Untitled

Kay:
[0:00] I like that young people always find new ways to look silly. It's like a gift for people getting older, you know? It's a treat.

Jay:
[0:06] Yeah. Yeah.

Kay:
[0:07] It almost takes the edge off.

Sadie:
[0:09] But not quite. I mean, to be fair, old people also find new ways to look silly. So don't write us out.

Jay:
[0:14] Usually in the same way.

Kay:
[0:15] Yeah, well, listen, when you're in the middle, when you're not very young or very old, that's when you look normal. No one tells you that, but it's true.

Justin:
[0:23] Yeah. Kyle, you might be peaking a little, too.

Kyle:
[0:26] Okay, you are also peaking a little bit, so we should bring it down. i.

Kay:
[0:29] Over cranked hold on let me.

Kyle:
[0:31] We're over cranking i see myself clipping let me reduce the crank are we is this can we can we hear me okay when i talk at this volume you're beautiful i hear you i see you oh hi buddy i feel seen and heard i feel very seen i.

Jay:
[0:46] Am sitting my ass.

Kyle:
[0:47] Down and listening to 16th century madrigals oh.

Jay:
[0:52] Fuck yeah this is my shit that one like like dude who who does the cool video essays about Orientalism and music, just did one about bardcore and then actual medieval music, and I was like, yes, give it to me.

Kyle:
[1:07] Very.

Jay:
[1:08] Yeah. Yeah.

Justin:
[1:36] I'm justin i am working on my masterpiece of podcasting and my pronouns are he and they i.

Jay:
[1:43] Am sadie uh i am obsessed with the roman ruins that are on top of the pagan ruins and my pronouns are they them oh shit um i am jay i am currently having a little secret gay trist in the forbidden library and my pronouns are he him and.

Justin:
[2:02] We have guests would you like to introduce yourselves.

Kay:
[2:04] Absolutely i love introducing myself i'm k of k and skittles they them i will be for the entirety of this podcast wielding an illegal weapon but i live in the uk so it's not that impressive.

Kyle:
[2:17] My name is kyle my pronouns are he and him and i am currently uh locked inside of a room with only one window and i'm seeing crazy visions of mostly pot well.

Jay:
[2:32] Done everyone yeah justin always springs these on us and i'm like oh shit i have to be funny on cue and i'm not funny on cue.

Kyle:
[2:42] That's when the juice happened no that's when the juice happened oh it's all spiritual and spiritual uh fulfillment really what we're doing is we're We're saying that you yourself have the motivation towards salvation and do not need to receive that from the holy apostolic church.

Kay:
[2:58] Lucky.

Jay:
[2:58] I think one of us might be the weird Gnostic out in the woods, though.

Kyle:
[3:02] At least. At least.

Justin:
[3:05] Yeah, exchanging. God, I'm famous. yes.

Jay:
[3:07] You still have the drop.

Justin:
[3:08] I i am reorganizing my soundboard because i cannot just reorganize it like a normal person so i have to rebuild it i've got like eight of them so far and i'm just rebalancing the audio as well excellent.

Kay:
[3:20] I'm in a discord group where we play games together sometimes and the soundboard is entirely always sunny clips and we've filled up the alarm oh that.

Jay:
[3:30] Sounds fun as hell.

Justin:
[3:30] I should get the always sunny intro that could work that's.

Kay:
[3:33] Pretty good also when When someone pulls off something impressive, they get the drop. I'm a golden God. You know, it's, it's.

Jay:
[3:39] Every time I'd want to be like wild card, like gas man, Charlie. I like kicking the door. That's good. My tools.

Kyle:
[3:48] They're my tools.

Justin:
[3:50] This is our always sunny podcast.

Kay:
[3:52] We're here to talk about always sunny, right? Is that not?

Jay:
[3:55] Oh yeah. Yeah.

Justin:
[3:55] I'm, I'm Danny DeVito.

Jay:
[3:57] The show that I'm slowly forcing onto Justin.

Kay:
[4:00] You're right.

Kyle:
[4:01] Always sunny in Bavaria.

Kay:
[4:05] You know.

Justin:
[4:06] What except when it floods although i was talking to k before and k did you bring us any gamer news to warm up on.

Kay:
[4:12] Oh there's there's so much gamer news so the thing about me is i'm i keep it all i keep it all in in this sort of database that if i ever just want to have a bad day i'll look at it and i'm gonna paint a picture of the database of gamer news it's just a list of headlines with the word layoffs in them again and again. Different companies and different countries and different cities. Everyone's mad at Ubisoft for another round of layoffs. I think they did it in May or April and now they're doing it again in Toronto which, I mean, bad things happening to Canadians. I want to endorse that, but not like this. So they canned 30 people, I think, in their Toronto studio and they said it was so that they could reach their annual targets or whatever, which...

Kay:
[4:57] This sucks man the the the triple a industry has been kind of caving in on itself and i found it really interesting and something i wanted to hear what all of you thought about is the the way that uh what's it called it's not e3 anymore jeff keely cooed the whole thing summer games fest he calls it i think it felt like from from jeff himself as well as a lot of people there there was a real push for saying actually yeah the big companies do kind of blow shit but the indie sphere is where actual interesting stuff tends to be happening, which is really weird, because these events are normally about worshipping five or six companies. I don't know. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Maybe a bit of a shift, a bit of people recognizing that actually a lot of these games made by three people are really good, which is relevant to today's topic as well, of course.

Jay:
[5:42] I still don't know what video games are god i wish that was me wait why do you two know about video games wink.

Kyle:
[5:48] Oh yeah we have a podcast it's called all gamers are bastards we never promote it that's one of the that's one of the things that we do for some reason well.

Kay:
[5:58] It's it's the only podcast about video games and we.

Kyle:
[6:00] Don't want people.

Kay:
[6:01] To steal our idea i see you know so we kind of keep it on the dl we.

Kyle:
[6:06] Also use it to surprise take over other podcasts not this one though y'all are cool um just kidding this is.

Kay:
[6:13] A marty o'donnell campaign support podcast now that's.

Kyle:
[6:16] Now y'all have to talk about entryism yeah yeah we're doing a podcast entryism and it's all just to support the guy who composed the music from halo who's running for congress in nevada um and it's probably going to win the primary if not the it's a very competitive seat in the general election but he has a real shot of it we've been covering it exclusively as the official marty donald podcast he has not blocked us or sent us any cease and desist yet so we're still working on frankly he pays us.

Kay:
[6:45] In bitcoin so.

Kyle:
[6:47] That that.

Kay:
[6:47] Means keep going right.

Kyle:
[6:49] Yeah yeah and then we launder it back into his campaign for in legal ways yeah.

Kay:
[6:55] We try to avoid using the word launder for what we're doing.

Kyle:
[6:57] What if it's legally though they're just doing laundry i.

Kay:
[7:01] Like to think of it as as as cleansing which is a far less.

Kyle:
[7:05] You know problematic issue with that yeah we're.

Jay:
[7:09] Just doing like a celery juice cleanse with it.

Kyle:
[7:12] That's right that's.

Kay:
[7:13] What it's it's good for you it's healthy like party o'donnell will be for the economy.

Kyle:
[7:17] Yeah and for wokeness he doesn't like do you think you think he likes wokeness guess again he doesn't he invented music he's.

