It’s our tenth Thanksgiving episode! Yay! After we recorded this (on Monday), we discussed if we thought it was a good episode. We decided that WE really had fun making it, so hopefully that translates into YOU all having fun listening. If not… well, what are you listening for? Enjoy!
QUESTIONS:
Heckin good Bois! TP: fold, wad, or both depending on situation. –Azuretalon
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Going down fighting: Sidestepping the depth that William put behind it, I will use my past inclination as a guess. I pretty much always go down fighting. Board games, video games, anything of that sort, I tend to make people fully put me in the ground. I can even talk about my sickness in this because that was pretty much a give up situation according to my doctors. I suppose I have trouble accepting that there is never, ever a way out. I can always have someone give up a board game because they have a call or there IS an infinitely small chance I can punch my way through every zombie’s head.
So I have a knee jerk reaction. Go down fighting. Because I’m either delusional, or I have some built-in idea of honor as you brought up.
Also, I enjoy that William has the full depth of thought to drive Tony crazy by not answering simple questions. Always amuses me.
Dolly Parton/Meryl Streep: I don’t think either would be insulted to be mixed-up so much as very confused.
Carol Kane: I will watch ANYTHING with Carol Kane, and that would be the best way you would get me to watch The Crown.
“The Haunting of”: I liked Bly Manor better, probably because of the Man vs Man plotline being something I prefer. Hill House was scarier for sure but it made less sense, I thought the structure of Bly was better and it was a nice sad, gothic, love story. Neither is perfect but I don’t regret my time spent watching it.
AHS 1984: Okay, I loved it. But I love Slasher movies. The last time I got glasses, Lenscrafters had frames that looked like Mr. Jangles’s glasses and my wife is the only reason I didn’t get them.
I absolutely wrote that question to be a social grenade. I could not have thought it would work out so well to be featured on Thanksgiving.
Tony on wadding, abridged: “it’s like wiping with an English muffin; nooks and crannies”
“out of ammo” genuinely had me in tears.
I ALMOST put this on the TV while we were cooking yesterday, and now I wish I had.
Abby made an interesting point to me later, which is, one never really knows whether or not going down fighting will help, so it’s better to err on the side of fighting rather than not, just in case it will help. Like, in the zombie example, every zombie you take down with you is one less in the world that anyone else will have to take down. What if a zombie that you don’t take down kills ten other people before it’s taken down by someone else? Now, true, those people might die anyway by other means, but at least they won’t die by *that* zombie that you had the means and opportunity to stop. So, to Abby’s way of thinking, if there’s even the remotest chance that going down fighting will help others, that’s what she’d do. And there’s pretty-much always a remote chance it will help, even if you can’t calculate that chance yourself.
I suspect that, were I actually in this situation or one similar, I’d probably apply this reasoning and find a reason to fight. It really amounts to the same answer that I gave in the podcast, that if I can think of a reason to fight that benefits others somehow, then that’s what I’d do, but what Abby helped me realize is, it’s extremely unlikely that I wouldn’t think of some way for it to benefit others, even if it were a remote chance.
But it’s an odd thing… if I can do any mental gymnastics at all to think it’ll help others, I’d go down fighting. But if it’s about myself only, I’d prefer to attempt to find serenity before oblivion. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or neutral. If I were diagnosed with cancer, what would I do? Could I find a mental/emotional path to concluding that it would benefit others for me to fight? Or, would I fight because that’s what I’d want others to do and it would seem hypocritical if I didn’t fight as well? Though I don’t think that I have an expectation that a person will or should fight a cancer diagnosis… I tend to think that’s their choice alone and I tend to respect it regardless, which is why, I think, I admire the fighters, because I know that they don’t have to do that and I wouldn’t “anti-admire” them if they didn’t. Could I convince myself that it would be helpful to someone, anyone, if I were to survive in the world a little while longer? Or could I convince myself that the fight itself would serve some purpose to others? Or, if the fight, win or lose, serves me alone, shouldn’t that be enough? Isn’t helping myself, even if I’m the only one helped, be important? But that’s really the question, isn’t it… what is “helping myself”? What does that look like, in this context?
To fight or not to fight… it doesn’t seem to me that either of these are inherently undignified or dignified. What dignifies either one of them, I think, is who gets to choose and what motivates that choice. But the “who” is the more critical bit, to my way of thinking.
Aberfan I didn’t know about. And the assassination I knew had happened but I didn’t know any details, so both took me by surprise. They were very hard hitting. Especially Aberfan. That was really awful to watch.
oops, this reply is meant to be below.
