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This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report.

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I'm going to be talking about the big top, which is Red Panda Adventures, episode 21.

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Here's the copy written by Greg Taylor.

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An incognito visit to a traveling circus?

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Well, even masked heroes get the occasional evening off. Or do they?

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When members of a high-flying family of acrobats find themselves accused of a crime,

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the Red Panda has even more reason than normal to clear their names and see justice served.

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After all, even masked heroes take a girl home to meet mama once in a while. Don't they?

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Don't they, indeed.

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So anyway, this is one of my favorite episodes of Red Panda Adventures.

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It sheds light on some of Red Panda's past.

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It allows him and Kit to talk about his family, morality, the struggle between good and evil,

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and the struggle between good and evil in oneself as well,

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which is very important because your actions determine who you are and what you are,

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and your intentions, while they are somewhat important, do not...

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Well, I don't know. There's arguments made here, and there's definitely a very strong,

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I would say strict morality reinforced here in the discussion between Kit and Red Panda.

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Gosh, I don't know. It's an interesting episode because they don't face a supervillain,

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but they're facing... They do have an external threat,

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but it's also allowing Red Panda to deal with an internal threat or an internal conflict, I should say.

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So there's the external conflict of the high-flying circus folk who taught Red Panda all...

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Well, not all, but a lot of the things he knows about his acrobatics, and maybe aerobatics too, I don't know.

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Anyway, it's interesting because these people were like family to him.

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And there's an interesting distinction drawn because his own family he feels ashamed of,

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he feels they were wealthy waste trolls. That's alliteration right there for you.

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And he feels like he needs to do better than them and be better than them.

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And in his interactions with this circus family, whose name I can't remember at the moment, sorry,

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he inspired them to do what he was doing because they figured out that he was that Boris,

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as they called him because he never gave them his name and he was disguised,

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that Boris, as they called him, was the Red Panda, or he went on to become the Red Panda after his time with them was over,

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which was about a year off and on, he says, in the episode.

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And so they become a new family, a surrogate family for him, and he's also ashamed of his new family.

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And he is upset because they became criminals, which is the very thing that he swore to fight against.

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And he wanted to fight against street level criminals, thugs, robbers, burglars, mafia people,

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because his family had obtained a lot of their wealth through unethical practices and through straight up criminal activity as well.

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And yet, and yet, he does espouse an ethic of, like, property rights being important.

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And when mama is upset with him and she's saying that basically the wealthier criminals too,

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he doesn't say that they aren't, but he does say that this isn't the right way to fix things.

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And she says there's no way to fix things and that all they can do is to commit their crimes and to steal

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and to give the money to the poor people, the people who are suffering.

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So it's interesting because it brings up a valid criticism of the state of the world right now,

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or in the context of the story, the 1930s and the Depression era, Canada and such.

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I don't know where else they're traveling and doing the circus shows, but it's probably not just Canada.

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Anyway, so he, Taylor, is presenting a real problem and he's presenting two different ways of correcting the problem.

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One is like a redistributionist, socialistic, communistic kind of thing where we're going to take from the rich

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and give it to people as they need it, poor people who need it.

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And Red Panda doesn't want to do that.

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However, he will and is admitted by Kit that they will take ill-gotten gains from criminals and they will share that with good people.

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The Dream Factory, which was a few episodes ago, shows them doing exactly that.

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And in addition to that, Red Panda will have his alter ego donate funds to a charity or a church or a hospital or he'll do different things.

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And even in the Dream Factory, he uses his wealth, which was again, ill-gotten by his family in the past,

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in order to supply real jobs for these women who are mostly being taken advantage of in these sewing factories.

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Or in particular, one case there was a sewing factory that there were other people in the Dream Factory who were being passed fake money, counterfeit bills.

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And that was the real racket behind the seamstress thing.

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And so he's used his wealth, ill-gotten as it was, to do real good and to change things and make them better for people, one person at a time or one small group of people at a time.

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This is true.

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It's interesting that he did that in a previous episode.

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And then in this episode, he bought a run newspaper and not smut reporter.

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What do you call it? Tabloid?

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I don't know what you call that.

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Anyway, tabloid, rumor, gossip reporter who was talking about him and Kit, or his alter ego and Kit.

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And she was kind of harassing them and giving them a hard time.

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And Kit was really fed up with it.

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So he bought out the newspaper and he sent her to some assignment in Winnipeg and she had to move in order to keep her livelihood, which is mean and not very nice.

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And it could be seen as like a corrupt thing, like an abuse of somebody with power, with money, over somebody else who has less money and less power.

