Before I begin this essay a few notes Everything in this video is just my opinion I'm just submitting it with a microphone and a degree in film and a minor and creative writing Also, I've never done a video essay before but I've been wanting to give it a shot for a while. So here goes
. Also, there will be some mild spoilers for this entire arc So if you've stumbled onto this video and you've never listened to The Adventure Zone This may not be a good place to start or you don't care about spoilers. It's up to you There are a few pieces of storytelling media quite like the podcast the adventure zone
[TAZ Balance theme plays] Specifically like the balanced arc of the adventure zone and I'm only talking about balance in this video While I've enjoyed the mini arcs and I am enjoying the Amnesty Arc I do feel like it doesn't quite have the same energy that The Adventures Zone: Balance Arc had. The energy of invention.
[TAZ Balance Theme fades out] [Assault On the Moonbase Theme plays] In the opening prologue to Shakespeare's Henry the fifth a chorus asks us to open our minds and imagination By comparison the first episode of The Adventure Zone opens like this [Narrator] "Strap on your fantasy seatbelts and brace your asses for... The Adventure Zone!" And while I doubt the McElroy boys intended at the start of this podcast to reach such heights as Shakespeare, The intent is the same. Sit back, strap in, and imagine along with our tale The podcast started partially as a joke And as a way to fill in a week on their podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me, While Justin went on a paternity leave after the birth of his daughter.
. And it's very apparent in the way the show begins, With silliness and a wizard named Taako and OOPS the tres hardy boys accidentally razed a city to the ground. [Griffin] "And as you look around you realize everything's gone" "Fandolyn's gone and for about a half mile in diameter all that you can see is a circle of black glass on the ground" [Travis] "Well, this all sucks."
[Justin] "Sorry everybody that we misadventured. Sorry about Kurtz." It's all fun and games, here they're not taking this seriously and neither are we. [Wonderland Round 3 Theme plays] But what is the show about? If you stumbled onto this not knowing anything about The Adventure Zone, here's a brief summary: Three adventurers start on a journey Taako the elven wizard played by Justin Merle, the dwarf cleric played by dad, Clint And Magnus the human warrior played by Travis, And every other character is played by Griffin All of them the Tres horny boys begin working for an organization called the Bureau of Balance To collect seven dangerous relics that would destroy the world if they are left where they are. While on this journey, there's a lot of salsa based humor for a while. [Justin] "My goal for this adventure is to invent the taco." [Griffin] "Sure."
[Clint] "Roll for salsa. Also the greatest boy detective, A warlock named Garfield A city where everyone looks like Tom Bodett An all-powerful Hunger that will consume all of existence And a binicorn named Garyl who talks like Vin Diesel. [Merle] "Lets attack."
[Garyl AKA Justin doing a Vin Diesel impersonation] Fuck that shit up. Hell yeah [Laughter] On their show within a show The Adventure Zone Zone where they lift up the curtain and talk about how and why they made the story choices that they did The brothers are very frank about how they did not know what they were doing in the beginning How they were essentially fucking around Griffin has stated that he didn't even have a solid plan for the story in place until the end of The Petals to the Metal Arc with the red robes and the death of Captain Captain Bane Part of what makes the Adventure Zone: Balance so unique was how we discovered the story right along with Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint. Rarely does a novel or television series begin with so little thought towards how it might end Even with a show like Lost where they definitely didn't know how it was going to end in season 1 By about season 4 or 5 they probably had a clearer idea and were actively working towards it Whereas this story began as a one-off notion that grew into this many-splendored thing Even when Griffin and his overarching story in mind and was working towards it, the players still managed to surprise him causing him to have to rework storylines on the fly Such as the incredible hands outstretched sequence of the suffering games Which erased an entire plotline Involving Magnus and Kravitz fighting their way out of some alternate dimension Griffin has discussed the process quite openly and how and when he thought of characters Like Lup, the red robes, the voidfish, and when the story came together in his mind Something he had to keep to himself for quite a long time before he was able to reveal the story to his dad and brothers [chatter]
[Griffin] "Y'all, I'm sorry. My heart's racing" "Cuz this next shit is like shit I've been wanting to get to for like a year"
[Travis] "Go! Go! Go!" [Griffin] "And Merle you crack open the chest and retrieve the clothes within: a white cotton shirt" "And a pair of pants" "sturdy" "denim and blue" "The membrane encasing this pod splits and green brackish fluid splashes out onto the floor"
[Clint laughing] "Barry's back." There's some real excitement in the moments when Griffin surprises his family and us. [Griffin] "And he says: 'You know boys, I don't think Wonderland's that bad'" [Magnus] Ahem, I didn't say that" [Griffin] Nobody hears you say that Magnus because" "You've just had the singular sensation of having your soul knocked out of your still living body." And an equal excitement in the moments when they surprise and confound him [Justin] "His soul is gone."
