Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia. Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beatalons and lafflons. We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us.

Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast. Hello, hello. We're back. Welcome back.

All right. So we have a, I think this is a funny topic, but I say this as somebody who's like barely familiar with it. I would just like, this is, this is a fun idea. So this is Isetai, which is, I guess in Western terminology, it's called portal fantasy. And the basic premise generally is that somebody from the real world that gets teleported into or watch through some kind of portal or gets yeeted through a portal, however it happens and ends up in a fantasy world.

So that's Isetai. That's the portal fantasy. And this happens in a lot of like classic fantasy as well.

I haven't read it, but like the Thomas Covenant books, for example, are like this and a couple of other ones. So I thought it'd be really funny to do almost like a Kiss, Mary, Till style theme of like, what would happen if you went through a portal and ended up in Lord of the Rings? And then who would be the best person to go through and best is variable, best for whom? Who would be the best person to go through a portal and enter Lord of the Rings and who would be the worst of just like people in general? Yeah, people in general. Anybody you can think of who would be like really kind of interesting, either impacting the world in a fun way or being impacted by the world in a fun way. Like maybe who would be most starred by this experience?

Who knows? Um, yeah. So that's the, that's the basic premise. Uh, do you want to do each one or do you want to talk about like each category first, maybe each category? Maybe each category. Cause I thought of some.

I thought of some real life people and then I thought of some fake people. Nice. Nice.

Nice. So, so let's, let's do us first. Let's do what are the consequences? How would it go for you?

Um, yeah. If you went through a portal and at first off, what would the portal look like to draw you in? That's what I was going to say. I think we need to set up some content because I need to know like where this portal lands me in the story and location.

Yeah. So, so I was trying to think about this for myself and I 100% believe I would go through accidentally because I would just be walking around Walmart or something. And I'd be like, oh, I really need like, you know, some pop charts and some of Why is the portal showing up at Walmart? Dude, I would look, I would not even notice. My perception is so low. Let me explain.

Let me explain. So I had a birthday recently and it turns out that like all of my siblings, well, my sisters and my sister-in-laws managed to come to my birthday and it was all a little bit surprise and we don't do surprises in my family. Like this is not a thing.

Um, so anyways, very low perception. So I'm sitting there like hanging out with a friend and she's like, yeah, let's go pick up some pizza. And I think I kind of got the vibe. I was like, oh yeah, we're going to maybe go hang out with such and such other friend and it's going to be great. And then we end up at this random house. I'm like, this is not the house that I was expecting.

And she's like, don't worry about us. Like, okay, this must be a state. Cool. Like so naive. Then we walked in and she goes, hello. And I'm like, oh, cool.

And no one's there. And I'm like, well, this isn't weird at all. So we eat pizza, we do some hot tub. We watched some TV. In this random house. In this random house. And I'm just thinking this is going to be a vacation.

Yeah. And so apparently we watched through the house looking for people because I thought, you know, my friend, Caitlin would be there and she wasn't. Um, and we watched through the house and I saw that there were two bedrooms upstairs and I thought this is good. You know, we stay in one and Taylin stays in the other.

We have like a staycation for the weekend or whatever. Obviously, obviously this is what's happening. And then we go downstairs where apparently there were other bedrooms that I didn't see because I got distracted by a foosball table. Um, so anyways, all this to say literally all of my siblings showed up at this house and one after another. And I just like never saw it coming. It was like one shock after another. I blew screen after each one. Um, and then the next day they're even more and then the next day they're even more.

And it's just like the whole weekend. I was like, it was brought to my awareness. How little perception I do have.

Well, I just love I, what I hear is like a go with the flow personality where you're just like, Oh, empty house. Cool. Oh, wait, you're here. Cool. Like I think this could come really in handy and like, well, yeah, there was another funny moment.

So at one point, uh, Jer, who had brought me, who had lured me to the second location. Um, she says, Oh yeah, we can't go to bed yet. We need to wait 13 more minutes and I didn't think about it. And I looked at my phone and I thought, Oh, she just misread the time. Obviously we're waiting till midnight. Um, that wasn't the case. Uh, we were just waiting for somebody's ETA.