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And Kit likes that when Red Panda does it.

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But she doesn't like it when she doesn't like it in other circumstances.

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So she's kind of like everybody else, where when something is done to benefit you and to help you and people that you like, even if it's kind of wrong, you're OK with it because you want to give it a pass for being something that is convenient to you or that you like.

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But she rightfully is upset with other injustices that people with money do and other abuses of people in power and yet not here.

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So that's kind of interesting. I don't know if that's a blind spot on Taylor's part or if that's supposed to be a blind spot on Kit and Red Panda or what that is.

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But I mean, as an audience member, it's funny. It's like a funny cute moment.

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But if you think about it in the context, you really think about what that means.

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I mean, yeah, you can get a job somewhere else. But that's kind of the pro-capitalist argument, which I support.

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She has the freedom of association, which is like the libertarian or, you know, property, propertyarian concept that like, yeah, you're free to associate with whoever you want.

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If you don't want the job in Winnipeg, you want to get some you don't want to get one somewhere else, then go ahead and do that.

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But anyway, it's just very interesting because this episode has like these kind of moral arguments in it and it has these discussions of morality and wealth and power and what that means and who gets to do what and how that works.

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And Kit makes a really compelling argument to Red Panda at the end because he's saying like, is any of this worth it?

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Because basically he I guess he kind of helped the family get off, didn't he?

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Or did he? I don't know. It's kind of confusing.

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I don't even know what really happened, but he I feel like they got off.

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Maybe one of the boys went to jail and said and Pop got out.

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But regardless, it's kind of like a morally gray ending and it's not like a happy ending. He's really like beat down by the situation.

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He's out pouting in the rain, brooding in the rain like, you know, Batman or something.

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And Kit comes to him and she says, like, look, the people that we can help and the changes in people's lives that we can manifest by doing our heroics and by saving every person we can one person at a time or a couple of people at a time.

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And it's the two of us delivering justice with our fists and, you know, gliding membranes and static shoes and stuff and our gadgets like that doesn't matter.

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And it does mean something because it means something to people and it's changing individuals lives.

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And you've changed my life in a meaningful way, she says this to Red Panda.

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And that encourages him to go and keep on doing what he's doing.

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It like strengthens his resolve to do this whole superhero thing and to help a little guy.

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And at the very end of the episode, there's an old woman being mugged by somebody and they go off to rescue her.

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And it's kind of funny because it leaves it a place where Kit was thinking that he was going to say something to her about how much she means to him or, you know, something emotional and touching.

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But he just runs off and goes to fight and she joins him because that's what she's decided to do.

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That's what she's bound herself to.

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And it's similar to how he's bound himself to his cause and she's bound herself to him.

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And it's really interesting. So he I think he ultimately does the right thing.

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I'm just kind of foggy on the details of whether or not he got somebody in jail or not.

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But he basically warned them not to do any of this stuff again and made the moral argument against it, which is important, even if he let one of them off, which is less stellar.

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But like I said, I don't quite remember how that played out in the end.

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But for now, it doesn't matter. And if you if you know, go ahead and comment and tell me.

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So I have clarity on that and I guess I'll find out next time I listen to it anyway.

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Like I said, drop your comments if you want to.

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If not, then that's fine. You can await more Red Panda report coming out should be weekly now.

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I'm working real hard. I got a lot of things going.

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I'm talking about Ultraman. I'm going to be talking about Digimon pretty soon.

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I'm writing. I have two short stories in submission and a third one that I'm working on right now to put in submission.

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The two are a fantasy and a superhero, and one of them is a superhero who's like Red Panda, who's a Noir character.

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If that's rejected, I'm definitely going to publish it on the blog and I might even make an audio recording of it and share it here.

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It's like a two or three minute read. I'll just make it as like a bonus episode and you can check it out.

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It's very inspired by the Noir heroes.

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And it'll be interesting to see what you think about my superhero story and that character and what else.

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I guess that's all that's relevant for right now.

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But I'm doing a lot over on mtmunius.com.

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So go ahead and check there. You can find the show notes. You can find links to other Dakota Ring episodes.

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And the whole thing, not just Red Panda, it's everything.

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But you can find all that there and you can find the work that I'm doing.

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So until next time, folks, take care, be well, and don't curse the darkness, light a candle, maybe.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Subscribe to keep up with me.

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Like and share to help me reach more people like you.

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And go to mjmunoz.com to find your next favorite thing.

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And don't forget to let your voice be heard.

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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time, be well.

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This is MJ signing out.

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This has been a Story Over Everything production.