Silksong is the kind of game I would call “gourmet”. From the amuse-bouche of the Mossy Grotto to the grand Roman banquet of The Citadel, it spares absolutely no details. Every rock is turned over, the bugs hiding beneath given personalities and/or unique attack patterns that add hearty richness to an already lush visual world. It’s become one of my favorite examples of “games as art”.

Likewise, today I want to discuss Silksong alongside a few other titles in the context of a bigger theme: the fact that games are indeed art, and my belief we have long moved past the question of it.

The Background

I was very fortunate as a kid to have lax parents when it came to my love of gaming. I was allowed to play so long as I finished my homework first and was off before 9. My first game series is also one of my all-time favorites due to it being my gateway drug into the medium: Spryo the Dragon. If I'm having a low day, just sit me in front of a controller with Spyro 3's skateboarding minigame booted up on screen, and I will brighten up as instantly as I did when I first played it twenty years ago.
Other childhood highlights include Pokemon (we’ll get to that), Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, and the obscure Blinx: The Time Sweeper; I have yet to meet anyone else who’s heard of or played the latter, but my cousin and I put in a silly amount of hours towards it, and had a blast.

This will be no surprise, considering I went on to become a game developer as an adult, but I love games. They’re so important to me that my first post on this blog was dedicated to the TTRPG podcast that has my heart. Story games in particular are where I spend the most mental time as an adult, but anything from a nostalgic platformer to a cozy game can pull me in.

I'm nearly 30 and have no idea if this is the case with kids today, but being a girl who played video games in elementary school in the 2000s made me a tomboy. It was a title I held with enthusiastic pride rather than shame and happily leaned into: I loved to climb trees, draw comics, wear pants instead of skirts at my uniform-wearing elementary school (I was the only girl in my whole class who did), and sit with the boys at lunch. I even gave a speech at our 5th grade graduation about how elementary school is like the levels of a video game. But in my experience, other girls who played games back then were a rare breed. When I started making close girl friends in middle school, many of them had been labeled by their peers as "bookworms" or "nerds". They loved stories as much as I did, but they weren't experienced with games. In some cases it turned out symbiotic: they made sure I got back into a reading habit, and I gently pushed them to explore the more active medium of games that was too often considered boyish.

“Are games art?” was a question constantly being thrown around during that time, but I’d like to settle that today with a resounding yes, they are. They are one of the coolest modern art forms we have, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been born at a time when we can make and play so many.

The Deep Dive:

Let's start with a classic move—defining art as written in the dictionary:

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

This definition slots very well into story-rich or ambient games. It’s fair to say that some games don’t particularly want to be art or just skew heavier on the “entertainment” side, but plenty of titles blend these two words beautifully. In fact, games themselves are a mix of many different artistic elements woven together and presented as an experience rather than a performance. I’ll go over these individual elements below using examples from games I love.

Music:

A friend of mine once joked that I know more video game OSTs than actual artist albums. I often find myself playing them to accompany me in the car or during work. Game music is amazing because of how evocative it is in and out of context. When listening to it on its own, it conjures the faintest call of a foreign world that you could enter yourself, should you choose to pick up the game. And once inside, the music brings the world to life as you explore at your own pace, uncovering the mysteries and stories that are waiting for you to guide the player character towards. There is no question that music is art on its own, and in games it’s enriched by the opportunity of immersion.

It’s tricky to select tracks for this section, given such a wide range of OSTs to choose from. But I’ll go with a personal highlight, an obligatory Toby Fox nod, and for the most topical pick, a track from Silksong.

I’m going to go into this more in the Writing section, but the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series has made a huge impact on me, so it’s no surprise it has one of my favorite OSTs. This track, "Time Gear”, is especially pretty. There was another track I wanted to put here, but it’s hard to explain why I love it so much without a big spoiler. So instead, soak in this lovely piece about mysterious mechanical artifacts that keep the flow of time stable. I especially love the slow build to 1:06, where the game’s main leitmotif kicks in:

I can’t talk about game music in 2025 without mentioning Toby Fox. His work is heavily influenced by existing RPG soundtracks, but its the synthesis of his influences’ catchiest melodies that makes his music shine. He’s not in the sound design kitchen going wild with unusual ingredients, but he serves up a damn good auditory grilled cheese, and that consistency and versatility within what’s familiar is why he’s an awesome composer. As far as the Undertale soundtrack, it has the titchular bitchular (phrasing credit once more to Athena P) “Undertale”. It’s the track I listen to the most. It plays as the tragic story of the game’s antagonist unfolds, and the main character feels the weight of what they must do to go home. Even without the context, though, the track carries the feel of a story that is both sweet and heartbreaking, and ends on a hopeful note—the last note you hear before facing the “final” boss of the game.

Christopher Larkin is the composer for Silksong. His sound has a diaphanous quality that compliments the gorgeous visuals. “Choral Chambers” is my favorite piece of music in the game. When players finally reach the citadel after a long and grueling climb and final test of admission, they get to explore its various areas. This track softly floats in carrying with it the narrative weight of a once-heavenly city sunken into corruption under a twisted deity. It begins to play right after the protagonist states her conviction (and your conviction as the player guiding her) to liberate the city—“by my experience, even a god can be defeated”:

This is the kind of music that sounds so ethereal it's slightly baffling it was made by a person in a studio for a game about bugs and not discovered in the archives of an ancient temple.

(This isn't even the first time that a bug game has had weirdly addictive music. I played Bugdom ad nauseam as a kid because it was on all the computers in my elementary school's library. I loved going to each computer and climbing the levels while a small gaggle of kindergarteners crowded around behind me watching. The "Level 8 Night" track did not need to sound that good.)

I could talk about this for so long that there’s a nonzero chance I return to this post in the future with more music. But for now, enjoy listening to the above examples.

Combat:

Even a battle can be artistic. Games with fighting were synonymous with shooters to non-gamers, but engaging and beautiful combat quietly emerged in games that steered away from warlike settings. My favorite recent example of this is is the battle against the Cogwork Dancers in Silksong. Two bug automatons attack in perfect sync, forcing you to time your own attacks with their rhythm. Their attack dance is art on its own, especially when they briefly pause together in the center for a bladeless moment of unity.

If you’ve ever heard of fencing referred to as a dance, this kind of combat in games can have a very similar feel. And beyond visual beauty, you can also wrap narrative goodness into your fights: such as a character doing less damage to a foe they don’t want to hurt, the option to try and speak with your enemy and negotiate a way out of the fight, or having lukewarm allies step in to protect you when you least expect it and need it most.

