History NightmareFuel / Chernobyl

* Everybody with a somewhat advanced knowledge of Chernobyl knows about the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl) Elephant's Foot]], a mass of corium located in the basement beneath Reactor #4 and the most radioactive part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. At the time of its discovery, six months after the explosion, the Foot was emitting 10.000 roentgens per hour, enough to give you fatal radiation poisoning (as in ''you drop dead'') in 300 seconds. While its radioactivity has significantly decayed over time to the point that it could be photographed in person in 1996 (the liquidators in 1986 took pictures of it using a jury-rigged "selfie stick") and, nowadays, can be approached for a few minutes with proper protection... Just imagine how much radioactivity this thing was emitting after the explosion. Estimations vary, but the consensus it that exposure was fatal in less than 30 seconds. For a few weeks at least, this block of dried nuclear lava was '''the absolute deadliest thing on Earth'''. The worst part? The Foot has a "little brother" in the form of a pile of discarded uniforms from the firemen who arrived after the explosion. That pile of clothes is ''still'' sitting in the basement of the Pripyat hospital and is still highly radioactive (it is, in fact, the most radioactive thing in the Zone save for the Foot). Standing near it for extended periods of time will make you sick. [[TooDumbToLive Putting these clothes on]] will irradiate you enough to contract [=ARS=] in a few minutes... and the firemen were wearing these for ''hours'', immediately after they were irradiated, 33 years before the series aired.

* Everybody with a somewhat advanced knowledge of Chernobyl knows about the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl) Elephant's Foot]], a mass of corium located deep within Reactor #4 and the most radioactive part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. At the time of its discovery, six months after the explosion, the Foot was emitting 10.000 roentgens per hour, enough to give you fatal radiation poisoning (as in ''you drop dead'') in 300 seconds. While its radioactivity has significantly decayed over time to the point that it could be photographed in person in 1996 (the liquidators in 1986 took pictures of it using a jury-rigged "selfie stick") and, nowadays, can be approached for a few minutes with proper protection... Just imagine how much radioactivity this thing was emitting after the explosion. Estimations vary, but the consensus it that exposure was fatal in less than 30 seconds. For a few weeks at least, this block of dried nuclear lava was '''the absolute deadliest thing on Earth'''. The worst part? The Foot has a "little brother" in the form of a pile of discarded uniforms from the firemen who arrived after the explosion. That pile of clothes is ''still'' sitting in the basement of the Pripyat hospital and is still highly radioactive (it is, in fact, the most radioactive thing in the Zone save for the Foot). Standing near it for extended periods of time will make you sick. [[TooDumbToLive Putting these clothes on]] will irradiate you enough to contract [=ARS=] in a few minutes... and the firemen were wearing these for ''hours'', immediately after they were irradiated, 33 years before the series aired.

** And once AZ-5 was pressed, the power shot up from 200 megawatts to ''33,000'' (over ''ten times'' the output the reactor was designed for) and led to the core exploding, but not before we see the lid covers start jumping and clanging randomly due to the pressure build up, only for it ''immediately explode upwards'', opening the core. And it becomes worse as Legasov describes oxygen entering the core, ending the chain reaction with causing a '''bigger''' explosion, all while the scene shows the graphite control rods flying out of Chernobyl and the eerie radioactive blue light rising out of the burning crater.

** To add another layer to this: the radiation firing out of the core would take less than a minute to cause a fatal dose -- and when you add in the billowing smoke, carrying with it a lot of intensely radioactive particles? Kudryavsev and Proskuryakov are doomed just by looking at it and breathing in the smoke for a matter of ''seconds.'' In RealLife, both men died from radiation sickness weeks later.

** When Legasov announces that the reactor hit 33,000 megawatts before exploding, the entire room is completely and utterly [[StunnedSilence silent.]] It's as if you can see the exact moment that everyone, even Dyatlov, realizes that yes, RMBK reactors ''do'' explode. In reality, much like the 3.6 roentgen initially reported as the radiation level, this was merely [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale the highest amount of power that the meter could display]]; indeed, Legasov acknowledges that 33,000 megawatts couldn't have been the actual power output given how far the deadly combination of terrible reactor design and a vicious PointyHairedBoss calling the shots had caused things to spiral out of control. Estimates done in the years since indicate that at the moment of actual explosion, the power inside the reactor was on the order of ''300,000,000'' megawatts - in other words, 300 '''''terawatts'''''.

