BRANDON: So, this is Five
Favorites with Daniel Greene. Yay! YouTube superstar Daniel Greene
has consented to come on my channel for some bizarre reason. Thank you, Daniel.
DANIEL: Well, it’s only fair after you’ve been on mine two or three times now.
BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah. DANIEL: I still appreciate it.
BRANDON: I’ve been myself on yours, and then someone who is strikingly more
attractive and handsome than me, being me, has been on your channel multiple times.
DANIEL: That is my friend Noah who he has only read Lord of the Rings and
no other fantasy in his life. He’s just someone who’s willing to be in my videos.
BRANDON: Well, thank you for casting someone who, you know, just like the movie usually of
a bio pic will hire some Hollywood actor to be them. We are going to talk
five favorite fantasy creatures. DANIEL: Yes.
BRANDON: You and I. And this is really fun to me. No one’s done this yet for me on the
channel. I like talking fantasy creatures. Let’s just go with your list. Your first one is goblins.
DANIEL: Yes, very on brand. I figured I had to include it, or I’d get angry comments. But I also
just thing, you know, every fantasy epic, every fantasy book, essentially needs cannon fodder.
BRANDON: Yeah. DANIEL: Just you need a fight. You need action.
And throughout my long history of reading fantasy, none have every done it as well as
goblins. They are just the most simple, get the job done. And I’ve found when they
actually have the effort put into them of creating a culture, they’re extremely interesting.
BRANDON: Yeah, when they have a culture. I didn’t actually put any of the cannon fodder creatures
on my list because I’m like, eh, they’re kind of interchangeable. Right? Whether it’s Trollocs,
whether it’s goblins, whether it’s whatever Christopher called his, they exist to be big
ugly things. But goblins are the one that, like, the fantasy genre’s latched onto
them in, like, various incarnations. Sometimes they’ll call them orcs. Right?
DANIEL: Right. I am a fan of lumping in orc and goblin.
BRANDON: Yes. DANIEL: I think, I go with the traditionalist
view that they are one and the same. BRANDON: That Tolkien only kind of after
the fact pretended that they were two. DANIEL: Tolkien was very good
at pretending after the fact. BRANDON: Yes.
DANIEL: People don’t talk about that. BRANDON: He’s like, “Oh, yes. The whole thing with
the ring was there all along. Read this revised version of The Hobbit. See? It’s right there.”
DANIEL: Yes. But they also have a long history in folklore before fantasy took off.
BRANDON: Yes. DANIEL: That I find very interesting. And I love,
as you’ll probably see from a few of my pics, creatures that do pull from that folklore roots
that kind of inspired the fantasy genre as a whole, and goblins are just a wonderful example
of that. And I can see them lasting well into the future because they’re still coming out in
stories to this day. And I’ll one day talk you into including them in one of your stories.
BRANDON: OK. Maybe. Maybe. I’ll go with my first one, which is the obvious
one, which is also on your list. So we’re going to talk dragons.
DANIEL: Dragons. I mean you have to have them on a top five list.
BRANDON: Yeah. I feel like you have to. Now, I picked a specific dragon.
I picked Anne McCaffrey’s dragons. DANIEL: Oh, OK.
BRANDON: I don’t know if you have a favorite dragon incarnation.
DANIEL: Oh, that’s a really good question. Can I cheat and say Rand? (laughing)
BRANDON: (laughing) That is cheating. My favorite, why I picked the Anne McCaffrey dragons is I like
the way that her dragons are alien yet personable. I like the whole idea of bonding a dragon. Right?
I’m in the, if you can’t tell from my fiction, I’m in the “I want to use the magic and master the
world,” not the “I want to go slay the creature and/or be scared of the setting elements.” Right?
DANIEL: Yeah. BRANDON: Like, there’s this push and pull
in fantasy where there’s kind of this heroic tradition of person thrust into fantastical world
has to counter it, usually with a big sword and chopping off thing’s heads. There are various
different ways. And then there’s the “I am a wizard” version, and I master this environment.
And so having dragons be something that is a challenge for a person to get to know, to
befriend, and then ride, is more engaging to me. DANIEL: I can see that perspective. But for my
own personal taste I’m pretty much on the other end of the spectrum.
