Mythmakers Season 5 Wrap Up

Hello and welcome to our compilation of the top moments in season 5 of MythMakers. My name is Julia Golding and MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. We've pulled out some moments which we think you might enjoy from the, oh I think we've reached almost 20 episodes in this season. Anyway, let's start with Romantasy. Now Romantasy is the genre that everyone's been talking about and there have been lots of books published in this area and that name Romantasy is a blend of romantic and fantasy and the book that really has been at the head of this trend is called Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and in this excerpt you'll hear me doing a deep dive into what makes Romantasy work, the erotic content and how that has fed into the popularity and also I unpack the approach that Rebecca takes in her book so I hope you enjoy. Let's look at the sociology of the popularity of this genre. I've mentioned, excuse female, I've mentioned that it has a high erotic content and in this it feels like a brand of an adult fairy tale and it sometimes feels like fan fiction. What I mean by that is someone has thought in their daydreams, here is a story what would happen if I do an erotic daydream about it, where can I push it, that's how it feels to me reading it and there's nothing wrong with a healthy imagination for your sexuality that's part of what makes us human, isn't it? So what works in the Rebecca Yarros book to make it so particularly popular, well just looking at it as a technical exercise, she picks a first person present tense narrative. The story of it is from the point of view of Violet our main character. What this does is it gives an immediacy to the story and it limits our knowledge of the world and its plot so we discover it at the same time as she does to certain extent because Violet is going into this Dragon Rider program. So it's relatively new to her though she has lived quite close to other family members who have gone through the same training so she does have some knowledge. But that first person immediacy where she doesn't understand everything that's going on and the little plots and the conspiracies of that world so we are following her in the way that you do in a detective fiction that's written from a first person point of view. And of course that first person present makes us very close to the character, we are kind of her as we are reading it because of the eye. But that immediacy wouldn't work unless the pacing was correct. It does have the first year at school structure, first year at university which you find in other fantasy novels of course and sometimes the weakness in that let's do a whole school year thing is that there are you mark time to get to the next big event. And this doesn't happen in this book so when she first joins the Dragon Rider program we know that there's a big test coming up called thrashing and that came earlier in the book than I was expecting. It isn't a climax at the end, it's more like a midpoint big event. So it means that it does actually run along, it gallops along this story and you don't get to the point where you think oh come on, skip a few pages, I want to see what happens. And so the actual structure of the book is that we resolve the question of will she or won't she become a Dragon Rider fairly early on so that we have the rest of the book to unpack the politics of this world. And as you'll see from the actual physical book I'm holding up here, it's a long book for those of you who are listening to this, let's do a quick look at the page count 561. So it's not a short read. But it feels short because you're turning the pages, Twilight had that same box of chocolates feel that once you started reading it you wanted to keep on eating the chocolates. So yeah that works in this. I would just say though that even though the characters are supposed to be what I would call more university age, I don't really hear precisely if people's ages but at one point Zaden, the male hero is mentioned as being 23. They do feel younger to me, they do feel more like high schoolers. I don't know that maybe that's just me because I'm old and crumbly but they kept saying their adults in the mature but they didn't feel hugely mature to me. Anyway that was just my, my, my J did, that's me, being too old, I don't know but I felt they felt younger than their given ages. Before I came to this book I had read, I was looking for what was different about it in according to reviewers and I saw two things which were sort of touted about it. One was the very high death count so yes lots of people die. You do meet, you do lose a couple of beloved characters but they're not central characters that are adjacent characters. So I always shopped by high death counts, I mean Harry Potter killed off quite a lot of people and that was a long time ago now. Game of Thrones killed off a lot of people, I don't know if that's that shocking and obviously any book that has a war in it is going to kill people. In our second excerpt, I introduce you to and podcast partner who I often have really fun conversations with that's Jacob Renica who works for a games maker over in Seattle. And in this excerpt here and I are discussing why fantasy films are so often overlooked at the Oscars. Last year's winner, everything everywhere all at once is a kind of sci-fi high concept. But yeah, I suppose you could say that's fantasy. A border on fantasy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so maybe when then they do have that element in them, it doesn't stop them winning but with the only absolute mainstream total yes that's a fantasy film is obviously Return of the King which won the Oscar in 2004, I think it was. And yeah, everybody agrees that's a fantasy film, whereas the others you might describe more as a hybrid of other sorts of genres. But yeah, that's