: He's basically introducing them to the plasmin ads.
Speaker: This is our first chance to see.
Speaker: The man in Washington wants you to poop in the dark.
Speaker: I want you to poop proudly where you stand.
Speaker: Come to Rapture.
Speaker: In front of your friends and family.
Speaker: At Rapture.
Speaker: I would like to poop in the lights.
Speaker: No, says the man in Washington.
Speaker: Is a man not entitled to the sweat off his own thighs after he's been pooping for four and a half hours?
Speaker: My cat knows something's wrong.
Speaker: He's giving me a watch.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So somebody brings that.
Speaker: Somebody brings.
Speaker: Ryan, the flyer about the plasmids.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Fontaine is releasing a line of plasmids.
Speaker: The original line is hair grow, brain boost, sport boost, electrobult, more muscle enhancer and watch out for incinerate.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lots of different usages for these.
Speaker: Everything from like turning on, you know, your gas heater without matches to just plain having a nice full head of hair, which which is missing from the game.
Speaker: And I'm disappointed.
Speaker: I'm disappointed that there wasn't a whole plot line related to hair grow and that there wasn't some sort of like Sasquatch man who was addicted to who was addicted to hair.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like after Stephen King found that meteor in the woods and in creep show and he starts getting covered in green fur and he has to blow his own brains out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That.
Speaker: Is what was missing from Bioshock.
Speaker: That's what was missing from Bioshock.
Speaker: Creepshow.
Speaker: Was Creepshow, literally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and, you know, there's the Sullivan gives him the report that Poole had given him that, like, yeah, there's been a Fontaine has made some breakthroughs and all that stuff.
Speaker: And they're pretty sure that Fontaine's the one that is smuggling.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But they don't have enough, like,
Speaker: actual evidence to follow it through.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's Ryan is not super concerned with this yet.
Speaker: No, no, he's not.
Speaker: He's not concerned about the effects.
Speaker: He's not even really all that concerned about Fontaine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He kind of does have a similar attitude toward Fontaine as Fontaine has for lamb, but in kind of a more like,
Speaker: LARPy, ego maniacal kind of way.
Speaker: We're fontanes just having fun.
Speaker: I'm going to have to, I might have to mess with her.
Speaker: Uh, Ryan is, he's built up this legend of himself that he's drunk the Kool-Aid on so bad.
Speaker: I think he really does see himself as Sherlock and Fontaine as Moriarty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like a worthy rival, you know, he can kind of missing the point entirely.
Speaker: He can kind of let him, you know, like he can kind of let Fontaine vibe and do his own thing for now.
Speaker: He's not, he's not super, um, he's not super worried about it.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: I mean, Sullivan will figure it out eventually.
Speaker: You know, he'll get, he'll get the, the proof needed to, to book them for smuggling.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And, and it's just kind of stupid.
Speaker: Like, even if you haven't played Bioshock or read this book or anything like that, I don't think it takes a genius to see that Ryan's an idiot.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Ryan is stupid.
Speaker: Ryan's a dumb dumb.
Speaker: Ryan's like going like, I'm just letting him out on the line a little longer.
Speaker: Just pull that bait a little longer.
Speaker: And when I'm ready, bam, I've I released the hounds.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I haven't planned anything.
Speaker: And by that time, Fontaine has left and he's fucked her wife.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Ryan, Ryan, slowly becoming a foghorn leghorn.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, I say, I say, I say, that Fontaine fella.
Speaker: He, he, I, I, well, Fontaine has nothing, nothing against pooping out in public.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: It's, it's objectivism, boy.
Speaker: Went right past you.
Speaker: Objectivism's all about the pooping in the public.
Speaker: It's all about pooping in public.
Speaker: Well, I say, I say that's, that Miss Lamb, she wants us pooping in the dark.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, I argue that from here on out, if you meet an objectivist and they and, you know, you just dismiss them, you know, and it just infuriates them and they'll probably say something like, you know, you tell me you don't even know what objectivism is.
Speaker: Tell me.
Speaker: Tell me what objectivism is.
Speaker: You look them in the eye and you say, I get it.
Speaker: You guys want to poop out in public in the sun.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Like and just make like that's genuinely what you believe.