** When Legasov announces that the reactor hit 33,000 megawatts before exploding, the entire room is completely and utterly [[StunnedSilence silent.]] It's as if you can see the exact moment that everyone, even Dyatlov, realizes that yes, RMBK reactors ''do'' explode. In reality, much like the 3.6 roentgen initially reported as the radiation level, this was merely [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale the highest amount of power that the meter could display]]; indeed, Legasov acknowledges that 33,000 megawatts couldn't have been the actual power output given how far things had spiralled out of control. Estimates done in the years since indicate that at the moment of actual explosion, the power inside the reactor was on the order of ''300,000,000'' megawatts.

** When Legasov announces that the reactor hit 33,000 megawatts before exploding, the entire room is completely and utterly [[StunnedSilence silent.]] It's as if you can see the exact moment that everyone, even Dyatlov, realizes that yes, RMBK reactors ''do'' explode. In reality this was merely the highest amount of power that the meter could display. Estimates done in the years since indicate that at the moment of actual explosion, the power inside the reactor was on the order of ''300,000,000'' megawatts.

** When Legasov announces that the reactor hit 33,000 megawatts before exploding, the entire room is completely and utterly [[StunnedSilence silent.]] It's as if you can see the exact moment that everyone, even Dyatlov, realizes that yes, RMBK reactors ''do'' explode.

** [[https://i.imgur.com/ZMQg7xN.png The tangled-up mess of control rods]], lit up by the eerie glow of the core as it begins to burn up, looks like nothing less than [[EldritchAbomination the birth of a dark god]] or the opening of the gates of Hell. Or, considering the insane amount of radiation at this moment, '''Death itself'''. You thought the inside of Reactor #4 was scary in ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}''? ''Reality was scarier''.

* The music of the entire series. [[NothingIsScarier If it is even present]], it consists of mostly [[ScareChord Scare Chords]] and metallic grinds which sound like something from ''Franchise/SilentHill'', and those rare times that seemingly hopeful music appears, it is in scenes that are definitely ''not'' hopeful (like the bridge scene above), somehow making them even scarier.
** Who ever decided to give the radiation a damn LeitMotif deserves an acadamy award.[[note]]Which she actually got for the same year's ''Film/{{Joker}}''.[[/note]] It is nothing more than scratchy noise, and you first hear it when the plant workers look into the exposed core for the first time, but any time after it, it is haunting, and usually plays over the regular score when characters on screen are getting exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
** One particularly eerie track is [[https://youtu.be/EtDP6KJEN-E Waiting for the Engineer]] which plays most prominently when Legasov first reads the report on the initial explosion and when Lyudmilla hugs Vasily in the hospital. It starts off with an ethereal, ghostly melody before transforming into, as a commentator accurately put it, [[Main/HellIsThatNoise something like the sound of a growling, furious beast]]. Both in and out of context of the show, it sounds like the kind of music that would play during a NightmareSequence.

* Overall, the scenes actually featuring the destroyed reactor are absolutely ''terrifying.'' It's often only seen in quick glances, to remind you that for the people there, looking at it for more than ''a second or two'' meant acute radiation burns, poisoning, and death. With its opened maw, the twisted remains of the control and fuel rods looking more like ''tentacles'' than bits of metal, the ominous buzzing sound of the music whenever it is seen, and the absolutely hellish things it does to people who so much as ''look'' at it unprotected, the show makes Reactor Number 4 seem more like an EldritchAbomination trying to claw its way into our world than something man-made.
** Suddenly, this makes the premise that nuclear radiation can even alter the reality itself, as shown in ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' and ''VideoGame/Metro2033'', doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore.

** [[RealityEnsues Per the 2008 UNSCEAR report into Chernobyl, about 160 people are known to have died from thyroid cancer as a result of the accident. Many of them were children.]]