Writing:

I would need multiple posts to get into all of the narrative games I’ve loved over the years. But for specifically discussing games as art, I had to decide whether to reference lots of examples or focus on one that was more deep and personal, and went with the latter. So I want to talk about a childhood treasure that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be so profound from the title—Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time.

I love the PMD series even more than the mainline games, and the aforementioned title is forever in my top five favorite games. The warm pixel art, the gorgeous music, and the incredibly thoughtful story work together to create a world you always want to spend time in. The Explorers Guild of PMD is the place I personally pined to live in when kids talked about getting their Hogwarts letters or finding Narnia. It’s not all fun and games—the mornings are early (Loudred helpfully makes sure you wake up on time), the taxes are brutal, and the repercussions of a failed job harsh, and yet I still found the sense of purpose, humor, and camaraderie of the Guild appealing in a way I couldn’t get out of my head.

The PMD Explorers series takes place in a world where all Pokemon have a humanlike sentience. It has you take the role of a human who has been turned into a Pokemon for reasons unknown to you. You befriend a timid Pokemon with a deep curiosity about the world’s secrets but an inability to move past their own fear to go explore it, and embolden them to join the Explorers Guild. They pursue their dream as you travel by their side hoping to recover the key to your memories in some corner of this strange world. What starts as a simple and sweet friendship story builds to an emotional epic about the sacrifices people make for those they care about, and how our bonds with our loved ones strengthen us to become better than we ever could have been on our own…even if those who inspired such positive change don’t stay in our lives forever.

This game made me a softer and stronger person at once. I grew up in a family that was very loving in an unspoken way, but seldom discussed emotions nor showed outward displays of affection (two things I’ve since come to learn I highly value in my relationships with others.) Likewise, as a kid, I adored my friends but balked at anything that turned “mushy”. Fist bumps and high fives were great, but I didn’t know what to do with gentle gestures like hand-holding and hugs. You might assume this wouldn’t be an issue in the company of boys, but my closest and best friend was a very sweet kid who was much more comfortable in his emotions than most. In our dynamic he was the one wearing his feelings on his sleeve and following my lead, while I was the one dragging him on adventures and being protective over him around the kids who were mean. When I reunited with him after summer break the year we titled each other “best friends”, he excitedly shouted my name and ran to me with outstretched arms and the joyful enthusiasm of a puppy. In a panic, I held up the Nintendo DS in my hands to occupy the space in front of me and stop the sappy hug from coming in. If only I had known that my hug shield would be the very console to host the game that would shatter this wall to tenderness inside me. Meeting the friend character in PMD Explorers, who’s sensitive nature and quiet tenacity reminded me so much of this particular boy, I became deeply attached, and the emotional climax brought me to a lot of tears. Being able to step into the role of the player was an integral part of that experience, as I could so easily imagine myself and my friend in the scenario of the game’s two friends, the tough decisions that were presented, and all I would give to protect him in a fantasy scenario. It was through games like this that reached into my heart and evoked such strong reactions that I was able to further my emotional development beyond what was familiar, a key part of what makes art something so essential to our society. Stories fill in our development gaps teach us the skills our families could not. (And if I could meet this friend today, I would give him the tightest grateful embrace.)

Atmosphere:

I talked about how much I love the atmosphere of Undertale in an earlier post. In general, games that create a world I want to spend time in will leave the strongest impressions on me. This might be why I avoid games that are grimdark or excessively heavy in tone—when I play a game, I’m looking to mentally expand, not contract. The kind of immersion I can experience when the story, music, mechanics, and art of a game all come together is unlike any other medium and something I find absolutely addictive. And it’s the kind of experience I want people who are new to gaming or have preconceived notions about it to experience.

My game of choice to pass the controller to curious but timid new gamers for is Journey. A simple linear quest game with no inventory or save points, and mild peril but no damage, the task of the player in Journey is simple: guide the character towards a distant beacon of light. If you play online (which I encourage everyone to) you will encounter other players with the same task, who you can communicate with using only a little chirp sound. Sometimes these players do their own thing, but other times, they join you in solving puzzles or clearing certain areas; some even start circling you and chirping at you when you both succeed.

The visuals, the music, and the final climax of reaching the light has brought a soft catharsis to every person I’ve introduced this game to. You aren't even fully sure what you achieved for the robed character due to the lack of dialogue at any point, but it felt important and meaningful all the same.

(When I lived in London, I paid a visit to the V&A when they had the “Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt” exhibition on, and got to see the notebook of the Journey dev team. The sketches were beautiful! It also made me think of the jumbled handwriting and eraser-streaked attempts at level design in my trusty Code&Quill. Not sure if I would volunteer that to a museum exhibit, given the chance…)

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I didn’t get into the visual art direction or character design in this post (which I take particular delight in as someone who loves to play dress up, but perhaps that can be a future theme). This was a taste of my feelings on this topic, and yet I feel it’s more than sufficient to illustrate my point. Games are a wonderful form of art that I encourage anyone who’s ever felt a curiosity towards to explore. There are so many different kinds, you’re bound to find something that suits you (and I’m happy to provide recommendations!) Of course, in a world where screen time is increasingly dominating the day, I pair this encouragement with a reminder of what the richest games can really offer you: go in to have a moving experience, and when you close your laptop or turn off your console, bring the mental treasure of the experience back to nurture your relationships with others, your own creative pursuits, and the world.

Today’s Tea: A chai latte with oat milk from Coffee and Plants. I make a habit of tasting the chai at every cafe I visit often due to the huge versatility in flavor. Plants & Coffee have a rather sweet cup that’s mellow and moreish. Definitely one of my favorites in LA!

Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup

When I first learned the phrase “third place”, I had some trouble imagining what mine would be. It’s important to have somewhere to go outside of your usual environment that is equally satisfying to visit by yourself or with others. But I’m not a bars or clubs girl (I learned while living abroad that I do enjoy a cozy pub, but that’s not much of a thing here in the US). And I love libraries and cafes, but those are places for me to have what I call “social solitude” rather than directly connect with people.
Recently, it occurred to me that cons are my ideal third place. I have been to many over the years—sometimes casually, sometimes in cosplay, sometimes with friends or a partner, and sometimes on my own—and every time, it felt like I got a direct infusion of inspiration into my creative veins. Both creators and fans alike inspire me at cons with their talks at panels, art booths, and fantastic cosplays, and LA Comic Con this year was no exception.

During my visit, I had the chance to attend a small but very enthusiastic The Amazing Digital Circus panel featuring some of the voice actors from the show: Alex Rochon (Caine), Amanda Hufford (Ragatha), and Lizzie Freeman (Pomni).

