Don't You Know That I'm Toxic?

In high school, I asked a guy out. He turned me down, and I followed that up by asking if he'd lie and tell me that he had a girlfriend, or that he was gay, to help me feel better. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he dodged making a comment either way, and the conversation ended not long afterwards.

At the time, I remember thinking, "Geez, he could have at least lied to make me feel better". I don't even know what it would have achieved, since I knew it was a lie. I was pretty confident he didn't have a girlfriend, as in high school, you pretty much only know the other students in your classes, and we were friends, so I feel like I would have known about a girlfriend from somewhere else. He might have been gay, but he did have a girlfriend previously, so I didn't think he was at the time (but it's still possible).

In hindsight, I realised it wasn't on him to make me feel better, and it was really unfair of me to ask him to lie to make me feel better. It was also really ridiculous to ask him to say he's gay as an explanation for why he's not interested in me. He's allowed to just not be interested in me!

I've read a few reddit posts about double standards that men have to live with, and in honour of International Men's Day today, I thought I'd confess some of the toxic behaviours I've displayed in the past, and try to be better. Especially because I work in a heavily male-dominated industry, and I don't want to perpetuate these things.

During my first year of uni, I reconnected with a primary school friend. We started talking about what's changed since we last saw each other, and he said to me that he really wanted to meet someone and start a family. I laughed at him and accused him of using that as a line to get girls. What the Fodder?! Thinking back on it now, it was a terrible thing to do. Why aren't men allowed to want to settle down with someone and start a family? It's not something limited to women, and thinking like that perpetuates the idea that women "trap" men with marriage and / or kids.

(Before posting this, I actually reached out to him and apologised. I won't post his reply here as I don't have his permission and I didn't want to ask in case he thought I was just apologising for the sake of a blog post. He did say that he has grown to expect that reaction from people, and he just accepts it now, which made me feel a bit sad.)

Another thing, which I've mentioned previously, but I think is worth repeating, is my aggressive response to men offering to hold doors open for me, or carry things for me. Especially since I didn't have a problem if it was a woman doing it. I feel glad that I have a friend who was willing to call me out on it, though I was reluctant to accept I was wrong for a while. I believe I've changed for the better in that respect, and I understand that someone offering to do those things (regardless of gender) is just trying to be kind. It's not a reflection of their opinion of my strength.

Despite all my jokes about it, I don't think my stalking ever got to the Overly Attached Girlfriend levels, though I probably toed the line at some points. I am trying to be more conscious of the fact that people (again, regardless of gender) don't generally like being analysed in close detail. It's fun to play detective, but it's only good if everyone consents to the game. I'm very fortunate not to have been labelled "creepy" by the people who know me, and I'm sure that's because of my gender.

I'm sure there are other things that I've done, or am doing, that display an unfair double standard. If you know of anything, feel free to leave a comment or contact me in a different way.

Happy International Men's Day.

Knives Out, Again

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the movie Knives Out!

Sorry for abusing the heading style, I just wanted the warning to stand out. This movie is an interesting whodunnit. If you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend checking it out before reading this blog post.

Captain was wondering if there are hints about the answers to the mysteries in the movie that you can catch while watching the movie, so I thought I’d use my abundance of spare time to find out.

The copy of the script I’m using is from the Lionsgate website:
https://lionsgate.brightspotcdn.com/fb/14/23cd58a147afbb5c758ecb3dff0a/knivesout-final.pdf

Which I’ll upload again here in case it’s removed.

knivesout-finalDownload

I spoke in the car about the hole at the center of this donut. And yes, what you and Harlan did that fateful night seems at first glance to fill that hole perfectly. A donut hole in the donut’s hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the donut hole has a hole in its center – it is not a donut hole at all but a smaller donut with its own hole, and our donut is not whole at all!

Benoit Blanc

This movie is a whodunnit, but it’s untraditional in the sense that it’s over two hours long, however, the audience is told who the killer is at 42 minutes. The rest of the movie is spent seeing if Marta gets away with her deception, but there’s another mystery that you quickly forget about due to the speed of the story chugging along. I’ll break the post down into two parts, one for each mystery.

• Who killed Harlan Thrombey?
• Who hired Benoit Blanc and why?

Who killed Harlan Thrombey?

