Season 3, Episode 3 - Frankenstein: V1:Ch5 - V1:Ch7

Trinity is back, along with a new character, Hillary. They join me in covering Chapters 5-7 from the first volume of the 1831 edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The three of us discuss storytelling through the use of letters, and dissect Mary Shelley’s expression of her own ideas through her characters. These chapters depict the beginning of the slow decay in Victor’s ethics and humanity. 

00:00:00 Welcome to RBTS!
00:00:59 Episode Introduction
00:02:04 Edition Reconciliation
00:04:54 V1:Ch 5-7 
01:45:40 Outro & Credits

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After Season 3 wraps, Read Between the Spines is launching our very first RBTS Author Edition, and we’re kicking it off featuring Brooklyn Quintana, the Florida‑based indie author behind the Fynneas Fog fantasy series. Brooklyn joins us for two episodes to discuss Nine of Swords, and the sequel, Blood in the Water.

After Season 3 wraps, Read Between the Spines is launching our very first RBTS Author Edition, and we’re kicking it off featuring Brooklyn Quintana, the Florida‑based indie author behind the Fynneas Fog fantasy series. Brooklyn joins us for two episodes to discuss Nine of Swords, and the sequel, Blood in the Water.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Read Between the Spines. I'm Lex, the creator of RBTS, and one of the many characters you'll meet along the way. Each season, my fellow characters and I choose a story to dive into and discuss. But here's the twist: we record episodes while we read. We only cover the chapters we've read so far, so we're all experiencing the story together. No spoilers, just predictions and reactions. So what do you need to do? Grab your book, read the designated chapters for each episode, and read with us. The fun part is we share more than just our thoughts on the book. Each RBTS character brings their own quirks, perspectives, and life stories to the discussion. We don't always agree, and I would prefer it that way. This podcast is so much more than just reading a book. It's about discovering each other and connecting over the one thing that unites us all: stories. If you didn't get enough of Trinity in the last episode, don't worry, she's back and will be for a few more episodes this season. Our third character is new to you, Hillary. Having been in two theater productions that she directed, I know quite well that she can dive into any literary rabbit hole, which is exactly why she's joining us now. The three of us discuss storytelling through the use of letters, and dissect Mary Shelley's expression of her own ideas through her characters. These chapters depict the beginning of the slow decay of Victor's ethics and humanity. So, Hillary, you were the brilliant one that I totally did not know what you were asking. When you asked, What edition should I get? And I'm like, I don't fucking care. Like you pick your artwork, I pick my artwork, it doesn't matter. Until episode one, two weeks ago, when Chris basically read a chapter ahead of me. He read his chapters one through three. And then I read my chapters one through three, but his chapters one through three was my chapter four. Then we were really thrown for a loop because I was like, What do you mean the mom dies? So I was like, this is supposed to be a podcast with no spoilers. So it's been pretty interesting the last two episodes, the last two weeks. Okay. Identifying like where the editions start and end amongst us, I think are okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Luckily, I noticed that. And where we're stopping is right before, should be an all the edition in all of the editions where part two begins.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

I have one more.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I was about to say I have one more chapter before the edition ends.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yes, I have chapter eight in volume one.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

So I have seven. Do I wait? Man, I stopped at seven because I was like, this this makes sense.

unknown 3:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

That's what I'm saying. I stopped at seven. What was technically considered my chapter seven. So I signed up for five through seven, which ended up being four through six. I still have chapter seven and then volume two. Yeah, I have one more chapter and then volume two. But mine's chapter seven.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Hold on, hold on. Let me see what mine does. I read through chapter seven.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

What happens at the la at the end of the chapter that you read, the last one? Like in the story, where did you stop?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Are you sure? Victor says that Justine's Elizabeth is is innocent.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Okay, perfect. That's where we needed to end.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

That's where I end it too. I still have a chapter after, which is technically chapter seven for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Mine's the same. I have a chapter eight as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Okay, so me and Helen. Yeah. I also just want to make it clear again to since I'm the one that's doing all of them, we're basically I'm starting and stopping the content of each episode where I'm at. Just to keep it consistent. If if people follow it literally, then we might either skip we might skip content. But this way I gave this I'm giving the summary to all the hosts. They know what where to start and stop in the story. So I'll just say chapter five. Logistically when he's sick.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So like you said, we start off with Victor being sick. And while he is sick, he's in the process of creating the creature. Like this is this is the I don't want to say birth of the creature because he started creating the creature in the last e in the last chapter. But this is like he's getting to the end. Like his creature is almost to life. It's alive. We're almost there. And but right before he realizes the creature is alive, he ends up getting sick and he has this dream where he's assuming he's kissing Elizabeth, but he's actually kissing, well, it turns into out to be his mom. And I think when I read that portion, that was the first time where I felt like he had unresolved grief. Like I said it before that I felt like he had a lot of unresolved grief and he wasn't dealing with his the grief of his mom dying properly. And that's probably where a lot of this mad scientist kind of stemmed from. But as soon as he said, I thought it was Elizabeth, and then all of a sudden I was with my mama. I said, Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

And dead mom.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, dead mom. Dead mom. Then she withered away in his hands, and it was just a corpse. And I'm like, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

And on that, I thought it was just very like he's dreaming of the women, and women can bring life into this world. And then he immediately wakes up to him bringing life into this world. But like that death of his mom, too, pretty much I think kills that part of Victor that had any like innocence left.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Or empathy.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Yes. Very good point.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, to me, in that moment, when he goes right into what he builds next, built first, we should say, I I felt like in that moment he stopped caring. Like it was like suddenly you sort of see that, like what you were saying, like that mad scientist emerge, and not only like that loss of innocence, but like I felt like if an evil laugh could be embodied in a description. Seriously, it was there.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

It was there. Yeah, I agree. I wanted to touch first on alienation. I know that's one of our topics that we cover and want to cover a lot, but right, because in the in the last in the first couple chapters, you could definitely see where alienation is starting to take a toll on his physical and mental health. But you definitely see it here because he's been locked in this room all this time with him and nothing but probably nasty smells from all these dead things and dead pieces. And he's literally left alone with his own thoughts, his own grief, his own feelings. He's disconnected, not just from his family, because he hasn't written them in God knows how long, but he's also like disconnected from the world, from nature, from any any sense of life. He's literally surrounded himself with nothing but death. He's separated himself from life itself. And it starts to take a toll on him to the point where when he wakes up from this dream and the creature standing there, he runs off. Now, pause. I'm gonna tell y'all, I almost cried. I felt so sorry for that little thing because here you are looking at your master, and you're trying to talk to him, and he's like, Oh, wait, time out. I didn't mean it, and he runs off and leaves the creature there. Like, could you imagine like a newborn baby? You have a baby, the baby's reaching for you, and you're like, wait, I didn't mean to have you. You walk off and leave the baby there. That's insane to me. I felt so insane.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Justine's story.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Is that where you want to go next?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

No, not yet. Let's just put an ear on that. Because I didn't think of that far yet.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

But then when he's literally just roaming around in the middle of nowhere, and he sees Clairval, and he, oh my god, I just thought it was so beautiful. Because when Clairval says, My dear Frankenstein, how glad I am to see you, how fortunate that you should be here at this very moment of my alighting. And he says, Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clairval. I thought that was so cute. And he said, I grasped his hand and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune. I felt suddenly and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joy. And I just thought, geez, he had to have been going through something so bad to be able to say for the first time, and I don't know how long, I finally feel joy and some sort of peace. And I think that that also highlights how important friendship is. And friendship is a constant theme because you go from Robert Walton writing his sister saying, I wish I had a friend, I feel alone and by myself. And then Victor's been, you know, isolating himself, not really saying he wishes he had a friend, but he needs some sort of friendship or camaraderie or community. And then when Clairval shows up, literally when he's at his lowest, like he's running around in the streets of wherever he's at, Ingolstadt, by himself, probably ain't got no real clothes on, sleeping in churches, sleeping in churches, and all of a sudden Clairval just shows up and he's like, like that friendship is almost like a source of light in this story. It's light he's missing.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Light, that's another one.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well, and I felt like what when you read that, I felt like when I read that you felt the weight, like Victor's weight lifting, just like suddenly you're like, okay, you felt the weight lifting from him, and then you're sort of like, okay, maybe you will be less crazy. I'm trying to look at this like we all don't know the story of Frankenstein. Okay. I'm trying to go at this differently.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

I actually don't.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Yeah, I don't know really how the it plays out.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

But I'm saying, like, you don't know the eventuality of like, you know what I'm saying? Of yeah. Anyway, no spoilers. So I'm just like, maybe you won't wind up bananas.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, like this may be is this the light that we're looking for that could turn things around? So I did, I loved that. And I loved that when he was sick, Clairval was like, You look terrible. You look like you haven't slept in years. Yeah, you need to be like, and then they go back, and then he just starts, he just drops everything he's supposed to be doing. Mind you, Clairval has gone up there to go to school. He's finally convinced his dad to let him go to school, and he ends up spending all it says all of winter passes that he's taking care of Frankenstein or Victor Frankenstein and nursing him back to health. Like, what a good friend.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

And like, this is like psychose or something, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

To me, that translates, even though this book was written in the 1800s, but it like it translates even to modern times. Like sometimes you need a friend, whether that's the friend telling you you have broccoli in your teeth, or whether that's the friend who's looking at you like, babe, you haven't eaten in six months. Like, you need to do something about yourself, or your hair is bad, and somebody's like, Hey, that purple was not meant for you. Let's go fix it, you know. So that does translate from even 200 years ago to now. Sometimes in life, you need a friend. It doesn't necessarily have to be this drastic, but if you have somebody in your life that you see, step up and be the friend because you never know that small gesture could be something so huge for somebody in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