The love these VAs have for this show is so profound. This is the first panel I’ve attended where one of the speakers teared up talking about their relationship with their character. But I’m not surprised, knowing how this cast interacts with TADC outside of the script. They lend their voices to various fan projects, they play games together, they stream group signings, and I learned that they’re planning an in-character DnD session DM’d by Alex, which I’m especially excited for. Just as I had hoped, I left the panel feeling deeply moved by their love for their art and freshly motivated to return to my own creative work this week.

While I keep on top of the animation space, I’m late to The Amazing Digital Circus party. I’m not sure if it’s the jump in quality that happened after the pilot, the sheer passion of the cast being infectious, and/or the steady and relentless drip of the Mere Exposure Effect, but it’s gone from being an inescapable Halloween costume to one of the most intriguing shows I follow right now.

What most stands out to me about The Amazing Digital Circus is how much it’s grown within the scope of 9 episodes. From a pilot that didn’t quite grab me, to episode 6 with tremendously expressive animation and some of the best voice work I’ve heard in an indie show, TADC has blossomed into its potential in a very short period of time. This post will discuss both the show’s narrative and its unique rapid quality jumps, as it’s apparent that the team and the show itself have grown throughout the creative process.

The Background:

The Amazing Digital Circus is an indie animated show created by Gooseworx and animated by Glitch Productions. Gooseworx was approached by Glitch to make the show, and she specifically came up with and pitched it for this purpose. The viral enthusiasm for the show’s pilot led it to be greenlit for an entire series. It has 9 episodes and is currently ongoing: the latest was episode 6, and I’ll be writing about it from the information I currently have. I’ll likely come back to this post when the series is complete for a bonus retrospective and to see if they stuck the landing.

For a bit of personal background: animation is my favorite storytelling medium after games. As I wrote about in my Studio Ghibli post, Spirited Away was one of my earliest story loves and continues to inspire my work to this day. While I love game development, I’ve always wanted to work in a highly collaborative creative environment like on a show or film production. I’m also a member of Women in Animation and take part in both the game and animation sides. Just last year, I was accepted into their Future Directors mentorship run by a Pixar director, where we were taught Pixar’s in-house method of directing an animated film (which I can’t talk about here due to NDA, but I’ve already applied what I’ve learned to my work as a game studio director!) Likewise, I’m always following the latest in the animation world from over here on my game industry rock.

The work of the show’s creator, Gooseworx, was familiar to me for one reason: I used to listen to her Spider Dance remix on loop (I gave it a relisten for this post, and indeed, it’s still a bop.) That wasn’t much to go off of. All I understood from the show’s premise was that it was an adult comedy drama about ordinary people going insane from being trapped in a video game designed for kids. What peaked my initial personal interest was both the circus setting and speculation around a particular character; Kinger, the oldest and “craziest” circus member, was theorized to be a developer who originally worked on the program. As a game dev myself that was enough to give me an appetite for the pilot.

The Deep Dive:

There was an undercurrent of real charm beneath the colors and noise that I could detect on a first watch, but the writing wasn’t quite strong enough to grab me. I analyzed what it did well and what needed improvement with a fellow writer who also checked it out, and then I didn’t think about the show for an entire year.

When episode 2 came out, I expected a similar kind of writing to the pilot, and only watched it with outside prompting that I should give the show another chance. Sure enough, the characters in-story descent into the developer room paralleled a sudden depth that the writing decided to explore. Up to this point, the main character, Pomni, was shown to be an (understandably) anxiety-ridden butt of the joke caricature. Certainly entertaining to watch, and while she had her humanizing moments, I wasn’t invested in her journey at the serialized level yet.

But in this next episode, Pomni displayed a surprisingly gentle empathy that saw her take a supportive role for another distressed character. That wasn’t where the surprises ended. Her kindness was cut with a joke (RIP gummy gator), but the credits didn’t roll after that, and the script ran to its end on a hopeful and joke-less note for her.

I liked Pomni a lot after this episode. In general, a character able to break free from their trope in order to help another character is like narrative catnip to me. The timid character telling a more-frightened character that they’re going to protect them, or the loud character softening their voice when talking to a sensitive character? Delicious.
In the podcast I keep talking about, Worlds Beyond Number, the often neurotic and overreactive Suvi had a moment like this when both she and a younger wizard in her care witness the brutal murder of a traveling companion by the Witch of the Wild Hunt. Player Aabria described Suvi as quickly and calmly holding the wailing younger girl in her arms, then sending her back to the airship. It was only when she left that Aabria dryly quips that Suvi throws up. I found this to be a very strong character moment for Suvi, who was able to hold her own reaction to make sure the character with her wasn’t left to process her shock without support. And similarly here, seeing Pomni compassionately talk someone out of an existential spiral while she’s freshly in the midst of her own existential dread endeared her to me.

Episode 3 came out soon after and had a similar thoughtfulness to it. It also featured Kinger which was an instant draw for me. In episode 2 we got a taste of his paternal role in the circus, and this episode served us a meal of it. (Jumping ahead, I love the moment in episode 5 when he lifts up Ragatha and spins her around like a proud father. For Ragatha, who we learn had an abusive childhood with terrible parenting, that moment was both a sweet instance of overdue inner-child nurturing and a strong buildup to their conversation in episode 6. But I told myself I would not make this entire post about Kinger, so capping that off here.) The episode ends with Pomni starting to make progress forming bonds with the humans around her, not just “NPCs”.
It was clear now that emotional depth was a big part of the show. Diving into a sea of sincerity without the life-vest of a punchline terrifies most comedy writers, but if they can handle it, they have my interest. Likewise, it was at this point I started paying attention to the release dates of the next episodes.

The central theme of TADC is finding meaning in a stagnant life. It has a list of inspirations, from the obvious to the obscure—I should have looked into this earlier as I wouldn’t have been so surprised by the tone shifts. In particular, to name Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure as an inspiration (of which I also have a nostalgic fondness) indicates the writing must have a certain earnestness to it. That film is both absurd and packed with a slow sentimentality that would bore an emotionally restless writer. Likewise, Gooseworx said that she enjoys writing long moments where characters just talk, and I wouldn’t be watching this show if this wasn’t the case, as I think it’s greatest strength comes from these moments. But execution is key, and I’m glad to say that she and her team have been able to pull it off so far. The heightened quality of episodes 2 and 3 continued in the next episodes. Quiet moments were animated with the most detailed of expressions, the dialogue felt natural, and the voice acting showed off amazing range. The latest episode, 6, had some of the best mix of the three above areas in the show. Michael Kovach, voice of episode’s focus character Jax, mentioned that in his scene of declaring that he sees the other circus members as his personal toys to manipulate, he was directed by Gooseworx to convey a sense of powerlessness. The scene delivered on this direction perfectly—it felt like he was claiming to be a puppet master as he tangled himself up further and further into a sailor’s knot of his own strings. The medium of animation is the ultimate team effort, and here, all the skills were all improved at once. The writing, animation, and voice acting all rose to the ambitious occasion to deliver a very impactful moment.

