WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 Welcome to the Deep Dive. You know, you are always 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.900 on the lookout for that perfect aha moment. Oh, 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:07.879 absolutely. That brilliant little shift in perspective 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:10.140 that makes you look at the world just a bit differently. 00:00:10.779 --> 00:00:14.699 Well, today, we have a mission to deliver exactly 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:18.120 that. We are exploring an incredibly strange, 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:22.199 delightfully absurd piece of 1930s weird fiction 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:24.960 that holds a mirror right up to the ridiculous 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:29.260 nature of power, status, and, well, human obsession. 00:00:29.769 --> 00:00:32.530 It is such a wild ride. Yeah, it really is. And 00:00:32.530 --> 00:00:34.350 we are pulling all of this from a comprehensive 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:37.210 Wikipedia article detailing the publication history, 00:00:37.469 --> 00:00:40.090 the bibliographic context, and the rather macabre 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:42.310 plot of a short story by the American author 00:00:42.310 --> 00:00:44.810 Clark Ashton Smith. It's a phenomenal text to 00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:46.390 dig into. For those who might not spend their 00:00:46.390 --> 00:00:49.350 weekends immersed in early 20th century pulp 00:00:49.350 --> 00:00:52.070 magazines, Clark Ashton Smith is often considered 00:00:52.070 --> 00:00:54.229 part of the great triumvirate of Weird Tales 00:00:54.229 --> 00:00:56.509 writers. Right alongside H .P. Lovecraft and 00:00:56.509 --> 00:00:59.740 Robert E. Howard. Exactly. But Smith had a very 00:00:59.740 --> 00:01:03.060 distinct flavor. His work drips with this lush, 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:06.620 decadent surrealism. And the story we are looking 00:01:06.620 --> 00:01:09.920 at today really encapsulates that blend of existential 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:13.500 dread and pitch black comedy. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.980 this. To really understand the bizarre narrative 00:01:16.980 --> 00:01:19.640 of this story, we first have to look at the artifact 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.260 itself. The physical history of the text. Right. 00:01:22.569 --> 00:01:25.250 Because how it was packaged, sold, and rebranded 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:27.750 over the decades is almost a parallel to the 00:01:27.750 --> 00:01:30.030 themes of the plot. It actually lived a few different 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:31.829 lives under a couple of different titles. Which 00:01:31.829 --> 00:01:33.810 is incredibly fitting for a story about shifting 00:01:33.810 --> 00:01:36.650 identities. The piece is part of Smith's famous 00:01:36.650 --> 00:01:40.290 Zothique cycle. And for context, Zothique is 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:43.359 this brilliantly bleak, far future, dying earth 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:45.140 setting. Yeah, it's a world where the sun is 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.159 burning out, science has been totally forgotten, 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:50.459 and humanity has reverted to dark magic and despotic 00:01:50.459 --> 00:01:53.120 kingdoms. This specific story originally debuted 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:55.780 back in 1933. But it wasn't pushed out in some 00:01:55.780 --> 00:01:58.060 massive, widely distributed magazine, was it? 00:01:58.269 --> 00:02:00.230 No, not at all. It was actually included in a 00:02:00.230 --> 00:02:02.530 self -published trade paperback called The Double 00:02:02.530 --> 00:02:05.769 Shadow and Other Fantasies. And in that 1933 00:02:05.769 --> 00:02:09.150 printing, the story went by the rather regal 00:02:09.150 --> 00:02:12.830 classical title The Voyage of King Uvaran. The 00:02:12.830 --> 00:02:15.310 idea of a pulp author self -publishing a trade 00:02:15.310 --> 00:02:16.990 paperback in the middle of the Great Depression 00:02:16.990 --> 00:02:19.990 is a fascinating piece of literary history on 00:02:19.990 --> 00:02:22.250 its own. It really is. But the story refused 00:02:22.250 --> 00:02:24.889 to just fade into obscurity in a limited run 00:02:24.889 --> 00:02:27.439 booklet. Jump ahead 14 years to the September 00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:31.020 1947 issue of the