Hello and welcome to another episode of Is This Just Fantasy? The podcast where every other
week two nerds get together to rate, read and review a fantasy novel. I'm your host,
Geordie Bailey.
And I'm the last podcaster, Duncan Nicoll.
And this week, Duncan, we are reading something which I believe both of us have wanted to
sink our teeth into for a long time. I know for a fact that in the very first list of
books we put together for this podcast, two and a half or so years ago now, I think.
Oh, getting onto that.
You put on that list The Last Unicorn.
Yes, that's right, Geordie, by Peter S. Beagle, one of the seminal works of American fantasy
literature and one that we couldn't have actually done for a few years. There was a point that
was off the market. There were some rights issues. It was all off, you know, taking down
from Kindle. You could not buy a new copy. Thankfully that got resolved, like, probably
a year and a half to two years ago now. So you can all rush out and get this book.
It's as recent as that?
Yes.
I thought it was more like 2015.
No, I'm pretty confident this was going on until like at least 2020, which I realise
isn't two years ago, but please don't remind me of that fact.
The reason why I think it was 2015 is that I discovered The Last Unicorn in like matters
that related to the rights issues because I'm a big fan, Duncan, of a band called Ninja
Sex Party. Are you familiar with them?
No. What a name though.
Well, they make great, quite silly songs like No Reason Boner, Dinosaur Laser Fight, Attitude
City, but they also occasionally do covers and one of the covers they did was The Last
Unicorn because they did it in honour of Peter S. Beagle around the time that he was finally
getting the rights back.
Oh, well, then fantastic. I hope it was that long ago and he's had the rights for much
longer. But Geordie, more than the question whether or not you can buy this book, should
you buy this book?
Oh, very good. Nice framing, Duncan. But before we get stuck in, I have a lot I'd like to
say about The Last Unicorn. Spoiler alert. Yes, yes, you should buy this book. It's beautiful.
Have you been reading anything else in the meantime?
No, I'm just an illiterate savage. I've recently started a new job, Geordie, and I've had no
spare time. I have read lots of books. There's just been textbooks and not worth talking
about.
Are they interesting textbooks?
Not if you think Six Sigma Processes and the basics of C coding is interesting, which it
actually is. But no. So other than playing a little bit of Legend of Zelda, which I have
actually gotten quite into at the moment, I finally picked up Tears of the Kingdom.
Oh, great, because you were thinking about buying Breath of the Wild last time I spoke
to you. This was a couple of months ago after Tears of the Kingdom had come out.
Yes, I know. I had this moment. I'll tell you the full anecdote. So and it can get cut
out in the edit when it's dull. I was leaving my old job and my manager, my last one to
one was just sat there and just went and looked at me and went, Sir Duncan, I've always had
you down as the Legend of Zelda man. Like out of nowhere, this question comes and I'm
like, OK, I see where this is going. Sit back. Yes, you'll be right. I love the Zelda. I
haven't played any of the new ones on the Switch. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Hope you
understand. And yeah, for my leaving present, I got Tears of the Kingdom.
Oh, awesome. That's so great. I know. And I had to like went to lunch afterwards and
had to go. I'd be like, didn't you want Breath of the Wild? I'm like, I'm not complaining.
Like just fine. For my money, you got the better game.
Well, exactly. Apparently I had the reason why I got Tears of the Kingdom is that like
it was the new one. And my manager just went into shop and went, what is the best Zelda
you sell? And they were like, this one. That will be it. They were right. So I'm really
enjoying it. I don't know if this will impact my enjoyment of Breath of the Wild, but it's
I've not experienced this sort of open kind of fantasy game. Like I played Skyrim. I played
half an hour of The Witcher 3. It didn't grab me. It was too complex. Like Zelda to me has
just this right balance of like there's enough depth and things to do that I'm it's you know,
I get kind of throw myself into it. But at the same time, all the mechanics are very
intuitive and very in the world. I don't know if you explained it. It's like I felt like
when I was playing games sometimes like Skyrim or The Witcher 3, like I spent a lot of time
in menus. Yes, especially the way I need to do that. Making potions and like sorting out
your powers. Very dull, not interested. I also have failed several times to play The
Witcher 3. The Legend of Zelda. I'm sure it's a great game. Only menu. Yeah, but you actually
have to navigate is what weapon that's going to break soon. Am I going to navigate to and
which of these like six powers can I use in a situation? And normally only a couple of
them are actually relevant and you can use them cool, interesting ways. That's the thing.
It's like simple toolkit, but really complex ways. And just touching on the potion making.
I love the fact and love it is like a little bit time consuming. I love the very in the
world since the potion making. It's not like in Skyrim or The Witcher, we go into a menu
just go up to a thing. I feel like a nagging menu. I like the fact you have to like hold
the items in your character's hands and then press a button to drop them in a pot. I know.
And then they bubble away and you get the item. Oh, it's great design. Anyway, so that's
not literature, but it is good fantasy. Geordie, what have you been reading? All right. The
question of whether or not it's literature is almost more of a philosophical one, but
I have actually been reading a lot. So prior to the Orange Sugar Duncan, that's the episode
we're supposed to be doing. We really probably should have flagged that up earlier. That
was the plan for what we're supposed to read. We are not doing that episode today. Why is
that? Because neither of us have finished it. Yeah. How far into it are you? If I said
a third, I would be grandizing slightly. Okay. I think I'm about 60% of the way through.
It's been about a month that I've been reading it. And I've been reading other stuff in the
meantime, most because I really cannot bring myself to read prior to the Orange Tree for
any extended period of time. So in the meantime, I have read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.
This is my first ever- There is a name that I have heard? Yeah. This is my first Tom Clancy
novel. I've never read any of his before. I've only seen The Hunt for Red October, the
movie. This is a very different book from anything I've read before because I don't
read military fiction and I don't read extremely nerdy information about submarines. I now
think I might know more about submarines than you, Duncan. I doubt that. But go on. A really
cracking book. It's so in-depth on a bunch of extremely niche, nerdy information about
different planes and boats and missiles. I had to keep going to Google Image to be like,
what does this plane look like? What is this Russian fighter jet that was made in the 80s
that's very important to the logistics of this war that I need to understand? The characters
are extremely like, I just need someone in this place and time. I don't care about giving
them character depth. They have simple wants and needs, like being a good ship captain.
And the end of the book is really abrupt. It's like, we are- That's it. The war's over.