* Arguably the biggest NF of the entire show isn't ''just'' the fallout of Chernobyl, it's the fact ''[[IRejectYourReality everyone refused to acknowledge or accept how fucked up the situation was]]''. Dyatlov is obviously a big example of someone who was in heavy denial over the disaster and refusing to see that yes, the core exploded, but you also have Fomin, Bryukhanov, and arguably ''all of the Soviet government'', who would rather hide and play off the idea that there was ''no way'' the reactor would have exploded. It becomes more clear that the true horror of Chernobyl's disaster wasn't just that, but the [[HeadInTheSandManagement those who wanted to lie and cover their own asses]].

* The music of the entire series. [[NothingIsScarier If it is even present]], it consists of mostly [[ScareChord Scare Chords]] and metallic grinds which sound like something from ''VideoGame/SilentHill'', and those rare times that seemingly hopeful music appears, it is in scenes that are definitely ''not'' hopeful (like the bridge scene above), somehow making them even scarier.

* After signs of the disaster have been detected in other nearby countries and news have begun leaking, Shcherbina hears that children have been warned to stay indoors in Frankfurt, which is ''a thousand miles away''. At the same time he watches local children in Pripyat going about their normal business, unaware of the danger.
** The children in Frankfurt were far enough away that they were never in any danger from the accident. The children in Pripyat? If you read the part about radioactive iodine above, you'll have some inkling of what they're in for. What's a good vector for radioiodine to enter the body? Contaminated milk. Guess what the children of Pripyat were drinking? Fortunately, thyroid cancer is one of the easiest cancers to treat, with a 99% success rate, [[SarcasmMode so, really, there's nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. The children are fine. Just fine.]]
** [[RealityEnsues Per the 2008 UNSCEAR report into Chernobyl, about 160 people are known to have died from thyroid cancer as a result of the accident. Many of them were children.]]

** Who ever decided to give the radiation a damn LeitMotif deserves an acadamy award. It is nothing more than scratchy noise, and you first hear it when the plant workers look into the exposed core for the first time, but any time after it, it is haunting, and usually plays over the regular score when characters on screen are getting exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

* We see Toptunov turning red, Vasily turning black and yellow, and even Dyatlov pale, white-haired and emaciated. But Akimov is kept offscreen. Later, Khomyuk mentions that by the time she met Akimov, ''[[FacialHorror he had no face left]]''. An instance of BodyHorror was apparently so extreme that Creator/{{HBO}}--no stranger to {{Gorn}}--was ''[[EveryoneHasStandards unwilling to]] [[GoryDiscretionShot show it.]]'' [[NothingIsScarier Think about that for a minute.]]

* At 1:23am, Lyudmilla is making tea in her apartment, oblivious to the bright light coming from Chernobyl in the background. Then the light gets brighter, signaling an explosion has taken place, and she doesn't notice until the shockwave hits seconds later. When the camera pans back to the power plant after the explosion, there is a brilliant blue light shining straight up from the location of the explosion, like a spotlight. It's not a spotlight. What you are looking at is air ionized to luminescence by radiation, due to the reactor being exposed to the open air. What she is staring at is - for those working at the plant that night, and the firefighters rushing to put out the fires - the very maw of ''hell on Earth itself.''

** To add another layer to this: the radiation firing out of the core would take less than a minute to cause a fatal dose - and when you add in the billowing smoke, carrying with it a lot of intensely radioactive particles? Kudryavsev and Proskuryakov are doomed just by looking at it and breathing in the smoke for a matter of ''seconds.'' In RealLife, both men died from radiation sickness weeks later.

* At one point in Episode 1, a firefighter picks up a piece of debris out of curiosity. Unbeknownst to him, this is a piece of graphite from the core, one of the most radioactive pieces there were. Within minutes, the poor guy is on the ground screaming in intense pain, [[BodyHorror his hand horribly burned]] from the radiation passing through his glove. Worth noting this has been condensed for the sake of fitting events into a TV format - in RealLife, while the pain and swelling depicted is accurate, it took a few hours for the damage to become apparent, rather than a few seconds.

