Princess Mononoke & Values

Episode Transcript
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(00:15):
Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcastwhere we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Brittany Brownfield and I'ma child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, HannahEspinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also knownas therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental healthprofessionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment

(00:36):
purposes and to fulfill our love ofdissecting pop culture and all forms. Please
remember that, even though we areall licensed therapists, we aren't your therapist.
If you are struggling with mental healthsymptoms, please find a local mental
health provider. Welcome to today's episodeof Popcorn Psychology. Today we are going
to be covering the nineteen ninety sevenStudio Ghabli classic Princess Mononoke, which was

(00:59):
the top selling film in Japan fora great many years until it was replaced
by Spirited Away. But what wewill acknowledge is that this is one of
the most beloved anime films ever andas we're going to dive into this film
today, we're going to start offby acknowledging that this is a really complex
film and very different than a lotof the other movies done by Studio Ghibli.

(01:22):
This one's pretty rough. It's PG. Thirteen. It has pretty significant
violence, pretty significant complicated adult andyoung adult over and undertones about society and
death and nature and capitalism. It'sa very hefty movie. And something that

(01:44):
I was just explaining to Hannah Brittanythat I don't know if our audience knows.
I'm sure many of you do,probably better than us, is that
a lot of their films or allof them, are all created with art
first and then narrative added later.So they create a visual, complete story
through storyboarding before they ever even adddialogue to tell the story. And I

(02:06):
think that's a really critical piece ofinformation if you watch these films to understand
sometimes it's very clear that there's avisual aesthetic, a visual story and narrative
being told that sometimes it feels likethe dialogue maybe catching up to a little
bit. Yeah, I agree,absolutely. So today we're going to be
covering values and how they are formedand how they change throughout time, particularly

(02:31):
through the critical aging points that peoplehit of starting to separate out from your
family and culture of origin and gettinginto a larger world that forces you to
change your perspective and adopt some truthsthat you may not have had, and
how that can become something that peoplestart to struggle with at different phases of

(02:52):
life. And we definitely see thatrepresented by some of the different characters we
see in this film, and we'regoing to kind of break down how we
see that play out amongst some ofour characters here with Son Lady Aboshi,
Ashitaka and Jigo, and then asalways treatment and final thoughts. However,

(03:13):
before we get any further, i'dlike to remind you all that if you
could please take a second like ourshow, rate our show. Our show
only grows when you guys do thatand share us with people who listen to
us. We know we've had overseven hundred thousand downloads now and we're really
thankful for that. Wild wild stuffas wild. It's amazing, right for

(03:36):
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at a level that is mind blowingto us, and we're really thankful for
you all. But if you allcould keep this going, keep this growing,
and share it with people who mayalso like it. We really appreciate
that. Before we talk about valuesand all that, let's do a quick
plot rundown of Princess Mononoke as simpleas that can be. So in this

(04:00):
story, we start out with ademon attack on a Village's story takes place
somewhere around the thirteen hundreds in feudalJapan, and we see this exiled community
being struck by some kind of wormcovered monster attack that turns out to be
a bore, and this boar isattacking in A young, handsome, athletic

(04:28):
prince comes writing by on his elk, his red elk, and slays the
boar, saving the town, butin doing so he gets cursed with the
same curse because the boar touches him. This leads to him being exiled from
his community and having to give uphis home because they can't have anybody leave,

(04:49):
so he has to give up hisidentity as their prince and go seek
his fate, knowing that he verywell may still die. And his name
is Ashitaka, who is our centrallead character of the film, Our paladin
if you will, he is theforce of good in this film. You

(05:10):
can look at me with nerd languagejudgment all you want, but that's what
he is. He is the Paladin. I will be relating all of these
characters to D and D archetypes.You're welcome. People don't know what that
means, Some people do. SomeA paladin is a knight that is devoted
to a cause, or an orderor a holy god and maintains their commitment

(05:36):
to their oath against all situations andcomers. That's basically Ashitaka AnyWho. As
Ashitaka goes out into the world,he starts encountering a much larger world than
his small and almost exterminated community haskind of isolated from where he starts running

(05:59):
in to Iron Town and meeting LadyAboshi and also meeting San, who is
in conflict with Lady Aboshi's sn israised by forest gods and wolves, and
then Lady Aboshi is leading Iron Townbut is also the representation of capitalism and

(06:23):
firearms development occurring throughout Japan, andit turns out to be one of her
musket balls that killed the God bythe boor god that cursed Ashitaka, so
the plot starts to thicken. Ashitakafollows San into Iron Town as San starts

(06:44):
to attack Iron Tone, town tryingto rescue the forest and keep the miners
and forgers at Irontown from going intothe forest destroying it to get to the
iron they want from the grounds andfrom the mountains, which the animals and
animal gods that Son represents and israised by want to stop them from doing.

(07:05):
And then there's a third faction here, which is the imperials, the
samurai and the local lord that aretrying to also get their hands on the
iron. Because the backdrop of thisstory is sort of the fall of the
Samurai era, which was brought aboutby firearms, because samurai armor, much
like Knight's armour in feudal Europe,did not stop firearms. So their way

(07:30):
of life is getting exterminated and they'reobviously resisting that. So we see these
rival factions clashing, but all thewhile people are trying to conquer death and
nature, which are two things thatcan't be conquered, and ultimately nature and
the circle of life went out inthis film as it should, as it

(07:53):
should, and when everyone finally restoresthe balance of nature and realizes we can
all thrive, but we can't takemore then we're due, and when our
time is up, our time isup and we got to stop trying to
fight that. We reached the conclusionof our film and a weirdly, I
want to say agnostic, but that'snot the right term. I go anti

(08:15):
climactic ending. Son and Ashitaka developa little romance. But it ends strangely,
is what I was trying to say. Yeah, I'm with you.
It's very very accepting of Son gettingto have her life, but it's it's
a little strange like that. Thereis a resolution to the plot because what
happens is one of our friends,Jigo, we meet along the way,

(08:35):
who is a monk, is ourroguish character. He is operating as an
agent of the Emperor, and hisgoal is to try to get the forest
god's head to stop death, toalso stop the fall of the Samurai,
because if there's no more death,then if they can't get their hands on

(08:56):
the weapons, it doesn't matter becausethey can't die, and they maintain the
rule forever. Holy Grail stuff,Holy Grail stuff, and we see the
conflict there is. Ultimately, whathappens is the monk betrays everybody, including
the forest animals, and leads aassault on the forest to try to cut
off the head of the forest godwho represents the cycle of life and death

(09:20):
and succeeds in doing so, andthen death starts coming for everyone until he
restores the head exactly. That's agood memory, Ben, Yeah, I
kind of said all that, welldone. So values values with each of
these three factions or four, Iguess if we're keeping track and can count,

(09:43):
which is questionable. I'm like,why, I'm not a doctor,
I can't count. But we seefour very different sources of values coming into
this film. But before we talkabout the four different kind of factions we
see in their values, we shouldwe talk about how people form values in
the first place and why that's sorelevant to their behavior. Exact immoon though,

(10:07):
because when I think about values,I think about motivators. Why do
we do the things we do?Where does that come from? Why does
certain things feel important to one personand not to another? Or even like,
why do we both think we're holdingthe same value but we're going about
it in very different ways? Sovalues is really good. I talk about
values all the time with clients becauseI think it's important to understand why,

(10:31):
Like I said, why we dothe things we do right? And a
lot of times when I'm talking aboutvalues, I will start sometimes all the
way back into someone's childhood, becauseI think where you're going with that,
Ben is a lot of times ourvalues are formed by both our family of
origin and also the community around us, both like our micro community and also
our culture. Correct, all valuesfor everyone are formed that way. So

(10:56):
when I talk about values, Iusually talk about them in the in the
context of like having people sort oflist their values, so it'll be things
like family, financial security, physicalhealth, recreation, religion, spirituality,
friendship, parenting, all that kindof stuff, right, And so I

(11:18):
like I talk about values less inthe abstract and more in the literal,
more in the concrete. But itcan also be things like, well,
I guess physical health would be longevity. When people talk about like I want
to live longer, I value that, you know what I mean? So
I have people think about what feelsmost important to you, but then also

(11:39):
what are your behaviors attached to?And so that's what I think about I
think of values. I try totake it less abstract and more critical and
more concrete with clients to help understandwhy does something feel so important, Why
am I willing to do that?And when my partner gets on my ass
about something to so that to themseem small, Why does it piss me

(12:01):
off so much? Because it's connectedto a higher value than Maybe they're not
understanding right, and values are verypersonal even though they are formed by the
culture around us. They also,in a lot of ways are very individual.
And what feels important to me mightnot be feel important to you.
And that doesn't mean that because Ivalue something differently than you, that my

(12:26):
values are the white ones and yourvalues are the wrong ones. And I
think what's so interesting about this movieis it does a good job of showcasing
how everybody thinks that they're doing theright thing based on their values. And
why people feel so insistent upon theactions they take in this movie specifically is
because it is tied to these highervalues that we will talk about later.

(12:52):
Absolutely, these values that we seerepresented in this film really guide our characters
just like they guy all humans,and understanding values happen essentially across three layers.
There are some values that all thingsthat are alive have the basic needs

(13:15):
survival, the biological needs, thecore values of humans. Don't kill if
you don't have to make sure you'reprotecting your loved ones, your children,
make sure you're eating and sleeping.These are core values that everyone who's born
has, and every animal for thatmatter, protect your own. That gets

(13:37):
pretty relevant, don't you think inthis film? Yes, absolutely, But
then we form also our own valuesoff what we're taught by our parents first,
then by our education, by whateverreligion people are brought up in,
whatever larger cultural identities are present inyour value formation, all show up in

(14:05):
how you think about what you shoulddo, why and when and what's important.
And that can be different person toperson, depending on how they were
raised, where and when and bywho. And then also life changes will
influence your values. When people becomeparents, a lot of times you will
hear them say, all of asudden, my life in perspective radically changed.

