The Mick & Pat Show
Hey, Kin! Welcome to "The Mick & Pat Show," your home for candid discussions that explore the many layers of life's tapestry. We're Mick and Pat, two guys who are a lot like you—balancing work, family, and the complexities of modern existence.
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Who Are We? We're two modest guys incredibly fortunate to have life partners who find our idiosyncrasies endearing. Mick enjoys the analytical side of things—like diving deep into data sets and puzzling out complex policies. Pat, on the other hand, revels in life's big questions and spiritual intricacies, often finding solace and wonder in philosophy and faith.
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What Do We Discuss? Our podcast serves up a rich menu of topics, from probing political debates and the latest in AI to crisp beer reviews and deep dives into pop culture. We're not shy about fatherhood, relationships, and the human experience either—expect the raw and the real.
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Why Listen to Us? Think of us as the friends you didn't know you needed. We deliver the goods: no-nonsense conversations laced with insight, debate, and of course, laughs by the barrelful.
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Got a burning question or a beer you want reviewed? Don't hesitate to reach out.
Pull up a chair, tap into our conversations, and let's make sense of this wild ride called life together.
The Mick & Pat Show
Dog-Eared Dialogues - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
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What begins as a historical Western confession soon morphs into a blood-soaked supernatural tale in Stephen Graham Jones's masterpiece "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter." This story spans generations, following three narrators whose lives intertwine across time—Etsy Bukarn, a modern-day academic; her ancestor Arthur Bukarn, a Lutheran pastor in 1912 Montana; and Good Stab, an ancient Blackfeet warrior with a dark secret.
When Good Stab arrives at Arthur's remote church to offer his "confession," he unfolds a tale that challenges everything the pastor believes. Through richly textured language that gradually teaches readers the Blackfeet way of seeing the world—where buffalo are "black horns" and mountain lions are "hungry mouths"—we witness the systematic destruction of a people and their sacred relationship with the buffalo. But beneath this historical narrative lurks something more sinister.
Jones brilliantly transforms mythology into a profound metaphor for cultural survival and identity. What makes this novel extraordinary is how it seamlessly blends supernatural horror with authentic historical and cultural perspectives. Jones, himself a member of the Blackfeet Nation, creates characters of genuine moral complexity. The novel explores themes of penance, absolution, and cultural lineage without ever feeling didactic or sacrificing its pulse-pounding narrative. "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" will haunt you long after its final page, challenging what you thought you knew about American history, horror fiction, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we really are.
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Welcome to the Make and Pass Show and we're pretty stoked to return to our Dog Ear Dialogue series. This is, if you don't know, a series where we review good books. It's much more strict than our Brews and Reviews series, because Brews and Reviews, we just try beer and watch movies regardless of we know it's going to be good or not, and then we give our takes. We've had bad beers, we've had bad movies, we've had excellent beers and excellent movies, but Dog Ear Dialogues, because a book is so much more of an investment, we're only going to be going over books that we really, really enjoy, like the two-thumbers yeah, like books that I give two thumbs up and would recommend anyone to read, and with that we have the Buffalo Hunter Hunter.
Speaker 2Did you misspeak? Did you repeat yourself?
Speaker 1No, I didn't, and it's actually my only critique of this book. I wish the first, I wish the second word wouldn't have been hunter again, I wish it would have been the like Pagani word for hunter or you know, like the like. One of the funniest things I think is when, like I can't remember, I think it was Pacific Rim and there was like a, there was a mech in that called uh, jaeger Hunter, which Jaeger is just German for hunter, um, but at least it covers it up a little bit. You know what I mean, and I kind of wish that they uh would have done the same. Well, they uh, stephen Graham Jones, would have done the same thing for the title.
Speaker 2Because the Buffalo.
Speaker 1Hunter Hunter. My knee-jerk reaction when I heard about it. I was like sounds cringe. Sounds like anime and it's anything, but you know what I mean. But anyways, the Buffalo Hunter Hunter kids, ken thanks for joining us today. Anyways, the Buffalo Hunter Hunter kids, ken thanks for joining us today. If you're not interested in reading or listening to books on Audible like we do, that's totally okay. You can go ahead and skip to the next episode.
Speaker 2Or you can also get the breakdown from us here, the short version. True, this will be shorter than the book actually. But yeah, the title, I think it grew on me and I liked it because I did feel like I did know, kind of out the gate maybe I felt like I knew what I was in for, which I did, which I realized I was. I wasn't completely wrong. But there's a big piece I was wrong about like.
Speaker 1Did you like? Read it after I recommended it to you. Zero reviews, zero summaries. You didn't read the description of it or anything. Zero descriptions, because I didn't want to spoil it.
Speaker 2I just hit download and play. And I was like oh, let's go. Okay, I think I know who the Buffalo Hunter Hunters. I think I know what that is.
Speaker 1I'm glad you trusted me Because I literally just came to you one day at church. Sorry.
Speaker 2I'm also tilting this table. I'm flipping this table. Will your chair go down?
Speaker 1Well, I don't want it to, because if it does, then the arms don't stay under the chair I mean under the table, and then I just am tilting back and falling backwards. Alright, fine, I'll lower them.
Speaker 2Just a hair there. We go Right there, right there.
Speaker 1But anyways, I see Pat at church. Just a hair there. We go right there, stay right there, all right, right there. Um, but anyways, I see I see pat at church. I'm like yo, hey, I'm actually listening to this book right now while I'm sitting here doing our security team at church and stuff and making sure no one comes to steal the kids. And uh, I'm like I don't want to spoil it because it totally caught me off guard. I had no idea what it was about really. And uh, it's a western, but it's a native american confessing to a priest or a pastor. And pat was like, okay, I'll check it out. So I sent him the link and he said, listen to it now. And uh, I'm glad you didn't read it because I I hope you said the same experience I did, did I guess maybe we should be careful before we talk about any more of it, just to give people the opportunity to hop out before we get into spoilers.
Speaker 2Yeah, and we'll give like I think we have some brief, we're going to do some brief overview stuff, kind of some teasers, get you more interested if you're on the fence, and then we'll give you a clear cut. You know time when we're hey, we're hopping off of. You know from, from summarizing to you know, you know synopsis to now we're going we're going to, uh, spoiler mode, talking about all the stuff we liked and all the ins and outs you know, maybe.
Speaker 1Uh, here's the thing I was really stoked on doing, like our thumbnail and artwork for me this episode. Huh, I'll make it very, I'll make it discreet, okay, all right good, I'll make it discreet like little things where it's like I feel like if I saw the thumbnail rather than the artwork for the cover of the book, I'd be like oh, I think I know what that's about you know, exactly.
Speaker 1Anyways, um, welcome, ken, as always. Uh, thanks for joining us. Um, we appreciate you taking time to hop in and listen. Um, and, of course, if you're listening to this, you know that we highly recommend the buffalo hunter hunter. Uh, the buffalo hunter hunter is a novel written by stephen graham jones. Stephen graham jones is a descendant and a native american. Um, he is actually out here in boulder, colorado, so so pretty close yonder to us and he teaches at csu. He's, um, uh, he's got a chair at csu. Oh, really, I mean at csu, at cu, um, and uh, his other popular novels that people may have heard of is called Mongrels and the Only Good Indians, as well as my Heart is a Chainsaw. Now, again, my Heart is a Chainsaw. I remember on Reddit when I first saw someone suggesting Buffalo Hunter Hunter and I saw they're like I really never liked my heart as a chainsaw, but I love buffalo hunter hunter. I was like, oh my gosh, this reads like anime.
Speaker 1I don't think I'm gonna be interested in this. This sounds so cringe, um and uh. Honestly, I I did look up more about stephen graham jones, or as people call him, sjg, and um, I really think looking up who he is as an author and what he wants to tell stories about is what convinced me to to actually give the book a shot and like knowing that he's native, like kind of changes like how you read that title.
Speaker 2I think too like the. I feel like I can hear the. I can hear like a heart behind the title, more so than just like being like this wasn't mistranslated from Timu, or like my heart is a chainsaw. Isn't like just gonna be a? Oh, like a weird horror book for like middle school girls?
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly, it's like you can there's.
Speaker 2I then see, like, maybe that, maybe that's, maybe it's wrong that I'm automatically assuming because he's native he has a deeper, more like spiritual side, or like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like like sure I get what you're saying. I'm not trying to.
Speaker 1I don't just assume that, but I do feel like native people I know do have a like there's more to talk about there's more to talk about and like they got a lot more like that they can make a story about, because the truth is is that they have a pretty tumultuous and unique identity right and it's.
Speaker 2It's not like every like.
Speaker 2I don't think every person out there is walking around like putting their hand in a puddle and like like looking up and then saying, like, saying something about, like, what happened, it's going to rain in Oregon today, right, and like the like making, like these things, but I think there is a in general, like culturally, there's a different way of talking, different way of understanding, different way of you know that people engage language as well, yeah, and, and then, and that's in the way he engages the language in buffalo hunter, hunter. I think we see that, you know yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1No, I agree, and like, I think for me, when I saw that he was the, when I got an idea from watching interviews with him and kind of reading a couple interviews with them, I got a better idea and I just, I truly do believe, like there's so many uh people telling the same story like I, like I. There's a particular book series I really enjoy, called Galaxy's Edge, and it's not Star Wars but it's based on like it's like it's not Star Wars, but it's based on. It's not even like loosely adapting Star Wars, it's like Star Wars but with a way more grungy, dirty, gritty, military take on it and it's written by former vets and stuff and it's excellent. There's probably over 20 books of it and stuff and it's it's excellent. There's like probably like over 20 books of it now and I've really enjoyed it.
Meet Stephen Graham Jones
Speaker 1Um, and there's hit or misses, but most of the time it's pretty good. And there's also wayward galaxy and something else and something else and something else and they're all the same story. It's like as soon as, like galaxy's edge wrote this thing that took off, which was again kind of a twist on like something else that already existed before it, uh, everything else started copying it and now, like the authors of galaxy's edge, started this other series called forgotten ruin, which is like special forces guys and essentially dungeons and dragons, and it's awesome. You get to pretty much see how, like a platoon of rangers would defend um uh, helms deep and it's pretty freaking metal and it's violent and it's pretty cool, uh. And then then now there's like 15 different people doing this, like modern day warrior trapped in primitive time or age or whatever, and they're all doing the same series with pretty much the same kind of spin-off and I'm just like, oh my gosh, it's a bottom line.