Um, but I, I thought, Oh, she must have misread her phone. We're waiting for midnight. So maybe at midnight, like, like a special candle will go off. Oh my gosh. So I just had all these fun excuses, just pre-populating it in my mind before I could even think of full thought.

Like, of course this net scene is going to happen like this. So yeah, I can totally see for me, at least the way it would go down is I'm doing some routine tasks. I'm listening to something distracting music, podcasts, whatever. I've always had my headphones on and at one point I'm walking down an aisle, then I turn a corner and I'm not looking the right way. And then I end up somewhere else. Still pushing the shopping cart. Or, you know, the shopping cart comes with.

Yes. I could see myself accidentally getting into a portal like that. And honestly, that would be nice because I would hope that I'd have provisions with me. That's true.

You know, it's so funny. It just immediately made me think what place. So you're doing your casual day, maybe at the grocery store. What place would make you think that looks like a grocery store in Middle Earth?

This is, this is what I'm trying to say. It could look like anything. It could be fricking Mordor, like the step of Mount Doom. And I probably wouldn't notice. I would probably just like walk right through.

I'd be looking the wrong way. Oh, that looks interesting. Okay. Yeah. So I think for you, you'd have to be in a beautiful park and there'd have to be like a bowery. Yeah. There'd be like a bower. Garden arch.

Yeah. And then you'd walk through and you play, wow, I want to go to that part of the garden. You end up in Riverdale. Either that or. I think you're perceptive enough that you would need that kind of cunning disguise. Or some kind of food. Like a hobbit feast.

And I'd be like, I'll sit down at that feast and then boom. God. You just follow your nose. You're like, something smells so amazing. I'm in New York right now and I just feel like I love eating. And so at any restaurant that was like, come try our restaurant.

I'd be like, okay. Yes. 100%.

So that's how you would get seconded. The smell of food, the sight of food. Comes to down at our table. Boom. Gone. Okay. Okay.

I like that. So you would go willingly. I would go accidentally.

Well, I'd go willingly thinking they were going to feed me and then I would show up in the shire. Okay. Good.

Good. And that is that that's where you would want to land. Like if you could control it. Yeah.

Okay. That's a soft landing. Don't you think compared to some of the other places? Yeah. 100%. I will say the one negative about landing in the shire is it's a beautiful place, but they don't really know what's going on. Yeah.

So you can't get any intel and they'd be like, I don't know why you're here. And so I feel like maybe Rivendale could be better. Yeah. Depending on the genre of portal fantasy, the main character may or may not be genre aware. So like sometimes the main character goes in and is like, oh, I've read this book. I know what's happening here. But sometimes they don't.

So in this case, I'm assuming that we go in with knowledge. Like you walk in and you're like, wait a second. I know what's happening here. You turn around to go back to Walmart, but you can't. The portal is gone. So I'm assuming that we know now what's happening. So if you ended up in Lord of the Rings and you have this vague and idea of like you're hunting around trying to find out which bad ends were on. Right. So you have some sense of the timeline. Like what do you do?

Like where do you go? I was just going to say, I was like, I feel like part of me would be if I knew the story, I would be hesitant to get involved because I would. That potentially things could happen on their own.

And even though I'd want to be helpful, I'd be like, I don't want to hit like accidentally knock something off. Right. Yes. That was my exact reaction. I was like, you know enough to know who the big players are. But what happens when you start knocking things out of order, then suddenly if you change one of those dominoes, then you don't know anything. So you don't know places to avoid. You don't know. I mean, you would still kind of know people to avoid because you know bad and good, good and bad people.

But it seems really dangerous to change the course of events in any way. You know what? I, I have just realized my vision of my purpose in Middle Earth. I'm going to stay in the Shire. I'm going to eat a lot of food and I'm going to defend it against Soramon because all creepy Soramon comes around at the very end and he's like, Oh, this is a nice place. And I'd be like, Nope.