(14:31):
A lot of times of people willsay something along the lines of I
was really self fish and now Ifeel more selfless, right, And that's
because their value shifted from more likeself serving to I have to take care
of this child and put their needsfirst, right. I think another thing
that also can shift values in away that I don't think I always think

(14:52):
about as trauma. So then likewhen people go through trauma that bumps against
the value of what survival. Sowhen you are having like trauma reactions later
in life that can be connected tothe value of survival, Right, I
have to fight, you, Ihave to flee because those triggers now are
connected to my value of surviving,Whereas if you hadn't gone through a trauma,

(15:13):
you might not have connected that valueto those things. Absolutely, yeah,
Absolutely Understanding trauma brings people from apoint of view where they are perceiving
all the layers of value in aholistic way, every value you've ever encountered

(15:35):
that's meant something to you and snapsyou back into the hardcore biological realities of
you could die right now, andthat can be where we get moral injuries.
And while we're not going to discussthat in great detail today because it's
not necessarily a huge part of thisfilm, it's important to understand that there

(15:58):
are things that we encounter in lifethat put us up against our survival and
oftentimes people have an idealistic way ofteaching what we're supposed to do in those
moments that becomes very culturally bound.That has shit to do with what your
body will decide you're going to dobecause your body is going to perceive the

(16:21):
best solution and decide based on perceptiononly when it's live or die right now.
Yeah, And I think the howthat ties into this movie kind of
what you were saying earlier, Ben, this movie is pretty gory for like
an animated movie like this, yetto capitation violent. I guess that's the
way I'm looking for, arms fallingoff again kinds of stuff. And I

(16:42):
think that's a good example of howin an ideal scenario, we would value
the safety of others, right,Like, no matter what, I wouldn't
cut someone's head off, cut someone'sarms arms off like happens in this movie.
But then if that's tied to mysurvival, that value will be reprioritized,

(17:03):
like the value of other people's safetyand like not being violent will get
deprioritized from my value of survival.Right. And so a lot of this
movie, I think, does talkabout how different people view survival and how
that leads them to do things thatthey wouldn't necessarily do in accordance with their
morality and values and other situations.Correct, And we see multiple moments where

(17:29):
people's core values what they've internalized fromall those lessons show up and other moments
where they respond in a more primalway. Ashitaka is a great example of
that. It's not everybody in theworld who will take an arrow or a
bullet for another person because they believeit's right, but some people will.

(17:52):
There are quite a few stories ofMetal of Honor winners of people who did
not survive a conflict by jumping onad that saved a whole platoon, But
it's not every person that would dothat. How someone's values got internalized and
developed and actualized right in that momentof survival or not will determine what they

(18:14):
do, and they may not evenknow themselves. But seeing how complicated that
can become is really important to understandinga story like this, that life has
a way of pulling out our corevalues and also our survival instincts, and
those can be constantly in conflict beforewe take a break. What might be

(18:34):
interesting, especially from Hannah's perspective,would be how those start to collide with
couples, in particular, because thismovie is all about conflicting values. That's
true if you have one person anda couple who is from a more individualistic
society and cultural background versus another whomight come from a more collectivistic society.

(19:02):
That can lead to some pretty significantchallenges. Absolutely, yeah, I feel
like, you know, I don'tknow that I do specific values work with
couples, but hearing you describe itthat way, it definitely is a lot
of what I do with couples reallyis what do you think is important,
and what do you think is important? And how can we compromise right towards

(19:26):
something that is comfortable for both ofus, or how can we share things
in a different way where to you, dishes are more important and to you
doing laundry is more important, andso how do we figure that out right?
And one of the ways that wecan do that is the person who

(19:47):
is the most feels the most valuetowards something or feels like something is the
most important, you just do that. Then you're the person who gives a
fuck about dishes. Then you're theone who's gonna do them. You're the
person who gives a fuck about laundry, You're gonna do the laundry. And
so that's kind of that's one ofthe ways that I do that when I
work with couples and even with families, there's a lot of you know,

(20:08):
we've talked before about unwritten rules infamilies and how that has a lot to
do with the values of the parentsand what the values of the parents are
and how that can affect their childrenand what they want their children's values to
be. So there's a lot ofthere's a lot of different ways that values

(20:30):
can connect to all different kinds oftherapy. Absolutely, and we'll get into
that with each of our characters andhow that makes sense in this film after
this break. All right, Sowe're gonna start with the title of the
film, Son or Princess Mononoke ayoung girl. So was she a princess

(20:57):
before she was taken in by thewolves? No? Okay, that's just
like a cutee nickname they gave her. She's a princess of the forest because
the princess of the Okay, sothat's what okay, I think is Okay.
So we get introduced to Son,who is a young girl who has,
like we're talking about, raised bythe wolves in sixteen seventeen. Oh

(21:18):
okay, I feel like it's hardfor me to tell. With his animation
style, everyone looks twelve and ahalf. Yeah, like you're the twelve
and a half or you're a fulladult. Yeah, and there's no in
the middle, right, thirteen hundredsixteen seventeen is pretty much full adult.
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Well, probably twelve thirteen, this
is probably full adult. Yeah,what we would think of is full adult.

(21:41):
Remember this time period, you know, sixteen seventeen, people are moving
towards child maybe yeah, maybe.Yeah. So she is a young woman
who is raised among the wolves andthe forest and the forest gods, and
so we see in her right awaythat she is someone who is connected to

(22:02):
the values of that community. SoSon is a young woman who is raised
among the wolves in the forest andthe forest gods. And I think she's
a great example of even though sheis technically a human right a different species
than her family that she's been raisedwith, she is connected to the values
of them. She is fighting literallytooth and nail for the vitality of the

(22:27):
forest, for the vitality of hercommunity. She was once human, she's
not now. So that makes methink of with sund that she was also
abandoned by her family, and that'swhy the wolves took her in, and
so that's also so that's a trauma. Right, So that's a trauma that

(22:48):
she experienced, and because she experiencedthat, now she has a value that
she doesn't she hates humans. What'shappened when she was a baby? The
wolves are attacking and through the babyand ran. The parents ran the wolf
says. It's like how in thesecond Batman movie, Penguin's parents put him
in the sewer and then he wasraised by penguins. I'm so glad that

(23:11):
you said that doing your work foryou, Ben. That will not be
the last Batman referenced today. I'msure it will be. That's why he
wrote he rides so hard for thepenguin. People do it? No,
No, the penguin, the penguin, the penguin. So yeah, like

(23:32):
what So? I think that thatis a really important part of sons story
because it seems like it would beeasier for her to lean into the values
of the forest in order to connectto her new family, to show solidarity,

(23:56):
to fit in, to adapt.Yeah. But more, I guess
more of what I'm trying to sayis it would make a lot of sense
if you had a trauma where youwere abandoned that the family that accepted you
like you're gonna like hardcore believe everythingthat they are giving you, like really
identify with, really identify, maybeover identify with it, almost because they're

(24:18):
the people who saved you, andit feels like you have to be you
have to be on their side.I guess I think that. Well,
I think that can be true wheneveryou work. Whenever I'm working with someone
who is taken from one community toanother, maybe rescued by one community.
Is that they they want to well, they want to fit in, right.

(24:41):
That's also like the value of survival, right is like a lot of
times some people will asimilate, Yes, is to survive right to because that's
connected to being taken care of,Yes, to not being ostracized. And
she's someone who's already been ostracized,yes, and so to not have that
to her again, she like,yeah, you're right. Like I get

(25:03):
why she rides hard for the forestand the gods and the wolves is because
she needs to do that. Andthat's something where I don't even think that
she would be cognizant of that,Like that's one of those things where I
don't think she's thinking about that whenshe's doing all this. No, No,
she's Mowgli. Yeah, just youknow, some of the things that
are important. She's Mowgli. Shewas taken in as an infant. She

(25:26):
doesn't know what necessarily what she's not. This is all she's ever been.
But everyone around her knows what she'snot. So she has to fight to
prove yeah, she is, whichcan cause an overidentification with the adopted group,
and that certainly becomes true Ofsan.She is extremely aggressive. She's vicious,

(25:52):
which I kind of love about herme too. She's like a fair
little animal, she is. Butshe fights harder than the wolves do.
Oh yeah, she's spitting blood outof open wounds. She's climbing up roofs.
She's high, she's like all upon people's business's. She means it.
She is a druid at the veryin D and D terms, she
is identified with nature. She willdefend nature at all points. Nature is

(26:15):
better than anything else, and anythingthat intrudes upon that, yeah, absolutely
comes your way. And so,as we know, is what we've been
talking about. When you identify sostrongly with a value, the people that
seem to be an opposition of thatvalue are your enemies, your antagonists,

(26:36):
right, So obviously all the peoplethat she's fighting against. All she sees
is how they are destroying what's importantto her. All she sees is them
overcutting the forest and trying to destroythem. Right, Like there's in her
mind they are the villain and sheis the hero. Correct. Yes,

