Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

The first page of *Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery* wants you to point at the forest and say, “There’s the evil.” We try that, and the book immediately pulls the rug out. As we talk through Brom’s colonial New England, the real horror starts to look less like witchcraft and more like a community that can use law, scripture, and social custom to strip a widow of safety, property, and choice.

We dig into Abitha as a character who doesn’t fit Puritan expectations, why some readers call her “too modern,” and how the story makes her danger feel historically real instead of performative. Then we follow the awakening of Slewfoot himself, a being whose identity changes with every name people force onto him: Satan, Samson, spirit, monster, god. That slippery naming becomes the core theme, because once you label something “evil,” you can stop listening, stop empathizing, and start justifying almost anything.

From there the conversation gets uncomfortable on purpose: religious hypocrisy and the hijacking of Christianity, patriarchy and female rage, colonialism and cultural erasure, and the thin line between justice and revenge. We even connect the book’s obsession with labeling to modern politics, where a single word can flatten whole lives into something “deserved.” If you like literary horror, folk horror, Salem-adjacent witch trial stories, and moral philosophy that actually bites, you’ll have a lot to argue with us about.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves dark books, and leave a review if our take made you think. When you finish listening, what do you think the novel is really saying about monsters and the people who name them?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Welcome back. Today we're stepping into the dark woods of colonial New England with Brahm's Sloughfoot, A Tale of Bewitchery, a novel filled with Puritans and Pans, devils and witches, ancient gods, and very human monsters. And perhaps the first question we need to ask is deceptively simple. Who is the devil in this story? Because Brahm gives us something much more complicated than a tale about witchcraft. Abitha arrives in the new world already occupying dangerous territory. She's a woman with opinions, a woman who questions, a woman who wants some measure of control over her own life in a society that believes her proper place has already been decided for her. Then her husband dies, and suddenly everything she thought belonged to her,

Opening The Devil And The Woods

SPEAKER_01 1:40

her farm, her livelihood, her future, even her right to determine what happens to her own body is vulnerable to men who can justify taking it with law, scripture, and social custom. And somewhere beyond the settlement, in the forest the Puritans have been steadily cutting down, something ancient wakes up. Slewfoot, Satan, Samson, Spirit, Monster, God. His identity depends almost entirely upon who is doing the naming. And that may be one of the most fascinating things about this novel. So today we're talking about religion and religious hypocrisy, colonialism and cultural erasure, patriarchy and female rage, the historical construction of the witch, the difference between justice and revenge, and the uncomfortable possibility that sometimes the monster in a story isn't the creature hiding in the forest? Sometimes the monster is the community convinced that God is on its side. And by the end, we're going to have to put Abatha herself on trial. Is she a victim? A survivor? A liberator? A murderer? A witch? Or does the fact that we feel compelled to choose one of those labels mean that we've fallen into exactly the same trap as the people hunting her? So grab your torches, but maybe don't light them yet. We're heading into the woods. All right, Peter. So usually we'd give a synopsis. I know I kind of hit some of that in here, but do we need to add anything or do we jump right into copile?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I think we jump right into copile because that is the basic setup, and all I really would want to spoil for our listeners up front before we get to the second half. So I'll talk about the characters then.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

All right, sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So there is quite a few characters in the book, but there's a very small group of characters that we actually need to care about and get to know. And in doing that, I think Broome does a very good job of helping us understand the characters, who they are, their motivations, and really stirring up a lot of emotions about them, which is how I know he's doing a good job from my perspective, developing these characters. In talking about the characters, however, I did want to bring up one of the criticisms that comes up a lot about this book when you look at the one and two-star reviews, and that is the character of Abitha as being, I'm not like the other girl's trope and anachronistic for her time period as far as her