Circling back to the pilot: when writing stories with deconstructed elements, you have to be careful. Unless you’re setting up a legendary rug pull (think Puella Magi Madoka Magica), I always advise writers to plant the seeds of something being different as early as episode 1, even if you want to build up to that reveal. Otherwise, you risk doing your job too well: everyone successfully feels like a stock cartoon character, but the viewer doesn’t know you’re going to change that down the line, so the pilot ends up not hooking them. Gooseworx was new to writing dialogue when she wrote TADC, so I’m not surprised she initially got stuck with this. Also, pilots are notoriously difficult to get right. I would be very interested in reading a rewrite of the pilot once she’s had more writing experience. (That being said, I don’t believe there’s a specific length of time at the desk or particular education that makes a writer great. I got my Masters in Creative Writing, and have taken more creative writing classes in and out my degree than I can count. They can help, with the caveat that they’re most helpful for teaching writers how to give and receive verbal critique in a live setting, not unlocking the secret recipe on how to be a distinguished writer. In my experience, your storytelling is best honed by sharpening your media literacy. For anyone looking to write a pilot, I recommend watching a bunch of existing pilots for both shows that got picked up and shows that didn’t, and taking mental notes on what made them strong and/or weak on the narrative and technical levels.)

TADC has a symbiotic relationship with its team, where the creator and the work push each other to do better with every new episode. Apparently a separate animation crew joined in for the later episodes, but the improvements began all the way back in the second episode. While I would have liked to be onboard since the pilot, I do find the positive growth gives this show its own sense of character that it wouldn’t have if it was a masterclass of storytelling out of the gate. It’s like the show itself had to grow out of its awkard pilot phase alongside the first-day-of class-energy of the characters, who have shown their own steady growth and added depth each episode.

This is a post about positive change, but I want to finish by discussing the one thing that is unchanging in this show in a positive way: sense of style. TADC’s themes and feel fit well with its absurdist dark comedy setting that knows when to take itself seriously. Possibly due to having a shared VA, I’ve heard many compare it to the surreal indie wonder, ENA. I’m gonna make a deeper cut and say TADC reminds me a lot of a LimboLane title (they’re a game dev duo who make some really strange and neat stuff like Smile For Me and Great God Grove.)
“Weird with Feeling” is one of my favorite flavors of media; there’s some real literary magic to be made when absurdity meets sincerity. I’m fortunately well-catered to in today’s artistic scene as metamodernism, a term used to describe our current art movement, reflects my personal taste. (Read more about the movement here and see if your favorite modern media has elements of it: https://whatismetamodern.com/about-metamodernism/)
Gooseworx has written a comfortably metamodern work with TADC. Another creator who takes this oscillation to a fascinating extreme I haven’t even seen in adult animation is Megan Dong. Back in 2021, a dark, emotional, and utterly unhinged animated musical came out called Centaurworld. I’ve described it to my friends as a Saturday morning slapstick cartoon turned 19th century opera. The final episode has content ranging from a character attempting to drown a split off/rejected part of themselves, to a 30-second fart joke (wild flex from Megan, by the way; I’ve been told Netflix is notoriously stingy about finale lengths and every moment of animation counts.) When I watched Centaurworld, I felt like I had been narratively punched in the face, gently hugged, and pantsed all in one interaction. It’s one of the wildest shows I’ve ever watched and also happened to make me cry, so I highly recommend it to any animation enthusiast. It shares a lot of DNA with TADC, up to the show creator having a voice credit as one of the crazier characters. Horse and Pomni also play similar roles in their stories (including getting ‘toonified) and carry the same ratio of comedic to sincere story weight. Though TADC is much milder in its strangeness compared to CW, if you can imagine that.

I’m excited to be following a work with a similar style to CW with the freedom to fully explore adult themes rather than heavily allude to them. I love watching writers treat their writing desks like labs where they mix together genres, themes, and emotions that often never get the chance to touch in stories. In this case, it feels like a candy heart from the Raggedy Anne & Andy movie and a tooth from the mouth of a Jhonen Vasquez work were stirred into the TADC batter, creating something wacky, dark, and deep.

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My writer friends and I often joke about how we’re like trained bloodhounds when it comes to plot twists: we memorize their scent from the first whiff of foreshadowing and track them to our often correct guess of a conclusion often long before they are revealed (when I watched my first clip from The Good Place, my immediate comment was “they’re in the bad place”, seasons before that came to light.) It’s a lot of fun, but it does mean a twisty reveal feels more like catching a running target than having the floor fall out beneath us. So what I most look forward to about TADC’s narrative direction is how much I haven’t got a clue about where it’s going. I only know episode 7 is ambitious enough to have required multiple rewrites on Gooseworx’s end to make it work; I’ll come back to this post after it airs and report on how well she pulled it off here. I hope it’s as crazy as everyone is speculating. TADC would greatly benefit from some huge swings, because nothing’s been too off the rails yet. I’d love it if episode 7 and beyond delivers on that potential.

(*Update post episode 7 watch: this is exactly the kind of thing I hoped for! This might be the first instance of diegetic foreshadowing I’ve seen in a show, and I really dig it. And it doesn’t feel for nothing: everything said tells the audience more about Caine and his motivations for why he would actively want everyone to stay trapped with him, even if we may not learn the nature of the circus and if escape is possible. It was bold but narratively dextrous, so flowers to Gooseworx for that. I have tiny qualms (I really want Pomni to talk with Kinger about what he really knows, and wish she had done so before this episode), but otherwise I’m sat and eager for the rest. I’ll update this post a final time with an end of show wrap-up, but rooting for the team to stick the landing!)

I hope Gooseworx and her team continue to use TADC to (squash and) stretch themselves as creators, pushing themselves alongside the show to come up with something truly unique and powerful. Whether it lands on a good ending, a bad ending, a bittersweet ending, or some secret fourth thing, I’m hungry to see how it all concludes.

(As for what the circus would turn me into…I imagine a TY Beanie Baby inspired dragon with the heart-shaped earring tag that generates saccharine rhymes of my deepest inner thoughts inside it.)

Today’s Tea: This is actually going to be a separate section because I need to talk about my favorite discovery of the con: Many Worlds Tavern. This delightful booth was popped up right next to Glitch’s display. I had paused to take a photo of the giant Pomni, and when I spotted the neighboring booth name, I gasped.

