Latest / Mythmakers / Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - Our Verdict
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
- 0:10creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm
- 0:16an author but I also am a director of the Centre and today for our review of the film Dungeons
- 0:25and Dragons on or amongst thieves. I've been joined by Toby Saunders who also happens to be my
- 0:31son and we went together as a family outing. So laying our cards on the table I should say
- 0:38that we aren't a family that plays Dungeons and Dragons. Some of us have played it a couple of
- 0:43times but we're not the real experts. So our review is really from the point of view of different
- 0:50generations coming to see this just as a piece of entertainment in its own right. So first of all Toby
- 0:57what did you think of the film? What was your expectations going into it and
- 1:03how did you actually enjoy watching it? Let's give the overview first.
- 1:09Yeah I didn't know 100% what to expect. I think I thought it was going to be whimsical. I'd
- 1:14seen the trailer and I'd seen the kind of the Alba and that kind of grabbed me and I thought
- 1:19oh I haven't seen any fantasy shows recently that kind of go for quirky kind of Terry Pratchett
- 1:24like elements. So I guess that grabbed me and made me want to watch it but yeah I didn't really
- 1:29have that many expectations going into it. Yeah I think the reason I wanted to go was because
- 1:34originally when I heard about it there was quite wasn't that much excitement in the in in sort of
- 1:41places I'd seen about it and then suddenly just as the interview started happening and there was
- 1:47a sort of a rush of people saying oh yeah it's actually much better than you think. So I sort of
- 1:53went in the expectation that this is worth seeing. So what about the actual structure of it?
- 2:00I should say here that Toby is a fellow writer he's also studying literature so he's got a
- 2:07sort of writer leave you on this. What did you feel about the structure of the film?
- 2:14Yeah to me well as we've said we we don't play the game but it definitely seemed like it followed
- 2:19the kind of structure of a game in terms of going on a quest together kind of a hero's journey
- 2:24you could say but it's got a kind of I like the family centre of it where they have to
- 2:30kind of save his daughter or convince his daughter that he's good. Yeah I definitely did follow
- 2:37the Joseph Campbell hero's journey with the call to adventure I mean you could probably map it
- 2:42against that which you could imagine them using almost ironically when they're in the writer's
- 2:49room thinking about this because they know that so many fantasy films use this as a trope you know
- 2:57all the way around to the dark night of the soul where they think it's all gone wrong you could
- 3:01actually tick off the points. The downside of that is that it is predictable in the sort of
- 3:08overview I think it felt as though I wasn't really watching anything that was making any new
- 3:15territory in terms of fantasy films and for me in terms of pacing I felt that the start
- 3:25didn't grab me so there were a couple of good jokes in the start but before the credits that
- 3:29sequence I was thinking oh oh this is a bit of a letdown I'm not actually going to enjoy this
- 3:35as much as I wanted and for me the film picked up once the Edgin who is the Chris Pine character once
- 3:44he began to gather his team for me the pace and everything got much better at that point.
