e effort into the magic system than she did from what you've been saying. However, you know what you said Gandalf's Ring, for example, relates to fire. What is the Tira, because I have a couple of questions, if you can be as fast as possible, the Tira above that ring, it is drawn from a thing that is drawn from a thing that is drawn from it. That's how it works, right? When that ring comes to be thought of, it's like what makes it a fire thing as opposed to a water thing or an air thing or an earth thing? I'd be hesitant to say definitively just because it's been a long time since I've read this bit of the Silmarillion, but from what I remember of it, the reason the Ring of Nenya, for example, has the capacity of fire, the nature of fire, is because it is derived from the Valar, whose nature is fire. So it's derived from a godhead of a type. I could be very wrong about that. It's been years since I read this part. Is there any other ring that's derived from them that's not fire? Is that it? Yes. Well, all the rings are in a sense derived from the fundamental elements of the universe. So you have the Ring of Nenya, which is the Ring of Fire. I don't remember the names of the others, but Galadriel has one of the rings, which is, I think, the Ring of Water, all of the light. There's a third ring for the elves. There are seven for the dwarves, nine for the race of men, most of which Sauron has in his possession. But each of these has a fundamental aspect of creation, a character of creation embedded within the quality of the ring itself. And so that's the reason Sauron wants them, right? So Sauron wants to create and control, following on from Morgoth's desire. He wants to control all of creation. So he wants the rings that embody the elements of creation. That's why he goes out to see them. If someone was to, well, let's say Tolkien was still alive and he has an addendum, and there's another ring at that sort of tier level, and it's like the Ring of, and then whatever name, but it represents Plasma. Would that be acceptable? I think Plasma would come under the purview of fire. So, well, let's just, so yes. Are you asking me whether, if Tolkien had created a new element of creation within his universe and ascribed a ring to that element, would that be acceptable? Is that the question? Yeah, and let's say he contextualizes it as it's another secret ring that was not quite mentioned before because it was hidden for whatever reason. Well, I think that would have to be, there's an interesting thing with Tolkien because if you go back to the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales and the Unfinished Tales, there are multiple variants and versions of them. The question of law and continuity with Tolkien is uniquely difficult, but there are certain consistent elements. If you were to tell me Tolkien had created a tenth ring for the man or a fourth ring for the elves or an eighth ring for the dwarves that amounted to or represented a different element of creation as he described it, well, okay, I would go with that. That would be fine. And then you would have very interesting, subsequent subordinate conversations as to what the implications of the existence of that ring were. But the odds are he wouldn't have done that because it wouldn't have had reference to any of the Valar who originated these themes and harmonies in the universe to begin with, if that makes sense. The distinction I'm detecting, I think, is just what you're pointing out is JK has created a world where she could just add any spell at any time and it wouldn't need to be justified in any way shape or form. Meanwhile, Tolkien has created a system that means you'd have to slot it in with meaning instead of just willy-nilly throwing it in. It's like the system is very broad. Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't randomly invent magical elements within the Lord of the Rings if you're faithful to the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, the thing is... Does that applies to individual spells? Like if the firing allows you to create like a ring of fire, would that be consistent? I think... I know we haven't seen it, but that seems to follow logically, right? I think that's a fair point. I think you could derive the impact of specific elements and apply them to specific types of spell. I think that would be acceptable because you would still be referencing an originating point of that magic. So yes, Gandalf, for example, can form a ring of fire around him to shield himself from fire itself. That might not necessarily have been described in Tolkien, though I think it was actually in that case. But for the sake of argument, it need not have been. But it would still have been derived therefrom. At least you could make an argument. It would be up to you to make the argument from first principles in that case. You're basically what you're trying to do is to add to a mythos, a theodicy even. And both mythos and theodicy has a codified system of rules and norms that you have to conform to in order to claim to be a part of that same theodicy or mythos or system of rules. So yeah, you could theoretically invent new spells, but you would have to have reference to their originating point, if it were Tolkien, I think. Chat might be blaring up telling me I'm blasphemous in this, but I think I'm right. Well, couldn't you do that with Harry Potter? If all of the spell names seem to have like Latin links and there are rules about some things you can't do, I assume, in the Potter world. So that was actually going to be my next thing. I was going to say like even... Yeah, as long as you held to those guidelines, wouldn't that be the same thing? No, because you're working backwards. With JK Rowling, you're saying this is the array of spells we have. How can we possibly work backwards and retroactively create a common origin point to these spells? Well, no, no, no. It's not about a common origin point. It's that in the world of Harry Potter, if you were... How would you know which came first? Well, that comes back. How would you know which spells came first and were added on? Because that would be... It could have existed all along and no one just used that particular spell. It could have been not very important or super specific and so no one ever used it. So to say that it existed all along but no one just ever used it. And surely she didn't... All the spells that she thought of if we're going to get that meta about it, surely all the spells she thought of not all of them made into the books. So they exist in the universe in a sense, but we just don't know about it. Well, of course, it's basically a given that there are obviously more spells in the Harry Potter universe than we see. So there's all that stuff that is a part of the world that we just don't know about yet. That's because there is no common origin point from which those spells are derived. So... But what are those? In Tolkien... Sorry. I would say is that similar to the fire ring example? Like we never see the fire ring but it exists as a property in the Lord of the Rings world. Someone would be able to use the ring of fire with a fire ring. That wouldn't be the same. But why does the fire ring have the power of fire? Is the question. So it's in JK Rowling's universe, there's no underpinning structure. There's no... In JK Rowling's there's no underpinning structure? Yeah. I wouldn't... Isn't there? There is. Well, I was going to say, I would have said there is. It's just very simplistic and... Yeah. That is the difference between soft and hard magic systems. It's a soft magic underpinning system. Again, I just feel like we've got a different understanding of how soft is hard works. Yeah. To be quick, so by virtue of... There's no spell that cracks the earth in two in the Harry Potter universe and I'm pretty sure JK would be like, you cannot introduce that. That's not a thing. You can't have that. Well, why? She has no reference point to anything she's created that precludes that possibility. What if she has a book, a book of all of this stuff that we just don't know about it? Would that change the... Would that change it? If she had that book? She made her magic rule book almost as if a guide for when she wrote the book. She basically made it a big magic rule book slash index for only herself as a guideline to make magic in the books with that function in the same way. Yes, because then she would be transitioning from a soft to a hard magic system. If she were to create a book which charts the entire origin of the power that gives power to magic in the first place, therefore the thing from which all magic power is derived in each individual instance of spell, that would be the creation of a hard magic system. And that would then put her on a par with someone like Tolkien who has created the same thing. But she hasn't done that. What she's done is she started with spells as effects and she's attempted to work down from those gradually but not all that deeply. I think I'm almost there now because now what I want to ask you is so the Lord of the Rings movies without reading the books, is that from your POV a soft or hard magic system? I would say it's still, I would say it's still a fairly hard magic system because it's a referential system. You have no context whatsoever when watching those films for how any of the magic works at all or where it comes from. Well, okay, this is the question of authorial input though, isn't it? Because I think that's why Rags was saying like if there was a book that detailed all of this but people hadn't read it from JK, then surely within just the context of those movies you'd have to concede it is soft from your POV, right? If you're asking me to say that the three Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings films are divorced entirely from what Tolkien wrote, yes, that would be a soft magic system because there is no underpinning thing which gives power to the magic they use. I would agree with that. However, that's not what those films are because I fundamentally disagree with the notion of death of the author. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that a film adaptation in 2002 can be treated as distinguishable from the book version of 19, when was it? 47, I think it was, 53. I don't agree that you can differentiate those things. The reason the films work is that they are referencing something which precedes them. The books work in the same way, bearing in mind much of the law of the magic that Tolkien creates isn't included even in the books for the Lord of the Rings. It's created in the mythos he creates to underpin the books of the Lord of the Rings. It's created in the film really and the lost tales all the rest of that. So the films are referential, the books are referential. What creates a hard magic system is whether it's referencing a single point from which every subsequent event is derived. And a soft magic system is there is no single point from which anything is derived. Anything you say goes depending on the needs of plot would be my definition of the two. Hey, for the record, I am 100% in favor of death of the author.  I adore it, I think it's fantastic. And it makes it so I'm not limited in my interpretations. I might be 50% in favor of death of the author. You were very... Okay, that was quick, all right. We, yeah, here, we don't, we don't, we want, we want those authors dead, damn it. Well, because the interesting comparison we always bring up, right, is gonna be stuff like The Shining where it's sort of fantastic movie on a fantastic book, but those two cannot coexist, not even close. You couldn't have the film without the book. I didn't say that though. That's not what you said. But if they can't coexist, then you can't... No, they can't coexist as narratives, as stories. You have to take one or the other, you can't have both at the same time. They are distinctly two different... Well, okay, then when we, we're operating on different definitions of the death of the author there, because the author is the progenitor of The Shining as a story to begin with. If you're saying that death of the author means the complete expulsion, the expungion of one, well, then these two things literally couldn't coexist and so wouldn't coexist. The fact that The Shining is a film, which I prefer that The Shining is a book, coexists with The Shining as a book, is owed to the fact that those two things can coexist. They literally coexist, but what I'm saying... Yeah, like physically you could have a book and a DVD in the same universe, yes. Well, the narratives... The narrative, the plot of these things, can those two things coexist? That's different, but I don't think the death of the author restricts itself to strict definitions of plot. So without the author, Stephen King, you would not have Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. Well, of course, but without... Yeah. Without any of the creators, you wouldn't have the creations, but... I don't know what... Just as fast as you possibly can in like a sentence if you can, what do you believe death of the author refers to?  Death of the author means... You just told me to do it quickly, so I... We'll give you an extra sentence if you need to... Death of the author means... As far as I've sort of understood it to be, death of the author means that nothing about the moral, the intellectual, or the narrative purpose of that author exists in any work that is derived from the works of said author.  