That's it. Stop. And everyone gets like all the characters and there are a lot of perspective
characters. They get like a paragraph each to wrap up their story and none of them get
to like see their family again or like talk to their friends or anything. So it's fascinating.
Very much enjoyed reading it, but not like anything I've read before.
I'm always fascinated by Tom Clancy. I would love to give some of his work a go because
to be honest with you, Geordie, I only know Tom Clancy's name. I think it's stuck on so many
video games that I genuinely at one point didn't know if he was actually a real person.
Well, to be fair, a lot of the stuff that is written by Tom Clancy is not read written
by stockcom Tom Clancy. One fact, one of the people who actually wrote some of Tom Clancy's
books is Steve Pieczenik, a lunatic who often goes on Alex Jones's info wars and is actually
responsible for the murder of an Italian prime minister.
I wasn't expecting to go down that type of rabbit hole.
No, wait. Yeah.
No. First things first, Tom Clancy is an author or is it a brand?
He was an author until the time of his death, but I think he basically got divorced and
part of the settlement of the divorce is you have to keep writing novels because your income
is based on your ability to write novels. And so your wife needs to have a share in
like, one, the money that comes from novels because that's part of the equity of the divorce
and two, she needs to have like a hand in making these novels because she gets control.
She has like ownership of like the company essentially that makes them now. So at a certain
point, Tom Clancy might've been writing these novels, but actually he was handing it over
to like other people who were knowledgeable about spy craft and military technology and
logistics information. Because Tom Clancy, a big guy who's very interested in military
law and technical jargon, but not a soldier. Wanted to be, couldn't do it because of like
glasses or something. And like, by the way, one of the main characters in this book is
like a five foot six Air Force guy who couldn't be a pilot because he has glasses, but he
proves himself and becomes an honorary member of the Marines by the end of the story and
gets the girl and kills three Russians with a knife.
Oh, I love a good self-insert.
Adorable.
Well, that is a story more, even more complex than Peter S. Beagle’s one. So, okay, maybe
that needs, did he ever write fantasy? Can we ever justify him on this podcast?
Certainly not. I mean, well, this book is basically fantasy because occasionally you
just get hit by a laser beam of conservative politics. So in that way, it's even more fantastical
than Peter S. Beagle. However, I don't think you should get into everything else I've read.
That's the one I have a lot to say about. I also started rereading the Count of Monte
Cristo. I've almost finished that book on like the Fall of the Nazi party by William
Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. That's it. Almost finished. Things are not looking
good for Mussolini, Duncan.
Anyway, Peter S. Beagle.
So The Last Unicorn. Very simple premise. It is about The Last Unicorn. Or so she is
led to believe, although I don't think she actually ever believes it. It will begin in
a magical forest. The unicorn overhears these people chatting about how there are no more
unicorns. She's like, that can't be true. I do not believe it. That's impossible. And
so he goes off on a venture to find the other unicorns. Q fantasy.
This is like the questiest book we've ever read. It's about a magical creature who goes
out to accomplish a goal. She reads a series of trials. She meets a series of friends to
help on those trials. And ultimately she gets what she wants. But it's actually a far more
complex. It's not complex. It's emotionally complex story. Much more so than you'd expect.
It's nuanced. Yes. It's much more nuanced story than it would appear on the surface.
So I think we've both made it clear. We like this book. You should give it a go. I think
I particularly like it, I said, because it has this very simplistic questing outline,
but there's so much sort of, it takes all emotional turns, particularly in terms of
what you'd expect. Cause when you start reading it, I'm like, oh yeah, this is, you know,
this is a kid's story. I've got it. But then it sort of gets a little bit self-referential.
It's like, we know what the fairy tale is and it plays with sort of the happy ending
in ways that I was like, Oh, I haven't actually read something like that in a book that felt
like this before. It definitely put me in mind of some of my favourite of sort of young
adult literature. Obviously I'm reading, I'm thinking, yeah, the Hobbit, like the Hobbit,
not Lord of the Rings. And a little bit maybe of House Moving Castle was coming through
from the world. Yeah, for sure. It has that breezy, magical, whimsical air to it. I definitely
see what you see, what you mean with that. It feels like a, sometimes it feels a bit
like a Terry Pratchett novel without quite as much snark. It has moments when it comes
to, I think you're talking about like the kind of comedy, cause it kind of plays, you
know, a bit of parody on some of the fantasy tropes, very Terry Pratchett. Absolutely.
Yeah. There was never a biting edge that I think was like, Oh, you're really trying to
make me laugh. It's more like we're going to play and recognise these tropes, but we're
not, we're not, I'm not actually here to get you laughing out loud. At least that definitely
didn't come across. Yeah. It's not satire. It's not like it's actually pointing its finger
and laughing at it. It's more like it's elbowing you in the cinema. You know, it's like saying,
Hey, how about this? You know? But most of all, Geordie, before we kind of go through
the characters and the plot events and the little mini episodes and quests that happen,
I think this book is just really beautifully written. That's so true. There was paragraphs
in this, which I had to stop and reread. Not so because I was my office and, Oh, my eyes
wondering, I got bored. What's happening? I just needed to kind of re go over from like
appreciate this visual metaphor that was being painted. There is almost a poetry to some
of the descriptions in this book where we really do take small moments where the characters
are in effect, they're just walking down a corridor. But the author expands this scene
out to a page and a half of just beautiful writing. And I don't think it ever gets because
I think there would be a risk you could hear that thing. Oh, God, is that can get tedious?
No, I think it always lands on the right side of it because what we're doing, it's not just
describing the physical event in a very poetic way, but it's giving the moment to tell you
what the characters are feeling as this mundane thing or, you know, small moments is happening
in a very poetic way. Absolutely. I especially think of this one moment in the story where
it's the series of events about Prince Lír is visiting Molly in the kitchen to read the
poetry that he's written. And then he then just setting the scene there and talking about
time passing. It's done in such a beautifully soft, gentle way. And then it follows up with
this, this like brief confrontation on a stairway, which is so full of unstated emotion. And
it's just done in a way in which Beagle describes these two characters standing there facing
each other. It's it's it's gorgeously done. I don't know this is an apt metaphor, but
I feel like if we've done, you know, Kings of the Wyld and it's rock guitar, I don't
know, you could see there's a bit of a minstrel on their lute when you're reading something
like maybe more like House of Moonshuttle. I would say it's a gentle oboe solo if I can
take if I can look to the famous song, The Last Unicorn, which was made a part of the
movie. Well, not actually being familiar with that. I was going to throw in a heart at this
point. But yes, it has a famous adaptation. Geordie, I've not seen it. I haven't either
actually. I wanted to in advance of this episode. I've been a bit busy. I didn't get around
to it. Maybe we'll do the bonus episode at some point. I know it's… is it Rankin Bass animation?
