Ivan the Terrible with Eli Yudin

Summary

This Guy Sucked — Ivan the Terrible with Eli Yudin
Podcast: This Guy Sucked
Host: Dr. Claire Aubin
Guest: Eli Yudin
Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode kicks off with a playful yet in-depth dive into the life, reign, and legacy of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV), one of history’s most infamous rulers. Host Dr. Claire Aubin — historian, writer, and self-proclaimed 'certified hater' — guides comedian and guest Eli Yudin (who arrives delightfully underinformed about Russian history) through the wild, often brutal, and always complicated story of Russia’s first tsar. The tone is equal parts irreverent and insightful, blending genuine historical expertise with wicked humor and accessible analogies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introductions and Format

• Claire reveals this is a "special" episode where she takes on the expert role, with Eli as the curious layperson.
• Banter about comedy, Twitter deep cuts, and art school history gaps establishes lighthearted energy and highlights Eli’s lack of Russian history knowledge (04:20–07:00).

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Ivan the Terrible: Name, Reputation, and Misconceptions

• Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) ruled from 1530–1584.

• His nickname "the Terrible" is a translation of “Grozny”, which means “fearsome” or “awe-inspiring” — not simply “bad” as in English (24:02).

  • Claire (24:22): “Grozny does not mean bad. It means scary... basically it's like fearsome.”

• Russian vs. Western Memory:

  • In Russia, Ivan’s reputation is mixed or even positive — seen as a builder of state power who stood up to the nobility, frequently “rehabilitated” by nationalist movements and leaders such as Stalin and Putin (16:18).
    • “A lot of Russians see him as this sort of strong, uncompromising leader who expands Russians territory, stood up to the nobility.” (17:08)
  • In the West, he’s remembered as a cruel, mad king, often lumped with iconic “evil” rulers like Vlad the Impaler (20:39).
  • Direct translation differences fuel much of this division.

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Ivan’s Early Life and Pathology

• Born 1530 near Moscow; son of Grand Prince Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya.
• Became de facto ruler at age 3 after his father’s death, though real power managed by scheming boyars (nobles/aristocrats). Mother (regent) was likely poisoned when Ivan was 8 (27:01–27:58).
• Boyars ruled in his stead, likely poisoned his mom. Seeds planted for Ivan’s lifelong paranoia and hatred of the nobility (29:29).
  • Eli (28:48): “Not a great job to be one of the advisors to a child king, because they never grow up and go, ‘I love what you did.’ They always go, ‘I’m going to have you all poisoned and thrown in a river.’”
• Ivan’s childhood marked by trauma, political manipulation, suspected animal cruelty (the “McDonald triad” of sociopathy).

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Ascension and Reform (“Ivan the Not So Bad” Years)

• Crowned first Tsar of All Russia in 1547, aged 16 (31:13).
• Early reign (1547–1560) marked by reforms:
  • Legal modernization
  • Weakening boyars’ power
  • Military overhaul
  • Expansion into Kazan and Astrakhan (removing Mongol influence)
• Married Anastasia Romanovna — “the only person keeping him together,” his great love (32:15).
  • Claire (32:17): “He’s like a big wife guy, basically. And we think that she’s one of the few people who can really reckon with his insanity...”

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Downfall: Paranoia, Brutality, and the Spiral

• Trigger Event: The death (possible poisoning) of Anastasia in 1560. Ivan is convinced the boyars are to blame (35:05).
• Advisor Andrei Kurbsky defects to Lithuania — a perceived betrayal.
• Ivan’s grief solidifies into rage and increasing paranoia.

The Oprichnina and the Terror

• Creates the aprichnina in 1565 — a personal domain and the oprichniki secret police (39:11).
  • Purges, executions, boyar persecution, and generalized terror across Russia
  • Massacre of Novgorod (1570): Ivan orders the slaughter of tens of thousands of his own civilians, on scant suspicion of treason (40:56).
    • Claire (42:02): “This stuff he does is really incredibly awful... less common to do it to people that are your own civilians.”
• Consecutive wives: Seven wives, with several likely poisoned, others forced into convents — “poisoned, poisoned, poisoned, convent, convent, convent... survive” (38:05; 68:38).
  • Eli proposes the Henry VIII–style mnemonic for Ivan's spouses.

Family Tragedy and Legacy

• Ivan kills his (adult) heir, Ivan Ivanovich, in a rage (1581), following a violent incident involving his pregnant daughter-in-law (46:12–48:34).
• Death of his favored son leads to succession catastrophe:
  • Second son is unfit to rule
  • Third son, Dmitri, dies mysteriously at age 9 (likely murdered), leading to the “Time of Troubles” — decades of chaos and civil war (61:26, 69:18).
  • Phenomenon of “False Dmitris” — impostors claiming to be the dead tsarevich and temporarily seizing power (62:37-65:41).

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Ivan’s Decline and Death

• Suffered severe physical decline (degenerated joints, spine), possibly due to chronic illness, possible syphilis (treated with mercury, which was later found in his remains) or poisoning (54:35–59:30).
  • Mercury poisoning could explain psychological deterioration and erratic behavior.
• Died in 1584, apparently of a stroke during a chess game, but poisoning remains a possibility (50:05; 54:35).

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Broader Reflections

• Eli marvels at the “classic king arc” — childhood trauma, early promise, followed by catastrophic personal losses, paranoia, and tyranny (72:01).
• Patterns of absolute power leading to brutal excess, not unique to Russia or Ivan.
• Claire emphasizes that despite complex personal circumstances, Ivan’s reign included brutality “even by 16th century standards,” without lasting positive legacy (61:07).
• Long-term impact: Ivan’s reign directly precipitated the “Time of Troubles,” deepening Russia’s tradition of strongman rulers and cyclic instability (69:18).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Ivan’s Nickname and National Memory

• Claire (24:22): “Grozny does not mean bad. It means scary… basically it’s like fearsome.”
• Eli (26:00): "Ivan and fearsome has a much more... that tracks... it's not bad. It's fearsome… same way a huge wolf is fearsome, but kind of cool. You want your wolf to be fearsome, you just don't want to deal with it."

On the Downfall Blueprint

• Eli (28:48): “It's also not a great job to be the advisor to a child king — they never grow up and go, ‘I love what you did.’ They always grow up and go, ‘I'm going to have you all poisoned and thrown in a river.’”

On the Oprichniki

• Eli (39:51): "Secret police never come out and go, ‘we've caught the killer!’ Usually bad stuff they're doing in secret."

On How It Ends

• Claire (49:02): “He has his cousin’s entire family poisoned — paranoid they’ll try to seize the throne — and then not that long after, dies of a stroke while playing chess.”

On the Succession Chaos

• Eli (62:37): “One DNA test is all they needed. One Maury episode could have saved Russia!”

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–07:00: Introduction, Claire and Eli’s backgrounds, set-up of guest-as-learned-student
• 08:00–16:17: Ivan’s reputation, translation of “terrible,” Russian vs. Western views
• 27:01–31:13: Ivan’s tragic childhood, early paranoia, rise to power
• 33:43–35:05: Early reforms and “the good years”
• 35:05–39:11: Death of Ivan’s wife and spiral into paranoia; foundation of aprichnina and secret police
• 40:56–43:11: Massacre of Novgorod and civilian purges
• 46:12–48:34: Killing of eldest son (Ivan Ivanovich), disaster for succession
• 54:35–59:30: Ivan’s ailments, speculation on mercury and syphilis, physical/mental decline
• 61:26–67:03: Long-term legacy; death of remaining heirs; rise of “False Dmitris” and the Time of Troubles
• 68:38: Eli’s mnemonic for Ivan’s unlucky wives: “Poison, poison, poison, convent, convent, convent, survive.”
• 69:18–70:22: Discussion of Russia’s inability to “bounce back” and ongoing instability

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Final Thoughts

This episode of This Guy Sucked blends historical rigor with sharp comedic insight. Through a lively dialogue packed with anecdotes, analogies (and occasional tangents on Russian dash cams and video games), Claire and Eli deconstruct the mystique of Ivan the Terrible, examining the personal trauma, unchecked power, and lasting damage of “classical king stuff.” Anyone wanting an engaging, entertaining, and surprisingly thorough primer on Ivan IV — and why he, in so many ways, truly “sucked” — will find this episode highly rewarding.

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For further history and hateration, listen to other episodes, visit the This Guy Sucked Patreon, or check out Eli Yudin’s stand-up and podcast projects, links provided at the episode’s conclusion.

Transcript

[A]

A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description. Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show where we prove that it's never too late to have haters and you can't libel the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why. Except today is one of our special episodes where I am the person explaining a guy to someone who does not know about the guy. So I unfortunately must be the scholar. I have to be serious today. With me is writer and comedian Eli Yudin, who does not know this, but who I am a very big fan of. So I was very excited when you agreed to come on the show. I have been since I first saw you on Tablepop in 2019.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Only to subsequently discover. Now I'm talking just to you. Listeners can get fucked.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Only to subsequently discover that you are one of the minds behind one of my all time favorite Twitter accounts at Not Tilda Swinton.

