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Pictured: The Fianna vs. The High King, his army, and the druid Tadg.

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    Miscellaneous Myths 
  • Atalanta gets an awesome line when the king of Calydon suggests that she hang out with his daughters in the garden.
    Atalanta: Um, I'm sorry, I must've misheard you. I was told there was murdering to be done around here, not arts and crafts!
    • Another badass moment for Atalanta: Earlier in her life, she handedly beat King Peleus in a wrestling match, aka Achilles' father!
  • When Circe turns Odysseus' crew into pigs, Odysseus is having none of that and pulls a sword on her.
  • Cu Chulainn's death is treated with appropriate awesomeness. When he gets attacked in an ambush that kills his charioteer and horse, and severely wounds him, he ties himself to a pillar so that he cannot fall to the ground and is always facing his enemy. He held his sword up for three days, with no one daring to approach him, until they see a raven land on his shoulder without Cu Chulainn reacting. The leader of the ambush goes to cut off his head, at which point Cu Chulainn explodes with holy light and his arms drop, cutting off the man's hands. Even in death he would ruin your day. Metal.
  • Fionn Mac Cumhaill had to stay awake to defeat a fae named Aillen mac Midna. Unfortunately, Aillen had Magic Music that could put people to sleep. So what does Fionn do? Take out a magical red-hot spear and couch it in his arms, so that when he started to nod off the flaming spear STABBED HIM IN THE FACE. Aillen reacts with appropriate shock, and loses the fight.
    • Further, Fionn is able to tank twenty-nine simultaneous right hooks.
    • The Fianna vs. the High King's army and the druid Tadg, pictured above.
  • The fact that Zeus was the one to tell Aphrodite to back off when Eros and Psyche came to him to be properly married. Given the way Zeus behaves normally in these myths, this is quite a rarity!
    • Of course, the video portrays it as him mainly doing it because he finds the idea of Aphrodite becoming a grandmother to be hilarious.
  • The Dionysus video as a whole. Living up to the statements in the Quetzalcoatl video that historical religions were not static, it goes into the history of the god from his roots as a rebirth and madness deity to his modern presentation, accompanied by spectacular visuals and soundtrack.
  • On a similar note, the Aphrodite video. It goes into great detail about Aphrodite's roots as the Mesopotamian goddess Ashtarte/Ishtar, how she was brought to Greece, and the long and complex history of her characterization, all accompanied by excellent visuals and very appropriate choices of music.
    • Of spectacular note to many tropers, in a Dual Crowning Moment of Awesome and Funny for both Aphrodite and Sparta, Aphrodite's worship in Greece has her portrayed as a Goddess of Love and War, and the portrayal of this aspect in the episode is similarly jaw dropping.
  • Similarly, the Io video has a rant both in the beginning and during the end credits pointing out how pointless it is to try and claim there's a "true" version of any given Greek Myth—let alone fight over what said true version even is—when the original authors couldn't agree on how any of it happened and, in the case of Ovid (who originated the controversial "Medusa gets assaulted and is promptly punished for being assaulted and that's why the Gods are bad" myth), may have written the myth with a bias in mind.note 
  • Ereshkigal telling Ishtar that the Underworld is her domain, becoming giant-sized and telling her "You are not in charge here!"
    Ishtar: Duly noted.
  • In "Beowulf", Wiglaf banishes the 11 soldiers who abandoned Beowulf to fight the dragon alone. And he has a reason to: despite not even being a soldier himself, Wiglaf fought alongside his king to face the dragon. Guess Beowulf chose well when he made him king upon his death.
  • In "Kusanagi no Tsurugi", Prince Yamato using Grass-Cutter to make the Warlord's assassination attempt on his life literally backfire on him.
  • "Theseus and Pirithous" learn the hard way that Hades, even when slightly livid, loves Persephone too much to just let a couple of strangers waltz right in and kidnap his beloved wife without a fight.
  • Red pointing out that "The Epic of Mwindo" has considerably more lessons than most stories, up to four at least.
    Moral #1: There's no such thing as a "bad" child and no child deserves to be rejected by their family, regardless of disability or gender. They were born that way, it was God's decision, deal with it.
    Moral #2: Heroism is great, but callousness brings disaster. Don't do it.
    Moral #3: Help each other. Kinship is the only thing keeping our species alive.
  • In "Ra's Secret Name", the visual of Isis becoming omnipotent once she gains possession of Ra's True Name.