- 3:49Yeah I had a good one that I thought before then there were some elements that grabbed me
- 3:56and some of the humour here especially with the Jonathan character I think that character kind of
- 4:02became a band favourite even though there any future in about two scenes for those scenes
- 4:08enough and to kind of grab the audience's hearts I think. So let's think about the characterisation
- 4:15so we're looking at it you're in your 20s I'm not and so we are a family audience
- 4:24what did you think about the characterisation who were your favourite characters what a peel to
- 4:29you who do you think were the stars amongst the cast which is already a quite a starry cast let's
- 4:36be honest. Yeah I think Hugh Grant was probably all thought was probably the best in some way
- 4:46quite predictable I don't think at any point anyone thought he was a goodie but he just played
- 4:52that role perfectly I think. Yeah there was a couple of really interesting stock characters
- 4:59we say so he forges the baddie the friend who becomes the bad guy and he reminded me in the way
- 5:07he was playing it quite broadly and archley as to how good Alan Rickman was in Robin Hood Prince
- 5:15of thieves another thieves film back in the day where he stole the show in a way because by how
- 5:21much he was clearly enjoying being the bad guy and the strong part of Hugh Grant's performance is
- 5:30that it calls on the other thing he's done which is play politicians so he was playing this
- 5:37fantasy character as like this smarmy politician and it worked very well because he felt you
- 5:45you could feel as though that character could really exist it's more relatable in a way than the
- 5:52evil evil characters the red wizards who are another sort of layer of super evil I felt that
- 6:00calling on his performance is in things like a very English scandal and of course even
- 6:09love actually where he plays the prime minister calling on those things you could actually
- 6:15enjoy his range that he has of this you know insincere bounder that he does very well
- 6:23my life I was just saying what you said about tropes there is quite important
- 6:29because really the characters are supposed to be types which well that's what it seems to be in
- 6:34terms of people who play the video game the game and say oh I've played that role before
- 6:41you have the bar to figure you have the wizards you have the kind of politician you have the warrior
- 6:48and they all kind of are playing roles aren't they yes and I think that's my other favorite character
- 6:56who again is a bit outside the the band was the one played by Regisionn Page the zinc character
- 7:04who's like a paladin or something who's like the perfect warrior and I saw an interview with him
- 7:12that was one of the reasons for going to see it because he's you know he's he's a great actor he's
- 7:16very funny but I saw an interview with him where he said what he liked about his character was it was
- 7:24as though he had walked in from another storyline where he is the hero and he is on some really
- 7:32super serious spiritual quest where everything is very perfect and pure and his this you know he's
- 7:40functioning at this level of ideals then he's thrown in amongst his group of thieves and he sort of
- 7:48passes through their story and passes out the other side he doesn't stay for the whole film
- 7:54and I like that the idea that he had his own every you know every character is the hero hero of
- 8:00their own story and he was really enjoying being this ideal knight and sent it up perfectly he
- 8:07was the straight man for the other people to play off so I think he was another fun part of it
- 8:14and not taking himself at all seriously even though he was of course
- 8:19investing in it as if he was that's where it works he was playing it straight there was no
- 8:25wink at the camera so that was another good part for me what about Chris Pyners Edgand who of
- 8:33course is the lead in the in the film did you enjoy him his character I was reading somewhere that
- 8:40there is some idea that maybe recently some of his roles haven't been as big a hit as he had when
- 8:46he started out as Captain Kirk in the reboot of Star Trek because he kind of fizzled a bit
- 8:54and ended up as the support lead in Wonder Woman do you think this is a good franchise for him to
- 8:59reboot his career if he needs it well I think so I think it's a fun role I don't think he's
- 9:07nice what is the main actor in it I don't think he's necessarily the highlight of it
- 9:13that the role he does play played very well I thought there was some very funny scenes
- 9:17when he was using his kind of music and it seems like he enjoyed the role being the role
- 9:23and the star as well was very good with him kind of giving his defense and telling his back story
- 9:29those are kind of what stood out to me about his performance yeah he's also playing a slightly