Is it? I actually I think you're right because I think basically I think it might be Rankin Bass
because I've heard that like a bunch of the people who made The Last Unicorn went on to
found Studio Ghibli. And I'm pretty sure that's true for Studio Ghibli. Like it came from
like people who used to work for Rankin Bass. It's, I'm sure a much more complicated wibbly
wobbly timeline. But I know the animation style that I've seen clips from puts me in
the same mind of the old, animated Hobbit, which I have seen. And there was a film. Oh
god, what was it called? I think it was called Dragon's Flight. You're right. It was, yes,
directed by Arthur Rankin and Julian Jules Bass. So definitely a Rankin Bass production
then. Yes, it's a Rankin Bass production. Speaking of the Hobbit movie, slightly parallel to
that. Did you know that Peter S. Beagle was the guy who wrote the screen one of the two
guys who wrote the screenplay that was used for the Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings?
Oh, what the, the animated one? Yes, the what's his name? Baskin? The chap who did it. I have
also seen that. Ralph Bakshi. I did not, I did, I had no idea Peter S. Beagle was involved.
Yeah, hopefully he wasn't the guy who didn't know how to write Aruman. Oh god, yeah. No,
it's a really weird, it's an adaptation which I don't think the scripts are what they try
and do. They try and get to get Two Towers and Fellowship into a single two-hour experience. And for me to
be honest, it's not the script that I think actually completely botches it. I think it's
actually quite good. The animation in that film does not sit well with me. I don't know
quite what it is. Yeah. I think I heard that they filmed live actors and traced over them,
but there are definitely scenes where there are just live actors and it's, I don't know,
feels a bit icky. Yes, it's famously weird and sometimes unsettling, but it has it has
a strong suit. And I think part of that is some actors performances and, and the script
itself, like there's a line and I hope Peter S. Beagle wrote this, there's a line in the
Ralph Bakshi version, which doesn't exist, I believe in any other version of the Lord
of the Rings, which is after Gandalf falls to the Balrog and they're on the steps of
Moria on the other side, someone says, but there is no hope. And Aragorn says, then we
must do without hope. There is always vengeance. Oh gosh. I love that. Do you know what, I
was actually going to cast in and be like, my favourite bit about that version is how
they do Aragorn. Like that version of the character has just such an edge. Okay. What
was I saying? Well, I'll say one more thing before we get to the book, which is that in
addition to writing the screenplay for the screenplay for Lord of the Rings, the animated
version, he also wrote the teleplay for one of my favourite episodes of Star Trek, the
next generation, Sarek, a great episode. So I can't speak to that one. That's not triple.
So haven't seen it. That's the one where Spock's dad gets dementia. Oh, well that's sad. Yeah, it's
sad. It is a sad episode, but it's also extremely touching. Did he only write that one? Or was
he? Sorry. Right. Yeah. Back to the last year. I believe he only wrote that one. Yes. So,
okay. Let's go. We said it's beautiful. It's wonderfully written, but it's also got filled
with some really lovely characters. And I think these characters do well, Beagle does
a main job of these characters by having them both being quite surface level and then hinting
at an incredible level of depth. And I think the first one is obviously is the unicorn
herself. Yeah, just called the unicorn. Well, until a certain point, I guess. I think this
is an excellent portrayal. Firstly, I love the physical description of the unicorn, not
just being a horse with a horn. It's going to having sort of like deer legs, a more elongated
neck, the eyes of apparently a slightly more long alliance tail as mentioned. Yeah. So
you're like, Oh, this is a mythological animal. It's not as of earthly, but also I do. So
I come back to poetic language, love the description that like the beauty that people see when
they look upon it is more so than what it just looks like. This is the embodiment of
like goodness and hope, hopes and this I don't actually maybe maybe it's not actually that
it's at least beauty. And I think a purity. Yeah, it definitely goes to a very like talking
old fashioned idea that like that which is good is beautiful. She is so beautiful because
she is so good. She represents like a better world. The world is worse and darker and crueller
because there's only one unicorn left. Which to be fair is is interesting enough on its
own. You know, I'm not necessarily obviously from a wider philosophical view. I'm like,
that doesn't quite right. Not necessarily happy with that. I would agree with you there.
But for the fantasy setup, and for the delivery of a story, I don't mind having very strong
lines of this is good, because that's what I'm telling you as the author. You know, they're
good. This is pure for wiping is really interesting in that sort of goodness and purity is that
the unicorn actually at quite a few points acts a bit aloof. Tad arrogance because she's
so good. Yeah, she always can't quite relate to the humans around her. Which is a key point
that I think is like one of the best motifs and themes throughout the book is the unicorn's
highness and and pureness is so great that as you say, she can't really connect to the
characters. She doesn't know what it's like to be human. She doesn't value humans properly.
She's, she's looking for the other unicorns, not because it's going to make the world a
better place. She's looking for them because you know, it's bad for the unicorns to be
gone her people are species. And that's kind of interesting because it's not this or puberty
this. I don't want to say self-centred. She's not being self-centred. She's trying to save
her entire species. That's a very noble act. But it's not for this. She's convinced of
her own beauty and importance. She's like, I'm the most beautiful being in the world.
Quite matter of factly, and she might well be stating a fact.
Which then kind of makes it quite fun. But I also feel then that plays off against to
give us a character Molly, who we'll discuss a bit more later. The idea that she's so beautiful
and she's like, yeah, but you don't have to struggle like you. She's immortal as well.
So and this major factor later, you know, so she doesn't see how like, well, you know,
when she looks down at people, I often get like, yeah, well, they've got a lot going
on appreciate their meagre mortality, and that they can't naturally just be good. So
I like that having that kind of feel arrogant tone.
I think we should circle back to like the unicorns arc in this story, because while
she is like the central character, and at times she is like the main character, there
are two characters I think really fulfil the role of protagonist. So let's start with
even though Schmendrick appears first, I think we should start with Molly, because I feel
like we can talk about her without going too much into like the actual plot things that
happen. But also because she's my favorite character in the book.