Abitha’s Agency Under Puritan Rule

SPEAKER_00 4:10

strength and her attitude and her behavior. To me, I think that is laboring under the misconception that certain kinds of personalities and behaviors haven't existed all throughout history, regardless of societal oppression, and also missing the point that she isn't like the other girls because she's not a Puritan. She is sold as basically a male-order bride to the Puritan colonies, but she comes from a quasi-religious, very secular family and just from London. And she is as crass and vulgar as Londoners were at that time. I mean, read a Shakespeare play, and you know there's sexual jokes throughout it. You know, they were filthy.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And she's having to fight against that upbringing, first of all, and try to fit into this highly restrictive environment where that was not really how she was raised, up to a point, right? We'll get into that. And so I do think that I find her an acceptable, believable character.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Right. And I would agree with you. I think that you said it very well when you said we make these assumptions that those personalities haven't existed. The whole range of personalities, for women or for men, has existed for forever. So I find Abitha believable as well. So atmosphere-wise, it is your classic, almost Nathaniel Hawthorne-esque story of a Puritan village outside the woods, with the woods as the deep, dark, scary place for the Puritans. The natural world was scary to them. And we could go into a whole thing about rejecting paganism and the worship of nature, and the Puritans suddenly get really uptight about the woods, and bad things happen in the woods. You know, so that atmosphere is very apt to what went on and reflective of other forms of classic literature where we have addressed puritanical cultures and their attitudes toward nature. So I really appreciated that aspect. I thought the contrast there was handled very well.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yes, I agree. I really felt the highly restrictive, almost

Puritan Atmosphere And Writing That Bites

SPEAKER_00 6:24

surveillance, you know, uh community. Like you said, it was reflective of everything that I have read, at least in classic literature about Puritan culture and what we know about the Salem witch trials and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So, writing style, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Oh, I thought the writing is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

He stirs up so many emotions for me from the very beginning to the very end. It's an emotional roller coaster. And he paints the pictures so well, the descriptions of these kind of material sort of things that he's trying to describe, but he does it really, really well.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, I agree. And I know that this was another one of those books where I had to text you more than one time while I was reading it and be like, what is happening? Is it gonna be bad? Is this gonna happen? Because I was so emotionally invested. And that is always the sign of good writing for me when an author can really draw you in. And I was drawn completely into the character of Abitha, to everything she was going through, to the conflicts, and I was in that fight with her, which made me so susceptible to the rise and fall of emotions that were being painted in that journey.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, and I think also one of the things that I noticed about it is everything happens so believably.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It does.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I mean, the arguments for her and the arguments against her. She has friends and she has foes, and I feel like they treated her in a very believable way throughout. And it wasn't like this her versus the entire Puritan town and everything kind of develops in a very human way.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I mean, it's very human.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

In a very and we'll get to logical later, but in a very logical way.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Right. So that takes us to the plot because we do start out with Abitha's husband dying not very far into the book, and that kind of kicks everything off as she is left solo. And I thought the build of the rising action in this book, it it made you so tense, waiting for that climactic moment where you knew she was gonna get accused of witchcraft. You know, it's inevitable. And so you're climbing, climbing, climbing, and I was dreading it. And it was like the oh god, and then everything that happens in the aftermath of that. I really enjoyed the buildup. It is a long buildup, but it is driving you forward because of all the emotions that are invested. And because you get to one point, you're like, this is where it's gonna happen. It's bad, it's bad, it's bad. And then it keeps going. I really thought he did a good job of constructing that plot.

Plot Logic And Moral Gray Areas

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, and that draws out the intrigue throughout. Because exactly like you said, I watched her throughout the story and I expected it all to go wrong so many times when it didn't. But in reality, the the community treats her quite fairly throughout the book.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Right. Which I thought was a daring kind of way to write the plot. We'll talk about that later because I think we polarize this discussion so much, witches versus Puritans and witch hunts and suspicions and all that stuff. But we have to recognize that there's never just a clear cut, evil and good, that there is some fairness in this community, and there are some people trying to do the right thing. There's like that balance. And so I think that was a brave way to write it, just like it's a brave way that he really challenges us on what we think of as evil.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, that's a big theme in this book, destroying that false dichotomy. And also, as far as intrigue goes, other than Abatha and when she's going to get accused of being a witch, there is, of course, this other entity that awakens and the mystery behind that, this entity seeking out who he actually is and what is his true nature.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Right. And trying to determine for himself am I evil or am I not? Or is there a balance somewhere in between that really exists in all of us? So logic, it's very logical. Like I want to go back to the character thing where people think Abitha is somewhat unbelievable. I find everything in this book, as far as the plot is concerned, to flow in a very logical and well-founded way. It is consistent with history, it's consistent with historical events and attitudes, it's consistent with the Puritan culture. There's just a lot that I thought was very well constructed, and that goes with the writing style. The logic was really there.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

