is about having faith in the face of the impossible.

MAN: No.

-In the event you've been wandering

the woods for the last month, "Over the Garden Wall"

is a 10-episode Cartoon Network miniseries

created by "Adventure Time's" creative director Patrick

McHale.

In an "Adventure Time" meets "Grimm Fairy Tales" meets

Miyazaki meets Mark Twain meets [EXPLOSION NOISE] style,

"Over the Garden Wall" follows brothers Wirt and Greg,

Beatrice, a talking bluebird; and their frog-- variously

named Kitty, George Washington, doctor, Mr. President,

Benjamin Franklin, and so on-- around

a rural, mysterious, Americana-infused landscape

called the Unknown as the boys try to find their way home.

-Where are we?

-In the woods.

-Along with having been met by nearly

universal critical praise, "Over the Garden Wall"

is also the most requested "Idea Channel"

episode topic in recent history by a long shot.

Thematically, "OTGW" has a lot in common with our episode

about the cable news.

It's an exploration of how fear can

pull at one's puppet strings.

Endicott is afraid of a ghost, Miss Langtree of a gorilla

and that Jimmy is gone for good.

Lorna is afraid of Auntie Whispers,

and Auntie Whispers of Lorna leaving.

The Woodsman is afraid of losing his daughter,

and so on, and so on, and so on.

The main antagonist, the Beast, a baritone-voiced, horned black

figure with glowing eyes, provides

an undiluted personification of the fear that

is pervasive in the Unknown.

And as a matter of fact, when the Woodsman

warns Wirt and Greg to beware the Unknown,

it's not super clear if he means the place, the Beast,

or the general concept of that which is not known.

As it turns out, their respective reflexes

in the face of the Unknown, in each of its forms,

ends up making Wirt and Greg heroes.

But it also sets up a tension between them.

Greg, the younger teapot-topped brother,

is a big, old ball of hopeful.

He's got faith that things will work out

and occasionally doesn't even appear

to know that he should be afraid.

Pointy-headed Wirt, on the other hand,

is a bit more resigned to stuff being hopeless or unlikely.

That is, until-- spoiler alert.

So take out your headphones or turn down your volume

until I put my spoiler hands down.

That is, until he is shown how his lack of faith

can poison those he cares about.

It's all clear now.

"TV Tropes" casts Wirt and Greg as the cynic and optimistic

archetypes, respectively.

For me, the brothers typify another duo

as well, Soren Kierkegaard's knights of resignation

and of faith.

Kierkegaard wrote about these knights

in "Fear and Trembling," a dialectical lyric

about what it means to have and act upon faith.

Inspired by the biblical story of Abraham,

who is commanded by God to kill his son, Isaac.

Abraham has faith in God, so he does as he's told.

But just before he's about to kill Isaac,

he's allowed to sacrifice a ram instead.

He has proven his faith.

He would kill his own son at the word of God.

Kierkegaard had a hard time imagining himself

in Abraham's sandals.

Would Kierke-dude believe that God

would pardon him, stay his hand, or bring his son back

after the sacrifice?

I don't know, having that kind of faith is not easy.

Abraham and other knights of faith,

Kierkegaard wrote, have no such doubts.

They act on quote, "The strength of the absurd."

Though convinced of something's quote,

"humanly speaking impossibility,"

they maintain it will or must happen

in some other not humanly way.

That impossible seeming something

doesn't have to be holy intervention either.

Kierkegaard writes about a young lover pining after a princess.

And if that young lover were a knight of faith,

he might realize the absurdity of their union,

but believes it possible somehow, perhaps

through the will of some divine force nonetheless.

And divine force, from my perspective,

not so much from Kierkegaard's.

We could be talking about all kinds of inscrutable stuff--

god, luck, chance, destiny, the free market, who knows?

A knight of infinite resignation, on the other hand,

resigns himself to loneliness.

No princess, no hope, no one to drive with him

to Ikea on Sundays, not going to happen.

He doesn't abandon the thought of their love, though.

Resignation is not surrender.

He is not, Kierkegaard writes, afraid to let his love steal in

upon his most secret and hidden thoughts.

To let it twine itself in countless coils

around every ligament of his consciousness.

By comparison, the knight of faith

lives a life less binding.

Quote, "Carefree, devil may care, good for nothing.

He hasn't a care in the world."

He resigned everything infinitely

and then took everything back on the strength of the absurd.

So maybe that's Greg.

Along for the ride, worry free, sure that everything

is going to work out, carrying candy in his pants.

-Candy camouflage.

-And Wirt is our knight of resignation.

What, with his-- spoiler hand-- general reluctance,

mopey poetry, and Sara feels.