(26:56):
even though she's actively taking life anddoing the things that are against what she's
necessarily wanting. Because they have crosseda certain line of survival, that action
becomes warranted even though it's not necessarilywithin her full value system. Yeah.
And looking at why that's especially importantto consider is there is no pure character

(27:23):
in this film. It makes ita really complicated one to watch because no
one is represented as a true hero. Ashitaka is the closest to a hero
we have and because he is thebenefit also of being almost like an unbiased
third party correct, Like he's comingin fresh to this situation. Correct,

(27:45):
And he rides in and kind ofadheres to what is almost closest to objectively
right and seeks to solve conflict andsee the middle sides of things rather than
lock into his own perspective because theSamurai exterminated his race of people. Oh

(28:08):
and he has every reason to bevery angry, and he doesn't choose that.
But when looking at Son, Sondoesn't know necessarily who she is outside
of who she's been told she is, and she doesn't know who humans are
outside of the perspective of animals,which gets complicated really fast when she's at

(28:33):
least part human like, she's notsomeone who's been transformed into an animal.
But it's said by other characters inthe film that the Wolf Goddess has kind
of taken over her soul. OhI miss that? Oh same, okay,
okay, that she has some rainover it, and that's kind of

(28:59):
how she it's sort of the immortalityish kind of godlike features that she gets
is because the Wolf Goddess has akind of controlling interest in her, which
is why after the Wolf Godess dieswe see some values challenging done by Son
and she becomes a little less warlike. Also the war stops. But okay,

(29:25):
yeah, I guess at this time, me and Hannah can say that
this is the first and one I'veever watched this movie, so there might
be things we've missed that we couldgain on a second watching. Yeah,
for sure. Also, it's reallyhard to see a Japanese Monk voiced by
Billy Bob Thornton. That was weird. Yeah, that was weird. That

(29:45):
was a weird that was a weird, uh weird take. That's weird flex.
Yeah, that's the word I waslooking for. So it's weird flex.
And some of the really important dialogueand uh information may or may not
be true. And I think it'smore or less true because when she drinks
the blood and it's I guess kindof taken on by the wolf, she's

(30:08):
kind of taken into that godlike status. So she's she's kind of she's a
demigod at like Hercules Percy Jackson.Possibly, sure, I mean, I
think what's coming to mind also withyou saying this is how if we can

(30:30):
understand values, it can also helpus access empathy in terms of perspective,
right, because you can kind ofwell you can see in the movie how
when Son comes into Iron Town,how they all view her as, like
I said, like this feral animal. Like they probably would use word savage
if they didn't use that in themovie, which is a very loaded term

(30:52):
in the United States. Yeah,because we used to use the word savage.
Is a lot white people. Weuse the word savages a lot to
talk about Native Americans First Nation people, right, And I think that's what's
also coming up for me and thinkingabout this is how when they say,
like history is told by the victors, how we can dehumanize others because we

(31:15):
are looking at it through this lensof like I don't understand them. Why
would they act like that? Right? And I think this movie is a
good representation. And like the soncharacter of if you're looking at her from
the perspective of the Iron Town people, she would look maybe how the white
colonizers in America would think about thepeople that are already here, the indigenous
people of America, of like,why are they fighting us? Look at

(31:37):
them. They'll come in and theyare aggressors and they'll hurt you, and
they'll like all the horrible propaganda wewould talk about, right, because they
were only seeing it from their pointof view, whereas Forsan and like when
we think about Indigenous people, likethey're viewing the Iron Town people, the
white people as these colonizers that arecoming in and they're trying to destroy us.
So of course we're going to actaccordingly to preserve our culture, our

(32:02):
land, our lives, and howit is good to think of things that
way when we're trying to be culturallycompetent and yeah, just more empathetic that
like, we have to be awareof what perspective is driving the narrative.
Correct. It's really important to rememberthat in the simile you've drawn here,

(32:29):
that the people who were coming intothe United States were taking from nature at
a rate that threw off the balanceof the circle of life that led to
food and survival for everyone. Andthen just slaughtering the buffalo herds for their

(32:50):
tongues and leaving them to rot inthe sun meant people would starve on the
plains because they wouldn't have enough herdsto feed everybody, et cetera. Throw
off the whole balance of nature forgreed, and that ties directly into this
story because it's a human greed issue. Wasn't Europeans versus Native Americans. That's

(33:12):
just North American history and South Americanhistory and African history and world history.
Yep. People come from other placesand don't understand the culture, values and
balance of nature the ecosystem. Here'sthe word I was looking for that exists
in a particular region and think,ooh, well, this resource is rare
to us. Therefore it's valuable,so it's worth me killing them to get

(33:37):
it because it will advance my stature. Where they're going, what are you
doing here? Yeah? Or eventhe idea, which I know kind of
slides into talking about Irontown, ofthis idea that like living beings already are
already here using these resources. Correct, Like this idea from like the more

(33:58):
like Lady Oboshi point of view oflike, oh, we found this place,
and so we can do with itwhat we will. It's ours now.
It makes us rich and totally deludingthemselves of the fact that there was
already things people, human beings hereand nature and nature well that's what Yeah,
nature here using this stuff, andlike in the colonizers as history we're

(34:22):
talking about, there's already people hereusing these things, correct, and they're
using them to atterate that has madesense for a long time to their culture
and has kept their culture alive.They've worked out a delicate balance with nature.
And then industrialization tends to have theopposite effect. And looking at Lady

(34:49):
Abashi and Irontown, where they orwhat they kind of represent in this story
is the growing movement of industrialization andthe power of greed over the forest and
the animal kingdom that had existed before, and how they're completely blind to the
impact that their greed has on destroyingthat habitat when there could be a balance

(35:14):
worked out, but they choose toabsolutely ignore that. And the forest and
the gods come from their own perspectiveof having seen things work a certain way
for a very long time, andthey're willing to fight against that. Yeah,
like everything, the Ape tribe says, we got to kill these humans
because they ain't letting us grow backthe trees. We grow back the trees

(35:38):
they cut down the trees. Theygotta go. And because the Bashi Iron
tribe of Iron Town, all ofthem, they are the villains. They
are a threat. They are anexistential and literal threat to the forest.
They are yep. Yeah, Sodo we have anything else we want to
say about our friends son? AllRight, we'll take a break here since

(36:04):
we've started talking about Iron Town alittle bit, let's keep that up.
So Iron Town is led by LadyAbashi. What do we know about her?
She's a bad lady Abashi. She'sa lady entrepreneur, which I wonder
it does make me wonder culturally atthat time what that was like would have
been rare. Yeah, I assumeso, but I also don't want to

(36:24):
assume that based on white culture thatI'm aware of. So she is a
female entrepreneur, business owner. Sheis running this iron mine, right,
they are deforcing to mine for iron. I think I'm using the word deforced
right, yes, yes, andstrip mining basically. Yeah. And she

(36:49):
is creating firearms, you know,and that is pretty revolutionary right at the
time, and not just firearms forthe sake of firearms. The feeling I
got from her is that she wascreating firearms so that she could arm the
people that she was supporting, aslike a wait for them to protect themselves

(37:10):
too and tip the balance of power. Yes, I think that's kind of
what I mean. And so she'ssomeone that is creating firearms, and she
could definitely be seen as like thevillain, right, evil corporate lady comes
in starts fucking up the local ecosystem, cutting down trees pretty maliciously and unfeelingly,

(37:31):
unepathetically. She's like, this gottago. She wants to kill the
forest spirit God, cut its fuckinghead off, pretty much. And she
also has moments in the movie whereshe's like, leave the women, fuck
them, we gotta go right.In a lot of stories, like I
think it would stop there, shewould be just this very two dimensional villain,

(37:52):
right. I think what's interesting abouther, kind of going back to
what we're talking about with like thecomplicated value systems of the people, is
that she takes care of people whoare disenfranchised marginalized within the community. The
women who work Iron Town are womenwho were sex workers that she seems to

(38:13):
have saved from like the brothel lifestyle, and they are very grateful to her.
And then she also supports a lotof people who are suffering from leprosy,
which was one of those diseases atthe time that was very connected to
karma and value, like character value, like people would say like you have

(38:34):
leprosy because you're bad or something like. It was part of a class system
kind of thing in a lot ofdifferent countries, actually, I think,
yeah. And so she takes ina lot of people that are normally disregarded
discarded by society, which makes herlike a very interesting, complicated figure where
she's not all bad and she's definitelynot all good. Yeah, but it's
it is. I did find itvery interesting watching this that they complicate her

(39:00):
in that way specifically. Yeah,she's a complex character, for sure.
She sits in the kind of neutral, a true neutral alignment, where she's
willing to do good or bad whateversuits her and whatever suits her mission.
I think she by the look ofher, the way she's drawn, she

(39:25):
looks like she was samurai. Ibelieve she has two swords on, which
is a firm marker that she wassamurai. She's obviously trained to make great
links in the film to indicate onceshe takes her robes off and stuff that
she's wearing very ruling class samurai stylekimono and traditional dress of the ruling class,
and women were part of that class. There were female samurai, and

(39:50):
she carries all the markers of it. But it looks like something happened or
something obstructed her societally from obtaining hergoals, and she's rebelling against it,
and she's finding outcasts from society toprotect and to bring into her mission.
And she is protecting and rescuing peoplefrom the dregs of society. She's rescuing
lepers and giving them jobs and givingthem a place in society as opposed to

(40:15):
what would have happened at the timewas to be banished to leper colonies on
the coast and you go them ina cave until your skin falls off.
But they say they she bandaged us, she cut our rotting flesh and like
gave us work. And she seemsto hold great respect and doesn't seem to
fear that she's also going to contractthis horrible disease. And these Yeah,