- 9:34more mature man so he has a daughter and he has had a wife and his beard is you know slightly
- 9:41silver so he's moved on from the boyish charm heroes of the young Captain Kirk role to play that
- 9:48kind of mid not middle age but mid-age role did you buy him in that role because yeah he felt
- 9:58quite young to me well I think so because it's a kind of peasant culture where they probably would
- 10:03have had their families quite young I think that's that's allowable I think the other part about it
- 10:10is he's clearly not the action hero the action happens with other people like Zenk and
- 10:17Holger and other people and I think that was quite good seeing him playing against
- 10:25type in a way because so he can play out more on his comedic check talents so I did like that you
- 10:34know he's weapon of war is a loot which he sort of hits people over the head with so I did enjoy
- 10:42seeing him do that and I think if it is the first of others I would go back and watch another one
- 10:50if they did a different enough plot I think there is one weakness in that the actual family story
- 10:58which is his driver with wanting to bring his wife back to life again and she's seen a couple of times
- 11:06in flashback which is quite cute but it's also I've seen that before and also the thing of
- 11:12there's this magic widget that if you use it you can bring someone back to life again
- 11:19every film you know that's a bad idea it's just like and you know that probably it's not going to
- 11:28happen because that's the that's the moment of moral weight you know sort of maturity character arc
- 11:34where they say actually know I will not do this because it's not the right thing that was all a
- 11:39bit predictable and the relationship with the daughter the daughter Chloe Coleman is Keira she
- 11:47was lovely and fine in her role but I did feel they didn't give her enough suspicion
- 11:57because she wasn't a baby she was like you know like what 10 12 that kind of age and she accepts
- 12:05forge's version of her father and Holger having abandoned her she wasn't giving any real pushback
- 12:14and she was given a magical object which made her invisible and I was expecting them to use that
- 12:18so that she had some agency I thought she was very much given a sort of passive maiden in a tower
- 12:25role when in fact these days it would have been nice to have seen her have a bit more
- 12:32participation in her own rescue she gets something right towards the in the final sequences but
- 12:38up to that point she's a bit dim really believing forge and which is a shame it's not the
- 12:43actresses fall to tall I think it's just not having the writers not having really
- 12:49developed that younger role there's lots of characters to develop but I didn't think they did
- 12:54enough with that that character yeah we didn't really see her interact with anyone in particular
- 13:01I agree that could have done with more showing her being suspicious of forge because there are
- 13:05a few scenes that kind of hinted at this or maybe it could have been interesting if we if she'd
- 13:10seen the witch I've seen her doing something evil and kind of yeah she'd gained a sense of something
- 13:17wrong and that way yeah because there was moments when they could have done that you could also
- 13:21imagine previous drafts where they did that and maybe time reasons they cut it out because they
- 13:26kept it to a sort of you know average length movie they didn't go over over over long on it
- 13:31so on the other female characters I very much enjoyed Sophia Lillith who played
- 13:39Doric who is this and this is where I think you need to know your dungeons and dragon law but she
- 13:44has this sort of shape changer role where she's an owl bear at one point and then she's a worm and
- 13:52she's a she can change her animals but she's rather sweet looking with her red hair and her little
- 13:57horns and I like the fact that she was there was a lot of reversal of roles in the gang of thieves so
- 14:07her the man who was in love with her played a much more sort of the role that you often see young
- 14:12girls play that sort of passive role where he's trying to court up and not doing very well and she's
- 14:18the one who's kind of saying you know basically you've got to impress me more mate and she can change
- 14:25it this enormous owl bear so she's got the sort of strength and the other one who's sort of sort of
- 14:30obviously big presence in the group is Olga who's Michelle Rodriguez who is the strong woman
- 14:39playing that role so she's the one who wades in with her axe and
- 14:44has her sort of fondness for small hobbit like men which sort of makes the joke of
- 14:51the sort of different races in this world even more obvious where these giant women have these
- 14:56little guys as their partners so they did quite a lot of trying to change the the standard line up
- 15:07of how the men and female male and female roles break down. Did you enjoy the any of those characters?
