Latest / Mythmakers / Season 3 Premiere! - Rabbits in Fantasy

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Season 3 Premiere! - Rabbits in Fantasy · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm
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  an author but also director of the Centre.
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  I'm Jacob Renaker. I'm a fantasy scholar, I am a enthusiast and I work in creating fantasy
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  board games and trading heart games.
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  And today in honour of the arrival of the year of the rabbit on the 22nd of January, Jacob
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  and I are devoting this programme to discussing the role of rabbits in fantasy. Now the first
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  thing Jacob I came across when I when I looked into this is the big difference between the
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  hare and the rabbit. That would be another programme. But the, I think one of the reasons
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  for this is that in terms of UK mythology, rabbits are actually a fairly new arrival.
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  One story is that they came over with the Normans and the second is that they came over before
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  that with the Romans. So we're very much regarded as a well a food source. They had warrants
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  which they managed and obviously rabbit fur was used in cloaks and all that kind of thing.
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  So there are relatively new arrival in terms of the UK. So I reckon that's why they've
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  missed out on a mythological status. So Jacob what were your first thoughts when you came
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  to thinking about rabbits in fantasy? Yeah, I was immediately hit with the same issue and
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  looking through the different familiar fantasy images that I had in my mind of what I just
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  figured all were rabbits and turns out they weren't that is not technically the case.
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  And so yeah, I had a kind of a crash course in what is it? Lapid? Is that the the technical name?
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  Whatever they're technical. Latin. You're taking us down the Latin route. Yeah.
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  Yeah, yeah, for yeah, for for genus and species purposes at a crash course in in hairs versus rabbits.
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  And I think yeah, that one of the reasons that that you said was that rabbits are fairly
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  new comers to the UK and with hairs. And I think also socially from my education this past
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  week or so on rabbits and by no means an expert. But that hairs generally are more independent
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  and only associate in groups of maybe one or two. Whereas rabbits have warrants and so there's
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  different types of behavior associated socially. And so that fits and I think with some of the
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  stories that we'll talk about today that certainly fits well with the technical rabbits versus the
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  hairs that I was having to kind of filter out of this conversation who do definitely come across
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  as more independent functioning on their own. And the other thing about hairs of course is they
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  get all the exciting stuff of you know as mad as a march hair. To them where is there's definitely
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  a coziness to rabbits which I I don't know if in the Chinese culture which is obviously incorporated
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  it very importantly as part of the you know the zodiac the cosmology whether or not the same
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  associations are true over there. But anyway let's think about rabbits in fantasy and the first
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  place we're going to stop because we are the Oxford Centre is with potentially the most famous
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  fantasy rabbit that is the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland who is always late with his
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  his pocket watch and he is the one who is actually the call to adventure for Alice and of course
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  follows him down the rabbit hole. So what do you think about the qualities of the white rabbit
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  and its role in that story what's what use has Lewis Carroll made of our you know our friendly
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  garden creature in that case. Yeah with the white rabbit I thought it was interesting that
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  Carroll uses both a rabbit and a hair right and I'm sure that that's intentional that particular
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  difference in terms of the rabbit itself you certainly have a sense and it's hard to talk
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  about the white rabbit in my mind without talking about the hair as well so we'll just
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  I'll mention in passing the hair but we're just for the purposes of comparison. So with the rabbit
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  yeah it seems to be more anxious and I go more tightly wound which perhaps is mirrored in its
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  pocket watch right it's personality versus the hair who is not tightly wound right or is what
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  is a different type of winding and so the rabbit yeah is constantly in his character kind of seems
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  to be anxious and serves the function of a herald really right for the king and queen of hearts
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  so yeah so it's interesting that that that is the portal into this world was this character who
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  is the herald of the monarchs for this larger area or one of the larger areas that she is kind of
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  inducted to. Yes and usually one of the reasons why in Lewis Carroll is you know there is somebody
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  with a rabbit in his real life and he he puts it into his book there's a lot of in jokes and
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  coding that goes on but extrapolating from that I think the rabbit is you know I think he's actually
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  picking up is if you actually watch a rabbit they have that kind of twitchy nose that they're hardly
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  still and I think there's an element of the anxious bureaucrat the person who is serving the
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  hermagon bread isn't you know it's a difficult wonder he's so worried that he's going to be late
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  and also he's constantly running on ahead so is that sense of restless and you know he's he's
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  he is the the fidgety side so I think that's a very good way because as you say a lot of the other
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  characters Alice meets are over here but people like the the caterpillar and the cheshire cat they're
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  all quite zoned out and that energy is a good one to actually start an adventure okay so that's
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  you know the lovely white rabbit we'll leave him leave him where he is running around wonderland
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  and and I suppose the next most famous stop in fantasy literature for me is Beatrix Potter and here
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  I will bring evidence number one which this sits on my mantel piece it's actually a money box
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  but of course it's one of Beatrix Potter's rabbits there are a number of them we have
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  obviously epilepsy bunnies Benjamin rabbit Benjamin bunny sorry Peter rabbit so clearly in the
