Hello, this is Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade.
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In any case, if you're listening to this, it's entirely possible that that is the sort of stuff you might like.
Take a look. Are we recording?
You know we are. Have you watched The Greatest Showman yet?
The Greatest Showman?
Have you watched it yet?
No, I have not had a chance to watch The Greatest Showman.
I know that, look, I'm getting a lot of pressure from the Krahulik camp.
It's a good movie. For the whole family.
For the whole family to enjoy.
No, I don't, listen, I don't disagree with you.
I'm just saying that I haven't had a chance.
And I'll never watch it.
No, I do want to watch it, I mean, I wanna, ultimately, I think that that is the type of movie that is gonna change Ronya's life, like, I just wanna go, like, all the way back through all this, like, Baz or Boz Lerman stuff.
Yeah. Like, I wanna do, like, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh, yeah. Right, I mean, that's the Claire Danes one.
Yeah. That's gonna, her life, there's gonna, it's gonna be, like, um, you know, like, B, C, and A, D.
yeah i remember uh being obsessed with that the visuals in that movie like the guns were so beautiful they had like the crosses on them oh yeah but they were also like each of the different weapons like depending on its like size and purpose yeah had a different marshal like a different melee weapon name yeah like his rapier was some kind of like shotgun oh no no trust me dude all those weapons that you liked are even cooler than you thought because they're all named after melee weapons oh interesting fuck yes huh right but that's that's their sword yeah that's their dagger yeah right oh suck
you long um we need to make two strips but we only need to record one of them okay right and it can be it can be either the strip for wen's tug which is tomorrow Thanks.
Or it could be... It should be Wednesday, I think.
Yeah. Oh, shit, how many strips do we need to make?
We already wrote Friday.
We have to write the stage strip.
What was Friday? Friday is Noah saying, when did we get all these Star Wars toys?
Oh... Oh, I see. So when does the stage strip, which would have historically gone up on a Monday...
Oh, will that just go up at the end?
Mm -hmm. Okay. Well, no, it might have to go in as a break Because I don't know if I'll have time to draw that storyline.
All three? All three.
Yeah. Well, either way, now that we know this is an issue, we need to make two strips total.
Yeah. So it can either be the stage strip, or it can be one of the strips from this week.
And it's all the same.
Yeah. It's all the same.
It's all the same, baby.
But no, so you're watching that wild country.
I am watching that wild country.
How far are you into that wild country?
Two episodes. Yeah, you're not gonna—it's like, I think I've talked about it before, but you can run there is a version of pride and prejudice that has uh like colin firth and jennifer ely in it and if you ever get past like if you in the process of watching it it's six episodes total and when you hit the when you hit the third episode once you've completed it like you basically have no choice but to get all the way through the rest like it's oh it leaves off so good and it's like it creates this massive tension and it's just like you have to resolve you're desperate to resolve it once it's once
it has been out there and it's like we had done that once I think Brandon and I had done that once like the third one had gotten done at 11 o 'clock and we're like well fuck we're just fucked we just gotta we just gotta go all the way through no it's fascinating yeah and I I wasn't expecting you know the modern time interviews like that's it's really interesting to to meet up with these people who were in this cult today together yeah yeah and showing what happened back then like well and they interviewed all of them but i mean you notice early on like they never interview more than one of them
at the same time yeah like they're never together in the same place yeah that's true they're all individual ones right right?
Yeah. When like they're interviewing this Sheila girl now, right?
Yeah. She is a powerhouse.
She's an amazing lady.
Yes, she is. And it's very easy right now.
We're like, Karen and I are like, oh, she seems so cool.
Like I would join her.
I want to go hang out with, but she must be absolutely evil.
Well, I mean, it's up to you.
