08: The Wendigo | Red Thread
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A cold wind runs down the nape of your neck. The chill of the frost snakes around every inch of your body. A force that feels more malevolent with every step you take forward through the blinding white forest.

The snow had been relentless for a week now, with it starting earlier in the season than normal. You can't remember which day it was when you were split from the group you had come with, or how long you had been sheltering in the cave from the blizzard. You knew there was no more waiting, however, as your growling stomach made sure you were aware. You needed to find someone, anything, and you needed to find them now.

You walk for hours, but every step feels like a day. The cold saps at your energy, making each movement feel as if it were a Herculean effort. It's at the moment you almost feel like dropping and giving in to death that you spot something. A small camp comes into view, with a sputtering fire and a single tent standing against the towering trees around it.

Using the last of your energy, you crawl into the warm embrace and take a minute to soak up the heat before opening the tent. Your eyes adjust to the dark, but your brain can't comprehend the scene. Human body parts, flesh and a pot of grease and fat, and a figure more beast than man sat gnawing at a bone. Its gaunt figure shifts as it quickly glances up at you, grey leathery skin and red eyes piercing through the dark.

The details on its face contort as little bits of grease and fat dribble down its sickly chin. You try to step back, hoping to escape the nightmare and return to the blistering cold outside. But the figure is quick. Within but a moment, it is tearing at your body with frenzied claws, and in your last moments, you notice the patch on its jacket matches that of the hiking group you had set out with just a long week ago.

That, my boys, was the Wendigo, and this is the Red Thread. Welcome to this episode. We talk about cults, cold cases, conspiracies, and this week's subject, as well, cryptids.

I'm one of your hosts, Jackson, joined by Isaiah and Charlie. Hello, guys. How are you going? Hey, hey. That was an interesting spin on your opening narratives. This time you had the listener die, which is pretty cool, I guess. Have we never had them die before? No. You made them a pedophile once, and then the others were from an outside perspective. What?

Yeah, I try to put them into the shoes of the good guy. Well, not the pedophile. That wasn't a good guy. That was Jeffrey Epstein. But yeah, I try to put them in interesting situations each time. This time you die. That's what you get when you show up for the red thread.

that one that one was like well written like they're all good don't get me wrong but that one was like a an interesting like there was no comedic element to that it was just a well done little opening i like it good cold oh come on i thought the little bit of grease and fat dribbling down his sickly chin would have got a chuckle out of someone no that that was like gnarly that was like oh it was very descriptive yeah it wasn't comedic it was just like damn you're painting a picture

Yeah, I guess we have different ideas of comedy then. I almost like that as much as the pedophile one. Nice. I'm glad I've upped my writing level. It's good practice, honestly. Anyway, before we start, I like to mention this at the start of each of these episodes. We're also on Spotify and iTunes, and we also have a show document with all of our research and writing, so you can follow along with us and pick up on any details that didn't make it into the show itself.

You can also read the intro story as well that I've written for each of these episodes in the document, just in case. We might compile it into a book and release a red thread book. That would be cool. You can find these links below in the description along with a bunch of other stuff. And also an enormous thank you to the sponsors for this week, AG1 and Rocket Money. More from them later on in the show. And a big thank you to all of you for listening and supporting the show. It really does mean the world. And...

Wendigo. How much do you guys know? What's your knowledge level? Pretty base level. I mainly know it from pop culture stuff. Surprise, surprise. So like Until Dawn. I believe Pet Sematary is also the Wendigo, if I'm not mistaken. Pet Sematary, the Stephen King book? Yeah, isn't that Wendigo? Yeah, it's the Wendigo. It's the Wendigo, yeah. So mainly those two. I don't think I've heard of it before. Yeah, I can't imagine you know anything about him.

So, yeah, when did you first hear about him? I originally heard about the Wendigo when I was a kid. My grandfather used to tell me stories about it.

My family has Cherokee ancestry, so my grandfather always thought it was fun to sit around and talk about Native American legends, things that go bump in the night. And I remember him telling me about the Wendigo. I'll talk more about his stories of it because they kind of relate to how the creature has been changed through cultural adaptation, you could say. But I remember hearing about it as a kid.

And the imagery of it always interested me. And then as I got older and saw the creatures, kind of a conglomeration of all these different beliefs, stories, groups of people, it really kind of stuck out to me as an icon of the way we tell stories, the way we, you know, change over time. So...

As I wanted to start telling stories, I mean, obviously I took inspiration given the name. But yeah, from a young age, it's always been a very cool and interesting creature to me. So for those of you that don't know, Isaiah is known as Wendy Goon online. Where does the goon come from? Well, tragically, now the word goon has very negative connotations. I would argue it's the best it's ever been right now, man. Gooning couldn't be more hot.

You know, to be fair, if I had invested in Goon coin when I started, I'd be loaded by now. I'd be so well off. But now, so when I started YouTube, Goon was a term for like guys who like wear night vision, go shooting at night, stuff like that. Think more so the way that the term Goon is used by mobsters and stuff like that. Right. Right. Yeah. So I, and I thought,

My early... When I started the channel, I thought a lot of my content was going to relate to that. Like firearms, night vision, stuff like that. And I touch on it every now and then, but it's mainly just stories and stuff. So...

It hasn't really worked its way in the original definition, but when I started the channel, that was the idea. The combination of the Wendigo and like goon culture, not current goon culture, the old one. So you just mesh those two together. Yeah. But that's another, that's another like a connection to the idea that these stories change over time. Like the Wendigo storylines.

Story changes all the time as different cultures get a hand on it. And now everyone changes. And now all my comments are ruined forever because it's just people like, oh, who's ready for that goon sesh? Who's ready to start gooning?

Do you feel too attached to your name? Like, would you ever change it? Would you ever just go by, like, Isaiah? No, I don't change it. Like, I don't have to be Wendigoon for everything. Like, when I do writing and stuff like that, I do it under Isaiah. But for YouTube, yeah, it's not going anywhere. It's too connected, yeah. Too connected, yeah. Too important.

Did I interrupt you, Charlie? Were you going to say something? No, it was just you reminded me. I also know about the Wendigo from the Nightmare Room. If you guys remember that old show. I don't. I've heard of it. Yeah. That was like a kids scary stories type show. And they had one for the Wendigo, if I remember correctly. The TV show Hannibal. Are you afraid of Thark?

Sorry? What did you say? It might have been, are you afraid of the dark? It was one of the two.

