R.S. Benedict
Welcome to Rite Gud. The only podcast that helps you write good. I’m R.S. Benedict. You okay there?
J.R. Bolt
Yes, I’m okay. Hello. Hello, I’m JR bolt. This
R.S. Benedict
is JR bolt who appears to have fallen down a flight of stairs.
J.R. Bolt
Falling it keeps happening still falling
R.S. Benedict
just still going. So everybody loves a winner either a hyper competent alpha male who always saves the day or a relatable underdog who beats the odds and comes out on top. But in this episode of right good, we’re paying tribute to literary losers fuck ups and failures. Joining me is JR bolt, resident Canadian.
J.R. Bolt
The failure guy the loser and fuckup expert. Thank you.
R.S. Benedict
Yes, yes. From the loser country. I’m sorry. That’s right. I’m gonna dunk on Canada.
J.R. Bolt
America’s touque.
R.S. Benedict
All right. So let’s start by talking a little bit about aspirational characters. Aspirational characters are extremely common in genre fiction, especially in pole classic sci fi has a lot of competence porn as crime fiction is full of it from criminals to detectives. Why did want to have a little aside, one often cited film as an example that people give of Oh, we love movies about people who are competent and smart is the thing. It’s not the men in the thing are fucking idiots. You just think they’re smart, because they’re dumb in a way that you’re dumb. Like, it makes me crazy when people go, what I love about the thing is that the guys are smart. No, they’re not. It’s a huge plot point that everybody is stressed out and tired and confused. These guys fuck up constantly. Okay, first of all, they should not have let a strange dog onto their base without quarantining it. Obviously, they would not expect it to be a shape shifting alien. But it could be like a test subject from a bioweapons lab carrying like super smallpox or something like that it could have had a disease, so they should not have just let it wander around the base, unmonitored and then store it with the other dogs, they probably should have quarantined it for a little while to see what happens. Number two, when they find a frozen mutant corpse, they drag it into their own base and handle it without proper PPE. Like, the one dude is wearing gloves, sticking his hands into this horrible mute and corpse. He’s not even like wearing a mask like this guy is handling, and obviously scary mute and corpse with less care than the way that I handled my groceries during the first couple of months of the pandemic. It is ridiculous. The
J.R. Bolt
first failure that they had in that movie was that nobody was Norwegian. So they didn’t know what the guy was screaming because he was Norwegian. Right? And then then he
R.S. Benedict
died. So they’re all monolingual Americans, always a bad sign.
J.R. Bolt
It’s always a failure.
J.R. Bolt
But going back to the beginning, like it’s probably worth trying to define what failure is in a narrative sense. It’s just, it’s really simple. It’s just like when a character has a goal, and they do not achieve it. Yes, that’s it’s very simple. And it’s very, very broad. It’s useful to consider, especially in sci fi fantasy, which is typically the opposite. You always have to have, you know, not always I don’t want to generalize, but in a lot of, you know, the mainstream sci fi and fantasy, you have a character that has a goal, and then at the end, they achieve it. And that’s kind of, you know, the arc of everything. Yes. And the thing, you know, as a horror film, essentially, as much as a sci fi film, their goal is to survive, and they do not achieve that goal. And a lot of small startup failures, lead them along that way. And even the smart things that they do end up in failure, which is also a really interesting thing to consider. Because you can do the smart thing, and you can do everything right, and you still fuck it up. Yes.
R.S. Benedict
Yes. I love that. I absolutely love that. And I think I have to wonder if part of the reason we want to see competent people do good things and get rewarded is because this sort of just world fallacy thing. It strikes me as being kind of similar to wanting virtuous characters wanting rational and competent characters, because it’s like we want people to survive who deserved to survive. We want people to win who, quote unquote, deserve to win. And if absolutely, I kind of think like logic and competence is sort of a secular version of virtuousness of being moral worth. It’s a type of morality, but it’s a more modern type of morality as compared to like being a good Christian or sticking to your principles or something like that it kind of strikes me as being a bit of a parallel to it. So that’s a good point. So we demand these, like, I want to see people who act rationally, and I want us to see people who do the right thing. And survive. It kind of seems like wanting the person who’s the good Christian, to win because they’re good. And we know in real life, that’s not what happens all the time. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
absolutely. Like we do live in a meritocratic, supposedly society are a technocratic society where we’re competence and skill are equated with virtue of course, right. And that leads sort of uncritically down into into tons of fiction not not to single out sci fi fantasy, but in much every story that our culture tells itself.
R.S. Benedict
Right. I mean, we have superhero stories, you cited Conan, and also stories of social mobility, as Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
a lot of novels will begin with, you know, the person down on their luck of the farm boy, the the impoverished, you know, slum dwellers or something. And a lot of times, by the end of the story, you will have someone who has succeeded in a material way they’ve achieved the job that they want, you know, they have the, the material support network they want, they’re in a position of power by the end, that happens a lot. And there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. But as a default, it’s it’s interesting. Because these things are these things go back to what you were saying where fiction is treated kind of like as a guideline for morality and a guideline for living. So we want to see things that reflect our aspirations. This sort of social mobility story generally starts with it’s called the building’s Roman. And that’s the the German term for it, like a novel of growth, a story of, you know, a child who grows to adulthood, and the story of their life, usually, almost always with with a sense of progress, and with a sense of material achievement, and moral refinement, of course. And that lies very heavily over so many stories to this day. And anyone who’s taken like a English one to one course knows that, but, you know, a lot of people haven’t. And, you know, I had to, I had to learn that in my adult life, too. So and it reflects, you know, material aspirations, we want to be wealthy, we want to be competent, we want to be attractive, we want to be, you know, respected and have some kind of power at least over our own lives.
R.S. Benedict
Right, right. And a lot of these are reflected in aspirational characters characters that we would aspire to be, but they’re better than us. We wish we were like them, but they’re better than us. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
And that’s, that’s a huge word like you, you can’t even list all the characters. I mean, yeah, it’s just a sort of a, it’s a presumed default that a character, especially in sci fi, fantasy will have some trait that you wish you had. Or even if it’s just wit, the ability to be snarky at somebody and have no repercussions. It’s there’s, there is some kind of wish fulfillment, and, you know, in my own work, there’s certainly that and in a lot of people, you know, it’s enjoyable to read about and there’s no there’s no sleight on wanting that necessarily.
R.S. Benedict
So we have aspirational characters, we also might have a triumphant relatable character so you relate to them maybe they’re not the greatest person in the world, but maybe you relate to them anyway. And they still kind of when medic flaws, yeah, sympathetic flaws. Although a lot of the times it’s more of a cleaned up version of your flaws. It’s kind of how you want to see yourself not necessarily what a fucking mess you actually are. You piece of shit.
J.R. Bolt
Well, the real genre that allows fuck ups to succeed like relatable fuck ups is comedy. Yeah, almost every comedy that you see has a character who is you know, they’re exaggerated they’re often like very poor social skills, they have anger management problems they fly off the handle or ridiculous people right? But generally in a narrative movie especially like a you know a three act movie a Hollywood movie, you will have that character you know start from the bottom and still achieve some major goal by the end whether it’s like you know, winning get sports championship or you know, showing up the stuffy Dean in a frat boy type thing girl getting the girl yeah, all that stuff. So that’s that’s a form of competence porn to I don’t know, a competence. Porn is such a specific thing, but it’s definitely aspirational in a way.
R.S. Benedict
Right, right. And at any rate, it’s a winner, even if the person is portrayed is kind of a downtrodden loser. Winner. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
the the entire appeal is like, it’s much like a romance. It’s like how did these two dissimilar people come together? Like the start of a comedy like that would be like, how does this loser become something more because they seem to have nothing at the beginning.
