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Study 139 - The Shadow (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-14 20:09:28
Imported:
2025-08
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We're 'casting about The Shadow by Hans Christian Andersen, in which a learned man and his shadow switch places -- with tragic results!

Special thanks to our reader: Heather Klinke!

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Child and the Shadow, 1974

Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story by Adelbert von Chamisso

Today's opening music features an arrangement of Nocturne in E Minor by Frédéric Chopin. Outro music is from Strange One.

Comments

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

A secondary fact for the pigment description at the top—I'd long wondered why white people are, well, white, when indigenous peoples of the far northern latitudes (Inuit et alia) still have pigment. As I understand it, the answer lay in diet. Diets rich in meat, blubber, organ meat, etc. provide a healthy amount of Vitamin D through consumption, meaning that even with how bundled up you need to be just to go outdoors, you won't *need* to be white as a ghost to get Vitamin D from exposure to the Sun. If you were to subsist primarily off of grain, as with centralized agriculture, you aren't getting nearly enough Vitamin D from your diet, incentivizing a greater loss of pigmentation over numerous generations. Lastly, tertiary facts of interest: Europeans actually developed the mutation for blue eyes some time before they became pale due to unrelated causes (which I do not currently recall). Likewise, in contravention of certain eurocentric ideas on appearance, other peoples have independently developed traits like red hair (among various peoples the world over) and blond hair (notably among the people of Melanesia, whom Europeans have traditionally racialized as "Black"). The diversity of visible traits in humans is as infinite as all the peculiar ways in which our minds can function.

Bret Kramer

Needs more Billy Zane. Wait, no that was the Phantom.

Jason Thompson

This story was awesome!!! FWIW, 90% sure the “thou/you” distinction is a translation of the German equivalent words for “you”, “Sie” (formal) and “du” (informal).

Jason Thompson

You can’t be evil by yourself. But you can be gross by yourself. Thus, grossness is more objectively real than morality 🧐

Rasmus Juul

While Heather was reading the intro i came to think about why we don't have a big tradition for weird tales in Denmark. Then I thought you already had covered Willy Sørensen, but what else do we have? Perhaps H.C. Andersen had written something. But what should it be? The Christmas tree? Nah it's too naivistic. What about The Shadow? That one is kind of weird.... Wait a minute. It IS The Shadow. The mind work in mysteries ways - haven't read it since highschool 25 years ago but still my subcontion recognised the intro (and perhaps the title). Well, at least it wasn't an ancestral call to the ocean by some fish frog men...

Rasmus Juul

Think you are right. In Danish it is formal "De" (was, we don't use it anymore) and informal "du".

Alan Ricks

The real victim was the Learned Man’s New Shadow.

John Burkhart

As a pale learned man, living in tropical southeast asia, I took this as a cautionary tale. Fun fact, down here your shadow does actually disappear! Twice a year at mid-day the sun is directly overhead and objects don’t cast shadows. It’s the literal definition of the tropics. It does look uncanny in the best possible way, and only lasts for a few minutes. Kind of like a poorly rendered 3d video game (lots of google images showing this). I assume the genesis of this tale lies in the shortening of the shadows in the days leading up to this event, which tracks with the shrinking wasting away of the man’s shadow until it disappears altogether. Normally I just enjoy the weird natural phenomenon, but next time I’ll be keeping an eye on my shadow just in case.

Aaron La Vene

I love this story. Always have. It’s some crazy shit . I just want a horror adaptation of this

cthulhusdream

I really didn't care for the story this time, kind of felt too mundane I guess. I don't know if I just don't like HCA or because it's such a big swing in the opposite direction from the weird dreaminess or action packed swords n sorcery of the last few

Kip Barnes

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

SoSpoke

Hey boys, been a long year, almost to the day since i got the student sub and finally made it through every episode thats unlocked for me. Really liked yalls take on duality and gray areas of good and evil at the end here. Although personally Gollum's antics would have driven me up a wall day 1 so i would have definitely failed the quest! Jeepers, that little guy always irritated me. Nice set of albums on bandcamp! There was a show awhile back you played a song you did, the band or album name was SOMETHING about kids and bugs, any way to check that out?

Jim Kruk

Almost time for Nightman / Manimal crossover????? Hope Freddy Englund is in this one!

Forrest Rush

Really enjoyed this episode! One thing I wanted to add: The Shadow has been read through a queer lens as much as a Jungian one. Andersen, a closeted gay man, wrote again and again about divided selves and impossible desire (The Little Mermaid being the best-known example). In The Shadow, the split is stark: the “respectable” scholar (the closeted ego) is destroyed, while the Shadow — all the forbidden, embodied, sensual impulses — not only survives but marries the princess and claims the fairy-tale ending. Queer critics see this as a bitter allegory of the closet. Live openly and you’re annihilated; live through disguise and passing, and society rewards you. The princess herself reads almost as camp — a glittering prop that legitimizes the Shadow’s masquerade rather than a genuine romance. So while Jungians might say the story warns about failing to integrate the shadow, queer readings emphasize that Andersen’s world didn’t allow integration. The only options were annihilation or masquerade — and in the story, the masquerade wins.

