Something Frightful Part 4b

I am actually going to be taking a bit of a pause after this chapter to dip into my next hot cup of history project over a few weeks in honour of the The coming Christopher Nolan film, The Odyssey, but also in honour of the frankly unhinged social media discourse about Helen of Troy over the last decade.

I think it's months now.

It was weeks.

I'm going to be launching my new Hot Cup of History theme, which is As Seen on Xena.

So my plan was to pick three elements of one of my all-time favourite TV shows, Xena Warrior Princess, and look at the real history behind those.

For those who don't know, this was an action-adventure show in the 90s.

criminally not available anywhere on streaming uh very tragic for everyone uh it was basically a a show that was a pop culture sensation but sadly didn't quite have the same lasting power as its um immediate neighbor uh which is buffy they basically came out around the same time over that same period which was a joyful period of female-led action adventure shows there were a lot of others as well and after after they were all done um there was a very long period of uh female-led action adventure and fantasy shows not existing for a very long time that was when the supernatural years started so yeah i love xena i love everything about it it's set in a very very wildly taking liberties version of the ancient greek world in which the stories are all mashed up overlaying unexpected hung upside down from the chandeliers and also mashed in with a bunch of other mythologies more and more as the show went on It was just like a really joyful show and very relaxed about the liberties they were taking with history, which is something that I struggled against, as I often did as a young earnest person and then came to embrace.

And I think it set me up for a whole lifetime of enjoying the mad interpretations of history with deliberate anachronisms which is why among the many things I am probably going to horrendously judge the new Odyssey film for because it is after all a Christopher Nolan film I am not going to judge it for things like using the word dad in the translation instead of father Because history, there was a time when all history and mythology, potentially, was everyday life about everyday people.

And King didn't really mean what it meant in the old days, especially with the car system.

Anyway, so my point is, Hot Cup of History is going to be touching on history.

various cool historical elements of the Xena series.

Now, obviously I want to do an Amazon's essay because I think that's a really interesting thing to do.

I have not decided what the third essay will be.

I keep lurching between like Caesar, Boudicca, like there are so many, so many options.

But the first essay is going to be On the Trojan War.

The story so far.

To like catch you up.

If you want to see the Odyssey film.

This is why it has to be now.

Because the film is coming out in July.

And because the essay is.

got a little long i'm not gonna lie it's gonna be over three parts but that gives me time to catch up with the something frightful chapters which have fallen behind the broadcast schedule a little bit so it's it's all going to be good so i want to talk about the trojan war as a history as a mythology and a bit of the storytelling as well because it is actually You know what? I may have my doctorate might have been in ancient Rome, but the Trojan War is my Roman Empire.

So, yeah, that's where we're going to be for a few weeks.

And then we will be back here to Frightful Manor and all of their exciting adventures.

So that's the podcast for the next few months.