right. But to the performances and there you really do come up against a problem of them not rewarding performances in a fantasy film. Right, yeah, yeah, and that's yeah, that's to be expected and with these, I think you're right on with the like blending of genres makes it more palatable but that if it's a heavily, it does genre piece that's heavy fantasy or sci-fi or even to be fair, like you said, you know, like an action film if it's kind of a big budget blockbuster action film comedies westerns even what westerns more so because I think they can get to more of that serious slash, you know, meaningful and tortured performances but a lot of those have like a big budget, mass, audience, films, those aren't the ones that are being considered here rewarded. So for the actors it's the same thing so it's really interesting what the actor is in this most recent Oscar round coming up that Barbie which is a fantasy, fantasy film is has you know nominations for best picture and two supporting actors and adapted screenplay but not for best director or best actor. So Margot Robbie does not even get a nomination even though the film is nominated and the supporting actors is really fascinating looking at those the supporting actors by Ryan Gosling and Marika Ferreira as kind of like more tortured. Yes, it is Barbie story but if you look at what the characters know themselves are having to wrestle with more intensively and that's what they're in in that degree of supporting actor not in the primary actor. It's really interesting on how yeah so how Margot Robbie and the main character for the film would not be nominated but it's the same film and the same storyline but that the two supporting actors from that fantasy film are nominated. So there's a really interesting that that's a good demonstration of what is like Margot Robbie's character is Barbie most of the way through right it's kind of her performance is fairly even and level whereas the other two are characters that are kind of like yanked from their world and you see them wrestling at least it in Howard it is more intensively and because I was I think perhaps less screen time on them you can see the wrestle a little bit more it's intense than over the entire film but yeah that's a song. Right exactly exactly and the song doesn't that doesn't hurt but yeah so the so the the individuals and performances yeah so we have like with Lord of the Rings in particular with as many Academy Awards as it did receive including you know best picture best director best screenplay for Margot Robbie King the only actor nomination or award that you got was for Ian McKellen just from fellowship with the ring was the one that was won there so it's interesting looking at yeah the different characters there and there's yeah it's it's hard to say but that's just an interesting trend so did Ian McKellen sorry did he win something for it or was he just nominated I don't I thought he was I didn't think anything got an acting award he didn't he didn't get an award but he was it was a nomination so he was the only one that was nominated didn't win but that was even the only nomination across all three films was just Ian McKellen for the for fellowship with the ring oh I've forgotten that I'm just looking through the list of people the men who won the acting role I need to pull up the women because I'm having them back in my mind that maybe Michelle you know one one for everything everywhere all at once yes yeah yeah so that's a woman really winning a main if we allow that to be a fantasy of course you're like him Phoenix one for being walking Phoenix and that's exactly what he said it's the tortured yeah right so she okay and and the only and I'd say like even for like doing like a big budget or an even yeah big budget joker versus dark night so you have two the only I would say you're like the two best actor roles in a fantasy fantasy type or a fantasy addition film you have Pete Ledger for the Joker and walking Phoenix for Phoenix for the Joker both the which performances are these again like tortured individuals that are vacillating between two different worlds and so but but it's it's it's it's really interesting that it's the same character that is winning both of those roles even those different franchises it's within the same story world of that man but that's where you get these that man is never nominated for or is this does never get this award for and only can think nominated for best actor whereas the Dylan the more a kind of emotionally complicated and tortured he keep going back to that word but yeah so that's that's kind of a anomaly in the best actor wins moving on to our third excerpt I began the year by having an absolutely amazing time in New Zealand in January so I came back ready to spread the news about how excellent it is for Lord of the Rings fans to visit the place where many of the films were made and you'll hear me and Jacob discussing where it best to go in New Zealand for your Lord of the Rings pilgrimage if you were going to go to New Zealand we've got any sort of on your must see list of things to go to having yeah that's hard making out yeah having watched it yeah that's so I know that with one of the reasons why New Zealand made for such a great filming location is the incredible diversity of the landscape right so you can within an hour and a half flight you can get to you know mount snowy mountains and you know the you know forests kind of rolling hillsides of course trying to do the only thing I don't have is a desert so if so that yeah so that that any of those places like I would be tickled I mean hobbitin is pictures and so that's that that of course would be fun for more of a if on that particular travel day I was looking to relax a little bit more slow my pace I think that would be great if I was in a frenetic mood I would perhaps want to be a little more adventurous and go hiking the path of courageous and yeah that is quite excellent yeah no I mean the funny thing is that even though I sort of think I'm fairly you know I did geography at school and I sort of renew a map vaguely of New Zealand and I'd watch the making of I hadn't really grasped until I went there exactly how it all works so if you're planning your check tell us you're planning your pilgrimage the two islands the south island is sort of a rounder and fatter island and it's further south so it's colder and that's where the dramatic out type scenery is not that the north island doesn't have mountains but it's the the ones you're thinking of in the fly past but it's also very very sparsely populated so it's real wilderness you can go to places where there are no farms there's no fences there's no sign of people for miles and miles and miles and miles it's quite a phenomenon so if the population is something like I don't quote me on this but it's something like five million only a million of those live in the south island the north island which is kind of longer and thinner like a diamond shape very roughly we're Wellington down the bottom and Auckland up the top has everybody else and a lot of those people are in either Auckland which is the biggest city and Wellington so it reminded me a bit actually of Iceland Iceland has a similar thing except east to west where a lot of people live around yet recubic and the rest of the country is fairly empty so it had that feel to it and no wonder both places are used for fantasy films because they have so many faces you can set up a camera and do a 360 pan without seeing anything else so if you're actually planning to do your Lord of the Rings tour we did it an unconventional way most people start up in Auckland and make their way down to Queenstown I actually did it the other way around why not so I would say my top five places to go would be in order of visiting them this is I would go to the lakes around Lake Tecapo which is quite near Christchurch so you're on the south island and Lake Tecapo and the late next door to it whose name escapes me just now are the lake there you see them in the the Hobbit for Lake Town is that sort of amazing really really blue wonderful lake very beautiful also great place to start days then going down I'd go to Queenstown which is like number one Queenstown is almost everything it's almost everything it's the remarkable mountains as a range called the remarkables are used again and again their barrier mountains for more door they pop up loads of times they use for part of the retreat where they go into the hills in Rohan and they get the sword I'm just trying to remember what that place is near the past of the dead and then of course up at the near Queenstown if you go along the lake to a place called Glen Oki this is a couple of hours drive right up towards the foot of the mountains there you see Caradras there you see zero zero axigil where you know Gandalf fought the bow rob there you see Beyon's house I mean it was it was multi-purpose bits of Lothlorian it's absolutely beautiful I've got it as my desktop saver because it's such a beautiful place you know it's so I highly recommend Queenstown and now in exit four we change the mood a little I've been working on a series which I'm continuing to do a chapter by chapter deep dive from an author's point of view into my favorite book the Lord of the Rings and I'm hoping that by looking at it from the perspective of someone who also writes many novels and fantasy novels included that you'll be getting some fresh insights that will accompany you on your next reread of the Lord of the Rings and here I am discussing chapter three of the Fellowship of the Ring whether Hobbits are just about to set out on their journey now the main thing I want to talk about in the writer's journey in this particular chapter is some wonderful evocations of place but absolutely charged with emotion and here we get a very good example just as they're about to leave the sun went down bag end seemed sad and gloomy and disheveled Frodo wondered round the familiar rooms and saw the light of the sunset fade on the walls and the shadows creep out of the corners so that's a sort of darkening of the mood but that word disheveled that's a very talking word it comes up again in relation to a description of a woodland being or a forest being disheveled it's normally used of a person someone is you know like you go through a head you come out disheveled so therefore it means that bag end is given a sort of personality it's disheveled it's neglected it's empty it's a very good choice of word and without any fanfare we get introduction to one of the most scary of our bad guys which is the introduction of a black rider it's muted though because Frodo is overhearing a conversation where can really only hear Gaffa Gamji's part of that and Gaffa Gamji is not cowed by the black rider they black riders themselves they gain in power as this book goes on they gain in power as the numbers increase but at this point Tolkien is still playing his cards close to his chest on a second reading you know what's going on but the first time you read this you're unaware just how important this conversation is and how much of a how much in danger Gaffa Gamji is and Frodo himself but it reminds us that Frodo is hunted and people are looking for him so thankfully finally he actually gets going still there's no particular hurry they're walking at night through landscape that they've walked many times before that they know like the back of their hands and what I want to highlight here which is a huge strength of Tolkien's writing which is that everything is very specific you feel as though you could actually pick up this book and if this place existed you could use it as a guide to how to go on this walk but his descriptions are always loaded with a certain