Not set in shop up here. When all, when all the greater evils are defeated, you're like, at last, this is my moment. Cause I always, the books are always, and I think, I think it's token being like you think you win and it's never quite over, right? But, um, even when you come home, the pain always comes home, it always comes home. And so I feel like for me, I would just be like, Nope, you're not getting the Shire, right?

Like we just, we kind of pushed that part of the story off. That's very, that will be my mission. I love that.

I was going to say, I don't know. I really liked God, or I think God is great, but God was about to undergo a very nasty siege. Um, you know what I feel like could be, could be your thing, Lydia, your purpose. I'm like, I'm, I'm picturing this vision for you because your favorite movie is two towers, right? You love Helm's Deep. I think you be like the person who kind of keeps Eomir a little bit closer than what he would typically go and do.

You know how Gandalf has to go and he has to ride three days just to barely make it back to Helm's Deep in time. Okay. I like it. Hey, I've got to grace.

I have like the one slow horse and I'm like slowing that entire host down. Yeah. Or you're like slowly gathering more and more men and you're like, I think we should ride south now. Like, yeah, I like that. Kind of. Um, the only problem with that plan is that if I'm with that host, I would then have to take my horse down that impossibly steep.

Oh, that's true. Well, Dane, that is so steep. I've been on a horse that's been on a gentle hill and I'll tell you. Not the comfiest ride.

Yeah. Well, I think I would fall off and then I would die. Let's, let's say no ride. You're gone. But I would love the chance to get real good at horses and have a great life in either Rohan or Gandor. I could go either way.

Okay. Um, so I guess for me, the dream life, I think the dream life for me would be, I've had this thought before, like sometimes you read like a, like a dystopia boat or like a post-apocalyptic book and you think to yourself, how would I do? Cause that's, that's the question that genre raises. Like how would I do in this situation? And I always think, man, I would be trash.

It would be so bad. Like I'm technically an engineer, but the problem is that everything I do is on computers and you can't really build a computer from scratch. I'm very difficult. And so I always think to myself, like, at least I think I could make a solid attempt on windmills or like watermills or things like that. But then I've been working on like a wood project and I'm like, wow, I'm bad at this too. But I think there would be carpenters there who could kind of like enact your vision.

Yes. And something I've always loved is siege weaponry. So I think I would like to go to Gondor and I would like to get on their core of engineers and build siege weapons and Trebuchets and they need it. And I'm like, presumably I did there before the siege and maybe people are not thinking too hard about their siege weaponry, but I would be thinking hard about it. I'd be thinking about the siege we're about to undergo. And I'd be like, no, we're making five Trebuchets a day and many Ballista and, you know, any kind of anti siege warfare that we can get going. Because I think that would be really fun. What's your best weapon against those phobies? They nasty. Oh, man, that is that is a harpoon gun. They have air superiority is the issue. But yeah, I think that if you could get a Ballista, yeah, a harpoon Ballista.

Some of them have they're like, cry. So we really need to get all the soldiers loaded up like Odysseus style with with just like ear drums. So or not your drums, but like something to earplugs.

Thank you. We need to have one loaded up with earplugs. And then we need to train the soldiers like we need to be running drills every single day with like different sort of flag signals and such because you're not going to be able to hear high pitch screaming. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

We did a couple of women in a tower and set them loose. But yeah, we need to be drilling that hardcore. And there's no way to practice is the problem. Unless you can like, yeah, I couldn't see any way to practice it. Unless you can throw like bells of hay and then have the harpooners.

That actually, yeah, you know what that it is. You turn your trebuchets and you throw bells of hay. And that's your target. So we just do like clay pigeons.

Clay pigeons, but bigger. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And technically, I know the formula for black powder. So if we can get black powder happening, we can make like cannon. Yeah. See. Yeah. I guess I feel like my purpose would be to go to Gondor and try to get the best technologically advanced as possible.

