Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

972 - The Cass Jedi (9/25/25) (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-26 01:00:06
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

It’s a Felix and Will duo ep! We talk briefly about the newest meme-poisoned shooter before dedicating an entire episode to Cass Sunstein, both his recent, humiliating interview with Isaac Chotiner and selections from his book The World According to Star Wars. We also discuss Israel’s escalating attacks on the Sumud flotilla and Trump’s Brandonification regarding the Russia-Ukraine war.

Files

Comments

JDF

Soup

Sam Bondurant

Flight just started taxi’ing, hell yeah boys

Mungo Franczak

Chotinger is a fucking skeleton key. People will just confess their deepest sins in interviews with him. Also being named “Chodenger” is pretty fucking funny.

Robert mcnamee

Wow a Felix and Will duo I never thought I would see the day lol

ploob

Yet another L for clip users

Tommy Shober

I can't believe this entire time, I've only heard "all I want , is el chapo" thank you for unlocking this view

Agent Grange

I really try to not get hysterical mashing the false evidence button, but the fact that "ANTI-ICE" was written in pen on seemly just the second of like five bullets in the guy's stripper clip really sets off alarm bells in my head. It's not just that it's written in hastily scribbled pen. It's that even if the shooter DID write it, it would be so easy to wipe away the rest of the writing on the other bullets in the rain or just like... Rotate the other messages on the stripper clip so they're facing away from the camera.

NYCM&AHole

Enjoying the Chris-Wade-free productions that arrive on time.

Nathan

Amber starts talking at 1:56.

Feedbag

Just yesterday i was listening to the e1 uncle’s houseboat smart shit episode. So timely

Rory

REDWALL MENTION 🗣️🗣️

dfumps

I thought this was gonna be about John Kass for a second and got excited for sausage discourse

David Browm

Damn might as well blow my head off with all this redwall

king_von_diesel

Im kinda curious why anyone agrees to be interviewed by Chotiner. I think only real perverts can commit to be humiliated so publicly, or it serves some other purpose im too smooth brained to figure out.

bruce

they cannot imagine being genuinely challenged

Nico

Brandonification? It's called Brandonization.

Nathan

Le troll face

Chubby Justin

the pod needs to go back to it's roots of reading series

Chubby Justin

reading awful literature is why i first started listening

Fabernale

And here I thought this was the unlikely return of Virgil.

Bert

The radical center strikes again

king_von_diesel

Honest to god, even the sections where he sounds semi intelligible, he sounds like he has mild dementia. This seems more like a desperate attempt to grasp at the limelight by an old operator whose reactionary movement has abandoned him.

12345

The force awakens was literally not popular in China or any country without the cultural good will to Star Wars already

Stealtreasure

Felix suicide mention at 3:51 for people playing along at home

justdave

can't make me!

Agent Grange

I love how much agonizing there is in the book over what Martin would do and then every time Constance or the other badgers are consulted they have no hesitation saying "slice and dice those fucking pinktails."

Tea for the Tillerman

The new Lucas museum absolutely mogs the new geffen wing at lacma, agree w Felix he seems like a cool guy happy for him and his age appropriate yet still fine venture capitalist wife

Jeffrey

Henry K probably had the same reaction to “a book about Star Wars” that Will did

JDF

A classico dry boy tag team (non sexual)

Jacob Dysart

Oh Will. “You may fire when ready” is a Star Wars quote. You’re compromised!

NarsilsBane

I will not tolerate anti-LotR slander. And it's Aragorn, not Eragon.

NarsilsBane

Being a Cumtown fan still counts as gay, right?

jjmm

Wait so this casa guy is employed by Harvard?

KatrinaJadeHelm

Henry Kissinger barely skimming Cass’s Star Wars book, then immediately heading to a redwall convention and peppering Jacques with questions about the marlfoxes

amiel

15 minutes in I realized that I actually catered this book party

interzoa

Cass is the John Locke of our times

🤷🏼‍♀️

I always loved reading Redwall books and making spicy ramen noodles and pretending it was the spicy hot soup the otters would make. My dad also liked making scones so I'd nail a couple scones with honey while I read my book. Fucking ruled.

Jackson L.

GENE WOLFE MENTIONED 🐐🐐🐐

Rory

In Canada both Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau regularly celebrated May 4th. Including a video Trudeau made of himself where a staffer delivers a briefcase with a lightsaber, and the implication was Trudeau was secretly a Jedi keeping Canada safe. Please Xi 🙏 I yearn for freedom

Cardboard

Wake up.... BRANDON. Go to sleep.... BRANDON

Salt M. Bank

Hey while we’re ripping on Rian Johnson I’ll remind people that his producer on every movie he’s done is Ram Bergman, an Israeli Zionist.

Mr Tu Damn Quoque

The best Star Wars political anecdote was from Tim Kaine's visit to Syria. When he was being escorted to meet Assad, the guard started humming the Imperial Death March

ab

hell yeah Redwall

T.A. Martin

Bad news, guys, Cass Sunstein sounds nothing like Jeremy Irons. His voice is more like Jack Nicholson coming home from the dentist after an extraction, and full of painkillers.

P A

Rampant inbreeding from wookie mills has led to all healthy wookies being susceptible to brain cancer.

Sam

Felix - Harper’s is in fact great, and always has been. Liz and Brace have it in regular rotation.

Proboscis Man

America is a nation of kindergartners.

Declan Kennedy

was a bit upset to hear that these demons named their kid "Declan" but I looked it up and his full name is actually Declan Power-Sunstein which ngl is a pretty strong name

Ant koz

Currently forcing my eight year old to read a chapter of animorphs with me as soon as he gets home from school every day. We’re on the first book, chapter 6, he’s struggling big time.. I have long considered chapos media analysis and the political insights made through it their true strength. (Edit: last sentence is probably the most obvious shit ever said..) Like the idea that Star Wars is genius because it is relatable to the struggle of all in a liberal society who have to choose “will I be good? Or evil?” Is truly so so stupid and damaging … i struggle with how it could all be so baby. Then I see a study that less than half the country can read at a sixth grade level of comprehension…. And I start researching the easiest ways to learn Mandarin and move to China…

Ant koz

Cool, nice kid memory… seriously the only thing I remember about those books was the vast detail when describing the food

Skitzaf Raynik

Maybe if the left can systematically invade Disney we can take reins of Star Wars and use it as explicit propaganda. We’ll have a whole show about how the Jedi are basically cops and priests and both of those are deeply problematic and mostly make the galaxy worse. We can have a ronin Jedi that hates both sides as a thinly veiled personification of ourselves.

Justin Racine

There definitely is a difference between Felix's analysis of the Metal Gear series in terms of critical analysis and cultural appreciation vs the validation cult that guy's view on Star Wars sounds like .3.

Luthen’s Reality

Guys I’m ashamed to say I actually own the Star Wars book. My mom bought it for me years ago 😭

Josh Woods

why are Chapo and TrueAnon both talking about Flight this week? is that my activation phrase and I forgot?

Joe

My United States of Whatever 🫡

nick usher

Redwall mentioned, reset the counter

Ant koz

More Menaker Manhunter drops… still praying Michael Mann makes mindset maybe soon?

Sam

And red wall fucked. But yeah too old for that rodents with broadswords stuff now.

