User blog:Samaru163/Deltora Comparison: Sorceress Thaegan

Hello Deltora fans, one and all and welcome to episode seven of my Deltora Quest comparison.

Anime Comparisons
Sorceress Thaegan covers the rest of Lake of Tears chapter fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. This makes it the final episode of the Lake of Tears arc.

Characters
The sorceress Thaegan is the big apperane for this episode, and boy did the animators do a good job brining her to life. Thaegan is one of the most accurate characters to her book counterpartin terms of designL: glowing green skin, beautiful complexion, wild silver hair, and a fierce ugliness that reveals itself when she's angry. The anime did give her a ring that she wears on her pinky figure, which I assume was done to further signify that that finger was the one she uses to cast spells.

In terms of personality, however, Thaegan is a diffferent story. She's described in the books and show as cruel, spiteful, and petty. This is all true in the anime as well, but when she confronts our heroes, her attitude is more playful and taunting than raging fury. It makes her seem less serious when instead of roaring and declairing her power, she's taunting our heroes like a spoiled kid at a playground. Though I guess you could make an argument that it shows how powerful and confident in herself she is.

Soldeen's human form, Nanion, and his wife Ethena, both resemble the tall, golden skinned people of D'Or from the books, and also only show up at the end of the book and episode, not leaving much room to talk about them as characters.

Bridge

 * Lief escaping Soldeen by throwing food bags into his mouth.
 * The companions offering different suggestions for how to get the gem, which all prove impossible due to Soldeen.
 * Lief asking Manus to play his flute to clear their minds, which attracts Soldeen's attention.
 * Soldeen demanding Manus keeps playing while he negotiates with the companions.
 * Soldeen agreeing to give the gem to the companions in exchange for Manus.
 * Manus being willing to saccrifice himself, but the companions refusing to let him go.
 * Soldeen attacking the companions and knocking Lief into the air, which allows him to get up to Soldeen's eye and threaten to blind him if he keeps attacking.
 * The power of the topaz returning Soldeen's memories of before he was cursed by Thaegan, and he agrees to give them the gem.
 * Lief becoming confused over the gem's colour until he remembered that the ruby turns pale around evil.
 * Thaegan arriving for revenge and blasting Soldeen with a spell, causing Lief to lose the ruby.
 * Thaegan blastsing the companions a few times before Kree pecks her pinkie finger, killing her and leaving a stain on a rock.
 * Thaegan's spells being broken on her death, restoring the people and landscape of D'Or and the voices of the Ralads.
 * Manus, despite never having spoken a word in his life, being able to speek perfect english once the spell was lifted.
 * Kree puffing out his chest as everyone praises him for killing Thaegan.
 * Lief showing the Belt of Deltora to Manus, Nainion, and Ethena. Ethena despairing that this means the land is lost to the Shadow Lord, until the companions tell her that nothing is lost forever.
 * The companions returning to Raladin to spend some time celebrating their victory.

Alterations
When Soldeen attacked the group in the book, Lief wasn't just tossed into the air, but got snagged onto one of Soldeen's spines and nearly strangled by his own cloak before getting free. It was a brief scene, but effectively chilling with how Rodda described Lief's struggles.

When Lief aimed his sword at Soldeen's eye in the book, he explained that if Soldeen intended to kill him, he would stab Soldeen and force him to live the rest of his life half-blind and in misery. In the anime, he just talks about how much he, Barda, and Jasmine love Manus, which he also did in the book. It's honestly one of the most badass moments of Lief in the book and showed just how selfless he is, which makes it a shame the anime cut it.

The anime lets us see into Soldeen's mind, which reveals his human form early. Still, it's a pretty good dream sequence, with some nice-looking visuals to signify Thaegan before her reveal.

Thaegan's magic armour has been altered. In the book it was a thin layer of magic that covered all of her body except her casting finger. In the anime, it is a barrier that prevents the companions from getting close to her, which she has to lower in order to cast a spell.

The entire battle between the companions and Thaegan was added for the anime. In the book there... really wasn't any fight. The entire confrontation with Thaegan lasts for five pages, during which she tosses around our heroes and makes speeches before Kree kills her. It's a huge anticlimax for how well Emily Rodda built up this character throught Lake of Tears. So on that note, I actually applaud this anime-only action scene, since it makes use of the character.

However, that's not to say I like all the beats in the battle. For example, Lief is able to use his cloak to deflect one of Thaegan's spells. This is something the cloak could never do in the books, and I think this power was one-use in the anime as well. If I'm wrong on that point, I'll correct it in a future blog. For now though, I'll say I don't like this power because, if Lief's mother could make a cloak that could make her son invisible and resistant to magic spells so long as he covers himself in it, why didn't she also make it immune to sword damage and blister fire?

Manus gets to help out in the fight with Thaegan by playing his flute so Lief and Jasmine can strategize. At first Thaegan is amused by it, but soon grows furious, which is consistent for her hatred of all things beautiful. This is followed by Lief and Jasmine attacking Thaegan and Jasmine nearly stabbing Thaegan with her second knife... which Thaegan catches and destroys... this is a great scene to show the companions strategizing against Thaegan, but the destruction of Jasmine's second knife is a huge continuity issue, which we will get to when they pop up.