Speaker 1What I'm saying is there's a million iterations on horror, sci-fi and like this seems like the same thing told over and over. And then it seemed, when I found stephen graham jones and found his work and saw what he's saying, he was telling stories that I just haven't heard yet. You know, I mean, and it's even like to add on to that I thought buffalo hunter. Hunter was going to be the story of essentially, like you know, the native american 1800s, early 1900s, red dawn right, I was.
Speaker 1I was like this is going to be native american going full indigenous, as you know, again military term there that might not be politically correct, but uh, but going, going native, going native, but just like straight up, giving it an insanely guerrilla warfare time to those who he sees as intruding and trespassing and destroying his way of life or his tribe's way of life. And so that's not necessarily wrong. Right, but it was not that simple. Yeah, it was really sick how he took it.
Speaker 2You know what I mean yeah, I just expected the um, the story as you know, the, the story as told from the other side of things you know versus you know, there's the cowboys versus indians type of you know thing just told from the other side, right, sort of like you know engagement. But uh, um, which I was, I was down for excited for that too, but I was that would have been a good book, at the end of its own right, exactly. But then I was wrong, and so yeah, and so, yeah, anyways, yeah.
Speaker 1So this book takes place in 2012. The book is I would say it's Stephen Graham Jones' magnum opus is what a lot of people are saying it's his masterpiece. As Etsy Bocarn begins reading the PDF transcriptions she's receiving of her great-great-great-grandfather's journal from 1912. And then we kind of get the flashback to our other narrators, back in 1912, where we have Good Stab, who is a Pagani, blackfeet Indian, confessing or sharing. He says it's a confession, but it's mostly a life story and he's sharing that with the pastor, this Lutheran pastor, arthur Bocarn. Etsy's great, great, great grandfather book horn, etsy's great, great great grandfather, um, and I gotta say, before we dive into the non-spoiler summary, I just want to shout out the voice actors, because all the voice actors I've looked up, um, and uh, I thought they all did really, really, really good. Um, there was a way.
Speaker 1So shane ghost keeper is the narrator for good stab and shane ghost keeper I guess, uh, he's a musician. Um, he's a native american and he's also acted in a couple shows and things like that, but it seems mostly excuse me, oh my gosh, y'all crept up right on me. It seems like he's mostly been doing like audible narrations as well as his own, like kind of freelance musician work, but he narrates Ghost Stab in a way that just feels like I'm right there, like when I'm walking my dog or driving my car, or like taking a shower, going to bed and I'm listening to good step tell a story. I forgot that I'm listening to a book.
Speaker 1It really did feel to me like I was listening to a recording of, like someone confessing something. You know, it felt very well done and I think that's in a lot of part to Stephen Graham Jones's writing, uh, but I thought Shane Ghostkeeper did a good thing, because even when Shane Ghostkeeper does accents or impersonations, it really sounds to me like the way you'd hear a native American person impersonating non native Americans, right, and it. It was really really well done and he had, he had enough emotion and it that you still had this clear image of a very reserved, very haunted native American man. But also, like you believe, the emotion is hurt, or pain, or sadness, um, or excitement, uh, which I feel like is very hard to do to an audience, right, when they can't see and you have to kind of be the stereotypical, almost like presentation of the stoic warrior Indian, you know. So I thought I thought he did a really good job, um, and then, uh, marin Ireland.
Speaker 1She's in a couple of things, she's in a lot of horror movies as like a background supporting actress. Uh, I really liked her in the empty man, um, and then I think I also saw, oh yeah, the dark and the wicked, um, but she is etsy. She does a good job. I think she really provides a convincing performance and attitude, especially at the points where we step out of a document you know, out of out of the book, and it's actually a, an audio recorder and she's narrating to an audio recorder and it really does sound like she's recording what she's doing in the moment. Um, so, and that shows like her ability to do a really great like performance of fear or anxiety, rather than just like a reading off of a, like a script or page um.
Speaker 1And then owen um, owen teal most people will know him as um. He was a blackthorn, uh, the night's watch. Uh, not commander, but one of the Night's Watch, not commander, but one of the Night's Watch. In Game of Thrones, he's the one who gave Jon Snow a hard time calling him a bastard.
Speaker 1The bastard Snow, but he plays Arthur Bukharin in this and he's excellent, I think. I think the performance, I think his performance is the best one. Excellent, I think I think the performance. I think his performance is the best one.
Speaker 1I genuinely feel the uh, the self not deprecating but self punishing, and like, uh, hauntedness of a, of a pastor that truly has become a man who fully and wholly believes in jesus christ as his lord and savior and believes in god's calling for us, as you know, people on earth, uh, while also like beginning to remember who he was before in that previous life and is grievously like haunted by it. Um, and so I think all the performances are really well done. I also think that, uh, on that note, owen teal also like when he's talking about food, I genuinely see the starving, mouth wateringly, like hungry, poor pastor in the middle of montana. Like every line about food he really makes me believe like this is a man who's honestly confessing his love for cake and eggs and sausage and jams and is not a man reading what an author wrote you know what I mean like it's just like the way they acted.
Speaker 1It made you forget that this is a book and this is.
Speaker 2It really did feel like an actual uh audio, like recording of, like an honest acting at the time oh yeah, I was totally drawn into it and, like the like you're saying it was the book for me flew by listening to it and it uh, you were done with it before I was. When it was over.
Speaker 2I was, I was so bummed because then I knew, whatever I listened to next just was not gonna be, it was just gonna be back to like audible guy voice yeah you know, versus like and and not to be also the author plus the, the voice actors in here just was like um, yeah, it told I could just sit there and listen to it, listen to it, and it felt like I was sitting there listening to the story.
Speaker 1Really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so the I'm going to give my teaser just for this little. This little you've, you've hit some of these points. I'm going to just give for those of you who want to get out, or, if you're still on the fence, you're going to keep listening. I'm going to give you just the little non-spoiler intro summary. And so the novel is set in the American West. It spans multiple generations and it begins at a university research center that holds a journal from 1912 that was found in the walls of a historical Lutheran church in Miles City, montana, in 2012, where Etsy Bukarn reads the transcription of the journal's chronicles.
Speaker 2And as readers, we encounter the three individual accounts of this book. And the discovered journal gives the account of the preacher and his daily thoughts and goings on, but it also records a testimony of an old Blackfeet native man called Goodstab, and Goodstab comes to the preacher to give a quote confession and over the preceding months and at multiple encounters, goodstab recounts the tales of his past, his people, his homeland. And as we're swept into this story, we learn that maybe this book isn't what we expected it to be from the title, and the author, Stephen Graham Jones, takes us into a piece of even his own people's history, with a spin and he engages and invites us to see the American West through this wider lens that doesn't shy away from violence, tragedy, heartache and especially the loss of a place where you know, mighty Buffalo, once roamed you know mighty buffalo once roamed.
Speaker 1Yeah, honestly, uh, if, if there's one thing, real world, that I take out of this, it's that the next time I'm going up in past the foothills here in colorado to pass those herds, I'm gonna take a moment, I'm gonna pull over and I'm gonna watch and just like take it in, because it is crazy to me that we still have, you know, american buffalo that are alive. Uh, especially when you listen to this story and you're just like holy smokes, like, and I get it, I I've heard a hundred times right from, like you know, different stuff in class or school, right, but it just you just don't listen to it or believe it until, like you can have a very sincere telling of the, the stories of how they tried to eradicate the buffalo in order to starve out native americans and those numbers going from estimated 30 to 60 million down to we got all the way down to 300 in the us, yeah, which is insane yeah, and it was just.
Speaker 1You know, I remember seeing like images of like the piles of the of the bones, and just being like gobsmacked by that. But all I said I like hearing, hearing it in this story. I truly do think like I'm gonna stop and smell the roses and like try to appreciate that animal for what it is the next time I get to like look at them because also, like I would say, 99 of americans have never seen a buffalo in person, right, yeah like a real american buffalo that's probably true and I feel like you and I probably take it for granted, because what, twice, three times a year, we drive by like the biggest herd in america, right, um?
Speaker 1so, anyways, all right, that's your, uh, that's your warning. If you're interested and, uh, you don't want the book spoiled, dip out, come back and watch this later. Um, that's the only thing that we really say, that for you know what I mean, because we genuinely think these books are great and worth the experience on your own. Um, but if you're, uh, if you already listened to the book, excellent, thanks for joining us here. And if you're like, spoil it for me, because I can't handle scary and I'll listen to it afterwards. Great, happy you're here. Um, but, pat, let's crack open our beers, all right.
Speaker 1Ironically, pat found from anchorage brewing company a beer called till next time, which is the sign off that pat, uh, and occasionally me always gives at the end of this podcast, and it looks pretty metal. Uh, it's got a witch doctor and a skeletal knight cheering beers together. Kind of black plaguey. Yeah, very, very like grim, dark, medieval black plague. The ingredients are water, hops, malt and yeast. So it's probably going to be a pretty. I'm not. I'm gonna bet it's not gonna have a citrusy, I bet it's to be a pretty. I'm going to bet it's not going to have a citrusy. I bet it's going to be a pretty hoppy IPA Triple.
Speaker 2IPA oh, triple Garrett 10%.
Character Corner: The Three Persons
Speaker 1Cool, cool, oh. Brewed with Citra Incognito, oh, so it probably will have some citrus. We will see Anywhoos. Here we go, crack in the can. I'm pretty stoked. We will see Any who's here we go, crack in the can. I'm pretty stoked. We need a new mini fridge, because I left these in the mini fridge for like 45 minutes and they're still about 60 degrees. I like it Way way, way more tame than I thought it was going to be for a triple IPA.
Speaker 2Me too, it was like I'm not putting it on this level, but if I close my eyes and someone, it was like, hey, this is a triple IPA from True, I'm not saying it's that good, but just as far as on the tame factor, on the tame factor, and we're not doing a full bruising review tonight.
Speaker 1We'll give you the mini.
Speaker 2I'm not reviewing this beer at all. Yeah, we're just giving you the mini. Do the quick.
Speaker 1You know we're telling you about it, but um, it's got an odd and almost at first tastes like I'm drinking like pineapple juice out of the, out of the cans.
Speaker 2You know it's like pineapple juice force from new belgium, kind of like that. Yeah it it is. That's the thing people have been on right now.
Speaker 1The aftertaste, though maybe it's just because of my dinner. Yeah.
Speaker 2No, it's that little spicy it is, isn't it A little spicy on the back, yeah?
Speaker 1Because it tastes to me a little bit like the sandwich I had, which had spicy sauce.
Speaker 2It's like that dry chili spice.
Speaker 1That's no Okay.
Speaker 2Right, so it is there yeah.
Speaker 1I was like I taste my jalapenos that were on my sandwich. It's like a pineapple jalapeno kind of taste.