I proceeded to pour pore over an endless selection of wonderful teas wrapped up with care in gorgeously illustrated packages, before settling on the blend I drank for this post: Nectarean Stream.

I chose to drink it without honey to enjoy the natural subtle sweetness. The girls running the booth were so kind when I told them how much I loved their shop, and mentioned more could be ordered online. Check them out if you want to add any new tea or coffee to your collection!:

https://manyworldstavern.com

Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup

That was Toby Fox’s RPG, Undertale, which he made to prepare for the development of Deltarune.

The Background:

Undertale was developed under the industry wisdom that you should make a smaller game before attempting something grand. Toby wanted to make Deltarune since his (literal) fever dream of its ending, and prepared for the mountainous task by cutting his teeth on a smaller game. But Undertale drew in a global fanbase that made it a huge success all on its own.

(Alongside its size grew its fandom, and with it came the feasts and fights in the halls of Tumblr. Interestingly, Toby met Temmie on the platform, who went on to do the bulk of the spritework for Undertale and stuck with him into Deltarune. The designs for enemies in chapter 1 of Deltarune were also inspired from the blog of an artist he liked.

“Tumblr ruined Undertale!”

No, dear gamer…Tumblr created Undertale.)

Story-driven and short, Undertale is a rough-cut gem of a game. Toby intended it that way: little on polish and heavy on personality to the game’s benefit, like leaving some dirt on your vegetables when you eat them to boost your immune system. It’s a solo journey for Frisk, the protagonist, yet it never feels lonely. On the game design side, it’s laid out as a series of rooms and Toby did a wonderful job at ensuring every room brings something new to explore. You want to spend time with this game, soak in the gorgeous music and wacky characters and intriguing worldbuilding. While the plot meandered a little in places, I never needed it to be perfectly written. I just wanted to enjoy the variety of flavors you could taste in a single narrative bite (that’s not even getting into the core message of choice and player agency rolled out during its many routes). It’s atmosphere is thick with sincerity. Like laying on the floor with Nabstablook, it’s a game to vibe to…up to the conclusion, which squeezes your heart in a way you can feel long after it releases its grip.

And now we are being given pieces of Deltarune, the parallel story of Undertale and what lay beneath it in Toby’s mind. Many characters make a return in a modern American-style setting, with fresh faces to help it still feel like it’s own game rather than a simple AU.

I’ll admit that I missed the Deltarune Chapter 1 hype train. I was busy abroad, traveling the UK on board a real train, enjoying adventures away from my desk after launching my own visual novel in the same month. I didn’t get the chance to really dig into it beyond my first take of thinking it was the same style of humor and endearing character moments, though a little less engaging than Undertale.

It didn’t come to mind again until Chapter 2 was released during 2021, when I like many others had ample time to sink into indoor activities. Likewise, that was when I felt myself completely grasped. The music was infectious as ever, the dynamic of the core friend trio tightened, a sweet potential romance between two characters flickered, and the story further hinted at something deep buried beneath the delightful silliness. For the first time since the world shut down, Deltarune Chapter 2 made me feel something greater than my room. It collected a bunch of my creative kindling turned cold by the state of the world, and lit up a fire in my heart. I was suddenly filled with new motivation for working on my own stories, and intrigue for this one. I needed to know what this game was, what it wanted to say, and what it could be.

Chapter 3 and 4 came out this year after a three year wait, carrying players into the second half of the story. And with it comes my thoughts on what makes Deltarune especially unique in the game world: not the unfolding meta story and not the character’s subversions of classic tropes, but the process with which it is being created, and how that has informed the experience of the game for both creator and player.

The Deep Dive:

Deltarune is an episodic story generally covering the full stretch of a day (or a night) in each chapter. It is set in a small town, with dips into various make-believe style worlds rather than a huge sprawling underground kingdom. But it’s a story with heavy stakes lurking beneath the modern wackiness, and shadows that stretch long behind the warm surface light.

The mileage of the two games is the same, but the direction is different. In Undertale, players journey far. In Deltarune, players journey deep.

Deltarune has been building up towards a conclusion that Toby has been hungry to share ever since he dreamt it up (quite literally). I can only imagine how big his appetite for sharing this narrative has grown over the years. I once talked to one of my writer friends about the “burden of an untold story”. For some storytellers, the task is just in the writing, completing a manuscript that can be brought to query. For myself, I often finish writing early in the creative process, but the task of worldbuilding remains as I work with my artists and composer to construct the game environment in a way closest to what the script depicts. But it’s not a heavy or negative burden. It’s a galvanizing urgency that pushes you forward into creating your work rather than thinking about it, and provides fuel for very long-term projects.

With release dates often years apart, players have a unique perspective of a story unfolding at a very slow pace. This allows for all kinds of theorizing in the community (of which I happily indulge in myself and am always eager to discuss with others.) Some may disagree with me, but I believe part of the joy of this story is having these spaces between. Toby’s long “dissertation” process has become part of the game itself, nurturing a community that expands and contracts between releases and waits, holding in its core the hum of eagerness for the next treasure he unearths in his dig to completion.

While unintentional, the stretches of waiting can give players just a taste of the tension that the characters must feel within the narrative. What was once a lighthearted after-school quest has turned dire, as the end of the world approaches, and an undefined sacrifice is necessary to save it. But around the characters, the oblivious world wanders along at its normal pace. With each gap between chapters, these beloved characters are left in limbo, their fates unknown yet claimed to have been decided, and the player’s power to change the outcome unknown to everyone but the creator. This also makes the potential narrative payoff all the more sweet, and I think Deltarune would be a vastly different experience if played over a few days.

If I could talk to Toby about his game development process, I would love to know how closely Deltarune has adhered to his initial plan and how much changed because of this lengthy process. I know the bonus boss of the latest release is a very silly reference to the plethora of fan theories. There may be many other changes that the long development timeline informed; like the funkiest, tastiest cheese, it’s a fermentation process that emboldens the natural flavors of the story until we have something truly delicious.