Speaker: Objectivism to be and let us know how it goes.
Speaker: Let us know how it goes that you want.
Speaker: You want you want pooping right there in the street street pooping you by objectivism.
Speaker: It's just a it's a that's a T-shirt and it's a it's a toilet.
Speaker: Yeah, but the toilet has hands and it's doing finger guns.
Speaker: And it's just disgusting.
Speaker: train spotting toilet just yeah it's that old tweet objectivists want one thing and it's disgusting it's poop street pooping street pooping um bill mcdonough visits some poor people
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He ends up in the slum area of Rapture.
Speaker: I thought there weren't supposed to be slum areas.
Speaker: Oh, I thought great men were just gonna kind of make things great.
Speaker: That's how it was supposed to work.
Speaker: That's not supposed to work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's, he's doing some charity work out there.
Speaker: Uh, he's, there's like, there's there, there, one of the heat valves or something is broken.
Speaker: They can't figure out what the problem is.
Speaker: No one can, they need help getting it figured out.
Speaker: He would never let Ryan know that he's doing all this because Ryan would flip his shit knowing that he was working for free.
Speaker: But there are people out in the area that are dying.
Speaker: They're freezing to death.
Speaker: They're dying from drinking bad hooch.
Speaker: It's just, it's a real mess out there.
Speaker: And Bill can't help but feel somewhat partially responsible.
Speaker: So they're they're working on fixing a vent and they find a dead body inside.
Speaker: There is a 13 year old child clogging up the vent.
Speaker: And that's why the fan was not working.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that is terrible.
Speaker: It's terrible.
Speaker: And Bill assumes that, you know, the kid.
Speaker: was just, you know, the kids like to crawl in the passages.
Speaker: These are, you know, all that shit.
Speaker: He was exploring.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's what happened.
Speaker: And the electrician who's working with says, no, he he he doesn't.
Speaker: He doesn't have a home.
Speaker: He went in there to be safe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, to hide from anybody else.
Speaker: And the fan blades weren't on.
Speaker: And then suddenly they were and they just about decapitated the kid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And bill is not in a good place from it.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And then he says, uh, he says there ought to be an orphan orphanage and, uh, the electrician chuckled grimly.
Speaker: Well, think Ryan can figure out how to run one for profit.
Speaker: And that,
Speaker: is the problem with all this shit.
Speaker: That is basically the summation of it.
Speaker: That's really it.
Speaker: And then there's just a little reveal that the plasmids have gotten some market saturation already because Bill's friend, Roland Wallace,
Speaker: um has it uses the electro bolt plasmid to power the the fan back on yeah to basically jump start it yeah yeah that's uh i thought i thought that was a really nice touch because it basically shows
Speaker: Basically in two different ways, Bill is learning about how it actually works out in the world.
Speaker: He sees a very absurd over the top fantasy thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And and but enough about objectivism.
Speaker: Uh, no, he sees, he sees this big, absurd, like I'm using my fucking electrical superhero powers to start a fan again.
Speaker: Um, and, and then he, and he just also sees the, the, the, the state of the place, these, these, these people who they can't work, they can't leave.
Speaker: Uh, no one's paying him anything.
Speaker: And so they just kind of gather together and,
Speaker: uh, die.
Speaker: So yeah, he gets a real, he gets a real life together to die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that brings us to the end of chapter 10.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're on chapter 11 with one of the it's a well-written scene, but it's one of the worst scenes in the book.
Speaker: It is horrifying.
Speaker: And you're absolutely right.
Speaker: It is also one of the most effective scenes in the entire book.
Speaker: Basically, it is a domestic dispute between this married poor married couple, Rupert and let's see.
Speaker: Rupert Mudge's wife.
Speaker: What was what was her name?
Speaker: Sally.
Speaker: Sally.
Speaker: Yeah, Sally Mudge.
Speaker: Rupert and Sally Mudge.
Speaker: So basically they're arguing because Rupert has spent the money that they needed on...
Speaker: on plasmids instead of spending it on things that they need yeah he's he rupert has become addicted to plasmids like he's he's uh he's taking the hair grow to grow his hair back um he's like he's looking good feeling good and she's um she's been like uh
Speaker: She's just mad at him.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Oh, she's pissed.
