Shōgun - E01-02 - Anjin & Servants of Two Masters

[00:00:00] A new year, time for new growth.

[00:00:02] Grow your education and skills with Herzing University.

[00:00:05] Our online behavioral health programs

[00:00:07] fit your schedule and time.

[00:00:08] From an eight month diploma program

[00:00:10] in health and human services,

[00:00:11] to a 36 month bachelor's in psychology.

[00:00:14] Grow your behavioral health career with us

[00:00:15] wherever you are in your education.

[00:00:17] Your future starts now at Herzing University.

[00:00:20] Visit us online at Herzing.edu or text HEALTH to 85109.

[00:00:25] Online at Herzing.edu or text HEALTH to 85109. come back and then we'll get into a wider ranging discussion that includes some history and lore, production, notes, discussions of main characters, plot and story elements, and then we'll wrap up with our favorite scenes from the two episodes. We have set up an email, so if you have questions or feedback, send those to shogun at the lorehounds.com

[00:01:40] or head to the contact page on our website,

[00:01:42] the lorehounds.com and use the form or record us

[00:01:45] a voicemail that we can drop right into the podcast.

[00:01:47] I know we've in a little bit. Right. Right. But a special shout out to Aaron and Brian, who Aaron Kay and Brian, 8063, who've really jumped in on this and have been scraping up information and putting it in. The use case for this thing is basically if you're watching the show and you've got your

[00:03:01] phone, you can be on the character guide and scrolling through and you can see the faces thing, but the difference between a Shogun and a Taiko. I was like, oh, this is just like John's flow chart for the elves. But we never really had a good place to put that last year. I know. I know. It was on a weird Google Drive link. Yes, exactly. I was going to look at it. Anyway, we've got more information about supporting our community as well as notes about our upcoming

[00:04:24] schedule.

[00:04:25] We'll have all of that at the end of the podcast.

[00:04:28] Cool. agreement don't watch the show. That's telling enough. Yeah, similar. If you have similar tastes to Marilyn in terms of violence, I would not recommend the show. It is not for the faint of heart the first episode. You had told me David that the second episode is much less violent. I agree with that. They the first one I felt was a bit gratuitous and we can get

[00:05:40] into it when we get into details. But yeah, the second episode I

[00:05:43] thought had a very tasteful balance. So I am hoping that

[00:05:46] that continues through the show. And, you know, there's something where like in a book, you can have an aside where you're like, a koku is blank. Whereas it's really hard to do that in a TV show. I thought the TV show did an excellent job doing a show, not tell exposition. OK. I thought that mostly we were being shown how the society worked.

[00:07:02] There were a few times where it was explained, but when it was explained,

[00:07:05] it made sense, very Game of Thrones in terms of the politics. It's very like they did a great job of, you know, we talk about the character motivations have to be the lead, not the plot motivations. And here I feel like every character has motivations that I understand. Right. And I really like that. I really like how these different things are interacting.

[00:08:22] Even characters who I don't know where they're going to go next.

[00:09:25] That's hilarious. All right. Well, and you're working on your invitation, so you can make fun of it by mocking it. Exactly. Yeah. See, I can make fun of a British accent. I'm not doing any

[00:09:30] other accents. Don't even... We're not going near that. But anyway, what do you think of the show?

[00:09:34] Well, I just wanted to quickly expand on this thought of this comparison between Martin and

[00:09:44] Clouvelle here. And we got to remember Clouvel human conflict, the human heartened conflict with itself when you have three hearts. It's crazy. Exactly. Oh, I didn't even think of that. We're going from a cube,

[00:11:01] we're going from a square to a cube equation here.

[00:11:03] I felt like he jumped behind me at that point

[00:11:05] and went, the human that they even hired a movement master to coach people how to move properly in the traditional costumes and in a, in a courtly setting. Now that's cool.

[00:12:20] That's a crazy amount of budget that they're throwing at this thing.

[00:12:24] Um, the casting I think is spot on.

[00:13:24] two really worked for me in terms of setting up the stakes. Here's the power dynamic. Here's the motivations of the primary actors. And then here's the trap and the ticking time bomb

[00:13:31] that's going to set things off and settle our characters into motion. But then I think you said

[00:13:38] you had the opposite reaction, that two did the me and she really liked it. And she was starting to ask me a bunch of questions in episode two. And I said, wait, watch the episode. And by the end of episode two, you will have all of your questions answered. All of the little things that they've set up, they resolve them so you understand when they reference this other city or when they talk about

[00:15:04] this thing or that thing, it's explained all over the place. And we'll talk about it because later. But the violence is so severe at certain points that I think it has to be higher than that.