Kay:
[7:27] Gonna to defeat wokeness i'm not quite sure how those two things go together but i trust the plan you know.

Kyle:
[7:33] Yeah trust the process from mr halo john halo don't doubt john halo's plan for your life that's the i've.

Justin:
[7:41] Got a quote from him right here it says gotta get through the primary not that many folks in the district have played halo so i.

Kyle:
[7:48] Mean that's his biggest.

Kay:
[7:49] That's his biggest like shit kyle i didn't realize.

Kyle:
[7:54] He's gonna get primaried.

Justin:
[7:56] By people who only play like from soft games.

Kyle:
[7:59] Oh man fucking turds yeah we will we're gonna set up a debate between him and not his democratic opponent because he's a republican for the record uh it'll be a long time to.

Justin:
[8:10] Get to the part of the article that told me what he what he was running on.

Kyle:
[8:14] Don't worry about that stuff yeah it's a mixture of economic protectionism border security and by border security we mean the space border um to stay away from the border that's up yeah i'm stalling for time to try and remember the names of the bad guys in halo the flood they're trying to that's it yeah that's it is that it there's a covenant in the.

Justin:
[8:37] Covenants that break away protestant sect.

Kyle:
[8:39] Yeah wait there's protestants.

Kay:
[8:41] In space all right now we need to go to war with space.

Kyle:
[8:43] Who else is gonna colonize space oh come on last week.

Sadie:
[8:47] Was transhuman mormon mormons mormon transhumanists and yeah this week it's protestants in space.

Kyle:
[8:53] Nice apparently.

Jay:
[8:54] There's mormon transhumanists and they have their own conference.

Kyle:
[8:57] Well of course they do mormons love conference they fucking.

Jay:
[9:01] Do you know how many times i couldn't get around salt lake city because of the fucking conference i would say the general.

Sadie:
[9:07] Conference is like the like all.

Jay:
[9:09] Church worship.

Sadie:
[9:10] Session so like.

Kyle:
[9:11] Twice a.

Sadie:
[9:12] Year or whatever so like yeah they shut.

Kyle:
[9:14] Downtown down they're so organized i mean i get it franklin covey is like a whole thing like they're so heavy method sad yeah what.

Kay:
[9:22] That's not true what it's unfortunately true fuck this changes everything i don't think we have mormons in this country we have a lot of jehovah's witnesses uh which is weird but they don't go door to door they stand around with flyers and everyone ignores them it's oh yeah.

Kyle:
[9:38] We have those.

Jay:
[9:38] In all the t stations here.

Kay:
[9:40] Yeah they don't like try to lure you in they just stand there like stone silent and it's creepy i.

Justin:
[9:46] Would love to meet a british mormon who's like yes absolutely i'm all about this entirely america focused religion.

Kyle:
[9:54] Trying not to do an offensive accent right now And he's really into American.

Justin:
[9:59] Football as well.

Kay:
[10:00] That's got to be the most racist man ever made in a lab.

Jay:
[10:06] But what if he gets into like the some like because there are like weirdly there's like Mormon socialists because it's not going to be this one.

Kay:
[10:12] Not the British one, you know? what if it was a british guy who's into american football is the worst vibe i can fathom it's it's it's difficult to explain but it's yeah there's one more.

Jay:
[10:24] Cases is it ed ed's playing more american football.

Kay:
[10:27] What sorry kyle do you say the nfl is playing in london yeah.

Kyle:
[10:31] They have a game in london every year.

Kay:
[10:32] We need to put a stop to this all on talking about invasions the elections in like a few days i think i can get on the ballot still i need to run on stopping this reverse.

Sadie:
[10:42] Boston tea party.

Kay:
[10:43] Yeah now.

Justin:
[10:46] Put this in in like nigel farage's platform it's like we're going to give you all free money and ban american football.

Kay:
[10:54] That would work i think i think he'd probably be prime minister on that he's.

Justin:
[10:59] The only british politician who figured out you can just lie about costs of things and everyone is powerless in the face of the man who's invented non-costed programs.

Kay:
[11:11] I mean our journalists they get mad at you if you try to talk about the costs of things they'll get mad at you if you don't have costs but if you try to actually talk to them about what things will cost they'll be like fuck off what are you doing fuck.

Justin:
[11:25] Off that nerd shit.

Kay:
[11:26] Yeah it's nerd shit this i get to get mad at you if you don't have it but i don't want to hear about it if you do have it all right yeah normal country it's cool i can't wait i can't wait for more more blairite extravaganza they're gonna they're gonna put back up the weird i forgot what they called them the weird devices that emit a sound that only like younger people can hear crickets or it might have been a mosquito was involved i forget i just remember that they had devices to repel teenagers which is the most british invention of all time and there's no way they don't come back it's it's time culturally it's gonna happen.

Justin:
[12:01] There was a YouTuber that put that sound in all their videos so that it would annoy anyone under like 25 watching them.

Kay:
[12:07] Fuck, that's so smart. I should start doing that.

Sadie:
[12:11] Justin, no idea for the podcast just came to me.

Justin:
[12:15] No, we need the young gay children. That's true. We keep them from hanging out on 4chan and picking up weird vocabulary that's hurting them.

Kyle:
[12:24] Yeah, becoming weird like Catholics trying to restore the French monarchy or whatever. just like no let's corral them here i think.

Justin:
[12:35] Yeah just just like.

Kay:
[12:36] The other day our prime minister put out a campaign ad that used little dark age like oh no it's like it was probably made by a zoomer staffer and it like appeals to a very narrow subset of like zoomer fascists which i think is awesome it's it's not like a sound electoral policy the that's that's not that's on a big voting block it's just.

Justin:
[12:58] Insane as.

Kay:
[12:59] A move you know.

Justin:
[13:00] You're busy lying down yeah.

Kay:
[13:01] They're lying down kyle kyle's showing us kyle youthful vigorous as always is showing us what it's like you know yeah i.

Justin:
[13:08] Feel very.

Kyle:
[13:09] Youthful today are.

Jay:
[13:11] You actually recording out of that microphone or do you have a secret microphone somewhere.

Justin:
[13:15] Else and that was.

Kyle:
[13:15] Just that would be pretty.

Justin:
[13:18] Funny if this just and if.

Jay:
[13:22] You have one of those little tiny ones.

Justin:
[13:23] Yeah i hate people who make fun of that and they're like they're like guys i just learned about that and they're just talking into various different objects throughout like their video and it keeps switching yeah they're talking into, yeah all right enough talking about zoomers instead let's talk about, zzrikers i see this is where my my lack of knowledge of both geography and 16th century german politics is really gonna it's gonna become apparent and i can only apologize in advance the one note i did while we me and jay were playing this game was it takes place mercifully before a time when germans were allowed to unify that's one of the the great upsides Oh.

Kay:
[14:10] The golden age. Yes.

Kyle:
[14:11] Yeah.

Jay:
[14:13] See, and I don't know history about anything. So I was like, wait, Holy Roman Empire. And Justin had to explain to me that it's like neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire thing. I was like, what the fuck is it?

Kay:
[14:25] It's a vibe.

Jay:
[14:26] This game was very confusing to me. I was like, what has happened?

Justin:
[14:28] A series of church offices and... germans who hire mercenaries.

Kyle:
[14:34] Yeah yeah most.