legendary pulp magazine Weird 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:34.500 Tales. The story gets resurrected, but it undergoes 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:37.719 a total pulp era rebrand. A huge shift in tone. 00:02:38.020 --> 00:02:39.780 Yeah, it becomes the cover story of that issue, 00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:42.340 featuring some incredibly striking moody artwork 00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:45.740 by the illustrator Boris Dolgoff. And the publishers 00:02:45.740 --> 00:02:48.560 gave it a much punchier, aggressive title. Quest 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:50.979 of the Gazolba. Quest of the Gazolba. What's 00:02:50.979 --> 00:02:53.000 fascinating here is how a story can morph over 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.879 decades, living multiple lives in different collections 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:58.599 and under entirely different titles. The Voyage 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:00.900 of King Uvaran sounds like a classical epic, 00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:03.240 almost like the Odyssey. Right. Very dignified. 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:05.759 But Quest of the Gazulba sounds like a frantic 00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:09.159 dime store adventure. It sets the stage perfectly 00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:11.520 for the story's own internal themes of subjective 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.560 value. A title that means one thing to a reader 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.580 in 1933 means something entirely different to 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:19.860 a magazine editor looking to sell copies in 1947. 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:22.319 And if you dig into the archives, you see this 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:25.439 piece really had legs. The source article points 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:27.560 to some heavy -hitting bibliographic research 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:30.319 to track this endurance. For instance, Robert 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:32.780 Weinberg's history book, The Weird Tales Story, 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:35.539 tracks its pulp resurgence. And Donald Sidney 00:03:35.539 --> 00:03:38.659 Fryer's exhaustive 1978 book, Emperor of Dreams, 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:41.639 a Clark Ashton Smith bibliography, notes that 00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:43.759 the story just kept surviving the shifting trends 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:46.539 of publishing. Yeah, after its 1947 Weird Tales 00:03:46.539 --> 00:03:49.020 appearance, it leaped into the paperback fantasy 00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:52.580 boom. It landed in a 1960 collection called The 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:55.039 Abomination. of Yondo. And later secured its 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:57.659 place in the 1970 definitive collection simply 00:03:57.659 --> 00:04:00.460 titled Zothique. It survived because the core 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:03.039 satire is timeless. Regardless of whether you 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:05.400 frame it as a royal voyage or a pulp quest, it 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:07.780 remains a razor -sharp critique of human vanity. 00:04:08.060 --> 00:04:10.460 Let's get into the actual plot Smith constructed, 00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:12.759 because it starts with a brilliantly mundane 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:16.300 premise before spiraling into absolute surrealism. 00:04:16.379 --> 00:04:19.279 It escalates so quickly. It really does. We are 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:21.439 introduced to our main character, King Uvaran. 00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:25.339 who rules over the Ustam city of Eremon. Yvorin 00:04:25.339 --> 00:04:28.160 is a supreme monarch, but he is completely unfulfilled. 