R.S. Benedict
Right? Right. And I’m not trying to drag those stories. I’m no I enjoy those stories. They’re fun. I like stories about smart people doing cool smart guy things. I also like stories about SLUBs, who, who managed to make it, you know, we’re not trashing them, we’re not telling you that you’re, you’re bad or basic for liking these things. But today, we want to focus on stories and character types who don’t fall into that. And we want to talk about sad, pathetic fucking losers. And fuck ups were kind of a less popular sort of character, less popular sort of narrative. And some people even get angry when they see stories about him, or like object to it, or just find it really, really offensive. I wrote and published a novelette, some years ago called The Fairy egg, and I’ll spoil part of it. But it’s about a woman
J.R. Bolt
whose story by the way, sorry, thank
R.S. Benedict
you. Thank you very much. I loved it. I did. Thanks. But a lot of it’s about a woman who’s trying to like better herself and kind of drag herself out of a low position. And she doesn’t succeed. And she’s like, it’s not her fault. She’s, she’s smart as hell, she’s really driven. She’s, like, really, really sharp. She’s working super hard. It’s just circumstances are against it. And like a good number of my beta readers, were really upset about that. They were really, really mad that she didn’t manage to like Girlboss her way to the top. And also, I think, my, what is it all of me, people were really upset because the main character doesn’t like triumph so much as she walks away. Right? They were like, they saw it as a failure. They saw it as like a downer ending. And I actually saw it as like a happy ending or liberating.
J.R. Bolt
Walking away is as a huge triumph in this situation, right? Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
In a situation in which just there’s systematic abuse in every level, just walking away from it and returning to the ocean for her. I saw as a triumph for I think a lot of people wanted her to, like, win and be the queen of Hollywood or something. And I’m like, No, this is her saying, like, this entire town is fucking disgusting. I’m done. I’m out. I’m returning to the sea. Absolutely, I’m finished.
J.R. Bolt
And I think like a lot of you know, a steady diet of these aspirational stories will train you to expect that. Like, when you read the fairy egg, you read about the girl that beginning and she’s in her trailer, and she’s with that abusive man, and, and you expect things to go a certain way, and you want things to go a certain way. And if you if you don’t consume enough stuff outside of that specific, like story style, you’re going to just you’re going to be disappointed with it with anything else. You’re going to see it as a default, and you’re not going to be able to maybe handle something that doesn’t end how you want. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And I’d like to stress about that story. It’s based on a real incident that happened in 19th century Ireland. Absolutely. And unfortunately, the the real Bridget Cleary did not manage to Girlboss her way out of a bad marriage. It’s it ended real bad for her is what I’ll say, which is why I had the story in that way. Yeah, I
J.R. Bolt
mean, that’s a story that should be told in its honesty, right?
R.S. Benedict
We want to believe that just being smart and hardworking is enough to help you escape. But for I’m not saying this, to create a sense of learned helplessness because there is such a thing as self sabotage. And yeah, there are people whose that attitude kind of stops them from from achieving a lot, I don’t. So I don’t want to say like, give up everyone should just give up. But sometimes there are people who are resourceful and good and do things right. And it doesn’t work out for them. And as much as we want it to end that’s desperately unfair. And that’s the way of the world and wanting to believe that that doesn’t happen becomes kind of cruel, because when we see someone fail, this part of us wants to look well, well, what did she do wrong? I should have done this, I would have done this like, not really in this woman’s position, you probably would have done a lot of most of the same stuff, because she had limited choices. And these were the choices available to her. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
and it’s always easy to say that, you know, after the fact like a postgame breakdown, like That’s right. But in the moment, it’s obviously not. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
like in horror movies. I used to kind of sneer at the like hysterical girl running away from the knife wielding meanie angrily while I do this, like if I’m honest with myself, I probably wouldn’t think clearly or strategically if I was being chased by a crazy man in a mask with a knife. Right? I would not think logically I would totally run up the stairs. You know introspect. You’re thinking like man, I should have gone out the front door, but like, your monkey brain takes over and it’s like, oh shit, I gotta get into tree trees or safe stairs or like trees. I’m going up the stairs.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. And then on a nonfiction level. I mean, you see people doing the same thing with true crime. They’ll they’ll read a, you know, these horrible podcasts, they read out, you know, something horrible that happened. And then there’s kind of mocking along at the end, oh, I would have done this differently. Yeah, no, you probably wouldn’t have
R.S. Benedict
I wouldn’t have picked up that hitchhiker well in the 70s. Yeah, you probably would have you probably would. It was normal back Then he was odd. I wouldn’t have helped Ted Bundy I wouldn’t help him. I don’t know I probably would have hot guy trying to talk to me. Yeah, I’ll do what you tell me to. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
And a lot of people want to, you know, they want to position themselves over the failing character in a story or in a true crime even or nonfiction story and bring their their intellectual weight to bear on this like thing that happened. But that’s just like a psychological defense mechanism against perceiving yourself as a failure.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, it is. And like, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re all fucking idiots. We’re all complete fucking idiots. We all do self destructive, stupid shit.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. And I think we should embrace it. At least in fiction. Yeah. And that’s kind of why we’re here. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And if you find a character who does stupid shit, or who does self destructive shit unlovable? Like, how do you find yourself because I guarantee you do stupid shit that you shouldn’t use? You stay up too late. And then your next day? You’re like, oh, fuck, I’m tired. Why did I do this to myself? But then you still do it?
J.R. Bolt
Everyone. Everyone listening to this? Everyone who’s ever lived?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, you damn, I wish I was thinner. And then like, eat some cookies for breakfast.
J.R. Bolt
I’m always staying up late. That’s the least of my problems. But yeah, we’re all fuck ups. And I don’t think that’s reflected quite enough, especially in popular fiction, which is why I’ve been distanced from it for so long. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And it’s also worthwhile. I think, if you want to talk about morality, if you want to talk about fiction as supposing to teach virtues, well, yeah, we have role models in aspirational characters, but I think it might also be worth having an object lesson to like a person who you point at and go, yeah, don’t be like that guy. That’s, that’s worthwhile. And fiction, too, if you’re absolutely exploring moral narratives,
J.R. Bolt
I mean, that’s the the ultimate sort of moral narratives were the the William Hogarth, you know, the the plates, the rakes progress and stuff like that, you know, that they depicted a loser, a dissolute person, who would just commit a new mistake on every single page, and they would get worse and worse until they were dead. And that was the story. The point of the story was, like, just a demonstration of what not to do, like a Goofus and Golan type of type of thing. Right? That’s, that’s the lowest level of that kind of story. Really? Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
But slightly higher. I mean, we have the Greek tragedies, which are all about the the evils of hubris and hamartia. Yes,
J.R. Bolt
the hamartia, the fatal flaw, the one thing that ends up and doing everything that you wanted, right? All right, the Greeks, you know, that they defined that word for sure. They probably didn’t invent, you know, tragic stories, but they refined it to the first art really, yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And obviously, their ideas of morality, their ideas of virtue are very different from ours. But a lot of this was about the virtues of that culture. And what happens when you try to violate the virtues of that culture. So many Greek tragedies are about people trying to escape their fates. And in that culture, you couldn’t do that. That was foolish, you you were supposed to just sort of meet your fate with quiet dignity and, you know, handle it honorably, instead of trying to weasel out of it. So constantly in these plays. We’re seeing people try to weasel out of their fate and ending up fucked up real bad, just failing, just failing. Absolutely, miserably.
J.R. Bolt
Yep. And that was their entertainment and you know that they had illustrative lessons you know, it it was has some very good lessons for our lives.