Yeah. I mean, you're going to, you're going to learn new things and you will have to integrate those things into your consciousness.
we're watching it last night and we're like oh man they reclaim the desert they're doing it they're living this amazing life oh yeah yeah yeah and then it's like oh here's this video of them like freaking the fuck out okay well you know who cares what they do behind closed doors they're still cool people and then they start buying the town it's like oh it's a little weird yeah it's pretty sophisticated I mean it's pretty sophisticated stuff and especially when it comes to the town and some of the other aspects yeah like the parallels i would say especially with uh scientology are profound yeah
like just how much an organization can accomplish with money well with money and with the laws like the laws are not constructed in such a way to stop this because they couldn't Have conceived of it It's just like Conspiracy Right It's like Thiel says You mean specifically The book The book By Ryan Holiday Yeah yeah I'm saying Thiel's like Hey we want to destroy Gawker We're going to do it Completely legally Like they didn't do Anything wrong Right You can be mad at them For what they did Yeah yeah yeah But that's the key Right Yeah Is that When you Act with that type Of planning And sophistication People
They barely recognize It as Acting like it's so the system that they set into place is so complicated yeah that you don't perceive all of it at once it takes a long time yeah and i think that's true in either case except they accelerated very quickly out at the out at uh rajneesh pram yeah uh man i don't know i just i think it's i think it's really really fascinating stuff i think that like which religions become become like religions and then which ones get the thumbs up which ones yeah which ones remain cults well yeah so okay what was it this is i don't know this is um germane to the conversation we're
having right now yeah so kara's doing all this work on recovering from like being in a cult well no no but but she actually like she's hitting up um there's like a reddit group right yeah she's in the xmo reddit group but she's always is that the truncation Yeah, Exmo.
But she's also just reading a lot of books on cult deprogramming.
Yeah, cult deprogramming.
So she sent this out.
Mormons call rape non -consensual immorality.
But we got the word already.
Yeah, I know, right?
It's a weird one. We already know.
Non -consensual immorality.
What? Yeah. And we were watching.
Yeah. Fuck you. Right?
well fuck you all you have to do is think about think about the little word machine they've made yeah and then look at its outputs yeah you're still sinning yeah what are you trying to accomplish with good christ oh yeah okay all right uh we were watching jesus christ superstar and she had never seen it before because who are you what have you sacrificed yeah she'd been taught that it was you know bad right whoa whoa whoa kara hasn't seen it she'd never seen it no I'm shocked that you have not Up till now Because you forced that stuff on me Yeah but it had been ingrained in her At such a deep
level That it was wrong Oh the combination The interpretation of the scripture Because it's pretty It's heretical Yeah it's definitely It's definitely heretical Right But that doesn't mean That it isn't illuminating Oh absolutely not Like, it is, that movie is profound in my sort of...
Well, yeah, did I ever tell you, when I went to the Vatican, did I ever tell you that they have a...
Ow! You trapped yourself.
God, these, the cable attached to the microphone...
Fucking microphones.
It pulled me down, pulled me deep down.
Did I ever tell you that when I was at the Vatican, they have...
You saw God. He's just hanging out there.
He was getting a cup of coffee.
well on it having been there yeah and like being like a straight up 100 like i don't know about this type person sure i left there thinking he's probably there somewhere sure wow yeah yeah i wrote about it at the time yeah i fucking prayed like i was just like yeah when you get in that but when you get in saint peter's basilica it's like um when i was in high school my friend omar said that any person who reads the Quran becomes a Muslim.
He said you just, you can't help but.
Yeah, he said if you read this, like the end result is that it is so dense with explanatory spiritual power that the conclusion you'll come to is that you need to, is that Islam is what's going on.
Wow. Right? Yeah. and that's more or less how i when i came up when i went there like i went there fully like deeply clad in ironic armor yeah and then i saw the pieta and then i was like oh no and i felt myself like drawn in yeah and like there's like a special neely pad right i don't know about any of this shit that's not the type of church that i went to yeah right and it's just like you can't i don't know these are like icons like icons like not the type that you click right this is like a religious embodiment and i couldn't yeah i couldn't resist it it was that it was that potent i don't
yeah i don't blame you at all i mean that's what that stuff was designed to do oh it yeah it works yeah but no no no but but here there is a wing of the vatican dedicated to modern art oh really and when i saw it i was like well i mean i would have thought for sure that this was stuff would would be considered heretical on the face of it.
Yeah. But these are bold...
Interpretations. Interpretations.
Yeah. Like, powerful, modern.
And by modern, I mean having some aspect of interpretation or disassembly.