[Griffin] "Oh F--" [Justin] "It's in a mag--
[Griffin] "What?!
[Justin] "It's in a magic jar" "Justin] "The only action I can take is to project my soul up to 100 feet out of the container" [Griffin] "Okay,"
[Justin] "I'm gonna take Magnus back" That doesn't mean the show became a serious thing all the time, Far from it. Comedy continued to happen organically in the in-between moments, [Taako] "Y'know it doesn't allways have to be goof goof dildo." "I'm out traveling around with a boner squad and I never get to just say what I'm feeling."
[Giggles] "I have emotions!"
[Laughter] "I'm MULTI DIMENSIONAL" While the overarching story got bigger and bigger stakes and emotional payoffs [Griffin] "And you all searched for her Barry tirelessly, painfully so" "But she was nowhere to be found and all you had to go on was a note:" "Back soon." Characters like Angus McDonald, initially introduced for some silliness in a minor arc would have an entire emotional journey by the story's end. And characters like Lucretia would become major players in the narrative, with journeys that mirrored and played off of the journeys being taken by our main three heroes And that's not even getting into the way the story is told. [The Royal Beasts Theme plays] Podcasts are already such weird beasts because half of them are just an audio version of a talk show format where a bunch of people sit around discussing some particular [Jo] "What he says 'I am a toy and a friend. My guess is no one's ever loved you before.'" [Jo] "'Because you know, nothing about hearts and love.'"
[Wheels] OH SHIT! The READ. While the other more narrative based podcasts tend to function more like the radio shows of old with dialogue that tells us what's happening Augmented by some music and sound effects [Gong sound] [Spooky music and whooshing sounds]
[Cecil] "Hello radio audience" "I come to you live from under my desk," "Where I have dragged my microphone and am now currently hiding in the fetal position." "Station management has opened its doors for the first time in my memory and is now roaming the building." The Adventure Zone fits into both of these categories and neither of them on any given moment Whereas the talk-show podcast might be led by a host and a narrative podcast is populated with actors The brothers are neither hosts nor actors. They're players. In any given scene we could have a moment of in character depth and emotion Broken up by out of character comments from the brothers about the next dice roll. In a sense The Adventure Zone and other actual play podcasts have sort of formed their own genre. Other such podcasts like Friends at the table or Interstitial do feature a similar format, Where the players will slip in and out of character depending on the needs of a moment. And on The Adventure Zone it took them a while to even find those characters. [Taako] "Uh, excuse me. Whichever one you are? [stammers] Dwarf?" "Uh there's a cane here to look at"
[Clint doing a weird voice] "Oh I'll check it out." [Taako] No that won't do
[Laughter] In the beginning of the show the brothers would often tease each other and their dad for forgetting to even Maintain a voice while they were in character. They often acted outside of their own characters D&D alignments because they hadn't really figured out what to do with them yet Early on they made choices mostly for their own sake Only later did it begin to feel like all four of them were actively working towards telling a story with character development. In a sense the creation of the story becomes part of the overall narrative. The McElroy's as storytellers became characters within the story on a meta textual or possibly paratextual level And initially, I wrote out a whole thing explaining the difference between para and meta text and it sucked? So...um Metatext sort of critiques and comments on itself And paratext is like how the creation of a thing and its creators relate to the thing For the listener or reader or whatever. I swear. I have a real degree Moving on. On The Adventure Zone we're reminded constantly of the four Very real people who are telling this tale to the point that they're part of it Their fumbles and giggles don't detract from the story They only add to it. It's an unusual way to build a narrative. It shouldn't work and yet it does [Taako] "And I shout ABRACA-FUCK-YOU"
[Laughter] [Justin] "And I cast magic missile at him" [More laughter and dice roll sounds] [Justin] "Four! Oof oof How does 15 points of damage taste?" But that's just one piece of how the story works The other piece is Griffin himself When he isn't doing an entire cast of non playable characters on his own The thing I find fascinating Is how he chooses to tell a story as both narrator and DM. How and when he steps in to build scenes around the characters. In sections that are sometimes pre-recorded He will in almost prose-like fashion Paint a scene for us with language that is both highly detailed and poetic [Griffin] "The phoenix fire gauntlet, it surfaces every few months and it leaves a circular glass scar on the world surface" "There are reports of impossible things monsters and other phenomena conjured into existence by the oculus" "Magnus your relic might be the most distressing of all of them because you don't see anything change because of the chalice" "and that's the problem time can be rewritten with the chalice made miserable without your knowing it" "And what you don't know?
