#iain hendry

[raayllum]

that it will help this other person, because I will take that hurt off of them in some way.” [...] Because she, herself, believes “I must continue to sacrifice, I must go off on my own to try and fight Viren, I must do all these things, but Callum, you don’t have to.” And it’s sort of like, [Callum is] a little bit exempt from her entire philosophy, because her philosophy in some ways exists to protect him.

—The Dragon Pod interview with writers Iain Hendry and Devon Giehl 

[dragonprincebr]

ENTREVISTA EXCLUSIVA COM DEVON GIEHL

E finalmente veio aí! A equipe O Príncipe Dragão Brasil realizou uma entrevista com Devon Giehl, produtora e escritora-chefe da série! Perguntamos sobre o episódio 8, escrito por ela e Iain Hendry, bem como perguntas dos fãs!

Leia mais abaixo!

english version

Finnegrin foi um vilão fascinante e interessante! Como ele foi concebido, e há alguma chance dele ter sobrevivido?

Devon Giehl: Começou porque queríamos levar os personagens a uma espécie de cidade pirata após terem perdido a ajuda de Zubeia. Eles precisavam de um barco para descer a costa. Começamos desenvolvendo a ideia de Scumport primeiro, e então decidimos que o vilão que encontrariam nessa cidade pirata e sem lei seria Finnegrin. De início ele iria aparecer por um episódio, mas nos divertimos tanto criando histórias sobre a cidade pirata que criamos o arco de 3 partes que nos possibilitasse a contar uma história maior da confusão que nossos protagonistas se metem com os piratas. Então, pensamos "e se ele os perseguissem?", "e se ele for parte do roteiro pelos próximos 2 episódios?" em que ele os persegue e eventualmente os captura. Queríamos que ele fosse realmente mal, mas também carismático e charmoso, inspirado no personagem Al Swearengen da série Deadwood. Sobre ele ter sobrevivido, acho que é possível, gosto de pensar que ele tinha algum meio mágico ou esperto de escapar de seu destino. Eu gostaria de vê-lo de novo porque me diverti bastante o escrevendo. Ele é um mago poderoso do Oceano e um elfo das Marés, então quem sabe. Eu sei que tem piadas de por quê ele se preocuparia de se afogar, mas acredito que até elfos das Marés podem se afogar, se ele for muito fundo, ele pode ser esmagado pelo oceano.

Um tema principal do episódio foi a falta do controle de coisas que são maiores e mais profundas - como as marés do Oceano, as partes mais sombrias de nós, que não conseguimos ou não deveríamos controlar. O que isso irá significar para Callum, que valoriza sua liberdade e suas escolhas, ao ser possuído por Aaravos e agora atingiu esse entendimento sobre o arcano do Oceano?

DG: O personagem do Callum explora temas de liberdade e, para mim, se conecta com os temas de amadurecimento na forma que, há um momento no qual você é jovem, especialmente um jovem adolescente, você adquire um senso de identidade e descobre seu potencial, sua individualidade, o poder ilimitado que você possivelmente pode ter no mundo.

Você se descobre de uma forma poderosa e animadora, e sente que consegue fazer qualquer coisa. Então, rapidamente, quando você fica mais velho, você percebe que não é tão fácil. Há muitas coisas no mundo maiores e assustadoras, e você se sente impotente em como irá confronta-las, supera-las, e até mesmo se você pode. Você começa a fazer decisões por medo, por desespero, e compromete partes de si mesmo, e desgasta a pessoa que pensava que o mundo era infinito.

Acredito para o Callum, quando ele desbloqueou o arcano do Céu, ele ficou empolgado e animado, ele estava livre e pronto para explorar o mundo. Mas agora, ele está mais velho, mais sábio - por bem ou por mal - e esse é um cenário em que ele foi encurralado e o único jeito de sair dessa situação foi fazer algo que ele não queria. Para mim é duro pois muda o que ele originalmente acreditava ao se conectar somente com o Céu. E o torna mais complexo, abala seu entendimento sobre seu potencial e ele não possui mais certeza se ele é quem ele pensava que seria e acredito que todos nós passamos por isso em algum ponto de nossas vidas, e é muito difícil.

Com a maturidade vem a noção sombria dos perigos do mundo e seu lugar muito pequeno nele. Enquanto o Céu diz "olha, o mundo todo é seu, está aberto, é lindo e selvagem e você pode ser e fazer qualquer coisa", o arcano do Oceano diz "calma, não é tão fácil e infinitas possibilidades significam que algumas dessas possibilidades podem ser ruins".

Outro tema do arcano do Oceano é aceitar que há partes sombrias de nós, e parece similar com o arcano da Lua, que reconhece que há lados das outras pessoas que são escondidos. Então, o Callum irá tentar explorar o arcano da Lua?

DG: Há uma conexão entre as fontes primárias do Oceano e da Lua, porque eles são como o puxa e empurra das ondas, são relacionados e influenciam um ao outro. Sobre o Callum e o arcano da Lua, em uma perspectiva narrativa talvez ele pode explorar. Para mim é difícil me comprometer a isso pois a Lua é o território especial da Rayla. É complicado pois se o Callum começa a ser capaz de fazer magia da Lua, acaba por diminuir o que a Rayla é e do que ela é capaz. Não é impossível, mas acho que toma algo dela de uma forma que não queremos que a narrativa faça atualmente, por isso demos para o Callum sua própria identidade com o arcano do Oceano e Céu até o momento. Toda essa coisa da Lua é onde a Rayla brilha e ela não terá outros arcanos como uma elfa da Lua, e queremos ter certeza que ela ainda é legal e poderosa com o que demos a ela e não só pegar isso e dar para outra pessoa.

E como o arcano do Oceano e Lua reflete o relacionamento entre Callum e Rayla, considerando que vimos os temas de confiança entre eles - mesmo que a Rayla tenha temporariamente escondido o que ela estava fazendo no escritório dele - e eventualmente ajudar a reparar o relacionamento deles?

DG: Ah, isso é interessante. Acho que ambos guardam muitas coisas para si, principalmente o que eles sentem vergonha ou medo, e acho que é muito natural para as pessoas, jovens ou não. Rayla escondeu o que ela estava fazendo, e não era para machuca-lo ou engana-lo, e sim porque ela não sabia como lidar com as moedas, não tinha respostas, então ela sentia algo como "talvez se eu aprender um pouco mais, posso fazer alguma coisa, mas não tenho certeza", e então, após sua visão com seus pais, ela decide: "Não consigo solucionar isso agora, e apesar de querer muito, preciso ir ajudar o Callum". Então acho que foi muito pessoal para ela, mesmo quando você está em relacionamentos amorosos. Eles não estão namorando atualmente, mas eles se importam profundamente um com o outro, e ainda há coisas que você tenta lidar sozinho e não compartilhar mesmo com seu parceiro.

Acho que o Callum é um pouco do mesmo jeito porque tem essa confiança não totalmente reparada entre eles, e percebe-se quando ele não conta imediatamente o que ele fez para se soltar das algemas de Finnegrin. Acredito que quando você desbloqueia um Arcano, não significa que você será uma pessoa perfeita e agir conforme o que você acessou, é como se fosse descobertas mentais, mas mesmo quando você tem essas descobertas na vida real, você ainda pode fazer besteira e ser destrutivo. A confiança entre eles ainda não é perfeita, mas eles se importam um com o outro o suficiente para tentar não machuca-los. Quando Callum diz no final da quarta temporada "Estou tão feliz que você voltou!", tudo o que se seguiu, para mim, foi sobre ele viver sob essa realização, ele não guarda mais rancor dela, ele entende e se importa com quem ela é. Ainda não é como antes, mas ele percebe que vale mais a pena tê-la de volta em sua vida do que continuar com raiva, ressentido e mantê-la distante. Isso não significa que eles serão totalmente honestos e compartilhar tudo imediatamente, então ainda veremos ambos lutando com seus fardos individuais.

O que Ezran e Soren sentiram ao ver que Callum foi torturado, e Rayla quase ter sido morta?

DG: Os episódios possuem 22 minutos. Eu adoraria fazer uma cena em que todos possuem uma reação imediata. Se eu pudesse escrever essa cena, acho que várias pessoas, como Soren e Rayla, praticamente todos, se esforçando para checar se Callum estava bem, se o Soren estava bem, mas acho que o Callum naquele momento... não queria a reação imediata de todos, ele provavelmente falaria que estava bem e falar para checarem os outros, e por isso vemos Rayla com Stella, e todos saindo, retirando as algemas e coisas assim, e depois vemos Rayla ir até o Callum. Não acho que todos ignoraram ele ou não o valorizavam. Teve um momento que todos checaram um no outro, mas suas emoções ainda estavam confusas. Ele se afasta e senta sozinho, e então vemos Rayla se aproximar, como na série. Todos estavam muito assustados.

Nessa temporada, vimos que Soren trouxe o fato que, apesar de Ezran já ser rei, ele ainda era uma criança. Esse conflito será mencionado novamente, talvez por outras pessoas em seu Conselho, ou outros Reinos Humanos?

DG: Não direi como será, mas acredito que Ezran luta como uma jovem criança versus um rei. Ele fala como uma pessoa de 25 anos, ele é muito, muito maduro e tenta muito "crescer", mas acho que há partes dele que sofrem em silêncio por causa disso e veremos isso em cena. O fato que ele é uma criança e há partes dele que ainda não estão completamente prontas para tudo isso que vão definitivamente impactar no futuro.

O luto de Ezran na sua história curta foi uma perspectiva interessante em seu personagem, veremos mais sobre isso nas novas temporadas?

DG: Sim... isso é muito? Essa história curta é mais como um teaser das próximas três temporadas, não só a quinta. Então é algo que será latente durante a quinta temporada, a sexta e adiante. Veremos um pouco mais sobre isso. Ele é muito sábio e "perfeito", mas há uma parte dele que é muito vulnerável à dor, assim como todo mundo. É fácil dizer "paz, amor e harmonia", mas realmente agir nisso, e não guardar ressentimentos, é muito humano. Nem ele é imune a isso. Todos possuem coisas com as quais estão chateados.