Cause you're like, Denith or not doing a squat. Yeah. No, that would be so. And I just have to be like a really motivated part of the local city. Darn. I'd have to be promoted quickly.

I don't know. You have actual skills. My skill would have to be like, I'd have to be talking to people and be like, we got to defend ourselves against this crappy guy, Soron. Soram on. He says he's going to bring, he says he's going to bring industry to the shire, but don't trust them. Yes. You can be having little like unionization speeches every day in the shire. I really have to use the. The threat of man is coming.

Industrialization, I think not. Oh my gosh, but that'd be so funny because you'd be a man or like a tall folk and so a bit folk. It's, you'd be like, I know they're coming. Um, I escaped from them and I know they're on their way.

You can rile them up. Oh, there we go. There we go. Yeah. I'd have to use the tongue, the voice.

Cause I think that's the only thing I'd have. Which is fair. That could be like very persuasive. And then you just bring like a bid, bid cheese and a couple of like gallons of ale to every like anti man meeting. Yeah. You set up like an anti, anti bid folk lead and then they're well prepared and xenophobic.

Oh, as soon as, as soon as Saruman tries to cross the border, he's repelled. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry to have to think through that more, but I love these lands. I love these plants.

Okay. So this is the dream. This is the vision of how it would go if I went in ideally and then ideally when the siege starts, I have become integral enough in the development of the weapons that I don't have to actually fight. Cause I think I would surely die.

I was like, Gondor hits it hard though when they come to Gondor. So I feel like I would not want to be in ministerial at that point. Yes. And I, yeah, there's no easy way to get out at that point. Right. So you're trying to, you're trying to suck.

You like stuck there once the army gets. So that would be a dangerous flip of the coin. I hope I acted like Hunter down somewhere.

You can hunt it down with Denethor. He's really bad company though. And he's so crazy. So bad. Yeah. I think that's the dream.

And then I'll be there for the golden age of Aragorn and hopefully whoever, there'll be some hottie, you know? Yeah, they're totally in the fortress guard or ministerial guard. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And you did to wear the cool uniform. I'm into that. I'm into uniforms.

Yeah. This is 100% going to work for me as soon as I like, it's just like when I walk through the portal and Walmart, I feel like it would be really good luck to end up like in Gondor right away. But what if not? What if I have to journey a little while? Cause I'm trash with maps. And you know, we've seen the map of Lord of the Rings forever and I'm like, North South where is?

Exactly. And so I feel like if I was dropped off too far from Gondor or like a major city, I would have a, it would be difficult. Living on the land.

I would go east and I would end up in Mordor. Oh no. Don't go there. Exactly. They don't need to be around. They have ground. Yeah, I don't want to help them. Yeah. I don't think I could hang out with Orcs.

I think that'd be a bad thing. They've got, they've got good technology though. Like are we saying that Orcs came up with that engineering or is that like stolen? I think they're saying that Orcs are pretty crafty. No, I think, I think they're genuinely credited with it, but like the hideousness and the wastefulness and the, uh, the brutality, like the way it scars the earth.

Like I think they're giving credit for the ingenuity, but also for the repercussions because they don't care. That's good. That's good. I like that. Yeah. So yeah, that's what I would do. So I would have to survive the trip to Gondor and then I'd have to get into the city guard and have to explain away. Like I feel like there's gotta be some explanation for it.

What are your strange clothes? That is the biggest thing. Why don't you know anything about real life? Yeah. And I would be worried because sometimes I go to like Walmart in my sweats. And that would be embarrassing. So yeah, there's no winning.

There's no winning here. No, I think you just be like, uh, I'm a country bumpkin from some. Well, maybe. Yeah. Maybe what you can do is like, yeah, not an Easterling though.

You'd be like, I am a Southern lean. Yeah. I'm gonna make up some land. Yeah.

Northern, Northern, maybe I grew up in the wilderness. Kind of I don't know. And maybe if I like run into like a little farmhouse, I can trade some chores for like some like period appropriate clothing. I feel like this is the way to start blending in. Yeah.

