User blog:Samaru163/Deltora Comparison: Crossing the River

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

Anime comparison
Crossing the river coveres chapter twelve, thirteen, and fourteen of City of the Rats. And since there are no new characters introduced, let's move right on to the next section.

Bridge
Bonus points for Tom addressing the Ra-Kacharz as, "my lords and my lady" due to the female member, the Ra-Kacharz pointing out that Kree had followed them since Noradz, and the plains of the rats being devoid of all plantlife.
 * The companions learning that the Ra-Kacharz's food cart is destined for Del, revealing where the food for the palace came from all these years.
 * Tom inviting the Grey Guards inside for some drinks before they hit the road, and informing the Ra-Kacharz that they would be walking back to Noradz since their muddlets had been, "stolen."
 * Once alone, Tom signaling for the companions to hide nearby and joining them for a talk. He defends his decission to sell them the muddlets by reminding them that he warned them not to take the road to Broad River.
 * Lief berating Tom for playing both sides, and Tom shrugging it off by claiming to be a man of business instead of honour, as there is more money and security in playing both sides.
 * Jasmine defining Tom's actions by comparing him to animals who only look out for themselves, which Lief counters because, since Tom is human, he should know right from wrong.
 * Lief saying they should go back and inform the people of Noradz of their lie, which Barda and Jasmine shoot down due to the millions of ways it could go wrong and solve nothing.
 * The companions travelling to the broad river on foot and using Tom's water eaters to create a pathway to the other side.
 * The companions' sitting down for dinner on the other side, enjoying the instant no-bake breads.
 * A massive swarm of rats descending upon the companions after the sun goes down, and our heroes only surviving by going into the shallow water and creating a wall of fire bedes.
 * The rats eating all the supplies except for the pipe that blows bubbles of light and the fungus covered garments from Noradz, prompting our heroes to enter the City of the Rats sooner than expected.

Also, this episode has allowed me to make a new, in-between catagory for information that is from the book, but revealed earlier than intented. So please welcome the Advancements catagory!

Advancements
At the end of this episode, Lief puts it together that the people of Noradz used to live in the City of the Rats, and developed their customs based around paranoia of another rat infestation. However, he didn't realize this until he was inside the city in chapter's ffiteen and sixteen. The anime slaps it on in the final minutes of this episode and has Lief's justification be a symbol found in both cities. Ignoring the fact that anime Lief would need the eyes of a hawk to see that symbol so far away, in the book he discovered a replica of Noradz's sacred cup, so the reveal was much more organic.

Alerations
Immediately off the bat you'll notice the biggest change with this episode is how much talking and over-explaining there is. This is unfortunately due to the transition of mediums: because we can no longer read about what Lief was thinking when he saw the Grey Guards at Tom's shop, he has to talk out loud with Barda and Jasmine to get those points accross. This unfortunately results in many moments of dialogue running on and explaing the same thing over and over again, such as how much the group cannot trust Tom, or how much Lief really really hates the Shadow Lord and its followers. It isn't helped that, as usual, the anime's non-book dialogue is pretty childish, so these constant repeats graid on you pretty quickly.

Speaking of childish dialogue, add another to the anime-Jasmine counter. After her talk with Lief about Tom's motives, she suddenly becomes a toddler and snips at Lief about thinking he's always right even when he doesn't know everything. In the books this line was meant to refer to Jasmine loosing faith in the quest's goal and asking Lief if he truly knows what is best for the kingdom, but with her tone and word choice in the anime, it feels like yet another excuse for anime Jasmine to snap at Lief because... that's all the writers can have her do.

Water Eaters were a collection of small crystals that were tossed in pinches in the book. Whenever Lief threw some into the water, they swelled into giand jello-like walls that held the water back in certain sections. In the anime, Barda and Lief throw single crystals which grow into gigantic crystal spires that suck up water in a perfect circle. Also, once the first Water Eater's time runs out, every single Water Eater in effect deactivates in the anime, which adds a new action scene of our heroes getting swept onto shore by the rushing water.