Was there ever a Goosebumps story about the Wendigo? I feel like there would have been. Probably. With how many Goosebumps there were. And what were you saying, Isaiah? Hannibal? Yeah, the TV show Hannibal. Yeah, definitely. That features Wendigo... Not Wendigoon. It features Wendigo imagery. Pretty substantially. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the modern interpretation of the Wendigo, anyway. Yes, which we'll get into. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so the Wendigo, just for a top-level perspective for people...

uh is also known as the windigo the witigo the witico the action the chenu and kiwok and it's a it's a cryptid that translates to the evil spirit that devours mankind uh which is pretty cool that's pretty that's a pretty cool translation it's kind of a cryptid that stems from the algonquin people uh which is

uh is a first nation language i believe you guys might have to like step in here on this yeah so algonquin is like a dialect um that's spoken by or at least was spoken by a lot of different tribes in like northeast united states region so groups of people like the ojibwa uh the cree

people like them, they would speak Algonquin dialects. I don't think it was the exact same language. I think there were variations of it. But a lot of the Algonquin-speaking tribes had some legend of the Wendigo. As a matter of fact, the word Wendigo, while now in legend connotation it means the evil spirit that devours mankind, it's believed the original word was Wentekewa, which is... It's like...

derived word from the word for owl because it was believed in some stories that the spirit would appear in like the form of an owl initially when it was kind of in like its natural state so yeah like there's a lot it's kind of tragic because

A lot of those records of original tribes weren't kept, or at least they weren't, you know, recovered as, you know, westward expansion destroyed a lot of the culture around it and stuff. So sadly, a lot of that's been lost. But from what has been maintained, that seems to be the original roots of it. Yeah.

But yeah, like you said, it's very prevalent in the Alconquin tribes, like the tribes that spoke that language or the derivatives of that language. And the tribes, just for people like me who aren't like super familiar with First Nation history and stuff like that.

um the the algonquin people or the people that speak speak that language extend pretty far down south into america right like i i'm pretty sure there's some in like kentucky and and tennessee so it's not just like they come all the way down to like the ohio river area and stuff like that um so yeah yeah it's it's it's a very large area yeah there's a large amount of these tribes covering a pretty large stretch of america in different areas in america that

all have their own stories and interpretations of this central figure known as the Wendigo. Is that pretty apt? Yeah, pretty much. They may have different names for it, but it typically follows the same beliefs, ideas, stuff like that. You could even... This is a bit more to be argued as we get on into the episode, but even some Western beliefs, like things around the Skinwalkers, share some similarities. A lot of it has changed to where...

beliefs around the skinwalker have kind of merged with the cultural idea of things like the windigo so people believe that maybe like you know some pages got mixed up at you know in like our our mindset around the two creatures but given some similarities there's theories that maybe it originated as one legend and then as groups of people spread out the stories changed with them as they went

So there's beliefs that legends of the Wendigo basically go across the entire North American continent. They just maybe are under different names, different descriptions, stuff like that. Right. Yep. And to complete this top level perspective or overview of the Wendigo, it's basically a cryptid that is formed, at least in most stories that I read, is formed from a human who kind of...

the morality of the society that they're born into and does despicable acts such as cannibalism or shows other forms of greed for survival or...

It's a lot of cannibalism in harsh environments just to survive that forms them into the Wendigo and then they become insatiably hungry for human flesh. That's most of the stories I've read and that kind of, to me, encapsulates the idea of what the Wendigo is.

So would you guys like to go on about the appearance? Yeah, I'll take the appearance. So it's depicted in various ways across different cultural interpretations and time periods. The more historical design is described as emaciated. It's skeletal frame protruding through taut mummified skin. Uh,

Others envision it as a towering figure reaching up to 4.5 meters in height, its size increasing with each human it consumes to giant proportions. Yeah, so that's an interesting little side there. That's in some stories where the Wendigo kind of amasses the bodily proportions of the people that it eats. So as it becomes more insatiable and more hungry...

it grows in size from all the, you know, humans that it eats. So it's just growing in size and becomes more and more insatiably hungry. That's in a lot of those stories and shows like the, the roots of the story being about how human greed will, uh, it can't ever be like, um, satisfied because you'll just keep getting hungrier. Yeah. That's like, um, with the original legends of the Wendigo, like the earliest recorded ones, their appearance was almost that of a corpse, uh,

Like they were described as very emaciated. Their lips would be gone. Their eyelids gone. They look like these bodies that have just got up and started walking around.

And they would feast on... They weren't that powerful originally. They would feast on dead animals and stuff like that. But then as the legend became more fierce, it became more stories of things that go bump in the night. It developed superhuman speed or claws or something. It became more of a predator. So then...

that legend begins to meld with other legends of the time, legends of giants in the area, which people from my channel know I have a bit of an obsession with. Legends of giants of the area kind of fuse together with legends of the Wendigo, and you started to get these stories of these creatures that become taller and taller, and in some stories they're as tall as the trees, and they go through looking for any creature to devour.

A detail that's pretty common across Algonquin stories is that they're never not hungry. They're constantly ravished, which is part of the curse of having the Wendigo spirit possess you. Because the Wendigo isn't like you eat this thing and then you just transform into a creature. It's if you commit an unspeakable act like cannibalism, you are possessed by an evil spirit that turns your body into this creature.

So the host never feels satisfied. They're basically a passenger, like they're being possessed. They're taken over by whatever this evil spirit wants. So you're a prisoner in your own body and miserable constantly as you witness yourself kill and hurt people around you. So it's very...

very not good thing to happen very strong way to deter ideas of things like cannibalism yeah exactly in these like tight-knit communities where you want to kind of deter these things it's a very effective story yeah to kind of you know do that and this is this is this so this is the more historical design the one that Charlie just described this is the more historical design or description of

of what the Wendigo is. And interestingly enough, I think the most accurate representation of that is in the game Until Dawn. I was just about to say, yeah, that's exactly how it's depicted in Until Dawn for the most part.

Yeah, in a lot of other stuff these days, in the modern representation of the Wendigo, it does differ a lot from that kind of visual representation of this sickly, kind of like a zombie almost, or a vampire kind of aesthetic. Like a classical vampire, anyway. Aesthetic.

Yeah, yeah. It differs from that, but yeah, Until Dawn was very, very faithful to that. Until Dawn, I believe it's been a while since I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure Supernatural and their second episode they did Wendigos, and I think they called it something else. It was Wendigo, but they pronounced it weird. It was like...

The Windigo, that's what they called it. Yeah, the Windigo. In Supernatural? Yeah, yeah. In the second episode of the show, I remember that. I'm pretty sure that version looked more like the emaciated people, if I remember right. But they're...

But there's that there's like the classic interpretation. Then there's kind of the muddled interpretation, which is the version that grifters like me use with the antlers and stuff. But we'll let Charlie read about that. Yeah, that's the that's the Pet Sematary style design. So that's the modern one where it's animalistic in appearance, portrayed with pointy ears or horns emerging from its skull, accompanied by elongated limbs ending in razor sharp claws.

Its lips are either gnawed to shreds or entirely absent, a consequence of its insatiable hunger driving it to consume even its own flesh. Its eyes sunk deep into its skull amid a haunting red glow, and its presence is often heralded by a putrid stench of decay and death that precedes its arrival. So that's the one where, like, it basically takes the form of whatever was laid to rest, right? Like, whatever animal. So, like, bulls, cows, or bulls, pets, whatever, in the movie. Yeah.

Yeah, so Pet Sematary really popularized the whole Wendigo idea.

Or sorry, not the Wendigo idea, the Wendigo image that is now used a lot. The modern design. Yeah. But yeah, I believe in the movie. Which then follows through to things like Hannibal and stuff. Like it's portrayed that similar way with the antlers and stuff like that in Hannibal, among other representations of him in modern culture. It's definitely the more prevalent representation now, for sure. Yeah. Because like the original Wendigo was just, you know, a possessed person that commits these atrocious acts.