PERGUNTAS DOS FÃS

O primeiro humano a fazer magia sombria será mais explorado eventualmente?

DG: Até onde eu sei, está bastante em aberto e seria sujeito à uma história própria, mas em algum momento, seria muito legal

Há uma conexão entre as mentes de Aaravos e Callum, ao ponto de lhe dar pesadelos? Ou há algo que você possa falar sobre essa conexão deles?

DG: Eu gosto da ideia que ele possui pesadelos, se alguém quiser escrever fanfiction, vá em frente! Não quero falar muito sobre a conexão deles, mas a partir do momento que Aaravos possui o controle e o tocou de alguma forma, essa conexão ainda existe e não desaparece facilmente. Ela foi formada. Para sempre. É tudo o que posso dizer!

Veremos mais sobre o Bosque Prateado, ou seus moradores irão aparecer?

DG: Já é spoiler demais, mas veremos mais coisas sobre elfos da Lua, e revisitar sua cultura de uma maneira significativa

Você pode nos falar algo sobre os sentimentos da Claudia em relação à Rayla, ou se eles serão explorados na próxima temporada? Até agora, elas não tiveram muitas interações positivas, e agora Rayla foi a principal responsável pela Claudia não ter libertado Aaravos, e cortou sua perna (mesmo que não tenha sido sua intenção).

DG: Acredito que Claudia culpa os 3 com a mesma medida de raiva, eu não acho que ela foca na Rayla especificamente. Ela vê Rayla como alguém que envenenou pessoas que costumavam ser seus amigos Contra ela. Claudia não teve o tempo de considera-la como uma pessoa, Rayla é "A Elfa", e tem dificuldades em superar isso, e seu último encontro só reforçou isso. É uma interação muito negativa e elas não gostaram. Não acho que ela irá culpar Rayla especificamente, são aqueles três - seus antigos amigos e a elfa. Não é um foco específico na Rayla.

Veremos mais interações entre Soren e Corvus?

DG: Sim. Sem falar muito sobre, há um episódio escrito pela nossa escritora sênior - Paige VanTassel - sobre Soren e Corvus e um enredo que eles tem. É extremamente engraçado porque Paige é a escritora mais engraçada na sala [dos escritores], e espero que as pessoas gostem, pois eles são muito engraçados. A dinâmica entre Soren e seu humor meio pateta e Corvus com suas reações incrédulas é encantador, e Paige fez uma história inteira sobre isso. Veremos em uma temporada futura, e eu amo!

Na quarta temporada, Rayla diz "não podemos salvar todo mundo", em resposta à sua decisão de não ajudar o Dragão. É um prelúdio de algo que possa acontecer nas próximas temporadas? Ou significa uma mudança nela, em contraste à sua decisão de salvar Phyrrah na segunda temporada?

DG: Acredito que quando Rayla disse isso, ela estava passando por um momento difícil. Quando você diz coisas que vão contra sua natureza - porque eu realmente acredito que ela não tinha a intenção, ela disse a coisa mais cruel e dura que ela pensou pois nada estava indo bem pra ela. Ele estava passando por dificuldades com Callum, para se conectar com os outros, Soren a estava irritando um pouco, e ela disse algo completamente ao contrário dela, que é difícil de tomar de volta. E na próxima manhã, ela percebe o que fez e surta, e é mais um erro vindo da sua incapacidade de processar seus próprios sentimentos. Ela rotineiramente prova que não é algo que ela realmente acredita, mas naquele momento ela estava se sentindo muito pra baixo e chateada, e não levou a tomar ações bem planejadas.

Callum poderia adaptar Manus Pluma Volantus do jeito que ele adaptou as runas do Oceano para permitir que seus amigos respirassem embaixo d'água?

DG: É uma pergunta muito boa! Talvez? Nunca pensamos sobre isso. Talvez não funcione da mesma forma. Mas é possível!

Sobre Terry: seu papel continuará sendo como um suporte emocional para Claudia, ou ele irá questionar mais as coisas que ela faz, como ele já fez nessa temporada?

DG: Acredito que ele vê uma versão da Claudia que é heroica, mesmo que seus métodos sejam magia sombria, e é uma escolha que ela faz para salvar seu pai, e ele genuinamente acredita que é uma boa causa. Ele não é como Rayla, criada para ser uma assassina, ele é um elfo normal, só um cara, e ele não está exatamente consciente do mundo e da ameaça de Aaravos e contra o quê todos estão lutando. Ele entende que Claudia quer salvar seu pai, mas ele tem um conhecimento bem limitado do que isso significa.

Na perspectiva da Claudia, Aaravos é um amigo, ele sentou em seus ombros por 2 anos e a ajudou a salvar seu pai. Então Terry possui informações diferentes do resto dos protagonistas, e as vezes as pessoas parecem não considerar isso - ele não sabe tudo que os nossos protagonistas aprenderam, e vimos que ele chama sua atenção quando Claudia toca no limite da crueldade, quando ela fica com muita raiva, quando ela ataca e engana Rayla e não dá a ela as moedas, quando ela ataca o dragão e o quer machucar ao invés de imobiliza-lo e isso irá continuar. Ele genuinamente a ama, ele a acha divertida, charmosa, leal à sua família de uma forma muito bonita (mesmo que para nós, a audiência, possa parecer distorcido). Ele viu sua melhor versão e a viu fazer coisas incríveis para conseguir o que quer, mas ela está deslizando um pouco, e é alarmante para ele, então veremos mais disso.

[jasongracedefenseattorney]

all of us villains fancasts :)))) before i begin let me say when i was reading the books i didn’t picture them at all like their descriptions and honestly im sort of giving this the percy jackson treatment because none of their descriptions are all that relevant im just going for vibes. i fully understand this will be unpopular. this is (semi) age accurate casting and also i did everything in my power to avoid accidentally casting the entire heartstopper/percy jackson/IT/stranger things cast because ive seen too many fancasts that just look like comic con panels

alistaire lowe: walk with me here. cormac hyde-corrin. i will say i do want him to dye his hair for the role. i think he is good at playing kind of horrible but alistair isn’t some evil monster and i want an actor who can also get across the awkward side and doesn’t drift too far into draco malfoy territory

isobel macaslan: so i know all the mains are supposed to be like 17 and the same age but i think that would have to be rewritten to everyone is 18 and isobel is 19 or 20. her and briony’s friendship doesn’t rely on them being the same year in school it can be easily explained but i need to find ages where it’s appropriate for her to date alistair AND reid. also i just think india amarteifio is gorgeous.

gavin grieve: aryan simhadri to me could play the nice guy who everyone assumes is going to die really well.

briony thorburn: xochitl gomez has that tough but good look i dont know to me she IS briony

finley blair: yall would not BELIEVE how difficult it was to find someone to embody finley and yall might think im crazy for it but here’s issac ryan brown.

elionor payne: just work with me on this one. momona tamada.

carbry darrow: i know it’s almost an obvious answer but idccc iain armitage is the best i can find without picking walker scobell. (i had to avoid picking percy jackson actors for everyone tbh)

hendry lowe: milo manheim has the very kind hendry look to me.

reid mactavish: percy hynes white can very easily look like a total creep to me but also has enough charm to seem like someone it is possible to be attracted to

innes thorburn: scarlett esteves just looks very sweet and doesn’t look like a fighter

[zuppizup]

Lain's name is pronounced "Lane" it's an inside joke because one of the writers, Iain Hendry, usually gets his name mispronounced as "Lane" instead of "ee-an" because the uppercase I in his name looks like a lowercase L, so they decided to give Lain the misspelled/mispronounced version of Iain's name as a joke

Ah, that joke would be lost on me. 😆

Iain is a common name back home.

Thanks for the info, Nonny!

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Notes from the Deluxe Elf Interview, pt 6 (HBMP podcast)

I like to process important stuff more thoroughly to help me retain it, so I take notes when I listen to shows and podcasts and stuff. And the best episode of Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast just came out–the Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry–so you know I was all over that. This is just my personal notes, nothing super detailed or organized, and not delved into yet at all.

If I have a direct quote, it’s in double quotes. Sometimes my notes are paraphrasing or getting only most of the words, and sometimes it’s just me rambling, but if I “quote” something, it’s a proper direct quote that I went back and listened to. Also, sometimes I noted who was talking, just because I loved how they played off each other and offered different perspectives. I is for Iain and D is for Devon.

________

Devon and Iain don’t read TDP fanfic for legal reasons, but they love it in general and encourage it, and they do see TDP fanart. The one where Runaan yeeted Rayla into the water was probably canon.

Rayla’s dad is the ultimate bro. Supportive of people’s dreams. He’s the friendly one, friendlier than most elves. Her mom is quiet, planner, calculating. She’s the brains, he’s the impulsive side.  Rayla is like her mom when collected, like her dad when she’s being impulsive.

Devon likes mean elves, aggressive elves, lofty img of themselves. Sunfires. They look down at others for not having their shit together like they do. Skywings are more fun to hang out with. Birb elves.

There is not a Star Touch elf society. Not numerous enough.

Sunfires have a single authority. Heavily militaristic. Xadia looks to the Sunfires as protectors and a guiding light but they’re also violent and arrogant. The enforcers in Xadia. Can be overbearing. They need to chill.

Tidebound elves have very different cultures depending on where they live. They could communicate across the water as long as it connects.

Callum doesn’t know what Earthblood elves sound like so he was guessing with that accent.

Money: Runaan was being a jerk more than he was commenting on money not being a Xadian thing. Sunfires do what’s expected of them to serve for Sunfire glory. Moonshadows trade more like barter? More freely trade in the villages. Skywings are so far apart they might use some kinds of tokens. Or shiny treasures they find, like actual magpies. Callum as prince wouldn’t understand money anymore than Rayla but he’d be more of a planner and budgeter than she is.

Iain said “horn cuffs” imma die I made that term up ages ago and he said it in the podcast *dies*

“Horndornments”, for Sunfire horn decorations, lol. Iain sees horn jewelry like rings. Horn cuffs can be extremely meaningful relationship-status gifts between couples but they don’t always mean marriage

One of the two Sunfires who gets yeeted into the lava has nothing on his horns but he was supposed to so they hc that he’s a derpy fresh recruit.