Human Person

Tolkien, Star Wars, and to complete the trifecta, Harry Potter also Felix's last line made me laugh so hard I started crying

justdave

There were two men responsible for decolonization in 100 BBY. One was emperor Palpatine, the other was jar jar binks

Kainien Morel

I'm glad to see my "Oh shit, an Anglophone leftist is trying to talk about Taiwan i.e. the Republic of China cold war-rump state, and as usual, he only has about ten seconds worth of material before he breaks the glass container labeled 'NOT WORTH FIGHTING THIRD WORLD WAR OVER'," alarm is operational and firing as intended. It's a claxon that plays the melody from the beloved childhood animation theme song, 'DORAEMON NO UTA', in a very shrill tone. (Which, to be clear, is practically correct: it's not worth fighting a Third World War over. A majority of Taiwanese polled would agree, which is why so many Americans are angry with the Taiwanese public.) Anyway, as an actual Taiwanese person I can offer Felix a little comfort: while Mr. Cass Sunstein almost certainly did meet with members of the ruling party during his visit, he more likely interacting with the R.O.C.'s own Cass Sunsteins, in the form of high-ranking members of academia from national institutions like N.T.U. and so forth. Who, to be clear, have political power and influence only the richest, most Epstein-connected academics in the United States could plausibly exercise, due to our cultural predisposition to intellectuals, accredited academics, and intellectuals with accreditations. "It's a Confucian thing." So, yes, it's not great. Of course, the example of Nancy Pelosi shows that even the ruling party can roll their eyes whenever an American politician shows up to say some words about liberal democracy and make out with a palette of surface-to-air missiles. I can offer Felix another point of solace: Taiwanese people don't actually like STAR WARS. What they like--like their neighbors in Japan and, to a lesser extent, Mainland China--is cosplaying STAR WARS. That, Taiwanese people very much enjoy, along with cosplaying anything else. The late Lee Teng-Hui, a veteran of the Imperial Japanese Army educated at Kyoto University (remember that Confucian thing?), arrested by the political party he would later become chairman of on the charge of being a secret communist, and the first Taiwanese-born president of the R.O.C., retired and then...went on to cosplay a hardass teacher/Imperial Japanese Army veteran from a shounen manga who he vaguely resembled. We are a country that enjoys cosplay. STAR WARS has very nice costumes, especially for the villains. What else do Taiwanese people like? Well, pretty predictable stuff, mostly anime (including serious, mature anime like SPIRITED AWAY, STAND ALONE COMPLEX, PATLABOR, GUNDAM and...uh....DORAEMON, DETECTIVE CONAN, DRAGON BALL and GINTAMA, I guess). And, of course, video games for babies like METAL GEAR SOLID 5, ELDEN RING, KING OF FIGHTERS, etc. No surprises there. Across the strait, the situation is not too different except that, being theatrical market roughly sixty times the size of Taiwan, STAR WARS has rather infamously flopped, to Disney's disappointment. No, not just the sequel trilogy. Not just the prequels. Basically all of it, which has largely only made theatrical runs in China in the last decade or so. So rest easy, Felix; whether Chairman Xi is able to manifest his dreams of a Chinese century, or not, it won't be STAR WARS's fault, because it's been kind of a disaster in the Chinese market (in contrast with, for example, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, unfortunately). Thank you for attending my TED Talk: American leftists try very hard to say nice things about Taiwan while not just parroting liberals and conservatives, and why we should help them.

Sam Lieberman

Lord of the rings does have morality with choice!!! And it is ultimately a story of failure!!!!

pizzapope

begun, the trade wars have!

D Metcalf

“There is no paper bear” Dwight Shute ass

Michael Davies

Felix mispronouncing archipelago hurt my soul

William Evans

Never expected Redwall love on the podcast but so happy to get it. No more Redwall slander! Redwall > Space Wizards.

mac

Cass Sunstein's Yoda quote is a misquote. Jesus Christ, he's not even a good dork.

Max

Broke: comparing everything to Star Wars Woke : comparing everything to Metal Gear Solid Bespoke: comparing everything to 2016 Chapo

Cameron

I appreciate will but San Francisco and Seattle are 12 hours away lol. Kinda far apart. East coast brain

Gabriel Clima

Chokes me up when Will talks about his dad. Wish I had a father who could bring back so many good memories

Ale

Somewhere someone in East Asia is currently writing "NARUTO - The Universal Text of Human Achievement"

Fernslinger

I sure hope none of the pedants heard Felix use the term “fig leaf” incorrectly again!

Bob K Ross

Jack from lost we have to go back meme

Ian Priest

It makes perfect sense to me that a Liberal fuckwit like Cass would look to what is essentially a dualistic fairytale about Space Wizards, aimed at literal children, for validation when it comes to his utterly vapid moral outlook on the world and the complex forces that actually drive it.

Throw Away

If that truly is the ICE guys steam account I’ve rolled him in dustbowl lobbies a couple times

Travis

Felix begins speaking at 1 minute and 22 seconds

Tim

Holy shit! I assumed it was about the other Star Wars too.

Shiv

Felix bitching about adult SW love is ASMR to me. “LOTR was the first Star Wars” lmao

Shiv

i tuned out while answering a text and just tuned back in to “we should have a LOTR book-burning ceremony” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Sam

Felix’s point about people being unable to let go of Star Wars as a adults is something I think about a lot. So many movies and TV shows when I was a kid had an underlying message that to grow out of something is to betray your younger self, but no one ever tells you how freeing it is to decide that maybe 15-year-old you *was* naive and dumb and that you don’t have to “defend pop punk” anymore

Mungo Franczak

A great newer YA series I’m reading is Red Rising by Pierce Brown. It’s like a mixup of the Hunger Games, Dune and Game of Thrones. It’s very good so far, I’ve only read the first book though

Warbs

IF the Disney cancelations actually led to them reinstating Kimmel then we could probably have universal healthcare within a day with a general strike.

Doug Cartel

Samantha Power hears a word that rhymes with Gaza and just folds her hands and crosses her legs and smiles and stares until the next question is asked

Adam B

Was I supposed to know who Cass Sunstein is?

Doug Cartel

Sunstein/Power is like if you reversed the gender roles for that meme about THE MOST RACIST MAN ALIVE

Damen Irving

Cass? No thanks. Kass? Yes please.

Henry

Nothing better on a Friday morning than Will purposefully upsetting Felix by reading Cass Sunsteins Star Wars book.

George P

christ almighty Sunstein makes Michael McFaul look a genius by comparison

MCL

GENE WOLFE MENTIONED

Reece Coren

who in gods name is cass sunstein

Alex C

The knight kinda fucked me up as a kid

Juan Sacchi

I was there in Milan ❤️🤍💚🖤

Clammy_Damp

Tolkien’s work is both entry level and worth reading as an adult (all the stuff Christopher has published). My life has been enriched immeasurably by reading medieval poetry and history. I would have never come to that hobby had I not read the hobbit as a kid. On the other hand my dick is small and I’ve never played Metal Gear Solid, so I guess I should probably be lobotomized.