  • "Hou Yi and Chang'E" has one scenario where Chang'E faces a Sadistic Choice, either let Feng-Meng take the immortality elixir or drink the immortality elixir herself and leave her mortal husband behind. She chooses the latter.
  • After meeting her long-lost son Pryderi, Rhiannon gives us this line that lets the audience know she is not going to overlook that her handmaidens bore false witness about how she ate her own baby note :
    Handmaidens: Yes, M'am.
  • The story of Io ends with a much-deserved Earn Your Happy Ending, as Io is returned to her human form, marries the Egyptian king Telegonus, is worshipped as a goddess, mothers the line that will eventually spawn Heracles, and flips Zeus the bird. And to hammer the point home, the ending song is Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive.
    And you see me, somebody new
    I'm not that chained up little person
    still in love with you
    And so you felt like dropping in
    And just expect me to be free
    But now I'm saving all my lovin'
    for someone who's loving me!
  • The ending of the second story in "Animal Bride" has some form of Laser-Guided Karma. Years after escaping him, the selkie's human ex-husband coincidentally plans a hunting trip to poach some seals in the nearby cave, who among them are her mate and children. When he still kills them regardless of warning him in his dreams not to, how does our poor selkie respond to this tragic cruelty? Weep helplessly over her lost family? Come crawling back to her caddish ex-husband? No! She approaches him in the form of a livid troll and curses that he and the inhabitants of the island shall drown in the sea for his crimes. Overkill? Perhaps. Understandable? Oh yes. Satisfying? Heck yes.
  • Brokk outwitting Loki in "Loki's Wager". Loki claims that he did bet his head, but quickly adds he never said anything about his neck and therefore has no right to cut it. Brokk simply finds a way around this loophole and exercises his rights to Loki's head by sewing the trickster's mouth shut. It may not have lasted long, but not many can stake claim they outwitted Loki.
  • The ending of "The Minotaur" where we see the scope of karma catching up to Theseus for abandoning Ariadne. While Ariadne did have her heart-broken, at least she found love with Dionysus. And where is her ex-boyfriend Theseus? In the Underworld, being tortured by Hades for trying to steal away his wife Persephone.
  • "Hades and Persephone" does not disappoint! To begin with, Red rips members of the pantheon like Zeus and Apollo a new one for constantly chasing after and raping whomever they please (and constantly having these parts of their stories neatly airbrushed away, as modern society sees Gods as something to strive towards, rather than reflections of humanity and the world.) For another thing, we get a breath-taking illustration of Hades snatching up Persephone while wearing his stalwart helmet in one of the rare times on the show he wears it! And he pulls it off! Lastly, Red points out that contrary to what one might think, Hades didn't get the short end of the stick by inherting the Underworld. Being the first-born son of Cronus, he should've been the rightful ruler of the world. However, the Underworld is still a pretty vast domain and eventually, everybody becomes Hades' subject. Hades was going for the long game.
    • Likewise, her calling out how Hades - who easily has the healthiest, most romantic relationship in the entire Greek canon - is constantly villified in popular culture simply because modern society can't seperate the idea of "Hell," and "the Underworld."
    • At the same time, Red does not shy away from portraying Hades as a flawed character, as he did trick Persephone into eating those pomegranate seeds out of fear he'd never see her again. The other Greek Gods already get more than enough glossing over, and she's not about to start with Hades.
  • Everything Medea does, even after she completely loses it. And she did it all in under a single day. As Jason learns the hard way - never cheat on someone who's a sorceress, a Guile Hero AND the granddaughter of Helios.
    • Among her moments of cool, Medea countering Jason's declaration that the Gods will avenge his children by saying, no, the Gods will not help Jason. Because Medea will give her children proper burial in Hera's sacred land, putting her in good favor of the goddess who hates adulterers like Jason. And Zeus isn't going to be any help either, since he hates oath-breakers, and Jason did break his marriage oath. Ultimately, Medea gets the last laugh by prophecying the two Gods will make certain he dies alone and unhappy.
    • In a twisted way, there's also the catharsis of Medea taking Jason's ego and throwing it back in his face in such a way that shows she's done catering to his whims.
    Jason: I can't believe you'd betray your own family for reasons that don't benefit me!
    Medea: Oh boo hoo
    • Red pointing out that Medea is the ultimate Karma Houdini, as implied when her story doesn't end with her dead or killed. Despite all the familicide and death she caused, she managed to retain the favor of the Gods, while her husband received nothing but karma.