[B]

Deep cut.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. In part because I used to live in Edinburgh, which is where Tilda Swinton maintains an apartment. She used to be my very not good friend, a person I know's neighbor. Sorry, really? If you're listening, she used to be the neighbor, the upstairs neighbor of someone that I know. And she used to bicycle past my work all the time. And so like I actually have like a lot of. A lot of the things you were saying on Not Tilda Swinton track.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that could have been its own Twitter account. Like Tilda Swinton is my upstairs neighbor. Just like I keep hearing, hearing snakes being dropped on the floor, constantly hissing,

[A]

you know, beyond that for listeners. Eli is the host of one of my favorite comedy podcasts, what a Time to Be Alive. I do this a lot. I say things are my favorite, but I actually do really like your show.

[B]

I'm glad.

[A]

And he has a special humble offering that just came out on YouTube. So I'm very excited to have him slash you on the show. Welcome.

[B]

I'm very excited to do it. I'm glad that I am allowed to know almost nothing. You reached out to me about doing it and I was like looking at it either they're like a scholar and I was like well, you know why I'm not that, right. I'm not like, kind of the opposite. I went to art school where, you know, I have, like, one credit in something that is about actual knowledge. Yeah, but no, it's. It's exciting. I do, like, my history knowledge is very patchy and it's from, you know, like, I've written for websites, obviously. I'd written for, like, websites that do a lot of the Kind of one cool. Like, oh, did you know about this from history? So I have a very like, like surface level and often somewhat wrong understanding of things from history, where I was like, if I'm expected to be a like, resource here, I warn you heavily against it. Like, I'm not going to know too much. And then, you know, I got to choose a guy from history. I don't know if we're broaching straight into the. The subject of the episode.

[A]

No, I was going to ask, why did you pick the guy we're talking about? So please.

[B]

Well, I threw out a couple and, you know, because I know, like, traditionally and the listeners already know this and they're going to be like, my format. No is that you do someone who is, like, generally considered to be good. And then so I was like, well, maybe funny. I threw out a couple and some of them was like, I was just trying to avoid just being like the sword guy. Just like, I'm like this. I think there's like three dudes that every dude. Every sword dude is like, these guys. These are guys are awesome or whatever. I want to know about them.

[A]

Wait, who are the awesome sword guys that you think of?

[B]

Well, not sword guys necessarily. I feel like every time I'm just like, look, I'm like a metal guy, sword guy. So it's like Vlad the Impaler. I was like, always anyone who would teach me about him. So I threw out a couple. And then the one we still want, which I thought was funny because it's like, immediately, you know, this guy sucked is Ivan the Terrible. Because my thing about Ivan the Terrible is we could talk about my lack of history knowledge and I am aware of Ivan the Terrible, and his name would suggest he's pretty bad. But I've never understood why he's so terrible. I don't know. Like, not that I've looked into it and been like, this seems fine. Just I didn't know. So I was like, well, maybe Instead of a 1am Wikipedia K hole, I'll be properly taught about his crimes, whatever he's done. Because I was going to say that the history thing, for me, because history is kind of the history thing. One of my famous not knowledges is. And this is why I think is. Like I said, I went to art school, so history was not part of that education. My high school education in history. Well, I guess sort of in middle school, which, you know, you're getting a real. It was like world history and geography was a class I took in like, eighth grade. Shout out. D.C. public Schools.

[A]

Pew, pew. Air horns.

[B]

So already we're tenuous. You know, we're using textbooks that are like. They're from Ivan the Terrible had just been around in the textbook. It's like an old manuscript tomes. But the class I was in, that was the first year that my eyesight. Like, I really needed glasses. And I never brought my glasses. I always forgot them or I refused to wear them to the point where they had multiple meetings with my parents where my teacher was like, he's got to bring his glasses. And so I think that I just had my entire world. History and geography. I just couldn't see what we were talking about. And to this day, my geography and history knowledge is God awful.

[A]

Because you never learned it again after age nine or.

[B]

It didn't come up. It didn't. Not age nine. Grade. Great. Eighth grade is not nine. That would mean I started first grade at one.

[A]

Sorry, I. Sorry. You know what? The heat we're gonna.

[B]

It's getting to me. But. So I stick my own foot in my mouth. Like, I was like, I'll stream on Twitch sometimes, you know, if you're a game person. Twitch TV, PigDog. But. And some other black plague came up, and I got. When that happened wrong by centuries. By, like, I was way off. I was just like, probably around here. And someone was like, that's not even close. And I was like, damn, it was the past. There's the past and there's now. You know, it's kind of in huge blocks in my head. But, yeah, I wanted to find out what Ivan the Terrible. I love that nickname. I love, like, king and. And ruler. Naming conventions of the past. Those guys were killing it. I don't know. I love Ivan the Terrible so much because, again, not the person. All right, don't quote me on that.

[A]

All we're saying is I love Ivan the Terrible so much.

[B]

I want to bring him back. I want to do a ritual and he should be king again. Or. Sorry, but is it like, you know, they gave a lot of specific. You know, I feel like there'd be nicknames or Someone's like, the bullheaded. Or, like, there's, like, facets. And I love when there's a guy where they were like, that guy just fucking sucked, man. We just all hated him. He sucked. Like, they. They aren't even like, you know, like, Ivan the Overconfident or, like, violent. They were just like, ivan was the worst. We all did not like him. And they carved that into stone. And for the rest of time, the first thing anyone's going to know about this guy is that he was terrible. He was just awful.

[A]

His main thing was being terrible.

[B]

Y.

[A]

There's someone we talked about recently on the show who's named, like, Steven the weak or something terrible, like something horrible like that. Kevin. Kevin the Lame.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of those where it's. They also weren't very woke back then in terms of. There are just some nicknames where it's like, okay, that doesn't define him. All right.

[A]

Yeah, calm down.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Though they were a lot of them very sick. That's another thing I've learned a lot of times.

[A]

You go back and we'll talk about that here, too, actually.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Maybe we should get into Ivan.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

Because you've mentioned his nickname a lot, and so I think we won't start there, but I will get into the sort of the terribleness of it all shortly. Is that the only thing you know about him? Like, what is the baseline we're working with here?

[B]

Truly very low baseline. Baseline in the real definition of the word. I mean, I did a Wikipedia scan, so I could at least be like. I'm basically to be like, this was a real guy. Right. I'm not, like, crazy or whatever. And then I, you know, I purposely kind of didn't go any further down because I, like, I'll learn in real time and get real reactions. So very little knowledge about him. He's Russian. I know that.

[A]

He sure is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So to be fair, when we started talking about doing this, I asked who you wanted to talk about, and you threw him out. You gave a few options, but I was like, look, I would love to talk about Ivan the Terrible, because. And I've said this before on the show a couple times, but, you know, every episode, different listenership. I started my journey. This sounds like when people have a sort of, like, LinkedIn awakening. I started my historian journey as a Russianist. So before I became what I am now, which is a sort of, like, hybrid Eastern European Americanist, I started as a Russianist. I did my undergraduate degree in Russian. I lived in Russia. That's what I thought I was gonna be doing. And since then, I basically have no opportunity to discuss Russian history ever. Essentially, the work I do now is on Eastern. Well, primarily Eastern European Nazis living in the US after the war. So, like, it moved from being Russian, a Russianist and an Eastern Europeanist over into, like, looking at immigration of Eastern Europeans to the US So it makes sense.

[B]

Just moving east over time. So, you know, eventually be starting Asia and then looping all the way back around.

[A]

You're in Alaska, then at the end of this. Yeah. So, I mean, it was. It's fun whenever I get an opportunity to, like, talk Russian history, because it is so batshit. Like, Russian history is batshit. The stuff they do is wild.

[B]

It's Russia in general. And I say this with love is batshit. And it's like, because, you know, my name is Russian, obviously. Like, my dad is Russian. Lately, he's not Russian Russian. You know, he's not, like, I don't go home, and we're not having, like,

[A]

borscht Ukrainian, by the way.

[B]

Oh, okay. All right, look. And that's a big misstep at the moment. No, but. So I'm fascinated. But even though, like, it's, you know, like, how, like, it was, like, I'm not Russian, it's like, there's adoption involved and all that. It's not a, you know, anything, but, like. And so there's a certain fascination from that. But, like, I'm just fascinated because, like you said, like, all their history is just kind of crazy. And then even. I mean, besides the current political stuff, just, like, Russia now is, like, famous for. Outside of that, like, just videos of just someone, like, climbing on a crane. And it's just like, what are you guys doing over there? Like, what is the day to day? It's just a fascinating country to me. So I'm glad to hear that it holds up that everybody. The people who know countries well and history well are like, no, Russia is crazy. Russia is just been up to some wild stuff.

[A]

Russia is crazy. The story I always tell people is the day I arrived in Moscow because I was there on, like, part of a study abroad thing.

[B]

Were you wearing a trench coat? I imagine everyone arriving in Moscow is in a trench coat. Like, you got.

[A]

No, it was February, so I was in, like, a full parka with only the sort of. What's his name? In south park with the eyes. I'm him.

[B]

Kenny. You're Kenny? Yeah.

[A]

This. This is proof that I don't know anything about south park, but that was me getting there. But my first day that I arrived, we had this, like, this guy who charge of our program basically shout out to Pasha. He lives in Ohio now. But he was like, look, I'm going to teach you how to cross the street in Russia. And we were like, what the fuck are you talking about? How to cross the street.

[B]

How to cross the street in Russia. Run.