Well, if I... So mine would be the intentions and interpretations of the work from the author are irrelevant to your own, essentially. Yes, but would your interpretations of the works of the author exist without the intentions of the author to begin with? So like The Shining is a good example. Stephen King wrote The Shining in a specific way. Stanley Kubrick interpreted it in a very different way. Would Stanley Kubrick have interpreted it, been able to interpret it in that way, without the interpretation he had rejected in the book form, which is the version the author intended? Well, so it sounds like you're almost making it an impossibility in terms of like physics or death of the author to exist. Like, it cannot happen because the author had to create the thing. Like, the argument we're familiar with is people say like you cannot interpret the work without the author's intentions that you must do it. I've never heard quite this explanation as death of the author like this before. Yeah, because it sounds like you're saying you can't do it without the authors having created the works. And it's like... We're fine with saying the creators owed some level of credit. You should agree. But yeah, what you said seems to be impossible to not be the case. Well, I wouldn't roll away from the idea that it's impossible to kill off the author entirely. Well, as much as we love killing authors, I think that it's like a separation between intent and what's in the actual thing itself. Or like, it's almost like... To give an example, if someone saw addiction in Gollum and his story and the ring represents that and how it can destroy a life and all this stuff. And then Tolkien went that wasn't the intention at all. That's not at all in the story. That person can be like, I don't care. It's there. I don't care if it's not what you even had that sort of thing. What was your example? Your Star Wars one that used for Twin Perfect? Oh, well, Twin Perfect hated that example. The best example is going to be the James Gunn one with Polka Dot Man. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, actually, I have to pee real quick. Give him the James Gunn example. Sure. So, the Suicide Squad has a character called Polka Dot Man, who's this very timid, very quiet dude who's dressed pretty clownishly and his power is to launch Polka Dots of people and it melts them.  It's funny, it's James Gunn.    And Polka Dot Man is like, Jesus Christ, that's horrifying, he was with us, he was helping us and the other two team members are like, who? He's like, it's Milton, they're just like, literally who? And he shouts at them, he's really upset with them for the fact that they didn't care that this guy joined their team, tried to help them and died for the team to help them achieve their goal. Really funny. And then Polka Dot Man, toward the end of the film, gains the courage because his story is that he's been terrified of his mother because she's the one that experimented on him to give him the powers.  And it's like, ah, it was a complete story. It's pretty good. Tragic, tragic. So a lot of people are appreciating Polka Dot Man, they like him, he's like a guy who was almost built to be a bad person but he came out, came through and they would cite that scene with Milton being like, showed he had a lot of heart. He's the only person who actually paid attention to Milton being alive. James Gunn sees these tweets. He quote tweets them and says, no. Polka Dot Man is very vain. He's very obsessed with like being seen. He wants attention. He took that opportunity with Milton. He died and he made that about him. He starts screaming at everybody because he wants attention for himself. He didn't care about Milton. It's like he's very much a self-centered character. Everyone was like, what? If you watch the movie, there's not a single reference to Polka Dot Man being self-centered or vain. But James Gunn, the literal creator, is like, no, that's his character. It's like, bro, that's not in your story. So, sorry. And that's what we consider death of the author to be. It's like, I appreciate your addition to the interpretation of this movie but I'm disregarding it because it doesn't match the references. Yeah. Your instances are not necessarily a part of what you create. I don't want to... Your attention is not necessarily part of what you create, is that what you said? Pretty much, yes. You can intend to have something be a way but it might not actually exist in what you create. Okay. That's not death of the author. That's development on the author's intent. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm pretty sure what we just described, like with the James Gunn example, that is death of the author. Yeah, I've never heard it any other way. Would that character have existed without the author to have created them? No, every creation has a creator. That's all things that are made. The author of creation, for example. So... My point about death of the author isn't that you can't deviate from what the author intended, is that you would not have deviated. You cannot deviate by definition without reference to what the author originally intended it to be. Deviation of by definition referential. That is... I think we just defined death of the author completely differently. Yeah, I've never heard it like that before. That sounds... I accept that we might do, but I think I'm probably with you in terms of the artistic worth of derivation and deviation. All I'm saying is that you can't really classify that as death of the author if the derivation or deviation could not have existed but for the author's creation to begin with. It's like saying, I created a character called Bob and Bob is a single man. He divorced his wife. He has three kids. Someone comes along after that and says, I accept the existence of Bob.  Well, that's not true death of the author, is it? Because the author's inspiration, the author's creation is still there. What you're doing is deviating from authorial intent. You're not killing the author entirely. So my... I don't think the name is to be taken to literally for... No, I'm not saying take the name Bob seriously. I'm saying that... I'm in the term death of the author. The idea of said character, if you're deviating from an established norm and established character, you're adding a new element or contradicting an established element, you're still referring to a creation that is not your own and it is the author's unique creation. Therefore, the author is not dead by definition. The author is simply being repurposed. So it sounds like you're saying death of the author is an impossibility, right? That's not her. That's not Miles. I would be cautious before I even started to say that death of the author was a legitimate thing. It's just if you truly believe what everything you just said, then surely you believe death of the author is impossible. It's got to be. Possibly. I would be cautious about going so far as to be so deterministic. Well, no, I actually think it follows from the way that you framed it that, yeah, that it would be impossible. And the reason I'm asking you that and hoping you'd say, yes, it's because then I can be like, ah, yeah, because the way we frame death of the author, it's like a choice on the individual if they want to consider it or not. Yeah, I have only understood it as the reason. The reason I wouldn't go so far as to say death of the author is precluded by my definition is to say that I am as yet myself personally, undecided on whether a complete or at least a 99 percent contradiction of character created by someone else constitutes a death of author. As in, let's say you took, take Sherlock Holmes, like there are many variations on Sherlock Holmes. Most of them, however, conform to certain archetypal behavioral types, characterizations. Sherlock Holmes is a definitive entity, but with many variations. If, however, you were to tell me that Sherlock Holmes was a vogan and he was a 15th gender and he wasn't a detective, but he was instead a sewage management official, would I consider that death of the author? Possibly yes, but only because you've completely detached the authorial creation from any resemblance of the intent behind the authorial creation. However, if you were to say, well, Sherlock Holmes is a Victorian gentleman or Sherlock Holmes is a man born in the year 2003 who uses smartphones to solve mysteries, I don't think that constitutes the death of the author because the author's intent is still there, it's simply being repurposed. So I might be, it might be if we draw, this happens with Mary Sue discussions, I find. So if we dropped death of the author entirely as a description of what Mean Rags are talking about and instead went with the creator's interpretation of events are no more meaningful necessarily to what is actually happening than anyone else's. Just rename it Birth of the Reader. Maybe, yeah. So you know that example I gave you with James Gunn, would you have said James Gunn is wrong from if everything I told you was true? I don't, well, I'm not familiar with the character he's referring to. Okay. If everything you've always said was true though. Well, I can understand why he'd want something that he's more familiar with. So let's just take Peter Jackson talking about Lord of the Rings and he says Gandalf is a woman, absolutely definitively a woman in my films. That is a woman. Do you think he's wrong? I would say that's a deviation from authorial intent, but that by definition is not proof of the death of the author. No, we'll get to that Dory. So we're dropping death of the author. We're getting out of here. We don't care about that anymore. We're ignoring the title. So Peter Jackson tells you Gandalf is a woman in his film, Lord of the Rings.  Or would you say, huh, that's strange. I didn't think so. But to the extent you're referring to the works of somebody who's not yourself, who's created the canon you claim to be part of the lineage of, I would say you're wrong. But I wouldn't necessarily say that you are beyond the pale for that, for being reinterpreting that character that way. I'll try a different one. Tolkien's alive and he tells you Aragorn is a woman in my books. He already says he is a woman in my books. What would you, what would you say to Tolkien? Well, that by definition is, is authorised intent, isn't it? So this is maybe how I can help explain again, keeping death the author out of the hands. What I would say if I was in the room with you and him, I'd be like, that's a weird interpretation. That's not in your book, mate. Others can quite often will contradict themselves. Tolkien did it himself. I mean, if you read that there are about seven different versions of the Silmarillion and different names, different characters, different lineages, all the rest of that. That I don't mind deviation on the part of the author. That that's just a part of creation. I've written a book. There are two drafts of that book. They're very different. I don't mind if the author comes along and says, well, you know, I drafted it in one way this time, but actually now my understanding is it's different. Okay, that's fine. That that then I would consider to be authorial intent. So, so when you have talking, let's just say on Monday says Aragorn's a guy, Tuesday, Gale, Wednesday, Guy, Thursday, Gale, Friday, and just forever, you just you're just like, well, I guess he's kind of both or it depends on the day. Well, I think I'd have recourse to what he'd written. Yeah, because I was going to say, I don't know if you'd do it the same way as me, but I would be like, okay, man, I appreciate your input, but Aragorn's a guy. Maybe, yes. But I think I might actually be more inclined to read into that that what Tolkien is ambiguous about is the gender of the character in question. The question is, does it impact the character him or herself? Does it make a difference if Aragorn is a woman or a man? If it makes a difference, then Tolkien changing his mind frequently, of course, makes a difference to my understanding of that character. If it's simply, well, I want him to be a woman or a man, but it doesn't change the character or the story. I don't see an issue or a problem with that. You know, you said that it would cease to be Sherlock if all those sort of details were met. You mentioned changing him almost entirely. If, however, it was written by is it Arthur Conan Doyle? It's Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. If he had not even written, actually, he'd said, he saw this interpretation that you would describe as that's practically death of the author, right there? And he'd said, no, it's not. I'm very happy with this, actually. Would you then be like, oh, okay, it's not? I think I'd have to have recourse to his history of published works and to see whether his newfound understanding of his character comported with the character he has established so far. And what if there was nothing, nothing beyond him having said, he thinks it is fine. That was it. That's all the information you got. If you were to say, I have changed the name, the gender, the sexual orientation, the sexual proclivity, whatever denomination you choose to pick, of the character I have established, it would be his responsibility to make that conform with the character arc he's already set forth. That the authorial intent is not an immediate thing. It's a build-up of work and intent as new characters taking on a life of their own up to a point. But I say up to a point because they are contingent upon the existence of the author to begin with. If Arthur Conan Doyle were to change his mind about the character or gender of Sherlock Holmes, it would be up to him to square that apparent dichotomy. And if he didn't? If he didn't, I would say, well, you're writing two different characters. Excellence, you would say he's wrong. I would be inclined to say that, but it would depend on the specific instance. So it's the