BRANDON: Are you? DANIEL: I like dragons to be this greater than us,
almost Lovecraftian in a sense, where they’re just so far evolved, or a part of the magic in a
way that’s just beyond what humans can be. I think Tolkien very well kind of set
the tone with that. We’ve seen similar reincarnations. But I appreciate when they
feel almost alien, almost otherworldly. BRANDON: OK.
DANIEL: Because that truly inspires that sense of awe that really only dragons can put
in me. I’ve seen that. And I actually found Jordan to do that with the legacy of the dragon he did.
BRANDON: He did. DANIEL: Which I think was really fantastic.
I still don’t have an answer of why he called it dragon, but it fits the tone.
BRANDON: It does. I think that Jim just liked the dragon as a symbol in Eastern mythology.
DANIEL: Fair. BRANDON: Right? I think that that just concept of
a dragon is what made him do it. But I don’t know for sure. I do know, you know, the sword that he
gave me. I don’t know if you’re curious but—not he, that Wilson gave me.
DANIEL: Oh, OK. BRANDON: That has the dragons across the
scabbard, was a piece of his collection that Robert Jordan admired a lot. And
it had those hand-painted dragons. And it’s just something about it, I think.
DANIEL: And there’s something about dragons, they somehow manage to be these ferocious beasts.
They are these ultimate destroyers if you use them right. But there’s still this beauty and elegance
to them, even in the most primal iterations I’ve seen from authors who really do them justice.
They have this magnificent blend. And they’re, again, tied into human history where people found
dinosaur bones and thought they were dragons. I think that’s so neat. And so, like, yeah. If
anyone doesn’t put dragons in their top five list, they’re being a contrarian. Dragons are cool.
BRANDON: Yeah. Obviously. Do you like the Batman-Gets-Eaten-By-Dragons movie?
DANIEL: I’m sorry, what? BRANDON: Reign of Fire?
DANIEL: I’ve not seen this. BRANDON: You haven’t seen Reign of Fire?
DANIEL: I have not seen Reign of Fire. BRANDON: Oh, it’s so bad in the best ways.
DANIEL: OK. BRANDON: So it’s Christian Bale and Matthew
McConaughey in a postapocalyptic world where dragons destroy the world.
DANIEL: OK. BRANDON: Humans, it’s our modern world was, like,
digging around in the dirt, and they’re like, “We dug too far.” Very Tolkienesque. And suddenly
dragons popped out and destroyed the world. DANIEL: Interesting.
BRANDON: And now it’s postapocalyptic and they, Christian Bale leads, like, a
community that’s trying to survive. And Matthew McConaughey is just like, “I’ve
got a tank. I’m going to go fight the dragons.” DANIEL: (laughing)
BRANDON: And they’re in the UK, and somehow there’s an
American military force with a tank that show up and they’re like, “Let’s go shoot
the dragons with our tank.” They’re like, couldn’t kill the dragons with tanks earlier.
But you talk about beautiful and primal, they do a good job with that in the movie. It is, it’s
one of these wonderful movies that is a B movie at heart that someone gave too much money to.
DANIEL: OK. BRANDON: I highly recommend it.
I do recommend the riff tracks. DANIEL: Now was this pre Lord of
the Rings adaptation or was this post Lord of the Rings adaptation.
BRANDON: Can’t remember. Same era. DANIEL: OK, same era.
BRANDON: So we’re late ‘90s, early 2000s. DANIEL: Fair enough.
BRANDON: It is beautifully bad, in just all the right ways.
DANIEL: I love schlock B movies that are just—I just watched
Dracula 3000, or something like that. BRANDON: OK. OK.
DANIEL: It’s a movie where, I think, my theory is they just ran out of
money, because the movie just ends with, OK, they’re on a space station. It suddenly
explodes and credits roll saying every died. And I was like, “That’s—you ran out of money.”
BRANDON: So I put on my list, and you didn’t put on your list, you mentioned
Dracula. I put zombies on my list. DANIEL: Really?