Anne Ominous

"I cannot recover from my astonishment" - did NOT pick on on that 'duality' on the first read through, which says loads about me I suppose... I was wrapped around the "thou" axle and wishing that Shadow was spilling the tea on seeing "everything." Fun fact: I also once hid under the cloak of a cake woman. It was as fun as it sounds

Cole Caron

I’d also imagine living on a big ice mirror would make pale skin a disadvantage regardless of vitamin D absorption. Anyone whose ever been sunburned while doing snow sports can attest to this. Tundra is somewhat similar to a desert or plains in that shelter from the sun can be hard to come by.

Cole Caron

The way HCA’s personal hang ups and insecurities bleed into his writing feels very similar to Lovecraft now that you mention it. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t subscribe to the theory that HPL’s sexuality was a little more complicated than he cared to admit, any author who spends enough time dwelling on hidden/suppressed parts of themselves is going to leak some of that emotional baggage into their work.

Cole Caron

I was actually wondering about this dropped plot thread. Does the second shadow have a deeper narrative meaning or was it simply a device for allowing the learned man to forget about his missing shadow until its reintroduction later in the story?

Doc Singles

The cartoon is based on the Book "Faeries" which was illustrated by Alan Lee, one of the major go-to Tolkien artists! Thanks for sharing this!

Jim Cannon

Billy Zane was da bomb in The Phantom, yo!

Jim Cannon

Nice episode, loved the philosophical discussion as usual. I think however that when Chris was discussing "ambition" and the need for a "dark side" I could hear him actively resist bringing up "The Enemy Within," and Captain Kirk's little transporter accident.

Doc Singles

This story is less offensive than the other H. C. Andersen stories I've been exposed too. I read a few of his stories and disliked them. I read "The Little Mermaid" and immediately deleted the collected works of HCA off of my Kindle! It is the most misogynistic story I've ever read. Here's the deal: 1) Though renowned for her amazing singing, she had to give up her voice and remain forever mute. 2) Obtaining legs meant that every step she took would be incredibly painful, like walking on glass. She frequently danced for her prince! 3) She had to give up her home and family forever. 4) If her prince marries her, she will get a soul (mermaids are soulless). If he marries another, she turns to sea foam. So I reckon she's not a real person unless she marries. 5) Her efforts fail, but instead of turning to foam, she becomes a spirit with one last shot at earning a soul: She has to serve man for 300 years. And the catch: every time a child cries, it adds a day for every tear to the sentence.

Ben Gilbert

I would reply "Needs more Alec Baldwin" but that doesn't sound right.

Bret Kramer

Yeah, there’s probably more than enough Baldwin in our lives.

ESTY

The second shadow is much younger, not as much of a “deep thinker”, a sorta trophy-shadow

ESTY

Confirmed!

ESTY

Confirmed!

Gideon Falcon

Yeah, I have no idea how that one ended up becoming a "beloved" children's tale. Just everything about it is so pointlessly cruel.

Pagurus

Message: Women have nothing to gain by trying to live up to male expectations. Sounds legit.

Pagurus

It's probably just there to signify that the man's misfortunes are not due to people being prejudiced against him - if he inwardly lacks something for getting rid of his shadow, that's on him.

Pagurus

Both forms would be in use in HCA's times, I guess? It's still a thing in modern French, Spanish, German and other languages.

Pagurus

Andersen must have been quite a character himself. In 1857 he visited fellow writer Charles Dickens and more than overstayed his welcome irritating everyone with his eccentric behavior. This episode even inspired a one-page-RPG called "Trapped in your house due to Hans Christian Andersen" (easy to find on the internet with hilarious random events).

Drix

Hmmm. A character undergoes a mystical transformation, in which their baser/more primal elements come to the forefront? Do I smell a Werewolf? The Shadow also gains most of his knowledge through spying and observation. A wise man once said: "By day, he's creepin and peepin. But by night, he's loping and scoping!" Close enough, welcome back Werewolf History Month

Stewart

When Chad was listing Andersen's achievements and works I kept expecting him to conclude with "And also the worst house guest Charles Dickens ever had"

Andrew Trnacek

According to Jung The shadow self is dangerous but so is its total repression. Being too aggressive is bad but so is having no aggression as you will end up being completely ineffectual. So the Jungian response is to integrate the shadow self. The learned man is too passive and falls victim to his shadow. I wonder if Jung ever read this story.

Fredrik Bridell

I was waiting for you to get to how this story relates to Ursula Le Guin"s Wizard of Earthsea, with how Ged's ”shadow” takes on a form of its own... It was right there! By the way, you teased some more Le Guin a while back, is that happening?

Moonflight Dancer

This is the guy who wrote a story about a spoiled little girl who is unable to stop dancing because of her vanity, so she asks an executioner to chop off her feet to stop the dancing (her disembodied feet then continue dancing without her), then immediately dies when she repents and is sent to Heaven. He also named the little girl in that story after his own half-sister, whom he hated.