User blog:Samaru163/Deltora Comparison: Nij and Doj's Trap

Hello Deltora fans, one and all and welcome to episode four of my Deltora Quest comparison. Apologies for the delay, but family buisness and reading some other books got in the way.

Anime comparison
Nij and Doj's Trap covers the events of Lake of Tears' chapters five to ten, the most chapters covered in any one episode to date (which also added to the delay). As such, this comparisson is goign to be a bit of a long one.

Characters
Jin and Jod are the two principal characters this episode. Starting with Jin, she half-resembles her book counterpart. She has the yellow tusks and three horns from the book, but she isn't nearly fat enough, and her overall design looks more insect-like than the grotesk troll from the book. Jod, however, is spot on. The lumpy skin, nose-slit, metal teeth, and blue tongue all come from the book, as does his overall toad-like apperance. However, much like Gorl and the giant, Jin and Jod are a lot more chatty than their book counterparts, which I suppose was done so that the show could get the most out of their actors.

Bridge
This episode picks up immediately after the previous one, with our heroes still being pursued by the Grey Guards. Accuracies include:
 * Jasmine throwing obstacles at the pursuing Grey Guards from the safety of the trees.
 * The companions hiding from the Grey Guards in a bush of sweet plumbs and the guards giving up the chase relatively quickly.
 * Jasmine using a home made green ointment on the Ralad man's bruises.
 * The companions discovering a quaint cottage and a sign with a bell that reads, "Ring and ender."
 * The companions following the instructions only to be caught in quicksand and rescued by an elderly couple named Nij and Doj.
 * Lief disocvering a broken off section of the signpost that warned travellers about the quicksand.
 * Nij and Doj welcoming the companions inside their house and speaking an unknown language.
 * Filli distrusting the couple and refusing to let them pet him.
 * Lief touching the topaz while checking on the belt and seeing the elderly couple as Jin and Jod, two of the soerceress Thaegan's children.
 * Lief exposing the deception to Bard and Jasmine, though not before Barda drank some drugged drink that weakened him.
 * The companions discovering the store room full of belongings from Jin and Jod's victims.
 * Jin and Jod going to investigate the bell ringing again, allowing the companions to escape through the kitchen.
 * Lief noticing a pile of hay that looked like the bed of a pet.
 * The Ralad man coming to the aid of the companions, and Jin and Jod focusing all their efforts on him.
 * Lief damaging Jin and Jod's weapons.
 * The Ralad man showing Lief how to cross the quicksand safely.
 * Jin throwing an axe at Jasmine's shoulder.
 * Kree arriving to distract Jin and Jod and ensure they die in their own quicksand, though he is injured.
 * Jasmine using the nectar from the Lilies of Life to heal Kree while insisting Lief use her ointment on her own wound.
 * The Ralad man using Ralad text to say his name is Manus, that he was a prisoner of Jin and Jod, and that he ows the companions a life debt.
 * Barda explaining that no Ralads can speak due to a curse placed upon them by Thaegan when they spoke out against her tyrany.

Alterations
The first major change is the lack of care the companions seem to have during their flight from the Grey Guards. This life or death scene is played more as a joke in the anime, with our heroes actually stopping in the middle of the chase so Lief can ask Jasmine where she learned to throw balls of vines at Grey Guards. Baring that this is a dumb thing to do... did Lief just forget that she grew up in a dangerous forest and crushed a golden knight with a tree branch? Throwing vines is not something to be impressed by.

Lief also mentions that the Grey Guards will start shooting their poisonous blisters soon. Considering the anime turned blisters into grenades, this line is just ridiculous, and adds another tally to the book dialogue and plot that was left unaltered because of this decission.

In the book, Manus had passed out from the pursuit, while in the anime he is awake and tries to warn our heroes about the danger nearby, but they don't listen to him. This omission means Lief doesn't go searching for food and firewood to make a campsight, so he discovers the broken sign in the quicksand moat rather than in the woods.

Speaking of the broken sign, in the book the companions used it to float on the quicksand and disperse their weight so that Jin and Jod could rescue them in time. Lief suggests doing the same thing in the anime, but Jasmine just berates him. I suppose it doesn't really matter, since the companions barely sink in the anime, and Jin and Jod rescue them without breaking a sweat.

Jin and Jod rescue people with a giant fishing pole in the book, which Jod also used as his principal weapon. In the anime, they use a rope, and Jod fights with a pichfork. Lief still manages to damage the pichfork just like he did the pole in the book.