But then, like, with Pet Sematary and stuff like that, the idea kind of shifted to, like, it can take on the forms of animals it's killed or any woodland creature because it itself is like a spirit of the woods. Spirit of nature, yeah. With that, that's kind of what I mentioned earlier. There's a lot of melding between things like it and the Skinwalker. Because in the original Legends, the Wendigo's never a shapeshifter. But then...

It starts to combine with Western legends and people are like, well, maybe it is kind of a shapeshifter sometimes. And that's when like, you know, we get the interpretations of what we do today. I love, I mean, obviously I love the stag imagery. I think it goes hard.

Yeah, it does. So I accept it. Yeah, but the original Legends of the Wendigo didn't feature that. Yeah, no, that was very absent in any of the earlier recounts that I had read. It definitely seems to have been popularized in the late 1900s more so. Yeah.

But before that, yeah, it was a very sickly kind of human possessed figure that was popularized. So this is a quote from Basil Johnston, which is an Ojibwe. Am I pronouncing that right? Ojibwe teacher and scholar in Ontario, Canada. And this kind of describes the original appearance. The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation. Its desiccated skin pulled tortuously

"'totally over its bones, "'with its bones pushing out against its skin, "'its complexion the ash-gray of death, "'and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets. "'The wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton "'recently disinterred from the grave. "'What lips it had were tattered and bloody. "'Its body was unclean and suffering "'from separations of the flesh, "'giving off a strange and eerie odor of decay "'and decomposition of death and corruption.'

And so we also have this quote described by the Ojibwe. It was a large creature as tall as a tree with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman, or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes the Wendigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Wendigo himself. Hunter.

hunting down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh.

So that kind of paints the picture of how the Ojibwe and the Ojibwa kind of tell the stories, or at least how they portray the Wendigo. Yeah, sometimes it's like this mighty creature, sometimes it's more like a ratty zombie person type thing. Cannibalism's by far the most, I guess, common and popular way to become one, but in some legends it's just greed.

Like if someone finds themselves like stealing or wanting more, pretty much any act that's, like I said earlier, unspeakable, you allow yourself to become host for the Wendigo. In some stories, it can be, I believe it can be something as vague as like trying to betray someone else in your tribe or something like that. Pretty much any act of like pure selfish intent opens up your body to be a vessel.

It's a pretty low bar if it's just like a simple theft, like you steal a loaf of bread and then you become the cannibalistic Wendigo. Imagine if that happened in modern day. Like, there's just fucking a million Wendigos running around. You pirate John Wick 2 and end up as a Wendigo immediately. You wouldn't download a car. Yeah, that would have been way more effective than those commercials and stuff. Become a giant antler monster. Yeah.

That'd be pretty cool. Honestly, I might, I might download a car if that happened, if I became, all right. So before we discuss more about the kind of legend, the symbolism and the meaning behind the Wendigo, uh,

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Thank you all so much for watching the ad, and thank you so much to Rocket Money for sponsoring the show. It really does mean the most. Hope you all check them out. Link is in the description, and we are back to the episode. And then back in. Would you ever resort to cannibalism, Jackson, under any circumstances? I think once, if you're like in the forest, and you're in like a survival mode for like two or three weeks or whatever, you know, like it's a last resort. Yeah, I think so.

That's kind of what I'm thinking too. I think you wouldn't even have a choice at that point. What are you going to do? Choose to die when you've got the ability to live right there? Yeah, I don't even think you would be able to choose to die. I feel like your body would just act off. You'd probably actually be possessed by the Wendigo at that moment and you would probably just instinctually start eating a human being to survive. Oh, you're talking about if you had to eat someone? Yeah. Could you see yourself becoming a cannibal?

Yeah, if it was like... What was that scenario? Wasn't it in Chile? The soccer team? The soccer team, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it was a scenario like that, I think so, yeah. I hope I would be in a place that would kill someone to eat them. That's what I was going to say. The difference to me is if I'm going to kill someone, I think there's going to be a lot more hesitation there. But...

Could you start nibbling on them before they die? Could you see yourself doing that? We could, like, converse about, like, I'll share my thigh and you give me your ass cheek and then we'll, like, feed ourselves slowly to the point where we might be able to survive. I remember reading about... This is super dark, but I remember reading about...

The true story that Moby Dick was based on... I forget what the name of the boat was. But there was a boat that was attacked by a whale, began to sink, so the survivors were at sea for like a month. And just these little dinghies. And...

they like decided that they were going to have to eat one of the people on the crew. So I think they like casted lots for it. And the person who got it was so miserable that like, he was excited to die and happily like, you know, did it. And then they talk about like eating, like parsing out pieces of his thigh, but like sucking on his bone marrow, stuff like that. Yeah. If he was so happy to die, why didn't he just like put his hand up initially? Uh,

Because this was like seafair time, like 1800s, so they were all like Christian and saw it as wrong to want to take your life. But when it's out of his hands now, he's relieved of that. I feel like that's a lie that they said they killed that guy.

*laughter* They just killed him and they're like "Oh, it was the luck of the draw and he loved it, actually." Yeah, he was actually super happy when we killed him. Like, he said thank you on his way out. *laughter* I didn't believe in any kind of- He was actually so happy! You should've seen him. Like, he'd do it again, if given the option, I'm sure.

I think it's morally okay to do just about anything if it means you are going to survive. Yeah, yeah, I don't see anything wrong with, like, you know, you're, like, sure, it's, like, unspeakably horrific, but you've got to do unspeakably horrific things to live sometimes, so, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Alright, so let's continue on with the legend, the symbolism, and the meaning of the Wendigo. The legend of the Wendigo is deeply ingrained in the oral traditions of North American tribes predating the arrival of Europeans. Due to the nature of it being passed down orally through the generations, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it originated, but it's certainly been a story that's been circulating within Algonquin tribes for centuries at the very least.

Some anthropologists suggest that it emerged as a cautionary method of social conditioning intended to teach community members of the dangers of isolating themselves from society morally. Across many variations of the legend, humans are depicted transforming into wendigos due to cannibalism, born from desperation in harsh conditions such as extreme hunger or cold.

Additionally, the tale may have served as a warning to children, urging them to not venture too deeply into the wilderness where the Wendigo is said to lurk. So it's kind of hard to tell exactly when this started and what the actual origin of the myth was, because like we said, it's been passed down orally throughout centuries, basically. So it's really difficult to pinpoint the direct origin of it.

But yeah, it's always been about that kind of cautionary tale of like, stay within the community, uh, stay within the moral fabric of the community. Don't stray too far. Don't be a drain on the society. Otherwise you will become a Wendigo and you'll be ostracized and no one will like you. No one likes Wendigos. Uh,

Uh, and also children don't go outside because there might be Wendigos outside. It's no different than growing up and your parents are like, you have to finish your vegetables or the boogeyman's coming or whatever. It's the same kind of thing. Just putting some kind of fear in there to conform. Like don't, you know, do this, don't do that kind of thing. Yeah. It's, it's, it's very effective or at least it definitely was back then. I can imagine, especially with more spiritually aligned people or communities, uh,

Yeah, I can imagine it was a very effective way of socially conditioning your society or your community or whatever. So it's no surprise that this was passed down through multiple tribes and extended across the country, across these tribes, all the people that spoke the Algonquin language. I think...