[A]

He said, as you walk across the street, you have to turn and make direct eye contact with every driver you walk past, otherwise they will kill you. You have to remind them that you're a human being. You have to look them in the eyes.

[B]

I love the. For a while, there is again, my interface with Russia's like, live leak videos or whatever. There is a trend, I believe it was in Russia mostly of people trying to commit insurance fraud by throwing themselves on the hoods of cars. And so everybody started getting dash cams. And then there was all this dash cam footage online of someone, like, throwing themselves on the hood of a car, acting hurt, and then seeing a dash cam and just sort of like shrugging their shoulders and walking away and being like, all right, that one didn't work. We'll try it next. Red light.

[A]

Yeah. Now, for insurance reasons, I'm pretty sure. And if there's anyone Russian listening to this, I don't know how you're doing that with a vpn, but there's a

[B]

sponsor for this episode. Vpn. Listen to this episode.

[A]

We actually, literally are sponsored by NordVPN.

[B]

Use it here. Use NordVPN and hope your door doesn't get kicked.

[A]

Overthrow your government. Also. But in the. Also, listen to this. I think for insurance reasons, they have to have dash cams now. I think they must have cameras in their car now. So, like, that's why there's this proliferation of dash cam footage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Anyway, so now we understand what your frame of reference is. And whatever you think Russia is like, I can guarantee you it is worse and more insane. So, like, we'll start with that being kind of delightful. That's the baseline you actually need. So Ivan the Terrible, also known as Ivan IV Vasilyevich, I will not call him Ivan. I'll call him Ivan the rest of this. Cause I'm trying not to be too pretentious, but he's a ruler in the 16th century. He's alive from 1530 to 1584. In terms of what he is most well known for by people other than you, he's the first ruler to be Formally crowned tsar or emperor. It comes from the word Caesar of all Russia. When I write tsar, if this is helpful for anyone, I write it with the ts because that's how you would transliterate the symbol that we would use in Cyrillic. But you can also see it with a cz. Doesn't really matter. The CZ makes it clear that it comes from Caesar. Like that. That's where the word comes. He is best remembered, I think, as one of history's most infamous and violent rulers. And as you've said, his name has sort of become this sort of shorthand for kind of unhinged tyranny and tyrannical behavior.

[B]

And I love that, like, even among old kings and rulers like that, if you get famous for being violent and, like, unreasonable, you had to be going crazy with it because, you know, everybody had syphilis. And so it's like everybody was in the throes of madness most of the time.

[A]

Yeah. We will also get into that.

[B]

Oh, okay, nice.

[A]

Put a pin in that one for a second. Yeah. It's. To be known as particularly cruel in the 16th century is an achievement, I would say.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's really standout among a cohort of people who are all fucking horrible. Like, all really awful. So for him to be. For them to say sort of, ah, is especially intense is worth, I don't know, celebrating.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Something ruing. I don't know.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, he initially is. Well, I mean, maybe when we talk about what he's known for, there are several different directions one can take it. But he does expand or did expand Russia's territory very significantly in the early part of his reign. So there is a lot of territorial expansion that happens again in the early part, which is key to some of this. And then he, as predicted, descends into paranoid brutality, orchestrates mass killings of his own people, including his son and his. The heir to the throne, in a rage that is sort of TBD in terms of what was happening there.

[B]

They do love to descend into paranoid brutality. They do. That is a signature move.

[A]

And you know what? Me too, brother. And I've been there.

[B]

And I think it's got to be. Maybe it's just. It should be studied. They should do a study. And they're like, we're going to have a guy sit on a throne for a while. Because I think it's just when you say they. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the greater research community. But I feel like it just something about sitting on the throne just really makes you want to descend into paranoid Brutality. After a while, you know, you're propped up in the classic Thone prose and

[A]

going, I got to introduce you to George R.R. martin. He's got some ideas about. About this.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

But in terms of his popular memory, I think it's interesting to talk about Ivan the Terrible, because it's actually pretty complex and it depends a lot on where you are. So his memory in Russia is very different from his memory in the west or in the Western popular imagination, which I think is useful. So in Russia, I would say he has like a very mixed, often surprisingly positive reputation among everyday ordinary Russians.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I will say doesn't look super good for Russians when we think about it in those terms.

[B]

And I think it's somewhat of a pattern for Russia. I feel like I've heard multiple times that there are figures that are kind of otherwise globally derided, and then they're like, if you talk to a Russian, they're kind of like, he had some good things going for him. Look, it's not all peaches and cream, but he got some stuff done.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I think you're right about that. A lot of Russians see him as this sort of strong, uncompromising leader who expands Russians territory, stood up to the nobility. This is also going to become a key theme shortly. And he's been what I would describe as, like, rehabilitated periodically by Russian nationalist movements. Stalin, for example, really admired him, like, openly. He commissioned a. I won't say famous film, but I don't think it's that famous. A film by Eisenstein in 1944 called Ivan the Terrible. And then, and predictably, I think Putin era Russia has also had this sort of simmering rehabilitation of Ivan's image.

[B]

Not ideal fan base, but. Yeah. So they're kind of like, oh, okay,

[A]

those guys are like the Stalinists and the Putinists love this guy.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, we're getting an idea of what. Who might idolize this sort of fella.

[A]

Yeah. And one of the sort of things that people struggle, I think, to understand when they understand Russian culture. And I want to be really clear for anyone listening, at no point, any of this am I making an apology for Russian culture, having lived there. It's one of the most fucked up places I've ever been in my life. But one of the things people fail to understand is because Russia is so, so big, territorially, like, because it's so gigantic, people sort of fail to understand the obsession with a strong leadership. Like there is an obsession with. You need a leader with. With a strong hand who will, like, guide all of this space. And that becomes like a really animating force in Russian politics and has been for a long time.

[B]

That's also lovely just on its face, to think of that in such like. I'm not just be like. It's like, look, there's so much of this country. You gotta have a really strong guy

[A]

because you need a daddy. Everybody needs that.

[B]

As if you're talking about a physical reach where it's like, if he's a small guy, he won't be able to rule this whole country. He's not gonna. His legs are so short he can't get there. He's gotta be a powerful, powerful man to rule all this land.

[A]

The greatest Russian man, long armed, like the ideal man, long arm, big hands, Marfan syndrome. Almost certain.

[B]

Victor Wembanyama in charge of Russia with his great reach. And then he will descend into paranoid brutality. But you know, that's just gonna happen.

[A]

That's par for the course. Hi, it's Claire. I'm here to quickly say that this episode is free for everybody, but the next one won't be. That's because we switch off between free weeks and Patreon weeks. So if you're a fan of public history made by actual experts, consider supporting our Patreon. It's only one tier, which means everyone who subscribes gets access to the same perks across the board. Because we're not trying to get rich, we're just trying to make good history that is engaging and accessible at the same time. For the price of a fancy muffin, you'll get access to a new episode every week instead of just the bi weekly free ones. And they'll all be ad free for you. You'll also get access to the full episode archive, bonus content, early access to merch, and lots of other fun Patreon exclusives. To sweeten the deal, just head over to patreon.com thisguysucked and join the honorary haters club. Okay, so that's the sort of Russian imagination of him. They're also still being like, should we put up more statues of Ivan the Terrible here? Which is hilarious to me. But the west thinks of him the way that you basically think of him. He's a sort of like mad king, cruel guy. He often shows up in pop culture as like an example of a historical sort of monstrous guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, like, it's funny because you often hear him, like, brought up alongside someone like Vlad the Impaler, which literally happened like 10 minutes ago.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. On here, I feel like Ivan the Terrible is something like George Costanza called somebody in Seinfeld. He's like one of those. He's like, what are you? Flat? Like, Ivan the Terrible. And there, I almost mixed him off the Vlad the Impaler. So.

[A]

Well, hey. Well, I mean, because. But he's also kind of doing. When we say the Terrible, it reminds me of how Trump likes to give epithets to people. You know, where he'll be like, you know, lying Ted Cruz or Sleepy Ted. Whatever. Who's whatever.

[B]

That would be whoever's sleepy, Whoever's lying.

[A]

They're roasting, someone's lying, someone's sleepy, someone's weak or whatever. This is, like, what's happening with him, too. But he's always sort of cartoonishly evil and dramatic and intense. And I think it's worth mentioning that the first time I really remember encountering him is in one of the Civ games. I think, like, I think he's in Civ 4 or Civ V. I feel

[B]

like there has to be, like, a. Like, almost in, like, the world of, like, history study. It's like every history student loses two years of their life to Siv, like, because Civ is a famous game that just takes over your life. Were you playing as Ivan the Terrible? You're queuing him up.

[A]

I don't. I think he's someone you can fight against. Or, like, he shows up. He's one of the great people that show up. But I will say you're right about that. It's Civ and Age of Empires are the two that are going to fuck you up. As a historian, which I could talk about all day.

[B]

This isn't for the history people, which you got to put in, you know. Well, the ancient rulers were putting in the code that gives you a Shelby Cobra with machine guns, and then you just run over every empire. Also, Civ, one of the famous, like, famous things about Civ, I think this is, like, a thing where. I don't know if it's completely been explained away, but there's always a thing with Civ where Gandhi and Civ, apparently, they tried to make his peaceful. Like, they'd turned his aggression rating so far down that it would loop back around, like, overflow. And so he would always have nukes immediately. Gandhi would just immediately make nukes, and everyone's like, what are you doing, Gandhi? No. Why?