R.S. Benedict
Of course, relevant to all of us. Absolutely. There’s the Elizabethan tragic hero once again or hero has a fatal flaw that ends up completely undoing him. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
the Elizabethan the Jacoby and tragedies. The all of you know Shakespeare’s tragedies. Of course, they’re they’re about having a fatal flaw,
R.S. Benedict
right stories about failures. I mean, maybe they’re a little bit of a bummer, but but they’re incredibly beautiful. I mean, what is Macbeth except a huge fucking failure. He’s massive. fuckup my dude, you fucked up. The trees are mad at you now. Incidentally, I love Kurosawa’s take on the ending. I kind of like his ending better. Like instead of throwing a blood right yeah, turn a blood rocks like instead of instead of just like oh, you know duel with some Macduff who’s like this fucking nothing character gives a shit about him. Just no, no arrow, several 100 arrows, approximately like 1000 arrows directly in your face
J.R. Bolt
of Dunsinane coming at you at once.
R.S. Benedict
I love it. I get why. I mean, I know that like Macbeth has a history playing I’m sure that Shakespeare whose plays at the Globe Theatre were performed in front of members of the royal family probably couldn’t put an ending that featured a mutiny.
J.R. Bolt
Probably not a lot of arrows.
R.S. Benedict
King that probably would not have gone over well, but God I love the ending Throne of Blood where his men just Look outside see that the forest itself is moving against them and just start. Just start don’t don’t even argue don’t even say anything. They just start shooting arrows at him all on mass. Yep.
J.R. Bolt
And his fear in that movie. I think that was real because there’s a real arrows flying.
R.S. Benedict
Fuck. That is crazy.
J.R. Bolt
Toshiro Mifune a great actor, but he wasn’t acting.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, just the way he mugs and that movies incredible. It’s so freakin good. Anyway, they’re on a flight go see it’s so good.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, like you’re saying about bummer endings. They’re not really, you know, they don’t have to be bummers necessarily. They can be cathartic in themselves, like a glorious failure, a glorious glorious flameout can be very, very satisfying narratively. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
or watching a total douchebag fail is pretty fun. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
Or even someone who doesn’t deserve it. Because you know, you’ve been there. And yeah, you’re like, yeah, it do be like that sometimes.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s also worth telling stories about people who failed, and even through their own fault to not just because of circumstances around them. But you’ve undone yourself, because God, we’ve all been there,
J.R. Bolt
too. Yeah. And we all we all have fatal flaws. Hopefully not fatal. But we do have significant
R.S. Benedict
significant flaws that we get in our own way. Sometimes it’s human. And here’s something that bugs me. There’s a lot of talk, in fiction, in mainstream culture, about trauma. We love stories that are about trauma. We love stories about trauma and confronting trauma and overcoming trauma, but we don’t want to seem to want to confront that trauma can make you a huge fuckup sometimes, even if you do go to therapy. Absolutely.
J.R. Bolt
Like you gotta make an uncomfortable thing
R.S. Benedict
looking mass. massive fucking mess.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, like lit fic will approach this and horror will approach this, but it’s sci fi fantasy, not so much it. Yeah. Well, my my go to like for this. The first thing example that comes to mind is Joe Abercrombie, is a first law trilogy, there are people who have been damaged in terrible ways. And it does reflect like, they turn into antisocial pieces of shit, because of their circumstances. And it’s really, it’s really good in that way. Like, psychologically, it’s very accurate to the feeling of, you know, being in pain and being resentful and all kinds of things that, you know, thoughts that, that you kind of don’t want to express in other books and, and and other genres, I guess. Yeah. But it feels very real. And they’re, they’re repeated failures, and they’re digging themselves a grave as I’m not, you know, for my part, I wouldn’t call it relatable because they’re quite extreme, but the emotion is
R.S. Benedict
there. Right. Right. So moving on from that, why we love fuck ups and losers. Why We Love failure in art. Let’s talk about some of our favorite works about fuck ups and losers and failures. Let’s talk about some of our favorite losers in literature and, to a lesser extent, cinema. We want to focus on literature, though, just because this is a writing podcast, and we can’t talk too much about movies. So I’m going to start with a TS Eliot poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Hmm. I mean, oh my god. It’s an amazing poem. It’s beautiful. It’s, it’s sad, and I think about it more. I didn’t connect to it much as a teenager in high school. But um, as you get older, you start connecting with that a little bit more. Oh, my God, it’s I just think it is a fool. I believe that being a lonely old man who’s sad and horny. Oh, it do be like that, though. It to be like that, and realizing like your peak is gone. And your peak was not that high, either. Like, you’ve actually had a chance of greatness, and it’s fucking done. And you’re just here. Now you’re still around, you’re like, okay,
J.R. Bolt
it is curious. They’d make high school kids read that. I kind of get the idea that, you know, some people wouldn’t, wouldn’t relate to that when you’re fishing.
R.S. Benedict
But I mean, I think it is good to make kids read stuff that they won’t necessarily relate to at that age, but might return to because like, it’s true. If if no one had made me read this poem in high school, I probably wouldn’t read it. That’s good point. If no one made me read like The Scarlet Letter. I would not have chosen to read The Scarlet Letter.
J.R. Bolt
That’s true. Or Or me with the crucible ones. You know, our high school was pretty good that way.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Yeah, I would not have probably wouldn’t have chosen to read The Great Gatsby as a team didn’t relate to that either. But then when I reread the book around when I turned 30, I went like Oh, Holy fuck, shit, Jesus. Oh, God. It really fucking it, which is another story of failure. I think another great novel about failure or our man Gatsby gets rich to like, get the attention of this chick who sucks. And he dies for her. And then only like three people go to his funeral. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
that’s a that’s a good way to put it. It’s true. I mean, that’s, that’s, that is what happened. So, yeah, you know, the point of Catcher in the Rye and the point of these books is like, it’s not the success of the character. It’s they’re not meant to be aspirational figures, which is Oh, Catcher
R.S. Benedict
in the Rye, I will defend Catcher in the Rye to the death. It is unfairly maligned. I think it’s a brilliant novel, about what we would call toxic masculinity and rape culture. It’s just, it doesn’t use those words. But that’s 100% what it’s about, about a boy on the cusp of manhood trying to figure out how to be a man. And he doesn’t want to be a man because being a man and like 1940s America means being a fucking dick. And being really being shitty to women, mainly, like, he’s surrounded by these alpha males who are constantly like kind of treating women like trash. And he knows I don’t want to be that way. But he doesn’t know an alternative, like mode of manhood or masculinity. And so he’s going around trying to find out like, what do I do? How do I navigate sexuality without like, being a part of rape culture? Again, he doesn’t use those words, obviously. Because yeah, you because he’s, you know, not present day or how do I handle masculinity without being like a douchebag? The one potential like way out that he finds his this one English teacher ends up, possibly trying to molest him? Yeah, the one dude who seems like he might present a way out and is like, nice to him. And it’s like, cool and relatable. Maybe it’s ambiguous because we’re never really sure. Is this an attempted grooming? Or is this a man who’s just like, kind of traumatized to doing what he seems thinks would be a good idea in a paternal gesture, but actually is wildly inappropriate? Never, like, get that 100%? Like, was that fucked up? Or am I overreacting, which makes it so much more heartbreaking? For Holden, he, he never finally figures out like What the How do I become a man without being a piece of shit? And the end? He just ends up in a psych ward? And that’s it?
J.R. Bolt
You know, it’s still a it’s a very good question. And that’s one of the things that makes it so relatable today. But one of the things that this is sort of a sidetrack, but like you say, you know, we use phrases like toxic masculinity and grooming and other things that apply so well to that story. And one of the things that’s great about literature is being able to at least processes kind of complicated and contradictory emotions that we may not have names for, until much later. And that’s sort of like a good responsibility of a writer is to be able to be honest about, you know, the, the multi layering of emotions and conflicts like that just to describe what’s going on, even if you don’t have the words, right.