Right? Yeah. But they still...
They granted this part of the Vatican to it.
I was hardcore Catholic when I first saw the movie.
And I didn't think it was heretical.
I just thought it was...
I remember having this conversation with you at the time.
Yeah. So we watched it, and— Dude, she must have fucking flipped out.
Those songs kick ass.
Yeah, they're good.
And so they were getting ready to go to Gethsemane, and she's like, oh, that's where Jesus bled from every pore in his body.
And I was like, what?
And she looked at me, and she's like, don't tell me that's a Mormon thing, too.
And I was like, I've never heard that.
And so she starts Googling, and it's in their— It's only from the book.
It's in their Doctrine and Covenants.
Is that one of the books?
Yeah, it's one of their books.
It's what she was taught.
Hold on. I thought they only had the Bible and then the Book of Mormon. Is there another book?
Oh, yeah. There's a couple other books.
Oh, man. That's how they get you.
They tell you it's just one other book.
Well, no, no. And then it's like Battlefield America.
It just keeps going.
Return of the King.
Yeah. But he went there.
They say he went there and suffered for all of our sins.
and the weight of our sins was such that he was crushed beneath it it was as though he bled from every pore in his body that was his anguish and I'm like no they didn't write a song about that no this is where he had the last supper and they sing about that that would be a weird song yeah that song is hardcore too there aren't any non -hardcore songs in there No. Well, except for the one that your mom used to sing to you, I think.
That's not super hardcore.
Oh, Mary Magdalene's song, Try Not to Get Worried?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
That's a hot one. Yeah.
Man, and they did such a good job of that in the new—Sarah Baralas?
Is that who it was?
Yeah. Yeah, I only listen to the radio every now and then.
Yeah. So I always—I mean, I just always sort of assumed that the two Ls in Baralas were like the Y.
Oh. So in my mind, it's always been like Sarah Barai.
Barai -as. It's like Blast—it's like Blast Wah.
Blast Wah. If you learn all your words through reading, you become a mutant unable to interface with other people.
Oh, Rapple. Yeah, exactly.
It's Rappling. Let's Rapple in.
That's another one of my crazy, another one of my great products.
Dude, do you remember when you used to Rapple over at the casino upside down?
That's where we discovered that you didn't know how to say it.
Well, I know, but then—but you used to, like—in the very first version of that, they allowed proximity voice.
Oh, yeah. In addition to the team chat.
Right. Because that would have been before parties.
Yeah. Right? Eventually, they got rid of it.
But I think that's a net loss, because what happened is that you'd be coming down outside, and they'd be like, I think he's coming in, and you're like, nah.
No, I'm not. There's nobody out here.
here it's just we're just we're contracting these windows like you know it worked yeah i'm just saying it worked hey so we could make a strip i mean that's one yeah that's one option i think i think a funny strip is uh this idea that gabe is playing far cry oh and he's like yeah you know what's joseph seed it's making a lot of sense have you ever like really listened to what he's saying and i'll tell you one thing that is creepy about that that game all the songs they recorded for the cult yeah and their radio station yeah they're real like they went the whole like they went whole hog just like
for when they did all those uh shanties oh yeah for black flag like it's like that it's like the it's like the religious version of a shanty yeah oh man so they created all those songs out of whole cloth i think that i mean there might be there might be some that aren't legit yeah but i don't i've heard a lot of songs like this i think that a lot of these at least lyrically seem to be particular huh which that's awesome i'm so impressive yeah i'm compelled by that right like that's legit but yeah yeah i think i think there could be a very good john c i'm just trying to figure out i'm trying to figure out
the outro for that but we're crafty people i mean yeah it wouldn't be the first time we've created a comic strip i i I have evidence.
It's like, dude, that's the villain.
I think it's really interesting.
The Sparkrai doesn't really have a villain.
They're always built on such a charismatic bad guy.
There is a villain.
What? Joseph Seed. What, father?
Nope, you sold it. You got there.