* Three men - the Chernobyl Divers - volunteer for a SuicideMission, and wander through heavily irradiated water on their way to manually open a gate to drain the water when their flashlights go out, all while their Geiger counters are reading so much radiation that they're not merely clicking. They're '''[[HellIsThatNoise screaming]]'''.[[note]] In RealLife, despite everything they went through? All three men lived. Two were still alive when the series was filmed (the third, Boris Baranov, died of a heart attack in 2005).[[/note]]

** Not a nuclear bomb in the conventional sense, mind - rather, the water inside the reactor boiled to produce steam, and when the pressure grew too high, it blew apart the core, lifting the massive Upper Biological Shield with it. To elaborate further, the AZ-5 button was an effectively the impromptu bomb's detonator because the boron control rods (which absorb neutrons, and slow the reaction) had tips made of graphite, which moderates neutrons and thus ''increases'' reactivity, and therefore the power output (when they were inserted, the high pressure inside the core damaged the rod channels and jammed them in place, with only their boron tips actually inserted. One guess as to what happened next...) When a prosecutor asks the reason, Legasov gives a small tirade ending in a simple answer:

[[caption-width-right:350: '''''Open Wide, O Earth.''''']]

** What’s more disturbing? Many witnesses to the real tragedy have said, upon seeing the series, that the events shown were ''completely accurate to what happened.''

* At 1:23am, Lyudmilla is making tea in her apartment, oblivious to the bright light coming from Chernobyl in the background. Then the light gets brighter, signaling an explosion has taken place, and she doesn't notice until the shockwave hits seconds later.
** When the camera pans back to the power plant after the explosion, there is a brilliant blue light shining straight up from the location of the explosion, like a spotlight. It's not a spotlight. What you are looking at is air ionized to luminescence by radiation, due to the reactor being exposed to the open air. What she is staring at is - for those working at the plant that night, and the firefighters rushing to put out the fires - the very maw of ''hell on Earth itself.''
* Some residents of Pripyat, including children, gather along a bridge to watch the distant fire, unaware that the thing burning is an ''exploded reactor core''. And then, the wind picks up and all these flakes of ash begin falling like snow, collecting onto their hair and clothing, while their children start to play in that ash. To the viewers, fully aware of what's happening, this seemingly innocent scene is more terrifying than most slasher films.
** The next we see of them, they're all in the overflowing hospital, all with radiation burns. ''Including the same man and his infant son from the earlier scenes''. He even ''begs'' Lyudmilla to take his son away from him, but she has no response and is instead horrified as she walks away to find her husband.

** The pump room for Reactor #4 isn't spared either; Yuvchenko goes to look for Khodemchuk, who was working in the pump room when the explosion occurred. He finds Degtaryenko lying injured near the pump room's entrance, and sees the pump room behind him, which is in such ruin the pumps themselves have been dislodged from the ground, and there is so much rubble from the collapsed ceiling the *floor isn't visible*.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YMf1NRByV8&t=4s This video]] shows the various radiation levels of places in and around the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Standing next to the open reactor itself would be enough to give you a lethal dose in 30 seconds. Room 712 (where Akimov and Toptunov opened the valves to let water into the now burning reactor core,) had enough radiation to kill a man after a 1/2 hour exposure. Akimov and Toptunov spent 2 hours there. They knew going in that they'd be dead men walking out of it.

* Three men - the Chernobyl Divers - volunteer for a SuicideMission, and wander through heavily irradiated water on their way to manually open a gate to drain the water when their flashlights go out, all while their Geiger counters are reading so much radiation that they're not merely clicking. They're '''''[[HellIsThatNoise screaming]]'''''.
** In RealLife, despite everything they went through? All three men lived.

* There's something very unsettling during the funeral of Vasily and the other [=ARS=] victims. Their bodies are so irradiated that a traditional burial or cremation isn't possible due to contamination risks. Instead, the bodies, still in plastic mortician bags as they're basically ''skeletons holding human sludge'' at this point, are put in lead-lined wooden coffins nailed shut, which are then put in steel coffins welded shut, which are ''then'' put in a mass grave filled with several feet of concrete. Knowing that even in death, these people are still a danger to everybody for ''centuries at least'' due to all the radiation they soaked up, to the point that they can't even have a proper burial and must be disposed of like toxic waste... Radiation is the gift that keeps on giving.
* After signs of the disaster have been detected in other nearby countries and news have begun leaking, Schrebina hears that children have been warned to stay indoors in Frankfurt, which is ''a thousand miles away''. At the same time he watches local children in Pripyat going about their normal business, unaware of the danger.