R.S. Benedict
And it’s just great. Like he describes, basically, like a date rape before the term date, rape was even a concept. And it’s just by the standards, the social standards of America at the time, it’s not technically rape, but like, this character is describing it and he goes, I know this isn’t okay. I know this is fucked up. Everyone seems to think it’s okay. But I know this is wrong. What do I do with this? Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
And it’s important to like ask those questions. I mean, anything that ends in a question mark is something it’s important. Right?
R.S. Benedict
Right. So yeah, that’s my little rant about Catcher in the Rye. It gets unfairly maligned because there are some douchebags who are like, Oh, Emily Holden Caulfield without understanding who Holden Caulfield is or what he means. But like, no legitimately is a really, really sharp book about adolescents and manhood and it’s good, it’s good.
J.R. Bolt
It’s good. If you read it when you’re a teen and you relate to Holden Caulfield, that’s, that’s great. Why not? I mean, yeah, he’s a bit like you. Why not? You’ll probably grow out
R.S. Benedict
of it. I found him annoying and whiny. But I’m like, well, that that just hit too close to home. Here’s this annoying, whiny kid who’s always complaining and he just, he’s just constantly sarcastic and he fucking cusses too much like, ah, yeah,
J.R. Bolt
that’s, that’s a teenager.
R.S. Benedict
So Catcher in the Rye. You mentioned Ignatius J. Riley from Confederacy of Dunces. Oh my god, that looks incredible. It’s amazing. Because reading that guy, it’s like, oh, I didn’t know that type of guy existed before the internet.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, he’s just the loser who thinks of himself as like a Diogenes figure,
R.S. Benedict
but he just thinks he just saw so fucking funny. And
J.R. Bolt
if he ever like finds like an insight, it’s always by accident. It’s just a tangible piece of those people are out there. I mean, we all have our Ignatius J Reilly moments every time we like try to push through it. Oh
R.S. Benedict
god. I’m a piece of shit, but I believe I’m better than everybody else like Oh,
J.R. Bolt
- And I think it’s relatable to a lot of people. I mean, that’s a defense mechanism that most of us embrace at one time or another. Yes, it’s a failure. Right
R.S. Benedict
on the internet. We’re all a little Ignatius J. Riley, at least a little bit. He would have loved Twitter. He was. So this guy, and he would have been so good at it. God, he would he would be a fucking influencer, he wouldn’t thrive.
J.R. Bolt
We’d all be wearing stupid hats right now, if he was online, he would
R.S. Benedict
he would have so many podcasts he would make like he would make like $50,000 a month on Patreon. No question. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
he’s kind of an icon of online. But these guys have always existed, right? So yeah, and they’re all around us. And that’s one of the reasons they’re worth writing about. Like, if you’re judgmental, you can call them a loser. But really, they’re just kind of normal people. They’re just not, they don’t stand out in any special way. And most of us don’t.
R.S. Benedict
So we had Ignatius J. Reilly, something you brought up, even in a story where the good guys win in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo kind of fails. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
and that’s part of Tolkien’s master plan. But But Frodo does fail, he can’t give up the ring at the end. It like he is saved by Gollum budding that off and you know, biting his finger off and falling into the pit for him. And that’s, that’s a repeating thing, and Tolkien are in Lord of the Rings anyway, but uh, you catastrophe, which is like you is like the good side of catastrophe. And it’s kind of Tolkien’s divine intervention, where things will be wildly coincidental, but they’ll work out for the best. And you see that at the end, of course, with Gollum. And you also see this with Sheila, where it’s apparent that he’s gonna die, like Frodo was stung and he’s going to die, but he gets saved by a complete coincidence. And there’s lots of other small things too. And some people sort of take it as, you know, divine intervention, is this like narrative failing? We shouldn’t use it or whatever, but Tolkien obviously does, you know, his religious beliefs are part of that it’s a tale of good triumphing over evil in the face of failure. Which is which is an interesting like complicated and complex thing that’s like, definitely worth discussing it goes like probably deeper than that I want to get into right now but it is about personal failure and spiritual triumph at the same time. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And I’m gonna point out even though the good guys defeat Sauron, there’s still this incredible sense of loss at the end like the Shire has lost its innocence. Yeah, it’s the words of a world is changing, and magic is dying.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, it’s about the end of the world and a lot of ways their success is it’s not meaningless, but it definitely is the last gasp of something that’s destined to like fade out. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
it’s really tragic and a little bit heartbreaking. So even Lord of the Rings and farmer I think he never gets over his dad’s rejection. No, he never gains his father’s acceptance he and then dies ever lives up to what his father wants him to be. Well,
J.R. Bolt
it would be impossible. Yeah, talking to his Christian beliefs, you know, the or the reflected in a billion stories, but that goes all the way back to Hogarth and the rakes progress. They were explicitly Christian moral stories about you know, this is the path of the sinner. Don’t go here. Don’t do this. Don’t fuck up like this. Or you’re fucked. And you know, Tolkien is not that simplistic, but there’s definitely a moral sentiment in there for sure.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Yeah. So as a genre, we talked about horror as if, as a genre of failure, I would propose that a lot of film noir and Neo Noir is defined by failure of really good film noir are often often ends in failure and may even even during the Hays Code era, like when you were legally mandated to to cram a happy ending on there. At the very least, like maybe the your victory is just walking away from the thing like giving up on finding the Maltese Falcon, instead of getting it.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, the ability to walk away or survive at all. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
or even nightmare alley. The the original one the remake is the remake. It’s weird. Like, it’s darker and harder, but it doesn’t hit as hard somehow. Like the subtlety of the earlier film. makes it better for one. Oh, that don’t see the new one. The new one Sox. The old one is legit really, really good. It’s really reliable. Okay,
J.R. Bolt
I love an old film noir. Okay, yeah,
R.S. Benedict
it’s great or, or hero like even with the last 15 seconds Happy Ending slept on. Our hero. Our main character goes from being this like, rich, really cult leader psychic medium to becoming a circus geek. And it’s his own fucking fault for being a dick. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
like a lot of classic noir ends is like as cruelly and meanly as the Hays Code would permit. I mean, Scarlett street has one of the darkest endings that I’ve seen in any movie. And it’s interesting because crime as genre fiction, like contains both extreme competence porn and extreme failure. Yeah. Because I guess crime in you know, as a way of being as the thing you do will also contain that risk and, you know, both can coexist at the same time, which is like going back to competence porn. I mean, you have Sherlock Of course, Sherlock Holmes is the ultimate like, competent detective who never fails. Or almost never, you know, you have Michael Mann characters who are icons of competence, right? Like, you have James Caan as the thief. I can’t remember his name in the movie, but he’s a master safecracker that everybody wants. And Chris Hemsworth is the hacker and Blackhat he’s the master hacker. That’s like also a master knife fighter. Black Hat is good. By the way. I’ll go to the bad for that. Especially the new one. The Director’s Cut good movie. Good movie. Yeah. But Michael Mann has kind of the archetypal like modern competence porn. You go to see those movies for these cool guys in cool outfits with like, abilities that are almost cartoonishly powerful, like good like great. I’m a great cop. I’m a great safecracker bla bla bla. And it also contains like the seeds of Neo noir where people do like, die horribly and unfairly. And success is not always rewarded. And sometimes like in like in collateral, the competent person is the villain. And to just escape from that situation is the triumphant and not not to be the competent person, but to get away from them. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
okay, so that was movies. Let’s go back to literature because we don’t want to talk too much about movies for too long, even though I fucking love movies. And there’s, we will talk more about movies but one of the oldest recorded stories, the Epic of Gilgamesh, absolutely. The mesh is a fuckup he keeps fucking up he gets his best friend killed. He’s a douchebag he tries to find the secret of immortality and then he fucks up and it gets eaten by a snake. He gets to stay awake to show a pitch to him that he’s serious. And he immediately falls asleep for an entire week.