one I described where he's only told you that he approves of this new version and that is it. There's no other reference, nothing to read, nothing for him to give detail. Oh, it's absolutely possible for an author to be wrong about their creation, yes. That's pretty much our position. Yeah, that's pretty much, yeah. Okay, but I wouldn't call that death of the author because the author is still the person who created the thing you're referring to by saying that the author is no longer involved. I think you have a special, perhaps personal thing for what you think death of the author is. That might be a thing, but I don't think people, whenever people say death of the author that I've never, to my understanding, I don't know of any one who has that meaning for that. That could well be true. I'm a fan of terminological exactitude. I can see how you got there, but yeah, we're- It's similar to these, but they are different things. I think the reason- It doesn't have to be a bit more mentioned different things, but use the same terms for them. I'm asking about a specific phenomenon. I think the reason they call it that, because of course, it would be weird, it supplies to everything, even video games, and it'd be weird to call the creator of a video game an author. So it's more so, it has evolved into being a very broad terminate. I think the reason they gave it the name is because when an author releases a book, and it exists, there it is, you read it, the author when they're alive can tell you more. They can be like, were you curious about why Ben jumped down the hole? Well, I'm going to release another book soon. It's going to be great. It's going to talk about Ben's history and it's going to talk about the motivation and why he did all that. Unfortunately, before they released the book, they're in a tragic plane train accident. Boom, gone. And now, well, with the death of the author, everyone can sort of imagine what Ben's history might be, because they can no longer write into stone what it would have been. I couldn't disagree with literal death of the author. No, I'm trying to describe like what it simulates. Yeah, the terminology or how it arose. Or what it was referring to. This is actually like why I'm worried about Joker 2. I like Joker's Ending because there's a lot of ways to interpret what's happening. Joker 2 will put one of them in stone, which is like worrying to me because I hope they don't screw it up. It's like making a canon. If there is such a thing as death of the author and deviation, infinite deviation can be justified based on the simple divorce of intent from the originator of the character, which seems to me to be the fundamental behind the death of the author. What reason do you have to fear that Joker 2 would contradict Joker 1, given both films were created not contradict. Other than the author who actually wrote the first instantiation of the character. It wasn't about getting it like a contradiction that wasn't the... It was erasing potential interpretations. Yes. But there would not be a contradiction. Death of the author just creates infinite potential of a contradiction, doesn't it? Like if you're worried about Joker 2 contradicting Joker 1. When Joker 1 is simply more of a chord with the original creator of the character of the Joker, then your problem with Joker 2 is the extent to which it deviates from the originator of the Joker as a character. In other words... Only as he was in Joker 1. The extent to which you like or dislike Joker 2 is the extent to which that character has been has resulted from death or not death of the author of that character. So if Joker 1 is great because it's a really good approximation of the original creator's vision, then... Which is not what we hold. That's why I don't want to speak your moller, but as far as as far as that's not why we love Joker. Okay. The reason why... But I don't want to speak from moller, of course. The reason why I like the concept so much is because creators can destroy their own work and it takes that power away from them. Creators destroying their own work doesn't take power away from them, that empowers them, surely. Like they have the power... I said it takes the power away from them to destroy their own work. Yeah. It removes the thing that they can do. Yeah, because when James Gunn says what he says about Poker Dot Man, that now becomes true with 100% not death of the author. You cannot interpret otherwise because the author has told you that is the truth. Yes, he is prescriptively telling you this is how it is, regardless of what's actually in the thing. As much as I would agree with any... This is the usual argument we get, which is like it will, of course, the writers is an incredible resource for understanding what the story is about and what was intended. It's like, I agree, but I think there is no better source than the story itself. Even notice, even then, when we were talking about a lot of the hypotheticals, when we were talking about death of the author, you almost always first said, I'm going to go to the work. I'm going to go to the thing that they created. That was your first place to go. Well, yeah, because my contention was that I'm not satisfied by the even possibility of death of the author was my point. That's foot in the door, certainly. Yeah, because, yeah, we're a few steps forward where we're just like we'll always refer to the source. I'm more than happy to hear out the author, but to be honest with you, say, for example, would I rather hear Tolkien's opinions on the newest Lord of the Rings thing or would I rather hear Fringies? It's like, well, I'll probably go with Tolkien because that sounds like a way of opportunity. Well, we can talk to you tomorrow. We can. However, however, however, would I prefer to hear Michael Waldron's opinion on Doctor Strange 2 or Friggies when it came out? It's like, probably Fringies. Michael Waldron's would be useless. But then you're not basing your standard upon any standard of authorship. What you're doing is you're basing your standard upon do you agree with the characterisation as depicted to you? Do you think that this character is better represented in the moment than it was in previous instantiations? Irrespective of who the original author of that character was, right? How did you know all that? It's about an... No, it's... You go ahead, Mahler. Um, when I chose Fringie over Michael Waldron, it was because I don't think Michael Waldron has interesting or insightful things to say about his writing. Meanwhile, I would choose Tolkien over Fringie because I was an incredible chance to be able to hear the creator of Lord the Rings talk about what he intended with his work. That would be amazing. I trust that he's got an incredible insight into his own work. Yes, but then I'm now confused about what your standard for death of the author is. I want to gain as much as I can in terms of interpreting an insightful content from the source itself. That is not necessarily the author. That's what death of the author means to me. Well, if you're trying to glean... If you're trying to glean a... the closest possible understanding of the source material, then what you're doing is referring back to the creation of the author by definition, no? Um, well, what if... Like, so that... That's why the James Gunn example is so important, right? He got it completely wrong. But he is the author. He's the author of what? The Polkadot Man. The movie. The Suicide Squad. Specifically Polkadot Man. Yeah. This is... This is... I don't know anything about... No, you don't... You don't need to know anything about it. My point is that he has told us how to interpret this character. But is Polkadot Man a derivation upon a preceding character created by somebody else? It is, but nobody has considered that whatsoever in this. It's an adaptation. I don't even know if there's anything to do with the original. The clues and the word. It's an adaptation. So you haven't killed the author because the thing wouldn't exist without something from which to adapt. So if we change the Polkadot Man to Dodecahedron Man, who's purely made up by James Gunn for this movie specifically... And is it referencing? No, he made it up. He made it up. No references. Referencing or an adaptation of a creation that is not that of the film's director or writer? No, he made it. He purely made it up for this movie. Well, then he's created a different character. So the death of the author isn't a consideration. No, we were getting somewhere. We've come back. We've circled back to what your definition was. So rewind. I might have been distracted, sorry. No, rewind. We were... When you said like, why would you care to get whoever's input? I was like, I want the most insight on the text. And then you were like, well, surely it would be the author because they're the ones that created it. And then I was like, yes. But in the example with James Gunn, the creator has less insight on Polkadot Man than someone like Fringy Ragsle yourself. I would rather opt for you guys's input on Polkadot Man than the author of that particular moment, that text, that thing. His intentions. Okay. I think my problem is that I'm not seeing how this even relates to death of the author. You don't have to. Because at this point, it's just like I said, it's just like Mary Sue. I listened to two people arguing over Mary Sue the other day. One person argued there was three attributes that have to be satisfied. The other one argued there was only one. And they spent so much time arguing about that when really, does that even matter? As long as the attributes themselves were satisfied or not in the criticism of the character.  Who cares if we call this death of the author? What we're talking about is that we can freely interpret it. I am surprised to hear a relatively subjective definition coming from someone who is one of the finest purveyors of an objective standard of art criticism that I know. You think this is subjective? Well, so I feel like... That seems to be the standard for... You've just said, well, it doesn't matter if a Mary Sue is one characteristic or five characteristics. It's whether you think it's a Mary Sue or not. Like that seems subject... No, no, I didn't say that. No, no, no, no. We're discussing why we don't use the term Mary Sue because it's also difficult to carry out those conversations with that term. Yeah, I listened to two people who thought they had a very strong grasp on what Mary Sue is and they spent all their time arguing over what qualifies as a Mary Sue as opposed to simply... The reason they want to get that in stone is so they can criticise a character and it's like, why not break it down into the individual components and then see if they actually qualify? What I'm trying to do here is ignore death of the author as a title and let's just see if we agree that can there be a time where an author says this is how it went in the story. When the story presents something completely different and we can say no, author, you are wrong. That is not what happened in your story. So, apology. I've lost track of the argument. If you're asking me, can authors make mistakes or can they contradict the general theme or tenor or tone of the character they've created? Well, the answer is obviously yes, but I've never disputed that. Authors can make mistakes. That seems to me self-evident. I think we're okay then because, again, you don't call that death of the author meanwhile we would. The ability to say that an author is incorrect about what is happening in their story is death of the author as I understand the meaning. So, work itself takes precedent. Just a purely hypothetical example, there is a fantasy author. The fantasy author is written 18 books of a continuous, contiguous story and it's been perfectly consistent up until book 18. And in book 18, when said author is 98, has Alzheimer's and has lost touch with reality, he creates a book which doesn't accord at all with what he'd written in the previous 17 books. Is that death of the author in an artistic sense as opposed to simply a material he's dying sense? Oh, well... I don't think we distinguish. Yeah, so you could just say TLJ. TLJ is basically this. What happens when we have so many contradictions in an installment of an ongoing story? What do we do? It's like, well, you can't have both. TLJ has got plot holes in it. Things don't make sense. I don't think TLJ is... TLJ is a great example of many shit things in art but I don't think it's it's a great example for this one. I'm talking about a... Again, I'm using a hypothetical just to try and sort of elucidate the point. It's a single author, a single story with a single set of characters over 18 books. He's written them perfectly consistently. He's now at the age of 97. The 18th book forgets, contradicts everything that happened in the preceding 17 books because of the author's physical condition. Are you saying that the physical death demise of the author and his contradiction of 17 books worth of consistent material is actually death of the author? Is that what...? No, that's just writing a bad story. I was going to say, let's just plot holes and... Yeah, that's just plot holes and contradictions. That doesn't have anything to do with the concept. Author not death of the author. That's not... Yeah, death of the author comes in the meta of the outside of the stories coming in. In my example, the meta is 17 books with a consistent storyline and an 18th, which is inconsistent because of the author's meta outside of the fictional universe. Contraction of Alzheimer's, for example. Actually, yeah, that's just... In a sense, what's interesting is that it is a sort of variation of death of the author. In the