Transcript
[Music]
Hello and welcome to Myth Makers. Myth Makers is the podcast for fantasy fans
and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for
Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding, I'm the
Director of the Centre but I am also a writer.
So today we are doing a podcast where we've
asked our followers to send in questions. We said ask us anything,
which is always a little bit worrying when you send out a request like that. But we've had some
questions sent in to us and I'm going to spend the podcast answering them. So the first part
is going to be about different fantasy questions and the second part is about our exciting new
project in Oxford at No. 5 Northmoor Road. But we'll leave that to the end. So looking at the
questions that were sent in. First of all, Carrie York, who is one of our most faithful social
media followers, she often takes part in our readathons. So I feel I'm getting to know Carrie
a little bit. She was a bit why she didn't have a legitimate question, but she asked me if I had
a favourite colour. Now, this might seem a bit of a strange question, but it is that question
which is so important to children. It makes you wonder what it is about knowing somebody's colour
that is so important. Then when you think about fantasy, you think about the role of colour.
The first place that I go in my head is the colours to signify the four different houses.
Obviously, you're going to be alright if you're a good red, deep red. You're a good sort and you're
in Gryffindor. If you are a cool intellectual blue, then you're going to be in Ravenclaw.
And if you're a slightly sort of cheerful, but maybe not so brainy yellow, you're in Hufflepuff.
And there's something up with the colour green, isn't there? Because that sends you to Slytherin.
So carrying on this thought process, I was thinking about the way we associate different colours
with different qualities. So for example, in Alice in Wonderland, who has become associated with
the blue dress, there's something about the innocence, the springtime nature of that blue
dress that means it's been picked up as a motif, Alice of her fair hair and blue dress.
And going on from that, you've got Peter Rabbit with his blue coat. Again, signifying a sort of
young, innocent character who gets caught in fiendish traps. So, you can see that asking a
question about colour is not simple. And there is one particular line up on colour which is very
problematic and that's the black and the white version of this, which I think we're now trying
to get away from. Obviously, there's the element of white that's being associated with
a kind of purity. So I'm thinking in terms of Tolkien, you get that in the White Lady Erwin,
you get that associated with Galadriel, and there you get black associated with the
characters such as the Black Riders, the Colors of Mordor. But obviously, because we can't escape
the way language has evolved and it's become associated with skin colours, though that isn't
where it starts off. I think as a fantasy writer, you have to move away from that black/white
basis. You see that people are doing that. They often flip it. In the Peter Jackson films,
you get the baddest of the wizards, Saruman, who's associated with white. You get clearly
trying to change how we think of the way the orcs look. They're coming out as that kind of
maggot-like white. So you challenge the way that colors become associated with certain
and kind of characteristics. So that's a very long way around to answering what's my favourite
colour. And unfortunately, I'm a bit of a Slytherin. I like green. But for me, green
isn't the kind of snake-like, problematic Slytherin green. It's fresh and it's spring
and it's all those different colours of the leaves. I just love green. But as a sidebar,
you might like to know that when I was doing a series of books with Penguin a few years
ago, they had a historical flavour. So they were putting historical dresses on the front.
And my main character wore a green dress because I like green. And also there's green sleeves
and all sorts of other things from the period. I was told that green was not an auspicious
colour. I wasn't allowed it on the front cover. I wonder why. We obviously have a problem
with green. Okay, so that was a very full answer to that first question. We got another
question from Adam Ban, who asked, "Who is my favourite character in The Silmarillion,
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit?" He said, "Name three, each for every book." So I
think he means one for this. Yeah, I think I've got you, Adam. So starting doing that
reverse. Who's my favourite character in The Hobbit? Well, Bilbo, obviously, because he's so
funny. He is the everyman abroad. He's the one who gets a cold. He's the one who comes through.
He's the hero's journey. So he is my favourite character. I love the invention of some
quirky side characters like Smaug with his clever interrogation of the burglar.
I mean, they're wonderful set pieces, those. And of course, Gollum, the riddles,
absolutely fabulous. But in terms of my favorite, it's Bilbo. So Lord of the Rings,
that's really difficult. It's a bit like saying, "Who's your favorite child of my three children?"
because I like different characters for different things they do. Again, I tend to
find that I love Frodo because he is the one carrying the heaviest burden.
Even though there's a lot of other things going on, it really is his
journey that is the most important. If you take him out of it, the rest of it collapses.
But I wonder, because also I love the fact that Erwin is there. I love the Shield Maiden,
the one who kills the Lord of the Nazgul. I mean, I love her being there.
Also, I love Aragorn. The idea of the returning king. I've got a soft spot for all of the Hobbits.
So you can see, Adam, I'm really struggling because I like all the characters. But in terms
of an author, let's answer it that way. I think the character I love most is actually Gollum,
because I think Tolkien was one of the first to do that very clever thing of someone who has the
split mind. I hesitate to call it schizophrenic because that's obviously a real mental illness
with a proper diagnosis. But he has this divided personality. There is a very interesting 19th
century novel called The Confessions of a Justified Sinner. I think it's by James Hogg.
It has an adult Gothic novel where he has another interesting divided personality,
and you've got the Jacqueline Hyde, of course. But what I love about Gollum is that he is
almost redeemable. There's something about that almost which makes him fascinating and engages
the sympathy of the reader. Okay, so I'm going to say Gollum. That's really hard though.
