Too Much Lore: Dads, Robots and the Keywork Trap - Coheed and Cambria
Description
In another installment of the "Too Much Lore" series, the No Plot Only Lore crew starts with a bracket to find the ultimate fictional TV dad—ranging from the high-stakes mentorship of Uncle Iro and Uncle Phil to the questionable parenting of Homelander.
However, the conversation quickly shifts to the bizarre, over-explained universe of Coheed and Cambria. Josh performs an autopsy on the Amory Wars lore, revealing a world where:
The protagonists are actually "IR-bots" (genetic construct robots).
Characters have Wolverine-style arm blades and names as terrifying as "General Mayonnaise."
A "Soft Magic" system (The Keywork/The Fence) was ruined by a "God of the Gaps" approach to storytelling.
Kris and Josh draw parallels to the Star Wars Prequels, arguing that over-explaining the "how" (like the Whills or Midi-chlorians) often kills the "whimsy" that makes a world great. From the tragic writing of early Coheed comics to the tactical superiority of 12-gauge shotguns over Jedi, this episode is a warning to every DM: Leave some mystery in your briefcase.
Transcript
You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a
podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every night are Josh and Chris. You can find
us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonlore.com. If you like what you
hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met. Welcome back to No Plot Only
Lore. This week brought to you by your dad. And I say that mostly because Josh
has a fun special project that he's working on. Why don't you tell us about dads? Uh yeah. I don't know how the
conversation drifted that way during our work social committee meeting, but I wound up making a bracket list for uh
fictional TV dads. Um so far we're in round two. Uh Hal Wilkerson from uh
Malcolm in the Middle is going strong. He's uh undefeated so far and actually hasn't lost a single uh vote throughout
the whole process. Uh but he does have some stiff competition coming down the pike. Uh we have uh actually a bit of a
a dark horse contender here only in that uh legally they are not a father during
the series that they're present in. But, uh, Uncle Iro from Avatar the Last Airbender, uh, so far beating out, uh,
internet favorite Ron Swanson, uh, and Hank Hill pulling a surprise sweep
against Randy Marsh of South Park. Uh, we do have a couple people who squeak through on um, just random first round
buys due to draws. Uh, I would never have chosen L. Smith from the Fresh Prince of Belair to get through that
first round, but he's here. Uh however, he does have competition from uh his own
uh shows uh uh actual father well father figure uh
in that um where is he now? I can't believe I've lost him in my bracket. It's so big. We we started with 87
contestants uh in the first round. Dads, but um Uncle Phil is in there somewhere. Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil got through the
first round uh and uh is going up against uh a few other uh underdog
favorites like Miles O'Brien from Star Trek. Uh we've got uh Michael Bluth making it through from Arrested
Development. Uh a relative newcomer, Song Ill Kim from Kim's Convenience beat
out uh a classic here and is is taking on Andy Taylor from the Andy Griffith Show right now. Uh, so we've got a a
real variety of of qualities of fictional dads, you know, from um
somewhat absent fathers like Homelander from The Boys to uh very involved parents like Warf from Star Trek Deep
Space 9. Uh so it's it's shaped up to be a real barn burner here. Uh and I'm I'm
personally cheering for the likes of uh Dick Solomon from Third Rock from the Sun. Um, but I'm seeing a big swell of
popularity uh behind a lot of the the animated offerings like Bandit Healer from Blueie. Oh, yeah. What What do you
think the chances are that we're going to see like an uncle versus uncle showdown with uh Well, you know, so far
we've only got two uncles uh that have made it through to the second round. So, uh the odds are stacked against them.
However, they are strong contenders. Uh Uncle Phil, they're both really strong. Yeah. Uncle Phil famously filling in for
uh for his his nephew's uh development and in a uh you know being pulled uh off
the streets of a rough and tumble uh neighborhood into the uh the Beverly Hills subdivisions. Uh Uncle Iro uh
helping out with uh a really confused and tormented nephew in the middle of a a civil war. So, um, yeah, it's, you
know, two two strong characters that really, uh, exemplified fatherhood,
whether they, uh, never had children of their own or, uh, or lost them in a war or in in, uh, you know, Uncle Phil's
case, uh, having children that were just, uh, resounding disappointments.
I don't know. He seemed to like the the younger ones. Well, you know, the girls were all right, but, Carlton definitely
uh, has some rough edges. Good times. Speaking of uh terrible
dads, um are are you familiar with uh Cohed of
Co and Cambria? I am not. I'm
I The only name I remember as a character from Cohed and Cambria is
Claudio. Uh, everyone else just kind of yeah is evaporated from my memory.