sense that we have canon for 17 stories and 18th comes out that contradicts everything in those and so we are forced to consider the 18th, the contradiction that is the tumor, that is the incorrect one. It couldn't happen while the other 17 did happen. One has to go, sort of thing. That's what we highlight when we're saying something's a plot hole. Yeah, then there's one further question, which is, is that truly death of the author if there are even... If there is, sorry, even an iota of similarity in theme or moral message in one character? When the author says that the hyperspace kamikaze is impossible and possible, it's going to be on the... Which came first, which was established as canon first. J, which is two different authors. Well, you can understand how that translates, right? So if he did it in the 17 books, that the fantasy kamikaze was not possible and then the 18th it is, it remains impossible. It's a whole in the 18th book. I agree with that, but I wouldn't consider that death of the author. Neither do we. You don't have to consider it death of the author. Kamikaze isn't the person who wrote the original 17 books. We don't... That's not, yeah, it's not death of the author as we've said. You don't have to call that death of the author. But you are at the same... If you're going to consider that irrelevant nonsense, like it doesn't match, then you have stopped the author's intentions. But the thing is the author's intentions are of married bachelor. They can't even make sense. Sorry, just to come back on that. If there are 17 books or installations and then like TLJ with hyperspace running, if I reject hyperspace running, I'm saying that there is death of the author at that point. Is that what you just said? Just to be clear. Death of the author of the previous 17 installments. Well, so it's a little bit more complicated. This is why I want to move away from even using death of the author because when you have the authors telling you X is Y and X is X, we have to go with one. We can't go with... It's impossible to accept both. Uh-huh. And so typically we opt for whichever was canonized first. Yes. Meanwhile, if they're canonized at the exact same time, then it's just nonsense. And we have to try and figure out a way if one could make more sense than the other sort of thing. This is actually like the system we would use always opt for going from the source as opposed to if the author said, I'm preferring X is X today, though it is. Well, I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm now confused about what we're arguing about now compared to the original argument we had, which was... Something about mountainous... We're very, very far down the line. The original argument was what is the definition of death of the author. We've now got to the point where you're saying, I don't want to talk about the definition of death of the author. I'm talking about what constitutes the law. Well, yeah, because I think you agree with what we... I think... But if I was to say, let's go bring down that tree with an X and everyone in the world is referring to a sword and you're like, that's not an X. I'd be like, okay, for the sake of conversation, you recognize what we're using as a tool and that you use it too. Well, I'm happy to entertain that argument, but I'm not sure what we're arguing about at this point. I think you... When you said that you are happy to consider the author wrong at certain points, we agreed and we're all good. We just don't call it the same thing. Yeah, but to the extent that the author, even when he's wrong, is referencing something he himself created and that... Yeah, that's your definition and I don't use yours. I think yours is a bit hard to understand. I'm happy to have a different definition on that. I just wanted to be clear about what we're talking about. If we're talking about the author, that's one thing. If it's Lauren Cannon, of course, that's something else. I think we probably do agree. It's just we are maybe using different terminology, but I am obliged to say, given this is my first time here, that I'm... It was lovely to be here anyway, but the idea...  Thank you for the conversation. It's a normal day on EFAP. I don't even know what the... This is what we do. I don't know what the EFAP community will call this argument. It's gone to so many different adventures at this point. I think they're going to go with Dust at first, but Death of the Dust, maybe. Dust, Magic. Don't know. I think it's a lower exploration, writing discussion. Yeah, I would hope that you'd be on the same page as us if you had seen the Suicide Squad. You'd watch Pokemon Dot Man Story, then we went over that tweet from James Gunn and you'd be like, you'd be with us and saying, like, James Gunn's just wrong. It's not in the movie. Yeah. I'm willing to believe that that might be the case. Twin Perfect, who, as I said, he 100% does not believe in Death. The author, he thinks it's Pish. He would tell you, no, that is Pokemon Dot Man. It doesn't matter what you saw in the story. It only matters. He said to us, it only matters what the author said. We are his foil. Yeah. We consider ourselves to be on the literal opposite end of the spectrum to him. Yes. We think that the material, it's the contents of the created work is it rules everything else. It is kidding. How does he dress himself in the morning? That's a good question. How does he conceptualize, for example, a schizophrenic or a multi-personality disorder work, for example? Well, so it's funny. That's a legitimately good question.  I'm pretty sure that is not at all what he... I should rephrase the question. Without lethal amounts of magic mushrooms, how do you reconcile a multi-personality disorder or a schizophrenic author? That's a legitimately interesting question. Yeah, I can't answer it for you. Yeah, I would be curious. I wish he was here so that he could not answer that because he doesn't answer questions. Maybe that helps the whole definitions thing. Like if he was here and then we had a fourth person who said death of the author is only applicable when the author literally dies, that would be like four different interpretations and I would just be like, maybe we should just drop the title and just see if we agree on the individual definition. Well, that's what you do. That's what you do a lot of conversations if you can't agree on a definition. You just say, we just won't use that word, forget that word exists. We'll just talk about concepts. You could literally invent a word for the concept on the spot and you've solved the problem. Oftentimes, like, you know, definitions sort of, they are based upon, you know, things that which you can find within the space of the conversation. It's like, we can be having the same conversation and you could actually derive seven different definitions of artistic concept from within the single conversation, even if that conversation was predicated upon a disagreement over the definition of a single artistic term. So death of the author, for example, well, okay, if we're disagreeing on what death of the author means, we've then had a conversation about what actually constitutes authorial consistency and then you can derive separate definitions therefrom. Like, there are so many brilliant conversations to have about that. So the reason that EFAP has been such a brilliant thing to listen to and your two channels, even individually, have been such a brilliant thing to listen to for the last how many years. Yeah. I've been listening to you. It's because like, it's really, really fucking... I studied, I did a master's in aesthetics at university, never ever had such in-depth entertaining conversations as the kind of stuff I heard on EFAP and on your two individual channels. It's like, this is where the most interesting conversations happen because a lot of this comes down to what your definition of the definition is in the first place and that's without being stupidly relativistic about it. It's simply, are we actually operating upon sound definitions to begin with and most academics don't have a conception of sound definitions because they are idiots. We'll... Yeah, we'll ditch a term if we need to and just we'll go pure... Yeah, we'll dip them at... Well, we kept... Straight to the place if we need to. A conversation was just... It's all constant for us. We dug what I think there was the bedrock but I think we finally hit it which happens in these conversations eventually and I don't mind spending the time to get to them. Like plenty of people get all bitter and angry in chacks. They want to see us talk about the end of this Lord of the Rings episode but I'm sorry guys, you know the rules. Okay? What are the rules? What are the rules? There are no rules. We have soft magic rules here on EFAP. And they can even get really tribal about it as far as I was concerned. This is just a conversation but I'm hoping everybody's okay. That's why you thought it was. I am... Because yeah, it's kind of fascinating when you encounter like... Because some people are... You know when you said your example of 15... Sorry, 17 books that were written consistently and then one that wasn't... Like someone said like, Oh, that's a ridiculous hypothetical. I was like, Dude, I love ridiculous hypotheticals. So it's my favorite thing.  That's where all the principles come out. There is... The reductial absurdum is usually classified as like a logical flaw in an argument. It's not sometimes... reductial absurdum actually is just illustrating the extent of... You were inviting someone to follow a thought through to conclusion. But in the case of like a 17-book fantasy saga, that's actually not that ridiculous. There are many very... Oh yeah, easy to think about it. Easy to think about it. That's what I was trying to do. Dude, yeah. Like I didn't... Lord of the Rings take time. Didn't even for a second occur to me to be like, that's an absurd... I was like, No, no, no, I'm with you. I'm following. Because someone mentioned as well and it's probably worth when bringing up. It's like, did Han shoot first? Yes or no? Like according to the author, he didn't. But the movie... I would say he did. And I think most people would say he did.  Yeah, it's like the meme. Hashtag Han shot first and stuff like that. Yeah, the author is at liberty to disagree with himself. But that doesn't mean he's a different person. That's the thing. Almost as what makes it so strange. I'm always interested to hear what they have to say. I mean this couple of... Like I said, Michael Waldron, I don't... The less I hear about his interpretation... When he started talking about how... Anything he says is sludge. When Michael Waldron said that Wanda lost vision, therefore she's kind of like owed the sacrifice of America, I was like, you need to stop talking about your film.  And that's sometimes you get authors who can bring a huge amount of benefit by hearing them talk about having made their thing. So it's case by case. Yeah, it can give you a deeper appreciation of what they've created. Because you can't fit everything you want to into a book or a movie just because physical constraints of the world. So being able to get that extra... It's like watching directors commentary to things. Like, here's why we did this, here's why we did that.  It's explanatory in terms of allowing you to appreciate things, which is... I love it. I love a good director's commentary. Only enough I gave the example you were talking about, Rags. I said that what if George Lucas said Star Wars was a penguin on a chair? That's it, that's it. And what was his name? Twin Perfect. My brain was going to just write... Um, Twin Perfect. How could you confuse them? He said that was ridiculous as a hypothetical, right? But I'm pretty sure that's what you were referencing immediately about the Schizophrenic or maybe a mentally ill creator of some kind. In the sense of... In the sense of, yeah, if you came at him specifically and said, what if you had a, let's say, a mentally ill author who wrote that book? We could use the 18th in a series of 18. And it was just almost literal nonsense. That was full of plot holes, contradictions. Is like the author was clearly not in a right mind. Then what if you gave that to Twin Perfect as a hypothetical, which is really not at all an unreasonable hypothetical. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's totally impossible. He wrote it off as like an absolute absurd, but it's just like it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine that's a thing that could happen at some point. I mean, I know some... A lot of times people who are of low intelligence cannot engage with hypotheticals. And some people are not... And some other people are not... I don't... They won't... They refuse to do it because they don't see a point. I don't know. It's a shame because hypotheticals are our friends and they're useful. And they're just so darn useful in conversations. They're interesting and they're fun. Well, that's the thing, right?  I wouldn't do it. But some people might, I don't know. Some to talk about. But to be fair, I've never been compelled by the whole... You know, if there were a pool party on a spaceship that was hurtling toward the sun, it's like, would you make X decision? And then if someone said, that's never happened and it's not gonna happen for... It's not even... That's probably... If someone said to me, that's probably never gonna happen. I'd just be like, okay, we can still answer the question. You're running... Yeah, like that... That... People who take that approach strike me as the kind of people who know where this path leads and they don't want to go. They won't avoid it. Because, yeah, if you remember, this actually came up not... I said not too long ago, I think it might have been a year, but the sleeping with yourself thing came up in... I think it was... Fantasy show, sci-fi show, something, or game? Loads of people were talking about it. It was super controversial.   