kind of mood and atmosphere and in this first one as they leave bag end there's this subtle poetry of thinness it starts with Frodo joking that if he carries on walking he'll burn off some of his fat and he'll end up like a willow wand but that then that idea of thinness then seems to be folded into the landscape it's full of spindly images you've got the black ribbon of the stream the smoke like wisps of mist the thin cloud birches these are all in the next paragraph or two it's reminder that Tolkien is also a poet his use of the language when it comes to the landscape is particularly subtle powerful and really well imagined this isn't a vague fantasy world somewhere other this is a landscape that he makes you believe in 100% and as they settle down for the night in the roots of a big pine tree making a fire of the pine cones and dry wood you almost most feel as though you're getting a guide to camping in the English countryside Tolkien and his friends love their walking holidays so they probably actually themselves did something very much like this and then there's an odd note a fox enters the story and it's given a moment when we hear the thoughts of this fox thinking how strange it is to see the hobbits broad at night now this is possibly one of the last echoes of a book meant for children the idea of an animal with sort of human like thoughts but it also is in step with the idea of the shy being friendly it's foxes they have in the shy not the wolves and the warks that they will later meet I can't think of another occasion when the narrator actually goes into the head of an animal obviously there are speaking animals like the eagles but this little passage is a anodity and carrying on with this theme of the brilliance of the nature writing you get in Tolkien and why I would personally choose it as my desert island book because I feel transported back to some of the most beautiful parts of the English countryside when I'm reading this and finally there's been quite a lot of Tolkien related news for those who are fans of films in this season there's both animated film forthcoming about the Rohan culture the war of the heroine but the one that to call our attention is the news that Peter Jackson and Andy Circus have teamed up to begin work on a prequel called the hunt for Gollum so if you want to find out what the hunt for Gollum might be like have a listen to our discussion so there is a long period where Gandalf and Aragorn are hunting him in fact Gandalf says he goes away and it's Aragorn who actually catches up with Gollum and causing back there's that part so you just need to turn to the chapter called the Shadow of the Past and you can read that material there's what happens after that after they've talked to Gollum is he is putting the care of the wood elves that's Thrandwheel Legolas' father that kingdom and he's looked after there and we get another little glimpse of what might have happened to Gollum when Legolas reveals that Gollum escaped the elves' hair captivity and this is something that comes up during the council of Aragorn so there's another mention of Gollum at that point thinking about this as a literary technique it's talking keeping on just gently nudging us of Gollum's existence so that when he does turn up we've had the way prepared for us with talk of Gollum so two places to have a quick look at would be the Shadow of the Past and the Council of Aragorn to see the material which the hunt for Gollum might be covering but there's also a third place which you may not have noticed because it's in the appendices this is where they're really working their rights as Peter Jackson and Andy Circus because it comes in appendix B where there is a timeline of the third age and the key events and the hunt for Gollum features in that so for example we hear that in at Dolbo's farewell feast Gandalf begins to suspect that the ring is the one and he sets off seeking for news of Gollum and calls on the help of Aragorn so that's three thousand and one and then it's not till three thousand and nine it's a cut a lot on film this isn't it I imagine they'll truncate all of this it says Gandalf and Aragorn renew their hunt for Gollum at intervals during the next eight years they're persistent they're going to give them that searching in the fails of Anduin, Merkwood and Ruffanian to the confines of Mordor. At some time during these years Gollum himself ventured into Mordor and was captured by Sauron that sort of is that central bit where the key fact that Baggins from the Shah got the ring is revealed. Gollum is actually in captivity in Mordor for some years because it says in 3017 so that 16 years after Billbo's farewell feast Gollum is released from Mordor and is taken by Aragorn in the dead marshes and brought to Thrandwell in Merkwood so that's the bit that links up to the captivity on the wood elves and you'll remember when Gollum is travelling with Frodo and Sam he talks about not liking Elven food and also we learn another detail that the reason why he escaped the wood elves I think this is during the council of Elrond that they took pity on him and would allow him to climb a tree to sort of sniff the air and you know a gang of orcs came by and killed his guards and he escaped and that was possibly set up as a way of helping him escape. Thank you very much for listening to Mythmakers this season. We start again very soon in September and we will begin with some fantastic debut authors who have already crossed my path and I look forward to sharing their work with you but as ever we will also be doing a lot of talking related content and carrying on with our travels through the Lord the Rings the brightest journey. Thank you very much for listening. Thanks for listening to Mythmakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy visit oxfordcenterforfattery.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.