Okay. So, as of the time of this recording, Cohen Cambria just put out a
new album and it has some ties to some of their earlier stuff. Um, the the
current arc that they're working on was narratively um separated from their previous arc in
a pretty big way. Okay. But in this most recent one, there are some things that have come back from previous arcs. And
so I started doing a deep dive cuz I' i've never actually gotten too involved in the Amory Wars or any of the the
background stuff. Like I I've been listening to and a fan of Coheden Cambria for decades. Yeah. Now um like I
2007 I think was the first time that I came into contact with them. Okay. So it's been nearly 20 years.
um used to have their stuff on repeat at the store to the point that Matt Bose
wanted to punch me every time Co and Cambria came on the the overhead speakers. Um I think
Matt punch you for a lot of reasons, but I also think Matt Bose wanted to punch
me for a lot of reasons. Primarily among those I am deeply annoying.
I feel like that was probably the number one cause for for violent thoughts from
my compatriate. Matt Matt Bose, lovely comics manager for Warp One Comics and
Games for six, seven years while I was working there. Um, still lives in the
city of Edmonton somewhere. If you run into him, say hi. Um, but yeah, so I I listen to Cohen
Camry all the time. We had the comics. We had the Emory Wars comics, but I just never really got into them. I tried flipping through one a couple of times.
Dialogue didn't really catch me. I wasn't really sure what was going on. Yeah. But uh so this new album came out
and I decided I was going to do a bit of a dive and get like some summaries of the story of Coat and Cambria. And
there's a bunch of stuff in there that uh was unexpected for me. Okay. Like uh
Co and Cambria are not the main characters. Um right. They are also robots. Oh, I
didn't know that. I thought, aren't they like the main character's parents? Yes, they are Claudio's parents and also
robots. Okay. And it should be noted that Claudio is also a robot.
Um, boy, that makes parentage a very broadly defined word, I guess.
Well, I I suppose they're like Okay, so they're called IRO, like all capitals
IR-bots, and they are like genetic
constructs that were made for stuff. And Cohed has like blades that come out of
the backs of his arms, Wolverine style, but there's like 17 of them or something. And Cambria has like mind
control powers or something. very 1990s comics. I was going to say, was this
comic actually written by a 14-year-old? Because it sounds like all the cool stuff I was into at about that time.
Yeah. Like imagine if Wolverine instead of having like claws that came out of the back of his hands, they came out of the back of his arms so that when he
elbowed you, you'd get a sword to the face. What if like Baraka was a good guy and his swords went the other way?
I forgot about Baraka. How could you forget about Baraka? He's the best part of Mortal Kombat. Like, crank the
goofiness to 11 and it's a guy with 6-in teeth and blades out of his forearms.
I was a Baraka S for like the entire time that I played Mortal Kombat, but
that was like 1997 to 2001 was my entire Mortal Kombat
career. So, like I don't remember much about Mortal Kombat. Well, if you look
at when this stuff was written, uh it turns out great overlap. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, Cohed and Cambria,
they they have some kids. Yeah. Um they're they're fighting um a wizard
named Wilhelm Ryan. Uhhuh. Who is going to take over the Keywork
because reasons. Um and has also decided that taking over all of the worlds in
this sci-fi series is not enough. He also needs to take over the afterlife.
Um, and he has a general whose name is the silliest name I have ever heard for
a character ever. It is Mayo, spelled as in mayonnaise
deton. And this is supposed to be a person who instills fear in us somehow. I mean, if you just if if all I
heard was like General Detonwolf, I'd be like, "Oh, interesting." And then you tell me his first name is Mayonnaise and
somehow it takes the edge off. I like I was going to say I I I did get
into Cohen Cambria but like not to the level of like really paying attention to the lyrics. Um cuz right I
heard like I I knew the lyrics to like um Welcome Home and stuff like that,
right? But it was like very hard to sing along because of Claudio's voice. Um, which is fine, but it's just like it
meant that because I wasn't going to be singing along, I didn't really have to pay attention to the lyrics. And now I'm glad I didn't because this sounds
insane. I don't mind a concept album. This sounds insane. Well, like a lot of it doesn't come
through necessarily in the lyrics. Like I I understand that a lot of it um is referenced right in the lyrics. Like if
you hear like dear Amberina in one of the the songs uh is a repeated refrain.
