41: Lord of the Flies (1954 Novel)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast. I'm Wendy. I'm Jason. I'm Cassie. And this is

[00:00:24] Yellowjackets WTF Podcast. Woohoo! Back at it. Yeah, episode 41. I couldn't believe when

[00:00:31] I saw that. We've been gone for a little while. We've been on hiatus with Yellowjackets WTF

[00:00:37] until season three comes out, but we thought you would enjoy another midseason episode.

[00:00:42] And this time we're going to be talking about the 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies by author

[00:00:48] William Golding. And we'll of course talk about how it compares or doesn't to Yellowjackets.

[00:00:53] Wendy, I'm glad you wanted to do this because Lord of the Flies I think is pretty crucial

[00:01:01] to Yellowjackets. I don't think we would have Yellowjackets without Lord of the Flies. So

[00:01:05] this is great. Yeah, I agree. I hadn't read it in a long time. So it was really cool to

[00:01:11] go back. I think I was 15 last time I read it. I think I was probably in my late teens.

[00:01:18] And we should welcome Cassie. I'm glad you wanted to do this. It's good to meet you and

[00:01:23] to have you on. Hi, glad to be on. Was it your idea? Um, I think so. I think we had

[00:01:32] talked about like, just the root of Yellowjackets and how it came to be. And there were obvious

[00:01:37] parallels to the Andes disaster. And I think that was in the 70s or 80s. And then I was

[00:01:44] like, yeah, but it was based on Lord of the Flies first. And so I think it kind of spiraled

[00:01:48] from there. And can I ask who Who are you? I am Wendy's daughter. And I teach English

[00:01:58] ninth grade English at a public school. So I have read and taught yellow or Lord of

[00:02:04] the Flies for eight years. Do you talk about Yellowjackets in your class? Yes. Yeah, not

[00:02:10] a lot. But yes. How many of the kids have seen that? Um, not a ton. I would say in each

[00:02:19] of the classes that I teach, maybe like one or two students have read it or have watched

[00:02:24] it. That's cool. I wish it was more but kids aren't watching TV these days. I don't

[00:02:31] think they're watching YouTube. They truly are. Yes. And Tick Tock, I'm guessing. And

[00:02:39] Instagram reels. Yep. That's where it's at. Ah, it really just makes me wonder what

[00:02:45] entertainment is going to be like 20 years from now. It's gonna just be like 20 second

[00:02:50] bursts on you go to the movies and watch it for 20 minutes, seconds or something. I

[00:02:55] will say I have trouble like sitting down to something that's several hours long. This is

[00:03:02] the first novel I've read in I can't remember how long because mostly my attention span

[00:03:10] is just shattered. So I was really glad actually to have a reason to read a novel again. And

[00:03:18] I hadn't read Lord of the Flies since I was in high school probably. And it was a pleasure.

[00:03:24] It was so great. Yeah, I agree. One day to get into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:03:31] But after I got into it, yeah.

[00:03:38] All right, I will give a little bit of background on the novel. First, I think we should state

[00:03:44] that we're going to spoil major plot points of Yellowjacket seasons one and two and the

[00:03:49] novel Lord of the Flies. So if you don't want to be spoiled by any of that, stop listening now.

[00:03:54] And if you haven't seen Yellowjackets yet, I don't know what to do with you.

[00:03:59] And I would we I think we all would recommend reading Lord of the Flies. If you like

[00:04:04] Yellowjackets, I think you're gonna like this book. I don't know. I'm pretty sure you will.

[00:04:09] It's, it's interesting to me, reading that I remember I loved this book as a kid. It was dark

[00:04:16] and it was pretty shocking. And I also liked 1984, which is also really dark and shocking.

[00:04:24] And I think TV kind of caught up to that aesthetic. You know, the kind of shows that we like

[00:04:29] are like that, like Game of Thrones and Yellowjackets and Handmaid's Tale. But it wasn't

[00:04:34] back then, I don't think so much. So anyway, if you like that kind of TV, like we do, I

[00:04:40] think you're gonna like this book.

[00:04:41] Yeah, I agree. So the book is written in 1954 by William Golding. It's about a group of

[00:04:48] British schoolboys that were evacuated from some type of atomic war when their plane is shot

[00:04:55] down and they're stranded on an inhabited island. And it's all about their attempts to

[00:05:04] police themselves, govern themselves,

[00:05:07] create a little civilization.

[00:05:08] Yeah.

[00:05:10] Survive.

[00:05:11] All right. Cassie, you're our guest. You want to go first? Your first point?

[00:05:18] My first point? I would love to talk about the face masks in Lord of the Flies and in

[00:05:25] Yellowjackets. It's one of my favorite symbols in the book. And it's something that I don't

[00:05:30] think we've seen a lot in the show so far. Like episode one, when we have, I guess, the

[00:05:37] flashback to all of them in the circle eating the meat and all their faces are covered. And

[00:05:44] we've seen a little bit of that when we hit season two, when Shauna is butchering the

[00:05:49] body, and she pulls her rag over her face or she pulls it up over her face.

[00:05:56] And also at the, oh man, I should have studied up, but Lottie's group that we think is like

[00:06:04] a cult. I forget the name of it, but they have their animal masks.

[00:06:08] Yeah. And we've seen it evolve. It's really interesting. We've seen how they get to it

[00:06:13] in the wilderness. We've seen how Lottie stole it for her little cult. But it's going to

[00:06:17] be interesting, I guess, in the upcoming season to see like how exactly everyone got their

[00:06:22] mask. We saw that in season one. I can't remember what the episode was. The big dinner

[00:06:31] scene.

[00:06:31] Doom coming.

[00:06:32] Oh, yeah. Some of them had face masks and stuff like that. So it's just going to be

[00:06:37] interesting to see how that develops.

[00:06:39] Right. And it's all I feel like, you know, it's all about communing with the spirits

[00:06:45] and the essence of nature. And I can't remember, but does each one of the cannibal

[00:06:50] council have a different animal mask?

[00:06:53] They all have different masks in the cannibal council, I guess partly because of all the

[00:07:00] different materials they would have had to scrounge up. But in the book, the mask is

[00:07:05] something that they use partially to camouflage themselves from the pigs. That's a

[00:07:11] major plot point in the book. There are wild boars on the island and the boys are

[00:07:14] continuously trying to hunt them. But the mask is also something they use for fun. And

[00:07:20] it's kind of like a way to remove yourself from your identity for them.

[00:07:24] Oh, yeah.

[00:07:24] Yeah, you're hiding from something.

[00:07:27] Yeah. Well, someone talked about there was a line about the liberation of when they go

[00:07:35] into those wild frenzies in the book, and they're reenacting killing the pig, and they

[00:07:42] just about kill two different kids and then do kill a third just because they're so

[00:07:47] frenzy. But there's some line about the liberation, I think of

[00:07:51] liberated from shame and self-consciousness, probably.

[00:07:55] Maybe. And, and it's just, yeah, it just gives you well, I don't want to step on your

[00:08:00] point too much. But I think there's a lot of it in here. You know, there's, I think,

[00:08:06] Jack is the ID like if you go if you I mean, who knows how much people take stock in

[00:08:12] Freudian theory anymore. But I think that it ego super ego thing is kind of interesting

[00:08:16] still. And it is just pure drive and base savagery and things like that. And ego is

[00:08:23] more like trying to synthesize that and you're conscious so you can actually put it

[00:08:29] into action and function in society. And then super ego is like morality and

[00:08:34] consciousness. At least that's my sense of all of it. And I think Jack is more

[00:08:40] representative of the ID and Ralph, the ego and piggy is like the super ego. And so I

[00:08:48] think Jack appeals like that liberation is liberation from having to worry about

[00:08:54] responsibility, morality or anything like that just to be able to go wild basically.

[00:08:59] Do you think Jack is the most savage of the boys in the book?

[00:09:03] Well, I'm really creeped out by Roger.

[00:09:06] Yeah. So that's a major thing in the book, right? You're meant to think that Jack is

[00:09:11] the most evil because he is the one who's giving the evil orders. He is the one who's

[00:09:15] leading the charge against Ralph. But in the end, Roger truly is the one who was the most

[00:09:22] savage. He's the one who purposely released the boulder.

[00:09:25] It's like he's the he's empowered by Jack not stopping him from doing those things,

[00:09:33] almost like a Mengele or a Himmler or something like that. Like they might not have

[00:09:39] come to that power alone, but under the umbrella of Jack, he he runs with it.

[00:09:48] And I think that comes back to William Golding, like his experience in World War Two,

[00:09:53] his experience with the totalitarian states and the Nazi party. And I think that the point

[00:10:00] of that character was it's not just the people in charge, it's the people who once they get

[00:10:05] the tiniest bit of freedom to act how they want, those are the people you need to worry about.

[00:10:11] Yeah. All right, Jason.

[00:10:15] Well, I just have a whole point about comparing to Yellow Jackets. Maybe I'll just go through

[00:10:21] a few of those and see.

[00:10:24] Yeah, I have a couple of them too. So I'll jump in if you hit the same note.

[00:10:26] We can go back and forth. Yeah. So I mean, we know that Yellow Jackets writers had this book

[00:10:31] on their minds. There was this quote about the writers were told, well, you can't do

[00:10:39] Yellow Jackets with girls.

[00:10:41] Yeah, you couldn't do Lord of the Flies with girls.

[00:10:42] Or you can't do Lord of the Flies with girls. And they were like, have you met teenage girls?

[00:10:46] And so I've always said it was like Lord of the Flies meets Lost meets Mean Girls. That's kind of

[00:10:52] how I describe Yellow Jackets. I need to get some cannibal thing in there. But anyway, I think it's

[00:10:59] like it's well written. It has great characters. It's horrifying. It's deep and has something to

[00:11:04] say both Yellow Jackets and Lord of the Flies. Both are what happens when kids are away from

[00:11:11] civilization, and you see what they bring in from civilization and what they get rid of and how they

[00:11:16] do things differently. And what how they act reveals about human nature outside of civilization,

[00:11:24] but also I think in both cases, within it, you know, you, you think, oh, this shows that if we

[00:11:31] didn't have civilization, we might revert to savagery. But when you really look at it, it's

[00:11:37] like, no, civilization is still a way that within civilization we all those impulses come out but in

[00:11:47] the guise of, of sophistication and, and civilized way, but like rationale, you know, I mean,

[00:11:56] God, I got so much on my mind trying to get it all out at once. But I think like the benefits

[00:12:01] of civilization where everybody is like, oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. And then

[00:12:06] civilization where everybody can, there's rules and everybody can then be safe. And so then they

[00:12:13] don't all have to be warriors, they can specialize in different kinds of things. And that allows us

[00:12:17] to progress and bring good things like farming and, you know, technology and knowledge and

[00:12:24] advancements, but also leverages those things that people like Jack and Roger can then use to their

[00:12:33] own advantage, driven by these baser instincts that we're talking about, you know, nuclear war

[00:12:39] and war of any kind and destruction on a on a bigger scale. So these things, I say those, those

[00:12:46] kinds of things come up maybe more in Lord of the Flies than Yellow Jackets, but it's still examining

[00:12:54] how if you strip civilization away, what does that show you about human nature? And then let's go

[00:13:01] back to civilization and see, oh, wait, that's stuff is still there in some way, you know, which

[00:13:07] is why I love Yellow Jackets because it's such a, you get to examine human nature. And I like

[00:13:14] anything that lets you do that. That's one. When I thought about it, I thought a comparison between

[00:13:23] Ralph and Natalie. And what I was thinking of is all the boys of all the boys in the story,

[00:13:30] Ralph, in my opinion, goes through the biggest metamorphosis. He starts out pretty shallow and

[00:13:36] selfish. He's immediately mean to Piggy. Piggy says like, there's one thing I don't want you to do,

[00:13:43] and that's to tell anybody my nickname is Piggy, which he immediately tells everyone and makes fun

[00:13:49] of him. And he hurts him really badly. And he doesn't even seem to know that he's hurt him.

[00:13:58] It's like so unknowingly mean and bullying. And he's really overjoyed with the island at first.

[00:14:08] He looks at it like an adventure. There's no grownups. He naively believes that his father

[00:14:13] will come and rescue him, even though how would he know he was there? And over time, he becomes

[00:14:20] more thoughtful. He wrestles with the wrong or right of things. And it seems like he tries to be on the

[00:14:26] side of right, even when it's the hard way to go. He defends the other boys. He defends Piggy.

[00:14:34] And this made me think a lot of Natalie, who I think has had the biggest metamorphosis.

[00:14:38] She starts out being really the outcast, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

[00:14:44] And she's smuggling alcohol on the plane, being belligerent and rude to most of the people.

[00:14:50] But over time, she becomes the one that stands up for things that are right. And she becomes a really

[00:14:57] good friend to Shauna and Travis. And then ultimately making the biggest metamorphosis

[00:15:04] and becoming the antler queen. And who knows where we're going to see her journey go in the next time.

[00:15:11] We don't know that she's the antler queen.

[00:15:13] I mean, it seems like all evidence is pointing to that. But we're going to find out.

[00:15:18] We'll see. She's the leader. We know that.

[00:15:20] Yeah. Of the two of them, you could really see the biggest change in them throughout the story.