(40:37):
because if I remember correctly, thepeople who have leprosy are the ones who
actually come up with the designs foreverything, Like they're the creative part of
the mine. I think, didn'tthey say they're the R and D Department.
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly,they're the gunsmiths. Yeah, yes,

(41:00):
right, and so they actually makethe weapons and had the undertones to
her. She's rebelling against Samurai societyand is recognizing the shift that's coming,
which we know happened everywhere. She'staking these people into fold and note,
we're driving progress forward. We can'tstay stuck in these old ways. But
something in her value system must havechanged to make her resent that so fiercely

(41:25):
that she's willing to fight against itand tip the balance of power to her.
So she has control now and she'strying to remake society in her own
vision, and she's taking women who'vebeen cast into brothel life and giving them
empowerment. Sort of, yeah,I would say so. I mean,

(41:46):
I feel like the women feel verytaken care of. They feel respected,
they feel they feel like they're beingtaken care of, like and I think
that that's something that I would imaginecoming from a brothel in the thirteen hundreds
was probably a nightmare status. Andso I feel like when somebody again,

(42:08):
right when we talked about earlier abouttrauma having an effect on your values,
it would make a lot of sensethat these women would feel very strongly about
Lady Aboshi and feel and want tofollow her and want to help her and
want to do things for her becauseshe took them in and she is and
she's taking good care of them aspoint to a point for sure, even

(42:32):
though, like Britney said later onin the film, she says, leave
the women, don't worry about it. Mm hmm. She's willing to sacrifice
them. She was willing to sacrificethem in that moment. And I think
a part of that might be becauseher goal became bigger than the women it

(42:53):
always was. Yeah, I meanshe says, I've done all I can
for them. They're on their ownnow, Yes, that's what she says.
Yeah, there's a caveat to leavethem, but I've done all I
can for them, which is alsofalse. Yeah, but within her value
system, she's justifying her manifest destiny. If you will to tip the balance

(43:17):
of power and complete this mission ofexterminating the forest god who is making the
animal smart and capable of fighting againsther and blocking her will, If she
exterminates that forest god, she canhave a clear path to conquer the forest.
Yeah. And this is where youcan even get into a more nuanced

(43:40):
discussion of values and motivators. Rightis does she taken these people because she
genuinely feels like they deserve a safeplace to be, that they deserve to
be taken out of these situations thatmaybe she'd been in it sometimes, you
know, like take them into aplace where they feel more empowered. Or
does she know she's wiley? Anddoes she know that if I take in

(44:06):
these kinds of people, they willbe so grateful for me to me that
they will follow behind me no matterwhat she's that mostly because these are always
her servants, Like the women aretreated well and they're treated well as compared

(44:27):
to being at a brothel, andit could be prepared to many places.
But also they're not doing great,you know, they're they're working four day
shifts, like they have their ownlittle community. They're given some agency and
respect over their lives, but there'sa huge glass ceiling and there's no way
to step up well. And alsothere's a ton of misogyny. Those guys

(44:51):
that work there talk mad shit aboutthese women, right, They basically call
them horse, dirty horse basically andmore subtle language, well not even really
not subtle. I said, likelook out for the fishy smell or something
was it was, I remember exactlywhat they said. All I wrote was,
Wow, these guys are misogynistic.And so it's like it's like what

(45:15):
we're talking about, which that shewill Obashi will create a sayer system to
a point, but she's not creatinga system where she's like, don't talk
about women like that, you know, where there's more like true egalitarianism going
on. Are we starting to saythat she is Lady Abashi, the breaker

(45:37):
of chains, the mother of forges, we're talking about Denaris. Yeah,
my main girl. Yeah, ifshe's your main girl, you missed the
point of that moment. I thinkthe show missed the point. Agreed.
I think she was always going totake that route, but it was a

(45:57):
bad Yeah whatever that or on thetenth of never Yeah, exactly, but
exactly like Yeah, look at ladyaboushi Is. She's complicated, but there's
clearly something that's causing her to startcompromising both the values of the Samurai and
also the values that she's setting upfor these people that allows her to pursue
her own sense of Why is theword ambition? I guess m is this

(46:21):
word I'm looking forward to. Herown ambition seems to drank higher than anything
else because she has placed herself andthis mission above everyone else's needs her.
The representation she's sold to these peoplesI'll keep you safe song as you serve
me. But when that clashes withher mission, she's quick to abandon them.
Yeah, because she'll find more showingher true value she places on them.

(46:45):
At least that part does Yeah,or even just like Hubris, right
of believing that which we can allfall into, of believing that our viewpoint,
and our greatness is what's most important. Like we are currently in our
society struggling with a lot of peoplelike this, like the Elon Musks,

(47:07):
the Jeff Bezos, the politicians whoare very much like I am, the
Way, the True, and thelight. And so to keep me prioritized,
to value me is to value thefuture and society and my brain and
my ambition, like you were saying, Ben, and that other people are

(47:29):
more are well, are less valuable, are more disposable because they don't have
as much to offer the world.And so this is where like people can
also take values ideas and kind oftwist them to fit their needs to do
bad when we all do this mentalgymnastics to justify ourselves to ourselves, you

(47:54):
know, I'm sure there's stories thatlady Obashi's telling to herself about why it's
okay that she's doing stuff that likelooks on paper horrible. I'm cutting down
all these forests, I'm fucking upall these people that were animals that already
hear these gods, which that's temptinga lot of bad energy vibes, you
know, And what she must haveto tell herself to make that okay,

(48:19):
as it aligns with her values andethics correct. She's literally informed that her
weapons are responsible. That's how sheTaka's entire point of talking to her is
informing her her weapons are killing thegods of the forests that are changing the
world for everyone, making them intodemons that go into other communities and fuck
their shit up like pollution basically andpoison including him like he's got proof and

(48:45):
she's like, nah, m hm, the samurai hurt me and fuck them,
Yeah, pretty much at all costs, which could be coming out of
a trauma that she experienced. Certainto be that hyper focused on the goal
the way that she is, Ithink it would make a lot of sense

(49:06):
that that would come out of trauma. Absolutely, Yeah, she was stripped
of something and yeah for sure,and she's taken power back. That's the
last fucking thing she does. That'swhat she's doing. And it kind of
makes me think of when I dovalues work with clients sometimes where I have
to kind of like throw down thehammer is are you really holding up to

(49:30):
this value you're telling me that youbelieve in or are you prioritizing your ego?
Like and then when I say yougoo I mean how it connects to
like your defensiveness of yourself and howand that can show up as a trauma
reaction. It can also show uplike we talk about with couples. This
is a good one. Do youwant to be a writer? Do you

(49:50):
want to have a good relationship?Exactly? You could argue that's a valuous
conversation. Oh, certainly. Doyou want to value your relationship or do
you want to value your ego?Yeah? And what that can next to?
Exactly? And yeah, And soI think with someone like Lady Abashi
and people in the real world toremind me of her, that's something to
contest with, right. And somepeople can't look in the mirror and really

(50:16):
acknowledge where they might be prioritizing valueslike my ego. Most people know that
that wouldn't be good to say outloud. It's not gonna feel good to
say. I'm not going to feelgood to hear that. Like I actually
value my physical appearance, my statusmore than anything else money, Right,

(50:38):
And so we will connect sometimes thosethings to values that feel more palatable to
justify, like I said, justifyourselves to ourselves and others, Like I
said, like a lot of thingsthat maybe we'll talk about this more with
Gigo is where we can be prioritizingthings that are individual and self serving and

(51:02):
telling a story that like, no, actually, it's because like I'm so
important or my mission is so importantor what I bring to the world so
important that I have to be doingthis stuff and you all should be grateful
for it. Correct. Can youtell that I'm thinking of Elon Musk really
hard? I mean, there's ameme going on about him that or going

(51:24):
around about him for the past coupleof years. It makes me laugh really
hard. It's a really unflattering pictureof him taking a sun shower somewhere that
says bro had enough money to beBatman, but chose to be the Penguin.
The second Penguin refends one episode.The one I always think about is
everyone this is years ago, backwhen he's still kind of a good reputation,
is that everyone thinks Elon Musk isTony Stark, but he's Lex Luthor.