And friendship as a theme, you know, since we've been talking about this since the first episode, with you know, I I don't ever want us to forget that this is still a narration and this is being told by Walton, who starts off knowing we know how badly Walton wants to have a friend on the on his ship, right? And so all of these parallels, all these things that we're learning, the themes that we're experiencing through Victor's story need to be tied back as well too. And I mean, this importance of friendship and this importance of companionship, I guess everything, like health, studies, his families, it's an escapism because even when he does get a little bit better, like the second his friend's there, he gets to just kind of take a a second caregiver. Like it's playing so many roles. There was something too that Clairval said when he first like ran into Frankenstein, like, oh, I convinced my dad to send me on quote voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge. And I thought that was very like tainted at this point. It sounds naive, it sounds silly, and it doesn't really hold that weight of you know infinite possibilities like it did from Victor's Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Whimsy and glee is gone.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, or like he we know that he still thinks it, and now we're just like might not be all it's cracked up to be.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Or at least I think that was almost intentional, if you think in the writing, to have Victor go first and literally spiral out of control in voyage to the land of discovery, and then Clairval finally get ready to go, and you hear him say almost identical words, but you've already seen everything that's happened to Victor, and it's like, oh honey, that that's not what we do here. It is not the land of voyage discovery. No, no, no, you've got the wrong idea.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

And I thought it was interesting when I on the surface, when he runs up to his room, he's like, I don't want Clairval to see the monster. But I have to keep remind I keep keep thinking like of the monster as a metaphor. And like what I've come to also think of the monster as is I know we talk about grief a lot, but I think there might be some underlying guilt, especially after we talk about William, of him not going home and of him isolating himself. And so if you think about that, like I'm it reminded me of how dreadful it is for your loved ones to see your flaws. Yeah. So if Clairvaux went up to the room and saw the monster, that's like the equivalent of Clairval going up and seeing all these terrible things of Victor. So he's also isolating those parts of himself from the people that he cares about.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And I honestly stand on this hill. This is my, you know, my conspiracy theory. This is this is my take. I said this in the last episode that I truly feel like if Robert Walton had not said in the beginning of the book that they seen a figure going by on a dog sled, I would have assumed that Frankenstein's creature was a figment of his imagination born out of grief and guilt. Because, in all honesty, nobody else sees this thing but him so far. Nobody sees this thing but him. And in all honesty, when he walks off and leaves the creature, he there's a portion where he's like walking and he says, like, like one who on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round, walks on and turns no more his head. Because he thinks he's being pursued by the creature, so he's running from it. But at no point in the story does it say that the creature ran after him or that he darted down the stairs after him. So there's no proof that you're even being pursued by the creature. So my conspiracy theory is there is no creature, he just lost it, or that it's not dangerous yet. Yeah, yeah, that's my that's my theory. I I don't believe the creature's real. I'm gonna keep reading, and if the creature's real by the end of this book, I will take it back. But I do not believe the creature is real.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I think that would be a very interesting turn events, especially if nobody's seen him yet.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

How convenient they go back up there and the creature is there. Because if you think about it, where else would the creature have gone? You know what I mean? Why would he have gone which I won't say we ain't got there, but he goes so far, you know?

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Wait, did you already talk about Walton seeing them?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah, I said that like if he hadn't seen it.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Well, we don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

We don't even know exactly. I'm telling you, I'm keeping this theory until the end of the book. And if I turn out wrong, I'm okay with that. But I truly feel like this is you know one of those moments where like you're hallucinating out of grief, malnutrition, you haven't been outside, the air's kind of stale, whole bunch of stuff. You've been touching dead body parts.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

And you know it's like even sa sadder is about the experiment is like I understand wanting to understand where life comes from. It's a huge question in science, but he like didn't even do it in the right way. He did it a man way. Yeah, there's no professors involved, he didn't go to the laboratory, he didn't read the instructions.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

No, he just started throwing stuff together and making stuff fit. Okay, like he he took the IKEA furniture and didn't read the instructions, is all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yes. What did what did we think of that poem that was when he was wandering through the city before Claire's. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

I thought that there was a nice callback to the beginning letters on the ocean and a little bit of that a callback to the icebergs and the guy they pulled out of the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Ancient Mariner was literally mentioned by Walton. Yes. But who did that then? Do you think Walton put that in? Or is this like Vic because Walton is technically writing the words that are coming out of Victor's mouth.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

But Victor's the one saying the story. Sure, but I still think that it's a callback to maybe them conversing and talking about traveling. So I still think that I I believed that doing the ancient maringer poem was to solidify that Walton and Victor are friends and have discussed the ocean to show their bond.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

As a way of Walton showing their bond. This the Mariner's poem in chapter five, this bit here.

unknown 19:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

I got you. So I I feel like it's a call back to the letters in the beginning with Walton and talking about his voyages and rescuing and and all of that and nursing back to health, knowing that Victor began sick and all of that. I'm not saying that all that is there, but just showing that Walton and Victor Frankenstein had a bond, that they have discussed the ocean. And how else would he know an ancient mariner's thing? Because Walton is, I always viewed him as a pirate only because that's what I see in ships. I know Walton is not a pirate. It is, it is a it is a me problem, not a you problem. I see, I see ships anywhere that's not modern times, and I view a pirate. So that is a me, not a you. So I viewed it like a sea shanty, right? So it's essentially that Walton taught him a sea shanty as he was teaching him my interpretation of it, just showing their bond, that through his telling of this, that they do have a bond, and it's not just like some guy following him around with a notepad that they do, but that they are actually friends and they do share a bond.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I did not get friendship out of this at all. Sorry. No, I love that perspective though. I think that's super cool, especially because the way it's written, I just completely missed that. I was looking at those literal words. And not the style, but I love that because there it the style does bring a sense of connection and it ties in his storytelling, but also making it relevant to where they are right now. Because even though the story's going on, he's presently on a ship with a bunch of strangers, you know, talking to them and telling this guy who's his friend about his life. So I I love that. I didn't get that, but I love it.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Because you'd high I highly doubt Victor's quoting a poem as he's wandering, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, I viewed it like a sea shanty, like he was singing.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, like it was inserted into the story.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

I thought that this was him finally having his epiphany after going mad, scientist, for so long. Because he says, like one who on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round, walks on and turns no more his head. I felt like that was a metaphor for the fact that he was constantly turning around, looking at the past, looking at his grief, and he's finally reached a point where he can't do that anymore because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread. Now, of course, and I when I read it, I was like, Frank, that monster is not chasing you. That is your mind. But truthfully, there is a frightful fiend that is closing in on him. And It's his own destruction if he doesn't get himself together. Like he's finally come face to face with his destruction.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And I don't, and I, and I agree with that as well. I'm just saying that the connection was the friendship with Walton to teach him this, to to give himself words as he's like literally thinking he's gonna throw up as his heart's beating too fast.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

But the words, but I I agree with you, but what I was trying to say is the words would not be his own. The words would have come from Walton to call back. But I agree in the context that you're saying, Trinity is it is exactly correct. So I guess what I was trying to explain is like the call back to the sea and all that, but I think for Victor, it was like Walton was giving him the words that he needed in that moment when it's like the MM song, right? Knees weak, arms are heavy. So like like Walton basically gave him the eight-mile rap for when he felt like he was gonna puke.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Yeah, and it was just noted enough.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

It had to be relevant, and that's and that's why I think it's it's denoted what it is to make you think, why is that relevant?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Yeah. Also, I I think it's very interesting, like honestly, but from the start of the chapter to when he wakes up, especially his choices in body parts. I thought it was significant that he chose all these body parts for beauty. Yes, but then like the sum of it's the sum of the parts was not beautiful in him that equates to evil. And so I thought there was something there, and I couldn't quite like perhaps put my words on where I was going with it.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Yeah, because I agree, like he he said called everything beautiful as he was creating it, and he even says, like, great god, this is good, and then all of a sudden it's oh, this is grotesque, I'm running for my life. And he says, For this, I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation. But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. And I wrote in annotation what I said, was there truly any beauty in the dream to begin with, or was it obsession driven by grief?

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Yep, and and I highlighted that same part, and I was I took it as like, have you ever wanted something so badly? And then you get it and you just don't care at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

I'm like, Victor is just insatiable because he wants this lust for greatness and knowledge, and he f he got it, but he didn't even feel any of it. It was just, I'm like, you're never gonna, you're never gonna be happy then, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

It's more so the beauty of the pursuit, not actually getting it.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Then once it's there, it's like, ah, this wasn't this wasn't as great, you know.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Like, let me put this band-aid on my grief. I need another band-aid, then wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

And now I need some some like a an ace bandage. So I need to be bigger.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Maybe if I make a 10-foot monster.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Look at him, eight feet, ten feet monster. Well, he says, one subject, what could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom I dare to not even think? Because he even says it right there. One subject, what could it be?

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Like, you are you that was when he was asking about the letter.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Wait, is that oh maybe I was looking at a different thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

That's when Clara was like, I have something to talk to you about.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Oh yes, you're right. I'm at the end, I'm in the wrong spot. You're right. You're good. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

But I also think that immediate abandonment, which I know you touched on, is just like a switch. Like Victor's the abandoned. He left from the grin. Like the grin is what freaked him out, and that's why he ran.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

It was when he started talking, tried to talk.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Yeah, like all these sounds that came out.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, because he's trying to talk. Bless us all right.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Which is such a contrast to how he was like brought up.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Oh, he's he escaped how he was brought up a long time ago. He has not been that victory in peers at this point. And he's shallow. Yeah, very shallow.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Because it's ugly, so he's evil.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah. And don't even get me started.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Okay. I think it's something to note too in the letter of Justine coming out too far in. When we I think we're exposed to some prejudice in the next two chapters.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

This book went downhill real fast for me. It I got so ticked down.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

When were you so mad, Trin?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Okay. Let me let me let me tell you when I was so mad. I was so mad when he gets there and he you know, his brother's dead, he's gotta go home. I felt for him. God, there's so much death in this book, I I did feel for him. My brother's dead. He gets there, he sees the creature again. He's the only one who sees this dang creature, and immediately he's like, You killed my brother. I know you did it. And while everyone is telling him, no, Justine did it. Justine had the picture on her person one plus one equals two, and two plus two equals four. It is Justine. And he's steady screaming, it's not Justine. I know who it is, and I'm gonna get it. And I'm like, but with what roof?