- 15:14Yeah like thinking about that you can think of a plot where we're a version of that story where
- 15:20some of those characters could have been the main character quite easily so Dora could have
- 15:24quite as you'd be in the main character or you could have had a sign that's the main character I
- 15:27think so I think that also leans into the the game aspects of this because when you are playing
- 15:33the game I mean to you you are the main character so I think there was that side to it I definitely
- 15:40agree with that. Yes and just the other person we haven't yet talked about is Simon who's the wizard
- 15:49Justice Smith now he for me was the one who most resembles the what you would imagine was the
- 15:54original player of this i.e. when Dungeons and Dragons first started it was a sort of late 70s
- 16:02early 80s ballgame play by Geeks and Nerds that's a largely men or boys that was its kind of image
- 16:13and it's not a very good job but reinventing itself I think but he does feel like a kind of nerdy guy
- 16:19and that was quite sweet to see the original players of the game kind of represented in a fun way
- 16:25he gets some good powers as as it goes along so that was I enjoyed that aspect of it I think
- 16:32yeah and he definitely felt the most like he was playing a game as the movie went along you'd say
- 16:38from his introduction so before we move on to the sort of standout moments in the tone and
- 16:45the special effects that those aspects of it I think that one part of it where again
- 16:52then maybe they just didn't have time but I did feel that the red wizards and their agenda
- 16:59didn't really come across to me I was a bit confused about who they were what they were doing and
- 17:04what their what their motivation was other than taking over places and producing armies of
- 17:11the undead maybe that is all I needed to understand but I didn't really find myself
- 17:18understanding them there wasn't I forget the name of the main red wizard who's
- 17:25Serfina played by Daisy Head who's had to have a severe haircut for her part
- 17:31she looked as though she was quite a tortured soul and there could have been an interesting back
- 17:36story there that just wasn't explored but it seemed as though they didn't really try and explain
- 17:45what the evil was about forge was more much more understandable as why he's on that side of the
- 17:53you know the bad guy I didn't really find anything interesting about the red wizard agenda
- 18:00they just felt quite alien to me what about you am I missing something yeah I think perhaps they
- 18:07they definitely wanted a evil character was kind of unambiguously evil I think and as they're
- 18:15trying to like turn everyone into zombies you know they they've got that quite quite well
- 18:20because I guess they don't want to focus too much on the villains they want to focus it on the team
- 18:24and when you to root for the team so it seems like it's kind of again leading into tropes
- 18:30it's probably why they've done it I mean I should just accept it's like a dark lord but red I think
- 18:36and not worry too much about it okay but maybe I just felt she had more potential because her face
- 18:43looked so expressive of someone who yeah there was something about I felt oh you could be
- 18:51interesting and they never really materialized anyway okay so let's think about the tone of the
- 18:58piece this is what I think probably is why it has hit the right spots for a broader audience
- 19:06and just the dungeons and dragons fans in that I think that if you like Guardians of the galaxy for
- 19:13example you will like this film because the tone is similar and Chris Pine is not unlike
- 19:25Heather Chris Chris which one not Hemsworth the other one
- 19:32front thank you Chris Pratt um in particularly yeah the way he sits within the group is a bit
- 19:40similar to Chris Pratt's character in Guardians of Galaxy so there is it's it works as a sort of
- 19:47buddy movie um but there is also elements which I think are drawn from particularly Monty Python
- 19:55and Terry Pratchett so for me well you tell me I mean do you I've got a couple of favorite scenes
- 20:04um the fat dragon and the the burial ground so the fat dragon felt quite Terry Pratchett to me
- 20:14yes so yeah I agree um I want to add to those favorite scenes the one at the start um where they
- 20:21break out and and the people shout we were going to release you yes yes that's so that's so
- 20:28Monty Python isn't it yeah and the sequence it's not plot spoiling the plot but um which we would
- 20:36not do but the graveyard sequence definitely has um Monty Python and the Holy Grail elements about
- 20:44it and you could imagine it becoming the kind of scene that people might do as a skit later on
- 20:51because it has this question and answer format which is very funny um so I thought those were
- 20:58very successful tonally and worked and the actual ending the way the treasure is redistributed
- 21:10is also was a surprise me it was the cleverest light of hand which fits with the um
- 21:19with the thieves movie in that all the elements were foreshadowed and you could have worked it out
- 21:26but the way they they were slotted together at the end wasn't exactly what I was expecting and I like