It's not gonna happen. It can't happen. It's such a low IQ thing to say. Don't engage with a hypothetical. It couldn't happen. That's a way of not answering the question. The question will exist whether or not it's practicable in the short term. There's a Robert Heinlein novel. I don't remember which one it is. Where he was a weird guy. He wrote Starship Troopers. And Stranger in a Strange Line, which were about as far apart from each other, philosophically and politically as you can get to. But in his later career, he wrote one. I don't remember the name of it, but the premise of which is the main character is this old guy he's dying. And I think he clones himself. No, no, no, wait, how does this work? No, he implants his own clone embryo. I think it is in the body of his cloned female alter ego. I think it's the premise. And then the kid is born whether it's, whether that is him or isn't. You could say that's a symptom of a sick mind. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, because he wasn't at that point in his life. But it's a really interesting hypothetical. Like, at what point does, where are the boundaries of personality and personhood set? Like, what differentiates the clone from the derivative of clone from the originator of clone? Oh, Mahler, we gotta ask them. We do? We do. Have you played Soma? Oh. I don't think I have. You need to play Soma.   Your homework is to play Soma. Like, legitimately, it gets better, the more intelligent, I think, and thoughtful you are. So I think you're right out of it. It is like, legit. How could anyone call you fade rags? I just don't get it. How could they possibly just? I was calling. I was implying someone else was those things. I'm, I'm just over here being, I'm totally independent of my, I make no claims about myself whatsoever. I make no claims. But yeah, seriously, play Soma, it's like, one of the best games ever made. And so in chat, a couple of people in chat reminded me it was Loki who wrote this up. I've read the Hulkling novel from which it is derived, but. So you got, in Loki, it's a version of yourself is born in a different universe, but as a girl, and then grows up with a completely different life and existence, you meet her, and the, you know, if you fuck, is that, what, what is that? Is basically the question. And Cosmo Friday, I was like, I don't care what it is. It can't happen. He's abhorred by the, he abhors all imagery of the female form. It's, um, this is the thing is complicated. That's what's what the nature of the discussion was everyone was trying to figure out. What do you even call it? What does it necessarily mean? Especially because it's different universes, how exactly like, you know, blah, blah, blah.  That's the interesting thing about, so like quantum and multiverse theories is that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that that could happen. It's just incredibly unlikely, but unlikely things are still possible. But it's a weird sort of, it's a derivation or a cloning of the sort of Shippurthesius thing though, isn't it? Because you're, what you're asking is, is a, an entity from an entirely different universe which shares all of your characteristics, the same thing as you are, like, what differentiates you from your clone from a multiverse, for example? Yeah, it's some, which is a tricky question. How much can you take away from something before it becomes something different in a sense? What's the identity of the thing? Or how much, in this example, I think it would be how much that is similar would there have to be for you to be classes the same person? Which is, it's a different way of asking the same question, I suppose. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. What, what's the you and you? And if, if those sorts of things interest you, you should play Soma. I, I have now put it on my phone as a thing to look up tomorrow or today as it happens to be. Please do. Anyway, um, we probably should actually get back to rings of power. Well, so I was gonna say to you guys, we've got exactly, I think, 50 minutes left before we cap out, so we best get going. We got, we got this, we got this.  All right, we, we've got, oh my gosh, we have Durin comes in. No, we have to get to, uh, Elrond is talking with Deezer now after the other dwarves depart. Yes.  I found this quite interesting, right? Because what's just happened in terms of what's actually happened here is that he managed to detect the secret password from your kids having singing it, detect the location in which to say it by eavesdropping on a conversation between her and her husband to then break in and discover the greatest secret the dwarves have ever had. By doing so, he may very well have saved Durin's life in the sense that Durin came out of the mines to complain about him having broken their trust as friends or whatever. Yeah. But she's saying, yeah. She's saying, oh, thank goodness. Now, I'm not sure how I would react to something like this. They give someone, say for example, I knew that you came into my house to steal my TV.  But I know that you were only there because you wanted to steal from me. I really think I'd be torn. I'd be like, thank you so much for saving my life. But which is well here. I think that the your intention was more important than something that just was a coincidence that you created. Your character is not impacted in any way that's positive from this. It's just like it's almost like a silver lining to your deception, which you don't get credit for. You don't get credit for that. If I'm decent, I'm looking at this elf guy, I'm like, you know, funny thing. If you hadn't done that, Duran might have been in that cavern and he might have been trapped. I'm just going to put that out there for you to... I'm just like, I'm thinking about this and I think that you should know that I'm thinking about this. Yeah, because someone just said the great Stannis quote, the good does not wash out the bad nor the bad the good. The thing is about that. If I'm choking to death and Rags is there, if someone said to me, him letting me die is the bad move. Him telling someone to hopefully help me instead of saving me himself is like a neutral move and then the good move is saving me. I'd have to disagree. If he can sit... If he saved me, let's just say it's a really easy save.  And then he's like, so, reward? I'd probably be like, man, I feel like you're preventing me from dying with as little effort as possible really isn't like, like, thank you, of course. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, the lowest bar possible. It feels like the lowest bar possible, yeah. My expectation for solo, yeah. The fact that you want to reward for this is the ultimate... The differences get made. For example, I've been kidnapped and I've been taken to distant country and I'm tied up and Rags goes full taken mode and does everything he can for weeks on end to discover exactly where I am, kill everybody. I would do that, yeah. This is lower accurate. This is not a hypothetical.  Press this button. I'd be like, damn, dude. My reward is having Mahler be alive and also I get to kill bad people. Yeah, so when you say the good shouldn't wash out the bad and all the bad, the good, when he comes in to steal my TV and just happens to see me choking and saves my life, I don't feel like I'm gonna go, you shouldn't be stealing my TV but it's really good that you save me.  Yeah, we're operating at two different levels of evil. Breaking in to steal a TV, it's an evil thing to do. I wouldn't even say evil. That's a bad thing to do but allowing someone to die if strangulate, that is evil if you allow that to happen. So thanks for not sinking down into that level of evil, I guess. Again, the bar is not high for you, especially because you broke my house through my TV. But thanks, you know. So yeah, the reason I'm bringing all this up is that she knows all of that, presumably, about all of this. But she has nothing to say in terms of you sneaked around, you broke into a thing, you listened to conversations that weren't yours to listen to and you happened to help as a result. It feels like she should take more issue with Elrond here than she realizes. Yeah, I think it's tough to really weigh that against her because it's a very emotional moment. Yes. It's kind of like, you know, the elf getting hit by the arrow. It's tough to be in his mind when that happens. So it's just one of those things to really, it's worthy of pointing out. So what I would want, I think, if we were to maintain everything we've seen right now, but also make me happy on this regard, it would be that there's a conversation between her and Duran at some point about this. Absolutely. You know, he did save, well, he did save people, he did help and stuff. It's like, what was he doing there? And then he can be like, Duran can be like, oh, you know, he came because he wanted to just- I wouldn't even phrase that he saved people. It's almost like it's so weird. It's great that he, incidentally, being there doing a bad thing just happened to have maybe saved your life. But that doesn't have anything to do with his character and the decisions he made. Right. Sorry, for a second there, I was referring to the idea that he'd saved some of the people in the actual sort of cave-in. But you're right. What she refers to is specifically Duran. And what she's talking about is Duran being distracted by Elrond doing a bad thing and thus wasn't in the cave-in. But yeah, you're right. It has nothing to do with Elrond's character necessarily. And she should know all of that. However, it's understandable that in this moment, you know, at risk of losing a husband, she didn't. And at risk of losing several dwarves, she's probably on very good terms with very much likes. She didn't. Yeah, I can see her being like, oh, thank goodness you were there. But I think we're owed a scene where she can be like, that fucker. Which by the way, isn't an impossibility because yeah, they're going to be driving the orcs and Jesus, the orcs. The elves and the elves and the dwarves against each other. That seems to be something they're going for. So maybe we'll get that scene. You know what would have been more interesting is if Elrond wasn't present during the singing ceremony. If he came back with Duran covered in dirt, his cloak, he's discarded his cloak. He's just down to his shirt like Duran covered in dust and like we saved him. Like they both worked really hard to save the dwarves. That would have been a completely different dynamic where yeah, he was stealing, but he put himself in a lot of danger to save the dwarves. That is the kind of thing where I'm like, it shows that he was willing to risk his life to help us. So there's definitely more going on with it. He's not just trying to take advantage of us.  And that would be really interesting, by the way. It would have been way more interesting. It would have made the conversation afterwards more interesting instead of Duran coming. Yeah, don't worry. Don't don't don't worry. Elrond, I saved him. I saved my there. It's all good. It's all good. I took care of it. I'm a little tired right now and dirty. It was tough to do. But yeah, the fact that the because his yeah, his that would have been interesting. Unlike the dad would have been interesting. If the dad found out he could be like, you know, Elrond is banished like the bowl and then the friend could be like he saved five dwarves or whatever. Oh, Duran doesn't even tell his father about the Mithril thing. There was a cave in and I, Elrond came to help and he helped just as any dwarf would help. And he doesn't even know his father the Mithril thing because you can go that direction.  Elrond tried to breach our secrets and he's like, yeah, but he saved so many lives at the risk of his own. You know, that's got to count for that. You know, you can have that conversation between those two. Well, yeah, both are interesting. All our hypotheticals are more interesting than what the show did with its millions of dollars.  And he's lost his clothes. But we see him and he's pristine.  While Durin was in the mines helping, doing everything, Elrond was watching this ceremony.  They showed Durin and he is absolutely like covered in soot. So what are you telling us about Elrond? Did he just leave? He was like, you can handle this, buddy. I guess. Yeah. Missed opportunity. It's like what we say. You're always, you're pretty much always world building and you're always character building. What characters do and what they don't do is a part of their character. And you've got to be aware of that when you're writing. This looks, this is a bad look for Elrond. Bad is a strong word. It, he's not, I don't want to feel like he's morally obligated to put himself in great danger for strangers. But when you do, that makes it all the more virtuous. When you choose strangers either because the entire reason he's there and has been allowed to be there is because they're not strangers. They are the best friends who've mended a relationship. And he is in the exact same place as Durin is when the cavern happens and Durin runs in and he doesn't run in, which there is a simple way around that. You simply have Durin run in and some rocks fall that stop Elrond following him.  Which they didn't intend to do that. They didn't intend that clearly, by the way. Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to go far as to to knock it against Elrond for not helping.  