Jay:
[14:35] Of my like medieval knowledge is restricted to england or like weirdly andalusia and like that's it.

Kyle:
[14:41] All i need to know is that they get taller as you get as you go that's all you need to know with any any at any point of german history um yeah it's honestly it's confusing but i have played a lot of crusader king um and that's how i know all of of my stuff i have not studied any of this in a formal setting but instead have done the most the more important and studious thing which is play video games and okay k also went to the same school of gaming gaming that i had well nice.

Kay:
[15:12] Absolutely uh skittles is playing with the loudest toy in the house i have to take it away from her i will be back in one second i.

Jay:
[15:19] Thought that might be abby playing with something.

Kyle:
[15:21] Oh no she is yelling in the other the room though and that i can't do any mouse so i don't hear it so yay good hi abby i will give my best yeah.

Justin:
[15:31] I did leave a bag of pellets on the ground it was empty but they were like no this is a trick you're gonna take me you're gonna wrap me up and take me to the vet in this or something so.

Kyle:
[15:41] They have not played with it we're on your game she.

Kay:
[15:45] Has never she doesn't care about that toy at all until the second i start trying to record something she knows.

Kyle:
[15:51] Yeah she.

Kay:
[15:52] Does looking at me like i'm a dick now listen.

Justin:
[15:54] It's the only way rabbits look at you so.

Kay:
[16:00] True so true.

Justin:
[16:01] All right so pentament is a game non-triple-a game it's if you've seen a paper mario it's kind of like that kind of looks like that but all fancy it's set and it begins in 1518 you're a journeyman illustrator painter named andreas mailer at curacao abbey near tasig or tassing and then Then it turns into Name of the Rose, where a guy gets murdered and you got to do some medieval sleuthing while also mostly avoiding doing your job. which is pretty sick yeah you just kind of run around talk to talk to village people talk to old smoky in the woods and that queen oh girl he's good smoky's the best character yeah.

Jay:
[16:43] He just gossips i'm like yes.

Justin:
[16:45] And you try and solve the murder and it's i would describe it as a choices matter game where your choices don't matter they.

Kay:
[16:51] Kind of matter like history yeah also like life i mean you get people killed those.

Jay:
[16:56] Choices matter but yeah.

Justin:
[16:58] You can get different from people killed sorry.

Kay:
[17:00] You don't care about the lives of the people around you you know but.

Justin:
[17:05] It's also out of your hand you.

Kay:
[17:07] You you do put off your work a lot which means a lot of having to pretend that i wouldn't love to be illuminating manuscripts with a bunch of fucking dusty ass monks in the abbey oh my god that's where i need to be hanging.

Jay:
[17:21] Out with those nuns like being like can i please have a book please.

Kay:
[17:23] And they'll say no you make me sick i fucking hate you and i'll be like thank you ma'am.

Justin:
[17:27] Yeah right above the book glory hole very strategically positioned.

Jay:
[17:34] Yeah i mean those monks were making use of that let me tell you oh yeah matthias and and the other one.

Justin:
[17:41] The singer yeah.

Jay:
[17:42] I don't know if y'all if y'all found that out in y'all's place or where you observed them fucking in the library i certainly.

Justin:
[17:49] Did quest in this game was to find out which of the monks were fucking yeah.

Sadie:
[17:53] I was muted so y'all didn't just hear the unholy unholy we know when justin said book glory i.

Justin:
[18:02] Was just waiting because they keep opening like the the thing and i just wanted to wait for like the bottom one to slide open when you're talking to like zednia or whoever yeah.

Sadie:
[18:16] It's just zednia's like skirt up like.

Justin:
[18:18] I love.

Jay:
[18:21] Her i wish nothing but the best.

Sadie:
[18:23] For her i was so sad when we didn't find out what happened to her after in the third act.

Justin:
[18:28] Yeah we won't be spoiling this game her rich.

Jay:
[18:31] Family yeah put.

Justin:
[18:33] A spoiler note in the notes but yeah it's it's a game it's hard not to spoil but it's it's like a detective game but it has a thesis that's kind of focused around history and layers, which I thought I haven't played this game, which is forgotten city, city, And I never finished it, but I do know that that's kind of the thesis is you're going into layers underneath the city to discover the history of it.

Kay:
[18:55] Yeah. Yeah.

Jay:
[18:56] It's also material. Yeah. Like material culture. And like the library plays a big part in that in this game.

Kyle:
[19:04] Yeah. We discussed some of that. Like the comparison of the Forgotten City is really good. and something that's kind of revealed in the i mean like from the very title of the game penament it's about the function of history as it sort of history history doesn't like work itself out in like a neat line but is much closer to like the function of human memory and that there are these series of acts of preservation and acts of memory memory and forgetting that occur over a period of time that have a direct effect on not just the events of history themselves, but the way that they play out and are then documented and preserved into the future.

Kyle:
[19:48] Historical preservation is this thing that is accepted understandably by the public as, you know, history is the stuff that happened. The documentation is what we use to support and verify that that thing happened. And sure, I mean, that's part of it. But the thing that is harder to describe is discourse and the way that the actual documenting of historical events is embroiled in social conflict. And so, Penement being a game that's, it needed to be in the style of like Umbrato Echo, right? It needed to be, if it was going to use fiction to grapple with things like memory and historical preservation and yes, material culture is a big part of it. It all within this setting, it has this very top down. I think it's very masterful in the way that it thinks through history because it is about it does imagine history as this living, breathing and moving thing. It does so using technology inspired by using one of the most important moments in European history and the transition between the late medieval and the early modern period.

Kyle:
[21:02] Transitions in national identity, in cultural representation, in religion is a huge part. The game is religion is probably the most important part of the entire game. i said technology you know what i mean the uh yeah it's a game that really understands how history is made in its own complexity and it tries it does that in such a way that i haven't really seen in a lot of video games outside of something like the forgotten city okay i don't know if you have anything i think it also.

Kay:
[21:31] It gives you this this opportunity to think about questions that are obvious to ask but not easy to answer when thinking about history which is okay so we We supposedly have this information. Where did it come from? Why was this document made? Who recorded it? Under what conditions, et cetera? So you walk amongst one of the most prolific and in their way, unreliable sources of sort of medieval history, which is monastic sources. They wrote a lot down, especially depending on the country. I know in the Irish case, they wrote a fuckload down. But also, I can't think of a source that's more clearly coming through, like, there are things you can and cannot say, there are things that it will be, to be safe, you have to represent in certain ways, and so on. And that's just, in some cases, what we have. So to put you in the position where you're making these people into real, you know, into characters you can interact with, who have thoughts and feelings about the world. I just think it really enriches your ability to think about like reading what would otherwise be kind of a dusty old document and actually think about who made this and how should I think about what would prompt them to say these things. You know what I mean?

Justin:
[22:41] Yeah, I think it's really impressive to get like a lay person and like a non-history person and a non-archives person to be like, I gotta find out what happened to the bibliographic logs of these nuns. It's really important for me as a human to find out this information.

Kay:
[22:58] Yeah.

