Latest / Mythmakers / Mythmakers Season 6 Wrap Up

Transcript

Mythmakers Season 6 Wrap Up · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creators
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  brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and I'm about
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  to introduce you to our season wrap up for number six. Yes we got quite a back catalog
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  of podcasts now so do have a look back because you may have missed some of the earlier
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  interviews we have done over the years. But in this season we had a busy programme
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  but meeting with Tolkien experts and debut writers and those with more, shall we say, track record
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  in the fantasy field. And we have picked the top five podcasts to share a little excerpt with you
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  and this will give you a fair idea of what we have been up to since the season began in the summer.
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  First at number five we have an interview with Kate Dylan and we talk about her brilliant novel
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  until we shatter and Kate is particularly good at summarising exactly what is going on in her plot.
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  Right so thinking about the actual story do you want to give us a little tiny hint of what the
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  plot is like the characters and what they're getting up to? Of course so until we shatter
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  is a heist novel it is a fantasy heist with colour magic across two worlds one of which wants to
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  shatter the main characters to pieces. Yeah okay thank you. So I found a couple of strong themes
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  sprang out to me as I was reading it and they're connected which is nice. One was the impact of
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  portrayal how that impacts on individuals but also on a group and the other was what it's like
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  to exist in a sort of liminal space between things and this is both as an image of the idea of
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  shattering when under too much strain but also the social position of those with the wrong kind of
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  magic in a way if that's if that's a correct sort of description. Is there something about those
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  themes which you've resonated with this well we're not going to call it YA are we going to call it
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  new adult let's list borrow that new adult reader in particular. I think for this kind of reader the
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  portrayal specifically is when and we sort of come into adulthood or we're coming out of childhood
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  it's when we first start to experience real big betrayals they might not be quite on the scale of
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  what happens in the books you know most of the time the stakes in our normal lives aren't like
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  the world isn't ending we're probably not accidentally killing our friends or I should hope not
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  but we are going to face some sort of betrayal you know you're not going to get a job you want to
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  or something is going to go wrong at university or perhaps you know like your parents have decided
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  that you can no longer live in the house rent free we're starting to get those moments of
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  all life is actually quite hard and it can be quite unforgiving and people can be quite unforgiving
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  and quite cruel in some respects and I think as we sort of come into that age we experience that more
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  we experience it more without the safety net that we have when we live at home and when we live with
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  our families and so everything feels big everything feels bigger when you don't have that net to fall
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  back on and I think that's what the me that's what the characters in until we shadow really going
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  through their lives are hard because this is a fantasy world and actually they are
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  wanted dead by pretty much everybody on both worlds in the novel but they don't have a safety net
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  the main character kemi her mum is very very sick she is the provider her entire group of
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  including herself they're all illegal so you know if anyone found out that they were half shades
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  which is kind of like the witches in the novel are basically called shades and there are full
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  blooded shades and there are half shades and half shades are illegal so if they are found out
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  they will essentially get hunted down and killed so they are very much operating without a net and they
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  are making mistakes and they're making mistakes because well they're not that old they don't have
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  that much life experience so you know young people make mistakes the problem is them as
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  chicks are exacerbated by a world which is making it very very difficult for them to make good
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  choices in fact it's making good choices as almost impossible and so every bad choice kind of compounds
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  and it culminates in a lot of betrayal in a lot of heartache and yeah it's really
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  enjoyable as an author to sort of explore those kinds of big moments in your characters lives
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  yeah I think all is a particularly strong theme is when I do a course where we teach novel in the year
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  one of the sessions pathway through we we start adding in sort of powerful storylines and one of
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  them is betrayal because I think all of us instinctively have that deep sort of gut feeling of
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  it's not fair or how could they and we all really invest in that the idea of someone you trust who
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  turns on you is very much a way of involving us in the novel and sort of rooting for the characters