Speaker: She's pissed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's he spent because she's not working.
Speaker: You know, he keeps talking about how he needs these plasmids to go in for a job the next day and everything like that.
Speaker: But it becomes clear he's just addicted to them.
Speaker: He's just addicted to him.
Speaker: a beautiful full head of hair.
Speaker: He's got new muscles and all that shit.
Speaker: He's got new muscles and basically, uh, he's starting to get the scarring on his face.
Speaker: This, this splicer, the telltale splicer scarring from people who like, it's like around the eyes, like this extra skin growth.
Speaker: It sounds like meth.
Speaker: Uh, if you've seen, if you've ever seen meth addicts,
Speaker: Sadly, they're usually mug shots, but their skin breaks open.
Speaker: They've got this.
Speaker: It's from burning and all that stuff.
Speaker: It's there are a lot of reasons, but it's this severe acne looking kind of thing.
Speaker: And that sounds like what they're describing here with.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the fight basically just the argument escalates to a point where Rupert is.
Speaker: Sally tries to get away from her husband and Rupert picks up a sofa, I believe.
Speaker: The icebox.
Speaker: The icebox.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The fridge.
Speaker: He picks up the fridge and he throws it at her.
Speaker: And it slams against the wall so hard that all is that is left of her is just a bloody splotch on the wall.
Speaker: He kills the fuck.
Speaker: He kills the fuck out of her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he basically is like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to go to Fontaine because Fontaine could use a guy like me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: His first thought, his first thoughts immediately were like, oh shit, she was the one doing all the work around here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause she was the one who had a job.
Speaker: He didn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He doesn't, uh, he doesn't really grieve for his wife all that much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh, and it's a great cut, by the way, it cuts to bill and his wife Elaine having a beautiful romantic day out in the park.
Speaker: It's a lovely day.
Speaker: It's such a great cut.
Speaker: We go from these dark, horrifying slums where someone has literally been murdered.
Speaker: Uh, and now these, these happy privileged people.
Speaker: on what you, I mean, you imagine it, it's probably not the case because they're underwater, but do you imagine it's like just a beautiful, sunny spring day?
Speaker: And I think there is sunlight in Arcadia.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: They do imitate it.
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: It's like reflected with mirrors and something or something like that because of all the plants down in Arcadia.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: And basically, uh, Bill's wife, they're, they're having this, they're this picnic basically, or,
Speaker: No, they're just kind of hanging out.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like they've they've left the kid with a sitter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're talking about how there's bees around in in Arcadia because of the you need bees.
Speaker: Save the bees.
Speaker: Save the bees.
Speaker: Please save the bees.
Speaker: Don't don't let the bees die.
Speaker: And basically the wife.
Speaker: his wife kind of hints that, uh, he might be having an affair with this Julie Langford character who is the woman who she was the one, um, in this universe.
Speaker: She helped, uh, create a basically kind of like an agent orange, uh, during world war two, she's a forest, uh, Japan, Japanese islands for the allies.
Speaker: And now she's doing the reverse.
Speaker: She's, she's building forests underwater.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there's this great he goes.
Speaker: Yeah, she seems to think that he's interested in her.
Speaker: And she asks him if she if he's got a minute, if he can talk to her.
Speaker: And so he tells his wife back in a mo love.
Speaker: Clearly, she wasn't fine with him strolling off with Julie.
Speaker: Then Elaine was a cheerful girl most of the time.
Speaker: It wouldn't do her any harm to feel a little jealousy now and then keep her from taking him for granted.
Speaker: Fucking Bill.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Come on, Bill.
Speaker: I don't care who you are.
Speaker: I don't care if you're a man or a woman.
Speaker: If you think that way about your partner, go fuck yourself.
Speaker: That's pretty twisted shit.
Speaker: So the problem is Julie is informing Bill that Ryan wants to turn the park, which is a public park, into a paid experience.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Because public parks are communism.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That, that, uh, why should, why should there be, uh, that's charity and charity's evil as we all know.
Speaker: And, uh, and it gets to the point where he's, he's kind of, she's basically, she's like, he's going too far.
Speaker: He, he gets to the point where he has talked about charging a surcharge for oxygen.
Speaker: An oxygen surcharge.