As the 10 year anniversary of Undertale is reached, I look back on a strange and sincere story, and feel grateful knowing it allowed Toby the resources and reach to tell another story where it all began. Remember my anecdote about missing the chapter 1 zeitgeist due to traveling the UK? The value of a “test game” and the lift they can give you is something I personally know, because I owe that incredible abroad adventure to the first game I ever made. It was a small choose-your-own-adventure made in inklewriter which I unearthed my old description of: “A short choice-based game where you are a protagonist given the chance to choose your own narrator. Go along with the stories they want to tell, or mess with them. Live happily ever after, fall in love, or die. End up with one of seven possible endings…just don’t forget who’s giving them to you.”
I never released Narrator publicly, but I used it in applying to a coveted internship with my favorite indie game studio, Failbetter Games. They’re the creators of my favorite browser-based narrative game that I devoured the content of throughout high school, “Fallen London”. After some time, I figured I was lost in the sea of applicants vying for the position…until I got an email back from the company’s analyst, Adam. He said that I would need programming skills to fully benefit from an internship, but he greatly enjoyed my writing style and would like to hear from me again when I make a game that I’ve programmed. I took him up on that a few years later by sending over the demo of my first visual novel, not even sure if he would remember me. He did, and invited me to come visit the team in their London office. Following an introduction to the mad minds behind the studio and long animated discussion about making story games over a bowl of ramen, I was offered a desk in the Failbetter office to complete my game under their indie mentorship program. Today, Adam is a friend of mine and the CEO of Failbetter Games, and I’ve done freelance writing for Fallen London. I owe Narrator for both pushing forward my career and giving me one of the most treasured experiences of my twenties.

The path of the indie game developer is a test of artistic endurance. It’s writing, music, art, and code, strung together in a way that mustn’t unravel at the slightest tug. To make a game so in-depth and over many years with active audience feedback and engagement throughout mimics the gruelling but rewarding process of a PhD student. Harder (and more rewarding) still is when the journey isn’t for an accolade from a university, but the grand prize of fulfilling a heart-driven need to tell a story that must be told.

Happy birthday, Undertale. It ran so Deltarune could break the narrative sound barrier. I very much look forward to watching the full story emerge from the depths of Toby’s mind and into the light.

Today’s Tea: A takeout cup of Genmaicha from The Humanist Coffee + Matcha cafe. I’ve gotten very busy lately, and cafe visits are much appreciated when I need to go stretch my legs rather than stand and brew. While they have drinks from various countries, I chose a Japanese blend to pair with the JRPG influence on Toby’s work.

Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup (the hubris of choosing hot tea as your multitasking companion.)

Farmer’s markets draw crowds that can be staggering at times. This weekend was so packed despite the sweltering weather I felt like I was on a convention floor. It got me thinking about what magic they work that pulls people into them despite all the supermarkets with AC around. They answer some kind of yearning, and not just for the health-forward crowd, but people from all kinds of life stages and lifestyles. And because it’s me, I turned the thoughts away from shopping and into stories. Is there a creator whose work had a similarly simple artistry that drew in a huge audience, despite more fast-paced and readily accessible alternatives? What work was the narrative equivalent of a farmer’s market?

Studio Ghibli instantly came to mind.

The Background

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki. The studio would become synonymous with Miyazaki, who chose the studio’s name “ghibli” from the nickname of an Italian aircraft, named after desert wind. Likewise, he aspired to breathe fresh air into the animation industry with his work. (Fun fact: though Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is often considered a Ghibli film, it was actually produced by Topcraft before the studio was founded. However, it’s critical acclaim paved the way for the studio’s future.)

My history with Studio Ghibli, much like the films they make, is simple and poignant: I watched Spirited Away when I was young and it became my favorite film. Before I began watching movies on my own, my decade-older sister made sure to give me a thorough education of the American teen classics: Grease, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, She’s All That, The Breakfast Club, plus her animated favorite, The Last Unicorn (to this day, whether we’re 6 and 16 or 26 and 36, every time we rewatch it together we will belt the opening song.) But Spirited Away was unique in being a film I would seek out to re-experience over and over completely by myself, for many years to come.

Spirited Away has roots in folklore, and I love fairytales to the extent I studied them in college and continue to seek out all kinds of retellings, so for a while I assumed it was because of that. I also appreciated the teeth and kindness of the spirit world. My go-to coffee order for stories is warmth with a shot of the dark and the weird and topped with a thick foam of sincerity; Spirited Away serves this in a beautiful cup. Chihiro was also a refreshingly thoughtful protagonist. She is cautious and bold in equal measures, something I related to a lot as a kid.

But as I began to explore other Ghibli films, a similar feeling kept coming up. Even when they weren’t reaching the level of Spirited Away for me, I felt so drawn to them. Sometimes the pacing was off, an adaptation didn’t quite work for me (I much prefer the novel of Howl’s Moving Castle to the film), or the writing—in translation—not particularly sharp. Even still, they provided satiety for a hunger I didn’t fully understand I had.

Which led me to my current understanding of how the films answer a universal yearning for what is simple and real.

The Deep Dive

First, I want to direct you to an Animation Obsessive post from back in 2021 about what makes the storytelling of Ghibli feel unique. This goes into the concept of kishōtenketsu, which I recommend learning about if you are a fan of anime/manga, Japanese literature, rakugo, or just want to learn more about a unique cultural storytelling structure!

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What Makes Ghibli Storytelling So Different?

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5 years ago · 38 likes · 6 comments · Animation Obsessive Staff

Below is my more instinctual take on what makes these stories stand out.

Studio Ghibli films tend to be consistent in their many themes. Nature is the heart beating true beneath the false promises of civilization. Friendships between men and women can grow into something beautiful without the yoke of romantic expectation. Food is more than fuel, but a gift worth taking the time to prepare, admire, and enjoy. All of these themes are focused around depth and connection to something.

Likewise, Ghibli films prioritize quality over quantity. A new film only comes out every few years. But as a result, they feel fresher, like the ripe unbruised fruit you can find at the market that hasn’t sat in crates for weeks to get to you.

I’ve had many discussions with fellow writer friends about the ability of non-writers to discern quality from cheap content. While media literacy in today’s world is its own topic, I think generally, humans have an instinct towards knowing when something is produced with love and care versus produced to gobble up time and generate money. This applies to fiction, food, gifts, almost anything that can be given to someone else. And many are drawn towards the more “connected” product—connected to someone’s passion, connected to the land, in a purer state from the dilution of most modern conviencies. Farmers wouldn’t have the opportunity to sustainably sell at markets rather than store chains if that desire wasn’t present.

Studio Ghibli isn’t even a stranger to re-using IP, one of the go-to safety tactics of modern media to drum up an audience. But that has never felt like a decision made from a lack of confidence in its ability to sell. Another one of my favorites from their studio, The Cat Returns, is a spin-off of Whispers of the Heart. The characters are mostly different, and feels more like wandering into another corner of a rich world to discover what’s happening there then picking up and forcing a new narrative onto old and tired (in and out of the story!) characters.