Beauty standards for horns? Star touch elf horns are the most incredible and beautiful that anyone’s ever seen. Some elves prefer certain kinds of horns.

Hanna put the jewel on Ethari’s horn cuff to represent Runaan in some way. For hiis eye color.

I: “Ethari definitely thinks Runaan has cute horns though. Fact.”

[sunstone-nerding]

Dragonguard Namesakes

I looked at the credits for TDP S1E8 “Dragonguard” and I can’t take screenshots, but

Iain Hendry (one of the writers) voiced the Skywing dragonguard.

And according to Aaron Ehasz, the character’s name is Hendyr. I wondered where that came from. Now I know.

[confessionsofabingefreak]

Dragon Prince, Season 3

Netflix

Impression: every season takes it to the next level! Absolutely amazing!

Collection: absolutely, eventually as it is on Netflix

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Concept: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Story: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Storytelling: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Casting: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Visually: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Score/Soundtrack: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Entertainment: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Best: endless list... in the end it is Ezran that shines through! What a journey, so many lessons he must endure.

Worst: Prince Kasef, understand his purpose but just don’t like him

[tdp-news]

Polygon: In a Reddit AMA earlier this week, Aaron mentioned that you spent a lot of time talking to and working with members of the deaf community. What was that process like?

Iain Hendry: We both reached out to deaf and HoH [hard of hearing] organizations, which have great online resources that helped us understand the challenges and the way deaf and HoH people approach the world. And then to get a more personal view, I went to deaf and HoH Facebook groups, so I’d chat with people … It helped us to stay connected and understand their experience as best we could.

So many people had a hand in creating this character, from us writing the lines to people doing the animation and every other part of this process, and a lot of them had a friend or acquaintance that they could talk to. And on the more professional side, we had a huge amount of help from ASL interpreters we worked with directly, Lucy Farley and Darcie Kerr, so when we were doing video references in the scenes where Amaya is doing ASL, we could say, “Does this come across as authentic? Are we going in the right direction with the character?”

Polygon: Some of Amaya’s most intimate moments are untranslated — was that a conscious choice?

Devon Giehl: That was very deliberate. We went back and forth on it, but we decided that when Gren wasn’t speaking for her, she spoke for herself. The scene where she’s at her sister’s grave—we were worried, because it’s a show for children, that we might lose people. But then the animation came back, and she was so emotive, and it’s so beautiful. I think even in the absence of subtitles, it really stands on its own. And she’s a deaf character — we wanted it so that understanding what she’s communicating here is for the deaf audience.

Read the full interview at Polygon.com

[ask-ethari-anything]

the fact that Runaan relaxes more when he’s close to you is so special...when were some other times where that's been the case? 🥺

Well, the first day we had Rayla all to ourselves because Tiadrin and Lain had left for the Storm Spire. We three felt like we were on holiday in our own house.

Have I mentioned that Runaan doesn’t always enjoy taking a holiday? He was so nervous! He tried to make everything perfect, but all the little imperfections built up and made him feel like he was doing a terrible job. By suppertime, he was a mess. A subtle mess--stiff as a board, jaw clenched, not making eye contact--but a mess. He stepped away while I was getting Rayla some summerberry salad, and suddenly he was gone. I found him nearly hyperventilating in another room. He wanted so badly to do a good job for our best friends, but he was already judging himself so harshly that he locked up a bit.

He practically threw himself into my arms when I found him. He felt like he was letting everyone down, even me. And I just held him. Didn’t need to say a word. And slowly he melted against my shoulder. When he could take a deep breath again, I took his hand and led him back to the table nook and showed him how content and comfortable Rayla was. He’d been judging himself on the illusion of his own expectations and he’d missed the reality that Rayla was doing just fine with us after all.

Let’s see, something softer? Sometimes Runaan can have trouble falling asleep, even with all his focus and meditation. Dark things slip through, and they trouble him. But I’ve learned to pull him close and hold him without saying a word. He’ll settle against me with his head nestled on my shoulder, and I’ll feel his breathing slow down and even out. He tucks his fingers just under my shoulder, and I can tell when he’s truly fallen asleep because his hand finally goes limp.

Some days, he’ll return from training and I can tell he’s had a bad day. He’ll smolder around the house for a bit, but he’ll always find me and sit close by. Sometimes he’ll talk of light things. Other times, he’ll just sit quietly, watching me work or listening to my day, until he starts to relax and smile again. I always get a kiss when he’s relaxed enough to feel like himself again. You know how he calls me “my light”? He says I radiate calm. Now, I’ll tell you, love, I radiate all kinds of feelings. But knowing I can radiate calm for Runaan when he needs it? hhnnnn

I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the elf who walked a thousand miles to fall down at his door.

[koalatydm]

Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast Episode 5 - The Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry

Transcription Part 1 of 2 (includes Wonderstorm questions and Kuno's questions)

[Transcriber's Notes: This took me SO LONG to transcribe, like multiple hours and I'm only halfway done... But I will make it through at least this one episode because I want fellow Moonfam enthusiasts to have a text source, not to mention make it easier for deaf/HoH people to follow along. I guess I'll tag @kuno-chan since she said it was OK at the beginning of the podcast, sorry if I'm bothering you!]

KUNO: Hi guys, so I have a personal request for this particular podcast episode if you guys could tweet, post, both at least one piece of information that you learned from this particular episode, that you love, that inspired you, that you thought was cute, whatever. Like, I really—one thing that really tends to happen is that people listen to the podcast and they kinda just go about their day. We don’t actually see the information circulate through the community, which we really try to have creative questions—questions that are fun and explore the characters in different situations. And it would just be really, really cool—it would mean a lot to me to see this actually circulate through the community, actually circulate through the fandom, and see, you know, it would be awesome to see it be inspired—to inspire fan works, fan fiction, fan art, especially fan art. I just—we talked like a solid hour at least—really like a solid hour about Runaan, Rayla, Ethari, that family, um, and Moonshadow elves a lot. We talked a lot about that. And I think this is information that a lot of people really wanted, even if it’s in largely headcanon form. But Devon and Iain were so gracious and we talked so much about that family, and including Ruthari, and of course some Rayllum in there. So if you guys could live tweet, or even just one tweet, at least one tweet. Tag us, tag me, tag Hailey, tag @HotPotion, even if you send it directly to me on Tumblr, that’d be awesome and we’d retweet, reblog all your stuff. It would be good for the podcast and I just really want to see this information circulate through the fandom, so at least one tweet. Alright, um, let’s get to the episode though. Thanks! Hope to see you guys on social media about this.

—————

KUNO: Alright, hey everyone, this is the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcasts with your hosts Tamika and Hailey, and we are here with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, two writers on The Dragon Prince at Wonderstorm, and Devon being actually the recently announced lead writer at Wonderstorm, so say hi everyone!

DEVON: Hi!

IAIN: Hi, this is Iain…

DEVON: Hi, I’m Devon… (laughs)

KUNO: And so we have a ton of stuff to get through today, um, a lot of questions, so—but we’re going to ask Iain and Devon a little bit about themselves first, since I think—I’m not sure if this is the first interview they’ve really had, personally, so uh, Hailey do you want to start—head that?

HAILEY: Um, yeah, sure. Uh, could you tell us about your roles at Wonderstorm?

IAIN: Uh, sure, uh—I’m also a writer at—official title “Senior Writer” at Wonderstorm. I was one of the writing team on the show, not quite as early as Devon, who was basically employee 1 after the founders but um, I joined sort of, end of 2016 when season 1 writing was really starting to get rolling, and was you know part of the process all the way through all the seasons. Uh, and since this—it’s such a small start up company, all the writers take a bunch of other, like, production roles on the show. Like, throughout all three seasons we’ve done, like, continuity notes work, we’ve given feedback on like every step of the production process. And then the other kind of side things we have, like you know, very top secret game that we’re making in here. And like, kind of straddle the line between the show writing and the game so that that’s all kind of on point and feels like it’s in the same universe with the same characters as The Dragon Prince, but ah, can’t say too much about that just yet.

DEVON: Iain does a lot of—a lot of secret work (laughs). Um, yeah as for me, I’m also a writer on The Dragon Prince and my—I was a Senior Writer until very recently, and now I’ve been made into a Lead Writer, which means I just get to flex a lot. Um, but I started in, I think the very, very end of 2015 when Wonderstorm was first getting off the ground as like a tiny, tiny startup. And we were basically four people in a room about, I don’t know, like 20 ft by 10 ft. It was really, really awful—

IAIN: Really smelly.

DEVON: Really smelly, really tiny, like only a skylight for a window, it was great. And I—so I was involved in like the earliest of brainstorming for the show. I helped sort of like put together a lot of the pitch deck when we you know took it around to studios and like, I named like most of the characters—is like my most self-indulgent claim on the show cause I got to do a lot of really silly stuff. Um, but yeah, and then I like help out on a million other fronts at Wonderstorm too because we’re a small company and—yeah, the funny thing about the—the small tasks we have, like you mentioned continuity checks. Um, we often had to make sure that Callum’s backpack and book and Rayla’s bindings were always correct, and that was kind of, the funniest and most intense, like, stage of production ever. Cause you would, you know, watch one shot and then the next shot would come up and Callum’s backpack would have disappeared. So we had to be like, “OK, let’s give Callum backpack back on.”

IAIN: Yeah, and it’s not just for accuracy, but like, the way fandoms operate, like, we just knew if Rayla’s binding reappeared sometime, it wouldn’t be viewed as an error. People would be like “WHAT DID THE KING GET UNKILLED WHAT HAPPENED OVER HERE”.

DEVON: No it was just the—

KUNO: Oh, yeah.

IAIN: Woo!

DEVON: —continuity’s way harder than anyone thinks it is (laughs). It’s a lot.

KUNO: Oh bless you guys for knowing that though cause we—we totally would. Like, think, there was a point I remember saying that they changed Viren’s eye color because they didn’t want too much continuity with Rayla’s eye color and I feel like we were really that close to having a ‘Viren is Rayla’s real father’ issue. We really were. Somebody had to have thought about that issue (laughs).

DEVON: I actually think there is—there’s still at least one shot in the show where Viren has the wrong eye color and if you can find it, congratulations (laughter in background). That’s where we missed—missed it. So it’s in there somewhere.