Speaker: An oxygen surcharge.
Speaker: So, which is basically a tax.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When, when, when, who would have thunk it?
Speaker: Who'd have thunk it?
Speaker: Paying for services.
Speaker: Uh, he's yeah, he's, he's losing it.
Speaker: He's and, and bill, once again, we have a moment with bill.
Speaker: Bill's kind of interesting because, uh, just like lamb a few chapters ago where lambs kind of telling herself, I'm the only one who can stop this.
Speaker: I can make things better as bill starts to see how much further over the edge,
Speaker: that Ryan is going as that goes on.
Speaker: Um, he started, that's how he starts to see it.
Speaker: He still feels like he owes Ryan something.
Speaker: And so he thinks like, I really, I gotta help him.
Speaker: I can, I can change this.
Speaker: I can make things better.
Speaker: Um, and we, and he has, he has put a few ideas into Ryan's head that have averted crises.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, but that, uh, you know,
Speaker: no good deed goes unpunished.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: As we will see later.
Speaker: As we will see.
Speaker: Uh, meanwhile, meanwhile, um,
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: And it's by the way, the reactor has been sabotaged.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: By the way, we do get a wonderful little scene with Sander Cohen and a couple of his boy toys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Show up and they're horrified by the bees.
Speaker: They freak out.
Speaker: They freak out over the bees.
Speaker: They freak out over the bees.
Speaker: They may or may not be high.
Speaker: No, they are high.
Speaker: They are certainly high.
Speaker: They are certainly high.
Speaker: And they can't stand.
Speaker: They're freaking out over the bees.
Speaker: Yeah, we get a little glimpse.
Speaker: It would be hilarious if it wasn't also kind of insulting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's Sandra Code is our only real queer coded named character.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: And he comes off as like Liberace with like a heroin addiction.
Speaker: It's not the best.
Speaker: He does have one.
Speaker: Yeah, I think he probably had some sort of probably had some kind of something.
Speaker: He was doing a drug.
Speaker: And that drug was dick.
Speaker: I'm sure we.
Speaker: One of the most addictive drugs known to man.
Speaker: That's why it's in the it's why it's an addictive.
Speaker: Oh, it's right in the word.
Speaker: I did that to myself.
Speaker: So, yeah, Sander Cohen, he's he's the only queer coded character in the book.
Speaker: or the only one of the main primary or secondary characters that's queer coded.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so his depiction, not the best for it, like for being the only queer coded character, the way he is depicted.
Speaker: And I don't blame John Shirley.
Speaker: Too much about it because this is Xander Collins being depicted the same way was depicted that way in the game as one of the villains.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you could also argue that that, you know, with this kind of a world, this ultra conservative, ultra right wing kind of a world that that.
Speaker: there's not a great chance that a guy like Ryan would want a lot of gay folks down there.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Uh, the only reason he has Sander Cohen down there is he's kind of convinced he's a genius that he just, and really comes down to him liking his, his work.
Speaker: That's really all.
Speaker: So he puts up with it.
Speaker: Um, and, and any, you know, anyone again, who's cracked open a history book can tell you that, uh, that, you know, the queer folks who hang out with fascists, uh,
Speaker: don't always have a great time in the long run.
Speaker: So you can, you can kind of argue that it makes some sense.
Speaker: It's just, it, it, it does have, there are some problems.
Speaker: There are some problems with the way Sander Cohen is portrayed and, um,
Speaker: Yeah, so we'll move on.
Speaker: Hephaestus has been sabotaged, according to Roland Wallace.
Speaker: And Bill, exit Bill, Bill and Roland run off to try to fix it.
Speaker: And then we get a smash cut over to Ryan, who is having dinner at the exact same time.
Speaker: Yes, he's old in court with some of his top people there.
Speaker: With his gal, Diane McClintock.
Speaker: And he's increasingly seeing these people around him who he's invited down.
Speaker: He's increasingly loathing them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He really sees them as a bunch of complaining ingrates.
Speaker: they're just hangers on that are just there.
Speaker: And he doesn't, he doesn't like them.
Speaker: He's, he's talking shit about like, Oh, and this one made one too many visits to Dr. Steinman.