[00:15:29] Yeah, I liked how Ralph started. He had this sort of burden of leadership and then he started

[00:15:38] thinking deeply about things. And yeah, he's a changed person and a better person.

[00:15:45] Yeah.

[00:15:46] And it's kind of like I'm also doing the Walking Dead rewatch. So I've got that on my mind. And

[00:15:53] with Gerald Dixon, the zombie apocalypse, as horrible as it was, was good for his personal

[00:15:59] growth.

[00:16:00] Yeah.

[00:16:02] Yeah.

[00:16:04] So that's-

[00:16:04] What do you think, Cassie?

[00:16:05] Do we think being in the wilderness is going to end up being good for any character other than

[00:16:10] maybe Misty?

[00:16:14] No.

[00:16:15] I think Misty's a horrible person.

[00:16:17] You think Misty's a horrible person?

[00:16:20] Well, she dragged a woman into her basement and killed her.

[00:16:23] She didn't kill her in the basement. But yeah, okay. Point taken.

[00:16:27] I said and killed her.

[00:16:28] Well, yeah.

[00:16:30] Well, hey, look, she chose the cigarette. I'm just saying.

[00:16:35] Okay.

[00:16:35] I know Misty-

[00:16:35] I didn't know what kind of person we're dealing with.

[00:16:37] I know Misty's flawed, but to me, Misty is like the piggy with maybe more usefulness.

[00:16:44] Like she's so ostracized immediately because of how she is. And like Piggy never stood a

[00:16:50] chance. He was immediately ostracized from the group. And I feel like Misty's Piggy,

[00:16:55] except that she is legitimately more useful and Piggy in the novel is seen as pretty useless.

[00:17:01] But he's only useless because they don't listen to him. Like he has a lot of great ideas.

[00:17:07] I do think like he's just he has no self-awareness of how he is to other people.

[00:17:17] And some of that is like you said, he's ostracized because of how he looks and his

[00:17:22] upbringing. He seems to be, you know, a lower, you know, coming from a lower class of people than

[00:17:30] the other kids. But I do think that, you know, if they had listened to him,

[00:17:37] he had a lot of great ideas.

[00:17:39] Oh, yeah. He had the best. He was the smartest. He was everything he was saying.

[00:17:43] And I think that's like the biggest difference between them is that like Misty makes people

[00:17:47] listen to her with her usefulness, especially at the very beginning. Like Piggy had all the

[00:17:51] good ideas, but it's like he doesn't understand the implicit rules of society. Like don't

[00:18:00] bring attention to the flaws that you have, for example. Like he's always whining. He's

[00:18:04] always complaining. He's always talking about his mommy and his aunt. He's always

[00:18:09] whinging about his asthma. Don't you think that's more of Misty in the old timeline

[00:18:15] and that she grew into figuring out how to make people listen to her?

[00:18:20] Yes. She's needy like him at first.

[00:18:24] And also like having that lack of self-awareness. Like when people are talking about her,

[00:18:30] she's shocked, you know, like at what people think of her.

[00:18:36] And one thing that he keeps doing that Ralph knows not to do is when he's it's really whining,

[00:18:42] like I got the conch, you know, it's like, shut up, dude. And and when you do something like that,

[00:18:49] you're putting yourself out there and then it doesn't get respected and you keep doing it,

[00:18:55] then your power just goes down and down and down. And it just brings up to me like how

[00:19:00] how I've also really interested in how Lord of the Flies compares to real world, because I think

[00:19:05] that's kind of the point of the book. Like I was saying before, it seems like it's about what

[00:19:09] happens when you're away from civilization. But then we explore how these things manifest

[00:19:13] in civilization and like with leaders. It's so much, especially these days, probably forever.

[00:19:21] You want to believe that we choose our leaders based on their capability and their intellect

[00:19:26] and their wisdom. But it's also so much about charisma and how they carry themselves. And like

[00:19:31] when we're watching these presidential debates, all people talk about is how they acted, not

[00:19:36] so much what they said, you know. And Ralph in the book is very still and just calm and confident

[00:19:43] and they and he looks good. And so they naturally choose him as their leader without knowing

[00:19:47] anything about him. But Piggy's the smart one. And even Ralph knows that he says at some point,

[00:19:51] I'm not as smart as him. I don't have the answers like him. So he's a good advisor to have at your

[00:19:55] side, which is what presidents do, right? Typically, not always, but the ones that are

[00:20:00] either the most charismatic or at least appealing on some emotional level to enough people get to

[00:20:06] be the president. But then if they're good, they'll have people around them that are actually smart

[00:20:11] and can advise them. And that's what Piggy is. And one more thing about him. I think I thought

[00:20:16] about anti intellectualism with him a lot. Like he is smart, but people dismiss it even Ralph at

[00:20:21] first. And I think there is a trend of anti intellectualism in our society too. And I think

[00:20:27] probably back in the fifties because I think Golding is really commenting on that here.

[00:20:31] And I think a big reason for that is people who don't feel smart or as smart as the intellectuals

[00:20:41] or the scientists feel like they will be less powerful, that makes them less powerful. And so

[00:20:47] they dismiss it and that's how it is with Piggy shut up Piggy. But then they end up using the

[00:20:53] benefits of intellectualism in science for their own ends. They use Piggy's glasses, even though as

[00:20:58] they're poo-pooing him, he didn't invent the glasses, but he's a smart guy. And in real society,

[00:21:03] you know, that people use the results of science all the time while dismissing science.

[00:21:10] Yeah. Yep. I mean, you know, it's not cool to be the nerd, right?

[00:21:16] Yeah. Unless you're in our group, but usually

[00:21:26] I think, well, one of the big like comparisons that I like looking at is the ages,

[00:21:33] like the use of children. It's interesting because Lord of the flies are obviously younger

[00:21:38] and in yellow jackets, they're obviously older and not only different genders, but just the fact

[00:21:42] that like, they're still meant to be children in both. And it's like, we see because the whole

[00:21:51] thing started with William Golding was a father and he was a teacher and he knew, you know, how

[00:21:56] young boys acted. So it's interesting that you like look at how that influenced his novel. And

[00:22:02] then you look at the female actresses in yellow jackets and how certain things that they've talked

[00:22:07] about have influenced their acting in the show and like how to act younger and how to act.

[00:22:15] I guess like with that less of a sense of civilization that you're tied to.

[00:22:22] I think he was specifically going for pre-puberty, but I also think that back in the 40s and 50s,

[00:22:31] kids matured earlier because they had to. I mean, in my family, pretty much out of grade school,

[00:22:39] kids went to work in the mill because their parents needed the money. And I had several

[00:22:44] aunts that married at 14 and this is back in the 50s and 60s. So I feel like kids grew up a lot

[00:22:55] earlier by force back then. Yeah, I think. But I do. I totally agree with that. And we're maturing

[00:23:06] later and later as time goes on. But I also feel like that's one way that they're a bit different

[00:23:12] because I do think yellow jackets is meant to have a bit of a different feel, an older feel.

[00:23:19] It's not prepubescent, like you said. I think that makes a big difference.

[00:23:23] Just just the prepubescent or not part, you know, because they're not

[00:23:26] preoccupied with the same types of things. Maybe. Well, and that's literally a whole point.

[00:23:33] Plot point in the show is when they all have their periods and they're all syncing up and

[00:23:38] up, Shauna's faking hers. And it's interesting that they brought that one guy in. They wanted that

[00:23:49] mix, you know, with Travis. Well, and Javi. Yeah. And coach. Oh, yeah. And that cabin daddy.

[00:24:00] Yes. He doesn't count. Yeah. I bet you that's maybe if there were some girls in Lord of the

[00:24:06] Flies, then yellow jackets wouldn't have been made because just the fact that it was all boys

[00:24:14] want to go. Well, what if you have some girls, you know, and if it's mostly girls,

[00:24:18] does that come up when you're teaching the fact that it's all boys?

[00:24:22] Absolutely. Yeah. Not usually like in assignments or anything, but during discussions and a lot

[00:24:28] of times I'll just like ask, like, do you think it would be different if it was girls? Do you

[00:24:31] think it would be different if there were girls there? And answers are unequivocally yes,

[00:24:36] every single time. And a lot of times my students say that Lord of the Flies,

[00:24:42] if there had been girls on the island, Lord of the Flies would have been different because the

[00:24:46] boys would have behaved better because they would have been embarrassed,

[00:24:50] which I don't know if that would have applied to 1950s, 1940s kids in prep schools.

[00:24:57] There might've been worse things going on. Yeah.

[00:25:02] Even then we saw you never know. But what do you do? What do you two think?

[00:25:09] What if it was girls instead? Would it be different?

[00:25:14] Yeah, I think it would be different. But I think William Golding wrote about what he knew.

[00:25:20] And when he went to war, it was, I mean, I know there were women in the war,

[00:25:26] but it was mostly all men. Yeah.

[00:25:29] I feel like, I wonder if maybe it's because in his time, most of the movers and shakers

[00:25:37] in society were men because of stupidity. Yeah, it's just the way it was. And so maybe it would

[00:25:46] just to be a commentary on the people who are waging the war and things like that.

[00:25:53] But anyway, but I think it would be different too. I don't think it would be all sunshine and roses

[00:26:00] and everybody would just be getting along and it would be perfect. But I think there would be

[00:26:05] struggle and conflict and stuff like that, but I don't think it would be as violent.

[00:26:11] I think maybe more violent. Yeah. It's hard to put yourself in the age.

[00:26:15] I think it would depend. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:18] Yeah. I think it would depend because in the book you have, there's pretty much two groups of kids.

[00:26:26] There's a one group of kids that all came from some school and then there's the choir boys and

[00:26:30] that's like Jack and Roger and all of them. And so I think that dynamic with girls depending

[00:26:38] could have the potential to make things worse faster almost, especially teenage girls. I mean,

[00:26:48] I feel pretty knowledgeable about the subject. I think if you have two rival groups right off the

[00:26:55] bat, it doesn't bode well. Yeah. I just, and this is more a question for YouTube,

[00:27:04] but it seems like there would definitely be, there's tribalism. That's a thing in our culture

[00:27:11] too. People want to stick with what they know with. And if you're a certain kind of person,

[00:27:16] then you'll ostracize everyone else. And I think the younger you are, the most more likely you will

[00:27:21] be to do that. But that's the same, like these are all the same impulses that lead to things in

[00:27:28] our society as you grow older from adults. Yeah. To adults. But anyway, I think girls do that so

[00:27:34] much so people could be left out and, but I just, I don't know if there'd be as much like dropping

[00:27:41] rocks on people and stuff like that. Right. It's more, it's freezing people out more avert. Yeah.

[00:27:51] Okay. Can I do one? Yeah. Cause this, this brought for some reason brought into my mind

[00:27:57] a point I had about how meaning changes depending on context and perception. And

[00:28:04] one of the ways that Ralph starts thinking more deeply as a leader, a passage in the book says,

[00:28:11] again, he fell into that strange mood of speculation that was so foreign to him.

[00:28:15] If faces were different when lit from above or below, what was a face? What was anything?

[00:28:21] Just talking about how the light hits them, I guess. And I think that comment is about

[00:28:27] how truth can depend on perspective and constant context. And there's a bunch of different ways.

[00:28:35] The novel explores this, it shifts the naming of things as they become different things

[00:28:41] to show that the reality changes. So Jack is just referred to as the boy until one of the

[00:28:46] choir kids calls him Mary do. And then the book calls him Mary do. And then

[00:28:49] Jack, once we know his name, but then when he takes control

[00:28:53] of everything, the book just starts saying the chief did this, right? Chief did that, you know,

[00:28:59] that's he's changed. Uh, the twins are usually just called salmon Eric because they're like one

[00:29:04] thing. We never even get piggies or we never even get piggies name. We don't know his name.

[00:29:11] The book calls him the fat boy until he says they used to call me piggy. And then

[00:29:16] the book is just as mean as Ralph is just starts calling him piggy.

[00:29:24] No, and piggy never should have told that was a dumb move.

[00:29:28] Now don't tell ever tell anyone a nickname you don't want because you will immediately get it.

[00:29:34] But I do think like that's piggy. Like he does. Yes. He doesn't get it socially. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:40] But he just created that reality for himself, whether he meant to or not.

[00:29:44] And then things can take on a different feel depending on frame of reference and context. So

[00:29:50] there's the, when you first see, well, Jack's friends, they're described as these black cloaked

[00:29:56] boys and they seem mysterious and intimidating. And then you find out they're the choir and it's

[00:30:01] like, Oh, that's so cute. But the point is that the way things used to be no longer applies. So

[00:30:06] they can form new meanings based on their new reality away from the world, like in yellow jackets

[00:30:11] and, and you know, now they can sort of reshape what reality is because reality and sanity is

[00:30:18] just kind of what everyone agrees on. So now they're there. They used to be the choir. Now

[00:30:21] they're the gang of hunters and Jack is their leader also about how fear can prompt people

[00:30:29] to see the thing that they're afraid of. So Sam and Eric think this parachutist fighter pilot is

[00:30:36] the beast with wings. And most of the kids come to believe in that and fear that even though it's

[00:30:40] actually harmless. Um, and so it's that thing theme of how, when you're afraid of things,

[00:30:49] then they can become scarier if something is unknown. And we see that in the real world

[00:30:54] all the time where places are painted as dangerous and full of bad people. But if you go there,

[00:30:59] the people are lovely. My friend Dan is visiting Jordan right now and he went into Palestine

[00:31:03] and he had a great time and I've been to Moscow and I'm lovely people there. Um,

[00:31:10] and yellow jackets does that too. Like Shauna thought Travis was bad, but at least unless we

[00:31:17] learn differently, he was actually innocent or the big thing with yellow jackets. A lot of things

[00:31:24] are maybe supernatural, maybe psychological, ambiguous, but could be one of the other.