  • In Zahak the Serpent King, the blacksmith Kavah marches up to Zahak angry as hell that he had to offer sixteen of his seventeen sons for him to feed his serpent heads. When Zahak asks Kavah to sign a contract that states he's a good ruler in return for the last son's safety, Kavah tears the contract into pieces before he decides to use his blacksmith apron as a flag and rallies the villagers to form an army to find the prophesied hero.
    Red: Give me this movie, Hollywood! YOU COWARDS!
    • Red chooses to portray Kavah going to confront the king as him kicking in the front door of the palace. The whole thing is pure Refuge in Audacity: Red notes at one point that any one of Kavah's actions during the scene should have gotten him arrested or killed, but everyone is just too stunned to stop him.
  • The tale of how the Queen Mother of the West separated the two lovers in "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" is accompanied by a gorgeous illustration of the Mother sailing across the night sky, ripping it open to form a silver river of stars (the milky way). The accompanying music is, of course, Star Sky.
    • "Star Sky" is especially apt as a choice for music, since the lyrics are about two lovers, with a starry sky as the motif.
    I knew your name
    I knew your face
    Your love and grace
    All of time cannot erase
    What our hearts remember stays
    Forever on a song we play
  • Red crediting Hawthorne for adding that bit in "Midas" where he accidentally turns his daughter to gold. As unnecessary as it may be in the story, it makes the consequences of Midas's wish "gnarly".
  • In Red's Halloween video of "Werewolves", there's the thumbnail illustration of the werewolf as a hulking, howling creature proudly lifting its voice to the full moon.
    • This not only does this return at the end, but is also accompanied by more rich illustration, coupled with this speech that delves into how nuanced werewolves are:
    Red: Beyond [its name], anything goes. What makes the "man wolf" a man wolf? What connects the man and wolf? Is it a divine punishment? A magical disease? A bond with the changing phase of the moon? An artifact infused with wolfness? A simple quirk of the bloodline? How do the man and the wolf interact? Are they at odds? In sync? At war? Is the man lost in the wolf? Is the wolf just another side of the man? Is the wolf the man's shadow? Is the wolf the man's freedom? The nature of the werewolf is defined by their duality. But what that exactly means is completely up to the story-telling. ...And that is why werewolves are objectively cooler and more interesting than vampires. Yeah I said it! It's about time someone did.
    • In the later part of the video, Red referencing Wolfwalkers takes on levels of awesome when it's used to demonstrate three different lore coming together (The Werewolves of Ossory for werewolf lineage, the Benandanti wolves for astral projection, and Hollywood lore about lycanthrophy being transmitted by bite).
    • Red also giving a fair assessment that like werewolves, wolves themselves are not black and white. They aren't monsters, but they aren't tame pets either. At the end of the day, they're simply animals who go by their own rules.
    • Red gives a rhetorical demolishing of Heinrich Kramer, author of the Malleus Maleficarum, by revealing his actual reasons for making it. Effectively, Kramer wrote an angry hateblog aimed at a woman named Helena Scheuberin who dared to wound his ego in 1485 by calling Kramer a terrible preacher. As a result, Kramer tried to have Scheuberin and six other women burned at the stake under the pretense that they were witches, but it was actually because they didn't want to go to his sermons and Kramer's pride was hurt. Even the judge from the Spanish Inquisition who presided over the case told Kramer he was paranoid and making claims that were obviously false. Eventually, even the Inquisition got sick of Kramer and exiled him. The whole time, Red is painting Kramer as nothing more than a pathetic little bully who started a fear mongering campaign against all women to salvage his injured pride.
  • In a way, "The Wrath of Demeter" is one of the few (if not only) story where Demeter isn't simply framed as the OG Helicopter Mom with too much power or too much time to mope for her daughter. In this version, she's the John Wick of trees and plants, not only avenging her favorite grove and favored nymph, but in such a way that poetically reflects King Erysichthon's gluttony.
    • Even better, bear in mind that when his men hesitated to cut down Demeter's favorite tree, Erysichthon boasted how he could gladly cut down the tree even if it was Demeter herself. If anything, her curse is a response to that boast, showing what happens in Ancient Greece to those who get in over their heads.
  • "The Trojan War"! The entirety of it feels like a reboot of Red's video on the Iliad, one with richer illustrations, more in-depth lore (such as how Odysseus was strong-armed to go to war) and a deeper look into the different variations it was told.
    • The video begins with an absolutely steely recitation of the opening lines of the Iliad by Red.