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  but it's also equally interesting when it's the other way around where your character you're
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  identifying with ends up portraying somebody yep and all the cascade of emotion that then happens
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  when you find yourself on that side of the fence which again is a going back to your idea of a
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  more mature experience when we let people down yep it's also a big big feeling and it all comes to
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  do with betrayal is at its core it's a breach of trust and as you know we get hurt a lot people
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  hurt us and it's quite it's I mean it's not easy to get over but it's easier to get over when you
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  know you understand okay maybe that person was having a bad day or this is a misunderstanding but
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  when trust is breached it's much much harder to get over and yeah as an author it's really really
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  fun because obviously the challenge becomes well you know if your character is getting betrayed but
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  they then need to work with those people how do they get over that and if they're doing the betray
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  the betraying how do you then redeem them redeem them in the eye of the reader so it presents a really
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  really fun challenge as an author actually and it's also a great thing to read as a reader because
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  you're very much involved so I was interested that the the dear old publishers blurb all of us
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  authors get this where we're putting some kind of box yep and where they've put you is in the
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  tradition of the Sydney Bardugo isn't it six of crows and I think what they mean here is a
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  shorthand for high stories about magical misfits and do you find this I thought was quite a good
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  nice I wouldn't be mined being but do you feel your part of this subgenre or were there some other
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  influences or genres what you would like to sort of highlight yourself yeah there's I mean
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  it's definitely it's it's they chose that and actually like sometimes when publishing does this
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  choosing you're like I'm not a hundred percent sure that's right but we're gonna go with it whereas
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  this time it's a hundred percent right like it very much sits in that's in that subgenre that is
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  the main genre I would say for the book and you know when I'm recommending the book like
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  heist fantasy is what I lead with first because it pretty much tells the reader everything they
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  need to know if we were going to go dig further down though like I've never really written a book
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  that was just one genre it's just that when it comes to selling books we sort of lead with one
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  because we don't want to confuse people but I think this is and this is again where
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  even though I've moved to fantasy now a lot of my early influences a lot of the things they love
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  did originate in sci-fi now at number four we have the wonderful interview with Anna Simpson
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  and Chris Riddell this was a joint interview with Anna is the editor who selected the poetry for
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  the anthology of heroes and villains and Chris Riddell as many of you already know is a very
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  famous illustrator and he's also a political cartoonist in this excerpt you will hear him talking
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  about tips for anybody who wants to go into the field of illustration that was the the child
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  version of you and your relationship with poetry and Chris you said that you found that the java
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  walkie kind of helped you become the illustrator that you have since become but for someone
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  listening who is wanting to follow in your footsteps what how did you get there what what were
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  your what happened to that little boy to get him to be such a well-known illustrator oh my goodness
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  well well who knows is is is the unhelpful answer to that um I suppose a more helpful answer it is
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  that um I was an inveterate reader and so I read Tolkien and I read CS Lewis and I read Ursula
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  and I read a lot of sort of fantasy that that was just perfect for illustration and I attempted
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  to illustrate the books that I read so I remember sort of drawing the battle of the five armies
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  when I was in sort of you know year six you know having read the Hobbit and being inspired by it
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  the other thing I did was I went back to the illustrated books that I loved and would find
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  illustrations that really spoke to me um and I would attempt to copy them and sometimes copying
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  gets a bad name but I think it's a great way to analyze how images are are made and particularly
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  illustrations in books you know can tell you a lot by careful sort of uh perusal and certainly by
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  by sort of um attempting to to recreate the uh the effect that the illustrators has got so I
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  used to almost obsessively draw the white rabbit from the frontus piece of Alice in Wonderland
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  because there was something magical about the way the artist uh John Teniel conveyed both the
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  character of the rabbit without losing the essential rabbit nature of the uh of the character so
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  there was this and it was something about the eyes something about the stance and I would draw
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  this and then I would discover the foliage in the background I would discover the way that
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  Teniel drew the folds in in the jacket um and this just entered my visual imagination and the great