So we've got to work hard and then we've got to get into the tower. I love it. I love it.

Hopefully they're taking applications. I see that. I see the future. So that's my plan. I like it. I like it too. Excellent.

I also like that you're going to put at the shire, because the raising of the shire is like devastating. It's so sad. You're like, oh my gosh. So unnecessary. At the end of it all, we have to come home, we have to kick this dude out. We have to deal with this. Yeah, it's trash.

And I think it's the perfect scale. I'm going to have issues with my time in Gondor for sure. But you could definitely single-handedly defend the shire.

Oh, well, thank you. Like all they needed was a little bit of a stiff bone. They need a little bit of a stiff bone. They need a little bit of like, OK, because I actually think they have gumption.

They have pitchforks. Yeah. I think they just were. They just needed to fight back at the right time and the right sequence.

How to or that they needed to. So, OK. Yeah, I love that. All right. So let's do best person. Who is the best person you can think of that would go through a portal into the world of Lord of the Rings? OK, well, I went.

I went, I went crazy and I was thinking about all kinds of random people. And I thought, you know, who is giving me Lord of the Rings vibes from history is Joan of Arc. Oh, I love Joan of Arc.

We've never talked. I don't know if we've talked about this, but I'm like way in fact, you and I just feel like Joan of Arc is giving me a Owen vibe. So I feel like they would get along really well.

They'd ride their horses together and be like bad day. But then also she has like, she's very religious and like the Christian sense. And I feel like Gandalf basically coming back from the dead and being like resurrected. I feel like she would get like super into like, oh, my gosh, he's either a god or a saint. And she would get like really into like the crusade. But like I just see this girl like blending right in. She would cause ripples.

She would make things happen. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I think she could. I think she would demolish.

I think she'd be great in that era. Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic.

Um, I had a couple options, but they're all functionally coxswain the machine. Um, so I've been reading a lot of Roman history and I just just think about the Romans. I was like, I feel like if you start a Roman general in there, like one of the greats, you know, so we've got like Amelia's Paulist, we've got Fabius Maximus, Sipio Africanus.

Like these are the three that came to mind for me. If you stuck one of those guys in Lord of the Reigns in like in no time at all, they would be in control of an army somewhere. They'd be restoring. They would be restoring military rigor to Gondor in like two seconds. They'd be reestablishing connections with Rohan, et cetera. Like everyone would be so much more prepared for the big showdown. It's not even funny. I do feel like something that's lacking a bit from Lord of the Reigns that I think gets very heavily invested into in later fantasy is battle strategy.

We don't talk that much about it. And Rohan's kind of like, we're going to go to Helms deep and Helms deep has walls. And so that will protect us. Which is a strategy. But like at the same time, there are other ways.

Yeah, we see less of it. So I feel like those generals will come in and I see battle strategy being like the main gift there. And also like there's a level.

I don't know. I'm just, I'm just such a fan of Rome. There's a level of like rigor in these men in particular, but like a level of rigor and determination. And like if they could get over the fact that they were no longer in Rome and then maybe learn the language real fast.

I will, I will fight for you. Can we call it new Rome? Yeah, exactly. Novo Roma.

Yeah. So like they, they did, they enter the tower guard at Gondor and they write Novo Roma on everything. So yeah, they did get over that and learn the language real fast. They just, there are so many events that happen with Rome and there are moments of like true despair where it's like, whoa, how are they ever going to get out of this? And they do. You know, and that to me is the part that fits really well into Lord of the Rings, where you have so many moments of Lord of the Rings where it's like, I don't know how they're going to get out of this. It seems like an insurmountable force is against them.

And, and yeah, I just, their determination is like really, really respectable. I love that. I love that.

And I think there's so many other characters and like people from history that we could probably send in there and they would do an incredible job. But I love some of these pics. Yeah.

That's awesome. Do you have a worst? Is it, is it you?

I almost put myself as worst. Okay. I had, okay. Because of the, because of the possibility of messing up the timeline, you know, if you do something wrong, I think I went in a little funny. I went on, I went in on the funny side. So the two people I thought, that I thought would be entertaining was one was Voldemort.

