‘The Last of Us’ and the Lone Wolf and Cub Trope
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Welcome back into the ringer verse, the Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson and join me today. She's my foundling. She is. She is in a pack of two with me. It's my very own Mallory Rubin. Hi Mallory. Wow. Joe, I am here at ringerversity with my favorite professor, Prof. Joe.

Love a clan of two. What's our signet? Not the Mudhorn. Certainly not the Mudhorn. I mean, why don't we just go for Grogu? Oh, a cat. Yes. Maybe a cat cuddling Grogu. Yeah. Grogu's kind of cat-like with the ears and everything. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. Okay, great. Boy, do I. A cat hugging Grogu. What could be better? Hello. Literally nothing. Welcome to something special that we're doing today. Something we're really excited to be doing. We are...

talking about a major trope, a major storytelling device that is all the rage in your favorite film and television and perhaps novels and maybe comic books right now. We thought we would take some time

to talk about the idea of Lone Wolf and Cub. And we will get into what all that means and what we're doing here today. But let me first start by saying, if you're looking for a sort of more traditional Mallory and Joanna breakdown, the new HBO series, The Last of Us,

That episode exists. Mallory, where can folks find it? Oh, so glad you asked, Jo. You can find our deep dives on each new episode of The Last of Us. You can find Van and Charles' instant reactions on each episode of The Last of Us over on our sister feed, the Ringer Prestige TV podcast. I just want to let you know, if you're listening to this,

and you've had some trouble finding the Prestige TV feed, it exists. It is out there. It is not a Spotify exclusive, though we always love when you find things on Spotify. But I just want to let you know, I've heard you. I've heard the call. I'm here to tell you.

You can find it. We're so excited to be doing Last of Us coverage over there. But we thought we'd talk a bit about Last of Us and a number of other shows and films and books that we love over on the Ring of Earth here today. There's a lot going on in this feed right now. The Midnight Boys are doing a bunch of fun drafts.

And I was like looking at the schedule, what they have upcoming. And I'm really excited. I love a Midnight Boy draft. And they've got a lot coming. So you have drafts, Mallory. We had one last week. How did that work out for folks? It was great. I won. I'm thrilled. Yeah. I came in dead last. Honestly, I'm shocked. But that's okay. But Mallory won. But as always, I'll be a gracious winner. I'll never mention it again. This will be the last time you hear me talk about it.

Mallory's been texting me every single day being like, did you see? Did you see that I won and how much I won by? Joe will send me a really sweet note, something thoughtful, something illuminating, and I'm just like, scoreboard! Next week on our show, House of R, we are doing a mailbag episode. I don't think we've ever done a proper mailbag episode on House of R. So Mallory, what should people send us and how can they reach us in order to do that?

Send us your questions about literally anything in the ringer verse sphere that you want to hear us talk about that you're interested in. Obviously, it would be great to get some questions on things that are happening now or coming in the near future. Hit us with your last of us questions. Hit us with your quantum mania questions. Ant-Man's just a few weeks away. Hit us with your Mando questions. It's almost Mando season. Mando will be coming up more than once today as well.

Send us your emails at hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com if you've got longer mailbag questions, if you want to share some mushroom recipes with Joe after her request on our first Last of Us deep dive. Obviously, keep the Apple inquiries coming now and always. And we'll also get a tweet up if you want to send us your mailbag questions that way. You can reach us anywhere with your mailbag prompts. We are so excited to hear from you and answer some of your questions next week.

I have so many mushroom recipes to try. I can't even begin to tell you. I did have mushrooms and eggs this morning.

Delicious. Tonight, I'm planning to make toasted gnocchi. It was like one of the first recipes that came in with mushrooms. Definitely. People are sending me really ambitious mushroom recipes, and it's really going to test me. We'll see. Someone sent me something from the Otolenghi cookbook, and I was like, okay, I think you overestimate my ability, but we'll see. I'm going to do my best. All right. I'm proud of you. If there's anywhere in LA that you think I can order something from,

We'll get you on the gold belly circuit there. Oh, I'm on the gold belly circuit. Okay. So that's program reminders. That's our email situation. Mailbag next week. We're really excited. We're also heading into some Mando prep in the future. We want to make sure everyone's up to date on all the...

animated series content that's going to feature in Mando season three. We want to all dive as deeply as possible as we can into that. Spoiler warning is a little tricky today and let me explain how it's going to go. Is your spoiler warning just like content? Everything. Everything that's ever existed. No, I mean, there's some targeted things that I want to talk about. We are going to be generally talking about a number of projects. I'm going to rattle them off for you really quickly, but I just want to warn you that we are going, there are two moments where,

that I think are like, especially like, if you haven't seen it, you might not want to know about it. And it is about the TV series Station Eleven, and it is about the film Logan. And I'm going to give you so much ample warning before we get into those two spoiler points. Like, if you are doing dishes, I'm going to give you time to dry off your hands and go find your device and hit that skip ahead 15 second button. If you're on the elliptical, like whatever you're doing, I know sometimes you like have to scramble for the thing. There's going to be

I promise. As long as it takes for a Wolverine wound to heal in Logan, that's how long you'll have to respond to the spoiler warning. Oh, no, that's pretty fast.

Okay, so here's what we're covering today broadly. Lone Wolf and Cub. It's a comic book, and also there's films and TV shows, etc. So, Lone Wolf and Cub, literally that. Last of Us, the first episode. It's aired. We've talked about it. We're going to talk about the first episode. Mallory and I have not played the game. We don't know spoilers going forward, so that's something on the table there. First two seasons of Mandalorian. Station Eleven. Logan. Obi-Wan.

some Game of Thrones a little bit. The Professional, The Road, T2 Judgment Day, His Dark Materials, Willow, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Road to Perdition, True Grit, Aliens, various Batman and Robin properties. Very, very, very...

very, very light Doctor Who spoilers. The Witcher, very barely. Stranger Things up. And Marvel's current phase of introducing Young Avengers. That's sort of what's in the stew today. I'm not going to say we're going to hit every single thing, but I just wanted to let you know that's sort of what's in the mix. Anything else you want to say on the spoiler warning front other than

content, generally. I guess maybe just mentioning that the Mando-centric episodes of Book of Boba are also fair game. Fair. Great. Otherwise, I think you covered it. You're right. Okay. So let's get into it. We are starting with a section I'm calling Scope of the Trope, and I'm calling it that because our listener Chad wrote in and suggested that. So Scope of the Trope. Delightful. Here we go. We're starting at the very beginning here at Ringer U. What is a trope?

Mallory, do you have a definition of a trope you want to hit folks with? I think that sometimes when we, in the year of our Lord, 2023, pop culture consumers, people in the peak TV era, mainline in content, use the word trope. When we talk about tropes, I think often we are indicating something that has become so commonplace that it feels...

routine at best and at worst, cliche. But I think that there's another way to think about tropes and certainly a way that we want to incorporate into our assessment of tropes.

that helps us examine why a device that becomes a trope is so enduring. Why does it recur? Why does it become a pattern that is then a constant in our lives tradition?

storytelling traditions that we turn to time and time again. And this storytelling tradition that we're going to talk about today, Lone Wolf and Co-op, connects to a number of other storytelling traditions. The Hero's Journey, The Quest, The Two-Hander, Fellowship, Found Family, others that we'll talk about today. Big in fantasy.

big across other genres as well, big in recent years. We will be tracing it to the manga from which it takes its name. But I think we will say here and time and time again throughout the pod that

It goes back throughout time and that is also one of the real germs and core strands of DNA that we're interested in assessing here. You pick the point in a recent pop culture history, modern day pop culture, that is an origin for the way we think or talk about a thing. Coaching tree, the archetypes that spawn from it. But it is such a fixture in part because it connects to the greater myths and storytelling traditions that are almost elemental to how we share tales with each other.

What about you? How do you think about a trope? I love that. Well, like what you're saying about this sort of elemental going back so deep into the tradition of storytelling itself. Probably don't want to read a little quote to you from a book that I've been really digging into, which is Jonathan Gottschall's The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human. This is a book recommended to me by my friend Lonnie Diane Rich, who I'll talk about Lonnie's book a little bit later. But this quote's a little long, but it is so like...

so perfectly captures a lot of what we talk about. So this is on storytelling, right? Gottschall writes, he starts by talking about like monkeys typing on a typewriter and making, eventually getting Hamlet, right? So he says, long before any of these primates thought of writing Hamlet or Harlequins or Harry Potter stories, long before these primates could envision writing at all, they thronged around hearth fires, trading wild lies about brave tricksters and young lovers, selfless heroes and shrewd hunters,

Sad chiefs and wise crones, the origin of the sun and the stars, the nature of gods and spirits and all the rest of it. Tens of thousands of years ago, when the human mind was young and our numbers were few, we were telling one another stories. And now, tens of thousands of years later, when our species teems across the globe, most of us still hew strongly to myths about the origins of things.

And we still thrill to an astonishing multitude of fictions on pages, on stages, and on screens. Murder stories, sex stories, war stories, conspiracy stories, true stories and false. We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night telling itself stories. I just thought that that was like an incredible...

That idea of like our dreams being stories that our mind is telling itself while we, our body rests is just, is just incredible. I was, I was just really took, like taken by that. And so the idea of like, we've been telling these stories for so long, as you say, long predates this manga that we're going to talk about as sort of the origin of the naming of this trope.

But those elemental stories that we keep coming back to and that they capture something very universal in our experiences as we try to understand the universe, as we as humans try to sort of like grapple for meaning and grapple for connection.

And how stories, you and I prize story above almost anything else. You know what I mean? It's how we connect to each other. It's how we connect to our listeners. It's how we, you know, understand the world. And so I just, I'm so excited to talk about this particular story. What does it make you think of in terms of like that broader idea of story, repeated stories that we tell each other? I love that passage so much. That is just gorgeous. I found myself thinking unsurprisingly, perhaps,

about Joseph Campbell ever heard? Oh, Uncle Joe? Yeah, I guess we can't call him Daddy Joe today because we're going to talk about a lot of other reluctant daddies. We got a lot of other daddies, yeah. Uncle Joe here with us today. We cite, in quote, from Campbell a lot. We turn to The Hero with a Thousand Faces a lot when we're looking at how an adaptation like Star Wars, for example, connects to these great storytelling traditions. But...