J.R. Bolt
Oh yeah. Gilgamesh fucks up like even in other legends that aren’t the Epic of Gilgamesh like Anona clowns on him and turns him into a simp. It builds her wooden throne based on the the Drucilla of Sumur or whatever the the name for it was, is the World Tree of Zoomers Sumerian mythology. Good for and there’s there’s a lot of failure and destruction in in Sumerian mythology and of course in later mythologies, like anything, Greek mythology is full of it, of course, right?
R.S. Benedict
And I mean, a lot of the Epic of Gilgamesh is about like the sadness of being human and the sadness of being a human in civilization, this, this newfangled concept called human civilization. And like this weird human condition of unlike most animals, you have a sense of a you have a sense of your own mortality, but you can’t do shit about it. You are a spiritual being, that will still fucking die and can like choke to death on a chicken wing and has to take a shit. Like, it is a very strange thing to be human. And to know human consciousness.
J.R. Bolt
I mean, in Sumerian mythology, the reasons humans have consciousness at all is because Enkidu got too drunk and Anona and Ninja bar stole the stole the means of consciousness from him.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, so epic of Gilgamesh, like the first great story is about a failed son. Really? Yeah, rich fuck up. Who fails and gets his bro killed? Yep. Oh, and speaking of another important legend about a fuckup fail son, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
J.R. Bolt
Yes,
R.S. Benedict
absolutely. Our boys, our boys are posi yo, where’s the magic sash? He fucks up he just decapitating the guy in the first place was a huge fuckup like you could have just poked him gently on the nose. You could have booked the Green Knight right? And in one Christmas a year from now he would have come back and booked you gently on the nose. And you would both have a little laugh about that. You’re
J.R. Bolt
already getting to seriously, you’re mad about Pictionary in front of all your friends
R.S. Benedict
to fucking hard I said like Okay, hit me and I’ll hit you back you decapitate him right? What the fuck dude?
J.R. Bolt
I mean technically it’s within the bounds of the rules but you kind of overstepped Yeah, like
R.S. Benedict
Dude you really that was too much Come on. Which is which is why I love in the adaptation like mixed feelings about the adaptation but the the adaptation totally gets like this guy’s a fuckin idiot. He’s a complete fuckup I really liked the movie for that reason light a fire. He’s constantly damp. Everybody’s constantly asking him like, why did you do that dude?
J.R. Bolt
He spends about a third of the movie like tied up under a tree.
R.S. Benedict
wound equipment like Sam SRN at the beginning of every Metroid game just loses all he has a great horse a sword, all this good shape immediately loses it.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. And that’s that’s ultimately a narrative of you know, he at least he learns his lesson. And in the movie, it’s ambiguous whether he dies or not been a gentleman.
R.S. Benedict
I mean that he learns a different message i, which I love. It’s like the Green Knight is is kind of a story about like, Christianity is triumph over paganism and nature worship. And I feel like it’s a response to that almost going like, well, how’s that working for you? Yeah. And I loved that the movie kind of got the vibe of that one, like Lord and Lady where he’s staying because I’m reading the legend going, like, Wait, he’s going hunting, and he’s giving you half of his hunt. And you’re at home while his wife tries to fuck you. And he asks you for half of what you got like this.
J.R. Bolt
It’s like, Yo, I saw you from across the more like your vibe. Verily,
R.S. Benedict
We don’t dig it. The movie absolutely leans into it was like, Yeah, we know. We know. Yep. We got to acknowledge this was good.
J.R. Bolt
It’s very good. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
But yeah, I mean, even though he’s survived that the original of the story, like the court, everybody wears a green sash or something as a little joke on him of, here’s when you pussied out, you fucking ridiculous boy.
J.R. Bolt
Absolutely. And going back to the idea of a character can fail but still represent a spiritual or philosophical or moral triumph. Right? Right. And you have a edit Stark, of course, is like the negative version of that, where, you know, he’s honorable and to death, and it causes pretty much the collapse of the entire realm. You know, like he fails by being short sighted and being basically unable to be flexible, right. And the positive inverse would be probably trying to be able iron Council, where, you know, not to spoil the book too much. Well, it’s all spoilers down the road.
R.S. Benedict
But we’re spoiling everything right now. Yeah, there’s
J.R. Bolt
a rebellious faction of a communist incursion, called the perpetual train. And it’s writing into the city to take it to the fascist government in a glorious blaze of destruction. But what happens in the book for a variety of reasons, they get basically trapped in time and frozen as a as a symbol of the revolution that lasts forever, even though like their characters are literally like, trapped, like, just like, in this case, sort of, like nowhere world. And it’s both a success and a failure, because, you know, they were writing into guaranteed death at the hands of the fascist. But when they’re trapped in time, they’re unable to be destroyed. So they remain as the symbol the spiritual success and this this inspiration to, you know, generations to come, maybe infinity to come, there’s multiple levels of what failure can mean, it doesn’t always mean like a bummer. Or it means like, you know, you fucked up and you’re destined to be, you know, dead. It there can be many things. And then that’s a Tolkien thing. And China medieval thing,
R.S. Benedict
I would argue the movie, Francis Ha, is about that a little bit. I’m gonna spoil it. And it’s, it’s very much not a genre fiction type thing. But it’s about a girl who wants to be a professional dancer in New York City. And she’s pursuing this dream. She’s pursuing this fucking dream, and it’s tearing her life apart. Because she is not fit to be a professional dancer, she doesn’t have it. She does not have the juice, but she will not let go of this dream. And it’s like, Francis, you should not know. You have to fucking stop. And at the end, she finally gives up on her dream of being a professional dancer. And it’s the best possible decision for her she ends up actually doing really well she settles down for like a clerical job in the dance company where she’s trying to get cast and the lady’s like, you know, recognizes I know you got a lot of heart and a lot of enthusiasm, but you do not have it. Yeah, she ends up designing choreography instead. And actually, she’s really good at it. She’s doing great and her life is going way better. She gave up on her dream.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, even rocky didn’t win the fight. It’s a drawing the end. Right? Well, you did with stand up. I mean, which is a triumph in itself. But like maybe the victory is not the point is as that movie points up,
R.S. Benedict
right, right. And then I would say a really good example I think in which nobody gets exactly what they want, or everybody kind of does or kind of doesn’t is The Left Hand of Darkness. As trough in fucking dice. He fucking dies. Generally I ends up kind of lonely. Nobody really 100% gets exactly things the way they want them to be. I mean, I guess the planet get then joins the whatever it is the sort of League of Nations in space thing, but everyone ends up kind of sad and a little bit confused and unfulfilled.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. See? And that can be very good. It can be satisfying even. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
it’s I mean, it’s a beautiful novel. I love it. Well, Let’s talk maybe not necessarily failure endings, but characters who are losers or just people who are kind of perpetual losers or just not triumph and amazing people. Most of the characters in Slaughterhouse Five, okay are just, I mean, it’s not exactly a story of triumph. It’s it’s survival. But this is a story about World War Two. That’s remarkable because it doesn’t have heroes in it. Our main character Billy Pilgrim is like a total dork. He’s not a cool noble soldier. He’s a complete fucking dweeb. He’s useless as a worrier. He sucks. And part of the reason he survives is because the Nazis realize, hey, this guy is not a threat to us. Let’s just put them in a POW camp. It’s fine. We do not need to worry about this fucking guy. Yeah. The actually competent soldiers get shot to death. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
I have not read that book, unfortunately. Oh, it’s good. But
R.S. Benedict
like almost everybody in it is just a complete loser. fuckup it’s really really, really good. It’s very good.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, like most of the like I’ve read a couple of Vonnegut I read player piano and stuff and he doesn’t seem interested much in the concept of heroes as it is now. The only hero that I recall from him was Harrison Bergeron. Which is like his libertarian fable I guess kind of Kinda, yeah, totally different thing, I
R.S. Benedict
guess. Yeah. Although I remember hearing that that was supposed to be ironic. That would make a lot of it’s just like totally ridiculous. It’s
J.R. Bolt
very ridiculous. But I guess that’s what the Incredibles actually is. So Brad Burgess think it was ironic.