Through the police interviews, we are given three possible suspects:

• Joni: Harlan’s daughter-in-law who was double-dipping money from Harlan with her daughter’s tuition, and Harlan had told her earlier that day that he was cutting her off.
• Richard: Harlan’s son-in-law, who was having an affair which Harlan threatened to reveal.
• Walt: Harlan’s son, who had been fired from running Harlan’s publishing company during the birthday party.

But it’s during Marta’s recollection of the events the night before, that we find out Harlan really did commit suicide. He did it in order to stop Marta from being suspected of his murder, which he says would break up her family as her mother is in the United States illegally. Some of these hints are things that are pointed out in the summary, but I’ll list them again anyway.

Harlan’s clothes

Harlan’s bedroom the day he’s discovered dead

When Fran goes to bring Harlan his breakfast the morning after the party, his dressing gown can be seen on his bed.

Harlan’s body, as discovered by Fran

When Fran discovers Harlan’s body, we see that he’s wearing the shirt he was wearing at his birthday party. When “Harlan” was going downstairs for a midnight snack, and got told off by Walt, he’s wearing his dressing gown, so you’d think he at least changed out of his shirt to get ready for bed. So the fact that his dressing gown is on his bed, but he isn’t there, and he’s still in his party shirt hints that something doesn’t quite add up.

The blood spatter

As Elliott said, and as we can see from the picture of his body, it would be really difficult for someone to slit his throat without ruining the blood spatter. And it looks continuous, so it’s unlikely his body was moved (and it would have been picked up by the forensic analysis if it had been moved).

LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT
Except it was a suicide. Harlan hit
both carotids, we saw from the blood
blood splat patterns that they were
uninterrupted. Meaning, It's almost
impossible for anyone to have been
around him at the time. He's the one
that cut his own throat. I don't know
why we keep going over this.

Harlan’s talent for thinking up complex plots

During the interview, Walt mentions how good Harlan is at coming up with plots.

WALT
Dad said the plots just popped into
his head fully formed, that was the
easy part for him -

This foreshadows the fact that Harlan was able to quickly come up with a locked door mystery that would make Marta an “impossible” suspect.

Who hired Benoit Blanc and why?

Daniel Craig’s accent in the movie

BLANC
You've been very patient my friend,
and you are right, none of these weak
alibis and domestic squibbles answer
your question: why is Benoit Blanc
here? But now I will tell you why.
(beat)
I am here because this morning
someone dodged one very important
question.

LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT
Who?

BLANC
Me. Linda asked who hired me.

LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT
So who hired you?

BLANC
I. Do. Not. Know. An envelope of
cash showed up at my apartment
yesterday, with the news clipping of
Thrombey's death.

TROOPER WAGNER
An envelope? That worked?

BLANC
An envelope of cash.

Blanc indicates with his fingers - several inches thick.

BLANC (cont'd)
So somebody suspects foul play, but
goes through this ha cha dance of
hiring me, of staying anonymous. It
makes no damn sense. Compels me
though.

What I liked so much about this movie is that Blanc mentions this and then the movie moved so quickly that I completely forgot about it until the summation at the end. But there are a few hints throughout the movie that it was Ransom. He needed to have Marta found responsible for Harlan’s death so she couldn’t inherit due to the slayer rule, which would mean Harlan’s old will would come back into effect. However, he couldn’t directly accuse her, or it would reveal he knew the contents of the vials were switched.

New Yorker article

During the interviews at the start of the movie, two characters mention a Benoit Blanc article in the New Yorker:

JONI
Wait a minute - I read a tweet about
a New Yorker article about you. The
last of the gentlemen sleuths? You
solved that case with the tennis
champ - you're famous!

LINDA
Mr. Blanc, I know who you are, I
read your New Yorker profile. It was
delightful. I just buried my eighty
five year old father who committed
suicide. Why are you here?

Marta takes the blackmail letter to Ransom, and you can see copies of the New Yorker sitting on his coffee table in the background.

Harlan’s mental state

Marta describes how symptoms should start appearing within 5 minutes, in particular, disorientation.

MARTA
I give you an emergency shot of
Naloxone, so that you don't die in
ten minutes.

HARLAN
Well no pressure. You know that's an
interesting, efficient method for
murder, I need to write that down.

He gets a little notebook and scribbles while she checks and
rechecks the kit contents with increasing urgency.