I thought of a line specifically from the very opening of Hero with a Thousand Faces in the Monomyth prologue. So this is like the starting note, the thing that Campbell wanted you to be thinking about before all

All of the other specific areas of examination unfurled and unspooled from there, quote, it will always be the one shape-shifting yet marvelous constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than we ever, than will ever be known or told. And...

That's not about tropes. He's not writing about tropes. He's writing about the Monomyth. He's writing about the hero's journey. But that idea, I think, is very of a piece. Anything that becomes recurring, anything that pulls us, us being creators or consumers, storytellers, story sharers, into the compulsion to revisit, to

To simultaneously see a new face or a new spin, some sort of new element put onto that constant soul and through line of the thing. What can we unlock that is new about our present moment, a certain shared experience that we unlock through a thing that we have been doing with each other forever? And that idea of change and constancy in stories and how they relate to each other and where they veer apart, I think is just such a...

A rich text for us and an interesting way to unlock a lot of the particulars that we'll be exploring today because these stories are also different from each other, but they share this strand, this context and context.

And some of the lessons, some of the upshots, some of the themes are going to operate in parallel, of course. But then so many of the particulars are specific and particular to like that character set, that world, that universe, that moment. This trope specifically, I mean, like the easiest thing for us to cite to help you understand broadly what this trope is, is if you look at The Mandalorian, which centers on

Mando, Din Djarin, and Grogu, right? Lone Wolf and Cub, right? Or if you look at The Last of Us,

um, another Pedro Pascal joint, which features, uh, Joel and Ellie, right? So, you know, broadly the lone wolf and cub or what our friend Kim Renfro has decided to call reluctant daddy, um, is, is when a usually male badass or loner takes it upon himself out of goodness, interest, or circumstances beyond his control to protect an orphaned, unrelated young child. Um, and,

Or a related child. Lone Wolf and Cub, literally, the very popular manga from the 1970s, Kazuo Koike's story, that's literally a father and child, right? And that is a story of a man wandering the countryside with his very young son. And rereading the manga, I was struck by how...

how this character uses this child right from the beginning, puts this child in danger constantly for his own ends, right? This is not a... It's less a protective thing, but it is a combination that is very potent. What's your experience with Lone Wolf and Cub as either a manga or there's a film TV adaptations of it as well? Yeah, if anyone who's listening hasn't

Check this out or isn't familiar. You know, in addition to reading the manga, you can pop right on HBO Max, the Criterion Collection version of Lone Wolf and Cubs Sword of Vengeance, which is the first film in the series of adaptations right there for you. You can stream it easily and then keep exploring from there. I would highly recommend it. You know, revisiting this, Joe,

it's the parallels and the mapping onto so many of the stories that we talk about and have talked about in recent years or are talking about right now. It's really like, some of it is note for note. Like you can think of something like

Ogami presenting his son with the choice of the sword or the ball. And it's like, well, we just saw Luke do this with Grogu. And I think the thing, you know, you have this beautiful roadmap for us today, this absolutely brilliant outline and all this wonderful research that we're going to dive into. And one of the things I think really smartly that you've sketched out for us is the different manifestations. What is...

central to the wolf? What is central to the cub? What are the different versions of this that we get? What seems to be recurring? What is distinct? And on the one hand, lone wolf and cub is very particular to this version of it, but you'll watch it and you'll say, oh, I see how this is an influence on Kill Bill. I see how this is an influence on this stretch of Star Wars. On and on and on the list goes. There is a...

juxtaposition at play in this particular father-son relationship that I think almost feels unholy, like in a way that is very relevant for The Last of Us. You know, we chatted a lot in our Last of Us premiere deep dive about the way that Craig Mazin, one of the co-creators and co-showrunners of the series,

spoke in the Inside the Episode feature ad on HBO, on the official HBO companion pod, et cetera, about this idea of love as not just a beautiful and healing thing, but a dangerous thing. Finding that person that you will protect, but then what do you do when you're acting on those primal urges? And...

That is so present here in lone wolf and cup protection through this ferocious, unrelenting violence. When Ogami is talking about what is about to happen, what is the language, the demon way and acknowledgement that there's only one goal, vengeance, vengeance at all costs, even at the cost of your own soul. And, and,

To go back to that choice of sword or ball, he doesn't want his child to go with him. He doesn't want him to pick the sword. He wants him to pick the ball, even though that would mean death, even though that would mean the end of his life. His family has already been torn asunder. And this is all like this is very early in the story.

You would have been happier if you joined your late mother, he says. And he's weeping. My poor child. An assassin with a child. That's the quote. And it's just heart-wrenching. What does it mean to head out into the world with that quest and a baby?

In a cart. And what's so interesting is that in the manga, especially like in the first sections of the manga, like that's not really the story. Like this in the manga, he's just sort of like every time he encounters someone and he tricks them, it's very like sort of adventure of the week, right? With the manga. Each issue is like him encountering a different village or bad guy or whatever who hires him. Another very Mandalorian-esque approach. We'll talk about that. But like,

He keeps encountering people and they're like... And he will lure them into something by using his child. Like, his child is drowning in order to lure someone into the water so that he can kill that person. These are the extremes that he goes to in order to, you know, make his mark.

And he keeps encountering people who are like, there's this one quote, you'd put a child at risk to achieve your ends. And he says, a father knows his child's heart as only a child can know his father's. A stranger would not understand. So like in the manga, he is already, you don't even learn about the vengeance aspect of it at first. You're just seeing, it's just like an early concept of like, what if...

Shogun assassin, but there's a baby in a cart also. And then they spun that concept out to a more overarching sort of serialized story. But I just thought that that was so interesting. And this descriptor of the story, like father and son walking the road to hell together, giving up their souls for vengeance. So we're going to talk about so many examples where...

in a lone wolf and cub story, the cub is pulling the wolf towards the light. But I'm so glad you brought up The Last of Us because I do think that that, I mean, we don't know, but early indications from the showrunner tell us like, is this a pull towards the light story or is this a pull towards the dark story? And, you know, we'll all find out together and people who have played the game are like shouting at their devices saying, we know, but Mal and I don't know. But it, you know, it seems like

It might be a pull towards the dark story. Yeah. Mason saying, quote, this is where you begin to see the problem in response to the look on Ellie's face as she watches Joel beat Lee to death, but also the deliciousness of the pairing. These two were meant to be together, but look out. So that mixed entwined positive and potentially very damaging relationship. Yeah.

When did you first become aware of like lone wolf and cub as a trope or like as a manga or as a film or anything like that? You know what? It's such a good question. I have no idea. Do you ever have experiences like this now in your life where you're like, I can't even recall when this thing first, when I became aware of it, like when I, when I gained consciousness and, and, uh, yeah.

I really like started to think about this. And in a way, normally, I think if we were prepping for a pod and I was like, boy, I need to like text the person I know I saw this with the first time or ask my dad when he first dropped off white noise at my dorm room and like always try to get the let me check my edition for when this was put into print, et cetera, and try to actually get the answer. But in this case, I thought that was fitting. I thought it was actually fitting that I couldn't

think you're at and pinpoint the exact moment because that's part of what makes a trope a trope. Yeah. It just feels like it's a part of the air around you. What about you? Do you have a more specific memory than that? I guess I'm more... Like, I didn't know to name it, I would say, until...

like Jon Favreau cited Lone Wolf and Cub as the inspiration for Mando season one. And a bunch of people I knew were like, oh, of course it's Lone Wolf and Cub. And I was like, oh, I suppose I should read and watch Lone Wolf and Cub, which is what I did. So my exposure to that specific source material is much more recent. But when you start looking at the way in which it ripples out into so many stories that we know, but I really think that like,

I think Favreau naming it as inspiration for Mando and Mando becoming so popular and then so many other people chasing that Mando formula is what has really cemented it as a trope in recent years. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that too because again, even though that's particular to the specific example, that's part of a Star Wars tradition where if you think about the way that George Lucas back in the

in the 70s, used to talk about his inspirations for Star Wars. How many people then discovered something new because of that? And, you know, something that is so mainstream, like peak chief pop culture, this is the most popular thing in the world, Mando, Star Wars, whatever the case may be. And then it allows you, it's your portal, not only into the galaxy far, far away, but into all of these other new lanes of discovery. The source text that inspired the person who created this new source text that has inspired you. And that's what

That's what I said. Like, one of my favorite interview questions to ask people is, like, what's an unexpected, like, inspo for this, right? Like, you were talking about this with The Last of Us. Like, when you go on HBO Max and HBO Max is like, so you like The Last of Us? Are you sure it's season 11? But, like, thinking about the other outside-the-box influences then, like, pushes us or those of us who, like, feel story-addicted in that way to seek out these things that, you know, to fill out our...

background and then to be able to make those connections as we talk about a thing, perhaps on a deep dive on a Friday morning with a friend of ours. So, um, this episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been allowed over dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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or the Peloton app. It's like having your own personal coach with you or right at home in your living room. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. Let's talk about wolves and what like sort of the right kind of wolf is. So like generally the wolf and the lone wolf and cub trope, self-reliant,

Outcast, badass, typically a fan favorite. Sometimes the character is nameless, like the Mandalorian before we found out his name, the Mandalorian, the gunslinger, the, you know, the samurai, et cetera. Strengths, they have qualities, they have to have quality that makes the reader watcher respect the character. So usually they're like good at fighting. You know, there's something that they do that is impressive. They can handle themselves well.