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  world of Beatrix Potter rabbits are absolutely central where you get that association of the
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  cuteness of rabbits and also the family of rabbits it's one of the illustrations I remember best
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  the Peter rabbit story is the mum the mother rabbit with all her little baby rabbits and then she's
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  sort of pushing Peter rabbit into a jacket looks a bit small for him which I think many children
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  have experienced that so there's a there's a association of the kind of children and the rabbit
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  family and it's all quite and you know it's the family pet there's a sense of many people would have
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  had as kids family pets so there's that coziness but what happens in the story it's actually a bit
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  like um bambi or one of those things where a child is suddenly confronted with the fact chance of death
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  in mr. McGregor's garden so it's actually it's got that darker side and isn't his father
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  I remember correctly you've got younger than me but I see the father's already ended up in a pie
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  exactly yeah so it is a dark world um and Beatrix Potter was not sentimental even though her pictures
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  are very sweet and beautiful there is always this memory of nature read in two-thin claw thank you
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  Tennyson for that wonderful phrase um in in her world of rabbits do you have her favorite Beatrix
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  Potter rabbit is I think Peter yeah Peter's got the iconic and I have I brought mine
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  began to I have a almost three-year-old and so he has his uh Peter rabbit with his jacket whose
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  which is a little short and another little figure um there that actually tells stories uh this is
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  I know we'll be talking about tips later but uh for those of you with children uh and who appreciate
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  stories but you don't always like reading them stories or the same stories uh there's this wonderful
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  little uh uh device called the Tony box T-O-N-I-E box uh and they have these little figures and
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  coded to the figures are stories so there's uh so you can have a narrator recite to your child uh
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  Peter and story of Peter rabbits so you don't have to all the time keep it busy
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  well I do I don't even know when you when you've said it you've read them a new story
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  and they yet she's six weeks six times I can see it having a role it's a nice
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  and they can do it on their own right so yeah it's great entertainment anyway so it's available
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  Peter rabbit can be in your child's ear as constantly as they want uh if you have other things
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  that you need to be getting onto uh that's just so parenting as well as a story tip um regarding
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  Peter rabbit so yeah so that one um for for Peter it's your iconic and I think I was you know
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  thinking through I was actually looked to some of the uh your early reviews of Peter rabbit um and
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  some uh critical responses and uh one of the uh uh kind of trends that I noted was that this was
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  podra kind of created a new form of animal fable where the anthropomorphic animals
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  behaved as real animals that had true instincts like you were saying uh julia with a nature
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  red and tooth and cloud so you have animals acting like more like animals than just humans you know
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  anthropomorphized animals in a you know medieval setting or in a whatever you're acting as humans
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  this was kind of more of an attempt uh to give them an actual animal flavor um with the animal
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  fable um and I think uh another critic noted that with the illustrations especially right that these
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  were anatomically correct animals uh they they spoke but they're clearly they have the proportions
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  of rabbits right and the other animals there that are that are speaking so and then they call
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  I like this phrase it was the perfect marriage of a word and image uh and a triumph of fantasy and
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  fact so uh you have these blending of the natural uh world that we experience and this fantasy world
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  kind of woven together in a unique way there um so yeah Peter for me and uh something that I
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  came across oh this was um uh several months ago that when you mentioned rabbits it was one of the
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  first things that came to mind uh again as a tie to the uh Oxford Center for Fantasy is a C.S. Lewis
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  C.S. Lewis I came across this C.S. Lewis quote uh where he was talking about Peter rabbit
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  when he's uh in preface to paradise lost uh what else does that say Milton yeah you're ready for this
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  yeah so this is great I remember mashed up and Milton bit explosive right right so so um yeah so
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  but Lewis was doing those he was addressing in preface to paradise lost one of his um uh you know
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  predecessors um uh at Madeline College had written something about uh the you know the great moral
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  message of Milton uh in paradise lost is uh the most universal and useful which was that
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  obedience makes people happy and disobedience makes people miserable so they said that that's what
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  with the the big large scale that's kind of what the message is of paradise lost uh there was a
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  uh contemporary critic to Lewis who kind of was poking at this particular statement um and they said
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  that this amazed him because it was a vague statement uh they they felt that this moral of
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  paradise lost was kind of vague um so this was Lewis's response was uh and I have it
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  quoted here would you like the quote or do you want to pay for it go for the quote
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  um all right so he says uh responding to this critic who called that you know reading a paradise lost
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  as vague um uh Lewis says uh dull it amazed him because dull if you will or platitudinous or harsh
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  or or jejun but how vague has it not rather the decilating clarity and concreteness of certain
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  classic classic utterances we remember from the morning of our own lives you know go to bed
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  write out I must do as I am told a hundred times or do not speak with your mouthful how are we
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  to account for the fact that great modern scholars have missed this so dazzlingly simple uh it is
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  after all the communist of themes even Peter Rabbit came to grief because he would go into
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  Mr. McGregor's garden so you have this tie of the garden of Eden and paradise lost and Mr.