[00:16:20] Gosh. It has to be higher than that.

[00:16:22] I think we have to time code.

[00:16:23] Because you put that one scene in front of Marilyn,

[00:16:24] she'll never watch the show again.

[00:16:25] But we can, yeah, and then they just go,

[00:16:28] then it's gone and it's done. I keep keep that for that conversation as well. So anyway, yeah, it'll be interesting. I would love maybe we should timecode the episode so that Marilyn can watch it. And then she can tell us where it lands on her scale. She's not going to go out and watch this, Marilyn. If you're here, still don't watch it. I think she would enjoy the historicity of it.

[00:17:40] She would.

[00:17:41] I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this passes the shipy test

[00:17:43] with just on two episodes.

[00:17:44] This thing passes the shipy test relative to Shogun, the book,

[00:17:47] to the this out. No, no, no. I'm glad that this story has a discreet trajectory. But then I'm like, man, this world is beautiful. These characters are amazing. This whole setup is amazing. And then Adrian pointed out on the Discord is like, well, aren't there more books? And it's like, oh yeah, there's six books here.

[00:19:02] So I don't know right now is going to have

[00:20:20] a hard time knocking this out of my number one spot right now because this is-

[00:20:25] You're calling the judgment too fast, man. You got to cool it. And we're back. We're going to talk about some history here before we get into the full series. But from this point out, we are talking full spoilers. If you ever wants to show or you don't want to be spoiled, then head out, come back. For the rest of you still with us, gather around before we are going on the Erasmus

[00:21:44] Blackboard ship.

[00:21:45] Would you like to tell us more about it, David?

[00:21:47] Yes, I would in 1536. He was Catholic, but kind of a background role. And I thought that was cool. There is a, do you know much about Reformation history and process? I knew at some point a bunch of stuff about the Reformation and it has left my brain. So feel free to tell me whatever you want to tell me.

[00:24:22] Right in.

[00:24:23] The ship's rudder, which is not to be confused with rudder.

[00:25:23] I believe a French word and a Spanish word that were similar.

[00:25:25] And then that that's where the English word came from. So it has nothing to do with the thing that steers the ship.

[00:25:28] You know, it's funny.

[00:25:29] I I knew by the time I went to the show,

[00:25:32] but when I was first reading the book, the first couple of times it came up,

[00:25:35] I was like, why are they so concerned that they're going to find the rudder?

[00:25:39] It's why, why is that such a problem? Yeah.

[00:25:44] The other just another small, interesting thing that I caught on

[00:26:42] to the back of the ship, so to letting you know. So when Blackthorn throws that thing over the water, over the ship,

[00:26:46] he's checking the soundings and realizing that we're

[00:26:50] when you see that white sand, it means we're near near land.

[00:26:53] So right.

[00:26:54] Just a cool couple of nautical things that I thought were kind of fun to to pick up on.

[00:26:59] Not consequential in any way, but just sort of fun history.

[00:27:03] So you got to stay nautical with it. Yes.

[00:28:06] previous treaty between Portugal and Spain that divided the world on

[00:28:12] India Atlantic, and it basically gave the Portuguese, Africa, and the

[00:28:18] Spanish, South America and, and the Portuguese, where the line went, it cut through the front or, you know, part of Brazil, which is why, you

[00:28:22] know, in Brazil, they speak raised on American history, we have an America-centric view of history probably. And you think about the Spanish and the English going at it, trying to divvy up America and the French and whatnot.

[00:29:41] And that's what we learned about mostly in grade school is the division of the Americas

[00:29:46] by Europe. enough about American education. Exactly. And I don't think we ever learned about the black ship, which was a type of ocean going vessel called the Carac. That was like a three or four masted ship, but it was painted with black pitch. And so it was referred to by people in Japan, they would say,

[00:31:02] oh, there's that black ship that's doing all theau that I think we need some more research on. I was trying to do a little bit of research before we got on, but there's a lot that we got. Yeah, it looks pretty complex. Yeah. So I'd love to learn more about the Macau. So if anybody's got a line on that kind of stuff or wants to go for that, please, you know, read some articles or what have you, and then send us in a voicemail or email, something like that.