I wonder if amongst all of its ideas

about fear and the Unknown, "Over the Garden Wall"

is also, at least a little, illustrating something

of the tendency to be full of faith

as children and resignation as adolescents.

-I don't want to have anything to do with you or that frog.

-OK.

I'll try to think of a name myself.

-If it's not true, then at the very least

it's a trope that as the intricacies of the world

come into focus, we find it harder and harder

to have faith that they will work in our favor.

Kierkegaard says the knight of faith must resign first.

Give up their view of the world, and then

take it back under new conditions, new understanding.

-What view do faith-having children--

and by extension, Candypants Teapot Dome here--

have to give up?

I'm not sure.

Maybe none.

At this age, what does Greg, as our exemplar,

even have to give up?

Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off,

Kierkegaard wrote.

But maybe it's not a giving up so much

as it's the careful selection of the set of things deemed

appropriate to think with.

Children and Greg have, by their very nature,

only a very particular set of knowledge at their disposal.

Does this make them somehow more capable or powerful,

especially in the face of the unknown?

While watching "Over the Garden Wall," for some reason

I couldn't shake this feeling that Greg

has so much in common with Ness, the main character

from the video game "EarthBound," which you

might also know as "Mother 2."

I'm not going to lie, their similar shape probably

has something to do with it.

Ness doesn't have a damp blanket turned hero co-conspirator,

but both he and Greg are these willing, faithful characters

of action.

In a landscape littered with fearful adults,

they don't ever question their capability.

Or really, even that capability has something to do with it.

They just go for it and work towards ousting

this abstract, terrifying evil, hoping

to return their lives to normal and seemingly acting

on some faith that they know they can.

That it will.

In "EarthBound," it's a bit more explicit

given how you have to defeat the final boss, Giygas, by praying.

By praying a few more times than feels

right, if I remember correctly.

It's been a little while since I've played "EarthBound."

But it means that both the character, Paula,

and the player, the person holding the controller,

need to have a little faith.

-(SINGING) I got to have faith.

-In "Over the Garden Wall," it's a little more up in the air

for reasons that are pretty clear if you've

seen the ending.

But could we say that they wouldn't

have made it through if it weren't for Greg's faith?

Maybe we could.

If it's not a fact, at the very least maybe it's a rock fact.

-It's a rock fact.

-What do you guys think?

Does "Over the Garden Wall" say anything

interesting about faith when trying to navigate the Unknown?

Let us know in the comments.

And to keep "Idea Channel's" lantern lit, please subscribe.

(SINGING) I've got a blank space, baby, for you

to write a comment.

Let's hear what you guys had to say about Taylor Swift.

Kayla Haffley writes a really interesting comment

about the distinction between masculine and female

narratives, and talks about how you

could view Taylor Swift as someone

who is putting together a true-- or authentic with all

of the scare quotes required for "authentic" female narrative,

but that she still appears to be somewhat constructed.

And I think that this is maybe always the-- um, I don't know,

like dialectic of being some kind of mega-pop star

that is advertising some level of personableness

or authenticit.

That, you know, because of the way people interact with you,

because of the fact that you have

a team of people managing you, you will always

seem somewhat constructed.

And yeah, I mean, navigating that process

as we watch Taylor Swift do all the time is, I think,

really interesting.

But yeah, Kayla, thank you for writing this comment.

This was great.

Shessomickey writes a great comment

about how regardless of Taylor Swift's possible reinforcing

of traditional images of women, she is no less powerful

a feminist.

And that one of the sort of central tenets

of modern feminism is that however someone

chooses to perform their gender, that makes them no less

of a feminist.

The other thing shessomickey brings up

that we didn't talk about is Taylor's

crossover from a country artist to a pop artist.

And this makes me wonder whether or not

there is maybe a connection between the agency Taylor feels

over her image and songwriting that allows her to make

that transition and her involvement

in conversations about gender and pop music

or popular culture, which she has been doing a lot more

recently.

And yeah, I wonder if there's something there.

I'm just sort of putting this together as I'm saying it,

but this is what this made me think of.

So this is-- yeah, interesting.

Mara K writes a comment about how

though you can view Taylor Swift as someone who is writing

her own story and in control of her own image,

there are things about that story and image that you could

view as less than positive.

And yeah, this is a criticism of Taylor Swift, especially

her older stuff that I can absolutely see and understand.

I had read somewhere-- so I don't know if this is true

at all-- that she had actually stopped performing

certain songs that could be read as sending the wrong message

to young women.

Um, I don't say that as a defense of any kind,

just to say that like, I think, yeah,

like that's a sort of admission that there