Speaker 2Yeah, I like this one.
Speaker 1I like it too, it's pretty good yeah. Definitely caught me off guard. All right Going, tell me off guard. All right Going into the book. Pat, as usual, introduce us to the characters. Oh yes, character corner.
Speaker 2Yes, yes. So you know we've gone into these. You know there was a lot of characters throughout the book. I picked just five for us to kind of break down. There's others we might bring up and briefly talk about, but you know Etsy Bukarn, her character's set in modern day. She's an academic. Was she a teacher, a professor? She had like a fellowship or something to research.
Speaker 1She is a professor, yeah, but she didn't have tenure at University of Wyoming.
Speaker 2Yeah, she was trying to get her tenure and so she was on the cusp of that um and they say you have to be published if you're going to get tenure, right, right, and so she was, and it's a big part of this story was she was kind of thinking about, you know, this could have been her big break, this could have been her tenure. You know this is a story, quite quite the story, you know, um and so um her, you know, I think that not a super dynamic or in depth character there's. There's some depth there to her and at the, at the end of the story, she, she grows because really we encounter at the beginning and then we really encounter her at the end, very end, of the story and she does develop, but she is more. She's the vessel for this being delivered in modern times and for the conclusion of the story to come full circle.
Speaker 2Um, I thought her character was. It was good, but I do think it was, you know, just the um, uh, yeah, really that the, the method to which to transport the story. And the author even said, I think, in his acknowledgments, was that he originally didn't have her in the end with the final pieces and the final scenes as kind of the, with her final kind of hero scenes.
Speaker 1Yeah, he said something along the lines of like Etsy, where did you come from? In his acknowledgments at the end of the book, because he just didn't foresee that being the package.
Speaker 2And I think he had her kind of at the beginning, is just thing. But then like, oh, this, you know it's for the final conclusion there, but um, so yeah, her character is key. But you know, you know, for for me I just took her as that vessel and helped her conclusion. And then we've got Arthur Bucarn, and he's German, right, you're like is German, french, french-german?
Speaker 2It's like, yeah, the last name is French, but German ancestry Yep yep and he's American and he's referred to in the book by Goodstab as three persons and he eventually kind of starts to refer to himself as three persons at times. Well, I, mean all those chapters he self-references, probably backdated as the absolution of three persons Right, right and so, and I was wondering, you know, is that just a straight reference to the Trinity and or is that into the three people he was in this story? I think it's both.
Speaker 1Because Goodstab also was three people.
Speaker 2Right, yep, exactly, and as Arthur went through his phases, he was three different people throughout the book. And the person we encounter the book, um, um and the the the person we encounter the most is, you know that, the Lutheran preacher in uh in Montana 1912. Um, we learned that he was a former soldier and uh, eventually he turns into a groundhog.
Speaker 1He turns it.
Speaker 2There's this so for those of you who haven't read this now. Now, if we spoiled that for you, you might just be like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1Hold on. So there's an old school horror movie I was looking for just now. It's not old school, it's like early 2000s, late 90s maybe, and it was made for like TV. I'm pretty sure. Oh yeah, 90s maybe, and it was made for like tv. I'm pretty sure. Oh yeah, but it's about his giant mole rat in this town and this guy goes around america killing these giant mole rats.
Speaker 2Huh and so, yeah, for those of you listening who haven't read it, but you're wondering what that's going on um, yeah, there's, it's kind of there's some pieces to this story that, um, yeah, there's some pieces to this story that kind of it goes supernatural on us.
Speaker 2You know European myths, like some Transylvanian type myths.
Speaker 2You know it's interesting to watch him develop throughout the story because he goes from when we meet him. He's just this kind of peaceful preacher man, but he develops in this backwards way as we learn who he was and we kind of come to see, you know why he's been titling his journal entries as the absolution of three persons, and because he does carry this weight, or why does he love food so much? Maybe it's because of a time when he was starving and he made the worst decision of his whole life because he was hungry and cold, you know. And and then, all the way into his final form of, you know, this kind of as someone who was maybe seeking, uh, you know, a penance via being a, a preacher, eventually finds his final penance on earth as being a lowly creature that's belly crawls across the ground, um and um, and so he, uh, he has his, um, his three persons that he is throughout this book. Yeah, you find the naked mole rat movie. No, I'm still looking for it, oh man, but keep don't worry about it, I'll keep.
Speaker 1I'll keep on looking, I'll keep on looking, excuse me.
Speaker 2And so next, character-wise, you know, we have Good Stab. He's already been mentioned a few times. His given name at birth was Weasel Plume and then it was changed to Good Stab. After, when he was about 12 years old, he was in a hunting party and the older men went out to hunt and they had captured a soldier and the soldier was choking him out. He, uh, he grabbed a weapon. He grabbed an arrow that he had placed in the ground and he swung it behind him and he drove it through the man's eye and killed him, and so his dad gave him a new name that day, which was good stab, and he kind of earned his stripes that day as a man and uh, and that was now his name.
Speaker 2His name later on becomes takes no scalps, um and um. We'll get into probably more of like why his name is that and what happened, and and the story of why he became takes no scalps, um. When he would kill people, um, he would, he would take other things from them. And um, he was born. The story, you know, the story in the journal said in 1912, but he was born around 1820. So by the time he's encountering the preacher. He's about 90 years old but he doesn't look a day over 40. He doesn't look that old um. And so the um, which is maybe a little more telling of you know as what this story moved into and what it became, and Goodstab, I think definitely my favorite character of the book. Goodstab is the I think the main character, you know for sure, and the. It's interesting because he usually this type of character you're not um, you're not rooting for you're not rooting for and you could.
Speaker 1You could spoil it. Man, you know you're the character introductory.
Speaker 2I know, but I'm, I'm, I just want to get. We'll get to it on the next character.
Speaker 1Okay no full blood, yeah, um oh no, the cat man yeah, from the cat man.
Speaker 2So, um, but the um as uh with his, with his transformation, as through his different names, and as he becomes this, it's just, it's interesting to watch and root for. I think his character was done really well, written well, and I didn't necessarily think he was a good man or a bad man. He had good attributes and bad attributes, just as Arthur Bucarn had. He was a good man and he was a bad man. You know, shri Bukharan had. He was a good man and he was a bad man. You know, and I think that, um, the author really pulls and ties the tension there, um, well, between, in some ways, like there are there are moral, um, there's absolute, you know, uh, moral things and not not relative morality, but there are areas where a man can be many different things and can engage in many different things. And so then we have the Catman. The Catman shows up in the beginning of the story with a when Goodstab and his band is out going around on. They are, they're trying to cover up a war party, or kind of an attack.
Speaker 1First they're hunting right they were.
Speaker 2They were hunting at first, but then they're also part of their job was to also, as they're out and about hunting their jobs also to um, kind of cover up if and when soldiers or settlers are killed. And because also the group he was a part of was men without families who were going out doing this because he had lost his good stab, his wife and kid were killed by, I think, a rival tribe. But then they find this man in a cage who looks like a cat. Killed Kids were already dead, yeah, by I think a rival tribe. Tribe killed him, yeah, but then they find this man in a cage who looks like a cat and he the cat man. What did I think that I kind of wish there was more of the cat man.
Speaker 1In some ways. Okay, it's interesting you say that, because I felt that way too, until he came back, and then I was like, oh sick, I'm getting more of the Catman. And then you get even more of him and like you realize the Catman. No matter how villainous other characters are, the Catman is like beyond villainous. The Catman is like a bored Satan.
Speaker 2He wants to be entertained. He is what this character always is.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2The uh, what for to I?
Speaker 1I need you that was pretty good and he talks about his uh accent in there, if people saw that movie they would know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so the Catman we learn is oh, I was, I would always I to say the word or not. I didn't want to say the word until now or later. Just because they only say the word once in the whole book, do they say vampire Just once, really, at the very end. It says vampire at the very end, who she does Really. I was surprised. I thought they were never going to say it and then he did. I wonder if he shouldn't have said it. But uh, the cat man we learn is a vampire. Um, and you know, it's 450 year old vampire. Yeah, I think it is. You know, basically, it would assume he is the original. Yeah, and the way he talks about it, right yeah, and, and it's he's definitely.
Speaker 1You know they did such a good job, because even when he's first described, you're like what, what is going on? And it's like for me when they're talking about you know the Because? When did you learn Scenario around dude? The moment they were like Cross is hanging on his cage, I was like, oh, that's when you knew he was a vampire.
Speaker 2Oh my like crosses hanging on his cage. I was like, oh, that's when you knew it was a vampire. Oh my god, what um. And I didn't know it was a vampire until, um, at the end of that battle, when good step became a vampire when he was, he fell on good stab and was drinking him or his blood was going into him.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's like, oh, he's a vampire, yeah, you know. And so we're like I'm like you're like an hour into the book or whatever, at this point or hour and a half into the book, and now you're like, oh, this is taking a turn.
Speaker 1Now, this is not what I, what I thought um anyways, uh, yeah, I, I, I really like the cat man because when it's presented it's not overtly obvious. You know, good, stab doesn't say like, and it was what you germans would call a vampire you know what I mean he's like.
Speaker 1He describes him with features he can most closely compare them to, and that is even a part later on which is cool and we'll talk about later, but it's it's a part that makes author buchan not believe him. Arthur's like, please, good step. I know that Native Americans have no idea what a house feline is. They wouldn't describe a man with feline teeth as a cat man. Why not describe him as a big mouth man like you do? And that's what you call the mountain lion. And so it was just one of those things where I found that was like. And so it was just one of those things where I found that was like. Wow, the dichotomy of like the how I convey and describe this thing based on my own people's language and understanding, without those myths, and then also like how that works against you rather than just being like you know Dracula Exactly.
Speaker 2He let it unfold for us so well that way and that's why it was so fun to have it read that way, and I think speaking of that too is a good part to just break and talk real quick about the language the author used and how he taught us a language throughout the book in his own way. No, we can't speak. You know the words that were said, but um, the there's a, there's lots of um native words, or the way in the the people would have said um you know instead of you know. One of the big example would be like instead of Buffalo, they called them black horns, right, and um. What I think was interesting was we learned this language and there's a part later on in the book where um good stab is he's learning to speak uh english and from somebody from uh noppy. And who's this noppy? Is this um?
Speaker 1kind of-.
Speaker 2Yeah, kind of mythical Trickster.
Speaker 1Native American god.