Oh, she's absolutely wonderful. Molly is as far as I'm concerned, the every person.
She's the most I personally feel open to be self insert. If you feel that that's the unicorn,
good for you. But Molly's different. She's had the hardest life. She's has no magical
destinies around her. She's not a wizard, magician of any type. She's just sort of,
I don't know, appreciative.
A nondescriptly older woman.
Which is a really important detail. In fairness, actually, for my most, I think one of early
on the big first big emotional gut punch is when Molly first sees the unicorn, and she
lets out this amazing lament. I was like, did you have that to hand?
I do indeed. It's a lengthy section. So I'll cut it down some more. But it begins with
Where have you been? She cried, damn you. Where have you been? Two steps foot to one
of the blah, blah, blah. I'm here now. She said at last she being the unicorn. And what
good is it to me that you're here now? Where were you 20 years ago? 10 years ago? How dare
you? How dare you come to me now when I am this?
With a flap of her hand, she summed herself up. Baron face, desert eyes, and yellowing
heart. I wish you had never come. Why did you come now? The tears began to slide down
the sides of her nose.
The unicorn made no reply and Schmendrick said she is the last. She is The Last Unicorn in
the world. She would be, Molly sniffed. It would be The Last Unicorn in the world that
would come to Molly Gru.
Okay, can you start to start just saying that? So well-
It's beautiful. It's so beautiful. Unicorns are supposed to come to maidens and princesses.
And when she shows up to Molly, she's like, why now? Why when I can't be anything special?
When I'm all done and withered up?
I love the power in this, Men. I do think it's really great to see the stories, firstly,
older characters being given a bit more of the spotlight.
And it's-
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
And this is what we're talking about when it flies in the face of fairytale tropes,
but not in that kind of snarky way. This is hugely emotional and impactful. Why aren't
you following the fairytale? Why didn't you come to me when I was a young girl, whatever
her old role was? And you were meant to lift me up at a young age and set me upon my magical
adventure.
As dark and sorrowful as that opening passage was, it does end with her saying, I forgive
you. And actually, Molly's role throughout the story is the person who cares for the
unicorn the most. She's her ardent defender, and she's always working for the unicorn's
benefit.
Well, she's the heart of the team. She's the one that pretty much everyone goes to
to talk to, to confide in, because it's actually incredibly hard to talk to the unicorn.
Yup. Unicorn's a bit above it all. Molly's got a good head on her shoulders. She's sensible.
She's capable. When she takes over as a servant at King Haggard's castle, there's a humorous
bit where they describe that, and these are all the jobs she had to do. I mean, it lists
every possible job that could be done in the castle. And the funny thing about it is just
that, yeah, well, Molly can do all those things. She's not superhuman. She's not a wizard.
But she can get on and she can take care of stuff that needs to be taken care of. And
her being there and her being inquisitive and kind and dependable is what helps her
save the day in the end.
I think I really also enjoy, and this is jumping quite a bit ahead, there's a bit with Molly
near the end where, and I mean, the very, we're talking the last three pages, where
Molly and Schmendrick are going to ride off into the sunset. And there is a description
of Molly where, you know, it says, you know, she lets her hair down and in that moment,
you know, she was more beautiful than, I wouldn't want to say the unicorn. It's like, hmm, whatever
was and you're like, you know, she's more beautiful than she'd ever appeared before.
I think that's a really nice statement, not the fence that it's because Molly has physically
kind of changed, but it's the fact that she's gone to the point where she is, I interpret
at least, seeing her let her down and she's finally had this release. He's, you know,
she can freely embrace life and adventure. And that's what's given her this look. It
wasn't about the age. It was the, the, the rot of life that she found herself in. And
because we find her hanging out, you know, with brigands in the woods, is that where
you want it to be, Molly? Very much not.
The other main character to talk about is the character of Schmendrick. And Schmendrick
is, is a very strange character because it's so easy, I think, to get it wrong in describing
him. So first things first, Schmendrick is a wizard, but he's not a very good wizard.
Schmendrick is simultaneously the young, not very good journeyman's wizard. And at the
same time, the ancient wise, all powerful, all knowledgeable, I know what needs to be
done man. And that's, that's, yes. But I think what this does really well for Schmendrick,
at least from, you know, going through it is that it's never quite clear to me as a
reader what there is when he's playing the part and when we're seeing a little bit of
the true Schmendrick. I think exactly because he speaks confidently about matters of magic
and he seems to know a lot of things, but he also sometimes is just kind of an idiot.
Yeah. He messes up in this. He, there's lovely descriptions where they, he's the gleamant,
he's a bit of a time term, the travelman in towns and he performs magic tricks and he
says how he drops his juggling balls and it was sort of good enough to get them the meal
or what have you. But then they don't, he talks about the deep magic and he's that,
has that insight about what the unicorn and what the story has to be and where they're
going. And it's really hard to get a pin on his character because I genuinely don't know,
even having finished the book, other than the fact that Schmendrick is genuinely nice
and good hearted. I would say so. What his actual motivations and like wants are. He
sort of falls into the quest and you're like, okay, you're here. How much do you care? Cause
it's not like Molly. Molly loves the unicorn. We know that. But with Schmendrick it's a little
bit like just coming along. Is it for you? Is it for her?
Yeah. That's the interesting thing about it, which is that he falls in with the unicorn
because they just happen to be in the same bad situation. And I think that it's just
the sort of programming of it being a fairy tale. But I kind of assume that Schmendrick
was a good guy. I mean, he did try and free the unicorn after all. Like he recognized
that it was wrong to keep her in captivity and he was brave in trying to do so. But ultimately
at a certain point, Molly says like, you don't care if I had anything except magic. I kind
of realized that that's, that's true. Like he freed the unicorn because she's magical
and he was interested in her and he wanted to protect her for that reason. He didn't
want to do it because she was a person who needs to be helped.
Yes. But then also no, because in that same statement, I read that when Schmendrick replies,
yes, I am only interested in that, you know, it's almost sardonic. I think he's and later
on when he says, you know, I never really, you know, I didn't love you as much as then.
I personally think you could read that as him being a little bit disingenuous and he
sort of hiding how soft he is.
Yes, I agree that it's, I definitely don't think it's sardonic, but I agree that it's
like he's saying, yes, I don't care about anything magic. And he's being dishonest.