Amberina is a character in the Emory Wars. So like there is the reference
there, but it doesn't necessarily give you a full indication of like who she is
and what the prize are and how they interact with the the key and stuff. Um
right. I I I feel like I kind of have to like back up a little bit because like
the world of Cohen Cambria as it's first introduced to us is something that I
think is actually really cool. Right. Right. Like it's
a system of 28 uh just sorry no 28 78
planets that are held together in a triangle formation with some mysterious energy called the keywork and
the planets are all called the fence. And again like the naming conventions in this don't make a lot of sense to me.
Like why are 78 planets in a triangle called the fence?
that what what is it a fence against? What are we fencing in? What are we fencing out?
That Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Um it has
magic, it has technology, like it is very sci-fi, it's got like some some
Star Wars influences coming from it. Um, and then it just kind of goes off
the rails from there, right? Right. Like, so we have this like really cool
system of planets that we can go to back and forth and we have like a the cool symbol that everybody associates with
the band Cohen Cambria, right? um is the key work and all of that, but then you
you find out in the first book that um the main character's sister gets raped
and then her father kills her with a hammer immediately after um because he needs to save the world because his
children are apparently going to destroy it. And he gets this information from a guy
I He also killed two of his other kids. He he didn't kill Claudia, but he killed three of his other children. So, as
fathers go, bringing that back into the dad's ranking, Cohed is not doing
great. I hate this. I hate this so [Laughter]
much. Yeah. So, and that that got me thinking about how like in a lot of
ways we we like to think that having more lore equals better
lore, which I don't think is always the case. And actually in a lot of cases I would I would consider it being a
detriment right to a story cuz like when you have a certain depth of
lore right when you have a certain amount of investment in particular
pieces of the world you're building right then you have a lot of opportunity
for really great storytelling. I I would consider the force in Star Wars the
original trilogy to be deep ass lore. Yeah. Right. Like
you have so much potential in that because it is poorly defined. Mhm. It
has pretty clear indicators of how it's being used and when it's being used,
but you don't really understand it and you don't have to. You know, I I would
like to I would like to rephrase your definition of poorly defined. I think it is it is well- definfined, but it is
nebulously defined. Right. It's what I would consider a soft
magic system. Right. Right. Right. Like if we go to to Brandon Sanderson's
definitions of magic systems, the force in the original trilogy is a very soft magic system. Right. It doesn't have
rules and borders and end zones. You can't count the space bugs in your blood to figure out how much of the force you
have. [Laughter]
You know, we don't have like the the perfectly defined move sets that we get
later on where like we have the force pushing and the force pulling and the force heals and the force jumping and the force speed, right? And they all
have names and they're categorized and like it goes from being a very uh soft
magic system to being one of the hardest magic systems that we have. Yeah.
And that transition comes mostly from the addition of more lore, right? Not
necessarily better lore. No, just more. Just more. And I I I think that's
probably the case with Cohed and Cambria, too, because And like maybe that's just my experience with it. No, I
think you're absolutely correct. Like there's Yeah, there's a very strong
argument to be made that like Cohen Cambria gets worse the more it gets
written. Um, like I I
I could sense that there was like a bigger overall story um just from like
the few lyrics I did pay attention to, right? And then Mhm. I was curious about investigating more of it and I'm glad I
didn't. Um cuz I feel cuz
like I don't want to call it like sort of a god of the gaps type like system
that they had going on, but there's something to be said of
leaving elements of your lore up to the imagination. you know, right? Letting
the the listener fill in their own version of the truth. You know, uh
Quinton Tarantino actually spoke at length about how there are things in his movies that he leaves
undefined because it allows for everyone to have their own version of the movie in their heads. If you think about um
the briefcase in pulp fiction, everyone can write a different story for themselves about what is in
that briefcase and gets to experience the movie in a way that's unique to
them. And I think that's really actually smart. Um agreed because it
it like provokes um engagement in your property, right?
Like if you just straight up tell everyone this is exactly what it is. There's no like fun or mystery or like
for lack of a better word like whimsy to it, you know? Um yeah, I think I very much had that
experience with the like co and Cambria stuff that I was starting to look into.
Yeah. Like man your own jackhammer sounds [ __ ] great until
you know what a jackhammer is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And now I know that it's a
seismic weapon that causes earthquakes and [ __ ] and I don't care. Yep.