Justin:
[22:58] And that's true. That information is important. The kind of stuff that we put in library catalogs, right? The stuff that people are always afraid of losing, like processing notes, provenance, like where did this book come from? Where did it get moved to? Did we sell it? Who sold it to us? And of course, with the handwritten tradition, there's a lot of fear of scribal errors and interpolations and all kinds of, and that's a part of the gameplay design too, is people will miswrite something and then rewrite it. They didn't go as far as like rewrite a whole sentence, which would have been fun, but the rewriting over old things was cool.

Sadie:
[23:35] One thing that I really liked, too, was that I think a lot of people nowadays don't realize that copies of the same thing are going to have different information in them. Because that's a whole plot point, too, is the history of the town, the book of the history of this town. The former abbot is looking for a different copy so he can substantiate the one that the library has. has, you know, because what if it's a copy of the same book, but it clearly has different information in it, according to the plot. So like, yeah, you you wonder, like, what's the difference between these two things that are nowadays we would think would be the exact copy because printing is so automatic. But yeah, then it's like, it could be the same thing. But, actually contain very different information.

Kay:
[24:18] Totally i um last year i found myself reading a lot of the the florentine codex which is a document written by spanish god was he a friar i forget it was a spanish religious figure sahagun who wrote it in collaboration with indigenous people in latin america who he kind of he had a role in their kind of christian education so these people People kind of had a foot in both sides, and they would write these accounts, and then he would translate them into Spanish. But to the degree that we have access to their original accounts, the notes and changes that he makes are very consistent with what you would think of a Spanish Christian. And also, they really recontextualize certain things. So this is a document that is not just rewritten, but it's also translated very non-accurately, intentionally.

Kay:
[25:14] And so to the degree that we have access to these different versions of it, it is in the creation of these documents themselves that you see kind of history in motion. You see the colonial perspective clashing with the indigenous account of these sort of like traditions and rituals or battles that had happened. And it's impossible to just take one of those documents on its own and say, oh, well, this is this is about this. We read this now we know about this. you have to engage with it as something in its historical context that's being made by people who are themselves not even able to speak freely there's things this guy could not have written or he would have been in incredible trouble with for one the inquisition to say the least right and then the people under him who knows what they're prepared to tell this spanish friar who probably had some degree of control over yeah.

Kyle:
[26:04] You you bring up a really good point about the perceived the sort of perceived unity of the gaze of modernity or post-modernity or post-post-modernity where.

Kay:
[26:14] I'm a gay modernity yeah.

Kyle:
[26:16] Several several of us um what is this soviet russia.

Kay:
[26:21] Oh shit that's a good one oh.

Kyle:
[26:24] Come on kyle you can bring it back you can do this remember what you're talking about.

Kay:
[26:28] Sorry yeah.

Kyle:
[26:28] You know they're uh the we're joking earlier about the being blessed by pre-unity Germany, which is true, but also a really important point about like pre-imperial Germany. Imperial Germany is where the historical seminar was like invented. And the historical seminar is modeled after the Ronkian colloquium, right? Like speaking together, basically. So the whole format of the way that at least universities in the modern era, The way that we document and understand history is much less in flux than it was in the pre-imperial German period, which is much more about church sources and official...

Kyle:
[27:11] Like sources from churches, from the monarchy, you don't hear as much. That's why a lot of the events of early modern Germany became really important, not just in the Protestant Reformation, but because of the advent of printmaking and the, it's not like an immediate decrease in official church sources. There's always official church sources, but all of a sudden there are these new sort of avenues, not just of individual expression, but of like actual practical methods for exercising agency for people who aren't doing the type of documentation that we're used to. And Pentament as a game grapples with that directly, right? And it does so, what I think is kind of perfect about it, it does so artistically in a lot of ways, right? It's about style and like there's an old style done by an older person and then there's a new style done by a newer person. But all of this is already becoming really dusty, right? Doing all this by hand and not doing print printmaking or whatever, you can feel the sort of like the life.

Kyle:
[28:12] If you will, like the actual like living, breathing, cultural practice kind of like you can feel it kind of dissipating as the game sort of tells you about its own environment. You realize that, oh, this thing that I'm looking at, I think anybody can realize this is why it's such a good game. This thing that I'm looking at is a dying art and history is changing. Even if you don't understand the super important transitions out of the late medieval period. It becomes really apparent that... And then by the time you get to the end of the game, you realize that you've already been living in the history's fictions, right? You've already been sort of embroiled in this mystery that, as it turns out, is the result of people's actual agency and the decisions that they make, the historical decisions that individual people have been making. And I think that's really brilliant.

Justin:
[28:58] Yeah, there's a really good, I guess in the first act, you are kind of just doing a more or less by-the-numbers murder mystery. You are aware that this is one of the last act of scriptoriums. You have a friend who's a printer. You meet other professionals, and they have their resentments about the peasantry, as do the monastics. Everyone's kind of looking down on the peasantry, and you notice the peasantry's not taking that very well. Well, as things are changing about what can you do with common land, this is, you know, a pivotal period of history where commons are being enclosed. And as the game goes on, they become, particularly the forest, becomes more and more enclosed. So you can't pick up sticks. You can't cut down trees. You can't go gather acorns or herbs. And you can't graze your hogs or else, you know. And then you have like more wandering soldiers as the game goes on as well. where that militaristic control of poaching is more and more enforced and there's more and more state control that comes along with as well as you know protestantism martin luther gets name dropped a few times mostly to annoy people i think that's why he's making dinner.

Kyle:
[30:14] Worse that's yeah that's what that's what protestants.

Jay:
[30:18] Protestantism is murder motive protestantism.

Justin:
[30:21] True.

Kay:
[30:22] And justified yeah i mean protestantism is such a great kind of looming specter in this game right it's it's this this seemingly unchallengeable status quo that is is beginning to crumble all around sort of everyone in and out of the abbey in this game and and so it's fitting that one of the first i feel like it's one of the first things that happens is you have that conversation with um I haven't played in a bit, so I forget his name, but the fancy guy who comes to town, that's our guy. And he's like, so, buddy, what do you think about Martin Luther? Which probably would have been a spicy thing to ask someone, but also a conversation people were going to be having.

Sadie:
[31:03] Yeah, it felt very like, so do you think climate change is real? sort of like prompt like that like a silence falls over as everybody decides how they're going to like approach this like conversation depending on the person who asked the question kind of like yeah it was a real i really liked that part of it like martin luther is the specter in the room that nobody wants to address sort of thing because.

Justin:
[31:27] It's it's an inherently political question like you might think oh this.

Sadie:
[31:30] Is like.

Justin:
[31:30] A theological question but it's like no what is me Me, a rich man, asking a journeyman about to become a master artist about Martin Luther, what does that mean about him? the politics of this place. It means, hey, what do you think about getting rid of all these monks and nuns and archbishops and taking the state into our own hands? What do you think about that, huh?

Kyle:
[31:50] Yeah, there's no differentiation between the two, right? The theological has not yet evolved in this. The theological becomes this sort of boil on the flesh of the Enlightenment that it's just constantly having to deal with or treat or, you know, sublate in some capacity or whatever, like pushing it back in or something like that. It's the world as it was. And I think that's a perspective that could be really easy to lose if not for texts like this one that give us a chance to remember what it was like when the world felt so much smaller, but the universe as a result had this particular character to... I've been writing about it a lot because I've been trying to write a book that deals with history and trying to deal with... To not be whiggish or teleological while still trying to grapple with the absolute of the passage of time. The idea that these people in this game, yeah, the fictionalized versions of real people most of the time, inspired by real people, sat under the same stars that we do for all intents and purposes, but not in such a way that invites this static interpretation of the way that we see the world, but instead invites the idea of flux into the absolute. So, history all of a sudden is like profoundly theological.