HARLAN (cont'd)
So if someone switched the meds on
purpose I'd be dead in ten minutes,
like stone cold dead?

MARTA
You'll feel symptoms in five. Sweats,
disorientation. Then yeah, that big
a dose, injected, within ten your
respiratory - your - yes ten minutes.

HARLAN
From the time of injection, so
eightish now. And even if the victim
called an ambulance when he first
felt symptoms, if he was at a country
home like this one... where the
ambulance takes fifteen minutes to
arrive, it would be too late. If the
victim didn't have this emergency
Naxostuff 

Harlan later states how long they have left – 6 minutes, i.e. 1 minute until disorientation should start.

HARLAN (cont'd)
Listen. If what you said is true I
am gone, there's no saving me, we
have six minutes. There is one last
thing I need to do in this world, and
only you can help me do it. But you
need to trust me and do everything I
say

We can’t say exactly how long this takes, but I’ll use the timestamps in the movie. His line, “We have six minutes” is at 39:27, Joni enters at 39:45 and leaves at 40:10 and he is still perfectly fine. Harlan then begins to explain the plan to Marta. By the time he’s done explaining, it’s 42:56. Even if we subtract some time for Marta to perform his actions, it’s still well past the 5 minutes remaining where he is supposed to start becoming disoriented. The fact that he’s still sharp as ever is a sign that Marta didn’t inject him with morphine. This is a sign that something is odd, as Marta is certain she filled the syringe from the vial that said morphine.

Back again already?

When Marta flashes back to her climb down the trellis, Greatnana says:

GREATNANA
Ransom? Are you back again already?

Marta thinks Greatnana has just mistaken her for Ransom, but as Blanc points out, the “already” part is key – a hint that Ransom has come back to the house once already, when he switched the contents of the vials of medicine in Marta’s bag.

Footprints in the mud

When wandering the grounds with Blanc and the police, Blanc notices footprints in the mud and thinks about when it last rains. He realises that any footprints found are likely to belong to the potential killer. Marta realises the same thing, and we see her check her own footprint.

When she’s walking in her own prints and pretending she can’t hear Blanc, we get a glimpse of the ground, and we can see footprints that match her shoe tread, but there’s also another of shoe tread we can see. It’s never explained who it belongs to, but it’s probably Ransom.

Dogs barking

When Harlan gives his instructions to Marta, he mentions that she should be OK to enter the house undetected after “leaving” as the dogs won’t bark when they see her.

HARLAN (V.O.)
Take the side yard path, through that
little gate.
The DOGS sprint down the moonlit yard from the house towards
Marta.
HARLAN (V.O.) (cont'd)
The dogs will know you, they
shouldn't bark.

When Lieutenant Elliot gives a timeline of events, he mentions Meg waking up at around 3am because the dogs were barking.

LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT (V.O.)
Sometime later that night,
undetermined but possibly near 3am,
Meg woke up because the dogs were
barking outside. She used the
bathroom and went back to bed.

We see the dogs bark when Lietentant Elliot, Blanc and Trooper Wagner are walking around the grounds, showing that they do bark when around people they are wary of.

We also see the dogs happily greet Linda and Richard.

Then we see them snap and bite at Ransom, which makes it likely that he was around the house at 3am, which caused the dogs to bark.

Marta’s missing medical bag

BLANC
(to Marta)
Where's your medical bag?
MARTA
I... don't know - I left it here, I
always leave it with Harlan at night.
TROOPER WAGNER
They must have taken it in as
evidence. I'll check on it.

It turns out the medical bag wasn’t taken into evidence, but was stolen by Fran who would later use it to blackmail Ransom.

Funeral absence

WALT
Funny Ransom, you skipped the funeral
but you're early for the will
reading.

At first, the audience is led to believe that Ransom skipped the funeral because he’s an asshole. And while that may be true, we later discover that he skipped the funeral because he needed to swap the contents of the vials back and he thought the house would be empty as everyone would be at the funeral.

Funeral Absence 2

Speaking of funeral absences, Linda and Walt mention wanting Marta at the funeral, but being outvoted. This highlights the fact that despite family members saying how much they consider Marta part of the family, they really don’t. When Linda is asked by Lieutenant Elliot whether anyone aside from the family shows, she mentions Fran, Marta and Greatnana (this one is a big question mark, since Greatnana is Harlan’s mother, so she is definitely part of the family. What a wonderful family).

LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT (V.O.)
Did anyone besides the family show
face?

LINDA (V.O.)
Uh. There was Fran, the
housekeeper. Marta, Harlan's
caregiver, good girl, hard worker. 
Family's from Ecuador. And Wanetta -
Greatnana, Harlan's mom.

More importantly, it foreshadows the fact that the housekeeper, Fran, would also not be invited to to the funeral. Which means she is at the mansion when Ransom sneaks in to switch the vials back.

Dirt on the window sill

Another one taken from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/hxk8km/in_knives_out_2019_there_is_mud_on_the_windowsill/

When Blanc inspects the trick window after the will reading, he finds dirt on the window sill.

When we flash back to Marta entering the window, we see that she doesn’t step on the window sill.

When we flash back to Ransom climbing through the window, he steps on the window sill.

Rian Johnson mentions how happy he was that Chris Evans had his foot on the window sill as a tiny detail. However, if you see where his foot is, and where the dirt is on the window, it’s different! Minor nitpick.

The dirt is to the right of the muntin

Knowledge of the contents of the will

When Marta asks Harlan how the party went, he specifically mentions cutting the line on four of them.

MARTA
How was tonight?

She hooks the syringe up to the catheter and slowly injects
him bit by bit while he talks.

HARLAN
Tonight was... good.

MARTA
Because I know you weren't looking
forward to it.

HARLAN
No. But I did it. Cut the line on
all four of them. It was not easy. 
This goddamn fortune.

We know from above that he threatened Richard, and told Joni she was being cut off, and fired Walt, but we don’t find out who the fourth person is until later.

There’s only one mention of Harlan discussing his will during the party, and that was in his conversation behind closed doors with Ransom. We find this out through Jacob, who heard them through a vent in the toilet.

LINDA
Alright! Enough. Jacob, we get
where this is going. The bathroom's
next to Harlan's office, where he had
the big fight with Ransom. You heard
something. Spill it.

JACOB
I just heard two things.

INT. HALF BATH - NIGHT OF PARTY - FLASHBACK
Jacob on the toilet, hearing non distinct yelling through a
vent high in the wall. But two words poke through:

HARLAN (O.S.)
...my will!

INT. LIVING ROOM
JACOB
And then there was more shouting, but
I also heard Ransom say "I'm warning
you."

So we know Harlan discussed his will with Ransom, but we are led assume, as the other Thrombeys did, that Harlan had simply told Ransom he was cutting him out of the will. He confirms at least this much.

RICHARD
Son.

RANSOM
(mock gravity)
Father?

RICHARD
Did Harlan tell you he was cutting
you out of the will?

RANSOM
Yes.

But when he describes his converation with Harlan to Marta in the diner, the conversation turns to how Marta beat Harlan at Go more often than Ransom did.

RANSOM
I always thought I was the only one
who could beat Granddad at GO. I
always thought that meant something.

MARTA
I know you did.

RANSOM
At the party, that night, my last
conversation with him, our last
fight, that's what he told me, about
you. That you beat him nearly every
time. More than me. And I thought
what a strange thing to tell me. But
I think I get it now. I think it did
mean something.

Damn right, Ransom, it was a strange thing to tell you. As Blanc points out, it’s pretty weird for them to be talking about Marta when discussing Harlan’s will. Unless Harlan revealed that he was leaving everything to Marta. Which would mean Ransom knew about the updated will. That leaves us with two people that know about the updated will – Ransom and Harlan.

This is further confirmed by Ransom’s behaviour at the will reading.

And after the will is read:

And from the back of the room, slowly rising above the din
of confusion and cursing, slowly drawing even Marta's deer
in the headlights attention... Ransom. LAUGHING. Loud and
weirdly sincerely, tears down his cheeks, laughing his head
off.

Ransom’s confidence that Harlan didn’t commit suicide

When at the diner with Marta, Ransom says he knows three things, one of them being that Harlan didn’t commit suicide. Which is a strange thing to be so confident about considering we know that Harlan did commit suicide.

RANSOM
Marta I know three things. One: I
know he didn't commit suicide.

MARTA
What makes you think that

RANSOM
I don't think it. I know it. Cause
I knew my granddad. So you're not
going to bullshit me. 