It was the focus on food in particular that first helped me draw the connection between the appeal of Studio Ghibli and the appeal of farmer’s markets. For me and many others, bringing home your finds to use in home-cooked meals is one of the greatest joys of a market trip. As someone who loves to cook and bake but doesn’t have a ton of time for it when work gets especially busy, I always allow myself the weekends to get creative with culinary projects and practice the slower, mindful style of eating. Ghibli likes to linger on these simplest of pleasures, making you wait for the meal to “cook” in real time with slow detailed frames, and build up a real-life appetite for food that is just as lovingly prepared.

Of course, I’ll still have my days when a protein bar is the best meal I can manage as I jump between commitments, or a day at the pier with friends is made perfect with a hot slice of pizza from beachy staple Pizza My Heart (Prima for me, always). These aren’t habits I’m looking to change, in the same way I would never just want to watch Studio Ghibli films and nothing else. But the opportunity to drop into a more authentic style of living is something I deeply value, whether it be in my food or in my fiction.

Studio Ghibli’s brilliance isn’t in breaking narrative ground. The world-building is lush, the animation is gorgeous, and the writing is strong in a standard professional way, but none of those things are what really struck me about their films. What the studio truly excels at is a quiet, competent simplicity. It nourishes an ancient and endless yearning to savor of the world around us.

In the way that modern Disney has turned itself into the Costco of filmmaking—unchanging, ever-present, cheap—Studio Ghibli continues to be the bustling farmer’s market drawing the long Sunday lines, and I sincerely hope this integrity is maintained for the studio’s future.

Today’s Tea: “The Dozy Dormouse’s” chamomile flower blend by The Fancy Accent Tea Company, with a good spoonful of local honey stirred in. A farmer’s market find felt appropriate for today; this one I picked up alongside a few others when I lived up in Bellevue, WA during the first half of this year. I highly recommend checking out Fancy Accent if you want to support a small business and add some new teas in lovely packages to your collection!

Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup (this one is easy to drain and refill, but I still typically tap out at two. Back when I lived abroad, my British partner of the time would regularly drink four or more cups in a few hours. The UK tea quaffing stereotype is well-placed.)

The Background
*Spoiler-free section*

Worlds Beyond Number is an actual-play adult fantasy podcast using the DnD 5e system with a hefty dose of homebrew innovation. Brennan Lee Mulligan is the DM, and Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson are the players. Book 1 features three protagonists from different corners of the setting, Umora, brought together during a wild summer they shared in their childhood (“The Children’s Adventure”, a prelude story run to develop the characters collaboratively rather than independently before the campaign.) One member of the party represents the wizards who study the art of magic under the dominant Empire (and by extension, the humans/mortals of Umora), one represents the spirits who are immortal and as morally complex as the Greek pantheon, and one represents the witches who are born with latent magic and live somewhere between what is mortal and what is spirit. The trio are true friends, and even though their loyalties are endlessly tested throughout the campaign, their love for each other is always triumphant.

If I had to describe the literary tasting notes of Worlds Beyond Number, I would call it deep, hilarious, and heartfelt. But even those words feel too small for the heights it can reach when it really shines.
Here is a wonderful animatic featuring the witch Ame and her familiar, the Fox, as a preview of the kinds of interactions you can expect:

For a little background on myself, I’m a massive TTRPG fan with a great love for actual play content and improv. Nearly a decade ago, I got hooked on listening to The Adventure Zone: Balance, which got me through apartment solo living chores and served as my gateway drug into the world of tabletop gaming. Since then, I’ve become a player in a 5 year+ long ongoing campaign with some of my closest friends, and enjoyed more weird and wonderful actual-play shows like Not Another D&D Podcast, Dungeons and Daddies, and the show slate of Dimension 20.

(I have not actually cracked into Critical Role yet. Perhaps I will be persuaded, someday…)

When I learned Brennan—at this point, my all-time favorite DM—was going to be running a new podcast with other Dimension 20 cast members, I knew I had to tune in.

But I had no idea how this piece of fiction would weave it’s way through my ribs and take hold in the deepest halls of my heart. I had no idea that every single episode would be so rich that there was only “filler” in how absolutely stuffed with thoughts my brain felt after listening to each. And I had no idea that of all the stories I’ve ever loved, I would be choosing Worlds Beyond Number as the piece of fiction I’d tell people to check out if they wanted to understand me as a person better.

The Deep Dive

*We are entering spoiler territory up through the finale of Book 1. If the background intrigued you, I highly recommend you check it out yourself before reading any further.*

I’m about to practice some very impressive restraint. There are so many elements of this podcast that I want to discuss, but if I were to walk through each episode picking up all of the gems, I would have a novel, not a blog post. So I’ll leave aside my love for Naram and Orima’s romance, for Kalaya’s endless loyalty to her brother, and for Eioghorain’s surprising sensitivity and badass combat prowess. Instead, let’s spend this dive focusing on our “Titular Bitchulars” (thank you, Youtuber Athena P, for the handy phrase), the trio uniting the three facets of this world who are narratively connected by a unique concept: they are chosen ones who chose themselves.

Starting with the Wizard, Suvirin Kedberiket/Sky. Suvi is a golden child of the Empire’s wizarding nexus, the Citadel. I understand the pressures of being born in the cradle of progress. I grew up in the Silicon Valley, and distinctly remember many drives past an ad for a maternity ward somewhere between the Facebook and Google campuses, with a smiling clapping baby displayed above the caption “Born for Success”. Suvi thoroughly describes the way the pressure of her environment affected her when confronting her adoptive mother, Steel, on their trip back from the battleground of Twelve Brooks. But for Suvi, this pressure wasn’t just ambient; it was personal. Suvi was chosen by the Sword of the Citadel herself to inherit her grand cult-like vision of a new world where mortals have power over spirits. No one else is worthy in Steel’s perspective, not even her biological children—Suvi’s prodigious talent and aptitude for magic are too great to be squandered. If she couldn’t change the mind of Suvi’s birth mother, she would shape the mind of Suvi herself.

(Sidenote from a relisten to The Children’s Adventure: to covertly kill a kid’s parents and then have the gall to tell them you’ll adopt them and that you “have good snacks” in your household is diabolical. Steel is the sort of villain you have to comb back and listen to with the new context of her moral corruption to really appreciate what a monster Brennan created.)

In the finale, Steel attempts and fails to force Suvi back onto this chosen path in a very literal manner. Ironically, beyond her raw intellect, I believe it’s Suvi’s nuanced understanding of how to have a conversation with magic rather than dominate it that gives her the remarkable aptitude that Steel perceives in her. But Suvi’s values don’t align with the new world that Steel would give up anything to see created. In the end, Suvi chooses herself over the gilded but corrupt path laid out for her.
(In the finale’s Fireside Chat, Aabria even mentions that she never wanted Suvi’s success to be the result of her being a “chosen one” long before she knew the truth about her parents and Steel; it’s awesome how the story taking shape around her naturally complemented this above-table goal.)

