In this episode of History N' Games host Meghan Sullivan interviews author, historian, and Stanford University research scholar Adrienne Mayor! Together they talk about the ancient origins of heroes, Amazons, biological warfare, and robots.
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In this episode of History N' Games host Meghan Sullivan interviews author, historian, and Stanford University research scholar Adrienne Mayor! Together they talk about the ancient origins of heroes, Amazons, biological warfare, and robots.
Support History N' Games here: https://www.patreon.com/meghanrsullivan
Follow History N' Games here:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/HistoryNGames
Sullivan 0:00
Hello everyone, and welcome back to History N’ Games. Today I'm interviewing Adrienne Mayor, who’s a research scholar, a folklorist, and a historian of ancient science. She’s the author of many fantastic books on robots, Amazons, and dinosaurs and their connection to real scientific observations made by people in antiquity like the ancient Greeks and Romans.
This was such a fun interview. We talked quite a bit about video games like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West. We touched on games like God of War, NieR, Far Cry: Blood Dragon, and we talked about Wonder Woman, and just how all of these subjects are not only popular with people, but the stories about these monsters and heroes and advanced robots were based on reality. Real ideas and observations people had made in the past, and how these observations are being validated by modern archaeologists, paleontologists and historians today. So, I hope you enjoy this podcast. If you do, please consider supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com/meghanrsullivan so I can make History N’ Games a full-time gig. I believe in the power of history and the power of video games as a vehicle to educate people, whether it's about history, or science, or art, or any number of scholastic disciplines. So again, thank you so much for being here, and please enjoy!
Sullivan 1:22:28
So, I guess the way we can begin this interview is I'll have you sort of introduce yourself and who you are and what your work is, and I'm-- I know that I'm curious about this-- like how you sort of got into the field of research that you that you did, because it sounds like an interesting story.
Mayor 1:42:20
Well, it seems kind of random. I don't have much of a trajectory, but in my own mind all my books are actually connected in some way, but they seem very separate to outside observers, I think.
Sullivan 1:58:28
Well, I mean you can see that there is a throughline. I think when I was researching your work someone used the term geomythology to sort of explain that a lot of these things that seem fantastic --Amazons and dinosaurs and --you know, ancient robots and futuristic robots...I mean, these are based on real things. So, how did you how did you stumble into... I guess... have you always been interested in history and dinosaurs and Amazons or...how did that come about?
Mayor 2:29:12
Well, I've always been interested in the sort of like... the things that should be outtakes or curious oddities and peculiarities about ancient history, and I was always thinking that especially in mythology and legends about nature or animals-- things like that--things in the natural world that there must have been some sort of core of truth or nugget of scientific and historical reality. That somehow these myths have embedded in them real observations and attempts to interpret very puzzling things that people saw in nature before the invention of science. So, what I’m really interested in are the first inklings of science, or the inklings
of scientific impulse, I guess you might say. So, all of my books do have that thread I think
of trying to find out if there are any real germs of truth or insights and perspectives
from antiquity that show that people were really paying attention and trying to explain weird
things in their culture or in their landscape.
Sullivan 3:45:07
Yeah.
Mayor 3:45:08
My first book was about, um--you just held it up--it was The First Fossil Hunters. My husband suggested that I call it Fossil Hunters in Togas, because actually pre-scientific people from all cultures who live in fossiliferous lands of course would come across gigantic or remarkable bones that were larger than any animal they knew in real life. And you don't just--you know--you plow up a thigh bone that’s as tall as you are...you don’t just toss it aside. You try to explain it. So, I was really interested in that; I couldn’t believe that no one else tried to ferret out that information. So, I worked on that and I looked at about 25 or 30 ancient Greek and Latin authors and I found at least a hundred instances where they described finding large bones that belong to creatures they couldn’t identify. And of course the attempted to identify them, so they relate them to the mythology they had about giants and dragons and monsters and sea serpents and things like that. So, I think….this really ties into all the the gamers' imaginations because we love recreating creatures that we’ve never seen, but we’ve got evidence. We’ve got traces of them so, I think there’s continuity there.
Sullivan 5:14:28
Gosh, you really put your finger on the pulse of things, which is in pop culture--Amazons, robots, dinosaurs--they’re everywhere, particularly in video games. Whether it's-- and they love to combine these things too, so…. Before the interview started I was showing you pictures of a character named Aloy from a series called Horizon,
and she's a strong Amazonian woman who fights robot dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic world.