[00:31:32] And it's gotta be one of the other, but we don't know. And then this is controversial,

[00:31:37] but in my opinion, Matt Syracuse, he looks one way, but he's actually not exactly that,

[00:31:44] but we'll see. We'll see. We'll find, we'll see how that pans out. But, um, then another one,

[00:31:49] when the officers get to Lord of flies in Lord of flies, they get there at the end, the Navy and,

[00:31:56] um, the scavenger, I mean, the savages are about to kill Ralph and the guys like, are there any

[00:32:03] adults, any grownups with you? And it says, dumbly Ralph shook his head. He turned half pace on the

[00:32:08] sand, a semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their

[00:32:14] hands were standing on the beach, making no noise at all. That description right after it,

[00:32:19] just this buildup of how they were killers and they were fierce and they were, but now they're

[00:32:24] just a circle of little boys with clay on them. It just shifts the perspective.

[00:32:29] And you go from them being called big guns and little ones and savages and hunters. And then

[00:32:35] all of a sudden they're little boys because that's what they were the entire time. They

[00:32:38] were little boys playing war except that they weren't playing. Yeah. And it, it, it was savage.

[00:32:45] It was murderous. So it was kind of both, you know, it was like, yeah.

[00:32:49] Well, and I think that also kind of goes back to what you were saying about like

[00:32:52] the settings and like thinking that something's a bad place and like, because in, I think,

[00:32:59] I can't remember which episode it is where they get to the cabin, but Lottie looks at the cabin

[00:33:03] and says, this isn't a good place. And you see that in a certain part of Lord of the flies

[00:33:08] where they're describing the rocky cliffs, part of the island where Piggy eventually dies.

[00:33:13] And some of the boys are like, this would make a wizard for it. And Ralph is like, nah,

[00:33:17] this is a rotten place. That's totally foreshadowing. Just my nerd brain.

[00:33:22] Yeah. Yeah. And that little like a narrow place that goes out to the castle rock,

[00:33:28] you know, with the drop far below. I'm like, this isn't going to be good.

[00:33:32] No. And they say how it's like murky and there's no water, there's no fresh water

[00:33:40] and there's no food up there. And it's like, why would you go up there?

[00:33:44] But it's interesting too, because in the book, well, and in the show, in the book,

[00:33:49] a major plot point is the whole setting. Like they are presented with this perfect,

[00:33:54] pristine island and they are the ones who ruin it right from the very beginning. They're the

[00:33:58] ones who are ruining it with the scar on the island, which is like the nickname for the

[00:34:04] impact spot where the plane hit the island and then slid. And then you have chapter two where

[00:34:10] they set part of the island on fire. And then you get all the way to chapter 12 where they set the

[00:34:14] entire island on fire. And we see that mirrored in Yellowjackets where we just we had a cabin,

[00:34:19] we had a place for our little society and now it's gone. Yeah. And it's all because of

[00:34:26] well, the Lord of the Flies really. I mean, we can get into what that means. The pig with the

[00:34:36] or pig head on a pike that has flies buzzing around it. That's like the literal thing,

[00:34:43] literal meaning of it. But then on another level, it's representative of this beast that turned out

[00:34:50] not to be real. It was just their fears. But it wasn't something that was a threat.

[00:35:01] Well, but they didn't know that. No, I know. Yeah, they didn't know what I mean.

[00:35:07] I guess my point is so they're worried about monsters, right? And the little kids,

[00:35:12] the littlest ones are the ones that bring it up first, which is interesting to me because

[00:35:16] they're the ones that have the least grasp on reality, how things really are so that

[00:35:21] their imaginations can really run wild and fear is about fear of danger and the unknown. And so

[00:35:28] they make up this sort of externalized thing. But I think then the pig head says to Simon,

[00:35:36] oh, you thought that you could kill me, but I'm in you or something like that. And Simon already

[00:35:42] had realized that maybe it has something to do with us. And so my take on it is that it's about,

[00:35:50] you know, on one level sort of our innate savagery, that's what the beast is. But I don't

[00:35:57] totally relate to that because I don't feel like, oh, I'm a savage inside. But when you think about

[00:36:04] what really led them to do the bad things that they did, it was like in Jack's case,

[00:36:12] wanting to feel powerful and wanting to feel in control. And I think a lot of times when people

[00:36:18] want to feel powerful and in control underneath that is a fear that they won't be powerful or

[00:36:22] won't have control. Right? So there's a fear basis to it too. But also there's just a lot,

[00:36:26] he had a blood lust early on. And so as soon as Ralph mocked him, like, oh, you can't go.

[00:36:36] You're just a bunch of kids with sticks. That was all it took for Jack to decide you're not on my

[00:36:41] team anymore. I mean, he already was feeling they were feeling challenged because Jack really wanted

[00:36:46] to be in charge, but he was letting Ralph be in charge. But as soon as that happened, he's like,

[00:36:51] fuck you. We're our own team now. And then it quickly escalated to, I'm going to kill you.

[00:36:56] And I feel like that is similar to things that we see in politics today, where if someone

[00:37:03] challenges you in some countries, you might get poisoned or thrown out a window or here.

[00:37:09] You might have your career ruins, you know, have your, all your followers sicked on someone just

[00:37:16] because they challenge you depending on which political year that is. Use your imagination.

[00:37:21] So I totally forgot how I got here. I don't remember.

[00:37:26] I think we use fear, like people use fear now to manipulate and to retain power. I mean,

[00:37:32] I have rational people that I think are intelligent telling me that, you know,

[00:37:39] immigrants are amassing on the borders and, you know, like, how can you really believe that?

[00:37:45] You know, like it's, but it's, it's fear. We want them to be afraid of something because then we

[00:37:52] can control of them. And it's interesting because I think a lot of times there is an actual fear

[00:37:57] that drives leaders and political leaders to do these things, but then they also add to it or

[00:38:10] completely make it up whole clock. And in the case of the Lord of the flies,

[00:38:14] Jack is afraid that there's a beast out there, but then when they kill Simon and he says, Oh,

[00:38:20] he was, that was the beast and he changed his form or whatever. He's just totally pulling

[00:38:24] that out of his ass because he realizes at this point that he can use it to control.

[00:38:28] Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I do think Jack's afraid and in the same ways, they're all afraid. They're

[00:38:34] little boys. They're on this deserted Island. It's dark outside, but at times you can see that

[00:38:41] Jack is absolutely making that more than he really thinks it is and using that to control the,

[00:38:48] you know, the kids. You know, I was thinking at first I was going to make a whole point about how

[00:38:56] Yellowjackets is different because in Yellowjackets, I do think like hunger is a big

[00:39:04] piece that's missing in Lord of the flies. And I was thinking, well, the reason why they do the

[00:39:12] things that they do in Yellowjackets is because of survival and hunger. They're going to starve

[00:39:18] to death if they don't. But then I was like, no, there's other things, you know, especially

[00:39:24] towards the end of season two where coach burns down the house and Misty kills crystal. I mean,

[00:39:31] maybe accidentally, maybe on purpose, you know, that doesn't explain, you know, hunger doesn't

[00:39:38] explain those things. Well, I think it's just the idea of like resources. Like you go after what you

[00:39:45] don't have. And so in Yellowjackets, they don't have food. That's what they're going after on the

[00:39:49] island in Lord of the flies. They don't have anything to entertain them. So that's what they

[00:39:54] go after because it's not like they need the pig meat in Lord of the flies. They don't need the pig

[00:39:58] meat. There's other stuff that they can eat on the island, but they do it because it gives them a way

[00:40:05] to exert control over something else, which in the 1940s, 1950s British prep school boys, every

[00:40:11] minute of their day would have been controlled. So this is like the first time they've had any freedom.

[00:40:15] But I also think pig meat probably tasted pretty good when I had his bananas.

[00:40:20] That's true. But I think the fact that there was so much fruit available on the island and it was,

[00:40:29] they weren't in trouble really that much, except for they didn't have their parents or whatever.

[00:40:35] I think that's a big part of it because they could have easily just gotten along fine. That's kind

[00:40:40] of the point. So the problems came from inside, not from external so much.

[00:40:48] Well, I think you could say almost the same thing about yellow jackets. Like if they had just been

[00:40:52] getting along, you wouldn't have had Lottie half dead in the cabin and them all running after Javi.

[00:41:00] That's true. You're right. Yeah. Can't everyone just be friends?

[00:41:03] And I like see another way that yellow jackets and Lord of the Flies are similar is

[00:41:10] they start to believe in supernatural things in yellow jackets, dark spirits, wilderness.

[00:41:17] And Ralph asks for a vote on who believes in ghosts. And he, I guess he's at least some

[00:41:22] people raised their hands. And he, the quote is the world that the world that understandable and

[00:41:30] lawful world was slipping away. Once there was this and that, and now the ship had gone

[00:41:36] and you know, they, of course they think this parachute is a beast. And they in yellow jackets,

[00:41:49] well, the fears of all of this beast feels like in yellow jackets, like the whole cabin daddy

[00:41:53] thing. And it's like the beast is the wilderness or like the person in the wilderness,

[00:41:59] the thing in the wilderness. Well, and in Lord of the Flies, it is a real thing. There is really

[00:42:04] a body up on the mountain, which was scary to little kids. It's interesting how the rumors

[00:42:10] kind of at the very beginning, they're talking about a snake thing that was crawling out of

[00:42:15] the trees. And like, realistically you're thinking like that was a snake. That was some vines falling

[00:42:20] down there, little kids. It was dark. They don't have lights on, but then it evolves until the

[00:42:25] twins see it up on the mountain. They just see this thing hunched over in the dark. And then all

[00:42:30] of them eventually see it except for piggy up on the mountain. So there is this thing and it's like,

[00:42:35] you know, there was cabin daddy. There are body weird bodies of animals in the woods. There is

[00:42:41] stuff happening, but it's well, and there's a lot of like seems to know things that she couldn't

[00:42:47] know. So that's the part that makes me think, okay, maybe it is supernatural, but I always say,

[00:42:53] I really hope it's not because, you know, a theme of Lord of the flies is that sometimes superstition

[00:42:59] is just a projection or an externalization externalization of what's actually in us. And

[00:43:05] to me, exploring the dark sides of human psychology is way more interesting than it's

[00:43:11] a demonic force against us, you know? And like, you know, like I said, I've read that the show

[00:43:21] that someone told the writers, you can't make a female version of the Lord of the flies because

[00:43:25] women wouldn't be that brutal. And they like have, have they said, have you met teenage girls?

[00:43:29] But if the show ends up having a supernatural element, that's influenced them to this

[00:43:33] bad behavior, then it kind of reinforces the idea that women can't beat as,

[00:43:38] or wouldn't be as brutal as men, unless there's something extra driving it.

[00:43:43] I don't know if it's ever going to answer that. I don't think it will.

[00:43:46] Concretely. I think it's always going to leave us.

[00:43:50] I think it's always going to be something where, I mean, maybe it was, maybe, maybe it's just them.

[00:43:56] Yeah. I don't think it's going to answer that concretely. Like, like for example,

[00:44:02] like Lost went off the railroad tracks with that because at first you weren't sure, but then.

[00:44:09] And I think that's good because it's a, I really think it's about,

[00:44:13] it's a reflection on the real world and we can't answer it concretely here either.

[00:44:20] Yeah, really? I think a lot of it's going to hinge on

[00:44:22] Lottie. Like what you said about Lottie where she, it feels like she knows something else

[00:44:27] and like in Lord of the flies that was Simon. Yeah. And Simon's my favorite. I think a whole

[00:44:32] lot of good that did him. Well, there's a, there's a ton of parallels between

[00:44:37] Simon and Lottie and there's also parallels between Simon and Laura Lee.

[00:44:41] That's what I saw was Laura Lee. Yeah. So Simon and Lottie both have something

[00:44:47] mental concretely going on. Like, I think Lottie what is diagnosed schizophrenic in the show

[00:44:53] and Simon, we're not meant to know what Simon has, but we're meant to think it's like epilepsy,

[00:44:57] that he's got some kind of seizure disorder. It's not like he's just.

[00:45:01] I couldn't figure it out. Like I saw, I was reading Cassie's copy, so I saw her little

[00:45:06] footnotes, but I was like, I don't, I don't get that from it, but something obviously.

[00:45:11] Well in chapter, in the very first time you see him, the choir boys are all like,

[00:45:15] oh yeah, Simon's always throwing a feint and then he passes out a couple of times. And then

[00:45:21] that whole conversation that he has with Lord of the flies were meant to think he's having some

[00:45:25] kind of like seizure or some kind of like episode. Yeah. Or hallucination or.

[00:45:30] Yeah. And so you see that with Lottie, but then on the flip side, Simon's also kind of like

[00:45:35] the Christ figure where he knew the truth about everything and he was just trying to help

[00:45:38] everyone. And that was Laura Lee to me, Laura Lee was, you know, she was trying to get out. She

[00:45:44] had a way out. She was trying and then. And she was the quiet, nice one who was.