Like he wants that to be the case. He wants to be this powerful, wise magician. And he
feels like if he is only focused on magic, that's how he could accomplish it. You're
right that he is still true. I think that he doesn't love the unicorn to the same extent
as Molly and Lír. Lír definitely loves the unicorn more than him, but nonetheless, Schmendrick
himself, like the story that he follows is that he wants to become a better wizard and
he has the power to become a better wizard, but he only manages to accomplish that by,
you know, not trying to be a better wizard. He does it by trying to do the right thing.
And that's, it's not really a lesson he has to learn. Like, of course I should have known
all along. It's just that it's like, it's the classic, the magic comes to him when he
needs it and he needs it not to save himself, but to save the unicorn, to save the unicorns.
Right, right. And one other kind of point on Schmendrick is because it obviously links
deeply into the unicorn, which we haven't mentioned, he's immortal. Small point. I keep
forgetting that. I genuinely do. It's never brought up in a physical sense. It's not like
he ever gets stabbed and doesn't kill over. It's just that he, or at least I don't actually
know if that was how it would work. Again, not presented, but he does an age. He was
cursed by his wizarding teacher that he will never age until he's bloody decent at what
he's up to, which I'm not going to lie. It's the face of the curse. It is the greatest
blessing you could ever have. You've got eternity to become good at this. Go along.
Once you're good at it, you'll fucking die. Oh, actually, no, that's pretty good. There's
something poetic about that being like telling an artist, like you will only die once you
complete your greatest work. And at a certain point, the artist who lives for their work
keeps creating like beautiful works of art and they don't die, which means there must
be something even better for them, which they haven't created yet. That's a good story.
I'm going to edit that out. I don't want other people getting my ideas.
And it's a great contrast to the unicorn. The unicorn, which we'll go on to in a minute,
has their own brush up against mortality. So it's really fun to have a character who's
chasing mortality. You know, they want to progress. They don't want their life to be
stuck in this point. They can't move forward with their life and their career until they
achieve this thing. And the fact that that means they're going to die, I don't think
it really bothers Schmendrick at all because death will come to all. What it actually means
is he can finally become the old wise wizard, which you can't do when you perpetually look
22. Peter Beagle was 22 when he wrote this novel. Oh God. Isn't that crazy? 22 years
old. That's really good. I'm sorry. I've just gone more perspective now. 22. Was this
even his first work? No, this was his like second work. I think he wrote something else
before this. That he pulled his heart into this. And I think what's really important,
like looking at this book compared to a lot of maybe more modern literature that we've
been reading, is that the focus is purely, not purely, that's a lie. What makes this
really stand out is the fact that it's kept the fundamentals as simple. The story is simple.
It's not complicated. It's not politics. It's not morally gray. It's not an epic of 600
pages. It's just really well written. I tell a lie. I think he started writing at 22. He
wrote this when he was 29. So I still have time. I have like four whole months. Come
on. We've talked about the three most important characters. There are a couple more we can
cover, but we can't talk about them without talking about the plot circumstances under
which they appear. So the unicorn is searching for her people, the other unicorns. And at
a certain point on their journey, they learn that the unicorns were chased away by the
red bull. And the red bull is under control of King Haggard. So they take their quest
to Haggard's kingdom. They visit the town of Haggate. And we discover some key details
in this section. We learn that firstly, there's a couple of curses going about that a son
of Haggate will ultimately destroy them all, the castle, the king, and their town's prospects.
And that the people of Haggate and all their loveliness decided no more babies to prevent
this curse coming true. Just the people, by the way, this wasn't Haggard's idea. This
is the people when we don't want our prospects going down, no babies, to the point of which
when a baby rocks up, they're like, let's just leave it in the freezing snow and that
will take care of that. But this baby is rescued by the noble King Haggard. And he takes the
baby and raises it as his son and prince and heir, Prince Lír. Lír. L-I-R. I pronounced
it Lír the whole time. Yeah, it wasn't Ler from the planet Omicron 8. Yes, so the curse,
as I remember it being, maybe you can correct me if I'm slightly wrong here, there's a
couple of curses at play. The first one is that King Haggard is cursed to never be happy.
Is that right? I'm not sure if that actually is specifically a curse on him. I think he
is never happy, but I don't know if that was the curse. Just his attitude. King Haggard
himself is the main villain of the story, unless I guess you count the red ball, but
it's not really a character. King Haggard is the king of all unhappiness. He cannot be happy.
Anything he does to try and make himself happy, he eventually gets bored of. He's incapable
of actually being content or finding the value in anything. Yes, he's a really interesting
character because this story, going into actually what I said earlier about it not being complicated
and not having any politics and all that, it doesn't actually go deep into lore. This
is very much the fairy tale kingdom. We're not diving on its history and there's certainly
no maps abound. All we get is that this king, King Haggard, came across the sea, got a witch
to build his castle and sort of just set up camp. We don't get his background. All we
learn about him is that the red ball, the magical creature that serves him, serves him
because he has no fear. I think that's the line he gives. And that's it. And that it
will do whatever he wants it to do to make him happy, wherever his desire is.
Oh, I finally understand something about the ending. Yeah. Yes, right. And-
What do you do with that?
Yeah, I got a little click there because something in it was like-
I'm glad that little click-
Yes, I'm glad it happens, but I'm not really sure. But now I know for certain. Okay, so
King Haggard is the villain because he has gotten Red Bull to get rid of all the unicorns.
We don't know why. It takes a long time for this to be unpacked and made clear. And the
reason why it happens is that he wanted the unicorns, he wanted to collect them because
he thought it might make him happy. And it did for a little while. And the Red Bull herded
all the unicorns into the sea. And they're still there, invisible to everyone except
him, thrashing around, trying to get back to shore, but too afraid of the Red Bull to
actually approach. So they're stuck there, immortal, forever.
What a fate. The magic around the Red Bull is very loose, it's very soft. And I'll be
honest with you, Geordie, I was wrapping my head-
It's not clear what the Bull is itself?
No, I was going left and right on this, trying to work out what the larger metaphor was meant
to be. I'm like, okay, there's clearly- there must be something here, but I can't quite-
I'm like, the Red Bull is described as, well, it's terrifying and it's all powerful and
everyone across the land talks about it. But it doesn't have its own wants. Its wants are
only what Haggard wants. It serves the person with no fear, but also really interesting
if you get near the climax, the Red Bull doesn't really fight either. It's all about fear and
bluster.
