Episode 54 - The Pagoda Surprise: The Green Serpent Part II

Episode Features Edit

 * Second part of the first anniversary four-parter in which Carmen reads The Green Serpent to Tyler, Gordie and guest podcaster Dani.
 * Carmen keeps the intro remarkably short(music plays at the 1:43 mark) in order to get to the long, long story.

Featured Story
For more information on The Green Serpent, go to the first part, here. In this part the story looks a lot more like a Cupid and Psyche story.

This chapter deals with the heroine's interactions with a race of 'pagodas'. Despite their best efforts, the hosts just could not figure out what d'Oulnoy was talking about. They are talked about like they're a race of people or creatures, but also it's mentioned that they are made of materials like diamonds, are not allowed to talk or laugh outside their country, and have to hide their arms and legs, which they have. So best case scenario, buildings are secretly alive, worse case scenario it's a racial slur.

Edit: Years later, the most likely answer is that pagodas are a type of doll.

Overall Plot

 * Laidronet goes to sleep under her petticoat and wakes up in a room made of gold. The room is filled with a hundred pagodas. The pagodas greet her warmly and info dump about their race. They are small, and made of all kinds of materials like diamond and pearl, and have legs and arms and eyes and noses and mouths except for when they are missing legs or arms. When they leave their country they are not allowed to talk or laugh because reasons. People who hold in laughs get fat. They have a king who is not married and off 'at the wars'(d'Oulnoy's words).
 * Laidronet is invited into the pagoda kingdom and they make her feel happy and do not mention her ugliness. After a while this voice starts talking to her when she's alone in her bed. It says it's the king(who is not a pagoda) and is in love with her. Many nights go by and she falls more in love with this invisible stalker king until he asks her to marry him and, with the pagodas' prodding, she says yes.
 * He tells her how he was cursed by Magotine. She has to be married to him but can't see him for two years. If she makes it through two years, they will both be cured of their curses. If she looks at him, his curse will be reset. This despite her seeing him before on his own accord. He even gives her the book Psyche, written by a 'fashionable author' and has her study it for how not to mess up with this two-year thing.
 * Laidronet wants to see her family so her mom, Bellotte and Bellotte's brother get invited to pagoda land. Laidronet reads the book over and over. She makes excuses for why her husband doesn't show up, but she looses track of them despite of how smart she is. Her parents decide that she's making it up and defensively she tells them about the situation. Bellotte uses the book to convince Laidronet that the king is actually a monster.
 * Laidronet pulls a Psyche and looks at the king in his sleep. It's the green serpent. He wakes up and calls her mean and runs away. She is upset, but mostly because he's so ugly. Break.

Discussion Points

 * At the end of the episode the hecklers make guesses for what happens next. Gordy thinks that Laidronet will leave pagoda land, maybe find the other 12 fairies, and team up to kill Magotine. Dani is pretty sure Laidronet and the snake will get married, and maybe the pagoda people will turn into something else when the curse ends. Tyler is looking for the sun, the moon and the wind.
 * Starting a multi-part story on part-2
 * Nap-taking instincts
 * Pagoda: is it a building or is it a racial slur?
 * Emergency google breaks
 * Pagoda surprise
 * Is d'Oulnoy calling critics fat?
 * Out at the wars
 * Livejournal fic
 * That snake is a pagoda
 * Endless pagoda times
 * Gothic love
 * Is d'Oulnoy a story-writing AI
 * Kiss the Hot Topic girl
 * So many references to Psyche
 * The Trojan pagoda
 * How the fuck does this curse work
 * Tamora Pierce

Notable Quotes Edit

 * Tyler: Is this like the stampede in The Ling King? It's just like a hundred pagodas coming off of a cliff at her?
 * Dani: With the serpentstance? Because it's the snake. The snake is the king. And also the pagoda.
 * Gordie: Did you know that Every Breath You Take was written from the point of view of an invisible pagoda king stalking an ugly princess?
 * Gordie: I was just hearing a whole bunch of words next to each other that I never guessed I would hear.
 * Carmen: Hey have you heard about that Trojan horse thing? I think we might be repeating that with pagodas.