We’ve spent a year crawling through Strahd’s guts. After two dozen episodes of critical analysis, it’s time for the Curse of Strahd Q&A! We’ve read every word of this book, so feel free to get into the weeds. Send questions via DM or email hugepitfilledwith200spikes at gmail.

The dream of the '90s is alive in Port-land. In this month's bonus content, the Matrix perfectly captures the wrongness predicating the imminent fall of empire. We were adrift at sea, locked in cubicles. Ah, simpler times. www.patreon.com/CriticalLit/...

The Matrix (Part 1) - August 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

The original Matrix is perhaps the quintessential piece of '90s fiction. It perfectly captures that sense of wrongness that predicates the i

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In Ch. 14 of Curse of Strahd, Yester Hill is a planned community for retired berserkers with zero secrets hidden beneath a thin layer of sod. Evil druids unleash their blood-filled wood upon the world & even Strahd himself comes here to pine among the pines. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 22: Reverse of Strahd New Game Plus

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · July 29 · 1h 36m

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Bonus content on Patreon! This film is Thranduil slander. And let this be a lesson to all you Lake-townies: When facing an enemy who has an inexhaustible AoE attack, try not to cluster your buildings in one convenient location. www.patreon.com/CriticalLit/...

The Hobbit, Rankin/Bass 1977 (Part 2) - July 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

The depiction of wood elves in this film has to be Teleri propaganda. Poor Thranduil (a phrase never uttered before or since) is a froggy-lo

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We are always saying this!!!!

Tobias Wilson-Bates@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 3w ago

Nothing beats talking with someone who has just read the same book as you.

Ch. 13 of Curse of Strahd concludes with the best rewards in all of Barovia. If it's wrong to murder your loved one and drink their blood or sacrifice dozens of innocent souls in order to ensure your immortality, then I don't want to be right. open.spotify.com/episode/2oye...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 21: Would You Still Love Me If I Was a Wisp of Utter Darkness No More Than a Few Inches Long?

Critical Lit · Episode

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Ch. 13 of Curse of Strahd continues. Deep within the Amber Temple, alone in the dark, lurks the most helpful lich in the multiverse. Play your cards right and there's free drinks and body modifications, too. You didn't need those eyeballs, right? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 20: Vestigial Tales

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · July 1 · 1h 52m

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Bonus content on Patreon! Take one part anti-war treatise, two parts nature travelogue, one part snack diary and zero parts sex appeal, combine, trim, and set to sick beats. The result is the most definitive version of The Hobbit ever put to celluloid. www.patreon.com/CriticalLit/...

The Hobbit, Rankin/Bass 1977 (Part 1) - June 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

Take one part anti-war treatise, two parts nature travelogue, one part snack diary and zero parts sex appeal, combine, trim, and set to sick

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We're back in Barovia for Ch. 13 of Curse of Strahd, and the Amber Temple is sending mixed messages. Does it want us to freeze to death? Burn to a crisp? Get possessed by loot? Maybe this adorably bespectacled jackal-faced creature can help? Nope, more fireballs. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 19: Anyway, Here's Fireball

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · June 17 · 1h 35m

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Our final look at the Caves of Chaos takes 17 man-turns to unpack. The cult fit is very Queen of Hearts & matches the canonically evil furnishings. But the real villain is in accounting. Who else could set up such an enormous slush fund for magic amulets? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/k...

Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive 04: Color-Coded Chaos

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · June 3 · 2h 44m

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Bonus content on Patreon! The Saja Boys launch an earworm attack & Jinu's jawline launches 1000 shipfics, joining Trauma Mommy Celine & a giggly Gwi-Ma as likable antagonists. But the real villain is the tight 90-minute runtime. Oh the exposition we could have had! www.patreon.com/posts/kpop-d...

KPop Demon Hunters (Part 2) - May 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

KPop Demon Hunters (Part 2) - May 2026 Bonus Episode by Critical Lit on Patreon. Join Critical Lit's community for exclusive content and updates.

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Many yawning orifices await as the spelunking finally begins! The myriad tribes of the Caves of Chaos have complex social hierarchies, tight-knit family units, commerce, and vintners, but their deaths carry absolutely no moral weight. Exterminate at your leisure! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/k...

Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive 03: Throuple Trouble

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · May 20 · 2h 12m

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Dammit granite! If these walls could talk, they'd blush & tell you 'murder hole' is not the preferred nomenclature. Gygax continues to wow with his commitment to verisimilitude (of a sort), but where are all the bathrooms? Just don't ask who's feeding the snakes. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/k...

Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive 02: An Officer and a Normalman

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · May 6 · 1h 52m

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What if "Do as I say, not as I do" was a D&D module? We're headed to The Keep on the Borderlands for spring break & Gary Gygax's 1979 grab-bag of breathless GM advice turns out to be mostly cribbed from TSR colleague Mike Carr. Shaper of the Cosmos am I, the DM! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/k...

Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive 01: Miserly Business

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · April 22 · 1h 45m

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An Oops All Bards party protects the world from demons, but the real demons are the ones inside them all along. And the Demon King has a great sense of humor? This month's bonus content features a triumph for representation & for underdogs over corporate indifference. www.patreon.com/posts/kpop-d...

KPop Demon Hunters (Part 1) - April 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

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Everything's vine down at the Wizard of Wines! Chapter 12 is the nexus of nearly every plot hook in this book, but it's knee-deep in stick monsters and teetotaling druids. Remember, they're not dirty because they're evil; they're evil because they're dirty. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 18: This Little Blight of Mine

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · April 8 · 1h 42m

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Bonus content on Patreon! Even Level 15 Divination Wizard Annie isn't enough to save the juke joint crew from the depredations of Remmick von Zar O'vich. www.patreon.com/posts/sinner...

Sinners (Part 3) - March 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

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It's a Dance Dance Execution at the door of Khazan's Tower. Chapter 11 of Curse of Strahd also features a wagon as volatile as a meth lab. 100 you say? Try 101! Plus, we take a harder look at Strahd's potential enemies list from Chapter 1's Fortunes of Ravenloft. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 17: Knockin' on Khazan's Door

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · March 25 · 1h 38m

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Sure, Strahd had one mother, but what about second mother? In Ch. 10 of Curse of Strahd, Baba Lysaga is a boy-mom wannabe with a parasocial fixation on our titular vamp. To impress him, she wages a feud against Barovia's goats and ravens. It's a blood bath! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 16: The Other Mother

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · March 11 · 1h 32m

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For want of a dress, Krezk was lost. In Chapters 8 & 9 of Curse of Strahd, the Abbot gets serious about playing dress-up, Ireena takes a dive, feathered fiends guard the pass & the roc just needs a snack. But the real villain is the gruffest goat on the mountain. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 15: Fowl Play

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · February 25 · 1h 25m

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February bonus content on Patreon! We enter the juke joint & experience a transcendent musical experience (and a couple of sexual ones). It's everything that could have been had the inexorable toll of structural racism (vampires) not come calling. Poor Robin, indeed. www.patreon.com/posts/sinner...

Sinners (Part 2) - February 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

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Mutual aid! In my D&D? In Ch. 8 of Curse of Strahd, the Krezkites share everything: food, labor & a growing horror at the screams coming from the Abbey. The town's empty graves are almost as problematic as the portrayal of the people this book calls "mongrelfolk." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 14: Build-a-Bride Workshop

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · 02/11/2026 · 1h 45m

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Strahd tried to bury these gays, but this isn't that kind of story. In Chapter 7 of Curse of Strahd, what begins as a side quest to lay unquiet dead to rest soon becomes a tragic love story that can literally bring light to this forsaken land. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 13: Eight Crazy Knights

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · 01/28/2026 · 1h 40m

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I'm just a girl, a girl & a girl, hovering ethereally behind a boy, asking him—for the love of all that is unholy—to please be more careful with that hag eye I gifted you! Idiot. Chapter 6 of Curse of Strahd weighs heavier on the heart than it does on the hands. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Curse of Strahd Deep Dive 12: Baker's Coven

Podcast Episode · Critical Lit · 01/14/2026 · 1h 22m

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January bonus content on Patreon! Relevant to our interests & culturally relevant at yet another crucial inflection point in American history where the forces of racism threaten to tear the country apart. About to win a fistful of awards but not as many as it should. www.patreon.com/posts/sinner...

Sinners (Part 1) - January 2026 Bonus Episode | Critical Lit

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Personally, I'm a fan of...Cox?

'Sup, Schickheads! The White Plume Mountain deep dive wraps up with a raging case of instant super-tetanus, bellies full of crab boil & a haul of legendary weapons. Plus one 6-foot hookah for good measure. Cue the @dandillon.bsky.social cold open... critical-lit.simplecast.com/episodes/whi...

White Plume Mountain Deep Dive 02 - Weapon of Choice | Critical Lit

Consider us Schick-pilled. We wrap up both our holiday hiatus and the 1979 TSR adventure White Plume Mountain in surprisingly high spirits: arms adorned with shiny new weapons, blood infected with ins...

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Who says you can't leave Barovia? Our holiday hiatus is the 1979 TSR module White Plume Mountain, written exactly one time and no more by Lawrence Schick. It's surely chock full of renegade, deranged, fanatical gnomes! critical-lit.simplecast.com/episodes/whi...

White Plume Mountain Deep Dive 01 - Deranged and Fanatical Evil Gnomes | Critical Lit

It's an old school holiday hiatus! We're tackling the first half of S2, the 1979 TSR adventure White Plume Mountain, written exactly one time (to his eternal chagrin) by Lawrence Schick. In this episo...

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The Pit of Equal Justice Under the Law doesn't have the same ring to it.