Slayer Rule

JONI
What about the slayer rule?

All eyes turn to her. Her face is lit by her phone.

JONI (cont'd)
I did just google that.

ALAN
The slayer rule obviously does not
apply here.

RICHARD
What the hell is the slayer rule?

JONI
It's if someone is convicted of
killing the person they can't get
their inheritance.

ALAN
Not even convicted, even if they're
held responsible for their death in
civil court

WALT
Like OJ

ALAN
Like OJ, yes. But Harlan committed suicide.

I don’t know whether the slayer rule is common knowledge – I didn’t know about it until watching this movie, though I am not familiar with law. Judging by the reactions of the characters in the movie, and the fact that Rian Johnson made sure to spell it out, let’s say it’s not common knowledge (or at least not common at the time the movie was made).

We can’t be certain that Harlan knew about the slayer rule, but considering he writes mystery novels for a living, we can pretty safely say that he’s aware of the common motives for murder: passion, drugs, money. Inheritance murder even has its own TV tropes page. Given mystery novels usually end with the protagonist finding the killer, and the killer ending up with nothing, it’s not too far-fetched to assume he knew about the slayer rule.

Which casts the scene where he’s trying to help Marta get away with manslaughter in a new light. He knows that she can’t be found to be responsible for his death, otherwise his new will will end up voided.

So if we assume Harlan is aware of the slayer rule, then it’s not unreasonable to assume Ransom learned about it during his Summer as Harlan’s research assistant. Harlan even says that Ransom is just like him.

HARLAN
And Ransom.

Harlan takes a curved ornamental dagger from a display
mount, turns it over in his hands.

HARLAN (cont'd)
Jesus there's so much me in that kid.
Confident, stupid, I dunno. 

Which also foreshadows Ransom’s incredible ability to weave complex plans on the fly – having Harlan’s ability to come up with plots quickly. He came up with his plan while driving away angrily from the house. Also, after discovering the Marta was innocent of poisoning Harlan, quickly thinks up a new plan to both deal with the blackmailer and cause Marta to be arrested.

Questions about evidence

In the guise of trying to help Marta get away with her crime, Ransom grills her on what the police know. It seems like he’s just concerned about what they need to cover up in order to get away with the crime, but it’s also to make sure he isn’t caught himself.

RANSOM
Ok then. Did the detective find
anything suspicious at the house?

MARTA
(in a daze)
Mud. Tracks upstairs - where I broke
in through the window.

Ransom winces.

RANSOM
Identifiable prints?

MARTA
No.

RANSOM
Good. Ok. Good. Hey. You've just
gotta ride the next few days out
until the investigation putters out,
cause it will, cause no matter how
sharp this Blanc guy is he's got
nothing. Relax.

Missing water bottle

Taken from https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/k05yob/another_knives_out_2019_detail_i_just_noticed/

When Marta is in Ransom’s house, you can see a row of glass bottles in the background, but one is missing. When the movie flashes back to Ransom burning down the medical examiner’s office, you can see he uses a brown glass bottle.

The blackmailer

Fran mentions a Hallmark movie to Marta called Deadly by Surprise where a wife is poisoned by her husband. She also mentions her cousin who works as a receptionist at the medical examiner’s office. These are the hints that she saw Ransom do something, and that she has a way of getting access to the toxicology report.

FRAN
I don't think he killed himself I
don't. I don't. There's this
Hallmark movie Deadly By Surprise
where Danica McKellar plays a wife
who gets poisoned by her husband but
bit by bit so she thinks she's going
crazy and she ends up killing
herself, and my cousin who's the
receptionist at the medical examiners
office says that kind of thing can
totally happen, she says it's not
even like 3% as crazy as stuff she's
seen come through the -

Conclusion

I really like the pacing of this movie, and the way it twists and turns. I’ve watched it another six or seven times from start to end just to try and find things for this blog post. MrFodder asked if I was willing to watch it again with him, and I said yes. Though maybe not right away.

The Mighty Ducks Mystery: Trinidad and Tobago

 

Why brain, why?!

This is one of those things that pops up in my brain every now and again. Coming from Australia, I understand that nobody expects us to be a Winter Olympics powerhouse. When you think about Australia, you might think about the desert, or the surf, or deadly animals. Nobody thinks about the snow. In fact, my ski bunny friends tell me that it’s cheaper and better to fly to New Zealand for skiing than it is to try and ski during our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ski season.

