Hobbier

[00:00] The last thing we got for you is the, uh, the under Google.
[00:09] Oh, we do an under Google rules.
[00:11] That was the play of super excited.
[00:14] Um, told us we had to.
[00:15] So we said, we said, we signed up for it.
[00:21] In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:26] And I guess I Coalson, I've got one.
[00:29] You guys.
[00:29] Yeah, no, go ahead.
[00:30] I don't know if, uh, so, I mean, you didn't have a stat, so I'll give you this.
[00:43] My wife, we, we watched video or we watched movies sometimes and, and there's
[00:47] a lot of different, uh, you know, so there, there's like the fantasy tropes.
[00:52] We watched like Lord of the rings and, um, there's all these like, so in, in
[00:58] fantasy, uh, literature and movies, there's this, there's a, uh, all these
[01:05] different races of creatures, um, that are sort of accepted as like fantasy.
[01:12] You've got your orcs, your goblins and wizards and elves and trolls
[01:17] and ogres and gnomes and stuff.
[01:20] Like, um, I guess, like I was sort of looking to see two things.
[01:27] One is like, is there like a universal definition of like what, cause it's not
[01:32] like, it didn't come from one place that as far as I can tell, it's like a shared fan.
[01:37] It's a shared fictional, uh, to shared union fever dream.
[01:45] I mean, yeah, it's like, I can't figure out where they all came from, um, and
[01:52] why they're all accepted, you know, it, it's sort of like a shared fictional
[01:58] history or, you know what I mean?
[02:00] Like, um, and then is there like a, is there like a universal acceptance of
[02:08] what each one is and like, is what makes an orc and orc specifically?
[02:16] And is that sort of like consistent across all of these different types of media?
[02:25] Well, I mean, I'm sure to Harper and Coalson, probably way more knowledge than me.
[02:29] So I'm going to chime in as the idiot first and then, um, let them correct me.
[02:33] But my guess is that they're much like zombies or vampires or whatever,
[02:40] that there are many, uh, iterations of these, uh, species, if you will.
[02:49] And that there are certain out of those iterations of those species, there are
[02:56] certain like sort of ground rules, I guess, for what each one can be, I guess.
[03:03] And then the, the individual, there's variability within that, I guess I would say.
[03:07] Right. Um, and I, and I imagine that many of these were born out of, you know,
[03:17] oral tradition and legend of, you know, who knows probably a lot of it from the
[03:24] Norse and the, um, you know, Northern European sort of, uh, societies, I guess.
[03:34] I don't know. That's my guess. I have no idea.
[03:36] What are you guys, you guys are more into this than I am.
[03:39] So I would have thought Joey would have been on this one.
[03:44] Not really.
[03:45] Well, I mean, I know what they are, but I just don't understand. Like, I guess I just
[03:49] didn't understand how, like, if you were to say, I'm going to write a fantasy novel
[03:53] like now, you know, like people would know what that means. And it's like, uh,
[03:59] there's like a sh look, particularly like the races or, or, or, you know,
[04:02] the creature types, like everyone would know what those were. And it's like a sort of accepted
[04:06] thing. Well, I, you know, I think, I think Jason's right on some level. I think a lot of,
[04:11] I mean, a lot of this stuff is, is oral history. It's, it's, um, you know,
[04:16] Norse stuff, it's pagan stuff. But I think that, uh, the standardization comes from the
[04:23] popularization of a couple of things. I think Lord of the rings is a big one of those, uh,
[04:28] that, uh, you know, Tolkien was, um, not only wrote those books, but also wrote a ton of
[04:37] appendices and, um, you know, other tomes that, that sort of talked about who these species were
[04:44] and what they were about. I think that gave a lot of groundwork for people. And this is,
[04:50] you know, um, but I think beyond that, you're talking about sort of a dungeons and dragons
[04:55] type thing. Like there's so many people that spend so much time writing literature on these
[05:01] types of characters that somewhere in all of that sort of modern context, you get stuff where
[05:07] it's just sort of secondhand where people know what an orc is or an elf is. Um, I, I think those
[05:15] things are really old, but I think that the sort of standardization of them, the way we think about
[05:20] them now have probably happened, uh, you know, in, in the last century. Yeah, that feels pretty
[05:28] truthy. Right. I would say the vast majority of fantasy
[05:35] art or whatever that genre is like within the last, you know, since the 1950s,
[05:41] probably really. Right. Right. So, so Tolkien was older than that though. Right. What's he? Sure.
[05:47] Yeah. 30s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, which is why I think he had such a big influence on the
[05:54] entire genre. Right. So this is me completely speaking on my butt, but that's what I would
[06:01] guess. Right. Cause you don't really start getting science fiction. You know, when does science
[06:05] fiction, you know, like Ray Bradbury is writing what, like in the fifties? Asimov is a little
[06:12] bit earlier. Yeah. Yeah. The war of the world. There was, there was stuff. Yeah. There was
[06:18] stuff earlier than that, but I mean, it was few and far between, I think. Well, uh,
[06:23] Jules Verne, you know, I mean, you talk about like, yeah, yeah. Journey to the center of the
[06:28] earth and all that stuff. That's 1800s. Sure. But there were no trolls. Yeah. That's different.
[06:36] Yeah. Yeah. I guess I was talking about like the fantasy worlds where you're,
[06:40] yeah, invoking these characters in a specific way. Yeah. So unicorns and, and wizards and. Right.
[06:48] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I suspect, you know, nature religions probably had some form or other of a
[06:55] lot of that sort of stuff. It's not really integrated into the Bible at all, which is
[07:02] interesting. No, but a lot of this stuff like comes out of fringy, I would guess. Yeah.