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Okay, so here's my here's my hot take on chapter six. When you are mentioned ad nauseum in a gothic novel, something bad's about to happen to you. When you come out of nowhere, Justine, in a gothic novel ever in the history of American Gothic novels, when you come out of left field and then you are given the lengthiest character background ever, you're about to die.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Listen, I'm telling you right now, when she when she popped up in the middle of Elizabeth's letter, I had to reread her that section of Justine's life like two or three times. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, in the eyesight or in the mindset of somebody who is analyzing a piece of literature, nothing is introduced for no reason. There is a purpose and a presence behind everything. You're gonna die. I was saying what's the relevance of her. Also, I had to read it multiple times because I was trying to figure out the Justine timeline with Victor and Elizabeth because she's never mentioned until then. But if you read it carefully, she grew up with them a little bit. She stayed in the house.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

So listen, here's what here's what here's the four we're talking about foreshadowing. So so chapter six is basically the first couple of pages is blah blah letter. Oh my gosh, William has been killed. You must come home. Also, do you remember Justine?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Not yet, not yet. There's two letters. The first letter Elizabeth, we still have to be happy, go lucky. We still have to go on our vacation in the countryside.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Oh, yeah. We're going here. Get well and return to us. And then all of a sudden it goes, Justine, do you remember her? And then the rest of almost the rest of the letter is her. Now, here's the foreshadowing section. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a surgeon, a surgeon, a servant in our fortunate country does not include an idea of ignorance and sacrifice of the dignity of a human being. So, what does that mean to you? So that is the very first entrance. Well, sort of entrance of her. So the so they sort of mention her. So they mentioned her in a paragraph earlier where it says, Do you remember on what occasion Justine Morrowit Moritz Justine Moritz entered our family? Probably you do not. I will relate her history, therefore, in a few words. So my question was, why? And then you're like, Okay, you're gonna die. This is wonderful. We're gonna start at the very beginning. Wayne's World transition bubble. Okay. And then when it was saying that she doesn't understand the human condition, that was foreshadowing to me that she was gonna kill somebody and not die.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

I took that as a parallel between Caroline and Caroline's like care for those less fortunate. I didn't know and just a note, I think, on social society. But I'm also never read, I don't think, a gothic novel. So if this is a trope back then, by all means.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Well, I read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe and everyone dies. So I just assume everyone dies because we're sad emo kids. Oh no, are you gonna die?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

In gothic novels, the woman always dies. I just I was reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame prior to this, and La Esmeralda got her life handed to her.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

I'm just saying, Le Miz too. I'm gonna shave my head and cry about it. I mean, it's how they were in Europe. But I'm also saying, like, you could read that two ways. You could read that she was so into the condition of the humankind that she was selfless, or you could read it the other way that she didn't understand the human condition and she was heartless.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

I'm gonna read that one again. I also thought her name was interestingly chosen. Justine Justice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Oh I saw that. Also, I thought it was like when we talk about when you look at all of this as as thus and Frankenstein so far, we haven't gotten that much backstory all at once on any character. Not not a timeline like that on anybody. Yeah, they went in depth on her not on Elizabeth. Where did where did oh well she was just here and now she's now she's hello, so nice for you to be in our family, not cousin cousin. Not cousin cousin.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Which is so funny because she keeps signing her letters as cousin, but in my book, she is not the cousin. So in the first edition, she is actual cousin, and then in addition the second edition, she is like a poor woman, an orphan, basically. In my book, she's an orphan, but in in the letter, she's signing my dearest cousin.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yeah, she signs it, my dearest cousin.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

And I was just like, come on, publishers, shouldn't you edit that?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

But in in the description, and in this what I'm reading, the he says that they refer to her in the family like nucleus as a cousin, even though she's not a blood cousin. That's explained in the one I have.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

You're talking about Elizabeth? Yes. Okay, because in my book, she is his cousin, but I have a different edition. Like she's his blood cousin, like she's the niece of his dad.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah. So in this one, it's like she was in the orphanage with the nursemaid, and then they snatched her up. And so to make it seem make sense that they were growing up a year apart, they just called her cousin. So he was like, I love her more than a sister. And like the dad promised him to be betrothed to her. And so then when the mother was on her deathbed, she was like, I'm so sorry to do this to you, but you're gonna have to, I need more children.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

I don't remember that in my book. In my book, when the mom dies, she she tells Victor and and Elizabeth that they, you know, she's depending on them to stay together. Like you guys are gonna have to continue with what we and with what we planned, and you guys are gonna end up together.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

And it's gonna be my dad's vision now.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, it's now my dad's vision, it's for us to end up together. Yeah, she doesn't become a she comes well, that's a that's a tough line. She does become a stepmom in a way. She's not technically with the dad, but she does in a way become a stepmom because she ends up raising the rest of the kids. Because when William ends up dying, she's like, Oh my god, my baby is gone.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm not saying like officially married stepmom, but she says, My baby.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

There is a common theme with women in this story where oh my god, a woman can't grieve. I I I wanted to cuss right then. A woman can't grieve to save her life. Even poor little Justine, who is coming from the and this isn't like a stepmom, this is her mother who has been treating her terribly to the point where she had to go live with the aunt, who after I read it five times, I realized the aunt was Victor's mom. Because they don't use names. And she goes to live with an aunt, and then like her brothers and sisters just start dying. And then the mom, because she's lonely, now wants to snatch Justine back and then mistreats her. And then she ends up dying, and then Justine is returned to us. That's a lot of grief. And then even then, when she comes back and she lives with them, there's no real like, okay, not when she comes back and lives with them, but before. Before, when my dearest aunt died, so when his mom died, everyone was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill, but other trials were reserved for her. Do you know how much she went unnoticed? She ain't mentioned in this book until Caroline writes it, or not Caroline, until Elizabeth writes it. We were all there when the mom died. There was no mention of Justine, there was no mention of another girl, and then all and then what's even sadder is the fact that she starts off this letter and then eventually she gets to the point where she says, Oh, you remember Justine? Maybe you don't. Let me give you a backstory. How do you not remember somebody that was staying in your house taking care of your mom when she died?

SPEAKER_02 35:30

There's two things. The about the letter, like, why do we need the whole backstory, but also Justine's mom's story, I think, is this mini lesson or mini foreshadowing about atonement and what happens when we are awful, basically, like this cruelest thing of giving away her giving away a daughter, and how she has to atone with that with the things that she holds most dear. So, and like you you're never gonna escape your like cruel nature if you have that. Didn't know if that was foreshadowing or what but then also the fact like letters and texts in this book are recurring and sometimes they refer to books that were written, and I don't really know what they mean, and I'm really not looking them up. But letters as well are a tool for the storytelling, like the entire book is kind of a letter, if you think about it. So here we have two letters from Elizabeth, and we're gonna go over the one from his father. And I'm like, is this mainly a use of Mary Shelley to offer characterization of like Alphonse and Elizabeth? Or is it to like doubt the plausibility of Victor as a narrator or Walton as the recorder? Because like you're not actually going to remember a letter word for word. So, and it also Walton's likely not writing a letter for word. I don't know if it was more of a narrator tool by the author or something to be said about like Victor's memory and or Walton's narration.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

I think that is a fantastic uh take. I'm I'm definitely gonna have to sit on that because that is that's such a good gosh, Alexis. That's a great insight because that's so true. Like he's narrating this story orally, it's not like he's pulling letters out of his pocket and he was just in the ocean. Like, oh, let me, I just so happen to have the letters on me. Let me include the poem. You know what I mean? Yeah, so like maybe there is an essence of romanticizing his story when he's giving it to Walton because we talked about how Victor has a sort of romantical essence about him, he romanticizes a lot of things again, going back to the fact that I don't think the monster's real.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

And there's just not a lot of dialogue either, and so this is giving a voice to some characters that we haven't seen a lot, but we know are important, you know, his his father and his sister. So it could just be purely to further their lot their characters.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

I think it does. I think it furthers their characterization because all of this is being told again, Victor's away from home for the first half of the book. So, or the not the first half, but like the first big moments of the book happen when he's not home. So he's not with his sister, or he's not with Elizabeth. So Elizabeth can't give us any dialogue. He's not with his dad, his dad can't give us any dialogue. So these letters are definitely important for characterization, but I'm I'm I'm hanging on that. I'm hanging on the fact that how then reliable is his storytelling? Like, how are you actually remembering a lot of this word for word? How are maybe I'm thinking too deep into it, but I'm I'm kind of I'm kind of hanging on what you said a little bit. Also, these letters bring so much connection, you know, like this is his only form of connection at this point is these letters.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

When I saw the first letter from Elizabeth, and I think just knowing any bit of history on Mary Shelley and taking into consideration that women, it wasn't originally written by Mary Shelley. You know, they she did it under a pseudonym at first. Now in modern day times, we're allowed to celebrate her as the mother of science fiction. So I I do kind of stand on that Elizabeth would be Mary's voice because she wouldn't have been able to have that. So I believe that it's possible that Elizabeth would be Mary's perspective from this from that, but also I also hold Mary Shelley on a very high pedestal on her own, not even having and and I've never read Frankenstein before this, just the history of her, you know, and and just go women, you know, kind of situation. And so for me, not only did she kind of go against the grain in that time frame, she was also, I think, able to use her voice, but then use her voice in a way that propelled the story forward. It just wasn't for fluffy female words. Like when she writes the letters, the letters from Elizabeth's perspective, it propels the story. They're interesting. You're not just like, oh, you know, in other books, you get to moments where there's letters or sigual messages or secret or whatever, where they have like sort of dial dialogue or perspectives that aren't from the main character. Like, oh great, this is another chapter from so-and-so character female. And so for me, I would, I was excited to see letters from Elizabeth because I liked that perspective. So for me, that was an ingenious in her and showing that this book has withstood the test of time, that it's still relevant. You can, even though there's obviously no cell phones or technology in this book, that it's still it still holds up. And so that if that is, we we can only speculate, but I I would hope that she was able to find her voice through Elizabeth in a time where she really wasn't allowed to.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