When Kree stabs Thaegan, she turns into a withered tree before bursting into a yellow stain on the rock. In the book, she was described as collapsing like a rotten fruit.

When D'Or was restored in the book, the entire city sprung up from the Lake of Tears alongside the people, beasts, and flowers. In the anime, the people and landscape return, but the flowers are replaced by grass, and the buildings don't come back... so does this mean there are several-hundred people now homeless? Did the people of D'Or move in with the Ralads? So many questions left unanswered.

When Lief, Barda, and Jasmine return to Raladin in the anime, they are greeted by a party with lots of flutes being played. I know they are happy to be able to talk, but the whole reason they don't play above ground is to avoid getting noticed by Grey Guards. Also, Raladin looks like it's been fixed up since we last saw it. Did Thaegan's death repair recent damage done by Grey Guard raids to?

In the anime, Thaegan's ring is recovered by a rat in service to the Shadow Lord and brought all the way to Del so the Shadow Lord can revive her. This never happened in the books—in fact, there's never been any incident where the Shadow Lord revived a servant that failed it, because that goes against the Shadow Lord's belief that its servants are easily replaced and ultimately tools to an end.

Also, despite the fact that the anime lingers on the rat quite often, and it has a semi-intelligent look in its eye, the rat never appears again. That's a shame, because I would've loved for the rat to be a reacurring villain and spy, following our heroes and reporting their doings to the Shadow Lord.

Omissions
Lief fangirls will be sad to hear that the anime cut out the scene where Lief's shirt is ripped apart on Soldeen's spines, leaving our hero bare chested for the rest of the book.

Final Thoughts: episode
Just like Nij and Doj's Trap, this is an episode that I feel manages to work both as an adaptation and as an episode on its own. The added action scene with Thaegan doesn't feel like filler and is much better paced than, say, the adition made to the Gorl battle in the Golden Knight. There, much of the action was weighed down by characters talking and slowing down the pace, but here, the dialogue and actions flow much better, keeping momentum going, and allowing all the characters to contribute. This episode was also incredibly faithful to book dialogue, specially with Soldeen and the ending speeches. The random narration also makes a return, but it's used a bit better here to describe thoughts and feelings, such as when Manus plays his flute. It's still jarring to listen to, but at least it's not randomly telling us the history of Adin again.

I don't normally talk about animation, but here, I feel there were some bad moments. The most heinous is when the companions are debating what to do to get the ruby, and it looks like no effort was put into their facial animation. It's very distracting, and a blemish in, what is otherwise, decent animation.

While most of the changes in this episode are good, given that they mostly enhance the fight, the episode does have some problems with setting up things for the future. The Shadow Lord's rat could have been a great lacky, but it never shows up again. Jasmine's knife getting destroye this early results in continuity issues and dumb changes later on down the line. Thaegan's return promises much, but... well, that's for another time.

In the end, this episode was a vast improvement over the previous one, and felt like a good end to the arc. It's actually one of the few episodes I might even say improved on the original books, because Thaegan actually comes across as a force to be reconned with, unlike in the book where she shows up, says some cool things, then dies in the blink of an eye.

Final Thoughts: arc
The Lake of Tears arc is a big improvement over the Forests of Silence arc. Of the four episode that made it up, there were two episodes I would say are actually worth watching. It does a good job for the most part in adapting the beats, and in the case of Nij and Doj's Trap and Sorceress Thaegan, also provides us with some good action scenes.

However, much like the Forests of Silence arc, what kills it is the filler and barebones adapting. The Enigmatic Giant was full of childish dialogue and drawn out sequences to get to the twenty minute mark, and The Monster in the Lake of Tears was as heartless skeleton that cut out emotional moments in favour of Jasmine taking a bath. This makes the arc frustrating to watch, as you go from one bad episode to one good episode, then back to a bad episode before finishing with a good one. At least the Forests of Silence arc was consistently mediocre until the end.

This poor storytelling didn't do the characters any favours. All of them are inconsistent in this arc, with Barda teaching Lief about patience when they're training in Raladin, but trying to attack the giant earlier because he was frustrated; Jasmine saying they can't stop because Thaegan will catch them, but agreeing to a bath that looses the companions an evening of travel; Lief being smart enough to deduce Thaegan's weakness, but naive enough to believe the resistance of Del is still active somewhere in the world. It's horrible character-writing that makes them all come across as idiots.

So in the end, this arc was an improvement over the first one, but only in terms of adapting and pacing. Character-wise, it still suffers hard, and there is a lot of room for improvement.

But what did you think? Was the animation in this episode the best in the whole series? Are you happy that the people of D'Or are homeless? Are you excited for the return of Thaegan? Let me know below, and remember to never leave the Belt of Deltora in a tower for Ak Baba to break and scatter the gems. Otherwise you'll have to go on a quest that might end in your death. Just like mine!

Next time we will see what is worth buying in Tom's Curious Shop.