It's interesting how nearly every culture in the world has some sort of that effect, right? Some legend to keep the curtails of people tucked in. And it's interesting to see how different groups of people around the world adapt. Some is myth, some it's religion, stuff like that. I don't know, it's fascinating.

They always teach the same kind of lessons, though. It's like we have this innate need to talk against greed and stuff like that because it's not something you want in your community, obviously. You want to be able to curtail that immediately. So it's cool to see the different interpretations of how to kind of enforce that belief upon people.

Yeah, absolutely. So various indigenous tribes regard the Wendigo as extremely dangerous owing to the insatiable thirst for blood and their ability to corrupt other healthy individuals or entire communities. For some, the Wendigo serves as a symbol of the importance of community and the perils that arise when individuals stray from the group or show otherwise antisocial behavior. The harsh realities of life in the northern boreal forests marked by severe hunger, bitter cold, and isolating conditions were

We're constant threats faced by indigenous people, obviously. I mean, very difficult environment to survive in. Numerous Wendigo narratives commence with an individual or a small group isolated and cold in the forest, separated from the community. And then obviously bad things happen and a Wendigo takes over an individual in that group and eventually cannibalizes the entire group to survive.

Survival within indigenous cultures at the time relied heavily on communal cooperation and the equitable distribution of resources and sustenance, and those who deviated from this, particularly during times of severe scarcity, were labeled as monsters due to their perceived greed and self-centeredness. So, yeah, you were either a Wendigo or a monster, it didn't matter, people didn't like you. People didn't like what you took from the community. The impact that one greedy person could have on this entire community is mind-blowing.

much, much greater than it would be today. So it's one of those things where you've got to put the kibosh on it ASAP. It's life and death in that situation. Like that could kill the entire community when you're in survival mode constantly.

Uh, most tales imply that you turn into a Wendigo as punishment if you partake in a taboo activity such as cannibalism, obviously. But other stories paint the Wendigo itself as being a more direct avenue of the transformation as they tell experiences of people becoming a Wendigo just by crossing paths with a different Wendigo. Isn't that how it happens in Until Dawn? Yeah. So in Until Dawn, you become, you can, I think, become the Wendigo if you fuck up and the Wendigo gets you. Hmm.

yeah it's just like if you get bitten by it it transmits the wendigo i mean spoilers for the game but it's been out a while get over it because i know hannah the girl from the beginning she becomes one but she eats her sister right that's why she becomes one yeah did she eat her sister because they find where she had fallen down the cliff and then they find where she dug up her sister's grave implying she was so hungry down there that she had to um

I can't remember if anyone else does or not, but yeah, yeah, like, again, until dawn, accurate depiction of Wendigo's, unlike a lot of other stuff. It really is a great game, too. Like, it is a good game, and it does justice to the Wendigo. Like, I didn't really know anything about it at all until playing that game. Yeah, and then the Wendigo hunter shows up, who's like, I've been doing this 20 years, and then he dies in 30 seconds. Yeah.

Well, he never said he was very good at it, just that he's been doing it for a long time. That's fair. This was his first Wendigo, actually. He's just been waiting 20 years for it.

So, yeah, it's kind of like a process similar to vampires, werewolves, that kind of transmission sometimes. And again, there's just so many different interpretations of the myth itself that you'll find different threads depending on different geographical retellings of the story. Different red threads, you mean? Nice! So many different threads. There you go. Trademark. A shaman may be the only person who is able to destroy a wendigo using either steel, silver, or an

an iron bullet or a dagger. So again, very similar to like vampires and werewolves. Like what, what is the, uh, what is the reasoning behind silver killing everything bad? It's pure. Um, so the idea is that D like in vampire mythology, at least vampires are demonic, uh, meaning they're unclean. They're of the devil. So anything that is pure and holy, they have a resistance sports. So silver, uh,

That's also why they can't see themselves in mirrors, because old mirrors were made out of silver. Ah! So that's why they can't be seen in it, because silver's pure and a vampire is not. Is that why the sun hurts them? Because it's pure as well? It's light, radiance? I think the idea... It used to just be they were nocturnal, they hid at night so they wouldn't be seen. I don't know when the detail that the sun physically hurts them got added to the mythos.

um that'd be interesting to look into but yeah the original the original idea was they were like demonic okay i don't think there's anything about the wendigo being nocturnal i've definitely seen interpretations of the wendigo during the day and stuff like that so yeah the interesting one there is steel that being one of its weaknesses is steel it's like everything yeah it's like so many things you could you could hit it with your car you could get a katana out like it's very vulnerable actually well even a dagger that's like

Like at that time, everyone's probably got a dagger, right? Yeah, anything can kind of be considered a dagger if it's small and pointy. Wendigo shows up and you just stab him, like you just shank him and he dies immediately from the dagger. Yeah, you get your prison shank out of a bar of soap and it just instantly vaporizes it. Some old like shaman just runs it over in a kia soul.

That's what I love about these kind of mythological cryptids or figures like vampires and werewolves. It sounds so cool on the page or whatever, it's like, oh, this really mythical creature who's really strong, has supernatural strength and everything, and then at the bottom it's like a hundred ways to kill it, and everything is weak to, and it's weak to everything. To give some credit to the Ojibwe and stuff like that, steel wasn't super common.

Right. Like that was that was few and far between. Most of the stuff they had was wood made. Right. True. So like steel would have been a hard come by. So it probably was like a special, you know, rare relic the way silver would be in like European culture.

Yeah, and maybe that's why we don't see any more Wendigos anymore, is because steel's so... Because we've all got steel, yeah. The Industrial Revolution killed all of them. No one talks about it. Where's the conservation effort for the Wendigos? Ah, yes. Ted Kaczynski, the original voice for the Wendigos.

Some stories claim that a Wendigo's heart must be cut out and melted or burned in a fire before the spirit is truly destroyed. So that's one way of killing it. That's like the most common way of killing it in classic narratives. Because the idea is the spirit is cold and like, you know, apart. It's like a spirit of like the...

the winter so to speak like it's associated with cold a lot and things like starving freezing to death so fire is its counter is its natural weakness so you have to burn the heart in a lot of stories right

Right, that makes sense. A lot of stories I'm realizing throughout both modern and ancient history, a lot of these mythological stories are around cold. Cold is humanity's greatest enemy, it sounds like. I can definitely see why. But you see it in a lot of fiction currently as well. I mean, think about pre-shelter, right? We take for granted insulation now. Can you imagine...

like every night you're like oh it's 20 degrees out imagine sleeping in that right like how much of a threat that had to be day to day so you'll see stuff like

You'll see starvation being a common issue. You'll see freezing being a common issue in classic narratives. Disease. Stuff that every day people had to constantly think about that now kind of glosses over our heads. Yeah. Cold is definitely the worst condition to survive in. Absolutely. It saps your energy so much being in cold. You've got no kind of energy to work with. I've said that for a long time. I think cold is the most brutal condition that you can experience for sure.