[A]

I will add to this Civ conversation before we get back on the Ivan the Terrible path. Two years ago, I was in a really. What I would Describe as a flop era of my life where I had no job, basically. My life was kind of terrible. I was. I think I had just finished adjuncting and a job. The, like, greatest job listing I've ever seen as a historian appeared, which is that Civ for Access was hiring a historian for. For Civ. And I was like, the gods have brought this to me. It's for me. And I applied to it, obviously. And I have a lot of friends who work in video games. Like, I have a lot of friends who work in video games because I was in Edinburgh and like, rock stars there and stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I applied for it and I was like. Like, this was meant to be. Did I ever hear anything back? No. Do a lot of their developers now listen to this podcast and hopefully feel shame. Yes.

[B]

Correct it. Correct it. And then bring me into work on a game that has nothing to do with history. So I don't. Something very low stakes. Rockstar table tennis 2. Get me in on that. I don't know.

[A]

As a 20th century Americanist, I think civilization, which is often about ancient people and nobody that I would be even remotely familiar with should hire me to make their games for them.

[B]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, it's a great. That's the dream, right? Is to get brought in as like the Norse mythology consultant on, like, God of War, and then just be like, they're like, how would you behead Jormungandr? And it's like, oh, man, I can talk about this for two days. Let's get into it.

[A]

Let's really think about it. Yeah, but okay, to get back to that.

[B]

Yeah, history.

[A]

That's where I first kind of encountered him. But I also thought that the Terrible meant the same thing that you think that it means when we're talking about this. And it turns out we were both wrong. And now I obviously know this because of speaking Russian, but at the time did not. Ivan the Terrible in Russian is typically translated as Ivan Grozny in Russian. Grozny does not mean bad.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

It means scary.

[B]

It's even better. So it's like Ivan the Frightening.

[A]

Yeah, basically it's like fearsome.

[B]

Or like Ivan the Frightening, man.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, basically. And like, Russians are often, like, pissed when you talk to them about this. It makes me think of. Of you're a comedian. So I can talk about comedians. There's an Eddie Izzard bit where she talks about the dilution of the word awesome. Have you seen this?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I saw an advert for awesome hot dogs only 2.99. So in the bit she's like, oh, this hot dog is awesome. Like, that's not what awesome used to mean. Terrible is like that. Where now we'd be like, this hot dog is terrible. But that's not what terrible meant. When they were first calling him Ivan

[B]

the Terrible, it was a really bad word back then. Terrible. That was just. It was fighting words to call someone terr. Just a complete condemnation of everything they've done and been like straight to hell with them sort of thing instead of just being like kind of wet and soggy. Not great.

[A]

Yeah, Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the thumbs down is how we are thinking of him now. No, it's terrible as in like inspiring terror. A scary, scary man.

[B]

Oh, right, yeah, the same thing as awe inspiring, terror inspiring. And now they both just mean like good or bad.

[A]

So, yeah, good awesome. Shit. Yeah, he's terrible. The Eddie Izzard bit she says, oh, what, awesome like a hot dog? Yeah, terrible like a hot dog is kind of of how people are imagining him. But this also is part of why there's such a gap between Western and Russian memory, because they're literally working from different translations of his name. Like, they literally believe his name means a different thing. Yeah, like one of them is like Ivan the Fearsome and the other one's Ivan the.

[B]

Like Ivan and fearsome has a much more like that. That tracks much more closely what you're saying where, you know, it's not necessarily for them, again, which is, you know, fraught, but for them, they're like, it's not bad. It's fearsome. You know, the same way that like a huge wolf is fearsome, but it's kind of cool. Like, we kind of think it's cool. We just don't want to be dealing with it in that way.

[A]

Yeah, the wolf is fearsome and you want it to be your wolf. It's kind of sick if you have a wolf. That's scary.

[B]

You know, you want your wolf to be fearsome. You just don't want to be up against a fearsome wolf or have it have control of your country and making decisions.

[A]

Yeah, basically. So, I mean, fair in some of this. Would it be useful if I give you a sort of biography of him a little bit like a go through his life a little bit?

[B]

Well, you know, just for the listeners who might not be familiar, I'm obviously pretty dialed in, but. Yeah, of course, of course. Yes.

[A]

As a knower of Ivan the Terrible, you know, this is. We'll just be. Sorry, I'll be preaching to the choir on this one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's born in 1530 in Klymenskoye, which is like an area near Moscow. He's the son of a man that we know as the Grand Prince Vasily III and his wife, Elena Glinskaya, I should say. And his father dies when he's three, which makes him now the ruler at age three.

[B]

Oh, child king. Oh, I didn't know that. I would have been even more into it. We love a child king.

[A]

Child king. Child king also famously killed animals as a youth, which is one of the ways that we figure out if someone's going to be a sociopath later in life.

[B]

Donald triad. I have a whole bit about the McDonald triad. He fits right into.

[A]

He sure does. And then his mother, the aforementioned Elena Glinskaya, ruled as regent for him until she died when he was the tender age of 8, we think by poisoning. So not super good on that front.

[B]

He's like a great intro to just, like, all the bad stuff. Like, this is just a checklist of bad king stuff. You got poisoning, you got. And I also love. I mean, obviously many problems with monarchy in this sort of system of succession. But you know that thing where it's like, okay, he's three. He just, like, killed an animal in front of us. Get him up there. This is how it works. This is going to be rough.

[A]

This is going to be rough, basically. Yeah.

[B]

Strap in, everybody.

[A]

Yeah. Because of this, his rulership for the next eight years, I believe is kind of taken over by boyars who will become his ultimate enemies forever and ever for the rest of his life. The people who are kind of running his country for him and most likely killed his mother, which I think is fair to then be like, I don't like these guys.

[B]

Yeah. From my knowledge of history, it's also not a great job to be kind of one of the advisors to a child king, because they never grow up and go, I love what you did. When I was a kid. They always grow up and go, I am going to have you all poisoned and thrown in a river. You know, like, all right, well, I had a good 12 years. I got to, you know, be a fake king.

[A]

And he sure does almost exactly that, which is very funny. So he, because of this, like, weird relationship he has with the nobility, his whole childhood is basically, like, violent humiliation, power struggles around him while he's being like, I think I'm supposed to be the guy in charge.

[B]

Actually. It's like an episode of Mind Hunter, but it just. In history. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Truly this was smokel Russia edition.

[A]

This is how it happens on Criminal Minds. This guy, they're like, why did we not look him up? Why did we not immediately point at him? Yeah, but, yeah, the boyar thing is important to explain. It's important for me to describe them so that you can understand, like, why he's behaving so, like, insanely later in his life. Basically, they are the Russian equivalent of, like, feudal lords or aristocrats, and they represent for his entire life until he says no more of this. A pretty constant internal threat to what he wants to create in terms of centralized state power. They're kind of the main power block that can challenge him. And again, for understandable reasons. Reasons, he is paranoid about them from age 8, from youth. He's like, these guys hate me, and they want to make my life bad, which they do.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Meet these obstacles anyways. You don't have access to poison or assassins, do you? Like, yeah, those guys are gone.

[A]

Yeah. They'd be like, actually, we're the only middlemen for you if you want to do that.

[B]

So just like, good to meet you, young king. I am the only thing standing in your way. I hope that we can have a great relationship.

[A]

And I do planned to kill you later, just by the way.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean, so this is, like, a very turbulent moment, right, in Russian and European history in general. And he's surrounded by these people who hate him. His parents are dead. He's about to become the tsar of all Russia. And he's, like, pretty paranoid about it, which, again, I think understandable at this moment.

[B]

I'm also thinking here, you've real. This. This episode. I mean, you've. You've combined history podcast and true crime podcast almost. This is. This is unbelievable in terms of spread. You can get bones, both fandoms here. So.

[A]

Yeah, maybe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What else? So he. In 1547, he's 16 years old. He becomes the first ruler who's formally. Who's the first ever tsar of all Russia. Before, they were grand princes, which kind of elevates Russia's status on the world stage. This is a moment in which everyone wants to be an emperor of something. They're trying to revive sort of empires everywhere. And being like, I'm the king of everything. I'm the tsar of all of Russia is like, great. This is what state power looks like because it's the 16th century, and everyone is trying to, like, throughout Europe are trying to get a piece of the pie and figure out where these borders are going to go. The reformation is happening, blah, blah, blah.

[B]

An age of empires, if you will.

[A]

Some might say.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Famously.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

An important thing to know for what is going to happen later in his life is that shortly after he is crowned tsareval Russia, he marries a woman named Anastasia Romanovna who he had like, as, as far as we can tell, a deep and loving relationship with. He like, is super and he's like a big wife guy basically.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And. And we think that she's one of the few people who can like really reckon with his insanity. She's one of the few people who like keeps him relatively stable, level headed. Poor woman, she has to deal with this guy.

[B]

I know where this is going. She is going down at some point. Point and bringing chaos into the world.

[A]

This is the montage in the movie where they're on the beach and she's looking at him and you know, she's like in the bed and the camera is her like waking up and looking. That's picture that in your head when I talk about this movie.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's funny just knowing like so little about history, like, like, you know, in a formal sense, but just knowing kind of the patterns. It's like anytime you introduce this is his wife and she was kind of the only thing keeping him together. And then it's like, all right, I know what the end of this movie looks like.