Speaker 2Yeah, like a, probably like a, you know, I don't know if they have tears, but it's like, you know, like a tier two god type, you know, like. You know kind of like the Not Odin, but Loki, right, right, right, right. And so Goodstab says, you know, he would be saying these words, he would be speaking, and then he would say it again, but with the English word for it, and then he would say it again, and then he'd stop and go back and forth and say it this way and that way. And that's how I learned this language. And I wonder if the author knew, as he put that in, that he had also, at this point in the book, he had taught us a language where I'd written down, kind of all these, some of these words, because I just liked them. You know, just like the, because when I read the first, the first chapter, I was so lost on what is he talking about.
Speaker 1You know, like the Pagani like, and I was kind of like okay, that's like, that's like wait, how do I say it?
Speaker 2The, the Napiqua, napiqua. Yeah, the Napiqua came and I'm like, oh, the Napiqua, is that another?
Speaker 1tribe. What tribe is?
Speaker 2that this bad tribe, the Napiqua is the white man and the Pagani is the natives, the blackhorns Small robes Pagani are small robes. That was their clan. The Pagani small robes was their sub-clan family.
Speaker 1Oh, I thought. No, I think Pagani is the actual. Small robes Like Blackfeet are separate than Pagani. It's like Blackfeet's overarching, but Pagani's the small robe clan. It's the small robe clan, I think so. I looked it up and I think Pagani is the self-name for the pagan Blackfeet.
Speaker 2Because there's like three.
Speaker 1Blackfeet tribes and the pagan. Blackfeet are, like, most closely associated with the Pagani? I don't know. Yeah, I'll say this. The massacre that occurs in the book to Goodst stabs tribe is based off of the pagan, which is not not the anglo-pagan term, right, but it's like the tribe name for the sub-tribe in the black feet pagan.
Speaker 2Okay, it makes sense. And then you know these words, like prairie runner, huh. It's like, huh, what's that? And then it's like, as they explain, oh, that's an antelope. Obviously you know the, the long legs, the elk and the, the backbone, the mountain range and the, the sand hills, is paradise. The, yeah, um. The, the mini shots gun, you know, and the grease shooter you know. And the real meat what do you meat?
Speaker 1What do you think the big mouths and hungry mouths were in Sticky Mouths and the little big mouths, the little big mouths.
Speaker 2I think those are coyotes, Coyotes big mouths or wolves.
Speaker 1Sticky Mouths, I think, are wolverines, because they used to be native up into Montana, and then I think the hungry mouths, or whatever, are mountain lions.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think, yeah, I think you're right, you know, and then, yeah, so they had all these names. And then what was the one for the rabbit, the?
Speaker 1oh, um what was it tall ears, not tall.
Speaker 2Tall ears was a let's like it wags. Its tail was a deer no, wags its tail.
Speaker 1I think is goat, a goat, oh. And you know what? It is a deer, because a little white tail.
Speaker 2That's why I thought it was a goat I was like what has a little white tail?
Speaker 1yeah, no, you're right. Uh, wags his tail is a deer. Uh, tall ears are donkeys or mules, yeah um fast runner fast runner, is it?
Speaker 2yeah, is it? You know?
Speaker 1which is like a personal thing for good stab. You know, he believed his.
Speaker 2His fast runner guided him and so there's all these little words like this in the book, right?
Speaker 1and at the first.
Speaker 2The first time you're reading through, you're listening to the chapter, you're like I don't know what the hell's going on, and then by the end, I knew it. I knew it all I saw, I knew what they were, I knew what those words meant they were hitting me and like, and hitting me even, and like I felt connected to it, you know, and so I really I thought that was a really cool way to pull this language together.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, um 100, agree with you you know, and so then, you know, for my final character that I was going to mention was a black horn, himself named Weasel Plume, and he was. Was it he or she? It was a he, yeah, it was a he. And he was a white buffalo named Weasel Plume, which was Goodstab's original.
Speaker 1Name as a child.
Speaker 2Uh-huh original name as a child uh-huh and so uh. Well, I think we'll talk about weasel plume later too, and how that developed, but those are kind of the main characters and the things and that got that got to me a little. You know, I was like man, son of a, I had to go back and listen. I was like, oh my god, what just happened, you know.
Speaker 1So I think the thing that was interesting to me was so much of the dichotomy between as well like with those animals and like what was clearly not. The native animals, like horses, don't have a name. They're horses, but that's because they were brought over, and the name that the native Americans have for him is the name that was given to him. They do have white horns. Well, white horns, yeah, they do call yeah for cattle, but I don't know if white horns were brought over too or if there were also cows.
Speaker 2They were brought over, they were, they were.
Speaker 1I didn't know if there was cows in existence on the newfound land.
Speaker 2I was wondering if he just didn't have a different name, a different name for horse out the gate, just for clarity or not. Because I just listened to that first chapter again to like kind of recenter. But I was wondering about that too, because there are other animals too where they just refer to them as what they are. Then they have their little names, or not.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, it was super good and I also really found totally enraptured in that language and I think it's because, excuse me, right after, like each of those chapters where we learn more and more of the history and cultural words and their significance to Goodsab in his confessions, we get Arthur Bocarn's reflection on those words and his in like, analyzing, and honestly he even says like I find myself using these words and writing about the black horns rather than the buffalo, and writing about the white horns in their milk rather than uh, longhorn cows.
Speaker 1Right and like. It's just one of those things where you see it, what's what's happening in your own mind, in your own subconscious, happening to a character in the book, and it's very reinforcing, um anyways, yeah, and we're like in the european thing is the, the, you know the, the binomial latin?
Speaker 2you know, we're just, we're just categorizing, it doesn't matter, just just stick it in this category. Yeah, right, and then for the natives it was a names matter. Just like the fact that your name changed throughout your life names really mattered, and so it's like just pulling that string through there yeah, and it's yeah, you're right, you're right.
Rising and Falling Nations
Speaker 1Um, all right, hopping into, uh, the key points and themes here, right? Um, I think the the key themes I got. I got five key themes that I think are, you know, emphasized throughout the novel. Right, and then we'll hop. We'll hop into key points because I want to spend more time on the key points of the novel rather than like the themes.
Speaker 1The first theme is the easiest one, I think, to skim off the surface and you could probably pull it off of just understanding the concept of the book. It's like this is going to talk about the rise and fall of people, the rise and fall of nations, and how a rising nation is growing because it's watered with the blood blood of the previous one and a falling nation is growing because it's watered with the blood of the previous one and a falling nation is falling because it's being drowned in its own blood. And this book certainly is about that, like this is. So a lot of people I saw say that this is America's story and I don't think I entirely agree with that Right, and I don't think I entirely agree with that right, because I think there's so many facets of America and that there's a lot of different places and times where the story of America was different in its own not great way, but I can't say like that.
Speaker 1This itself is the story of America. This is certainly a story that could be told in many different places at a certain time in America, right, and I think it's a very key part of America's history uh, more of a window into how the like great expansive, um what was, what was the term? Manifest destiny was designed to drown the like people, nations, um, in their own blood or in the blood of, like their culture. Right, it's. It's like you know what? They just keep on eating this buffalo. Let's just kill all the buffalo.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And let's poison it so that way they can't even eat it and nothing can eat it and they just have to sit out there and rot and there can be like there's nothing they can do with it, and it was pretty crazy to see that demonstrated. And it's again like this is not going deep. I'm not going deep on this.
Speaker 1If people who are like, oh my gosh, if they're rolling their eyes because they're like I've heard this a million times in a million different stories, you have right, but I, I personally think this one was far more well written because it felt very personal and I say that as it felt personal because the character of a christian pastor was very believable to me. There was not a single misstep and arthur buchor buchorin's uh interpretation of his faith or interpretation of god's will, in my eyes, I can't. I can't remember one time where arthur even blamed god for anything like arthur never even blamed god when the the church was full of the corpses of people in town or like, and every horror movie has a priest right a priest in a crisis of faith it's always a crisis is always like a trash yeah, he's always, he's always shitty, it's like.
Speaker 2this underlines it. And while Arthur has a past you know of, you know being a part of a massacre, he's not. Yeah, the author didn't use him as, like that, standard trope. Yeah.
Speaker 1And that's why it's so good, especially as someone who is a I would say, a very strong believer um a very strong non-denominational right I'm not catholic, um, and so like I read this and I'm like dude, my man, like arthur, I empathize with you.
Speaker 1I empathize with your own reflection on your sin and I also empathize with your view of god and how you see like, especially this like he. There's never a moment where arthur judges another man or woman like there and like we're getting the inner workings of arthur's mind. There's never a moment where he's like that dirty whore or that festering drunk or this wicked dirty Indian, like all of his characterizations of people are like these are God's children and even though my heart is weak and by weak he means like tired and just wants to rest or just wants to eat a sandwich.
Speaker 1He's like the least I can do is listen to them.
Speaker 2And there's even a scene in the book where he's stumbling drunk through the pews. Yeah right that you know like but, but like that didn't feel disingenuous to like. I feel like with so many shows, movies, books that just want to totally crap on the whole thing, yeah, it was respectful of it and which I appreciate as well as like, and I'm okay with engaging the humanity of a preacher and his shortcomings, but it just but, and then the way it was done, it it felt authentic to the way that a human would be.
Speaker 2who's walking out their faith that way?
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. So I guess, all that said, when I, when I see that side and how well that is written, and I also see the other side of this. That is like the, the confession and retelling of the people's history and what occurred to them and being a witness to it, um, it has more validity. It has more worth because I can, I can sit there and be like you know what they're not cheapening. It has more worth because I can sit there and be like you know what they're not cheapening. The author, the writer, is not cheapening and shitting on my empathy like what I can empathize with, what I can relate to and understand in my own real day in life.
Speaker 1He's being very honest with it and it feels like he's making a very great effort, even if he's not a believer which I don't, I have no idea Right but if he's not a believer, he's made great efforts to know what a believer believes and their view, even in the midst of like fear or guilt whatever, and so I have a huge respect for him in that way, which makes me very much trust everything he's saying on the other side and other Native American tribes and just what was done to them Never felt like I was getting reamed over the head with like you bad white person, don't you feel bad for what your ancestors did? If anything, it felt like be Arthur, the least you can do right now that God asked of you is to sit in this pew and listen and honestly, I think that's why I was so receptive to it and that's why I also say it to it and that's why I also say like it's about the rise and fall of nations, it's not about the you should feel bad for what America did. I don't know. Maybe we should ask SGJ and ask hey man, did you want us to like feel bad, or were you just like wanting us to shut up and listen, like, see it for what it was.