It haunts you Magnus" But it's also full of language that one might find in a screenplay. [Griffin] "We see a close-up of Davenport's face" "His teeth gritted his knuckles tight across the spokes of this star blasters wheel" It's interesting when we're told that we see a thing in close-up or a camera pans It's a visual language being used but one that screenwriters don't use very often When I was in film school I had multiple teachers tell me while writing a screenplay to never describe what the camera is doing They say it takes the reader out of the story and annoys a director. We were encouraged to simply use language that implies what an imaginary camera might do. In fact we were discouraged even from using language like "we see this" while describing a scene There was a section called "We See" In How Not to Write a Screenplay by Denny Martin Flynn A book I was required to read for one of my courses and the summary of that section was mostly to use that language Minimally or not at all Griffin has no such limitations [Griffin] " and then the camera pans up and up." "Above the temple, above the world, past the sky, and into the space beyond your plane" "And there, drifting between the planes that once again dance around one another in a harmonious orbit," "We see Fisher slowly swimming away from your home," And I don't even think it's done intentionally It's simply the way that made sense for him as a writer and creator to illustrate a story entirely through audio. And he mixes that language with incredibly detailed descriptions of a scene. And sometimes he tells us things that aren't visual at all but instead are something from deep within the story itself that has to be said [Griffin] "When someone leaves your life those exits are not made equal" "Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying," "Others are abrupt and unfair," "But most are just unremarkable" "Unintentional, clumsy" "Where Lup went" "She didn't intend to end up there and she certainly didn't intend to spend as much time away as she did." The maxim of writing is 'show don't tell' And Balance is a master class in violating that maxim while still telling an effective story Rules can be broken and I would guess that this show breaks rules without even meaning to and it works every time We as listeners are shown a lot but also told a lot and it doesn't detract from the story in this strange medium it Can often enhance it? [Narrator] "To understand this next part I need you to imagine the apocalypse." "Imagine it happens tomorrow." "And that everyone you ever knew was gone, and that you survived." "Imagine that feeling of loss, imagine that guilt." "The pressure it would put on you. How you would change beneath that pressure." "What would you do to stop it?" "What would you do to protect the ones you loveed, the ones who also felt that terrible weight?" "That is the reality of our heroes." For me the real turning point of the show came in The Eleventh Hour When Griffin began to draw backstory from each of the three main characters In between a pretty funny but also very intense Groundhog Day scenario. [Griffin] "And you're being crushed by the shattered earth" "As it compresses down into the ground," "And you hear an anguished scream come from something massive and furious," "And all three of you have died." [intense music ends] [Old Lady] "You'll have to do much better than that loves" [Griffin] "And then you wake up." [Justin losing his shit and clapping] In those episodes I as the listener, Could really feel the change that had begun in the show How far we had come from Gerblins and Magic Brian And yet it all felt rooted in the story the show was telling. We learned about some of each character's history And it all drew on what we've been presented earlier in a satisfying way Magnus's backstory was even a way to bring back some elements from what had been Travis's Notably darker original idea for the character that Griffin scrapped when they first started the podcast [Griffin] "It was pitch fucking black" [Travis] "It was very dark and I will say that the one huge element that carried over into both is Julia" I think a lot of the brilliance balance can be summed up by its three or possibly four-part epilogue It begins with Griffin posing a question or offer to each of the main three characters Does Taako allow himself to open up to the world again. Will Merle help the world rebuild? And how does Magnus die? And their answers bring such closure for each character The scene of Magnus reuniting with his wife and death fucks me up to this day The show ends with a wedding and a glimpse into the future of each character and the ending that they earned The final moments of the show tell us that this isn't the end just an end for this story and then Justin says: [Justin] "Thus Ends, The Adventure