The other one was Trump. Excellent. Nice. A little political, but I just thought it would be so funny imagining there. Voldy, I just feel like would be like going to Saran and be like, you like nice things to live forever. I like nice things to live forever. We both love immortality. You love immortality. I am also in love with immortality. You know what I mean?

Like I can see. You have so much to bond over. You have so much to bond over. And Saran would be like, who the crap are you?

And like, why don't you have a nose? He's always willing to like. Honestly, Voldemort is way more handsome than most of the orbs. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

And so he's a stunner. I feel like Voldemort would also be really confused about the lack of wands. I guess they have staffs, so I guess he would probably try to staff up. I think Soromon would be displeased because he'd be like, what is this? Another wizard? Like, oh heck nah, right?

Like, yes, yes. There's not room for another tower. Um, so I thought that would be funny. I'm trying to think. Oh, and Trump, I just feel like I was picturing phrases that you said, but like I'm imagining it if it was like the Soron.

Oh my gosh, maybe I was actually like Soron's campaign. It's like, this is the best ring. There is no other ring than this than my ring.

Like everybody wants this ring. Oh, I saw the funniest. It must have been a video with like a snippet clip or something.

It starts off with like greed this morning or a period or something like that. Yeah. So it starts off with that. And then after like two seconds, it comes in with Trump's voice and it's very funny. It says something like, hello, maybe you remember me, your favorite president. And I just like that phrase. Maybe you remember me, your favorite president.

Imagine Sarvon saying that. It's like, maybe you remember me, your favorite. Villains. Your favorite, your favorite tyrant.

I'm back. Your favorite dark one. Your favorite dark lord. So funny. Oh, I like this. I like this. So Trump as PR for Sarvon.

Yeah, exactly. And very good. I was also thinking like with all the tariffs. I respect that. The tariff stuff being like, come negotiate.

Everyone's trying to negotiate. Rohan can never send their horses to Mordor again. We only use wargs now. So everyone's come to negotiate. Yeah. So I just, I was picturing that. I feel like that would be really funny. That's super cute. I love that. For me, I was still, I was still stuck in history. Yeah.

Probably a better comparable. Oh, no, it's fine. So for me, I was thinking, all right, who would be the worst person? And the way I was thinking about that, I was thinking who would either mess things up or have their own agenda?

Or like really like kind of like throw things off course. Um, and I don't know how much, you know, about Alexander the Great, but like, oh my goodness, I read the Arian wrote a book on him and I had known like two things going in to that book. I was like, maybe three. I knew that Alexander the Great was pretty cool. I knew that while he was called the great, so he must be. Obviously.

I knew about the Dordian knot. Yeah. Yeah. I knew about Boutephilus, his horse. And I knew that he died. Those were pretty much the extent.

Yeah. That's the extent of what I learned or what I had remembered going into adulthood. I'm sure as a child, my mother made me read something that I've forgotten. Um, then we read this book about him and I was really overawed by him. Like blown away. He was, I was blown away.

He was on a different level from everyone around him. It's like anytime. So young, so young. And, but he was just, he was genius.

There is no other word for it. He was genius. The innovations that he teamed up with his battle strategy is like he invented everything. Um, and yeah, he was just totally genius.

Um, so for me, the worst person to come into Lord of the Rings would be somebody like Alexander because. Cause how do you compete? He's a genius. Well, he, so because of his still, but also because of his foibles.

Um, so he has this like insatiable need to conquer. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was insatiable. Like that is the only thing he cared about in life. That is what he wanted. And he was, you know, tremendously good at it in his own life.

Fortunately, he died at some point. So that, um, not the whole world. Yeah. Otherwise the whole world would have been conquered. Um, and I guess that could have been great.