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  McGregor's garden that Peter Rabbit is in and saying that the the the message that Lewis is
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  drawing in here is that obedience to his mother uh misses rabbit uh to stay out of the garden and
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  do not go into Mr. McGregor's garden right um that that is met with uh consequences of
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  misery for Peter because of disobedience that that was that moral message and essentially he saw
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  that functioning in the same um moral sphere as paradise lost so for Lewis or for yeah so for
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  for C.S. Lewis he seems to he plays you know it can switch gears between biotrics potters
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  Peter Rabbit and John Milton right and so I think most people and scholars wouldn't necessarily
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  make that sort of connection but that's something that fascinates me about Lewis is how he's able to
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  put these stories into conversation with each other and sort of interesting uh results that you
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  get when you take seriously children's literature uh and compare it to any other literature
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  so let's give me three thoughts Jacob the first is I do hosting a doctorate on the
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  milltonic echoes in biotrics potter that's great I think thing uh is that there's a difference here
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  between allegory and applicability the old um uh sort of Tolkien and Lewis conversation which is
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  that the medieval use of animals like the parliament of thousands things was allegorical
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  well and what biotrics potter is all so you could apply um
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  Peter going into mr McGregor's garden as a garden of Eden echo it's applicable
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  but it's obviously not an allegory of that because it's just not it's it's it's it's it's it's a
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  it's not a one-on-one fit that you would expect of an allegory thought which moves us on
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  for a biotrics potter to see us Lewis himself is that um raising the non-year treatment of
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  animals and putting them alongside biotrics potter you can see that that is where I think
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  Lewis is coming from um so here's Reaper Cheek for example feels like a kind of swashbuckling
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  biotrics potter character uh in many ways um so I I'm not sure he's the own she's the only
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  Victorian doing this or Edwardian um but I does feel as though non-year and the world of
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  talking animals wouldn't exist without biotrics potter do you agree yeah no I absolutely agree
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  and you know Lewis you know in in um surprised by joy he talks about three specific
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  intro in you know instances in his early life where he had this feeling of you know quote joy
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  this this kind of sharp uh distinctive sense um that he describes as as joy um and one of those
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  three you know one was the little toy garden uh that he had um kind of this this this world in
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  miniature um the other uh was the poem by Longfell of the saga of King Olaf um and then the the third
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  of these was uh the idea of autumn in the tale of squirrel nutkin by biotrics potter so that was
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  one of his one of his specific you know instances that were kind of set him on his quest for joy in
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  life was this experience with a biotrics potter book so he was uh he was very tied to this biotra
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  potter he said I think often when he was sick he would read biotrics potter even as an adult like
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  when he when he had the flu and he would you know laid up in bed he would always return to uh to
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  biotrics potter and he even tried you know made a pilgrimage out uh but unfortunately was not able to
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  meet biotrics potter um you can today yeah you can today if you're people listening to this and come
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  to the UK you can actually stand on the beach uh a kezik and look at the you know the picture of all
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  the squirrels on sort of paddling over to the island you get exactly that view it was such a brilliant
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  as well as her animal picture she captured the real places she wasn't creating a fantasy fantasy
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  world in that sense it was um very often the garden the lake district and and others um wonderful
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  stuff so um I also that reminded me of boxing and the creation of boxing with his mother which of course
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  was that was that was that not an animal world animal kingdom as well of sorts exactly yeah right
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  no it wasn't they had separate lands you had that you did have a rabbit land they had these kind
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  of different apportioned kingdoms and so they didn't have a specific rabbit land of rabbit characters
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  in boxing but this was different so yeah so clearly influenced by their interest um the
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  Lewis children's interest in biotrics potter um but this there's was kind of the just animals
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  set in you know medieval society didn't necessarily act as animals um but but certainly you see
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  influence there and uh yeah and then you do have differences I don't know if this is a good time
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  to if you want to take a side quest into narnia a brief side quest uh for rabbit
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  I thought a side quest because like is it not the animal uh the Christmas party that gets turned
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  to stone don't they have rabbits sitting at the table yeah yeah yeah there's two others um one of
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  them is in yeah uh the horse and his boy um uh shasta gets when um the there's the impending attack
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  on arc and land uh shasta gets there's a group of rabbits that he has spread the word that the
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  attack is coming so you have rabbits specifically there as again kind of heralds as you did in um
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  and Lewis Carroll um and then in the last battle this is and this is interesting for
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  Lewis's world building within narnia um there's different types of animal creatures and sentience
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  or moral action possible uh in in animals so um this was uh so you had jill do you have this
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  section here that says jill had succeeded in shooting a rabbit and then parenthetically not a talking
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  rabbit of course there are lots of ordinary kind about in western narnia uh and parentheses and
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  it was already skinned cleaned and hanging up so there's so you have these kind of like sentient
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  rabbits that can talk and uh and then these non-sentient rabbits that you're okay to eat uh and skin
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  so there's a differentiation kind of hierarchy even within each animal grouping uh which is
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  really interesting i don't know if that was just because if this was you know kind of a last story
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  if he's kind of like thinking this through on his feet right so he wasn't as meticulous of a
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  world builder as uh Tolkien was right by any stretch of the word but yeah i wonder if this is kind
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  of him thinking through okay how how do animals carnivorous animals in narnia what do they eat
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  and are they eating other kind of these sentient creatures that we've come to know and love
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  or is there something is there another way possible so this seems to be kind of a foray into
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  a bit of world building kind of differentiation that i don't see it done quite carefully in
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  narnia because that's not what Lewis's uh purpose is but i do see kind of a nod towards kind of a
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  thinking through of how this world functions with with speaking animals and not and possibly
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  of not speaking animals in that world don't you think it's also terribly practical
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  many children of that era and probably even today experience of there are some animals on the