Like I I was imagining a jackhammer being like some sort of like cool ass space sh like spaceship that had like
some sort of jackhammerish type weapons that you would use in space and that
would cause like massive destruction on like large uh spacecraft or something, right? Like that that was what I was
thinking. I was almost thinking like hammerhead shaped, right? Like with giant ass like probes
coming out of the front of it that would like hammer into whatever it was. He's doing a lot of ramming runs. Yeah.
Right. Like the entire point of this thing and I mean the entire song has this framing of like everybody who is
here is going to die. Right. Right. Like if you're going to be joining this battle, we've already accepted that you
are going to die. the questions you're asking are, am I going to be buried among the heroes that I grew up uh
rising up above me, right? Like, am I going to ascend to their level in my
death? And so, having a vehicle that rams into people and does like kamicazi
runs as your main force of destruction is [ __ ] dope. Yeah. Yeah. Super
evocative. And then you find out he meant a literal jackhammer. Yes. a big laser jackhammer that's going
to do some some seismic damage, right? It's admittedly kind of
disappointing. It's it's so irredeemably stupid
and like the that there is something to be said, I think, about the fact that like when
Clauddio was writing these early stories, he was a very novice storyteller. So we have a lot of we have
a lot of lore that's very shallow. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We have a whole thing about
these like angelic beings the prize and this like emissary from them that's
looking for the crowing. Right. And again like all of these names sound incredibly juvenile to me but I am a
45year-old man. Like I remember the [ __ ] that I was writing when I was like 17, 18 and it
was not good. Like I I had some edgy [ __ ] [ __ ] that I was putting into my
books that was like, "Yeah, he's going to be called the Crowing and he's going to be totally badass and he's basically
the one from the Matrix." Right. Right. Right. Like I I get that urge. And he's
definitely improved in the quality of his storytelling over the course of the years. and like he's he's even gone back
and like redone some of the comics. Yeah. Um with like a a bit of a more
mature eye towards them, but it's still really difficult to get
through some of the like backstory of like the fact that Okay, I'm about to
ruin the the title of good Apollo, I'm burning star form. Oh, fine. because
that it's a great title. Yeah. Right. Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star 4. Yep. I
don't understand why like I I get thematically. I kind of imagined that like all of the the albums would have
like a number associated with them. Um just kind of randomly, right? Like
Second Engine Turbine Blade or Second Stage Sherbine Blade. Uh In Keeping
Secrets of Silent 3. Um I could Apollo on Burning Star 4, right? So I kind of
figured that's how they were numbering their albums. Yeah. Um, but the very end of one of the the
comic books, Clauddio looks at his dog whose name is
Apollo and says, "Good Apollo. I'm burning star 4." And star 4 is one of
the stars in the keyword. Oh, you got to be kidding me. I am not.
[Laughter] That's heinous.
Yeah. Right. It's
very amateur writing. Yeah. In a lot of ways. And I I feel like the the platform
that they have has kind of elevated them to a place where like I know that there
are a lot of people who [ __ ] love these books. Yeah. And so I I don't want to trash on them, right? Like I I don't
want to say that the the books are bad or stupid, but they do seem very amateur-ish. Yeah.
And have Not that we have a problem with amateurism. No, I mean, we have a very amateur
podcast. Yeah. Look at us. We're so
professional doing our podcast in our suits and ties. Definitely not making clicketity clack sounds in the
background while we're playing World of Warcraft while we're [ __ ] podcasting. I feel attacked.
But like, yeah, as as a storyteller, as somebody who who like genuinely
appreciates the craft of storytelling, right? Um, it is hard for me to
reconcile the masterful craftsmanship that they have in their music with the
significantly lower quality of the lore that they've put together. Sure. And again, like it isn't even the the plots.
The plots I mean, we're we're not here for plots, but the the story itself is kind of
interesting. Yeah. Right. Like if if you just gave me a story about uh robots versus
wizard, right? Wizard trying to take over the world. Robots need to fight Wizard. Okay, sounds cool. I'll [ __ ]
read that book. Yeah. Um it's not what I was expecting out of Co and Cambria because there's such a human element to
so much of the music that knowing that they're robots kind of pulls me out of it. Yep.