BRANDON: And this is because I wanted one member of my list to be this “humans
become the evil through corruption by a fantasy something.” Right? Vampires are a different flavor
of that. The Borg are a flavor of that. Obviously, that’s science fiction. I picked zombies just
because that zombie losing control of itself and being your loved one but not is just such a cool
storytelling trope. A lot of the things on my list are like, I as a writer struggle to come up with
things that are super cool because so much stuff has been done. Right?
DANIEL: Yeah. BRANDON: Like dragons, I’m like, “Can you
come up with something better than a dragon?” It is really hard and most of the time when
you do, it’s just a dragon with another name. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: It’s a dragon without wings that looks like a giant crab. Right? Like this,
and zombies is the same thing. Yeah, you can come up with the Borg and make them space zombies and
technologically, but they fill the same role. “My loved one turns against me and is now trying to
steal my identity like their identity was stolen.” DANIEL: Yes.
BRANDON: It’s just such great storytelling fodder. DANIEL: It’s immediate emotional stakes.
BRANDON: Yeah. DANIEL: And you can even see in—who’s the
director who just remade Day of the Dead? Not Joss, but a while ago, the movie--
BRANDON: Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. DANIEL: You know what I’m talking about.
BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. DANIEL: I forget the—it’s not Zack Snyder.
BRANDON: No. Is it? Oh, it might be. DANIEL: It might be.
BRANDON: Yeah, I think it is. DANIEL: But that movie, the first
zombie attack, if I remember right, is a little girl. And that’s just immediately,
because it’s zombie little girl, just gets you. BRANDON: Yeah. Mm hmm.
DANIEL: It’s going to be right away. And I also find it interesting, I have a bit of a debate I’ve
been having with people. I do not think that Night of the Living Dead was the first zombies.
BRANDON: OK. DANIEL: I instead say, I put forth Mary
Shelley invented zombies with Frankenstein. BRANDON: OK.
DANIEL: That’s a zombie. It has none of the baggage we put with zombies now.
But I have never heard a good argument of why Frankenstein is not a zombie.
BRANDON: No, I think you’re legit on that. Like, it’s at least a protozombie. Right? DANIEL: Yes.
BRANDON: Like, I think that essential to the current zombie lore, my
biggest criticism of that would be that it has to be able to make you into one of them.
DANIEL: Yes. That’s a very good point. BRANDON: That’s the fear of zombies. And anything
that doesn’t do that is more a flesh Gollum protozombie because--. But it still has that
same horror, right? This thing that was human is now something that’s post-human. And this
post-human thing might be better than us, but also might lose something
essential that makes it human. And Frankenstein’s monster has that, absolutely.
DANIEL: And then if you look at the 1937 movie, the physicality of the performance of Frankenstein
is essentially what Night of the Living Dead did. They just became Frankensteins. So I thought
that was—I kind of was watching it because I’m going to do a video on that book. It’s one of my
favorite sci-fi books ever. And I was watching, and I was like, that’s Night of the Living
Dead movement. Like, everyone just did that. BRANDON: Right.
DANIEL: And I think another really interesting part of zombies is they are so new.
I mean, yes, there has been this boom of them. BRANDON: Yeah.
DANIEL: But they became what they are with Night of the Living Dead, which, if you
haven’t seen it, watch it. Amazing movie. BRANDON: It’s true. I really love, I
love—that’s the black and white one, right? DANIEL: Yes.
BRANDON: Ah, that’s the best one. They’re all, they all have their charm.
DANIEL: Yeah. BRANDON: That one, I did not expect it to strike
me emotionally as well as it did. I thought it was going to be cheap B movie horror, which
it kind of is because he didn’t have a budget. DANIEL: Right.
BRANDON: But the characters really hit me.
DANIEL: Yes. BRANDON: And the social commentary is
always there. But it felt more subtle in the first one than some of the others.
DANIEL: Do you know the amazing part about the social commentary?
BRANDON: Mm hmm. DANIEL: It was a complete accident.