Speaker 1Yeah, because, I'll be honest, I never once felt bad. I never felt like, ooh, mick should feel guilty for this and Pat should feel bad for this. So I'm going to tell Pat to listen to this. You know what I mean. I was like this is important. This feels like a very authentic, honest telling of this and I feel like I'm learning a lot in the wrapping of it being partly a supernatural story, right, and I, uh, wrapping of it being partly a supernatural story, right, um, and I've I really feel like I took a lot away and learned a lot, and I I've been reflecting on a lot of it outside of its supernatural wrapping.
Speaker 2Right Cause he, he did. He took the, the platform of a vampire story. You know as kind of the the foundation in a sense, or the stage, was a vampire story and then a building ability. He, building upon that, he was able to tell greater, bigger stories, which also, if you actually go back in time and maybe look at even like vampire stories, would be like. Why was it? Why were they telling a story about that you like around, like plague or issues or like you know?
Speaker 2or even like any old stories heaven, hell religion, yeah, things that actually like engage deeper thought. Right, it's not just about, like, bloody gory, violence, all these things as it has become, that in many ways, and like this story is very violent, bloody gory, but I didn't to the violence, blood and gore aspect of this thing. I never like. There was never a scene where I was like, uh, put off by the violence.
Speaker 1It just felt the only time I was put off was definitely with when he was describing the what when good said was recounting the time he not, no, not the ice chamber. The time when he killed like over 25 uh fur trappers in one night, oh yeah. And the when he went to go do it. The first thing he caught them doing was raping one of their young skin boys. Yeah and it was just like one of those things.
Speaker 2I was like holy shit, like this is fucking dark right like yeah, yeah, and I get why he's killing all of them. Right, I kill them all too. I wasn't desensitized to it, but I even in that scene I wasn't like this is just over the top, for no reason no, yeah, I didn't feel that way either, but it was, it was pretty.
Speaker 2That was easily the hardest part for me to like listen to for sure, yeah, and so it engaged the violence and darkness and evil. But yeah, how so many horror movies are just like, well, that was just uncalled for this was everything in this was called for. I think to a point you know dude.
Speaker 1Uh, on that note too, do you have a favorite kill? Because I definitely have one or two. Um, I think in the tent there's a moment where he talks about how he puts his he. He swings his hand down with such force, uh-huh, at the top of a dude's head that he breaks his wrist and forearm, oh yeah, but he breaks the man's skull in half, yeah, from like top of the skull down to the belly. Yeah, it like literally flays the guy open to the point where he can see the man behind him.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I'm like that that is awesome, the fact that the reason it was so cool to me, because I was like he talked about how his arm was literally broken from it in like in tattered ruins, which is just something that you don't get like. You see, like the over the top super strong vampire that can just like chop people in half without breaking a sweat. It's like no, no, no, it's just that he doesn't, he can, he can push his body further, it's still going to break but he can push it further because that that pain tolerance is so much higher.
Speaker 1Yeah, I just remember that one.
Speaker 2Being so visceral, I was like holy, smoly dude that was insane and it wasn't a kill, but it was an image I saw like because I did. The whole time I was listening to this I was like god, this would be a way better movie than nesferatu, except it'd be impossible to make you know what I was thinking?
Speaker 1huh, I wasn't thinking it was a better movie than us. I thought it was going to be a better show than fourth season of true detective oh yeah, oh well, yeah, that's definitely that.
Speaker 2But, like you know, yeah, the um, I was thinking the whole time. I was thinking like man, this would be a sweet movie. It would be so hard with all books, you know it's hard to capture.
Speaker 2But the scene I saw I was like this would be like in the trailer was um, um, he's uh, swinging weasel plume skull back behind him as a war club. So like you know, picture a dude, you know, and I could picture it's an upward shot angle, you know of a guy in a full C, hands and arms back with a buffalo skull bringing it down and he missed the shot. But like that was, like I feel like that would be like and he missed the shot. But like that was like I feel like that would be like. Just the like the hero shot trailer.
Speaker 1Picture of just like that was the.
Speaker 2For me that was one of the like, the most, like it's pretty intense scene.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly it felt pretty like one thing that you know um SGJ does really good in this is that he brings the you know like black metal, viking violence and like that vampiric depiction really closer home to like okay, but also like now, it's native American, right it's, it's flavored as native american violence, right and um, it's just so metal at points like it's just, it's just, it's epic, um, all right, sorry, um. That's the first theme. Second theme penance. What is penance? We hear the word a lot. A lot of people know what this they. They know the word right in a context, but like taken out of a purely religious context or biblical context, uh, penance is the confession of sin to a priest or person and reception of absolution it is, it is saying I have sinned, here is the sin, and I give you the right to judge me.
Speaker 1And I'm going to go through these three, these next three together, because I think they all kind of, of course, play onto each other. But absolution is the third theme. Absolution, again, we hear it a lot. What's it mean? The formal release from guilt, obligation or punishment, so you receive absolution during penance.
Speaker 2You give penance, you receive absolution.
Speaker 1Yes, and then you receive absolution. Yes, and then you receive absolution, but then in that absolution, absolution might not be received at the same time which is one thing that we see through this, right.
Speaker 1And so, who really gives absolution? What does absolution look like? And then, finally, gospel, gospel which is outside of again, again, the gospels of jesus christ. But just looking at gospel as like the, the the noun of it now not not proper noun um, a set of principles, beliefs or absolute truths. Um, so I think those three will, will go over together, um, as like kind of one in the other, because, cause I think they're super highly related, which is going to get us into our key points.
Speaker 1But then, finally, the last one lineage of a people, right, how are we remembered? How do we remember the Romans? How do we remember the Ming dynasty? How do we remember, you know, blackfeet tribes, right? And so all that said, um, I think the, the last one, of course, is the one that is possibly most tragic because of something you mentioned, pat, when we were offline, but I I want to emphasize it here, and then we can go to the, the core three penance, absolution and gospel when we're going through key points. But lineage of people, people, you know, good, stab, we find out he's been feeding on Napiquans for a few years, because he's also punishing them, he's trying to thwart their attempts to eliminate his people.
Speaker 2And the black horn.
Speaker 1And the black, which is, you know, yeah, their attempt in eliminating the black horn. But he finds out that the more Napiquan blood he drinks and how his body uses the blood to heal itself, he has begun to grow a beard, his skin's whiter and he realizes, oh my gosh, if I drink this I will become one of them. Which means the inverse is, if he wishes to remain Pagani and hold onto that, he must drink Pagani, which means he has to be a killer of his own people, because his body doesn't do anything with cold blood. The blood has to be from something living. And I found that so tragic but also very interesting, because I think that is very true to today.
Speaker 1I can't speak to that necessarily in a Native American context. I mean, I know I'm part Native American but I've never had an opportunity or anything to like embrace that side of my family or follow up in it. I just know that's ancestry wise right up in there. But what I can see is like, um, I, like, I. I would be more comfortable saying like, if I were to truly try to grab a hold of my germanic or irish roots or scottish roots, that to grab a hold of those and hold on to them today in an attempt to like kind of pearl clutch right and almost nostalgia right, that there would be something cheapening about doing that today versus then, right, like there's a reason, like there are certain things that you know older Germanic tribes or Scottish clans did and their naming, even the name, uh, you know the naming of like the o'donnells or the mccarthy's, right, like all of that is got very strong roots and why it was done that way and the roots aren't in latin, you know, they're in the native language, right, um, but I do feel like to grab a hold of those now means that you, you're kind of cheapening what it was then because it was easier then, and you're kind of feeding off of it. When you're like holding onto it today, um, and I almost, I almost like even can break it down more Like imagine the toys you had as a kid, the TV shows, the radio channels, um, and radio shows or, uh, I think, the books you read and the games you played and for me games is a big one.
Speaker 1If I play, I will play, like video games. Nowadays I'm right now playing command and conquer three, uh, tiberium wars, and real g's are going to recognize that game for the freaking goat. It is. Uh, it was like a lot of people's first time playing a game where you built a base and moved an army around and destroyed other people's bases. But anyways, um, I'm playing that purely for the nostalgia. It's a good game. But I'm playing that purely for the nostalgia. It's a good game.
Speaker 1But I'm playing it because in the moment and I'm hearing the music and I'm hearing the dialogue in the game and I'm back to living in a more Southern Central part of Colorado, I'm at my grandparents' house on the weekend and I'm playing on this computer, playing the game, while looking out the window and seeing my neighborhood buddy walk over.
Speaker 1So we can, you know, shoot my red rider bb gun at pepsi cans and like there's a, there's a cheapening of that when you only get a part of it today and I feel like I'm feeding you know I'm holding onto it when I'm playing this thing and I know it's not as good as it's ever, as it ever was then, but it's still pretty good right now and it's it's better than the alternative, because the alternative is the not be Kwan blood and it's nasty and I don't want a part of it, and so I I again, I'm not sure that's what the author is saying.
Speaker 1I do think that is a theme, though heavily throughout this book, and we see it as a theme not just for Goodstab but also the Catman. The Catman has, I believe, a distaste and an impatience for the Native American culture and he clearly has a pride of the heyday, you know, when he is writing Goodstab, after punishing him, saying you know and I think Shane Ghostkeeper does it really well in the moment he's like you know nothing of who I am. I am 450 years old, and like that line alone delivered in Pagani to Goodstab because this vampire, this cat man, has been among his people so long now that he knows the language To me felt like he's just like telling him, like this is entertainment for me, this is another Tuesday, for me, this is another game. And he's just like telling them, like this is entertainment, this is another, this is another.
Speaker 2Tuesday. For me, this is another game.
Speaker 1You have. And he says literally like he's, like I've been a part of the like erasing cities and the downfall of nations, like this is nothing.
Speaker 1And you know and it made me feel like, even for him, though, what he's doing, as, like this chief of this tribe, is him probably trying to relive or hold on to something of the past. So then, finally, we see that, also with Arthur, arthur holds on to certain things like a letter. He was going to mail but never did. And he was going to burn but it never burned. There's, uh, the, the hairs, the orange haired cat that reminds him of his orange haired lover, who ended up being the, the mistress mother of his children. They had no idea of like. All that, I think, is, you know, an emphasis on like who. How will you be remembered? You know what is your lineage, what is your and I mean ultimately Etsy story. She is your lineage. What is your, and I mean ultimately Etsy's story. She is the lineage, and she's shown like what her ancestry is.
Speaker 1And then she, like Goodstab, completely gives her the choice of saying like hey, I'm not deciding what the fate is here, it's entirely in your hands. So also the movie. It's called the Dark, it's entirely in your hands. Also the movie. It's called the Dark. It's a Canadian movie. It's about a giant mole rat eating corpses in a graveyard oh my goodness. And some cops and a scientist try to kill it. It's awful, sounds nostalgic. No, it's literally just a guy in a giant mole rat costume. But that's exactly that creature is what I imagined Arthur Bacar was in the end. Yeah, all right, before we go back to the other themes, lineage of people you got anything on that, pat?