The same applies to Trinidad and Tobago, which is listed to have a maritime tropical climate on Wikipedia. In the ice hockey by country page, Trinidad and Tobago is listed. They have one person born in the country who played for Canada, but it also says:

Due to lack of ice rinks and ice hockey activities in the country however, a fictional team from Trinidad and Tobago was featured in the movie, D2: The Mighty Ducks.

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

So they made up a team for the movie! Why?!

As far as my internet detective skills can tell, there’s no official reason for why Trinidad and Tobago was there. Trinidad and Tobago is listed as one of the participating countries for the now defunct Goodwill games, so it’s not completely impossible that they would be at the junior goodwill games (something that doesn’t actually exist).

The most plausible theory I could find on the internet is that the movie, which came out in 1994, was trying to cash in on Carribean fever created by Cool Runnings, which came out in 1993. Source: The Quack Attack podcast. 

In the USA v Trinidad and Tobago match, USA is crushing them 6-0, and then Trinidad and Tobago scores the least convincing goal in the entire movie, leading to a couple of shots of the team celebrating with a very Carribean vibe.

So without being able to talk to the writers for the movie, that’s probably the best answer I’m going to get.

Also, did anyone read the newspaper article in the movie announcing Team USA’s win over Trinidad and Tobago before putting it in the movie?

USA downs Trinidad… in a legal disupte?

My guess is that they took some stock text, as the second column repeats from the third paragraph of the first column, which seems to loop again.

Well, that’s it for the mystery. During my research, I did come across a question that never occurred to me while watching: why was Iceland the big fearful team in the movie? Unless the movie was completely full of lies, here’s a lesson in geography from the Iceland trainer, Maria:

Iceland vs Greenland

It’s no Trinidad and Tobago, as it gets quite cold in Iceland in the Winter.

(Winter) The Icelandic winter is relatively mild for its latitude, owing to maritime influence and proximity to the warm currents of the North Atlantic Gyre. The southerly lowlands of the island average around 0 °C (32 °F) in winter, while the north averages around −10 °C (14 °F).

(Summer) The average July temperature in the southern part of the island is 10–13 °C (50–55 °F). Warm summer days can reach 20–25 °C (68–77 °F).

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

She’s not wrong about Greenland, either.

Climatically, Greenland is divided into two very separate regions: the coastal region, much of which is ice free, and the inland ice sheet. The Greenland Ice Sheet covers about 80% of Greenland.

…

Coastal regions on the northern half of Greenland experience winter temperatures similar to or slightly warmer than the Canadian Archipelago, with average January temperatures of −30 to −25 °C (−22 to −13 °F).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic#Greenland

However, Iceland is not particularly famous for its ice hockey team, with ice hockey only recently becoming more popular.

Ice hockey is gaining popularity in Iceland, with 1 in 512 of the population an ice hockey player.[12] They have a larger ‘hockey density’ than Slovakia (1 in 630 people are players). The Iceland national ice hockey team has risen to 38th in the IIHF rankings, and has recently seen a fourth team added to their domestic league.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_in_Iceland#Other_sports

Iceland’s IIHF page

Let’s look further. Here is the list of teams who made it to the playoffs of the Junior Goodwill Games in the movie.

Teams who made it to the Junior Goodwill Games

Most of the countries in the list make sense at first glance. Based on the top 10 ranked countries in the International Ice Hockey Federation, most of the countries in the list also feature in the top 10: Germany, USA, Russia, Canada, France, and Sweden.

Why wouldn’t you pick Russia or Canada to be the big scary team?

The answer is in this article which talks about the writer, Steve Brill. The article is pretty funny, but here’s the relevant part to answer the question, “Why Iceland?”

In “D2,” the Ducks were going to represent Team USA at the fictional Junior Goodwill Games — and they needed an international rival.

The obvious choice was Russia.

“Although Russia had just gone through Glasnost, and it was a thawing in relationship,” Steve says.

“Things may have changed politically a little since then, but they weren’t a villain, and we certainly didn’t want to encourage anybody looking at them as a villain,” Jordan says.

So Russia was out.

