User blog:Samaru163/Deltora Comparison: The Adventure Begins!

Hello Deltora fans, one and all, and welcome to my first entry into my comparison series.



This is an idea I have had for a long time where I will be going over each episode of the Deltora Quest anime English Dub and comparing it to the books. The purpose is to see how accurately the anime truly captured the spirit of the books, as well as seeing in what ways the anime might have improved on the original story. Plus, it's always fun to spot as many differences as you can.

For the first blog entries of each arc, I will also be sharing my brief thoughts on the Deltora Quest book this arc covers. And since this is the first arc, we begin with the first book in the series: Forests of Silence.

Opinion of the Book
Forests of Silence is, in many ways, the most unique Deltora book in the main series. Along with being the first book, it is also the only book to be divided almost evenly between two POV characters. The first seven chapters are dedicated to Jarred and the fall of Deltora before jumping to Lief's POV sixteen years later. It's an interesting idea to establish the plot of the series without dedicating lots of time to exposition, but at the same time, it is a bit strange to begin the series with Jarred as a false protagonist.

Emily Rodda's writing style is very memorable in this book. She has a talent for getting across lots of information in as few words as possible, which is good given the short page length she has to work with. However, I noticed she has a strange habbit of not italicizing character's thoughts most of the time, yet italicizing other specific thoughts.

Forests of Silence does a good job of giving the read an idea of what to expect in the rest of the series. There are plently of good character interactions and fun and inventive monsters near the last third of the book. However, this does lead into the book's biggest shortcoming for me: by splitting it among two protagonists, the Lief section of the book is very short, which leaves us little time to develop characters like Barda and Jasmine. They get across their basic personalities, but if you're looking for what made these characters so likable and relatable, you'll have to wait for future books.

Overall, Forests of Silence is probably my least favourite book in the original series, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It does its job getting readers sucked into the world of Deltora, but doesn't offer much time to flesh out the main trio due to its prologue.

Anime episode
Now let's take a look at episode one: The Adventure Begins, which covers the events of chapters eight, nine, ten, and the beginning of chapter eleven.

For this section, it will be broken into four sub catagories: Character, which focuses on how the anime adapted the characters's personalities and designs; Bridge, which focuses on plot and important details kept from the books; Alterations, which focuses on events that were changed from the books; and Omissions, which focuses on things the anime left out entirely. At the end, I will give my final thoughts on what I think of the episode from an adaptation standpoint.

Characters
Beginning with our protagonist, Lief's most visible change is his hair colour from brown to blond. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the change, as it makes Lief feel more like a generic anime protagonist. But then again, maybe that was the intention.

Personality wise, Lief is mostly the same as his book counterpart: cocky, street smart, kind, courageous, and proud to a point of overcomensating so that others won't see him as a kid. However, he's also a lot dumber than his book counterpart, for reasons that I shall explain below.

Barda fairs much better than Lief. Of our three main protagonists, he matches his book description almost perfectly: tall, broad sholders, black hair and beard, and his beggar disguise truly makes him look like a different person. His personality also matches how he acted this early in the book, seeing Lief more as a burden than an ally.

The Grey Guards have recived a massive upgrade compared to their book counterparts. Images from the Deltora Book of Monsters portray them as lumbering thugs, while the anime has turned them into professional-looking soldiers with armour and weapons including swords and halberds. I think this a pretty good chance as it makes the guards much more intimidating. Though for some reason they turn into grey smoke when they die instead of leaving behind bodies.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Shadow Lord. What was once a being described as nothing more than a hooded figure surrounded by crimson smoke has been turned into a pair of big demon eyes with a voice that sounds way too angry, and not at all like the plotting, card carrying mastermind from the books.

The Shadow Lord's representative in Deltora, Fallow, also looks spot on to his book counterpart. In this episode, all we see of him is his snivling, subserviant side, which is accurate to his interactions with the Shadow Lord to the book, but we'll have to wait a bit to see his more intimidating side.

Bridge
In terms of the individual story beats, this episode follows the events of the book very closely. These include: Additionally, the backstory of Deltora involving Adin and the forging of the Belt of Deltora is included as a series of flashbacks and narrations told with a CGI Belt of Deltora book. While a good way to get the exposition out quickly, it also suffers the problem weighing down the pilote episode with lots of exposition.
 * Lief being given the afternoon off to enjoy his sixteenth birthday.
 * All apple trees in Del being claimed by the Shadow Lord and guarded by Grey Guards.
 * While returning home, Lief is nearly captured by Grey Guards, but is saved by a mysterious rope.
 * Lief dicovers the abandoned pottery that used to house a Deltora resistance group before being raided and branded with the Shadow Lord's mark: an open hand with an eye in the centre.
 * Fallow communicating with the Shadow Lord through the crystal.
 * Lief being presented with the Belt of Deltora and acepting the quest to recover the seven missing gems.
 * Anna crying when Lief accepted the quest to retrieve the gems.
 * Jarred and Anna presenting Lief with a sword and cloak as birthday presents.
 * Barda revealed to be Lief's traveling compaion, former palace guard, and Lief's guardian angle.
 * Lief and Barda beginning their quest in the Forests of Silence.
 * Lief and Barda travelling down the Wen Del path and being captured by Wen.