BRANDON: Was it? DANIEL: He did not write the character to be
a black man. He just cast him because he was the best performance. And the entire time
he was completely unaware that was how it was going to come across. And the main actor
was like, “He had no idea what he was making.” And then it wasn’t till the movie came out, George
A. Romero went, “Oh, yeah, that’s a thing. OK.” Which I find to be the funniest thing ever.
BRANDON: That’s hilarious. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: Huh. DANIEL: I’ve learned that recently. I rewatched
the movie, and I’m just like, how do you not--? It comes across so that, but it’s not meant to be.
BRANDON: OK. Well, maybe that’s why I felt it was a little more subtle than the sequels, the half sequels.
DANIEL: Yeah. BRANDON: But regardless, let’s move on
to something else somewhat humanlike, but not. The Myrddraal are on your list.
DANIEL: I—so Myrddraal—so, like, I’ve been a traditionalist in this list up to this point.
I agree with you that goblins are great. Dragons, I love how, you know, they’re
history. But Myrddraal, to me, are an effective evolution on a wraith.
BRANDON: OK. DANIEL: Where you have the Ringwraiths in Lord of
the Rings, and they’re very much so they’re that. And we’re going to change it. We’re going
to upgrade it. And I find the not making them so limited to only nine in Lord of the
Rings, and making it so there’s more of them, they’re more lethal.
BRANDON: Yeah. DANIEL: And adding this
direct horror to their look, to me was just an absolute level up for my
own engagement and fear of them. When I was a little kid, 13-14, picking up Wheel of Time
for the first time, I was younger than that, they terrified me.
BRANDON: Right. DANIEL: They were a real nightmare.
BRANDON: And then Padan Fain killing one, right? DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: Like, if you want to—like, I only noticed it after the fact, but I am willing to bet that
Steel Inquisitors came from that scene in Wheel of Time where Padan Fain nails a Myrddraal to a wall.
DANIEL: Just kind of percolated the back of your head.
BRANDON: Yep. Yep. DANIEL: Interesting.
BRANDON: But, yeah, absolutely. Myrddraal are great. It’s interesting
that you mention the Ringwraiths, because as much as I love the Peter Jackson movies, I think
they’re great, I would rank them as 9 or 10s, depending on the film, he didn’t seem to
know what to do with the Ringwraiths. Right? DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: And that seems kind of—I understand why. Like, do you
fight the Ringwraiths or not? Are they scared away from Aragorn waving a torch
and making Obi Wan Kenobi sounds in the desert? DANIEL: (laughing)
BRANDON: Or are they these ultimate monsters that, you know, you can’t beat.
DANIEL: Right. BRANDON: And Myrddraals solved that in a little
bit by, like you say, not limiting the numbers. DANIEL: Right.
BRANDON: Making them these inhuman creations, like a hybrid between a Ringwraith and an Orc.
DANIEL: Yes. BRANDON: In a lot of ways.
DANIEL: And they’re much more killable while still being very not killable.
BRANDON: Yes. DANIEL: And so they become also this great
litmus test for a character. If you want to establish a character is, you know, someone
to be reckoned with in The Wheel of Time, you just have him kill a Myrddraal and suddenly—
BRANDON: I mean, that’s what I did with Talmanes. Right? I’m like, all right, I love this
character. I want everyone to see just how awesome I’ve always seen him be. I had
him go toe to toe with a Myrddraal, right? DANIEL: Right.
BRANDON: He came out in pretty bad shape, but he did manage to go toe
to toe with a Myrddraal, and things like that. DANIEL: And they’re part of the reason why I buy
into the theory that people of Wheel of Time have to be, just on average, better physically than us.
BRANDON: Yes. DANIEL: Because there’s no way—like Lan is
managing to fight three, four. No human, no matter—Mike Tyson could not take a Myrddraal.
BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah. DANIEL: It’s impossible. So I’m hoping
that is in the show that you’re watching. BRANDON: Mm-mm, no comment.
DANIEL: Yeah. Oh, right, you’ve probably more connected. There you go.
BRANDON: (laughing) So my list, going back to something dragon-like, I have sandworms on mine.
DANIEL: Great pick. BRANDON: Now, we were talking beforehand about
Dune, and Dune is not your favorite like it is mine. Dune is probably the book I’ve read the most
that is not a Wheel of Time book or a Sanderson book, in my life. And sandworms are just a,
particularly as they’re treated in that book, as this, like you talked about
dragons, this sort of pseudo deity. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: This lower case g god. DANIEL: It’s very spiritual.
BRANDON: Yeah. And I love how cool and alien and weird and awesome they are, all mixed together.
And the new film’s use of them I love. And so sandworms, I had to have sandworms on my list.
DANIEL: I actually had them, and removed them, and put kraken.
BRANDON: OK. DANIEL: Because sandworms, to me, they’re
especially, spoiler, or not spoiler, just recommendation for the movie, the visuals for them
in this movie finally capture how I imagined them. BRANDON: Yes.
DANIEL: And they are just on that same dragon level, of just when one appears it is this
life-changing, “whoa” experience. And I think, yeah, I think they are one of the few—and
I’m someone who’s hypercritical of Dune. I don’t like the book that much. But I will
admit, in terms of an invention for that story, fantastic. And the way they are written is pretty
much perfect. I don’t think you could write them better than Frank Herbert wrote them.
BRANDON: So kraken. Why kraken? DANIEL: So this is actually more, one,
I love being in the ocean, scuba diving, very big passion of mine. But it’s always kind
of tickled that imagination for me of there’s the immediate horror of it’s a goliath
creature. But then you add into that, it might not even want to kill you. It
might just destroy your ship inadvertently. BRANDON: Right.
DANIEL: And if it does, now you’re left in the ocean. And the end result
of that is just your literal environment being destroyed. To me, I’ve always seen the proper use
of krakens, or goliath sea creatures in general, to be more of just an environmental hazard.
BRANDON: Right. DANIEL: I would see them being so large they
don’t really care about the people on the ship. They would just be, “What’s this? Touch it. It’s
destroyed. Oh, well. Move on.” And I kind of, again, I like that creature that
reminds humans how small we are. BRANDON: Yeah.
DANIEL: And I think krakens used well are a great example of that.
I actually hate how they’re used in that one Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where it’s being,
like, commanded around. No. I do not like that. BRANDON: I would agree with you on that. But,
you know, there’s only one good Pirates movie, unfortunately, because of some things like this.
DANIEL: Money trains can’t stop. BRANDON: Yeah. But that first Pirates movie, hmm.
But I actually have Cthulhu on my list. I didn’t know Cthulhucanic is an individual creature.
DANIEL: Oh, totally. BRANDON: But it’s basically the same
thing. That being that the ocean terrifies me in the best ways. It’s one of the
few things that I actually get creeped out by. You will see this as a recurring
theme in some of my books, the ocean at night in particular. The dark
ocean, while you are a small thing upon it, is just terrifying.
DANIEL: Yes. BRANDON: In the most primal and most awesome way.
DANIEL: Right. BRANDON: And thinking of a being that exists
down there that makes all religion and human culture and society suddenly vestigial. Right?
Suddenly meaningless because there is this thing that existed before us and will exist after
us. And if it wakes up, everything stops. That is so cool. Lovecraft has some pretty awful
themes in his works and was legitimately a pretty awful person in these regards. And I think it
has to be brought up. Like, even compared to his contemporaries, this guy had problems.
DANIEL: Oh, yeah. BRANDON: And his xenophobia is part of what
caused some of these stories to be so powerful because you’re seeing inside the mind of someone
who is terrified of the other in a way that’s really uncomfortable.
DANIEL: Yeah. BRANDON: But at the same time, I have to—Cthulhu,
reading Call of Cthulhu, reading about all of the kind of cosmic monsters that he had, had a deep
impact on me as a writer, as I think it did a lot. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: I mean, Stephen King mentions the same thing.
DANIEL: I’ve never heard it put that way, and I’ve never thought about that. But it’s an
outstanding observation that yeah, it’s that, I think that’s where that uncomfortability
comes from, that part of him kind of coming into the page. It’s fascinating. And I do
think Lovecraft should be discussed in depth. BRANDON: Yes.
DANIEL: Through that lens. I think that’s how you truly view him as a writer,
someone who was hateful, flawed, and that’s what allowed him to create this horror that feels so
human in its inhumanness, is how I would put it. Because we all kind of have that. We all have
those moments where we’re staring up at the sky and feel that we’re on this rock floating in this
black void, and “Oh, my God! It’s so terrifying.” BRANDON: Yeah.
DANIEL: And I think that’s a real—I think because he was the first person to
do that it’s been hugely influential. But he also, I always, when I bring up him, I bring up
Poe. I’ve found Poe to hit on similar feelings through different mediums. He has a very—
BRANDON: Yes. Not as xenophobic. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: More scared of the potential inside of all people.
DANIEL: Yes. Exact right way to put it. And Stephen King is a much more digestible
version of those. Often, I find him to be taking their works and kind of crafting it more
into, you know, Pennywise is Cthulhu. BRANDON: Yes.
DANIEL: But made into a literal childhood fear. BRANDON: Yes.
DANIEL: Which works extremely well. Good for him. He’s now richer than all of us ever will be.
BRANDON: And he—I think Stephen King’s a legit genius.
DANIEL: Oh, yeah. BRANDON: I think his prose is magnificent.
DANIEL: He’s been writing an interconnected MCU-style universe since long before anyone even thought of it.
BRANDON: Yeah. DANIEL: I didn’t—it was—I forget which book I
finally realized it. Maybe it was The Shining, where there was just enough connections
made that I went, “Oh, wow.” And I think it was. I don’t like telling Stephen King
readers about how it’s all interconnected, because I want them to have that moment.
BRANDON: It was Dark Tower for me, which is the obvious one. Right?
DANIEL: Right. BRANDON: But, I mean, this was, for me the ‘90s.
This was pre-internet. And I’m like, “Wait a minute.” But my number five is actually the Ogier.
DANIEL: Oh, OK. BRANDON: You picked Myrddraal. I picked Ogier.
DANIEL: OK. BRANDON: I picked Ogier because I—and
this, again, encapsulates an entire genre of fantasy creature. The fantasy
creature that sees humans as an oddity. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: I love. I love it when they’re like, “Wow, you’re so interesting.”
And as writers we love to do this, to kind of poke at what things humans do and accentuate them,
and in some ways exaggerate them by having an outside observer be like, “Why do you do this
thing? Why are you so hasty?” And obviously, much like the Myrddraal are an evolution of the
Ringwraiths, the Ogier are an evolution of the Ents in Lord of the Rings. Lot of—so Wheel
of Time, one of the things I love about it, but one of the other things you have to
acknowledge, is it really does draw a lot on Dune and on Lord of the Rings as influences,
and kind of mixes and matches and then evolves the genre. And Wheel of Time’s kind of place in the
genre, in my eyes, is to kind of take fantasy out of the shadow of Tolkien and move it forward. A
lot of the ‘70s and ‘80s fantasy was very Tolkien. DANIEL: Oh, yeah.
BRANDON: Very Tolkien. And you watch The Wheel of Time kind of start very Tolkien and move out of
that shadow. And the Ogier are a good example of that, in that they start, when you first meet
them, you’re like, “Oh, this is kind of like Treebeard. OK.” But then the personality and the
depth that Robert Jordan’s able to give over time to Loial and the Ogier, and to use them as a lens
through which to see humanity, is so cool. And as a genre, I just love creatures that do that.
DANIEL: Well, I think, going off what you said, the personality is what makes them work so well.
Because they leap off the page in terms of their little quirks, and the way they view us. And
I love the way you put how they view humans as this oddity. Because you can write two different
types of creatures that view humans that way, the very logical and very emotional. Ogier
kind of sit in this middle. Like, Vulcans view humans as an oddity because they’re so
logical and we’re so not. Ogier are very logical, but they’re also hyper emotional. They just have
this—they view us that way because our way of thinking feels so different than theirs. And it’s
due to their age. It’s due to their connection with nature. I just, I love that similar approach.
BRANDON: Well, and I love how he does, in those books, brings the Ogier, the Seanchan
Ogier across, after you’re used to Loial and how he is. And then you get a completely different
take on the same fantasy creature. And it feels so wrong, and so alien, it makes the
entire Seanchan culture feel wrong. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: Because it’s like, if you take a person like Loial, and you turn him into
one of this, there’s something wrong with you. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: And it’s just kind of perfect sort of zombie metaphor again.