Kyle:
[33:15] And in the same way that the social is bound up in this theological stuff, because what do you fucking do besides listen to people talk about the Bible and the five other things that you do throughout the day, right? The peasantry, You know, the presentry, unfortunately, did not have TikTok. So they can, you know...

Jay:
[33:34] It closed the zine maker.

Kyle:
[33:35] Exactly. Exactly.

Jay:
[33:37] Yeah, like... it's interesting what you say about like theology because like in like roach vogel as this like rich dude comes in and is like hey how about that protestantism huh fuck these monks and stuff which like that's a part of protestantism that i'm like yeah but like in act two we very much get the more like bottom up yeah approach to that where it's like let's get a hot communist that's like we have to defend the commons and we have to take all like we basically we have the means of production and all that but it that is still like like how we say like communism is also really kind of like like in like the way that then like you couldn't separate the political from the theological it's like act two of this game is showing what that looks like when it comes from the peasantry instead of from like the educated aristocratic class it's.

Kyle:
[34:25] A it's a dialectical form right like it has.

Jay:
[34:27] This we're.

Kyle:
[34:28] So historiography not to do the inside baseball too much because it's honestly boring, but contemporary historiography is not concerned with this way of looking. It's too grand of a narrative, way too grand of a narrative, way too all-encompassing. The potential for it goes too far and you have to deconstruct and you have to talk about particularity and difference and mentalities and all this other French stuff, which like, yeah, this is an important criticism. But the point that really, I think, important point that you're making is, yeah, when the Thomas Munster-inspired peasant rebellion stuff comes in, that was, in all actuality, that was itself acting as a propelling mechanism for historical change, was the most useful example that I think lots of people have become more familiar with, for some of us who beat the drum all the time, is Haiti. Haiti is another example of this you know you'd like dismantling the master's house with his own tools in that case very very literally but this idea that the the some criticizing something using its own ideas.

Kyle:
[35:34] Is the the i mean one of the most important parts of the about the the peasants rebellion in actuality is that they got slaughtered yeah like it's it's which happens in the game too yeah exactly it like the like things people get killed shit gets raised it gets real bad and it gets real nasty and so now all of a sudden we're forced to grapple with the idea of defeat of something good like if we can point out as like an objective yeah people should not toil as much as they do, which we can say in our contemporary perspective as an absolute, right? I think even people with horrible politics would in some ways agree with that statement. It's what you do with the defeat itself. All of a sudden, agency in historical documentation and storytelling becomes important. If you neglect history, then the defeat is always the defeat. It becomes this kind of, it sets in as this kind of melancholy without a motivation toward, you know, you don't really learn the lesson, I think is what I think.

Justin:
[36:29] That's also what I wanted to talk about how time changes in this book, because peasant revolts throughout the medieval period were kind of like they had a circular nature to them. You take too much, conditions get too bad, the peasants revolt, you wipe them out, things kind of go back to normal. And this peasant revolt at the end of Act II, so throughout this part, you're writing like a book of hours, and you see how time goes through the book of hours through the day, so Martins and Nons and everything like that. And after this peasant rebellion in which you are crushed, the next act opens with a mechanical clock. And now time goes according to a mechanical clock, and you are now a printmaker's daughter and a printer yourself. self and that's kind of why this this is the transition to the modern age because the way we start to think about time becomes different it loses the circular quality to it and gains this modern industrial logic to the forward motion of time that everyone is is sort of stuck with and i really like with the moment i saw that the way time was depicted had changed that was like that that was a brilliant design choice big.

Kay:
[37:37] Agree that was maybe my favorite sort of like subtle moment in the game, it's kind of chilling in a way as well, because this game wants you to think so much about a lot of the more quite horrific, really. aspects of this transition towards an industrial modern modernity uh it is that enclosure it is that that new way of measuring time and just to take a step back to you you mentioned a little while ago i think really correctly the class character of the conversation between the baron and andreas about this sort of looming protestantism and then as you say you get the the peasant perspective which is really not you know it's very different because they're seeing protestantism even if it's not put into words in this way as really the ideological shift towards this new bourgeoisie's ownership of everything and the you know the cutting up and parceling off of of what was once just you know god's gift to humanity as things that dickheads own and now you can't hunt and now you can't fish you can't even fucking forage or let your your your animals graze and that's like when you read what few peasant sources we do have from the air the era of enclosure there's a really good poet i'm so bad with names i wish i'd prepared that but there's a poet he wrote a poem i think called the oak tree he was a peasant at the time of enclosure and when you when you see how these people talk about it it's nothing short of apocalyptic like yeah they're like like.

Jay:
[39:05] Millenarists or whatever it's called.

Kay:
[39:07] Um yeah yeah yeah so i'm I'm still trying to remember that guy's name. He was like John something. English people didn't have the most excited names. I don't think.

Jay:
[39:15] Wordsworth isn't until the 19th century.

Kay:
[39:17] Yeah, no, no, no. This guy was, this guy was earlier.

Justin:
[39:19] Anyway, anyway.

Kay:
[39:21] Yeah, this the entire just sort of order of human existence for so long was not just collapsing, but being actively taken away by people you could point to and say, no, that guy is telling me he owns this now, you know, and so it's it's not surprising the the anger that it's met with as well.

Jay:
[39:40] I mean, Silvia Federici talks about this at the beginning of Caliban and the Witch, where she's talking about the heretical sects and how a lot of them are very proto-communist and proto-anarchist and this defense of the commons as such and how that ties into these theological beliefs as well. These aren't separate issues during this time.

Kay:
[39:59] Yeah, if I'm a Bavarian peasant, then these developments are in such extreme defiance of God, you know?

Sadie:
[40:05] Well, and one thing that I thought was really interesting was when the peasant revolt is like starting to ramp up is that like Otto, who's the one who's sort of leading the whole thing is like, I have a signal from God that what the monastery is locking down on us is actually against like what he wants, like what God wants. so it's like it's taking the religion of this town and using it for a very different purpose than the rest than like the abbot has been up until that point in the game and then of course at the end spoiler alert you find out that the signal that auto found is actually something very very very different and ties back into the whole motivation of the murders that happened along the way so like i thought that was a really interesting like twist too because it does speak to history like otto was otto couldn't read right so so many of these characters how you perceive them depends on whether or not they're like literate or educated and otto couldn't read so he found this sign from god that like the commons and everything is is is for the peasantry but then you learn later from a literate character that's not what that was at all it in fact hints at the very much deeper past of the town and the things that like the layers of history that it's built on right so like otto was right but he wasn't right in the way that most like he wasn't right in the context of the game but it still is a sign from.

Jay:
[41:29] God if you think about it.

Sadie:
[41:31] But it is still a sign from god right so it's like the whole time i'm like fuck yeah otto like you lead that revolution in in your town right but at the same time it's like you come to find out that like oh this thing that he was so dependent on that got him killed over he's one of the murder victims is actually a sign that the town has pagan roots and that's what somebody's been killing you know multiple people to hide and what does that mean for the town and what did that mean for the peasant resolution in the end too so yeah the the way that the they use theology throughout this game is utterly fascinating i think.