[00:45:50] Weird. Putting her work, but, but also, you know, always there to help someone. And that's what

[00:45:56] Simon was doing too. Yeah. And Laura was, Laura Lee was helpful, but she was seen as weird and

[00:46:01] Simon is seen as weird by the other boys. Yeah. But he's yeah, he ends up being.

[00:46:09] Um, kind of nurturing to Ralph at one point when Ralph I think is, I think he's just sitting there

[00:46:17] feeling bad and Simon seems to intuit and he just says, you'll get back to where he came from.

[00:46:23] He didn't even say anything about that if I remember right. And I just was like, oh,

[00:46:27] what a good kid, you know? Yeah. And he's also the one that figured out,

[00:46:32] I mean, you keep saying there is actually a beast, but my point is that really that

[00:46:37] corpse is harmless, but they think it's dangerous. That's your adult self, Jason.

[00:46:41] It is harmless, whether I'm an adult or a kid, a corpse is not going to hurt me.

[00:46:46] I would think no, what I'm not talking about what you think I'm talking about what is actually true,

[00:46:50] what's actually true is this thing is not going to come after them, even though they think it will.

[00:46:54] And so, um, Simon figures out that that he's and that's why he goes up there to double check his

[00:47:00] in, you know, intuition. Yes. Well, and it's he figures out everything like in one fell swoop,

[00:47:09] he talks to the Lord of the Flies, he passes out, he wakes up again, he sees the dead pilot,

[00:47:14] he tries to get to the boys, he crawls out on the beach. And then, which is obviously a difference,

[00:47:19] Laura Lee was not, you know, the other girls didn't kill Laura Lee, but there's definitely

[00:47:23] something, you know, we're not meant to know the truth. We're not meant to get out.

[00:47:27] I mean, they they helped her, you know? Yeah, they helped her fly off, which was a bad idea.

[00:47:33] Well, and this writer best. It's a good writer Lee technique where at least the way I came to it,

[00:47:45] I wanted them to find out the truth about this thing that it wasn't what they thought it was. It

[00:47:51] was just a corpse, which is creepy, but it's not going to hurt them. And so then you get Simon

[00:47:57] going up and confirming it and he's going to go back and tell them and I'm like, Oh, good, good,

[00:48:01] good. And then they kill him. And it's like, Oh, it's so tragic. It's like a knife to the heart,

[00:48:05] you know, not only that, uh, they kill it, which does add that's the worst part of it. But, um,

[00:48:10] and that says a lot about their savagery and that Ralph and piggy were in there with them. But, um,

[00:48:16] that's another way that it reminds me of yellow jackets, by the way, because they go into a frenzy

[00:48:20] sometimes like Jackie, you know, but also that he was about to tell them that it wasn't real.

[00:48:27] And then he, he didn't get a chance to, so. And then after he dies, the body of the dead

[00:48:33] pilot, because in the book, a storm is happening. So the body of the dead pilot floats onto the

[00:48:39] beach. The boys all see it after Simon's laying there dead, then the body floats out to sea. So

[00:48:44] they never figure it out. They never know. And I feel like maybe we're going to end up seeing that

[00:48:48] in yellow jackets. Like maybe there's something in the woods that we see, but the girls never see.

[00:48:55] I don't think they're going to give us that satisfaction, but I hope they do.

[00:48:58] I mean, you know, one can dream.

[00:49:00] I'd like to. Yeah. Um, I'm going to talk about the language a little bit.

[00:49:04] I think it's beautiful and descriptive and poetic. And also it took me a while to get

[00:49:11] used to the vocabulary.

[00:49:12] Yes. I felt the exact same way.

[00:49:16] I think it was, it made me feel kind of dumb, honestly. It was published in 1954 in England.

[00:49:22] So the language is a bit of a different time and place. Um, it's a literary novel with a

[00:49:29] very descriptive specific language and obscure, I would say because our, I think in part,

[00:49:36] cause our vocabulary has shrunk. You know? Um, but there's also a lot of language specifically

[00:49:43] related to things on an Island rock formations and flora and words for waves and things like that.

[00:49:50] Creepers. I looked it up and, um, creepers was mentioned 38 times.

[00:49:56] Wow.

[00:49:58] You can just cause one cool thing about reading it on iPad, which is what I did.

[00:50:02] You can just tap any word and get a definition immediately. So that was great. It helped me,

[00:50:09] you know, expanded my mind a little bit. And, um, and I'm going to do a few definitions of

[00:50:16] words like creepers, but first I wanted to read a passage. Just if people are decided to listen

[00:50:21] to this and didn't read the book, this will give you an idea of what it's like. This is a particularly

[00:50:26] dark passage. That was one of my favorites because Simon looked up feeling the weight

[00:50:32] of his wet hair. Let me tell you what this is about first. So they have chopped this pig's

[00:50:36] head off and it's on a Pike. And I guess Simon was hiding nearby. He was just off in the woods,

[00:50:42] but I'm just hanging out. And so he's alone with it. And Simon looked up feeling the weight of

[00:50:48] his wet hair and gazed at the sky up there for once were clouds, great bulging toward

[00:50:53] towers that sprouted away over the islands, gray and cream and copper colored.

[00:50:58] The clouds were sitting on the land. They squeezed produced moment by moment, this

[00:51:03] close tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene

[00:51:08] thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head carefully, keeping his eyes shut,

[00:51:13] then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees, but everywhere a

[00:51:18] pearly stillness so that what was real seemed elusive and without definition. The pile of guts

[00:51:24] was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while, these flies found Simon

[00:51:30] gorge. They alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils

[00:51:36] and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number.

[00:51:42] And in front of Simon, the Lord of the flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last,

[00:51:47] Simon gave up and looked back and saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood and his gaze was

[00:51:52] held by that ancient inescapable recognition. So that's, it's just beautiful. The writing is

[00:52:00] just beautiful. And I felt the same way. Like it took me like a chapter to get into it. But once

[00:52:06] you get into it, it's like you can smell here, taste it all. It really brings it to life. I read

[00:52:13] this book when I was very young, read it a bunch of times. And I can remember, I still vividly

[00:52:20] remember that feeling I had the first time I read it when the scenes where right after Piggy is

[00:52:26] killed, and Jack's running for his life. And the next morning he wakes up and he's being smoked

[00:52:32] out and hunted. Ralph and oh, I'm sorry, Ralph. And like I was so scared reading a book like I

[00:52:40] remember, and just that feeling that Ralph was alone and powerless. And there's no adults around

[00:52:50] to fix this situation. I can remember how scared I was. That's the saddest part of the whole book

[00:52:56] for me. At the end when he wakes up, and Simon's been dead, Piggy's dead. And then he's hiding in

[00:53:03] the jungle and he sees the twins. And they've been absorbed by the savages. And it hits him that one,

[00:53:10] the twins are not with him anymore. And then they tell him, Roger sharpened a stick at both ends.

[00:53:14] And he knows what that means for him. And then he goes to hide in the thicket in the jungle.

[00:53:19] And then he hears the twins telling Jack where he's hiding. And that's what you were saying

[00:53:25] about fear. Fear is what's ruling them at that point. And the twins are betraying Ralph because

[00:53:30] they're afraid because they know Jack and they know Roger too. At the end they say Roger's the

[00:53:35] one that everyone needs to watch out for. I think they tortured them too. They were screaming.

[00:53:40] Yeah, after Piggy dies, I think it says that they just start whipping them and beating them and

[00:53:47] they just kind of drag them into the tribe. Sad. But I mean, I don't think they ever

[00:53:54] in their hearts turned on him, which was nice. No, it was just they're scared. They wanted to live.

[00:54:01] Yeah. Yeah. So just a little bit more on language. So creepers, I had to look it up

[00:54:11] because it kept coming up. And of course, I know that to mean someone who acts creepy. That's like

[00:54:16] the urban dictionary of it or Minecraft guys that explode. Yeah, me too. But it's any plant that did

[00:54:26] you know this? It's any plant that grows along the grounds around another plant or up a wall

[00:54:31] by means of standing stems and branches. Yeah. Did you guys already know that? I didn't know.

[00:54:36] I'm not a gardener. So I was like, what the hell is that? When Ralph was mad that Jack was hunting

[00:54:43] pig instead of tending to the fire when that ship came by, Eric says, wasn't he waxy and waxy means

[00:54:51] bad tempered, irritable or angry in the UK? That's a UK term. Old fashioned. Apparently

[00:54:59] Bill said at one point this would make a wizard fort and I just thought of the Phantom Menace.

[00:55:05] I thought that was a word that they made up for Star Wars. But apparently it's

[00:55:09] it's a regular word that just means great, you know, wonderful, excellent. I didn't know that.

[00:55:13] I thought it was only like Gandalf. And then on the way to find the beast on the mountain at night,

[00:55:21] Ralph says, well, maybe we should go back and Jack says, windy. I guess that's British

[00:55:27] slang for afraid. Are you afraid? Chicken? Yeah. Chicken. Yeah. And one more piggy says,

[00:55:33] if we don't get home soon, we'll be barmy. And that means crazy. I didn't know that.

[00:55:39] I didn't know that. And don't they say something like,

[00:55:42] sucks your asthma or something like that? Sucks to your asthma sucks to your slur.

[00:55:48] Like, like, like, yeah, that was funny too. Right. And you know, I never know reading stuff

[00:55:57] like that if it's just some play that own words that the author made up or if it's something

[00:56:02] that people actually said back then, I'm guessing people said it seems like he was pretty in tune

[00:56:07] with the way people actually talked, but I don't know. Yeah. There's a couple there's like, um,

[00:56:12] when one of the boys are, is describing Simon, they call him queer because that used to mean odd,

[00:56:18] not gay. So I have to explain that to my students. I think they say gay too, at some point. So yeah.

[00:56:23] And then there's something else. Oh, and then, oh, this is a good one. Um,

[00:56:29] when the Lord of the flies is talking to Simon and he's saying, we're going to have fun or else

[00:56:33] we'll do you. And my students are like, what is he saying? And I'm like, he means he's going to

[00:56:39] kill him. It's not the other thing. Didn't someone say something about diddling at some point?

[00:56:45] Oh, um, it's used as like an adjective or something like that somewhere in the book,

[00:56:50] I think. Yeah. There's or diddler or something. Yeah. There's, there's a couple just like phrases.

[00:56:55] Um, and then there's when he's, when Ralph is confronting the group after the fire went out

[00:57:02] and they could have been rescued and they didn't, and he's searching for the worst word in his

[00:57:06] vocabulary and he comes up with bloody. And I tell my students that's, that's the F bomb guys. Like

[00:57:12] that's about as bad as you can think of. And that's still true. Right. And in England,

[00:57:17] I think it's still used that way. Yeah. But it's not as bad. But they also now just use the F bomb

[00:57:23] as well. It's less than that now. I mean, even in my lifetime now they're saying fuck on TV

[00:57:30] pretty regularly. Yeah, that's true. And they did like 10 years ago that was, um, it says, uh,

[00:57:35] he pulled himself between the ferns tunneling in. He laid the stick beside him and huddled himself

[00:57:40] down in the blackness. One must remember to wake at first light in order to diddle the savages.

[00:57:46] Oh yeah. What are you going to do? I didn't look that one up.

[00:57:56] It means mess with in that context. Yeah, clearly.

[00:58:02] All right. Cassie, I think it's your turn. Okay. Um, I think the only other one that I was

[00:58:11] really thinking of is like in Lord of the Flies, we see that there was at least one missed

[00:58:17] opportunity for rescue. And we've also, I guess, technically seen that in yellow jackets. Um,

[00:58:24] when Misty destroys the, what is it? The black box. Yeah. When she just, and I'm just wondering

[00:58:31] if you'll see anything else because the whole point in Lord of the Flies was the two boys who

[00:58:36] are supposed to be watching the fire. Don't watch the fire. They go off to hunt fire goes out, the

[00:58:41] ship passes by. And I'm wondering if we're going to see anything similar to that in yellow jackets.

[00:58:47] Like if they're going to hear a helicopter in the distance while all of them are like hunting or

[00:58:51] getting someone or something like that, that would be really interesting to see.

[00:58:57] Yeah. And whether they're like, Oh, we don't need you anymore or something.