(51:46):
It's like, well, I readthat and it forever changed how I
thought about him. That was likestarted the crumbling of him in my mind.
Yeah, m hmm, yeah,makes sense. That makes sense.
And you know, when we seethese characters like lady Abashi kind of represents
a fallen paladin, a vengeance paladinor oathbreaker is what would be called in

(52:14):
D and D where she's representing apromise but she stopped and there's consequences to
that and those have to be sortedout before you can get on the right
path again. And that's absolutely whathappens to her. She must be humbled
from her ridiculous ideas that she's largerthan this community that she represents, that
she's sworn an allegiance to protect,and then she stops protecting them and she

(52:38):
nearly loses her life. Yeah,she loses her goddamn arm. She does.
And then she's like maybe, ohyeah. So what I kind of
wanted to ask both of you is, what do you think about her saying
well, we're going to do itbetter next time. Do you feel like
she'll be able to shift her valuesafter having that experience or does it feel

(53:00):
like she won't be able to shullfall right back into that pattern? So
which experience, because I think that'san excellent question. What are you talking
about, like the totality of thewhole experience or just the wolf head,
ripping, tortality, losing the armjust I think also the impact of like
death almost like encompassing everything. Yeah, the way I think of it is

(53:24):
like she has witnessed the bigness ofwhat she was trying to conquer and she
got her ass handed to her.Yeah, pretty much. I agree,
pretty much. And I think that'san excellent question at the meat of the
story. Do I think that's enoughto cause a value shift for her?
I do so do I That's whyI was just curious what you both thought,

(53:44):
because I really feel like because alsobecause it went so badly, So
it went so so badly that Ithink that that is enough for her to
kind of take a step back andlook aside and kind of figure out,
like, I don't think that thatvalue is actually serving me anymore, and

(54:05):
I think I need to do somethingdifferent. I mean, it's it's what
we say all the time, rightthat people change when they're uncomfortable enough.
And if this ain't her rock bottom, baby, I don't know what it
is, you know, And thisis the reason, like the real world
examples of this, white people cometo therapy, right, like something catastrophic
happens that changes something really huge forthem. They lose something very significant they

(54:30):
can't keep. They've learned a lessonthat can't keep doing things the way they
used to. They cannot. AndI just had one of those had a
spark, a spark at a teacherwants to tell me that I think she
like to watch the gears go onmy head because they'll go like click clicklickick,
click and then lock onto something.And I just realized who, Lady

(54:51):
Abashi reminds me of Wanda Maxima.Yep, oh so so long okay song
as Sam Raimier, whoever wrote herstory in Multiverse of Madness, isn't writing
her story? Yeah, I believethe answer to your question is would this
be a big enough event of actuallyfacing down pure extinction and a world destroying

(55:20):
event enough to shift her values ofrealizing, Oh, you must in fact
accept the truth that death and lifecannot be conquered by any living thing.
It is for the gods, andit can't. It's a spiritual thing.
You just it's just truth, hardtruth. Can that be messed with,
conquered, defeated? No? Andis that enough to cause a shift,

(55:45):
yes, But to me it's italmost harkens to like Wanda realizing the effect
she's having on other people in Wandavision, realizing that her maintaining this narrow
vision of this reality, holding ontoit and not accepting the truths of the
world, that no one can conquerdeath and life right absolutely, and then

(56:07):
that being enough to cause her todrop that and finally grieve whatever Lady Aboshi
is not facing in her life she'splaying out in progressively more. I don't
know what the right word is.Dangerous, Sure, we'll go with that,
dangerous ways that have significant impact onradiating like layers of exponential destruction on

(56:32):
everyone else because she won't deal withher shit. Yeah. And also I
think because she free and lost herfree arm, that that's a reminder to
her every day right to stay humble. You know, that's like a lot
of when you come from that morelike ecocentric mindset like this happens a lot
of people when they have to dorecovery from substance use. Right, is

(56:53):
that you have to keep mindful of, like your humility within the situation.
Yep I. How easily we canlapse into old patterns of behavior, old
ways of thinking, like sort ofquote unquote the easy way out if you
will, even though it's not easyon you. And so I think that

(57:15):
if she hadn't lost her arm,if other things like that had happened,
I could see maybe her slipping backinto it. But I think because it
had such a profound she's a profoundreminder that's going to affect her every day
for the rest of her life.She's gonna have to change the way she
does everything that I think that mightbe enough for her to stick to the

(57:36):
change. I agree it has potential. Yeah, will it I don't know.
Will she follow the path of Wandaand retreat back into it the path
of Teddy in the Shutter Island story, where he comes face to face with
how bad a traumas and chooses tocontinue to ignore it, further retreat even

(57:58):
to the point that his ability tomake independent decisions is taken from him and
he doesn't have to do it.Yep, it's a risk with her and
her the ambiguity, but she seemsto have shown enough shift that it's hopeful.
When I was watching videos about thefilm this week, people did very
much talk about how she had ashift at the end, and how and

(58:23):
how they really felt like they reallybelieved that she would be able to create
a more natural town this time.People felt very hopeful about that that if
things stay in balance, she's tryingto use the natural resources of the world
that are given to us and thenatural evolution that comes without destroying everything,

(58:49):
but only taking what can be replaced. If she learns that message and accepts
it, she would grow. Andseeing as this is a teenager's kind of
story, it makes sense that thatmight be a lesson to learn at that
age. Oh yeah, do wehave anything else we want to cover with
her? I feel like that wasan excellent coverage of her character and ambiguity

(59:12):
of it. I'm good, Brittanyis good. I'm good. I am
also good. Let's take a breakhere. So our our lead, our
paladin, our main guy. That'swhat I put in my notes. Yeah,
as played by Billy crud Up.I know, and in real life,
Billy crud Up and Claire Danes,who was the voice of Son Princess

(59:36):
Mononoke, they got together in reallife. Hmm, it didn't last to
them, But that's interesting about howwho they play in this movie. Yeah,
for sure, indeed. And thePrince is such an interesting character as
he's well the nature God is theChrist figure of the story, right,

(59:58):
yeah, oh yeah, for sure, for sure, even the even the
beginning of him getting cursed by thedemon and then the only choice he has
is to leave his community and hecan never come back, Like he loses
his complete and full identity automatically andhas to go on this quest to not

(01:00:20):
die, which he might anyway,which he might anyway because it's demon stuff
and his culture. Right, Idon't know what else to say, Like
he's fucking cursed by a demon.I mean that shit's fucked. Like you
gotta go and I never want tosee you ever, right, due to
our laws, we can't even watchyou, Like he got no ceremony just
to cut your hair, get out, Yeah, because you're you're gone.

(01:00:42):
You have to leave us. Butlooking at that's important. He has to
hold on to the truth that feelmost secure to him, because that's all
he has left. Well, Andit also makes me really curious if we
had got to spend more time withhis village, with his people. I

(01:01:02):
assume that they have a really highlyevolved moral value system because he is so
like we were saying, we weresaying in the beginning, he almost like
rises above all the foibles that everybodyelse is falling into. Like, he
maintains this very empathetic, neutral,curious, open minded stance that is almost

(01:01:31):
like inhuman in a good way,like the jesus Y part of it.
Yeah, like rising above a lotof this stuff and having like a high
moral standpoint he does. He maintainsis like lawful, good to neutral kind

(01:01:51):
of alignment where I'm going to dowhat feels like the most right thing to
me. But he was also likelike, yeah, I'm sure his culture
does have a very set way ofviewing things and has become more inclusive as
they were almost exterminated, they saykind of in the beginning of the movie.
There's only five hundred of them left, and they're getting weaker. Yeah,

(01:02:14):
they make she people right. Theirgenetics are getting weaker. They're essentially
it's unimplied they've reached the point ofstarting to inbreed and like trying to fight
against that and recognizing that their timeon the planet as a cohesive tribe may
be coming to an end. Yeah, but it does make me curious because

(01:02:35):
they are so isolated. Is thatwhy they're able to like someone like Oshataki
can exist that has such moral yeah, high standards, right, because I
guess the assumption is like they're justnot as corrupted by everything else. Well,
and also I mean, yeah,I think so. But then also
they have to figure out how tocompromise. They have to figure fure out

(01:03:00):
how to maintain a certain level ofmorality, I feel like, in order
to continue on with their journey oftrying to keep their people and cooperativeness.
Yeah, they have to be cooperative. They can't. They really have to
compromise because there's not that many ofthem, and so they can't allow They

(01:03:20):
also can't experience the loss of makingbrash decisions, right, they can't murder
each other out of anger exactly.Oh yeah, so it holds them to
a higher stated their survivals tied tobehaving, yes, and being good to
each other. Yeah, which isa great point. And what it also
makes me think of because when Iwas reading the Wikipedia page about this movie,

(01:03:45):
one of the themes other than likethe obvious ones of like environmentalism stuff
like that, is like the lossof innocence. And when you were saying
about that with like that tribe andhow they are isolated and so that kind
of also allows them to live inthis way is how when we are younger
and our world smaller, if weare safe, right, Like I'm sure

(01:04:10):
we all know kids and teenagers thatwe've worked with where they're so sure of
everything. Everything's so black and whiteand right and wrong, and good people
do that and bad people do that, and it's very unnuanced, right,
Yes, And then as you getolder and you leave, like Ashataki leaves
his little community and goes out intothe world, he's exposed to all these

(01:04:31):
more complicated ideas, right, thatsometimes you actually may hurt someone to save
someone else, like kind of likeethical trolley problem kind of stuff. Right.
And it's so hard to have thoseconversations with teenagers and kids because they
are so sure of themselves, whichis they're supposed to be except for them

(01:04:54):
development developmental. And there's so littlewiggle room sometimes around why people do things
that don't feel good or look good, right, And I think I wonder
if that's like the loss of innocencethat is sort of exploring this movie too,
of like he's being exposed to thisidea that things aren't always able to
be as clear cut as we wouldlike them to be, right every side

(01:05:17):
is trying to kill the other andthey are doing it for their moral reasoning,
right, and they aren't. Peopledon't always leave you the option of
having like a safe and peaceful compromisethey do not. Sucks, Yeah,
it does, it royally sucks.Yeah. He seems real comfortable with that
because when he rides into that battle, Yeah, whoever he sees his the

(01:05:42):
aggressor, he just immediately shoots withhis boone because of his now demon arm
strength, Like their arms are justgetting lobbed off by his arrows. And
that was bananas, bananas when hisarrow would just like pop a head off
or pop off an armors, Likewhat the fuck? But again because that
demon energy, right, and he'sI guess he's a palock, Paladin warlock,

(01:06:04):
multi glass, I got that demon. I feel like at this time
in the podcast, I should explainthat Ben right now is leading a D
and D campaign that he has manipulatedHannah and I to be a part of
just such a strong language offering.Has offered to teach us how to play

(01:06:25):
D and D it so it's freshon his noggin. Yes, which is
why I feel like you're using somuch of these vocal words I am.
Also, you know a lot ofmy network uses him and now speaks it.
So you know, we we learnedto speak it in the pandemic when
there was nothing else to do besideslearn things none of us thought we'd ever

(01:06:45):
do, including D and D andgolf and then golf. There was nothing
else to do for the three years. So I mean, we get it.
We watched everything. Listen, Iunderstand that men have to create a
sport around taking long walks with theirfriends. Yeah, it's very sweet.
I mean we some of us justtry to snuggle, but the others are

(01:07:05):
a little too masculine for it.Still, I mean that's why wrestling got
created, right, Yeah, Imean that was obviously usually done for men
to be naked with each other andexactly exactly. Yeah, so you know
you poor guys, Yeah, Iknow, just want a friend and nap
with me, like Chandler and Joeyor not, but Joey and Ross.