    Red: Wrath. Sing, o goddess, of the wrath of Peleus's son Achilles, murderous, doomed, who cost the Achaeans countless lives, hurling down to the house of Hades so many sturdy souls.
    • Red recounts the less common origin that Helen was actually the daughter of Nemesis, the goddess of divine punishment for hubris. Which reframes the entire Trojan War.
    • Penthesilea, being an Amazonian demigoddess princess of Ares who's so stalwart and brave that she's the original girl-power trope who inspired the on-looking women on the war.
      • On that note, when Achilles kills Penthesilea amidst the war, he can't help but fall in love with her beauty and feel really bad about the life they could've lead under different circumstances. What does he do when Thersites starts to mock and taunt him for being "girly"? Give him a Off Hand Backhand so hard, it likely bashes in his brains and kills him.
    • Even though it exposes him and gets him hauled off to war, Odysseus breaking from his too-crazy-for-war act when Agamemnon threatens his infant son. Odysseus will not stand to have anyone threaten the life of his baby boy!
    • Paris's humiliating death by Philoctetes' poison arrows, one of which hits him in the member. But the bad day gets worse when he tries to plead to the nymph Oenone, his real wife, to heal him. Her next line sums up that Hell indeed has no fury like a woman scorned, as she gives him a sick burn that possibly hurt almost as badly as the poison.
      Paris: (Whilst dying of the poison) Please, my love-
      Oenone: (Saltily) That can't be right. My name's not Helen.
      • Priam is also too busy mourning Hector to even be there when Paris dies. Red notes that this whole Humiliation Conga Line is entirely deserved.
  • The Saga of Grettir.
    • The legal system at the time, administered by the Allthing, is generally depicted as a very Reasonable Authority Figure, in contrast to most legal authorities in the myths Red recounts. They make Grettir an outlaw and exile twice, but never without just cause, and even refuse to outlaw him for more than 20 years, having set it as a legal limit on exiles. Having Grettir exiled in absentia was, according to Red, considered fairly inappropriate, as it didn't give him the chance to defend himself. Even Red notes that the Wergild system is, while morbid, very pragmatic.
    • A relatively smaller one, but the fact that a simple little old witch managed to do (via a powerful log curse) what everyone else has failed to do: take down Grettir in one fell swoop.
  • It wouldn't be called "The Epic of Gilgamesh" if it's awesomeness wasn't as long-lasting as its legend.
    • The very nature of the stone tablets that contain the legend lasting up until someone was able to study them proper.
    • Enkidu And Gilgamesh killing (not one) but two creatures made by the divinities themselves.
    • Shamhaut being so beautiful that she tamed Enkidu to become a civilized man in (as Red puts it) a week tops.
    • At the end, Red notes how, despite Gilgamesh never achieving the immortality he wanted because it could only be gotten through an act of god that the recipient had no hand in, he still got a kind of immortality in the end. 5000 years after his death, his story is still remembered and studied, and every child knows his name. Like Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh was made immortal through no action of his own, but rather an act of God (or rather a long line of Babylonian scribes, Austen Henry Layard, and George Smith) that he had no control over.
    • Red's cover of "Hurt" proves not only haunting, but also fitting for the legend she just discussed. If anything, the lyrics could easily apply to any one of these parties: Enkidu for grieving over his being civilized, Gilgamesh for his grieving over his friend, and even the Mesopotamian Gods for how they want to hurt the abusive king.

    Fables and Folktales 
  • In "The Snow Queen", Gerda uses Prayer Is a Last Resort and get legit divine intervention in the form of the entire damn heavenly host. The music (El Dorado by Thomas Bergersen) makes it even better.
  • The titular dragon prince in "The Lindworm", growing from a teeny white snake into a fearsome-looking lindworm with crown-like horns, glowering down on his human twin the next time they meet.
    Lindworm: A BRIDE FOR ME BEFORE A BRIDE FOR YOU...
  • "Tokoyo and the Sea Serpent" has a considerable amount from our titular young lass. First, there's her defiant pose when she declares to her father Oribashima "Hang in there, Dad!" Then she stops a priest from sacrificing a girl and, upon learning about the serpent, hands her robes so she can deal with the titular monster. And it doesn't hurt that she's good at swimming, thanks to pearl-diving with the locals as practice. Then, while weighted down by a statue, she manages to cut out the sea monster's eye under water, before stabbing it in the heart. The last shot is of her peacefully chilling at home as her father dusts his sword next to a trophy of the sea monster's skull.
    • And the cherry on top? Red singing her cover of "I need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler.