Okay, so yeah, to survive in, like, to contend with, yeah, but I still prefer being cold than being hot personally. Because I find it way easier in modern civilization to get hot when you're cold. Oh, okay. Jesus Christ. Well, yeah, in modern civilization, of course, yeah. That's the only civilization I've been a part of. Jackson's like, counterpoint, Charlie, I am in a nice house right now. You never thought of that? Yeah, counterpoint, I turn my heat on. Yeah.

Even in the early 1900s and stuff, being cold would suck. Counterporn, Charlie. I'm in Australia. We don't have cold. Cold is like a 20 degree day or whatever that is in Fahrenheit. The Wendigo can also be described as more of a spirit, which we've kind of talked about already, which possesses a human by biting them or through a dream as well. Apparently, there were some stories where you can contract Wendigo through a dream.

The possession can be cannibalistic, violent, and deranged. And greedy gluttonous people who are... Wait. And greedy gluttonous people are more susceptible to being possessed by the Wendigo spirit, obviously. Yeah. So let's move on to the first tales. I've got this.

I was so confused on that. I was like, holy shit. Uh...

That's a different Wendigo story. Have you ever been so hungry? You answered another man. Oh, that's a different kind of hunger you're talking about. Yeah, that's a totally different kind of hunger. Oh, Charlie ran right over that one, just taking off. That was great. I had to take a pause there, like, immediately upon reading that. I was like, wow, this is a crazy story, Jackson. How do you make it up? I didn't know the Wendigo were so cool. Oh.

The way it's phrased too is like it's in the Old Testament. Like, this is very important detail, yeah. Sorry. That's the best Red Thread moment so far. He resorted to cannibalism upon encountering another man in the woods.

Wait, well, it's still not ruling out the entering, to be fair. That's not it. That's not mutually exclusive. We don't know how cold this guy was, okay? There's only one way to get warm. The harsh winter has you going all types of different directions here to get warm again. Oh, you're cold? Well, in my culture, there's only one way to warm someone up.

Oh, alright. Sorry. Sorry, guys. Attacking and consuming the flesh, he transformed into a crazed half-human, half-beast creature. From then on, he lost connection to his human consciousness and roamed the forest, driven by an unrelenting urge to prey upon unsuspecting humans.

And that's the way that most of the original stories kind of trend or go. A patient zero, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But then continue on with this next one. This one's pretty interesting. One of the most famous stories involving the Wendigo involves Swift Runner, a Cree hunter and trapper who resided in what is now central Alberta during the 1870s.

While details about Swift Runner's early life are sparse, it's believed that he was highly regarded within the Cree community and worked as a trapper and guide for the Northwest Mounted Police. Swift Runner was married, fathered six children, but unfortunately he descended into the depths of alcoholism over time. His excessive drinking frequently led to conflicts and disturbances within his community, eventually resulting in his family being exiled from the tribe.

During the harsh winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family ventured into the forest searching for signs of any kind of hospitable community. Upon stumbling upon another settlement, Swift Runner pleaded for assistance recounting how he and his family had been banished and perished from starvation during their journey. However, the inhabitants of this town grew skeptical. Swift Runner appeared healthy, so why had his family succumbed to starvation while he remained unscathed?

Suspicion mounting, the figures of authority in the community endeavored to investigate further. Upon or under pressure, Swift Runner confessed that his family had actually been living in a campsite or cabin deep in the woods, but there wasn't enough food for everyone to survive. The authorities demanded Swift Runner lead them to the campsite, and upon arrival, they were confronted with a scene of unspeakable horror.

Bones were scattered everywhere, broken in half and hollowed out, as if the marrow had been sucked out of the bone. Among the grisly remnants, a pot brimming with human fat was discovered, confirming that Swift Runner had consumed his own family. Frantically, Swift Runner attempted to justify his actions, claiming to have been possessed by an evil spirit that drove him to commit the acts. However, his explanations fell on deaf ears. Swift Runner was brought to trial in 1879, and a mere 20 minutes of deliberation, he was sentenced to death.

On December 20, 1879, he met his fate at the gallows, becoming the first individual legally hanged in Fort Saskatchewan.

That's crazy. That's crazy. So here's his confession as well. At the moment, the devil Wittico, which is one of the Wendigo titles, suddenly took possession of my soul and in order to live longer far from people. Wait. And in order to live longer far from people and to put out the way the only witness to my crime, I seized my gun and killed the last of my children and ate him as I had done the others.

Some weeks later, I was taken by the police, sentenced to death, and in three days, I am to be hanged. That was his confession in 1879. Yeah, so he used the... He was still sticking with the Wendigo kind of explanation for why he did what he did. And it's... It's...

Kind of important to note that the Wendigo myth was obviously very prevalent in these communities at this time and leading up to that time. So he knew that it was an excuse to use.

That doesn't mean that it was actually true or anything like that. But this is a real person. This one's not just a legend. This is a real case that happened. This is an actual family murder and then act of cannibalism. He's just using the Wendigo as a scapegoat.

Yeah, it was a very, very interesting case. And then while the Wendigo legend existed in oral history for many centuries, the earliest European written record of the Wendigo comes from Paul Lejeune, a Jesuit missionary who resided among the Algonquin people in the early 17th century in what is now known as Quebec. In his writings, Lejeune recounts a woman's warning about an action

a term used to describe the Wendigo that had preyed upon nearby tribal members. She cautioned that the creature would continue its voracious consumption of their people if it were not drawn away elsewhere.

The Devilish Woman, so this is a quote, a report by Paul Lejeune written to his superiors in Paris, 1636. So this is 200 years before what happened with Swift Runner in 1879. So this is how early this story extends. Even the Europeans were talking about it through reports in the 1600s.

This devilish woman added that the Wendigo had eaten some Atikamegukan. These are the tribes that live north of the river that is called Three Rivers. And that he would eat a great many more of them if he were not called elsewhere. But that Atchan, sort of a werewolf, so he kind of related it to a werewolf, would come in his place to devour them, even up...

to the French fort that he would slaughter the French themselves. So even Paul Lejeune is like worried about the French. He's like, we got to get our people out of here. We got to make sure. Hey, this lady who says that this person's killed like a hundred natives, they might hurt some French guys. Now we've got to take this shit seriously. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, they were, they were even talking about like the Europeans were talking about in the early 1600s. So this is how,

how early these myths were kind of being passed around orally. I have some opinions regarding the story of Switch Runner and Paula June's account and stuff like that, but I'll save them until we get into Wendigo Psychosis. Oh, okay, yeah. Because I think everything goes hand in hand.

I think it's not like one of these things was the inception for the other. I think there's a reason they're all tied into each other. Another notable tale features Jack Fiddler, a respected OG Cree chief and medicine man renowned for his prowess in combating Wendigos. Fiddler claimed to have vanquished 14 of these malevolent beings throughout his lifetime. Some were believed to have been sent by rival shamans, while others were once members of his own band who had succumbed to an insatiable craving for human flesh.

