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mastergeeka · 3 months ago

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I said I had notebooks worth of thoughts dedicated to this bit and I wasn’t kidding. I may be a clown but I’m a clown of my word. How many people requested this? Honestly not many, but I tend to crumble at the slightest bit of peer pressure when it comes to bits. I was going to make this a whole video essay, and I still might at some point, but I have so many other videos I want to do, an essay will have to suffice for now.

The bit in question, the first rule of Board Game Club #98 from Sniper Elite The Board Game (Thank you to the Patreon Discord for help counting!). The first rule of Board Game Club is "there's always something to envy: a smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate, *beat* Sullivan." Adam then proceeds to pull a little smirky face before he launches into the rules because of course he does. It’s also relevant to note that Adam delivers the line with his weird “I’m a magnificent smarmy bastard ooh I’m trying to be sexy” voice/schtick. It’s hit or miss with me, sometimes it makes me want to bury my face in my hands, but here the absurdity is just funny.

While I or any other NRB viewer probably won’t recognise where this quote originates, the emphasis on Sullivan and accompanying smarmy face/Bond villain persona lets us know “Ah another bit in the series of ‘Adam & Sullivan are in love despite Brooke’s protests’ gags”. You learn about this gag very quickly watching NRB videos with Brooke or frankly just from the NRB wiki. It’s the first gag listed and Sullivan is still the answer Google gives you if you look up who Adam from NRB is dating. It’s still astounding to me how far the bit goes.

For most viewers, the joke ends there. Adam is once again trying to steal Brooke’s boyfriend, haha. They might correctly assume “That first bit is just a quote from some WWII movie to tie in the WWII theme of the game” and move on. They might even get curious as to what movie it is, and find it‘s from the 2001 movie Enemy at the Gate, but that’s probably where their curiosity stops if they even get that far. Because it’s an intro gag of a board game video. This is all heavily treaded ground for them and it takes up less than 45 seconds. How much time, energy, and thinking space are you going to dedicate to a small bit like that?

If you’re me, the answer, of course, is entirely too much because there’s something wrong with me, psychologically. It may not be that deep but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig. Now, for the record, the “Adam & Sullivan are dating” bit at this point in time is already living rent-free, utilities included, in my brain. It seemed like by a certain point, everyone was in on it, all the time. It became ubiquitous, as this particular bit shows. This episode does not feature Brooke. Brooke’s name is not even mentioned but we still gotta hammer home that boyfriend bit, somehow. Also, at this point in my NRB fan journey, I was under the impression that this bit came to be as a way of teasing Brooke. For the record, I have now learned this is not really the case because these two have had this “vibe”, “chemistry” or whatever you wanna call it from day dot and they have kept it up this whole time. Had I known that, maybe I wouldn’t have let this bit send me so far down a rabbit hole. Maybe, I could have just chalked it up to “those kooky boys are kooky” and left it there.

“BUT I DIDN’T DO THAT!” (It’s amazing that I still believe I’m funny. ) The point is Brooke is not here, so I was mystified by Adam’s choice to go with this bit. In the beginning of the episode no less, where there may be potential new viewers who aren’t familiar with the love triangle thing at all and are just going to be thrown off. Questioning Adam’s choices is, of course, one of my favourite hobbies because not only do I think he’s batshit insane (affectionate), but I’m also fascinated by the comedic creative process. “How did you come up with this shit? How did we get here?”

This is where I start actually exploring the source of this quote because while it seems like the Sullivan was an add-on, I did entertain the idea it wasn’t and that was how we got here. Well, the film is set in Russia and all the characters have Russian names so that’s a no. The main character is a sniper so there’s that but that just strengthens the connection I already understood. It still didn’t explain why Adam decided “You know what this video about a WWII inspired board game needs. It needs me being very gay for my best friend. That’s really important”

So I look into the context of the quote hoping to find some answers and while I do find answers, I also find a bajillion more questions. Both the speaker, Danilov and the main character Zaitsev, who the speaker is addressing, are in a love triangle together, much like the setup we have of Adam, Sullivan, and Brooke. Hooray, connection found, end of story. Except no, not end of story. The line Adam says is not the full quote. The full quote is ‘We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor.”