Weaknesses, though, they need to have something that makes them relatable, human, frail. And then even more importantly in something like The Lone Wolf, because so much of the story is about cracking open. Like if you think about Mandalorian, literally like a Beskar shell that we're trying to crack open to get to the human underneath. That's vulnerabilities. We've got people operating with strong—usually if you become a lone wolf in a gruff sort of way—

has happened that has made you put on that Beskar armor or, you know, the metaphorical Beskar armor. And we'll get into some like specific examples there. But I just thought that was really interesting. Mel, can you take us through like this idea of the lone wanderer versus the lone traveler? Joe, when I think of you, I think of two things. One, you love to forage for mushrooms and two, you love a drifter. I do love a drifter. This definitely gets into what you were alluding to earlier about

about the different nature of episodic or serialized storytelling when you get some sort of adventure of the week framework

which is certainly the way that the Mandalorian, I, I, I, we're going to, you, you mentioned so many of the, the stories we're going to talk about in the spoiler warning. We'll hit dozens. I think Mando, even though last of us is the hook for today, Amanda will probably be the one we returned to the most because it is just so applicable in so many different respects. And I think that the way, like everything you just described about that, that vulnerability, the, um, the outcast, like the way that this connects to the idea of being a wanderer, like, um,

We learn in the first few episodes of The Mandalorian in season one so much more about Din's own history as a foundling and being brought into the group, the Watch, the children of the Watch, who have this way and this creed that then influences the way Mando thinks about others like Grogu, foundlings, etc. I've got this Beskar here. Use it for the foundlings. And that...

of an absorption into some sort of group, but also then a very solitary path. What is he doing every day? How does he come across Grogu in the first place? He's a bounty hunter. Bounty hunter. He's a solitary man out in the galaxy with a ship and a car.

a code and a creed. We'll talk more about codes and creeds, new story, new adventure, new people who are going to cross his path, and then who pulls him out of that. This is maybe a moment where you can tell me a little bit about the Doctor, because I know that this idea of new adventures and wandering is very central to the Doctor Who universe as well.

I love that because, so Mal and I are going to be doing more Doctor Who research and learning together throughout the year as we prep for the Doctor Who. Well, one of us will be doing some learning. Yeah. I'm learning plenty on my rewatch, but we're going to dig into that. So I don't want to go deep into the Doctor stuff because I want to save that for the conversation once you've seen episodes. But the Doctor is someone who travels through time and space. And every week...

You know, we're on a new planet or a new spot in time. And that's certainly how Mando starts, right? Every episode, we're hopping to another planet. Mando, as a bounty hunter, gives him that excuse to wander around. The gunslinger trope of, like, someone who comes to town, solves a problem, and then moves on. Shane, et cetera, right? And then what's so interesting... Shane, of course, the film they're watching in Logan. In Logan, right? Yeah. No more guns in the valley. Um...

And what's interesting about The Mandalorian is that it moves from a lone wanderer trope to a lone traveler trope because the difference between traveler and wanderer is wanderer is just wandering around. No clear goal in sight. It's just like, this is the life I've chosen. I'm a man on the road, you know?

A traveler is someone with a destination. They're on the road to something. And maybe they're making all these stops along the way, but they're on the road to something. And so when Mando becomes someone who is trying to reunite Grogu with his people, whatever that means, he's a man with a destination. Yes. You know? A purpose. Based on what has happened since, I don't know if we're going to go back to Lone Wanderer, Lone Drifter, or whatever. There's some...

A trick of the lone traveler, the person with a purpose or a destination, is usually there is an antagonist. I think if you look at Mando and the way in which antagonism has grown in that versus beginning where, again, it's just sort of aimlessly bopping around. Those are two distinct tropes that I think are really interesting. And there's a subcategory of the lone traveler that I think is really interesting, which is loner on the run.

Steve, can you hit us with our second clip of the day from Hunt for the Wilderpeople, please? I think we've walked a thousand miles yet at the Wildebeest. It feels like it, eh? Yeah. Always on the move. Always on the lookout for hunters. Just like the Wildebeest. Except we're Wilderpeople. Yeah, that's us. Okay then, Wilderboy.

Let's find somewhere to eat, shall we? Mallory and I love this movie. This is an incredible movie, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, if you've never seen it. Taika Waititi film. Sam Neill reprising his gruff, I don't like kids move from Jurassic Park, except even gruffer. And he gets saddled with this kid, Ricky Baker, who they get drawn into the bush, and then they're on the run from the law. And they are...

together in a way that by the end, you know, as is often the case of lone wolf and cub story, they form an incredible bond. So like even in that quote, when he calls him wilder boy, it's just this like moment of tenderness that is so earned has taken so long and is so earned, but that lone wolf on the run saddled with a cub sort of element. I love so much. I think you want to say about hunt for the wilder people, Valerie Rubin.

These sound bites are just shredding my heart. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

There's one more loner that we want to talk about, which is the lone remainer. Because oftentimes the loner is moving around because that's a way to movement. Physical movement in a story is a way to generate character growth, right? As we encounter new people, new settings, we are pushed towards growth. It's harder to tell the story about a lone remainer

But there is an example of that case that I want to talk about really briefly. We mentioned this a bunch on our Last of Us episode that we did on the Prestige TV feed this week. It is Station Eleven. Fantastic book, fantastic TV series that's on HBO Max, one season. Please go watch it. That story starts as a lone traveler story of a sort. It's just one guy who...

Jeevan Chowdhury trying to get one girl, Kirsten, home as the outbreak of a pandemic in a very snowy city happens. But after they reach that destination, this is really early in the story, so I don't think this is like a major spoiler or whatever, there's a lot of sheltering in place that happens. And so we get this like,

forced growth just through proximity of Jeevan Chowdhury, a man who has only ever had to take care of himself and barely, he's had people taking care of him, to someone who was put in a position of taking care of someone else and what that does to push you towards growth. And can you shake off those? We as humans experience this all the time when we're around people who have known us a long time and they have certain expectations of us.

Very much so our family, right? It's hard to convince those people that you're someone else. But when you're with someone new, you can sort of push yourself towards growth. Can I be someone different than I've been my whole life?

Anything you want to say about Jeevan and Kirsten, Mallory? Oh, boy. So much. What a wonderful novel and what a truly marvelous and beautiful adaptation. And one of the things about the adaptation that I think is worth mentioning in the context of today's pod is that

This is created for the show. This is a change. There are a lot of adjustments and tweaks and shifts from the novel to the show.

that some of them are structural, some of them help to showcase some sort of thematic key in a new way. But putting Jeevan and Kirsten together in this way is, I think, of all the changes you could point to, the single biggest distinction between book and show and the most successful and awe-inspiring. And to consider that when we're talking about Lone Wolf and Cub, the idea that the show is

Wanted to give us that that dynamic that was absent and like why what does that present what does that showcase for us inside of a story about.

The end of things, certainly, but also the beginning of new things and the people that you can build those new things with. And Patrick Somerville, the creator of the show, a brilliant novelist and showrunner and writer, I thought it was so interesting when the show was running to hear him talk about the changes that he made and why. And...

I'll read a pretty long quote from him, if you'll allow me, because I think it is so illuminating, not only for the Station Eleven example, but the larger discussion today. This was in an interview that Patrick gave with Sam Adams over at Slate. Quote,

That story in the novel was about repairing old wounds, reinvestigating old dynamics, looking at hard decisions, but also reviving a love. And it's about family making. So we made adjustments to make a vacuum for young Kirsten to step into. Like, there's a missing person here, and it's our sister, but we happen to have a young child. We know what to do. I think that's very much the book. How do you rebuild?

It's a very common thing to say chosen family now in the last 10 years, especially. And it's a powerful idea, but I find it to be a hard idea to one that requires a little bit more investigation than simply saying, here I am with my friends. It's not so easy to be in any family, even if it's a chosen family.

Oh, I love that. I love that. Incredible. This next quote we're going to hit you with is Frank. The Frank is mentioned here is Jeevan's brother, right? So there's Jeevan and Frank. Frank has known Jeevan a really long time. And there's Kirsten, a new element. And Jeevan and Kirsten are sheltering in place. Kirsten wants to stay because it feels safe. And Jeevan wants to go partially because of his discomfort in this sort of protector role. Steve, will you play this clip, please? I'm Jeevan Chaudhry. Okay.

Hello? Frank told me your nickname. What nickname? Levin' Jeevin'. You are getting so good. Are you Levin', Jeevin'? No.

For some reason, I think all the time about the delivery of, are you leaving Jeevan? Like, it's like so vulnerable on the part of Kirsten, who's such a tough kid. Yeah. Right? And these two are the only, like, they only have each other in all the worlds. And she doesn't,

she is doesn't trust or she has been told that he's the kind of person who is not going to stick around and he's been told his whole life that he's the kind of person who's not going to stick around what I love that like what comes right before this moment and this isn't the station 11 uh spoiler by the way this is like this is sort of like basics of the storytelling but like right before this he's on the shortwave radio pretending to be a doctor he's like in the midst of kind of like really majorly trying to reinvent himself and

And it's like, can you reinvent yourself when these ghosts of who you've been, who Frank thinks he is, who his brother thinks he is, is sort of like hanging around? And what opportunity there is in the eyes of a young kid to reinvent yourself as a protector, as a paternal, as someone better. This is one of those like pull towards the light that we talk about. I love that. Like, I love the idea of...

opportunities being challenges, but also challenges being opportunities. And like, it's hard to be on your own, but it's hard to be with other people too. And both of those things can be true at once. And another person can help you discover something about yourself or give you that, give you that purpose. Like we chatted in our last of us, uh, premier pod about how Pedro Pascal talked about, uh,

the idea of purpose and fatherhood as being this central driving force in his character, Joel's life across these changing circumstances, across these different moments in time and different character sets. And for characters like Jeevan and Kirsten, that idea that you could find somebody who you would truly want to protect, you could be in a circumstance that would not only necessitate

some sort of evolution, but make you actually want to pursue and live inside of that evolution, but also that that's like not a really, in some ways, the most natural thing, which is changing and growing, is also the thing that is in conflict with the most natural thing, which is like the things that are the truest about you or the hardest to shake. I love that. One last thing we want to say while we're still in wolf territory before we move to cubs. Protect ghosts. Is that what you want to say while still in wolf territory? Always. Always.