[A]

The famously crazy man had a wife who was the only thing keeping him together.

[B]

Yeah. Doesn't tend to outlive him.

[A]

No.

[B]

And then things go badly.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we're foreshadowing here, but you're right. And spoiler alert for anyone who is scared of being spoiled on the 16th century. Although I would argue you've had plenty of time to look this up. So. So we would consider 1547, so his coronation to 1560 as the sort of like good years of his life where he's doing good stuff. Ish. You know, like he starts out with people like this guy, Ivan the Not so bad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's like implementing big social reforms. He has a group of advisors known as the Chosen Council that will change. He reforms legal codes. The Poisoned Council.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[A]

He's reforming like the military, the government, the legal code. He creates something called the Sudepnik of 1550 where he standardizes the legal system, he limits corruption amongst his officials, restricts the power of these scheming boyars that he's been dealing with. The idea is that he's going to like create rule of law, limit arbitrary Power. And then as soon as shit goes down the tubes, he immediately ignores all of the things that he has just done.

[B]

Just the absolute about fates. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

He, like, conquers the Akhanets of Kazan and Astrakhan, which are like the areas that the Mongols were in before. So he expands Russian territory enormously. He opens trade relations with England. Everything's looking up. And then his wife dies.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Like, everything's actually going pretty good. I mean, it's terrible for the serfs. To be clear, these legal reforms are also like, fuck the serfs. Like, he make is making life very bad for them. So not good on that front. We'll say good with an asterisk.

[B]

Yeah, but that's baked into serfs. I mean, no one's ever like, the serfs loved it and the serfs were doing. Doing great, I feel like. So he's having the good years.

[A]

This podcast is pro surf, I want to be clear. But yeah, in 1560, his wife dies and his first thought, which is probably right. Well, I shouldn't say that is maybe right. I'm imagining your copyright lawyer friend being like, not right.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, you're getting. You're gonna get sued by the boyars friend.

[A]

I listen to your podcast. I know who this is.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

He's convinced that she's been poisoned by the boyars. He's. He's like, the boyars have killed her with poison, as they did my mother and everyone I've ever loved until now.

[B]

Which, to be fair for him is, you know, that does track. He's like, they do be poisoning people I love, so they really do. Yeah.

[A]

And this very dramatically deepens his paranoia. And Steph, really, as they would say when I was living in New Zealand, goes down the Googler from there.

[B]

I feel like even the populace probably had a good idea of that. Like, the same thought as you. Or they're like, the news goes out, the, you know, announcement is made. Ivan the so far so good's wife has just passed. And everyone goes, yeah. Oh, we are. Oh, God. Oh, we are not going to have a good time for a while here.

[A]

The town crier shows up and you're like, oh, no. Ah, shit. Yeah, this is augmented, or maybe we'll say supplemented by the fact that his very trusted advisor, a man named Andrei Kurbsky, defects to Lithuania only a few years later, which is like this profound personal betrayal. Because you're like, my right hand man. My wife is dead, and my right hand man has also betrayed me and left for my enemy's house.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not super good. And then he basically goes off the deep end from there. He has four years of being sort of profoundly aggrieved and very sad. And then he says, time to get wacko.

[B]

Yeah. Basically they put him on Zoloft and then they're like, we shouldn't have done that. We've made him so much more offensive. We should have left him wallowing in his despair. Basically grieves his wife and comes out of it. And he goes, I am ready to go absolutely nuts on this country.

[A]

And you know what else happens in this four year period? He marries another woman named Maria Temryukovna, who dies later of a suspected poisoning. And this is looking ahead a little bit, but he has five more wives after that, two, possibly three of which are also poisoned and then forced into a convent.

[B]

You gotta have a room of antidote. You gotta have like a huge barrel of antidote just ready because you know it's coming just every day, just take it like a, like a daily vitamin, like a, you know, a centrum. Just take. Have your wife drink antidote every day of her life because she is going to get poisoned.

[A]

Flintstone gummies.

[B]

Yeah, Flintstones antidote. Get that. We all know Bam Bam was the best one. And just eat them.

[A]

And to be fair, they might not have been poisoned by the scheming boyars. They may have been poisoned by hand. So we'll maybe add that in there. We don't think the first one was because he really liked her.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

We think the others may have been. It's a little bit less clear who is getting murdered for what reasons. But then he goes through a period of forcing all of them into convents. So he has three in a row that he forces into convents. So it kind of goes poisoned, poisoned, poisoned, convent, convent, convent. And then one of them survives him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But not a good gig being his wife, unfortunately.

[B]

I feel like the more you learn about history, the more the like weird fantasy that people have. Like when like younger, they're like, oh, like the fantasy of like marrying a king. It's like, actually that was a terrible thing to do because you were going to get forced into a convent, you were ending up dead or a nun. And that was like a nun was the good version of that. And you know, no, hate to nuns. They do great work.

[A]

But yeah, pro nun podcast, pro surf, whatever.

[B]

Pro nun, pro surface.

[A]

I mean, I'd rather a nun than dead, I guess.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, I mean, basically, like, this is not a man, you Want to be married to. Because things are going to go terribly for you and, like, the way to get out of this is by being like, well, she's now married to. She's now the bride of Christ, so she can't be my wife. Give me another one.

[B]

You know, like, Jesus actually just married her. You guys weren't looking. But I can't be.

[A]

So that's the issue here, not me. He, in 1565, also establishes the oprichnina, which is like a separate territory, is the best way to describe this, which is under his control, specifically, very directly. And he also creates a personal secret police force called the Aprichniki, which is like, as soon as you've got secret police forces happening. Yeah, we know it's a bad time in history.

[B]

They're not secretly doing good work. No, they're not secretly solving crimes. It's usually bad stuff that they're doing in secret.

[A]

Yeah. They're not secretly, you know, helping cats out of trees or whatever. Like, it's.

[B]

Yeah, the secret police never come out and go, we've caught the killer. We've been hidden away, working our little butts enough on this. And we did it.

[A]

In this case, they are purging people. So, like, very brutal. Purges, executions, terror campaigns against. You're gonna be shocked by this. Largely, the boyards.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Are kind of like his general suspected enemies list. Number one on it with a circle and arrows is the boy offers.

[B]

That's the difference between them and me, man, in terms of motivation and drive. If a guy like this was king and I was. I had control of lands and was some sort of feudal lord, I'd be like, you can have them. I'm done. I'm going to the monastery. I'm going to hang out with the nuns. I don't want to be involved. I don't want to have the target on my back. You can have it.

[A]

Get my ass to Turks and Caicos. I do not need this. Actually.

[B]

I am retiring to greener pastures.

[A]

I've heard there's fun stuff happening in China. I will. Will see you later.

[B]

Enjoy my lands and my serfs. You can have it.

[A]

Have fun. Yeah, basically. And some of them do kind of try to do this, but, like, at this point, he has so such total control over Russia that you're kind of like, well, that's me now in 1570. He also orders the Massacre of Novgorod, which is one of the worst atrocities that happens during his reign, because he has tens of thousands of his own civilians, millions killed on Suspicion of treason, which is wild, like, imagining. Are you seeing the sort of crazy.

[B]

Yeah, it's coming out a little bit like the norm. MacDonald's got a real jerk. No. Yeah, it's. It's just the. The treason, too. I mean, these are obviously all like old chestnuts of sort of things, which is such. Such vague. I mean, we're seeing it a bit today of how vague and useful treason is. If you're kind of desperate for power. Power.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But to be like, everyone in this city is committing treason. You know, like, a lot of people and they're like, we're not, man. We're just trying to live.

[A]

And I have a bakery, man. Like, I'm not. I promise.

[B]

My candle shop, bread, like, all day. When do I have time for this? Yeah.

[A]

Basically, it's really horrific. Like, I know I'm laughing, but, like, this stuff that he does is, like, really incredibly awful. Imagine if. You know what I can even say, imagine if blank. Because, like, it's not that wildly. Far from, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was going to say imagine if your ruler was like, we're just going to take over your city. Which, by the way. Damn. I mean, so far hasn't done, you know, killed tens of thousands of civilians and thrown them into the river, which is what was happening in Novgorod. But he is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There are cities that get taken over on occasion.

[B]

I think many historians are alarmed and for good reason.

[A]

You know what? Everyone go listen to my episode of How Is this Better? Where I talk about Minnesota and how we should probably be really worried about it. Yeah. So he does this crazy. Has this crazy massacre carried out and again, his own civilians. Like, there are a lot of moments in which kings in the medieval period, in the early modern period, will go and, like, institute massacres in other places that they don't rule. Less common to do it to people that are your own civilians.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If they're not, like a targeted group, like, if you're not having, like, pogroms or something. Like, if it's just people who live in a city.

[B]

Yeah. Just straight up, just you guys. Like, it's just honest. Yeah. I also wonder if it's. And you would probably know more of, like, if this, you know, sort of point is a turning point that in the secret police and stuff, where, like, when it's him and the boyars, whether the citizens and stuff are more like they're fighting, like, they're doing their crazy stuff, and then this is when they're like, oh, we have a serious, serious problem.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Across all Levels of our. This guy is. You know, he already was a problem, but they're going, oh, no. Okay. This is just going to be bad for everybody for a while.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, at first it is kind of like, you know, when AOC was like, the girls are fighting. It was kind of like that. And then there were like, you know, the meme of the happy guy that then turns really sad. That was kind of it, where they were like, hold on.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We do have a serious issue that now must be addressed, actually.