* In episode 4, the scene with the "bio-robots". It takes place in real time and we already know 90 seconds on the roof will give you a lifetime dose of radiation and a little more than that means death. We see the conscripts lining up and wearing pitiful outfits, mostly rubber with some home-made leaden armor. The bell goes and they madly rush out to the roof, and we watch one in particular struggle to lift up a few heavy chunks of graphite with his shovel. All their Geiger counters are going berserk the whole time. After 90 seconds, the bell rings again and they all run inside, except that one conscript, who trips and gets his foot stuck under a chunk of graphite. Precious seconds go by until he manages to break free using his shovel. He runs towards the door, stumbling and falling into a puddle of water, but eventually clambers inside. He takes a second to catch his breath and then looks down at his rubber boot. There's a tear in it. [[UncertainDoom He's not mentioned among the fallen, either, but given the radiation levels on that roof...]]

** And once AZ-5 was pressed, the power shot up from 200 megawatts to ''33,000'' (over ''ten times'' the output the reactor was designed for) and led to the core exploding, but not before we see the lid covers start jumping and clanging randomly due to the pressure build up, only for it ''immediately explode upwards'', opening the core. And it becomes worse as Legasov describes oxygen entering the core, ending the chain reaction with causing a '''''bigger''''' explosion, all while the scene shows the graphite control rods flying out of Chernobyl and the eerie radioactive blue light rising out of the burning crater.

*** When Legasov announces that the reactor hit 33,000 megawatts before exploding, the entire room is completely and utterly [[StunnedSilence silent.]] It's as if you can see the exact moment that everyone, even Dyatlov, realizes that yes, RMBK reactors ''do'' explode.

** [[https://i.imgur.com/ZMQg7xN.png The tangled-up mess of control rods]], lit up by the eerie glow of the core as it begins to burn up, looks like nothing less than [[EldritchAbomination the birth of a dark god]] or the opening of the gates of Hell. Or, considering the insane amount of radiation at this moment, '''Death itself'''. You thought the inside of Reactor #4 was scary in VideoGame/{{STALKER}}? ''Reality was scarier''.

** Not a nuclear bomb in the conventional sense, mind - rather, the water inside the reactor boiled to produce steam, and when the pressure grew too high, it blew apart the core, lifting the massive Upper Biological Shield with it. To elaborate further, the AZ-5 button was an effectively the impromptu bomb's detonator because the boron control rods (which absorb neutrons, and slow the reaction) had tips made of graphite, which moderates neutrons and thus ''increases'' reactivity, and therefore the power output. When a prosecutor asks the reason, Legasov gives a small tirade ending in a simple answer:

** The crash itself is depicted rather less like a standard low velocity crash from that height and more like a ''splash'' when the copter hits the ground. That's the radiation-induced metal fatigue doing its work, rather than, say, terminal velocity. Now, imagine the crew inside basically also having all the physical integrity of water balloons care of the intense gamma exposure. [[UnluckilyLucky They died fast, thankfully.]]