Jasmine is a lot more hostile to Jin and Jod's dwellings and hospitality than in the book. There, she was nervous about being inside a house for the first time, but she quickly warmed up to the kind illusion.

At the 8:54 minute mark, Jasmine calls Filli a she. I don't believe this is a permanent slip up in the series, but it was pretty funny to hear.

When Jasmine asks Lief to check on the Belt of Deltora in the book, they were in the main room drying their clothes, alone from Jin and Jod. In the anime, she tells him to check while standing right in front of them. Even if they didn't know Jin and Jod were monsters at the time, there is no reason to bring up the belt in front of total strangers and risk letting the secret get out.

Just like Jasmine's loot pile, Jin and Jod's stash got decked out for the anime. In the books it was mostly clothes and weapons, with two pots full of silver and gold coins, but in the anime it's a dragon's trove of chests, swords, and even some crazy looking armour. This makes my pet peeve of this detail even greater: why don't the companions go back for the loot after Jin and Jod die? Surely they could have spared a few moments to collect some silver and gold, or maybe a rope or some good boots?

Exiting the house is a lot... dumber in the anime. In the book, Manus threw a stone into the quicksand to distract Jin and Jod, then crossed the quicksand and went looking for the companions, who were themselves sneaking around the back of the house while the monsters were busy. They didn't know Manus was there until Jin and Jod chased him towards them. But in the show, Manus is seen staring down Jin and Jod from across the quicksand, so Lief shouts to him that it's a trap... right while Jin and Jod are in front of them and Barda is too weak to fight. Have I mentioned how much I hate anime Lief?

The anime gave Jin and Jod new powers besides their illusion magic and resillience to weapons. They can now increase in size and merge together into a big red version of themsleves. I actually don't mind this, since we never got a clear scale of how powerful the children of Thaegan were as sorcerers in the book, and this kind of shapeshifting fits with what we did see.

Jon and Jod's method of leaving home in the book were stepping stones hidding in the spaces between leaves with different symbols on them. In the anime, it's a bridge that can be activated by pushing a button on either side of the moat. As such, the anime robs Jasmine of her moment of brilliance where she changed the position of the leaves so Jin and Jod would fall into their own quicksand trap. This also makes Kree's return less impactful, since in the book he was keeping Jin and Jod back so Lief and Barda could rescue Jasmine from slipping into the quicksand. Here though, all that happened is Jasmine can't push the button.

The flight from Jin and Jod's house is a bit different than in the book. In the book, Lief bought the companions some time by cutting off Jod's hook and caushing him to crash into Jin, allowing him to figure out how to cross the quicksand. In the anime, Manus shows them how to cross after making Jin and Jod hit themselves, then Lief and an exausted Barda stay to fight Jin and Jod, until Manus picks Barda up and Lief damages their weapons. Also during this scene, Lief somehow knows Ralads are really strong, where in the book Barda was the one who said this.

This detail is more cathardic for me than anything, but book Jasmine didn't flinch when Lief used the ointment on her.

The final alteration are Jin and Jod returning as spirits following their deaths. While this was only a cliffhanger at the end of this episode, it promises some very... interesting changes down the line.

Final thoughts
Wow, this is the first time I have had nothing to put in an omissions section. That alone should tell you that, despite the numerous differences—understandable given this episode is five chapters condensed into twenty minutes—this was the most faithful episode to date. While I joked about many of the changes, they weren't too bad in this episode. The dialogue wasn't as painful as it has been in the past, and the episode kept the book's quick pacing and dread for our heroe's safety.

I'd say my biggest problem with the episode, besides the poor characterizationfor Lief and Jasmine, was that the changes to the climax make no sense. By turning the way across into a bridge instead of hidden stepping stones, it took away a lot of the tension, as well as weakening Jasmine and Kree's contributions to taking down Jin and Jod. Still, I did like that the anime showed fighting Jin and Jod was pointless, and the new powers they were given helped to add to their presence.

So in the end, this was a stellar example of how to handle an anime adaptation of Deltora Quest. Although a lot was changed due to including five chapters, the flow and pacing stayed true to the spirit of the books. It is the first episode I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I actually enjoyed as both an episode and an adaptation.

But what did you think? Was Jasmine right for chewing out Lief for suggesting they use a piece of wood to float on quicksand? Do you agree that they should have gone back for the loot? Would Filli have been better if he was born a girl instead of a boy? Let me know below, and remember to leave a comment to get some fresh Thaegan family tea.

Next time we will see if we can brave the Monster in the Lake of Tears