[B]

Yeah. It's a lot of. Again, I feel like I don't want to, like, keep bringing it around to stuff modern because it's sad for everybody. It's like that thing where it's like, it's so messy. And I'm like, yeah, but they're still in charge and it's still. You know, it's fun to have the goss, but it's going to turn into, you know, while that's happening, they still have complete power.

[A]

Yeah. They're like, oh, this is so messy, Teehee. And I'm like, that person is the reason that you can't get your heart medication right now. So maybe let's fucking lock in, guys.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I'm just saying. So this secret police force, I'm going through this chronologically. You can tell me to stop whenever, but they are eventually abolished in 1572, because, as it turns out, having a vast secret police force is economic, economically, and socially catastrophic, especially when you keep having them kill thousands of civilians at a time. So that kind of goes badly. And people are like, we don't like this anymore. And alongside all of this, he and his seven wives have a grand total of, I believe, three children. Three legitimate children. So, I mean, like, one of his wives, he has for less, like, two weeks, I think 15 days. Days. Oh, my God. The note I wrote for this is so stupid. Died 15 days after wedding. Almost certainly poisoned.

[B]

Almost certainly poisoned. I mean, that could be the COVID of a book on Russian history.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Almost certainly poisoned. That's just.

[A]

That is a very, very good. That's a podcast title.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this guy is just. This is like how you make terrible king in a lab. As you go, he's. You give him a wife he loves right much. She goes, then you give him a lot of wives. You give him no heirs. It doesn't know he's getting zero heirs, and he's just going to absolutely lose his mind, basically.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I mean, not to forgive him, but you can see where The. You see the path quite clearly here.

[A]

Yeah. This also is again supplemented or augmented by the fact that he kills his first son, who is supposed to be the heir to the throne.

[B]

Make up your mind, guy. Do you want them or not? I mean, come on.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Is part of actually what a lot of people will be familiar with. Have you seen, there's a famous painting by Ilya Repin from, I want to say like the 1880s, and it has Ivan the Terrible holding his son and looking very. You should look this up.

[B]

I'm going to. Yeah. I would love to see an old painting. I mean, in general.

[A]

Google it. Everyone listening to this, go Google it. He's like holding his dead son. I think it's called Ivan Terrible.

[B]

What's the painter's name or the artist's name?

[A]

Ilya Repin.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. This is post. This is a picture of post action. I kind of thought it was gonna be him, like hugging him when he was fine.

[A]

No, no, no, it's a very famous painting of him, you know, being like, oh, just killed my son.

[B]

Beautiful rugs, though.

[A]

And that's true of all Russian paintings, I'll tell ya.

[B]

Another title for the book, almost certainly poisoning. Beautiful rugs though, but.

[A]

Beautiful rugs. Yeah, yeah. So like he kills his son in. In a fit of rage in 1581, who's again the heir. And people also think that that plus the wife dying thing are kind of the ones that make him spiral for the rest of his life. Essentially. We don't fully know why he killed his first son, Ivan Ivanovich. There are a lot of theories. He did also just beforehand. So Ivan Ivanovich is married to Elena Sheremetyeva and she's very pregn. And one of the stories, I don't know if this is believable or not, but there are a lot of theories. Just before he kills his son, he also unfortunately beats his very pregnant daughter in law, Elena Sheremetyeva. Perhaps for like being indecent is one of the arguments that he like sees her in a state of undress or something and is like flies into a rage and then his son tries to protect her and then he kills his son, possibly on accident, he hits his son over the head with some sort of iron rod or something. But we also have said maybe there's a political issue. Like there are a lot of reasons that could just be sort of a romantic imagining of this, that his son. But we do know that he does beat his daughter in law and then this happens. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And I Don't know how accurate the painting is, but that does. There is a big iron rod in the painting.

[A]

It's made 300 years later. So maybe it's not. Not. He didn't have a painter in the room being like, you gotta get this.

[B]

Yeah. Sheepishly. Hey, you're gonna want to. I did something that you're gonna want to paint. This is gonna be.

[A]

You're gonna want to get this.

[B]

It's gonna be kind of key to my undoing here.

[A]

Ilya Repin, 300 years ago was like, before I was like, this is gonna make my career. I've done it.

[B]

Yeah, it's his like Muhammad Ali photo standing over. It's like, this is the one.

[A]

Yeah, basically. I mean, but. But it's like people are like, okay, so he basically like spends all this time trying to build a legacy, kills his first son really horrifically, is anguished about it for the rest of his life and sort of continues spiraling from there onwards. He also has his cousin Vladimir, Vladimir of Starica. I think cousin Vlad poisoned, classic poison.

[B]

Budget is huge. He's guys are making this by the bucket. It's very much in demand.

[A]

They're brewing it.

[B]

They've got cauldrons, Costco poison purchase just bulk at a time.

[A]

Yeah, I mean basically. So he has his cousin Poison along with his cousin's entire family because he's paranoid that his cousin might try to make a play for his throne. And then not that long after all of this, he died. Dies of a stroke while playing chess.

[B]

We think, shout out that blood clot. Shout out, make a statue of that thing. Put that up in the square that saved you. I also think it's great, like say your cousin is trying to. With what he's done. I can't imagine a lot of people are chomping at the bit to usurp him like you know, to come in. They're probably like, I don't really want any part of this. That seems like a very as clearly played out, high risk sort of place plan to try to get him out and you got to just wait on.

[A]

Yeah, he's got to be dead first.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would make it much easier.

[A]

Hi there, it's Claire. I'm here with my quick mid roll shout out as usual to tell you about another multitude show I think you might be interested in. So this week I want to talk about pale blue pod. If you, like me, are overwhelmed by the great and terrible vastness of the universe, but also kind of want to understand and possibly, possibly befriend it or at least be a little bit less scared of it. This show is for you. You might know her from her wonderful TGS episode on ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy, but on pale blue pod, Dr. Moya McTeer and her best friend Con Star sit down each week to demystify space one topic at a time. They do it with open eyes, open arms and open mouths from so much laughing and jaw dropping. Obviously. I recorded an episode of Pale Blue Pod a few months ago where we reviewed the worst Bond film of all time, Moonraker, and I can personally attest to the fact that by the end of every episode, the COSM feel somewhat less scary and a lot more fun. New episodes of paleblue Pod come out every Monday wherever you get your podcast. So like the app you're currently using, go give it a listen.

[B]

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[A]

If nothing else, this podcast proves proves basically every episode that some historical figures could probably have used a psychiatrist even just for a little visit. Luckily for you, now we have Talkiatry. If you've been stuck on a six month wait list for a psychiatrist or are bouncing between online mental health sites trying to find medication support, Talkiatry was built for you. It's virtual psychiatry that actually fits your life and your insurance. Talkiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses and ongoing medication management for conditions like anxiety, depression, ptsd, insomnia, and more. Unlike therapy only apps, Talky is psychiatry. That means you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. All of their 600 plus clinicians are in network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out of network fees. You'll meet with an experienced licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on Builds a personalized treatment plan and can prescribe medication when it's right for you. Your care stays consistent and evidence based. More than 300,000 patients have already found high quality psychiatric care through toxiatry. Head to toky.com TGS and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's tochiatry.com TGS to get matched in minutes. For a small business owner, every day is full of surprises. Some great, some not so great, like when a client cancels their order at the last last minute. But here's a surprise you will like. Progressive provides small business owners with 30 customizable coverage options to help keep their business going strong. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes@progressive commercial.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates and third party insurers. Coverage is not available in all states or for all vehicles and coverage selections. I will also add, we think it was a stroke, but it could have been poisoning.

[B]

Poisoning. Someone fed him a blood clot that went to his brain and took him out.

[A]

I mean, part of this is because, and I said we would put a pin in something you said earlier. Part of this is that there is mercury found in his remains which are exhumed in, I believe, the 1960s. And we find a lot of, we the historians, archeologists, look at this, find a lot of stuff out from this. For example, he has severely degenerated joints and his spine is severely degenerated.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So he most likely had a very painful disease for his whole life and chronic pain could have contributed to his poor mental state. Perhaps doesn't necessarily make everyone kill thousands

[B]

of people, but doesn't excuse him.

[A]

But yeah, may have been a contributing factor and also could have contributed to like what is clearly erratic behavior later. But he also, because of this, aged very, very rapidly. So by his 50s, he's described as looking like a very old man. He dies at 53, but he's clearly in physical decline for years and years before this.

[B]

Oh yeah, and again, obviously, again we've said this is a painting. This is made in, you know, contemporary, somewhat contemporary. It's not the thing, but it's like, you know, he does not look 53. Looks a bad 53. If he, if this is a hard 53. And I'm sure like actual, you know, what are considered more accurate representations of him. Looking at him, you wouldn't think he looks kind of what you'd expect. It's kind of the whole Russian thing again, where like, he looks kind of what you think he looks like if you don't know what he looks like.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Which is a very dour man with a big beard and that's kind of strong brow. Yeah, yeah. Big, Very, very Russian features here.

[A]

I'm not into physiognomy, but he does have the eyes of someone who you would not trust in these paintings.