In many instances, it was the afflicted individual's own family members who beseeched Fiddler to end their suffering before they transformed into Wendigos. Tragically, even Fiddler's own brother, Peter Flett, met such a fate after their trading expedition ran out of food. In 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were apprehended for the murder of Joseph's daughter-in-law, whom they had strangled in a desperate attempt to prevent her from falling under the grip of a Wendigo.

Faced with incarceration, Fiddler took his own life, while Joseph was sentenced to life in prison. Though eventually granted a pardon, Joseph tragically passed away just three days before receiving the news. The majority of- Remember that tragic, though? They just killed their daughter-in-law thinking that she was about to become a Wendigo. Yeah, well, tragic for him. He was about to- Well, yeah, I guess it does suck for Joseph, to be fair. I'm sure he thought it was bad, Charlie. Yeah.

I forgot to put myself in the shoes of the murderer. That was so silly of me. This is the red thread. We open with the Jeffrey Epstein intro. You should know the drill. Do you have anything else to say about Jack Fiddler, though? It sounded like you were... I don't know. I think...

Again, I'll wait, I'll wait till the ending to kind of give my overarching thoughts about all that. But I think that some truth led to a lot of paranoia that eventually ended up with his daughter-in-law being killed. Right. But because like when you, when all you're trained to look for is monsters, you're going to see them everywhere. Right.

And I think that's what led to a lot of instances like that. I guess we'll get into it when we talk about Wendigo psychosis. Yeah. I am curious, though. He claimed to have vanquished 14 Wendigo. Does that mean he just killed 14 people, or is he just completely making that shit up, you think? Considering that he was, like, quote-unquote renowned by local tribes for his work, he probably did kill 14 people. I don't...

I don't think, I don't think he, like, his claims are probably just like, I went out into the forest, saw a Wendigo, and killed it. No, I'm not saying that he killed 14 Wendigos. I'm saying he murdered 14 people, and the other tribes were like, wow, I guess that guy was a Wendigo. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. I bet he actually just did execute 14 people, and he's like, but they were a Wendigo, and they're like, oh my god, he just, he saved us. He did us a good favor.

I feel like someone would have been upset about that earlier. I feel like it really is. I feel like it really is. He went out into the forest and he came back and he's like, yeah, I had an experience with a Wendigo out there. Don't worry, guys. Kill this. Yeah, I mean, that's possible too. It's not like they're going to go out there and verify it and it could just be a bunch of baloney. Yeah, plus he's a respected chief. He did at least kill his brother and daughter-in-law though, right?

Like, that's heaven and stone. So that's at least two on his body count. Yeah, so I guess it's not impossible to believe that he killed others, but...

Yeah, I feel like there was a bit of bluffing there maybe. To wrap up this last section about it, the majority of reported sightings and experiences happened between the 1880s and 1920s. However, Wendigo sightings are still reported in certain locations like Kenora and Northern Ontario near the Cave of the Wendigo to this day, and many people still believe the Wendigo roams through northern Minnesota and Canada. Kenora, in particular, is believed to be the Wendigo capital of the world.

Yeah, I couldn't find any details on why it's the Wendigo capital of the world. It just seems like people really believe that. It's where all the sightings happened and a lot of the legends originate in that area and stuff like that.

Yeah, but I haven't seen any substantial sighting reports or anything crazy. Another thing, since we're kind of wrapping up the legendary stuff about it, the Wendigo was such an evil spirit that to the people who believed the legends and beliefs of the Algonquin-speaking tribes and stuff like that, it was considered taboo to say its name because you're asking for it. Kind of...

Oh, Bloody Mary. I was about to say Voldemort. Bloody Mary's a much better, less pop-culturally one to mention. Wait, does Voldemort show up if you say Voldemort? I thought it was just like kind of like a bad thing to say. It's he who must not be named. In the original stories, I don't think the Wendigo immediately shows up. You're just kind of asking for it. It's like you're bringing bad energy on

onto the tribe, onto yourself if you mention it. So you weren't supposed to talk about it.

Um, okay. So how does that, how does that track? How does that track? If like, it's an oral story, like they're going to be talking about it all the time. Well, you could say it in like legends sense or stuff like that. You're just, you're just supposed to respect it effectively. Kind of like every religion you're supposed to respect the names of not only the good guys, so to speak, but the bad guys, right? Like in Christianity, for example, you respect the name Jesus. You're allowed to say Jesus, but you don't use it defamatory. Right.

You're also supposed to not go around willy-nilly saying stuff like I'm about to do right now, saying stuff like Baphomet or Moloch or like Demons of the Bible. Like, there's supposed to be a reverence appreciated for it. So yeah, it's an oral story. You can say the word Wendigo. You're just not supposed to do it flippantly, so to speak. Within the beliefs of that tribe. So basically...

What I'm saying is if I ever go to Southern Canada, considering I've used it for my branding and merchandise, I'm going to die instantly. You're going to get jumped the second you get off the airplane. They're going to drag me across the runway. I am decimated. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a scary place to go is Wendigoon. Yeah, yeah. If anyone has been asking for it, I've been asking for it. Well, then we should definitely test that in terms of...

We're scientists here at Red Thread headquarters. Let's put you on a plane up there and see how quickly you get possessed by the wind again. We're gonna time how long it takes me to die or transform into a monster thing. Yeah. That's cool. We could prove that it's real. Or fake, yeah. If this video gets 50,000 likes, I will die in southern Canada. First subscriber milestone. Yeah. Yeah.

If this channel gets 1 million subs, I will cast myself into the cave. No, if we get 1 million subs, let's all go up to northern Canada and try to survive a week in the blistering cold and see which one of us falls victim to the Wendigo first. See which one of us eats the other one. Yeah, that's what we'll fall victim to is the Wendigo first. That or as Charlie mentioned, the entering. Yeah, as soon as Charlie enters one of us. Yeah.

This isn't what I signed up for. Oh man, yeah, someone, you just gave someone out there the worst smut idea ever. Can you imagine we hit the subscriber milestone and everyone's like, oh, they're actually going to go out there to the Wendigo and we just start fucking up there. They just sponsor an orgy. Took Charlie like 12 hours while we were up there. He's already naked.

the plane and he's like undoing his shirt oh not yet wait till the woods okay this isn't the wendigo cave forget about forget about the forest let's just go back to the hotel charlie this is a subway you've got to quit doing that

That's gonna be great. I'm really excited to hit 1 million subs. Yeah, so that whole conversation we just had, we're all getting possessed immediately. Yeah, that was a lot. Relating the Wendigo to gay sex throughout the entire episode is starting to... Yeah, as if the gooning thing wasn't bad enough. Yeah, perfect. Alright. Alright.

Let's move on to Wendigo psychosis and try to forget about what just transpired. Please. So Wendigo psychosis is a condition believed to afflict individuals residing in Wendigo hotspots, particularly by the time period before the First Nation tribes encountered the Europeans.

It remains a topic of contention within medical circles characterized by symptoms such as paranoia, anxiety, hallucinations, and cannibalistic urges. This condition is thought to arise from a combination of cultural narratives and psychological susceptibility.