And it brings back to what she said in her author's introduction. She said, I cannot figure to myself that romantic woes or wonderful events would ever be my lot, but I was not confined to my own identity. So it's like she's writing Frankenstein, but then she's like pouring her soul when in the parts that she gets to write Elizabeth. Like, what if Elizabeth was the favorite, her favorite part of the whole book that she got to do?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

We don't know what happens with Elizabeth and Victor, but if if that's how she feels, you know, kind of I always imagine women who wrote, and you and you look at like pride and prejudice, and and the women that really weren't kind of going against against the grieving authors and things like that. I I always imagine them being so whimsical, and I'm sure that they were not, but I imagine them like in fields of flower. I'm I'm sure that Mary Shelley was none of those things writing Frankenstein. Okay, I I I understand this.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

The graveyard.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

In the right, I get it, right? Or even modern times Anne Rice, who was, you know, amazing. But I just I imagine them just very whimsical, but also like in that time, like the the bravery of of women not even always being taught to read and then to have the creative juices in your body in the turn of the century to then be able to write a book now that just stands the test of time is is incredible and and is is I you know just I I've had a good time reading it, just knowing all of those things and that it still holds up because sometimes you read Yeah, to marry, right? Because like War and Peace, uh wait, hold on. No. Okay, if if you want to start a Rolodex of all the names to keep up with, I'm down, but I can't keep up with all those people. I love it though.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

I I'm a huge fan of War and Peace. I'm actually gonna read it this year. That's on my that's on my life TBR. I have to read that once in my lifetime. I'm a huge fan.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Your good reads better be like three books this year. I know at this rate. Like you're picking the big ones.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

I know. So sorry. To your perspective, Hillary.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I totally agree. Like, you're not gonna walk up to an eighth grader and be like, war and peace, anyone. But you can walk up to an eighth grader and be like, Frankenstein. It is digestible. I am a Tolkien stan, okay. I am a professor stan, but I'm not gonna walk up to an eighth grader and be like, Do you know what the literary entrance drug is? Tolkien. It is not. Give them some Frankenstein. This. This is the classic entrance, okay? Don't don't hand them War and Peace and go, This is a Russian novel that is 9,000 pages long. And then next you're gonna read the Iliad, okay? Like, don't do that. This this one is a great classic that is an easy read.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

It is.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

There's also an element of there's a sadness in the strength of women in this in this story that honestly kind of got to me, especially when I was reading Justine's story, and you just got through reading Elizabeth's, and you just got through reading Caroline. And yet here's another woman that's been introduced into this story, and she has gone through so much grief and so much turmoil. And in the process of that, she's sucking it up and going ahead and helping everybody out. Like there's a portion where it says, yeah, like I was reading, when my dearest aunt died, everyone was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill, but other trials were reserved for her. I'm gonna get to work, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help be there for everybody. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what Elizabeth did. I don't get the chance to grieve. I don't get the chance to be upset and sad that the main character is gone and now I have to fill shoes. Like if you think about that as a woman, you don't even get the chance to mourn any life you could have had. Because now you've got to step in and fulfill shoes you didn't even want. You've got to take care of a whole family. You've got to suck it up and just be there for everybody. And it's got to be beautiful when you do it, and it's got to be so awestruck, and it's got to be just so honorable and noble. And literally you're dying on the inside, but nobody else gets a gets to see that. And nobody else cares to see it. It's a it's a very there's sadness in the strength of women when it comes to this story.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

The other thing, too, that I noticed as well was like the taboo of knowledge. Like in the beginning, when he's doing all the reading through the libraries, and a lot of it, the way that it was described in this time period was like dangerous knowledge, right? When he gets to college and they're like, Why don't you want more nature? You're looking until he comes across this chemistry teacher who he's awestruck by. So it seems like we're sort of in that realm in this time period of of that taboo knowledge, and and he embraces it.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Isn't that why the story would be fun at the time too? Yes. Because we said last week, Hillary, that Victor would totally be a conspiracy theorist.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

I love it. I yes, he believes everything moves, and like I that's what I'm saying. So, and then I feel I feel like it's all it's all like the dangerous knowledge of life and death and and answering the big questions and and all the things like we're just supposed to like be quiet and sit down.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

And there's an invincibility that I've picked up on right around this chapter that sort of ties into that knowledge. Like, I'm just going to plow ahead and learn it. I'm gonna plow ahead, I'm gonna do it, I'm not gonna think about it. I'm not gonna deal with the fact that these past two years didn't happen. It's been two years, and like when Victor, like he's learning, we learn that he picks up languages, which he's earlier said he has no interest in. The Arctic, I'm just gonna go to the North Pole. I'm just gonna we had a broken sail, but who cares? Who cares? Who cares? Like both these men, I think, feel invincible, and there's no consequences to anything that they're doing. There's no women back home. Walton's writing to his sister who doesn't even agree with his truth. He's just playing this fancy, he's just playing adventurer, he's gonna be the god of this new land that he discovers. Victor's gonna be the god of other species that he's trying to create. And it's irresponsible.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Yeah. I'd also like to highlight that this is the first time that Victor has ever known fear because he starts off doing these experiments or doing the experiment by saying, like, I'd never had to be afraid of anything. My dad did not instill that in us. We saw the beauty of life and death and everything, and then he creates this thing and he's running for his life. I think I didn't catch it the first time, but when I was making notes and annotating before time to get on the podcast, it hit me like this is the first time this man has felt fear in his whole life. And I think that's something to annotate too going forward, why he's so hysterical when it comes to this creature. Could you imagine never having fear of anything?

SPEAKER_00 48:39

No, no, I mean, fear keeps us safe. Well, and also with the first creature, too, because everybody associates just the lore of Frankenstein with lightning, right? This first creature didn't require any lightning based on general knowledge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster from the outside universe and every Halloween ever, you know. Everybody's associate. I'm just saying, looking at the cover of the edition that I purchased, I was shook when this thing came alive. There was no lightning.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Didn't he say though that he wasn't going to tell us what he did?

SPEAKER_00 49:18

I can't share you the secret. It's all about secrets. Everybody's holding secrets. What's Walton's secrets? What's everybody's got secrets? What was Justine's secrets? But I'm saying it could, but I'm just saying there was no mention of lightning, but he's also holding in all these secrets, right? I feel like his whole obsession with creating it is like covered and clouded by secrecy. It's like he doesn't want to tell anybody about it. Don't go up there, don't look at it, don't talk to me. He tells himself nobody will believe him if he says it.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Also, the professors already love him. The professors already think he's like gonna take all their jobs, like he's already won everybody over. So it's like, what it what actually is this for then? It's not academia.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Yeah, because they're bragging on him in the book. When they end up at that little shindig, him and Clairval, and all the professors are like, oh, he's amazing, he's a genius, he's so well spent and he gets uncomfortable to the point where Clairval is having to help them change the conversation because he's he's got this escapism thing about it. So I so I had the same feeling. I was like, you don't want people talking about your achievements. Is it because your achievements are mediocre in your sight? Because you live up to what you felt would be this great scientist.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

And have you ever just done something shitty? But then people who don't know about the shitty thing and they're like praising you, and you're like, No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Right, I'm not every you don't know what I did. I copied off her paper, it was just cheating homework.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

Yeah, and like you kind of feel shitty about it because now it's like, oh, I didn't actually deserve that praise.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Yeah, yeah, but I also felt like it was like they he was concerned that they were gonna uncover his secret.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Yeah, like couldn't we please change the topic?

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Yeah, like he was wretching wieners, his hair was so big, because it's like, God forbid, somebody asked him, yeah, and by the way, while you were up there in your apartment for the last two years and nobody saw you, what were you doing?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Right? Like the chemistry guy was like, What you got up there? And he was like, Rats.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

Sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

You don't want to bother with my rats, you know, bubronic plague, scarlet fever, killing everybody. Just don't go up there, it's not safe. So, so in some versions of the book, now mine had a had a picture, but some other versions she had a locket on her.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Instead of a picture, instead of a picture.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

See, that's where the book had me messed up. Because in one portion it says there was a trinket, and then they say they find the picture on Justine later. But at first it's it's mentioned that it's a that it's a trinket of some sort.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

That's why I googled it because mine says the same thing. So in some versions of it, it is a locket with the picture of the mother, and then in other books it's a picture, so that's why it goes from trinket. So that's the I just in case yours said the same weird thing that might.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Now I interpreted it as trinket, but technically mine says she told me that that that same evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valuable miniature that she possessed of your mother. This picture is gone, and was doubtless the temptation which urged the murderer to the deed.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

I mine said that as well. I thought it was a locket. That's what I Googled. Because we're getting into the just mean of it all.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