[B]

The facial reconstructions and stuff I'm looking at do not. It's almost. If they put that in the facial reconstruction, because it's like that can be part of the software to make his eyebrows like that. You put in that he was bad and then they made him look meaner.

[A]

Well, yes. Yeah, 100%. They're like, make him real shifty looking.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Please. Computer, computer, enhance.

[B]

Yeah. And they don't want to end up with another, like, Twitter baddie, you know, where they're like, oh, actually, this guy's like, really hot. It's like, okay.

[A]

Oh, like the mug shot. Mug hotties or whatever. Whatever. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

[B]

When they always get the like. Or what is it like, young Stalin that goes around. There's all those old.

[A]

The thing that I said we would put a pin in, though, is the mercury in his system could have been from one of two things. One, he was poisoned. Classic. Probably likely. Two, because mercury was a relatively common medical treatment at the time of his death for syphilis, especially if he did have syphilis, which famously causes things like literal holes in one's brain that could have also explained some of the mental deterioration he experiences later in his life. Beyond that, mercury itself is obviously highly toxic, and a sort of prolonged medicinal use could cause some level of neurological damage and things like mood swings, paranoia, and unexplained rage. So we don't know why he was doing this stuff, but I'm sure there

[B]

is a book about the effects of syphilis and probably mercury completely. Two books on history and rulers. Because there's a rash of syphilis, it feels like. And then mercury, I mean, it's funny to. Mercury is one of those things where I feel like people are like, oh, they used to be crazy. They used to give mercury to people and kind of forget in the same way that people forget that Picasso. So it was not that long ago. The same way that it's like we were giving babies mercury fairly recently. It's kind of insane that we were doing this and then to look back and been like, oh, we may have made people insane for all of the time. By giving them this shiny little shiny medicine forever. Which, to be fair, if you look at Mercury and you don't know much about it, it does look like it's gonna fix something. It's a potion. You're looking at it and you're going, this has gotta be.

[A]

That's a potion.

[B]

Some sort of powerful. Yeah.

[A]

You could pour it and then roll it at.

[B]

Yeah. And they go, we don't know what you have, but we think this might cure it because it looks magical. So drink up.

[A]

Alchemy is onto something for sure.

[B]

Oh, yeah, you gotta get an alchemy episode going.

[A]

We have an alchemy episode.

[B]

Oh, I apologize. I didn't see.

[A]

It's okay. We actually. There are many opportunities for a lot of alchemists. We've had one previously, but one could do many. Yeah, yeah, we need to just like, we need an alchemy month, basically. But unfortunately, RFK is at the end of it.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that is kind of. I haven't thought about that. But that does, like, almost track because there were a couple like famous American figures who had. Were kind of dabbling in alchemy on the low.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, just modern alchemy, except it's just. They're not trying to make homunculus anymore. They're trying to make, you know, whatever. They're stronger men or whatever they think they're doing.

[A]

Whatever you get with raw meat and meth, which.

[B]

Raw meat kind of. They were putting that in jars and putting stuff in it and seeing why not. So.

[A]

Yeah, I mean. Yeah, so I mean, there are a lot of reasons he could have been the way that he was. I don't want to like, disparage. I've said crazy a lot in this episode. And so I don't want to disparage people who have, like, serious mental illnesses. But again, this person was not necessarily doing stuff because he was like, there's a lot of stuff happening here.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Around him. And I would say a lot of circumstances. Circumstances which kind of forced him to behave a certain way again. Really. Three year old death of father. Eight year old poisoning of mother raised by scheming viziers for your whole life, Wife killed. As soon as your stuff is going good, like, there's a lot that would destabilize, I think anybody.

[B]

Yeah, probably, like if you were able to get, you know, the drawings he was doing as a child. It's very horror movie. It's very. A24. He's drawn a lot of like red spirals and, you know, they're very worried about him.

[A]

It's all in charcoal.

[B]

Yeah. He would be visiting some sort of, you know, royal counselor quite frequently, most likely, if that was. That was available to him. Kind of discuss what he's doing.

[A]

Yeah. Why does young Ivan only draw burning castles? I don't understand.

[B]

Yeah, Just. Okay. And what did you. So what is this green liquid that you're giving to a bunch of women in this drawing? Little Ivan. Okay. All right.

[A]

To a series of wives.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Obviously this stuff is all very bad, but got to make jokes about it, I guess. Apologies to.

[A]

Apologies to the serfs, the wives, the children. I mean, part of this is the long term legacy, though, because he, like you pointed out earlier, is very cruel, even by 16th century standards. And what's actually like one of the worst parts? Well, I mean, I. Obviously, the killing of thousands of civilians is the worst part.

[B]

Of course. Of course.

[A]

We'll put that. That's always there for everyone. Assuming that that is being said when I say anything else from here on out. One of the worst things that he does is he. Basically, through the rest of his reign, I explained all those reforms that he made early on, he basically undoes all of them. His chosen council mostly dead and. Or purged by the end of his life because he's like, don't like them anymore. So he undoes all of that, abandons, reverses it. Any institutional gains that he had made were immediately swamped, overrun by the sort of chaos and depopulation that he wrought upon his people. And because he kills his first son, Ivan Ivanovich, his second son, becomes the tsar after his death, but is not really fit to rule. And then his third son, named Dmitri, which is useful here, dies very mysteriously at age 9 in 1591. In response to. Response to that, a bunch of people known as false Dimitris start coming forward and being like, he didn't die. I'm Dimitri. And this plunges Russia into chaos for a very, very long time. And it's not a time of troubles.

[B]

One DNA test, that's all they needed. One eternity test. One Maury episode could have saved Russia from so much pain. That kind of stuff is, like, fascinating in the scene. Same way that, you know, it reminds me of, like, to bring comedy stories, like a great John Mulaney bit about, like, police work before, even though DNA is very flawed, we all now know. But, like, before DNA that, you know, they would go to a crime scene and be like, oh, there's a bunch of blood here. Gross. Clean it up. Detective, we found a pool of the killer's blood in that hallway. And he would just be like, mmm, gross. And the same thing is that there was so little, you know, like, wait, they couldn't prove any of this stuff. So there was a thing where as soon as, you know, if some sort of air went missing, you could just have hundreds of guys being like, I'm him. And then they'd be like, he might be. We don't know. Throw everything into this complete uncertainty.

[A]

What's funny is that there are three to four. The third one may be the fourth one, but there are three to four who get believed to be a Dimitri and then become. They're like, no, no, this is a false Dimitri. The first one does, in fact, become tsar of all Russia.

[B]

Okay. Works out for him.

[A]

The first False Dimitri from 1605 to 16 oh, 1906, is the Tsar of Russia.

[B]

I mean, if you're a guy who looks like Ivan the Terrible, you've got a big opening at that moment. Like, if people have been telling you, hey, you kind of, you know, you kind of look like Ivan the Terrible. And then all of a sudden, they go, we can't find his son. And you go, this is my moment. I'm going to go try to.

[A]

I have incredible news for you.

[B]

Yeah. We're about to ride this until the wheels fall off. Hello, I am Dimitri.

[A]

He does get assassinated. So he's not also, like, just deposed, where someone's like, this isn't Dimitri. I think he just gets killed like a normal way.

[B]

Oh, not even sneaky.

[A]

I think he, like, is just killed during an uprising.

[B]

Oh, all right.

[A]

No one's like, you're the fake Demetri. I think he just gets. And they're like, all right, that's over now. That's 11 months of him being. Sorry. We'll just find a new one.

[B]

We are in the market for a new Demetri. They go back to the list they had. They go, who? What was the next Dimitri on the list that we thought might be him?

[A]

But then there's a second wait. Sorry. I'm remembering some of this because the false Dimitris used to be one of my favorite parts of Russian history. The second second false Demetri is not just him saying he survived the first death. It's him saying he survived the second death.

[B]

Oh, so he's saying I'm immortal. Balloons. Congratulations, Dimitri.

[A]

You know, the last time the balloons showed up were when I said something horrible about another dead person.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Is it the peace sign that does it? It's gotta Be something. It must be, man.

[A]

But damn it, the second listeners will be like, what the fuck? We've heard about these stupid balloons. This second false Dimitri claims that he survived the Moscow uprising as well. And I think his wife, the first false Dimitri's wife says that he did. And the second false Dimitri is in fact her husband. So she kind of gets in on it.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

The whole thing is wild.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, Russian history. History is nothing but insanity from start to finish, basically.

[B]

This can be my intro point. And now I'm just getting deep into it. I mean, it is. I realize now you were saying that he was saying it in a way where he was like, I escaped. I wasn't actually killed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because for a second I thought he was just claiming he'd come back to life. Which I think has also happened sometimes, specifically in Russia. There have been, like, one or two guys who are like, I'm immortal. And everyone's like, he might be. I'm not sure. I mean, I believe it. That's another one. You have to. I have to dodge room. Like, I just can't. I can't just do Rasputin again. Everybody loves Rasputin. Doesn't love him. But, you know, obviously a figure in there. But I mean, I feel like even just trying to, like, if you. This is maybe why. Well, I guess there's a million reasons you don't see, like, you're not taught necessarily as much Russian history, even in, like, world history classes. I think it gets. It's not as popular, at least in, like, a base level. Like, you know, like grade school, high school level.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And it's because even just the page on the text is book that's like Path of succession is. So it would unfold and unfold. It would be like a mad fold in of 14 pages. And it would be vertical also and involve false Dimitris. And it's insane in a very cool way.