(01:07:28):
My wife would yell at me forthat anyway. Yeah. Looking at Ashitaka,
it's really important to understand, likehe's got a really clear cut sense
of right and wrong, and hedoes have to start recognizing he can't just
ride it and start like dismembering people. Yeah, with his new you know,
god like pars because the demon forceinside of him tries to take control.

(01:07:51):
Yeah, and that starts to bea valued conflict of He's getting this
rage to strike that's not coming fromhim, and he saw how that can
assumed the boor god and he doesn't. He's fighting to not become that and
to solve these problems before he loseshis battle with that. And that's a
lot for a teenager to recognize.Of. Yes, in fact, the

(01:08:12):
world can scar you, damage you, and force you to act outside of
your will out of fear and anger. And you are not immune to that
because you decided you weren't going tobe Yeah, And that's what egocentrism leads
people to think. One of myfavorite questions to talk to first responders about
is in your early career and childhoodlife, who were you taught that bad

(01:08:35):
things happened to? Oh hmm,And they always have the same answer,
bad people. Who are those?Well that too, But I mean think
about how simple we teach children.Yeah, but when you ask them,
and now that you've been on thejob for five years, who do bad

(01:08:56):
things happen to? Everybody, everybody, everyone, and then usually there's a
second term added to it is somesynonym of indiscriminately. And it's easy for
you too, because we're all therapists. Yeah, we know, we don't
go on. That's something we talkabout with clients all the time, is
like, sometimes bad things just happen, and not because you deserve it.

(01:09:21):
Are they deserved it or you didanything wrong? Just happens, And that's
really hard. That's a really hardlesson to learn in life. It's a
really hard end. It's a reallymean lesson. It is acceptance, and
sometimes it's because of evil, andsometimes it's become a circumstance, and sometimes

(01:09:41):
evil latches on to circumstance a laLady Abashi, where we struggle to find
the lines and he struggles to explorethat because he gets kind of taken in
by her and sees the ambiguity ofwhere she's at. Like finding someone's on
that neutral evil spectrum is that's toughto figure out, like okay, but

(01:10:02):
they are doing some good, buttheir basis like where do you? Is
this someone I need to exterminate?But then that you know, forest rage
in him is like kill this bitchyeah. Well, I think also an
interesting influence and maybe this is whythey had the kind of like flirty romantic
stuff in it is that he startsto get a crush on someone who is

(01:10:24):
demonstrating a lot of behaviors that hemaybe wouldn't have aligned himself with but are
now awakening in him. Yeah.So that complicates it too. That starts
to complicate his also sense of moralityas well. It's a good point,
Oh, I can like someone whodoes stuff like that. Yeah, And
when you're younger, there is thismore like hardcore sense of like we were

(01:10:45):
saying, bad guys good guys,of like, well, if they do
that, they're a bad guy,and I can't possibly like them, especially
if I'm the good guy. Yeah. And so that leads to what we
have talked a lot about this podcastbefore, dialectical thinking, and when I
have to use that with clients whenthey have a really hard time wrapping their
head around the fact that there's someonethat they know or that they love or
maybe even themselves, we're like,how can I be both this say and

(01:11:09):
that it has to be a buttonthere? And then I'm like, well,
you can put an in the middle, you know, of like like
Lady Abashi. This can be someoneyou've met who has done horrible things and
has done really beautiful things for peoplewho really needed help, and both those
things can move for at once,and sitting in that is so uncomfortable for

(01:11:29):
us because we do like to choosea side because it's simple and usually promotes
survival. Yeah, who's the usand who's the then? Correct, as
at some point the world will forceyou to make a choice. You got
that, right, though sometimes thatchoice doesn't come or you can decide in
degrees a lah Switzerland without everybody bankhere. Yeah, so nobody's gonna invade

(01:11:55):
us because we control everybody's money.But then you're you're still making a choice.
Yeah, A non choice is achoice. Silence is a choice,
you know. Non action is achoice. Right, and ash Taka really
chooses along the moral lines because that'sthe only identity he has left. Yeah,

(01:12:23):
is to represent I carry this burdenof saving the world within me and
making making it to the forest godsthat I can stop this curse from affecting
everything and me. Well, healso has the benefit of, even though
he's coming from such an isolated community, he also kind of oddly has the

(01:12:44):
benefit of like seeing the bigger picturebecause he's coming in from as an outsider,
right of like, this isn't justwho's gonna win right here right this
area of the world, This haslasting impact, and that's connected to a
higher value of like the lively likethe world right which we see now in
modern day world, which is climatechange? Right, what are we going

(01:13:06):
to prioritize and people saying, well, we have to prioritize these things that
hurt the climate because that's kinect tosurvival, while other people are like,
what does that matter if we don'thave an earth to live on? Correct,
if we're living on Kevin Costner's waterWorld, Oh god, among the
worst films ever made. Oh godthat in so long never saw it?

(01:13:30):
Don't will don't don't, oh we'llwatch it? Oh God? AnyWho?
But the uh, I think you'reright that Ashtaka comes in with an ability
to hold an end. He hasthe ability to hold the dialectical thinking both
things can be true simultaneously where othercharacters can't, which sorry, which I
think is connected to the bigger picturethat his community had to always hold in

(01:13:56):
hand if we want to survive.Going back to survival. If we want
to survive, we have to figurethis the fuck out. We gotta be
collective, like hyper collective. Yes, yes, anyway, go ahead.
Oh yeah, it's good. Itall ties exactly together, and it's it's
important to recognize how him coming inwith that outside perspective like you guys are

(01:14:17):
mentioning, allows him to tie thathigher truth into break through people's values that
are now also getting corrupted by survival. That we have an enemy present.
Yes, this is not a culturalmyth. We're perpetuating to prepare people to
deal with something. The wolf isat the gates literally, yeah, that

(01:14:38):
is our introduction to Lady Abashi's people, a wolf attack by son writing the
wolf pups and being told like,oh they're not they're big, but they're
not big, Like those are thepups? Wait till you meet mama.
Yeah yeah, and then they shootmama. Yeah they do, but it's
still yet again works into this highernarrative, higher narrative, higher narrative that

(01:15:01):
ash Tuka is representing. You guysneed to get off your bullshit and recognize
we're all gonna die. Yeah ifyou keep this up. And they're like,
no, but these people are tryingto kill us, and of course,
the minute lady Abashi takes her guardand leaves the samurai led by the
local shogun attack and she is nowforced to work with our boy, the

(01:15:28):
monk Jigo. Jigo, Jigo.So should we take a break there,
we should? All right, we'llbe right back. So coming from a
super outward, hyper collective lens,let's narrow right back down to a super
individualistic lens, a super self servinglens, which is Jigo in the story.

(01:15:51):
And Jigo is such an interesting wayto represent that because Jigo appears to
be the wise old man archetype andassuming yes he does worldly sees everybody,
knows everything, he knows all thesecrets, he knows people's culture. He

(01:16:12):
recognizes Ashitaka for being of his theAmishi people's like I see that ball,
right and the bowl in particularly thebowl, Oh okay, A big interchange
about that that really lets ashi Takakind of be seen as you know,
who he is and of his people, and he has a big conversation with

(01:16:33):
about that. But appears to benot a snake, but god damn,
is he the worst, the worst. But he doesn't reveal himself. He
appears to be just kind of likeadvisors kind of around. I kind of
like the he just seems to popup right, kind of like maybe I'm
the clericy kind of person the connectionto spirituality and morality, and I'm kind

(01:16:53):
of neutral to everybody. But heis most certainly not. He is on
his own side. He is asneaky, sneaky sneak who is the sneakiest
snake there ever was. Yeah,and he's on a mission to get the
head of the forest God for theEmperor so that the Emperor in anger must

(01:17:15):
it needs to fear death and keephis reign going forever and then doesn't have
to keep fighting Lady Aboche anymore,which I think probably lends to the undertext
that it was him, or thatit was the Emperor who cast out Eboshi
in the first place, or someonelike him. Sure, and then it's

(01:17:35):
really complicated for her to trust Jigo, although Gigo probably was not revealing to
her that he's on the Emperor's teamuntil the end. He's playing every side
he can, Yeah, I don'tthink so. I don't think she catches
on until the very very end wherehe finally reveals that he wanted it for

(01:17:56):
the emperor. I think that soundsright, and where he represents a particular
dangerous he doesn't care, he's chaotic, he doesn't care what happens to anybody.
Yeah, he's just looking out forhim. Somewhere along the story of
his life. For whatever reason,he decided that his value is number one