And then you've got other games like Far Cry: Blood Dragon where you're fighting dinosaurs with lasers, and games like NieR: Automata about... you know, these Androids who have basically...they’re all that’s left in a post-apocalyptic world, so that humans are---no one knows where they went. And we are just fascinated by Amazons and dinosaurs and robots, and it keeps coming up again and again. I mean, I'm wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt, right? Like..like Amazons are a part of pop culture, and I guess... it's kind of a profound question to start off with but, what is it about dinosaurs, robots, Amazons... what is about these subjects that is just so fascinating to people? Why are we so obsessed?
Mayor 6:22:28
Well, of course it's over-determined; there are many, many reasons. It’s all very layered. But, I’ve noticed that very young children are fascinated with dinosaurs--
Sullivan 6:33:22
Yes.
Mayor 6:34:15
And they love dinosaurs and if they never get over it, they either become fantasy artists or gamers or paleontologist, right? Or, they continue to love dinosaurs. There have been many explanations for why young children love these huge creatures that are so scary. They love them because they’re really powerful, and they already are under the
thumb of their parents and so they-- they sort of want to become the allies of these other
powerful creatures. That's one pediatrician-- child psychologist’s view of why children love
dinosaurs. But, I think we all love to be.. we all love to be in awe and actually afraid of
things that are really powerful and strong that seem to overwhelm us puny humans. And, somehow if we can face them, and either interact in order to become allies with them or maybe even more common destroy them, then we feel braver and stronger ourselves, somehow. So, there’s just this fascination with things that are awesome and more powerful than we are. Dinosaurs fit that bill, and then you can also let your imagination roam, and just send it out there because we don’t really know what dinosaurs were really like. We have to use our imaginations. So, we actually have to tap into that fantasy side of ourselves to bring them to life. And then robots are very similar in that way; that they're very powerful. They seen something like us but not quite, and so the machines and... Kids are also fascinated with robots and machines. So it's a really strong impulse for us to be fascinated with machines, and a combination of dinosaurs with machines...how can you resist? It’s almost perfect! And I love all this art. I guess it's called Retro-Futurism or Future Past. Sort of imagining abandoned dinosaurs--sorry! Abandoned robots from some lost advanced civilization that once had these advanced machines, and then that you would find them or they would come to life again, or something like that. I think Naputo was one of the first kid stories about an island of abandoned robots. And now there are just so many artworks, and then video games about robots from some advanced civilization that are coming to life again. And like you say, in Horizon... I watched a 25 minute clip of Horizon, and I just loved it; it was really cool. And I love her name; Aloy. It means combining metals to make a machine resistant to corrosion and stronger than it would be otherwise, so.... Her name is really cool, too.
Sullivan 9:52:18
I just learned something new!
Mayor 9:53:26
And I like that Amazons all have these really cool names. So she’s a perfect Amazon. I love it.
Meghan 10:00:08
Oh, my gosh! I love that you love it. I did not know that about her name. I never gave much thought to her name. I just learned---I was today years-old when I learned that. So...I’m very excited. But what’s even more exciting is that it ties into the history part of it-- is that your work makes it clear that... you know, beings-- these over-the-top things, so... We'll start with The First Fossil Hunters ‘cause I love when we talk about these fantastic monsters and this book and I can't get enough of it, which is it all about paleontology in Greek and Roman times and how the Greeks and Romans interpreted prehistoric bones. And you make a fantastic argument that these creatures like Cyclops and Griffons-- they're not fictional. They were based on actual prehistoric bones. And so, I guess what I want to ask first is what what inspired you to make that connection, and then can you...can you tell the audience what these Cyclops and these Griffons possibly really were because it's really a fascinating story.