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:30.899 He is languishing in the bureaucracy of absolute 00:04:30.899 --> 00:04:33.759 power. Yes. He is essentially bored to death 00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:36.339 by his daily routine, which mostly consists of 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:39.709 overseeing justice for completely petty, uninteresting 00:04:39.709 --> 00:04:41.970 criminals. There are no great wars to fight, 00:04:42.029 --> 00:04:44.490 no grand monuments to build. He's just a man 00:04:44.490 --> 00:04:46.709 sitting on a throne, passing judgment on minor 00:04:46.709 --> 00:04:49.509 infractions, completely insulated from the real 00:04:49.509 --> 00:04:52.310 world. Which makes the inciting incident so visually 00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:55.230 jarring. One day, a criminal is brought before 00:04:55.230 --> 00:04:57.829 him. Finally, someone who Yvoryn deems actually 00:04:57.829 --> 00:05:00.550 worthy of torture or a grand execution. A real 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:03.240 criminal for once. Right. But before the guards 00:05:03.240 --> 00:05:05.439 can carry out the sentence, this criminal manages 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:09.120 to pull off a desperate act of dark magic. Now 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:12.019 on the top of Uvern's royal crown rests a very 00:05:12.019 --> 00:05:15.279 specific piece of taxidermy. The gazolba. A stuffed 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:18.740 bird known as the gazolba. The criminal's magic 00:05:18.740 --> 00:05:21.339 suddenly animates this dead bird. It rips itself 00:05:21.339 --> 00:05:23.819 off the crown, comes back to life, takes flight, 00:05:23.939 --> 00:05:26.319 and sleeps through a window, disappearing from 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:29.579 the city entirely. It is a stunning piece of 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:32.279 weird fiction imagery. The literal symbol of 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:34.379 his authority just wakes up and abandons him. 00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:36.939 And this triggers an immediate visceral panic 00:05:36.939 --> 00:05:39.379 in the king. Oh, absolutely. He rushes to a local 00:05:39.379 --> 00:05:41.839 temple to consult the god Jael about the situation, 00:05:42.019 --> 00:05:44.939 and the deity delivers a prophecy. Jael tells 00:05:44.939 --> 00:05:47.959 Yuvaren that he will indeed slay the bird, but 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:50.160 he will have to do so far from his home. But 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:52.279 consider the political reality of Eremom for 00:05:52.279 --> 00:05:54.959 a moment. Is Yuvaren's panic purely a product 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:57.730 of vanity, or is he - trapped by the structure 00:05:57.730 --> 00:06:00.069 of his own kingdom? That is the big question. 00:06:00.250 --> 00:06:02.230 The source text notes Yuvarand's realization 00:06:02.230 --> 00:06:04.769 that his people will simply not respect a king 00:06:04.769 --> 00:06:07.769 without his crown. And that crown is entirely 00:06:07.769 --> 00:06:10.230 invalid without the gazolba sitting on top of 00:06:10.230 --> 00:06:12.920 it. It feels less like a vain man losing a hat 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:15.319 and more like a constitutional crisis. That is 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:17.959 a crucial distinction. It highlights the absolute 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:21.420 fragility of authoritative power. If your mandate 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:24.220 to rule your entire identity as a supreme leader 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:27.240 depends entirely on a specific piece of taxidermy 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:29.879 sitting on your head, your power is an illusion. 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:31.920 It's terrifying when you think about it. You 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:34.699 are entirely dependent on a shared fiction. The 00:06:34.699 --> 00:06:37.060 moment the symbol is gone, the fiction collapses 00:06:37.060 --> 00:06:40.689 and the subjects will no longer obey. Yvorn is 00:06:40.689 --> 00:06:43.350 a hostage to his own mythology. Here's where 00:06:43.350 --> 00:06:45.649 it gets really interesting. Because to maintain 00:06:45.649 --> 00:06:48.949 that mythology, Yvorn makes a decision that spirals 00:06:48.949 --> 00:06:51.829 into madness. He doesn't just quietly hire a 00:06:51.829 --> 00:06:53.970 tracker to go find the birds. No, he goes all 00:06:53.970 --> 00:06:57.050 in. He assembles an entire royal armada. We are 00:06:57.050 --> 00:06:59.149 talking about a massive fleet of ships, fully 00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:01.050 manned and funded by the kingdom's treasury, 00:07:01.310 --> 00:07:04.750 setting sail into the uncharted east. He mobilizes 00:07:04.750 --> 00:07:07.250 the machinery of an empire to chase down a single 00:07:07.250 --> 00:07:10.069 runaway piece of taxidermy. And this voyage quickly 00:07:10.069 --> 00:07:13.089 transforms from a royal expedition into a dark, 00:07:13.089 --> 00:07:15.449 farcical descent through Smith's dying earth 00:07:15.449 --> 00:07:18.550 landscape. The geography of Zothique is essentially 00:07:18.550 --> 00:07:20.689 a character itself, and the places they visit 00:07:20.689 --> 00:07:22.970 reflect the escalating desperation of the quest. 