Kay:
[42:07] There's there's a bit of a range in the game of the extent to which different characters i should say the extent of maybe the sincerity of their religious belief like the baron you don't get the impression that he's a particularly devout man in any way he's really having a very in a way secular political conversation with you through a theological discussion whereas obviously a lot of people the abbey that is not shocking auto there's a lot of of people who who are you know very when they talk to you about theological subject there's a sincerity to it that they're not necessarily having those veiled political conversations and that's really i think that before this period in my view at least before this period it's a lot easier to attribute a pretty high level of sincerity on the basis that what else would a person really believe you know this sort of like pre-enlightenment the presence of these These religious views are just kind of the reality on which your society is based. And a big thing that happens around this period is you start to see that fracturing. Things that were just unquestionable facts for a very long time become highly questionable. And so you start to... And I think this game is really adept at having some people who are maybe engaging more cynically in and out of the church with this than others. And I think also as historians, you're always asking yourself that. You're always asking...

Kay:
[43:29] Do i read this in full sincerity do i read this from like a cynical 21st century kind of secular perspective i think doing that often is tempting but actually leads you astray more often.

Kyle:
[43:40] Than not um.

Kay:
[43:41] But i think we're starting to get into a time period where it starts to get more valuable to do that.

Kyle:
[43:46] Well yeah it's it's about our our engagement with historicity right the depiction of history as such so it the historians have that extra step where you have to take how am i going to is it's an interpretation the whole game is about the process of interpretation and sort of this another looming specter of like deconstruction the game begins first of all with the game that is about writing a story and documenting a story begins with erasure yes but then also couples that erasure with one of the most like in the beginning was the word right one of the most important sort of like introductory phrases in literary history the ultimate like deconstructed phrase that sort of has indeed loomed in the way that the gospels themselves do. So I don't know. I think that's all.

Kyle:
[44:36] I think that's all right on. I mean, and like, it just comes back to, and I don't have to belabor the point because we already covered it. At one point, there were conflicts over the, there's always been conflicts over the sort of the quote unquote, the spirit of the social world. And from the very origins of Christianity, like the best way to understand is through those conflicts and through that chain. Because what you start to find is you start to see individual people who are maybe motivated by virtue, maybe motivated by profound theological belief, maybe motivated by politics, often by some measure of all three of those. But you find that there is indeed competition over the legacy of a particular set of beliefs or a time or a place, in this case, a town, right? So it's not just about... The grand narrative gets boiled down into these small moments that... I think, Sadie, Katie, the point that you made sort of captures that, that like we like, you know, rounding out this sort of formalist conversation of the game, like what is the game trying to say? And that's what it is, that they're like the sense of historical change is bound up in these small, seemingly innocuous conversations you're having with people that are actually filled with all of this discourse reigns supreme, I guess, I guess is the is the takeaway in some ways.

Justin:
[46:01] Yeah, one of the things I was surprised about in smaller acts too was, because I want to talk more about the layers that the game is focused on, but I was kind of surprised when there was a part where as a punishment for the peasants, in addition to foraging and not being able to use the forest, they lock up the shrine of Moritz so that you can't see the relic anymore. anymore, except for people who are coming there from out of town to visit it and buy trinkets and make a religious pilgrimage there we go and everyone in the town particularly the peasants seem to know a lot about the pagan origins of the town and you also talk to what's his name till, who is literate but can't speak latin but he's really interested in all the roman parts of the city and so he basically explains to you what the big reveal of the game is which is that the saint's story is actually just taken from a Roman myth, which was also just taken from a pagan myth. And I just wrote down like, Till watched Zeitgeist one time and won't shut up about it.

Justin:
[47:11] He just keeps talking about it. I was like, well, you really know where all these stories come from. And Jay had a critique of that, about how all of these stories aren't necessarily building off each other. There's sometimes just synchronicity and humans make the same stories. They're not necessarily always taking from other place, but, you know, religion is syncretic and particularly Roman religion is very syncretic and Christianity is very syncretic. And so, they love taking stories and going, oh, that was actually this god. Romans love doing that. They love going into barbarian lands and being like, oh, yeah, they worship Mercury. And, you know, he's talking about Odin or something. And so, I like how the peasants are the ones who are kind of the most keyed into the history of the town. and the point of all the murders is to keep people from learning that there is a mithraeum under the town and that the saints never actually in real history came to the town and you have the hand of the saint which is funny because if you know anything about like relics you know there's like 15 foreskins of jesus there's like five hands of everyone there's 90 million pieces of the true cross it was huge all.

Kyle:
[48:22] Right 90 million pieces of the true cross is the uh actually the name that we're changing agab to that's.

Justin:
[48:28] Oh that would go so fucking hard yeah if.

Kyle:
[48:31] You could put that out i'd appreciate it for not blowing up our spot.

Justin:
[48:35] I'm sorry i was reading ahead in the notes it's.

Jay:
[48:39] Also interesting that the relic is a hand i think i think that's very important because Because again, so much of this story is about documentation and literally even the non-literate characters, when we see their dialogue, it looks as if it's being written down. It's like the literate characters have a different penmanship, and then the printmakers, theirs is actually printed, which is so fucking cool. And then all the monks and stuff have this really annoying gothic font. But like even the non-literate characters, it looks as if their dialogue is being written like in real time almost. So it's like everything is being like we are actively seeing and participating in the creation of all of this history through the process of writing.

Sadie:
[49:24] And I really like that they drew that back just to the plot of the whole game, too, because the whole thing that kind of threads the three acts together is the idea of this thread puller who has been leaving notes for the townsfolk, right? And it's a distinct ink and a distinct penmanship that Andreas, who is university educated and has lived around the world, and Magdalene, who is the printer's daughter who has lived here her entire life, neither of them recognize the script. But the town is so small that you've literally talked to everybody a million times. So like, where is this script coming from? Right. And that's kind of the thread. Well, yeah, the thread puller that holds all three acts into like one consistent plot, which I thought was a really good twist on how they use the text in the game as, you know, things being written out and things being printed as they're being said, done.

Jay:
[50:12] I just want to say that I was right when I guessed it when me and Justin were playing.

Sadie:
[50:16] Same with me and my wife when we were playing it we were like it's got it's gotta be right that's like the only pot right can we talk about ill peter though can we just i just love this old bastard he was just like refuses to die, He's too angry and too old and too sick. And yeah, and like talks about how like you have to walk, you have to circle the house from the right to go piss in the night so the witches don't get you. And how like the previous abbot knew that that was like, like, even if they were doing these old pagan like habits and rituals, like he still knew that God lived in their hearts, which is like, right, like such an interesting way. Like Kyle, like you've been saying how like the older people of the town, the town knows the history if you just pay attention to what people are actually saying, right?

Kay:
[51:08] That makes the finale so interesting because the entire, the murders and a whole lot of this, it comes down to a character is trying to prevent this revelation of the pre-Christian roots of the town. and you when you get to that point it can feel weird right because like you were saying you probably already long since knew this you meet characters who know this but there's a difference between the shit that the peasants are saying and archaeological evidence and i think it's noteworthy that actually archaeology not long after this game takes place starts to really it's it's always been it's been done as long as you know at least pre like egypt but it starts sort of really become a big field and a way of constructing history specifically for you know those nations that are in power during the enlightenment and so archaeological evidence is like no this has to be stopped even if people know there's knowing and then there's capital k knowing you know yeah there's proof yeah proof.