Mayor 10:57:12
Well, I got interested in what pre-scientific people might have thought about finding fossils. I grew up in South Dakota where there were lots of dinosaur fossils, and so I was very aware of fossils that would be found in the ground along with rocks. And I always wondered what Native Americans thought about them as well. So, when I went to Greece for the first time, I went to an island called Samos and I heard that there was a fossil museum above the post office, and I really wanted to see this. So, we went to the center of the island on motorbikes and I got to see this room of above the post office in this tiny Greek village that had these gigantic bones. They had thigh bones six feet long, and huge skulls... And they had all been found on that island. And I learned that these kind of fossils were found throughout mainland Greece and all the islands and on the western part of what is now Turkey. And over in the stairwell I saw another thigh bone covered with red dirt. And I said, "Well, what’s that?" "Oh, a farmer just plowed that up on the island, and he just brought it to a museum." And that's when it hit me. Well, if farmers today are plowing these up, people in antiquity did, too! And why hasn’t anyone ever studied that? So, I made it my mission to try to find out whether the ancient Greeks and Romans talked about finding giant bones, and they did. It turns out that they did. As I said, I found out about a hundred different instances in which they described finding remarkable bones, or teeth, or claws, and they measured them. They even
measured the skull capacity with amphoras of water to see how much water they would hold, and they tried to interpret these. And they displayed them in temples as the remains of Giants. They believed that Giants once lived in Greece before puny, present day human beings appeared there. They also believed that all the ancient heroes like like Heracles, Achilles, Odysseus-- they thought that all of those great heroes from the Golden Age of myth were about three times the size of a human beings. Everything was bigger and better! And so they would display these bones either as relics of giant heroes or monsters from mythology. And it was really interesting to me that no one had bothered to gather all that information to show that people really did pay attention to these things and used their best rational brains to try and account for them. And of course, they weren’t wrong! Giant creatures did live in Greece, before puny, present day humans were there.
Sullivan 14:11:05
Right. And you talk about in your book. I love where you talk about the search for the Griffon, which isn't even technically Greek, but the Greeks and Romans had contacts as far as parts of Central Asia, and that you found out that the Griffon may actually be a specific dinosaur, which I thought was interesting.
Mayor 14:28:09
Like all good monsters though it comes through many translations. So, it often gets-- that kind of information passed along like that gets garbled. But we know that the Greeks found out about the creature they called the Griffon, which had four legs, was about the size of a wolf, and strangest of all, it had four legs but it had a head like a Raptor with a beak. And the Greeks first found out about this creature from early travelers that went out on the Silk Route toward Asia--toward Mongolia. And they brought back stories of these fierce creatures with four legs and a beak that guarded the deposits of gold that the Scythian nomads-- the people-- of the nomadic people of Central Asia and the Steppes--they had lots of gold. They were known for their just fabulous treasures of gold. And the Greeks had no idea where they got this. So, you can imagine that the nomads might have made up this story to keep people away from their deposits of gold, because as you go to the foothills or the mountains to get the gold, you would have to pass through desert areas where there are very plentiful fossil remains of dinosaurs--various dinosaurs. Some of them...Protoceratops, and others called Psittacosaurus have four legs and beaks, and they made their nests on the ground, and laid their eggs on the ground, and some of these areas are vast nesting grounds. And I've talked to paleontologists who said you cannot walk through this area without coming across beautifully articulated dinosaur skeletons. Some of them are the most exquisitely preserved dinosaur fossils in the world. There are some in a standing position, and they erode out...the beak comes out first, and then the rest of the body. So, you can imagine that people made stories about these fantastic creatures that they saw that seemed to be a combination of mammals and birds. Which is how we think of dinosaurs today, too. So, that the insights are... early insights and first inklings are right there.
Sullivan 16:49:24
Yeah, it sort of came full circle, didn’t it? That we’re kind of rediscovering now that some dinosaurs had feathers.
Mayor 16:56:04
That’s right, and in fact the ancient Greeks and Romans tired to imagine what these creatures must have looked like and how they behaved, and they did know-- that they said they made nests on the ground. In fact, the dinosaurs made their nest on the ground, and that they laid their eggs, and sometimes the eggs were stone eggs. You could find stone eggs. And of course, they had petrified, so they are stony. And they also-- some artists and writers imagined that Griffons had feathers, others thought they had scales, others thought they had fur. So, they also tried to speculate on what they looked like. And now we know that they did have scales and features.
Sullivan 17:37:26
Yeah. So, they were right! The ancients were way ahead of us! And I like that you include pictures of a...So for the idea of a Cyclops--I'll put in some b-roll so people can see this a little more clearly but, you said Cyclops may have been inspired by mammoth bones and that if you stand a mammoth--you know, on its hind legs... I mean, this is the stuff of nightmares. I mean, no wonder they thought that Cyclops may have been a real thing. If you're coming across these scary bones in Italy and Sicily and you were like “What was this thing?” and you've never seen an elephant until Alexander the Great...you don't know!
