0:00 Literature gives us the opportunity to experience lives, perspectives, and worlds different from our own. Though remember, friend, a good story has many readings, and this is but one. Honestly, what's a Scotsman got to do to become king around here? You've already proven yourself a valiant warrior on the battlefield. You've met these witches who told you that you're totally going to be king one day, and right now the current king is sleeping at your house. You know, I bet a little regicide would allow you to seize that throne right quick. What do you say? That's my Scotsman. But as night approaches and you prepare for a murder most foul, you become racked with guilt. That is until you see a bloody dagger floating in the air before you, its handle toward your hand. And you and you
0:45 Wait, did you not get a copy of the script? You know, Macbeth by Shakespeare. Oh, that's right. That's right. The curse. Well, it's going to be hard to talk about Mac I mean, the play without saying the title. But even so, we'll make sure you get through this one scot-free. Ah, come on. I didn't say anything about no puns. Thanks so much to World Anvil for helping us discuss important worlds in literature. So you haven't read William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Well, if I were a betting man, and I am, I'd wager you're really going to like it because it's a tale told by a genius, full of sound and fury, signifying just awesome. But because certain overly superstitious theater people and cats believe the play to be cursed, I'll be referring to it as
1:31 the Scottish play for now. However, I assure you the play is not cursed. In fact, the Scottish play has been on stage almost constantly since Shakespeare wrote it around 1606 and is considered to be one of his four great tragedies. And the Scottish play has maintained this popularity over the centuries because of its fantastically couple, famous speeches, fast-moving plot, and spooky supernatural elements. Speaking of spooky, the presence of the three witches of double, double, toil, and trouble fame actually gave rise to the legend of the curse. See, there's an enduring anecdote that Shakespeare used actual witches spells in Macbeth, which led local witches to curse the play, which led to theater performers believing that if they mentioned the play's name or even quoting lines while inside an actual theater will bring about bad luck. As opposed to us who are inside an animated coffee shop on the
2:17 internet. However, if you're still feeling spooked, you could always go exercise the curse like some actors do by performing a ritual of running around outside, turning around three times, spitting and cursing. But just so you know, there's no actual evidence to support the idea that Macbeth is more dangerous than any other play. However, that's not to say that the tale itself is without its share of peril. You are Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman and brave warrior. You've just won an important battle for King Duncan and are heading home for some well-deserved praise. However, on your way back, you run across three witches doing the witch stuff. And these weird sisters prophesies that not only is King Duncan about to promote you, but you yourself will be king one day. Ah, silly witches. What do they know, right? However, when you get to the
3:02 king, he immediately promotes you. Huh, all right. Maybe there's something to these witches after all. Then you write to your wife, Lady Macbeth, to let her know about your promotion and about the witches prophecies. She's so excited by the news that she decides you shouldn't wait until fate makes you king. You must seize your first opportunity to kill Duncan and take his crown for your own. Now, you're not really into this idea at first, but after she gives you a murderous tough love pep talk, that night you sneak into Duncan's room and stab him to death. You and Lady Macbeth then frame the murder on the king's guards, throw suspicion on Duncan's sons so they're forced to flee, and are soon crowned the new king of Scotland. But now that you're king, you are afraid that someone else might do what you did to Duncan. So you decide to kill anyone who might figure out the truth. But when
3:48 that fails to make you feel better, you seek out the witches again and ask them for some reassurance. They tell you to beware of your friend Macduff, but that you can't be killed by men of woman born and that your reign will be safe until the local forest marches toward your castle. So, I guess if you take care of that Macduff thing, sounds like you're going to be fine for a while. Unfortunately, when you send men to kill Macduff, they only manage to kill his family, which then leads him to swear revenge against you. Then you notice that Lady Macbeth has kind of gone mad as she's sleepwalking through the castle reenacting the murder of Duncan. Yeah, that's not good. And on top of that, you receive word that Duncan's son, Malcolm, now has an army. Actually, that one's kind of the least of your worries because you're safe as long as the forest doesn't move. What? What? I'm sorry. The forest is