Sadie:
[52:06] Yeah and well and i think it's interesting too because like in the second act the the inn the pretty much the only thing that's really changed about the town is that the inn has been built and it's called the golden hand and the wife the wife of the inn owner is one of your suspects during that act and her whole motivations are just straight up economical right yeah so if nobody if if if the hand of moritz is not the hand of moritz and moritz never actually existed in the town then there's no reason for people to come to her end because there's no reason to people for people to come to the hands or to come to And that's very much wrapped up in, you know, the antagonists, the thread pullers motivations too, is it's not just theological, we can't have proof that this is really a pagan myth. It's also that like the entire, he feels like he's protecting the entire town, right, from economical collapse, which is already on such a high level. such rocky ground from the peasant, you know, with the peasantry who are starving to death and all of that. So, like, there's not just theological, there's not just political, there's, you know, the economical is also really wrapped up in it too.

Kyle:
[53:15] Indulgences, right? Right, yeah. It's the paying of indulgence and the sort of the shift of that, the way that that served as a framework for the shift away from that kind of priestly authoritarian theology, which has always been super important to language and the paying of indulgences being huge parts of all.

Kay:
[53:34] I also, I really like the inn, and this is maybe a more me reading into it aspect, but I love the inn because naming it the golden hand, it turns this pilgrimage, this very purely religious thing into something that feels a bit more like tourism. And again, in the following century, tourism really starts to be a thing with British rich dickheads going on grand tours and stuff and it just it's just that little bit of i guess the best way to put it is like it's it's not it doesn't feel as sacred the sanctity of it declines a bit in the context of this new world now it's like we're starting a business that's like playing off it you know and.

Jay:
[54:10] Like the scriptorium has closed by this point.

Kay:
[54:12] Yeah too.

Jay:
[54:13] It's like the scriptorium which was the thing that was bringing in money has closed and so now there's the inn that's the thing that is bringing in money none of us can relate to that.

Kyle:
[54:23] In our hometowns or whatever right.

Kay:
[54:25] The one important super.

Kyle:
[54:27] Important thing isn't profitable yeah good slash you know culturally significant or whatever anymore so the vacuum gets filled by tourism it's like.

Kay:
[54:36] You can go pay too much for a pint that's what you get now yeah.

Kyle:
[54:39] To go look to go like you know be close to water we can even monetize that you know Not to get too epic communism, for lack of a better word, but it's a familiar... problem right we.

Justin:
[54:53] Want to make something pirate themed you want to have like a junk shop that's just uh beach hats and fold-out chairs i finally went down to the to the island down here in texas and it was the most florida place i've seen in texas and i was like this is just like sarasota like this is basically just sarasota like it is uncanny how every southern gulf beach town is like you got a nice beach build your town to look exactly like this and sell the same shit i saw a 200 pair of flip-flops i walked into the store and i saw i was like all right i'm leaving, craziest thing i've seen in my entire life amazing that was the cheapest ones yeah.

Jay:
[55:37] Okay you mentioned something about like the archaeology aspect of this game and it reminded me of the fact of the mill the miller's son the little gay art boy um how he's like contributing to the ruins almost because he's the one drawing on right and drawing in the old salt line and everything and so there's like this like this like quote dead archaeology like these dead ruins that people are trying to hide but then there's like this history of like a person actively interacting with it and creating more things because when magdalena because you pronounce the ease at the end of german words uh.

Kay:
[56:11] Like goes.

Jay:
[56:15] Down gets to actually go down in the mind there's drawings down there too right like.

Kay:
[56:19] So there's.

Jay:
[56:20] This continuation like nothing ever changes everything's the same but in a cool like history is alive and like we've all been making dick jokes since the beginning of time kind of way.

Kay:
[56:29] Absolutely and i feel like that sits really comfortably alongside how which maybe historical facts for lack of a better word are threatening or convenient at any given time because at this point these roman roots are a huge fucking problem you fast forward a century enlightenment thinkers are desperate to connect anything they can to greece to rome yeah like neoclassics it gets so big that people you know you if they could have held out for a while there would have been a lot of people who would have been hyped that there was a roman ruin there you know what i mean yeah.

Jay:
[57:01] My hottest take is that the enlightenment was just like proto-fascism.

Kay:
[57:04] Oh yeah yeah yeah it's it's when the world fell under darkness it's yeah fuck the enlightenment actually i shouldn't know how to read right now and i'm pissed right.

Jay:
[57:13] Exactly i should be like fucking a hot communist in bavaria.

Kay:
[57:17] Oh so true just.

Justin:
[57:18] Be like god wants me to just have my pigs roam the woods actually and that's i do love that i i love the like the threat of religious violence just like that scene in last temptation is like be careful zebedee there is a god just i want to yell that at anyone who's He's like just a piece of shit. He's constantly in the back of my head. But yeah, the people who get remembered and who don't also was a theme in the game. So you see like the graveyard has like all of these big memento moris to like the abbesses and prioresses and abbots. And then you go into the salt mines and you see, you know, the writings of Roman slaves who are how you find out about the ruins underneath the city, which is the I mean, everyone knows about that. that there are Roman ruins, but there's a particular mithraeum that is hidden, and that's what the string puller is trying to keep secret, and, You know, the townspeople have their own little legacies that they want to keep and the peasantry kind of do all of that by oral tradition and drawing on stuff.

Sadie:
[58:23] Well, and I like how that's reflected in the last act of the game, too, when you when you sneak into the broken down abbey and the dance of death mural that is in the I forget what the name of the room is in the abbey is has been painted over. And at that point in time, you're like, not entirely certain he was doing the painting, even though it's pretty easy to guess. But, you know, and you can actually see, and it's painted over with like a history of the peasant revolt. Like you can actually see the characters from the previous acts in there, even though you as the protagonist may or may not recognize all of them. You're like, oh, that's that person. What happened to that person? Because you don't always find out what happened to townspeople after the time jump. So the dance of death, I think, was a really interesting way to put it, too, because it's just a very formal, monastic piece of art with clearly a single person working through their shit on top of it, right? And that's the other thing that I really, really loved about this game, and I mean this in a, like, I truly do love... love this is i love that andreas was a coward he's.

Jay:
[59:26] A piece of shit yeah.

Sadie:
[59:27] I love and even even with all of the different decisions you can make throughout the game and all the different influences like in the end he's still a fucking coward right and yeah i i love cowardly protagonists because like you can see the decision making that's happening like as you go and in this game you get to make the decisions but like in books and other things i've read with a similar protagonist It's like, you see how their cowardly decisions sometimes lead to noble or not noble outcomes, like, or things that happen that weren't exactly their intention. They were just trying to, like, fumble their way through the best at the time.

Jay:
[1:00:03] I mean, we're forced into those decisions in the first two acts. Like, no matter what you do, you send someone to death, and as a player, you know that's not the person who did it.

Sadie:
[1:00:13] Right? Or you don't know if you actually have all of the information to solve it. And it never tells you. The townspeople believe in whatever decision you, as Andreas, have made. They believe it in later acts.

Jay:
[1:00:26] Well, because there's the thread puller, but then there's the people who actually do what the thread puller wants them to do.