KUNO: Xadia CSI (IAIN laughs). So you two are married, um, can you tell us what it’s like being married writing partners?

IAIN: You wanna go?

DEVON: Um, yeah, I mean it’s—we actually knew each other professionally before we dated, so it wasn’t like we—it’s sort of like, it was easy for us to—to remain work partners because that was how we existed in the first place. Like I met Iain when I interviewed him for a job and I—he was great (IAIN laughs), he was fun, he was all right.

IAIN: Apparently I passed.

DEVON: But um, so yeah we had a professional relationship before we had a dating—‘dating’ relationship. Um, so it’s strange because a lot of people will say like, “Oh, that’s probably terrible. You probably, like, become absolutely sick of each other” but somehow we’ve managed to—to have like, two relationship patterns where when we’re at work and we’re working on writing stuff we have this very professional thing going on and then at home, we’re just married idiots and we have a lot of fun. So like, I don’t know, I’m never tired of you, personally.

IAIN: No, (DEVON laughs) yeah I mean when we’re writing it’s generally like, Devon’s the one on the keys uh, you know, putting the words in and so on, and it will kind of bounce back and forth between like, I’ll have the idea for the—how the scene should flow and I’ll kinda narrate bits and then we’ll go back and smooth things over. But I mean, I could imagine that with some people it would get tense, but I think Devon and I, we’re just absolutely the most comfortable with each other and neither of us takes it personally when it’s like, “that line that you pitched isn’t working” or “this joke could be funnier”, anything like that.

DEVON: It’s usually Iain who’s—cause I usually type cause I type really too fast.

IAIN: She’s really too proud of her typing (laughs).

DEVON: I type super fast, it’s my only real talent, but—like I’ll just sort of go off on some sort of like incredibly unnecessary, long description of something and Iain will sort of let me get about like four or five lines into this unnecessary nonsense and he’ll just sort start going like, “OK so like, do we really—do we need that? I mean, you know, could we sort of parse this down a little, a little less, a little less”. And then I, just like, “Ugh, fine” (laughs).

IAIN: But um, every word she writes is great.

DEVON: Mmm (skeptically)

IAIN: It’s perfect.

DEVON: Completely not true. Also in our scripts I think like—

KUNO: Aw.

DEVON: —in terms of the way that we work professionally, I think like a lot of my strengths are in—in really almost self indulgent levels of drama and he can kind of pull me back from being too indulgent on those fronts. And then I think that Iain is objectively absurdly funny and so when you kind of look at our episodes usually everything that’s pretty funny and lighthearted and like the sense of levity often comes from you and then if there’s anything that just feels really painfully sad it’s probably me?

IAIN: I’m the funny one.

DEVON: (laughs) It’s true.

KUNO: Aw, I feel such a connection to you Devon, because I’m actually, episode 3 was actually one of my favorite ones because I love all that like domestic stuff. I love just kind of like—oh, I don’t know what you call the trope, like a safe house trope where you go somewhere, you’re still kind of in the adventure but we’re in a space right now, a narrative space where people are safe, if that makes any sense. Like you—if you’ve ever seen How To Train Your Dragon, like (T/N I don’t know what was said here, sorry!), the base is the safe place, that kind of thing. So, I totally get that, I actually see—episode 3 was one of my favorites outside of pretty much every episode where Rayllum was a thing. (laughter from multiple people)

HAILEY: The whole season basically (laughs).

KUNO: Pretty much the whole season, um. I think there was one more question about two.

HAILEY: Yeah sooo.

KUNO: Before we get to the elves.

HAILEY: Yeah, definitely. Uh so it was mentioned that you’re now lead writer, Devon, and can you tell a little bit more about what that entails if you can, and how that’s been going?

DEVON: Yeah, I mean… I actually don’t know what I can say about it, um… I think it—it means that uh, for future Dragon Prince stuff I’ll sort of like take a bit more of an active role in leading the—the development and the storylines and things like that. It also means that from a company perspective um I’ve been kind of involved in some other side stuff that Wonderstorm is quietly looking into developing and um I help a lot with other IPs that we would love to make a real thing someday and that’s kind of all I can say about it I think or I’ll get in trouble.

HAILEY: All right, that’s great, that’s good to know, thank you.

KUNO: The Dragon Prince 2 (laughter from multiple people). I’m totally joking everyone that’s not a thing so don’t take that for—

HAILEY: Wow.

KUNO: I’m joking.

IAIN: Two dragons.

DEVON: The Dragon 2 Prince.

KUNO: Yeah. OK also if there’s anything that you guys say that you want redacted this is probably not going up for another week because I have to get our reaction episode out. So anything you guys think about that you’re like, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that” just message us and we’ll redact that. Yeah, cause we know that—

HAILEY: Or just say it. Just tell us, like, what’s—

DEVON: Hopefully we have some self-control but—

KUNO: Okay, so we are going to get really indulgent here and I think this is going to be really in Devon’s wheelhouse. We have a lot of questions and a bunch of the scenarios so try to get through as much of it as possible. Um so the first question is can you tell us more about the Silvergrove? What is the government system like in Silvergrove? Who runs it? If you could tell us that is that the only—at least like the leadership role? Um, is that the only Moonshadow elf village? And also do they actually get any real daylight because I noticed when the illusion thing happened it just got shady and I’m like, “They might be taking this Moonshadow thing too far”. Like the elves—do they really like that much? So like tell us about the Silvergrove and where Rayla grew up.

IAIN: So I guess it’s probably worth just starting off with a kind of blanket like, ‘if it hasn’t been in the show, we can’t say it’s 100% fact. A lot of this is just gonna be what kind of we thought, rough shape of things happen in our heads—‘

KUNO: Yeah, absolutely.

IAIN: —going into the writing and so on. So you know, don’t come after me with any, uh, fandom lawyers, anyone. But um yeah, I guess like it’s sort of—it’s most useful for us to think about it in comparison to how the Sunfire elves, like clearly they have very structured society. They have a queen, obviously, and they have large cities and so on whereas we think Moonshadow elves live in, as you saw, much smaller communities. And I think the Silvergrove is not the only one of those, it might be one of the better known ones where clearly the best assassins come from. But uh, I think are other ones out there, um, and maybe even Moonshadow elf people do not know where all the other ones are. Obviously the Silvergrove is hidden and maybe they don’t even have access to all the other ones. So I think there’s a sort of community run vibe to things. I think you know when they decided to—to ghost Rayla, and before that Rayla’s parents, I think that was probably a ‘let’s all come to a consensus before we make a decision about something like this’. I think, Devon, if you want to talk about the kind of like sunlight vibes things, because that was a big part of your driving force behind how this episode looked and felt.

DEVON: Um… well… first, I will say that it was potentially from the top down a complicated visual decision to have episode 3 take place in a Moonshadow elf shady forest grove and also the kingdom of sunlight.

IAIN: Yup.

DEVON: It created a couple production problems in terms of like the way we wanted the Silvergrove to look was very like evening themed and cool colors and you know shaded. And I had this really sort of self indulgent thing where I really wanted it to be as close to night time as possible and yet the story line in Lux Aurea was clearly taking place in the middle of the day. So we came to this sort of compromise that you know it is technically daytime through the whole day and there is enough tree cover that it’s already pretty shadowy but also I think there is some magic at play that’s sort of like generally um shrouds the whole thing in more of like a night time vibe. And my inspiration for that was I’m a big World of Warcraft player, or was I don’t super play a ton anymore but I really loved Ashenvale and some of the night elf regions and they had that similar thing that no matter what time of day it was it always felt like at least dusk or like this sort of like ever—ever shaded feeling. And I indulgently kind of wanted that to be where Rayla came from. So that’s what that’s about.

IAIN: Yeah and I think they’re magical beings. They don’t need vitamin D from the sunlight or anything like that. They’re totally fine if they just get moonlight every so often.

DEVON: But yeah, don’t write a script that has, you know, moon themed place and sun themed place at the same time. It was a… questionable choice (laughs). But I think it turned out—

KUNO: Yeah, ‘cause I was wondering—I was wondering—I was like “Okay” because a lot of the stuff you run through—you run the okay, if I were to write a fanfiction how do I use this. So it’s like, do they just never like—if they like—if Callum were to say live in the Silvergrove would he just have to get used to the fact that like it’s just never totally bright daylight or unless you leave the Silvergrove in the forest, uh, and like—that type of—is that what’s kind of like going on, they just like their shade?

DEVON: I think they like their shade. It’s like Scotland in the winter.

IAIN: Oh yeah, except we all get miserable by around about February when we haven’t seen sunlight in several months. But um yeah, I think it’s kind of like yeah, a combination of ‘oooh, magic’ and also just extremely, like, thick tree cover in the deepest parts of the forest. But I don’t think you have to travel too far. But uh, I think there’s a reason why everyone in that town was a Moonshadow elf and there were no Sunfire elves or random humans just like, chilling and living there. I think only the most goth of kids would be able to live in the Silvergrove without going a little bit mad.

DEVON: I mean you only have to go as far as the adoraburr field which clearly still gets a significant amount of daylight.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: And you said there’s not really like a leader. They do as a community, but is there anyone that like makes decisions, like is there anybody that like if they were to go to somebody, like if they have like village leadership decisions. And obviously, um, blanket statement that all this we assume is kind a little bit of headcanon so it doesn’t have to be like for gospel, but you know for purposes of writing stuff.

DEVON: Um the way I thought about it—well, to back up a tiny bit, there was actually a version of the story where there might have—this was super, super early on, we were thinking about how the story might play out and we talked about there being potentially another Moonshadow elf leader type character that they would meet who, you know, was the one who ultimately called for the Ghosting decision. But that didn’t really fit the sort of, like, very personal nature of the story we wanted to play out with Rayla specifically. Um but thinking about that and the way that we were, you know, trying to shape it—I would imagine that like the assassins are sort of like a specific group that live in the Silvergrove which is otherwise—it’s not all assassins, like, not everybody there is an assassin. And I think that means that like you know Runaan was the leader of the assassins so he might consult with the leader of the blacksmiths who may be someone over Ethari but maybe it’s him now who might consult with the other general leaders—I don’t know. Like I think it’s more of a counsel of different groups than one single authority. It just seems like that would be a better fit for Moonshadow elves than the sort of like very, very strong-army, structured, high-and-mighty feeling that the Sunfire elves have, so, does that make sense?

