Vlad the Impaler 

Heeeeeeeeyy gay transylvanian here! I’m excited listening this on Spotify just to make it clear his name is Vlad Țepeș (which is pronounced as th-e-pesh) also son of Dracul is not son of dragon, Dracul means the Devil

It's funny that he was such a big christian he waged war against the ottomans from spreading into europe. And now he's considered a vampire and an enemy of christianity.

Best quote of the episode: Empathy wasn't invented until we had Tiktok. Close runner up: I'm glad he's dead because he'd be super old.

The best part of this is Caelen describing how they just learned the awfulness of impaling and Mandy and Hoot are both just totally chill and like "yeah, I totally knew that, isn't that wild? Yeah, that's how that was."

Hello? Yes, I'd like to order ten "Forest of the impaled" tote bags please?

I read a thing about how there's a common myth in many cultures called the King Under The Mountain, which is basically that there's some badass hero king from history who is especially connected to helping the nation/tribe/clan whatever. He's long dead but he's going to come back to save everyone when the people need him most. King Arthur is one example, and so is Vlad. Although skimming the wiki on Wallachia, they probably could have used his return dozens of times. Don't know what he's waiting for, but nobody can accuse him of being soft on crime.

I'm just halfway through this, but as a Romanian, this is funny to listen to! Especially since I learned about a lot of this in school (and a lot of other atrocities - you don't wanna know what they did to leaders of serf rebellions in my country, impaling is nothing, and reading that at like 12 is ooh - there was a lot of this in public squares: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel). In school I was taught that Vlad did all this bullshit because of marketing, basically, to frighten the enemies. When it comes to the Ottoman empire, as school children we dealt with a bunch of christian propaganda about how the Ottoman empire wanted to get us to renounce our faith, blabla, which is crap - at the same time, though, the Ottomans tried to do a colonialism on the states that form Romania now for like centuries, and succeeded for periods of time, Valahia was definitely a Turkish province for a few spells, and the getting the people to switch religions is a very classic colonial tool. (ofc, because of how that has been taught in school for decades has lead to massive islamophobia urgh). But basically yeah, Vlad did atrocities, the Ottomans did atrocities and they were all still dehumanizing common people. Other sort of tidbits that maybe nobody else would find interesting but I'll put them here, brought to you by my very adhd urge to share: -I also can't whistle, and it's nice to hear from other people who can't, but there's a Romanian movie called 'If I want to whistle, I whistle', and I hate it! -in Greek, Draco means dragon (on the island of Evia there are some ruins called dracospita, which means dragon houses, which I visited and are cool!), however in Romanian the word 'drac' means devil/demon. -boier does mean noble or person with title & land/ feudal lord and it's pronounced like let's say boyer, with emphasis on the e, that second syllable sounds like 'heir'. -in Romanian 'ch' is pronounced like the h in 'house', so Wallachia is actually Valahia with en emphasis on the final syllable again (on the i).

Hoots, it's been speculated that the traumas we assume they didn't care about because they knew it would happen changed how people in the middle ages were. Like, infant mortality was horrendous, and that has affects on mental health even though it's a known thing, like how going to war is known to be traumatising but still, traumatised

Romanian here. Believe me, his cousin, Stephen the Great, prince of Moldova was much more brutal, he instituted a reign of terror on the boyars of his own principate that lasted for 47 years, until he finally died of natural causes. It was the only way to keep the nobility in check in the Romanian Principates at that time, cause political assasinations and placing their own candaites on the throne was a common occurence. It was definitely better to be feared than loved.

I've been obsessed with Dracula since I was a kid! I love that you decided to do an episode about him! And since you mentioned Elizabeth Bathory, it is my personal suspicion that she was framed. Still a terrible person, but not bathing in blood terrible.

That song is so freaking catchy, I love it. I know I've told y'all before, but I sing along every time.

49:14 the correction from constantinople to istanbul healed my soul. thank you mandy and hoots! sincerely, a turkish trans guy

The Blindboy Podcast has a great episode about Bram Stoker's Dracula called "Paddy Dracula" talking about Bram Stoker's possible influences (especially in terms of Irish history) if you're interested #notspon

Impalation also sounds like a hair removal method.

I'm really struggling on the mental image of the boob/baby impalement. Going to the quote did not help.

I HAVE HAD A DAY AND I AM KEEN FOR THIS STAKING

there are a lot of very funny bits in this episode but "empathy wasn't invented until Tik-Tok" is ICONIC

This might be a stretch, but for some reason my brainmeats latched on to Caelan's comment about "dragging it out too long," so maybe some sort of long-sleeve with a bespoke RTD logo somewhere and "WHOOOOOORRRR" printed down the sleeve but obviously cut off before the E?

Wow you guys are digging extra deep to exhume someone this time!

The way i said : "I wish" when Hoots said Quebec should still be considered part of France. And Caelen saying "They wish" in unison. Yes we do!

"I'm mainly hoots"

I kind of want to summon Vlad... I hope he lets me brush his mustache and hair. I now have the information that I do not know how to whistle. Lol amazing spooky pick for Halloween Cealan!

HALLOWEEN RESPECT THE DEAD LETS GGOOOOOooooooo!! 🎃🎃🎃 A few months ago I watched the ExtraCredits' videos on Vlad the Impaler. So i already knew a lot about our Deady, but its still great to hear y'all make silly jokes about him. ♥

another point towards fictional dracula being based on the real dracula--they both had fantastic mustaches

Just have to wonder how far back it has to be before horrific shit becomes just a statistic.

Not y'all trying to whistle!!😂

Happy Halloween beasties! (this time the autocorrect stays)

I was cry laughing at the whistling part

Dracul , the wild east medieval Mad Max

The whistling made my gfs bird go crazy

Um merch when?

Excuse you.

Honestly, I thought Vlad The Impaler was just a Kasabian song. I guess I learned something today.