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  thing about copying is that once you've copied you can then put that away but it lives in your
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  visual imagination so it's a great way to learn and so I would say sort of you know go along to a gallery
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  get one of those little stools that you often see sort of by the the um reception
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  at the seats far few people are doing this but take a little stool take it to your favorite exhibit sit
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  down with your sketchbook copy something beautiful just for half an hour and you'll find you'll take
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  that away with you yeah that's and what I find really interesting about that idea of copying is that
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  there is a stage in writing about that too as my Anna will probably agree with me that um certainly
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  young writers at school but also new writers who as adults there's no harm at all in doing your fan
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  fiction or your homage to but I don't know doctor who whatever it is because you are learning how
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  plots are put together you're learning voice you're learning style you're learning characterization
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  what could happen to this character know that's outside what they would be like you're learning
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  coloring in uh in a sense but it's gonna say Anna isn't that how a poetry anthology is work in exactly
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  that that way yes I mean that the idea is that you have a buffet of poetry and you sample all of
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  those different styles um and you can go away obviously and explore them more fully if there's
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  something that really strikes a chord with you but I mean I do think there are any kind of writing
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  I think everything starts with reading I'm always incredibly shocked when you meet someone who says
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  oh I've written a book and then you say oh and you know what do you like reading and they say oh no
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  I don't really read and you think your book is bad I'm sorry you know we know that it's sort of
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  everything starts with experiencing how other people put words together um on the page and
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  you're right the nuts and bolts of plot and character and those kind of things and I think when
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  people I've I certainly remember going through little periods of writing like the DH Lawrence
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  when I was doing my A levels somewhere there are presumably a lot of pages are uh terrible
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  now I've rip off the H Lawrence writing somewhere in a drawer at home yeah so it might be quite
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  unintentionally funny because I'm just thinking about this lush lushness and in number three
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  we have an interview with professor Simon Horven Simon actually holds the chair that
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  CS Lewis held at Mordeling College Oxford when he was alive and Simon is as you might imagine
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  a medievalist but he is also just published a book called CS Lewis's Oxford
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  here we discuss how the parts of his book about Mordeling can only have been written by a Mordeling
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  insider so um when I was reading this having lived in Oxford for decades and knowing the places
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  so I was able to follow it very very very closely but the one thing which was new to me
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  and new to all the biographies I've read of CS Lewis was the college details of Mordeling
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  now I was actually a Mordeling Postgrad for a few years when I was doing my doctorate
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  but I didn't get to know it in the same way as you as a professor do and I felt reading this section
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  it could only be written by an insider so do you want to mention some of the odd little things about
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  the Mordeling experience and perhaps you might want to go on to talk about whether or not what's
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  the same and what's changed in Mordeling since CS Lewis's time bearing in mind someone
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  listening to this might be thinking to apply in future we don't want to put them off
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  no I think that's right and I think that's partly what's bird me to write the book is that
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  you know there are many excellent biographies of CS Lewis and so
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  it only makes sense to write something where I feel that there's something I could add to that
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  and I think you're right that it that having that college angle sitting in a room just like his
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  and you know sort of teaching in the way that he taught the course that he taught more or less
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  and going around the various parts of the college did give me a kind of fit
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  an insider's view of what that was like and some of the weird kinds of traditions that you
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  know they actually still go on today you know there's he talks and surprised by joy about the
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  moment that he became a fellow here in 1925 and how strange it was he found it when he was
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  lining up in the president's lodgings and then he he had the kind of the Latin admission ceremony
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  and then went around and shook the hands of all of the fellows at the time who all said
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  I wish you joy to which he made no reply and of course that was very significant for him because
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  the word joy already had had an importance for him which it then took on even greater significance
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  and you know for a number of reasons surprised by joy is being is obviously one joy David
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  but you know that's strangeness of that ceremony well that's exactly the ceremony that I