Michael Miller

Letting Star Wars dominate your worldview as an adult is such a Griffondor thing to do

Michael Miller

Thank God I don't have any of these of problems as 30 year old One Piece fan

Do Golems Dream of Ceramic Sheep

I'll say this for Redwall, it entertained me greatly as a kid, I have fond but indistinct memories of reading the books, and I have not once as an adult used it as my primary frame for interpreting the world (Libs and Harry Potter) or as a reference mine to name my latest technological horror after (SV vampires and LotR)

Adam Walton

Im literally reading lord of the rings for the first time.

bob dylan

Lord of the Rings isn't hopeless Only if youve never read the books. The entire point of the books is an extended allegory for ptsd and the inherent fall of all things human into sin and vice.

Instantdumbass

Felix is now full metal gear brained

Willm

Its crazy how much cultural purchase Joseph Campbell got for saying there's actually just one story and it's pretty boring

Kyle Smyth

In all of human history there's never been a creature quite like The Noid

Benj

I don’t know who that is but will smile and laugh along

Viro Mia

I think it's fucked up that Chapo started calling out two stories made by autistic guys right now

Hugo Stiglitz

Tolkien was pretty vocally against the idea that Lord of the Rings was an allegory for anything. At least it wasn't written as one. PTSD and the fall into vice is a great way of applying the story to our current lives, but applicability is not allegory.

Isaac

That’s the sign of someone who is better read than they are socialized. You can take it as a sign of intelligence, or poor socialization.

MCL

Gene Wolfe invented Pringles and blew minds

Daffy

It's the intellect of the individual that thinks Padmeé's line "So this is how democracy dies? With thunderous applause," is the most esoteric thing they've ever heard.

Last Years Man

He writes about Star Wars like he just learned about it last week.

Valnas

If Kamala can watch the West Wing and then live it, why can't the same premise extend to the Chewbacca filibuster?

Daffy

Yes the failure of the boring white guys from the west to stop the brown people with elephants. They say it like 3 times in the return of the king. It's only passable because Tolkien hated the danish more than he did brown people.

Sam Lieberman

This is a valid critique, tolkiens racial politics were bad and this gets even worse re: the orcs

Peter Taylor

My mom got me the world according to Star Wars book for my birthday like ten years ago. I was like 15 or 16, and I remember being really confused that the author was some sort of economic policy guy

Mickey Gubitosi

Dune is also slop btw. I’m an adult and never played video games so I can’t comment on metal gear solid.

Daffy

This is how a Zionist talks about the Nakbuh

Matelda

Cass actually wrote "[Star Wars] is humanity." He thought he was writing a book about "humanity" but really he wrote a book about the jaw-dropping banality of the elite academic cult he lives in. Like if Eichmann wrote a book about his grand moral universe, it would be this shit, the exact shit that Obama was bowled over by.

Nicole Veneto

COLE SHOUT OUT! THAT’S MY CO-HOST!!! 🚗🎶

Kainien Morel

I would guess they'd probably have some old Israeli TV programs to reference too, but I don't know them by name.

nick

Hasn’t Felix talked in the past about being family friends with Cass Sunstein in Chicago when he was a kid?

Jeffrey Searcy

The fundamental principle of The Lord Of Rings is that you have to choose to be good, that’s literally the entire point. Aragorn isn’t from a race of inherently good people, most of them chose to be evil.

demonsweat

Felix's Norske/Danish friend sounds like a Citibank spot from the last decade: American dumdums who think they're Norwegian book a trip to Oslo; do squarehead birthright stuff; find out in the hall of records their family was actually Swedish; book a ferry to Stockholm

🎃 Val_cente Precio 🎃

Lucas and Tolkien made media for babies cuz they couldn't part with any characters of consequence. Every important character was their child they were going to protect at all costs... Aside from the random dismemberment or interplanar battle/tumble with a balrog...🤷

Jessica

I ordered Redwall and Animorphs for my 8-year-old based off this conversation, thanks for the recommendations!

Man

I use to love reading the Expanded Universe as a kid, but as far as politics goes the politics of it are almost nonexistent like the rebels just want to restore The Republic but its not like anyone ever really tries to layout a policy agenda of The Republic of The Empire. I don't know why a serious real world political figure would try and make it something more. The only thing I would say is worth coming away with is how many times The Republic collapses because it never takes the threat of The Sith and Yhe Empire seriously despite it already collapsing from them like 20 times before

Khaqan Ahmad

Samantha Power deserves more hate

Maxwell Harkness

doing a Cass reading series is kind of a cheat code, but he's a gold mine

Jeffrey Searcy

Felix going off about it being stupid to take moral lessons from Star Wars in the same sentence as saying “Remember in the Sniper Wolf boss fight” is diabolical.

Dick Waglin

If he wants to liken the world to star wars, Kissinger is Tarkin. Yea he used the death star to blow up Alderaan, but he was super nice to me about my book.

Hayley James

Feeling like Jacques listening to this episode. Trying to follow along, but I have no clue about what is being talked about.

TLT

lol ep had me crying. Cass Sunstein please check out the writings of Ernst Mandel on the notion of Parametric Determinism then wear only a barrel and suspenders for the rest of your life you dope.

Mattc83

Warhammer 40K is the rich literature we really need to lean into. Fascism abound, no real good guys, no good to come from anything, it just gets darker and darker and worse and worse. and that’s what we have now! Happy thoughts 😸