[07:11] Sectors of, of culture, you know, like, so I bet like Wiccan stuff, like sort of
[07:17] helped carry some of this stuff through from, you know, medieval times or whatever.
[07:22] Or maybe even like the Greeks and stuff. Like they had weird
[07:26] minotaurs and stuff like that. Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, I, yeah. I just think this stuff is,
[07:33] but I think as long as people tell stories, you know, which has been since people could talk,
[07:41] right? You create characters and, and mysterious things. And like, I mean, you know, you try to
[07:51] describe the world around you. You know, we talked about one of our under other under Googles was
[07:57] about when you lose a tooth and like every society was like had a version of the tooth fairy. But
[08:05] sometimes it was a mouse and sometimes it was a troll. And sometimes it was a gnome or whatever,
[08:10] like, you know, because this is a universal thing. And each society has ways to to talk about
[08:17] those things. I just think at some point, maybe there's just enough communication between all
[08:28] cultures that these you kind of create a fantasy world. And again, I think the the popularity of
[08:35] the Dungeons and Dragons and the publishing of that stuff, and how important that was to nerd
[08:41] culture in the, you know, 70s and 80s, you know, had to do with a lot of the books and stuff and
[08:47] the movies that came from that. Yeah, I mean, certainly in terms of codification, that is,
[08:52] yeah, almost right, they create sort of like a like a world. Yeah. I mean, one would think that,
[08:58] you know, most stories, certainly in like prehistorical contexts, revolve around explaining
[09:06] unknown nature, right? Right. And so by, you know, creating, you know, human adjacent
[09:15] species or races or something, you're helping to explain the the world around you that you
[09:22] otherwise cannot. For sure. Elves are cool, man. They're doing stuff in the forest that
[09:31] you don't know about. They're all foresty. Right. Yeah. Is that is that is that something we can
[09:39] even Google, Joey? I don't know what to type into my search bar here. I don't know. But also,
[09:46] you elves come. Those are previous under Google. What's a what's a hobgoblin? Do you know what that
[09:58] is? That was a bar that I frequented when I did summer abroad in London. Okay. I assume it's
[10:06] similar. I assume that it's similar to a goblin, but it's hobby. Place more checkers.
[10:18] Has hairier feet. I don't know.
[10:23] Smokes more pipe weed. The old how I feel like the hobgoblin is maybe more threatening than
[10:31] the goblin. See, I thought how goblins were smaller. Hmm. Less threatening. Isn't the hobgoblin
[10:43] a Spiderman bad guy? The idea is yeah. And goblin. Yeah. The green goblin and the hobgoblin. Both of
[10:52] them. Are we sure that a hobgoblin is not just a Spiderman bad guy? I don't believe so.
[11:02] We've got an under Google within an under Google. No, that's that's normal. If there if we don't
[11:12] get the if we don't do at least two in one. So I'm finding that a hobgoblin is a spirit creature
[11:25] of the hearth. Typically appearing in folklore. Once considered helpful, but since the spread of
[11:32] Christianity has been often considered mischievous. So it looks like a lot of this stuff is
[11:42] certainly Norse. Elves, fairies, leprechauns.
[11:49] Elves specifically seem to have sprung from early Norse mythology.
[11:53] Yeah, I can find lots of like descriptions of these, you know, whatever, like archetypes of
[12:01] fantasy, but I'm not finding that origin. It's like they've just always been in the ether
[12:07] kind of thing. Yeah, then that that I mean, that may just be the answer.
[12:12] There's archetypal patterns. I guess yeah, I just I was just curious because yeah,
[12:22] like I'm familiar with with, you know, most of them and you know, there's new ones that I
[12:26] hear of here, you know, every once in a while, but
[12:32] like a cobalt. I didn't know what that was until recently. I don't know what that is. What is it?
[12:37] I think they're, they're, they're kind of like they're, they're sort of human like,
[12:42] but they're kind of like, almost like a wolf wolfish. They're definitely like intelligent. And
[12:52] I think I played D&D as a cobalt once.
[12:58] You know, you are right, Joey, like, you know, we we listen to a podcast called Hello from
[13:04] Magic Tavern, which is an improv show. But it's totally based on the idea idea that
[13:12] culturally, we all sort of understand these basic tropes of, you know, fantasy.
[13:21] There's wizards and goblins and orcs and whatnot. And, you know, that whole show doesn't work unless
[13:27] we all kind of understand this stuff. And it just exists in the, in the zeitgeist in an
[13:33] interesting way. I'm still gonna say Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons is my,
[13:41] it's my argument. I don't know how to Google that to prove it, but I think those things are
[13:46] important in popularizing it and codifying it for for culture. Okay, I'll accept that.
[13:55] Barium Webster suggests that Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream is a hobgoblin.
[14:01] Really? Oh, I totally see Puck in a different way now.
[14:08] He's just a mischievous little dude.
[14:16] Had no idea. Oh, I am seeing on this as well. The hobgoblin is sometimes used to being a
[14:24] superficial object that is a source of often imagined fear and trouble,
[14:30] which I think I've sort of heard that usage before. Yeah, the more metaphorical hobgoblin.
[14:37] Yeah, right. Like the hobgoblin that's in my computer every Monday morning.
[14:44] Exactly. Yeah. You know, every, every morning when the computer doesn't work, it breaks my
[14:55] Puck and heart. It doesn't, didn't quite work. Oh, God. Yeah. Hey, you gotta wrap it up.