Speaker: He's just being a catty, you know, a catty bastard with, right.
Speaker: He's just, he keeps hearing about how people are complaining, um, about his world.
Speaker: And so he's pissed off all the time and he's projecting it onto the people around him.
Speaker: And also who knows, maybe for the first time, realizing that, um,
Speaker: You know, the way he chooses his friends to come down there with him might have been a pretty, you know, superficial method.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then he starts kind of like digging into one of the guys that there is is a man named Garris Fisher who works at Fontaine, the Fontaine Futuristics.
Speaker: It's like Garrus, what's what are you working on over there?
Speaker: And so Garrus is one of the scientists that's now working over there.
Speaker: And it's like, yeah, you got, you know, Brutemores is selling well.
Speaker: You know, that's one that he worked on.
Speaker: But you can see Ryan starting to like dig in just a tiny bit.
Speaker: And oh, yeah, he was in business.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: He's furious that he doesn't have a piece of this.
Speaker: Yeah, he is.
Speaker: He is furious.
Speaker: And then, you know, there it basically continues there.
Speaker: Diane wants some more some more drinks and they want the dessert cart.
Speaker: And Ryan is thinking, maybe I'm just imagining all this discontent discontent.
Speaker: But then he starts thinking about Popper's Drop and all of the the the poors and and and the finding proof against Fontaine for communist organizing and and all that stuff.
Speaker: And he has a he has this debate me coward moment when he starts thinking of lamb.
Speaker: where he says debate me in public.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's his plan.
Speaker: His whole plan with lamb is that he's going to get her to bait him in public.
Speaker: And then all of her bullshit facts, not feelings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's going to facts, not feelings her.
Speaker: I'm the best at this.
Speaker: Obviously, obviously.
Speaker: And if it doesn't work out, then he'll simply make her disappear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then suddenly Karoloski shows up and is like, hey, stuff's going on down in Hephaestus.
Speaker: And Ryan uses this.
Speaker: Sabotage.
Speaker: Ryan uses this to excuse himself from the dinner table where he wasn't having fun anyway.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like there's a whole...
Speaker: like part of town that is like under lockdown.
Speaker: That's got serious issues, maybe a bombing or something like that.
Speaker: And basically his reaction is, oh, thank God.
Speaker: I was so bored.
Speaker: I hate these people.
Speaker: I mean, excuse me, I have to go.
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: Oh, terribly.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: What a shame.
Speaker: We end up in Hephaestus.
Speaker: Bill and they basically, this is before Ryan showed up, but they escape a bomb that's set there.
Speaker: It ends up being a minor bomb that basically just sends out a bunch of ticker tape with warnings.
Speaker: It's basically like a glitter bomb.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And it says things, warning against rapture oppressors.
Speaker: Rapture oppressors be warned.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's, it's like, there's not much to it.
Speaker: Um, it's kind of a sad, empty gesture that you get from people who are just being beat down.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's, there's not much to it and it doesn't do much, but it's, it's, it's essentially these poor people just trying to get some of their anger out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But of course, Ryan's pissed.
Speaker: He is pissed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And the chapter ends with Bill finally making the realization that he has been building to for pages now.
Speaker: He can no longer ignore the stunningly obvious.
Speaker: I like the fact that stunningly was put was slipped in there.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: It is nice.
Speaker: Rapture.
Speaker: Was cracking at the seams.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's where we'll leave it for tonight.
Speaker: Because as we said, what a good place to leave it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: So what are you thinking?
Speaker: What are you what are you feeling?
Speaker: this is, this has been, uh, we, this part, obviously it's the media's part of the book for a reason, but man, just the, the, the little slice of life moments are so well written.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, we get these little glimpses into, and we're going to get a few more in the next part.
Speaker: And these, these little glimpses into these people's lives, people will never see again.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, that just really drive home.
Speaker: the horror of this place in a way that the game couldn't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, because in the game you get the aftermath.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's horrifying.
Speaker: Don't get the aftermath is terrifying.
Speaker: But oh, it's it's it's scary.
Speaker: But watching it happen.
Speaker: all of that stuff, all of these, these, these, these moments, the argument between the husband and wife, where he literally smashes her to a smear, you know, with an ice box, like, yeah, that's insanity.