Alex Gullen

What an absolute banger of a clinic on the Starwars book by Harvard law professor Cass. I’m guessing his editor didn’t inform him about the Wookie to human lifespan conversion (much akin to ‘Dog years’). A 60 year old Wookie is basically a teenager. Also lacking is any reference to the real underpinnings of the Star Wars film. Saturnism, that is Satanism aka Lucerfarianism (Jesus worship inverted), or the tippy toppy of FreeMasonry. An occultation in Astronomy happens when something becomes hidden behind something else. The last occultation of Saturn was April 25th, 2019 when it passed behind or was masked by the moon. AstroTheology (in the sense of ancient astronomy) and its meanings are hidden behind and under the surface of modern monotheistic religions, hence the association with the 'occult' and use of masks;- Kubrick's, Eyes Wide Shut is another interesting reference point in modern popular culture. Saturn is considered the King of the Planets within our solar system and like the Dog Star, is one of the brightest objects in the night sky visible to the naked eye. It is also one of the largest and would contain some 750 Earths within it, yet it would float on water due to its low density. It has a large number of satellites, some 53 named moons (although over 270 in total), typically after Titans in ancient Greek mythology. Janus, Rhea, Titan (the largest of its moons), Pandora & Prometheus (shepherd moons steadying its rings, which add to its reflectivity and thus brightness in the night sky) and Pan are some of the more commonly known examples. One moon, Mimas, was the inspiration for the Death Star in Star Wars. The likeness is unmistakable. The name Luke Skywalker means Sun traveling across the sky in 12 steps (hours). The 'Force' for instance is representative of the influence of Saturn over space and time. Most commonly meaning Lucifer in English as a name for the Devil in Christian theology. It appeared in the King James Version of the Bible in Isaiah and before that in the Vulgate (the late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible), not as the name of a devil but as the Latin word lucifer (uncapitalized), meaning "the morning star", "the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing". It is a translation of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל, hêlēl, meaning "Shining One". Luke comes from Luca. Luca derives from "lux" which means "light" in Latin. Luca (and Luke) means "light", having the same root as Lucy, Lucius in Roman times. In fact, in ancient times, Luca was the name given to babies born at dawn, since dawn is the first light (lux) of the day. Take Revelations 22:16 for instance: “I, Jesus, sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the root and offspring of David,* the bright morning Read another way, this also refers to Lucifer, the ‘light-bearer’ whose worship has spawned countless secret, occult societies throughout the ages. Quoted more openly in Isaiah 14:12 “How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations! How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [light-bringer], son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, You who have weakened the nations [king of Babylon]! How have you fallen from heaven, O light-bringer and daystar, son of the morning! How you have been cut down to the ground, you who weakened and laid low the nations [O blasphemous, satanic king of Babylon!]” A star known as The Eye of Medusa, belonging to the Perseus Constellation, which is also known under the name of Algol or Ra's Al Ghul. However, the ancient Israelites and Jewish astrologers called it Rosh HaSatan or The Head of Satan. What this star represents, is the calamity striking those who were acknowledged as reputed princesses, kings, wise and righteous people. The Hebrew word Satan ַ ן֙טָשּׂ ָ means opposition and the translation for The Satan HaSatan ן֙טָשָּׂ ה ַ is The Ultimate Oppositor. Rosh HaSatan was also known as Ra's Al Ghul or The Head of the Ghoul, an evil devourer demon-monster. This constellation was imagined as a gigantic monster that caught its victims on its hands to devour them. Al Ghul literally signifies a Mischief-maker, and the name still appears in the Ghoul of the Arabian Nights and of our day. Simple inversions were some of the earliest cyphers deployed by Abu Yusuf al-Kindi, the 9th century Arabian scholar who invented cryptography. And yes, at the heart of Freemasonry is the ‘West’s’ attempt to mask over the fact that the underlying fountain of knowledge was Eastern in origination. Mimas (a moon of Saturn, which the ‘DeathStar’ was directly modeled upon), was one of the Gigantes in Greek mythology, one of the sons of the Titans Uranus and Gaea which sprang out of the soil when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus and the blood fell on the earth. He participated in the Gigantomachy, the battle that occurred between the Gigantes and the 12 Olympians, and he was the main opposition of the god Hephaestus; he was killed by him with missiles of red hot metal. Another account says that he was killed by Zeus, hurling a thunderbolt against him and turning him to ash. He was buried off the coast of Naples, under the island of Prochyte, one of the Phlegraean Islands.

Žiga Iglič

The Casses and Kasses are not alright.

Chris Allen

The SW funk outro slaps.

Matthew

Felix's bit at the beginning about rushing out your house with toast in your mouth has been giving me life all day lol

Demented Avenger

Not only has Star Wars poisoned the minds of GenXers, the GI Joe cartoon really fucked them up. The idea that GI Joe will fight for freedom wherever there's trouble is downright hilarious when compared with reality.

I.P. Freely

Felix saying “ARK-a-pe-LA-GO” ten minutes after calling Sunstein illiterate took me out

Alex Weber

the stupidest guy you know from college who works as a mortgage broker: “there’s actually a really interesting storyline in the Phantom Menace regarding trade and commerce”

FA

This week's episode of Chapo AND TrueAnon both randomly make mention of Flight starring Denzel Washington. Something is happening to the Patriot's AI network. I need scissors, 61.

Oliver Clozov

felix accusing me of thinking i'm aragon (region of spain)

Jim jones

constantly comparing everything to MGS is the most millennial shit ever and I'm tired of people telling me it's not

United Eric Emirates

LOTR rings rules. A pox upon the houses of these ‘cool dude’ jocks and their Japanese ‘mango’ games or whatever

Jack Ross

Saying LOTR sucks is CRAZY even if you don’t rock w it like that

Dongo

As an embarrassing Star Wars nerd, President Xi, you must re-institute the ban, for the good of the people’s republic

Dylan Wintersteen

I had written off Star wars for being baby brain slop and then they dropped Andor.... Obviously nothing like the rest of the IP but at least some of these man-children might watch something with dialectics. Would be interested in a roast of Andor tho...

CS

I would take Will and Felixs take on LotR more seriously if they hadn’t tried to convince us that Avatar was a good movie.

United Eric Emirates

LOTR is all about making choices, and how difficult that can be, and how our choices actually affect our world even if we have been taught that our lives are insignificant. And sure that’s a bit naive and whoo whoo but I feel like Felix is playing the same stupid game everyone who calls it ‘racist’ (the same sort of ppl Chapo often skewers) does too when he basically says the same thing abt Metal Gear w the caveat ‘regardless of racial or socio economic bg’ or whatever, Same old tired default ‘woke’ dismissal even if he’s couching it in his own default self deprecating edge lord shit. Frodo had ‘white privilege’ Wow, never thought of that Felix - how astute, let’s toss it all in the trash heap and fire up the fuckin Play Station to play a game produced by an ethic monoculture to learn about life and ‘diversity! instead. I realize it’s all in good fun but whenever Felix gets on about Metal Gear he def comes off a bit high on his own supply. Son, put down the pipe.

Ross Moore

Who knew the only thing Charlie Kirk couldnt out debate was a bullet lmao

Oliver Clozov

you described that like you've seen it done to someone before

Madeline

Something about listening to the two of them having a good old fashioned giggle-off is soothing to my spirit

T33ny

Thats last week's news, fed

Dee Haytch

LEHIGH VALLEY MENTIONED!!!!!!

Chapo Bath House

It's delightful to watch Felix's literary references evolve over the years, from Richard Scary to his Knaussgard phase, to monthly Amelia Bidelia name drops

polygon-primitive

The animorphs bit reminded me that they ended one of those books with a kid getting stuck being a hawk forever

Dee Haytch

They are both susceptible to reels feeding it to everyone at once

Whistle Dog

Was it a happy ending or a sad one? I could see it going either way

drizzly_november

He only reads massive doorstop tomes like Master of the Senate and Knaussgard, and children’s books.

kev

we fuck w martin the warrior

Bryan Williams

Hasn't Lucas said Star Wars is just a B-movie set in space, complete with cliché archetypes-- wise old man, bad boy swashbuckler, princess, hidden young hero, etc.? The only addition was gay robot. Hilarious to me that this New Hollywood wannabe, who maybe could've been Marty or Brian DePalma, instead just became a billionaire off this space action slop that fat babies can't keep from guzzling down.

Ross Moore

I'm not a fed, my fellow leftists

Michael Branes

love me some long musical outros, no shade chris

BarnSoHard

I understand their point about LOTR, but.... I still love it

Will

the FIRST Book!

Will

Im going to be an Anti-Belden, Brian Jacques pronounced his last name "Jakes"

Lizard

Loving the "getting a lot of boss baby vibes from this" except it's big boss instead. Not complaining I just love how infectious metal gear is

Garth Hillsborough

I understand why it's Star Wars music, but in honour of Cass the closing track could've also been Clash - Lost in the Supermarket

Kyle Erickson

I’ve been getting pushed a ton of scenes from Flight by the YouTube algorithm lately

Ian

I find Felix saying “spider’s web” instead of spider web very funny

Kvvvy

And they mean literally nothing to me lol. I still haven't the slightest idea what msg is or is about

Kvvvy

I only read a few redwall books, but my main takeaway was (aside from that reading vernacular accents in text is fucking annoying) the vivid, almost sensual description of vegan food. I guess it makes sense if he was doing it for the benefit of his blind readers

Curtis Dyer

I like how Will always finds a way to try and drain Felix's sanity in the duo episodes.