I was just gonna say, are we moving to the chapter seven yet, or do we have one more thing? Uh for six? I did want us not to glance over nature in chapter six because there's quite a bit of like the whole second half of that is basically him taking a holiday into nature and feeling so good. And having Clairval with him. Said Clairval called forth the better feelings of my heart. He again taught me to love the aspect of nature and the cheerful faces of children. When a serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy, the present season was indeed divine, the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud. So like we end like super, super happy, but we know that that's probably false hope. And the winter, however, spent cheerfully the winter when they're studying the languages, so he's like kind of already a little bit better, I think, was spent cheerfully, and although the spring was uncommonly late when it came, its beauty compensated for its delitoriness? Dilateriness? How do we say it? Dilateriness. Dilatoriness. So you know, spring will come, spring's around the corner, they're going. And also when I I read that I read this all f two times. And in the beginning of the letter, Elizabeth is talking about how the blue lake and snow clad mountains they never change. And I think it's beautiful and so like talking about Geneva. And at first I was like, Oh nature doesn't change, like nature is what hues holds humans strong. And although that might be true, the second time I read it, I thought that those blue-clad mountains were representing family and how important family is, and how family love, familial love would never change. And like that's what you need to go back to. You're not there right now, like you're away from them, you're away from your blue-clad mountains. You need to go back.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Um, I read it a little bit differently when it comes to seasons. So when you look at like Greek mythology, a lot of times the seasons like with Persephone and Hades, spring is happy, winter is sad, which is why she goes back to Hades or hell with Hades, right? So I perceived this instance of him trying to get like one with nature grounding as like his mood. He seems like everything's better, he has a friend, he's not alone. So like I'm feeling the spring, like his like his seasonal depressions lifted. He was real sick in the winter, you know, and now it's spring into summer. So I just I just felt that the that the seasons were just reflecting his mood.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

I interpreted that a tad bit different. I'm ready. I interpreted that as in a season of escapism, and nature represents comfortability. Okay. It it represents comfortability in a way because he even says, Henry rejoiced in my gaiety and sincerely sympathized in my feelings. He exerted himself to amuse me. While he expressed the sensations that filled his soul, the resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing. His conversation was full of imagination and very often an imitation of blah blah blah blah. He invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion, and other times he repeated my favorite poems.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

He's he's just playing.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

He's Victor's too far gone at this point. Victor had plenty of opportunities to turn it around and he didn't. I feel like this is one of those moments where he just jumped off the cliff because he couldn't help himself. And so now that the dream and the illusion of this beautiful creation and he's gonna be God is gone, he's gotta cover it with something. And so he's in a sense of escapism. It's almost like a fight or flight. He's trying to He's on vacation, he's on vacation, yeah. And and the nature aspect of it is more so a sense of comfortability. All these things that Henry's doing or Clairval is doing are just things that are comfortable to him to make him feel good. But on the inside, he's still spiraling out of control. He's still losing his mind, he's still not over the grief, he's still not dealt with his issues, he has not dealt with the fact that he isolated himself for two years and he was surrounding himself with dead, disgusting, nasty things, and he's convinced himself that he's created this thing that he literally was running away from up until Clairval showed up.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

That's why I think he's gonna go back to the Arctic, right? Because all of this is like if you think about depression, manic depression, you got high highs and low lows. So to me, this this moment is a high high that he's trying to find something. And now, when when you look at the fact that he's on a boat going to the Arctic, when you look at foreshadowing, he's in a low low in real life. But when he's reminiscing back at this moment, he's at a high high. But now they're going to the Arctic into the constant winter because he's in such a low low.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

We haven't gotten there yet, but of course, we get to the point where, you know, the Justine being guilty and him saying that he doesn't believe Justine that he thinks the creature did it. He's gonna go after the creature. And then we see that in the beginning of the book when he's chasing something and they're like, Oh, we we think we saw something, and he's like, Okay, I'm gonna keep following y'all because y'all are going. How far is he willing to go with this? Like he already went so far with the creation of it. Now he's gonna go that far to catch it or kill it or or get rid of it. How like it's one extreme to the next. Like, how far is he gonna keep going with this almost?

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Right. When is this happening in the story? And when are they in the Arctic? Like, what's the time span?

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Yeah, we talked about it in the in the last episode.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

I was assuming it was like a lifetime, like decades.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

I am assuming this is happening in the span of just a couple years, personally, because this story's moving so fast and things are happening so fast. I am assuming because we talked about that in the last episode. How old is Victor in comparison to how old is Robert? Because originally, when the story started, I was envisioning an older man with this younger guy giving him advice. And now that I read this part, I'm like Victor and Robert are probably around the same age.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Yeah, I I I thought the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

I thought he was an old man. I did too in the beginning. I don't think he's an old man now. I think that we're gonna get to the end of this story, and Victor's not gonna be that much older than he. Well, he may be a couple years older than he was when he originally went to school, but he's not gonna be the 60, 50-year-old man that I assumed he was at the beginning of the book. He's he's gonna be a young man.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

Well, and that's what I think. I think he just looked haggard from being stuck.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

And that's what he was saying. Like, as they were bringing him back to life, he his like his his appearance drastically changed.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

He just I think maybe it was like the fact that he was like, basically, I only have one thing left to do in my life and then die. And I wasn't gonna tell anybody this story, so it just made him feel old.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

I I also felt like in the beginning of the book, and maybe it's just because I'm a sucker, I also felt like they were kind of falling in love there for a minute. Victor and Walton. Yeah, I was like, 'cause he's like, I need a friend. I need a I was like, oh, is it because is it because you couldn't be gay in the late 1800s?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

Like a black beard and Stephen Bonnet from our flag mean stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

Are we friends? And also it kind of makes me feel sad for Victor because like his life has progressed so fast in such a short amount of time. He's lived like four lifetimes in two years. It's been six pages, and you've lived 40 lifetimes. Seriously, seriously, and then now I'm scared that he's gonna continue this fast-paceness in the second, like the second volume and third volume, that when we circle back to the Arctic in the boat, bro's gonna be like 26 and depressed.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

That's what I'm saying. He's going, he's going back back into forever winter, where he's just gonna be depressed forever, and that's upsetting because like so much of his life is gonna have gone by and all for naught.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Well, maybe we can act constructively, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

I love that Lex is like, but he has a good heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Like, maybe we can be saved if he's that young. You got decades to fix yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

That's true. I mean, he's on his way to the Arctic, he might find something when he gets to the North Pole. A polar bear's heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Victor's our Santa!

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

There's no way the Coca-Cola Santa.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

The elves are actually just little dead things.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

Little creations, and him going to people's chimney trying to find the creature. That's the creature covered the trendy. He's disguising it with presents, but he's actually looking for the creature.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

Oh my god, in everybody's house.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Twins present so that he doesn't freak the kids out.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Exactly. And that's why he stays in the North Pole, isolated in his workshop. Because he's building another monster.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

All he's ever known.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Look at us. You can't leave us, you know you can't leave us in a room together like that's funny. We just saw the mystery. Okay, so you want to go, you want to go to the justine of it all?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:26

Sure. Yep. I think we're good on chapter six.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Okay, so chapter seven, he gets the letter telling him that his youngest brother William's been unalived. And then as he walks near the spot where his brother's body was found, he sees the monster. And he fully believes that it was the monster. Even though Justine has been found with a picture of Caroline that was last seen in William's possession. But Victor refuses to explain it because he thinks that no one will believe him and he doesn't want everybody to think he's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

In a nutshell, yeah. If the monster represents Victor's monstrosity and he instantly believes the monster to be the murderer, this is when I thought he could be feeling guilty for taking so long to come home. Because he's basically saying, You monster, you killed William. But if monster is a reflection of his own like guilt and remorse, and he doesn't want to talk about it, because then that would be admitting to him, it might be a stretch, that he was the one who stayed away and wasn't there for his family. Not that he could have done anything, maybe in like maybe it could have though, because we still don't know who killed William.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

That's a great take. I think that's a great take. So I don't know that I don't believe that Justine didn't murder it. How did she get the picture? Right? Also, it's a gothic novel, and you got a whole ass description. Nobody gets that in a gothic novel for no reason, Justine. Justice.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:19

Who does have reason to be angry? All these women so far are being gentle and wonderful and they're great, but she's got baggage. Definitely definitely has a reason to lash out.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

She's got a motive. What you gotta have? Motive, means okay, and a weapon. Oh, she got her hands.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

And in all honesty, I'm surprised that she's the first one to snap at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

I thought the Trinity just thinks everybody's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

Oh my god. I was surprised she was the first one to snap, to be honest. I was like, come on, you know, I can't be mad at Justin. And also, like, you go home to live with this mom who didn't want you, and then on one day she's saying, like, oh, I'm so sorry for everything I did. And then the next day, well, your brothers and sisters' deaths is your fault. Like, thinking about the kind of turmoil she went through up until her mom died, and then she's gotta go back. And I thought it was interesting, and this is taking it back. I promise I'll I'll stay there briefly. It's interesting when Elizabeth is retelling the tale to Victor, and she tells him everything feels like from a perspective of Justine up until Justine comes back, and then it's Elizabeth's perspective of Justine. Like, oh, she she makes me feel so happy, she makes me feel so loved, I feel so comforted. Everything up until that point has been Justine's feelings. Poor Justine feels this though. Justine feels ill, but she's gotta stay strong. Justine is heartbroken that she's gotta go back home. There's no mention of Justine's feelings once she comes back to live with them. It's all Elizabeth saying, Oh, I finally have comfort. Oh, she finally makes me feel she makes me feel good. So we don't really. Get a glimpse of how or who Justine is when she comes back in that house.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

After she's spent time with her mom.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

After she's been with her mom.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

And we also know that Elizabeth is a caring and nurturing person. And would not.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

But the but but the things that they say about her, right? Like Geneva does not mean the same thing as servant. In France, Justine thus received in our family, learn the duties of a servant. And then I was saying, like, she doesn't have a sacrifice of dignity of a human being. And then they said, like, Justine, you may remember, was a great favorite of yours. So if she was such a great favorite of Victor's, why was she not mentioned until now? So that's what I'm saying is like, if this girl was such a favorite, why was she not mentioned?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

Yeah. If she was the killer. And even if she's not, what is the significance of the photo?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

That that was that was the last possession that they knew that William had on its body.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:01

But there was the comment where it was like the photo was the cause of the killer. Like the photo or something somehow pissed off. I don't know. I thought that might have been a trigger.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:13