No.
It conquers, it does not fight.
It's like a sheepdog, it herds. Yes, conquer is a word that it uses, that's right.
And I was literally saying then, like, what does it mean? And I'm really sorry, because
obviously if you're listening to this podcast, you might be hoping that I'm going to give
you some depth into the text and you'll be like, oh, thank you Duncan for expanding on
it. And I'll literally sit here like, I don't know what it means. I can't quite- I don't
quite sure. Scheming conditions?
Yeah, I had to assume that it was sort of like a desire to control, a desire to take
things selfishly. Like, it's a sort of manifestation of King Haggard's greed, but he wants to keep
these unicorns and it's uncompromising. So yeah, in my view, in the same way that like
the unicorns represent all that is good, this red bull is their opposite. It represents
all that is wicked and evil.
When I was watching a music video for The Last Unicorn song, my partner walked up behind
me, looked over my shoulder, pointed the red bull and said, what is that thing? And me,
having not finished a book yet, shrugged and said, I don't know, Satan maybe?
I mean, fair. I think there's definitely an element there that links the red bull back
to the fact that it says Haggard because Haggard has no fear. So it's only control is fear.
It's not an actual threat. I couldn't quite pin that into the real world, but I think
it's a nice motif for a villain anyway. That, you know, the only thing to fear is fear itself.
Oh, it's very Dune actually. I see, I see where we're going now.
And overcoming a bit, I'm jumping way too near the end. So we've got to roll back because
there are other points I want to hit on before I get to this next bit.
Exactly. So, and I think to do that, we need to talk about Prince Lír. So King Haggard
is his father. Prince Lír is this boy who is raised by Haggard in his castle and who
is extremely important in the latter part of the book in terms of getting the unicorn
to complete her arc. I guess really what we need to say is right before they get to Haggate
is they are confronted by the red bull. It shows up and it chases down the unicorn in
a very beautiful scene. It's incredibly well written and Molly begs Schmendrick to save
the unicorn somehow, to use his magic. And for the first time, he actually manages to
come into his own and he casts a spell to change the unicorn. And there's this great
thing in this book, this great theme, which says like how like crazy it is to actually
change something, to change something's nature and how one thing after it's been changed
can't possess the same attributes that it used to. He changes the unicorn from being
a unicorn into being a woman, a mouthier, lady a mouthier. And the unicorn is gutted
by this, even though it saves her from the red bull. It can't chase her anymore because
it's looking for a unicorn, not a woman. And she's outraged by this because previously
she was perfect. She was the best thing in the world. And now she's some lady. Yes, very
beautiful, but not as beautiful as a unicorn.
Yes, and the kind of implication here, there is actually a backstory. This is foreshadowing
the book. Schmendrick tells the unicorn a story of his master, Nikos, doing a similar thing
and the talks of, you know, you can't go back once you have no life, not as a unicorn.
So we get a set of how devastating this is going to be, but it's also the part where
the unicorn really starts their arc. She now has this moment to like, okay, I've almost
looked down on humans for not being as perfect as me. Now I am one. Now I've got to slowly
learn to relate and appreciate humanity a tad more, bit by bit.
Well, not quite, because what it kind of sounds like you're saying is a much less nuanced
story. That would be something like, there are plenty of movies made about like angels
who turn into human beings and learn to appreciate life as a lesser being. This isn't about-
Actually, Geordie, can I just stop you there and say what this actually is?
That would be, you said movies about angels. No, this is any film where some like rich
person ends up slumming it a bit and then discovers, oh, it's actually quite nice down
on the working classes, like Titanic style. That would be what that would be. Can't stand
it, don't like it. Anyway, but it's not that. It is better.
I hear what you're saying. Yes. But the more significant thing is that once you're a human,
you aren't a unicorn anymore and you start to lose the things about you that make you
a unicorn. So she had, when she first transformed, she still has like some of her magical powers,
but not all of them. And she loses the one she does have, but she also loses her memories
of being a unicorn. She slowly forgets. And once you've forgotten something, well, you
aren't that thing anymore. So at a certain point, she is just a human and a quite confused
one at that.
I think there's a small section where she even talks about, you know, better to have
died as a perfect unicorn. And then at least I would have existed, you know, forever as
that untainted. God, how dare she be tainted. The gold star unicorn. Now she's tainted by
humanity. But this then leads us on to the last third of the book. I love that some of
the, we've really jumped over the literal questing episodes. They're all quite good.
There's a harpy, a tree that falls off of the man and some Robin Hood bits, but this
is where the real heart is.
Yeah. I liked the zoo at the beginning. That was interesting. But yes, I have deliberately
stepped over those because they're not going to actually enrich our discussion of what
the book is like, like or about their fun adventures and they're likable enough, but
it's not what the book's about.
No. And you, they were, they're only really, as we talk about the literal episodes, they're
only actually there to introduce the relevant characters fundamentally to the story.
Yeah. It's like journey to the West. They introduce the different members of the gang.
So we get to Haggard's castle and we meet Prince Leia and Haggard. And I really like
these, this first initial interaction because talking about the comedy side of things, this
is actually the only bit that maybe kind of did get chuckle out of me is that we meet
the two guards out front doing a little, little routine. Who's that? What are you doing here?
Gosh, isn't she beautiful? We want to meet the king. Fine. I'll take you to the king.
And these two guys march off. There's an older one and a younger one. And then they throw
the doors open to the disheveled throne room in Schmendrick’s like the king wouldn't possibly
be here. And then the old guard just turns around and goes, I am King Haggard. I'm too
cheap to pay for another guard.
It is a good bit actually. I like that. But yeah. Um, and Prince Leia, his introduction
to the unicorn is not as the unicorn. It says Lady Amalthea, her human alter ego, and he
falls in love with her at first sight because again, this is a fairy tale and very explicitly,
this is what she should brought up later, which is that the reason why he's fallen in
love with her so hard, so fast is that he's lived his whole life in King Haggard's castle,
which sucks. Like there's nothing nice there. He doesn't have anything to make him happy.
There's nothing there for him to enjoy or people for him to meet. So when he sees this
incredibly beautiful woman, he says, it's like I was brought to life for the first time.
Now this is a bit of an interesting moment though, Geordie, because the character of
Prince Leia is actually introduced earlier on to have already been engaged.
That was so, yeah, that bit.