[00:32:22] Cool. it's private, whereas in the Edo period, apparently, it was much more of a public spectacle and a big remonstration of I'm doing this in a big loud way as opposed to a more private subdued way. So that's one of the differences, but I think it's something that, again, I think we need to do some more reading and research about this.

[00:33:40] So one other thing, this is a strange big part of medieval society. Like it was a big deal where you... Yeah. Oh, I'm going to send my son. It was an industry. It was. It was. And you know, your kids go live with somebody else to maintain the peace, you know, do all these intermarriages and all that kind of stuff.

[00:35:00] So I don't know that this is a direct thing, but I just thought it was an... by Koku and all taxes. There you go. Right, so basic unit of measurements, of metrics tied to survival, literally. Yep, yep. But that's super interesting, right? And instead of a coin, it's what do you need to survive? Right, right.

[00:36:20] Yeah.

[00:36:21] Very cool.

[00:36:23] All right, production, let's talk about it.

[00:36:26] Let's talk about it.

[00:37:21] have been a little too tough. But Jarvis doesn't speak Japanese, the guy who's playing Blackthorn.

[00:37:25] Yeah, but he's going to have to.

[00:37:28] No, he's learning Japanese.

[00:37:30] That's the beautiful thing.

[00:37:31] That's a beautiful thing.

[00:37:32] That's an interesting thing.

[00:37:33] I picked this up on the second episode of the official podcast.

[00:37:37] He's learning Japanese in a way that's not dissimilar to the way that Blackthorn would

[00:37:44] have been learning Japanese.

[00:37:45] Right. So I thought, you know, there's the world of dubs, you know, and having mouth movements and speaking in different, you know, not matching. For some people that just weirds them out, they can't handle it. Other people enjoy it. Some people like subtitles, some people don't.

[00:39:02] And I think given the already complex nature of I think there's impact on audience viewership. There's the show Pajinco, which I've talked about a number of times. That's trilingual. That is English, Korean and Japanese. And if they're speaking in English, they have, or they would do, well, as an English speaker,

[00:40:24] if I said it to English, then if they they did not translate it and you had to do the work to watch their actions to understand or What was that character coming from or what did the other character go to to understand that conversation?

[00:41:40] I don't like that. It was really and it's really innovative for 1980

[00:42:46] from the official podcast, they wrote, the writers room was in English. So they wrote all the scripts in English. They then sent it off for translation into Japanese in sort

[00:42:52] of a modern concurrent form of Japanese. They then took the Japanese translation and sent

[00:42:59] it to a second Japanese translator to have it translated back for historicity. So basically cared that much and they spent the budget on doing that. When we are, you know, in a lot of aspects of our modern entertainment industry, you know, the corporations are just trying to shove out fast CGI, you know, based IP green screen stuff where this is really sweating the details.

[00:44:25] Yeah. All right. We have to four times the amount of work here. And then you'll get these really interesting shots where the character is all the way left on the left side of the frame, but then the right side of the frame is all just negative empty space.

[00:45:40] But then they'll come back for like a traditional wide,

[00:45:42] and then they'll come in on a hyper close up,

[00:45:45] and then they'll do another offset thing,

[00:45:47] and then they'll reverse we were into the politics, I was like, oh, I'm into this. This is my jam here. This is your jam. This is my jam. This is your jam. What do you think of the VFX so far? I think overall good. There was a point where Rodriguez says,

[00:47:00] well, take a look at the city and you'll be impressed.

[00:47:02] And then they show the city and I'm like,

[00:47:04] that doesn't look that good.

[00:47:05] It's just sort of, yeah, exactly. when we fly over the castle or fly over the city, there's some pretty nice shots. So I don't, there's nothing that's taking me out of it. One little interesting thing, I did see something that I think is a one-to-one shot from the miniseries. There was a scene where they're folding up some bedding of Ishido's bedding in the morning when he's going through his morning

[00:48:21] ritual. And the way they fold the bedding, I think they call them? A courtesan who's meant to be with one of the men and she's like, I can't do this here. You know what I mean? Like we're being shown how people are disturbed rather than needing to be shown the boiling face of a man.

[00:49:40] And I just thought that that's more effective and less gratuitous.