So this is an actual condition that was kind of... It's still kind of discussed, at least. Historical records indicate that instances of Wendigo psychosis and associated cannibalistic behavior were more prevalent during periods of severe famine among Algonquin tribes. Though occurrences can also occur independently of such conditions.

Within the medical community, there exists debate regarding the veracity of Wendigo psychosis. While some consider it a genuine psychological disorder, others who have more of a spiritual belief say that it may represent the early stages of the transformation into a Wendigo. So there's some people that believe that it's an actual medical condition brought on by these stories, like...

a psychosis formed from believing the stories and then obviously you have the more purists that believe that it's just like someone being transformed by the wendigo and this is a quote from the wendigo psychosis as described by apa dictionary of psychology so this is an actual entry in the dictionary of psychology i don't think it can get much more official than that

A severe, this is the quote, a severe culture-bound syndrome occurring among northern Algonquin Indians living in Canada and the northeastern United States. The syndrome is characterized by delusions of becoming possessed by a flesh-eating monster, the Wendigo, and is manifested in symptoms including depression, violence, a compulsive desire for human flesh, and sometimes actual cannibalism. So I think what this looks like is like the people trick themselves into believing the Wendigo so much that...

they kind of manifest the symptoms. Yeah, it's like mass hysteria. It's basically the exact same thing where you keep getting fed something and then eventually you start to think that it's affecting you.

So there's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy here almost where the story exists and then through the act of people believing the story so much, especially during these early 1800s, a period of time where survival was essential and very difficult, they believe these stories so much that it actually affects them psychologically. And then it actually comes true because they get those compulsive urges to cannibalize and stuff like that. So...

In that capacity, the Wendigo is true. It's correct. It exists because these people believe that they are the Wendigo and they have all the same effects as the Wendigo. So what's the difference, really? At the end of the day. It's not too dissimilar. In the case with Swift Runner, there was that famous American case where the guy said the devil made him do it. He was possessed by the devil and he did that. It's the same type of thing, right? Where you're...

you're attributing it to something that you've believed for a long time and you know i whether or not the windigo took over it doesn't really matter it's just one of those things where you've been taught this for so long and now you're experiencing it and it's real to you i think um the part i want to bring up your kind of i said i'd wait till we talk about when to go psychosis to mention it

is there was this this has happened across the world uh but with like european colonization there was more documentation of it maybe than in other parts of the world during like the 16 1700s

There were like rogue groups of people in the Americas who regularly committed acts of cannibalism, right? And again, that happened everywhere across the world. That happened in Europe. It happened in Asia, Africa. You know, it's just when people run out of food and they don't have a moral instance that it's evil or whatever, then other groups of people can make for a food source, right? So...

Imagine being one of these people in the American Northeast, and you're constantly in fear of the cold, you're constantly in fear of starvation, and then in the midst of that, out in the tree line, there's a group of people, or at least things that look like people, that want to eat you. How terrifying must that have been in the face of everything else? So...

You begin to tell your kids stories. Don't go out into the woods. There's monsters out there. Don't go out and like never give in to the same evils they've given into because you'll become one of those monsters. So to me, and we see instances of that like happening in relatively modern times with things like Swift Runner, right? Like,

We know that there was a fear of a real threat, a real danger happening. So to me, it's not so much that the Wendigo was made up as much as it was maybe embellished off of actual horrors that these people had to face, you know, things that go bump in the night. And maybe some aspects of it were, you know, exaggerated, so to speak, to maintain across cultures, to maintain as a legend. But as with a lot of other stories we tell, I think it came from somewhere.

I think Swift Runner is an example of that. And I think maybe the idea became so prevalent that people like, hold up his name right here, the Wendigo Hunter guy. Fiddler.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Jack Fiddler. Yeah, Jack Fiddler. You have people like Fiddler who are so given to this idea that they begin to see the monster everywhere. And that's kind of a corruption of it. But I do think for a time that the Wendigo myth needed to exist because there were monsters out there that did look like people, right? So...

I don't know. I see the, one of the reasons the Wendigo interest me so much is because you hear the story initially and you're like, okay, it's a, it's kind of a scary story of something that goes bump in the night, but then you learn legends. You learn cultures at the time, things that they really had to deal with. And you're like, that, that was just, it's almost like it was their artwork of things that happened or a painting almost of things that were happening. Um,

It's like an echo of their culture and their civilization at the time. It really is. It's like a representation of that more so than any other, like a myth, whatever you want to call them, like vampires and werewolves aren't nearly as interesting to me as the Wendigo because the Wendigo feels like an actual representation of the difficulties that people experienced at the time and how they kind of contextualized everything within their stories and stuff like that. I find it,

very interesting because it comes from a place of reality. Yeah, and think about some of the details around its characteristics too. It appears as the dead. Like, it's effectively a dead body, right? And death is something, like, we take it for granted now, but you have to stay away from dead things. They're full of disease and rot.

So these creatures, they look like the dead. They smell like the dead. They're as cold as the winter nights. The things that humanity has been trying so hard to stay away from for millennia. Like it's all the characteristics of the things people should be afraid of captured in the form of a person that wants to eat you. Another thing that they were actively afraid of. I don't see the window go as fiction as much as I do a portrayal of the real threats these people had to face. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's what I think makes it so interesting. And why I think it's kind of still pretty fondly looked at even to this day and why we see it in pop culture and why we see it have an impact on television shows and movies and video games and stuff like that.

because it's a very effective story. So yeah, that's a good segue to talk about pop culture and impact. The Wendigo has been adapted in many variations in pop culture throughout the years, first featuring in The Wendigo, a novel by English author Algernon Blanchard,

Blackwood, very cool name. It has also been featured in stories such as Pet Sematary by Stephen King, Hannibal, video games like Until Dawn and many other movies, TV shows and stories, including Ravenous. This was a movie that I saw a few years back at a bad movie night, which it was a great movie. I put it, I wanted to include it here. It stars Guy Pearce and it's from 1999. And it's a story that loosely kind of shares similarities with the Swift Runner story, kind of.

in that a character becomes a cannibal after being lost in the snowy mountains and then he comes back to a fort and the people have to kind of piece it together and deal with it and it's unintentionally a very funny movie but also like it's a very cool story I highly recommend watching Ravenous so you watched it on a bad movie night what put it on your radar

I didn't choose it. Someone at the bad movie night chose it. But yeah, I was there for the ride. It was good. It wasn't like egregiously bad or anything. It was an entertaining movie. I definitely highly recommend watching it.

So this is a quote from Brady DeSanti in his paper Classroom Cannibal about how the Wendigo kind of is portrayed. Despite the intentions of horror movie purveyors to use more diverse horror antagonists like the Wendigo, the entity continues to be mostly portrayed as just another supernatural threat.