00:07:23.350 --> 00:07:27.050 The first stop is an island called Sotar. The 00:07:27.050 --> 00:07:29.430 fleet arrives, and there's a moment of triumph. 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:32.189 They think they've found the gazolba immediately. 00:07:32.709 --> 00:07:35.189 But it turns out to be a massive anticlimax. 00:07:35.269 --> 00:07:37.310 Yeah, it's a case of mistaken avian identity. 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:40.079 It's just a local bird that happens to share 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:42.839 a resemblance. A false start, which only serves 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:45.819 to heighten Uvran's frustration. So they push 00:07:45.819 --> 00:07:48.360 further out, arriving at a place called Tosk. 00:07:48.379 --> 00:07:51.480 And here, Smith's world -building leans heavily 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:54.620 into the grotesque. Smith writes the human inhabitants 00:07:54.620 --> 00:07:58.009 of Tosk as being closer to apes. It's a striking 00:07:58.009 --> 00:08:00.730 image of devolution. Yuvaron and his men try 00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:03.470 to extract information from these eight men about 00:08:03.470 --> 00:08:05.910 the flight path of the Gazolba. Good luck with 00:08:05.910 --> 00:08:07.870 that. Right. They get absolutely nothing. It's 00:08:07.870 --> 00:08:10.129 a complete dead end. Which forces the fleet into 00:08:10.129 --> 00:08:12.930 increasingly dangerous waters. And it's at their 00:08:12.930 --> 00:08:16.569 next stop where the true macabre cost of Yuvaron's 00:08:16.569 --> 00:08:19.430 obsession becomes impossible to ignore. The tone 00:08:19.430 --> 00:08:22.420 shifts dramatically here. They stop at an unnamed 00:08:22.420 --> 00:08:24.720 isle and out of nowhere the fleet is besieged 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:27.459 by vampires. Just completely ambushed. Not a 00:08:27.459 --> 00:08:31.480 skirmish. Not a minor terrifying encounter. The 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:35.360 text is explicit that these vampires devastate 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.720 much of King Ivarin's fleet. He loses a staggering 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:41.139 portion of his men and his ships in a horrific 00:08:41.139 --> 00:08:44.480 slaughter. It is a textbook sunk cost fallacy. 00:08:44.659 --> 00:08:47.230 Explain that a bit more. Well... Any rational 00:08:47.230 --> 00:08:49.750 leader, any person with a shred of empathy for 00:08:49.750 --> 00:08:52.789 their subjects, would look at a massacre by vampires 00:08:52.789 --> 00:08:55.870 and declare the expedition a catastrophic failure. 00:08:56.149 --> 00:08:58.409 You turn the surviving ships around and go home. 00:08:58.590 --> 00:09:00.590 Right, you cut your losses. But Yuvarin cannot 00:09:00.590 --> 00:09:03.029 do that. Turning back means admitting that the 00:09:03.029 --> 00:09:04.889 initial investment and the loss of all those 00:09:04.889 --> 00:09:07.830 lives was worthless. He is bleeding ships and 00:09:07.830 --> 00:09:10.629 men, treating their lives as completely expendable 00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:13.309 to justify the journey. He's doubling down on 00:09:13.309 --> 00:09:15.690 a bad bet because his ego can't handle the alternative. 00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:18.559 Taking that a step further, acknowledging defeat 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:21.059 means returning to Eremon without the bird. Which 00:09:21.059 --> 00:09:23.259 means losing the throne anyway. Exactly. So he 00:09:23.259 --> 00:09:25.379 presses on, forcing the traumatized survivors 00:09:25.379 --> 00:09:28.879 of his fleet to continue. And this blind hubris 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:31.299 leads them directly to the island of Ornava. 