- 21:31that surprise they managed to find a way of um again I don't want to spoil the plot but there's
- 21:37a cleverness about the way those elements came together um so for me the less successful parts
- 21:45I've mentioned a couple already but I wasn't didn't think the special effects were that great
- 21:52I'm sorry guys who spent a whole year doing these but so for example the the Hobbiti characters the
- 22:01Halflings they really could have done um a better job on the perspectives because the Bradley Cooper
- 22:09cameo as Holger's ex-lover he just looked as though he didn't fit it was his house and yet he was
- 22:19sitting on an enormous chair you know they they hadn't thought this through I don't think um because
- 22:26it was and having seen so many Lord the Rings Hobbit movies technically that's hard to do but it
- 22:33can be done I just thought the perspectives there looked all kind of strange and looked poorly
- 22:41executed I don't know did did you did you like that I think there are a couple scenes but that was
- 22:47the case I didn't mind it too much because ultimately like when you're watching seeing that well
- 22:51I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and just kind of enjoy the whims call aspect of it I thought
- 22:58another scene that might be similar to that is the scene uh to the Hell Met and pick on the Hell Met
- 23:03seem to be I don't know the see you seem a bit strange in that to me as well and didn't they forget
- 23:08about it as well well they didn't yeah I don't think they seem to use it that much in the end um yeah
- 23:16so the big quest to find this widget then was used once and then yeah that was it was like a little
- 23:22bit under underdone about that I felt what about the landscapes and the sort of world building
- 23:29aspect of it aside from the special effects because you know the fact Dragon was a good special
- 23:34effect those things were fine and I'm sure there was a lot I didn't notice because you just
- 23:39taken for granted but there was also a lot of external outdoors filming wasn't or studio work
- 23:46did you like the locations yeah and I thought it was fun how they used kind of all terrains I mean
- 23:53they went from kind of an ice biome to volcanoes to kind of conventional fancy cities kind of
- 23:59conventional fancy villages so you know it did a good job but I think it showed the richness
- 24:05of the world and it did feel a bit like you're walking around in an open world video game which
- 24:12I think suits the movie very well yeah and I looked at the sort of places they'd they'd filmed and
- 24:21there's of course the inevitable Iceland but also I did at some moments think this feels very
- 24:26much like they're in the UK and sure enough some of the film some of the location shots were I think
- 24:31in the UK which was nice because it had that not too spectacular but realistic feel when they're
- 24:38riding along a river valley not everywhere has to look like the Alps or New Zealand so there
- 24:46were some places which felt more like yes people can live in this communities can live here
- 24:52yeah so what's your verdict if you're thinking about giving it a star rating out of five where would
- 24:59you go I would give it a wheeled out half stars I think so I would give it a somewhere between a
- 25:09three and a half and a four yeah no I agree I'd say I'd probably distinguish different things I
- 25:20would say that a lot of it was a four you know a very enjoyable evening and but I'd sort of say
- 25:28three for the actual story because there were some elements which weren't brilliantly executed
- 25:37weren't up to the it wasn't consistently of a sort of really snappy standard there could have been
- 25:43and and some failures to develop certain characters so sort of a three for the kind of script and
- 25:51screenwriting which is pretty good but still not amazing whereas actually I enjoyed it at about
- 25:58the level of four star because I just felt ready to enjoy it yeah I think potentially what I'd
- 26:03say is I give it a full but then it's quite it's a success I think it's quite hard to repeat
- 26:08there's almost kind of one or I bet they're trying to make another well they probably
- 26:13will be interested to see if it catches the same kind of tone or success or if it's kind of a one
- 26:20or thing that works because at the same time I don't think I'd necessarily watch it I don't think
- 26:24it's repeatable because a lot of the jokes work once but I don't necessarily work over and over
- 26:30again but I don't know I have to see it again I think they'd have to do something quite different
- 26:35I wouldn't want to watch another they'd have to really rethink the formula I'm sure there's a lot
- 26:41of lot and game playing within dungeons and dragons that they can draw on because decades of
- 26:49people writing the this the adventures and the experience of leading these games but they would
- 26:57have to shift quite a way for me to go and watch a second one definitely so just thinking
- 27:04a little bit more about the trend at the moment for turning things which exist as a video game or
- 27:16a ride or a toy into films and what do you in your generation think is the product that