This is kind of an important email we got from our listener, Mikhail. Questioning, we're talking about all these lone wolves.

Our friend, our pal Kim Renfro called this a reluctant daddy trope. Why is it always men and daddies in this role and not women, right? So Mikal writes, I'm so glad you're starting with a lone wolf and cub trope because both because I love it to pieces and will follow it anywhere and also because it's fundamentally flawed along lines of gender. About to make a generalization here so there may be plenty of stories that contradict my thoughts, but I can't think of them.

Obviously, I can think of a few reasons, none of them good, but...

but I can't help but understand it through the lens of a different trope, babysitter dad. The idea that fatherhood is an opt-in project and that men who participate are heroic just for turning up is really pervasive. The lone wolf is, to mix zoological metaphors, lionized because his eventual kindness to and connection with the cub are ultimately a choice he can make.

The cub is not a burden he has to bear, for the most part. In a way, he transcends nature by choosing to love and care for the innocent. But the reluctant mom, she's violating nature. She's straying outside the lines of how she's supposed to act and more importantly, feel. She has to be here. And any degree of absence, emotionally preoccupied, busy at work, or saving the world constitutes a sin here.

and who can root for that? I'm curious what you think of this and how you factor gender roles into a character pattern that is genuinely very appealing. Can we tell stories of a gruff lady saddled with an unexpected child on a dangerous journey? Can we center women's reluctance to be caring and connected to children? Are there examples I'm just missing? She mentions McGonagall being sort of next to, but not quite. I was thinking about this, actually, as we were putting this together, and I actually got a couple emails about this.

One example, it's not like the whole story, but one thing that came to mind was Ellen Ripley and Newt in Aliens. But again, Ripley is a character that was written for a male actor and sort of changed the last minute to be Sigourney Weaver. And so Ripley is a character who's been coded masculine sort of from the start. Yeah.

Yeah. A badass and adventurer. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Pod was something that I was thinking about. We're going to talk about a different Thrones pairing, but... I was thinking about Brandon Pod too. We should probably just mention for anyone who's confused by that how much younger Pod is in the books. Right. Yeah. Much more cub-like in the novels than the sex god Pod of the escape. Yeah.

we're going to talk about sort of the blurring the lines of the concept of the cub, but like a not quite cub-like, but I was thinking about it was like Xena and Gabrielle, the pairing on Xena Warrior Princess, where you have tough, badass lady warrior Xena and soft little Hufflepuff Gabrielle who's on the, and then like

they both change over time and then that becomes something other than lone wolf and cub for sure. And then one of our listeners suggested the TV show Hacks, which I kind of like. Again, that's not like super cuddly, but like I kind of like that idea. But again, it's certainly in the minority. So like, anything you want to say about this gender question here? Well, now that I'm thinking about Hacks, I think every future lone wolf and cub story should be on a tour bus. Yeah.

Oh, boy. Make sure you keep an eye on the tennis ball carrier. Yeah. Don't toss that out. Don't toss that out. This is a fascinating and really interesting email. Just listening to you read it and you think about a character like Brienne, I think that

You know, I think we all as viewers or readers bring a lot of our own stuff to our read on any character and the connection to any character. And like always one of the reasons I fucking loved Brianne, right, is because she's like, I'm not going to do the thing that society expects just because I'm supposed to. I don't want to dress up in your fancy ball gowns and dance around. Right.

I want to be a knight. Look at this armor and I can crush you with my sword. And the way that Pod, who has had other lone wolf and cub experiences like with Tyrion, right? And then moves into that relationship and is so, the adoration and respect that he brings and the like,

of his desire to learn from her and the recognition that she has something to teach him that other people didn't. It's just always one of the things that I cherish so deeply about the relationship, which I guess speaks to the point of the email. There are all sorts of different ways to give us a lone wolf and cub story and all sorts of different ideas that that can present and unlock. What about you? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I do think it goes into that whole thing where, like, we throw a parade sometimes for men when they take care of their child and, like, for women it's expected. So I think, you know, I think that is an inherent baked into our culture problem and question. ♪

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Let's talk about cubs. Let's do some cub talk, shall we? Please. Love it. Love a cub. First, most obvious, the character's literal child, right? That's what Lone Wolf and Cub is. He's a literal child. Also, Laura and Logan, if you want to talk about clones, if you consider clones children, which I do. I've decided I do. So yes, like Laura and Logan. Django certainly considered Boba his son and not just his...

unmodified genetic template recreation. So yes, sure. No, I allow it. I like it. Sweet. There's also the link of the like magical MacGuffin or prize, right? This idea of like Allura, Dan and Willow, the like fated princess, you know, who's supposed to, you know,

defeat evil. The child in Mando is a bounty, a literal bounty, right? Arya Stark and the Hound and Thrones, we're going to talk about that, but Arya, he sees Arya as a payday at first, right? I can go turn her into family and get a reward. And then Ellie in The Last of Us, we learn at the end of the first episode of The Last of Us that Ellie is potentially immune to this outbreak, and that makes her

the miracle cure, potentially. So she's a prize to be towed around. And that kind of cub brings with it danger to the lone wolf, right? Because other people are interested in that cub. And I think that's interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And then what does that...

How does that influence the wolf's course then? Is it from some sort of selflessness, some sort of desire to protect, some sort of desire to right a wrong? Is there some sort of self, like the hound example is a good one, for like a personal motivation? Not all of this is altruistic, which is part of what makes it a really rich text, is that there can often be something that is

if not outright nefarious at first, then at least something that connects to some sort of

personal end or motivation, and then does that stick or does that morph? And we love a character on an arc, Joe, and we love characters whose arcs move and grow and change in tandem with each other. And that's one of the really rewarding parts of the Lone Wolf and Cub trope, I think, for us as fans of, as lovers of an arc, right? Is like, look at the way that these characters are helping each other change. There's the very basic Lone Wolf and Cub, like this

small defenseless thing needs protection. Yes. Yes. Yes. Protection from some sort of force, right? Yeah. Some sort of... But also like... Should we talk about our bearded bestie Obi-Wan for a second here? Bestie is not where I thought you were going to go with that. Our bearded boyfriend Obi-Wan? Well, usually I was going to say, usually when I say daddy and I'm talking about Obi-Wan, I mean it in an entirely different way.

different context oh boy the number of I didn't see Cobb Vanth I didn't see Cobb Vanth in the Amanda season 3 trailer I'm just saying oh boy Steve giving us a dear me in the zoom chat makes us think of our guy bees wonderful miss you bees dear me God speak God speak God

Leia, young Leia, yeah, definitionally needs protection from Obi-Wan for numerous reasons that are central to the animating plot mechanics of the six episode television show, Obi-Wan Kenobi. But there is this larger pull that is present with those two characters that

A lot of that is Obi-Wan's own history. The way, the relationship to the Jedi Order, the way that if you are Force-sensitive and are brought in as a young Padawan, as a youngling, you're taken away from your own family, then you find this new family. I think this is also something that we should talk about more with Logan and Lara because with mutants, this idea of like,

and then found family and then isolation and this kind of seesaw back and forth between fellowship and feeling very, very alone and how that can define an Alone Wolf and Cub story like the one that Logan and Laura go on in Logan. What a fucking great movie. We watched that the other night. Just like an all-timer. Awesome. But for Obi-Wan...

Wept for the last 10 minutes. It is just beautiful. Yeah. For Obi-Wan, there's so much of this that is also about this larger defining thing in his life and his experience, which is how he feels that he failed Anakin and failed Padme. And so when you get a moment in the finale between Obi-Wan and little Leia and like,

There's something earlier in the finale where he says, you know, she wants the blaster. He's given her the holster, right? It's like, you're 10 years old, but you won't always be. That element of time and characters who are at different stages in their life and the way that that shapes their relative perspective is always so delicious. And then like that beautiful moment when they're saying goodbye at the end and he's telling her about her parents, right?

You are wise, discerning, kind-hearted. These are qualities that came from your mother, but you are passionate, fearless, forthright. These are gifts from your father? Like...

the history that one character in that pairing is aware of that the other isn't. And how is that parceled out and shared over time? I love that part of a long wolf and cub story too. And something that's so interesting about Obi-Wan is like, unlike the hound or other reluctant daddies who aren't brought in because, who are brought in to protect something against their better judgment or against their desire to be alone. Obi-Wan is like a much more like virtuous character

you know, person. He wants to protect Leia, but the inner conflict around him is around that idea of shame, which we're going to come back to. But there is shame, a sense of failure in the past, and,

and how that relates to what he can heal inside himself. An entire life of indoctrination from the Jedi Order telling you you can't form attachments. Totally cool. Super cool organization. I want to talk briefly about this idea of the replacement goldfish. And while I do, I want to shout out TVTropes.com, a website that I've used for eons. One of the greatest things that's ever existed. TVTropes is amazing.

Is up there with Wikipedia as the most essential resources on the internet. It's like TV Tropes, Wikipedia, Baseball Reference. That's my holy trinity. I know for you too, Baseball Reference is number three for you. Number one. That's also the one that you visit the most. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Lostpedia, actually. I'll put Lostpedia up there. That's like one of the greatest wikis that ever existed. But TV Tropes. I really wanted you to say like true media and then just drop some deep cut NFL stat on me.

Shout out to another great one. Someday this idea of the replacement goldfish is when, you know, literally when you flush a goldfish down the toilet and you put another one in the bowl and hope your kid doesn't notice. Right. But in, in the idea of storytelling, you've lost a wife, a dog, a child, a something, and you find something else replaced it. John wick finds a, another dog at the end of first John wick movie. Right. Um,

Ellie in The Last of Us, we meet one daughter for Joel at the beginning of an episode, and we meet another potential daughter for him at the end of the first episode. So Ellie falls into replacement goldfish territory for sure. But another...

example is Eleven and Stranger Things because Hopper has lost a child and he finds Eleven. I cried putting this clip together. We'll see if I cry again. Steve, will you play this clip, please? Feelings. Jesus. The truth is for so long I'd forgotten what those even were. I've been stuck in one place in a cave, you might say. A deep, dark cave.