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  small holding and are pets and there were some that you don't name because you might end up eating
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  them um and you wouldn't you know uh i can imagine that's a very having come through the war
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  or with the evacuees staying up at um the kilns or what have you
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  no doubt they would have looked for opportunities to have off ration book protein so you don't want
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  a name they're a name them Benjamin Bunney you're me and then right you know i can see
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  in a toolkit hearing a sort of practical solution into a narnia there okay um we sort of gone
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  to narnia but before we come up to close to the present time but famous rabbit is rabbit
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  in Winnie the Pooh um obviously this is a rabbit who's based on a soft toy as our most of the creatures
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  in that rather eclectic group um that around Winnie the Pooh but rabbit there um is perhaps
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  unlike the other rabbits that we've met in that he is a kind of good friend sound person
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  not silly or scatty he's he's a sort of the serious as al but just a good thought um i think he's
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  also most famous in the story um where Winnie the Pooh comes from tea and gets stuck
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  doesn't he in the window because he's eaten too much and and so rabbit just goes around the back
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  and i know oh well all the door whatever it is the hole they get into the house so um that seems
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  to be playing a little bit against type in that so far has been the twitchy go into the garden
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  and get eaten he seems to be a different kind of creature yeah uh yeah rabbit comes across yeah
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  less is kind of a scattered um and more of a clever but in the wrong kind a kind of an incompetent
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  cleverness in sense because you know he has a few different plans uh he doesn't like change
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  right and so when uh kanga comes in he's very uncomfortable with new additions to their group
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  right so he has this this this elaborate plan to to scare kanga away by hiding Rue uh and trying to
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  create the initial work kanga would want to leave um and he also has a uh you know a plan to unbound
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  tiger uh that doesn't end up working out um so he so he's he's the one like he seems to be the practical
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  organizer right where he tries to take the lead with the group but never quite manages and he
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  sees himself as the one that Christopher can depend on so you have this kind of you know uh hubris
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  of his own plans and kind of yeah i do see the anxiety um a bit similar to the white rabbit
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  more emphasized in the disney cartoon adaptation um he he does come across more as an anxious kind
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  of a control freak right he you know i don't get that sense as much in um in in the book itself but
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  in the cartoon definitely he's kind of a worry wart right um with a short temper who just really
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  is kind of agitated so he seems more rabbit-ish in uh in in the disney adaptation and what's
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  interesting i think there is that you'll see at least in that adaptation rabbit is kind of placed
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  as a foil for tigger so you have rabbit as kind of order and tigger as chaos right so you have
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  these two kind of like arctic animals uh images that keep like budding up against each other um uh
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  that's a that's a ready-made source of conflict uh for you know within the hundred acre wood so
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  i i think i thought that that was a interesting adaptation that actually works from a storytelling
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  perspective it's kind of leaning into some of those tendencies um within those characters
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  and i think now we need to go to the i'd suppose it's the piester resistance for rabbit and fantasy
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  which is the wonderful watershed down um which i think shows us it blows all the rest out the
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  water in a sense it shows us a completely different way of doing a animal-based fantasy story um i
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  grew up at the time when the cartoon came out the uh apps king terrifying but very memorable
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  um adaptation with the famous bright eyes soundtrack which i think went to number one for many
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  weeks uh when it was around um and there he's dealing with um mixed mitosis um the re and imagining
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  what it's like to live in these sort of commune style um rabbit warrants with different groups
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  being moved on being moved out being killed um and again you've got this line taking a different
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  approach obviously to be it tricky but you've got rabbit behavior interpreted through a sort of
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  human anthropomorphic lens but they aren't people they are relationships between the characters are
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  are perceived more on a human level than one pursuums a rabbit level so did you remember did you
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  read it have you seen the film how did you come across hardship now yeah my first encounter was
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  with the film uh which was uh i think that some of the most memorable that kind of felt similar were
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  the rats of nim yeah uh cartoon the dawn blue film they came out i think around the same time or at
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  least they did in my child's mind uh they're kind of linked there that also and um uh so you know
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  animals as protagonists um that were both not they wouldn't be you know Disney would not
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  release those films right there there there's something about them that is that you do have real
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  threat real terror um uh real stakes uh clear stakes and haunting uh and their sadness right there's
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  real sorrow um and i think just a little later um you have the last unicorn that was released uh as
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  well so these kind of those three cartoons for me were kind of imbued my sense of what fantasy could
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  be with sorrow right that there's this sense that later i came across me with when i'm reading in
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  in lord of the rings where he captures that really well is there's there's there's kind of this
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  this under uh undercurrent of sadness or sorrow yeah um that everything else is kind of playing
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  off of and against and so that what you don't necessarily get that with um a lot of the Disney
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  children films with uh with animals as protagonists so this was something yeah but that's that was my
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  exposure to it was in the cartoon and then uh also then then later reading it as the book and then
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  getting more into the culture itself and just being fascinated uh especially with the mythology
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  right the kind of like a native from the perspective of a rabbit's what mythology would look
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  like from a rabbit's perspective passing i don't know what do you think yeah about the the world
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  building that uh that Adam stood there it's very recognizable on the downs right it's very close
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  to is set very close to where i actually live and so there's a you get an acute sense of the landscape
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  though his is not a uh there's not in a mystical landscape in any sense it's this is happening
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  on the hill up behind your house um sense but it's only the beginning of a real environmental
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  consciousness in that kind of animal fable um because there is the sense of development moving
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  people on and the introduction of this mysterious illness which we know as mixed mitosis to wipe out
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  rabbit colonies um so i think it's it's extraordinary and in a way i think there are other fantasy
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  series that have come on from that they they they feel different but like the Brian J.