R.S. Benedict
I think Connie and woman on the edge of time might kind of qualify your her ending is ambiguous. We’re not sure if what she does made any difference if she’s actually time traveling, or if she’s just crazy. And there’s this amazing scene where her friend from the future is like giving her a pep talk about like, Oh, I know you failed in your plan, but just try again. And Connie like loses her shit on her and says no, like you don’t you don’t fucking get it. You do not understand what it’s like to be actually legitimately oppressed. Because you live in the Happy Vegan genderqueer future and I live in like shitty 1970s Present day shut the fuck up you asshole. Shut the fuck up. And it’s really really, really good. Nice. Rinku Oh, yeah,
J.R. Bolt
we could talk about horror as the genre of failure. Failure. I mean, we talked about noir a little bit, because that’s genre fiction too. But like, yeah, horror is the speculative fiction genre that is all about failure almost almost entirely.
R.S. Benedict
And what I love about Ringo or the ring or that whole series, and I’m going to maybe make people mad and say I actually liked the American movie of the ring better than Ringo because, like, I agree in a psychic character in a mystery is bullshit. You
J.R. Bolt
know, I like Hideo Nakata does work his movies I think I think that’s the director of the ring or ring guru rather beautiful beautiful look at very atmospheric but I do like Gore Verbinski is the ring a lot better. It’s really harrowing, scary movie for? It’s the scariest PG 13 movie I’ve ever seen at least. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
and the part about it that’s scary is just like they do everything right. They solve the mystery. Yeah, and it doesn’t help it does not do shit. It makes things worse. It makes it which I loved it’s so mean.
J.R. Bolt
Yep. Yeah, and you get the sense
R.S. Benedict
it’s like oh, we gave the murderer ghost what she wanted things will be okay now like No they won’t ya know, the
J.R. Bolt
murder ghost was the bad guy.
R.S. Benedict
You gave a murder ghost what it wanted? why would why did you think that would help? Yep.
J.R. Bolt
And that’s that’s one of the things that you get that in a lot of horror, or at least a lot of the better horror is where, you know, you can do everything right, you can do what you think is right. And you can do you can operate at the maximum of your intelligence and solve the mystery. And it was a mystery that was never meant to be solved. That’s, that’s every Lovecraft protagonist.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Oh, you solved the mystery. You shouldn’t have done that, buddy. That was bad idea, like success
J.R. Bolt
has its costs and Lovecraft warned about that in the first paragraph of Call of Cthulhu the warning to all the scientists. There’s some mysteries that shouldn’t be solved. I can’t quote the whole thing. Yeah. But it’s about how the science is straining and the different directions will one day lead to horrible revelation. He so in success is the failure. Right? And horror embraces that for sure.
R.S. Benedict
Right Heart. I mean, we could talk so much about horror, but I had to highlight Rinku because of the very specific type of failure it’s not just oh, they don’t they don’t defeat the monster. It’s like oh, the way they fail is so mean and unfair. You’re so mean. That’s what makes it great. That’s what makes it rock.
J.R. Bolt
And I’ve been reading a lot of oh, this week I’ve been watching all the Tomi a movies after after reading Gingy Ito’s manga about it. You If you don’t know told me a it’s it’s a series of sort of 20 chapters 20 short stories, I guess, about a young woman who is basically I’ve described her as like a commie of entropy. She shows up to basically ruin someone’s life. Because she’s a beautiful young woman who can’t, you know, she can’t be killed. Essentially, like men are obsessed with her because she’s beautiful and she’s she has a magnetic like seductive power like a succubus Soria, the magical temptress. And they get obsessed with her and oftentimes they kill her or they or she goads them to kill somebody else. And she can’t be killed permanently. She always comes back as like a John Carpenter’s The things sort of body horror entity. Like like a flatworm, like, you cut her up, and she’ll just grow like 10 more copies of herself. Nice. It’s a very weighted theme in terms of like, dissecting men’s misogyny and their fears of this power, this this feminine power over them. And what she really does is just create failure and everyone she encounters including herself. That’s why I say like, she’s like, she’s a creature of entropy. She represents ultimate failure in every way, because nobody ever wins when Tomia shows up, and not even herself. And the movies are really good about showing this. So far. I’ve watched what five of them now there’s nine of them. Like it’s like the the Freddy or Jason franchise of Japan, right. But one of the reasons it, I bring it up and the reason it weighs on me heavily is because it is so much explicitly and in text about failure, about everybody making the wrong decision at every given time for like blackly comic purposes. And it is tragic and horrible. But it’s also really funny. It’s almost like a burlesque of Gothic violence, often visited upon women. But you know, Tommy always has the last laugh because she she’s always going to come back and she’s always gonna make things worse.
R.S. Benedict
Nice. Good for her.
J.R. Bolt
She is a girl boss.
R.S. Benedict
We love her. Yay. All right, fuck ups and failures. Ari Astor movies. Absolutely. A lot of failures and losers pose afraid is about a sad fucking loser of a man just having a terrible time. Just having the worst possible time for three hours.
J.R. Bolt
We love it. I haven’t seen that movie yet.
R.S. Benedict
I’ve seen it once. And that was enough. It was very good. I don’t think I could watch it again. an hour. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
I mean, that sounds pretty good to me. Yeah. And I know it’s gonna be a bad time because that’s what he excels in. God bless. Yeah, he’s
R.S. Benedict
he’s created bad times. He is incredible. At bad times. Nothing fucked me up worse than the first time I saw hereditary in the theater. No movie felt like it was designed specifically to upset me personally. More than hereditary. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
I mean, it’s kind of the, the ultimate modern form of at least like that domestic nuclear family horror. And a lot of horror is about the dissolution of the nuclear family in its failure to bring the happiness that it was supposed to, right. I mean, that was the point of poltergeist going all the way back to, to that. And a lot of times like failure, a failure of a system of a social system of a family of a society. And you see this in, like I just mentioned to me as well. But it’s pointedly like failures of systems to protect you not just a character’s failure, but a societal failure. Hereditary does that really well, because they’re a nuclear family. They have no support. They’re like the little dollhouse. They’re just like locked in time. Like away from everybody else.
R.S. Benedict
Oh, yeah. Yeah, God, I love it. And I love just the the anxieties of like, what if you actually can’t overcome your family issues? What if you can’t like every, every woman’s terrified of turning into her mother?
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. And horror is good at you know, expressing that and not giving it a bow tied at the end where it’s like, oh, you can defeat it? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes. You have to carry on anyway.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, hereditary Jesus Christ. What seen in hereditary fucks you up the worst. I have to do a little aside. The head. Yeah, that’s a good one.
J.R. Bolt
But the piano wire was good.
R.S. Benedict
That was good. For me. It’s when the old lady casts peter out of his own body. Oh, yeah. Like that’s the scene that upset me the most he’s in school. He looks across the street. And there’s this crazy old woman yelling and she like gills, some Latin or something at him and pointed him and says, I cast you out Peter. And that like that was what fucked me up the most because like, he just stops. He loses control of his body and his own soul.
J.R. Bolt
Yes. Just got I liked that wording too. Because I cast you out is like, you know, that’s what a priest would say. So
R.S. Benedict
this season. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
Didn’t even say that to you. It’s like oh, If language has that power and belief has the power to be used against you, I guess you fucked
R.S. Benedict
apparently the word she uses in, you know, Latin or whatever languages it is our words that were traditionally used in exorcisms. Yeah, she’s just exercising like the rightful spirit from the body that it’s supposed to belong to. Just like you’re gone now. Goodbye, like, Well, fuck.
