Polite Dissent

An incredibly mediocre show that didn’t meet a cliche it didn’t like (except, unfortunately, the psychic nosebleed). Sorry if the write up seems brief, but I’m really having a hard time caring about this show recently.

The Plot:The police are called for a kidnapping/hostage situation at the top of a parking garage where two guys are holding a teen hostage in a car. When the police arrive, they order the men out of the car. The duo get out of the car and then strange things begin to happen: one cop backs up and throws himself off the garage, while his partner shoots the other cops and then herself. The two guys get back in the car and drive off with the kid.

The Fringe team is called in to evaluate the case. Walter suspects that there is hypnotism of subliminal messages involved. The team heads to Massive Dynamic because the kidnapped boy is the son of one of their top aerospace researchers. By now, the two guys in the car have been identified as two local used car salesmen who had been upstanding citizens until now. The kidnappers and teen stop by a convenience store and ob it. A burly customer tries to intervene, but suddenly he is pouring scalding coffee over his head and the breaking the carafe over it. The cashier tries to shoot the men, but finds himself picking up a key and inserting it into an outlet and shocking himself unconscious.

Walter has been performing an autopsy on the cop who shot the other cops and deduces that it was not hypnosis, but instead mind control. He makes his deduction based on the fact that there are hematomas (pockets of leaked blood) on the surface of the brain, suggesting some mind/body conflict. He then infers — for no good or logical reason — that this mind control must be done via the cochlear (hearing) nerve.

A call comes in from the kidnappers demanding two million dollars. Meanwhile, Walter has concocted white noise headphones for the FBI troops to wear in the field which should block out any mind control. At an abandoned factory, the teen’s father hands over a briefcase of money to the kidnapper, who then runs into a nearby building. Agent Dunham follows. Meanwhile, Peter sees someone else running with the briefcase and follows, only to find the teen, Tyler, holding the briefcase. It turns out Tyler’s the one with mind control and the others were nothing but patsies. Unfortunately, Peter’s white noise headphones don’t protect him and Tyler orders him to drive the two of them out of town in the Bishop family roadster.

Peter tries to rebel, but Tyler forces him to drive the car as fast as it can go and plays chicken with a truck before Peter agrees to behave. A little while later, they are pulled over by a policeman. Tyler wants Peter to shoot the cop, but in the end, he lets Peter just knock him unconscious. Finally, Tyler and Peter arrive at his mother’s house (by way of a strip club), where Tyler finally gets to meet the goal of his quest — his mother. He believes that his father had driven her away and lied to him about her, but that turns out not to be the case, and when he learns she is married he has Peter pull out a gun and point it at her husband. Luckily, Agent Broyles arrives and shoots Tyler with a taser — but it’s a bad shot. Tyler has Peter shoot Broyles, and then he and Peter hop back in the family roadster and take off. Agent Dunham, Astrid and Walter are following close behind, and when they get near off, Walter activates the EMP device he has been working on. It knocks Tyler out for a split second, and that’s enough for Peter to realize what is going on and drive into a telephone pole. He survives with a mild concussion, but Tyler is knocked unconscious and captured.

2. La La La! I Can’t Hear You!
Why go through all the elaborate set up of the white noise headphones instead of just using ear plugs?

3. Bleeding On The Brain
Hematomas don’t form with brain/body conflict. There are certainly medical conditions with conflict between mind and body — somatization comes to mind — but none of them cause hematomas. You could argue that the straining led to an increased blood pressure which popped the vessels, but high blood pressure related bleeds occur within the brain, not on the outside.
That was a surprisingly intact brain for someone who received a bullet at point black range.

4. On the AM Radio
Why amplify the brain waves — that should have been the team’s first realization that something wasn’t kosher — why not just make better sensors?
Amplifying the brain waves means that you are increasing the voltage within the brain itself, which is wonderful way of setting off a seizure.

5. It’s Better Than The 10% Cliche, But Just Barely
Brains are not computers. Whenever someone uses this analogy, it’s a safe bet that they don’t understand brains or computers
Having Tyler’s mother actually be a surrogate was a fairly clever twist — really the only one in an episode thick with clichés — but how does the doctor raise all five Tylers? Are they frozen until needed? Does he spend one day of the week with each one?

