The Sword and Laser discussion

Okay, this isn't really about the book, per se, but me reading the book. But first, a quick primer on the Mandella Effect.

This is a name for a sort of collective false memory. People remember something, and are certain of it, despite all evidence indicating they're wrong. Examples include things like remembering the name of the children's book series The Berenstein Bears (really The Berenstain Bears), a 90s comedy starring Sinbad as a genie called Shazam (really the Shaquille O'Neil film Kazam), and of course, that Nelson Mandella died while in prison.
So here's how this connects to me, this book, and the podcast:

I was listening to the first episode for this month shortly after finishing the book (had to read it quickly to get it back to the library), and the discussion turned to a character called "Shrike." I didn't recognize that name, and it took me a minute to figure out who was being discussed.

I was certain, absolutely certain that that character's name was "Grike." I'm still fairly certain that that's the name I read.

I won't try to argue that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. I've now checked a few sources, and they all use "Shrike." So I do accept that the character's name is, in fact, Shrike. Still, I'm left wondering: did I somehow confuse an "S" for a "G" every time I saw that name? Was it maybe changed between printings? Was it changed between publishers? A misprint?

It's been a few weeks now, and I no longer have the copy of the book that I read, so I can't just double check what the answer is.

In short - am I suffering from the Mandella Effect?

This was mentioned in another thread: Shrike is changed to Grike in the US version.

So not the Mandella Effect at all, just a weird change for no known reason.

Trike wrote: "This was mentioned in another thread: Shrike is changed to Grike in the US version.

So not the Mandella Effect at all, just a weird change for no known reason."

Mericans change lots of things... Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone amongst others (really Philosophers Stone was too hard, groan...)

If you want to see something hilarious watch the original Mad Max (Road Warrior) dubbed into southern american accents.

Max should have a New Yorker accent.

Iain wrote: "Mericans change lots of things... Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone amongst others (really Philosophers Stone was too hard, groan...) "

"Northern Lights" into "The Golden Compass"
"Where's Wally?" into the inexplicable "Where's Waldo?" ;-?

Though we do it to US works as well ;-)

"His Majesty's Dragon" into "Temeraire"
"The boringly named (but hilarious) movie "Airplane!" into the much funnier title "Flying High"

Okay. Good to know I'm not going crazy. Or somehow slipping between alternate universes - especially if the only difference is the name of a character in a book.

Just as an aside, the Berenstain Bears thing cracks me up and AS A KID I remember seeing the Berenstain spelling and thinking, Huh, I usually don't see -stain in names, but -stein. So the fact the fact that people now are claiming (even if jokingly) that it ever used to be Berenstein makes me roll my eyes. :)

Iain, when I watched the original Mad Max the DVD had an option for the Australian audio, so I did that, I never knew it was dubbed so strangely.

David wrote: "Just as an aside, the Berenstain Bears thing cracks me up and AS A KID I remember seeing the Berenstain spelling and thinking, Huh, I usually don't see -stain in names, but -stein."

The Berenstain/-stein thing isn't exactly "new," or at least not exactly recent. It's most likely people, as adults, remembering it as "-stein" because, like you said, that's the more common ending. Then, when they come across the books as adults, are confused, and instead of concluding that they just remembered wrong, that it must have been "changed."

Though I will admit, it wouldn't surprise me if at least some of these people were saying this as a joke.

I dunno, I got the pun right away. Berry + Stain.

What pun? That's literally the real name of the authors of the Berenstain Bears books.

Tassie Dave wrote: ""Northern Lights" into "The Golden Compass"
"Where's Wally?" into the inexplicable "Where's Waldo?" ;-?

Though we do it to US works as well..."

I roll my eyes at all of those, but at least even the most recent of those just barely predates the ubiquity of social media. I don't understand how in the interconnected Year of Our Lord 2014 a feature film can be released in three major English-language markets under three completely different titles. And then again the following year!

The wikipedia page for the movie lists a character as "Shrike". Unless they do two versions of the movie, there's going to be a lot of people feeling like Sean and very confused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_...


btw - I had the same experience watching Demolition Man. There are two versions, one features "Taco Bell" as a plot point, the other "Pizza Hut". I was very confused for quite some time.

William wrote: "The wikipedia page for the movie lists a character as "Shrike". Unless they do two versions of the movie, there's going to be a lot of people feeling like Sean and very confused.

https://en.wikipe..."

There's Pizza Hut version!!!