And then I left some Eggos out in the woods and you came into my life. And for the first time in a long time, I started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. Heart-wrenching. Hopper and Eleven is not like your stereotypical we're on the road together, lone wolf and cub story. But think about where we meet Hopper at the beginning of Stranger Things. Yes.

voraciously self-medicating, isolating. He is in the community, but he is not really there. Yeah. This is a character who has shut himself off from the world. Right. And Eleven being a vulnerable thing, a magical MacGuffin, like all these things at once, and the way in which their time in the cabin together cracks him open is...

in new ways as he outlines here and opens him up to a potential relationship with Joyce. Like all these things that it opens him up for is why I think that qualifies under this trope. Anything else you want to say about Hop? Love, love that quote. I love Hop. I love the Hop 11 storyline, as you know. And I love that idea that

And I love the way that the character and the show engage with that idea that there's not a part of when Eleven is reading Hopper's letter, when they are going through the challenges in their relationship, what it means to grow up, to be a teenager, especially if Modine is hunting you. It's not easy, but it's not about...

You can't allow it to be about the coded knock on the door and the radio signals because you're only inside that cabin. You have to...

allow yourself to forge relationships and find love, even if that means that you're going to experience that kind of like debilitating, devastating, truly, truly, truly life altering loss and pain one day, which is something that both of those characters go through. And that is a thing that Hopper was not capable of doing.

and actively like rebelled against and rejected that the hurt is good because as he'll say to Eleven, like it's how you know you're alive. And that's just such a- That's a vulnerability. Such an important and crucial vulnerability, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To like the way in which we meet Hopper and he is so actively numbing himself.

to any sort of feeling, to moving towards allowing himself to be open to those vulnerabilities, to then moving towards understanding that that pain and that vulnerability is what makes life worth living. That that is the crux of life. The last thing I want to say on the cup front is that, and we've already mentioned this, sometimes a cup is not a young child, but a young stand-up comedian or a

A youngish stand-up comedian. The companion in Doctor Who, I think, is a really key example of this. Like, if you're not familiar with Doctor Who, the Doctor Who is this, like, huge, powerful being, travels through time and space, and always has...

usually a young woman, we can unpack that later, companion with him, who he asked to protect, a human, right? He is a time lord. He's an alien time lord who can do all this shit. And there is a vulnerable little human in the box with him. And that is important for us as viewers to have. Humanizes him. We'll talk about all that stuff later. But like, love interests, non-combat support classes, if you want to talk about it in terms of D&D. Um...

If you think about something like The Witcher, there is a child character who needs taking care of in The Witcher. But I would say a character like Jaskier, who's the bard, is much more fits into this trope. This sort of, again, it's like sunshine and storm cloud, right? Like that's the dynamic that we're talking about here on the road. Okay. Those are our wolves and our cubs.

The next question is, but why? But why, Mallory? Why do we do this? And we've been answering this as we go along, you know, here and there. As you already mentioned, we love a character on an arc. We love a character who's on the move emotionally. It's why some of our favorite characters are, like, problematic faves, like Sawyer and Lost or Jamie Lannister. These are guys who, like, start at the bottom, now are here, sort of thing, that we can grow with emotionally.

That idea of vulnerability, which we'll come back to time and time again, is so important. And that idea of the loner character is not compelling in isolation. The example that I think about all the time when I think about this from a storytelling point of view, this is off the core lone wolf and cub trope, but I think about The Bourne Identity, which I think is a perfect film. But how important that film, how important the character of Marie is

is to that journey of Jason Bourne. Because once Marie is no longer in the franchise, which happens pretty quickly, I'm less compelled spending time alone with Jason Bourne as he roams around trying to figure shit out. But in the first film, when he has Marie to bounce off of and protect, that is such a much more compelling, and it invites us inside this loner character. It's so hard to tell a loner story without this

supplemental figure. This makes me think of a quote that I love from the book How Fiction Works by James Wood, which is another great read, and that is primarily interested in the novel as a form, the novel as an intention, but a lot of the areas of examination apply to any form of storytelling. And one of the quotes from the section on character is...

We could tell a great deal from a character by how he talks and whom he talks to, how he bumps up against the world. People, as Edith Wharton said, are like other people's estates. We only know of them what abuts our own. This idea, end quote, this idea that you definitionally, fundamentally, philosophically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually,

can only understand the pieces of somebody that you see. And so you can't understand the full sense of self, right?

in a vacuum, only in relation to other characters. And that doesn't mean that it's not rich and rewarding and interesting to spend time alone with characters, but there is an aspect to who that character is that they only get to see about themselves and we only get to see about them if we're looking through somebody else's eyes. I love that. And I love the word of butts, so I'm glad that you're also going with that. Same.

Edith Wharton, man, you're a big Ethan Frome head. Yeah, I do. I love that book. I love Ethan Frome. Same. I keep coming back to that Mandalorian armor as a really great symbol for this like sort of calcified crust that a lot of these characters form around themselves to protect themselves because they have experienced some kind of trauma that has put them in this loner space, right? And so that idea of vulnerability, which we've mentioned a couple of times is so key. Um,

My pal Lonnie Diane Ridge, who I mentioned earlier, wrote this great book called How Story Works that I really recommend. And something that Lonnie laid out for me when she was actually on the Lost podcast that I did talking about our guy Sawyer, she was talking about this idea of vulnerability. Vulnerability and connection.

that abutting, if you will, right? This idea of the, it is so, we are thirsty for connection as humans, and we are thirsty to understand vulnerabilities as a way into connection. And Lonnie laid out these four key aspects of vulnerability, which I love. Fear, identity, love, and shame.

And shame we already talked about when it comes to Obi-Wan, but also identity when it comes to Obi-Wan, because like, as I was a Jedi, now who am I? Like an example that Lonnie brings up in her book for identity, that identity vulnerability is like a nun who decides she no longer believes in God. But like someone who has had a major...

uh, you know, for lack of a better word, come to Jesus moment about a core creed or credo, which we're going to talk about a little bit, a core sense of their identity. Fear is pretty easy to identify. Love, love makes you vulnerable, all that sort of stuff. Um,

But because Lonnie likes to talk about Brene Brown, who's like an incredible thinker of human and the way that we all work. I wound up watching this Brene Brown TED Talk on vulnerability, which I really, really recommend. But I was like, this is a normal thing to do on a Tuesday afternoon. But I want to pull out this Brene Brown quote about vulnerability that I really love. She says, shame, fear of disconnection. Is there something about me that if other people knew it or see it,

That I won't be worthy of connection. No one wants to talk about it. The less you talk about it, the more you have it. That's shame. And shame as a core principle to a lot of these loners. There's something that has happened that has driven them out of society, usually by their own doing. And there's some core thing that they think is unknowable and unlovable about them.

And it takes the extreme vulnerability of something else, like a cub, to get them to open that back up. I want to talk about something from Lonnie's book that she wrote about vulnerability that I thought was so interesting, and as it pertains to a character like Joel.

who seems like the kind of person who doesn't want to talk about the bad things that have happened to him. And that is how often we are informed about vulnerabilities for a character like a Joel. Ellie says your watch is broken and he doesn't say, let me tell you why he closes his eyes. Right, exactly. So Lonnie's example here is The Office.

the American office, the pilot of the American office. And it's just such a good example that I just want to read it out to you, even though this has nothing to do with Lone Wolf and Cub. It has to do with how we understand vulnerability. Lonnie writes, we've learned a couple of things about vulnerability. It's how people connect and no one wants to talk about theirs. Most of the time, no one wants to even think about theirs. With that being the case, how can you write about vulnerability and make it seem genuine? Good question. And the answer lies in the skilled use of negative space.

Let's go to the example of a salesman who's in love with the office receptionist who is engaged to a guy who works in the warehouse. Intrepid readers will have identified this example as inspired by the American version of the sitcom, The Office.

If you watch the pilot episode, you see that Jim never tells us that he's in love with Pam. In fact, we won't hear him admit that for some time, but we know immediately how. First, we see that Jim and Pam have fun together at the office, as he is often at the front desk laughing with her. Later, we see an interview where Jim mentions Pam's favorite flavor of yogurt.

In Pam's interview, she blushes and looks away when she learned that he guessed correctly. Toward the end of that episode, Pam's fiancé, Roy, shows up to take her home after work. Jim is barely able to look at Roy. He hangs his head while the two men stand at the front desk, awkwardly waiting for Pam to return from doing her last task. Then in another interview, we see Jim repeat a question asked of him by the documentary crew. Does he think he will be invited to the wedding? He doesn't answer. That's negative space.

One of the best ways to draw your reader in is to give them negative space in which to intuit what is happening based on what is not being textually said or acknowledged. You hint at vulnerability by pushing your character towards something and then watching them actively walk around it. The space your character avoids gives us a big clue as to where their vulnerability is. I call those clues vulnerability markers.

So that question, I love, I mean, Lonnie's so smart talking about story. Her book, How Story Works, is you can, if you don't mind engaging in the Bezos space, is like free to read on Kindle. I really recommend it. But like that question of vulnerability and shame,

as it relates to these characters that we're talking about here. And what's even more brilliant is like when you can tie the character's vulnerability to their goal. So for The Last of Us, Joel's major vulnerability and shame and whatever is that he could not protect his daughter, right? The tragedy of losing his daughter and the fact that he said, I'm going to protect you. This is, you know, actively, I got you. I got you. You're safe. You're safe. I got you. Don't let anyone else look at me. And he couldn't.

And now his goal, as is laid out in the first episode of The Last of Us, is to protect this new girl. That is strong, strong storytelling connections, you know? That's just fantastic. What an exceptional passage from Lonnie's book there. That made me think of Logan and Lara again. And where we find Wolverine in the film Logan, where we find Charles...