It's a little detail. It's like you're not meant to think about it, but it is one of
those ones where you went, that was a curious bit to be slotted in there because that does
fly slightly in the face of what we're chatting about. But, and then my brain-
It does feel a teeny bit first drafty that, you know, like Prince Leia did show up earlier
and then like kind of teleports into a different part of the book.
I just like that connection. So we meet Prince Leia, not knowing it's him, with another woman
earlier on in the book in one of his little episodes, but it's just the prince in that
scene. And then later he's like, I was the prince from that scene and I've broken my
engagement off with that woman you saw me with. I'm like, you didn't have to be related.
I don't think it adds to the point and brings up way too many questions about Haggard's
attempts at geopolitics in this kingdom. And I don't need, we don't need, but anyway.
So you were reading a magazine. What the fuck?
Oh my gosh, yeah. Oh, too many questions.
What year is it?
Prince Leia has a magazine.
No, it's the classic like once and future king shit where it's like, that's a version
of King Arthur where like people go to Eton. It's like, don't think about it. Don't think
about it. Does this exist in a time and place? No, shut up.
But we get this lovely scene and along the lines of it, I actually thought just going
back to that little comedy bit at the start, I know it's meant to be how awful Haggard
is and like, you know, how down-trodden they all are in his castle. I did, a bit of me
think it almost came across as kind of sweet that he literally spent his day standing guard
with his son. For the little cute.
Yeah, but it wasn't horse and father-son bonding activity. He's just too cheap.
Quite right, quite right. As we learn later, there are but four men at arms in this castle.
And until Molly came, no other servants.
Just enough to think, maybe you'll think there's actually an army there.
Again, lovely tie-in. It's not about actually having any power. It's the fear of it. Good
little linking with the red ball there.
But yes, they come here.
Oh, Duncan, you're on fire today.
I know, I know, my very best. So they come to the castle and Schmendrick spins his tail.
Again, actually, I think one of the more funny scenes where Schmendrick convinces Haggard to
take him on as his court magician and fire the other bloke who has a proper tantrum about
it.
Yeah, he shows him and says, listen, I'm not a very good wizard. And you have a much better
one on staff now. But you should fire him and hire me because you have a really competent
magician and he hasn't made you happy. So maybe I will.
Just incredible logic. Just like that bit, we're talking about like Terry Pratchettisms.
That was a little bit of Terry Pratchettisms of like fluctuating logic.
Oh yeah, that's something that, no, I was Douglas Adams. That's something that Ford
Prefect would say.
Yes, you're right. Right in with hitchhikers.
I should try that in a job interview. So why should we hire you? You know nothing. And
previously you've hired people who knew something. Did they get the job done?
Right. So that's the guy and he accepts and they come into the castle. And what plays
out next is actually meant to be over quite a time span. I think there's a number of months
there in sort of wintering in this castle.
Oh yeah, it's a long period of time. There's like two, three separate time skips, because
there's a period of time where Prince Lír is trying to like woo the Lady Amalthea. And
he does this by doing all the stuff you'd expect from a prince in fairy tales. He's
like saying, I brought her three separate dragon heads and she still doesn't return
my affections.
Prince Lír, I think this character could so very easily come across as arrogant and
unlikable and too presumptuous.
Exactly. It started off from like, I'm so wary of this guy because I think he's going
to be a total tool. I'm so surprised they come round on him really fast. And I think
it's just because he's kind of awkward himbo.
I think what they do really well is that they establish that, I say it's not his fault,
he has been effectively indoctrinated into the one way of doing things. He's sat there
and he's like, this is the only, he like laments to Molly. He's like, I don't, I know no other
ways. This is the only way people have ever told me I can woo a woman. I'm a hero. This
is what I do. And so that's, that kind of-
When Molly says, maybe you should try writing some poetry. He's like, yeah, I'll do that
right now. And then he immediately starts writing extremely bad poetry.
And then that makes him more endearing. The fact that he's open to new ideas. I think
that's the crux, I think, which keeps him on the right side. That since he like has a
bit, someone goes with a different idea, he's like, sure, I'll give that a go.
And it's not like I'm ever like, hell yeah, Prince Lír and the unicorn should get together.
But I do think it's sweet in the end how it goes, you know?
I do too. And finally, we've caught up to that moment when we were chatting about the
Red Bull earlier and I was like, okay, we've got to back up. We've got to back up. Yeah.
It gets really sweet because I think what we see here is the almost what could have
been as the unicorn becomes more human. And I like the fact that they never really, they
talk about them like falling in love and Lír is very much in love with the unicorn or Lady
and Amalthea. And I thought that, I don't think it's made clear that they like don't even
ever really touch, like hold hands.
No, no, they, they explicitly don't, I think. Like, even at the very end, like as they're
facing the Red Bull, Schmendrick like looks to them to hold hands and they don't. And
I think that's partly because like, it's like the unicorn's magic, she's holding back even
though she doesn't know why, because she expects her powers to have great consequence and she's
sort of afraid of the fact she doesn't have that power anymore.
See, no, I interpreted it as it's the human, it's a human response. Like, if you're two
people and you know, you're scared, you reach out to each other. So it's the fact that it's
that little bit of her true nature of being a unicorn that means she doesn't reach out
to another unicorns of established as being solitary creatures in this world. It's not
in her nature to reach out to someone.
We should make clear that it's like, it's instinctive this point, because at this point
Amalthea has no memory of being a human. She's been a human for pretty much many months,
like seasons change in the meantime. She has no actual memory. She dreams of being a unicorn
and she doesn't know what she's dreaming about and these dreams frighten her. And that's
actually part of what like draws her to Lír is like some sense of safety with him that
would protect her from her own dreams.
Eventually, though, King Haggard figures out or has always known that she was a unicorn
and they managed to crack the riddle of how to how to get to his secret underground lair
where he keeps the red bull which which which keeps the unicorns captive. And I do like
the scene where they like managed to crack the riddle by like, sort of like bending the
rules a little bit of the way things like Do you remember what the riddle is itself?
What I remember is that I love a talking cat. And I love the fact when he goes, Can you
all talk and they're just like, when we feel like it. Again, very difficult. Honestly,
I think actually the comedy actually really ticks up in like Haggard's castle.
I think you're right. I think it's because there isn't a lot of like adventure going
on if they get to just sort of sit around and chat. And it also just gets to be like
Schmendrick just gets a lot sadder as a character now that he doesn't have to like do anything.