00:09:31.669 --> 00:09:34.450 Ornava is where Smith's brilliant sense of surrealist 00:09:34.450 --> 00:09:37.049 irony really takes over. The fleet discovers 00:09:37.049 --> 00:09:39.610 that Ornava is an island completely overrun and 00:09:39.610 --> 00:09:42.429 ruled by birds. Now, given that Yvonne is currently 00:09:42.429 --> 00:09:45.509 on a quest defined by a bird escaping him, and 00:09:45.509 --> 00:09:48.149 he has just lost half his men to vampires, you 00:09:48.149 --> 00:09:50.309 might expect a little caution. You would hope 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:54.360 so. But he exhibits absolutely no humility. Seeing 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:57.120 the abundance of wildlife, Uvorn just casually 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.360 shoots an owl, hoping to claim it as a hunting 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.200 prize. He shoots an owl? Yes. It reveals how 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:05.200 deeply entrenched his worldview is. Even stranded 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:07.220 on a strange island at the edge of the world, 00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:09.740 surrounded by the unknown, he still views himself 00:10:09.740 --> 00:10:13.240 as the absolute master of his domain. To him, 00:10:13.299 --> 00:10:16.399 nature is just a resource. Birds are just objects, 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:19.059 potential prizes, taxidermy waiting to happen. 00:10:19.220 --> 00:10:21.860 He is incapable of reading the room. And the 00:10:21.860 --> 00:10:24.399 room fights back. The moment he shoots the owl, 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:27.779 Yuvaron triggers a massive avian uprising. Of 00:10:27.779 --> 00:10:30.100 course he does. The birds of Ornava swarm him. 00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:33.080 A giant bird swoops down, entirely bypasses his 00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:35.759 royal guards, abducts the king, and carries him 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:38.559 away to a massive, imposing tower. He goes from 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:41.139 being the apex predator, the supreme judge of 00:10:41.139 --> 00:10:43.940 Aramum, to being literal prey in a matter of 00:10:43.940 --> 00:10:46.600 seconds. The scene inside the tower is pure, 00:10:46.779 --> 00:10:50.080 Kafkaesque comedy. Yuvaron is brought before 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:53.220 a kingbird to face trial. The man who was bored 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:55.580 to death passing petty judgments on human criminals 00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:58.360 is now the one in the dock, being judged by a 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:00.919 giant sentient bird. It is brilliant. The king 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:04.460 bird formally reads Yuvaran his charges. But 00:11:04.460 --> 00:11:07.179 showcasing a bizarrely civilized legal system, 00:11:07.460 --> 00:11:10.059 the bird actually grants Yuvaran... the right 00:11:10.059 --> 00:11:12.759 to defend himself. This is perhaps the most revealing 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:15.299 moment of Yvoran's character in the entire text. 00:11:15.559 --> 00:11:18.200 He is handed an opportunity to talk his way out 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:20.980 of a very precarious situation. And he completely 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:23.299 torpedoes his own defense. Oh, totally ruins 00:11:23.299 --> 00:11:26.220 it. Yvoran takes the floor and, in an act of 00:11:26.220 --> 00:11:28.759 staggering arrogance, tries to justify his presence 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:31.279 by explaining his grand quest. He essentially 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:33.620 stands before an avian judge and confesses that 00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:36.240 his life's mission is to track down a bird and 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.220 murder it for a second time just to decorate 00:11:38.220 --> 00:11:40.799 his hat. The lack of self -awareness is monumental. 00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:44.159 He is so blinded by his own sense of royal exceptionalism 00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:46.179 that he genuinely believes the kingbird will 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:48.539 understand and respect his property rights over 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:51.279 another bird. Unsurprisingly, the kingbird is 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:53.440 not swayed by this legal strategy. Shocking. 