  • "Shippeitaro" features the titular dog and the nameless protagonist fighting and defeating the demon cat of the mountain. Sure, Shippeitaro got most of the credit and was the demon cat's main weakness, but props to the young man for having the guts and bravery to commit to his plan and decapitate the demon cat with a single blow of his sword.

    Modern Classics Summarized 
  • The Freeze-Frame Bonus paragraph in the Nineteen Eighty-Four summary discussing the topic of thought-crime and the way the internet in general has abused the idea:
    A note to the edgelords: "thoughtcrime" does not mean "attitudes you hold that will make people think you're an asshole." We already have a word for that - it's called "being an asshole", and nobody is going to drag you off to a secret government facility and torture you until your brain breaks just for being an asshole.
    However, they might call you an asshole or ask that you stop acting like an asshole. This is not the same thing as "thought-policing", which is a government-mandated system of suppression that does far more than simply make you feel like an asshole. People can and will judge you based on what you say or think, on account of being people with opinions: it is not "thought-policing" for them to voice their opinions on YOUR opinions.
    Please stop bastardizing the word just to make your whining feel more justified. Orwell would not sympathize.
  • The Dracula summary in its entirety is a work of art, and it's the toned down version! According to Red, she initially tried to keep the summary in the same format of the book, which she praises to the high heavens for its exellent use of Epistolary Novel to build slow suspense, something that is all but impossible to replicate in any other medium and makes Dracula stand out over all its adaptations and remakes.
    • The Van Helsing Serious Face. Unlike his later depiction as a badass monster hunter, the book's version is more of a Bunny-Ears Lawyer with strange mannerisms and poor grasp of the english language... Until something actually dangerous and "Vampire-y" happens, at which point he turns deadly serious and drops anything even remotely comedic in favour of putting his all into saving poor Lucy.
  • Red lamp-shading how Dr. Henry Jekyll was more a Mad Scientist than Victor Frankenstein ever was, especially since the former took responsibility for the mess his experiment caused and wasn't afraid to risk himself for his work, unlike the latter.
  • Red's reading of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is glorious. Between her stellar voiceover work, and the art accompanying the narration, you have one of the best audio versions of the story out there.

    Red and Blue talking at incredible speeds 
  • Red summarized the entirety of the Mahabharata, a notorious Door Stoppernote  which makes up most of Hindu Mythology... in sixty seconds. And succeeded. The video turns Red's Motor Mouth tendencies up a notch, at an estimated speech rate of 380 words per minute, all spoken clearly. For perspective, normal conversation is usually carried out in the 120-160 word/min range, and the fastest section of Eminem's Rap God (the world record holder for fastest clear speech rate) clocks in at roughly 390 words/min. The fact that Red can speak clearly as fast as she can earns her a spot here, on top of the fact that she managed to pretty effectively summarize one of the longest written works in the world within a minute.
    • Granted, the summary was was extremely condensed and laconicnote , but the the achievement was nonetheless very impressive.
    • If the first several seconds (where she's talking a bit more slowly) and the "Whoo!" and the pause before it at the end are dropped, the remainder's at a rate of over 400 words a minute.
  • Red sings her own Major General Song called "The Philosopher's Song" in perfect meter and summarizing all of the philosopher's main ideas without tripping.
  • And then Blue did a similar laconic summary of the Wars of the Roses, with equally impressive Motor Mouth ability.
    • It must be said, however, that Blue had to artificially speed up his speech as evidenced by the audio artifacting scattered throughout the video, meaning he didn't actually speak quite that fast. Red's rendition of the Mahabharata has no such artifacting caused by artificially speeding it up, meaning she really was talking that fast.

    Journey To The West 
  • The first part of Journey to the West can be summed up as 'The entirely heavenly bureaucracy Vs. One monkey' - When the Buddha shows up, the story details how Sun Wukong is basically fighting everything and anything the heavenly bureaucracy can throw at him, just shy of Kitchen Sink Included - and he's winning.
  • In part VI, Quan Yin shows us why you don't mess with a Bodhisattva. After learning that Red Boy impersonated her, she joins Monkey in beating him. Red Boy swings at a illusion of Quan Yin, and then sits on her flower throne while mocking her by saying "Thank you, O merciful Quan Yin". Quan Yin then reveals her throne to be a, quote, metric fuck ton of swords. She then appears before the screaming Red Boy, and asks him this:
    So. What do you think of my mercy?