So never mind. I take that back. But like, I just feel like he's exactly the kind of person that Sauron would instantly be able to turn to hit, to his purpose. Like there's just enough character flaw. Like he starts to drink a little bit towards the end of his life a little bit too much. He starts having these like episodes, I guess you would call them of like wrath. Yeah. Um, just like this, this is this lust for conquering. I think it's just such a weakness that anybody in Lord of the Rings, well, Sauron especially, but that's just very exploitable. Yeah. Um, yeah.

I get and with his stills, like imagine him being the head of Sauron's armies. God would have a zero chance. Yeah. None.

No. That makes me think a lot about like, remember when he gives the ring to men because men above all desire power, right? Like that, like a ring to that dude. Dang. Yeah. And, and, and I just feel like this is like a double-edged sword. So on the one hand, I think there's like a 99% chance he would go over to Sauron.

Um, on the other hand, you know, I think Sauron would regret it because I think at some point he would be able to take Sauron down. Like, I, I, I would say under the great to do so many things. Yes. He's so amazing. You're like 100%. Yeah. I loved him. Um, he has many flaws, but he was very cool to read about. Um, so that to me is like the worst person that could get is the tide.

Yeah. Because he would not even be confused for one second. He'd be like, I'm in a new land. What do I do in new lands?

I can't land. Yeah. Exactly. Like he would not hesitate.

It would be so interesting. Oh my goodness. I do love that though. That's so fascinating. Yeah.

So I was trying to be imaginative, but imaginative, but all I could think about was Greece and Rome. So that's where we're at these days. Well, I love that. It's a whole different perspective.

I feel like we don't think about that very often, but that's super cool. I almost, I almost added Hannibal in here. I was thinking Genghis Khan, like you could go for a variety of different conquerors.

But the problem with Hannibal is that I actually found him kind of underwhelming. He did like one good thing and then he didn't follow up and like, he just made a lot of mistakes. Yeah.

You're like, uh, he did one cool thing. So yeah, that's, that's, that was my use of time. That's how I feel about that. I love that.

I love that. Yeah. Do we have another category that or is the, are those the three? Those are the ones that I was thinking of.

I think we could probably do some, maybe revisit this topic because I think there are different genres. Like I'm not a Manda person. Yeah. Um, maybe someday I should be, because it could be like a fun thing to branch out into. Um, but some, some of these like portal fantasies or whatever, they go really hard.

They lean hard into other elements of like, I got hit by a bus and I died, but I woke up in this other land instead. Right. Yeah. So like just funny entrances into the world or you've seen all those monitors with like overly specific titles. Oh, um, like this is how I, you know, I don't, I can't even think of one.

Oh man. I got to find an example. Find me an example. I was just going through my list.

I feel like I really lean hard into the funny. I have, I guess two more, which are very random. Um, let me, let me hear this manga title. I don't hold on. Tell me one more. Okay.

I'll tell you one more. And this one kind of is similar to like if I were to wake up. Um, but so I'm getting my MBA right now.

And so my thought process was an MBA student wakes up on and I was picturing the Soron side because it just sounds funny, but we can try on the other side too. And they're responsible for marketing campaign. Right. And so like, how do you do the marketing campaign for the Soron side, maybe for the other side? So the first slogan that came to mind was your friendly neighborhood eyeball. Excellent. So this would be more like you've been ESA tied into the world with your current job, with your current job.

You're like, you're an MBA, you're a business student and they're saying, okay, what's your pitch to help us with our expansion? Okay. Okay. Okay. That's interesting because my current job is engineer, but I'm currently pushing a lot of paperwork.

Um, so yeah, I'd be like, oh yeah, I just really want to take my career in a different direction. I'm looking to get on some hands on. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you could get on that too.

I think so. I feel like my marketing campaign would be like, let's work on like those little villages that are close enough to our border. And they, they think they need to defend themselves from us, but really we're just saying we're your friendly neighborhood eyeball, you know, like, and we're just like, we're like, um, we, we come into your town, we'll give you a free chicken. You know, like, I don't know, just like the little promotions, the little incentives.