You sold it, man. Well done.
obviously if i had the uh the capacity to give you a raise of some kind i would do that yeah you've executed quite well here you can you're the fucking president of penny arcade corp yeah i mean i guess i could but i don't want to like like if you really i feel like then you know that's money that i don't have so yeah that makes sense yeah i'm glad that i'm glad that you can appreciate my wisdom in this matter so it's like dude yeah you you were able to put a candy shell around that concept that is so good okay so Gabe I feel like it's really bold I'm loving this new Far Cry yeah I feel like it's
kind of a bold move not to have a villain not to have a villain what?
yeah I mean they're just you know usually well yeah usually Far Cry has this like charismatic villain thing this iconic charismatic villain yeah I just don't see that And then they got rid of it for this one.
Yeah, usually Far Cry games have this...
It's so Gabe. It's so Gabe.
Have this charismatic...
Dude, no, no, dude.
I should name this strip, That's So Gabe.
Yeah, usually Far Cry.
And they got rid of it.
They didn't do that this time.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Joseph Seed is there is a villain It's Joseph Seed You mean Father?
I don't know I feel like he's making a lot of sense I feel like he's making a lot of sense Father?
No No There is a villain There is a villain It's very clearly Joseph Seed It's very It's very, very clear.
The villain is Joseph Seed.
What, father? No. No. Father?
That doesn't make any sense.
What, you mean father?
He's a psychopath, but he makes so much sense.
You mean father? No. Yeah, he's...
Is that in the second panel?
No, you mean Father No. I mean, that's the third panel.
That might be the punch. Or if you could get that into the second panel, and then you just have a beat in the third, where Taika's just, like, staring at Gabe.
Yeah, yeah. I feel like it's kind of a bold move not to have a villain in this Far Cry.
Yeah, I could... Instead of the what...
There is a villain.
I can bump... Yeah, I mean, I'll just bump that in.
It's very clearly Joseph Seed.
It's very clearly Joseph Seed.
is the villain father and then we lose that he's making he just makes so much sense which is fun well no no no but i'd rather not lose it if we can it's the only one that makes any fucking sense yeah yeah so if you see in the third panel father no even just you mean you mean father you mean it's it's almost like it's it's like the old and it's like you mean wall candy yeah i mean father Now that's a deep ass cut That's like 20 years I still remember Yeah he's insane No Gabriel there is a villain It's very very clear who the villain is No it's very very clear who The villain is Joseph Seed Father?
Yes He's a psychopath I don't know man He makes a lot of sense I don't know man have you listened to him?
He makes a lot of sense.
I don't know. I don't know, man.
Have you ever really listened to him?
Like, really listened.
Dude makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I can do is I can bump that upper panel, because it would be kind of fun if Gabe just had the third panel.
Yes, father. Father.
He's a psychopath. Yeah, I feel like it's kind of a bold move not to have a villain in this Far Cry.
Usually they have, this is frame one, usually they have this like charismatic villain.
Villain? And they didn't do that.
They didn't do that this time.
They didn't do that.
No, Gabriel, there is a villain.
It's very, very clear who.
The villain is Joseph Seed.
Father? Yes, Father!
He's a psychopath. Oh, man.
Have you ever listened to him?
Like, really listen.
Makes a lot of sense.
makes a lot of sense is that right it feels a little long i think it oh no it's actually not that long okay text -wise the second the second frame is very very short listen to him makes a lot of sense no no you shrink it down yeah i feel like gabe's no no have you ever yeah have you ever really listened to him though dude makes a lot of sense he makes a lot of sense yeah that's good there you go hello this is jerry holkins of penny arcade infamy you may have noticed that we are doing a lot of different stuff on twitch these days i really like it i think it's a lot of fun i think it's a very very
inviting channel listen if you're interested in terrifying games played by our design team we have that live brewing on tuesdays board game play live art streams streams. Of course, on Wednesdays, we've got Acquisitions Incorporated, the C -team run by myself, incorporating a bunch of my good friends.
We've got PUBG with Kiko on Wednesdays.
And then Fridays, we've got PA Plays where Mike Rahulik and myself just check out whatever we feel like checking out that afternoon.
In any case, if you're listening to this podcast, the Twitch stream is definitely something that you would probably enjoy.
It's just twitch .tv forward slash Penny Arcade.
One word. Thanks so much. We'll be right back.
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