    • Wukong, as he watches Red Boy suffer, quietly thanks Quan Yin for not seeing him as a threat and settling for merely dropping a mountain on him.
  • In part VII of Journey to the West, Tripitaka finally shows what he's good for in one of the contests with the Taoist immortals. By sitting still. For apparently days at a time.
    • His monk duties continue to prove useful when Part IX shows him resisting temptation against the ruler of the Western Women's Kingdom and the demon woman who captures him. And believe it or not? Both women respect his boundaries (aside from the kidnapping, but still)!
  • In part X, Sun Wukong finally finds his match; an imposter disguised as himself. What happens when two shapeshifting, immortal, ungodly powerful beings fight? Red describes it as a Big Ball of Violence that goes all across the world, heaven, and the underworld looking for anyone who can Spot the Imposter. And everywhere they go, no one wants to untangle that in their home out of fear of retribution from the imposter as he can clearly match Sun Wukong, and keeping the two Monkeys fighting at least gives them a target that isn't anyone else.
    Red: See, the problem is: The identity may be false, but the power is real, the false Monkey is actually as strong as the real one, and if he were revealed here he might absolutely demolish the underworld in retribution.
    Di Ting: We are in very real danger, and the truth will destroy us.
  • Part XI has the climactic battle against the Bull Demon King. Where to begin?
    • Pigsy, who up until this point has been The Load dragging down the party, is so enraged upon hearing that the Bull Demon King used his face to trick Monkey that he attacks the King so ferociously that he's forced to retreat, only for his retreat to be blocked by the God of the Mountain of Flames backed up by an army of ghosts.
    • Bull Demon King and Monkey enter a Shapeshifter Showdown that ends with BDK revealing his true form- an absolutely massive pure white bull stretching two miles long. Monkey responds by transforming into his own gigantic monster form from Episode I, and the two engage in a massive Behemoth Battle that drags all the local gods into the fray.
    • When BDK tries to flee in the third battle, he's blocked on all sides- from the four cardinal directions by the Four Heavenly Kings, and from the Heavens by Devaraja Li and Prince Nata. This prompts him to turn back into his true form, only for Prince Nata to respond in kind, turning into a massive three-headed six-armed giant and slicing off BDK's head ten times before hooking a flaming wheel around his horns to finally defeat him.

    OS Plays 
  • For the OSP Spring Break Charity streams, the team set an initial goal of $5,000 for Feeding America. Over the next few days, they were able to raise over $30,000, completely going above and beyond their original goal.
  • "OSPlays Ghost of Tsushima" gives us a surprisingly cool Badass Boast from Blue:
    Blue: Oh, it's a bandit and a Mongol fighting. Don't worry, you'll both lose.

    Trope Talks 
  • Red's speech about the nature of hope in the Trope Talk for Grimdark:
    Red: Hope is the ultimate motivator. On some level, it's the only motivator. If it seems like I have personal beef with Grimdark as a genre, it's only the same beef I have with everything that treats hope like a dumb childish concept rather than the fundamental core of human experience. Hope makes us believe things can be better. Once we stop believing that, we stop trying to make things better—and guess what? Then things don't get better! Pessimistic nihilism is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, and maybe it's the 2020 talking but man I have straight-up run out of patience with people who give up on a better world and then have the audacity to tell other people that they're naive or stupid for still trying.
  • Red's Trope Talk about Dragons! Not only does it delve into why dragons are so universal, but she even makes an awe-inspiring illustration of a dragon with its wings proudly depicting almost every dragon lore.
  • There's something chillingly awesome about Red talking about Magnificent Bastard (or "Charismaniac"), knowing their charisma is just so powerful, it even affects the audience!
  • In the Faustian Bargain talk, Red takes a section to discuss characters who outsmart the devil, arguing that in cases where a villain does it it comes across as Karma Houdini, but if the person who made the deal are a genuinely innocent or at least good person who got duped or forced into the deal, then it instead becomes phenomenally satisfying to see them outwit the true villain of the story. The example playing on the screen is Madoka Kaname turning the Incubator's own rules against him and becoming a god.
  • In her talk about the Pinocchio Plot, Red points out that ironically, such stories are more compelling when the inhuman protagonist doesn't become human. Making the inhuman protagonist turn human seems to give the shallow implication that looking human is all that defines humanity, not to mention it gives the wrong message that it's better to be like everybody else. By subverting that, the story becomes much more compelling for it, because it asks the audience this burning question: what is the definition of "human"?