J.R. Bolt
You made a sandwich. Like you. You made the weapon to be used. I mean, yeah, it’s
R.S. Benedict
so brutal. It’s brutal. Oh, God, but anyway.
J.R. Bolt
Oh, I was gonna say, related. When evil lurks is a god damn. That’s a movie about failure. We are exegesis of failure, I think, total
R.S. Benedict
Phox fuck ups. Just our guys are complete fuck ups in this movie.
J.R. Bolt
I mean, that’s what makes it such a harrowing watch. Because like, the thing about horror movies is that, you know, you have the characters here, like, Oh, don’t go in the basement. Don’t go bla bla bla. And you want to tell the characters to act differently and you probably justified in doing it. But the failure in this movie starts at the very top. Like it’s a social failure. It’s a structural failure. It’s a world where demonic possession is already a known to be a thing that happens. And the government and your community can do nothing to stop it or help you at all.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, I love that. They’re just on your own. Like the cops or whatever, who are supposed to deal with it. They just don’t know. They know what’s the problem? They do. It’s a serious problem. And there’s like, Yeah, whatever. We’ll get to it eventually. Like what’s
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, and what’s, and social failure is such an important concept. I mean, the dystopian fiction writ large is, you know, social failure. Its structural failure, infrastructure failure. And a person’s like, struggle through it. When evil looks as kind of a dystopian movie in that regard.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, especially.
J.R. Bolt
It’s so good. It’s a good bad time.
R.S. Benedict
It is it goes hard. Let a lot of very no one gets plot armor in that movie. Nope. No one is safe. Just because they’re, you know, X. Oh, you’re you’re disabled. You’re a kid. You’re an old lady. It’ll be fun. No, no, you will not
J.R. Bolt
you might get it whereas you will not be okay. Because in real life, that’s what happens when you’re vulnerable. You get God. And horror at least tells you that
R.S. Benedict
oh, man, it’s bad. It’s rough. It is a bad time that movie. You think they’re not going to show that oh, they showed it? They? They straight up showed that happen? They sure did. Yeah.
J.R. Bolt
The the entire like, the moral of when evil lurks is like evil will always try and because good is dumb. It’s it’s dark helmet. That’s it’s just dark helmet yelling at you for two hours. Oh,
R.S. Benedict
God. God, it’s brutal. Jesus. Good movie. But yeah, it prepare to be very upset
J.R. Bolt
for sure. And it’s a great example.
R.S. Benedict
Oh, and the whaling speaking of her failure. Damn. Yes. We were talking about that in the discord in terms of horror movies that were really mean. Oh,
J.R. Bolt
yeah, the whaling and then there’s a small movement of Asian secession flicks that are like that. The medium is one incantation is another they’re all kind of similar in that way where they pose this spiritual crisis that the local religion and faith absolutely fails to deal with. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
well, there’s like no way a normal person could figure out what they were supposed to do in that situation. At least in the whaling I haven’t seen those other movies but it’s like they’re a bunch of different people telling him what to do and giving him guidance and like how the how the fuck do you know which is the right one? Yeah, you’re just some guy you don’t know. I
J.R. Bolt
mean to a Western viewer of course like Korean Taoism would be impenetrable, but even to the you know, the makers and watchers the movie it’s an arcane thing much like medieval Catholicism would be to us we don’t know the rules. Yeah. If we’re gonna transgress somehow and we’re gonna pay you the price right? Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
of course. It’s so brutal and it’s just right it’s such a it’s a very good downer movie it’s very beautiful movie
J.R. Bolt
I love the hobbit Jan’s beautiful the yes the writer. I believe he’s the writer or the director and or the director of the whaling he also did some other crime movies that were really good. Also extremely new and new are pictures of failure. Speaking
R.S. Benedict
of whaling Moby Dick, yes. With different kinds of whaling okay. Did that but I’m
J.R. Bolt
just cut that in there. Or segue but um, check with them.
R.S. Benedict
We they try to catch the whale they do not will fucking kills the shit out of them.
J.R. Bolt
Yes, yeah. And the point is not success. It’s hamartia that’s the fatal flaw of Captain Ahab.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, you could have been fine. You there hunted normal sized whales. You could have let this one go. But he could have been a cobbler
J.R. Bolt
He only needs one shoe but he can like could
R.S. Benedict
have been fine he can make shoes could have been fine and said ish males wonderful husband met the briny deep Yep. Rest in peace Queequeg we love you quick. tattooed cannibal hunk,
J.R. Bolt
don’t we all want one?
R.S. Benedict
God? Yes, my God. I was not prepared for how gay that book actually was
J.R. Bolt
the well, it’s about it’s about marriage at the very beginning. Yes.
R.S. Benedict
Like I knew it was going to be a bit homoerotic. But I didn’t know it was going to be that homoerotic. I did not know how hard it was going to go into it because it’s just blows my mind and it’s so funny to me that so many stodgy old traditionalist academics are like, this is the greatest novel of all time, and I’m reading it going like, this is gay shit. Yeah, the gay shit I’ve ever read this book and rocks.
J.R. Bolt
Maybe that’s why they’re saying it. Because you can’t be the gift can’t be the greatest novel of all time without being the gayest novel of all time. Or at least so
R.S. Benedict
extremely gay. It’s so good. So good. Fucking Quick, quick and Ishmael get married in the first 13 chapters. Yeah,
J.R. Bolt
and it describes them, you know, hunkered down in the bunk. Yeah, their arms wrapped around each other, you know, normal, normal bro stuff
R.S. Benedict
wrapped in Queequeg brides grooms embrace, which is a very heterosexual thing to say about your friends. And just the way he describes clique legs body. Yeah, at the time, like, Oh, you were thirsting you this is this is not neutral here. He
J.R. Bolt
wants to know the meaning of all those tattoos.
R.S. Benedict
The bit I loved the most. I think it’s just there’s a chapter about chowder. And like Ishmael is freaking out because he’s afraid that like chowder won’t be hardy enough for his powerful alpha male husband. And it’s like so touching and beautiful. So awesome. It’s just gonna like chowder enough. My man needs his protein. You need some more protein you don’t understand. He’s got to
J.R. Bolt
maintain his physique.
R.S. Benedict
He’s got to maintain his physique. He needs like 700 grams of protein a day. He’s so strong chowders not manly enough,
J.R. Bolt
won’t be able to live. Leave me to his bosom if he’s not. Exactly.
R.S. Benedict
We love it’s beautiful. It’s like really, really touching. I find it really sweet. I know. Like so many of the little downtime chapters like oh, wait, what is this book have an entire chapter about Chatterley because it fucking rocks. It’s really important.