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  went through when I came here as a fellow 18 years ago so there are all these connections and
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  and there are some nice kind of objects that are still around in the archives which
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  which I talk about in the book so for instance we still use the college weighing scales
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  on special dinners where guests who come to dinner are given the option and not so many people
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  take it up these days are being weighed I don't know if that was active in in your day Julia but
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  I was having a child at the time having my daughter Lucy so I was having enough weighing at the
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  right yeah yeah yeah because it is something that happens at graduate dinners but
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  but yeah so he appears in the college weights book somewhat unfortunately for
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  those he appears sort of early on in his time here at Mordelin and then just before he left the
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  Cambridge in 1954 so you can exactly work out how much weight he puts on so there's that kind of
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  thing there's also the college betting book which again is still active in the SCR where fellows
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  might fall out over some sort of obstruous fact and decide that because they can't decide who's
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  right they're going to stake a bottle of port on the outcome of it and and there's an entry by Lewis
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  in in the college betting but where he's he's had a a wager with CE Stevens the ancient history
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  tutor about whether the word Eros appears in home as Odyssey and they stake a bottle of port
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  on the outcome and of course Lewis turns out to be the correct and wins the bottle but you know
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  these kind of quaint traditions but still active today but you know we can sort of trace them back
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  to Lewis's day and see him taking part in them I think I think to emphasis really emphasizes
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  how masculine the environment was in his day compared to now I mean obviously I was there years
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  ago it was it would change I don't know when it went mixed in the 80s maybe when did 70s but yeah
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  exactly what I was going to say is that the big change between Lewis's day and today is I
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  think the admission of women this was a very exclusively male world in Lewis's time although one
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  of the things that I found which had surprised me really was how many female students he taught
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  and that's partly because going through the archives of a number of the women's colleges I found
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  references to him being paid for tuition or writing reports on students and so and that's
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  particularly during the Second World War where lots of the male students of course we're not here
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  but also you know before that as well so although it was particularly a male dominated
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  well the world women's students in the college in the ladies colleges and they did come in pairs
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  rather than singly because of course there's you know they need to be shampooned and
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  better but it's but you know he did actually teach teach women as well
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  and at number two I'm delighted to report that my sidecast a journey through Lord of the Rings is
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  getting quite a faithful listenership I'm reached the chapter just before we reach Rivendell and
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  I'm going to pick it up again for the new season but here you can hear an extract from
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  much earlier chapter in the Fellowship of the Ring and the little details about Buckland that
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  you might have missed when you were reading the novel there's some little details in this which I
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  really appreciate when we're talking about Buckland there's a note about sometimes people
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  keeping their doors locked now unless you've had the experience of living in an English village
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  you might think that's a bit of a strange detail but actually even even now in some villages the
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  doors will be open they won't be locked in fact so where I live which is in the middle of a village
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  these days some friends came around for supper and gave up because our door was locked they
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  thought it would be open I haven't been in cities you see though I don't keep my doors open
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  but it's quite common for doors to be unlocked with this idea that you can just call round
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  so we know that Buckland is more dangerous because people
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  that are the outside of the river so they feel there may be strangers wandering around
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  so we're edging out into a wilder more dangerous landscape there is another difference which is
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  where sort of drawing out which is an authorial decision versus what you might do as a screenwriter
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  so if you remember this part as in the film in fact what they do is they jump over the next
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  couple of chapters but just this bit where they're coming from farm and maggots is driving them
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  to the ferry and they meet Mary at the ferry it's slow it's there aren't intermediate threats
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  there's a conversation the threat is in fact from Mary they see this rider coming towards them
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  and they wonder who it is and there's a moment of tension his voice is muffled they think it might
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  be an enemy and then it's revealed as Mary so it's a very low level not a jump scare it's a low