Mayor 18:15:12
Yes! That’s right. And so, if you go to a museum of natural history and stand in front of a mammoth or mastodon skeleton or even a modern elephant skeleton, there's a large hole in the in the center of the forehead. The eye sockets are very small on the side; you wouldn't even notice that. What you’d noticed is that big hole in the front, and you might naturally imagine that that’s the eye socket-- a single eye socket. So, that idea was first put for by an Austrian paleontologist in about 1914. It wasn't really taken up, but delving into the history of early paleontology I discovered that he speculated that ancient sailors found prehistoric fossil elephant skulls in caves. They’re very common in the Greek Islands and Aegean and the Mediterranean. And sailors would find these caves with this gigantic skull with a single eye socket, and then scattered bones all around, and they would imagine a large one-eyed ogre with cannibalistic tendencies.
Sullivan 19:34:23
Yeah. And I can see why, and I can also see why if you come across these giant bones that look human, you might think that these are the heroes of old. Because one thing that I love about The First Fossil Hunters is that you answer a question I’ve had forever reading ancient authors like Herodous. Which is, you have...you know, all these ancient Greeks looking for the heroes’ bones. You know, their favorite heroes and their bones. And they would go to very specific places and get very specific bones, and they would have pomp and circumstance bringing these bones back. And if you don't know any better, you think: what a bunch of gullible Greeks! Like, who would actually believe this? But these were these were probably giant mammoth bones, or giant prehistoric mammals or dinosaurs that they were dealing with. So, to them it was...it was very real.
Mayor 20:25:26
Yes, and of course Greece and the whole Aegean area is subject to earthquakes, so the bones are not articulated like the ones in Central Asia. And there are no dinosaurs in that area. They’re all prehistoric mammals. So, very large, early mammals like mastodons and mammoths and giant rhinoceroses, and things like that...that they were finding the bones of. But they were jumbled and scattered, and some of them are crumbled. So, what you usually find are the most durable and largest bones like a shoulder blade or a thigh bone. And a thigh bone of a mammoth is about three times the size of a human thigh bone. I know human anatomy very well, and I find it interesting that they thought their ancient heroes were three times the size of puny humans of today. And of course, mammal bones all have the same morphology; they look the same. A mammoth thigh bone looks exactly like a human thigh bone, but three times as big.
Sullivan 21:33:29
Yeah, you know what’s interesting though about hero worship in ancient Greece-is, uh...even today we think of our super heroes as super-powered: they’re bigger, they're stronger, they’re faster...but in modern times they tend to be on the side of moral righteousness and defending the good and the weak, and they stand for justice
and... I can't help but notice that in ancient Greece that was not the case. That a lot of these
heroes would...you know, they were pouty and sulky and indiscriminately killed-- cough Achilles, cough-- and have...you know, you’ve got wily Odysseus and all of these heroes who were...they really weren't so nice, and they would use...And just to bring up another book that you wrote -- Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs, which is all about ancient biological warfare and tactics. And you have a whole chapter dedicated to heroes like Herakles and Achilles and Odysseus...I mean, they were not ashamed to use underhanded tactics and unconventional warfare. And I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit about their methods, and how is it that...like, what defined an ancient Greek hero? Because they weren’t morally that great.
Mayor 22:48:01
No, that’s very interesting. They’re flawed. You could say that they’re superhuman and their flaws are super, too. I mean they caused a lot of death and mayhem and destruction. All of these heroes. The Greeks of course saw them as well-rounded human beings with tragic flaws, and of course the goal of any ancient Greek hero-- whether living or mythological--is to die honorably in face-to-face combat. And if you go to the myths, not one of the ancient heroes dies in that heroic manner. They’re all ignominious deaths.
Sullivan 23:33:27
They really do!
Mayor 23:35:17
Odysseus was stabbed by a son that he was estranged from. Stabbed accidentally with a spear made with the ray from a stingray--with the point from a stingray. And Achilles was killed by an arrow that hit him in the back of the heel; a poisoned arrow. And we know that Achilles poisoned his own arrows and spears, because Odysseus’ son tripped against Achilles’ spear on the way to the Trojan War and received a suppurating, unhealing wound because it was poisoned, and... Homer tells us that Odysseus goes to a special place in Greece to find poison plants to put on his arrows. So, we have all these unconventional biological weapons used by ancient heroes and this is...you know, these stories were written almost 3,000 years ago. People thought that biological and chemical weapons were modern inventions because they believed that you had to have a scientific understanding of toxicology and pathological plants, and how the toxins worked. But you don’t. All you have to do is experiment and then be underhanded enough to resort to those weapons, so, um….Even biological and chemical weapons go all the way back to Greek mythology.