  • In her talk about "Death Personified", Red illustrates Discworld's Death's character arc where he's forced to retire, re-learns the value of life, and is dissatisfied that he's been replaced with a pale imitation with no compassion. As such, he not only defeats his boastful counterpart to retake his mantle, but convinces the Death of the Universe to allow him to keep it. How? By mentioning that the universe needs Death to recognize the value of life so the harvest is all the more fruitful.
    • Death subverting the tragic ending of "The Little Match Girl" under the technicality that he's filling in for the spirit of Christmas. Although tragedy teaching gratitude sounds logical on paper, Death recognizes that living another day is a more significant way to appreciate one's future.
    • Red being frank that Death isn't something to explain away or stop being sad about. If anything, she acknowledges that Death allows us to feel sad when we need to, and true catharsis is being allowed to process one's emotions.
  • The trope talk on super schools, Red very notably avoids bringing up the most famous example. In the followup podcast, she acknowledges that this was intentional, as J. K. Rowling treats the mere mention of her works as endorsement of her transphobic politics, and Red refuses to play into that.

    History Summarized 
  • In the Mexico video, Cortez's power-hunger goes too far even for the Spanish, resulting in this exchange:
    Charles V: Could you stop acting so violently idiotic for 5 minutes?
    Cortez: Counter-point: What if I kept doing exactly what I'm doing, with absolutely zero royal oversight?
    Charles V: Try me, Hernán, I'm the king of half of Europe.
  • In April 2022, Blue released a video about the history of Ukraine against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukranian War, which had started about two months prior. Though Blue had started planning to do the video over a year before the war started, Blue defies Harsher in Hindsight by saying that learning the history of Ukraine was more important than ever. The video painted the Ukrainians fighting against Russia as brave patriots, and detailed the country's long struggle for independence. Blue ended the video with a rallying cry of Ukrainians during the war, in Ukrainian at that: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself. Glory to Ukraine." On top of that, OSP promised to donate all the ad revenue money from that video to charities to help Ukraine. It raised over a thousand dollars less than twenty minutes after the video went live, and hit its goal of five thousand dollars raised in under an hour. The goal was doubled to ten thousand dollars, which was hit just a few hours later.

    Detail Diatribe 
  • "Satirizing Superman"is an amazing 90-minute analysis of Superman, from his origins as a character to what makes him tick, and his role both inside his stories and as part of the greater meta-versal superhero ecosystem. Red and Blue take a look at the best examples of Superman at his finest - specifically, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Superman vs. the Elite (aka What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?) and For the Man Who Has Everything (and its Justice League Unlimited adaptation).
    • Two of the three given examples are from Alan Moore, who they note fundamentally understands Superman. Red and Blue argue that Moore is a really good writer whose work is catastrophically misunderstood by less skilled writers who tend to only see the surface-level cynical aspects of his work . The hosts say that this is especially true of Watchmen, making the case that Watchmen isn't a story about an apathetic version of Superman (in the form of Dr. Manhattan, who they note is actually an Expy of Captain Atom, not Superman), but rather a world without Superman as an inspiration and a bar for heroes to strive to clear. Thus, without Superman as the correcting influence who is always the moral standard and is always self-sacrificing to do the right thing, the heroes break over time.
    • Their counterpoint to "how can Superman see people as anything other than insects?" is to point to For the Man Who Has Everything. Red and Blue highlight that even in a dream world with people he knows are not real, and in a world where no one else would ever know what he's seeing, Superman still acts with heartbreaking compassion and humanity. And his true wish is to live a normal, happy live with a family of his own, even without superpowers.
    • They analyze "Superman Vs. The Elite" as a Reconstruction and highlight a specific moment where Superman asks Lois, "Do you think the world's moved on? To a place where I can't follow?" This is a subtle but huge hint that the appearance of him making a Face–Heel Turn in the final battle is an act and incredibly illuminating for his character - Superman would never truly consider changing to win over the crowd, but rather he just worries that the world now wants something he simply cannot become.
    • And lastly, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? demonstrates that Superman ultimately holds himself accountable for his actions, because if he doesn't, who else will? Which is why in the end when he kills Mxyzptlk, Superman uses Gold Kryptonite to depower himself, despite the fact that he had absolutely no choice otherwise but to take the life of an immortal fifth-dimensional being who just announced he'll spend the next two-thousand years being evil. They also again highlight (along with the above Justice League Unlimited episode and the episode "Comfort and Joy") that it's proof that ultimately Superman is the mask that Clark Kent wears, not the other way around, and that Clark doesn't see himself as a god above other people, but instead is a good old country boy from Kansas who just wants to live a normal life and is just doing the right thing, and uses Superman as his "customer service voice".