Yes. Um, some other aspects of these types of fantasies, sometimes they, they cross genre a little bit with like lit RPG, which is, I don't know if you know the genre, do you know this one? Oh, lit RPG? This is, lit RPG is where your character has, um, uh, it's such a weird genre. So like, instead of having like implied steel progression, there's a explicit steel per progression.

So, you know, you bonk an orc and you did a plus one on strength. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Right. And it's like that's explicit. Like the character knows that their level one strength. And so they're working to reach level strength, 100 or something like this.

Right. And I've read like one book that did this well and everything else I've even like sniffed at has been trashed. So I'm sorry, lovers of lit RPG, but this is romance for men. Oh my gosh. Um, so anyways. Um, sometimes, uh, sometimes these genres cross. So for instance, some of these silly titles are things like, um, I've been killing slimes for 300 years and maxed out my level or, uh, what else is in here?

Worlds finest assassin gets reincarnated in another world as an aristocrat. Oh my gosh. Um, just like, just silly, silly little things. I think, I think I could probably get into some of these sorts of genres. Cause I think they, they are, um, a little bit more slice of life. Yeah.

Yeah. A little bit cozy and that is fun. I don't actually read very much. Tozy. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah. So I need to investigate that. Um, yeah.

So there's, there's a couple silly titles like that, but that's another angle to do. Like what if, what are the power levels of everyone? You know, okay, I would be level zero. Yeah.

I know in survival. I might be negative. Um, maybe like two in persuasion. I feel like I could talk my way into a room because you would know enough about the story to know who to talk to. And like what their motivations are, but yeah, I feel like I think in general, it would go poorly.

Unless I could get to Gondor and make my little pitch of, I know how to build the trebuchet and then I pray that I know how to build. I hope this is true. Physics are the same here. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's so funny. I love that. I think there's like a 90% chance that you die in the first 10 minutes.

And then if you survive, then it's going pretty good. Um, have you ever seen this show timeline? It's a Michael try. I don't think so. Okay. It's a, it's a movie. I highly recommend it. So Michael try and wrote like a lot of good books and this is one of them. And this is, it's, it's a, it's a portal. Actually, it's a portal fantasy, essentially, where, um, some company has discovered like a wormhole, a, a, a fact that they have this machine that allows them to access a wormhole that takes them to a very specific year in France. Oh my gosh.

Well, and only that year. And they're trying to get to different places and do different things. But what they have to do instead is send a bunch of historians through this portal because they're like, we need to understand what's happening here. So they send a bunch of like modern historians through this portal into, I think it's like the year 15 something. Oh, that's early.

It's early France. And it is a genuinely great book and a genuinely great movie. I have to look at that. So if you want a sense of like portal fantasy and like a good one, not a Monda, I shouldn't dismonder so hard cause like I've watched like one anime I liked, so I shouldn't make fun of them.

Um, but yeah, I highly recommend that one. Okay. You know, that'll give you a sense.

Something else, which you're going to be shocked. We still haven't finished. We haven't started the second season of arcane.

And I know we need to watch that because that's another highly recommended from Lydia and it's very good. Ah, that's not portal. That's not portal fantasy though, but it's very good. But it's still dead. It will portal you away from your world. It will. Because you'll be entertained. Yes, exactly. Um, but yeah, so for the listener, like portal fantasy is a theme and it is a theme in like plastic fantasy, but like be wary.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of cash. Yeah. Yeah. I, it could be your theme. I shouldn't make fun of genres.

I don't read, but I will, I will continue to do this and it will be hubris until the day I start reading that genre and find out how much I like it. Exactly. And then you can backpedal hard.

And then I'll backpedal hard and there'll be no shame. Yeah, love it. I think this has always been the best thing. We've always, we've always loved portal fantasy. Well, this is so fun. I feel like we could go on and on.

There's so many cool mashups and like characters, which could be amazing here. Yeah. So we'll talk more about this at a later date when I'm into, when I'm into portal fantasy. Excellent. Excellent.

I love it. All right. Well, sounds good. Awesome. Thanks so much guys.