[A]

Well, yeah. I mean, even just the Ivan the Terrible one is like, Ivan the Terrible. Three sons cross out one, cross out the second, third one, cross it out, four fake ones. Then you go back to a different question marks.

[B]

Question marks.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And when the second one. One dies, he, like, ends the Rur dynasty. So actually, Ivan's dynasty ends with this in part because he, like, basically, like, ruins everything for Russia so badly that even his kids are, like, useless. And his first son, Ivan, was, I think, from my understanding, relatively well equipped to become the leader after him. And he kills him.

[B]

Yeah. So, like, damn, he's been getting the good. Because I don't know how old, like, do they know? Kind of like, what age was his son Ivan killed?

[A]

I mean, he's an adult. He has a pregnant wife, so that's.

[B]

I feel like he was getting the good classes, you know, he was getting the good training.

[A]

He's seven. He's an adult man.

[B]

Yeah. So he got. He got all the good training. They were trying to really, you know, set him up for success. And then he gets killed in a fit of rage, as they often do. And suddenly it's the second son who is out stabbing frogs in the courtyard. And they're like, it's him now. We didn't think it was gonna be him, so we didn't really teach him a lot of stuff about how to not be bad.

[A]

Yeah. And I mean, like, to be fair, we're not 100% sure with a lot of these things. We don't fully know if he did even kill his son or if that is like an apocryphal story that everybody says. But it's like, kind of the common belief.

[B]

We think it's not unbelievable by any stretch of the imagination.

[A]

Based on everything else, I do think we should. One thing we should do is sort of like justice for the wives. Because of Henry VIII's wives. You get a fun, you know, nursery rhyme about them dead, beheaded, whatever. Why don't we get one where it's like, poison, poison, poison. Convent, convent, convent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Survive.

[B]

It rhymes just in the laziest way possible because it's the same word over and over and over. So. Yeah.

[A]

Do you have any other Ivan the Terrible questions or anything that you. That's really plaguing you now that we've gone through this?

[B]

I mean, I wouldn't say plaguing me. I guess I'm curious in a general. General way. Like, did it take after all this, after this mess, did this send Russia back and for a significant period of time for them to recover from this? Or was it something that. I mean, this is an extremely, like, offhanded way to refer to this. But did they kind of bounce back somewhat quickly once this line had been wiped out?

[A]

You know, so I mentioned this, but maybe it's worth really describing right after this. So after he dies and there's all this hullabaloo with his sons, and who's going to the tsar and who's not and whatever. Cause they do go into sort of rulership. It's known as the Time of Troubles.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Like, from. I think, the. Like, 1598. Ish. After there's been like a few years of insanity. It becomes the time of troubles. And the Wikipedia page for the time of troubles describes it as a period of deep social crisis and lawlessness.

[B]

So, no, they didn't bounce back.

[A]

No, they did not super bounce. And some would say have never bounced back.

[B]

Still having some troubles.

[A]

Yeah. Deep social crisis and lawlessness is kind of an ongoing issue in the area that we know as Russia. And former areas which were previously Russia and now are not. But then Russia keeps trying to snatch on back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, no, things don't get better afterwards, basically.

[B]

Well, sorry.

[A]

Russia a great place to end.

[B]

Rough couple centuries for you. You.

[A]

That's all I have for you right now. If there's any other Ivan or. Do you feel like this has improved your understanding of history in any way?

[B]

Yes, I mean, I definitely know a lot more about Russian history and sort of, you know, I. I think, like, fill in the gaps where it's like he. I think he just on some hands, like, doesn't get eclipsed. But I feel like the more like, magical sort of like. Like, it's like how Rasputin is just like what everybody knows, and it's just because there's crazy you. Magic in it. Yeah, it's like. Like I was saying the whole time. And obviously history repeats itself. That's the cliche and all that. But it's like. It is very funny that every time there's some sort of terrible king, there's such a pattern of, oh, wow. This just. And it's. I think it's a cool thing about history in general that it is, like, very. You know, these people are humans. Like, so it's like, yeah, all you really need is one really bad human person with very, very extreme human flaws, but just human flaws to just like, yeah, that's. That's Will send a country into the time of Troubles. It just took one guy that really had a bad thing going on with him to make it very small and cute, I guess, for what's happened. But.

[A]

Well, I mean, I will also add, it was funny how you basically predicted everything that was about to happen in this guy's life. You were like, for example, there's a lot of syphilis going around there. Sure was. I say, he has a wife that he liked and he's. Oh, no.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, geez.

[A]

This man is about to become John Wick.

[B]

And this is not even necessarily from history knowledge. This is just like. This is King stuff.

[A]

This is classical. Classical King stuff.

[B]

Classic King Arc. Yeah. Mad Kings. Yeah.

[A]

Basically thank you so, so much for coming on the show and agreeing to do this.

[B]

Thank you for providing every piece of helpful information in the episode. While I sort of ooh and ah and make insensitive jokes about the plight of the serfs in Ancient.

[A]

Usually me, though, you're experiencing an outlier episode. Normally I'm the one being like, what?

[B]

On each episode, I hope the listeners go, what a refreshing. What a breath of fresh air. Versus this is not what I signed up for. Who is this man?

[A]

I want a real expert, like, because also, I'm not a real expert. And so if I got anything wrong on here, guys, you know what? Send it to me privately and don't write it in a review of the podcast.

[B]

Let me know.

[A]

Off the record, let me know in an email. And that's.

[B]

Yeah, I'm sure I got stuff wrong, so you don't need to let me know at all. Just live my life being wrong.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, so you have different usernames in a bunch of different places, which is where I would tell you to. So something about a pig dog. You've got Yahoo Toolbar. So can you take us through the list, question mark?

[B]

Something that's been told to me is unprofessional and Same. Yeah, yeah. Well, the funny. Speaking of, you know, Russia and all that, at one point, you know, I was told, like, Instagram, which. My Instagram is Yahoo Toolbar, if you want to follow it. Somebody was like, you should, you know, professionally, like comedy. You should change it to your name. And I would. I change it to my name and nobody can spell my name. It's a lot of vowels. It's like, you know, Eli Yudin. And it's just like. So I'd say that. And I'm like, it's easier to find me. People will remember Yahoo. Tubar and can spell it. Or Chili's Restaurants, which is what it

[A]

was before it was Chili's Restaurant.

[B]

It was Chili's Restaurants for a while. I gave that up. I kind of miss it. Maybe someday I'll go back.

[A]

Did they pay you for it? Wait, you can tell this off the record?

[B]

No. No, they didn't. They got Chili's straight up with no restaurants. But I. I don't think there was a lot of confusion. I wasn't passing myself off as Chili's. The only time would have fooled anybody was like in the comments of a post and they'd be like, why is Chili's Restaurants saying that especially?

[A]

Was your photo the Chili's logo?

[B]

Yeah. No, it was just Me, I could have thrown up some fajitas, but yeah, now it is Yahoo Toolbar. On Instagram, on Bluesky. It's just, I think Eli Yudin. Just my name, Eli Y U T. And then yeah, I stream on Twitch. If you're a video game, if you're an Age of Empires or civ person, I don't play either of those on there, but it's Twitch tv. Pigdog.

[A]

We could play Crusader Kings.

[B]

Oh, true. Now that the one that lets you become a mad king. That's the one where you can really get. Get a bloodline going.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

A poisoned bloodline going. And then. Yeah. Listen to my podcast. What a Time to Be Alive comes out. Every week we cover weird news stories.

[A]

It's very good.

[B]

Thank you. A lot of it's like animals getting trapped in places. For a while it was more important news stories, but that got really sad. So we're do animals now. And if you want to check out my special on YouTube, it's humble offering and it's not humble offering on Netflix. That is a different guy and I take no ownership of it.

[A]

We will post the links to all of these things everywhere. I actually do highly recommend going and doing these things because as I said

[B]

calling it the most complicated plugs in the business.

[A]

Everything is a different name and on a different site. Different. That's all fine. I said this in and surprised you with it early on. But yeah, these are very genuine recommendations because I actually already knew who you were before you did this.

[B]

Well, I love table pop. I miss table pop. That was very fun. You could check. I don't think it's actually on. Maybe it's still on Dropout.

[A]

Yeah, it's still on Dropout. I recently rewatched the My favorite one is the breakfast cereal one. But they're all very friendly.

[B]

Mullion, of course.

[A]

Yeah, the breakfast. Yeah.

[B]

Tony the Tiger monologue.

[A]

I just keep thinking about all the horrible things you said.

[B]

So Ch. Check that out.

[A]

So check that out. Thank you so much. And let's be colder than it is right now. This is a terrible.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thanks for tuning into this episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude podcast collective. This episode was hosted by me, Claire Aubin, featuring special guest Eli Yudin and edited by Julia Sheffini. The not so terrible. All of our theme music was was written and produced by scheming Boyar Marshall, Dean Williams. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all episodes, including two extra episodes per month and access to our full archive of episodes. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or to our [e-mail] this guysucked. You can also support TGS by giving us a five star rating or a review wherever you're listening to the show or just telling a friend or two to check the show out. That would be really cool. See you next week.

[B]

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[A]

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