I think it's a trigger because if you think about it, up until the aunt died, Justine had somebody that affectionately loved her and doted on her because they talked about how she's such a close relationship. The aunt Caroline. Yeah, and then the aunt dies, and then she's got to go and live back with her nasty mama. It's almost like if if she hadn't died, she wouldn't have had to go back. She wouldn't have had to live with her. And also, she didn't like everyone lost someone they loved so much when Caroline died. But if you think about the real, like, like how she was like, she took care of the mom when the mom was sick. Like she was the one in there with the mom when the mom got scarlet fever or whatever. And then she ended up getting sick afterward, but she didn't die. But that closeness, and then you lose like the only person that you feel loved you. I mean, Victor went mad. I can only imagine what poor Justine was going through.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

Well, what a why does that translate to William, though? Was it like was William her favorite? There was jealousy there, like William was the baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

It's just it's just how it was. It was the son, and you gotta think at that time, sons were on a higher pedestal than daughters, and Victor was the only other son. He was older. So, you know, if Victor was mad, he that William would have taken over the estate.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

There's other there's another brother. It's Victor, another brother, and then uh William.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

There's there's two brothers or three, but still the baby, the youngest, the youngest, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

Well, we also are seeing these like like mother-like daughter things, like Elizabeth is caring for everyone, just like Caroline has cared for everyone. Is Justine doing something like mother-like daughter?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

Her mother is that yeah, is that why she was abandoned?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:02

Well, she didn't she didn't kill her kids, but she abandoned Justine and then all her other kids died. So is there something else with children's death going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

We don't know how these brothers and sisters died. They yeah, Trinity's right, they never they never explicitly say that the mother didn't off them. Just says she felt guilty and upset. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

It is a pretty dark book, but then why would she want her daughter back?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

Because she didn't maybe she didn't know, or but then they're like wards of state. I mean, they're like in those times, everything is very weird. Like you didn't belong to yourself, you belonged to everyone else when you were female. So it may not have been that her mom wanted her back, her mom may not have had a choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

And I think there is an essence of misery loves company. You're miserable, all your kids are gone. And so this is the only kid you have left. This is the only possession you have left. Let's be clear. Yeah, whether she was a girl or a boy, that's your mom. You are your mom's child, you are basically your parents' possession. If I tell you to come back home, you have no choice but to come back home. I'm miserable, so I need somebody to be here in this misery with me. I feel like that's why she called Justine back home. I need somebody to beat up on because I'm lonely and miserable, and you're my target. And because she's always been the target.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Yeah, and she was sad. Sure, she wanted her back, quote unquote, but like she didn't actually want it back. It wasn't sunshine and rain, rainbows.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

One minute she's apologizing, and then the next she's telling her, You're the reason that your brothers and sisters are dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:35

I mean, maybe, yeah, but uh but the other the other thing I noticed after, so after Victor gets the the letter explaining William's death in seven, or your six, I guess, it explains Henry says, My dear Frankenstein, explained Henry when he perceived me weep with bitterness. Are you always to be unhappy, my dear friend? What has happened? So even Henry is noticing just this tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, it seems, that is hitting Victor. And then it says that then Henry reads the letter and then he recounts, yes, he reads the account of my misfortune. So it just seems like now with this tragedy, Henry is sort of seeing it firsthand that Victor is just handed tragedy after tragedy.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:29

And this is a unique tragedy because this one is literally the death of innocent. This is literally the death of innocence. It is a child, and like time after time, Clairval, Victor, the father, everyone's like, how could anybody actually do this? Which I know murder in general, how could anybody do that? But it seems like it's repeated multiple times. Like, what kind of monster, what kind of human would do this to a child?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

So here is where they they say it. It says Justine Moritz, poor, poor girl is she accused, but is it is wrongfully. Everyone knows that. No one believes it surely earnest, right? And it said no one did at first, but several circumstances came out that have almost forced conviction upon us, and her own behavior has been so confused as to add to the evidence of the facts as weight there. I fear leaves no hope for doubt, but she will be tried today, and you will hear all. So, like he's basically getting there. He finds out it's Justine, and then all of a sudden, it's like he, even if he wanted to try to blame the monster, he doesn't have time because it's like wham, bam, no she's accused. Here's the picture, here's the trial, it's right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:45

Also, he waited. He took like three days in that L town.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Oh, oh yes, yes, yes. Yeah, he did. Yeah, you're not wrong either, but I'm also saying when he was like the mountains and all that stuff, yes, I'm not disagreeing. But so because he waited, even after the discovery and everything, like he's it's almost like too little too late. Like, even if he wanted to get some kind of justice for Justine in some kind of way, if she didn't do it, he was too late. So by the time he was like discovering what was going on, they're like, Okay, that's great, but the trial is today and there's nothing you can say. It's done. The evidence is clear. So I don't think Justine even had a had a true chance because when you get to close to the end of the chapter, it says, You are all mistaken. I know the murderer, Justine, poor good Justine, is innocent. That's what he says. And then he he doesn't even backtrack and it says that that instant my father entered, I saw unhappiness deeply, and he endeavored to welcome me cheerily. And he says, We do also, unfortunately, for indeed I had rather been forever ignorant to have discovered so much depravity and ingratitude in one I valued so highly. And then he says, again, Justine is innocent. If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty, she is to be tried today. And I hope, I sincerely hope she will be acquitted.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

And Elizabeth and Justine, and I've I mean, I honestly automatically assumed Justine was wrongly accused. I didn't think the monster did it, I thought there was something else going on. If that's true or whatever, this other play on this misfortune of women, they're both like helpless to stop anything, and they just have like Elizabeth just has to trust that Victor's gonna like fix this. Like she doesn't necessarily know like what he knows, but they've got like no say, you know, they're just like trying to do it right, and Elizabeth is pissed too, because she's pissed at the prejudice that all these people have against Justine because she's not a servant, but she's also not like on their social level, and it was made they made that comment that in Geneva they had a little bit more freedom to allow people to just be people and not be as like they called out France and England, didn't she?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

Yeah, she called out France and England, yeah. Like when it came to servitude, she was like, not she's a servant, but she's not that kind of servant.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

We still see their humanity in that, but and so Elizabeth is just like annoyed and mad and just wants to shake everyone in town who just like is blaming her on this because like how could she ever do that? And I felt her to be very helpless.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:32

It's cool to note too in the timeline of the son's death. Like, I'm sorry, a part of me is like, maybe Justine did snap, but then another part of me is like, Did could she have done it? Because the it's important to note that the morning he was murdered, she was in her room sick or taken ill, is what they said. And it wasn't until the night of the murder when the servants went to, I guess, assess her clothes, which why were y'all looking at her clothes anyway? That's when they found the picture. But if she was in her bed all day, when did she do it? Or was the bed or was her being ill an excuse for nobody to check on her? Because if she's in her room all day, nobody's gonna assume that she's you know, nobody's gonna say, Oh, well, she should have been cleaning, but she was actually out, or she said she was gonna run errands. No, she said she was sick, she's been in her room all day.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:21

Or is this a framing exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

Yeah, well, but I also think if he truly like this is to me, Justine's story could also be foreshadowing of character development for Victor Frankenstein, right? And how, like, right, if we're talking about the first monster could have taken away his empathy, right? William's death could kill his innocence, right? Innocent, yeah, innocence, and then this could be heavy guilt weighing on him forever, right? So, so Justine's importance in the book could just be that that it's just showing how this misfortune is just weighing on him for further sending him into madness, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:08

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

Almost as you're looking at that, like if if you look at it as as if Mary Shelley created that quintessential mad scientist archetype, and and and how do you get there? How do you get that Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde? How do you get the Dr. Frankenstein, right? Yeah, because everybody confuses Frankenstein, thinking Frankenstein is the monster, but it's actually Frankenstein's monster, right? So when you're looking at that, Dr. Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is the mad scientist. So is it that Justine's death is like that heavy, that's the death, right? That is the guilt of it. So is that cause creates something else in him? So now he's lost this, he's lost empathy, and now he just has this overwhelming sense of guilt that he can now do nothing correct. And then he just he's lost it all. So now he's just embroiled in this whatever next science thing he needs to do, finding the monster, going to the Arctic. He now, he no longer cares about anything in his periphery anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

I agree because think about it, he stayed in that town for three days and he even said, like, I'm uncomfortable going home. I'm not ready to go and face the music. And then I also want to touch on the storm that happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:31

Oh, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:32

I thought that was so beautiful and just so perfectly timed. Like it was Mary Shelley girl, you did your big one. That was perfectly timed in this book because just all of a sudden, the most violent storm hung exactly over north of the city, over that part of the lake which lies between the promontory of Belvry, Bel Reve, and the village of Copet. While I watched the storm, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits. And I just thought of all the things that could be happening at the exact moment that he's getting ready to go home to face the music, that his brother's dead and kind of figure out what's going on. And he doesn't really he wants to go home because he misses his family, but he doesn't want to go home because of the guilt of everything that's happened in the last two years, who he's become in the last two years, what he's done in the last two years. And it's this beautiful storm, but it's also scary and it's also frightening. But there's so much beauty, and it's a noble what he describes as this noble war in the sky elevated my spirits.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

And like light it as the symbol throughout the book, like light can be good and glorious and uplifting, but light can also illuminate darkness. Yes, it can illuminate darkness, and like in the flash of lightning, we find the monster. Yeah. And I thought that was such a good flashback to the oak tree. Yes. And foreshadowing to the cover of Hillary's book.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:03

Because it's a that's a beautiful way it said. A flash of light illuminated the object and discovered its shape plainly to me. Its gigantic stature and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy demon to which I had given life. That's so big. Because if you think about it, what there's we keep asking the question, why is the monster eight feet tall? Why is it brawny? Why is it big? And I think it's a representation. Now that we discuss it and now that I'm, you know, thinking about it, it's a representation of the guilt he's feeling and the also the grief he's feeling and the person he's become. He's become larger than who he was. And it's it's overtaking him in a way.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