I agree. And I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

I did too, even though it was painful.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah, uh, I read it. This is the second time that I've read it. And even though I knew everything that was going to happen, I still went through all of those difficult emotional responses to the events in the book.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

And I think it's a book with enough layering to it and enough left there for interpretation and a lot of symbolism, a lot of things going on, that it's one of those books that you could read multiple times and get something more out of every time and find the enjoyment in discovering more about those characters and about your own understanding. Because I found myself very challenged by this book. And so I enjoyed it because it did challenge me. And now I want to go back and read it again to shed some of the assumptions I may have carried into it the first time. But it's just a very enjoyable book. So if you haven't read the book and you don't want all the spoilers, now is your time to bow out because we're gonna go to our second half. Okay, quick pause. Because if you're still listening, you clearly have excellent taste or questionable judgment. Either way, we've got something for you.

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SPEAKER_00 12:39

So, Liz, first thing I want to ask you is what did you expect when you began to read this book before you knew anything about it? Did you get what you were expecting?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, that's an interesting question. I think that it defied my expectations in some ways because to a certain extent, based on the other things we read and discuss, when you gave me this book, I expected it to be more of a clear battle of good versus evil. The moment I realized she was in a Puritan society, I was like, okay, here we go, Puritans again, and they're gonna go after the woman. And that's and I did not find that was what I ended up with. And so to a certain extent, it defied my expectations in that way, and I'm glad it did. But I just really thought I'd be seeing more of that good versus evil battle.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah, me too. And I also expected a lot more horror element to it,

Spoilers Begin And Expectations Flip

SPEAKER_00 13:29

and it is dark, but the horror is a little bit more psychological.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

No, I agree. And the only really horrific moment for me is at the beginning when Abitha's husband is killed, and we have kind of the gore and the nastiness associated with that. I thought, okay, this really is going to be a horror novel. And then we swiftly depart from that, and the horror does become really the psychological warfare and the prejudice and the things that are going on.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, and that becomes a real crucial point that the book wants to make. It wants to subvert your expectations about monsters and people who do monstrous things. Because right away, of course, we have this monster who does this monstrous thing. And I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be this evil entity that's gonna just torment the characters throughout the book.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

And it's much more complicated than that.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

It is so much more complicated. So Abitha's husband is killed by this being that awakens in the forest. And these forest, they're kind of painted as forest demons initially who wake him up, seem to want to kill human beings.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

You need blood, let's kill the human beings. It's kind of like a vendetta. We need to kill the human beings that are here. And so you do feel like that's going to be the driving force. And then her husband gets lured down in there, and the bean that is awakening, who is Samson later on, but the bean who is awakening kills him, like brutally. I mean, he dies, you know, choking in his blood and gets torn apart and ultimately eaten by this beast that has woken up. So there is this like brutal, kind of shocking beginning to it. But then that leads me to ask you where do you think the evil really lies in this book? Because clearly Samson does something terrible. This being does something terrible at the beginning, and you see the demon sprites. Did you stay with the idea that what happened in that cave was evil?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Right, because an innocent person gets killed. But I found my opinion on it being subverted throughout the book. Like, oh my God, like he did this terrible thing. That's unforgivable. My outlook on it changed.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Right, because he didn't do it with evil intent. He did it because it was his nature and his need at the time. And he really didn't even know himself yet.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Right. But now the demons who wake him up, do they have evil intent?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

