Deaths in Shakespeare - Stranger Than Fiction Theme - Halloween

I Should Have Known is getting spooky for October! In this chilling start to our Stranger Than Fiction theme, Quizmaster Andi takes the stage to deliver four tales of death straight from the bard himself. But beware: one of the killings is not from Shakespeare and instead happened in real life! Can you read between the lines to dig up the truth? Play along with hosts Tanner and Sups as they attempt to avoid tragedy and find out which death is stranger than fiction! 

Transcript

Tanner 0:01

Narrowing it down? It could be real life or the other 37.

Sups 0:04

Yeah, I think discussing with you is pointless. I have to think by myself now because you're like just taking me

Tanner 0:11

It's true. Yeah.

Sups 0:14

Have you seen a pattern here?

Tanner 0:16

murder. Laughter.

Sups 0:21

okay. Let's ask the real question. Is this stranger than

Tanner 0:25

Mm. That is the question.

Andi 0:28

Hello and welcome to this episode of I Should Have Known, the trivia game show that can't be trusted. Each week one of our Quizmasters will present you with four facts about a topic, but one of them is a lie. And it is October, so we are getting creepy. We are doing Stranger Than Fiction for this month. Kind of a creepy Halloween esque theme. I'm your quiz master, Andy. And I'm going to be presenting you with four deaths from Shakespeare. But, one of these deaths actually happened. So one of these is a real person's real death, and it does not appear in any of Shakespeare's plays. So join our other hosts, Supes and Tanner, in figuring out which death is stranger than fiction.

Sups 1:17

Okay. Cool.

Andi 1:18

Yeah. So Shakespeare talking about the bard, a couple caveats before we start is so technically some of Shakespeare's plays were histories, meaning they were about real people who did exist. And so some of the deaths that he depicted in his plays. They were real people who did die and perhaps died similarly to how he depicted it But like he made it full Shakespeare So technically some of these deaths are real, but like, you know, they've been Shakespeare ized

Sups 1:53

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 1:53

Okay, but the fake one does not appear in

Sups 1:56

Shakespeare. right?

Andi 1:57

No, it does not appear

Sups 1:59

but it's like a real death, like a real,

Andi 2:00

It's a real person's death. And so, the way that I'm going to present this is that I'm going to just read you a really basic synopsis of the scene where this person dies. Decontextualized. So there won't be any names because the names would really give it

Tanner 2:14

dies. Decontextualized. So

Andi 2:16

there was so there won't be any names and then at the end. I will reveal what plays all of them are from and then, of course, the one that's not from a play. the real death is from around the same time as Shakespeare.

Tanner 2:30

is from

Sups 2:30

okay. So from the... 15 hundreds. Okay. Yeah.

Andi 2:34

Like the late renaissance So that's how it's gonna go.

Sups 2:36

Yeah, cool.

Tanner 2:37

We got lots of guessing. I'm

Andi 2:38

Yeah, I so the PQQ is How many human deaths are there in Shakespeare's 38 plays?

Sups 2:47

How many deaths in total? I would say about

Tanner 2:51

can guess. I'm sorry. Okay. I would say

Sups 2:58

dead.

Tanner 2:58

um, 246. One per

Sups 3:00

One per play, so that's 38. play, 70s, eh...

Tanner 3:05

I think a hundred is

Sups 3:07

100? Okay, so you went, like, less than half of what I just

Tanner 3:11

said.

Andi 3:12

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sobes, you're way too high. Oh, no.

Sups 3:14

Um, You have... So,

Andi 3:15

so yeah, there are many plays, Hamlet, king Lear, where basically everyone's dead by the end of the play. Yeah, yeah. But for just as many of those plays, there are plays like Midsummer, night Stream, the comedies where you may either have, yeah, very few or no one dies. there are 74

Sups 3:32

Ah,

Andi 3:33

74 human deaths.

Sups 3:35

Okay, alright. Oh.

Tanner 3:37

Wow,

Andi 3:37

So we have a lot of death

Tanner 3:39

Okay. very interested to hear who is not a Shakespeare death

Andi 3:43

Yeah. All right. Are you ready? Yeah. So Shakespearean death number one. After the assassination of a prominent official, The city descends into chaos. Rioters roam the streets in anger, asking passerby if they be friend or foe. They stop one man and ask his name. When he answers, they recognize it as a famous conspirator in the assassination. The man pleads with them. He is merely a poet by the same name. He is not the conspirator. But the bloodthirsty crowd will not be calmed and tear the man limb from limb.

Sups 4:19

Mmm, do you know the play?