Finally, the Silmarillion. Now, I think the Silmarillion doesn't have the same...the
The reason I like characters in the Silmarillion are probably because of the other things I
know about them.
So whenever I read it, I always look for that golden thread that is characters I love, like
seeing the mentions of the wizards or seeing the mention of Galadriel following it through.
And I find some of the chapters in the Silmarillion really sad, desperately sad.
So I suppose the one that I like the most is the Beren and Luthien story because it
does have an uptick at the end.
So I will choose Beren.
Or am I going to choose Luthien?
I'm going to choose Luthien.
Yes, I will choose Luthien because she is, in a way, a fairy tale hero who goes on a
quest to the dungeons to find her lover.
She is the Orpheus in the underworld.
There's all sorts of reversals going on there.
So my favorite character is Luthien in the Silmarillion.
But that was really hard because I have so many favorites.
So Adam, you put me through it there.
And the third question we got sent in was from Abigail Pope.
And her question was, what's your fantasy preference?
Is it high fantasy, urban fantasy, or children's?
explain those terms for people who may not immediately know what she's talking about.
High fantasy is the kind of high concept things like Lord of the Rings. I suppose things like
Game of Thrones would fit into that. Urban fantasy, they're the sort of,
well, as the name suggests, tend to be set in a recognizable city. I've actually interviewed a few
authors who write in this genre. So you've got things like the Kate Daniels series by Ilona
Andrews, the Mercy Thompson series and so on. And then of course, Children's is Children's.
So what is my fantasy preference? I think that I have different...so my all-time favourite,
of course, it falls in the high fantasy because that's Lord of the Rings. I have many favourites
in the children's. But I think in terms of what do I read for relaxation, I tend to veer towards
urban fantasy, very often because they make me laugh and I like the side light that it puts on
human relationships. What fantasy does, of course, is it kind of puts a frame around
issues that you recognize and gives it a fantasy frame, but you can still see what's working out
underneath. So your adversary might be a werewolf, but we know that you can still see the dynamics of
how they relate to everyday tension in the workplace or whatever.
I think at the moment, my preference for relaxation reading is urban fantasy. Part
of that is because every time I try a high fantasy book, I'm always hoping it's going to be as good
as Lord of the Rings, and so far it never has been. So if anyone out there is listening and
feels they've found a fantasy series which matches to that, let me know because I'm always on the
lookout and I will quickly shift my preference if I find something that blows my socks off in the
same way as reading Lord of the Rings did when I was younger. Okay, so that's the general questions,
but we did have lots of questions about the initiative for the makeover at No. 5 Northmore
Road. So just to give a bit of background to this, this came out of obviously our attempt to
buy Tolkien's house, which we didn't manage. But as a local person, I already knew other people who
lived in the street. It is one of the most expensive roads in the country. It's just
these very large houses. I do have very good friends of the centre who live in the street,
and they said, "Well, why not come and do the same thing, but here, just a short distance away,
so that people can come and follow their interest in Tolkien and the other inklings from an Oxford
base in the very same street as Tolkien, surrounded by things that are part of the narrative of
the Tolkien world, and then carry on to do their own creative work or scholarship.
So, that's what we're doing, and it's a wonderful opportunity.
Means that we don't own a house there, so we have guests in the house doing this so
that you can come and stay close to the place where your favourite author wrote probably
some of your favourite books. So, the question we have from Carolyn is, does that mean if
we do, if we have the house, that when we do our in-person courses, we won't be staying
anymore in Oxford colleges? It depends on how many people want to come to a course.
If we get small numbers, we will be in the house because they can accommodate that. If
have more people wanting to come on a course, then we'll book into some of the colleges.
So, Carolyn, that can be something we can discuss if you decide to come one year.
We've got a question here from at-- well, I'm trying to work out how you say this. It looks
like made in Estet. You know who you are. And the question there is, will there be a little garden?
There is a garden at the house, certainly the front garden, a lovely front garden.
So there will be lots of leafy spaces for people staying there. And she suggests that we put in a
silver and a golden tree. I certainly think we should do that in terms of a silver birch and
something that has gold leaves. I think putting a silver or a gold tree in the front garden,
they may not last very long. They would be melted down and turned into, well, maybe rings. Who knows?
So Professor MCC, who I think is Mike, Mike says, "I cannot wait to stay and would it
be possible to do a short residency to say work on a novel and research?"
We don't quite know what the pattern is of people renting.
We're hoping to make it available for people coming to study for say like doing a masters
in Oxford or coming for a study for a term.
are six bedrooms, so I think different bedrooms will be doing different things.
It won't be like an Airbnb with people passing through every two or three days.
It will be a family, a maid family, living there and sharing spaces together,
and all drawn together by the fact that they love Tolkien and the Inklings. So the idea is that
you share with each other and that is part of the experience.
So, yes, Mike, if you've got a sabbatical, that's exactly the kind of thing that it could
be used for to come and stay for a term.
So, that was all the questions we have sent in so far.
We always try and answer everybody's question.
So, do carry on talking to us on social media or directly by email and we will get back
to you with a reply.
But thank you very much for listening.
Thanks for listening to Myth Makers Podcast.
Brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun.
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