6. The Blind Leading the Blind
Geez, Olivia is a bad detective. She already knows Tyler’s mother died when he was young, and then can’t figure out why he’s looking at records of women who died in car crashes fourteen years before.

7. Crime And (Lack of) Punishment
Why would Tyler get off with just seeing some psychiatrists? That makes no sense at all, especially the way they explain it. He was directly involved in the murder of five people, the maiming of three others, and at least three attempted murders. He’s fifteen — old enough to be tried as an adult.

Why exactly am I still watching this show? I’m sure I have much better things to do.

This week’s Fringe cipher was: ARRIVE.
A list of all previous Fringe reviews is available here.
Karl has much more to say.

A surprisingly enjoyable episode this week. The science mumbo-jumbo was kept to a minimum and storyline kept moving quickly along.

The Plot: A mother is pushing her daughter in a stroller through Grand Central Station singing a song about a circus elephant. As they wait by the tracks for the next subway, Olivia suddenly appears and pushes the mother in front of the oncoming train, killing her. Olivia suddenly wakes from her sleep with a start, realizing she had dreamed the whole thing — until she sees the report of the suicide on the morning news.

Olivia and her team go to New York to investigate the death, but the evidence — including a surveillance tape — point to suicide. Her husband, however, pleads to Olivia that his wife would not have committed suicide. Walter suggests that possibly Olivia somehow compelled the woman to jump.

Olivia decides not to go back to sleep. She takes caffeine pills and drinks cup of coffee after cup of coffee. She finds herself in a restaurant full of happy couples. Suddenly, one of the wives starts accusing her husband of philandering and stabs him repeatedly with a steak knife. Olivia is beside her, helping her drive the knife in. Again, Olivia wakes up with a start — she has dreamed of another death. Investigating at the restaurant where the stabbing took place, the owner tells her a blond man with a scar was sitting in the booth she had dreamed herself sitting in. Reviewing the tape of the New York suicide, a blond man with a scar was there as well.

A search of governmental databases reveals that the man in question is named Nick Lane and was once a resident of St Jude’s Mental Hospital, until he came into a sudden inheritance and checked himself out. He also seems to have been familiar with the mysterious ZTF manifesto. The staff psychiatrist describes him as “hyper-emotive” — someone whose mood influences those about him. Looking through the patient’s chart, Olivia discovers that he was treated with the experimental drug Cortexiphan — the same drug she was once treated with. Walter reveals that during the Cortexiphan experiments, children were paired to reduce their anxiety. He suggests that Olivia must have been paired with Nick and a mental bond developed that allows her to dream what he is seeing. Thanks to the Cortexiphan and his unstable mental state, Nick is broadcasting his emotions to those around him. When he felt suicidal, the mother picked up his emotions and committed suicide. When he felt abandoned, the wife picked up his feelings and stabbed her husband.

Walter places Olivia under hypnosis in an attempt to locate Nick. They are able to find Nick’s apartment, but not before he has lured a stripper there and caused her to commit suicide. By the time the team reaches his apartment, Nick is already gone. Exploring his place, they find an entire wall dedicated to the Pattern. About this time, news reaches them that Nick has been spotted. He has gone to the roof of a tall building nearby and is prepared to jump to his death. He’s not alone though, his emotions are spilling so much that there are about twenty other people on the roof with him, also ready to jump. Walter tells Olivia that because she was also treated with Cortexiphan, she will be immune to Nick’s powers. She climbs to the roof and confronts him. He remembers her from the experiment, but she doesn’t remember him. He hands her a gun and asks her to kill him. She shoots him in the knees instead — he collapses and it releases his hold on the others. He tells her regretfully that someday soon, she’ll wish she had killed him. As the episode ends, Walter is watching an old videotape of the Cortexiphan experiments — a tape featuring a very young Olivia.

Not too much science to dish on in tonight’s episode, so I’m just going to go stream of consciousness here.

1. Circus Circus
According to Wikipedia, Nellie the Elephant is a perfect song to sing in order to time CPR correctly.

2. The Count
For something that was supposedly not detecting any radiation, the Geiger counter was certainly clicking a fair amount.

3. Showtime
Walter wants to see Pippin, a musical about Charlemagne’s deformed son, Pippin the Hunchback. The song he is quoting is Corner of the Sky.