- 27:25has been best treated in that way and the one that needs to be treated so to give an example
- 27:32the biggest opening this weekend was the Mario game which actually has Chris Pratt in doesn't
- 27:38think talking about the Chris's and clearly there's been a massive audience for that even though
- 27:46critically it wasn't particularly well reviewed and earlier just after you were born in fact there
- 27:54was the perhaps the Caribbean franchise which wasn't supposed to work that was a film based on a
- 28:01failing or tired Disney World or Disneyland ride which was given a reboot by a pirate film and
- 28:11pirate films were supposed to no longer you know be very out of fashion but yet they turned out to
- 28:18be a great idea so if there anything you think has been well treated as a property and what would
- 28:29you like to see treated to a film a film a film were working out of it yeah well it's also
- 28:39worth mentioning at this point that there was a Dungeons & Dragons film before that is absolutely
- 28:43horrifically at the box office I think in the early 2000s as well so yeah that's an early failure I
- 28:50guess but one thing that I think has been done really well in recent years is the arcane series which
- 28:56is on Netflix which is based off the League of Legends video game and I haven't played League of
- 29:02Legends I kind of am familiar with how the game works and what it looks like but I have watched
- 29:08arcane and I really enjoyed it and I think a lot of people were surprised by it how how kind of
- 29:14when it was done and it's an animated show rather than live action but it does really well
- 29:21right it's it's a much more serious in tone than the Dungeons & Dragons movie but it does the
- 29:26serious tone really well and I'm pretty sure that was made by the video game studio and kind of
- 29:31given to Netflix as a place to distribute it rather than made by Netflix so that's the one that
- 29:37I think has been done really well I'm interested also as these films are coming out there's also
- 29:45another film with Taren Edgerton called Tetris which takes a different approach to revisiting
- 29:52the early days of video games Tetris was one of the very very early console games back in
- 29:59this of time and what they've done there is tell almost like the biographical story around it
- 30:07about a trip that Taren Edgerton character takes to Russia where this was coded and so it's
- 30:14more in the line of a social network or thriller even so it's about the people behind the game
- 30:24rather than trying to be inside the game because obviously the Tetris is actually a very simple
- 30:30computer concept there's not much story there it's like trying to make a story out of a game of
- 30:34Babington you know it doesn't work so that's another interesting approach is to do the the
- 30:40story behind the creators like could imagine an interesting film made about the people who came up
- 30:48Dungeons and Dragons it could almost be a teen friends movie could be quite comedy but I would
- 30:57actually quite interested to find out about that how it actually came about and how it grew to be
- 31:03this massive thing with the conventions and websites and all the rest of it so I'm looking for
- 31:10the human story yeah I don't know what the story is I'd have to find out maybe they all love
- 31:15each other and there's no story there because there's no conflict but were there rival groups
- 31:20split I mean I just don't know so for me that would be something I'd be quite interested in seeing
- 31:25explored more so than another version of this film you know it went up to because it it has
- 31:35become such a big part of a certain slice of culture and it's also linked because I'm interested
- 31:42in Tolkien it's also linked to the whole way Tolkien has been received by later generations
- 31:48because it's mixed up with these games that sort of are riffs on ideas that came out his world
- 31:53originally yeah well I know that there's in terms of recent adaptations the recent one was
- 32:00there was a halo adaptation on I believe Paramount Plus which was received quite negatively by
- 32:05fans of the halo games franchise because the way they adapted it I haven't seen it but apparently
- 32:10the way they adapted it isn't very loyal to the source material and there's so much good material
- 32:16in terms of music from the original games and also plot lines which they haven't used and have
- 32:21moved away from in an attempt to make something original so I think you increasingly see this kind
- 32:27of preference amongst this kind of super fans for material which is loyal to the material that they
- 32:34like the games and there's kind of attention there between what the fans want and what the studios
- 32:41believe the casual viewers will want yeah and also probably quite a lot of the studio execs
- 32:48because they've got full on studio execs roll I'm not going to be aware of what it's like to play
- 32:55any of these games yeah and that's why it's really important that for the showrunners that you get
- 33:00someone involved who is very familiar with it and they kind of have to be a fan I think to do it
- 33:05successfully yeah I think this has that feeling that the people love the source material I've
- 33:12mentioned a couple of times on this podcast but for me the best of all these