[00:49:44] Like we just didn't, that didn't do House of the Dragon has ever gotten to this level. Wow. Okay. Of this first episode. The second episode, I would say, yeah, no, House of the Dragon is more violent. This episode, first episode, pushed it over.

[00:51:00] Because the boys were putting it plus five.

[00:51:04] Yeah, I think it's similar to the boys.

[00:51:07] Wow, I don't's that's weird and creepy. And it was what it was. We had the execution that happens in the prison. But the interesting thing is, is that the one of the prison wall,

[00:52:20] the, you know, the wood pillars actually blocks the killing blow.

[00:52:24] So we see the body and the strike.

[00:52:27] But the strike is blocked by a piece of wood. it has to be factored into the grave. I can't. I'm coming in about maybe a three. I'm coming in at like a plus three. That's fine to be wrong. Look, in favor of my case, my wife decided to stop watching it at the boiling scene. Sure, I can understand that. She said, I'm done. I'm done. I did that. It's too much for me.

[00:53:40] And so I'm using that as further evidence

[00:53:42] that this is an extremely violent show,

[00:53:44] because she's watched a lot of violent stuff.

[00:53:46] It's not like sheabu in the book. I don't know if they extend it later, but Yabushige. He is a violent guy, right? And he has this

[00:55:00] really sadistic and sociopathic tendency here. And that is a feel? So obviously FX is doing a different kind of storytelling. Do you feel like this is good storytelling? I think so. I think so. And it looks like they did a lot of work too. And I'm fairly certain that James Clavell was known for doing a tremendous amount of

[00:56:23] research as well.

[00:56:24] So I don't all of Cobra Kai. I'm in on. I'm still off on Cobra Kai. I have not. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. I know. It's all 80s nostalgia. That's all. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, speaking of appropriation of Japanese culture.

[00:57:41] Anyway, I think that the show, in addition to being based on source material that was largely

[00:58:42] right people to make sure that this is done correctly. So I think that the show is doing an even better job

[00:58:45] than the book in making sure it's historically accurate

[00:58:48] and respectful.

[00:58:49] And I like that they filmed it in Japan, right?

[00:58:52] I mean, I don't know where the mini-series was filmed

[00:58:54] back in the 80s.

[00:58:55] In Japan.

[00:58:55] Oh, that's good.

[00:58:57] But I'm sure that many series have been filmed elsewhere.

[00:59:02] But even like you look at a true detective night country

[00:59:05] was just filmed in Iceland instead of Alaska.

[00:59:08] So you're more. I'll just read it. You're the guy who can pull up a sound clip and get it loaded without me having an idea that you're all right. You're pulling some of that stuff. Here we go. Just a thought, Abby says on the is it authentic discourse and the stereotype

[01:00:22] concerns. This is a work of fiction. It's done right. Yeah. And this whole question, Abby's post had me start thinking about this as well. What happens when a German production

[01:01:42] does a television series or movie

[01:01:43] about the American Old West and gunslingers?

[01:02:41] series series. Yeah, you got me the game series.

[01:02:43] There was a whole thing last year that somebody accidentally got a shipment

[01:02:47] of magic cards early before the set released.

[01:02:49] OK. And then Wizards of the Coast actually sent Pinkertons to their house

[01:02:52] to break it and take it back.

[01:02:54] This is a real thing that happened.

[01:02:55] Yeah, right.

[01:02:56] So I always think of them as the still around modern day villains.

[01:03:00] Fair enough. Fair enough.

[01:03:01] But anyway, I think that the point is is that that if FX is doing the work,

[01:04:05] of taking the story so we're not just with Blackthorn and from this west to east perspective, but that we're actually moving into a full 360 view of the culture and the story here. So we're

[01:04:12] recentering in a central neutral point as opposed to any one person's perspective.

[01:04:19] I agree with that.

[01:04:20] By bringing us into the flashback, they're giving a setup and context and why we should care about I think she's kind of the culmination of this because she's a Japanese woman who is loyal to her, you know, her liege lord. Right. She's also a Catholic. She's also suspicious of the Portuguese. She's also suspicious of the English. Yeah. She also is grieving and has this very weird relationship with living versus death.

[01:05:42] Which we're going to learn more about I assume. What did you think? Episode two, they didn't have an episode one, that was only an episode two. I thought it was cool, I mean, it was nice that they kind of showed us what they were doing by the end of the episode already, with the whole, the garden. Right, right, yeah. I love that the episode two ended with a high shot of a top down shot of that same, yeah, that was very cool.