Speaker: Uh, and we're going to get more of those moments, uh, where we are getting a real, um,
Speaker: you know, lower class, upper class haves, have nots kind of thing where you're seeing the consequences of what they're building and on both sides.
Speaker: So I really dig it.
Speaker: This is just some, this is solid writing.
Speaker: I've said it before, but this is just solid writing.
Speaker: And it's the kind of thing that I would have loved to have seen
Speaker: more of from Martyr, from Dead Space Martyr.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Because there are, and that's the thing, is Dead Space Martyr has scenes like this where the decay is setting in,
Speaker: But it is a lot of telling and not showing.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: It's like, oh, did you hear?
Speaker: So-and-so killed themselves.
Speaker: Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That was the problem with Dead Space Martyr.
Speaker: It was just like, you're just getting a recap.
Speaker: Recaps upon recaps.
Speaker: All you needed was a page-long scene of some guy that you'll never see, you haven't seen yet, and you'll never see again, as an example of how bad things are getting.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And a lot of it also...
Speaker: it was all in service to the main plot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, whereas with this, a lot of it, sometimes it happens that that one of the main characters mentions one of the crazy things that happens in one of these little bitty scenes.
Speaker: But mostly they're just things that have build the atmosphere.
Speaker: It's in service.
Speaker: Yeah, it's in service to world building and the setting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's that is the beauty of novels is that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not every time you have the time.
Speaker: Not every page has to be dedicated to the plot.
Speaker: You can have just some character building moments.
Speaker: You're going to have some.
Speaker: Then eventually they'll all weave together and form the plot.
Speaker: But that's that's what you you can't get away with that necessarily in a movie.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You don't have the time in a movie.
Speaker: Everything is is is character and plot have to be lockstep forward together.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: In most movie writing.
Speaker: Don't don't come at me with the the.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: anti-plot, non-plot, and the looking at you, Rob McKee.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Is he still alive?
Speaker: Is he still alive?
Speaker: The guy who wrote the story, Robert McKee?
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: McKee, that's... Robert McKee...
Speaker: He's still alive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's 80 years old.
Speaker: 80 years old.
Speaker: Look at those eyebrows, man.
Speaker: I hope to have eyebrows as impressive.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Those are those are a pair of caterpillars about to do a mating dance.
Speaker: Oh, wonderful job, Mr. McKee.
Speaker: Wonderful.
Speaker: Wonderful.
Speaker: I applaud your eyebrows.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Before we go, we wanted to tell you about something special that we have cooking up.
Speaker: And that's a little partnership with Audible.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: We recently gained a sponsorship with audible.com.
Speaker: For those of you who don't know, audible.com is one of the best places on the internet to get audio books, audio dramas, lecture series, all kinds of amazing stuff.
Speaker: And if you go to audibletrial.com backslash pixel lit, all lowercase,
Speaker: You will find us there and you can sign up for a 30 day trial completely free, including one free audio book and access to countless free radio dramas, radio plays, other audio books, lecture series, all kinds of stuff, all for free.
Speaker: You get it for 30 days.
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Speaker: But if you don't like it, cancel it.
Speaker: See if we care.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And actually I don't.
Speaker: I've been with Audible for like a decade.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't remember when I signed up.
Speaker: I, I it's, it has been a long time.
Speaker: I, I, I have had my audible account maybe longer than I've known you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's been a long time.
Speaker: And, uh, I get the great courses on there.
Speaker: Uh, I tend to, I like reading.
Speaker: I tend to read the books that we read, uh, but I love getting the audible audio book versions of them when they're available, because it's just nice to listen to them while you're doing work.
Speaker: Um, it helps put some perspective on it.
Speaker: You guys have heard us referencing the audio books before.
Speaker: Um, and you can get Bioshock rapture.
Speaker: You can get a halo fall of reach.
Speaker: You can get far cry.
Speaker: Absolution highly recommend that one.
Speaker: Uh, I remember us talking about that.
Speaker: The guy who writes reads far cry, absolution, great voice.
Speaker: Oh, just it's exactly the atmosphere you want for something like that.
Speaker: So check it out.
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Speaker: So anyway, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thanks everyone.
Speaker: And have a good night.
Speaker: Good night.