Sullivan 25:12:26
What do you think was the most insidious weapon that the ancient Greeks and Romans and ancient people came up with, because they had some nasty things!
Mayor 25:21:10
You know, my favorite has got to be the grenades filled with live scorpions.
Sullivan 25:26:23
Uuuugh. Scorpion bombs, yes. I was re-reading that passage over the weekend, and I was just like “Ugh, that just sounds like a nightmare.”
Mayor 25:35:09
It would be a nightmare, but...it’s a really interesting point. These were used against the Romans at the fortress of Hatra which was on the Spice Route. It’s...you can go and see the ruins today if you dare to go to Iraq. They’re near Mosul, where Bush's troops were looking for weapons of mass destruction.
Sullivan 25:56:28
That's ironic.
Mayor 25:58:18
Back in the 2nd century AD the people of that fortress went out into the desert and packed terracotta pots filled with deathstalker scorpions--alive--and then sealed the pots and waited until the Romans put their ladders up and began climbing the walls and just throw the pots down on them and then they smashed against the Roman armor.And the point--as you bring up-- is the insidious, nefarious horrible idea; nightmarish idea... that's one of the points of biological and chemical weapons is that you..is the psychological effect. It doesn't even matter if the scorpions stung anyone. Just the idea that these pots are breaking on you and that scorpions are crawling out…
Sullivan 26:45:08
Yeah, that’s just terrifying to even think about. You know, you’re right if they were lucky enough not to get stung, they probably panicked. I know I would.
Mayor 26:53:12
Yeah. They did. They withdraw their siege, and Romans don’t usually do
that. They usually stick around.
Sullivan 26:58:04
But even they had their threshold! They were like, “Nope! Nope! Nope!”That is kind of amazing. And what’s also amazing is...you know, we sort of sanitize these Greek heroes, today. I think the only piece of media that doesn’t sanitize these Greek heroes and make them heroic is a series called God of War, where you have this very angry Spartan named Kratos who uses unconventional weapons and warfare to bring down the Greek pantheon, which he blames for the murder of his family. And he’s not meant to be likable, and I think sometimes we forget that a lot of these Greek heroes...it wasn’t about….what made them heroic wasn’t that they were necessarily nice. I feel like that didn’t sort of….that self-sacrificing element didn’t come in until...I don’t know if it’s Leonidas and his 300 and their self-sacrifice is what sort of turned the tide, but...these heroes have a different definition of what made them heroic.
Mayor 27:53:22
That’s right. What made them heroic is that they were brave and courageous, and their goal was to die honorably in battle. They’re not necessarily good human beings. I mean, even Herakles--he killed members of his family...he did all sorts of what we could call unheroic acts. And Achilles, of course, he won't give up his slave woman--captive of war. And Odysseus is the one who’s poisoning his arrows, and even the king of the land where he goes to get the poison plants says "This is just really underhanded. This isn’t a very noble weapon." And yet, he’s one of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology. But the Greeks knew this, and these heroes also had tragedies written about them because they’re flawed and they have all the character-logical problems. I don’t think the idea that the self-sacrificing hero came into most people’s minds in Europe until after the Middle Ages and Christianity. That’s when we get these knights who are fighting dragons and die heroically.
Sullivan 29:19:02
Oh, that’s really interesting. But what’s even more interesting is that you have all these heroes, and yet almost none of them are women. That women in ancient Greece were always kind of being the ones who needed rescuing or they were kind of always the bad guys. If you look at Clytemnestra, and you look at her sister Helen of Sparta--Helen of Troy, and you look at Medea...Even in real life they were not many women warriors, but there was one woman-- queen of Halicarnassus, Artemisia who was the first Naval commander in history, and the Greeks put a bounty on her head because they were like...Nah...no! No! Women can’t fight!