4. Stripper or Not
Continuity error: When the stripper is first shown looking in the mirror in Nick’s apartment, she is topless. When the scene flashes back to her, she’s suddenly wearing a bra (what can I say, I’m a guy — I notice these things.)

5. Torre! Torre! Torre!
Just for the record: Walter mentions Nick was using the Torre attack when playing chess. Who was he playing?

6. Clues?
Thanks to some recent articles on the clues in Fringe, I’m looking for them everywhere now. I saw the light pattern in the windows in Walter’s hotel, but now I’m wondering about the 7 of clubs shown prominently on Nick’s table.

7. Continuity
Nice to see the some of the threads begin to tie together — particularly the Cortexiphan and the ZTF manifesto (both from Episode 14)

8. The Wall
I would have loved to have time to study the Pattern wall in Nick’s apartment.

An enoyable episode this week, that restores some of my faith in the show. The Doomsday clock goes back to 11:56

Batman #677 “Batman R.I.P.: Batman in the Underworld”
Grant Morrison, writer
Tony Daniel, penciler

Arch-villain Doctor Hurt is explaining his plan to his villainous colleagues:

Librium (generic name: chlordiazepoxide) is a drug in the benzodiazepine class — in other words, it’s from the same class of medication as Valium, Xanax, and Halcion. Like all drugs in this class, it acts as a relaxant, a sedative, and an anti-anxiety medication. Librium is a fairly old drug and is not in common use today.

I find Librium to be an interesting choice of drug for Doctor Hurt to use. As previously mentioned, it is a fairly old drug (in this case, “old” means about fifty years) and it was the first benzodiazepine discovered. Librium is not nearly as potent as later benzodiazepines, and it requires a dose that is roughly 20-50 times higher. This is going to make a big difference when dosing someone by sword cut — an unreliable method at best. It’s got to be a lot easier to get 0.5 MG of Xanax into a wound compared to 25 MG of Librium.

Librium has a very long half life, with some of its metabolites taking over a week to be broken down by the body. This can make it dangerous to use as a daily medication because these metabolites build up quickly. However, Librium’s long effect after a single dose may be just what the doctor is looking for in this situation.

Benzodiazepines are primarily used as relaxants and anti-anxiety agents in anxious patients, and sleep aids in insomniacs. They can also be used as muscle relaxants, to stop seizures, and to ease alcohol withdrawal. I know of no benefit to hypnosis or trigger phase induction offered by these medications, by I’m willing to explain this aspect away as “comic book science.” Of note, all benzodiazepines are habit forming and can become addictive so I tend to prescribe them with caution. Librium isn’t used that much anymore, having been supplanted by newer and safer medications.

So why did Doctor Hurt choose Librium? Why not use a more modern medication that doesn’t require such a hefty dose?

Is it the benzodiazepine he is most familiar with? Or maybe the only one he is familiar with?
Librium was developed in the late 1950s, coincidentally (I’m sure) the same time Batman #113 (featuring “Batman: The Superman of Planet-X“) was published – a story which seems to be playing a large role in the Batman R.I.P. storyline (for instance, it introduced the planet Zurr-En-Arrh and the Bat-Radia). Diazepam (Valium), the second benzodiazepine, didn’t emerge until 1963.

Does the long half-life of Librium offer some advantage to his plan?

Or I may be reading too much into a throwaway line — it certainly wouldn’t be the first time — but Librium seems such a odd choice, and to refer to it by brand name, that it caught my eye.

This week’s episode of House had a great set-up and a clever medical mystery. The medicine itself was only so-so, but the rest of the episode mostly made up for it.

The episode starts with House getting a lap dance at a strip club. He soon realizes that he has no recollection of how he got there. Seeing blood on his fingers, he has the stripper look at his head and she sees a scalp laceration. From this, he deduces that he has suffered a concussion with retrograde amnesia (unable to remember what happened before the concussion). Leaving the strip club, he comes across the remnants of a tremendous bus crash and realizes that he must have been on the bus and was injured in the crash. He also has a fleeting memory that he saw something important while on the bus. He remembers that he noticed a symptom in one of the other passengers signifying that he or she had a fatal disease. The trouble is, he can’t remember who it was or the symptom that he saw

He stalks around the emergency room, looking over the other patients, and spots some bruising on the bus driver’s shoulder. He declares it a sign of leukemia, but in reality it is only the bruise left from the seatbelt. Another patient complains of a stiff neck and House immediately announces that he has meningitis and no one is to leave the emergency room (he doesn’t really think the patient has meningitis, he’s just trying to keep all the crash victims where he can find them. 22 of the 30 victims are at Princeton Plainsboro, 8 are across town).