KUNO: That totally makes sense, a little bit like an oligarchy, I think I had the idea that like they sound like they like a counsel. Like it sounds like a elven conciliatory.

DEVON: Yeah I think like someone might say, like obviously something horrible has happened and Rayla is exactly the person we thought she was. I’m calling for a—a ghost vote. And then you know—

IAIN: With a cooler name than that.

DEVON: No I think it’s canonically, I’m sorry—

IAIN: Ghost vote?

DEVON: The canon is “ghost vote” now.

IAIN: Okay.

DEVON: But yeah, they would all sort of like weight in kind of like a town hall scenario about of like why this is obviously the correct call and they would all sort of like have to come to some sort of agreement about what to do versus the Sunfire queen just being like “mph, time for the light, light decides!”

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: Okay um the next question being almost a little on that, does Ethari regret, um, what does he—does Ethari regret doing the banishing spell now that he knows the truth about Rayla?

DEVON: Oh absolutely 100%. But I don’t think he would have the power to—to reverse it. Like I think he could do a quick charm to help reverse it in the moment just to speak with her but ultimately it would take a lot for him to undo it and I’m not—we haven’t talked about what he’ll get up to in the meantime, but I don’t know he would be able to pursue it so directly—I’d have to talk about it, I think it would be an interesting side thought to think about how he might pursue redeeming her in the eyes of her people knowing what he knows, but—

IAIN: Yeah I think given that we said it would take everyone to do it collectively and make an agreed decision it would similarly everyone would have to understand the truth and go back on it and ‘oh I saw her one time and she said she didn’t do anything wrong probably isn’t enough to overturn that. But yeah I think he probably felt some regret even at the moment, but you know he’s in some of the worst grief of his entire life and he’s not going to make perfect rational decisions. And I’ve seen you know some people were slightly upset that he got so angry with Rayla in the moment of seeing her but I think like when you first see the person that you’ve tried to convince yourself sort of took the most important person in your life away from you, you’re gonna feel a big mess of feelings and it will bring up some grief that maybe you thought you were just—just starting to get over, so ah. Yeah I think hopefully he can turn that around in the years to come but they’ve all had a rough time. They’re at war. It sucks (DEVON laughs). Don’t go to war, kids.

KUNO: Hailey did you want to ask the next one or did you want me to?

HAILEY: Sure I can ask it. Could you—so I mean—you mentioned a stuff—a couple things about their government system and whatnot, but is there anything else you could tell us about Moonshadow culture, like what their day to day is like, and what it means to be a Moonshadow elf?

DEVON: Um I do think that a lot of the fandom I’ve been pleased to see has picked up on this sort of idea of a fairly rigid culture and you know there’s a lot of importance placed on things like honor, loyalty, and the ability to commit to things. And um I think that could come off as pretty strict but I actually think it comes from the place of valuing a close knit community. And I think, like, to the idea that we said like they probably have some kind of counsel instead of some single authority kind of ruler. It’s—I think their day to day would be very much going about their business in ways that support each other you know? Like does that make sense? It’s—you go to the blacksmith and he does work for you and it’s friendly and conversational but it’s productive—it’s all very for the good of the community.

IAIN: Yeah I think early on in season 1 even Rayla says that you know they’re not really meant to show their feelings. So I think everyone kind of commits to doing their task for the good of the village and doesn’t gripe about their day to day until something bad happens as the entire series to this point has been driven by. But um yeah I think they uh—they’re just committed to having a good, small, close knit village life and all supporting each other the best they can. And then occasionally the dragon queen tells you to go kill someone and that’s your job so you better go do that without complaining about it.

DEVON: I think we use the words “reclusive yet intimate” in the article we put up about the two moon creatures, the moonstrider and the shadowpaw. And I liked that a lot because I think they’re reclusive in the sense that they’re a little bit shut off from the wider world and they’re um isolationist in their preservation of their own culture but they are very close to each other and that is something that they hold at such an—like a preciousness level but it’s also a bit extreme, like if you betray that in any capacity like obviously they take that very seriously. And so it’s a double edged sword if you will, to have a community that supportive and that close but also your ability to perform all of yourself for the good of that community can be your undoing so—

KUNO: No I actually kinda get that um ‘cause I’m Pacific Islander so I think we’d call that what you’d call a collectivist society where it’s like the needs of the group supercede needs of the individual so I kinda like I—it’s not the extreme I think that they are because they’re very like reclusive but um I kinda live like that in a little bit of way. It’s what I grew up with. So I actually totally get that which might be why I like that so much (multiple people laugh). Um so the next question would be how does the banishing spell work that, um, that was used on Rayla politically and magically? I think we’ve talked a little bit about politically already but magically is—I’m assuming it’s a collective decision or does each person, like, opt in? Like could Ethari have opted out of doing it or did we—did they all have to agree?

DEVON: I think everybody have to agree?

KUNO: And how is it broken?

DEVON: I don’t think you can opt out?

IAIN: Um I think ‘how is it broken’ is something we definitely want to save for—for the future uh we really hope that Rayla manages to undo that. In terms of I think that it’s just culturally ingrained that you wouldn’t opt out. Um I think they would probably just argue forever until they manage to come to an agreement. So I—yeah I don’t think there’s you know half the elves in that village who are seeing Rayla and were like “Oh hey Rayla how’s it going?” I think uh they all came to the collective decision. That’s kind of the political angle. Um sorry, what was the other part? Magically how it works?

KUNO: Yeah? How would you do it?

IAIN: I—again, you know if it’s not in the show it’s not canon, but I sort of inspired by how the entrance spell works where they do a dance and there’s a ritual and I imagine it’s kind of similar. Like I think there’s a lot of that kind of like ritualistic style of magic and it’s kind of like what you see when they put the flowers out onto the water as well. There’s you know a collective dance probably involving a lot more people, a lot more cool intricate runes that happen only with a much more somber mood than the fun, happy times of Callum and Rayla dancing around in the forest. Um so yeah it’s probably—I would imagine it’s probably tied to some whatever the saddest phase of the moon is and that’s when they all get together and really somberly and really sadly uh commit to never seeing this person again. At least that’s the part of the plan. An interesting question that I think could be something that fanfiction writers such as yourself could get into is has any one of these ever been broken before or have they all been pretty sure that they would never need to go back on it? Is that going to be something that Rayla is going to figure out for the first time ever or is there a precedent for this happening. And we don’t have an answer right now but I think that would be a cool story to think about and write.

DEVON: Oh man I love the saddest phase of the moon idea. Imagine if they do it at the new moon because it’s like the moon’s face is hidden forever. Whoo.

IAIN: Whoo.

DEVON: Sad.

KUNO: Maybe we’re birthing things while we’re doing this interview. I actually think it would be like Callum does the Historia Viventum thing and it would be so—cause now I’m just imagining this whole village doing this sad dance which is the Banish Rayla dance essentially. And like that would be so sad for Rayla to witness that just for the drama of seeing her entire village decide to just not see her ever again. And that’s like wow, I’m so sad now.

DEVON: I love sadness.

IAIN: Yeah Callum just crushing a series of Moon Opals to show such a clip show of all of Rayla’s saddest history moments (laughs).

DEVON: Oh god.

IAIN: That’d be great.

DEVON: Thanks Callum.

KUNO: Thanks Callum. Um, she’d love him anyway. But um okay so some of my favorite stuff, what was it like for Rayla when her parents had to leave her to live with Runaan and Ethari and what was that transition like for them all? How old was like Rayla too?

DEVON: This was one that we’ve had a couple different ideas about so this is another one that’s like heavy not quite canon bubble. Like if we actually end up doing a story that involves some of these details it’s likely to change and be slightly different but the versions that I’ve liked have involved her being pretty young. And because honor is such a you know key part of Moonshadow culture I think like overall it was something that she felt you know sad about because she knew that she wasn’t going to be directly seeing her parents very often anymore. And—but it was uh such a huge honor that she felt you know pride in what her parents were being selected to go do. You know, act as Dragonguard and serve as these sort of like honorific, um, warriors that left the collective of the Silvergrove to go represent Moonshadow elves in the service of the Dragon Queen. And I think she had—she grew up being told what an honor that was and how much pride she should have in her parents because that is such a special thing. And then I think like it speaks a lot to how proud she was when she believed that they ran away and abandoned that duty because you know, how could they? If that was their reason for leaving her when she was a child and then they ran away from that job, like, how important could it have really been? And then you know, I’m sure that makes her feel very, very small. It made her feel so hurt that she told Callum at first that they were dead so she took it pretty hard.

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: But I think the other thing about it that we’ve sort of kicked around is that like, Runaan and Ethari were Rayla’s parents’ close friends and I think she was familiar with them enough that she didn’t feel like she was being you know left with two strangers. It’s sort of just like, you’re going to be under the care of people who are already very, very close to you and care about you quite a bit.

IAIN: Yeah I think with like Moonshadow elves in general the thing I think about a lot is like the good and evil that comes from suppressing your true emotions to show a different face to the world and I think we see a lot of that in Rayla. Like I think she probably committed pretty hard to Ghosting her parents because she had this like big mess of like sadness that she’d left but at least the soft landing of Runaan and Ethari to live with and so on. But believing like this sadness is worth it because they’re doing something so noble and then the betrayal of that—it just came out in kind of a messy like toxic way, right, where now she’s committed to becoming an assassin at a really young age in a way Ethari doesn’t agree with and so on. But I mean on the other side I think having a strong handle on your emotions is often one of Rayla’s strengths right? Like we saw in episode 5 of this season after she’s going through a whole lot of stuff, both her family situation and this new development with Callum, she’s just able to like operate as a cool badass extremely cool assassin without letting any of that affect her. But you know I think there’s balance in how you handle your feelings and how you externalize them in a good way that people can learn from, but sometimes you gotta—you gotta work (laughs).