I don't think the book makes it that simple. Ever. Ever. That's really what this

Samson Wallace And The Power Of Naming

SPEAKER_00 15:59

book challenges. This is a dichotomy between good and evil and how we can clearly label these things.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

So that's what got me with the book. Was when you asked if I got what I expected. Okay, yes, there's this deep, dark evil in the cave, and this death of her husband is an evil act. And then it's really not because as the book goes on, that really gets reconciled in a lot of ways. And suddenly I'm not feeling really bad about that moment. And it's not because her husband's bad. Her husband is not a bad person.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

No, he's a saint, basically. He's this really sympathetic character who is very good to her. And he's just a good person.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

So it should say something that this good, good, good, good, good person is slaughtered in the beginning of this book. And then somehow, by the midsection of this book, definitely by the end of this book, you don't see that moment as evil. So that is really a lot of what this book is about. And first of all, I think we need to say how Samson appears in the book, how he is described, this being that wakes up. So how is he described?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

At first, he's kind of this shadow creature. He has no really form, he's just sort of this dark void, this kind of consciousness. And the very first thing that the demon creatures, who call themselves his children, feed him is Abitha's and Edward's goat, Samson. And when he eats the goat, he takes on goat-like animal properties.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Right. So he has cloven hooves and horns and looks like the devil.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

But except that except that he's more animal than man at that point. And then when he eats Edward, he finishes his transformation into this kind of goat man. So in a way, I kind of felt like this story almost becomes a reverse beauty and the beast.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

You know, this good man sort of gets absorbed into this quote-unquote monster. And then we have to learn to love the monster.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Right, which makes it a really interesting journey. And I have to admit right up front that it's a little triggering. If you have any religious background whatsoever, and most of us have been in some way introduced to or influenced by Christianity during the course of our lives, most of us in the United States in particular. So for me, as a former evangelical, a deconstructed evangelical, and I have departed totally from that. And I would actually call myself a pagan now, but I was triggered by the cloven hooves. I'm like, okay, there's no way this is a good character. The cloven hooves, the horn, I don't care if he turns into part man or not. He is a goat man, and that is the quintessential description of what Satan is. And it was triggering to me, like it tilted me toward that, okay, he's evil. So we're not focused on the Puritan community. I don't know. I found all my biases as a lapsed Christian coming back on me.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

And of course, the name of the book is Sloughfoot, which is a name for the devil, you know, one of the many old Nick and all these just ancient names for him. So the Puritans call him old Sloughfoot. And so right away, I'm thinking, okay, this devil creature is going to be the antagonist of the book.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Then you think, when you realize he's not the villain, the antagonist, or you begin to develop, at least you begin to develop sympathies for him and you get to know him as a character. Then my natural inclination is to go, okay, well, then the Puritans are the evil ones in the book. Rather than the supernatural forces that are here in the forest, the Puritans are where the evil resides because there has to be an evil part. It's not true either.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

No, they're not. They, like everything else in this book, is are complicated, right? Are multi-layered. And it isn't just this blanket condemnation of Puritan culture. No, it's not. Like we said in the introduction, there are many, many good Puritans who behave in compassionate and very logical ways. And there are also others that, of course, are highly self-righteous and judgmental and everything. But the entire culture itself isn't painted as a villain.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Which then you're like, okay, so that's not total evil either. So then are we going to center our view of evil on these individual men in particular? But these individual men who are being these very direct antagonists to Abitha. And the first man that comes to mind is Edward's brother, Wallace, who is in debt and already had been trying to take advantage of Edward and ultimately take his farm from him. Abitha inspired Edward to fight back. And then when Edward dies, Abitha's left highly vulnerable to everything Wallace wants to manipulate. And then I'm looking at I'm going, okay, Wallace is evil.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Right. But it's more complicated than that still. It is. Because one of the things that Rome does really, really good is he creates this psychological profile of every character in the book, including Wallace. And getting insight to his motivations kind of makes me feel bad for him in a way. He does some terrible things. But I don't think he's painted as this mustache twirling villain who thinks of himself as evil.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