Tanner 4:21

not be calmed, and name Lynn Hinton. They're walking the streets, and there's chaos, and then some senator has the same name as some poet or whatever, and they just kill him?

Sups 4:41

and they sense Yeah. Okay, and what makes you say this is Caesar?

Tanner 4:46

I mean, what's interesting to me is that it's not Caesar's death. That's not the death. But that would be the play.

Andi 4:54

I mean, that would be pretty obvious, I think. Yeah,

Tanner 4:57

This guy gets stabbed. Shakespeare

Sups 5:00

knowledge is not that pro, but I think we know at least that much, yeah.

Tanner 5:04

Yeah. But I think that those specific... Terms for like the setting of like chaos in the city after the assassination the conspirators That just seems

Sups 5:15

like what was the plot of Merchant of Venice?

Tanner 5:19

Oh Crap, I don't know

Sups 5:20

people, died. Merchant

Tanner 5:23

Yes

Sups 5:24

Yes I wanna say yes. but I hear this lot. Something about It just,

Tanner 5:28

You think Venice? yeah,

Sups 5:30

I'm thinking

Tanner 5:31

Venice. Okay. Very possible. He said a lot of his plays in Italy, right? Could be. to be honest, I've never heard of this scene. I don't know this guy's name. Right. And so I couldn't tell you who died.

Sups 5:42

but by the description that she gave us, do you think this is like possible Shakespearean set up. I think that's what we need to work out, right?

Tanner 5:52

Is it Shakespearean made? Or is it real? Yeah. Is it reality? Right. I think it sounds very Shakespearean. Like, oh no, it's the same name as this other guy. Oh, mistaken identity. Maybe, like, that's pretty good.

Sups 6:05

There's some good literary tools that the Bard is known for using. So I have reasons to believe that this is fiction. Yeah. Sounds like this is something that he would write. I couldn't pinpoint which exact play this is from.

Tanner 6:21

is from. If I had to guess, I would say that like, this is like Cicero, or like some Roman, and it actually happened, and it's in the play.

Sups 6:29

Oh, okay. That's my guess. Okay.

Tanner 6:32

So I think we're on the same page here, I think this is a

Sups 6:34

We are, We are, But we have like three more to go.

Tanner 6:37

we are. Oh God!

Andi 6:38

but we

Sups 6:39

Are you ready? Yes. Okay. Let's, let's move on to play number two.

Andi 6:42

Okay, so Shakespearean death number two. Four young men spend an epicurious afternoon at a tavern discussing philosophy and playing backgammon. Among them is a poet known for his subversive philosophy and rumored to be a spy. Unbeknownst to him, his companions more than despise his ideology. As the afternoon progresses and the companions grow drunker, an argument breaks out between them. In the fray, the poet grabs a dagger and blindly slashes one of his companions, giving him a non lethal cut. In response, that companion stabs the poet above his right eye, killing him instantly.

Sups 7:25

Yeah.

Tanner 7:26

him, instantly.

Sups 7:27

Do you know which play this

Tanner 7:28

No idea. four dudes in a

Sups 7:30

just take, like, wild shots here. And I'm guessing out of four, at least one will be right. This one screams Othello to me. Okay.

Tanner 7:37

See, I thought you were gonna say everyone is Merchant Venice

Sups 7:40

I

Andi 7:40

That would

Sups 7:41

thought you were would be pretty

Andi 7:41

cool, I actually thought that was where he was going.

Sups 7:45

It's possible Merchant of Venice, but it's more like Othello to me. I don't know. Just throwing out names. Yeah.

Tanner 7:51

don't know any that have like four main characters or like three or one that's hated by the other ones. And again, it's a poet who gets murdered, so

Sups 8:02

this is quite

Tanner 8:03

Stabbed in the eye?

Sups 8:04

Stab in the eye? So that's a very gruesome murder,

Tanner 8:07

Yeah, and I mean, you could go about this a different way, and you could say, like, what account could she be retelling, if not Shakespeare, right? Like if it was real. Mm-hmm. Then who wrote this down? Was it reported in the

Sups 8:21

Was

Tanner 8:21

like was one of these people, some famous person, like a, The late renaissance. Yeah, who maybe have very opinionated ideas, so much so that you would stab them in the eye? If

Sups 8:35

a poet got stabbed in the eye, then Sounds very British to me, though. This whole idea of like tavern and four friends sitting, yeah, drinking some ales, eating, I don't know, shepherd pie or whatever. I don't know.

Tanner 8:47

Yeah.

Sups 8:48

Why are

Andi 8:48

he laughing? I don't know. It's just like very, I love stoops version of like classic England This

Sups 8:55

is what they were doing, or they were hunting

Tanner 8:57

rabbits.