EXCUSE ME!? This has been about Communism this whole time?! It just gets stranger from here so strap in. This line is said to the speaker’s rival love interest, not their mutual target of affection, a woman named Tania. Which yeah this film was made in 2001, probably not gonna see a lot of gay relationships on screen. So does that mean Adam is supposedly addressing Brooke in this reenactment? Sure, okay. I guess I can accept that for now

Next crazy piece of context, circling back to the Communism thing again for a moment. The speaker, Danilov, has been a huge believer in building a Soviet Communist Utopia after the war up until apparently right fucking now. His crush friend-zoned him for his friend, the main character Zaitsev, and that makes him decide, “Damn guess Communism will never work. The economic system of Communism doesn’t work because I’d still be crushing on my friend’s girl.” I’m sorry, that’s an absolutely bonkers reason to ditch your whole worldview of what an ideal society can and should look like. Just insane. Once again, this dynamic is the one Adam chose to relate to his, Sullivan, and Brooke’s relationship. Think about that.

Last but certainly not least in “What Huh?! This is the type of energy you’re gonna bring to your board game video?!” section. Right after the speaker, Danilov, the role that Adam is playing in this weird analogy that HE CREATED, remember he chose this, says this line, he fucking dies. It’s the same scene, too. He says the thing and then he dies, right in front of the main character. He sacrifices himself for the main character, presumably so the main character and Tania, who would be Sullivan in this scenario, can live happily ever after or something. I didn’t watch the whole goddamn movie okay. Apparently it’s not a great movie. It doesn’t seem that popular of a movie either, so that's another reason to pick literally any other movie set around WWII or deals with Nazis. There’s a freaking ton of those. It’s a very popular setting. You had options, my guy, so why are we doing this?

Knowing all of that, let’s go back to the Board Game Club moment since I now am able to know what Adam is referencing. And Adam expects some people to know what he’s referencing otherwise what’s the fucking point of making the reference, right?

Maybe the sick knowledge that someday, some idiot is gonna start looking into it and get real fucking confused and you know what, if that was your goal. You succeeded, Gold star, mate. Here ya go.

But let’s assume this wasn’t a twisted mind game to spite me specifically because Adam surely has better things to do with his time, surely. He expects some people to watch that bit knowing that context. What was his intended reaction from those people and how is the reaction not “Hey what the fuck, What the fuck?!” ? Because, whether you know the NRB love triangle bit or not, those are a character’s last words, despairing about the impossibility of Communism because he got friend-zoned, and this is a board game comedy video. Those aren’t exactly what I’d call “compatible”

And you know what’s also not compatible with that quote? BOND VILLAINY, TRYING TO BE SEXY, ACTING LIKE AN ARCHETYPAL CHESSMASTER MAGNIFICENT BASTARD FUCKING ANY PART OF ADAM’S WHOLE DELIVERY! So anyone familiar with the quote, especially someone who doesn’t know about Adam’s love for pretending to be a “sexy evil genius” before his hubris inevitably runs him over like a truck, is going to be very thrown! That poor hypothetical new viewer is even more confused than I am right now!

I’ve said this for a while now. If the day ever comes where I am able to meet Adam, I want to sit him down and just ask him questions and most if not all of those questions will start with “How and Why (in the absolute fuck) did you *insert insane thing here*? And let me tell you this will be at the top of that list. Not the very top though, that’s reserved for the LOTB 2022 promos. “Adam the box why the box why the everything with the box, like obviously the tongue is just, what the hell but even the build up with the other boxes why?”

Now, after having done this whole deep dive investigation, I have come upon the likely possibility that Adam just googled WW2 sniper film, picked out Enemy at the Gates from the first few results, picked a quote from the movie and went from there. There’s a chance he never thought about it this hard and I went on this long journey for no real reason. But even in that case, all of these implications are still here and they are insane implications for a comedy board game video! At the end of the day, he still compared his jokingly homo-erotic relationship with his friend and rivalry with said friend’s partner to this movie as the intro to a YouTube video and I refuse to become desensitised to this level of insanity and wackiness. I just refuse.

#nrb #adam blampied #no rolls barred #sullivan beau brown #norollsbarred #board games #board game club #brooke bourgeois #rambles #deep dive

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