[[/folder]]
!!Meta
* [[TruthInTelevision The real nightmare fuel is that this actually happened]].
** An important takeaway is not that ''nuclear power'' in and of itself is bad, but that poorly-managed plants and badly-designed reactors, especially those under the control of nasty totalitarian bureaucracies who will happily cover up ''imminent disaster'', are pretty much a one-way ticket to hell on Earth. [[ScienceMarchesOn Fortunately, most reactor designs are far safer than the Soviet RBMKs, which made the disastrous decision to manufacture their control rods out of graphite, and so the likelihood of a Chernobyl-like accident happening again is a lot slimmer than it once was]] (it took an earthquake and tsunami to cause the Fukushima disaster in 2011, and that one was far better dealt with thanks to 25 more years of experience), and on the whole, in the face of climate change, nuclear power has the potential to be a very good thing. Nevertheless, Chernobyl is a grim reminder of what can happen when nuclear power goes catastrophically wrong, when corners get cut and bad designs get approved, and we must demand transparency and democratic regulation of nuclear power to reduce the chances of a repeat to near-zero. After all, we lucked out the first time. '''There will be no second chances.'''
* The fact that nobody knows how many people ''really'' died because of the disaster. The Soviet government's official estimate, used by the Russian Federation today, is just 31. Most third-party observers, however, estimate the true death toll at anywhere between 4000 and '''93,000''' people[[labelnote:*]]That's almost seven times as many as the Soviet death toll from the Afghan War[[/labelnote]]. Due to coverups and the diffuse nature of radiation, we'll probably never know the actual human cost of Chernobyl.
* In real life, the volunteer divers didn't have backup torches when their main torches went out. ''[[FreakierThanFiction They did it in the dark]]''. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat They lived.]]
* The painfully relevant nature of the show in regards to climate change denial has been pointed out by many reviewers and viewers, and was [[https://ew.com/tv/2019/06/03/chernobyl-craig-mazin-finale-interview/ confirmed]] by the show's creator Craig Mazin. Many of the same obstructive government forces shown in the show are currently doing the ''exact same thing'' regarding an impending global catastrophe that dwarfs the Chernobyl disaster several times over. Everything that you see in the show [[TruthInTelevision you are currently living through right now.]]
--> '''Mazin''': I think what we’re struggling with now is something worse. The planet is heating, the climate is changing. We know this. We have not just one scientist or two, but thousands screaming this at us at the top of their lungs. And we have a government full of disinterested, stubborn people who are going to cling to their denial and their nonsense. And that’s where we are. As I said, we are in the control room right now, and there is time, but it’s running out.
----

'''Bryukhanov:''' Comrade Shcerbina...\\

** The crash itself is depicted rather less like a standard crash from that height and more like a ''splash'' when the copter hits the ground. That's the radiation-induced metal fatigue doing its work, rather than, say, terminal velocity. Now, imagine the crew inside basically also having the physical integrity of water balloons care of the intense gamma exposure. [[UnluckilyLucky They died ''fast'', thankfully.]]

** As horrifying as the scene is, it is based on a widely-debunked urban legend. If anyone was on the bridge at the time of the accident and during the aftermath, they would indeed have been exposed to elevated radiation levels, but they would not have received a high enough dose to suffer serious illness as a result. They certainly would not have all been killed by it as the show implies.

** In RealLife the danger from radiation depends on the dose - and it's worth noting that Chernobyl, as horrific an accident as it was, in no way had the ability to kill an entire continent. Spreading the radioactive inventory of even an entire reactor core over a whole continent means that the dangerous material is now ''heavily'' diluted, and so doses of radiation people receive are much lower - such that they are not enough to cause (fatal) harm. A charitable reading is that Legasov is deliberately exaggerating in order to get the problem taken seriously - while his superiors tried to downplay the accident, the radiation being emitted was putting everyone working at the plant in danger, and anyone eating food produced on nearby land would be ingesting radioactive substances as a result of it too. Contamination from the accident and subsequent fire caused thousands of cases of thyroid cancer from ingestion of radioactive iodine, which accumulates in the thyroid - something the USSR could easily have prevented if, instead of pretending nothing was wrong, they destroyed contaminated food and drink before people could eat it. Arguably the real NightmareFuel here is that the USSR had so little regard for its citizens that it wouldn't take even the most basic of steps to protect them.

** However, there is some (modest) [[NightmareRetardant Nightare Retardant]] to be noted here: while the show explicitly states that the steam explosion would be "two to four megatons" - enough to destroy the entire plant and contaminate all of Europe - this is not accurate. While a steam explosion would indeed have occurred in real life, the explosive force would be better measured in tons of TNT - not megatons. Would it create an even worse mess and wreck the other reactors at the plant? Yes. Would it kill off half of an entire continent? No.

* [[BodyHorror The final stages of acute radiation syndrome]]. In reality the person looks like a burn victim, not what we see in the series. But other effects on the body are still the same. As Legasov points out, their bodies are so far gone from internal and external hemorrhaging that even morphine doesn't work because the veins are so damaged they can't inject it and the blood wouldn't be able to carry it.

** In RealLife, while contaminated livestock was indeed destroyed during the cleanup process, the scale of it has been exaggerated greatly for the sake of the show. Pet cats and dogs that were left behind in the Exclusion Zone mostly starved to death or turned feral instead. Not that this is a huge improvement.