(01:18:17):
New Maruno, right, and that'sit. And that's it, and he
is and we also are taking otherstuff, and we also know the least
about him. Yeah, I wouldsay we have the least amount of background
from him as well, so wealso don't really have a lot more awareness
besides what he shows in the filmas just being self serving, right,

(01:18:40):
And he's representative of a lot ofcharacters that seem to exist throughout some of
the stories of your and Japanese moviesseem to have this characters show up.
And even though the last Samurai waskind of dances with Wolves with Samurai,

(01:19:01):
never saw Avatar with Samurai. Butthere's definitely a character in there who's representing
a little bit later in this processof firearms coming in of the westernization of
Japan. It happened after Commodore Perrystarted bringing Western uniforms and military culture and

(01:19:23):
the samurai really resisting heart as they'refacing their own extermination. That's the central
point of this one. But there'salways a character like that, like the
guy in three hundred who turns overthe Spartan goat path to the Persians,
the kind of deformed character, yeah, who can't hold the shield and the

(01:19:45):
Spartans reject him, and then thePersians welcome in in and give him a
harem, which I think is alsohow you can become self serving. Like
that is, if you feel ostracizedby a community, if you feel like
no one's taking care of you.I mean, that's also like a lot
of people that suffer from like pathologicalnarcissism. A lot of times that's a

(01:20:09):
product of trauma, right, youknow, and they're not just borne that
up their own ass like they it'slike I have to take care of me.
I have to take care of numberone because no one else is going
to right and I need to behyper prioritized to and how much that's connected

(01:20:29):
to your survival. Correct. Andthis character is represented in media all over
the place. You see it overand over again. They're frequently carry some
status in society, but not enoughthat they get jealous and they get really
close to power without having any reallyclose to money without having enough and no
recognition, they start to seek thatand start taking matters into their own hands

(01:20:56):
for their own means. And Ithink you of Game of Thrones, there
were two characters in particular who areamong the most powerfully dangerous characters in the
series that fit this archetype very verywell. Who am I thinking of?
Little Finger? Ding? It's oneAnd you wouldn't say with Saraus, would
you, Varus? Varus? Isthat you're thinking of, Oh, look

(01:21:20):
at me, well done, welldone? Yep, exactly. I think
he's Those are great parallels too,little Finger, especially what a bastard?
Yeah Varus too? Yeah, ohyeah, for sure. I think because
we get more of a backstory ofFaris, I can have more empathy for

(01:21:43):
why he does the things he does. The Little Finger feels like more of
this character where you just don't know, yeah, and so you can kind
of fill it in with a lotof just like more of that moral black
and whiteness we've been talking about.And this character sits, it doesn't care.
He's going to do whoever's going topay him, and he's going to
organize his forces to do the shadything and think you see they kill all

(01:22:05):
those bores that the boar god leadsinto war, and they do it deceptively,
which is very against the balance ofnature destruction with mines and gunpowder,
killing mass numbers of them, whichis very against the seam of this killing
something to eat. It seems tobe relatively regarded as okay. Killing thousands

(01:22:27):
of them in one fell stroke couldshift the balance of power, while deceiving
them and then wearing their skins toget close to the animal god feels real.
Gross. Oh real gross. Iforgot about that partial just see me
too, me too. And italso didn't like how they moved they were
wearing those skins. I don't thinkyou were supposed to. Yeah, yikes.

(01:22:50):
But I think recognizing that there areways that people form values that are
connected to no one and nothing butthemselves in these stories always represent the most
dangerous and least predictable character, andit's important to remember, like who you're
letting close to you, who you'reletting provide context to the world, and

(01:23:12):
watch carefully what people do, notso much what they say. But I
think Gigo is a really interesting characterto look at. It, and it's
important to include as we're looking atvalues versus acceptance. He's accepted he'll never
have enough, so he does whateverfuck he wants. Yeah, and if
he's someone that has experienced ostracization himself, then it becomes a thing of like,

(01:23:34):
I've accepted that people, I'm notgonna be part of a group anyway,
so I might as well get mine. Yeah, pretty much, you
know. And also too, Iwould say, depending on the cultural he
grew up in, like our culture, American capitalistic culture, we also do
a lot of moralizing of that verylinear way of success. Yes, like

(01:24:00):
the way that we like believe we'remere talk so when we're not. But
also like the way that we assumebillionaires are millionaires earned that, you know,
because they're better, smarter, whatever, And if we just idolize them
enough and try to form our lifearound them, that we can do what

(01:24:23):
they did and we can have enoughmoney. We just haven't wanted to bad
enough. I literally my last notewhen watching this movie was my paraphrasing of
the John steinback quote that everyone thinksthat they're a temporarily embarrassed millionaire and that's
why people will like vote against theirinterests and act against their interests because we're
not a We're I'm not an actualpoor person, I'm a temporarily embarrassed millionaire,

(01:24:45):
right. And I was like,that's such a I think about that
quote all the time. It's pervasivethroughout history, in our own history right
now, pretty pretty firmly entrenched inmillionaire billionaire worship exact, ammouondo anything else
we want to say before we shiftinto treatment, Nope, I think it's

(01:25:10):
a clear picture of how these valuescollide in the ambiguity and lack thereof all.
Right, let's take a break here. So treatment, we've kind of
like touched upon treatment here and there, you know, we were talking about
Lady Abashi and stuff. Something thatcame to mind for me in thinking about
treatment was thinking about the groups ofmarginalized people that are in Iron Town and

(01:25:40):
how much they're willing to do thingsthat we would maybe describe as a moral
because they have connected their resources gettingtheir needs met and their survival and their
dignity to Lady Abashi and this Ironmind, right, and how that is
a way that people will get stuckin these cycles. And then like,

(01:26:04):
even when we've talked before about whypeople will do like criminal behaviors right and
join gangs, join gangs. Yeah, that's a great example. And how
I think from a treatment, froma more broader treatment lens, I think
what is helpful to actually cut throughthis kind of stuff is having social services

(01:26:29):
programs for people so that they canhave dignity resources get their needs met,
so they don't have to rely onpeople with slippery moral values, and then
they don't have the desperation factor wherethey're willing to compromise. Maybe they're even
their own values for their survival,you know. So in this situation,

(01:26:51):
part of maybe being able to holdthat compromise between like Iron Town and the
forest is having resources that can comein and lift up the community so that
they can't be corrupted by lady Abashiand her agenda where they don't feel like
they have to. I think alot of what we see in our country

(01:27:14):
too, like why people want tokeep doing coal mining and stuff like that,
is that they don't have resources todo something else, right, and
so you have to provide people withan opportunity to get their needs met in
other ways so that we can evolveall together and make choices that are good
for the collective. We can't justbe like, just get on board,

(01:27:35):
forget about the fact that you don'tknow how to make a living besides relying
on fossil fuels, you know,because we need to help climate change.
What does climate change mean to meif I can't afford to take care of
my children? Right? So Ithink it's just good to know that in
order to help people grow and helpcommunities grow, we do have to go

(01:27:56):
in and provide resources that help peoplebe able to make more values based decisions
that aren't just survival value. Sothat's kind of what I wanted to highlight
because sometimes people will be like socialservices, social services, like why do
we need things like that? Becausethat is a deep part of asking for
change as an individuals. You haveto make sure that people get those needs.

(01:28:17):
Bat Yeah, absolutely absolutely. AndI feel like something else that I
want to add to that is theyhave to be well funded social services.
A big part of the problem inour country is that they are not well
funded. They are not properly funded, and so that then creates a scarcity

(01:28:42):
experience for a lot of people.There's a lot of people who need this
kind of support, and we inthis country one of the values that we
have is not about poor people.We don't give a fuck about poor people.
We don't give a fuck about marginalizedpeople. We say we do,
we say we do, but wedon't. None of our actions match that.

(01:29:05):
And so also, you know,all three of us have worked within
agencies and had all different kinds ofexperiences, and I think a big part
of what I always hoped could bebetter is the is the funding of some
of the social services, that itcould be more consistent, that it could

(01:29:27):
be just not based on donations.If we had to run something based on
donations only, like, that's notgoing to be enough. It's just not.
Nope, it's not. And itproduces the same problem over and over
that the most qualified staff leave,leaving only the least qualified staff who are

(01:29:55):
also the most burned out to workwith the highest need people. Yeah,
it's fucked and none of us doit anymore. And none of us do
it anymore because we don't have tojust fucked. Yeah. Yeah, and
you see some of the best peoplestay and do that, but they choose

(01:30:18):
poverty or near poverty to probably themission. And having well funded, well
resourced, well educated staff and wellsocietally elevated and received social services that are
given a status with a society that'snot oh you know, well that's good

(01:30:40):
for you. Yeah, it's goodfor you. You're taking care of those
people they really need help. Yeah, AnyWho like looking at the importance of
that and how much shamee it cancreate. It creates class mobility, which
doesn't exist in this story. Peopleget stuck in the world that they have,

(01:31:00):
which the example of people that arecoal miners or farmers or whatever other
devalued class that is also simultaneously incrediblynecessary for society to function. It creates
a big problem that people also aretaught that poor people are bad and that

(01:31:26):
you may be poor, but you'renot as poor as them. And if
you like your children to eat,you got to keep doing what you're doing.
And you can't look at the worldbeyond that because that's not relevant to
you and people like us, Andthat creates a really dangerous dynamic that keeps
people kind of like is happening inIron Town. Yeah, they are operating

(01:31:47):
against their own interests because they're notwilling to go backwards because if they go
backwards, they know how bad itis, and they're not willing to give
that up. They don't believe theyhave class mobility. They're sex workers living
another life, right, That's whatthey They and lepers cast out. Anybody

(01:32:11):
else will just exterminate us or throwus on a rock. Yeah, which
is what's so funny about that isthat there's more of them than her,
Lady Obashi. They can rise upalmost always. She gives them guns,
but they would never turn them onher. Oh, there is what she's
doing. I hate to say it. She rolls high on that charismas stet.