Tom Thumb

Animorphs shoutout well-deserved as a rare example of modern YA fiction with depth. The teen protags pay a high cost personally and morally; several suffer PTSD by books’ end. And both sides of the bigger interstellar conflict have obvious moral failings.

Greg

Hilarious

Yarblockos

In all of human history there has never been a phenomenon like Chapo Trap House.

GenZ Poster

I half-heartedly disagree on the LOTR criticism. While I agree that it’s stupid for any adult to use LOTR as a didactic tool for the world, I was deeply affected by 1) Bilbo’s scary face when he wants the ring, it showed me how consuming the lust for power can be 2) boromir’s traitorous pursuit of the ring showed me something similar 3) gollum’s storyline - the depths of depravity that one will go to to obtain and keep power, if only for the sake of having the power and doing nothing with it. So I’ll definitely show it to my kids but if I find out they have a LOTR superfan tumblr account I’m disowning

GenZ Poster

Also will said “Germally” twice, I think overshadowed by Felix’s archipelago mispronunciation, but still worth pointing out and shaming him for

John W

Think I might have enjoyed the disco version a bit more, but still, 👍

Grant T

Animorphs was rad and SW has a great soundtrack and some fun worldbuilding. I"m gonna be that guy who pushes up the glasses and says "you don't get Tolkien." Lizard people like Thiel and Bezos don't either--they just like it cosmetically...there also people who autistically pursue the lore but don't really get the point. The LotR trilogy was good, but definitely contributed to that misunderstanding and "light vs dark" dichotomy. Star Wars was just a technically impressive simplistic sci-fi film loaded with tropes that fans and commissioned sci-fi authors basically built onto with the thematically confused "expanded universe." I will say that Star Wars as it stands isn't as dichotomous as Will makes it out to be. I'm not saying it's great storytelling, but they kind of hammer home the idea of bringing "balance" to the Force. The Jedi fell because they were an arrogant paramilitary police force that engineered their own demise by rigidly adhering to a one-dimensional and immutable doctrine. Sith aren't technically supposed to be inherently evil even though SW creators kept undercutting that idea by giving them spooky cloaks, helmets, and cat eyes. It's a very confused franchise...probably because the IP continues to exist solely to sell shit.

Grant T

I did, but now I'm a Martin the Warrior truther. Bobcats were the real heroes.

GenZ Poster

Unless of course he intentionally crafted a combination of the words “Germany” and “Italy” to describe the shared cultural and economic histories of the two nations. Which I still take issue with because it sucks. Therefore I invite him to a friendly sparring match at my estate in Lancastershire. If he accepts I will have my butler escort him to me.

King Suck

This episode was so insightful. It reminds me of Metal Gear Solid

Grant T

Star Wars is just a template now for creators who want a ready-made sci-fi universe without making studios take risks on whole new IP. Andor could've been set in a generic sci-fi universe, but would not have gotten the same exposure.

K H

I'm a badger.

Grant T

I'd take it seriously if he understood Tolkien or the themes. To be fair, Bezos and Thiel don't either. I didn't when I first saw the trilogy. I don't blame people for basing their perception of the works entirely based on the films. It's dense and you have to understand some of the origins of the various races, artifacts, cities and lineages to get what Tolkien was trying to convey. A lot of stuff about the rings and palantiri were left out of the movies.

Hardcore Virgin

Funky Star Wars theme really kinda great

Ashley Naftule

*pushes up glasses" This is why it was a mistake for the movies to cut The Scouring of the Shire. LOTR needs that downbeat ending- that no matter how noble and heroic your efforts are, no matter what you did to save the world, you'll still come home to rubble and ruin because the war touches everything. Star Wars ends with Ewoks dancing around a fire; Tolkien ends his books with "oops a wizard enslaved your hometown while you were gone; also, all the good magic in the world is leaving for Hospice Island and taking the main character with them"

Grant T

Yeah a lot of people (including Thiel and Bezos) don't really get Tolkien beyond the LotR aesthetic from the Jackson films. I'm not an MGS guy, but I can appreciate it for the things it does right while recognizing that Kojima can often have an incoherent, rambling action movie-fixated creative process. but that goofiness and eclectic style is what we love about him.

Grant T

It's those sodium packets they put in Ramen noodles.

K H

Spain and Italy are in NATO. If Israel attacks them NATO is compelled to respond. It either results in NATO dissolving or Israel getting stomped. Really throwing every puppet institution in the garbage.

Grant T

It's because people (including libertarian tech nerds) like the 'aesthetic' of Tolkien but don't get the point. I will say that for their flaws, the Jackson films were pretty clear on the theme of humans being inherently corruptible.

K H

Should have been THQ

K H

Twas the Muslim badgers

K H

How does being driven insane a werehawk strike you in terms of happy endings?

Cameron

Talk shit about lord of the rings and the extended Tolkien universe again and I stg I will carve all of your names into bullet casings

Wesley

The way Felix said archipelago made me relapse

Dan McLain

Superficial analysis of LOTR and Tolkien

Wesley

Their point is almost completely wrong, especially the part where they said that there's no choice and everyone is automatically good or evil

Wesley

I would take them seriously if their core point wasn't "the story about temptation has no choice in it"

Clammy_Damp

Dude crazy that Bezos apparently loves Tolkien. It’s a world that is literally made by song and he’s like spiritually incapable of being affected by music

Grant T

Yeah, I get most of the cuts from a practical and commercial standpoint. Battles are cool and go well in trailers. A mass audience isn't going to sit through the 50 pages or so worth of exposition (and that was before we all fried our attention spans with smartphones). The razing of the Shire definitely should've made it in, though I'm not a filmmaker and not sure where I'd make cuts. maybe those some of those slow-mo scenes or Aragorn/Arwen dream sequences.

Nathan

Holy tangent

K H

We can all agree that only degenerates relate analysis of pop visual media into book format. The correct medium is clearly the podcast.

K H

Racist Yoda would have been an archetypal Nick Mullen bit.

K H

He wrote what he knew as anyone does. It's there whether intended or not.

sailor corellia

My parents saw Episode 3 in theaters. They were really into sci-fi and loved it. What they said they loved about it was visually it wasn't like any sci-fi movie that had come before - the ships and planets were worn-down and dirty, and the aliens looked disgusting. It was a cool concept and a good story. There. That was it. It was innovative, the three main characters are kewl, and the story was fun. People need to stop trying to make it more than it is.

Grant T

Yeah, especially since all of the sentient evil beings in Arda were corrupted at one point or another. Even Sauron and the orcs were corrupted beings...they weren't inherently good or evil.

Quadabyte

The Chapo Trap House and RedLetterMedia ven diagram start to overlap even more.