Kutner suggests that House undergo “medical hypnosis” to improve his focus and assist with memory retrieval. Chase just happens to be trained in hypnosis, so he puts House under. Remembering the bus ride, House recalls a punk rocker (or “emo Guitar Hero wannabe”) with a cough and a bad nose picking habit. House figures this must be nasal pruritis (an itchy nose), a sign of a tumor — but the exam is normal.

A short time later, the bus driver discovers that he cannot move his legs. The differential diagnosis of this sudden onset of paralysis includes subdural hematoma, stroke, and subarachnoid hemorrhage — but all were ruled out by CT scan. Guillain Barre is suggested, as is tranverse myelitis based on the patient’s increased white count. Foreman starts him on antibiotics for the tranverse myelitis.

House now begins smelling the clothes of the patients who were involved in the bus accident, reasoning that smell is powerful at evoking memories. He hallucinates that he is back on the bus, talking to the driver, but the driver seems more focused on House than himself. Wilson and the team break his hallucination and order him to undergo an MRI to evaluate his brain. Edema and swelling in the temporal lobe are noted, as well as a fracture of the temporal bone.

The bus driver is able to walk again, but now is now suffering from acute abdominal pain. A peptic ulcer is a possible cause, but House wonders if it might be Addison’s Disease (a condition where the adrenal glands do not make enough steroid hormones) caused by a tumor.

House places himself in a sensory deprivation tank to better remember what he saw on the bus. This time, Cuddy is there with him. They conjecture that he saw something in the bus driver that caught his attention, but it could only be something he saw from behind, possibly a bobbing head or wiggling ear lobes. The differential they concoct includes aortic insufficiency (a leaky aoritc valce in the heart), Marfan’s syndrome (an inherited disease of the connective tissues), syphilis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (another inherited connective tissue disease), and Cutis Laxa (still another inherited disease of the connective tissues). There are also suggestions of early Huntington’s or Parkinson’s Disease. House decides it is the latter. He comes out of the deprivation tank and immediately vomits and passes out. When he comes to, he is in his apartment with a nurse to look over him and a security guard to keep him from leaving.

The bus driver is not doing well. He has developed liver failure, jaundice, and has a low albumin. The team suggests Wilson’s Disease (a disease of copper metabolism affecting the liver), hepatitis, hepatic fibrosis, and Thyrotoxic Periodic Paralysis. To rule out the latter, they carbohydrate-load the patient and put him on a treadmill. This should induce the paralysis, but since it doesn’t, the team concludes that the patient does not have the condition. He does become acutely short of breath and hypoxic, however. The team believes the patient has suffered a pulmonary embolus (a clot blocking one of the blood vessels of the lungs), but House deduces that the bus driver developed an air embolism from some recent dental work and as this air bubble has moved throughout his body, it has caused all his symptoms. He positions the patient in such a way that the air is trapped in the heart and has Dr. Thirteen remove it with a syringe. The patient immediately improves.

At home that night, House has a dream featuring a striking woman with a red scarf. The dream convinces him that the bus driver was not the patient he remembered. He reenacts the bus ride, with co-workers playing the role of passengers. He also downs a handful of phisostygmine to help him remember. He flashes back to riding on the bus, and realizes that it was Amber who was on the bus with him, and she is the patient in question. She was critically injured in the crash and hauled off to another hospital as “Jane Doe.” (And we’ll have to wait until next week for the conclusion of the story.)

The medicine was more haphazard than usual tonight, and it’s been very haphazard recently. Of course, part of that could be blamed on House’s own haphazard state tonight.

Hypnosis, even “medical hypnosis” simply doesn’t work like that. If it were that miraculous, it would be used by every police department in the country.

Stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and subdural hematoma aren’t going to cause bilateral leg paralysis and shouldn’t have been so high on the list of possible diagnoses.