J.R. Bolt
You have to know how to make it out there. You know, as you were saying, like, it ends in tragedy and ends in failure. Oh, another chunk of evil book that is a very clear reference to Moby Dick is the scar. Several powerful characters, not the leads, they’re in charge of moving a giant waterborne city like It’s like a It’s called Armada. It’s like a collection of boats that’s become like a little city, the leaders of Armada are dragging the city to that place called the scar, which is like they’re, you know, metaphorically at least they’re Moby Dick, their ultimate goal is to reach this place called the scar, which is like a Dimensional Rift, I guess. And, you know, not to spoil it, but we are spoiling it, they never reach it. They never get there. They have to give up. You know, it’s tragic. It’s it’s the entire novel is like at least a parallel and an oblique reference to Moby Dick. And it’s all about failure. In the end. Oh, in the first novel of Chinese naval, pretty new street station also failure. Isaac never never gets to make wings for the Garuda guy, I can’t remember his name. But his entire goal through the thing, it just ends in nothing. And, you know, you can criticize certain of China to be able to tics and his his treatment of female characters, especially, at least in the first book, but he embraces the idea of of a noble failure and failure as something that is not just a downer, but satisfying in a psychological way. Because the characters and the reader can both think around these failures and say that there’s alternate possibilities, even if you don’t get what you want. Yeah, like it’s not the end of the world if you fail, unless it is, which it sometimes is. Yeah. But in sci fi fantasy, you know, it doesn’t have to be fatal all the time. Sometimes you can fuck up and you can survive.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, let’s see. Oh, I’m just thinking of all the required English reading. Fucking To Kill a Mockingbird. Oh, yeah, they lose that case, right? There’s no way they’re gonna win it. It’s Mississippi in the 1930s Oh, yeah. You’re not gonna win it they managed to humiliate the Papa you’ll be because he’s a piece of shit and now everybody knows it. But they lose that case man.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah, I read that in high school but I don’t recall that much of it. I was it Boo Radley who ran the witness like a
R.S. Benedict
weird guy right he’s the shut in next door neighbor rescues the children at the end. He’s not the the accused. Know, the black guy. Yeah, that’s such a it’s time. I
J.R. Bolt
remember that affected me quite a bit, but I don’t recall the details, honestly.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, yeah. But they lose that case that and there was like, no way they were gonna fucking win it at that time in that place. Not happening, unfortunately. Yeah. And it’s it’s very tragic.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah that’s that’s an illustrative sort of failure right? It’s story it’s society for sure.
R.S. Benedict
I know Atticus Finch is very much a beloved figure for like, sort of white liberals so there could be criticism made of the book and that like, okay, is this just sort of narrative What is that like? I don’t know. Maybe but I just imagine
J.R. Bolt
something horrible Raquel. Oh no Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird. So I just cringed thinking
R.S. Benedict
about this. Atticus Finch wins the case with facts and logic and a big
J.R. Bolt
American flag drapes behind them. Like a four page speech about how good America is for like, letting this guy off. And then Lin Manuel Miranda comes in at the end to wrap out
R.S. Benedict
what rhymes with Atticus?
J.R. Bolt
Got to leave that for the listeners to decide.
R.S. Benedict
That’s That’s upsetting. I wish you hadn’t. I’m mad now. That this exists in the abstract, they fucking canceled or flag means death. So like, Oh, so you know, take it like, the director can fucking make this happen.
J.R. Bolt
He’s gonna play Atticus Ross.
R.S. Benedict
He’s gonna make it happen.
J.R. Bolt
He’s gonna He’s gonna have it. He’s gonna wear his little like Hawaiian shirt like suit in the courtroom. Yeah, he’s gonna do like little Mr. Bean antics. Oh, wow.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, he’s gonna He’s gonna wear a non toxic masculinity. That’s right. Until he gets canceled inevitably, because that always happens. We we keep picking like random media men and be like, This is the great avatar of non toxic masculinity and then within like, three years finding a reason to dislike him and just getting incredibly angry at him forever.
J.R. Bolt
Well, if it happens, I won’t shed a tear. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
I mean, if it was that guy that goes knowing his shit. So whatever. It’s just a weird cycle. Yeah, I mean, it’s like it’s like some pagan thing like the what is it the king for a day ritual where you just like pick a random guy, some like random low born guy and put a crown on his head and let him be king for a day and then you like set him on fire when the day is up. I
J.R. Bolt
wouldn’t be kind of like that. That feels better than our current like milkshake duck system where he just sort of like find a find a guy who’s trying really hard to seem like he’s, you know, woke and and doing the right thing. But like in such a patently obvious way that it’s it seems false. And you know, we’ve been through this before with what the fuck a dozen guys dozens. 1000s. Yeah. I mean, Hugo Schweitzer. There you go. If anyone remembers that. That’s a throwback for y’all. God damn that guy. That was from the era where people would say y’all yes, they
R.S. Benedict
still do. How’s your Millennial Students still do. It’s upsetting. I am in New York State. And I will occasionally hear a blonde woman say y’all, and it’s I’m grateful because it’s a very useful red flag.
J.R. Bolt
Y’all it’s very good. You know, but it’s culturally located. You know, you know, we’re talking about, yeah, if you’re, if you’re black, like that’s great.
R.S. Benedict
Then it’s fine. If you’re away from your janky state do not please. In the New York State Capitol Region.
J.R. Bolt
I hear Canadians doing it. Please don’t. Oh, no. No, I just say white Canadians because of course, there are black Canadians, they,
R.S. Benedict
they can say whatever they want. You can say what you want, but like, white Canadian,
J.R. Bolt
you’ve been to online. I’m sorry. I feel
R.S. Benedict
like if you’re a cowboy, you can do it too. If you’re a cowboy. You can do it. Well, Southern. Yes. Yeah. I feel like even if you’re like a northern horse person, it’s kind of
J.R. Bolt
Northern Canadian horse. People are a different breed. I’ll tell you that. My granted
R.S. Benedict
I don’t know. I don’t know what Canadian horse people are. So maybe they’re terrible.
J.R. Bolt
We’re very strange. I wouldn’t say terrible just a strange breed.
R.S. Benedict
Is it like English style riding there? And like really intensely weird about it that way? Dressed
J.R. Bolt
like English writing. Yes. Acts like English writing. No. So it’s a very weird mashup. Like there’s a mix of like Jason Aldine dipshit country but also like, your where the riding helmet and the little, little vest with the patch on it, like a jockey. Like there’s a mix. Mix.
R.S. Benedict
That’s a weird mix. That’s Canada.
J.R. Bolt
Yes, like Canada in a nutshell. Really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. A weird mix. Whenever you watch a movie, and it feels slightly off somehow and you don’t understand why it always turns out like, Oh, this is Canadian. Okay.
J.R. Bolt
Yeah. And I want to be back in that my view to make and be part of cut rate Canadian films. Speaking of failures, you know, yes, there are lots of that.
R.S. Benedict
It’s great. All right. So we’ve gone full circle, I think from making fun of Canada to making fun of Canada. So why don’t we draw this episode to a close? Just in conclusion, failures and fuck ups and losers are worth caring about in literature as they are worth caring about in all in real life, because we’re all fuck ups. We’re all fuck ups. No one gave us instructions on how to live. I mean, I guess they did. But they weren’t very good instructions. They’re not great. We’re doing our best or we’re really not doing our best. But we’re still worthy of love. And that’s okay. But before we go, Jr, tell us some things you’d like to plug.
J.R. Bolt
Oh, nothing really much to plug, you know, I’ve been. I’ve been trying to find my voice as a writer over the pandemic, especially as a critic and as a writer, or a nonfiction writer. So I started a letterbox to count that I’ve been taking a little more seriously. And imagine taking a letterbox account seriously. Speaking of failure, but I just finished a 2500 words piece about 2500 words about Ghostbusters, actually. So if you’re interested in that, which there’s got to be one of you. I have that. And I’ve been running with the tomyam movies. And of course, I have my fiction works in progress, which will be coming out fairly soon. This year, for sure.
R.S. Benedict
Well, thank you for coming on the show. And we would like to stress that this is the our third attempt at recording this episode. Because we failed the past two times in keeping with the theme of this show. Yeah, yeah,
J.R. Bolt
we’re fucking it up here. We’re fucking up
R.S. Benedict
yet. tricast failed to acknowledge your microphone.
J.R. Bolt
And I failed to turn my microphone on and the windows 10 settings. God figured that out today.
R.S. Benedict
All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
J.R. Bolt
Thank you so much for having me Raquel.
R.S. Benedict
All right. Thank you all for listening. If you like what you heard, head to patreon.com/ritegud. And subscribe. Until next time, keep writing good.