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  Redwall series um that's more of a heroic animal tale take but these sort of almost operatically
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  grand scale pieces where the animals are the heroes and taken very seriously i think is quite a
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  strong thread within children's fantasy and sort of crossing over into YA fantasy as well um yeah
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  so i i just remembering it being in uh in my childhood is up there with star wars i think it's
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  because i was shot i thought i was going to see a nice fool about rabbits and i got a kind of rabbit
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  armageddon it's so yeah um so yeah i think exactly what fantasy should do it should shake you up
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  and so i think it's it's a really great book and if people haven't read it yet or seen the film um
• 32:22
  i think it's it's well worth looking out as in the year of the rabbit make it the thing to watch in
• 32:27
  the year of the rabbit i can't say i was i have really quickly i went and got the guardian review uh
• 32:35
  when the book came out i know that it was turned down for those you know again for the interesting
• 32:41
  for everyone but for creatives in particular uh is that uh looking at the publication history
• 32:47
  of this book because it is wildly different right um from the other animal centric books it's hard
• 32:53
  it's hard to categorize you can't just say that this is a oh children's book um because of the
• 32:58
  some of the themes that it deals with um but uh it was it was turned down from several publishers and
• 33:04
  then uh finally found its way after several uh rejections and then it ended up winning you know
• 33:12
  awards once it was published um so for those of you who are working on something just because you
• 33:16
  receive a rejection keep going doesn't mean that it's that your work is not valuable uh right it's
• 33:23
  not the final word right right um uh but so the guardian the the guardian review was was very positive um
• 33:30
  and this is how it started out this is great it said it simply isn't possible at this date
• 33:35
  next to me too uh you cannot write a story about rabbits 413 pages long and hold a reader riveted
• 33:43
  but Richard Adams has done exactly that in watershed down this is a great book establishing a more
• 33:49
  than plausible and totally fascinating psychology and physiology for its rabbits together with
• 33:56
  their own mythology and language so that if I if I if I could make somebody write something
• 34:03
  like that about anything that I wrote like I just put that you know stamp that on my tombstone
• 34:07
  and I might as well just like crawl into the grave because I think that that's I'd be tickled and
• 34:11
  happy to if somebody felt that way about my above like I'm not too right so uh this is yes
• 34:20
  that like clearly this was something that for people who are looking at books and like world
• 34:24
  building and and this person understood what the author was trying to do right and taking the
• 34:30
  author on their own terms um and just like the world that was created there uh some people didn't quite
• 34:37
  get it because it didn't fit in with how they approached they were probably thinking about when they
• 34:42
  picked up a book we're thinking Beatrix Pogger uh uh or we're thinking you know mill or you know
• 34:49
  anything else but this was this was something that was definitely new but it had its own logic to it
• 34:54
  right um and it was consistent tried to be internally consistent which is something that Tolkien right
• 34:59
  was was adamant about fantasy worlds creating as the quality of a fantasy world uh can be judged
• 35:04
  against its internal consistency that was one of his uh uh right one of his criteria um in on
• 35:10
  fairy stories so uh yeah so this is something that he does really well and just I thought that
• 35:14
  was interesting to see what at the time people thought of the book and how revolutionary really it was
• 35:19
  in terms of just storytelling with animals so um i've come up uh UK-based
• 35:29
  origin stories and i'm i'm i'm wondering what i don't know about rabbits i'm sure there's a lot
• 35:35
  but Jacob did you come up with any um our own thoughts about rabbits in fantasy
• 35:41
  yeah uh there was uh velveteen rabbit uh was one i think we missed uh earlier that was and that
• 35:47
  one that that's and that's another one that is for its simplicity i think the the theme and the
• 35:53
  mad like the subject matter there is is reality itself right what does it mean to be real uh and it's
• 35:59
  a it's a it's a bittersweet tale right uh it itself so i think the tone of that one fits the
• 36:05
  phil you know the kind of watershed down where uh it's not dealing with a rabbit as like a rabbit
• 36:11
  as an animal as a creature it is a stuffed you know animal um it's a toy but it's what does it
• 36:19
  mean to be loved you know what what love what does love do to you as an as an individual right so
• 36:26
  it's it's in a part i think probably maybe you do have like i sense a little bit of allegorical
• 36:34
  maybe seasoning on on it's really not a one-to-one allegory but you do have that kind of sense
• 36:42
  for me kind of comparing that to uh be a trick spotter i feel there's a little bit more i think like
• 36:49
  mythic weight uh in the velveteen rabbit of course in part because a fairy does appear uh at the end
• 36:54