And then and then when they say he has the mind of a newborn, why did you create something so large with the mind of a baby that you know you can't control? Or maybe he didn't know that that would be the outcome. So you create earlier. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Okay. That's not how that is not how that's not how babies should be. You should not give something that should be crawling and pooping the size of the greatest NBA player ever known to man. Okay. I'm just saying, why does he have to be so ginormous? Did you need a bodyguard or did you want a friend? Because it looks like he might have made a killing machine.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:28

Oh, can we also note this real fast? Two years had now elapsed since the night on which he first received life. Two years have gone by.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:39

So now he's a toddler.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:44

Hilary, please, Hilary, please. No, no, two years have gone by. That's insane. Clear vault just got there what seemed like yesterday. Clear vault has been doing you nursing you back in the year. No, seriously, and the whole time he spent it taking care of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

Well, they studied Mandarin and studied Lang was the second one.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:10

Girl, he didn't want to do none of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:12

He wanted that man He was reading poetry, Eastern poetry.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:16

He wasn't reading no poetry. Henry was reading poetry and quoting it to him while fixing him soup and tucking him in at night.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

That's what Henry did while while Victor was plotting how to take body part to make an eight-foot-tall monster with bolts in his neck.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:32

Two years have gone by, and so so the monster is two years old, and you had no clue where he was for two years.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. Like all of his periphery after everything is is like gone, and then you can't, and and also also this. Also, when we finally got like the full-on description, and then everybody like interviews that does it even exist as this real. Also, how how do you miss something? We just watched my 4'11 like teenager run by. Okay, we didn't miss that. How do you miss something eight feet tall?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:05

Yep, no outrage in the city. I I was shocked actually when the story took that turn that time would pass because I found it so implausible.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:14

Me too. When it said two years have elapsed since he first since his first since I first created him, I said, Whoa, what do you mean two years have gone by? You ain't seen your kid in two years.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:27

Trinity's trying to make make Frankenstein a deadbeat dad story.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

Yes, he went all for milk and never came back. He went out for milk and never came back. I I was a victor. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

So Trinity's new analysis of Frankenstein should have not gonna be called Frankenstein, it's called the deadbeat dad story. Absolutely analysis by Trinity.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Got to be. Also, again, this is my theory that Frankenstein, that the Frankenstein monster, the creature, I'm not gonna call him a demon because he is a poor soul and a poor little baby, and I hate this for him. But I don't think he's real. Because how how did how did the creature know to go to your hometown and kill your brother? How did he just happen to end up there? Of all the places he could have ended up. How how did he end up there the exact moment you got there? Now all of a sudden he's there? No, I'm I'm 100% picking up what we're putting down. This is a portrayal of his monstrosity. I 100% believe that more the more than I did last week. Because there's no way. How did he get there all of a sudden? And then to kill your he don't know this, he don't know who his uncle is. He ain't never met these people before.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:36

Right. Yeah. Did anybody laugh when they were like, How could I even pursue him? This man can climb like he can scale the mountain. I like found that to be slightly humorous. What did he say?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:47

What am I supposed to do? Well, also, like if he's a if he's a brain of a newborn, how does he know how to walk?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:55

How did he know to go after a picture of a person he ain't never seen before?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:58

Okay, right, but I'm just saying, and then and then how I'm just I'm just very confused on and how we lose an eight-foot-tall thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:08

Yeah, some of the I don't know if this is a plot hole.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:12

Because at first I imagined Gollum from Lord of the Rings very small, and then I was like, oh no, this this thing is very large. So first I was like, precious, right? And then and then you're like brain of a newborn and eight feet tall. I was like, What did you build?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:30

Also, how does he know that? How does he know it's the brain of a newborn? You didn't even say hello. He didn't even say strong enough to ran away. I don't know if you have the abbey normal brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:42

If if if we were gonna be so afraid of it, why did you make it eight feet tall?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:48

This goes back to last week's episode when he was talking about how he like couldn't stop. He's like, I don't enjoy this anymore. Kind of obsessed, I can't figure out. It's like I've kind of been there where it's like you just can't stop. You know, it's like on a simpler turn, like, I can't stop cleaning the house. I just I need to sit down, can't sit down, can't do it. I hate it, I don't want to do it. I can't stop though, I can't stop. And that was basically it. There's like, I don't even want to do this anymore, but I I have to because I'm invested. And if I stop right now, I don't know what's gonna meet me in my brain. I can't think about it. I can't think about my mom. I can't think about my mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:22

No, I'm with you. Yeah. So for me, at the end of the chapter seven situation, I think it's the culmination. We know we're getting to the end of part one, and you can just see it's just been a whole lot of tragedy for character development for Victor. It's like a whole lot of whoa. Whoa, no wonder this guy is crazy. You're like sort of in a backseat for like his whole nest in it to me. When I got to the end of chapter seven, and I was just like, wow, this has been a roller coaster ride. I can't believe this much time has passed, and this man has been through it. If I think I've been through it, he's been through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:05

He ain't been home in six years. When the book listen, the time lapses are killing me because at first it was two for the future. Then when he says six years had elapsed, pass as a dream. This and this is the moment where he's seen Elizabeth. This is right after he's seen Elizabeth for the first time. Like, you ain't been home in six years. Your life has gone by in the blink of an eye for six years, and you are running from the thing that you spent six years not returning any letters or anything for. Like, what? Whoa. Honestly, let's touch on women one more time.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

Well, wait, wait, wait. Okay, so what do you think is gonna happen when when Justine goes to trial? I that's what I wanted to know. What do you think is gonna happen in the next chapter? You think she's gonna be guilty or innocent?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

I feel like she's gonna be guilty because she's a woman and the proof is kind of uh against her, but I feel like that is also when Victor is going to hit another. Get another Victor. Like he's gonna be like he's gonna lose it again because he's now feeling guilty that an innocent person is gonna pay for something he feels he feels he did. Because whether the monster or the the creature is real or not, it's a creation he did. And so now he's isolating again. Yeah, he's isolating again, but now he's gonna feel like an innocent person is gonna pay for something he did. And what is that gonna push him further over the edge?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:27

Well, I when we learned that William died, in my notes, I said, What's a second grief gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:37

This book makes you cynical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:40

In the beginning, when the letters are going and Robert Walton is like, Yeah, I don't think anything could get this worse. And then the next letter, sister, turns out it did. This is what that's how I felt when the second letter came. And it's like, oh, everything's great. William's never mind, William died. Never mind, nothing's going good. I'm like, this is jumping from one extreme to the next.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:02

Well, that thing you say about letters too, you know, there's so much time interval between them. So it's like you can believe the one that you just received, but if you receive a few in a few months and it's different, is that what you believe now? Almost like the text back then, too. You had these textbooks. If that's what you're reading, that's what you're believing. But if you didn't know that in the past twenty to fifty years there's been another quote unquote letter written disproving the other one, like what do you believe? Like, text is taken as this truth where time passes, nature changes, everything changes, and you can't trust it. Can you trust these letters? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:46

No, I'm and that's what I'm saying is I feel like going into trial, unless you know, knowing structure of history in that time period, unless Victor said something, she's guilty. A man, unfortunately, would have to be the one to speak up, and nobody is because everybody's like, the picture, the picture, she's guilty. It's written all over the place. So to me, she's gonna be found guilty. She's a servant, she's a servant, nobody cares what she says, she's not of the upper class, she's a four whatever. So dumzo, stick a fork in her, she's getting dead.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:21

We have justice for our little how William died. The only proof that they have that he was murdered was in pursuit of the trinket that's gone. Like, there's no mention of like strangulation, there's no mention of the head, was it?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:39

The it was like the m handprints around his neck.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:42

That's right. Sorry, handprints around his neck. Yeah. You mean to tell me she did it? Because William wasn't eight. William was like sixteen.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:50

No, William was five.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:52

William was five?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:53

Yeah, and Ernest is sixteen.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:55

Okay, then never mind. I'm getting these ages mixed up.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:58

There's too many of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

She could have done it. Never mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:02

Well, and like these letter, the first time I get names of the brothers. Let alone know there's two.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:10

Well, and the whole thing is just like you just I you just forget how lucky we are to not be living in turn of the century England. That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:24

Without a potty and yeah, like being able to being able to do this, talking over Discord with your friends, talking, technology, I don't know, lots, lots of, lots of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:39

Oh, that was such a bad joke. I'm so glad you guys didn't hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:43

Say it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:44

I can't. No, she said, no, Hillary said, we're so lucky to not be living in we don't realize how lucky we are without phones and toilets. I said, yeah, especially me. Oh my god, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:58

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:00

Listen, I am I am jealous. Oh no, I would not have survived the 1930s in the Germany, okay. My family done escaped the war, okay? So I am very glad to be in this world. Super grateful, Litley. Grateful, grateful. I'm just saying, I don't know that I could survive without a toilet. If somebody's like, would you like to go back in time? I'd be like, toilet. Is there a toilet? I don't want to go crap in the corner at Versailles. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:34

Also, baths. I like regular baths.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:37

Thank you. I don't want to go last because I'm not the oldest or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:45

I'm just saying, like everything was gross. So I'm just glad that Yeah, and that scarlet fever killed people. Like what? Antibiotics are a thing. So I'm just saying, like like this book, again, as I said in the beginning, to wrap to wrap my what I because I've said all I all the things, but I I'm just been really excited reading this that it it really is like written. It says like written on mine, written in 1816. Like that that it is able to still be entertaining and that we're able to have this long conversation about two chapters. Right. You know, about a book that was written literally over 200 years ago by a woman.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:26