Mayor 29:57:17
No, Greek men had a problem with strong, independent women. They kept their own women pretty restricted. A proper Greek wife and daughter and sisters and mothers….all were expected to stay at home and mind children and….weave. And I think all these myths that you just mentioned about the strong, independent women; they’re very frightening. And you can talk about Medusa in that way, too. But, um….So they had a problem with that, but they’re also fascinated with the idea of strong, independent women, as long as they’re not Greek. So, all these myths about Amazons: they’re fierce, female warriors from foreign lands, and so...They love those stories! The fact that we have over 200 names that have survived from antiquity of amazon warriors shows how wildly popular these stories were. Everyone must have known hundreds of these stories by heart. Or, they were familiar with them. So, they had this sort of ambivalent push, pull fear, awe, respect and desire for those strong, warrior women. And we were just talking about how the Greek heroes...none of them die heroically in face-to-face battle. Every single Amazon that we hear about achieves that heroic goal; no Amazon ever dies of old age! Some Greek heroes did. I mean, Jason of Jason and the Argonauts-- he died an old man. He was taking a nap next to his rotting ship the Argo, and a timber fell from the ship and killed him. Theseus, the founder of Athens-- he died an old man. So, no Amazon ever died of old age; they always died in battle.
Sullivan 31:54:11
That’s so ironic that men project this fantasy on these women. They’re terrified but they’re fascinated, and you wrote a book that explains that the Amazons were not fictional, that they were in fact based on real women warriors from Central Asia and the nomadic steppes.
Mayor 32:13:07
Yes. We have all these myths, but thanks now to archaeology--I would say fairly recent and spectacular archaeological finds in the area around the Black Sea, and then extending all the way to Mongolia and even China-- there really were warrior women in nomadic culture that stretched from the Black Sea all the way to the Great Wall of China. In fact, the Great Wall of China was built to keep these people out. To protect China from these fierce, warlike people where the women and the men actually went to battle together.And we now know that the Greeks would have met some of these Scythians as they began exploring around the Black Sea area. And thanks to the archaeology we now know that the myths--once thought to be pure fantasy, or even propaganda to try and control Greek women-- actually contains accurate details about the steppe nomads’ lifestyle. What kind of clothing they wore, what kind of equipment...and the weapons that they used. In Greek vase paintings you can see that the Greek artists began to make them more and more historically and culturally accurate in their weapons, and show them on horseback using bows and arrows and spears and battle-axes. It just becomes more and more accurate the more they know about these women.
Sullivan 33:48:23
Yeah, it's really interesting: that dichotomy of a strong, independent women, but they’re also to be feared and you send heroes after them...And yet, it's the women who have to take care of so many things for men and they don’t get credit. So, we were just talking about Jason who...you know, he dies a lonely old man. And he gets in real trouble because he abandons his wife Medea, which may not not have been the smartest thing; he already knew that she was capable of some pretty nefarious things, herself. You know, and it’s Medea who helps the Argonauts on a lot of their adventures, and she's the one who sort of brings down--you know, kind of sliding to our next subject about robots and AI which is so fascinating. And she's the one who figures out how to bring down the great robot of Crete, Talos. And she's the one who figures it out and she's sort of shunned by the ancient Greeks, but if it weren't for her, I mean... the Argonauts would have been in real trouble against this automaton. It’s crazy!
Mayor 34:47:19
It’s interesting. Medea of course is not Greek. She's from the exotic landsof the East. She's from that area that would now be the Republic of Georgia, so...across the Black Sea. And you're right: Jason and the Argonauts are...they''re just sort of are passive and clueless throughout that epic. And she’s the one who figures everything out, and saves their lives many times over. I think of her as sort of a techno wizard. I mean, she figures out how to destroy this giant robot called Talos, a bronze man who is he is half machine, half human. Mostly machine. He’s made of bronze, but he does fit our modern definition of a robot. Because he’s self-moving, he has internal workings, and he has a power source, and that's a definition of a robot today. His inner workings are described as a single artery, or vein or conduit that goes from his head down to his toes, and the power source pulsates in that tube, which the word they use for it in antiquity is vein. So, they use of biological word for it, but he is a machine. And what is the power source? It’s Ichor! And Ichor is the life source of the gods. It’s what makes them immortal. It’s this mysterious life fluid of the gods. And that’s his power source. And his whole vivasystem --if you want to call it that--is sealed with a bronze bolt on his ankle. Well, Medea knows this, so she says “Well, they say he might be immortal. He’s got Ichor. But if we remove the bolt, it’ll all bleed out, and we can destroy him.” So, she somehow convinces Talos that she can make him immortal. He doesn't realize his own nature; he doesn't know that he's immortal. So he agrees to this, and that's kind of a human aspect of Talos. That this sort of AI robot would make a decision on his own. That is not expected by the people--who by the person who made him or the person who is deploying him.I kind of see him as a sympathetic character. Do you agree that Talos is a sympathetic character because of those human attributes that he has?Yes, and he wants to be immortal and invulnerable. And the vase paintings that show Jason and Medea using a tool to remove the bolt on his ankle….in those vase paintings Talos is very humanized. And there’s one vase painting that shows him falling backwards, and his eyes are rolling back, and there is actually a tear that is dripping from his eye, so we know that...As you say, the Greeks felt sympathy for him. After all, he’s just killed for doing his job, right? He’s supposed to protect the island of Crete from invaders. And Jason and the Argonauts are the invaders. So, it’s a complex story.