  and grants the wish so you do have fairy the land of fairy and magic kind of intersecting with
• 37:00
  these kind of talking toys um so in that way it's kind of different from some of the other uh so
• 37:06
  it's certainly different from uh Winnie the Pooh um and that you don't have kind of like a fairy uh
• 37:12
  and they don't the the animals themselves don't seem to be aware that they are toys they think
• 37:18
  that they are actual living creatures but we're kind of i take your thoughts on that
• 37:22
  voice
• 37:27
  they are there with even though they get up the way to bed
• 37:31
  right yeah but yes exactly exactly so uh so this is one that i think is like is is highlighting
• 37:38
  the distinction between the imaginary and the real world but i do i do like that right that internally
• 37:45
  in Winnie the Pooh you have creatures are are they how do they function versus how the narrator
• 37:52
  is seeing the creatures function in the story um what is their sensible awareness yeah yeah absolutely
• 38:00
  and so clever so velveteen rabbit is another one kind of from that uh air uh but the only of the
• 38:04
  ones i think kind of more contemporary the red wall books that one was a uh kind of foundational
• 38:10
  series for me with fantasy growing up i just really got into that series and there aren't yeah
• 38:15
  that you have a few rabbits there um but hairs are by and far there's hairs in every book in the
• 38:21
  series and the extensive series but only a few rabbits scattered throughout um i fear i may have
• 38:26
  pronounced his name wrong is it Brian jacks or Brian jacquoise i'm very sure i was
• 38:32
  pronounated jacquoise yeah i know i pronounated jacquoise but i'm uh yeah that that was just how i
• 38:38
  pronounced it inside my head when i was okay and so i apologize if we've got it wrong and also just
• 38:44
  a correction in case someone's um wanting to put it in the comments i'm history with his
• 38:50
  college is mordlin not magna mordlin not magna as a whole i'll remember of mordlin i better just say
• 38:57
  that before they chuck me out on my ear and say never talk and i'm talking anyway so going back to
• 39:03
  rabbits um any any red wall anything else um you came up with there was that there yeah i was
• 39:09
  seeing great so harry potter has a new kind of a brief reference hairs though take on kind of a
• 39:14
  mythological uh magical dimension there but there is one rabbit i was thinking you know like rabbits
• 39:19
  like i know that somebody's patronus is a rabbit um but it was so like lunar love goods is a hair
• 39:25
  yeah but um tongs nymphadora tongs is a jackrabbit okay but that jackrabbit then transforms
• 39:34
  into a wolf because of her love for uh loopin so it starts up so like herself as kind of a shape
• 39:42
  shifting character her patronus shifts from initially being a jackrabbit and perhaps that
• 39:48
  you know i think you do see that in her character is kind of a shifting uh character right kind
• 39:53
  of a clever and that's where you really get i think in uh root in watershed down when they're
• 39:59
  talking about the mythology and what rabbits represent um uh the trickster rabbit right the
• 40:09
  l herera character this kind of archetypal the first the first rabbit kind of uh that was
• 40:18
  the from whom came all the world's rabbits that kind of first um myth mythic rabbit uh
• 40:26
  was meant to be smart devious tricky and devoted to the well-being of his war and so there's
• 40:33
  you have this idea of like that rabbits are are wily trickster characters um and so you i think
• 40:39
  you see that in tongs um uh in harry potter right this this this this this this shifting um can't quite
• 40:45
  pin them down but then she settles kind of settles down uh when she finds loopin and connects there
• 40:52
  with him so that was one there the only other ones uh couple couple other ones one was a usagi you
• 40:57
  jimbo uh which is a graphic novel uh a comic book series uh where it takes a you're kind of
• 41:05
  anthropomorphic animals standing in for humans at the beginning of the edo period in japanese
• 41:12
  history um and so it's yes he's a samurai he's kind of you know based on a famous uh
• 41:19
  japanese swordsman um and where i first encountered this creature was in teenage ninja turtles the cartoon
• 41:27
  which was one of my favorites um and so this this rabbit character when he came in it was from a
• 41:33
  different franchise um uh independent comic book um uh uh uh writer so it didn't belong to a marvel
• 41:41
  or dc but one of the kind of few kind of islands of a kind of independent comic publishers as
• 41:47
  was teenage ninja turtles uh was a started as a comic book then was adapted into the cartoon
• 41:52
  but this usagi you jimbo was another independent comic and so they had some crossover in the cartoon
• 41:58
  and i remember when i saw that rabbit the cartoon uh that it was uh that i was stricken with how
• 42:03
  different that character seemed and so then that introduced me into the larger uh world um that
• 42:09
  the author stan sekai creates uh in the comic series so it's it's it it's really well done right and
• 42:16
  it's and it's there's it's it's drama um it's it's action it's and it's serious it's not you know
• 42:23
  like the ninja turtles cartoon that was kind of silly and bouncy um this one is as much more
• 42:28
  kind of like subdued and serious uh in tone so that one uh so usagi you jimbo and then the last one
• 42:35
  that i thought of uh just kind of randomly came up with bugs bunny um and i think if if that world
• 42:41
  if the bugs bunny world warner brothers cartoon if that there's certainly fantasy type rules
• 42:49