No, he feels like he's the good guy. Right. And through the entire book, Wallace is carrying on a conversation with his dead father. And he's trying to tell his father, Father, I'm trying to do the right thing. I was trying to protect Edward from this woman. I was trying to make sure that your inheritance, that your, your farm, your your legacy was preserved. He has this continuing conversation with his dead father to prove that he's a good son. And you see that psychological side of him. And even though there's part of me that very much wants him to die in the book, and so I'm very ready for when he gets taken down, it's not that simple still, because you feel like, oh my God, he really thought he was doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Right. So right there, my feelings about Wallace are one of the first lessons that I take away from this book. And that is a reminder that we might have people that we feel do a lot of bad things and bring mostly harm to the world. And we may even go so far as to feel that the world will be a better place when they leave it. Regardless of all that, I think our insight into Wallace's mindset is a good reminder that even if we see and feel all those things, it still doesn't mean that that person can be labeled as evil. Because everyone, everyone is a product of some kind of harm that was done to them, even if ultimately it's a mental disorder. So that begs the question of if Samson isn't the villain, right? If Puritan and Puritan culture isn't the villain, and even the men who do many bad things. Things aren't the villain, then is Christianity the villain? Is this an attack on religion?

SPEAKER_01 22:55

So this is not an attack on Christianity.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

No, I think it's more of an attack on the hijacking of Christianity. It's not agendas. For agendas, right. It's it's it's not an attack on Christ and Christianity's spirit or faith.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Right. And that hijacking really comes into play and reveals its nature as the Puritans seek to label Sloughfoot, seek to label Abbatha, we start seeing that that hijacking is there because they are trying to label the evil. And then that labeling falls so quickly into the personal agenda and the personal kind of workings and manipulations that are going on in the story.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Naming things is a big, big theme of this book. Right. You know, when we name something, we conjure up these ideas and these emotions associated with those names. And so we when we can label someone as evil or good, then we can rob them of their agency to be anything else.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Right. They're automatically holistically labeled this way.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

And now they have to fall into that category. So even in that sense, okay, then if I am good, then everything that I do, no matter what, must be good. Right. Right. And if I'm evil, everything I do, no matter what, must be evil. And it's breaking down that lie that that is the case.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Right. And it's breaking down the authorization of organized religion to make those determinations. Because that's really where things go wrong in a Puritan society, is as they try to make the determinations of where those labels apply. And if you're going to label someone evil, or if you're going to label a thing evil, then you are going to root out that evil because it makes sense. If something is evil, it should go away, right? We don't want evil to be pervasive in our world. So let's get rid of the evil. But if you holistically label a person or a group evil or a place evil, you discount any other possibilities whatsoever. And that leads you to persecute the innocent and destroy goodness that exists.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Right. And I don't think the book is necessarily arguing that evil doesn't exist, that there aren't things that are evil, but it's challenging the personification of evil, you know, to where we do turn it into a person or a group of people or a nation or even an ideal. Evil is a thing that happens.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Like terrorist acts. Right. Terroristic acts, right? Exactly. You can't label a whole country or a whole people terrorist, but there are terrorists that exist.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah, it's very pertinent because somebody, you know, recently questioned why on earth I would say I support Palestine, because of course they're a horrible, terrible, terrorist nation. And I said, you know, I don't support terrorism.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

No.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

But I also don't support genocide. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

And isn't that a form of terrorism?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Exactly. And it's and it's okay to be against both of those things. The problem with this person's statement was calling the entire nation a terrorist nation. Then every man, woman, and child becomes evil. And therefore you can excuse whatever happens to them. And I have issue with that. I have issue with the oversimplification. This whole group of people is just evil because some of them did this one thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Right. And this morning

