Episode 064 - The Case of Eastman vs. Westman

Episode Touchstones

 * Carmen gives Tyler and Gordie different stories to choose from
 * Thumbling as Journeyman (Grimm-Germany) This was a special offer as a possible immediate follow-up compare/contrast with the previous episode on Thumbling.
 * Unanana and the Elephant (South Africa)
 * The Princess Bellafloor (Spain)
 * The Knights of the Fish (Spain)
 * The Prince and the Three Fates (Ancient Egypt)

Featured Story
Tyler and Gordie chose The Knights of the Fish (after a substantial discussion as to whether Knights and Nights would be a better story). Carmen gave five words to describe it: boys, fish, adventure, death?, confusion. Bonus: twins. Tyler suggests this might include both a boat and iron. The story was collected by Fernan Colaboro (spelling), and then re-collected by Andrew Lang  in the Brown Fairy Book, sourced from the'' World of Fairytales. ''It contains Aarne-Thompsun-Uther Classification Types ATU 303: The Twin Brothers, as well as elements of ATU 705: Born of a Fish.

Overall Plot

 * A very poor cobbler and his family are starving
 * He catches a magical fish which tells him to feed one part to each member of his family, but bury two parts and not eat any himself
 * Two plants grew from the burial, and each was topped with a giant gold shield, with two identical babies in the shadows of each one
 * They sold the shields, were able to buy food, and took care of their parents until they die.
 * They split, and decide to meet at the crossroads again if anything cool ever happens to them.
 * Boy who goes east (Eastman) sees an entire weeping city; they are weeping because a beautiful girl is sacrificed to the local dragon every year, and this year's winner is the Princess
 * Eastman goes to see Princess with a mirror and tells her to put a veil over the mirror and wait for the dragon
 * When the mirror is unveiled, the dragon sees (and fights) himself, freaks out, and then Eastman kills him while he's freaking out
 * The town demands the Princess marry Eastman because he killed the dragon
 * They tour the new palace, and Eastman asks about the shadowy area in the distance, and it is the Castle of Albatroz, and no one who has been has ever returned
 * The next morning he immediately leaves for the castle, and when he arrives, he announces his arrival with a horn blow
 * He talks to the castle and gets eerily creepy responses from echos, and an old woman talks to him at the door
 * She sees that he's hot, so lets him in and tells him he'll be her new husband. He rudely refuses, and then she brings him to a trapdoor where he becomes one of the trapped echos.
 * Meanwhile, Boy that went west (Westman) comes across the town and is treated like royalty. He figures out what happened to his brother, pretends to be him, but refuses to sleep with Princess, and goes to the castle to find him.
 * Old woman freaks out when Westman because they look the same and turns to run; Westman yells at her, stabs her, and then asks for his brother.
 * She says she'll tell until he brings her back to life, which apparently he can do via bathing her in some plants from the garden
 * It works, but she's much uglier, but she does tell him everything.
 * He finds the bones of all the boys, and also all the girls the dragon ate, so apparently she's the dragon's terrible mom. He brings them all back to life, the old woman dies of rage, and then the castle sinks.

Discussion Points
Notable Quotes
 * Tyler promises to reference Dragon Ball Z in the episode.
 * Folklore as a twin-heavy medium, followed by all the discussion about where twins come from (normal way vs plants), and then the idea that because they're rarer, stories are more likely to be told about them, since it's more interesting.
 * Gordie's boatwatch
 * Carmen squeaks like a fish
 * Fish suicide plots
 * Parents never matter
 * The logistics of waiting for each other at the crossroads
 * The Princess can't go home because her room is holding guests
 * Three-mile bouncy-house
 * The honorable nature of the Knights of the Fish
 * What makes the cobbler break first?
 * This must have been a threat parents made. Do your chores or we'll take your food away from you and grow a newer, better version of you!
 * There was no enchantment - it was an old woman tripping people, and she's gotten away with it for years.
 * The PR plan she must have gone through to start this off - the one good room, the pictures, the slogans - "pleasures so great, you don't know where one person's flesh ends and the next begins!"
 * What's with the echos? Normal echos? Souls of the other corpses? Recordings, scooby-do villain style?
 * Maybe this is just a very advanced haunted house with viral marketing
 * Real-Life torture haunted house in California
 * Princes have a higher chance of wanting to do inane, insane challenges
 * Eastman won the Olympics (more real adventure), Westman won the Nobel Peace Prize (actual good for actual people)
 * Westman is the scientist, with deeper actions
 * Eastman is the pioneer in the world with more breadth of action
 * The witch is the fairy tale equivalent of spawn camping
 * Tyler: In life, it is good to have a random and iron-clad criteria for decision making.
 * Gordie: I have to stick to something. As an American, I have to desperately cling to some notion. It doesn't matter what it is or how relevant it is, but I have to stick to something. In this case, it's the boat density of stories.
 * Carmen: Once you have a kid, your story ends. You don't matter anymore. That is the not-so-subtle message of all these fairy tales.
 * Carmen: The dragon sees the Princess and is delighted. I don't know if he's going to eat her or go on a date with her.
 * Tyler: Nothing lives here anymore. Time to see the next place!
 * Gordie: I have seen the darkness.
 * Carmen: This is darkness I can feel.
 * Tyler: I can hear this darkness.
 * Carmen: I can feel the darkness in my nostrils.