  in that world so bugs bunny as the own the last kind of uh elephant standing in plain sight
• 42:57
  but hiding in his cartoonish form that's i think can technically be considered i don't i wouldn't
• 43:03
  necessarily i don't usually think about that in the context of fantasy but when i thought about it
• 43:08
  i thought yeah i think you can make a case for those cartoons being fantasy storytelling
• 43:14
  as opposed to science fiction story telling yeah so i thought realism so yeah so what's going on
• 43:21
  there is the hunter and the hunted dichotomy isn't it picking up on the wily aspect and also his
• 43:32
  he's a slightly cooler dude than someone like the one and he's the way he's he's he's
• 43:38
  burging more towards a hare in terms of being bigger and sort of longer ears and things so
• 43:44
  it is um so i think bugs bunny has definitely his place in the year of the rabbit um fantasy
• 43:52
  pantheon uh if we're allowed such a thing so Jacob just to sort of round it all up i mean we always
• 43:59
  have a section where we say where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be a rabbit um well
• 44:06
  i mean sorry we have a general thing but today's is where to be a rabbit um where would you choose
• 44:12
  all the ones we've talked about i yeah i was wrestling with that one because with some of these
• 44:17
  there's such tears especially a watershed down yeah that's like the game the game of thrones of
• 44:26
  world wise of where you would exist and what would happen there um but i thought i know with
• 44:33
  with the inclusion if we if we do include bugs bunny i would have to say the warner brother's
• 44:38
  cartoon world because as a rabbit i would never actually incur actual physical harm bugs but he's
• 44:46
  never heard uh right he's always the hunter who has hurt so i if i could come across you know come
• 44:53
  off unscathed uh i think i think the rabbits have it off best in terms of uh doing things their own
• 45:03
  perhaps that that would be fun without the sense of impending disaster or doom uh that sometimes
• 45:11
  is present some of these other rabbit tails yeah i think i'd probably be a talking rabbit in nonia
• 45:18
  that's where i'd go i wouldn't i wouldn't get involved in this stuff going on at care paravelle i just
• 45:23
  have a little house somewhere with my friends you know and living a living the rabbit life
• 45:30
  uh vegetarian lots of kids uh no i think that would be fun um my quick my guess my question for you
• 45:38
  is would you be an advocate for non-speaking rabbits in narnia oh this yeah
• 45:49
  as a rabbit you're saying as a sentient rabbit this is just getting me into political activism
• 45:54
  in your animal i think you'd have to be wouldn't you because i'm not sure there's a much
• 46:00
  difference between a talking rabbit and a rabbit that hasn't yet talked um we we're not quite
• 46:07
  we're not clear on our boundaries here so yeah freedom for rabbits from being hunted uh yeah they
• 46:13
  shall be vegans in in in nonia that would be the way to go so and and finally um i thought we should
• 46:20
  introduce a new segment to have one fantasy tip uh each time we're having one of our conversations
• 46:27
  Jacob and you can interpret that tip in whatever way you like um so do you have one tip to leave
• 46:34
  with the listeners say yeah uh yeah just actually this past uh past week or so um i listened to
• 46:42
  the official uh rings of power podcast so i know we had a session uh you know an Oxford Center
• 46:49
  fantasy on rings of power kind of evaluating it uh as an adaptation and as a creative act in and
• 46:55
  of itself um and so um i've been meaning to listen to this for a while because i know it was
• 47:00
  official so it's produced by amazon and so it's it's completely official it's so they interview
• 47:06
  different uh creators right they have the showrunners um to talk about you know their kind of
• 47:13
  philosophy for the series and what they're explaining kind of what they're intending to do and they
• 47:18
  do it um each is if there's uh the series of eight with a bonus ninth episode eight episodes
• 47:25
  each kind of focusing on one of the different episodes of the season um and uh so every episode
• 47:31
  they bring the showrunners on at the end they kind of give a big picture overview of kind of the
• 47:35
  themes and what's happening there in the world itself but then they also uh interview somebody else
• 47:41
  um like one of the actors they have a few different actors that they interview to get to see
• 47:45
  you know what their creative process was um like um uh bear McCreary who's the composer
• 47:51
  they interview him and they talk a lot about um uh you know his musical approach
• 47:56
  and comparing uh to the Howard Shore uh with the work that he did which is the you know the shadow
• 48:03
  that's looming over uh anything you know lord of the rings music related um and so the
• 48:10
  fascinating to hear his again like philosophy of music composition and explaining some of the
• 48:17
  different themes why he does certain things things to look out for um uh they talk about you know
• 48:22
  the costuming the sets um and how you know different Easter eggs of different uh you know
• 48:28
  Tolkien uh story bits and pieces that are there in the background that I didn't notice and so
• 48:34
  yeah so my my tip would be it's called yeah the rings the rings of power podcast um uh on
• 48:42
  amazon it's produced by one tree um is the yeah the the podcast production company which I believe
• 48:47
  is owned by amazon um so that's so whether or not you like is it on just an audio or is there
• 48:55
  visuals as well it's just it's just audio okay so it'll be on podcast platform it's just audio yeah