KUNO: That makes sense. Oh well yeah I always had this personal headcanon which I kind of like incorporated into my fanfictions where she felt abandoned by her parents so in a way it’s kinda like slightly—kinda like that except it was all those feelings that have been repressed from years and years basically came out when she felt like—like the abandonment came to like the head when she felt like they had left because they had ran away—they kind of like ran away like from her.

DEVON: Oh yeah, absolutely.

KUNO: In a way—their duty to—

DEVON: I think that validates the suppressed feeling, you know.

KUNO: Yeah, since their duty to the Dragonguard was in it’s own way more important and that’s something that was like okay because it was an honor but since they ran away it’s like obviously it was more important in a terrible way, if that makes any sense?

IAIN: Yeah I mean I think it’s like she did her best and she’s trying to be a grown up but it’s hard at a young age to accept that you know there are meant to be higher callings than a bond between parents and children, right? Like that’s hard for her to grasp and she probably didn’t express that openly ever really. But I think it really did help that she had two genuine loving father figures ready to accept her with open arms even if one of them did train her to become the best assassin of her generation, which again I wouldn’t advise to—to most parents out there.

DEVON: I do think like even that was considered, you know, honorable. It was you know, you’re going to—not only are you going to get to live with Runaan and Ethari, like Runaan is the leader of the assassins, or at least maybe at that point in time he wasn’t the leader but he was very up and coming. I don’t know, it could be either or, but that I think was probably something that she fully embraced and fully wanted, like you know, ‘this is my purpose in life, this is my calling, my parents have gone off to do their calling and it’s a great honor for them, and this is my path and what I’m going to do with myself’. And that didn’t end up being true but it was probably a comfort to her at the time.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That makes a lot of sense. Moving on, okay, this, we’re getting real indulgent now—do you know what Ethari and Runaan’s wedding was like and what are Moonshadow elf weddings are like in general?

DEVON: Um, I have a, so a lot of the dancing stuff is because I have an enormous soft spot for tropes involving cute dances, like, just a huge, huge soft spot. And the thing that comes to mind is, if you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt, which is such a weird reference—

KUNO: Yeah, I love that.

DEVON: —the scene where he and the girl, I forget her name, they do the thing—

KUNO: Tzipporah.

DEVON: —with the ribbon and they do the cute little dance with the ribbon. For some reason that’s what I think of when I imagine what a moment in their wedding would look like would be a dance with a ribbon that they sort of use to—you know, Moonshadow elves love ribbons, I guess, but this is a good ribbon! It’s a love ribbon. But anyway, that’s just my idea. I love that specific—that song that, “Through Heaven’s Eyes”, it’s during that sequence but that—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: —would be my go-to inspiration for like, it’s like that and then you know, everybody dances with them because Moonshadow elves like to dance.

IAIN: Yeah, I kind of like the idea of the—there’s a lot of these symbols that are sometimes extremely sinister. I mean I think Ethari even kinda calls this out when he shoots the—the Shadowhawk arrow to inform the queen that her son is in fact alive. But like, Moonshadow elves believe that death and life are not good and evil, they’re mirrors of each other and an important part of the cycle. And you know, the moon has cycles and that’s an important part. So I think thinking about all the rituals and stuff that they have, which initially you’re introduced to as ‘let’s go murder someone party’, like if that was—there was a kind of inverse to that that was a big part of their wedding ceremony I think that would make a lot of sense to Moonshadow elves because this is two people binding their lives together forever. Binding for a shared purpose in a good way and not the grim ‘let’s go kill Prince Ezran’ kind of way.

KUNO: Yeah. Cause naturally this is involving like several ships so I’m like, I had to ask that. And on the piggyback of that, as detailed as possible, can you describe courtship customs for Moonshadow elves?

DEVON: Oh man.

KUNO: I mean like dating—dating customs, like a headcanon even if it’s just headcanons.

IAIN: Devon is deep in thought (laughs).

DEVON: I’ve never—like for some reason the—the headcanons that I’ve thought about are more specific to like, Runaan and Ethari than I’ve really sort of like branched out into thinking about how Moonshadow elves do this in general. So I imagine there’s intended—there’s some formality to it, I would imagine, in that like, because they’re so, you know, purposeful and thoughtful with how they express their feelings if at all, I think it would be, you know, exchange of gifts like small favors and making your purpose known in a way that starts small but has purpose. So I think like, there’s versions where Ethari would put extra detail into the work he was doing for Runaan which you know, could be perceived as a sign of affection or Runaan was coming to Ethari asking him to work on his weapons or metalcraft stuff a little bit more than was necessary and—stuff like that, where it’s a bit stiff and difficult but I think like once—once there is clear reciprocation I think there can be more of an open discussion about it, does that make sense? But I think Runaan probably struggled with this a whole lot, like, ‘cause he’s—did I, it might have been you who I responded to on Twitter but someone asked me something along these lines and I think Runaan had a really hard time even with this first sort of like simple offerings of affection because that’s just him. Like he sort of takes that aspect to an extreme. Like he has a hard time being like “here is the way I wish to express myself in a soft way and not with a—a sharp object. So I think Ethari had an easier time because he’s just more naturally soft (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah I sometimes think that Runaan is the most Moonshadow elf of all Moonshadow elves, but like, you know, it’s—

KUNO: I was gonna say that.

IAIN: Yeah, um, you know when they have such a hard time showing their feelings and they sometimes feel like they’re not supposed to and so on, and so Runaan is trying to pick up on the tiniest possible hints through professional exchanges and so on. And I think when it’s actually time to confess that there’s a feeling there you would, I think especially Runaan would have to be 100% sure and then do it entirely in private, the most private situation possible where there could be no possible spies who could see this if it was going to go wrong because that would just be the end of his entire life, obviously.

DEVON: Yeah he would bind himself to his own death (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah, that’s it. Gonna assassinate myself because I confessed love and it didn’t get reciprocated. That’s that.

DEVON: It’s over.

IAIN: So yeah, lot of—lots of awkward advances where they’re trying—trying to have the escape hatch of “Oh I didn’t really try to suggest that I liked you, this was just me asking you for a professional favor by let’s never speak again”.

DEVON: And then he comes back the next day (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: Oh my goodness. Uh I felt—I—I kinda like headcanoning now that Ethari tells Rayla all this “how I met, you know, your surrogate dad” kind of stuff. Like, and that’s how she—she’s like, this is how you do love apparently.

DEVON: I do think that like, yeah, he had a much easier time and probably picked up on stuff. And to me there’s a side of Ethari that you don’t really get to see in the episode because he’s very sad. I think he’s a—he does have a playful side and I like to imagine that while Runaan was doing his, like, really just not-the-best attempts to display affection early on, like Ethari would pick up on them but not necessarily give the full signal back. And he played a little bit oblivious but he absolutely was—he’s just more emotionally in tune. So I think, “Oh hey, you’re back again, wow. I thought I did fantastic work on your blades last time. I cannot believe they’re already dull!” Like and he just sort of like, he knows—he knows there’s something there.

IAIN: I think like this kind of gets echoed in Rayla, like where Callum in an effort to pick her up and be honest about how he feels that she’s just an incredible person. Like to her that’s like, ‘person being entirely open with their feelings in a positive way? That’s a love connection!’ And then it goes wrong for one entire episode and then it turns out that Callum was also not fully aware of how he was feeling and so on. But I think like, yeah, I think that’s why she was like immediately “Wow, this is clearly meant to be romantic and this is—this is going exactly the way I want!” and then it didn’t. But then it did! So we’re all happy.

DEVON: Aww.

KUNO: I am! I’m certainly happy. Um—uh let’s see—the next one is—okay. What was Rayla like as a child growing up in a household she did—household? Um, she mentioned going to school and we’d love to know how baby Rayla fared as a student and just a child growing up in the Silvergrove and what that experience is like for a Moonshadow elf child?

DEVON: You want—you want me to do this one?

IAIN: Go for it.

DEVON: Yeah, um, I think Rayla was feisty (laughs) in a word. I think she—for some reason there’s a scene in the beginning of Korra where she’s already mastered like, three elements and she like comes out punching. I kind of think about that when I think about baby Rayla. She knows she’s—there’s that end credit scene where she’s got the two sticks and she’s posing with them and Runaan’s sort of lifting one of them up and I’m thinking like, okay so sheg’s like, from a tiny, tiny age thinking like, “I’m gonna be the coolest assassin the Moonshadow elves have ever seen!” and she’s like rambunctious about that almost, because you know, as a child you don’t really understand what the ramifications of that are but it’s considered like a highly, highly valued, honored position and so she’s obviously like, “Yeah I’m gonna do that and I’m going to be the best at it and there will never be any complications whatsoever!” In terms of Moonshadow elf childhood, I think with the way that I would think about it is—we talked about the sort of community aspect. I imagine Moonshadow elves have pretty, like, what’s the word, like, a lot of general education, sort of, like, “this is what weaponsmithing is like and this is gardening and raising crops and things to provide for the community” and so I think they would have a lot of ‘school’ that covers a lot of just like, life basics because you are expect to find a place that contributes to the collective whole. Does that like—?

IAIN: Yeah, I think like it’s also lucky for Rayla that a big part of Moonshadow elf culture is what we would call PE. Like I think she excelled at striving to be an assassin warrior and so on. Especially like, she’s trying to live up to her parents who at first were honored Dragonguard and you know, Runaan as well. I think in terms of like, more academic stuff like if there was Moonshadow elf history lessons and “let’s go out and understand the, you know, ecology of the Moonshadow forest” and stuff I think she was probably a bit kinda like, rambunctious and not super paying attention and running off and not really giving it her all and so on. Um, you kind of get that impression from early on where she knows what Primal sources are and she’ll explain that to Callum but like, when she’s talking about ‘how do you do that Moonshadow form thing’ she’s like “I don’t know, it just feels right”. Like I think that’s—she did everything very intuitively and focused on the things she cared about and understood and kinda did what she—did what she could on the other subjects, I guess, but didn’t care as much.

DEVON: Yeah I feel like if you imagine the kid that is going to grow up to be an artist is doing doodles on their math homework and just sort of like doing the math homework but—but you know, clearly the effort is being placed elsewhere. I think it’s that but she was excelling at PE and assassin training and therefore fell very, very easily into her supposed path.