- 33:18films about something else is Galaxy Quest because it's a loving sort of joke about Star Trek
- 33:26the tone is just perfect all the way through it does hits it's a good film in itself but it hits
- 33:32all the rights sort of fan moments too and so now when I watch Star Trek I'm often thinking of Galaxy
- 33:38Quest and I don't know presumably for fans of the game they were ticking off their Easter eggs as they
- 33:46went through of things which they and they're probably an extra layer of jokes which passed me by
- 33:52because I don't play the game thank you Toby that's very helpful helping me think about this so if
- 33:58you haven't yet seen the film I would say it's worth going to see it's fun it's not going to possibly
- 34:04going to change your world but you're certainly probably laugh a popcorn movie that all the family
- 34:10can watch so that's that's not bad and we always end with a segment about where in all the fantasy
- 34:18worlds is the best placed or something we have mentioned dragons a bit but I've never actually
- 34:25thought where is the best place for a dungeon so in all the fantasy worlds and I know you're a massive
- 34:31fantasy reader where would you think is the best dungeon you could do it from the perspective of
- 34:38the person caught in it or the person actually controlling the dungeon yeah is this the dungeons
- 34:46that I know in books I've read yeah that's right okay well there's there's a book I haven't read but
- 34:53I really want to read so I think send then a sends and in this book you've got this person who
- 35:00enters this tower with multiple floors and I think he enters it in pursuit of his wife who's
- 35:06kind of trapped in it it's kind of a full of dungeon so I think towers we're kind of multiple layers
- 35:14I just enjoy the progression that that has so I would say yeah maybe a tower which your hero can
- 35:20kind of climb up and find all sorts of things along the way yeah that reminds me a bit of that
- 35:26doctor who episode with Peter Capaldi one of the best ones in his reign as doctor who
- 35:32where he had to keep it was like a tower puzzle that he had to get through it was one of the
- 35:38cleverest in that period with him as doctor who for me I would say that the best use of a dungeon
- 35:46that I've come across is in a book by Maria V. Schneider called Poison Study
- 35:54and it starts with the heroine of the tale in what she thinks is the condemned cell and it's the
- 36:03and you get a very strong evocation of the the deprivation of a dungeon and how her life has
- 36:12become this sort of just very narrow and she thinks she's walking to her death but to start of
- 36:19longer novel it doesn't turn out that it's the end and I'm very interested in the way
- 36:25that book then opens out from this dungeon so yeah Maria V. Schneider Poison Study that's
- 36:30a excellent dungeon in fantasy actually if I can have another one there's a book for what
- 36:36is series called Lightbring by Brent Weeks and that has a very inventive dungeon in it in terms
- 36:42of what it does with magic he's got a very intricate magic system which is based on the light
- 36:46spectrum and colors of light and it's very fun how he played with that in that dungeon which
- 36:50a character is trapped in so that would be from a pure kind of magical fantasy point of view
- 36:56followed magic systems that's a very fun done yeah that's a I haven't read that one that looks
- 37:01that sounds great and the very final thing we do is give a fantasy tip it could be something you've
- 37:06read something you've watched that listeners the podcast might like to check out you got anything
- 37:13you'd like to suggest yes well recently I just finished bingeing Shadow and Bone the Netflix show
- 37:21which I'd describe as a very kind of fun YA fantasy show which has an enjoyable magic system
- 37:31they've got kind of a crew called the crows who kind of exist in this kind of de-candy and city
- 37:37and they do all sorts of odd jobs and kind of fevery and they're very fun and their dynamic it's
- 37:43pretty pretty fun so that would be my recommendation as a kind of fun slightly light fantasy watch on TV
- 37:52excellent so I've just been to Bath for a day out and Bath itself is obviously more obviously
- 38:03associative people like Jane Austen but Graphnix has just published a book about the booksellers of Bath
- 38:10which follows on from the left-handed booksellers of London so he's doing this fantasy series about
- 38:16booksellers and so I just want to recommend that because Graphnix who I've met first in when he wrote
- 38:23his sabriel apportion trilogy which is a great YA series he's now come back with these bookseller
- 38:32fantasy bookseller series so that's something you might want to check out and even better if you
- 38:37can buy a copy of it in Bath and read it in Bath in amazing surroundings so that's my tip thank
- 38:44you so much Toby and thank you everyone for listening
- 38:52thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy
- 38:59visit Oxford Center for Fantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses
- 39:06in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe wherever
- 39:13you find your favorite podcasts worldwide