• 49:02
  yeah yeah you should find you might have to i'm not sure if you had to listen to i think i couldn't
• 49:08
  find it on the regular you know uh uh general podcast platforms i had to i i listened to it
• 49:16
  on uh with amazon music which you can get a free account for amazon music and then
• 49:22
  listen to it if you do um but yeah so it was well worth regardless of what you thought about
• 49:29
  the rings of power series it's valuable in and of itself listening to for storytelling
• 49:35
  the the immense amount of work and care and a detail and thought that goes into making not just an
• 49:42
  adaptation but any sort of creative uh world or storytelling um fascinating and definitely
• 49:49
  we'll enrich i'm sure i'll go back and watch the first season before the second season goes out
• 49:53
  just for consistency sake so my my rewatching will certainly be enriched by this podcast series so
• 50:01
  fascinating especially from those of you who are interested in storytelling cinematically um this
• 50:08
  is something i would definitely recommend thank you that's great i didn't know that existed um uh for
• 50:15
  a fantasy sort of thing this time is i sometimes struggle to find fantasy um
• 50:24
  prequels or series that i actually stick with that i get you know i start oh
• 50:31
  not so sure about this uh and one that i will go back to um which other people have discovered of
• 50:38
  course is the the new Netflix Wednesday um which is a uh follow one from the Adams family now
• 50:47
  i just first of all would say it's not very original in that if you just look in there's a whole
• 50:55
  series of magic schools are followed on from the sort of Harry Potter-esque world with the sort
• 51:01
  of fancine style and Dracula feel so the actual school the nevermore academy i did not find
• 51:07
  particularly new or or anything like that what i is the characterization of Wednesday that the
• 51:16
  show creators are Alfred Goff and Miles Miller and i heard them being interviewed on the script notes
• 51:22
  podcast um and their ones american ones english clearly very experienced creators of story very
• 51:32
  interesting interview to listen to about how a writer's room works if that's something you're
• 51:37
  interested in but um i then went and watched it and thought yeah this is actually done very well the
• 51:42
  story is very good and i like the fact that Wednesday is well she calls herself a little psychopath
• 51:50
  she's and it's quite against type for girls to be cast like that and i like that
• 51:57
  and there's lots of star power very strong um pacing um you know it's just a really good
• 52:06
  program and fun so with the edge of a gothic horror drama and of course it should mention that the
• 52:16
  director is tim Burton so you you get the tim Burton feel um so yeah that's my tip is if you're
• 52:23
  looking for something to try um and you haven't already noticed uh the Wednesday on series on Netflix
• 52:30
  is worth worth a look see if it is something you like now for me have you have you watched this Jacob
• 52:37
  oh yeah i watched the first i watched the first episode i also listened i gave a hearty second uh
• 52:41
  to your recommendation of the script notes uh episode uh i believe the title is any given Wednesday
• 52:47
  with the showrunners and it's yeah that that's worth listening to definitely i did watch i watched
• 52:50
  the pilot um the one of the lead males uh the the normie the normal guy uh at the the Wednesday and
• 52:59
  that with the sheriff's son uh it was a co-worker of my wife's at uh universe studios uh in Hollywood
• 53:05
  uh so we're watching it there to support him but it is yeah so we're we're we're working our way
• 53:10
  through that along with several other things we're kind of working in and out so we brought up
• 53:15
  on the atom's family because for millions uh yeah i was the black and white yeah so i watched
• 53:22
  yeah i watched it in reruns the black and white uh atom's family uh series i was yeah i was that
• 53:27
  was part of my again like foundational fundamental childhood was the atom's family and the
• 53:33
  monsters uh but not but mostly the out of family so then the films um both of the films uh uh
• 53:40
  wow yeah big fans of those films and then now this series definitely uh in the spirit of uh and one of
• 53:48
  my uh friends uh helps work on the composition of the music uh with Danny Elfman for the um the
• 53:56
  music for that so yeah it's a great it's a great show i'm eager to keep watching it but i'd like you
• 54:01
  yeah i was the the school itself wasn't original um but in in terms of some of the characterization uh
• 54:09
  things that they were doing was certainly uh certainly fun uh and interesting i think in line with
• 54:15
  certainly kind of a spiritual successor to uh some of those earlier atom's family stories so yeah
• 54:21
  definitely we're trying we're watching yeah and it would make a great board game just saying
• 54:28
  you can imagine yeah we're company yeah so um i hope one feels we have done honor
• 54:34
  to the year of the rabbit things round and good luck to everybody who is born this year um i'll have
• 54:43
  to look up what characteristics you're supposed to have i was sort of expecting it to be turning into
• 54:47
  something like the year of the dragon or whatever um and when i thought there's a rabbit that i know
• 54:52
  that's slightly less exciting but actually i've really enjoyed thinking about um
• 54:58
  via fantasy creature so thank you very much Jacob for um yeah joining in this conversation with me
• 55:04
  and we look forward to speaking to everybody next time
• 55:07
  um
• 55:37
  you