KUNO: The—this isn’t on the thing, but did—did she ever—did she ever really have any friends? ‘Cause she doesn’t really mention—ever mention friends. I—maybe that has to do with the whole assassin thing where if she wasn’t learning being at school she would probably doing assassin stuff with Runaan or assassin training stuff—I guess not really assassinating. But um did she have really friends growing up?

IAIN: I think if she had friends they were not super close. And I think she valued her alone time. There’s a sweet moment early in—well end of season 1 where she like tries to cheer up Ezran by saying that fitting in is overated and I think she felt that a little bit. Um and you know I think there’s some amount of when you’re being trained in the art of an assassin like you’re probably somewhat taught to—to keep people at arm’s length a little bit, right? And I think she—she took that to heart. So I think that’s a big part of why when she was first traveling with Callum and Ezran there wasn’t that much trust between then and it was kinda like, it was Ezran honestly that bridged the gap being most empathetic number 1 child. And yeah, I think having a close friend is relatively new to her.

KUNO: Makes sense. Like just few, not the many. Um okay then next question before we get to Hailey’s batch of them are um, what are Runaan’s feelings toward Rayla as of right now and everything that’s happened since season 1? I understand he’s in a coin, he’s in a finacial crisis, he’s probably not thinking about it too hard—

DEVON: Oh my god (laughs).

KUNO: But you know, like he’s gotta be—you know he’s not doing anything right now, I’m assuming, so like what would be his feelings about her at the moment?

DEVON: I mean he’s got a lot of time to think, wherever he is. I think like—I got into this a little bit on Twitter in a self-indulgent rant at one point where I think he went through a lot very quietly during the first few episodes of the show where he very, very much wanted Rayla to succeed, even if he wasn’t necessarily like being the dad on the sideline of the soccer game, like, cheering for her. But he thought this was her moment, this was her time to prove that she really was more dedicated to you know, her cause and her people than her parents were because they had, you know, been the subject of such shame. And then ah, everything goes the way it does, I think he has a brief crisis of, “Is this my fault? Did I fail to train her well enough? Like, was Ethari right?” Because he always thought she had, you know, a softer heart. And I think like those are the types of things that he’s still stewing on, um like did—”did he overstep? Was it something—was he so eager to give her the opportunity to prove herself that he, you know, ultimately put her in a position where she could not succeed?” I think like, the other thing that I mentioned on Twitter was I think he took her off the mission both because he very, very much wanted to give himself and the others a chance to complete the mission even if it meant their deaths. But it also meant that Rayla had the chance to survive even if it was potentially going to be misinterpreted and she’d get slapped with the Ghosting, I think he believed that her alive was better than everybody being dead. So I think like, he’s got a lot—a lot to work through and I think like—I think he feels guilty. I think there’s the smallest part of him that he has the—again, a lot of time to potentially stew on and reflect on is he does feel like he put her in a position that was, you know, not fully taking into account the type of person she was and more projecting onto her the type of person he wanted her to be and gift he wanted to give her of redeeming herself in the eyes of her people for her parents. And I think he’s gonna have to work through that. Poor dude.

KUNO: That’s so sadly heartfelt. That’s so sadly heartfelt. Here I am thinking that he’d be, like, maybe a little angry with her, ‘cause obvious reason, but now it’s like, oh he feels guilty. Like, “Oh, okay, let’s just slap the angst on, okay”.

DEVON: I mean, I think like—

KUNO: Yeah, mm-hm.

DEVON: Sure he’d have some anger, like, “Awgh, I gave her everything. I gave her the exact opportunity she needed”. But I think like the guilt and the reflection leads to the “Maybe I—maybe it was me who stepped too far here”.

IAIN: Yeah, I mean another part of it is like, we don’t know what it’s like being trapped in the hell coin dimension, right?

DEVON: Oh I do. I—I mean—

IAIN: Oh you do?

DEVON: It sucks.

IAIN: Oh it sucks?

DEVON: When it happens to me on the reg (IAIN laughs).

IAIN: But you know, does it feel like an eternity is passing? Does it feel like no time has passed? Is he in eternal pain? Because if it’s like real bad—

KUNO: Oh my god.

IAIN: —in there I can imagine that like yeah there’s definitely some of those kind of anger feelings that you don’t want to feel in but you do sometimes, right? Like it’s like, if he has a snap moment of “I wouldn’t be in here if she hadn’t gone off and disobeyed our orders and, like, lied to me and so on”. So if he ever comes out uh don’t know what side of the emotional coin he’s gonna land on.

DEVON: Ohhh, please leave.

KUNO: Oh my god.

DEVON: Get out, oof, ouch.

IAIN: Finger guns.

DEVON: I do think like that sort of complex—

KUNO: It sounds—

DEVON: —emotion is just, I don’t want to give any time to that pun, we’re moving on. Like that sort of complexity of emotion and relationships is something that I really like in the show overall. Like you said earlier, you saw some people that were a little bit upset that Ethari was so willing to lash out at Rayla at first and I think like to me that was always part of the big, big thematic of the show, which is this sort of endless cycle of people being willing to hurt each other and not forgive each other and not, you know, accept that you can choose peace. It’s, you know, it’s—Runaan having that impulse to anger is a very natural thing and it doesn’t—I don’t think it necessarily makes him a bad person for feeling that. And I don’t necessarily think that Ethari having his moments of grief lead him to actions that are ultimately like, regretful, like I don’t think he would want that to define him in the long run. Like those are very human things but those are the things as we acknowledge them and as are—so long as we are capable of recognizing how flawed we are and how violent and…

KUNO: Messy.

DEVON: Messy! Thank you, that’s like, I was going to say like churning, messy is good. Like messy emotions can be and how they can like, dictate the way we treat each other, um, but forgiveness and patience and acceptance are ultimately just so much more powerful than those negative perpetuating lashing outs. That was an inelegant way of ending that screed, but yes.

KUNO: I actually really love that um ‘cause I from the beginning I’ve loved their father-daughter relationship so I love how complicated it is, ‘cause the truth is you know every parent-child relationship is a little complicated, except theirs is a little more complicated with assassination going on in the works, the family trade. So I love that it is this complicated ‘cause I know I remember in the beginning where people were like you know—you know she does have a dad. And it’s like I know she has a biological dad but until I am told otherwise that’s her father. I don’t care and I love their relationship so I love that that really reflects that. Another—the next question out of me before we get to, um, Hailey’s, which are all about different elves, is um, course I have to ask, my policy is one Rayllum question per interview. Um what are Runaan’s feelings—whah, no, whoop, how would Ruthari and Runaan react to Rayla’s relationship with Callum considering he’s not only a human but a human prince? ‘Cause as far as we know Runaan really hates, um, humans and I’d love to see that story later, both individually and as a couple. Because as far as I know, Ethari probably doesn’t know that their in a relationship unless he sensed it?

DEVON: Oh man, I—I think you should take this one, but I do want to say that I saw one comment on Tumblr at one point where someone said that they wished that Ethari had said something to Callum along the lines of like, “Take care of her”. And I want to travel back in time and pretend that was in the script ‘cause I think that would have been really, really nice. And I do think like, he picked up on the fact that Callum was important to her even if it—he didn’t necessarily read it as romantic right off the bat. I think he mostly was like, “Oh this guy is kind of like a cute—he’s a human but he’s, you know, a friend to someone I care about and that in and of itself is valuable and there’s something there”. So I think—pretend that was in the script. I wish I had thought about something like that but—

KUNO: I will (DEVON laughs).

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That’s canon as far—as far as I’m concerned that’s canon.

IAIN: I think uh it would be best for everyone involved if they found out together, uh, because I think Runaan’s impulse would not be good immediately. I think like, when you spend so much time as an assassin and you drill into your head that the people that you’re meant to kill are not people, they’re the enemy right? Like I think that’s—sometimes that’s a thing he turns on to do the job and so on, but I do think that’s gonna bleed into his personality and it’s—you know, especially given his extremely recent history he’s not got the best feelings about humans. So I think it would inspire an immediate negative reaction in him that would not be pleasant for Callum and Rayla, but I think Ethari just has a much softer heart and that is where Rayla kind of got that side from. So I mean I’m not going to say that he would immediately—you know, they’ve been at war for hundreds and hundreds of years with humans and they’ve been told all through their history that humans committed the original sin of dark magic, et cetera et cetera, but like, I think it would take not that much time of seeing Rayla and Callum together for Ethari to see that there’s something there and then I think Ethari would have the ability to ah, to talk Runaan down pretty quick. But I also think that like, Runaan might not even show any of this, there might just be a kind of seething resentment that he’s not really talking about inside. Um unless it was like on the battlefield or something and he was like, “That’s a prince that I’m meant to kill” or something like that. But overall I think Ethari would sense that Runaan was not like—was not taking this well and they would be able to talk it through. At least that’s my gut.

DEVON: No, that sounds right (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: I feel like poor Callum is just always on the edge of “Am I going to die tonight?” while he’s there, “Is this gonna be it?” Just gonna be like, “Oops sorry I had an accident—hey I had an accident in the middle of the night, you know, just a knife to the throat, that’s all”.

IAIN: I mean, he’s doing pretty well, like he said as they were about to meet Ethari and Rayla was like, “Remember Runaan?” He was like “Oh yeah, that guy who tried to kill me as soon as he met me? Cool guy”. Callum’s doing pretty well on the acceptance front these days.

DEVON: I do—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: I do want to say that I think Ethari and Callum would get along really well because I think they both have sort of like a soft hearted friendliness to them that they would have a fun rapport. And that’s the sort of like “Trees to meet you” line is definitely supposed to be like—they’d you know, crack some goofy back and forths and I think that would soften Runaan too because he couldn’t ever hate someone that Ethari liked.

IAIN: Yeah, I think it’s a weird—

KUNO: Aww.

IAIN: —reversal where like Callum’s the one doing the dad jokes and Ethari’s like humoring them and Runaan’s like, “I don’t understand. Trees do not meet.”

DEVON: “Please stop saying ‘trees to meet you’.”

KUNO: Aw it never gets old. I love that. Um alright, Hailey, take it away. Your turn.