Alterations
Jarred seems to have become senile in the anime, because the episode opens up with him not realizing that Lief has gone to the market to enjoy his sixteenth birthday, compared to the book where both Lief's parents told him he could have the afternoon off.

The anime added a scene of Grey Guards claiming an apple orchard, and a little girl stupidly asking if she could have one right after they said the fruit belong to the Shadow Lord. I get that kids aren't always the smartest and don't filter everything they say, but this scene still seems dumb and a forced way of showing how brutal the Shadow Lord's laws are. It also isn't helped that the voice actor for this little girl isn't even trying to emote.

So, remember what I said about Lief being dumber in the anime than his book counterpart? Well, anime Lef's idea of a sixteenth birthday is to aggrivate the Grey Guards in order to get the little girl her apple. Lief in the book enjoyed outrunning and outthinking the Grey Guards, but he was never this callous about it. Just the idea of being out after curfue in the book was enough to fill him with worry, but here he is posing like a superhero and body checking the guards like they're nothing. It's really a wonder how this kid has survived this long, even with Barda's help.

The Grey Guard's primary weapon, the blister, has been changed from a projectile that unleashes a deadly poison fired from a sling to being an explosive grenade fired from a wrist-launcher. This is going to result in some massive plot holes later on.

The anime has a scene in which the Shadow Lord talks to Fallow about how it feels a restless presence in Deltora and instructs Fallow to increase the number of Grey Guarsd. This is in complete contrast to the book, as what prompted Jarred to send Lief and Barda on the quest was that the Shadow Lord was finally letting its guard down on Deltora and turning its attention to building warships to attack other lands. This meant the roads weren't heavily guarded and it would be easier for the companions to move unnoticed.

In the anime, Jarred kept the Belt of Deltora in a locked chest instead of hidden inside of a double-layered leather belt he wore at all times. The belt also shone brightly when Lief unveiled it, touched it, and put it on for the first time. Since it never did this in the books, on account of being incomplete at the time, this is a massive spoiler for the anime.

Interestingly, anime Jarred wanted the Forests of Silence to be their first stop. In the book Jarred wanted the Forests of Silence to be the final stop on the journey, while Barda pushed for it to be the first because he learned that Grey Guards no longer patrolled the roads leading to them.

While Lief and Barda are traveling to the Forests, Lief decides to show off to Barda by running ahead of him and ends up freezing in front of a lone Grey Guard, which Barda has to rescue him from. I guess he only feels brave enough to taunt these guys when he's hiding his face and getting apples for little girls? The pod that this Grey Guard belonged to also knocked over the danger sign leading to Wen Del in order to make sure Lief and Barda would get caught by the Wen, wheras in the book, the sigh had already been long knocked over.

Barda's story on how he met Jarred and Anna differs from anime and book. In the book, he had taken shelter in the forge and fallen asleep, only to be woken up when he saw Jarred and Anna sending off the king and queen. When he tried to ask Jarred what was going on, Jarred knocked his lights out, but fortunately Barda talks a lot in his sleep and the two of them were able to figure out he was a friend. In the anime, Barda happend to stumble upon the scene immediately after being thrown off the palace walls by an Ak-Baba and collapsed form exaustion.

Omissions
The biggest parts of the story that was left out of this episode are the seven prologue chapters. Now, these chapters were not cut from the anime entirely, but moved to a different location. As such, I will be covering those events when we get to the respective episodes.

Lief's birthday plans in the book were much simpler than in the anime, and I include them here because they're practically two seperate things. In the book, Lief spent his birthday hanging out with his friends messing around in the marketplace, then stumbling upon a lone apple tree that had been overlooked by the Grey Guards. They took some of the fruit to the underground tunnels to eat, then his friends left for home before the curfue started, while Lief stayed behind for a bit. This resulted in him getting caught after hours, and having to rush home with help from Barda.

In the book, the Shadow Lord enforced a strict curfue on all people in Del that was punishable by death. This curfue doesn't seem to exist in the show, as during the search for Lief, Grey Guards were walking by people outside at sunset and didn't seem to care.

While the show kept the detail of Jarred's injured leg, they never mentioned that he was injured by a tree falling on him.

Final thoughts
I'm not a huge fan of this pilote. The voice acting is very flat, but that is to be expected from the first episode of an anime, as the actors haven't quite found their rhythm yet. The animation is decent, though at times it can come across as pretty cheep.

As an adaptation, this episode follows all the beats, but it fails in the details. Lief is made way too cocky to the point of idicoty, and the stuff with the belt is just a flashing spoiler. It also suffers from a lack of strong dialogue and tight pacing like Emily Rodda's book, so at times the episode feels like its dragging its feet instead of rushing you into the action.

So overall, not a very good episode. It has the skeleton of Emily Rodda's work, but the meat is sevearly lacking. Will things get better or worse from here? Well, you'll have to tune in next time to find out.

And what did you all think? Did you enjoy this episode or did you not? Were there some things I missed? Is there anything I can improve on? Let me know in the comments below, and ensure that entitled little girls get their apples.

See you next time with Jasmine, Girl of the Forest.