Becoming The Main Character
by Jameson Olsen
Latest episode
The Call of Cthulhu \\ The Story That Spawned a Horror Universe
The Call of Cthulhu \\ The Story That Spawned a Horror Universe
About this podcast
We're going to discover the world's greatest stories and the important lessons they hold. Each episode will take you on a journey, transforming how you see life through literature's most powerful narratives.
Hamlet will teach you why you shouldn't put off making that big move. Jo March exemplifies committing to your business idea when no one believes in you. Captain Ahab’s struggle with Moby Dick is a warning to not let future relationships be ruined by the memories of your exes.
Fiction for your non-fiction life.
Tune in, be changed.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 78 episodes
- The Call of Cthulhu \\ The Story That Spawned a Horror Universe · 1 h 19 min“Lovecraft opened the way for me. It is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has…
- The Regret of Achilles · 44 minAchilles, the greatest warrior in Greek mythology, knew his fate: stay and fight at Troy and die young with eternal glory, or go home and live a long, forgotten life. He ended up…
- Why A Nation Creates Its Own Mythology (Pt. 2) · 51 minIn a continuation of our series on why mythologies and folklore are useful to the identity of a culture, we continue diving into the stories that have cemented themselves in the…
- Huckleberry Finn (pt 2) \\ Making the Hard Choice · 1 h 44 minWe've been floating down the river having a pretty good time so far, but the events of the last chapter have sobered Huckleberry Finn up a bit to the uglier side of life. But…
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (pt 1) · 1 h 33 minWhat happens when you take a story that is controversial enough to be frequently banned from libraries and mix it with an author who doesn’t care what you think about his…
- Why a Nation Creates Its Own Mythology (Pt. 1) · 23 minWhy does a culture need its own stories? Can't it just borrow someone else's? The USA is too young to have formulated a mythology like classic civilizations did, and yet from…
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (pt 2) · 1 h 48 minIn Part 2 of our coverage of The Scarlet Pimpernel we are waiting to see what Chauvelin will discover in the dining room. Marguerite feels sick for being a spy for the villain…
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (pt 1) · 1 h 48 minBefore the acronyms MCU or DCEU ever existed, superheroes were illustrations on the page of comic books. But before comic books came to be, there was another story that first…
- The Ancient Story Structure Hollywood Keeps Ignoring \\ Kishōtenketsu · 41 minWhat if I told you that you have been deprived of one of the best forms of storytelling for most of your life? The "The Three-Act" story structure has dominated Western…
- Project Hail Mary (part two) \\ Courage Is Not Optional · 1 h 47 minYou ready for part 2, question? Grace is now teamed up with his alien friend Rocky, and they have worked together to the point of creating a theory that might save both of their…
- Project Hail Mary (part one) \\ The Science of Not Giving Up · 2 h 36 minI woke up in space without a clue of what's going on...how's your day been? Andy Weir has carved out a niche for himself that you could call "lone man lost in space". This time…
- True Grit \\ A Quest To Fix What Is Broken (part 2) · 1 h 13 minHow Did I End Up Here? Mattie Ross finds herself out on the frozen hillsides of Oklahoma. Body aching from being on horseback all day, she just witnessed the gruesome killing of…
- True Grit \\ Forge Your Own Path (part 1) · 1 h 45 min"I was born game, sis, and I hope to die in that condition." When the government-appointed lawmen aren't quick to hunt down the murderer of Frank Ross, his teenage daughter…
- The Minority Report \\ Future vs. Fate · 1 h 0 minFelonies are down by 99.8%. There hasn't been a murder in 5 years because the police know what will happen before it takes place. There couldn't possibly be any side effects to…
- Crime and Punishment (Part 2) · 2 h 57 min"It’s as well that you only killed the old woman. If you’d invented another theory you might perhaps have done something a thousand times more hideous." Raskolnikov was a young…
- Crime and Punishment (Part 1) · 3 h 10 min"Would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?" The Russians are coming...Fyodor Dostoevsky's unique brand of psychological thriller has reached BTMC, and I…
- 8 Lessons For Protagonists in 2026 · 46 minLaunch into the new year with the best ideas learned from the stories of 2025. I've gone through 70+ lessons that I took from the stories of the last 12 months and picked the 8…
- How The Grinch Stole Christmas · 22 minHo, Ho, Ho! here's a little holiday treat for you. In classic BTMC fashion, I took my lesson as serious as a car accident and found much more depth to the moral of this…
- The Power of Story: Fiction vs Non-Fiction · 44 minOn this show, I cover the greatest ficton ever written, but my larger goal is to get you to start looking at ALL stories as tools to understand how to live a better life.So I got…
- Pride and Prejudice · 3 h 18 minPride and Prejudice is a masterclass in how confidently we can be wrong about people. The story of two people who mistake their first impressions for objective truth, until the…