This lack of development is unfortunate because major distinctions abound between the Wendigo and other fiendish big screen representations. This element also presents another opportunity to impart an important idea to the students who may have never contemplated that a more sophisticated interpretation of monsters was possible outside of the mayhem they witnessed on screen. So he's basically talking about what we were talking about a second ago in that

It doesn't feel like the Wendigo in modern culture or pop culture is being explored to the extent that it could and should with the cultural significance that it has, like those cultural stories that it has. Whereas now when it shows up in something, it's...

almost like a werewolf or a vampire or something like that. It doesn't have that same kind of depth that it should anymore, which is sad because we look back at these original stories and they're, like we previously said, they're full of such cultural significance and cultural development that, that,

It's really interesting. It's been a while since I played Until Dawn, but I really do recall there being a lot of lore woven deep into the Wendigo mythos in that game. Am I wrong in that? I haven't played it in a while as well, but I doubt he's talking about that.

Well, yeah, I doubt he's calling out until dawn. I just mean, like, there have been a couple more recently, like, until dawn. That have done more with him. I think, personally, what I kind of said about, like, I feel like the Wendigo is the amalgamation of a lot of real threats people had to face kind of put into one thing. Um...

i think that for that reason the creature is more effective symbolically than it is it's just like a boogeyman to five right because like in series like cannibal right the whole idea is he consumes human flesh once and he begins to see the wendigo everywhere he looks it's in his dreams it's getting closer to him i think kind of using it like in the original stories it's

It's what happened to people who were to greed kind of using it as a representation of greed, I think is much more effective. Um, and it's also honestly, one of the reasons the window goes, my favorite cryptid. And obviously, I mean, look at the name of my channel, right? Um, but one of the reasons it is, is because for one, the stuff I mentioned earlier, it was introduced to me by my grandfather as a scary story. And then I grow up and learned that

It's kind of the end result of a lot of real threats people had to face. But then take it into modern culture. It changes its form. Stephen King kind of says that it takes on characteristics of animals. But then that accidentally leans it back into stag imagery from like ancient European stories and mythos and stuff like that. So now we have the visual of the stag of

of the young man sort of stepping into his role in the world and then the temptations of the world around him. And then you have like this, this desecrated form of it, like a symbol of like how far humanity can fall. And then that symbol gets still reused in modern stories and things like that. And it's all these different end points of cultures across the world that have never talked to each other made into one tale and

Kind of like what you mentioned earlier, Jackson, we're telling the same stories over and over. We're just doing them in different ways. And I think it's so interesting how the Wendigo is kind of a final stage of that. It's always fascinated me from a storytelling perspective.

Yeah, absolutely. It's like the amalgamation of stories told by a hundred different communities all converging into one core idea that people dance around with. It's very interesting, very fascinating. I love it for that. It's very culturally significant and I definitely think it's up there in terms of cryptids.

yeah let's let's wrap there i think we've talked about um wait we have to do we do we do it with every cryptid episode where does this go on your cryptid tier list i don't know if it beats goat man i'm gonna be honest with you boys goat man really i think goat man's more culturally significant that's just me yeah it's just me though goat man's the amalgamation of everything humans have feared for millennia now yeah goats and men goats and men goats and men

To Charlie's credit, I did talk about in the Goatman episode how that shares a lot of religious symbolism, right? The things that created Goatman. So, you know, that's it. Now, here's the question, though, Charlie. Is it on A tier with Goatman, but behind him, or is it down in B tier?

I can put it up there with them. I'd say they can hold hands together. Goatman and the Wendigo formed an alliance on my tier list. I think they're both very cool. That's a scary alliance. And you have Mothman at S tier though, right? So he's above all. Well, Mothman's powering an entire community. I mean, Wendigo's just hurting people. Hey, watch your mouth. It's powering my bank account, alright? That's true. It's helping at least one person.

Yeah, and I'm like a whole town if you think about it. I got 3 million subs. What is that, a small country? I thought so. That is more than Mothman's keeping afloat, to be fair. Yeah, what's that Moth guy ever done for me? That's what I thought. I'd put it at S tier, I think.

Well, Mothman could return at any point, though. We never really know his intentions. That's true. Yeah. So, Charlie's being the harsh critic here, because he's got an S and two As. All of the ones we've covered so far... Well, actually, no, I put Goatman at A tier. But Mothman and the Wendigo? Easy S tiers for me. Absolutely. Yeah, for me, I would put Mothman...

Fuck, let me think. All right, Goatman and Mothman at A, and I personally think Wendigo goes in S tier. Let's go. Yeah, another convert. Let's go. You can't stick to your convictions. That's very peculiar, I suppose. What did I change? Was that not? I thought for sure you had Mothman at S.

I may have. If I have, then I'll stick with my conviction and put him back up in S tier. I don't know. What we need is like an actual dog shit cryptid next. One we can all agree is just fucking pathetic like an F tier. Yeah. Like the love with Frogman or something. With hairy hands. Do you think we kind of screwed ourselves by doing all the cool ones first? Like the really cool ones first? I'm doing a series on the channel right now that's literally 350 cryptids. I assure you there's more cool ones. Okay.

Oh, yeah. There's plenty of... Like, even Florida has some dog shit ones. We have, like, the stupid skunk ape down here. Hey, watch your mouth. We love him. I'm sorry. There's some skunk ape fans out there. I did go to the skunk ape museum. It was fun. In the Everglades. That was a good time. They had a big alligator there. I don't know why, but they did.

That's Florida. They have the, do you, do you, do you guys have any last minute thoughts about the Wendigo that you want to share? Anything additional that you want to add to this episode?

Nothing on my end. I'm looking forward to the Until Dawn remake, I suppose, so they could ruin it for us. Yep. Charlie, because he put it at A tier, is going to die first when we go to Canada. No, that's not true. The Wendigo's not listening to this fucking podcast. I put it at S tier, so... He'll die happy after our orgy anyway, so that's good.

I put it at S tier so maybe that counteracts all the karma I have for using his name for profit for the last four years. Yeah, that's how that works. That'll even out. I'm Catholic, I know how the whole pinnage works. I'm not Catholic but I can pretend to be if that's what the Wendigo wants. Alrighty, on that note, that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you very much for watching The Red Thread. Like I said at the top, we've got

We're on iTunes and Spotify. We've got audio platforms. That's what I was trying to say. Big thank you to the sponsors of this episode, AG1 and Rocket Money. Please go check them out below. Links to everything we've talked about, including the show notes, will be in the description below. Really appreciate everyone for the support. It's been phenomenal. People are really supporting the show, especially over on Spotify.com.

It really does mean the world to all three of us to see how much you guys enjoy the red thread. Feel free to show it to some friends and family. Did I tell you guys that my grandmother watches the show? Yeah, you brought that up. You told me that. It was adorable. Yeah. Shout out to you, man. Appreciate the view.

i had my pastor say that he watched the the red thread that he checks it out after the orgy comment he may not but he's out to that when you go into a windigo episode you have to know that it's going to lead to an orgy at some point yeah yeah it's gonna get pretty uh pretty sexy yeah but but unironically thank you all so very much for watching the show it really means the world to like

step out into these new projects and kind of test the waters like let's see how people like it and then you all show up in droves it means a lot yeah it really does and it lets us have fun it's it's a lot of fun talking about this stuff like we wouldn't have we wouldn't have the memory of uh all three of us going up to canada for a nice orgy without this show so i really appreciate that um yeah thank you very much for watching and we'll see you on the next episode of the red thread thanks goodbye everyone thank you thank you all for watching goodbye

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