(01:32:31):
Yeah, she sure the buck doesnot twenty right? Was there anything
else? Did you just speak Dand D Look at you? You know
everything I learned is against my will? That's false. You guys played DD
before I did. We did?We did? We did? They're misrepresenting
here any years before I played?For that matter? Yeah, like two,

(01:32:58):
that would be more than one,So plurals appropriate cut this out anything
else for true move We want totalk about any other specific characters that we
wanted to get further into. Idon't think so. I feel like the
plot resolves a lot of things.I think having social services in some kind

(01:33:19):
of regrounding to a value of somedegree of spirituality, not religion, but
spirituality and recognition of that there arethings that are bigger than you, kind
of like when we were talking aboutwith substance use, people must accept that
they are not bigger than the substancethey're trying to use and their body's chemical

(01:33:42):
affinity to it, and that they, like everyone else, are susceptible and
in twelve step language, particularly moresusceptible to fall victim to the power of
the substance. And I think theopposite also is true with in a good
way, with spirituality that people loseconnection with is that there are things that

(01:34:04):
are bigger than us. There isa natural order that is larger than any
of us, and we must acceptour place in that and that we can't
destroy the earth on which we liveif we would like to have a place
on which to live, I wouldsay the only thing maybe treatment wise,
but they'll kiva is really short,is they probably could do with like a

(01:34:24):
mediator of some sort a third partythat comes in to help with the compromising
between Iron Town and the forest.Yeah, I think it's always it's it
is really hard to not get inyour own head about your Like we're talking
about survival your needs. And sothat's why people will go to therapists to

(01:34:45):
do like co parenting, coaching,and mediation, because they sometimes need a
third party to direct the conversations,to keep it on track, to keep
it constructive. So I could see, like maybe as Ana should talk key
type, being helpful, ongoing,someone with an outside perspective that can keep
them on goals. Yeah, andthe mission statement solid and a drawback yet

(01:35:11):
again to the reminder that none ofus are bigger and none of our immediate
needs are bigger than the world weshould live, and we can not sacrifice
that. So we must come backto this idea we're all playing on a
level playing field, and let's deescalate so we can approach things from that
standpoint yet again, because the minutethey lose track of that, we get

(01:35:32):
war. So we will take ourlast break here and be back with final
thoughts. All right, and gofirst. Okay, I now that I've
talked about this movie, I Ifeel the same way I came in,
like very like take it or leaveit. I do want to watch it
again, Sam, because I dofeel like kind of what we're talking about

(01:35:55):
in the beginning, and I probablysaid something very similar Spirited Away, to
be honest, So this is onlythis second time I've watched Mayazaki movie,
the other one being Spirited Away forthis podcast when we did it there.
And so like this style of animation, this kind of storytelling, it doesn't
really isn't something I seek out andwatch myself. I just don't connect with

(01:36:17):
it emotionally for whatever reason. Ithink it's just like a preference thing that
don't really have a lot of controlover, so it's hard for me to
grab onto it. And maybe forthe reason you brought up earlier, Ben,
with how they create the movie andthe art, is the way that
my brain's trained to consume things throughthis culture is just has a hard time

(01:36:39):
adjusting to it, right as Yeah, So I do think I would want
to watch again to see what Ican appreciate now that we've talked about it
and I've already seen it, andI feel like kind of the way way
about Spirited Away. So I don'tI don't know if I would ever watch
this movie a ton. I'm interestedto watch it one more time to like
see what I get out of itin a second watch. I do really

(01:37:00):
like the character of Princess mononok Ilove a little girl, well in my
mind, she's a little girl,but like a young female character who's kind
of like bananas. Like like Isaid, she reminds me of Louise Belcher.
I like like those kind of characters. Maybe because I'm in aries,
I like connect to that kind ofvibe. But I do think it's very

(01:37:20):
cute. I can definitely say peoplelove it, and like I said,
it's one of those things that justisn't like my type of art, but
I can see the beauty and whyother people love it so much. And
I also would be curious what oneof these movies would look like on the
big screen and how like all encompassing, Like I could see that being a
very different experience than watching it athome. So those are kind of my

(01:37:42):
thoughts on Princess Monon Okay, Okay, I'll go next. So I feel
pretty similar to how Brittany feels.I feel like after talking about it and
getting a better understanding of the characters, and I definitely want to watch it
again. I don't know if Ican say that I like it and I

(01:38:05):
want to watch it again because Ifeel like it also deserves another shot of
to really experience it now that Ikind of am not trying to figure out
what the fuck is going on thewhole the whole fucking time, which is
kind of which is kind of whatit felt like. I think I thought
I was started away too, likemy brain was trying so hard to like
keep track of what's happening, butI wasn't like experiencing it almost exactly.

(01:38:30):
That's a lot, Yeah, it'syeah, it is so so again,
like I totally understand why people lovethis film, and I'm excited to give
it a second watch. And Ithink that it was really interesting to talk
about this film today, So I'llgo next. This film is near and

(01:38:53):
dear to my heart. We watchedthis at like a Operation Snowball staff sleepover,
like we all kind of like werein a basement kind of bonding and
working before we did this huge Idon't know how to even describe Operations Snowball,
but like where we were peer teenskind of like working on creating like

(01:39:18):
large group, small group weekend experiencewhere we were the staff facilitators and we
had to learn to bond because we'regoing out to be dealing with people's real
emotions to not only the skits thatwe do, but also the speakers and
the whole experiential kind of like TavistockGroup program that I was part of in
high school and even junior high.And we needed to bond and we had

(01:39:40):
kind of a sleepover at one person'shouse to do this, and somebody brought
up watching this movie. And I'dnever seen anime stuff really outside of Dragon
ball Z, which one of myfriends really liked. DBT never did it
for me. I was like,Dad, I don't get this. That's
fine. I know people love it. It's okay, It's just not for
me. But this one, thismovie struck me. Like the beauty of

(01:40:01):
the art and the incredible animation andthe storytelling was huge, and I think
watching this was something that just broadenedmy mind, even though I think I
was fifteen and I watched it andsome of it was is overwhelming. Yeah,
the messaging and the oppressive realities,it's a lot, and there's a

(01:40:26):
lot of watching that go really badin a really found the violent way in
this film, and it caught meoff guard and expect any of that from
this and watching it again now asan adult and looking back on it without
the egocentrism of being fifteen. Yousee a little more echoed truth that we
have all realized as people who arehelpers, who sit and listen to people's

(01:40:49):
stories, that there are truths andthese are it. We must take care
of our world. We must recognizethat none of us can and conquer death,
and we must recognize that everyone hastheir own agendas. And if we
have any hope of peace, wemust be able to both understand and recognize,

(01:41:11):
but also stay true to the growththe world affords us. Like the
opportunities for growth the world affords us, we cannot stay stuck in the messaging
of our elders, because the worldwill grow and change. There's a Hebrew
proverb I found doing restart. Ithink for this podcast or maybe for a
paper that I was writing, Butthere's a Hebrew proverb that as a non

(01:41:33):
Jewish person I wouldn't have come across, but it said, don't confine children
to your own learning for their ofa different time. Oh. I like
that. I like it a lot. And this movie kind of covers that,
Like, Yeah, at some pointwe will have to go into our
own world and face the truths thatwere hidden from us, that either our

(01:41:54):
elders didn't know or didn't want usto perceive yet. But the balance of
understanding, you still get to findyour own path and do what's right for
you, and that can change things, but not everything. But the Yeah,
I really I like this movie.I don't know how often I'll seek
it out because it's a lot.It's all. It's sensory overload, it's

(01:42:15):
emotional overload, it's hard truth allover and then just complete sensor overload and
watching it and the TV that itboth is huge with a huge sound systems
a lot too. Yeah, Iwas really getting me overwhelmed. Maybe it
was just fund system. So theone speaker was right over my shoulder and
I'll be like, well, spooky, pooky, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:42:41):
When I had a kid and I, you know, wasn't going on
vacation, so I bought a reallynice sound system for my TV. And
it's it's a lot like, oh, have you had a Have you had
an Atmas sound in your house before? I know I have not, but
I want it. And then youlike feel the sound all over your house
like you do in the movie theater, but the screen isn't nowhere near is
big and not expected pot shit.Well. On that note, as always,

(01:43:05):
you can find us on Facebook,Instagram, and TikTok at Popcorn Psychology.
If you want to get in touchwith us, you can always write
to us at poplinnpsychologygmail dot com.If you would like to support us,
so really appreciate it as we area totally self funded DIY podcast, So
if you want to be a Patreonpatron, we really appreciate that. If
you are a ten dollars or morepatron, you get early unedited access to

(01:43:28):
our episodes. If you're fifty dollarsor more, you get to pick the
movie that we talk about for anepisode. That's pretty cool. If you
would like to support us for free, the best way to do that is
to give us a review and tohopefully give us a five star review and
send us a nice little message inthat that we will read to each other
and find a lot of warmth inour hearts about Thank you for listening.

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