Zone: Balance" The story of four idiots that played D&D so hard that they made themselves cry" And the brothers joke around for a few minutes as themselves Giving us a moment as listeners to soak in what we've just heard And smile through tears because we all cried at this story and they did too. Even as they joke about being coated in cheeto dust and the pizza that never showed up, The brothers and their dad are as much a part of this story as the characters they created And for a few minutes we get to listen to them talk and soak in the story they told. [Lucretia Reprise Theme plays] The Balance Arc does continue in live shows Which mostly revel in the silliness of the world and the characters But the main story for them is over and I don't really consider the live shows when I think of Balance Just the main story that the four of them created and all of us listened to with increasing wonder and joy as it unfolded. I brought up Shakespeare at the beginning of the video because it's a rad quote and I can be pretentious too But also because I think The Adventure Zone could well be a modern work of art much like Shakespeare was in his day I don't mean as that highest form of literature droned to seas of high schoolers while they try to stay awake But as pure entertainment. [Henry V] "Follow your spirit and upon this charge cry God for Harry!" [Crowd shots 'Harry!'] [Henry V] "England!"
[Crowd] "England!" [Henry V] "And St. George!"
[Crowd cheers] In his day Shakespeare was rowdy, raunchy, and still plucking at the heartstrings And that's what The Adventure Zone is today. Ridiculous and dramatic and equal measure That quote from Henry V is an invitation from writer to audience, Sit back and imagine along with us, It'll be fun. And every episode of the adventures on balance begins with a similar message, Whether we're being told to brace our asses or being told to get ready For the end to begin. I brought up amnesty at the beginning of this video,
not to dunk on it, I said at the start that I've been enjoying the new arcs and I am But I also wanted to point out that in the wake of the absolutely huge arc that Balance became I am personally not sure that the McElroy's have quite found the formula with Amnesty Mostly because there was no formula with Balance and all of us were just along for this wild and unwieldy ride. With Amnesty there's been more planning and more intent Which I'm not sure is an improvement. Because before Griffin's sort of drew backstory and character development out of the game one piece at a time And now it's being done with the direct intention of creating drama And literally as I was editing this video They released a new The The Adventure Zone Zone Where they talked about perhaps an over enthusiasm in character creation and a lack of overarching narrative, So that happened. I say they haven't found the formula because Amnesty is only the second arc out of what will hopefully be many more stories And with The Adventure Zone being what it is, it will always be changing and evolving Maybe they'll find that secret sauce of unexpected comedy in organic drama again, because at the end of the day, It was a balance. Hello everyone who sat through this whole thing I love video essays And I've been wanting to give one a go for a while, And then I decided to make my first one about a non visual medium which was smart. Thank you to all the fan artists who gave me permission to use their work in this piece You'll see their names in the credits and links to their work in the YouTube description The only other videos on this channel right now are fan videos if you want to watch my development as an editor I guess check those out. I might do more of these I certainly have a few more half written essays and ideas for topics on the new season of Doctor Who, Kingdom Hearts 3, And Prince Of Egypt, we'll see if any of those ever happen. Also I will say I didn't really touch on some of the problematic elements of the Balance Arc. Taako's named after tex-mex food They buried some gays with Hurley and Sloane I omitted this mostly because the McElroy's have spent a lot of time actually addressing this stuff already and I really have nothing of value to add other than I'm Jewish and the official Comics version of Taako was Never anti-semitic. If every green character with a big nose is automatically anti-semitic then somebody has to go murder Shrek But yeah, nothing else to add on that topic I think the boys were doing their best to be a positive force on the Internet and I appreciate them for it and if by some insane chance a McElroy actually watches this uuuh 420 420! dank memes! love those 7 parrots! Sorry I don't like Jimmy Buffett's music Justin, okay? Thanks for watching everybody
Don't know if this was posted before, but I thought you all might be interested