What we're learning about Laura, what we're learning about these experiments and the negative space comments in particular, because there are clues, there are hints, there are signifiers of what has happened in this missing time. But whether it's the Westchester incident.

for Charles or exactly what the adamantium is doing inside of Logan's body. It's,

as much our pathway to discovery there is as much about what they won't say or won't tell us or won't acknowledge or can't acknowledge as what they can and do. And so where does that take us and how does that then amplify the power of the lone wolf cub relationship with Logan and Lara? You go to the Munson home and you have what is one of my favorite lines from any X-Men story and favorite moments in a superhero movie when Logan is

putting Charles to bed and Charles says to him, you know, Logan, this is what life looks like. A home. People who love each other. Safe place. You should take a moment and feel it. And that moment

That's what you were just saying, Joe. The vulnerability, the fear, the shame. The shame of people you have failed before. Of confronting things that have gone wrong. And the fear of allowing yourself to forge that connection with somebody else again. I love forging connections with you, Mallory. Same, bud. Brings me such joy. Another function of the cub here is to anchor a lone wolf to their own humanity, right? If you're alone too long,

It's a dangerous thing. And again, as I said before, I'm not going to get too much into the Doctor Who of it all, but there is this recurring idea of the Doctor has a companion because the Doctor should not travel alone because the Doctor is extremely powerful. And without someone there with him, things can get dangerous. So I just wanted to listen to one of my favorite underlinings of this concept from my favorite companion, Donna Noble, who we will talk about at length, you and I, in the future. Steve, will you play this Doctor Who clip for me, please?

Well, you could always come with me. Okay. I can't. No, that's fine. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying and you stood there like a stranger. And then you made it snow. I mean, you scared me to death. I'll tell you what I will do, though. Christmas dinner. Oh, come on. I don't do that sort of thing. Am I ever going to see you again? Maybe I'm lucky. Just promise me one thing. Find someone. I don't need anyone. Yes, you do.

Because sometimes I think you need someone to stop you. Sometimes I think you need someone to stop you. It's really sad. And then him saying, yeah, oh my God, I'm so excited for you to get a deductor that would be Mallory in the future. The near future.

Very new future. One of the last things I want to touch upon is this idea of what's worth fighting for. You and I have talked about this a lot as it pertains to Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power, and or this idea of a home, that quote you just read that Charles says, and Logan is a perfect example, what is your home and what is worth defending? And we talk about that good tilled earth at the Shire. We talk about getting to know Ferex and the people of Ferex and what is worth protecting. And

a child, a vulnerable thing, is such an easy way to show the audience something worth protecting. And it can give an excuse for Astoriaz and Lone Wolf and Cub for almost gut-churning violence. Because what wouldn't we do to protect a child? And so...

A character, a lone wolf, can do extremely horrible things, but if they do it in defense of a child, we as an audience are inclined to be like, well, that was justified. That was fine. If you want to understand one of the core influences for the arterial spray you've seen throughout Tarantino movies, why not?

Watch Lone Wolf and Cub. The Good Till Earth, The Shire, that idea of home, it's so beautiful. And it's interesting to think too then of like another classic Tolkien idea and Tolkienism that we return to a lot, which is, of course, not all those who wander are lost and how this trope can really showcase

that home isn't just a place. It doesn't have to be that permanence, that for the wanderer, for the traveler, you can forge that sense of home out in the wilderness because you build it with somebody else. And I just, I think, again, that way that like the idea of the quest and that sense of purpose and maybe there's something meandering and unknown and unknowable and maybe there's something very focused and deterministic about it

It doesn't really matter. You can explore those ideas no matter who the particular people are. And like, I, you know, I don't know who Donna is. I've never, but I'm like in tears listening to that because I understand something that is like universal and true.

just from hearing that clip. And that's an amazing thing because, you know, one of the things that obviously we love so much about the stories that we cherish is like you build up that time. These people, these characters, these fictional creations, like ink on paper, pixels on your screen become real to you because they've been with you for hours and days and months and years of your life. That was 30 seconds. But I felt something because it's tapping into something that is just fundamental about the nature of that connection. Yeah.

Doctor Who is so good. I'm so excited. I can't wait. I wanted to mention one more email we got from a listener. We got an email from Andrew who...

wrote a great essay about lone wolf and cub on sort of like in his own platform that he sent over for us to look at. But he mentioned, he highlighted a couple different tropes that sort of shelter under this umbrella. This idea of the forced proximity trope, we've talked about this, like Hunt for the Wilder People is a good example of that. But like, there's so many stories about like some people who are like literally chained together, they're forced together, their personalities clash and those fireworks and those sparks are,

you know, provide entertainment for the viewer. The idea that a lone wolf and cub story can provide education and growth for the lone wolf, but also provide a coming-of-age story for the cub as well at the same time, which is really interesting. And then he pointed out something about, you know, from video game storytelling that I thought was really interesting, you know, as we're talking about Last of Us. He says...

Video games have found particular success with this dynamic and trope, given how it forces characters to care about a character other than their avatar. In Telltale series, The Walking Dead game, the most jarring gameplay moments occur when Lee's actions earn direct disapproval from young Clementine. I restarted that game so many times. So, like, I think God of War is another, like, you know, recent example of a really popular game. Like, Last of Us, this idea of, like...

You as a player and then this other thing that is part of the story gives meaning to your quest and your adventure. So...

Let's talk about parenting your inner child. Please. Is this therapy or is this a podcast? Who knows? Why not both? Why not both? Let's go back to our guy Obi-Wan. You already mentioned the ending moment when he's talking about Leia's parents. But there's this earlier moment where he's talking about his family. Yes. And what was taken from him as a child when he was put into the Jedi Order. Steve, will you play this for us, please? Are you my real father?

I wish I could say I was, but no, I'm not. Sometimes I try to imagine what he was like. I know that feeling. As Jedi, we're taken from our families when we're very young. I still have glimpses, flashes really. My mother's shawl, my father's hands. I remember a baby. A baby? Yes, I think I had a brother. I really don't remember him. I wish I did. Then I joined the Jedi and I got a new family just like you.

Hashtag make Obi-Wan 2 happen. I got a new family just like you. The Jedi family's not really a family, let's be clear, Obi-Wan. You know, but so this is a moment in the Obi-Wan series that like set the internet aflame because we're like, Obi-Wan Kenobi had a brother, you know, Obi-Wan Kenobi, what the hell, right? You know,

But the deeper thing at play here is this idea of like him relating to her. Right. Her solitude, her loneliness, her isolation in the world and how that happened to him and how can I prevent that? I'm going to flag this now so you can go get to your devices. There's a spoiler alert coming for Logan. So this is the Logan spoiler that's coming up. I'm going to talk about Station Eleven for a second while you guys find your devices.

concept of I remember damage which is so recurring in station 11 yes these generations we talked about this when we talked about last of us the generations who when you have a post-apocalyptic story we're not talking about Logan yet when you when you have a post-apocalyptic story and you've got the people who remember what it was like before the apocalypse the people who were kids when it happened and then the kids who never knew what it was like before and

And that sort of cycle of damage and trying to shield a child from a traumatic thing that happened to you. Here comes the spoiler for Logan. Are you ready? Here we go. It's coming. Okay. There's also that idea of like trying to prevent this cub. If you're the lone wolf, this is not on the mind of our titular lone wolf and cub, but like for other lone wolves and their cubs.

prevent that child from becoming like you. And that ties back to that shame and vulnerability. And that brings us to the end of Logan, which is so upsetting. Steve, will you make me cry by playing this clip, please? Thank you. They'll keep coming and coming. You don't have to fight anymore. Go. Go. Don't be your damage. All right.

We're still talking about Logan. I included that in the clip.

I include that full clip because this is what it feels like. Lion always gets to me in there because, again, we're still talking about Logan. If you have skipped ahead and you're still hearing us talking. A surface read of that is, so this is what it feels like to die, to have an injury you can't heal from, blah, blah, blah. But I also, I always interpret that as like, this is what it feels like to really love someone or to feel like a father or whatever. Absolutely. Absolutely. Charles told him, let yourself feel it.

heart-wrenching little Lyra crushing it yeah Daphne Keene's so good in that amazing in that movie the hound in Aria is another like this idea of her idea of what it is to be a knight and the way in which the hound like sort of disabuse her of that idea I think is a really interesting dynamic to put into the mix there which brings us to this idea of the code right so so often the

When we meet these characters, as we already mentioned, something traumatic has happened and is profoundly like shaken their idea in a core code or credo. Let's say an apocalypse happens. And so your idea, your core, like your core understanding of how society functions is shaken to its core. But speaking of the hound, as we were, the hound has abandoned his role as the king's dog. Right.

In the Battle of Blackwater, fuck the king, right? You know, fuck this. I'm out of here. We hear it again, crucially, at the beginning. That's in season two. We hear it again, crucially, at the beginning of season four. And this is an important moment because it is an important moment as the Hound is talking about the credo that he left behind. At the same time, Arya is being threatened right next to him by that piece of shit, Poliver. So, Steve, will you play this for us, please? Fuck the king. Fuck the king.

I heard that Joffrey's dog had tucked tail and run from the Battle of the Blackwater. I didn't believe it, but here you are. Here I am. Bring me one of those chickens. Tell you what, we'll trade you. One of our little chickens for one of yours. Give us a go at your friend. Lowell there likes them a bit broken in. You're a talker. Listening to talkers makes me thirsty and hungry. Think I'll take two chickens. You don't seem to understand the situation.

I understand that if any more words come pouring out your cunt mouth, I'm going to have to eat every fucking chicken in this room. You lived your life for the king. You're going to die for some chickens. Someone is. Alzheimer. I mean, an iconic scene. Unreal. I was so excited that I got to use the chicken scene for this. But if you rewatch that scene, it's so interesting to watch Maisie Williams' aria because she's sitting there. There's like...

she's deeply worried and uncertain of the situation they found him in. There's another young woman, the innkeeper's daughter, who's being fondled by these creeps. All this stuff is happening. She's got some fear. And then there's just this moment where her eyes turn really cold because she knows that the hound is not going to abandon her. This is the powerful person that she has on her side. Her eyes just go like slate, like just ice. Um...