“So I scanned the globe in my head, and my first thought would be, of course, the villains would be the Germans,” Steve says with a laugh. “Because the Germans are just the go-to, from ‘Die Hard’ to everywhere.

“But after further review and careful consideration and I can’t remember what else — except maybe because it was so obvious and I didn’t want to pick on the Germans — I put them aside,” Steve says. “And then I thought, well, what if we could create another entity that people don’t know that much about? And, therefore, I could have the latitude to create them any way I wanted.”

So Steve and Jordan were on the hunt for a cold-weather country that people wouldn’t know much about.

…

Jordan had become friends with a talented young actress on the show. Her name was Maria Ellingsen — and she was from Iceland.

…

“I remember probably jumping up and down, like, ‘Iceland! Of course! They’re from Iceland, get it? Ice-Land!’ ” Steve recalls.

Except there were some issues: Steve didn’t know much about Iceland. He’d never been.

“Nope. This was back in the 90s. I don’t think they had airplanes there. I don’t think there was a way to get there,” Steve says with a laugh.

“So I’m sure in your early research you figured out that Iceland was, in fact, not a hockey powerhouse,” I say. “Did you worry that people might call you out on that?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s the other thing — that’s so funny,” Steve says. “I just had to cast that annoying fact aside.”

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/04/20/mighty-ducks-d2-iceland

As for why Canada wasn’t picked, my guess is that they didn’t want to alienate potential fans.

Reduced Sugar Lactation Cookies, Attempt Two: Freeze-dried strawberries

 

Disclaimer: I know nothing about nutrition / diabetes. I just googled "how to reduce sugar in cookies" and made this up.

Makes 18-20 cookies

Ingredients

Dry mixture

105g rolled oats

70g choc chips

65g oat flour

35g non-bitter brewers yeast [1]

30g flaxseed meal

10g malt extract powder (optional) [2]

4g baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

100g freeze-dried strawberries, blended into a fine powder [3, can be part of dry mixture or added later, see notes]

"Wet" mixture

100g banana, mashed

35g barley malt syrup

50g canola oil

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Mix together dry mixture in a large bowl to evenly distribute ingredients. Add strawberry powder and mix it in now if you want a subtler strawberry flavour.

2. Mix together "wet" mixture in another bowl (can be smaller than the first bowl).

3. Add mixed "wet" mixture into bowl with dry mixture and mix until combined. Add strawberry powder now if you want a stronger strawberry flavour. Chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180C (350F). Once dough is chilled, roll into balls (roughly golf ball sized, maybe 1.5 tablespoons each).

4. Place balls on a tray and press on them to flatten until they're about one third of the size of the ball (they don't spread very much in the oven). Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the tray halfway if your oven doesn't heat evenly. Cool on a cooling rack.

These last a week baked, but go soft after cooling. They can be frozen and thawed. Dough lasts up to  days in the fridge.

Notes

[1] According to comments from the recipe this was adapted from, it's important to get non-bitter brewers yeast. Most of the flavourful ingredients in the recipe are to mask the gross taste of the brewers yeast.

[2] I think the malt extract adds a bit of nice flavour to the cookie, but it is more sugar, and may be hard to find (I got mine from a store selling stuff to brew beer), so it's fine to leave it out.

[3] Adding the blended strawberries with the dry mixture results in the pink cookies in the photo above. The strawberry flavour is more subtle. If you want a stronger strawberry flavour, mix in the strawberry after mixing the wet and dry mixtures together. Doing it this way results in little pockets of strawberry, like a strawberry version of choc-chip cookies, which gives it more of a strawberry punch. They look like the ones in the first picture, above. 

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The story behind the recipe:

I offered to make lactation cookies for a pregnant friend, as this recipe came up in my RSS feed and I had it bookmarked: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2019/09/lactation-cookie-recipe.html. Said friend accepted my offer, but revealed that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year (which I didn't know, as COVID-19 lockdown has meant we haven't seen each other in a long time. Not that it would have stopped me from offering). Never having made cookies for a diabetic before, I tried to adapt the original recipe and try to cut down on the sugar. 

I halved the original recipe to give myself more attempts at it. This is another one of the attempts that tasted good enough for me to want to eat more than one. As I mentioned in the disclaimer above, I don't know if they are suitable for diabetics. My friend has tried a cookie and she seems OK. Baby seems OK, too.