Tranverse myelitis is not a bacterial infection, and is not treated with antibiotics. It can be caused by certain viral infections or systemic conditions, but is most often caused by an overactive immune system attacking the spinal cord. Steroids are the treatment of choice.

While physostigmine has been used in cases of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, it has shown at best only minimal improvement. Several decades ago it was tested as a memory aid, but with lackluster results. It is also not available commercially in the U.S. as an oral formulation, unless House has access to a researcher’s stash.

For someone with an open fracture of the skull — indicated by House’s bleeding ear — submerging in a tub full of water is a great way to get an infection straight to the brain.

Nasal pruritis can suggest many things. Seasonal allergies would be at the top of my list. A tumor is a possibility, but a very very remote one. If the concern is that high for a tumor, a quick look up the nose is not going to be enough.

The air embolism from a dental procedure would have been tiny — too tiny to cause all the patient’s symptoms. Once an air embolus gets into the blood vessels, it either rises (going to the brain, since it started in the mouth) or is pushed along the circulation until it reaches the heart and then the lungs (where small ones are absorbed; large ones cause a pulmonary embolus). The air embolus wouldn’t travel elsewhere in the body unless the patient had a severe heart defect with a left-to-right right-to-left shunt.

The medical mystery was very good — one of the best ones yet and easily earns an A. The medicine was very haphazrd, but even so, it was better than it has been the last two weeks so deserves a B-. The final solution (bus driver) didn’t really fit the patient (or the anatomy or the scenario), so is knocked back down to a C. The final solution (Amber), will have to wait until next week, but come on — “resin?” House would have figured it out then and there. The soap opera was minimal, but intriguing, especially the hallucinatory and remembered parts. I give it a B.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

From the spring of 1963 comes this PSA on anesthesia from the Dr. Kildare comic book. Certainly anesthesia is an unusual topic for a PSA page, but let’s at least give the writers credit for using medically related information to fill the pages.

It’s an interesting PSA because it shows how far medical science has advanced just in the field of anesthesia over the past forty years. It also, inadvertantly, shows how much society has changed as well…take a look at that second panel: cocaine as a local anesthetic. It’s not used much today, if at all (though during my medical school years, “TAC” — Tetracaine, Adrenaline, and Cocaine — was used as a topical anesthetic in the pediatric ER, and that wasn’t too many years ago. I’m not sure if it’s still in use now.). The general anesthetics mentioned — ether and chloroform — are long gone and have been replaced, several times over, by better medications. And that “Auto-Hypnosis” concept? Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now. Still an interesting idea though.

PSA Update

In my coverage of the classic Superman: For the Animals, I wrote:

Besides the story and five pages of DC house ads, Superman for the Animals also contains the alliterative Comics for Compassion Coloring Contest, where children 8-12 got to color a picture of Superman and tell DC Comics how they would help animals if they had super powers. The winner got the chance to appear in a DC comic along with their favorite pet. Sadly, I don’t know if this ever came to pass.

Thanks to an e-mail from the Director of Comics for Compassion, I (and now you) know the answer as well. 12 year-old Veronica Munoz won, and appeared in Young Justice #49 and #50 (she was one of the heroes tagging along with YJ on their invasion of Zandia). I’ve scanned in the title page of YJ #50 so everyone can see the winner “Snake Girl” (YJ #50 story by Peter David, art by Todd Nauck)

Now that’s a cover. It grabs your attention and makes you want to read the comic. The fact that a little of the first page can be seen where Lois ripped off the title is a nice touch.

In Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #80, Lois gets upset when Superman misses her birthday party. She would have understood it if he were out saving the world, but when she discovers that he spent the night crushing cars in a junkyard she becomes absolutely furious. She decides that Superman is “just not that into her” and that it would be best for her to leave Metropolis for good. She randomly chooses a city on the map and ends up moving to Coral City.

Once in Coral City, she decides to support herself by getting a job as a nurse at the local hospital. When she goes to apply for a job, she is dismayed to discover that hundreds of other nurses have shown up for the job as well. Her quick thinking in helping a ten-year-old boy whose toy fell down a storm drain impresses the head doctor and she is hired on the spot. When asked for her name, she tells him, “Lois Lorne.” (How she managed to get a nursing diploma and license under an alias is never mentioned).