Andi 8:58

Yeah. I love it.

Tanner 9:00

Yeah.

Sups 9:01

Yeah.

Tanner 9:01

It very well could be one of those plays of Shakespeare about England. Don't know what to think about this one. But I want to say it's Shakespeare. Because I can't come up with any real people.

Sups 9:14

Yeah. On a scale of 1 to 10, how off am I with like, guessing names of the play?

Andi 9:19

That's an extra thing. You don't get extra stuff. No way. Do you want to hear any more deaths?

Tanner 9:24

Yes, we're half way through.

Sups 9:25

I love that. Yeah, Okay.

Andi 9:27

Alright. Death number three. The Queen consort becomes pregnant. While a friendly king is visiting her kingly husband, he grows jealous of the attention, his friend is showing his wife and begins to fear that his friend is the actual father of his wife's child. When the baby is born, the king only becomes angrier and orders the baby killed. A loyal lord takes the baby into the forest to abandon it there. But shortly after doing so, he is attacked by a bear. When some peasants find the baby later, there is no sign of the unfortunate lord.

Tanner 10:04

Oh. That's a lot of moving parts

Sups 10:07

there. There's a lot of

Andi 10:08

Yeah, and it's hard to do like decontextualize. Yeah,

Sups 10:12

you're right. Okay.

Tanner 10:13

Hmm. Any guesses? Anything

Sups 10:15

I want to say this is not Macbeth. That's, that's like my starting.

Tanner 10:18

Narrowing it down? It could be real life or the other 37.

Sups 10:22

Yeah, but also if this is like the real one, this is way too complicated to be a real one.

Tanner 10:27

You think so?

Sups 10:27

this one, this one, this one, that one is very hard to keep track

Tanner 10:31

Yeah, I mean, for me, the first thing that jumps out is it sounds like the tutors like

Sups 10:35

Henry

Tanner 10:36

eighth when he was so obsessed with his wife and he was getting paranoid and then he had her beheaded and then Anne Boleyn comes in. is that accurate?

Andi 10:45

I

Tanner 10:45

I'm so confident in all the things I know.

Sups 10:47

I think discussing with you is pointless. I have to think by myself now because you're like just taking me

Tanner 10:53

It's true. Yeah. Don't listen to me. It's very true.

Sups 10:57

Okay.

Tanner 10:57

This sounds like a play like you got these people moving backstage and like oh, I'm so jealous of her Oh, what if I do this and then the baby is in the woods? And the man is missing like that sounds very play like it sounds Shakespearean. I don't know what play I don't know who the characters

Sups 11:15

are.

Tanner 11:16

But I feel like I should know

Sups 11:18

okay. Let's ask the real question. Is this stranger than

Tanner 11:22

Mm. That is the question. I think this one is fiction. Fiction. Yep.

Sups 11:28

So that means number four is to lie. Okay, cool.

Andi 11:31

Do you want

Sups 11:32

The fall for death, please.

Andi 11:34

Alright, death number four. It is a time of great turmoil and unrest in the kingdom. The king mistrusts his two younger brothers. The youngest of them convinces the king to imprison their other brother for treason. As he is escorting this brother to prison, the youngest brother assures him that he will speak on his behalf to the king. After a time, the king does indeed repent, wishing to reconcile with his middle brother. But the youngest has other ideas. He sends two assassins to the prison to kill middle brother. The assassins stab the brother in the back and reportedly give him an ironic sacrament by drowning him in a barrel of wine.

Tanner 12:16

37.

Sups 12:17

Barrel of wine and if this is like a real one like Which means then we are revolving around England Spain France Italy

Tanner 12:25

Yep, but a lot of those are also the places where Shakespeare set his place. So,

Sups 12:31

lives. I don't know, this one also sounds very Shakespeare ish to me. Like it's like a plot

Tanner 12:37

Sending assassins, yeah! And the king, oh, is the king gonna kill his brother? I really wanna see this play. Yeah. I wonder... it could be real, and we haven't heard of it. You

Sups 12:49

Any of the Scottish kings,

Tanner 12:51

Drown them in a bo a

Sups 12:52

any of the Russian sars.

Tanner 12:54

kinda like a Roman off thing to do. I don't know.

Andi 12:57

I love how you guys, after describing the history of Henry VIII, I can't believe that your method for this episode is, Oh, I remember this from history, I know plenty, I can't think of any brothers who ever killed their

Tanner 13:12

That seems very rare.

Andi 13:13

Yeah, yeah, like, that's your method for

Tanner 13:17

every single king. Oh man. Yeah.