4:35 moving. Okay. Oh, boy. You know, I'm just going to give you a minute to process all that ferocious fauna and we'll take a look at how the Scottish play survived to our time because of Shakespeare's theater buds. Macbeth was first performed at the Globe Theatre, home to Shakespeare's company of performers, The King's Men, so named because their patron was none other than King James. There, Shakespeare himself was both an actor and a playwright. While his company had exclusive rights to perform Shakespeare's plays, in the absence of copyright laws, many unscrupulous publishers tried to cash in on his biggest hits by printing quartos, a kind of book made by folding paper over four times, of his most popular works. But since they couldn't get Shakespeare's original scripts to base those on, they would create their copies by having actors or even audience members recite the whole play from memory. Thus, many of these surviving
5:21 copies of Shakespeare's plays from the time are most likely bad quartos. So, perhaps in an effort to counter these bad quartos, two of Shakespeare's fellow King's Men published a collection of 36 of his plays in a tome that has come to be known as the First Folio. Published in 1623, 7 years after Shakespeare's death, the First Folio is the only official source we have today of half of his plays, including Macbeth. Also, fun fact, the First Folio is riddled typesetting errors and compromises, which actually turned out to be a positive thing because it's allowed scholars to identify which pages were set by different typesetters. Anyhow, accuracy wasn't exactly a major goal for publishers or playwrights back in those days. I mean, Shakespeare based Macbeth on the inaccurate retelling of the life of a real Scottish king in Holinshed's Chronicles, a contemporary book of
6:07 English history. I mean, why let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story? And Macbeth is a very good story. It's a bloody action-packed tragedy filled with witches, ghosts, and dark magic. Oh, speaking of which, let's get back to your castle and those traveling trees. Now, in actuality, it's just Malcolm's army holding branches, but still counts for prophecy's sake. No worries though, because they're all just regular humans born from women and Macduff is nowhere in sight. Oh, wait, there he is. And he tells you he's not of woman born because his mom had a C-section. Wait, why would that make any difference? You're defeated, Malcolm is crowned the ruler of Scotland, and scene. Congratulations, you've played the much coveted role of Macbeth and unlike him, you survived. And as the great actor
6:53 Patrick Stewart has said, once you played Macbeth, you can say the title as much as you want. So, you can grab a copy of the script or a couple tickets to a live production with full confidence that you'll have a great and curse-free time. Or as Shakespeare might say, Round about the bookstore go, at the cashier money throw. Buy the book or see the play, for you'll be happy either way. And by Zoe's awesome purse, you'll be safe from any curse. Yeah, they rhyme, right? But wait a minute. So, did the witches actually know the future or did they just take a peek at the fates' super detailed notes and lineage trees over in World Anvil and then use that information to manipulate Macbeth into making all that murder come true? I think we cracked it, Zoe. As I'm sure you know by now, a bunch of us at Extra
7:40 Credits have been crafting our own imaginary worlds for years, be they RPGs, novels, or video games. And if you're like us, you know how much work it is keeping all of the disparate elements of your world-building project organized. And that, my friends, is precisely where World Anvil comes in. World Anvil is an award-winning tool set used by millions of world-builders, writers, and gamers that helps you create, store, and organize your world setting. You can use it to craft entire RPG campaigns tracking timelines, family trees, and diplomatic relationships. Create interactive maps to help bring your story to life. And then, once your world is forged, you can easily share what you've built with your readers, players, patrons, or whoever. In other words, it's exactly the tools that let you focus on the fun parts of world-building. And with over 25 stunning visual themes at your disposal, it's perfect for all genres, from sci-fi to fantasy, space opera to historical
8:27 fiction, which have all been invaluable to me across my multiverse-spanning Rifts, Elden Ring, Gungeon, Stargate, Kingdom Hearts, 17th century rom-com mashup campaign I've been running. After becoming Elden Lords all, our intrepid band of misfit heroes seems to want to stick with that whole ring theme, and now has teamed up with Sonic and crew to mess with Jim Carrey and hunt for those Chaos Emeralds. Eesh, this is getting a bit convoluted. Ooh, but good thing World Anvil just released their new whiteboard feature, where I can explore all of this in freeform and link it back to articles, characters, or even sticky notes to remind me to write simpler stories. So, if you want to up your world-building game, and honestly just have an awesome time doing it, you can check out World Anvil absolutely free. And for a limited time, you can receive 40% off any annual membership by using the code Extra Credits. Then, not only will the awesome worlds you dream up
9:13 come to life faster, but you'll also be helping out us at EC in the process. Once again, that's code Extra Credits for 40% off any annual membership, and thanks so much for your support. We can't wait to see the worlds you build. A hearty thanks of legend to Ahmet Ziyad Turk, Alicia Bramble, Angelo Valenciana, Arclight Games, Casey Nustad, Dominic Valenciana, Joseph Blain, and Kyle Murgatroyd.
