User blog:Samaru163/Deltora Comparison: The Golden Knight

Hello Deltora fans, one and all and welcome to episode three of by Deltora Comparison series.

Anime episode
The Golden Knight covers the last of chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen in the Forests of Silence, and even some information from Lake of Tears. This makes it the final episode in the Forests of Silence arc, so I will also be giving my final thoughts of the arc as a whole once I talk about the episode, and give it a letter rating based on an adaptation and as a story on its own.

Characters
I'm going to be omissing Jasmine's mother from the description, same as Jarred and Anna from episode one. The reason for this is because while they are technically important characters, they don't really have a lot of description in the book.

Gorl is pretty accurate book description: golden armour from head to toe with a horned helmet. However, there are a few subtle differences in design. For one, his visor is a triangle shape in the show, while it was a T shape in the book. He also had a skirt of chainmail around his waist and a belt covered in skulls, which was also lacking. He's also a lot buffer than his book counterpart: that armour looks like something out of World of Warcraft with how impractically huge it is, and given the size of a Jalis later on this series... yeah, it's pretty weird.

Bridge
Once again, we have a lot of book dialogue making its way into the show. Nearly all of Gorl's lines make it in, with the most noticable being, "Thieves!  Fools! You dare to try and steal my treasures! Now you will join the others who have tried, and your bodies shall feed my vines as theirs have done."
 * Lief and Barda finding Gorl in the Dark with the Topaz on the hilt of his swords, which is in contrast with the book cover where the Topaz is on the pommel.
 * Gorl asking who goes there, with Barda saying they are travellers from Del and Gorl stating his position of, "guardian of this place and owner of its tresures."
 * Gorl using his telepathic powers to force Lief and Barda into the centre of the Dark to feed the vines he cultivates.
 * Gorl's treasure revealed to be the Lillies of Life: three golden flowers that can grant immortality through their nectar.
 * Barda distracting Gorl by reminding him of how he ventured into the Forests with his two brothers to find the fabled Lillies of Life and how he killed his brothers in order to drink the lillies nectar and gain immortality.
 * Barda stabbing Gorl fatally while he is distracted, only for the knight to shrug it off and stab Barda in the chest.
 * Jasmine arriving to save Lief by cutting a tree branch on top of Gorl, crushing his armour and allowing his long-dead spirit release.
 * The Lillies of Life finally blooming once sunlight was allowed into the Dark.
 * Lief using the nectar of the Lillies of life to heal Barda while Jasmine collected the last drops for later use.
 * Jasmine using the topaz to recieve a vision of her dead mother, who tells her to join Lief and Barda's quest.
 * Birds and beasts flocking to the Dark to chip away at the vines.
 * Jasmine's reluctance to go to the next destination, the Lake of Tears, since it is in the domain of the sorceress Thaegan.

Alterations
Something I should have mentioned last time is that, in the book, Lief told Barda to continue on the quest alone if Lief died, while in the anime Barda calls Lief scared and tells him to prove himself by "lifting high the sword forged by his father and fight with courage and honor." I... don't understand why this change was made or what the significance of it is. In the book Lief was acting incredibly selfless by telling Barda to just keep going if he died, while here, it feels like some kind of razzing. Not a good change in my book.

In the anime Gorl instantly attacked Lief and Barda after giving his name, while in the book, he told thme they were tresspassing and gave them the option to leave. He only attacked when Lief pointed out it was a two on one fight.

In the anime, Lief was able to use the momentum of Gorl's telepathy to try and attack the knight, while in the book, Gorl's telepathy was so strong that Lief and Barda were powerless against him. I guess this was so they could have a fight scene that stretches the entire episode, because in the book... there isn't much of a fight, and that wouldn't work for a TV series. I suppose this is an acceptable change, only they have some very strange ways of keeping the action going. Like, Gorl doesn't use his telepathy nearly as often as he should in the show, so sometimes he locks blades with Barda and Lief to keep things going... for some reason.

During one point in the fight, Gorl even demands that Lief tell him the story of Adin and his unification of Deltora. This is unimaginably pointless filler. We already had the backstory of Deltora explained to us in the first episode, which they even use the same clips from for this mini-explination. The whole thing is pointless anyways, since Gorl doesn't believe a word Lief said and still tries to kill him.

The anime shows the armour of Gorl's brothers, which is what prompts Barda to ask Gorl about their fates. In the book, he just used deductive reasoning, since no one would go alone into the Forests of Silence.

The order of attacks by Lief and Barda is reversed in the show. In the book Barda struck first with a thrust to the neck, while Lief's blow just hit Gorl's armour. In the show, Lief strikes first but hits Gorl's sword, while Barda performed an upwards thrust going out the right armpit. Gorl also glows yellow and laughs maniacly in the anime, wheras he just got very very angry in the book, to the point where his last words to Barda were, "Die, theif! Die slowly!"

Jasmine's return was telegraphed in the show with several scenes of her talking to Filli and Kree before going back, wheras in the book it was a surprise. It's made even worse because she was watching Gorl as early as his monologue about killing his brothers, and did nothing to try and help Barda. She keeps her book speech, though it is abridged slightly, but it's worsened because before giving it, she feels the need to say, "I'm up here." when getting Gorl's attention. This feels less impressive than the book version, where she never broke her momentum.

Wow, do the Lillies release their nectar slowly in the anime. It comes out one drop at a time, while in the book it was an entire stream of nectar that only took a few moments to fill Lief's hands. At this rate Barda should have bled to death long ago. Also, Lief collected enough nectar to fill his hands in order to heal Barda's stab wound, while in the anime is significantly less.