Labels Colonialism And Modern Parallels

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I was watching the news. So I have to pursue this for a second because I do think in this way, this book is so pertinent to challenging our outlooks on life. Not to discount evil, like you said, but to really challenge us. So this morning I was watching a news report, and I do not watch cable American news because I found that I find that to just be unbearable at this particular point. We tend to watch foreign news in the morning. So I've got the news on, and the reporter is specifically highlighting this story of the settlers in the West Bank, the Jewish settlers, and these people, these Palestinians being forced out of their homes. And there are three homes in particular where the families have refused to leave. And the Israeli soldiers convinced them to combine themselves into this one home. And basically they're barricaded into this home. And the settlers outside are throwing things at the home and threatening them. And basically, these Palestinian families can't come out. And I was having this moment this morning because I was like, okay, if in America, if someone came and blocked you into your home and was trying to take your home away from you, the very people that feel anti-Palestine, feel Palestine's this whole terroristic place, would get their guns and try to defend their home, would refuse to leave their home. That would be untenable. It's their home. No one has a right to force them out of their home. And yet, those same people can watch this happen to these families with children, women, children, men that are not part of any terrorist organization, and they can justify it somehow because the labeling that's taken place, right? But it's a home being taken away. So how muddled our thought process gets when we begin to apply the labels.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

I agree. And I think one of the things that this book basically is saying is, to put it in modern terms, is that an act of terrorism may be indeed evil, but the terrorist isn't evil.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Right. Right. Because there are very few people, if any, in this book, that are holistically evil. The one I would question on with the evil label would be the guy that Wallace recruits to help him. What is his name?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Magistrate Watson.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, Magistrate Watson and that other man who's drumming up information on people all the time.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Ansel Finch.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yes. Okay, thank you for the two names.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

I kind of think of him as uh that Harry Potter guy who's Filch. Filch, yes. Ansel Finch, Filch. And I if I were gonna cast him in the movie, that's that's that's Ansel Finch in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Right, right. No, that makes sense. And so there are some characters that definitely are a little more two-dimensional with the evil thing. Like I have trouble finding a whole lot of redeeming qualities for those characters, but maybe that's because we don't know them well enough in the book. They aren't characters that we develop well enough.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah, I would agree with that, but I can imagine, just because what the book is challenging me to think about, the kinds of things that could happen to those kinds of people to make them that way. Because most evil, if I may say so, comes from some place of pain, some place of fear and suffering. And that usually is the root of all evil. And I think that's one of the reasons why we should leave a place for compassion for the person, no matter what they do. And so even Ansel Finch has a place in my mind for compassion. And it's a matter of survival, basically, in the society, you know?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, accuse or be accused.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Exactly. I mean, even the girls that eventually you know pretend like Abitha's little charms that she made for them are are burning them all of a sudden, and you can't even really blame them because even where the little girls that she saved her life. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, she's just afraid. She's genuinely afraid. But these other girls obviously know that they are lying. Right. And but they've got to, because if they don't, then every single person who took a charm from her then becomes impotent. Yes, exactly. It's it's they're they're surviving, they're saving their life. And how can you blame them for that, really?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

So the good of the many outweighs the good of the one. Abitha is the sacrifice in this case so that other people can continue to exist. Yeah. So we could say that Abitha is the hero of the story. I'm not sure that that's entirely true. We could say Samson is, we could say, is there a hero?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

No, I don't think so. Because that and that would be making a uh dichotomous good.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

You know, everybody's complicated, and everybody, including Samson and Abitha, do what we might see on the outside as monstrous things.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Right. And Abitha's monstrous nature that grows in her is certainly precipitated by the horrible acts against her. And that is very true. But then you get into that is she justified? Does she have moral license in what she does? Because as she is accused, and probably the worst part, and I'm just going to go ahead and spoil it because for those of us that get triggered by this stuff, we need to know it ahead of time. They kill her cat, like this, you know, partially crippled cat that absolutely adores her. And she has this relationship with, and it's the part of the book that makes me want to cry more than any other part. That's my my animal thing, but they kill her cat, they destroy everything that she loves, they go after her and torture her. She watches them do that to other people, and then she goes batshit crazy on them when she realizes her full power and she kills some people.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