    • They point out that Superman is already a subversion of the concept that power corrupts and of the Übermensch- specifically the version co-opted by the Nazis for their Master Race ideology. According to them, the original point of Superman was that if the Übermensch was real, he would protect so-called "inferior humans" instead of lording over them.
    • They highlight that deconstructions/satirizations do deserve to exist and not everyone can or should like everything, but at the same time the ones that aren't merely a Shallow Parody are from people who genuinely understand how Superman works.
      • The first good example they cite is Irredeemable, with Red highlighting that it isn't a shallow parody, instead exploring a Superman-esque figure who started out wrong from the outset and never got the proper care growing up like Clark did with the Kents, and how the Plutonian simply did not have the psychological fortitude to handle his super senses and be able to take criticism.
      • The second one is Invincible, which they note has a very clever twist to the seemingly surface-level appearance of the Superman Substitute - Omni-Man isn't the Superman substitute in this scenario, he's Jor-El, and Mark/Invincible is Clark/Superman, not necessarily because he's as physically invincible as his namesake implies (he's far from it), but because he has Superman's unbreakable will and moral code.
    • Superman's metatextural role as the character for all heroes to aspire to be, in and out of the DC universe, is also partly why they believe the DC Extended Universe was floundering for a good while - there's not as much contrast between the heroic characters. And a miserable, darker and edgier Superman doesn't fill the role of The Paragon to compare and contrast with other darker and more cynical characters. Without that paragon to compare and contrast to and for other characters to bounce off of and interact with, everyone is much less interesting. Superman and Batman's Odd Friendship works precisely because of this contrast. Red also highlights that she doesn't think Zack Snyder should be doing superhero movies and especially not Superman, because the man has admitted he doesn't like comic books unless people are having sex and killing each other all the time and that he simply doesn't get what Superman is about.
      • Becomes rather poignant in light of Red's live tweeting of Zack Snyder's Justice League, in which the considerably more idealistic film is received rather warmly by Red and stands in sharp contrast to its much darker predecessors. Particularly in its portrayal of Superman as being far more gentle, optimistic and generally the uplifting hero he's meant to be.
    • They basically end the diatribe with a Kirk Summation that caring is a genuinely good thing and the world isn't and shouldn't just be bad and miserable, and we always should be striving for a better world and to hold bad actors accountable, because to give into cynicism and not do anything about bad things is cause a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy to happen. They argue that, if anything, in the 2020s, we need The Paragon character of Superman now more than ever to remind us of this fact.
  • "The Symbiote: Spider-Man's Perfect Flaw", naturally, takes a look at Spider-Man and how the Symbiote is such a great writing tool for the hero's core message of Comes Great Responsibility. Essentially, "the Symbiote makes the worst version of a good person" — it doesn't force Peter Parker or anyone else into a Face–Heel Turn, but instead flips the balance between "great power" and "great responsibility" by tilting it way towards the former and far away from the latter. This, in turn, makes Peter into He Who Fights Monsters while still maintaining his solid good-guy core; "every bit of patience and forgiveness is gone, replaced by anger". Red and Blue sum it up by stating the core aesop around the symbiote and characters associated with it: we all have a darkness inside of us, but we can always choose to be the best version of ourselves in spite of this inner darkness.
  • "Being Batman - A Curse Or A Choice?" examines Batman, specifically the DCAU version, and his relationship with his own role. Bruce Wayne seems to view it as a Curse, an obligation that he can't bring himself to ignore no matter how much part of him may want to, and only stops when he is physically forced to by a combination of his declining health and a bad night where he's forced to use a gun to scare a criminal away, violating his own principles in his mind. This is contrasted with Terry Mc Guinness in Batman Beyond, for whom being Batman is very much a Choice, despite what the other Bat Family members may tell him at times, only faltering when he learns about himself being secretly Bruce Wayne's son, and fearing that his choices may not have been in his own as a result in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue". Even that fades when he learns more of the truth from Amanda Waller, reaffirming that being Batman was indeed Terry's choice, not the work of destiny or anyone else.

    Livestreams 
  • The performance of Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar features Noir speaking all of Caesar's lines in fluent Latin. Sure, it's hilarious when he says the only Latin line in English, but his performance delights Blue so much that he remarks "I've died before I've even said a single line".

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