As the Water Eaters are collapsing, Jasmine berates Lief for not reading the instructions before using them. In the book, he did read the instructions. In fact, Jasmine pointed out that there were more warnings involved than instructions.

The anime makes Lief a lot more petty about Tom and his wares than his book counterpart. Sure, Lief didn't like Tom after learning he played both sides, but he was also willing to admit that Tom's items were worth the investment because they worked. He even suggests using the FIre Bedes to start a campfire. In the anime, however, Lief acts like an angry child every time the other's suggest using Tom's wares, even refusing to eat the No Bakes out of spite.

In the book, Lief activated a Fire Bede by placing it on the ground and striking it with his digging tool. In the anime, Barda strikes one with the hilt of his sword... with the bede still in hand...

Through the power of editing, our heroes had enough time to change into the Ra-Kachar uniforms before the vermintide reached them. And then for some reason they changed out of the Ra-Kachar uniforms when they got back onto dry land. In the book they didn't have the luxury of time and changed following the attack.

The companions fought with the rats much longer in the books than they did in the anime, cutting down so many with their blades that the river was running red in some areas. The battle was over once they used the Fire Bedes because the wall of fire it created was so long that, when the rats tried to move around it, they were too far away to swim to the companions and ended up drowning. The anime changes it so that they use the Fire Bedes to make multiple walls of fire on the water to keep the rats from reaching them. Also, anime Lief ends up using all of their Fire Bedes in this battle, leaving them with none going into the city.

And finally, Jasmine deciding to quit the party. Cliffhanger ending, pointlessly drawn out in the following episode, and not at all in the book. Nothing, not even Jasmine's shaken faith, would have made her propose such a thing, especially when Lief and Barda were about to walk into certain danger.

Omissions
Since the white horces were cut from episode eight, the anime also cut the scene of Tom hooking the horses up to the cart for the journey to Del, which explains why no one in Del had ever seen or heard of a muddlet before.

When the companions arrived on the plains of the rats, Jasmine was physically pained by the lack of animals and plant life. It's a small scene, but re-establishes Jasmine's close ties to the natural world, and helped to build the danger that our heroes were about to face.

Final thoughts
Of all the anime episodes I have covered so far, this one is by far the worst written of the bunch. Dialogue is repetitive, action scenes and exposition are tossed in without a second thought, characters make stupid decission after stupid decission, and everything is excentuated by the anime's usual slow, drawn out pace. These changes would not bother me so much if they were done for a reason, but outisde of reaching the golden twenty two minutes, I cannot understand why they would toss aside so much of Emily Rodda's dialogue.

These chapters of City of the Rats were among the most important for our characters' faith. For the first time in his life, Lief is confronted by a person who does not care if Deltora is freed or remains under tyranny, and Jasmine continues to doubt if their end goal is even the right course of action. These were powerful moments that introduced our heroes to the grander picture, where not everything was as black and white as they imaged. But the anime squanders that so that they can have Lief act like a child who was told to go to his room, and Jasmine is given more snippy and snarky dialogue than usual. I'm serious: it felt like every five minutes she was berating Lief and teasing him, calling him a baby and a coward over and over again. It actually makes her leaving at the end a good sign, because there is no connection between her and Lief in the anime—no friendship and certainly no romance. Just antagonism.

In the end, this episode might take the cake as the worst as of yet. Between the horrible writing and pacing, there is also the fact that barely any details from the chapters made it into the adaptation without some kind of face lift. The one saving grace was Tom, as once again his dialogue and animation felt in keeping with the books, and his actor had the spry, sly voice that brought our favourite shopkeeper to life. But alas, with the exception of one apperance in the future, this is the last we will truly see of Tom in the anime baring filler.

But what did you think? Were you shocked to hear Jasmine leaving the team? Did you always think Fire Bedes could burn on top of water? Do you want to go surfing on a Water Eater's waves? Let me know down below, and remember to always bring rat repellant wherever you go.

Next time we will try to overthrow the King of the Rats.