Yeah, if you're self-proclaimed best friend is gone in. No, yeah. To clarify, right? So let's say you have three houses on fire and there's three babies in there and three dads and two dads run in and the third one goes, the house is on fire. I don't want to kill myself. I think everyone would be like, that's true, but... I think that's a different analogy. No, of course it's different. The reason what I'm doing with that is to highlight like how people feel about it, even though what he's saying, if the house is like fully engulfed in flame, then, yeah, it probably isn't a good idea. There is... Well, I think the analogy is different meaningfully in the sense that a father has an obligation to his kid in a different way than Elrond would have an obligation to Okay, but if... People would trap him. In a different way than Duran would have an obligation to... No, not Duran. Elrond to Duran and those people. Elrond to Duran. But if Duran is running in to save the dwarf, assume he knows less well, arguably than Elrond, what then absolves Elrond of the responsibility of following Duran and who is a closer friend to him than... Because Duran made that decision himself to put himself in danger for the sake of them. I don't think that you're under a moral obligation to do that in his position, to also put yourself in danger, going into a situation you know nothing about because your best friend did. You're not... No, I'll say, you're not under that obligation, but it would be a very virtuous and good thing to do that. I think it would be virtuous enough to be an obligation. I think I would look down on it and I don't know if I didn't. That vibe would exist from people. They'd be like, you didn't help them out and you could be like, of course I didn't.  You'd be like, okay. Well, yeah, but... I don't think people have a moral obligation to put themselves in danger. Yeah, that's... I think people would feel that because I was actually going to ask her, as you know, you said there's more of an obligation for the dad to run into the building, building for the kid. What if it was like a sea of acid and there's a platform in the center? I know this is absurd. A platform in the center with the babies on it. It would never happen. And so the dad, like basically, he's dead. If he goes in to try and get that kid, he's absolutely dead. I'm assuming at that point... It's like a 0.01% chance of being succeeded. Yeah, I'm trying to lower it as low as possible rather than impossible. Yeah, I think with those parameters, I wouldn't blame the dad at all, especially because it would like be perceived as impossible and it would probably actually be realistically impossible to do. That kind of depends on what we're talking about.  It's 6 a.m. I'm not going to answer that. We might have to... We might have to prescribe it in a while. I'm just saying, if there's a moral obligation in the sensitive, like a deontological obligation in the sense that you must do so regardless of your feelings, it's a moral duty that you do so, that's different from saying, I would feel morally obligated to do so. A moral obligation, a felt moral obligation, isn't the sense as a moral duty to do the same thing. That's something we can unpack a different way. Because we certainly can. We certainly can, yeah. It's... But I'm not going to blame Al-Ran for not going in and helping, but the fact that he doesn't, and that just feels... Yeah, exactly. Yes, that's where I'm going. We need an acknowledgement of like, maybe he's even hesitant. We see his face. Like, maybe he starts, but he can't do it. Or, I mean, if you don't want to put him in that position, Durin could yell at him, go get help. So that he's safe, and he has a safe job, but he's still helping, and he takes off like a rabbit or however elves run speed and algae-wise. You're absolutely... That way you don't have this issue. Correct, because it's really dependent on what the writer wants to tell us about Al-Ran. Because if they both sprint in, and the further in they get, the more Durin is just keeping on going, but Al-Ran slowing down, looking above, looking around, and then he stops and goes, Durin, stop! Stop! Durin's already gone.  We can't fit in. Yeah, he's too... Yeah. You know, it's something. His heart is there, but he physically can't do it for whatever reason. He's either dissuaded from doing it by Durin, or he's like physically too big to fit in where the dwarf came. I mean, you could even have it that he's afraid. There's no reason why you can't do that. Yeah, terrified. But I guess the reason I bring all this up is just that it was an opportunity to do something, and they didn't. Al-Ran went in, but then we see him later, and it looks like he didn't go in at all, and he's not there for the remainder of the rescue operation. So, did he go in and help, or did he not? It's not even clear, because Dees is rewarding him, like thanking him for distracting Durin from being in the mine. It's a different thing, yeah. So, this is kind of funny considering we were just talking about that, the other... I have no idea if he was in there or not, helping to save the dwarves. I would assume not given the state of Durin and him coming back after just finishing. If Al-Ran was there helping, he would be with Durin. What would your guess be, little platoon? Did he get in there and help get some dwarves out, or did he not? I would guess no. I would guess no as well. I feel like... I would guess no. If we're being good faith... I would very confidently guess no. If we're being good faith, the clothing and the fact that Durin is actually still in there doing things while he's not implies to me that he left, which is a really significant moment. You know? Absolutely. We don't get to see it. Or should be. If the writers are aware of the significance, but it's these writers we're talking about, so probably they're not. So, Durin comes in and says, Yeah, they've got the last one. He's alive. That's good news. The bad news from his POV, I suppose, is that his dad has said they're cordoning off that Mithril mine. They're not going anywhere if I can near it. And he's very pissed about this, which... I know I'm not him. I know I'm not. And that's not my dad, but that decision doesn't surprise me in the slightest. If it was a cave in, we're avoiding that vein. I can see both their perspectives.  Dave in. Potentially, yeah. That's the thing that this... I wish I cared more. I wish we had more. Let me care, yeah. Because this is like a thing. You have Durin who wants this thing and it could propel his people to this incredible greatness and it's an amazing thing and it'll help him out, but there's the danger of doing it and that conversation of is the risk worth the reward, that's like multiple discussions between two people, a father and a son, that could be very meaningful and impactful, especially with clearly the talented actors that they have to do this. Yeah, and the guy who plays Durin is, again, given a very impassioned sort of delivery here about how he's absolutely fra... Because I can believe it, you've just been doing all that work to save them. You want to make use of this myth, there's an incredible discovery, all this stuff, and then you're being told on top of everything today that that now is locked off, you can't have any of it. Problem is, like, I need more from him and his dad and Elrond, I need it to be better. Yeah, that's a skeleton. Yeah, certainly from them and Elrond, but I think this whole sequence, it sort of demonstrates the good and the bad side-by-side. So the bad to begin with he comes in angry, we all know he's angry. Just to be clear, is the good and the bad with the show or with, like, the show is a production or the characters, like, in universe or out of universe? Well, in universe. Well, the writing, so I guess the writing of the universe. Obviously, he comes in very angry and we understand why he explains it well, the acting is good.  Is that the dumbest metaphor? No, it's not the dumbest, but it's another one of those ones which is just a metaphor. I think it's dragged down by the fact that, again, it so closely resembles the others that are delivered by other characters and other places. So I disagree. I think this one's a totally fine metaphor. No, no, I agree. In and of its own right, it's fine. The problem sounds too similar to some of the metaphors. So we think the salt off a table? Yeah. Sorry, which show? Which metaphor we talk about, oh, I missed it. This is the hottest, even the hottest coals cool after a time, I think she said. Even the hottest coals cool eventually. I like that self-contained, I think that works in the context. It seems very dwarf-appropriate. It does, yes. The problem is that, again, it's another one of those things that we've seen too much of from too many other people at the same time.  I've now forgotten. A freaky moment. It was when the dad comes in. No, it's not. When the dad are during, because we're not. Oh, well. Because we're, you know, what scene are you thinking about? When the dad, the dwarf dad? Yeah, he comes in later, doesn't he? And he says that, no, that was the thing I was gonna say that was good about it. I don't remember what the bad thing I was gonna criticize was. Oh, I thought you were gonna say that the relationship between during and Elrond is weak and broken and badly written, while the relationship between during and his dad is relatively okay. Yeah, that was what I was going for. Yeah. I think I've just had too many times to repeat it. Great. That's what I was going for. The thing, when during's dad comes in, I think that's, there is actually quite a good and meaningful exchange, unlike the wisdom versus being smart thing earlier. Right. Because he talks about how to be king or to be a dwarven lord, your knowledge comes not just from yourself and not just from your father, but from all of your ancestors at once. And I thought that that is a dialogue trick. Actually, that works quite well. I think that's one of the most effective ones. If I can, I would like to add a further compliment. I actually quite like that he said you get your, you know, the inspiration from your all your ancestors, their achievements and their mistakes. Like you, it's all like big thing you take on with it. Because I'm actually gonna, I thought that was gonna be my hot take. I was gonna say I actually like the scene between during his dad. I like felt my cold, dead, doggie heart kind of was like, oh, man. I'm sad not just because this is a very heartfelt thing between a father and the son, which always gets me, but imagine if this was all couched in something real. Yeah, imagine it was part of a great show. And the sad part is this proves that they could have done it. Oh, well, they're not completely incapable. It's just they can't do it. 99% of the time. Well, and if you can, I was actually gonna pay confidence as well. I actually think, I think I was in such like bad faith mode that I was like, did I just like that? The, when Elrond like, basically takes a really long time to say treasure the time you have the appearance. Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. It might be strange, but episode four doesn't have the strongest moments for being the worst episode. Is it doesn't have the strongest isolated moments? Possibly, because we kind of like the elevator ride scene in episode two. Yeah, episode two, episode two, that one scene in episode two, that's the high point, I think. And I, yeah, I guess I'd say episode four matches that, but it's again, it's weird. And I don't think it's coincidental, but all the high points in this show come with the dwarfs and they come in the exchanges, by and large, either between Duran and his dad, or between Duran and Elrond. Right. There's a high point beyond those characters. It's only because the show does quite a good job of depicting the differentness, the fundamental like philosophical and like idealistic differentness of elves and dwarves, but also the familial difference between the dwarven prince and his king. Those are the strongest moments across all four episodes. I don't think it's coincidental that they all take place amongst the same characters in the same place.  