Kinetics Video

When we say "cosplays as an Imperial Japanese military officer" we call that "Being a NeoNazi" over here

Grant T

to be fair, "fat babies" describes a large of chunk of the most devoted fanbase of any popular IP...especially in sci-fi...but honestly this could be applied to everything from Star Trek to Marvel. Even Swifties. People become obsessed with the aesthetic of something, demand constant consumption of it way past its prime and create whole obnoxious subcultures out of it. Then you get slop markets that make billions from those fanbases long after anything that was unique or fun about the IP/art has been ground down. Pretty much every Star Wars tv show, game or movie nowadays could've just been set in a generic sci-fi universe with "magic."

Kainien Morel

@Christopher E Musgrave That's nothing, dude. He literally WAS in the Japanese Army. His brother was killed in the Japanese Navy during the war. He's cosplaying a fictional character who was a Japanese army veteran forty years before his story was written. (There would've be more of those, but White Terror arrested, killed or disappeared most of the surviving military veterans, most of the remaining Japanese nationals who weren't repatriated, most of the people who openly spoke Japanese, people who openly spoke Taiwanese, people who spoke positively of the Maoists, etc. The usual postwar shakeup.)

Grant T

Yeah, I remember reading about that and a lot of things clicking for me. My guess is that he likes the visual aesthetic but doesn't grasp the narrative themes. Or he unironically identifies with Melkor? Thiel naming his company Palantir when the conceit of the palantiri was that Sauron used the Ithil stone to manipulate the users of the other remaining stones with selective information is pretty psychotic. It's a bit too on the nose if he was referencing the Third Age at all.

dilla

hearing the name cass sunstien gave me an instant migrane. the amount of professorial dick sucking for this guy i endured my first year of law school was enough to drive anyone to carve "nudge" into some bullet casings.

Grant T

In sum, they're wrong about LotR, mostly right about Star Wars, and Felix really likes MGS.

Grant T

it felt like a Thomas Friedman column expanded into an entire book.

C. Andrew

I would join the Lithuanian Light Hussars if it meant dropping into Tel Aviv.

Alex

The Lord of the Rings is a wonderful series and a great of example of a writer in it for the love of writing. It’s use in common culture is simply a function of its popularity, not an indictment against the quality of the material. I mean the message of Lord of the Rings is effectively the same as Avatar, which I know the Chapo hosts love. I just don’t understand the hate.

Grant T

I'm guessing you haven't read Tolkien then. You don't even need to get into the massive body of lore or read the books. Boromir literally sets off the breaking of the fellowship by driving Frodo away, dies in an act of self sacrifice, and impacts the course of events in Gondor (and Frodo's relationship with Faramir). Half the characters from the Hobbit (which was directed at children) are dead by the time the events of the Fellowship have started. Gandalf doesn't die because he is a Maiar...which is why he is sent back by Valar. Bilbo doesn't die because the ring gave him long life and he leaves for the Valinor...his death serves no narrative purpose...the corrupting influence of the ring on him does. LotR is a story about the corrupting influence of power. Killing off characters for its own sake isn't good story-telling. it's not dark fantasy...it's not supposed to be. There is a place for both.

Grant T

to be fair, produced by Kojima's wonderful fever dreams and closet full of his favorite movies from that monoculture at the time. I definitely respect Kojima as an artist, but he is very eclectic and produces a lot of incoherent slop along with the gems. But sifting through his slop for the gems is part of what is so endearing about him.

K H

Master Yoda, no!

Richard Cochnar

Real Italians kick so much ass. Italian Americans are the most cucked of the white subclasses.

Grant T

I dunno, I think Tolkien was just really into linguistics. Maybe linguistics is actually just 'tism in disquise.

Jimmy McMillan

Chapo has talked a lot of shit about Henry Kissinger but i never realized that he was once polite to some lib author. I guess you can't always trust negative propaganda about people

🎃 Val_cente Precio 🎃

I had a feeling someone would bring up Boromir🙄 the only character that was developed less was his brother Faramir. He was the guy in the fellowship Tolkien put an obvious non-essential npc flag on. Then you went on to make excuses for all the guys he almost killed. C'mon, boss. I have read the books but real nice 😎. I've read goosebumps with higher stakes and more adult consequences. That's all.

Grant T

Yeah, he didn't refer to any of his works as allegorical...I think people just took the quotes from his grandson explaining how the imagery of Mordor was influenced by Somme and the battles against the Saurons by the industrialized war machine (specifically Somme) and expanded it into "iT's aN alLEgory." The PTSD was also derived from his grandson making the comparison between WWI vets returning home and those involved in the War of the Ring experiencing something similar. Here's a an interview with Tolkien on the subject for those interested: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240726-the-ww1-trauma-that-inspired-the-lord-of-the-rings

Grant T

It makes me wonder what the reason behind Tolkien's insane descriptions of Hobbit parties down to the pipe-weed was....WWI rationing?

Jon Shields

Felix is back in his prime since Charlie Kirk lmao

Sexual Harry Potter

I was listening to this drunk and was like “huh? Blind people can’t read books but they can taste food, I don’t get it

Sexual Harry Potter

First they hated on Blues Brothers, now LOTR… chapo fell off am I right

Sexual Harry Potter

It’s about an owl war. They modify their talons with metal spikes and hot coals

Alex

Watch the Gleep Glossary on We Hate Movies for the REAL Star Wars lore.

Darius Arian

Honestly I'm shocked they never did this bit. Like surely one of them must have stumbled on it at one point?

Joe McIntyre

Ironic how the guys shit on Lord of the Rings when Ettingermentum is doing a Grima Wormtongue on Felix

Grant T

Ah, you're trolling, got it. I also read Goosebumps as child, so that one isn't going to work either. You're allowed to just say you don't like or understand something...don't have throw a fit and belittle people for their taste in literature...that's what Reddit is for.

Deep Weird Podcast

Imagine writing this fucking book when you could have spent 1/100th of the time just making a 90 minute youtube essay about the same shit and probably made more money

Axel H.

Biggest laugh in a while from Chapo with the boys talking about Barney and Garfield in pompous British accents 🤣

Dank Widow

Imagine thinking Dune is nuanced or advanced SciFi

danny

great ep

dilla

like FUCK cass sunstien i hope he gets hit by a bus. his impact on admin law has literally killed people but also hes so fucking annoying it has driven me to madness

Alexander white

Oh my god this guy is just the lib Jordan Peterson

Chris

Beats workin’

ERIC

They hate the people who mentally retreat into the lore of these worlds and make it their whole personality.

K H

I think they might have. On the movie mindset podcast. I might be thinking of Behind the Bastards though, I'm not sure.

William Hubel

Even though everything sucks under Trump it’s satisfying that it sucks worst for guys like Cass

K H

Same as the Irish. Europeans came here to be losers or at least give birth to them.

jsobrie

Harry Potter is the Star Wars of fantasy but too low-hanging a fruit I guess lol

ResilientBastard

Some movie trivia: Orbán’s favorite film is “Once Upon a Time in the West.” Not sure if he’s ever talked about start wars.

Chapo Bath House

I hope Trump gets a bunch of shitty dogs to be more Brandon, except he's a fey NYC media bitch so they'll all be tiny little white dogs with all that crusty shit in their eyes

Chubby Justin

this is just the boomer version of game of thrones character studies

Lee

That and Dawn of the Dead remake are the only Snyder movies I can actually enjoy.

Lee

Just don’t write it in blue ballpoint pen or no one will believe you.