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I do. I feel like you said it where for good stab he and or the only way to keep at the point where he is? He is the oldest person in his tribe. No one's older than him At the time of, mostly at the time of him even meeting Arthur. He's 90.
Speaker 2Right, and so, really, at this point in time, all the history, all the lineage, all the stories he holds, them all, and the only way to like keep being who he wants to be is to continue to watch the, the kind of downfall of his people, and you know, and, in a way, and so I think there is a, I think there's a piece there, just like to you're speaking of, where the, the catch-22 of um, in order to maintain, you have to erase pieces of it as well, and that's part of his pain, um, that he goes through, um, and so, yeah, I think that that was where, once again, the, the platform of vampire story, the sucking the blood out of something, you know is um then brought much bigger, to a point of um, you know, the sucking the blood out of this people, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I agree. Um all right right penance, absolution and gospel. So I'm also gonna let you speak on these, pat just kind of give me your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1I mean because we're both, you know, I would say rather religious men, um and so with that, you know what are. How do you see, you know these three kind of playing hold here, because I think it's very important in the language of, you know, arthur Picard refers to his own chapters where he's recounting in his journal his own thoughts and investigations as the absolution of three persons.
Speaker 1But then, whenever we're getting um good steps, confession, he says the gospel of the max zara yeah, it's hard for me to pronounce it, um, but he he refers to that as absolute truth, the gospel, and he refers to himself, the absolution. You know, as in like, he is being punished and will need like.
Speaker 2This is this is a punishment in process that will like need a release from yeah, and you can't one piece on that where we're talking about penance, penance is something you can do, absolution you can't do. You can give it to somebody. True For them wronging you. So there is a he's in a Arthur in his cannot absolve himself, yeah, right, but he is attempting to through his writings, right. And so I think all three characters go through um penance, absolution and gospel.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Um, you know, and for Arthur it's um, I think even for Arthur it's, his penance was even becoming a priest, oh, yeah, or yeah, becoming a priest in the first place. That's his, his active penance. And then all the way to him, we don't know how he got turned into a vampire himself. We know that Goodstab did it, but we didn't get the account of it. We don't know if he, goodstab, took him and made him drink Goodstab's blood, right? But we don't know. Did he willingly go do it? Did he? Was that chosen penance that stab his blood, right? But we don't know. Did he willingly go do it? Yeah, did he right? So, was that? Was that chosen penance or was that? But that's a part of his penance too, to be a gopher on the ground, whether he chose it or not, right? Um, and his hold on.
Speaker 1Let me say that to you before we get too far yeah go. We keep on referring to him as a gopher, right. There's a thing here, right, where a prairie dog a prairie dog, right. It's like if Goodstab was only to feed on certain animals or the Catman was only to feed on certain animals, you'd take on more features of that animal. So the reason we say gopher is because at the end of the book Arthur McCarn is like a seven foot long groundhog.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1Like groundhog man thing.
Speaker 2Right, they've just been out there in the prairie.
Speaker 1He's been also time-wise, for a hundred years.
Speaker 2Goodstap has been force-feeding him. You know, as far as we can tell, you know prairie dogs for a hundred years for a century, and he's completely and wholly become that thing, and so that's a part of his absolution and penance completely and wholly become that thing, and so, um the that's a part of his absolution and penance. His ultimate absolution is his final. You know moments as in when his, his absolution is being, you know, dispatched by his own family.
Speaker 1By his own great, great, great granddaughter Right. I agree, I and I own great-great-great-granddaughter Right, I agree, and I don't think. I think that was the big thing. It was like at first.
Speaker 2I was like I don't think Like should that chapter have been titled the Absolution of Three Persons? It?
Speaker 1should have if Etsy was aware enough. I don't think Etsy was aware enough. I don't think Etsy saw what she was doing as absolution of arthur. I think she saw it as penance for herself to goodstap. I think she was so like wrapped up, like I need to do something because clearly I owe goodstap something. So I'll kill my, I'll kill my great great grandfather at like on a special day in memoriam of the, of the massacre.
Speaker 1And I think that is also why, at the end of it, good stab doesn't return her like you know hello, like allies, fist in the air, because he's like that was your, that was up to you, man, like whatever happened over there, that's between you guys, like I don't, like I don't think good stab was expect, because goodab never gave her any direction on what to do, right, he just said a family reunion and then left yeah, and that was the last word he ever said was a family reunion, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1And so I do agree with you full-heartedly. Like what Etsy does at the end, and quote-un kills uh, arthur, because he's definitely not dead, he's, he's beheaded and his body's at the bottom of a ravine in the dead of winter. But we know from what the cat man said, beheading isn't the end at all, and so I think there's a really good chance that arthur bu, unfortunately, is going to be at the bottom of that gorge for a little while and then have to start feeding on something else. Right, but it is ironic that she seemed to be unaware of the penance or, sorry, of the absolution she was giving, and that saw it as penance for herself.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was her penance for absolution and Goodstaff himself. He comes to Arthur in the first place and says to give his confession. Shadowy way of saying it to Arthur. We even get a feeling like eventually wait, whose confession is this? Yeah, Right, Yep, but it he does ultimately confess.
Speaker 2It is his confession as well. It's for both of them. He's forcing Arthur to confess to what he did, but he also is giving his own confessions where he you know the things he had to do to maybe ultimately save his people or get rid of the cat man and the um. So he, I don't think he ever gets absolution. He's never absolved.
Speaker 1There's no one to absolve him I think his absolution is that he's not alone, like he's in daylight riding horses in memoriam to this site.
Speaker 1Yeah, and there's people with him, that's a good point, I think his absolution is that, like he's been living with his tribe for the last however many years, hopefully close to a hundred, right? Um, I think his penance was and I say penance because I don't it's hard for me to think that good stab I don't. The most evil thing good stab did in my eyes was just start killing people that had nothing to do with the the massacre. Like I, I understand why he ended up going after arthur's heirs and then, you know, made that a thing to harass arthur with. But, dude, when you, when we get the image of the, the pews full of the dead dogs and the other dead townspeople from the bar and stuff, I'm just like dude this is evil.
Speaker 1This is insanely evil. This is a. This is beyond vengeance. There's no part of this that is vengeance. Um, because I don't, I don't even remember like an evil characterization, characterization of the sheriff, right like the sheriff was just a dude.
Speaker 1He's like kind of doing his job, kind of yeah it like it was just kind of shocking to me, um, because that was the time when I was like I remember telling I was telling bill, telling Billie Jean about this book the whole time through, and um, she was like good stabs evil, good stab is a bad guy and I was like I know, but I I'm shocked because I didn't think he was and this is such an evil thing to do. Um, so I guess, with that, like I do think his penance is sitting in. I think his penance is partly being a survivor and having to watch as people fade away and also having to in order to remain a part of his people. He has to feed on them somehow.
Speaker 2Right, and cause his like. His whole thing was like why did this? Is beaver chief is punishing me for these things, right, and then like, and then him having to be where he was like why did this? Is beaver chief is punishing me for these things, right, and then like, and then him having to be where he was like. I'm the only one who kind of like, knows the stories or like these things like, um, and so he and yeah, being alone, not being able to be with his people unless he's eaten them.
The Death of Weasel Plume
Speaker 1yeah, for probably For probably over a hundred years, right, um, I do also think that him just being in the church, though to provide the confession, is partly penance, like we know, like this vampire story, right, like, vampires can go on religious hollow ground. Vampires can touch crucifixes, they can be in the sunlight and they won't turn to ash. We know that it's very uncomfortable for them, they're not even, they're not like smoking, you know. But we know that he said that like he burns a lot easier, like his son burns a lot easier, and like the sun could eventually dry him out. Right, like, if he's just left in the sun and unable to move anything, he'd just be like a dried, wrinkled. Like, not, he wouldn't be dead, dead, he'd still be able to feed if something came near, but he'd be pretty malnourished.
Speaker 1But like he talks about just being in the church and how, like, even with all the shutters closed, it's still too bright and hurts his eyes, and how it's exhausting for him to be there and part of me wonders if that is like a sign of like something religious right has power on that supernatural blood. Right, because he even talked about how, at one time or another, you know, the, the native american religious sites had, you know, differing effects on it. Right, like whether it was like it, kind of like he didn't need the feed as much. Right, like when he's with Noppy he pretty much just hibernates the whole winter, and like it's pretty, pretty easy living with Noppy Um anyways, no, yeah, and I think maybe the ultimate penance for him was to never be uh, um, you know?
Speaker 2oh, what's the? I'm forgetting the indian, the word the, uh, the p word, the. To never be pagani again never be he can never be pagani all the way he just isn't? He can't? You know like how you speak to the big. One of the biggest things that got to him was he couldn't ride a horse anymore. Yeah, like I can't ride a horse.
Speaker 1Which he learns, which he learns how to Right In the most awful way. He learns it from the cat man. Right, like the cat man, is the one who rubs his face in it, basically.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure, but like it's just't, no matter, even if he drinks them all, he's still not going to be Pagani, not forever, yep.
Speaker 1And not all the way and he'll. I think it's too like just existence, his penance, right, because he talks so many times about wanting to follow the dead into the sand hills, like maybe they'll take me to the sandhills, maybe they'll lead me to them if I'll follow them this time and like, never once do spirits lead him to the sandhills, because of course he can't die right, um, which is crazy, because you think, like at this point, like especially good lord etsy. You'd think Etsy would know. Oh yeah, I watched Buffy the Vampire Hunter growing up, so I got to get some steaks.
Speaker 1I'll just take my grandfather in the heart. Yeah, and that's the thing that never, ever happens. His heart is never pierced with anything. You know. He specifies several times getting shot in the shoulders, stabbed in the stomach or gored even Never is his heart ever pierced, which I really do think is because he's, like the author Stephen Graham Jones is honoring that vampiric lore of like, yeah, stick to the heart would have done it, but no one ever staked these guys in the heart. Also, when here's a cool thing that I think is really makes a lot of sense, I kind of want to give him props, I want to send him an email or something, right, just like. Hey, dude, I just want to say I noticed this this seems like it was thought out.