And I was expecting like a lot of like rebel yell from the the bottom rungs of
society like rising up. And I think that's something that they did so so well in their new series. Okay. So like
Vaxis is separated from the original
growing arc. Okay. By at least one book. We we don't actually know what happened in the last book yet. Oh, okay. Um, but
somebody somewhere broke the keywork in what's called the great crash. Okay. And
it kind of reset the world. So there there's now like a a new authority in what used to be the key work. Uh, the
five houses of star supremacy. Um, and they run prison planets. So like
some of the the surviving cracked up planets are being run like prison colonies. Okay.
And the parents of the main character again we go right back to like the
parents. It's always generational, right? Which is interesting. Um are
criminals, okay? And they robbed a bank and they [ __ ] it up real bad and they end up on one of these prison pit
planets and that's where the story starts. And it's very like small and
kind of human and it has a like the opportunity to grow and there's an emotional investment in this
relationship between these three people and like the the betrayal that they feel
against like one or the other of them based on like the the leadup to them getting caught. Sure. And like it's
significantly stronger than what was happening in the first arc then all that [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's continued like that for the most part. It's it's starting to tie, like I said early on, like it's starting
to tie back to what was happening in that first arc. And that's why I had to go back and like refamiliarize myself
with some of that stuff so that I would like understand what's going on in the Vaxis plot line, right? And I'm real sad I did. Yeah.
Yeah. I I feel like, you know, your I mean, frankly, your your analogy tying
Star Wars stuff to it definitely like rings true for me. I mean, I don't know how many times I've had to hang my head
in shame over new details added and not like not just by like new Disney stuff
cuz like it's very easy to be like, "Oh, it's just them." But like, man, George did it, too. So, oh yeah, you know,
don't give me that. Like, nobody's perfect here. least of all George Lucas.
People have been doing that since he didn't have the budget for Wookies, so he made Ewoks instead. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. The the entire existence of Ewok. I like
I [ __ ] love an Ewok, but I understand that a lot of people were [ __ ] pissed. I also I genuinely don't
understand how an Ewok is cheaper than a Wookie. Like they need a They don't have
to pay little people as much, I guess. But like the costume takes just as it's
just as hard to make. Like But you can make six of them for the same amount of fabric. I guess. I guess. But you don't
need that many Ewoks. Like that many Wookies. Like you can get away with like three of them. That's true. Yeah.
Especially on like if you treat it like a a slightly more deserted planet,
right? Like they're living in a small family group instead of like a a huge village or whatever. Yeah. Could have
gotten away with it. I I would say three Wookies are as combat effective as an
entire village of Ewoks. I would say probably more so because you
wouldn't have to teach them how to make booby traps. Right. Right. They are the booby trap. They are the booby trap. You
just you throw one of them at an AT-AT and then it comes back with all of the people who were in the AT8. You drop a
tree onto an AT-AT and now you have an AT-AT. Yeah. Oh, no. And it's not just
like the the Ewoks thing is fine. I I thought like force whales. Oh, stupid. I
don't blame George for that. Um, they're stupid for sure.
Sorry. The what? Wills. The wills. Oh, right. I almost forgot about the wills.
Yeah. um the the quote unquote wills of the force. Yeah. Yeah. God damn it. I
there's a uh a card in the Star Wars card, you know, that comes up once in a while as one of the worst ever made and
it is the keeper of the wills. [Laughter]
Yeah. The irony. Yeah. And we'll fight about the Yuzong Vong at some point. I think it's helpful
when you have a universe full of super spacemen to have something that is immune to the spacemen.
I think that if you're going to have super spacemen, just lean into it. Well, I you know, in in the defense of not
leaning into it, the fact that like Well, sorry, this is sort of to your point, but like they were able to get
around Super Spacemen by the Mandalorian just being like, "What about Shotgun?
What about Shotgun?" And also, we have the only metal that deflects your weapon. True. That's also a little
goofy, but the fact that they were like, "Hey, we just use uh primitive technology and when you slice it, it
shoots you in the face." Yep. Yep. It's really hard to force
deflect shotgun shells. Just about impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Which kind of
makes me wonder like how fast do blasters go? I don't know. I know
someone out there has done the math. It's not me. I love Star Wars, but not that much, if that makes sense.
Yeah, because you have to have enough time to like either catch the
bullet as Darth Vader has done a few times. Well, or deflect it or bat it
aside with your lightsaber. There is some argument about like what Darth Vader actually did there.
So he he I Yeah, never mind.
We'll get into that in the next episode. Yeah, this is definitely a Josh goes down a rabbit hole kind of episode
topic. Hey, thanks for making it all the way through this episode of No Plot Only
Lore. If you're looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonly.com and on all the very best
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