It's a big part of like the way in which, again, this is like an unholy union, the Hound and Arya, I would say. And what follows here is a very significant kill for Arya as she slowly shoves Needle into the throat of, you know. Maybe I'll pick my teeth with it. So upsetting. But the evolution of their relationship where they're just sort of like,

Something fundamentally changes here. Yes. Between I would run away from you at any given opportunity to I understand that I could have met a man like Polliver on the road, but I met you. And however self-interested you might be, you're not going to do this to me. Their particular relationship is...

one of the most interesting manifestations of this trope and, you know, one of my favorites in recent years. Just, uh...

The variance scene to scene with them, and I think the fact that they start off really despise, actively despising each other, like the idea of, again, your protector being someone who you hate and mistrust and who has caused real harm. Think back to Micah. Think back to the butcher's boy. Is the source actually directly and specifically of some horrific, defining thing in your life?

and like that you could move forward into these degrees and gentle steps and stages of partnership and fellowship and eventual friendship even still tied in with all of that other icky complicated stuff with each other with that same person is remarkable. And like if you think about

The Pallover kill is such an interesting one because you have, obviously, like the season, you know, the season one, the initial stabbing of the stable boy is self-preservation. I have no choice. I'm acting on instinct. I need to flee. Stick them with the pointy end, right? You go through the season two kills and using Jocken,

And misusing the power of those wishes, of those kills at Harrenhal with the tickler and something like Lorch in particular, you know, the Wolfsbane Dark. I'm like, well, I really fucked up and my neck is on the line, so I have to act in a hurried fashion here. The escape with the Harrenhal guards, etc. You think about a moment with the Hound and Arya at the end of season three after the Red Wedding.

The brink of being reunited with your family, thinking that finally it will all be okay. And then seeing Robb Stark's, Game of Thrones spoilers, body, his wolf's head stitched onto it. And then hearing these soldiers that you pass by in the woods bragging by their fire about what they've done. The way that Arya stabs that guy to death.

The hunger and the desperation and the way that the hound asks her is that the first man you've killed and she says the first man. And what's his like his request is not please don't do that. It's give me a heads up next time. And so you move into the polyverse scene. And even though she jets out from behind the bush into the inn schedule that the hound might not have liked, there's a two hander.

Yeah. Developing another related trope, right? Developing between them in that sequence. And there is a methodical nature to Arya's kill of Poliver that even though she despises the Hound actively at this point is something she has absorbed from him and is learning from him. And then you get to like a moment later with the stabbing

Roars and biter stabbing in the heart like you're paying attention. You're a good pupil. You've listened. Like think of all of those moments between them where the thing that they're doing is horrific. Like you said, that really like kind of stomach churning violence. But with a shocking and thus almost more impactful tenderness to it, like what happens when Brianne finds them?

The moment and Brienne is a character we are rooting for. We want Arya and Brienne to be together. Yeah. But when Sandor Clegane says to Brienne, there's no safety, you dumb bitch. If you don't know that by now, you're the wrong one to watch over her. That is a seismic shift in his character.

And that tells us that he is learning something from Arya just as much as she is learning something from him. Would he have taken Sansa and tried to protect Sansa? Did he want to do that? Did he beg Sansa to go with him? Yes. But there's something particular, specific about the Arya-Hound bond that is distinct from what that other relationship was and is.

And again, like, this is so beautifully laid out. Mallory, I'd love to talk about Thrones with you any day of the week. Again, it's that pull towards the dark, right? Like, think, like, all of Arya's dark mentors that she has along the way, right? Think about, like, if it had been Brienne from the start with Arya. Right. Like, she still would be an incredibly impressive fighter. We get the thrill of watching them duel in, like, a later season, right? Yeah. But, um...

But those are different lessons she would have learned than what she learned from the Hound or the House of Black and White, et cetera, et cetera, you know, or from Jaqen, et cetera, or Tywin. Absolutely. And like that idea of, that you mentioned earlier, of wanting to prevent the cub, the wolf wanting to prevent the cub from turning into a version of them. That's like very present in the Arya-Hound relationship too because I am loath and reluctant to quote from season eight episode, The Bells,

Oh, but it's important for the Aria Hound. However, for this particular relationship, you know, when he says to her, when they're in their headkeep and he says to her, you think you've wanted revenge a long time? I've been after it all my life. It's all I care about. Look at me. Look at me. You want to be like me? You come with me. You die. You die.

don't be like me. Don't allow yourself. Even though we have traveled this path together, even though we have taught each other things and learned things from each other, do not allow yourself. The real true lesson and gift I can give you is telling you not to be like me. Yes. Huge. Thrones. Thrones. Sheesh. That idea. So like the hound abandoning his identity as the king's dog, right? Yeah.

There's so many examples of this, right? We already mentioned Obi-Wan, the dissolution of the Jedi Order. Mando dealing with everything that's happening with the fall of Mandalore and their weird little covert identity, right? Logan and the other mutants being wiped out. You mentioned that already. This idea of someone who's been stranded by some sort of community or identity that...

was once the spine of who they were, then makes their role as protector their credo. Yes. That becomes their code. That becomes their identity. Yes. I've got this to do. Absolutely. And that's who I am. Absolutely. And those are all great examples. I think with Mando...

again, he was a foundling. He was a Mandalorian foundling. But if we think about the history of Mandalore, something that we will certainly be exploring more clearly based on the trailers in season three of The Mandalorian, ever heard of it? The idea of

Mandalore being a place that like tore itself apart. And a lot of that was outside forces, of course, right? Dating back to the, the, the, the history, the, the tension in the history between the Jedi and the Mandalorians, a Moff Gideon, the purge, all of that. But the, the,

civil strife that defines the history of Mandalore, the bloody history of Mandalore. We look at something like the initial interactions between Din and a character like Bo-Katan and the way that this idea of like the Children of the Watch is discussed as this like

a thing that Din only understood one way and a character who we think of as central to Mandalorian canon and lore is like, let me, I've got some notes on your entire life and everything everyone has ever told you. And so then you apply that to like, what is Din able to

see a new and how does Grogu help with that? And how does something that he is doing because of that creed, because of that charge from the armor become something over time that is just specifically and wholly about his own bond and connection. And like, I love the, I love the moment in season two where, where Mando parrots back Moff Gideon's words to him from the,

the prior showdown from the end of season one where Moff Gideon makes this big stand, right? This great stand. You have something I want. And like the thrill of it when we see the Mando hologram pop up and we get to hear Din say to Moff Gideon,

as he is trying to find Grogu again, you have something I want. You may think you have some idea what you were a possession of, but you do not. Soon he will be back with me. And then the emotion in Pedro Pascal's voice when he says, he means more to me than you will ever know. Wow.

When Moff Gideon said that, it's because he wants his blood. He wants his, like, force powers. He's a strand cast. And for Din, it's because the bond that he has with Sweet Baby Grogu has, like, fundamentally and foundationally changed something about his entire existence. Yeah.

And that brings us to this other really important part of this, which is this idea of search for meaning. It's not just like a credo or a code or a law or a nice sense of identity, but like, why are we here? What are we doing? Jonathan Gottschall in that Storytelling Animal book calls humans meaning-seeking machines.

There's this really interesting quote from that book on meaning that he writes, "...humans invent gods to give order and meaning to existence. Humans are born curious, and they must have answers to the big, unanswerable questions."

Why am I here? Who made me? Where does the sun go at night? Why does giving birth hurt? What happens to, quote unquote, me after I die? Not my raggedy old carcass, but me, that endlessly chattering presence inside my skull, end quote. And so you and I are on this podcast. We don't have kids. I don't think you have to have kids to have meaning, but I do know that so many people have found meaning in

in caring for children or at least like vulnerable individuals. And that Tywin Lannister idea of legacy, your legacy is your, are your children, are these cubs, you know, like is this thing. And so like, I just love this idea that a loner crusted up in his little shell of Beskar armor or otherwise, right?

You know, like a little pill bug rolled up and protected from the world. Rolling around without a purpose, without meaning, without a code, without credo, without understanding. And then here comes this little thing to pry them open and give them purpose, meaning understanding of self, erasure of shame.

the reward of being vulnerable around something vulnerable, all of that sort of stuff. So. Beautiful. We're almost done. We're wrapping up here. I don't want to stop. We've got more things to say. I love this idea of what you are in the dark. That trope is something I definitely want to think more about. I feel like I only have a surface understanding of it, but like an example I found was in Goblet of Fire.

When Harry Potter has, I think, a couple chances to either abandon Cedric Diggory or to help him. And no one would know if he abandoned Cedric. And so what you are in the dark is how you behave when no one will know or judge or blame you if you did otherwise. If Harry just kept his eye on the prize of the cup, I mean, first of all, Cedric would probably still be alive, let's just say. But like...

But they did it together because he was like, because it's a true test of his mettle, right? No one can see him, but he does what's right. And the way in which that trope is tested in a lone wolf and cub scenario is oftentimes, I mean, you think about Mando. Mando bringing that bounty in is what he was supposed to do and no one would have known if he had just done his job. But even more so, there are all these moments out on the road in front of these small cubs where,

where the cub doesn't know to judge or to tell you what's right or wrong or whatever. You're just doing what's right because you have an internal compass.

And that to us shows us who, who these characters are often, uh, again, when that compass pulls them towards the light, pulls them true North when they were heading towards a dark and, and Southernly, uh, place not to use the Tolkien orientation of good and evil. Um,

Mal, anything you want to say about what you are in the dark? Now I'm thinking about the end of Goblet of Fire. Boy, what a stretch. My goodness. No, I mean, it's... My boy! Sorry. Oh, poor Amos Diggory. That's a heart-wrenching one. That is a sad one. Remember Cedric Diggory.