Speaker 1The first telling of dracula, which is really known as the most modern vampire story, right, like it brought vampires to like a world-renowned level of publicity was 1897, was when it was published as a as like a play. Right, and so it wouldn't have been until probably sometime after the 19th, like 19, early 1900s, right, that, uh, the play was in america or the book was in america, right, so there's a good chance, like, even Arthur Bacar hasn't heard of what Dracula is or knows how to deal with it. No one does. No one knows what to do with these things. And Dracula, of course. The story says Vlad the Impaler became Dracula through something. Something supernatural made Vlad the Impaler became Dracula through something. Something supernatural made Vlad the Impaler an unkillable, undying creature, demon. Vlad the Impaler was truly a governor of Transylvania area in the 15th century, 15th century being 1400s, 15th century being 1400s.
Speaker 1So the cat man. In 1890, something is yelling in our boy, good stabs face, saying I'm 450 years old. It kind of lines up that the cat man was dracula, vlad the impaler, right, and he's now just a fish out there. Yeah, because for people who haven't read the book or anything, no, no, uh, in the final fight, you know, good stab ends up overpowering, uh, the cat man and then makes him feed on fish for years until he just lets him loose, as like a giant pike he's like, and everything he ever feeds, son and drinks will always be fish. So he'll only ever be a fish again. Yeah, and the only way he won't be a fish is if someone pulls him out of the water, but then he'll suffocate for years on land, suffering.
Speaker 2That is like the native wooden stake. It is, I feel like the way he thought it through, or being a groundhog right, just being like, well, yeah, once he's in the lake, you just can.
Speaker 1Only the sturgeon can only freaking yeah you know fish it's a or Boris, uh-huh eating its own tail, kind of thing. Yeah, so, all that said, I just thought that was really cool. I think you touched on everything that I have for penance, absolution and gospel. Um, I really do believe that everyone's gospel is good. Stabs, like Arthur and Etsy's gospel, their principles, beliefs, absolute truths, by the end of the book are entirely good stabs gospel, which is kind of cool because you think about it, of like they are essentially the gospel of arthur and the gospel of etsy, saying, like I've seen it, I believe so it's kind of like the equivalent of like a gospel of luke, gospel of john and the gospel of, you know, good Sabbath is kind of like the firsthand testimony of Jesus. You know if we're talking about, like you know, alluding to or allegory, right to the way gospels are told. The gospels of Matthew, mark, luke and John are written because they believe Jesus, jesus's testimony in the life of Jesus, to be the absolute truth. And these are written this way because they believe that, uh, good steps, you know, uh, account is a hundred percent true and it's worth knowing and retelling.
Speaker 1Um, except for, I guess, at the end, etsy, you know, destroys the book. Uh, cause she doesn't want anyone knowing good stabs of vampire and out there, which I really hated. I guess they left it open that like there could be more copies like Etsy and knowledge is like I just deleted what I could on my stuff in the shared folders and all that, but there could still be more copies out there and I can only do what I can. I did really really hate the way she handled it, though, with that woman who was kind of going above and beyond to send her the transcriptions. She's like yeah, you can have it. And that woman she's like just give me like 10 minutes with it, and that woman was like crying, she was so thankful, and then Etsy goes in there and destroys it. I was like that was a douche move, because the woman told her she she even says like she said I could have it if I wanted it, like yeah, then why not do that? Like why not just take it and then destroy it? Why lie to her and then destroy it?
Speaker 1Etsy, honestly and I think that's why she was written this way I think she was written to be kind of a douche, like there's three things she does that is like just so, like not well thought through and felt very like disrespectful and almost like she didn't know it was disrespectful, like she's. So she was so focused or hyper fixated on something that she didn't know how disrespectful she was, being the genuine buffalo head. Yeah, she just leaves in her trashed apartment to be thrown into some auction or something. I'm just like. That seems very rude to me. Like I get it, you might not want to keep that because it was horrifyingly menacing when it when good stab was like using it to disguise himself. At the same time kind of disrespectful for like the significance of this animal.
Speaker 2Again, after you just got done reading the whole account, and like what good stab's efforts were to save them the death of weasel plume, these things exactly and then it's like yeah, and then you know the, uh, I, I agree, the um, and yeah, her, her character there.
Speaker 2The only piece I think that was maybe um, from the author's perspective there, on why he did it that way or why, like, cause the the she says along some long lines of just going to end up in a pawn shop. Anyways, I think that he was speaking to a very real thing that happens in towns that surround native reservations all around.
Speaker 1Billy Jean said this. When I told her I was frustrated about this, billy jean said this exact point oh yeah, which I'm very interested, but go ahead go ahead, but you know just the fact that.
Speaker 2So, like I've talked to, uh, you know, like one of my friends who's uh, uh, he's a choctaw anyways, he's like you, we go out and you go to a. I'll back up TP. Family TP is very important. They've been passed down for generations, generations, generations. Also a known fact Native peoples really struggle with addiction.
Speaker 2Alcohol gambling with addiction, alcohol and so, uh, sometimes what they have, all they have left, is that family teepee. They're going down to the pawn shop, they're pawning it and then they are, um, using it for that addiction, um and so, um, I I think he might have been speaking to a piece of that just like her remark of you know, it's going to end up in a pawn shop anyways would be like how really the? I feel like the only Native American art, or even the stuff from the 60s and 70s around Native art, is just, it's all in pawn shops, you know like oh yeah.
Speaker 2This would be like like which is so heartbreaking.
Speaker 1But no, I do. I know what you're saying. My, my uncle, is very tapped into our native American roots. He knows way more about it than I do and he actually has a ton of like genuine native American stuff, because he, I just know, was much more interested in it and like when he would see it in a pawn shop down in Denver or something he felt like, not that he had to rescue it or save it, but he was just very sad about it.
Speaker 1You know what I mean.
Speaker 1He was very moved by it and I think he was.
Speaker 1He felt very torn because, yeah, you know, we're just a, a minority of like we're, we're a minor part of us as native American, I think I'm a eighth or a 16th or I think I'm a 16th, um, but with that there's everything else Right, like, and so, like I think for my uncle, he's not a very he's not a very sophisticated man and I, but I do think, like there is a very simple part of him himself that that recognize, like three quarters of me is the reason this is here. A quarter of me deeply wishes to know more and understand this more and like have a and have a better and like wants to understand how to appreciate it. Not because he I don't think he ever, I don't think he truly believes like the stone tomahawks he has and stuff hanging up are like divine holy relics, but I do think he truly sees them and believes like these are, these were significant and they are significant to someone and these are as significant as, like you know, if you were to hand me down a rifle, right?
Speaker 2yeah, I think this goes to like that. The lineage of people in the fall of nations piece and the where good stabs being a vampire acting to. You know what the metaphor is for him losing. You know that and what you're talking about with you know your nostalgia example um is um very similar to that where, like, like, even like, a tiny, another tiny example would be like, I think, like even the here's the little thing, land O'Lakes butter. What was on Land O'Lakes butter?
Speaker 1Well, it was a kneeling Native American woman with feathers coming up from behind her head Right.
Speaker 2What's on Land O'Lakes butter? Now? I don't recall Nothing. Really, they got rid of it behind her head right. What's on my analytics butter? Now? I don't recall nothing really they got rid of it. So now I realize the so in the woke, in the woke agenda nature to erase your um, your racism and or you know, and your or your or're objectifying. Like this culture you know to be, like you know um, this is, you know, appropriating this culture by putting it on your butter. Guess what kids don't see anymore on their butter?
Speaker 1native americans, native americans guess what kids don't see anymore in sports either?
Speaker 2right, exactly, and so and so, like the. So I I don't know if the author's going for any of this either, but I do feel like there's this little piece of like as you hold on to it so hard or try to change it or have it or not have it, you erase it even more, just like the fact that like yeah, okay, I feel like the people who were really wanting, who really earnestly felt like this was not supposed to be on the butter, yeah, um, I feel like they came from a they in their own. However, they arrived to it, their conclusion, they felt like that was what was right.
Speaker 1Like I'm helping.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm protecting. Yeah Well, guess what you erase?
Speaker 1There's, there's a racer you know, now there's something insane. It was like 300,000 signatures for the Washington commanders to go back to being the Washington Redskins Right, and a lot of those signatures were like from like national people, and so it's like one of those things where it's like, hey, the group that should be most offended wanted the representation.
Speaker 2Right and like yes, we're not going to like like you know, because, like you said, it's, it's a ratio, it's like no like if you erase it, then like we don't have any representation right and turning stuff, turning people into a caricature, turning people into a stereotype, no, but at the same time, um, completely taking it, you know all the way it's like you know, I'd say, like you know, I all the way it's like you know, I'd say, like you know, I don't know uncle Ben's, aunt Jemima, not on the thing anymore. You know who is still Quaker, quaker OTs, he's still on there. So who's getting, just in my little grocery store analogy, who's getting representation? The, the old white guy.
Speaker 2So it, which is, I don't care if he's on there, but it's just funny that the people who are trying who's so angry against the old white guy are also like then the only person represented is the old white guy, and so that's obviously a much broader, larger conversation, but I feel like it's a piece of this story that's deeper, where you just go, you know, as these things get forgotten, not down, untold, unrepresented, um, there's, uh, there's a loss, you know, and so that's where you get that lineage of people in rise and fall, nations that go away, and uh, yeah, I just uh, I think, uh, that's what I think, you know no, I agree and uh, and I think it's a shame, like even like I don't know like quote unquote playing Cowboys and Indians, guess what.
Speaker 2When I was a kid I loved being the Indians. Exactly, I loved being a Cowboy.
Speaker 1Yeah, both were fun and you loved being the Indian, Whatever you know back and forth the same thing. I definitely had more fun being the indians, for I wasn't into cowboys until I got way older. Like I was, I was out of high school before. I was like you know what cowboys are cool, but like exactly, and so I loved the. I don't know, there's something about throwing a plastic hatchet at people that feels invigorating like, noticing like knowing when it's like that's a good spin no, for real.
Speaker 2And so I think, I think it's a shame in those, in those ways you know, to just not uh, it's erasing it, man, I and I, really I, and that's that feeling you're talking about with, like the, it's never going to be the way it was the cheapening of things, and I feel that in my heart when it's like it's that it's a thing you can hardly explain. But you know, it when you feel that feeling oh yeah, no for sure.
Speaker 1Um, I do know that we're we're getting towards the end here, but so I have some key points here and I'm gonna read them off, and we've talked about quite a few already. Uh, as we've been going through the rest of things, like we always do, right, our key points are always at the end because we know we're going to touch on a lot of it while discussing other things, like characters and themes. Um, but I'm going to go through these. I got 12 here and, uh, pat, I think you know, pick out a couple that, like, were really memorable, rather, whether was like how visceral, visceral was written, or, you know, just the emotion in the scene or whatever that really kind of comes to mind. But so the key points in the story as I see them.