As usual, Lois is the über-Nurse. She is an operating room nurse, a physical therapist, a floor nurse and a clinic nurse. One day, a rocket launched from the nearby military base crashes. The pilot, Rand Kirby ( “the handsomest astronaut on base”), is brought to the hospital for emergency surgery.

Doctor: He’s in shock! He’ll need a transfusion! Luckily his dog tag lists his blood type!

Lois rushes down to the blood bank, but the door is jammed and she can’t open it. She realizes that she has the same blood type as Rand and volunteers for a transfusion. The doctor thinks the pilot’s condition is worrisome, but is waiting for the x-rays to be sure (personally, I think the fact that he’s in a coma would be a bad sign.) The transfusion from Lois miraculously brings Rand out of his coma, and when the x-rays show no serious injuries, he is ready to be discharged from the hospital. First, though, he asks Lois out with that classic pick-up line: “With your blood flowing in me veins…there is a sort of special bond between us”

On one of Lois and Rand’s dates, they catch a foreign spy in the act. He escapes, but Superman flies by and catches him. Because the spy hurt his leg in the scuffle, he is brought to the hospital for treatment and questioning. Superman shows up at the hospital as well, trying to persuade Lois to return to Metropolis. At one point, the doctors ask Lois to get the Sodium Pentothal “truth serum” to inject into the patient. Lois gets a brilliant idea: she draws up a syringe of water and pretends it’s the sodium pentothal. She then trips and injects herself with the syringe. Believing that Lois is under the effect of the drug, Superman quizzes her. She lies and tells him that she has no feelings for him anymore. Sadly, he flies off for Metropolis and Lois remains as a nurse in Coral City.

Sodium pentothal (also known as sodium thiopental, thiopentone sodium, and trapanal) is an extremely fast-acting injectable anesthetic. Since it can put people to sleep in less than a minute, it was once widely used as to initiate anesthesia (propofol is used more commonly now, though many anesthesiologists still use the pentothal).

In lower doses, sodium pentothal has a reputation for being a “truth serum.” The idea is that the drug interferes with a person’s judgment and lowers their inhibitions, leaving them open for questioning. The CIA allegedly tested it during their MK-ULTRA project and several governments reportedly continue to use it for interrogations. Realistically, it has never worked well. Much like hypnosis, people under the effects of sodium pentothal have difficulty distinguishing fact from fantasy, are open to subtle suggestions from their questioners, and are unreliable witnesses. Despite what Lois may think, it is certainly possible to lie while under the effect of sodium pentothal.

Ethics is the big issue here. The use of sodium pentothal in questioning is against both federal law and the Geneva Convention. And what about Superman? Questioning Lois while he thinks she’s under the effect of a truth serum — that’s just sleazy and wrong on so many levels.

As for the rest of the medicine in this issue, I just wonder what kind of transfusion can pull a man from a coma. Commander Kirby’s doctors also make one of the most common mistakes in comic book medicine — transfusing a patient without ever figuring out how they lost so much blood in the first place! Maybe medicine was easier in the sixties.

Next Friday, the story of Lois Lorne continues in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #81.

Another cloudy cold Sunday in central Illinois. Apparetnly, there’s a law of nature that Sundays in this area can’t be nice days. No big deal this week, as I’ve got a great deal of reading to catch up on, and I’d just as soon lounge on the comfortable couch in the den.

Good news! Our new grass has finally started to grow. The backyard now looks like a giant Chia-Pet.
Better News! My partner comes back tomorrow! No call for 2 weeks!!

Sunday Blog-o-Bits:

1. Just over 1 week until the Tour de France!
2. I know I mentioned my concern about Bible-inspired diets a few weeks ago. Now comes news that the academic credentials of author Jordan Rubin are all from non-accredited correspondance “diploma mills” (third item down). This is not the first time this has happened, John Gray, author of all those “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” books also has mail-order academic credentials.
3. From the Hypnosis in Media site is a look at hypnosis and mind-control involving comic books and comic book characters. Other comics are discussed here. A very thorough listing that seems to be accurate as far as I can tell. Maybe I’ll be able to find a good mind-control story after all.
4. Finally, for all you war-gamers, or those interested in military history, check out the Armchair General. In addition to good historical articles, it also offers readers the chance to find out what would have happened if they had been in charge in famous battles (I fare…poorly).