Sadie:
[1:00:31] Exactly. And so in the final act when you learn, and this is again, big spoiler, you learn that Andreas didn't die in the fire at the end of the second act. You learn that he's actually been living in the ruins for 18 years because he was too fucking depressed to figure out what to do next, which I think.

Jay:
[1:00:50] Is- He didn't want to go home to his bitch wife.

Sadie:
[1:00:52] He was the homegirl's wife and his dead son. He was, you know, like, and I feel like, and then, you know, you have Andreas's internal representation of Beatrice and Prester John and the fucking jester in that. And I think it's like, because overall, like the game is really about the town and the things that you can like learn and discover, you know, under this sort of murder mystery. Yeah. plot but like then there's also that point where it's like oh you learn that andreas is making these sort of decisions that you can't get out of like you only have so many choices because he's fucking depressed and all of the things and his fame that he's gathered since like the first act and all of this like none of it really changes the outcome of things because in the end no matter what you do or what you decide he's still going to like hide for 18 years under a burned down library only to emerge at the very end. Whomst amongst us.

Sadie:
[1:01:49] Yeah, whomst amongst us doesn't desire that. But only at the end for him to emerge in the 11th hour, finally deal with his shit, only to see the people who also had to deal with his shit die at the last second, right? So it's not just this sort of overarching historical thing, but there's also the very personal narrative of Andreas in there too. And then what Magdalena can sort of do with that legacy moving forward too, right? I feel like that's where the decisions that you make throughout the game actually matter. I've only done one playthrough, so I don't know how much influence it has in the end, but it's really about what Magdalena decides to do after everything is all said and done. So I think it's a really good personal journey for the people who may or may not be interested in the historic parts of the game, who might actually be able to tie into that sort of personal narrative that is also going throughout. So I thought that was really well done as well.

Jay:
[1:02:42] Yeah, I felt so powerless playing Andreas because I didn't want him to have this weird... I wanted to make him a gay little artist who went to Florence and hung out, but it kept trying to force me to be my bitch wife about his wife. And I was like, no, I don't want that answer either. It just kept forcing us to... feel like like justin said they're like so many times like we'd be going through like a dialogue tree and we'd like pick something very specifically and at the end it still made us eventually wind back around to say something we didn't want to say right i was like no we didn't want to see that sometimes you have to it's rodney dave field time.

Sadie:
[1:03:21] You know yeah well and yeah how much is history like that like no matter what you do the.

Jay:
[1:03:26] Outcome you.

Sadie:
[1:03:27] Know on a personal level the outcome turns is always the library burning down and is always if i had been at.

Kyle:
[1:03:34] The library of alexandria.

Justin:
[1:03:37] Yeah it.

Kyle:
[1:03:38] Wouldn't have gone down like that there.

Justin:
[1:03:40] Was one thing after the game because i i didn't finish the full playthrough so i just watched kind of the end and i the playthrough i watched you decide to tell the truth about the mithraeum and whatever's under the town and then after the game you pull away from the book that you started with and you are standing in the town meeting place i forget the german word and you see that there is a family tree that's been added by andreas in the years that he's lived in the town and one of the ones shows like a kid that you didn't meet and he's like stolen and the relic from the shrine and like presumably never came back with it good.

Sadie:
[1:04:24] Was it andreas or was it the kid that was named after andreas.

Justin:
[1:04:28] Oh good point i'm.

Sadie:
[1:04:30] Pretty certain that it's a little baby it's paul the the gay little miller's artist son's son that he named after yes is the.

Justin:
[1:04:39] One who's kid that was yeah.

Sadie:
[1:04:41] So yeah no which i thought was an interesting touch and that's one of the things I wonder how that family tree or that changes depending on the things that you have decided throughout the game. But yeah, it's like you start as an artist, you continue as an artist in the way that Magdalena is a printer's maker and does woodcuts and stuff. And then you see this amateur artist's kid become the town artist. So how art also just sort of continually flows throughout the whole game and ends with it as well.

Kay:
[1:05:11] Yeah well it's looking like we might have to wrap up soon and i'm realizing that i could talk about this game for fucking ever yeah we barely started i know i looked at the clock.

Jay:
[1:05:24] And we didn't even talk about the aquarium.

Kay:
[1:05:26] Actually i actually have something to say about the aquarium, all right so one of you noted that the lucarium is not in use really it doesn't do anything in the game and i thought that was wonderful first of all less important reason obviously this is Because Kirisu Abbey is heavily based off of a real-life abbey of St. Moritz. And so that might just be there because it's there. But I think it's there because Lacarium is a place for monks to discuss freely. It is a bit of like a common area. And I think it's really appropriate that it's in disuse. Because I can't think of anything more dangerous at the time this game is taking place for a lot of these monks than to be speaking freely. If you get what I mean.

Jay:
[1:06:06] Isn't it also where they can speak with the peasantry or like the common, like the lay people as well?

Kay:
[1:06:10] Well absolutely and because of the divide it's it's it's better for the monks not to be talking to the peasants like for the monks own safety a lot of the time and possibly vice versa the fact that that room is distinctly empty and largely pointless i just i love that i thought that was great.

Justin:
[1:06:26] Yeah i did have a good running joke where i would just run across like several screens because there's no fast travel in this game which has been like one critique i saw is like there's a lot of wasted space sometimes but i would just be like hang on gotta check something run across like four screens and then go into the aquarium and be like anybody look waiting in here all right and then just run back out i was gonna do this one time like right when i think act two started i was like how badly do i want to annoy jay right now so i was gonna run across the entire map and do it from like the from like the village farm to the aquarium i gotta check the map, opposite end of the map, but i didn't do that i thought about it really loudly though.

Jay:
[1:07:11] We were running out of time.

Justin:
[1:07:13] Yeah yeah but it's a good game if you are like me and like to check every corner because that's kind of where the game is is just talking to people like there's no speed running this game it's really like just you you piece it all together through all the conversations you have and so it works perfect for someone who plays like me Maybe because I'm like, don't miss anything. Check every corner, talk to every person, get every dialogue tree. But that takes forever to get through a game when you do that. All right. Well, then we'll wrap up. Okay, Kyle, thank you so much. I'll have links to All Gamers Are Bastards. And you should check out their Patreon for even more episodes about people in video game sound design who are running for elected office. and i've linked to k's video about pentament and forgotten city which i forgot that pentament was part of that i only remembered the forgotten city part and so when you were like someone should do a video on that i wasn't i couldn't remember if you were being sarcastic and i went to grab the link and i was like oh that was i hadn't even played yeah that was why i was addicted interrupted.

Jay:
[1:08:14] You by accident i.

Justin:
[1:08:16] Completely forgot that that was what the video was about so link to that And yeah, go play Pentamon if you haven't.

Jay:
[1:08:22] Yeah, it's fun.

Justin:
[1:08:23] All right.

Kyle:
[1:08:23] Yeah. This is our podcast now. I was going to make a joke, but I ran.

Jay:
[1:08:28] You did. Gentry is a sick record.

Kyle:
[1:08:30] I deflated immediately.

Justin:
[1:08:32] Oh, I forgot to use this one.

Jay:
[1:08:34] And video game now.

Justin:
[1:08:35] Behold, the atheist's nightmare. Good night.