Speaker 1You know, I'm going to say that the introduction wasn't really one, because at first I was like what academic paper? You know, what is this? Centennial am? I? Am I listening to centennial right now? For those who don't know, centennial is a really massive book on the history of colorado, um, and it's very entertaining.
Speaker 1Um, but, uh, the first key point good stabbing arthur bucharn meet. Uh, goodstab's first encounter with the Catman, which alludes to the real-life Mariah's Massacre, arthur's piece, sorry, arthur's piecing of the puzzle, you know putting together like the humps, which the humps is the phrase, the word used to describe these skinned people they're finding outside of Miles City and they're skinned just the same way Buffalo war and, uh, they're poisoned as well, just the way the Buffalo war. And they're also painted black and yellow. Um, good steps. Reunion with his father. Uh, arthur comes to believe in good steps, confession. You know that, that pivotal switch from doubt to believer, uh, good, good stabs. Descent from the cross. I thought that was like, so cinematic and uh, that that imagery will stay with me forever. Like I think that's the most memorable like movie scene, right, or like tv.
Speaker 2He said good stabs coming out from the cross. Yeah, do you not remember this? I refresh me.
Speaker 1There's a moment, uh-huh where arthur is like in his paranoia and he's, he's closed the doors. He doesn't, he's oh jumping down from and he doesn't.
Speaker 2He doesn't realize that good stab has been on the cross and he didn't notice that his jesus was replaced yes, yes, sorry, I I was thinking like that at some point at a different point. Good stab was like a crucifixion type scene.
Speaker 1Okay, yes, yes, yes I just picture, uh the picture arthur buchanan, not buchanan, sorry uh buchanan sitting in a pew stressing and we see like over his shoulder, yeah, as he's looking at the door like good stab out of focus, starting to move on the cross and then he turns and looks and he realizes good stab is slowly like coming to the ground, making no sound as his feet touch, and he realizes a good stab has been on the cross this like whole night.
Key Moments and Final Takes
Speaker 1Um, that one really stuck out for me. Um. Good stab's second encounter with the cat man, like when we realize the cat man's introduced again, um, and of course, the death of weasel plume, um, and as well as the child that good stab was kind of like not taking under his wing but like very partial to um, arthur's ascent to the cross, which good stab puts him up on the cross to make him listen to the last of the confession, um, and then good stab's final encounter with the Catman, their final fight, climactic fight. It's awesome but it's also very tragic and it's the core of Goodstap's confession, because that's what he wants to confess. Goodstap's final encounter, oh, yeah, sorry, his final encounter with the Catman. Arthur's final words you know how he leaves off this journal, off this journal etsy's reunion with her cat, which was kind of a surrogate weasel plume for her right, as well as her reunion with her great, great great grandfather.
Speaker 1Yeah, um and uh. Then, finally, etsy's sacrifice, which is, perhaps, you know, the absolution of arthur. Um, those are, those are the key points I see in this novel, like those are the the most impactful moments that we kind of have, and so we've covered a lot of those.
Speaker 2Um, but I want to hear from you, pat, like, which one of these really stood out to you, that like made an impact on you yeah, I think that the his the part of the book with it I'd say, good stabs, encounter with the cat man, the death of weasel plume, and then with the kind of conclusion of that him good stab being put in his ice prison, that is like a whole uh, that little chunk is very loud, full lot of meat in there, you know, and the um we like we spoke about before we're, you know, like we're glad to see the cat man back just for the sake of story, right, like what happened to that, you know, um, but also where it's this a kind of there's a coming of age for the young vampire with the old vampires, right?
Speaker 1he learned some stuff.
Speaker 2He's like what am I, why am I this way? Tries to fight him.
Speaker 1You know um the uh, the oh sorry, I do want to fill in on that too yeah, the second encounter with the cat man is when the cat man has been feeding on elk yep, and he has the imagery of another native american uh folklore creature known as the wendigo. And the wendigo is the spirit that uh possesses people who can, who could, resort to cannibalism, and it's always this thing with long arms, long legs and a skull of elk and antlers coming out of its head. And I find the imagery to be very referential to that of like the cat man's been feeding on elk so long his face is elongated and his arms and legs are elongated and he's got antlers growing out of his head he is the wendigo, you know, in that and yeah, and it's, it's a very like yeah, I said, I think, so far as like horror goes, when he described what the cat man looked like at that point.
Speaker 2I think that could have been the scariest part of the whole, yeah, whole movie, aside from, like the, the encounter with Arthur on the cross and like that whole thing. But, like the, the cat man as this, this kind of freaky yeah, elk man and, um, you know, obviously, like the, he finds weasel plume dead and skinned alive, still breathing. He trusted him, you know, and the only reason that he got skinned alive that way is because the bad man, the cat man, smelled like he did, so he came up to him and nuzzled him. You know, it's like's like, oh, it's a heart-wrenching like seeing this, this white buffalo, and the white buffalo is a, um, you know, very important significant like significant, sacred um thing, you know, and uh, and so, to be skinned alive?
Speaker 2you know it was like, um, I feel, like the, that the death of weasel plume was the kind of the metaphor for the death of the Buffalo. You know, like this, like to be skinned alive like they were, um, the act of being skinned alive, like they were fine, everything was good, but they were just, you know like, and they were kind of still alive. You know, after, after the Buffalo hunters came through, after they'd been, um, poisoned with strychnine and herds decimated and, uh, tribes were starving, um, they weren't dead yet, but they were. They were skinned alive. You know, they were still breathing. They're like, what happened? Why'd this happen to me, you know, and it's like the fate was written, there's no coming back from that.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so this, like that piece in there was very key. And then, as he went in, and then you know, and then you have a good step goes into his this, this Goodstep goes into this ice cave prison after trying to fight the Catman and failing because you can't beat the boss on the first go around, right, no, no, and just like very visceral scenes of like him just day in and day out, trying to escape this ice prison, for me was like a very I don't know well, I can't tie it to a metaphor or a deeper thing. It was very tragic and horrific, tragic, horrific. And I think it's somewhat developmental, you know, for good stab, as far as, like the he, once he came out of the ice cave he was not the same as he had been going into it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean there's that scene too where, like another native american is dropped down in from a different tribe and he finds Goodstab and he's like, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And Goodstab reels and immediately drinks from him because he's so starved and like it's horrific, because what could have been an ally is completely out of good status control, like he has to feed and so he. He eats an ally there. You know it's just very tragic.
Speaker 2He comes out with renewed purpose, but of vengeance. Before this, his like, his mission in life was to survive and like keep the buffalo safe. His mission in life was to survive and like keep the Buffalo safe after the ice cave. He is. Now he has purpose again, but it's just kind of uh to find the cat man to feed him, you know, and seek vengeance. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, Um final encounter with the cat man, anything on that?
Speaker 2Um, I think that we kind of touched on it really Final encounter with the Catman, anything on that, I think that we kind of touched on it earlier, the way he turned him into a fish and got rid of him. I'd say that's the final iteration of that, but that whole final battle leading up to it, which is his ultimate confession, right.
Speaker 1Which would be what's her. Her name kills in the water, something like that.
Speaker 2But there's a girl who can't speak, who had taken care of Goodstab, who had looked out for him while he was imprisoned, and then, ultimately, the only way to get rid of the cat man was to use her as bait. Use her as bait, let her be killed and for both of them to drink her blood, Um and like. So there was a this like, um, dichotomy maybe the wrong word, but like. There's this, uh, um, duality, duality of like. The only way to succeed was to engage it, you know to, because basically, this girl had this special blood that could, um, make him make both of them powerful, you know right. But so the only, it was the only way to, for him is the only way he saw forward to protect his people from the cat man, to get rid of the cat man, was to sacrifice this girl, and that was his ultimate confession and his most um.
Speaker 2That was the person he killed, who he, like, had the most, um, you know, regret and guilt over, and so, um, you know the, and that's why he came to the priest, and that there was, there was this dark side of this dark kind of like, um menacing side of good stab that came to the priest and said I'm going to make, I'm making a confession which is actually for your punishment confession. You will confess to me. But the human side of good stab was but there is one thing I actually really do have to get off my chest here, and there was that Right, and so I think that was that there is one thing I actually really do have to get off my chest here, and it was that right, and so I think that was. That was obviously a very powerful point in the book um where good stab that was his confession in that piece.
Speaker 1All right. So final, final takes here Um, you know I I think this book is here. Um, you know I I think this book is. It's up there for me in the great westerns, you know it, it's of the books I've read, this has got to be one of the best uh point of views to understand, like the native american struggle during the western expansion.
Speaker 1Um, I, I truly believe that this book uses the supernatural wrapping around it to tell the story of and make it in a way that you can empathize as someone who's not a native american, who doesn't know, uh, the kind of passed down personal history of you know what these people went through in their history and like they're, what is it I'm trying to think of the word, not genealogy, but generational history, and I I really think it does a great job because by the end of it I found myself deeply empathizing um and understanding the, the anger, the frustration that good step had um and why he did what he did.
Episode Closing
Speaker 1It doesn't make it good, but it makes it understandable, um, and so, with that, like, I think it was a very impactful book in that manner, um, and I think the supernatural element of it provides, honestly, the that kind of pulpiness to make it fresh, because it's telling this supernatural thing that we've heard so many times before, so many different vampire stories, but it's telling it in a way that is very, very new and unique and it pays off really well at the end. So I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2It's a top book for me best book I've read that came out in recent memory no for sure, and I think that, going back to what we're talking about, the title at the beginning if this was titled cowboys versus vampires, yeah, I would not have read it. Yeah, you know there's. There's like a cowboys versus aliens. You know that movie whatever, like like cowboys or vampires, like I'd been like, yeah, no, you know, cause it's not that at all. It's uh, um, and I'm not even like that big or huge into horror, vampire, whatever stuff, but I do have fun with it and I do think that the way this was done was, um, unless you're somebody who just really can't handle like violence and gore stuff, um, if you read it, listen to it, even if you've come this far with it. We've talked about the story and we've given you the bits and pieces and spoiled stuff, um, I think you'll still. You'll hear, you'll understand what we're talking about if you listen to it, you know yeah yeah, well, hey, uh, ken, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1We appreciate you. Uh, if you get a chance, go ahead, get yourself a till next time from anchorage brewing. It's pretty dang good. And if you haven't read the book already, check it out, as well as check out the rest of Stephen Graham Jones' work. I'll definitely be looking through his catalog to figure out my next read. But again, we can't thank you enough for listening. Please leave a comment, let us know, leave a review on whichever platform you listen on.
Speaker 2Pat till next time.