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:56.659 Yuvaren is immediately found vetted. And the 00:11:56.659 --> 00:11:59.480 sentence handed down by the avian court is poetic 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.779 perfection. The kingbird orders Yuvaren to be 00:12:02.779 --> 00:12:05.000 imprisoned so that the birds may stuff him and 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:07.429 add him to their own collection. It is the ultimate 00:12:07.429 --> 00:12:10.210 reversal of fortune. The monarch, whose entire 00:12:10.210 --> 00:12:12.830 identity and authority rested on wearing a piece 00:12:12.830 --> 00:12:15.629 of taxidermy, is now condemned to become human 00:12:15.629 --> 00:12:19.509 taxidermy for the amusement of birds. He is reduced 00:12:19.509 --> 00:12:22.230 to the exact status of the object he was chasing. 00:12:22.470 --> 00:12:25.309 It's a brilliant the spherical trap, but Yuvaren 00:12:25.309 --> 00:12:27.970 does manage to slip out of it. While awaiting 00:12:27.970 --> 00:12:29.970 his stuffing in the tower, he proves he has at 00:12:29.970 --> 00:12:32.470 least some survival instinct. Thankfully. He 00:12:32.470 --> 00:12:35.100 manages to outwit a bird guard. And in a deeply 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:37.820 humiliating visual, he uses the guard's own molted 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:40.700 feathers to craft a disguise for himself. He 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:43.620 sneaks out of the tower, evades the Avian populace, 00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:46.080 and flees back to the shoreline where his terrified 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:48.259 surviving crew is waiting. And they get out of 00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:50.539 there. They immediately set sail, escaping Ornava. 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:53.399 You would hope that narrowly avoiding being turned 00:12:53.399 --> 00:12:56.039 into a museum exhibit might prompt a moment of 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:58.820 profound self -reflection. But the sunk cost 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:02.539 fallacy has him in a death grip. Euvorin insists 00:13:02.539 --> 00:13:05.159 the remnants of the fleet push forward. The quest 00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:07.960 for the Gazulba must continue. He just won't 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:11.340 let it go. However, the universe, or perhaps 00:13:11.340 --> 00:13:13.799 the god Jaol, fulfilling the second half of that 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:17.419 prophecy, finally intervenes. The fleet is overtaken 00:13:17.419 --> 00:13:20.460 by a catastrophic, world -ending storm. The violent 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.919 seas completely annihilate the remaining ships. 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:25.480 Just wiped out entirely. Every last man is lost. 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:28.440 Uvaran is the sole survivor, eventually washing 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:31.539 up, completely shipwrecked and destitute on the 00:13:31.539 --> 00:13:33.679 shores of an unknown land. He is stripped of 00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:36.759 everything. The armada, the royal title, the 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:39.759 wealth, the sycophants. He is reduced to an absolute 00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.940 existential blank slate. Just a wet, exhausted 00:13:42.940 --> 00:13:45.700 man on a beach. Which perfectly sets up the cosmic 00:13:45.700 --> 00:13:48.399 punchline of Smith's story. As Uvaran wanders 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:50.580 inland trying to survive, he makes a staggering 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:53.279 discovery. The environment is teeming with gazolbal 00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:55.539 birds. They are everywhere. Everywhere. And soon. 00:13:55.960 --> 00:13:58.740 He crosses paths with a local hunter. This man 00:13:58.740 --> 00:14:02.059 introduces himself as Naz Obamar, a captain from 00:14:02.059 --> 00:14:05.320 a region called Ulatroi. Yvorn looks at this 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:08.279 man and realizes with a shock that Obamar is 00:14:08.279 --> 00:14:11.019 actively hunting the gazolba. It gets better. 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:14.340 In fact, Obamar is casually wearing a dead gazolba 00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:16.570 right on his head. Imagine the psychological 00:14:16.570 --> 00:14:20.389 whiplash Yuvorin experiences in that exact second. 