[00:59:01] Well, and they've also at the, at this point, I feel like they've totally given up when trying

[00:59:06] to trek out of the wilderness too. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it. Well,

[00:59:11] and you can't blame them. I mean, it's winter, but we know they go through a whole spring in

[00:59:17] the wilderness. So it seems like they had the opportunity, but I guess we're going to find out

[00:59:21] in season three. Yeah. And you would, and I would have thought that they would have tried a little

[00:59:25] bit harder during the summer as well, but I guess it makes sense since like, they just assumed that

[00:59:29] they would be getting rescued. And then after a certain point, they were just mostly focused on

[00:59:33] survival. Well, and especially now they don't have the cabin. So in Lord of the Flies, um,

[00:59:42] Ralph is preoccupied. Well, rightly so with having shelter and safety and the huts and fire so they

[00:59:49] can get out, be rescued. And Jack doesn't care about any of that because I guess he's just having

[00:59:55] a great time being a wild hunter. But after a while, uh, Ralph starts forgetting why were we

[01:00:02] making the fire again? And I wasn't sure what the point of that was that piggy had to keep reminding

[01:00:08] him so we can get rescued. He was just forgetting to, or, well, I think Ralph was kind of getting

[01:00:14] caught up in, in the hunting. Because if you think about it, like, you know, what makes us

[01:00:18] civilized people fire, you know, we could rub two sticks together and like shelter that we were able

[01:00:24] to settle down. And so when those two things like aren't being met or when those two things are being

[01:00:31] overshadowed, you know, like there's fun in hunting, there's entertainment in hunting,

[01:00:35] there's a sense of belonging in hunting. And so once he starts getting preoccupied with like the

[01:00:41] hunting and the social stuff and Jack turning on him, it's almost like the fire secondary because

[01:00:46] he's shifting from like, I want to get rescued too. I'm just trying to avoid all of us going into

[01:00:52] war with each other. Yeah. Cause I think once he, the pig came in, he got to throw a spear at it

[01:01:01] and he'd never hunted before. He was like, Oh wow, this is actually pretty great.

[01:01:05] And you do see like, he does, there is like a tenuous relationship between Jack and Ralph,

[01:01:10] even like right before Simon's death, when they go up the mountain together to like investigate

[01:01:16] the beast rumors. And you can tell that they kind of don't want to go with each other,

[01:01:19] but then they do go with each other to like help each other out. And then, you know, once,

[01:01:24] once Simon's gone, that's it. And there's, there's no coming back. And I think that's like

[01:01:28] kind of where we are with Javi and coach Ben. Like once, once they made that decision with

[01:01:33] Javi, coach Ben was never going to join with the rest of them. Like that was, he was never going

[01:01:37] to sit there. I mean, he tried to kill them all. No, no, he did. Well, I have theories about coach

[01:01:53] Ben, but that's... And I actually, I loved that part. Like I loved that the guy that everybody

[01:02:00] underestimated and we thought was going to be winner first. The comic relief. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

[01:02:07] because he was the only adult sort of adult. So you thought they would eat him.

[01:02:13] So that was one of my points was about Ben. So I feel like he's the only adult when they crash on

[01:02:21] the island and he pretty half-heartedly asserts his adult authority over the rest of the kids.

[01:02:28] But as time goes on, his authority is eroded because nothing happens when they don't listen to

[01:02:37] him. And also he's not really comfortable in his authority. And missing a leg didn't help. Yeah.

[01:02:47] Yeah. He's been through this big trauma and was like half suicidal for much of it. But eventually

[01:02:54] they just don't recognize him as an authority at all. And I think he actually sees that he might

[01:03:00] be in danger. And that kind of was my... Yeah, because why would they? Right. And that kind of...

[01:03:04] There's no society. There's no consequence. Right. And that reminded me of Ralph and Piggy.

[01:03:11] They had such a firm belief that because Ralph got voted in as chief on the first day,

[01:03:20] that that was it. People had to listen to him. And they also had this really concrete idea that

[01:03:29] whoever held the conch shell had the right to speak. And they believed in that so much

[01:03:37] when everything around them was falling apart. And it seems obvious at the end when Piggy's killed

[01:03:44] that they shouldn't have went there. They should have seen what was in front of them, but they

[01:03:51] weren't. They were still holding on to those civilization beliefs that they had. I mean,

[01:03:58] to me, that's the whole like ego thing. And it's also sort of democracy versus fascism. Fascism is

[01:04:06] about respecting only strength and dominance. And even people want the ruler that they think is the

[01:04:13] strongest to be a fascist. And that's kind of how these kids were with Jack. But the conch represents

[01:04:21] giving everyone a voice, democracy, and rules and the rule of law. And it's sad to see that

[01:04:30] the rule of law did not win out. And we're hoping that doesn't happen in the real world.

[01:04:36] That's the way I kind of saw it. Well, it does happen in the real world over and over and over.

[01:04:42] It does. Yeah, I know. Did you read Lord of the Flies' fable?

[01:04:47] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's scary how much you think things have changed.

[01:04:57] I know. It's actually reassuring and scary all at the same time. Sometimes I think

[01:05:03] when you look at history, it's like, well, it's the same. It's the same as it was in Rome.

[01:05:10] They were afraid of this back then, but we're okay now.

[01:05:14] So when you think that the world is dissolving into anarchy, you're like, no,

[01:05:20] it's kind of always been like this. But then that's also scary that we don't evolve.

[01:05:24] Yeah. I mean, right. And also just because it hasn't doesn't mean it won't.

[01:05:30] Yeah. It could happen anywhere.

[01:05:33] Yeah. Yeah. This is sort of a non sequitur, but you'd mentioned early on that they like one of

[01:05:44] the first thing they did is set the island on fire. They scar it and set it on fire.

[01:05:48] And it's like, what are you doing? You're going to burn down this whole place. And it seems so

[01:05:52] stupid. But then I think if you look at, like I said, civilization lets us leverage things to a

[01:05:59] greater scale, and that could be for good or bad. And what we're doing to the planet, you know,

[01:06:04] it's like could be a metaphor for global warming and everything.

[01:06:10] Yeah, everything was fine until the men landed.

[01:06:14] Oh, yeah. Well, I don't think William Golding was all that concerned about, like, you know,

[01:06:19] the literal environment and greenhouse gases and all of that. But destruction, self-destruction,

[01:06:24] ruin everything we touch. Yeah. And sometimes it's by accident. Sometimes, you know,

[01:06:29] the plane crashed. That was one person doing that to another person. Sometimes it's by accident,

[01:06:34] bunch of kids lighting something on fire and it gets out of control. And then sometimes

[01:06:38] it's on purpose. But we ruin everything we touch is the lesson there.

[01:06:42] I mean, yeah. And I think bombs on city.

[01:06:45] That's what I think maybe the point I wanted to get to with the whole Lord of the Flies thing,

[01:06:49] but didn't is that it's talked about as a metaphor of the savagery or evilness that's inherent in

[01:06:56] human, you know, human beings. And I don't totally identify with that. But when you

[01:07:02] think about it in terms of drives that I do get, which is being afraid of the unknown

[01:07:07] or wanting to consolidate some space for myself so that other people don't encroach on it.

[01:07:15] And that sometimes means I choose myself over somebody else, you know, or whatever those

[01:07:21] things are that you do out of fear or even just wanting to watch TV and be entertained.

[01:07:28] And that uses up energy, like all these drives that we have that are selfish,

[01:07:32] basically can have a negative impact on other people or the world around us. And I think that

[01:07:38] could be kind of also what the beast is, you know, it's doesn't have to be savage. It can

[01:07:46] just be selfish to the point where it's destructive. Maybe I'm a star, maybe that's

[01:07:53] a stretch. I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I definitely think like

[01:08:00] the idea of inherent evil is something that a lot of people are like immediately no,

[01:08:05] immediately no, I'm not evil. But I don't think that's really the point. I think the point is

[01:08:09] that everyone has the capacity to be evil. And like in Lord of the Flies' fable, the essay he

[01:08:14] wrote about why he wrote the book, he talks about his experience in World War II. And he says

[01:08:20] something like, you know, these atrocities weren't committed by like savages. They weren't

[01:08:24] committed by like, you know, cannibal tribes in the Amazon. They were committed by educated people

[01:08:30] to beings of their own kind. And it's just the point that like we are all capable,

[01:08:35] maybe not as individuals, but as a society, as a species, we're capable of doing terrible things

[01:08:41] to each other on a scale that no other mammal does. Truly. Yeah. Like on any two sides of a war,

[01:08:47] pretty much any war, most wars, if you just stopped the war and went to somebody's house

[01:08:54] on either side, you could have a good time. But both of those people on both sides fucking hate

[01:08:59] the other one and want to kill them. And that's today happening right now. You know, look at

[01:09:04] the Middle East or it's just like regular people can, under the right or wrong circumstances,

[01:09:13] tap into these impulses of destruction. We hate people we've never met. Yeah.

[01:09:20] For reasons that we've been told. And it's an interesting parallel in the book that because

[01:09:28] they're meant to be evacuated during World War Two, I believe. And so there's the you know,

[01:09:36] the threat of atomic war going off in the civilized world. And then there's the threat

[01:09:40] of the Civil War going off on the island. And that's really interesting as well. We don't see

[01:09:44] that in Yellow Jackets. But I think like just the concept of war in general. That's a pretty

[01:09:51] distinctly human creation. Yeah. And it's that irony of Oh, look, like, this is what happens

[01:09:58] when you take away civilization, these boys go savage. And meanwhile, the whole story takes

[01:10:04] place not by accident, I'm sure during a war where people are bombing each other.

[01:10:08] Yeah, during war on a perfect paradise island. Yeah. Where they have everything they really need

[01:10:14] and still we ruin it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, but on a bigger scale, fucking World War Two,

[01:10:20] you know, it's just people bombing each other and talking about how well this is the civilized

[01:10:24] world. Okay. I mean, there's nothing civil about war. Truly, there's just not.

[01:10:32] So I'll talk about my next point. And this goes into this and it may be obvious, but

[01:10:38] the ending the remaining boys are saved when their smoke attracts a passing Royal Navy,

[01:10:47] which is the British Navy ship. And a group of soldiers, navy men come on to the island,

[01:10:56] they're pretty shocked to find the state that the boys are in. And the officer first dismisses

[01:11:06] their state and says and their appearance and their demeanor saying fun and games.

[01:11:12] And then he says, What have you been doing having a war or something? And it seems to slow

[01:11:19] slowly dawn on the soldiers that they weren't just playing games. And then he scolds them.

[01:11:26] And he says, I should have thought that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up

[01:11:32] a better show than that. And but he's a soldier. Yeah. And the men on the, you know, the soldiers

[01:11:40] on the beach are, you know, they have their warship behind them where they've probably been

[01:11:46] sinking submarines and whatever else they're doing. And they're intent on defeating their enemy

[01:11:52] guns strapped to their hips. And these are the boys. They're their boys. I mean,

[01:11:57] you know, all their I learned about watching you, Dad. Yeah, all their fathers are probably at war

[01:12:02] right now. And so why are they so surprised? You know, I have my students react to this.

[01:12:09] And one of my students said, if I was stranded on an island and my government found me and told

[01:12:15] me basically I'm disappointed in you, that would have been my 13th reason. And I thought that was

[01:12:20] funny. But it's like true. Like you see these boy the whole islands on fire. No one's doing that on

[01:12:26] purpose. You see all these boys. And he makes a reference to I think he says, like fun and games

[01:12:32] like the Coral Island, which is a story by a guy named Ballantine, which is what Lord of the Flies

[01:12:38] was kind of loosely based off of. But like, you see these guys, this this whole spread of the

[01:12:46] beach and your first reaction is to like chastise them. And like nothing else. Like not gratitude

[01:12:52] that we found these kids, not like bewilderment that we found them on this tropical island. Just

[01:12:57] like I'm disappointed in you. Yeah. When I just think it plays into the theme that Golding wanted

[01:13:03] to get across that it's hypocritical. And it's adults versus kids that with the same conflict.

[01:13:13] Right? You want a kid to act a certain way till he turns 18 and then you put a gun in his hand and

[01:13:18] tip him off the war. Yeah, I think probably this is kind of an assumption. But these days,

[01:13:26] I think kids are more disillusioned with government. But maybe back. I mean, you hear

[01:13:31] Jack say early on, the English are the best at everything. So I feel like they're patriots,

[01:13:36] maybe. And so they might that might be a letdown to have this guy say that versus they seem to be

[01:13:45] school kids. So I would think that there was probably a military. That's the mentality

[01:13:51] that and in the middle of I mean, it doesn't seem like it's World War Two, but it kind of seems like

[01:13:56] it's World War Two. So like in the middle of that, I remember my dad grew up, he was just a

[01:14:01] little kid during World War Two. And he said, like, all his friends would, you know, get around

[01:14:08] and take their plastic guns and play war like that was the best fun ever. And that's what they did.

[01:14:14] And, and he even grew up as a teenager thinking that he had missed out on something really great,

[01:14:20] because by the time he became of age, the war was over.

[01:14:28] That's some propaganda. So Stephen King wrote the intro to the volume that I read. Did you guys have

[01:14:35] that? He said, I'm interested. He said he read adventure books as a kid, but he thought something

[01:14:43] was off that the kids weren't right. And he, this bookmobile would come around. He didn't have a

[01:14:52] library. And so he asked the woman who ran it, if she could recommend any books about how kids

[01:14:57] really are. And so she gave him Lord of the Flies and said, don't tell anyone I gave you this

[01:15:01] because he was too young for it or something. And years later, he listened to the audio book and

[01:15:07] William Golding in the intro said, one night he asked his wife quote, wouldn't it be a good idea

[01:15:13] to write a story about some boys on an island showing how they would really behave being boys

[01:15:18] and not little saints as they usually are in children's books. And so he that's, I guess,

[01:15:27] how this came about, at least to the story. But I think in making a story of how boys really are,

[01:15:33] he made a story of how people really are. It's funny. I'm betting this book really

[01:15:40] influenced King because I can I can see that in his writing and things.

[01:15:45] There's very much of a Stephen King vibe to this book.