[01:07:02] He's like, sorry little Lord about your garden,

[01:07:04] but I'm about to mess it up.

[01:08:02] opening, which is the sand, the sand table vibrations. That was pretty cool.

[01:08:03] Which goes to the Ein-Lindelay stuff.

[01:08:05] Yeah.

[01:08:06] Yeah.

[01:08:07] Very cool.

[01:08:08] All right, David, let's take another break.

[01:08:09] And when we get back, we will talk about our principles and key concepts.

[01:08:27] And we're back. I think not unlike True Detective and Rose's statement about the three types of ghosts, I think this is going to be a key part of the show and thinking about every character and thinking about their heart that's in their mouth, the heart that's in the chest, and

[01:09:40] then the heart that's secret.

[01:09:42] And then we can use that to of the ship, and he's talking about fate versus destiny, and about accepting your path in life. And I tried to put

[01:11:00] the word Shukumai into Google, and I didn't get you have to have the choice to do evil for good to exist. And so those are the sort of the two schools of thought. I think Tolkien had a weird hybrid view where he said your fate is free,

[01:12:23] sorry, the overall arc of the world is predetermined,

[01:12:26] but the fate of your soul is free will. going, oh boy, no I broke my mouth. Zeymo Gozaimusen. Thank you Gozaimusen, which is one cannot, which is what Rajiv says is that one cannot resist the unseen path of nature. All we can do is accept our small part. And then Blackdome- Hey, hey, hey, hey. Oh, you know, you say this line.

[01:13:40] It's bulks, I fought too long and too hard to get here.

[01:13:43] Very good, that's pretty good.

[01:13:45] You're doing a good job.

[01:13:46] It's not that hard, you just, we have a key line from each of these characters that tell us who they are. And I think, you know, this this goes into this determiners, determinism versus free will argument, which is, you know, you give yourself up to fate and you

[01:15:02] follow your destiny and and Blackthorn is saying bollocks. I am the master of my own destiny. a formal or informal. It could be insulting if you leave it off or if you use the super friendly one. If you say, oh John, my dearest John-o. John-chon, right? It was like John-chon because John was like, we were really close. This is embarrassing, but I know all this from Persona because you have to do everyday high

[01:16:23] school life too in the game and they all talk't take it because you know that it's brittle. You'd rather earn the power for yourself than take it easily. That's a really good point. I didn't think about that in that regard. You're absolutely right. It's not that he wouldn't have taken it if it were real power, but he knows that it's

[01:17:42] empty.

[01:17:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. is voicemail. One or one of two voicemails because I think that this voicemail, so each of these characters has a key moment in the first couple of episodes where the writers explicitly tell us who this person is. Also, I'm sorry, I think you mispronounced Narls. Narls? Narls? in a macro scale like this? Well, it's because he was not. He was talking about his own strategy in navigating the rocky waters of Osaka Castle he sees him and he lets him know that he sees him. Oh, you seem to have a pension to always being in the right place at the right time.

[01:21:40] Right.

[01:21:41] Oh, yes, I do.

[01:21:42] He's like, you're...

[01:21:44] But he's keeping him just in check.

[01:21:46] But yeah, that's a really good point. amongst a couple of others, they're the only ones who can ever claim the title show gun. Everyone else who becomes the same functional status as the show gun in terms of like, I, all the other Lords are, you know, in under my control, then they would be a Tycho.

[01:23:00] So it's, it's like having the position, but the title is a little bit extra.

[01:23:05] I don't think that's right.

[01:23:06] I think, I think the Ty 50 people write in to tell me. You're a monster, John. You're a monster. I know. I didn't get much pushback for True Detective and I was throwing out hot takes left and right on the finale. It's true. It's true. Yeah.

[01:24:20] Okay, cool.

[01:24:21] Blackthorn.

[01:24:22] Blackthorn.

[01:24:23] Sittin' the end for me.

[01:24:26] I won't die in front of him. He's like, you are my Lord. I need to learn from you basically. I took it less as a Lord thing is like honoring the fact that he made it back up. Like dude, I don't have a way to say dude.

[01:25:43] I have to bow.

[01:25:44] Broski.