Andi 13:20

I guess. I would say that's maybe not the best

Tanner 13:23

would say that's not a good strategy. Hmm. Sounds like a play to me.

Sups 13:29

It does. It does. This one. So actually, now that I'm thinking like the first and the fourth one definitely jumps out to me as like a play

Tanner 13:37

act is

Sups 13:37

but we have to guess yeah but and are you going to give us the descriptions

Andi 13:42

I'll repeat the deaths.

Sups 13:43

Or rather give us the names of the plays.

Andi 13:45

Nice try, nice try. Alright, so I'll repeat the deaths for you. Great. death number one. Torn limb from limb by a bloodthirsty crowd. Death number two. Stabbed in the eye. Death number three. Presumably mauled by a bear. And death number four. Stabbed in the back and drowned in a barrel of wine. One of those deaths is stranger than fiction. It really happened. And does not appear in Jakespeare.

Sups 14:23

Have you seen a pattern here?

Tanner 14:25

murder. Laughter.

Sups 14:30

All of them. Our human interference, minus one, which is the mulling by a bear.

Tanner 14:37

a that leads me

Sups 14:40

play? No, that leads me to believe that Andy wants us to think that that, so that is a play.

Tanner 14:46

So that is the

Andi 14:49

wow.

Sups 14:50

I have doubts on number two

Tanner 14:52

number two. It's like some famous

Sups 14:59

It's like some famous poet, I

Tanner 15:00

Who's a poet?

Sups 15:04

Who's who's a poet? Who is a contemporary name? A few contemporaries of

Tanner 15:08

a few Wow! Sure. Okay.

Sups 15:14

What about Cooleridge? Was he around the same time? No, I guess not.

Tanner 15:19

I mean, this is Elizabethan, right? So you have like pirates, right? You have uh sir Walter Rowley. Like you have all these English famous pirates who it could

Andi 15:30

be,

Tanner 15:30

but I don't know about a poet.

Sups 15:32

I'm guessing about history.

Andi 15:33

Tanner guessing about history is just like, oh my god.

Tanner 15:37

So spot

Andi 15:38

on,

Tanner 15:38

I know. I

Andi 15:39

just cannot.

Sups 15:40

on. By far, it's like the most fun episode of I Should Have Known. I officially certify it.

Andi 15:46

Not for anyone who likes Shakespeare. Anyone who knows Shakespeare and likes Shakespeare or history. It is just like you guys

Tanner 15:52

crazy. They're like, it's three, you dolt.

Sups 15:54

Shakespeare is just our history. Yeah. But that's good. That's good. Yeah, that's fun. Like, I mean, look at our innocence and ignorance.

Andi 16:00

And the

Tanner 16:01

Yes.

Sups 16:01

Yeah. Okay.

Tanner 16:02

okay. What about the bear, that one sounds so different with the pregnant queen and the friendly king and then the bear mauling. it sounds a lot like you would put it on a stage. It sounds like a play to me.

Sups 16:15

Hmm. can you stage this? I think you

Tanner 16:18

Totally. Yeah. And then you don't even have to show the, death on, stage, like the guy is just gone.

Sups 16:25

Okay.

Tanner 16:25

I don't know which play. I

Sups 16:27

think it's one of the,

Tanner 16:28

we haven't stepped obviously I'm coming at it from like, I can name a lot of Shakespeare's plays and there must be something in the descriptions of all of them that either consciously or subconsciously should lead me towards guessing A play. if I can hit on that, then I'm gonna get the Shakespearean element of it. Maybe that's just too much

Andi 16:54

You're

Sups 16:55

very confident. Yeah. I love you. Made your life very complicated tenor. Yeah. What about number four, about this whole wine barrel situation and the brotherly love situation?

Tanner 17:04

I think it sounds very Shakespearean, but I think that it is so like over the top that it must be the Stranger Than Fiction. Because not only did they stab him or whatever, like they drowned him, they killed him like multiple times basically. It sounds like it's over the

Sups 17:20

Okay. So are you picking number four? I number Okay. I'm gonna go with number two.

Andi 17:25

All right. the other one. Yeah. So let's guess the other ones. So I'll start with the ones that you didn't pick So number one, torn apart by a mob.

Tanner 17:36

From Julius Caesar.