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  level moment of tension in the film version Peter Jackson and Philip Hawaiians and found washed
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  gave this the chase through the woods and being chased by the horseman jumping onto the
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  ferry Frodo almost not managing it and having to do that leap so it's obviously much more
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  an action sequence and then they cut they forget all about Crick Hollow decisions
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  all forest on Bambadil and they go straight from there to Bri but one of the absolute joys of
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  having a good film series and an excellent book is that the reading the book is still a very
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  different experience and it's loads more to come in this chapter and the next and the one after
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  that which are some of the best bits in Fellowship of the Ring I think there is one when I was reading
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  it closely for this this podcast there was one element which I found I wondered about which is
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  when they see the riders sniffing at the bank on the opposite side of the river there is
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  relatively safe because they've taken the ferry with them it's like you do your own
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  polling across the river Frodo asks Mary if the horse you know can they reach us and Mary says
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  oh they've got to go up to the bridge and I've never known which is you know miles up the river
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  or maybe horses could swim but I've never heard of it the problem about this is Frodo spent a lot of
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  time in Buckland and he would know this it's you try not to get characters telling each other
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  something they both know I personally think it'd be better if Sam had asked that question because
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  is the one who's ignorant of anything outside you know hopperton and it's in environments so
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  I just noticed that as being I'm not sure about that I think that's the wrong person to ask that
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  question anyway tiny tiny tiny detail it doesn't matter and it's the first time I've noticed it
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  there is another thing I've noticed is an author reading this passage or this whole chapter
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  is the access all areas narrator so we've had the narrator dipping back into the past telling us about
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  how the Buckland was founded there's actually quite a funny series of colonies being set up here
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  because in the prologue material bree the people of bree regards the hobbits of the shire as people
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  who've been sent out to the colonies like they've colonized the shire thinking they're the original
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  community and now the people of the shire think the bucklanders are the colonizers so being the
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  historian of the piece that voice giving the history is is that sort of omniscient idea but
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  the conceit that Tolkien had in his mind when he was writing is of course this is an account of
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  the story compiled firstly it starts off with Bilbo compiling it then Frodo compiling it then
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  Sam finishing off so one way of looking at this ability to know all of what's going on all
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  around is a bit like I don't know the way a gospel is put together from the account to all the
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  people who saw it so it's like a patchwork of people's experiences which explains why in this
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  chapter you get to see Frodo's anxiety that he is going to have to tell his friends that he's
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  about to leave the shire but you also get the other side of that conspiracy you've got Pippin
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  saying to Mary is about to is about to tell us so you see both sides
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  and finally in the first place perhaps not unsurprisingly as our most popular episode was our
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  verdict on season two of rings of power you can hear me in conversation with friend and podcast
• 26:17
  partner Jacob Renica and we discussed what we thought succeeded and where the series is perhaps
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  still not quite got its act together so I hope you enjoy okay to the meat of it um season one
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  was all over the place and my general feeling is the way they handled the story structure in season
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  two was hugely a huge improvement it was much more coherent however hang on I have broken down
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  when I was preparing for this the number of storylines so keep count Jacob and see if I've missed
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  one I think there is a kind of elves in linden and slash havens which means Gilgalad Elrond
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  Galadriel brief appearance from kirdern and they're the three rings the three elven rings
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  that's story number one story number two is the dwarves the two times durin plus desa and then we
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  got dwarven rings which brings them in relationship to story number three which is kele brimball
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  um played by the one four Charles Edwards um and anatar played by the equally wonderful Charlie
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  Vickers and that's obviously sarron and overall ring plot so three strong storylines but on we
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  also have pelagia with Theo and isldo and arrondia until he goes somewhere else um hanging around at
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  the well basically hanging around and there's a bit of an end story here and a sort of love with
• 28:09
  a lady from that part and the mysterious disappearance of bronwyn story number five is numinal where we
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  have myriul artharazon and elendil and elendil's daughter and the the faithful that storyline
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  then we have story number six which is adar and the orcs and looking at it from the point of view