00:14:20.809 --> 00:14:23.450 After the ape men, the vampire massacres, the 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:25.509 giant bird trials, and the destruction of his 00:14:25.509 --> 00:14:28.129 entire navy, he has finally found the object 00:14:28.129 --> 00:14:30.850 of his obsession. The reflex is immediate. That 00:14:30.850 --> 00:14:33.429 old, ingrained royal arrogance flares right back 00:14:33.429 --> 00:14:35.789 to life. Euron draws himself up and haughtily 00:14:35.789 --> 00:14:38.070 informs this local hunter that the gazolda is 00:14:38.070 --> 00:14:41.210 a deeply sacred royal bird. He tries to project 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:43.250 the authority of Eremon onto a man who has never 00:14:43.250 --> 00:14:45.070 heard of it. Which brings up the core collision 00:14:45.070 --> 00:14:47.169 of worldviews in the story. How does the hunter 00:14:47.169 --> 00:14:50.029 respond to this grand declaration? He just laughs. 00:14:50.409 --> 00:14:53.370 Nas Obamar bursts into laughter right in Euphorin's 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:55.809 face. He explains to the ruined king that in 00:14:55.809 --> 00:14:58.509 the land of Ula Troi, the gazolda possesses absolutely 00:14:58.669 --> 00:15:01.389 no royal significance. It is not a symbol of 00:15:01.389 --> 00:15:03.950 divine mandate or political power. It is quite 00:15:03.950 --> 00:15:07.149 simply basic food. Exactly. Obamor hunts them 00:15:07.149 --> 00:15:09.850 because they make for a decent lunch. He eats 00:15:09.850 --> 00:15:12.970 them to survive. It is a beautifully brutal devaluation 00:15:12.970 --> 00:15:15.860 of the sacred. So what does this all mean? The 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:18.480 Grand King Uvaran, who sacrificed thousands of 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:21.299 lives, fought monsters, and defied the wrath 00:15:21.299 --> 00:15:23.860 of nature to reclaim the sacral symbol of his 00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:26.720 absolute authority, is forced to realize that 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:29.820 his priceless artifact is just an everyday snack 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:31.980 to someone living a few thousand miles to the 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:35.399 east. Just lunch. And this realization, finally, 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:38.740 completely breaks the spell. The vanity evaporates. 00:15:38.899 --> 00:15:42.279 Uvaran entirely abandons his royal quest. The 00:15:42.279 --> 00:15:45.279 narrative ends with Nas Obamar offering to teach 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.340 Yuvaren how to properly cook the gazolba. And 00:15:48.340 --> 00:15:50.620 the former supreme monarch of Aramom spends the 00:15:50.620 --> 00:15:52.600 rest of his days with the hunter, doing exactly 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:54.720 that, catching, roasting, and eating the very 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:56.840 creature he used to worship. If we connect this 00:15:56.840 --> 00:15:59.019 to the bigger picture, the entire arc mapped 00:15:59.019 --> 00:16:01.399 out in this Wikipedia summary functions as a 00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:04.580 masterpiece of social satire. At its foundation, 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:07.279 Smith's story is a brilliant exploration of the 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:10.460 subjectivity of value. What constitutes a priceless, 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.620 irreplaceable symbol of absolute power in one 00:16:13.620 --> 00:16:16.799 ecosystem is literally just cheap poultry in 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:19.889 another. Yvorn caused the death of his entire 00:16:19.889 --> 00:16:22.769 fleet because he was incapable of understanding 00:16:22.769 --> 00:16:26.309 that value is not an objective universal reality. 00:16:26.509 --> 00:16:30.350 It is merely a localized, shared agreement. And 00:16:30.350 --> 00:16:31.970 the moment he stepped outside the geographical 00:16:31.970 --> 00:16:35.389 borders of that agreement, the value evaporated 00:16:35.389 --> 00:16:38.429 into thin air. The Gazolba never possessed any 00:16:38.429 --> 00:16:40.970 inherent magic or authority. All the power was 00:16:40.970 --> 00:16:42.990 generated by the collective imagination of the 00:16:42.990 --> 00:16:45.879 people back in Eremon. Precisely. Once Hugh Warren 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:48.179 is forcefully removed from the echo chamber that 00:16:48.179 --> 00:16:50.679 validates that symbol, he has to confront the 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:52.639 physical reality of the bird and, more importantly, 00:16:52.779 --> 00:16:55.059 the physical reality of himself. Wow. Without 00:16:55.059 --> 00:16:57.259 the