Tag Archives: spring break

Episode 397: Lord of the Flies

January 1968, Sam Hall, , , , , , , ,

“This isn’t champagne! It’s blood!”

War is coming to Collinsport, one of those big mythological ones where everybody dies, and it takes a couple centuries before you figure out it was all a metaphor for something else. The big dance is going to kick off next week, so this week is about defining who the main combatants are.

Yesterday, we were introduced to “the dead”, who are running on the incoherent but passionately expressed platform that you have disturbed my rest, my rest has been disturbed, you must be punished for disturbing my rest, and so on.

Don’t worry about following that line of reasoning too closely; you don’t need to understand it. It’s a “the dead” thing.

Today, we’re going to take a look at Angelique, another major player in the saga, and we’ll ask: Where do her powers come from, anyway?

Continue reading Episode 397: Lord of the Flies →

Episode 388: The Bad Ideas

December 1967, Ron Sproat, , , , , ,

“I may not know Miss Winters very well, but I can’t believe that she’s possessed by the Devil.”

Yeah, it’s been a rough couple of weeks for Barnabas. He was all set to marry his beautiful and affectionate fiancee, Josette, and then she left him at the altar to run off with his uncle and closest friend, Jeremiah. When they came back, Barnabas challenged Jeremiah to a duel, and then shot him in the face. Now he’s involved in hiding a runaway governess from a witch hunter. That’s a lot to handle.

So as we open today’s episode, he’s relaxing in his bedroom, while his ex-girlfriend Angelique rubs his temples. It’s very soothing, and he —

Wait. What?

Dude. Seriously. We’ve discussed this.

Continue reading Episode 388: The Bad Ideas →

Episode 375: Dangerous Liaisons

December 1967, Sam Hall, , , , , ,

“In the tropics, decisions melt like ice.”

When you get down to it, magic is just metaphor. It’s taking a symbol — like a toy soldier — and saying, this toy soldier represents Barnabas. Then you wrap a handkerchief around the soldier’s neck, pull it tight, and see what happens.

Anybody can do that, really, minus the magic part. Your boyfriend is far away, but every night you kiss a picture of him before you go to bed. You get an email from an annoying co-worker, and you roll your eyes and snarl at it, the way you’d like to treat the person if you could get away with it. When someone that you love dies, you light a candle, and leave flowers on the grave — and even if you don’t believe in ghosts or heaven, it comforts you.

But the people who know magic can take that a step further. Angelique isn’t just smacking a toy soldier around. She tricks the universe into believing that the soldier is Barnabas, and when she throttles the toy, Barnabas chokes.

That’s what magic is — you connect the symbol to the real thing that the symbol represents. Then you wish so hard that you punch a hole through reality, grab something on the other side, and pull.

Continue reading Episode 375: Dangerous Liaisons →