[01:15:49] Or the other way around since he came first. And I think that's part of the universal appeal of

[01:15:55] the story and the universal appeal of Yellow Jackets is like, this is all real. This is how

[01:16:00] people could really act. People have really done this before. Like Yellow Jackets, people have

[01:16:05] joined cults before. People have killed and eaten people before. It's not a thing that's common

[01:16:10] in our society. But like, these are all things that people are capable of and have done and will

[01:16:15] continue to do because that's what we are. I also think we have a naive fantasy of

[01:16:23] getting away from the real world. You know, like we think go somewhere where we don't have to pay

[01:16:29] bills and we don't have to work and we don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I don't think

[01:16:33] that's reality. But I do think it's like, that's why we're so attracted to shows like Lost and

[01:16:40] Yellow Jackets and shows that are just other worldly. Escapism. Yeah. It's a better form of

[01:16:49] escapism. Yeah. Because you're seeing people deal with problems that you're never going to have to

[01:16:53] deal with. We're never going to have to build huts on the beach. We'll see. I have a question for you,

[01:17:01] Cassie. I know this is a subscribed part of the curriculum that you teach for the county you work

[01:17:09] at. Do you think it should continue to be taught? Yes. I was just wondering if you were sick of it

[01:17:20] or if you thought that it didn't apply to modern day anymore. No, I think it's, I mean, there are

[01:17:30] books I would get rid of in our curriculum. Lord of the Flies isn't one of them. Lord of the Flies

[01:17:34] has also been pretty controversial. Like it's one of those books that we consider a classic,

[01:17:39] but it's also been challenged in a lot of places, including places in the U.S.

[01:17:45] And in general, I feel like books that are challenged should be kept.

[01:17:49] I mean, I hadn't read it, like we said, since I was a teenager and I found it so relevant,

[01:17:55] you know, I mean, everything we've talked about sort of plays into that, but.

[01:18:00] That's cool. I do wish they would make a graphic novel of it, but that's for.

[01:18:07] Or a decent movie, because I don't think there's been a great movie.

[01:18:10] The 90s movie is awesome. There's just a major plot point that's different. The 90s version

[01:18:15] is so good though. The acting is great. The 90s version also like, I think it's supposed to take

[01:18:20] place like closer to the start of the Vietnam War maybe. And it's American.

[01:18:26] They're yeah, they're military. Of course we Americanize it.

[01:18:30] Well, yeah, the 90s version is good. The 60s version of the film is all in black and white,

[01:18:35] and that's very close to the original plot, but it's got some stuff to be desired.

[01:18:41] I mean, I don't. Yeah, I know a lot of people don't put much stock in it,

[01:18:44] but I was just curious. So I looked on Rotten Tomatoes and the 60s version has a 91 and the

[01:18:50] 90s version has a 57. So the critics think it's the other way around.

[01:18:54] That's so interesting.

[01:18:56] But I haven't seen either one.

[01:18:57] People are more forgiving of classics.

[01:18:59] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:00] Older movies. Yeah.

[01:19:02] I'm curious to watch both, actually.

[01:19:05] Oh yeah. I think I've seen both, but it's been a long time.

[01:19:09] We can't show both at work because the 90s one is rated R mostly for language.

[01:19:16] Really?

[01:19:16] I have them. Yeah. So we watch most of the 60s one and then I have them watch clips of the 90s one.

[01:19:22] And they usually like the 90s one better partially because it's not in black and white,

[01:19:26] but also partially because I think the characters in the 90s version are a little bit more fleshed

[01:19:31] out.

[01:19:33] Baltazar Getty. I only have notes left.

[01:19:39] I got one more thing.

[01:19:42] Do you think this is the way boys would really behave in similar circumstances?

[01:19:50] Yes.

[01:19:52] And I don't think so.

[01:19:54] So the reason when I was looking for articles for this episode, I found this nice tidbit.

[01:20:02] In 1965, a group of six teenage boys ran away from their boarding school in Tonga,

[01:20:09] which is an island in Polynesia.

[01:20:12] And they stole a boat.

[01:20:14] They wanted, I guess they didn't want to be in their boarding school anymore.

[01:20:18] They stole a boat.

[01:20:20] They ended up in a storm, their anchor got lost.

[01:20:23] And so they ended up drifting like 300 miles and got shipwrecked on this ship, on this island.

[01:20:29] I think they were there for like 15 months or 18 months.

[01:20:33] And they survived on feral chickens, bananas.

[01:20:40] They captured rainwater in hollowed out tree trunks.

[01:20:44] They drank blood from seabirds when they couldn't get enough water.

[01:20:49] They divided up the labor, teaming up in pairs to work garden, kitchen and guard duty.

[01:20:55] One of the boys went on to become an engineer.

[01:20:58] They started fire with sticks, which they kept burning continuously for more than a year.

[01:21:05] And they sang and they played guitar.

[01:21:08] And they composed five songs during their exile.

[01:21:13] And they killed five of themselves on a stone altar.

[01:21:19] And they attempted to escape on a raft, but that didn't work out.

[01:21:24] And then eventually they were rescued.

[01:21:29] So I thought that was interesting.

[01:21:30] They were a little older, I would say.

[01:21:32] They were like probably 15, 16.

[01:21:35] They all knew each other?

[01:21:37] Yes.

[01:21:37] Yeah, I think that might be a difference too.

[01:21:39] They were from a school.

[01:21:41] I think that might be a difference too, because when you already have that familiar dynamic,

[01:21:46] it's a lot easier to make it last longer.

[01:21:48] Which is why I think, because Lord of the Flies, the whole novel is supposed to only span about

[01:21:54] maybe three months.

[01:21:56] And we know that Yellow Jackets, they're in there for what?

[01:21:58] 19 months in the wilderness?

[01:22:00] Something like that, yeah.

[01:22:02] And I think part of that is because they had that existing dynamic first.

[01:22:06] Yep.

[01:22:07] I have a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old and I was just trying to, I kept thinking about them as

[01:22:13] I was reading this and wondering how they might act.

[01:22:15] And I was keyed in on the little ones because I felt so bad for them that they didn't have

[01:22:20] any parental figures and nobody seemed to give a shit about them when they were crying.

[01:22:24] And I could just imagine these little six-year-olds crying for their mothers.

[01:22:26] They were like first grade, that's terrible.

[01:22:28] Yeah, it's so sad.

[01:22:30] Yeah, their red shirts.

[01:22:30] And the one kid with the birthmark and he just disappears.

[01:22:36] I know, I had to even ask Cassie about that because I was like,

[01:22:40] I kept, even though I'd read it before, I kept expecting them to find him and that was like

[01:22:48] the beastie.

[01:22:51] I kept thinking that would come back, but no, he's just gone.

[01:22:53] Probably fell off a cliff or something.

[01:22:55] Yeah.

[01:22:56] And just little things like one kid didn't know, he was too young to know to stay out

[01:23:01] of the sun and of course no one tells him.

[01:23:03] The little details like that are so good.

[01:23:05] The little kid who keeps, what's his name?

[01:23:08] Percival, who keeps repeating his name and his address and then forgets his telephone number.

[01:23:14] And I talked about that with my students because they don't understand why he's doing that.

[01:23:20] And I'm like, don't you have to memorize your phone number and everything?

[01:23:24] And students today, I guess, don't really do that anymore.

[01:23:28] Because they have a mobile phone.

[01:23:29] I guess though, little kids have to memorize their address.

[01:23:31] They memorize their parents' number, but not a home phone number.

[01:23:34] And also so many students don't know their home address, which is a whole other thing.

[01:23:39] Oh my God, I could've...

[01:23:40] Anyway.

[01:23:41] Wow.

[01:23:41] Yeah.

[01:23:43] But then he forgets his name at the end, which I thought was...

[01:23:47] Well, and none of them have names at the end, truly.

[01:23:50] I think at the very last page from that point, none of them really have names in the last

[01:23:57] chapter.

[01:23:58] They're the savages.

[01:23:59] They're the chief.

[01:24:01] The naval officer.

[01:24:01] It's a whole different reality.

[01:24:06] All right, notes?

[01:24:08] Do you have any random notes, Cassie?

[01:24:11] Traps, setting traps.

[01:24:15] I didn't remember traps.

[01:24:18] Just the comparison setting traps between...

[01:24:22] The rock trap is like we see foreshadowing of that right in the very beginning in chapter

[01:24:27] one when they're first exploring the island and they push the boulders over the cliff to

[01:24:31] just watch it break because they're little boys and that's what you do.

[01:24:34] And then in episode one of Yellow Jackets, we see the pit trap.

[01:24:43] I think that's all I got.

[01:24:45] I can't read part of my notes.

[01:24:48] Okay, I had a few.

[01:24:52] This is just sort of random, but I liked when Ralph figured out how to blow the conch like

[01:24:57] a horn.

[01:24:58] I almost could hear it.

[01:25:00] Oh yeah.

[01:25:01] Who tells him how to do that?

[01:25:04] Piggy.

[01:25:05] Yeah.

[01:25:06] Yeah.

[01:25:06] Piggy's the one who recognizes what it is.

[01:25:09] And says to blow it to attract others.

[01:25:12] Yep, and that's part of the reason why Ralph was elected for chief, partially because of

[01:25:16] how he looked and acted, but also because he had the thing that brought them all together.

[01:25:22] Even though the whole time it's really not a symbol for Ralph, it's a symbol for Piggy

[01:25:26] because when the conch dies, so does he.

[01:25:28] Yeah.

[01:25:29] Yeah, and I really think it is because like I said, I think it's a symbol of democracy

[01:25:33] where everyone has a voice, even the less advantaged or the weaker, and they both died together.

[01:25:43] Yeah.

[01:25:44] I wondered if them eating, hunting and eating boar on Lost was a tribute to this show.

[01:25:51] I'm sure they had Lord of the Flies in mind when they were making Lost too.

[01:25:54] I feel like it has to be a reference to Lord of the Flies, specifically because they keep

[01:25:59] saying boar on the show, right?

[01:26:01] Right.

[01:26:03] And I also wondered if Misty's character was drawn from Piggy.

[01:26:09] It seems like it almost had to be with the glasses because they focus on Misty's glasses

[01:26:15] a lot in the beginning.

[01:26:17] She's always taking them on and off.

[01:26:19] That's true, yeah.

[01:26:20] And by the end, isn't one of her glasses lens broken?

[01:26:24] In that clip that we...

[01:26:25] I don't know.

[01:26:27] The flashback of the...

[01:26:28] What did you call it?

[01:26:29] The cannibal circle?

[01:26:31] Cannibal council.

[01:26:32] The cannibal council.

[01:26:34] I'm pretty sure one of her glass lenses is broken and that's also a nod.

[01:26:38] Like one of Piggy's glasses lenses is broken because Jack punches him and they fall and

[01:26:43] break.

[01:26:44] It's got to be a nod.

[01:26:45] I had to suspend my disbelief that they don't at least try other ways to make a fire.

[01:26:51] They kind of talk about it, but they don't try it.

[01:26:54] You know, making a string with a bow and twisting a stick or something like that.

[01:26:59] I kind of believe that just because they're kids and they're not like adults where they're

[01:27:03] finding backups.

[01:27:03] Like if I found a way to make it work, I'd make it work.

[01:27:05] No, no, no.

[01:27:06] But when they don't have Piggy's glasses anymore.

[01:27:08] Oh yeah.

[01:27:09] At that point, maybe.

[01:27:10] Have you ever made a fire with sticks?

[01:27:13] I've not successfully done it.

[01:27:14] It's really hard.

[01:27:15] It takes a long time.

[01:27:16] We tried in Girl Scouts.

[01:27:18] No, I know.

[01:27:18] And we gave up.

[01:27:20] I'm not saying that we succeeded, but just try.

[01:27:21] And used flint.

[01:27:22] Yeah.

[01:27:23] We did at least go get some flint and we used that, but we tried for a long time.

[01:27:27] But it was important to the plot that Piggy have the means of fire, you know?

[01:27:34] Yeah.

[01:27:34] And that they would come in and forcefully take it from him instead of just asking, which

[01:27:38] as Ralph said, they would have gladly shown him.

[01:27:41] And then last back in grad school, I wrote a short story called Ginger's Ginger Grant's

[01:27:48] confession that was about the truth behind Gilligan's Island.

[01:27:52] It was kind of inspired by Lord of the Flies.

[01:27:55] And is it okay if I read a couple paragraphs from it?

[01:27:59] Yeah.

[01:28:00] I might need the original.

[01:28:02] It was the assignment was a funny fable.

[01:28:05] And so this is what I won't read the whole thing, but just the story.

[01:28:08] Assignment was a funny fable.

[01:28:09] And so this is what I won't read the whole thing, but just the first page or two.

[01:28:12] We all wanted to look like decent human beings, but it was important to me, especially to paint

[01:28:16] a respectable picture of myself to let everyone know that I was no savage.

[01:28:19] I was still pure.

[01:28:21] I guess that must've been what I was thinking when I told the press about the dresses.

[01:28:25] It seems silly now, but I actually said that sometimes crates would wash up on the shore

[01:28:29] full of gowns and glamorous jewelry.

[01:28:31] And I would put the things on and we'd stage mock soirees.

[01:28:34] A girl must keep up her image.

[01:28:37] Of course, we told everyone we'd been like a family for all those years.