Lief also pours the nectar into Barda's mouth instead of onto the gaping chest wound. This I feel was done because the anime cuts back on the blood and use of the word "death" compared to the book.

There's an added scene where Gorl gets up and tries to claw his way towards the Lillies. Barda also gives Gorl a little send-off speech where it sounds like he almost respected him... why? At what point did Barda ever show any resect for Gorl, someone who he denounced as a knight because he didn't fight with honor.

In the book Lief only told Jasmine about the topaz because he accidentally held it up while feeling good about the sunlight shining through the Dark. Barda gave him the OK to tell her some information, so he told her that the topaz was the symbol of faithfulness and then handed it to Jasmine. In the anime, he just starts talking for no reason, and she swipes the gem from his hand, saying, "Yeah, yeah, lemme see it!" like the bratty child that she is. Have I mentioned yet that I hate anime Jasmine?

When Jasmine used the topaz in the anime, she is transported to some smoaky plain where she talks to her mother and devolved into a child. Lief also mentioned the topaz's ability to talk to the dead when Jasmine stole it. In the book, Lief and Barda both saw her mother's ghost as well, and the information about the topaz's power was revealed after the ghost left.

Also, when Jasmine told Lief and Barda that she had to join them, she gives the line, "You may be brave men, but you're also rash. That's why I've got to come with you, because I'm smarter than both of you combined." Have I mentioned yet that I hate anime Jasmine?

At the very end of the episode, when talking about going to the Lake of Tears,  Barda says, "but only a few minutes ago you wanted to come with us," in responce to Jasmine's reluctance. Does this mean the companions instantly left the Forests of Silence after getting the topaz? If so, that's innacurate to the book, where they waited a few days to resupply and watch the last of the vines be torn down.

Omissions
I know that I included the birds and beasts coming to eat the vines in the Bridge section, but the anime cut out Lief's declaration that he would cut down the vines himself in celebration of their first victory. I thought this was a really good scene that showcased Lief's selflesness, as well as him showing thanks and repayment to the trees that helped him defeat Gorl. The scene is also a few seconds long in the anime, while the book marked it as a triumphant victory for the Forests of Silence, with all the birds and beasts gathering together to restore the area to its former beauty.

Barda is also robbed of his accepting of Lief and Jasmine onto the team. It was a small, but important moment where Barda admits that he was wrong to not want Lief to stay behind, and accepted him as more than just a cocky child.

Final thoughts: episode
I don't know what to really say about this episode. It's cleary an action episode where our anime protagonist defeats the first boss so we can move onto the next arc, but the action kind of sucks. As dumb as the fight with the Wennbar was in the previous episode, they made use of the location by having Lief and Jasmine swing on vines, and Lief trapping the Wennbar between two trees. In this episode, Lief, Barda, and Gorl are mostly stationary and swinging their swords around. It's boring.

There's also lot of padding in this episode to stretch it out to the twenty minute mark. This is most noticable with how little Gorl uses his telepathy on Lief and Barda, and how they just randomly shoved in the backstory of Deltora again after explaining it two episodes earlier. Jasmine's poor character also weighed down this episode with her bratty comments, but sadly, I have to praise the anime for at least being consistent with her. However, with how Barda distracted Gor, I can say that it makes his battle with the Wennbar even more out of character, so win some and lose some I guess.

Just like before, the story beats were all on point from the book, and I think this episode had the most book-dialogue in it so far. The dialogue they wrote for Gorl was also good and sounded like something I could see his character saying in the books if Rodda had given him more lines.

In the end, the Golden Knight is a boring episode to watch, but a great episode to listen to if you want to hear people act out Emily Rodda's dialogue.

Final thoughts: arc
Now we come to my thoughts on the Forests of Silence arc as a whole.

As I have said many times, this arc was incredibly faithful to the book in terms of story beats and some minor details. Jasmine Girl of the Forest and the Golden Knight especially stood out, as they had entire pieces of dialogue lifted from the book, and details as minor as Jasmine giving Filli and Kree equal shares of food, and Jasmine's knowledge on Grey Guard creation. Some changes to character-design were also improvements over the original, such as the Grey Guards, and on average the character models look like the descriptions from the book.

With that said, the anime fails when it comes to the pacing. Because the books were only 120 pages, Rodda had to keep momentum going constantly, with little to no times for breather. But since this is a twenty minute series, we need to pad out the running time, and the main way to do that is with action scenes like Lief antagonizing guards over a little girl wanting an illegal apple, or Barda deciding to go on a suicide mission for no reaon. This breaks the flow of the story and makes the characters seem needlessly reckless andn stupid for putting their lives in so much danger.

The characters are all over the place as well. Barda is pretty on-point, but Lief is way too hot-headed, which again maks him bland compared to other anime protagonists, and Jasmine is horribly immature and smug to the point of annoyance and aggrivation. This makes their friendship and interactions harder to swallow, even when looking at things from a show only standpoint.

So in the end, this arc was very faithful to the books, but as an adventure series, I think it fails because of its poor pacing and reliance on at least one action scene per episode. The non-book dialogue is also pretty bad and makes the characters come across as very immature.

But what did you all think? Was Jasmine stealing the topaz better than the book? Did you need a reminder of Deltora's lore and liked Gorl asking about Adin? Was this first arc the best of the season? Let me know below, and remember to wear the Belt of Deltora at all times to ward off evil. Adin knows, I'm trying.

Next time we will battle whits with the Enigmatic Giant