Agreed.
Agreed. I didn’t know anything about Aberfan before The Crown, and have since seen reference to it in other historical royals shows (that aren’t dramatized/fiction). It took me a long time to get into season 3. The new actors are good, but it didn’t feel like a continuation of the same show. I didn’t realize until past halfway through the third season that this kinda background person was the new queen mother.
I think I’d choose to go down fighting because there’s the slightest chance of that “Hail Mary” success; and you won’t find it if you don’t try.
I do not take that same approach to board games; if I’m dead, let’s let it go so we can move on to playing again/another activity and have more fun than dragging out my defeat.
Going down fighting: I took that literally when listening and thought it seems pointless. If I knew there was no way I could survive, why would I want to kill someone else? But then when Will said if it were to save someone else, I thought, yeah, OK, that would make a difference.
But Azuretalon mentions taking it metaphorically, as in not giving up even when there seems no chance, and in that case, I’m definitely a going down fighting person.
William, what historical events have you discovered through the Crown?
What I’ve heard about what the Queen has been most upset by was in Season 2–the way that Phillip is shown to be very tough on Charles around his schooling. The Queen reportedly said that wasn’t accurate.
It does seem to me that Season 4 is being a bit hard on Charles. Some of what’s being shown about his relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles probably isn’t accurate (at least from what is known) and they’re down-playing Diana’s affairs (from what I’ve seen so far).
There was one episode in which I said “They better play ‘Stand Down Margaret’ ” soon, and indeed, it played over the closing credits, and that made me happy.
There have been several, but, as you know, my memory sucks. I mostly remember having the experience of learning some historical fact that I hadn’t known before, rather than remembering the actual historical fact. Because my brain is stupid.
The one I can recall off the top of my head is the Aberfan disaster. I’m quite certain I’d never heard of that before. (As opposed to it being something that I had heard of but I forgot that I’d heard of it.)
But that took place in what… 1966? Before my time. I’m certain there were post-1969 things they mentioned that I didn’t know about… like, let me think… ah, the assassination of Lord Mountbatten… I’m reasonably certain that I didn’t know about that, but that’s most certainly a situation where I saw it on the news as a kid (because I never missed the news when I was a kid) and it just didn’t register who he was… which means I didn’t really *forget* it, since it never registered in the first place, but I can’t imagine that I didn’t at least *hear* about it, if that makes sense.
I’m sure there are more, but I can’t recall them at the moment. There have been enough historical offerings to keep me watching, even if I don’t remember those offerings by the next day…
Agreed. I didn’t know anything about Aberfan before The Crown, and have since seen reference to it in other historical royals shows (that aren’t dramatized/fiction). It took me a long time to get into season 3. The new actors are good, but it didn’t feel like a continuation of the same show. I didn’t realize until past halfway through the third season that this kinda background person was the new queen mother.
I can absolutely understand the idea of fighting on, if you think there’s a result other than complete failure. To save someone, or if you genuinely think you can punch all the zombie heads. And I think it’s different a bit, when “failure” isn’t actual death. I often play games long past the point of obvious failure… but then again, I play games for fun, not to win.
EVERYONE is watching The Crown right now. It’s like the new Tiger King!
We’re obsessed with royalty! Trashy royalty or posh royalty…we don’t care!
We’ve stopped our Netflix subscription for the time being; the only thing I register that I miss is The Crown. Will probably rejoin for month this winter, binge The Crown, and then cancel again.
I agree with you, I like hearing about royalty. I think it’s because they’re living history, rather than a passing fad/celebrity. Case in point – Meghan Markle. She was a decent star from her time on Suits, but by marrying into the royal family (and now bringing Harry and Archie out of it, kinda) she’ll be part of history forever. How they live the rest of their lives will dictate how much they’re remembered/discussed, but just like Henry VIII’s wives, you know they’re there and that they helped to shape the course of history.
I’m so pleased to see Jas and William engaged in long discourse on the blog again!
Not to read, mind you… but I’m happy it’s there. 🙂
I can confirm that the 40% estimate was accurate – I do not care about Thanksgiving, it’s just another weird American custom that you seem to be obsessed with to make up for a lack of history.
Thank you, Eddie Izzard. 😛
It could be Grandma’s last Christmas if you all get together amid covid…
Similarly, I asked my mom how Grandma was doing, should I go 5 hours one way to see her for Mother’s Day the week before finals. Mom said no, she was doing fine. Grandma died the weekend after Mother’s Day. At least I did get to see her for the “last” birthday party we threw for her that January.