[01:28:41] We told them that we built huts out of bamboo and grass and papaya leaves sat in a circle

[01:28:45] every night, eating my he and coconut cream pie together, strengthening our silent oath

[01:28:50] that we would never give up, never lose ourselves in despair.

[01:28:52] Like those boys from Lord of the Flies did for all these years, we've been back home.

[01:28:57] We always kept up the front that we had worked together on that Island.

[01:29:00] Sure.

[01:29:01] We made up goofy stories of Gilligan bungling up the work sometimes for credibility.

[01:29:05] I suppose everything can't be perfect, but we wanted people to think that we had never

[01:29:09] lost hope.

[01:29:10] We've been told that we built stationary bicycles out of tree bark to keep in shape for the

[01:29:14] big rescue.

[01:29:15] Doesn't that sound hopeful and civilized?

[01:29:18] 15 years have passed since the rescue.

[01:29:20] The Howser long dead, uh, left their entire estate to Thurston the fourth from what I

[01:29:26] hear, which is perfectly expectable.

[01:29:27] I suppose Jonas Grumby had to stop running his tours a few years ago, back problems,

[01:29:33] the poor big skipper.

[01:29:34] He's all alone somewhere.

[01:29:36] Roy, beloved professor Roy passed on last year.

[01:29:39] I'd seen him a few times since the rescue.

[01:29:41] I'd always seen him when he lectured at UCLA or USC, and we at least have drinks afterwards,

[01:29:46] but it wasn't the same.

[01:29:47] His poor tender heart is what gave out on him.

[01:29:49] Finally.

[01:29:50] And Marianne Summers.

[01:29:51] I know some of you must wonder about Marianne.

[01:29:53] I may as well tell you the truth.

[01:29:55] I can't even bring myself to wretch up one kind sentence about that little whore and

[01:29:58] her sour pies.

[01:30:00] The mere sight of coconut triggers my gag reflex.

[01:30:03] And that's that on Marianne.

[01:30:04] Finally, Willie Gilligan.

[01:30:06] Well, he's the reason for this letter.

[01:30:08] I suppose I can't be quiet.

[01:30:09] No, I don't want to be quiet about it anymore.

[01:30:11] You may feel that, you know, Gilligan, the best out of the seven of us, a good-hearted

[01:30:15] energetic pink cheek bungling little guy with his tomato red t-shirt, his floppy white

[01:30:19] sailor's cap and his penchant for tripping over his own feet.

[01:30:23] My little poops, he can Gilligan's all of what you have heard every little bit.

[01:30:27] It's all lies a strategy.

[01:30:29] Now let me tell you about the real Gilligan.

[01:30:33] So you basically wrote part of the Yellow Jackets.

[01:30:37] Because isn't that the whole point is that they put out this image of them all being

[01:30:41] survivors and then Gilligan ends up being a savage.

[01:30:46] Cassie, have you ever seen an episode of Gilligan's Island?

[01:30:49] Yes.

[01:30:50] Okay, I'm just checking.

[01:30:53] I'm a millennial.

[01:30:56] That was probably the best thing I ever wrote, which is why I did not become a writer.

[01:31:00] That was good.

[01:31:02] Thanks.

[01:31:02] I like alternative realities or alternative ending stories.

[01:31:39] Okay, we're back and I asked for feedback on the Yellow Jackets on Showtime discussion

[01:31:45] group, which is a Facebook group and got a few responses.

[01:31:49] So I'll go ahead and read the first one.

[01:31:51] It's from LJ Walker.

[01:31:53] He said, I have thoughts.

[01:31:55] I never see people discuss how much of it is leftover from the stage when Yellow Jackets

[01:32:01] was a gender swapped, but otherwise straight adaption.

[01:32:06] Of course, that doesn't mean they don't discuss it.

[01:32:08] I just haven't seen it.

[01:32:10] That's one of the big reasons I'm team no supernatural because in Lord of the Flies,

[01:32:16] the beast is unequivocally not real.

[01:32:18] Golding firmly believes the beast is in us, although I think Yellow Jackets stance is

[01:32:24] best summed up by adult Lottie saying, is there a difference?

[01:32:27] That's great.

[01:32:28] I love that.

[01:32:29] Or whatever her exact words were to that effect.

[01:32:32] Does it matter?

[01:32:33] Something like that.

[01:32:34] In other words, the wilderness is as real as we make it.

[01:32:38] Also, Jackie was such a huge misdirect based on Lord of the Flies because you'd naturally

[01:32:44] assume she's Jack being named that and starting out as the leader.

[01:32:49] But Yellow Jackets is extremely interested in the shifting dynamics of power and how

[01:32:54] the slightest change in context changes who has influence.

[01:32:59] Knocking Jackie off her throne and later killing her is a way of saying, this ain't Lord of

[01:33:04] the Flies, y'all.

[01:33:06] We're told explicitly by the coach that Jackie has influence, but long before Lottie tells

[01:33:11] her you don't matter anymore, we see it.

[01:33:14] Her losing her influence due to a new context.

[01:33:17] Even small changes in context like Ty's doomed expedition give us a new leader.

[01:33:23] In that case, Ty, my roommate who is so much smarter than me, called this theme very early

[01:33:29] on, like episode three.

[01:33:30] So by the time we go to Lottie crowning Nat, I was in awe of my roommate's genius perception.

[01:33:38] That is so good.

[01:33:39] And I don't know if LJ is a listener of ours usually, but we should post this episode on

[01:33:45] that thread just to maybe draw.

[01:33:47] Him or her in because I want to get more feedback like that.

[01:33:50] It's so great.

[01:33:50] Yeah, that's great.

[01:33:51] I think about that adult Lottie conversation all the time and I think it's either Nat or

[01:33:57] Shauna that's like, all that shit in the woods was just us.

[01:34:01] Yeah.

[01:34:05] All right.

[01:34:05] Also from the Showtime Discussion Group on Facebook, Kate Marie had to say, the book

[01:34:11] is very symbolic and allegorical.

[01:34:13] The jungle slash wilderness at odds with the civilization the boys come from when their

[01:34:17] plane is shot down.

[01:34:22] I think that's incomplete.

[01:34:25] Is that the whole comment?

[01:34:26] Yep.

[01:34:27] Oh.

[01:34:31] I'm trying to understand what it means.

[01:34:33] Symbolic, the jungle wilderness at odd with the civilization.

[01:34:37] I think that's kind of going on to like the setting.

[01:34:41] Like you're where no one else is.

[01:34:43] Civilization doesn't exist where you are.

[01:34:45] So any civilization in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of the jungle is stuff that humans

[01:34:51] bring with them maybe.

[01:34:52] Okay.

[01:34:54] All right.

[01:34:55] Nigel Robles says, the one thing I'll say is that more than anything else, the book was

[01:35:00] about how fucked up the British boarding school system was.

[01:35:03] Not a metaphor about humanity.

[01:35:06] That's true.

[01:35:08] I don't know anything about it.

[01:35:09] Oh, that's true.

[01:35:10] I have my students research British prep schools during that time period.

[01:35:14] It's really bad.

[01:35:16] Oh, I'm sure.

[01:35:17] They were big fans of corporal punishment.

[01:35:20] Hazing was like a huge deal and that's like, you know, we see in the book, the little ones

[01:35:24] are completely ignored and that's like better treatment than they would have gotten at the

[01:35:28] prep schools because in the prep schools, they're hazed and like tormented basically.

[01:35:34] Yeah.

[01:35:34] On the island, they're just kind of left to their own devices.

[01:35:37] And I think that also goes back into like the idea of savagery, especially with those

[01:35:42] boys because every second of their day was like timed and scheduled and they didn't have

[01:35:48] choices.

[01:35:49] It wasn't like, you know, school now where you get to choose electives and you can take

[01:35:52] this class or that class.

[01:35:53] It was like everyone had lunch at this time.

[01:35:55] Everyone had military prep at this time.

[01:35:58] And I feel like that's kind of a universal experience of like the most.

[01:36:03] Controlled of us are the ones who are going to lose it the fastest when we're in an environment

[01:36:08] where we don't have constraints.

[01:36:10] Yeah, yeah.

[01:36:11] I mean, that really felt like it was weird how the book started off with just Ralph and

[01:36:16] he's it's calm and he's like, yeah, this place is cool.

[01:36:19] Like this is mine now.

[01:36:21] But what I got from it was that they're excited to finally have some freedom and some power.

[01:36:26] And you see that in the very beginning when they're like exploring the island and they

[01:36:30] come back and they're like, this is a good island.

[01:36:33] They're excited.

[01:36:34] This is like a paradise and they can at least recognize that.

[01:36:37] It's like an adventure for them.

[01:36:39] Yeah.

[01:36:40] Versus in Yellow Jackets, that's not so much the case.

[01:36:44] But in the book, it's like it almost could have been a vacation.

[01:36:48] Almost.

[01:36:49] Yeah.

[01:36:50] Because they didn't show the plane crash, so you don't get this sense of that trauma.

[01:36:54] But in Yellow Jackets, they're like, we got to chop the coach's leg off.

[01:36:57] You know?

[01:36:57] Yeah.

[01:37:00] I think that's a really interesting thing that the book does.

[01:37:04] And so the book was actually rejected like over 20 times by different publishers before

[01:37:09] he finally got it published, which is also something that my students research.

[01:37:15] And part of the reason is because the opening of the book used to be different.

[01:37:20] Supposedly, the original opening of the book showed part of the plane crash and it wasn't

[01:37:25] super graphic, but people just didn't like it.

[01:37:28] People didn't like reading it before they were actually in the jungle walking around.

[01:37:33] Versus I think that's one of my favorite parts of the series is watching that initial crash

[01:37:38] and how they all react in the moment.

[01:37:41] And seeing Laura Lee praying and Shawna realizes like, oh my God, this is actually happening.

[01:37:47] I think that's a really – that kind of scene in anything contemporary,

[01:37:51] that's what people want to watch.

[01:37:54] The big crash scenes.

[01:37:55] Same with Lost.

[01:37:57] Same with anything.

[01:37:58] Same with Five.

[01:37:59] Same with – we like that big action scene.

[01:38:02] Our sensibilities have changed.

[01:38:05] Yeah.

[01:38:05] But it's interesting that it's just left out because people didn't like it as much.

[01:38:09] Yeah.

[01:38:11] I hadn't even thought to look up other books of his, but I did now and he's got like 12 books

[01:38:19] and they – most of them sound really fascinating.

[01:38:22] One called The Inheritance, which is about – well, I feel like I can't give away what it's

[01:38:27] about, but it's really interesting, the concept of it.

[01:38:31] And there's more themes of darkness in human hearts, but different perspectives and angles

[01:38:37] on it of perception and sanity.

[01:38:38] He seems like he was an interesting guy.

[01:38:40] Yeah, I want to read –

[01:38:41] He was raised by academics.

[01:38:42] I probably won't read since I haven't read a book in like 10 years before this, but –

[01:38:47] He's definitely like a philosopher as far as – like he goes into the philosophical lens of

[01:38:56] literacy and looking at why people do the things that they do.

[01:39:00] Yeah.

[01:39:01] And I think probably filtered through the trauma of his World War II experience.

[01:39:05] Oh, for sure.

[01:39:05] So it's pessimistic or a bit cynical.

[01:39:08] Well, he also taught young boys too and like not to be –

[01:39:12] Speaking of trauma, is that what you're saying?

[01:39:14] Yeah, not to be like – but like teaching young boys, especially during that time period where

[01:39:20] like teachers had a – I feel like a lot more rain back then and like corporal punishment

[01:39:24] was a thing.

[01:39:25] That was probably traumatizing in its own way, especially teaching children in a time

[01:39:30] period where like war was on the horizon because it's not fun doing that.

[01:39:35] I mean, if you look at like World War I and World War II, that all happened pretty

[01:39:43] in that dense time period.

[01:39:46] So that – we can't imagine what that would be like.

[01:39:49] It would be completely different.

[01:39:52] All right.

[01:39:53] I have a couple articles.

[01:39:55] Cassie, you want to read the first excerpt from the article?

[01:39:59] Taken from a PopSugar article entitled The Unsettling True Story That May Have Inspired

[01:40:04] Yellow Jackets.

[01:40:06] Show creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have noted that Yellow Jackets is influenced

[01:40:11] by William Golding's 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, which is about a group of boys

[01:40:16] stranded on an island.

[01:40:18] Lyle elaborated this on the Hollywood Reporter's TV's Top 5 podcast in November 2021 saying

[01:40:25] Lord of the Flies is about how socialization falls away and how society is a facade.

[01:40:30] We thought who was more socialized than women?

[01:40:32] As girls, you learn early on how to make people like you and what the social hierarchies are.

[01:40:37] Furthermore, Lyle highlighted how the series explores gender roles and performance in even

[01:40:42] the most extreme of situations noting it's a more interesting way of having things fall

[01:40:46] away.

[01:40:47] The mask is even thicker.

[01:40:48] It's a more layered amount of preconceived notions of how to behave and act.

[01:40:53] I like that.

[01:40:55] All right, Jason, you want to take the next one?

[01:40:58] Sure.

[01:40:58] From an expert of Fresh Air with Melanie Linsky.