So it's, yeah. It's very tough. Yeah. But the freeing is, freeing example is if you, if you put it all to text and scratched out the names, could you tell who was who? Maybe a couple, but that's not good, considering we have a pretty extensive, well, I know the one who's always talking like a bitch, that's Galadriel. But apart from that, not many that you could really be like, oh, that's that because they have these traits. Whenever a character says, hey, you're not supposed to do things that's different from everyone else, you can know they're talking to Nori, at least. You won't know who they are, but you'll know they're talking to Nori. Right, Nori? There's someone Nori knows. Yes. We can narrow some things down, but yeah. You know, hopefully, as the show goes on, we may get a couple more good scenes, but no guarantees. Because yeah, it's crazy. I have so many issues with Durin as a character, and yet I probably enjoy him the most. I think I enjoy him the most as well. I was hoping to really like Elendil, the sea captain man, the seaman. I want to like him, but I can't. But Durin is like, yeah, not yet. He's still definitely salvageable. He's just suffering from some stupidity right now. But I want Durin, if I could pick one person where everything works out for him, I would want it to be Durin. We'll see. Yeah. I like Durin and Disa, because it gives me an opportunity to call him Harry and Meghan in my reviews, but that's a different reason. Oh, the royal family. Ginger Prince and Black Princess. I like her. I like her. She has a personality. Durin seems to have one as well. I would much rather the show give me more dwarf stuff than all of these other plots. I could not give a look about the outfits. I would actually cleanse his personality to Elrond. The only scenes by Elrond is halfway personable, is when he's engaging with Durin. Dude, the scenes with Elrond and Galadriel were shit, but Elrond with Durin is more tolerable. Well, Durin and I, I think the most believable relationship here is, it's probably Durin and Disa, though I really like Broken Foot and Marigold. I'd have to go back and really check there's other things to say to each other. I'm pretty sure you only got like the one scene to work with there. I think that's the reason. There's only one of them, but it stands out every time they meet together. There's more consistency with Durin and Disa, because at least they have multiple scenes, as opposed to just like that. Yeah, she's just talking to Elrond. There's so much potential for, if things go wrong, as they expected to with the elves and the dwarves, having Elrond and Durin at the core of that is going to be interesting, hopefully. But he really puts into sharp contrast the fact that Elrond and Durin have known each other for, I think a couple of hundred years. Elrond and Galadriel have known each other for about 1500 years. She's known him since he was born. She knew his father, that's the creator of the library in West Numanor. She knew his brother, and she's the closest with Elrond, but if you didn't know any of the backstory and you just came into this one episode, or the two red-even episodes, and you said, which are the characters who know each other best? It's Elrond and Durin, because Elrond and Galadriel don't come across as people who know each other at all.  Yeah. And that's funny, because we're told in universe that Elrond and Durin haven't spoken in 20 years, which is long enough for a person to be completely out of your familiarity. It is, even if the dwarves can live to like 500 and the elves to... Yeah, and yet, it doesn't really feel like they've done a good job of portraying that it feels more so like they are friends at this point. Yeah. But yeah, all right, let's keep moving, because we're running out of time. Where are we? Yeah, so Durin says, or the king says to Durin that there's clearly a secret going on with the elves, go check it out. He's like, yeah, all right then. See, it's like how the episode started, but now it's the reverse. Crazy. It's almost like nothing is actually developed at all. The Mithril will be discovered by the elves and then someone will happen as a result of that, and then Durin will find out and you'll hate Elrond, but he won't actually do anything because he never does.  The idea that your mystery box is actually revealed in the trailer is just... Of all the things you could have done as well, it's so depressingly boring. Will Elrond be banned from all dwarven lands?  The next scene is with Lady and Elfman. I find it absolutely hilarious. It's this moment that he decides to relay the message Aida had. When you find out what the message is, he's like, bro, you probably should have delivered this as soon as possible. It's basically a threat. He's like, leave now and also swear fealty. Like, I just... He only tells it because she happens to walk up to him. Like, what the fuck, man?  It's good to see you. I'm glad you're alive. A big criticism of her in episode two was she completely forgot he existed. She just moved on with her life. I spent that power again, and our lovers, quote unquote, have met up. Which, yeah, you don't... Like, seriously, this is all the character has going for him, this romance, but there's nothing to feel it. She hasn't even mentioned him. They stand next to each other is really it. It's almost like they want to imply like, oh, they were separated, but now they're back together. It's like, so? So, yeah. Like, actually, so? You have not given us anything that would imply that she is emotionally invested in him. His well-being, his relationship with her, how he feels, just his... We never got that. There was never a scene where she like, was worried. Where she... Like, maybe she had some memento he'd given her, and she's like, thumbing it or something. Anything. If you would have watched the moments in between his capture and return and just focus on her, there's nothing there. You would be shocked that her lover was that elf who had just escaped near death. When we compare it to Aragon and Albin, I mean, I think they probably have less screen time across three films. As good as they pretty surely do. Two episodes, three episodes, or four episodes if you are now, much less than over the four episodes. It's just incomparable. Like, you immediately know the extent of the feeling and the depth of feeling that Aragon and Albin have for each other, just from like three short scenes. Yeah. Four episodes. And how far away is that, too? The only thing we know about either character is that they kind of awkwardly flirt from time to time, and if they're apart from each other, it's irrelevant. They so wouldn't. I don't even know if I could call it. I don't know if that's what it is. I could just be... It's a relationship because the author said it's a relationship. Pretty much that is clearly... That is his story at this point. What's going to happen with him and her? Forbidden love. Ooh, just like, I don't... Sure, okay. And then, of course, you have the way to fix this. Obviously, is when she's dealing with her village, she'll just be like... Has anyone heard anything from him? Does anyone know of any elves that are in there?  Because Aragorn and Arwen, when they're not together in scenes, they still talk about each other. They still care about where each other are in the world and what their fate's going to be. So I guess what I'm arguing is just like, this is clearly what they're trying to build with these two. They're doing a terrible job so far. But hey, we're only halfway through the season. I'm sure it'll be fine. Yeah, so they need to leave is my take on this.  You might be like, well, it's better here than, I don't know, out in the open, right?  An army of orcs might take over the watchtower tonight. You don't even know. And you can't stay here. You need to get food. That's another reason to leave, yeah. It doesn't matter. You can't stay here.  You just have to leave. You're being forced into a bad thing. Sure, but it's better than starving to death. You have to go. And I don't know about the world. Is there a place they could go? Is there like a local government? Is there a Duke? Is there a castle nearby? They haven't told us. Is there a militiamen or? I don't think they're going to tell us. Yeah, like I don't know what we can do. And no one brings up the suggestions to be shot down for my sake. Wait, is this the last scene? My God, I think we are like near the end.  Unfortunately, creepy old man is around the corner and he's like, here's some water. You've earned it for helping getting that food. And it's like, okay.   We've got to be ready. You've got to save your strength for what's coming. He's Sauron's going to rise.  Okay, that's what this is.  Is he really telling the kid, like you and me, we're going to help out Sauron when he comes about? He's like, what? He probably shouldn't say anything to this kid.  But like, I think that's the implication, right? This guy is, you know, he's one of the, you know, the elves hated the men here because they reckon they're still evil. Like, I'm pretty sure this is like an actually still evil guy. Right? Yeah, I have a, I'm serving the old master. The old, it's like a Cthulhu thing. I don't know, I'm serving the old master in a sense. And he's like, kid, you stabbed yourself with a spooky sword.  Let's get ready. He's like, what? You're in the club. Yeah, I thought it was retarded that, why even say anything to this kid when he's clearly not bought in, you know? He just stabbed himself with a sword. Okay, that's all he did. Yeah, you think you'd feel them some questions? He's like, I know you stole that sword underneath my barn and then just see how he just sort of talks about it. Yeah. Like maybe he spins some story about the sword. It doesn't have to be the real one or say, well, the legend say that, what do you think about that, lad? And get his take on it.  I mean, this is a great power, this sword. Who knows what we might be able to do with this power? We might be able to save. It's almost like a ring thing. Like you mirror it with the rings tempting boar mirror to save Gondor. You do the same thing here. It's like this power, it's evil, but we could use that power to do good things. You know, that's how he gets them on board. That's how he gets them in the club, the club of one. They become a club of two. Yeah. Then there's a funny scene where an orc says, Ada, we found it. It's in the tower. He's probably referring to the hilt.  You had it. You guys had it. Why? Oh, I'll tell you why. Because he doesn't want to get killed on the spot. That's why he doesn't. It's just funny, because I should probably know about this anyway. But he's, the orc is clearly like happy.  I just think it's funny.  If I was that orc reporting back, I would leave out those specifics and say, yeah, we tracked it down to a boy who's hiding with the rest of the people in an old tower. Yeah, that's where it is. I'm good. I found it. That's where it is. We just got to go get it. In fact, it'll be shockingly easy to, assuming they stay there. Imagine describing it to him. Like the guy you released, he killed the guy who had the hilt. And then like, we just, we chased them and then the sun came up and we couldn't chase them anymore, even though we were wearing our sun protective gear. Yeah, you should give your, you should give, you need to do something about the clothes budget on it.   Yeah. Can we have like hoods, maybe cloaks? You know, instead of, instead of making this weird tunnel with all these claw things over, what if we put those cloths on ourselves so we can go anywhere? Suntan lotion. Yo, you know what would be interesting? If Adair Adar shows up with his orcs or whatever and they make the ultimatum of give us the sword, we know what's in there and we'll let you all go. And everyone's like, oh fuck, the sword, what's he talking about? And then like someone's sees this, him with the other kid with a sword, like that would be interesting. They could make something happen there, yeah. But they don't usually do that in this show, so I can't see that happening. That's true. I'll just entertain it in the theater of my mind. So. I'll enjoy that. I'm pretty sure there's like one big scene left for the episode. It takes 10 billion years, but we don't have to spend that long on it because we can summarize it pretty quickly.   Unfortunately as she leaves, the petals from the white tree start to fall, which is a signal to the queen regents that this must be the opposite of what she's supposed to do. That this will bring about the fall of Numenor getting rid of her. And so that is what convinces her then to bring Galadriel back and agree to going to war with her. Imagine selling this to the kingdom.   And then an elf arrives and brings us all into a war. For reasons that can't, like I was saying, good luck, queen, selling this to your people. Yeah, they've gone from, they took our jobs to, they militarized our economy. That's against a foreigner invasion for which we have no evidence of.  And I don't know why. They couldn't possibly understand why this war was even being fought. We think there are orcs attacking our brethren in the Southlands. We're going to war lads coming with. Like, oh, jeez. I don't know. No, no. Is that really happening? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's in here. But what are you basing this off? Is it just that girl's word? That seems a bit wonky. Because the symbol, it kind of looks like the Mordor Mountains. If you turn it this way here and all the guards, like, they lean in so they can all see. Like, whoa. It's like wings holding it out. He turns it to the side. See, it kind of looks like the Mordor Mountains, but they didn't do the lake bit. But, and also, it's really, it's more, this symbol's more curvy and it's kind of straight on the real map. But it's pretty close. So I'll tell you all, this is what it means. Southlands and Southlands and Sauron's coming back. There's going to be an evil kingdom of evil. And it's happening all the way over there on the other side of the world or whatever. We're going to have to go fight and die for that. Because I had a vision from the Palantir where Numenor is destroyed. I have connected the dots in such a way that we must go to this war or else we will be destroyed by a massive tidal wave that sweeps over the mountains. And then they say, oh, okay, you get this from your father, don't you? This runs in the family. You're being crazy. The following portents. Exactly. I will state a personal preference that I have. I wish that there was more focus on, the utility and being reasoned into this position other than the signs and portents thing. I think you're being reasonable because the fact that we've had basically zero attempts from both Galadriel and, I mean, even Elendil. Does Elendil, is he bought into this? I don't know. I don't know his opinion. I dare not ask. I'm sure you'll give it, maybe. Yeah, it's been nuts. It feels like we ate a bread sandwich in Numenor. We was all the content. We was all the discussions and the interesting parts.  