Sullivan 38:10:25
It is a complex story, and it does...It sort of combines the strong woman with robots and heroes who are a little bit complex themselves. Their past and their futures are kind of messy.
Mayor 38:21:26
That’s right. That’s right. They’re um...And I think that’s why they have an enduring appeal today, and that's why I think the best games are probably the most complex. So that you have layers of emotions and reactions to what's happening, and with the characters.
Sullivan 38:39:24
Yeah, there’s a series called NieR that is very much about the future of androids and robots and a post- apocalyptic world. And...you know, your characters--your heroes do some kind of unsavory things. And you begin to wonder, “Am I really the hero, here? Am I the bad guy?” You start having more sympathy for the robots and shades and everything that’s supposed to be the villains. And somewhere along the way it’s in the back of your mind, like…”Am I on the right side of history?” And you’re not so sure with a lot of these games. It’s like Kratos in God of War: “Am I the baddie? I think I’m the baddie!” You’re not entirely sure; there’s not a whole lot of sympathetic characters. But I like that Greek mythology and Greek history sort of explores the complexity of human nature, whether it’s...you know, robots or humans.
Mayor 39:29:19
That’s right, yes. Yes, I….I approve! I think that’s great.
Sullivan 29:36:18
So, I guess to wrap up...you know, we do have this obsession with robots, and Amazons and dinosaurs, but a lot of our stories feel like cautionary tales. With...there’s that line in Jurassic Park where "Your scientists are so busy trying to figure out if they could, they didn't stop to think that they should." Are we going in the right direction? Do you think when it comes to technology in terms of smart AI, and cloning, and biology? Or, are we... is there any upside to that, or are we going down a dangerous path, do you think? It's kind of a profound question, but I'm curious to know your thoughts about where we're heading.
Mayor 40:14:16
It’s a really profound question that you’d have to ask some philosophers, especially philosophers of AI ethics. But, I do notice that in the mythology of...in Greek mythology about automatons and artificial life, a lot of those doubts and qualms are invented in early mythology. And even Sophocles, the great playwright, in one of his tragedies talks about how human beings just have this magnificent creativity and ingenuity and inventiveness and Innovation. And he warns that it can be used for wonderful things, but it also could be used for evil. So, this idea of advanced technology being only good, is a course not true. We can all think of all the bad things that can be done with AI and surveillance, and things like this. They’re always presented to us as beneficial but... even we non-technological people can figure out and foresee the dangers to us. And so, I think trying to create artificial life or imitate nature or even improve on it or even surpass it...it contains some dangers.
Sullivan 41:42:23
Right. Actually, let’s end on a happy note. Question about Wonder Woman: thoughts about Wonder Woman. Is she a good Amazon? We talked about that Amazons aren't actually Greek, but aside from that do you like Wonder Woman? Do you feel that she's a good representation of a strong warrior woman?
Mayor 42:01:05
I like the fact that Wonder Woman is always fighting for truth and justice in the same way that Superman does. So, I do like Wonder Woman. But, I especially like in the first Wonder Woman movie--the first third of the movie where it shows her training --or watching the Amazons of Themyscira training. And the fact that the directors chose real athletes instead of just actors--
Sullivan 42:37:29
Right. Super models.
Mayor 42:39:17
Super models or extras. She chose women who were skilled and strong; every color, every size, every age. That was really-- I thought really optimistic and heartening. Andeveryone I know said, “We want more of those Amazons!" So, I hope there will be some more movies that feature Wonder Woman with real Amazons.
Sullivan 43:07:07
I think it’s awesome, and I think that’s a great place to sort of end our interview. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about robots and dinosaurs and Amazons and video games and pop culture. I mean, I think it’s a fun subject but it’s educational as well, and that’s exactly the goal of History N’ Games, is to entertain as well as educate. So, thank you!
Mayor 43:27:08
Thank you.