So is she a murderer?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah. It's intentional. She goes after and she says, I am now going to kill these people in the same way that the

Revenge The Ending And Moral Aftershocks

SPEAKER_01 32:28

demon sprites, like nature demons at the beginning, are telling Samson to wake up and kill the humans. Abitha fights against that concept as she's trying to kind of sway Samson to the good. Abitha wakes up and kills the humans.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, everybody that has specifically hurt her.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Right. She she spares some people, but man, she kills them and it's brutal.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Oh, yeah. No, it's no mercy whatsoever. As a matter of fact, she does everything she can possibly do to make it slow and painful. Slow and painful.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Right. And it's and it's painful to listen to, to read, to see because it is ugly.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

And at that point in the book, though, emotionally, you're kind of right there with her because you have all that rage on the inside of the injustice. And you kind of go there emotionally for a minute. And then I guess again, that's another challenge to kind of take a step back from your emotions and analyze.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

It is just really painful to watch the goodness being destroyed in some of the people that are there. Like I think about the pastor's wife who is all too arrested toward the end when Abitha's being tortured and she pretty much is, I don't know if completely insane is the world word, but she is definitely destroyed through the torture and the process they put her through. And she was a truly kind person to Abitha. Not perfect because she was still caught up in some hijacked agenda, but she was kind on many occasions. And I think that there was a sisterhood, a very tenuous, fragile sisterhood between the two of them that is corrupted there at the end as well, through the process of torture, et cetera. You just watch kind of how that whole process takes people down. And Abitha, she'sn't broken by the torture she's put through, but any shred of religious conviction or societal parameters there at the end, that all goes away.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

She ceases to be Abitha and becomes the witch. She becomes this force of nature, she becomes this force for vengeance. And I think in many ways she is set free of her confusion.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

What do you make of the appearance of her husband at the end?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I think there's a number of ways you can interpret that. So throughout the book, you see Edward kind of appear as a ghost apparition, and yet he seems very tormented. He has no eyes, he's just got vacant holes, and he seems to be screaming and pointing, and he's very aggressive towards Abatha when he sees her. And I can interpret that a number of ways. One, his connection with Samson and the turmoil within Samson, and the fact that he's not at rest because, in a way, he is kind of a part of Samson and he can't move on because he's sort of trapped in Samson's own turmoil and the lack of peace that he has. But I also think it represents the lack of peace that Abitha has towards her religious confliction.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

The fact that she, despite being from London and having some secular sort of things that she does, she still has been brought up as a Christian. And so she has those kinds of hangups. She doesn't know whether or not she's made a deal with the devil.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

She thinks she might have.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

She thinks she might have. No, he says I'm not the devil. And she tries to believe that, but yet she also knows that he killed Edward. And then she finds out that he has also killed others as well. And yet he's also got this good side as well. And she's trying to learn to see him and figure him out. And I think at the same time, she feels like she's condemned for it. Right. Because she is sort of in this relationship with this devil-like creature, this gray area. I think that she's very much not at peace until the very end.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Right. I feel like at the very end she has a very Huckleberry Finn moment. All right, then I'll go to hell.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah, and I think she just says, I'm going to be who I am.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

And she embraces the witch.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

She embraces the witch, but also she embraces nature. She embraces God. She embraces the gods. She embraces all things and sort of loses all of her hangups.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

And then we see Edward Hull again at the end, and he's able to go on in peace. So I think it also represents Abitha's journey, giving up the guilt.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Right. And Samson, Sloughfoot, the Satan character that we have perceived through this entire thing, he finds his balance in embracing all of his nature. Abitha finds her balance in embracing all of her nature. And they become the guardians of the forest, simply at peace with all. Like you said. And I feel like faith in the end of the book becomes that giant ocean. Belief and faith become that giant ocean of both and of everything. It's not one belief system.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, I think at one point she says, I am God. God is in me. We are all God, essentially is what she says.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

You might not vibe with that, but as a Buddhist, I vibe with that. Right. And I'm sure as a pagan, you do as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Yes. And I think even as an Eastern Orthodox person, you vibe with that as well on a certain level.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

One of the things that I love though is those two dichotomies. When we talk about the dichotomy of good and evil, the personification of those dichotomies are God and the devil. And one of the questions that this book raises is does anything, anything, even God, get to be all good because they're God? Or does the devil have to be all evil because it's the devil? Why do we assume that we do have these two extremes?