[raayllum]

I: It’s really interesting to me that it’s Rayla who kicks off the gift giving and sets the tone for what’s important in a gift here, because I think sacrifice is a deep core part of Rayla’s entire character, and I think that you know, if you go back to her childhood, like she was told it was great and noble that her parents were leaving her behind, leaving her — their family behind, that was a big sacrifice they made for the good of everyone. You see her through seasons one through three like — just seems like any opportunity, she’ll be the one to make the big sacrifice. She’ll go out there to try and save the dragon, she’ll go and try and fight Viren and his army alone to protect everyone and so on. So the fact that once again she defaults to ‘I have to give up something painful to myself.’ She kinda is starting to see sacrifice as a noble good in and of itself, and then it’s the reality check from Rex Igneous, it’s like ‘What does this do for me? What are you talking about’? [Laughs] 

B: Yeah. It’s — I think you’re right, it’s super on brand for Rayla to go first. And it’s interesting to me to think about the denial of self as a form of sacrifice, and this is kind of what seems to be Moonshadow elf culture — at least Rayla’s upbringing. And so this sacrifice of self to the point of me is — like, denial of ego, denial of self, in order to serve others, right? In this case, the Dragonguard, right, for her parents, and you know, being an assassin, being willing to lose one’s life, the whole ritual of tying the ribbon that cuts off all your limbs situation, like that is a denial of self, that’s a sacrifice people are making for a cause. And so — it — I have problems. And so I’m [laughs] I — it’s hard for me to think about what that does to one’s psyche growing up in that environment. Like I’m just… I’m curious, what are y’all — how is that resonating with you? What are the thoughts that are streaming through, talking about this?

I: Many of them. I mean, all the way down to when Runaan believes he’s failed, his whole mantra is “I am already dead,” like it’s complete denial of self, and—

B: Absolutely. 

I: And I mean — I think, you know, and I don’t think the show completely sidesteps this, [sacrifice] is often powerful, it’s sometimes, maybe often, I dunno, noble, to be able to do that, to have the strength to put everyone else in front of you. I could talk for hours about the competing instincts of individualism versus you know, collective action, and being one part of a greater whole and so on. But I think you don’t do the — usually, you don’t do the greater whole any good by completely sacrificing yourself, and I do think that is often the lengths, like you said, a lot of the Moonshadow elf culture norms and mantras go to eventually is ‘You have to be willing to completely forget who you are’ and I think that kind of comes across in — I’m not gonna keep going because pretty much every other story kinda touches on this as well. 

B: Name a story and it happens, right, it’s everywhere. It’s so — I’m, the thing that came up for me as you were speaking was actually Callum in the previous episode. You know, Callum being like ‘You gotta kill me,’ and this is a really interesting form of this too, right, the denial of self for the greater good. I’m saying ‘Hey, I need you to do this for me and take me out, in order—‘ and Rayla — and it came up because Rayla’s like, ‘[laughs] No.’ And it’s one of those things where that’s really interesting to me too because when it is someone else that I care about, that sacrifice is seen as dumb. Right? But when it’s me, I’m like no this is noble, this is what I have to do, this is what I’m being called to do, I have to do this because this is the way I was raised, and so it’s this double-edged sword that is saying in you, you don’t have to sacrifice, no no no, but me, I do. And again, that kind of mentality is so true in our lives. I imagine people listening have definitely come across the people who are like, “No no no, don’t do that, I’ll clean up, I’m gonna do the whole thing, it’s all about — I’m gonna do this,” and it’s the sacrifice of their time, their energy, consistently, so that other people don’t have to and we’re constantly trying to comfort and make other people feel good. And again, I think to an extent, that’s beautiful, until it becomes problematic. And so I guess that’s the line I’m trying to identify and I’m curious, how do we find that line?

D: I don’t know how you find that line [all laugh]. But there’s probably no universal answer, but I think like, it’s interesting, for Rayla, she’s struggling with that exact thing, like where is the line, because she, herself, believes ‘I must continue to sacrifice, I must go off on my own to try and fight Viren, I must do all these things, but Callum, you don’t have to,’ and it’s sort of like, he’s a little bit exempt from her entire philosophy, because her philosophy in some ways exists to protect him. Like the whole reason she left between seasons was to quote, ‘keep him safe,’ but she really only ended up hurting him and herself by doing so, despite the fact that it suits this greater philosophy of quote ‘sacrifice—

B: And I think that’s what happens.

D: For some greater good.’ Yeah, it’s like, you do — if you blow yourself up to protect the people around you that care about you, like you’re hurting them too, right? Cause they care about you and they want you there and they want you to be a whole and functional and, you know, present person in their life. And so it’s an impossible question to wrangle of where exactly that line exists, of where do you stop giving pieces of yourself for that other person versus where you preserve yourself because you are the thing they care about in the first place? It’s — it’s really impossible, there’s no way to solve this, which is why we explore it in fiction.

B: Yeah exactly. 

I: Might be one starting point to solving it in the very least. 

D: No, there’s none, shut up. [All laugh]

—The Dragon Pod Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, 4x08 “Rex Igneous”

[kuno-chan]

Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry about the Moonshadow Fam, Ruthari, Rayllum and Elves:

Do you want over an *HOUR* of exploring Rayla, Runaan and Ethari’s characters? AND Ruthari and Rayla included??? Then keep an eye out for Episode 5 of the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast where we interview the wonderful duo Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry from @dragonprinceofficial for almost 2 HOURS.

The questions above are just a few of the questions we got answered. We got almost 30 questions and scenarios answered in detail.

[dragonprinceofficial]

What’s in a name?

A lot of characters in TDP are named for friends, family, and self indulgent OCs of the staff! Here’s a couple: 

Rayla is a real-life friend of the whole writing team!  Callum is the name of writer Iain Hendry’s older brother!  Runaan is writer Devon Giehl’s hunter in World of Warcraft!  Viren is one of creator Aaron Ehasz’s long-time friends! Opeli is another real life friend of the team, and she has a husky named Ava! 

More later!?

[theredhairedmonkey]

On Raylas wiki it states that she is on the Dragonguard

Yea, the truth is that the wiki is often less than accurate (for instance it says that every episode in S3 except the finale was written by Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, which is...definitely not true). For the longest time it even had a paragraph on Ezran’s page describing how much of a hypocrite he is, but thankfully that was removed!

The truth is that the wiki is updated intermittently by 2-3 fans (usually the same fans). It’s not going to perfectly reflect all of the most recent information, especially something that was leaked a few days ago.

So, what the wiki says doesn’t change what we already know from the graphic novel: Rayla is now in Katolis, not on the Storm Spire.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Notes from the Deluxe Elf Interview, pt 1 (HBMP podcast)

I like to process important stuff more thoroughly to help me retain it, so I take notes when I listen to shows and podcasts and stuff. And the best episode of Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast just came out--the Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry--so you know I was all over that. This is just my personal notes, nothing super detailed or organized, and not delved into yet at all.

If I have a direct quote, it’s in double quotes. Sometimes my notes are paraphrasing or getting only most of the words, and sometimes it’s just me rambling, but if I “quote” something, it’s a proper direct quote that I went back and listened to. Also, sometimes I noted who was talking, just because I loved how they played off each other and offered different perspectives. I is for Iain and D is for Devon.

@kuno-chan

Silvergrove: just their thoughts, a rough shape, not 100% canon. 

I: Sunfires have structure, cities, queen. Moonshadow elves live in smaller communities. Many small, maybe not all known to each other bc everyone’s so secretive and reclusive. Ghosting was a consensus. 

D: evening theme, cool colors, nighttime vibe, vs Sunfire daytime. Magic also shrouds the place in a nighttime vibe. Like Ashenvale in WoW, dusky no matter the time of day like night elves. 

I: They don’t need Vitamin D, they just need moonlight. Magic plus thick tree cover. Like Scotland in the winter. Except they’re happy.

A village leader? Early in the script there was one character who called for the ghosting, but they were written out because that made the ghosting not personal enough. Assassins live in the Silvergrove but not everyone is one. Runaan might consult with the leader of the blacksmiths, who might be Ethari. Each group might have a leader and they get in a council if they need to discuss. A communal decision setup instead of a single high leader like the Sunfires have. So someone called for a ghost vote (lol Devon says “ghost vote” is canon now) and they all weighed in on a town hall kinda thing. And an agreement was come to. 

Ethari regrets the ghost spell but he can’t reverse it alone. They haven’t decided how he might pursue redeeming Rayla but he’d have to convince everyone in the Silvergrove so they could collectively undo it. Claiming that he saw her once and she said she didn’t run away wouldn’t be enough for them to undo the spell, he’d have to work harder than that. Ethari was a mess when he saw Rayla again, and let his anger out toward her.

i: “When you first see the person that you’ve tried to convince yourself took the most important person in your life away from you, you’re gonna feel a big mess of feelings and it’ll bring up some grief that maybe you thought you were just--just--starting to get over so, uh, yeah, hopefully I think he can turn that around in the years to come.” 

(YEARS?? HOW LONG IS ETHARI GOING TO BE STRUGGLING WITH HIS FEELINGS OVER RAYLA AND RUNAAN??)

Moonshadow culture is rigid. Honor, loyalty, committing to things. It comes from valuing a close knit community, not meaning to be strict. Day to day activities support each other in the village. Everyone loves to work for the good of the community. Feelings are hidden so they can keep a positive good outlook in their small village. Collectivist society: the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the one or few.

Check out the podcast, guys!

[sunstone-nerding]

Remember in the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, Devon said she wished Ethari had told Callum, "Take care of her"?

Well. Imagine the words from Runaan's mouth, to Callum, after the two finally reach a truce. Maybe as a farewell before he and Ethari withdraw to the Silvergrove. The elf's tone is grim, earnest, resigned. The words are also an indirect admission of failure, saying underneath: My and Ethari's errors hurt Rayla so deeply that she may never want to let us back into her life completely. You bring her joy, and ease her pain. Let her have another home with you.

Catching some of the subtext, Callum replies seriously that he will. Everyone finishes their goodbyes, and the elves depart.

(This assumes the coined individuals can and will be returned to their former state. I'm still bracing myself for that not being possible...)