[01:41:03] I've heard the show's creators tell the story at a panel where they were reading the comments

[01:41:07] on Deadline or something and people were like, oh, you can never do an all-female Lord of

[01:41:11] the Flies because what are they going to do?

[01:41:13] Compromise to death?

[01:41:15] Like all these things about women, about women not being vicious, women not being violent

[01:41:20] and not being willing to do what it takes to survive.

[01:41:23] Ashley Lyle, who's one of the show creators was like, these people have never met a teenage

[01:41:27] girl and then they got inspired to tell this particular story.

[01:41:30] Incredibly accurate.

[01:41:33] Melanie Linsky is in, is it The Tattooist of Auschwitz that I heard was really good?

[01:41:40] I haven't seen it.

[01:41:41] Have you heard about that, Cassie?

[01:41:43] I don't know if she's in it.

[01:41:44] I would have watched it before I really knew who she was, but I've seen it.

[01:41:47] It's a great movie.

[01:41:48] It's based on a true story and a book.

[01:41:50] Yeah, that's on my to-do list.

[01:41:53] I love that quote by Melanie Linsky.

[01:41:56] Have you ever met, in school when there are fights, if it's two boys, maybe, if it's two

[01:42:03] girls fighting, it's like everyone needs to stay 10 feet away.

[01:42:05] Oh yeah.

[01:42:06] Truly, truly, that's how it's handled.

[01:42:08] I've seen that.

[01:42:09] Girl fights are not, no.

[01:42:12] Why do you think that is?

[01:42:15] I think because girls are taught, I mean, I don't know, I could go on and on, but I think

[01:42:19] it's because girls are taught, maybe not even explicitly to internalize their stuff.

[01:42:25] So when they do have an opportunity to externalize their anger and their frustration,

[01:42:30] they're just going for it.

[01:42:31] Like I've literally watched two boys get in fights and they'll throw a couple of punches

[01:42:35] and then they'll just be like, all right, whatever.

[01:42:37] And they'll walk away and it'll be done.

[01:42:38] Girls, I've literally seen girls rip shirts off, rip hair out, blood on the floor, being

[01:42:45] punched in the head because they're trying to get to each other.

[01:42:49] I think it's just how they're taught to express or handle that.

[01:42:56] But I don't know, I'm jaded.

[01:42:57] Yeah.

[01:42:58] It's like repression and then explosion when it comes out, right?

[01:43:02] Explosive.

[01:43:03] And I also think it takes a lot more, in my opinion, it takes a lot more for girls to get

[01:43:08] into a fight than boys.

[01:43:11] Yeah.

[01:43:12] Yeah.

[01:43:13] I think that makes a lot of sense.

[01:43:14] A physical fight at least.

[01:43:15] I think girls tend to do the social thing and tend to isolate each other and mock each

[01:43:22] other and stuff like that.

[01:43:22] And I think that comes, whether we're taught that explicitly or not, I think it just comes

[01:43:27] more naturally.

[01:43:28] And so when you get to the point of physical violence, there's a lot behind that.

[01:43:32] Do you think there's anything to me, and I don't know, I'm asking if social hierarchies

[01:43:38] are maybe more important to a girl's sense of identity?

[01:43:41] So if it gets disrupted, it's a bigger deal.

[01:43:46] I could see that.

[01:43:48] Yeah.

[01:43:50] I also think not even social hierarchy necessarily, but just pride and ego and how that factors

[01:44:01] in for each person.

[01:44:03] Because very rarely these days are you seeing groups fighting each other or fights over group

[01:44:10] drama.

[01:44:10] It's always like someone was mean mugging me, someone did this, someone said this, someone

[01:44:15] posted this.

[01:44:16] There's a lot of fights.

[01:44:20] It's real fun.

[01:44:23] All right, I have a news article.

[01:44:27] It's not a whole lot, but I was looking for any season three news about Yellow Jackets

[01:44:34] on the IMDB page.

[01:44:36] It quotes a joeblow.com article from January 2024.

[01:44:41] It says, while fans of the Showtime series Yellow Jackets patiently wait to see the bonus

[01:44:46] episode that's going to air sometime between the second and third seasons, showrunners

[01:44:51] Lyle and Nickerson and Jonathan Lisko have let it be known that season three, which was,

[01:44:56] of course, greatly delayed by the strikes that hit the entertainment industry last year,

[01:45:02] is finally going to start filming in May, aiming for an early 2025 premiere.

[01:45:07] So hopefully this month they'll start filming.

[01:45:11] Yep.

[01:45:12] I know they started writing in September and I wonder if they will just fold that

[01:45:17] supposed bonus episode into the next season at this point, but who knows?

[01:45:23] They did say it was supposed to come out in 2020.

[01:45:24] I feel like if they're going to give it to us, they have to give it to us.

[01:45:26] I feel like if they've said it's a bonus, that's what they're going to have to treat

[01:45:29] it as.

[01:45:30] Yeah, it's pretty close to the premiere.

[01:45:34] I feel like it's going to be a history too, like the origin of Cabin Daddy or something.

[01:45:41] Yeah.

[01:45:42] Isn't that what people think?

[01:45:43] Yeah.

[01:45:44] I had a couple news items.

[01:45:48] The Wrap talked with Ashley Lyle, the co-showrunner, and she teased just a little bit about

[01:45:55] what's to come.

[01:45:56] This isn't really spoilery that much, just maybe a tad tiny bit, but I don't think anybody

[01:46:01] might be hearing that.

[01:46:02] She said, I will say we see season three as a little bit of a return to season one in

[01:46:07] terms of the vibe.

[01:46:09] And she said, all I will say is that the girls have been out there for a while and they're

[01:46:13] thriving and everything actually is supernatural.

[01:46:18] No, I'm just kidding.

[01:46:21] So I think that means like season, because I feel like season one, they were a lot more

[01:46:25] organized.

[01:46:26] Maybe like spring comes and things calm down and they have a food source, so they're not

[01:46:31] eating each other as much.

[01:46:33] And they're also like, they're drifting now.

[01:46:35] They're cabin-less.

[01:46:36] They're kind of leaderless.

[01:46:39] I mean, Nat's basically the leader, but it's also Lottie.

[01:46:43] So maybe they're going to fall into some kind of new little society, new hierarchy.

[01:46:48] Right.

[01:46:49] I'm ready for it, man.

[01:46:50] It's been too long.

[01:46:51] Oh, I'm so ready.

[01:46:51] And then the article mentions that Yellowjackets has been nominated for multiple Emmys, including

[01:46:56] Best Drama and Acting Nods for Melanie Linsky and Christina Ricci.

[01:47:00] Well-deserved, I would say.

[01:47:01] And Ashley Lyle said, we've said this many times in the writers room, and I don't know

[01:47:04] if I'll get in trouble for saying this, but we're always like, fuck the Emmys.

[01:47:08] We want a GLAAD award.

[01:47:10] I think it's more meaningful than just getting an award.

[01:47:12] We have an incredible collaborators in our writers room and we're queer and transgender

[01:47:17] and we're all in this together.

[01:47:20] We're queer and to be able to have recognition that that's what we're doing is so important

[01:47:24] to us, especially in this moment where queer rights are under very direct attack.

[01:47:28] And to keep that as part of the conversation and to reach as many people as we can with

[01:47:32] the message that that is not okay is at the core list of our priorities.

[01:47:37] That was interesting.

[01:47:38] I think that's great.

[01:47:40] Like whatever they're doing is working.

[01:47:41] So keep it up.

[01:47:42] Yeah.

[01:47:44] And then I had one more.

[01:47:45] Ella Purnell, I'm sure most of you listening know this, but if you didn't know, she was

[01:47:51] the star of this new show Fallout on Amazon and it's a great show and you should go watch

[01:47:58] it.

[01:47:58] And she was very good in it.

[01:48:00] And she wasn't Jackie.

[01:48:01] She was totally different.

[01:48:04] Her range is incredible.

[01:48:05] Yeah.

[01:48:06] It's so good.

[01:48:07] You guys have to watch it if you haven't seen it.

[01:48:09] A couple other podcast hosts and I did a three hour podcast episode about the first season

[01:48:14] and it's on another show we do called house podcast.

[01:48:18] We'll put a link in the show notes if you're interested.

[01:48:20] I thought about releasing it on this yellow jackets WTF feed, but it's three dudes.

[01:48:25] It's a different vibe.

[01:48:26] So I just will point it out to you guys and you can go listen to it if you want.

[01:48:30] I haven't finished the series, but I've seen the first episode.

[01:48:34] Oh, you got it.

[01:48:35] Yeah, it's really good.

[01:48:36] Yeah.

[01:48:36] I know.

[01:48:36] Have you all played it?

[01:48:38] I haven't.

[01:48:39] I know you haven't.

[01:48:41] I, I, I'm kind of surprised that I haven't because it looks like I am a gamer.

[01:48:46] You haven't played any of them?

[01:48:47] And it looks great.

[01:48:48] I've watched a friend of mine play a little bit of it, but not really enough to get.

[01:48:51] Oh, you got to play.

[01:48:53] Yeah, it's good.

[01:48:54] I've played Fallout three, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout four, Fallout 76.

[01:48:59] I always hear New Vegas is the best.

[01:49:01] Do you agree with that?

[01:49:03] I think it's the best as a standalone game.

[01:49:07] I think Fallout 76 is like the worst, and I don't know anyone who would disagree with me, to be honest.

[01:49:17] Apparently it's improved over time.

[01:49:20] Yeah, I guess that's true, but I think it's mostly just the way that they've

[01:49:23] rolled it out in a beta version was just trash.

[01:49:26] But the show is mostly there's a lot of references to Fallout four and Fallout three.

[01:49:31] And then at the end of, you know, there's references to other stuff too.

[01:49:35] But it's really interesting how they like absorbed all these different games and have

[01:49:39] all these little Easter eggs in it.

[01:49:41] I mean, I haven't played it, but it's great how video game adaptations used to be shit

[01:49:48] every single time.

[01:49:49] Oh yeah.

[01:49:50] Now we have Fallout and The Last of Us, and I think there's a couple others recently.

[01:49:54] So they're figuring out how to do it right.

[01:49:55] I think Fallout does something unique where in other adaptations, the first episode is

[01:50:02] mostly to get everybody in.

[01:50:04] And I think Fallout's first episode really, really caters to the original gamers.

[01:50:08] But it's also like anyone can watch it.

[01:50:10] Yeah.

[01:50:11] But there are so many references in the first episode that's like, it's just a nerd fest.

[01:50:16] I mean, when they can do it where it's great if you haven't played the game, but if you

[01:50:21] have, there's all these references and they can do that well without taking non-gamers

[01:50:27] out of it, then it's awesome.

[01:50:29] I mean, I loved The Last of Us and I've never played the game.

[01:50:33] I've played it.

[01:50:34] Loved it.

[01:50:35] Yeah.

[01:50:37] So we, of course, don't know yet when season three will air apparently early next year,

[01:50:42] but we might do another one off like this one.

[01:50:45] I think we probably will.

[01:50:47] I think we should do another Yellow Jackets focused one, maybe when more news starts coming

[01:50:51] out.

[01:50:52] But if there's another topic that you guys want us to cover or you have any ideas, drop

[01:50:57] us a line.

[01:50:58] And if you want to write in or leave us a voice message for that, you can find all of

[01:51:02] our contact information at podcastic.com.

[01:51:06] While you're there, be sure to check out our other shows.

[01:51:10] I am looking forward to House of the Dragon.

[01:51:14] I'm going to be a host on that show this year and I'm really, really excited about that.

[01:51:19] Yeah.

[01:51:20] I did a couple episodes last season and I was dying to do more.

[01:51:25] So I'm excited about this.

[01:51:27] It's coming in July.

[01:51:29] June.

[01:51:29] June.

[01:51:30] June.

[01:51:30] Oh, shoot, next month.

[01:51:33] Yeah.

[01:51:33] I've got to ready myself.

[01:51:35] What are you doing right now, Jason?

[01:51:38] I'm just sitting here.

[01:51:42] I'm doing, like I said, pretty much focused on the Walking Dead rewatch that Lucy and

[01:51:48] I started.

[01:51:49] That's been a lot of fun to go back and revisit that series.

[01:51:52] Yeah, I'm enjoying that.

[01:51:53] I've been behind, so I haven't been able to leave timely feedback, but I think I'm on like

[01:51:57] seven.

[01:51:58] Oh yeah.

[01:51:58] Season two, episode seven.

[01:52:00] Cool, if you're right in.

[01:52:01] Yeah.

[01:52:01] And they had the Rick and Michonne spin-off recently, so that's been great.

[01:52:04] Oh yeah, that was great.

[01:52:05] I wanted to call you guys and talk to you about my feelings, but I listened to it later.

[01:52:10] So listening to you and Lucy was great.

[01:52:14] Yeah, it was so good to watch.

[01:52:15] Yeah.

[01:52:16] Yeah, I enjoyed that one.

[01:52:18] And if you liked our podcast and any of our other podcasts, we'd very much appreciate it

[01:52:24] if you would leave us a rating or review.

[01:52:26] Wherever you get your podcasts, there's a link in the show notes.

[01:52:29] Thank you guys.

[01:52:31] All right, that's our show.

[01:52:33] Thanks for listening, everyone.

[01:52:35] Thanks for listening.

[01:52:36] Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.

[01:52:58] Beautiful.