I.P. Freely

Chapo not immune to America’s degeneration I guess

Lee

Makes me want to go back to the classic episode where Matt has to apologize to his neighbors for going apoplectic reading a Megan McArdle article.

Lee

The only bit of Star Wars knowledge I have is that Wookiees live for centuries- which brought forth the idea that Hans Solo is basically like Chewbacca’s dog. I have no idea why I remember that but there it is.

Christopher Price

what do you mean what does star wars say about Christianity?! it's a manichean heresy! the trad caths should be trying to burn every star wars fan at the stake.

snorlax

GENE WOLFE?!? Holy fuck can we do a Wolfe episode!?!

Christopher Price

right, there are several moments where characters are like I'm one of greatest ever, but if I get an inch closer I'm doing a global holocaust, and they're basically doing elvish seppuku because of their failure to take on the challenge.

Sam

Redwall mentioned let’s go

Peen Israel

This was so fucking funny

Michael Ehrenreich

Hell yeah that was my favorite book series when I was 10

Paul Hurdle

ive probably never laughed harder at chapo jokes than the end of this ep. dead.

Karim El-Hayawan

Not only is Sunstein mentally challenged for writing a book on Star Wars, he's also wrong on Star Wars. Star Wars didn't draw on Westerns and 1960s Comics, it drew on Serials and WWII movies.

Karim El-Hayawan

You're absolutely wrong. This isn't WWI anymore. NATO can just chose to do nothing and let Israel do what it wants. There are no automatism in foreign relations anymore. Understand that laws and treaties are fake.

Karim El-Hayawan

You're not even talking about the books and you want someone to take your defence seriously. Listen to yourself .

Jessica

felix at the end of his first presidential debate: "WE are lighting, the rain transformed"

ERIC

Yes, but it was an easier parallel of fantasy for them to dunk on. Also, bet they didn't read the books, enjoy them, and then live with insufferable fandoms that ruined their experience.

Naked Shitter

Kirk did for Felix's comedy what Christopher did for Tony's gambling

Justin Comer

felt like some classic era Chapo, nice job fellas

Tommy U

Will is slowly trying to train felix to give Matt-on-Megan-McArdle type reactions

Momo

The LOTR rightwing fans phenomenon baffles me because the entire point is laid out in the first 5 minutes, chasing power is for losers and corrupts everyone, the shire is basically anarcho-communist and presented as the ideal standard of living

Walter rememberer

Darth Vader trying to nudge Luke into the Dark Side, and Yoda responding by engineering Vader's entire downfall so that he unwittingly has to walk by two salad bars to get to burger

Karim El-Hayawan

The idea that wanting power is somehow bad or that power corrupts is also childish and immature. Grow up. How do you think the proletariat will defeat its enemies? With debate and songs?

Karim El-Hayawan

Every IP exists to solely sell shit. LotR also only continues to exists to sell plane tickets to New Zealand.

Karim El-Hayawan

So many of you are defending your Elvshit the same way you accuse people definding their Capeshit. Your story about a traveling hippie troupe of elves and dwarves is in the same category as Batman. There's more dignity in accepting that than what you are doing.

etienne

is that the Star Wars remix that the producer of Talking Heads 77 got famous for doing? if so insane deep cut

Momo

I mean that is why they do the fellowships and the battles and whatnot to protect the commoners but also I think you’re taking this a little too seriously.

etienne

came here to post this

Walter rememberer

A good young adult and children's lit author might be thinking about how many trite influences or even predators (your Turner Diaries, Andrew Tates, L. Ron Hubbards) await to snap up teenagers and young adults who remain immature, still fervent and grasping. And so a creator facing a younger audience has a duty to build challenging - and thus resilient - ideas into their own work. Hanging on to elements, sentiments, ideas, or even baubles from things like Redwall, Star Wars, LotR or even Harry Potter, from early on in one's development, may be a strategy to foster independence from malign influences. So maybe it turns out to be such a questionable strategy, compared to building real community, growing feelings for real people. but I totally get why that "don't grow up too fast" shit goes in there, given all the wolves around today.

Walter rememberer

Why even wait for investigations anymore? Everyone just writes or etches all their bullshit out on the shell casings, so we get an alt-text to tell us every shooter's coordinates in our ascended political hyperspace. Also, weirdly, a phenomenon that's mainly picked up since the second election of our beautiful boy, Probably just a coincidence though.

Dee Rubes

I wish we could get whole episodes of just Felix talking about Metal Gear Solid.

Hardcore Virgin

I like lord of the rings. I like dune. I’m a loser a nerd. I also like metal gear. Where I get off the train is when Felix spends five super spectrumy minutes jacking off Solid Snake like it is any different than the other barely above low brow nonsense they were making fun of— It is all about having the opportunity to make choices! Whoa dude! Slow down!

mark kuchonowski

he needs his own gaming podcast. please for the love of god just do it

Bergus

I get LOTR inspired some of the worst companies, but Felix should harakiri himself with his samurai sword for speaking ill of it.

PJ Renteria

LOTR Rocks, Star Wars is for megaminds, Go suck off Spock you dorks.

J Fitz

I can only speak my truth. Despite Felix’s pleading, the way they talk about Star Wars dorks is exactly how he and Brendan sound talking about their computer toys.

Chapo Bath House

We all have our dumb bullshit that we love, and it's fun to do a freshman film major style ~close reading~ of media to glean meaning that's just not there. It's when you use these media properties to build or defend your world view that you deserve to be pantsed and called a big dork

Nick Dunmore

The Jeremy Irons voice kids tv show analysis needs to be an animation

Michael

Caramelizing onions 🧅 to this rn

Chapo Bath House

Of all the ways the NDP have betrayed us in my life time, Jagmeet trying to get on the skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac meme train has been the most hurtful. Still hotter than Trudeau, tho

Ham Stroker’s Jackula

I hate lord of the ring and star wars but I enjoyed one of them as a kid. That's the way it's supposed to be. Believe it or not I also think transformers is pretty dumb now that I'm 40.

Michael

Adults shouldn’t obsess over movies for 11 year olds. They should make podcast series about games for 14 year olds

Torbjörn

To be fair, for many Minnesotans finding out you are not in the Scandinavian caste you thought you were in is a personal 9/11.

Sexual Harry Potter

While they do have a point it is really funny to constantly hear Felix retort to some fake “deep” implication of Star Wars with “in metal gear solid 1….”

GenZ Poster

“Book”? What’s that

Sexual Harry Potter

Compared to LOTR and Star Wars? Come on now. It doesn’t have to be the highest level of whatever pretentious sci fi you consume to make a point about how it is a step up from movies for children

Sexual Harry Potter

True, the “deep” part was never intended to be the moral framing but so many illiterate Americans are too stupid to understand the morality that everyone fixates on that aspect of it

Sexual Harry Potter

Nothing happened the last time Israel attacked a NATO member

Kendall

My 5-yo occasionally chooses the odd Amelia Bedelia book from the library. Felix’s boundless disdain for her is honestly warranted

John

Star war

Ted Lavender

90 minutes making fun of a guy writing a book about a movie series from a guy doing a 10-part podcast on a video game series.

Jonathan G

“Computer toys” homie you just did “sports ball” but for video games. What?