[01:25:45] Yeah, Broski, like yo, I get that now. I get that on a much deeper level now. And so I love when later, you see this reflected later, it's not like this is a one time thing, it really does leave an impact on him. Uh-huh. Later, one, he's like basically shaking when he's talking to, I forgot who he was telling him, but I think it was the priest. Yeah, mm-hmm.

[01:27:00] Or the, is he a pastor?

[01:27:02] I don't know his title.

[01:27:03] The priest, he's a priest.

[01:27:04] He is a priest of the Protestant faith in the,

[01:27:08] oh no, Yeah, sorry. A Catholic. A Catholic, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Rodriguez is a heck of a character.

[01:28:21] He's great. I like him. I like him.

[01:28:23] I want him to stick around.

[01:28:25] Yeah, great line. He's like, you're not dodging this question, buddy. Yeah. And the way he says, well, then I would commend my soul to God because surely I would not withstand it enemy like you. I think he means it there. He's really realized that these warriors are like nothing he's ever seen and he cannot defeat them.

[01:29:40] Which goes back to the line that Rodriguez says to him, go up strong will and he's gonna use that and use all his power to keep himself moving forward. Exactly, exactly. So let's talk about Mariko a little bit.

[01:31:00] And I think her central line here is this one,

[01:31:06] I have more than one heart.

[01:32:11] a not great husband, right? Like that guy, Buntaro is not, man, I love having this character guide, right? It was just that, you know, Buntaro, who is jealous of the fact that,

[01:32:18] not only jealous, but I think he feels so inferior, good job of I think we're going to get more in Mariko. We really had to get Blackthorn and Torinaga up to speed, but I think we've got enough of her now that we've got a really great power trio going on here. Yeah. Towards the end of episode two, I thought she was really coming together as a character.

[01:33:41] More in focus.

[01:33:42] So I'm hoping that that's why I think maybe that's why I'm most intrigued by her is that

[01:33:45] I feel like I know enough about the other two for now.

[01:33:48] Mm hmm. And then we'll bring back the Japanese riches to Portugal and Spain. And make out on both ends of the question. Right, right. What is it when you charge a fee on top of a fee, or is it ersere or something like that? Usery. Usery, yeah. Yeah. Where you're, but that's, is that loan,

[01:35:00] that's more about loan.

[01:35:01] Usery is like, I think it is excessive interest basically.

[01:35:06] Okay.

[01:35:07] Usery definition, lending money at unreasonably high It's a lordless samurai. Yeah. Right, right. And they're kind of looked down upon, right? Yeah. Because they are lordless. They are out of pocket from society. They are outside of the rules and the structures of how a samurai should operate and be controlled and be managed. There is this box that you live in, and if you're outside of that, you're a danger to society.

[01:36:21] Right.

[01:36:22] And so they're not happy to learn that in this episode

[01:36:25] that they're hiring Ronan.

[01:36:26] No, especially when you demand. That's interesting. That's interesting, yeah. Yeah. Three to one, I'm outnumbered right now, but I'm gonna remember this. And I'm outnumbered and we're about to vote to get rid of the only other non-Christian on this council. Yes.

[01:37:40] Oh, that's a really good take.

[01:37:42] Your naga is a fucking genius

[01:37:46] to play them against each other like this.

[01:37:48] Right. Christ, you will execute him. And it's like, which yeah, I know. We can laugh about the ridiculousness of that. But I think Ishido is just like, oh fuck this. Like anybody cornered like that would automatically have the instinct to resist. So here's an interesting take.

[01:39:00] So we had that whole scene of Ishido

[01:39:02] going through his morning daily routines

[01:39:04] and having to do the bureaucratic work

[01:39:06] of stamping the papers.

[01:39:08] And he's looking at his armor were playing them against each other and this is shaking it up. The Portuguese were basically having him keep an eye on- Three versus two. Right. Ishido is more focused on the traditional power struggle of the noble versus the peasant or this one guy who's in the an uneasy alliance with him. Oh, that's super interesting. Oh boy, that's... Yeah, this is your jam, isn't it? This is your jam. It is. I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about this a lot. I love it. I love it. Okay, cool. It's interesting too to think about the fact that Christianity

[01:41:41] is very old, but Christianity has gone through a lot of iterations. Like if you were to go liking it. I'm liking it. So I think we're in for a treat with all the political machinations of all these people. By the way, in searching for Minnawara stuff, I did discover that I was wrong about Taiko versus Shogun. And so I'm just Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really love that. I can't remember where episodes begin and end, so I think this was in episode one, but Blackthorn ripping the cross from the priest.