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah, we need the extreme.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

That we need the extreme. Something has to be all good, and something has to be all evil. And I think this book says, no, it doesn't. Because they question Samson questions God. He's talking about the Bible with her, and he's saying, Is your God all good? Does he only do good things?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

And as she talks about things, he's like, he's like, no, your God's evil too, because he does this and this and this and he lets this happen.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Because Samson's been called a slayer, and he goes, So your God is a slayer too. Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

And it is, it is raising some really could be polarizing questions, definitely some triggering questions, but in the end, the concept of God and the concept of the devil are merged.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

And I've asked myself those questions too. You know what I mean? When people say God is good, why? Why does he have to be? Yeah. Because questionable. Because he's powerful. Right. Does power equal good or evil? If you have, if you're all powerful in one way or another, do you have to choose to be good or evil? No, you don't. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah. So it questions all of those things. And I think it's an incredibly fascinating journey for the reader that you get taken through this and you come out at the end, and to a certain extent, you're still trying to reconcile your own belief. And it's given you a lot to chew on in the process.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

And in the end, the conclusion that I come to is that we need to try to free our minds from this dichotomy of good and evil, that they aren't something that you can use to either simplify or even personify an action or a human being. I think that good and evil rather is this path that we navigate, each of us navigates as we are on our journey of self-discovery. I think we really need to throw out those terms because they're really fabrications of a reality that doesn't exist. Instead, we need to see everything as a result of the cycle of harm, pain, fear, and anger. We can do a bad thing and not be a bad person. It's part of being a force of nature, you know? And I think that leaves a lot of room, should leave a lot of room for compassion and understanding.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

I agree. And I just find in the end that the divine is so much more than what we try to package it as. And in fact, the packaging, clothing we put on the divine through organized religion creates these outcomes of labeling, creates these outcomes of looking for the good and looking for the evil and trying to separate it and decide who falls into each camp. And it should be a much more fluid concept.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

One of the questions that often people ask is, you know, without God, how do you know what's morally right and wrong? How can you have morals at all if you don't have a God to tell you what's right and wrong, what's good or evil? And of course, a logical answer to that is do you need God to tell you not to rape somebody, not to murder somebody? If so, then I'm kind of scared. But I often find that religion, for me, when I was very religious, complicated morality for me. It does. And then when I cast that off, it became so simple. It became so simple. So I could say things like, hey, I don't support terrorism or genocide. I didn't have to choose a side, you know? But also what it all boils down to for me is simply two things, which is learning to see yourself in every other person so that you can do unto them what you would do and have others do unto you what you would not do unto them. And also learning to see the divine in every person. And when you can do those things, you can do no evil. Right. And or if I want to oversimp, don't be a dick to people.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Does it really come down to a motto of do no harm? Yeah. Like that infringement upon other people is where the evil begins. And like you said, no one should have to tell you not to rape someone or go down and steal someone's belongings or any of those things because that by nature should feel wrong to you because you're harming someone else's autonomy and someone else's personhood. Exactly. Okay. Well, on that very philosophical and moral discussion, we're gonna pause there and we're gonna transition. I'm gonna ask you, what are we reading next time? What are we discussing?

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Well, it's become very obvious that what our listeners really want to hear about is Dungeon Crawler Carl, considering the fact that we're almost at a thousand downloads for our one episode about Dungeon Crawler Carl. So that was really just discussing the first book. So I guess we're gonna give you what you want and discuss book two Doomsday scenario.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

And so we're really excited about that. So until we get to that, keep reading. Keep thinking, and we'll talk to you again soon.