crown, there is no divine right to rule. 00:16:57.440 --> 00:16:59.620 There is just a vulnerable human being who needs 00:16:59.620 --> 00:17:01.799 to figure out how to source his next meal. It 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.599 is a deeply humbling concept, and it serves as 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:06.640 a rather piercing prompt for you, the listener, 00:17:06.779 --> 00:17:09.019 to examine the structures of your own life. We 00:17:09.019 --> 00:17:11.259 might not be chasing taxidermy across dying oceans, 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:13.519 but we all participate in these shared fictions, 00:17:13.579 --> 00:17:15.650 don't we? We do. Think about your own professional 00:17:15.650 --> 00:17:19.529 environments or social circles. What modern gazolbas 00:17:19.529 --> 00:17:22.099 are you chasing right now? That is the exact 00:17:22.099 --> 00:17:24.579 question Smith is provoking. What status symbols 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:27.420 are you exhausting yourself over? Is it a specific 00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:30.339 job title, a verified badge on a social media 00:17:30.339 --> 00:17:33.599 profile, corner office real estate, or a luxury 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:36.599 brand? We put these things on massive pedestals, 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:39.180 often sacrificing our time, our mental health, 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:41.539 and sometimes our relationships to secure them. 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:44.220 But there is a very high probability that the 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:47.019 thing you think defines your ultimate worth is 00:17:47.019 --> 00:17:49.390 something that someone else operating in a slightly 00:17:49.390 --> 00:17:51.750 different context, would look at and just laugh. 00:17:51.970 --> 00:17:54.609 We spend an enormous amount of energy defending 00:17:54.609 --> 00:17:56.750 our little crowns, terrified of what happens 00:17:56.750 --> 00:17:59.029 if they slip. We lock ourselves into these sunk 00:17:59.029 --> 00:18:01.329 cost fallacies, convincing ourselves that because 00:18:01.329 --> 00:18:03.490 we've already sacrificed so much for the promotion 00:18:03.490 --> 00:18:06.089 or the prestige, we have to keep going no matter 00:18:06.089 --> 00:18:08.329 the cost to ourselves or those around us. No 00:18:08.329 --> 00:18:10.970 matter who gets hurt. Right. Ivarin's ultimate 00:18:10.970 --> 00:18:13.950 tragedy wasn't that the bird flew away. His tragedy 00:18:13.950 --> 00:18:16.549 was his rigid belief that the bird mattered in 00:18:16.549 --> 00:18:19.170 the first place. He let a symbol dictate his 00:18:19.170 --> 00:18:21.809 reality. Which leaves us with a lingering, slightly 00:18:21.809 --> 00:18:23.809 uncomfortable thought to walk away with today. 00:18:24.950 --> 00:18:28.170 Uvarin genuinely believed that the crown, and 00:18:28.170 --> 00:18:30.950 the specific stuffed bird resting on it, is what 00:18:30.950 --> 00:18:33.690 made him a king. It was his whole world? His 00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:36.430 entire psychological framework and sense of self 00:18:36.430 --> 00:18:39.730 were fused to that physical object. But when 00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:42.150 the crown vanished and he led his empire to ruin 00:18:42.150 --> 00:18:44.670 and he eventually found peace as a mere cook 00:18:44.670 --> 00:18:47.470 preparing the very bird he once thought was sacred, 00:18:47.670 --> 00:18:50.329 well, it begs a larger question about identity. 00:18:50.609 --> 00:18:52.950 A question that dismantles the whole concept 00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:56.170 of inherent authority. Exactly. Was Yuverin ever 00:18:56.170 --> 00:18:58.829 truly a king to begin with? Or, if you strip 00:18:58.829 --> 00:19:01.029 away the royal pageantry, the palace walls, and 00:19:01.029 --> 00:19:02.930 the shared delusions of his subjects, was he 00:19:02.930 --> 00:19:04.750 always just a guy walking around wearing a dead 00:19:04.750 --> 00:19:07.009 bird on his head? That is the question. Let that 00:19:07.009 --> 00:19:08.890 mull around in your mind the next time you find 00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:11.329 yourself stressing over a title or a status symbol. 00:19:11.890 --> 00:19:14.269 Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into 00:19:14.269 --> 00:19:17.809 Clark Ashton Smith's weird, wonderful, and terrifyingly 00:19:17.809 --> 00:19:20.730 relatable world. We will be back soon to unpack 00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:21.789 another stack of sources.