[01:44:21] Yes, that was in episode one when he was before Yabashuge early on. to bluster as hard and as high as you can go, but then also kind of know when your limits are as well. And so there's this whole thing of really standing your ground in certain points, and then puffing up your chest and really going for it and sort of berating a junior,

[01:45:40] oh, like if you want to get past that security guard, you've really got to put on a show saying

[01:45:44] that I am the Lord's vassal and I'm doing this up. Oh, God. Oh, God, it's gone. It's gone. I'm old now. You've crossed the threshold. I've crossed the threshold. OK, it'll come. Oh, oh, oh, I got it. OK, so it's a big difference between cowardice

[01:47:04] and humility, right?

[01:48:05] Wow, you're a boss that controls, you know, well, he doesn't control a second, but anyway, you know, you're, you're at this level and, and you're the boss's boss of the guy who

[01:48:10] just climbed up the cliff.

[01:48:12] You gotta be even extra.

[01:48:14] And then you've got all these samurai guys around you and everybody deferring to you

[01:48:18] in this way.

[01:48:19] Yeah, that's, that's a really cool point.

[01:48:21] I like it.

[01:48:22] So give me your favorite moments before we head out.

[01:48:25] Sure. can be buddies and we might swap some sea shankies and have a drink, but we're still enemies. It is a little weird to have them speaking Portuguese signaled by them occasionally putting in... The Spanish flourish on it, yeah. Yeah, it's very strange. Yeah, I don't know, it all works for me.

[01:49:43] And then in episode two, the first interview when Blackthorn came rushing in. Do you think he was testing if Blackthorn would try to save him? No, I don't think he was. I think he was surprised that Blackthorn showed up. Oh, God. Okay. And it was really interesting because Blackthorn doesn't run away from the danger. He gets up and runs to the danger. Yeah. And that's a telling moment of the character and that he is willing,

[01:51:02] within how many days that he's been thrown finally greed and power relating to trade and a colonial mindset. I'm sure we will discuss these layers in because it's always informative. I was going to say this is a perfect end cap email or voicemail for the episode. I think he puts his finger on all of the right things. He messaged me earlier saying that he's got access to a bunch of historical stuff through his professional job.

[01:53:40] So I feel like we're going to get some more cool insights from Brian over the course of

[01:53:45] this.

[01:53:46] I'm excited.

[01:53:47] Yeah.

[01:53:48] Thank you get there. It's got a character guide. It's got episode guides. It's got plenty of stuff in there. We're building it up as we go. So, you know, there's, there's a lot there. The primary use case for the character guide though, is just so that, you know, while you're watching, you can check your phone really quick and see who's who's who in a particular

[01:55:01] scene. It helps. It really helps.

[01:55:04] It's helped us today not look like a couple of bumbling idiots when we're trying

[01:55:07] to remember somebody's name.

[01:56:05] our subscribers again, so that you can just have an awareness of like, oh, there's like, I think Marilyn, she didn't realize that the Dick Durbin, Dick Durbin show is about to start. So like,

[01:56:11] it has the great British baking show host, right?

[01:56:14] Well, yes, no fielding. He's well known prior to that.

[01:56:18] I only know him from that.

[01:56:20] Sure. Yeah. The Mighty Boosh. He was on the Mighty Boosh.

[01:56:23] Oh, man. Oh, man. All right.

[01:56:25] Good stuff. Cool. Yep. Cool. I know Brandon and I are going to do a Halo episode this month for at least the game and probably the show right after that. Okay. So we're going to have a good time with Halo this month. It's Halo month. Halo month. We've also got,

[01:57:40] it's also Dune month. We're also got Lasso. Oh, no, that's that's a manchurian. Right. That's mancucian. Right. Yeah. Or manchurian. Yeah. Anyway, OK, we're getting in trouble. All right. All right. It's getting punchy. It's getting punchy. You know, stay subscribed to properly Howard and Alicia's feed will shift us.

[01:59:00] But also make sure you subscribe to Rings and rituals.

[01:59:04] The Marilyn Arpequila and Sarah Brown joint coverage of the Rings Bower season one and