Andi 17:37

It is indeed from Julius Caesar. It's act three, scene three, and it's Sina the poet. they're plebeians. So like, there's like first plebeian. second plebeian. And they say Your name, sir, truly, Scynna says, truly, my name is Scynna. First plebeian says, tear him to pieces, he's the conspirator. Scynna says, I am Scynna the poet, I am Scynna the poet. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses. I am not Scynna the conspirator. It is no matter, his name's Scynna. Pluck but his name out of his heart and turn him going. Tear him, tear him, come brands, ho, firebrands, to Brutus, to Cassius, burn all. And then they list a bunch more people they're going to murder.

Sups 18:16

yeah, yeah. Okay, Julius Caesar.

Andi 18:19

I will say that supposedly there was a sin of the poet in real life. And that's who Shakespeare was inspired by. So like. Technically, this could also be real, but it was definitely staged by Shakespeare.

Sups 18:33

Shakespeare.

Andi 18:34

So the bear. Oh, the bear. A hard one, I think. This is actually not from a tragedy. It's from a comedy. It's

Sups 18:41

It's from

Andi 18:42

The Winter's Tale. Act 3, scene 3. the character is Antigonus. One of the most famous stage directions in Shakespeare, he exits, pursued by a bear. I really like that one, that's, that's very entertaining.

Tanner 18:55

Presumably murdered

Andi 18:56

So we have. the other death First murderer says, Take that and that. Stabs him. If this will not do, I'll drown you in the butt within. So that is Drowning in the barrel is from Richard the third.

Tanner 19:13

is Richard III.

Andi 19:14

Richard the third. Yes. Richard the third. So it's act one, scene four of Richard the third killing his brother Clarence. Duke of Clarence.

Tanner 19:23

Wow.

Andi 19:23

So then, the lie. Is death number two, the stabbing in the eye

Tanner 19:28

It's real.

Andi 19:29

It's real.

Tanner 19:30

god.

Sups 19:31

the poet? Can you give me the first letter? Now that I got so

Tanner 19:34

far, Yeah, you made It

Sups 19:36

super

Andi 19:36

Well, the name has been said already.

Tanner 19:38

Christopher Marlowe.

Andi 19:39

It is Christopher Marlowe. Christopher Marlowe was

Sups 19:43

a... guy. Christopher Marlowe was

Andi 19:46

Marlowe was a very famous playwright and poet in the Elizabethan era. Very much influenced Shakespeare. And his death was kind of mysterious for a long time until an official record was found where it was said that he was stabbed in the eye in a bar fight. That was the official record. Buried in an unmarked grave. But many people believe that this was under suspicious circumstances and there are lots of theories. So this was in 1593. And one of the crazier theories is that Christopher Marlowe didn't die. It was fake, and that Shakespeare is Christopher Marlowe. That is a very famous conspiracy theory, but most historians say that's not true. But yeah, so he's a very famous contemporary figure, stabbed in the eye.

Sups 20:32

29, okay. Also No, it doesn't, that's what I'm saying. Like, stabbing in the eye,

Tanner 20:38

Yeah.

Sups 20:38

I think is too basic for

Andi 20:40

Oh, yeah. Well, stabbing is by far the most common way to

Tanner 20:44

die Yeah. But then you put him in a ca of mauled wine

Andi 20:48

or whatever Yeah.

Tanner 20:49

do

Andi 20:49

It is stranger than fiction.

Tanner 20:52

that's sounds so fictional.

Andi 20:54

was hard. This was hard. I don't think I could have gotten this. Before researching it. So like, no, I think you'd have to be a pretty big Shakespeare nerd to get all of them.

Sups 21:04

Yeah. But that's not the game. The game is to figure out the lie, which we successfully did, given our vast, expansive

Andi 21:12

I, I am a, I am a little peeved that between the two of you, you managed to

Tanner 21:17

took you

Andi 21:18

right.

Sups 21:18

Yeah, yeah.

Tanner 21:20

isn't what you think. That's true. I mean, a broken clock is right? should have known.

Sups 21:24

I should Have

Andi 21:25

Yeah, I should have known. thanks for listening to this episode of I Should Have Known. If you are listening on a traditional podcast platform, please subscribe and leave us a review and if you are listening slash watching on YouTube. Same deal, subscribe, drop us a comment, let us know if you got the death, if you figured it out, or some of your favorite Shakespearean deaths, because there are so many good ones. also, if you'd like to support the show, you can do that on Patreon, which is a subscription platform where you can donate to the show to support it monthly, and you get some bonus content. We talk about behind the scenes, how it works, All the links for everything you need. Are in the show notes or in the description Next week, we'll be continuing with our Stranger Than Fiction theme for Halloween, and your host will be Supes, and he's going to do an episode on creepy sports. So, be on the lookout for it, and as always, thanks for listening!

Tanner 22:22

Pheasants enter stage left.