And the portrayal of woman in this book, too, just baffles me. Because if you think, like I said, like the only proof they've got on Justine is the photo. Like, okay, yeah, the you know, the hands around the neck, the strangulation, but like there's no, like, did he try to rip her clothes? Like, were her clothes disheveled? Was there dirt on her hem? No, it's literally just, oh, we went through her pockets and found the photo, but like, was her hem dirty from where she'd been outside instead of laying in the bed? Or like, like, how where are we tying her leaving the room? Because technically she was in her room all day because she was supposed to have been sick. So, like, there's no real concrete anything besides a photo.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:06

Convenient timing, yeah, convenient timing.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:10

But that's what I'm saying. It also feels very like the crucible where it's all just fake planted evidence, and now you're a witch, you know, and and covering for other people.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:22

And also talking about the portrayal of women, there's a part here in the book where he walks in and he sees the picture of his mom above the mantle, and it's basically a painting that the dad had curated. It's not a portrait, it's not a uh a full figure or even her butt booty naked. It's a photo, it's a picture he's had painted of her in agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. You mean to tell me the lasting image you want of your beloved wife who done sat up and had all these kids, kept your home, and made everybody hunky dory, chitty chitty bang bang all the time. That's the photo, that's the picture you had curated of her that's lasting a lifetime in this house of her kneeling in agony and despair over that was your impression of your wife.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:16

And how this is full circle to what you said, Trinity, that all these women have to be strong in their grief. Because he was like, Oh, she's still so she's like so beautiful though. Yeah, like look at her just enduring.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:30

Her garb was rustic and her cheek pale, but there was an air of dignity and beauty that hardly permitted permitted the sentiment of pity. So you mean to tell me she wore sorrow so well that you couldn't feel sorry for her? She just wore sorrow so well, she wore despair so well. You know, we don't even need to feel sad for her. It looked good on her.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:52

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. These women had no chance. No, no chance.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:58

I was sick when I read that. I was sick. I wanted Victor leave.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:04

I will leave you this quote from chapter seven. Vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire. He's crazy. I mean, that's that's what he sees. He's like, everything is going around all around him, and he's just walking toward his house, and he's like, Lightning will make me a month. I don't know. I just I just imagine that he just walks around like Dr. Doof and swarts from Phineas and Fur, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:40

It was another part I wanted to touch on.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:45

Yet as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also closed around, and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:05

He hasn't talked about his fate in a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:08

And this was him going home. Yeah, that this was him going home too. It was as Victor was walking toward the house when he saw that. So to me, in this moment walking toward the house, the the like Dr. Evil was already happening, and then he sees his family, and it's like, I'm done, y'all. I I I don't I don't want nothing. I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:27

And it's funny how he says, I felt still more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings. The lightning happens, it all fades, and he sees the creature. Literally for seen for seen. So you're you've got this essence that you're an evil human being.

unknown 1:37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:50

This essence, you're an evil human being. Then you see the creature you've created, which is an essence of you. So you're you you've gone too far.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:59

Did he become evil though?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:01

Or has he is becoming so he's like this is to to to me, this is like like the we're not doing a 180 because we're sort of almost there, we're doing like a 90. So we're like we're like going around a clock, right? So he's like it's like becoming evil. So he's like, he's like just Victor Frankenstein right now, and so to me, he's becoming like Dr. Frankenstein, right? Like he's becoming his ulterior self or his alter ego.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:30

I feel that way too. I feel like he's I don't even know if he's becoming evil. I feel like because if we talk about the creature being an extension of his monstrosity and who he is, the creature's not necessarily a monster, he looks like one, the appearance of one. But there's nothing that says he's purely evil, but there's nothing that says he's evil, he's done nothing wrong as of yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:53

Yeah, and I don't think that he's becoming evil, it's just that he's in his mind, he's becoming unsavable.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:01

Yeah, and that's a good way to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:03

Yeah, he's beyond, you can't save me, I am now damaged goods.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:09

Or it's like, I'm too far gone, don't come back for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:12

Yeah, yeah, I'm running into the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:14

I don't think he's evil either, but we're also hearing it from a first-person perspective. Victor's the one talking about this. It's very different when you go to all these villain origin stories to hear it and to see it from their eyes, versus like how everybody else would say it, see it.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:32

In all actuality, what bad has he actually done? I mean, he feels real guilty.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:37

He fucked around with a little bit of shit, but but I mean, he played around with some dead cats.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

Now, is that is that creepy? Yes. Is is it kind of side eye? Yes, but he ain't really hurt nobody. You know what I mean? He's more so feeling guilty of the fact that he left his family and he's feeling like maybe now all of a sudden I should have stayed home. And also he's dealing with unaddressed grief. And unaddressed grief can take on many different forms that do not necessarily have to be true. He fucked up when he didn't go after his monster.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:13

Yeah, that's where he really let him run around. What do you oh he's gone? Thank God. Okay, where'd he go? But what about everybody else? You're in the middle of the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:23

Like, what is the responsibility is a reflection of himself.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:28

Then why is he worried? He knows better.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:31

You knew where you went. Who are you worried? You knew where you went. Yeah. And of course, the monster would disappear the minute Clairval shows in the town. That that little bit of light, that little bit of love, that little bit of care and attention. And also, you know what, Hillary? I'm gonna take it back to what you said about him having mommy issues because again, Clairval spent two years that he should have been uh becoming as smart and courageous and going after all the knowledgeable things that he wanted, taking care of Victor and nursing him back to health and giving and Victor ate it up because he wanted a mommy.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:07

He did, yes, and he did say multiple times Elizabeth was the favorite.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:11

Yep, yep, and and he he didn't get the affection because they saw the light and they kept calling her celestial and all this stuff about Elizabeth, and they were like, Oh, and there's this one. So I think that he took whatever Henry was giving him and loving it, and that's why he wanted to create a creature so that he could love it. And when it wasn't as great as he thought it was, he was like, No, I changed my mind. Come here, Henry, and rub my head a little.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:35

He needed that too, because also he came from a very warm and loving home where the kid never even had to know fear. I I'm sorry, I know fear, I felt it. Yeah, like I had a child childhood at several stages of my life, so I know what it's like to be scared of a whole lot of stuff kids don't need to be scared of. But at the same token, he did not know that. He knew nothing but just love and care. Like even though Elizabeth was the favorite, he knew he was loved, he knew he was cared about a warm home where he could frolic through the fields. Y'all ever froliced before? I ain't never frolicked. This man knew frolicking, and then all of a sudden, there's nobody, he's by himself, and then he's further isolating himself. So when Henry comes by, and this little Henry was his knight in shining armor, he was that chariot and that steed and that prince. Friendship is your escape. You go right in, and he said, You know what? I won't move, I'm not doing anything. I'm gonna stay here in the spot and let you take care of me because I'm tired now. I'm tired. You know what? I wish you know what, Henry. Somebody bring me a Henrietta, right? I got if you broke my head and tell me that I don't have to go to work no more. So while I do credit Victor as a mad scientist, the more and more we talk about it, I just feel like he's a lost kid that's got a lot of unaddressed grief.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:57

I think that that you're reading it very nicely. I see him as a crazy MFR, and you're just like, Trinity is like, I see you, baby, I see you, and I'm like, this dude has lost his mind. And Trinity's like, I'll be a safe space for you, Victor Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:13

I think I see right in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:15

Yeah, like I don't lost it, but I feel like the loss is coming from a very sad place.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:22

Oh, absolutely. I just I just I love your compassion for even fictional characters. I love it, Trinity. It's my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:29

I'm mad at him with a touch of like ego, yeah, ego. He does unchecked ego.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:39

He's got a lot of unchecked ego. He think he he think he hot shit. And maybe when when one professor said absolutely not, that would snap him. I said absolutely. Set him down.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:53

Yeah, and you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:56

How disappointing is that? You have spent all this time chasing knowledge, chasing these things, then you play want to play God, and then you create something, so you seem, but let's just say for cracks and crickles, he did actually create it. How disappointing is that to have dedicated your life to something and then hate it? So you feel like nothing. You feel like your life has been wasted. That's almost worse than actually harm harming somebody because now you you're a laughing stock.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:27

It's like going to college to degree you're not using.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:31

Yes, or like you went to college for eight years and had switched your major four times and you walked out without a degree. What? Why are you calling me out like that? All of us. I'm just kidding. But yeah, like that he's gotta be embarrassed too.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:48

Nah, I don't think he cares. He's he's out here now. He's out here.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:52

I think I think he would be if, and that's why he's just trying to keep it. Yeah, that's why it's going back to the embarrassed, but ashamed.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:01

You haven't seen your family in six years. You haven't written anybody, but also you have nothing to write about. What have you done in six years? Yeah. You basically abandoned your family for nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:20

This episode's characters were Trinity Hardy, Stuokie, and Hillary Bird. Editing and production were done by me, Lex, and the music is Whispers of the Cursed Night created by Hunwa 89, downloaded from Pixabay. Our next episode's characters are Chris, who heralded the start of the season, and a new character, Max. Covering Volume 1, Chapter 8 through Volume 2, Chapter 2, we begin to see parallels between Victor and his creation. Cowardice, isolation, solitude, and monstrosity are all themes becoming apparent within these transitional chapters. Bringing the reader closer to the reunion we have been dying to see: Victor and his monster. I'd like to take a moment to thank our season three sponsor, Tammy's Steam Clean and Restoration. They've been serving Bay County and Florida's Panhandle for over 13 years, and they truly handle everything: carpet, tile, drapery, upholstery, mattress cleaning, water extractions, pressure washing, ductwork, and even mold remediation. They're fully bonded and insured, and they offer free estimates for both residential and commercial spaces. I've used Tammi's personally and professionally, and they've consistently demonstrated the kind of excellent customer service that makes you feel cared for. They're also the people you can trust to answer the phone and show up in an emergency. If you're in the Bay County area and your home or business needs a refresh, you can reach them at 850 819 1947. That's Tammy Steam Clean and Restoration. Thank you for listening and keep reading.