Will Burton

Not a single defense of Star Wars among all you sheep-brained elitists? Star Wars, like any other popular piece of media for a mass audience, can’t be the entirety of your political consciousness, and I agree that Cass’s take is embarrassing and overwrought. But let’s not pretend there aren’t some potent spiritual and political themes in the series that make it dense and enduring. George Lucas said the Empire is the US while the Rebels are the Viet Cong — that’s a pretty decent entry point for understanding how the world works. Condescend all you want on average people and their “baby” interests, but all this smarter-than-thou posturing is shallower than you think it is, and no way to relate to people.

S

Everyone likes star wars the wrong way except me, who likes it in a correct and intelligent way

Bobi Jon-son Kenobi

Felix really just needs to play the Suda51 game The Silver Case

K H

If nothing happens then NATO is totally farcical and ceases to exist as an entity to anyone. Including its members and Russia. So why would any country persist in NATO knowing there is 0 benefit? If they can't respond to a tiny fake baby like Israel, in what world would they stand against a behemoth like Russia? Not only is automatism over, so is western hegemony.

L.

If your only take on the UN recognising Palestinian statehood, something that has been fought for by advocates for decades, something was unthinkable a few years ago, is "well this won't end the genocide today" I can only conclude you're a nihilistic slob who doesn't even care about progress. If you're incapable of neutrally assessing the situation and seeing that this is clear progress beyond where the world was 3 years ago, and you just want to wallow in despair, what fucking good are you?

busty maiden

When your god makes you look like Ted from scrubs

SD

Finally! Ive been waiting for Chapo to mention the real OG leftist text. Animorphs.

Brett

Mostly on board with hating on people loving Star Wars way too much. However, the example Felix gives of how Snake is able to shake off his genetics and upbringing to find his own agency is quite literally also true of Han Solo. A significant portion of Empire Strikes Back is about his decision to put his own skin on the line for a cause (or a person) other than himself.

protob1

Your analysis (I'm being generous) of Trump's post and policy on Ukraine is wrong. When Trump wrote that the Ukrainians can retake all of their territory and 'beyond' he was being sarcastic. NATO, lead by the USA, is waging a coalition war against the Russian Federation and the DPRK. It will lose this war. The result will be the redrawing of the map of Europe, a new global security architecture and the collapse of the EU. Trump is trying, unsuccessfully, to extricate himself and the USA from this debacle by shifting the blame on the Europeans in the hopes of avoiding a dive in domestic approval when the regime in Kiev inevitably falls. You could have understood this and said something intelligent about it if you did not spend an hour talking about children films and gay shit.

Noctor

I remember telling my mom that hammer head sharks only think of being violent and for all her faults she said “how the fuck do you know?” To which I mumbled “animor….fs”.

PearlDrinkingMan

Spain and Italy in particular being fucking awesome this week Talking about daily horrors aside though, great ep

PearlDrinkingMan

fwiw the reason why the Star Wars franchise is so confused comes down to all the orientalist/sexist nonsense Joseph Campbell tacks onto otherwise basic structural/writing advice throughout Hero With A Thousand Faces Star Wars would be about a billion times simpler if the storytelling blueprint it survives on wasn't so rife with assumptions about random concepts being inherently feminine/masculine and the big shitty film franchise would be able to just be a big shitty film franchise without having to do lore gymnastics around all the earlier canon

el Cuervo loco

I think also it is getting lost that LOTR is a book by a linguist and, is as much about language and its use as anything else.

ChapoFan inParis

I'm wondering if the navy boats will serve as a way for Israel to be able to sink tge flotilla ships and be able to blame the Spanish navy if anyone drowns.

bruce

there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the lotr movies. if you even think somewhat positively of the books however

papabones

That darn Amelia Bedilia

papabones

ArcApeLahGO? Hmm

DT

Being "God's Chosen People" is more like being "The Playground Bully's Chosen Nerd".

Sean Arent

The reason Cass and Peter Thiel are idiots is because they fundamentally misunderstand Star Wars and LOTR. They are death star mechanics and ringwraiths but think they are the heroes. Bad takes all around by the chapos this time

Daniel Dermont

My dad used to have that Star Wars disco record. I used to love it and beg him to play it constantly.

Matelda

A lot of people who read a lot never learn to pronounce things

justdave

I once read like every star wars book while living in a group home when I was younger. They are all awful and dumb and i hate them.

Matelda

It's the other way around! The books are good and the movies are terrible! But the tech freaks & fake Catholics who pretend to like LOTR didn't read them, i will die on that hill

Ian Michael

Are we openly slandering LOTR now? A classic tale of good vs evil that defined the fantasy genre as we know it? I love Chapo but y'all have the worst takes on things sometimes.

Matelda

Gay is good though

Max

It’s good to hear the lads laughing so much

The wazzzzaaapp bud light dude

Being into Star Wars as an adult is so pathetic. Meanwhile, I’m basically indistinguishable from the predicting the rapture people awaiting Winds of Winter.

Tony Millionaire

I loved the New Yorker cartoons but it was the 70s when they were about martinis

etienne

you were on here fantasizing about torturing trans people and you just love russia because they're also into it, you're honestly a bigger freak than any other person the show ever mocked

Michael

Felix is 62 years old

Dean

I agree with Will here: “At the risk of blowing all my credibility as a jaded, contrarian critic and public intellectual, honesty compels to me to say that Andor was extremely good. Please put Tony Gilroy in charge of all television.” - Will Menaker 05/14/25

protob1

Alright, look, just show me your dick and I'll stop posting.

etienne

I'll do that to your family when you die on the russian front

etienne

takes a special breed of stupid to listen to Radio War Nerd and come off with the impression that war is fucking cool and that people should do it more

Lizzbo

I love laughing with you guys, so much.

Jack McGuffin

The idea of the Redwall series being an accidental fascist text is so funny to me

Walpurgisnacht

star wars is fun, but not *good*. but fuck, have you guys even *read* lord of the rings? the savior of the world, in the end, *IS GOLLUM*. He was an unambiguous villan, but also pitiable, and his mad, evil desire for the ring is what ended it. the lesson is not that good people are born good, its that 1) evil is a choice repeated so often it becomes a habit, then an instinct, then a compulsion. 2) the deeds of the "great men" of history are meaningless without the efforts of the small. 3) Evil is ultimately self-defeating, but if people dont stand up to it, it will destroy them before it destroys itself.

K H

Spanish and Italian navies have folded. A pretty a clear message, Europe is Russia's for the taking.

Adam Hauck

As everyone knows, Star Trek is better than Star Wars. Fuck off, Cass!

Dennis

Class A episode, indescribably vital that the baby braining of US culture be called out and scrutinized

Paul Nakis

The right wing version of “should I choose to be Good or Evil” is like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. “Should I be Good or Symbolically Gay?”

Antoine Desgagnés

50:30 Ok, this part where he compares the google results with The Beatles and Shakespeare just fuking triggered me. This guy is the exponential version of people starting a conference or a paper with a false citation from Albert Einstein. This is the kind of person who genuinely believes listening to Mozart during pregnancy makes smarter babies. And the previous part where he's in mode "Did you know Hollywood blockbusters were distribued worldwide?" was already upsetting! FFS, Star Wars is one of those movies that allowed Hollywood to tank a few non-US film industries.