It's a great point, you know, that idea of like Mando starting it, I can bring you in warmer, I can bring you in cold place, which is like the embodiment of the task, this utilitarian existence that is about mission execution. And then you have...

That moral check or these eyes upon you. I mean, the moment, it's just amazing to think back. We didn't know. Can't ever stop saying this. We didn't know we were getting baby Yoda. We didn't know we were getting a girl. And IG 11's neural harness has been shattered to smithereens at that point by blast revolts. And it's just that little claw reaching up from his little cub cradle. And Mando could have done anything. Anything.

But he made the choice that he made. And that's just an amazing thing. So wonderful. You had a...

You had an Eli Weisel quote in our outline. And I had been thinking about another one, one of his famous ones about indifference and that idea of like the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference and how central that is to the lone wolf and cub trope too. And why, specifically why it works on us, specifically why it resonates with us. Because like,

The presence of the cub refuses to allow the wolf to be indifferent. And you think about... I think it's difficult. We've obviously talked about Thrones a lot, but it is difficult to talk about wolves and not think about, obviously, dire wolves. But thinking about a moment like...

Arya and Sansa quoting Ned and saying, you know, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives and how that seems maybe like it's a challenge to lone wolf and cub or a different kind of thing, but how it really isn't how they're one in the same because like, sure, we're saying the words lone wolf, but once you have a cub, what are you? You're a pack. The armorer says to Mando, you are a clan of two, right? Yeah.

It only takes two to make a pack, a clan, whatever.

The Elie Wiesel quote that I skipped past because, you know, we have a lot to talk about, but I really do love it is God made man because he loves stories. I just love the idea of like, I don't believe in God, but if I did, the idea of like God just like sitting up there being like, oh, my stories are on. What are the messy humans up to this week? And then Sam Esmail can go on the watch and say, Chris and Andy, instead of just making fun of you guys this week for saying that you just want to watch your stories, I'm going to make fun of God for doing that. Yeah.

I mean, he would. He would. Everyone's on the Ringer Podcast Network all the time. All right. Last but not least, it's the iconic I didn't save him. He saved me idea around Lone Wolf and Cub. Let's start with our guy, our guy Logan and Lara. No major spoiler here. This is earlier in the story. Steve. Squid looking at me. You are dying. You want to die.

Charles, tell me. What else do you tell him? Do not let you. I just, I'm sorry. I just like really love that moment. He's like, he's like passing out at the wheel. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a ultimate gruff. I cannot accept help moment for Logan. And here is this girl.

here to try to save him, to hold on to him. I also have another really important key quote. And Mallory, this is a dear love of yours, so I thought I would include it. Steve, will you play this clip from Lego Batman, please? You okay, Batman? You seem the opposite of stern. Yeah, I'm fine. It's just watching you out there. It was like the world wasn't all darkness anymore. For a brief moment, I

Could have sworn I felt something. That feeling is pride, sir. You're right. I am super proud of myself for being such a good teacher, obviously. What a remarkable film. Cinematic classic. Love it. All right. Early flag of Station Eleven and Spoiler Alert upcoming. But I do want to talk a little bit about more Batman as you dry off your hands and locate your device. Yeah.

The Bat family, the found family trope of the Batman is like a very long core part of the Bat story. But the particular Batman and Robin, and specifically this Batman and Robin, is just such a... Because the core element of Lego Batman is so darkness, no parents, you know? It's just like the introduction of...

This Robin as voiced by Michael Cera, who is the epitome of the like sort of bouncy will not take no for an answer kind of ward that you do or do not want if you're Batman. I just I I love this. There's more elements to the family in that movie. But the scene with Batman and Robin is pretty great. What an incredibly moving film. Let's sincerely. It's great. All right. So spoiler alert for Station Eleven upcoming. It's coming.

You already mentioned the bells in Aria and the Hound, and I'm so glad you did. Because, like, when you tell these stories in a long form over time, and we can see the kid grow up and the kid learn how to take care of the loaner or them to meet each other at a different phase in their life. Right.

it just brings more profundity to this concept of lone wolf and cub. So still talking about Station Eleven if you're checking in. Patrick Somerville talked at length about how this idea of Station Eleven is like a metaphor for parenting, the fear that Jeevan feels when he is put in charge of Kirsten here. The big spoiler, I think, for Station Eleven that is worth protecting is like the tension of like, will Jeevan and Kirsten find each other again, right? Yep. Still talking about Station Eleven. And they do. So...

And then this is the, I mean, they have their emotional hug while Midnight Train to Georgia is playing in the background and I cry and I cry and I cry. This is the moment that I think about all the time and sometimes I just say it to myself. I cannot underscore how much I love Station Eleven. Steve, will you play this clip of Jeevan and adult Kirsten meeting again after all this time? Raising kids is hard, you know. Going in and out of sync. It's like a yo-yo. You love them, but you get angry. You scare them, they run away.

I was never scared with you. I was always scared. And I met this girl. She said I'd walk her home. It was so cold. She forgot her key. You walked her home. Still talking about Station Eleven. I think about you walked her home and the way that line is delivered all the time and what it means. What does that mean to make that choice that she even did not have to do that, right? That Kirsten was someone he did not know.

And he decided to walk her home. And then again, what you do in the dark, when he gets her to the door, he gets her home. No one's home. He could have left her there. He did what he was supposed to do and he kept her with him. You know what I mean? Like he keeps making these choices. This idea of that admission of being afraid is this ultimate vulnerable moment for Jeevan and the reward of it. But like, I was afraid all the time. And then to hear from Kirsten that she wasn't afraid with him, that he did his job as protector and made her not afraid. Um,

It's so rewarding. I can't think of anything more rewarding than the end of that show. Anything you want to say about Jeevan and Kirsten? Just so wonderful and moving and I think like deeply profound. You know, like remember when you were a kid and you would see a teacher at the mall or something like that? Yeah. And it would just...

floor you and you would think how could this person who only exists in this one context for me be in this other place and then you start to realize well this person has their entire life and

Like, and some of that is their interior life and some of that is the life that they live with other people. And I don't get to see that. And then if I do, I get to learn something new about them. And when you're really young, your parents, your family members, friends, babysitters, neighbors, like whatever the case may be, people who are in some way caring for you, like you think so much about how you rely on them. And then you get to the point in your life where,

You just want to be free to make your own choices and your own mistakes, and you start to resent the smothering and the doting.

And the moment where you realize that they were as afraid for you, but also for themselves as you were when you were small is truly one of the great awakenings that you have when you're growing up. And to see Jeevan and Kirsten get to talk about that and share that and explore that with each other is just a really remarkable thing.

The way that, again, still talking about Station Eleven, the way that Kirsten is like the making of Jeevan as a human, right? Because then he becomes this like pillar of the community, this doctor, this caregiver. Caregiving is what he becomes. A dad, you know, many times over, sure. A loving partner, sure. But also like caring for everyone within, you know, a boat ride away. Like, you know, he's just like caring for everyone. So, yeah.

Huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge story that is very important to me. But that's that pull towards the light. So let's just circle back one more time and mention this idea of the flip side of the darker side of the lone morphin cub, which is that pull towards the dark, which is what we're a little worried that last of us. Again, we don't know. We don't know.

Might be what Last of Us is headed. I mean, I feel like Craig Mazin is trying to protect us from that, like, Daenerys heel turn we're all surprised by giving us, like, some of these things very early on. Yes. Like, don't think... The co-creator of the show saying love conquers all and that's problematic is notable. For sure. Something we should think about. It's so funny in...

In the Lone Wolf and Cub manga, which I was rereading as I mentioned, they keep mentioning Sun Tzu, the art of war, like over and over and over again, and the way in which like this particular dynamic feeds into the art of war. And there's this one key quote from the art of war, regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. Problematic. Worrisome. Worrisome. So...

That's Lone Wolf and Cub. I feel like we did it. We went on a full journey from Hacks to Doctor Who. What a blast. To The Bells and back again. Before we go, Mallory, I just thought we'd play a little game, which is which Lone Wolf would you pick to escort you through an adventure? Oh, boy. Yeah.

I think I'm going Mando. I wouldn't trust myself around Obi-Wan. I was going to say I thought it would be Obi-Wan, but okay. I'll go with Mando. Either way, I get to be in the Star Wars universe, which is a real treat for me. It would be weird to say I'm picking Joel and opting into the fungi apocalypse. So I'm going to go with Mando.

How about you? I'm tempted to pick the doctor, but honestly, being the doctor's companion is actually a very dangerous thing. So I will do, I'm going to do Sam Neill and Hunt for the Wilder people. Like, heck, love him. Love him to death. Love him to pieces. Gruff as hell, but just the best.

That's it. That's our first journey through a trope. We're very curious to hear what you guys think of this, if you had fun, if you learned something or how you're feeling about it. And we may or may not do more of these in the future. I will just give you a teaser. I think Mallory should do magical swords or magical weapons for her next one. We're doing more. She loves a magical sword. I love a magical blade. We love a magical blade.

We've got some dark sabers coming up. And so, yeah, that's what I want Mallory to do. But we'll see what happens. But that's sort of a thought we had. As we mentioned, we'll be back next week with the mailbag episode. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Anything you want to ask.

probably non-personal, but maybe if you ask a personal question that doesn't feel too invasive, we might answer that too. The Midnight Boys, we'll be back with like fun drafts. The Mint Edition Boys are checking in with, I think it's Vox Machina. So like there's a lot going on in the feed. Again, if you want to hear us talk about more about Joel and Ellie, that's over on the Prestige TV podcast feed. You'll get Van and Charles instant reaction. And then Mallory and I will do, I don't know if I want to call it a deep, it was like a medium dive. Well,

We'll do a medium dive a couple days later. Thanks as always, Steve Allman, for being quick on the trigger with the many clips we had today. To our dinner and call for additional production work. To Jomie Dinner on the social. To the whole Ring of Wrist fam. They're our wolf pack. None of us are lone wolves. We are a pack here. We will see you next time. Bye. Bye.

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