Then we have the witch, Ame. Ame is chosen to be a witch at birth by the magic in her veins, and under Grandma Wren’s tutelage, becomes the next Witch of the World’s Heart. Wren teaches Ame what it means to represent this station: be kind to all humans and spirits and serve as a point of communication between them. When Ame acts out, Wren has her write the phrase “Be Kind” as a repetitive reminder. But kindness costs Wren her life. And Ame learns that this is not the exact path she would choose for herself, as reflected in the familiar she attracts (the Fox) and the fox spirit magic that saves her when her well-meaning actions nearly get her killed herself. Crucially, Ame doesn’t reject kindness. A more inexperienced storyteller would glamorize the idea that Ame needs to be hardened by Wren’s death and her own near-death. But kindness was never the issue; rather, it was the expression of it that Wren had chosen to teach Ame. Wren’s kindness was too raw and underdressed, leaving her vulnerable to those who refuse to be moved by it. But when Ame changes the repeating “Be Kind, Be Kind” to “Be Kind, Be Kind Cunning”, she finds the perfect garment; a way to enrobe kindness in cleverness and use her wit to win the most compassionate outcome among friend and foe alike. I love how reminiscent this solution is to classic fairy tale rules. Trickery can play just as well for the side of good. This is an approach that Ame discovers by herself. Like Suvi, she chooses a path that wasn’t set for her by her guardian, but informed by her own experiences and values.

I also must mention one of my favorite quotes in the entire podcast is directed at Ame. It’s the sort of quote that resonates so deeply with listeners who have this kind of disposition and our experiences navigating the world. I was knocked clean off my mental feet from being so seen just as Erika was, and I found myself wishing I had had someone to give me this level of self-clarity when I was younger:

Brennan: And talking to Mr. Callum in this way, Ame, you realize you're a creature of the deep end of the pool, and you are constantly starting deep conversations in a way that, to lots of people, will be really distressing.

Brennan: Your glib invitation for this Tamori to have a panic attack existential crisis, is because there's no part of the universe you don't feel interested in looking at. And that, suddenly you realize, is an immense gift, it's a superpower, you're tough, and your heart is strong, and there's lots and lots of people who will never want to join you there. Is that good for a 24?

Aabria: Goddamn.

Erika: Brennan. Lee. Mulligan. That was for my character, that 24.

And finally, the wild one, Eursulon. Eursulon, the spirit of freedom who became one of my favorite characters across fiction over the course of this podcast. He’s introduced as a cub in the Children’s Adventure amidst a chorus of rollicking young spirits beneath the languorous steps of the Great Bear
(some of the finest sound design in the podcast, and I’m still tapping on all of Taylor Moore’s windows waiting for him to publish the full OST. Release it, Taylor.) I was immediately endeared to Eursulon’s unadulterated enthusiasm and curious heart. His fascination of human knighthood reminded me of my obsession with all things medieval as a kid, as did his desire to embark on a quest. And when he was way-shadowed, I felt for him so deeply—I think we’ve all had experiences where we wanted to go “home”, but felt we forgot the way to get there. His reunion with Kalaya might be called bittersweet, but the tenderness of the moment overwhelms the inherent sadness. “I lived a life of mortals, and you were always on your way!” is the first time I cried during this podcast, and it will consistently make me tear up if I think about it too hard.

Eursulon is a Chosen One in the most direct sense, yet still not in the way you’d expect. He wasn’t chosen to be a benevolent hero. He was chosen by The Man in Black, one of the most powerful and dangerous spirits in Umora, to wage war against humanity. Specifically, Eursulon is asked to become his champion and wield his personal sword against the Citadel and the mortals in accordance with a prophecy. Sitting opposite of Steel, The Man in Black views all humans as short-lived worthless beings. Eursulon asks if Suvi and Ame would have to die should he accept this offer to fight for the spirits. When The Man in Black confirms they would, Eursulon is so disgusted that he throws the sword as old as Umora itself to the ground. I find it fascinating that Eursulon’s “refusal of the call” is in response to an antagonistic force trying to push him onto a twisted hero’s journey where humans would be his enemies, and it’s in this refusal that his real journey begins.

In the finale, Eursulon has won his way back “home” to the Spirit World: but to return there is no longer what we wants. What he truly desires (and by extension, how he defines the heroic path he’s chosen for himself as a champion of humans and spirits) is to bring the essence of home to others. It was described beautifully in the midst of a war-torn landscape, when Eursulon first earned his title as a spirit of freedom:

”Brennan: You know what freedom is. There are sorcerers in the ashen wasteland and wizards in the sky who believe in a word that they call freedom, but by which they mean power, the freedom to control, to own, to bind. Your freedom is full bellies for everyone. Play and chase and trust, for truly, while any yet are captured, how can any be free?”

Worlds Beyond Number is a story about so many things, it was initially difficult to decide where to focus this post. High fantasy tropes are explored, honored, and taken apart with great care. My own loyalties as a listener were constantly shifting, and I discovered by the finale I had, at some point, rooted for every possible side in the world’s conflicts. But in the end, I stood firmly behind this trio and their fierce resolve to walk a path through the mess of politics and power into a brighter future they would be proud to help create.

Like a loaf of freshly baked bread, this is the kind of story that’s most delicious when shared. I expect this is due to the collaborative nature of the story itself. I’ve analyzed it at length with other writers. I’m currently single and there are two wolves in me: one who wants my future girlfriend to have listened to WBN so we can discuss favorite moments of Book 1 and theories for Book 2 long into the night, and another who wants her to be an obliviously perfect candidate so I can introduce her to a real treasure. And now, I’ve written this post to savor a bit of this show’s brilliance alongside you.

The world of Umora is so rich that an entire book of adventures over many years feels like a spoonful off the top of it (and the warmly hilarious Twelve Brooks interlude more of a deep inhale that makes your mouth water.) Of course, a podcast called Worlds Beyond Number would be remiss not to explore other foreign lands, so we’ll be leaving Umora for Book 2. I’m still in the process of mourning, but as I often say at the conclusion of a tale that stirred my soul: there will always be other stories. In a world of so many uncertainties, this is a truth we can all find comfort and delight in.

Thus concludes For the Lore’s inaugural post. Thanks for stopping in!

Today’s Tea: I went with my early day workhorse for writing this post: Yorkshire Gold with a little oat milk. Worlds Beyond Number feels like coming home in podcast form, so I wanted to go with something so familiar it’s practically second nature to sip. Shout out to my time spent living abroad in the UK for starting the habit!

Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup