Five Favorite Fantasy Creatures with Daniel Greene and Brandon Sanderson

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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.

👍︎︎ 52 👤︎︎ u/Porto4 📅︎︎ Dec 10 2021 🗫︎ replies

The blurred foot is so oddly funny to me

👍︎︎ 36 👤︎︎ u/IShouldGoToSleep 📅︎︎ Dec 10 2021 🗫︎ replies

Smart move blurring Brandon's feet. He would've been on wiki-feet in seconds.

👍︎︎ 12 👤︎︎ u/Drubious01 📅︎︎ Dec 10 2021 🗫︎ replies

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.

👍︎︎ 35 👤︎︎ u/Terry_Crews 📅︎︎ Dec 10 2021 🗫︎ replies

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. :(

👍︎︎ 18 👤︎︎ u/wedgeski 📅︎︎ Dec 10 2021 🗫︎ replies

Amazing video, i love both of them so much

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/Silver_Oakleaf 📅︎︎ Dec 11 2021 🗫︎ replies
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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.
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Channel: Brandon Sanderson
Views: 138,277
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Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)
Published: Fri Dec 10 2021
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