DANIEL: It’s always reminded me of the Oliphaunts in Peter Jackson’s movies, how
they seem so abused and used. And I’ve always kind of viewed the Ogier there in the same way,
where it seems like they’re just being violated. BRANDON: Yeah.
DANIEL: And people always talk about what additional books they want from
Wheel of Time. I would love a what happened to the Ogier over their exploration.
BRANDON: Oh, interesting. DANIEL: Yeah. The history of the Seanchan is one
that I want. It would be vile, I’m sure, and a very dark read, probably darker than anything
else in the series. But it would be fascinating. BRANDON: Yeah.
DANIEL: And the other thing with Ogier is they also—they’re not as well defined as a lot
else in Wheel of Time. You only get so much depth of their history and culture.
BRANDON: But it’s all through one character, essentially.
DANIEL: Yeah. Ogier are just kind of, there’s not a lot of answers there. They just exist in
this world. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know the why they’re connected to these
places. We don’t know why. And I like that level of mystery. It felt very indulgent, because I like
that it’s, the author kind of—I’m sure he knows, but we don’t get to. And I like when authors do
that every now and then. And there needs to be more of that in Wheel of Time, in my opinion.
BRANDON: So you’re last one is a creature I don’t know.
DANIEL: Sure. BRANDON: The Dybbuk?
DANIEL: Dybbuk. So I’ve been—Dibbik? I actually don’t know the pronunciation. This is
one I’ve come across for my own writing, and I am getting very into ghosts and ghouls. And this
is specifically, I believe, from Jewish folklore. And it is a spirit that comes into our world
that has unfinished business. And instead of just haunting, it actually has agency. It takes someone
over and it starts trying to fulfill its quest through this person. And I was reading up about
these, and I was fascinated by it. Because the spiritual and the ghost realm and the human
realm are very often disconnected in fiction. And I like the idea of this thing that can
bridge it and take someone over in a very, not demonic way because it’s not demonic, but in
that way, that’s trying to accomplish their goals. And I just, I’m fascinated by the paranormal.
As someone who’s not very believing in it, I’m still very interested by it.
BRANDON: Right. DANIEL: And it’s one of the few things that I have
not seen, to my recollection, Jim Butcher use. BRANDON: (laughing)
DANIEL: So I was able to go, “I can grab this.” BRANDON: That’s awesome. Yeah, Jim has done a lot.
DANIEL: Yes. BRANDON: Yeah, no. There’s a lot of books in that
series and a lot of mysteries to be solved and a lot of creatures that need to be involved in them.
That’s really cool. I like this idea. I had never heard of this. It comes to do something.
DANIEL: Yeah. Allowing agency to the ghost world. Love that.
BRANDON: Yeah. Daniel, thank you so much. DANIEL: Yeah.
BRANDON: For coming and doing this with me. DANIEL: Loved it.
BRANDON: If for some reason you guys aren’t aware of his channel, you should absolutely
go watch some of his reviews. He does some really fun stuff, all kinds of things, not just reviews.
There’s sketch comedy on your channel as well. DANIEL: It’s news. It’s weird.
It’s disheveled. That’s the brand. BRANDON: Thank you, guys, very
much, and thanks for watching. DANIEL: Thank you and thank you for having me on.
BRANDON: Yeah.
It’s interesting because Daniel Greene is a YouTuber about literature and is an up-and-coming writer while Brandon Sanderson is an established writer that is an up-and-coming YouTuber. They’re both kind of feeling it out and trying to cover both platforms coming from different directions and age groups. Kudos to both of them for being awesome at what they do.
The blurred foot is so oddly funny to me
Smart move blurring Brandon's feet. He would've been on wiki-feet in seconds.
u/mistborn exposition on Cthulu and what it means in a fantasy setting gave me chills.
Also we aren't going to peep your feet Brandon. No need to blur unless it's your safe foot.
Be warned! There is an (I assume) apocalyptic WoT spoiler in this discussion. There's a warning on screen but that won't save you if, like me, you were listening in background. :(
Amazing video, i love both of them so much