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  of someone trying to help rescue save make a decent life perhaps is best we're putting that
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  for the orcs the orc and then we've got story number seven which is the stranger um who is
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  walking eastwards with nori and poppy and teasing whether or not he is Gandalf or not or blu-wut
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  and there is this mysterious dark wizard played by the wonderful but underused kirin hunts
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  and um also intersects with tom bombadil played by rohri um what's his name um
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  can hear rohri can hear the wonderful rohri can hear so that i make seven separate storylines
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  of which the first three are the ones which relate most faithfully or closely to the theme of the
• 29:36
  whole series which is rings of power and my problem is with stories four five six and seven
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  not really connecting the first three connect yeah last three are the last four are
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  tendentially connected and problematic because they might be good stories within themselves
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  and certainly the nomenal story is really important but they still trying to do too much
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  and that's how i felt about it how about you yeah yeah yeah no that's really yeah this is
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  good yeah for a show called rings of power the the primary movers and chicks like now we actually
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  get you know we got that the creation of the three rings at the very the tail end of season one
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  and then season two is really about the fuller production of rings with anatar being involved
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  there and so that makes that makes a lot of sense having around there it's clear yeah that so
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  those other storylines the non direct rings of power those are clearly storylines that are going
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  to be paying off uh in further season so this is almost you know uh so i i appreciate one of
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  the things that i did appreciate um about the kind of long view that you're able to have uh the
• 30:56
  Amazon can have when you've already invested and you say like we commit to five seasons
• 31:04
  but let me stop you there they haven't they've said they want to do five but season three has
• 31:10
  only just been greenlit yeah and it reminded me a bit of the fantastic beast franchise which said oh
• 31:16
  yes it's gonna i've films and there's kind of right right right is all that three so um i think we're
• 31:23
  okay at the moment for those who want to see a sort of complete story um because this was a better
• 31:29
  season and just much more just better to watch than the first one yeah well that's the hazard that
• 31:35
  that's the hope and the hazard that you have of that if you say like this is going to five seasons
• 31:40
  so the temptation is going to be to like string certain things along say okay we we can afford
• 31:46
  the time to spend on these kind of tangential lines that if you watch the whole series
• 31:51
  so let's say we're we're just going to assume that we're getting five seasons so we can just kind
• 31:57
  of spread things out and looking at the whole five season instead of looking at individual seasons
• 32:03
  as kind of like self-contained and being valuable in and of themselves so there's two different
• 32:07
  ways of thinking right if you're if you're just having to prove your value and then you don't know
• 32:11
  if you're gonna be renewed the next season that's a different mode of storytelling because you have
• 32:16
  to have it you have to be able to wrap it up at the end of the season if you find out that the
• 32:22
  show is going to be canceled you have to have somebody to pivot to be able to wrap it up in a
• 32:26
  satisfying or relatively satisfying way but so you see as one of the things I think that you see
• 32:32
  the long term like the investment that they're making or the assumption that they're going to get
• 32:36
  five seasons is in these inclusions of right the the Numenor uh having it just kind of like
• 32:41
  trailing along the rune everything with the stranger and nori and poppy that's clearly like is just
• 32:48
  kind of been a little something that's going to be bringing in hopefully at at the end so they're
• 32:54
  assuming that they're going to have that time rather than saying okay how do we develop these
• 32:56
  characters what do we need for a satisfying compelling season in and of itself to be a coherent
• 33:02
  hole that then also can fit together and build on previous seasons rather than saying okay we have
• 33:08
  five seasons let's have this plot go all the way through to to the you know from season one to
• 33:13
  five this one is kind of going in and out here uh there's you know there's there's benefits to
• 33:19
  that sort of long term storytelling like we see with this the the wandering song then season one
• 33:25
  was just you know kind of like a nice melody and some of their singing but then it actually turns
• 33:30
  out to be plot critical in season two whereas there was no inkling of it necessarily being plot
• 33:35
  critical it just seemed to be some traditional song but then they're able to use that as an actual
• 33:40
  plot point uh in the second season that's something that's a nice luxury to have if you can think if
• 33:47
  you like it are fairly certain that you're getting a next season you can start seeding things in
• 33:52
  but then the danger is that you're not paying enough attention to the season that's at hand and
• 33:56
  making sure that it's a coherent cohesive uh piece of storytelling you get too caught up in the
• 34:02
  broadness of you know the the big picture this this broad canvas um so it's definitely a dance
• 34:07
  and if there's there's a lot that you can do if you do have that or feel relatively certain that
• 34:12
  you have that sort of long time frame but it seemed like you said it was only just green lit and so
• 34:18
  if if this turns out to be a you know financial sinkhole for amazon because of viewership or for
• 34:24
  whatever you know a number of different reasons they're outside that could be outside their control
• 34:30
  uh they could have to they might require them to shut it down they might have to financially
• 34:35
  whatever like they might have to shut that down and if they do then there's going to be all these
• 34:40
  plot lines are just kind of like dangling and unsatisfying resolutions because you're not focused
• 34:45
  enough on individual seasons um till that's out that's kind of it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
• 34:52
  definitely a too edged sword thank you very much for listening and i hope you will join us for
• 34:58
  season seven of myth makers thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the Oxford
• 35:11
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• 35:18
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• 35:26
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