Yeah, where's all the interesting political stuff about, I can't believe we're going to war. We did this because of wait. For what reason? You've got to be kidding me. There's no way. This is a really big deal that you're, this is a lot, this is the lives of a lot of men on what is essentially magic hearsay that can't really be. Revelations are necessarily first person. Chatter in jail. Kind of. Yeah, man.  If I was, if I got woken up the next day and they're like, yeah, we're going to war. They're like, against who? We're just chilling on our island. And I was giving the story. I'm like, no, it's horseshit.  I want a recount of the vote. Lock her up in that tower with Dadio. And this is what we were referring to, by the way. She did indeed end this episode with an army and she's going towards the south.  How did this happen? It's like, yeah, I don't know, man. It just did. I mean, there's going to go four episodes left. We've got to have a big battle in probably episode, like what, six or something? Seven, maybe? You know what, Mahler? 300 did this better with the Oracle and the Eifers. Sure. He goes up to get there. Yeah.  Also, we got to see some titty. It was just like, couldn't she have used more of the evidence she even has, more of the experiences she's had? They didn't do anything. She just said, trust me, bro. And that was it. I need to confer with my generals and seamasters or whatever they're called.  Maybe it's like, I want everyone's opinion because I'm very unsure about this. And I value your input as my generals and admirals and whatnot. And she goes over the evidence and they give their perspectives on it and they say, no, this is crazy. No, this is just a, it's hearsay. No, we can't trust an elf because that's does. She has this to gain from and that to gain. It's such a, this journey would be, it would be an incredible undertaking. It's never been done, but it was something like that. A scene where this is a big discussion that's happening. Instead, we get a six hour quasi voyage of her, of, of, of, of gladrile setting off, but then turning right around when the tree starts to lose its petals.  And that is episodes three and four. That's incredible. Excellent work. Just, uh, yeah, just a short little EFAP going over some of the, really just some of the, the broader points, not really getting into the details, not getting into the nitty gritty, just the general concept of the show as you, three and four. Now, you know, these puppies were a lot thicker than one and two. Yeah, I had more to say, I had more to say. Yeah, a lot more to say. They're a lot less, um, empty and wandering. They start to make claims and that's where we get to the issues. Every single one of them is awful. It's terrible. I was saying to Jake, he's been watching, uh, the new Rick and Morty episodes. The, uh, he was like, oh, the third one is like, okay. And I was like, you know, even if they weren't being written shittily with like the abilities they have, when you reach like a season six or whatever, or something like Rick and Morty, it's like, it is getting to seriously difficult levels in terms of managing all of the stories that have come before, all the technologies, all the establishments, all the arcs.  Um, I think they've already encountered that problem in Rings of Power. Just with like three episodes, they're already like, shit, we contradicted things we've established already.  This is really hard to keep track of all of our work. Um, and I just find it amusing where shows do that. Like, I almost expect it when you reach like past season five. I think that's considered a bit of a, sort of a flash point for a lot of shows where they don't usually get better after season five. That's usually, they've usually peaked at that point. Um, there's obviously exceptions, but Rings of Power, like three and four can be the one and two is amazing. It peaked early and it's not, it didn't even peak well. Episode two is kind of meh, but then it's all downhill from meh. It's not a good start. And I would even, I'd probably even be harder than that myself, but I think it's outright. It's definitely, when we watched episode one and two, I think it was like a three and a half. One mostly because Yeah, they're very dry. Not all that much happens. Nothing's really good about it. That isn't superficial. Um, substance wise, it's very weak and we don't learn a lot. So not good enough to be a four. I don't think not bad enough to be a three, three and a half. We've sunk with these episodes three and four, I feel. That's, I think it's certainly a three at this point. Very bad. Uh, couple of small highlights.  I don't expect this show to get better. I can't believe we're already halfway through season one. Just can't believe it. I said it feels more so like we've finished after one of maybe like six. But uh, yeah, we're way further than that. But hey, Andor is out now. Oh, yeah, watch that today. I don't know anything about it. The common sentiment I am seeing from basically everybody is that it is slow, dry and boring. Awesome. I can't wait to watch another one of those shows. I was going to say, man, it's like, come down. One wasn't enough. Enough of this. Because the funny thing is She-Hulk is like the other kind of bad.  It's not dry.  It's bad. Yeah. So we, apparently they're offering us both kinds. I say both. But I'm intrigued.  That will be an interesting experience. Yes. Those we will eventually find out. But I'll say, certainly before we run out of time, we're on like nine minutes left. Little platoon, thank you so much for joining us for 11 and a half plus hours. It wouldn't be an EFAP if I hadn't joined for 11 and a half plus. No, genuinely, I've been like, this has been the most entertaining thing. And I've been watching you guys for years. In your life, this is all the human history. Certainly for a good long part of it. I feel like I've been invited as a Star Wars fan onto a Star Wars panel at Star Wars con. But like all Star Wars, as opposed to... I was about to say. Much, much less like hatred and resentment and antiques. That's a story from later. It's still kind of giddy making and bizarre and surreal that I'm here. So thank you very much for having me. Glad to give you the funnest thing you did all day. I feel like I will ask you, because Goga just suggested it. Christmas or Halloween, what kind of guy are you?  I prefer Halloween films, but I prefer Christmas as a ceremony. That is an interesting... That I would... Well, I have often said I think Halloween has a superior media to Christmas. Yeah, I would rather watch Halloween stuff. Yeah, that's that's yeah. I enjoy Christmas as a holiday much more. But I do like just something about the Halloween movies and the spookiness that's... I'll allow it. It's better than all that Christmas cheer movies. I will allow it. You got the big important part. You managed to bridge Christmas and Halloween on something, I guess. Yeah, like I said, our Halloween foundestination arc is coming on. Foundestination is such a funny set of films.  Death is trying to kill everybody on Christmas, I guess. I don't know. Do it. He learned the error of his ways and comes good and gives people presents. That's how it works. Nice. That would be nice. But yeah, tell the chat, since they've had a very big dose of you, what else can they expect if they were to run over to your channel, hit the sub button and consume everything? Everything. Fuck. Well, the next thing is going to be what we've just discussed. So the next rings of power video. The last one was two hours long covering two episodes. This one is probably going to be over two hours just covering episode three. But there's a lot of film stuff going on. The thing was created to do a mix of politics and film. And eventually we'll start doing live streams again. It seems my friend sort of has time and decides he wants to exist again. But if you're interested in the film stuff, it's like mini-mortar, I guess, in that it's nowhere near as long or meticulous. But it's something like more digestible.  You don't need to worry about the idea of a mini-mortar. I do my own crazy nonsense. Okay, you're going to dig yourself out a nice corner of the internet. I was trying to finish your video. Which is funny for me, it's rare that I get to say, I had to watch your video in pieces because it's forever old. It's like, oh my god, I'm one of my viewers now.  But yeah, there's lots of film stuff. So the next stuff is going to be probably rings of power. I'm going to try and get an Andor review up, hopefully in the next few days as well. But time permitting. Otherwise, I think I'm seeing you again more on the drinker stream tomorrow. So I'll be there. You know what the topic is. Is it Andor? I think he said Andor and She-Hulk. He's a Christ. House of the Dragon. Wait, Andor and She-Hulk. And I've caught up on...  My point, I was just going to say, I got to sleep though, because that stream will start in exactly, well, 13, 14, is that 15 hours? So I've got to sleep and I've got to see four episodes of TV. I've got to be leaving for the office in 90 minutes, and I've still got to watch all the TV. So I have no sympathy at all. Hey, you can sleep at the office, right? That's two beds, one stone, beautiful. Well, hey, I super appreciate you sacrificing hard quarter to stay on this show then, man. Thank you very much. Again, this has been fantastic. Thank you both very much. Thank you for having me, but also thank you for like, yeah, years worth of entertainment. It's been great fun. Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate you letting us know.  Obviously, it's funny. We've had guests in the past to be like, you know, I could do an hour. And it's like, okay, that's fine. That's an hour. And then we're done with the intro of the show. And they're like, okay, bye. It's like, yeah, it's great. Bye. Yeah, link is in the description for you a little platoon's channel. Like I said, I can personally approve and I'm going to keep an eye on your little rings breaks down. Do they break downs? Because yeah, this I envision that even our coverage is going to get longer and longer.  But hey, you know, you never know. Maybe it is. Strap in. We have no clue how terrible these things are going to be. I'm just going to block off 24 hours for the next one, just to be sure. Oh, yeah. No. Both will. Well, someone said, is this the longest one other than an anniversary? And I was like, no, we did actually used to do a lot of 1145 streams.   We chilled. We were not like the last row.  We just did a level 45. And now none of it was super check actually. So we just got another whole bulk added to our backlog. Pile it on, I say. Meanwhile, this Saturday, we got the stream destiny is coming on. And then the Wednesday after that, we've got Rakita log covering She-Hulk. And then that Saturday, it's going to be two rings of power episodes again. We may very well have you back. That'll be it. Anytime you want. It's, I think we're going to try to have disbrew as well. So this is where I mean, we got another, it's just all stacked. I don't know when we can fit in a time to do a super chat catch up at this point. And we're starting up the recordings for Halloween. Absolutely nuts. Andor is out. We've got to start doing them too. God. Oh my God. Yeah. Andor doesn't seem bad.  That little bit does feel that way. Well, we'll give it a shot. And hey, maybe it, you know what? Maybe it's so uneventful and so uninteresting. We just end up dropping it. Who knows? That would be, that'd be nice. I legit, on top of all that, I'm looking forward to seeing the next episodes of House of the Dragon. Like I, that's like the. I'm really glad that you have a show that you look forward to watching for non-meta reasons. I do too. It's nice. Yes. The plushies guys, 17 hours remaining. The last time you'll see it promoted. Please buy them now. If you want them, buy them now. Do not wait. You need to do it like seriously right now.  The time is red. This long, you will forget. This is the last, do it. This is the last day. Do it right now. Open up a tab and do it. The time of red is scary. It means that it's gonna come for you.  No, no. Once, once these are done, they're done. This is these are different than last years. They do not come back. Once this is over, it's done. There's no way to get them. I've already bought mine. Y'all need to buy yours. It. Yeah, these are absolutely limited time. And the quality is the quality is good. You know, these look great. They shipped us good work. Yeah. Like I said, there won't be another promotion for these in the form of eFox. It'll be done by the time. Yep. Even by the time this re-uploads this episode. If, I don't actually know, maybe I'll try and re-upload this for tomorrow. I don't even have a little uploaded time to do that because it is tomorrow. It's fine. Don't worry about it. What else? Was there anything? Did you want to mention anything right? Is there anything you want to mention? I don't. No, I don't think so. Stuff's being prepped, but no. Okay. I don't have time for things. We are. I had no specific time set. Literally one minute away from the actual cap. That's crazy. Gosh, thank you all so much for keeping this company, for the kind donations, and of course, to our guest, the little platoon. I was going to say thanks to Fringy as well, but you know what? He hasn't been here for ages. He was only here for like eight and a half hours. That's not even close to how long this year was. What a short man. He's going to hate me for saying that. But yes, as I feel like I just mentioned, you've got all that on the way in the eFab world.  I don't take that out of context. Thank you very much, all of you, for watching, and we will see you next time, folks. Yeah, that's right. And remember, there is a tempest in you. Yes. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Goodbye.