He was important before. And now he can't like progress or get better at magic. So he's
just sort of bumming around feeling sorry for himself. There's a good bit where they
ask him how to spell miracle “how many Rs are there?” and he says “two, it’s from the same
root as mirror.”
Oh, it's really interesting. This book really has some very, that feel very distinct sections.
Like I do actually have to say that the way the book is written and pace just feels very
different at the point. I do feel like this book was written on a sort of a Tolkien style
that grew in the telling. This might even predate Lord of the Rings. Definitely doesn't
predate the Hobbit. It was in the 50s.
It's from the 60s.
Okay, fair enough. So it doesn't predate any of that. But that the writing style was still
kind of like changing and chopping as we move through. So you put back to the riddle. Yes,
the cat and the skull. Let it upon me, Geordie.
Yes. So so I like this section because and I thought Fred, I don't remember the exact
wording of the riddle, but it's essentially three impossible things need to happen. Was
it the wine needs to drink itself? A skull needs to talk and clock needs to strike the
hour. And these things are impossible because one heads don't talk to wine can't drink
itself. And three, the clock in question is broken and like, can't be relied upon at all.
It sometimes strikes like 17 o'clock.
So how do they get around this Geordie? And the talking skull is quite straightforward.
They magic a skull to talk.
I think it always could talk. They just have to persuade it to, right?
You're quite right. It's actually been set there to guard the entrance to the Red Balls
cave.
Yeah, they just sort of need to convince it to talk by like, flashering it or like, or
persuading it or blackmailing it. And then the wine I didn't get, I just didn't understand
how Schmendrick like qualified that part of the riddle.
It was an empty wine bottle that he talks to the skull to drink to the memory of what
the skull remembered wine used to taste like. And that qualified as drinking itself. I think.
I think that might be right. But I don't understand why that fulfils the qualification. And then
they just walked through the clock. The clock just was like,
No, that was another major factor. The fact that the wine seemed unrelated to opening
the passageway, you just had to sort of know you could walk through the clock and walk
through it. And you'd be magically teleported somewhere.
I guess it was just like a series of quite bad instructions, really, as opposed to like,
a series of things you had to accomplish. But yes, they walk through the clock and that
leads them to the final confrontation. They have to get past the Red Ball. King Haggard
is after them. He's been alerted by the skull that they're intruding. And this leads
to a really beautiful end to the story. There's a lot of the beautifulness this book is, the
climax and the ending are some of the strongest of any book we've read so far.
I'm very inclined to agree. One thing I did notice is that these last couple of chapters
did get significantly longer as the book went on. That's true.
And not that it's like a bad thing in any way. But I do think this book benefits from
such a strong ending. Like, it finishes on such a powerful note, like full on 10 out
of 10, that maybe some of the earlier sections, if I'd ranked like seven or eight out of 10,
don't matter at this point. This is a 10 out of 10 experience.
Totally, yeah. Yeah, the full experience of reading a book is so strong that the whole
part of it feels elevated. I'm just saying that in comparison quickly,
this is the same way though, that I might say like, I love The Hobbit. The Hobbit's
one of my favourite books of all time. But with The Hobbit, I wouldn't say that the ending
is the clincher that brings it all together. I actually often think it's a little bit of
a dull letdown. Once the dragon's dealt with, I find the books, you know, you've got to
get to the end. It's the little episodes that just make it. The trolls, riddles in the dark,
those are the high points. Whereas this is very much not that case.
They really ended The Hobbit where he goes back home with Gandalf and Bjorn for a certain
part of the way. And they say, his journey home was not without event. The wild was still
the wild. But obviously it was so unimportant and uninteresting to Tolkien himself that
he's just like, ah, da da da da da da da da, move over that.
Great ending in its own way, but not the same as this one. So we finally caught back up
to what I was talking about earlier. Want something I really like? So we're descending
just to set the scene, people. The castle is on the bluffs above the sea. So high up
in the battlements, King Haggard looks on, watching the waves and the unicorns trapped
there. We're going down a cave system inside the cliff to presumably the Red Bull's lair
that will then lead out of a big cave onto the beach and then to the sea itself.
Okay, so that's the setup. And if we go down the cave, we get so much of the thought process.
We get that Lady Amalia, Amalthea, is leading the way. Amalthea, Amalgamthea. Amalgamthea.
Excellent. That's a planet in the Hitchhikers. So leading the way, everyone's following her.
Just put the glow of her. And I really enjoy the fact that there's a bit where Schmendrick
is surprised because he thought at this point they're debating, they're like, what are we
going to do? Because we could be facing the Red Bull and Schmendrick's like, and I'll turn
her back into a unicorn and she'll kill the bull and free the unicorns and that will be
the end of our story. But then there's a bit of him as he looks at Lír and talks to Amalthea
as well. It's all going on. That Lír's in love with her and she is possibly taking a
fancy to him, not maybe in a direct way, growing fondness. No, she's very much in love with
him at this point, but she doesn't realize that she shouldn't be. She doesn't remember
that she's not a human. So she has all of the humans feelings. She has love and a fear
of death and stuff like that. And in this moment, I love the fact that Schmendrick's almost
arguing with himself. He's like, I know how fairy tales have to go. I know that the first
like these two can't be together because we have to save the unicorns. And this is a really
cool bit where he goes, well, I don't know, actually, maybe if they sneak off and live
happily ever after together, just the two of them, and we forget about the unicorns,
maybe that'll be happy. Maybe that's an ending in itself. It's not a bad ending. People will
go for that ending. At no point do I think this is actually like a meta commentary. I
don't think Peter B ever thought that that would be his ending. He knows where he's going,
but I love that he really plays with the audience because I'm there like, yeah, I actually don't
know how I would feel about that. What ending do I want? Do I get to pick? Is this an ice
cream counter? Exactly. Yeah. There's something great about the fact that it's that it's acknowledging
right from the start, like there isn't really a happy way to end this. You can't get everything
you want. No one is going to be totally happy at the end of this story, even after the villain
is defeated. And the sad part begins when the unexpectedly run into the Red Bull too
early. Yes, the Red Bull, and this is where we really hand over to the more poetic descriptions
because the Red Bull has snuck up the passageway towards them, but I love how it's described
that it's almost become one with the rock. Like it both fills the whole space yet isn't
physically filling the whole space. There is something kind of ethereal about the description
of the Red Bull, similar to how the unicorns describe. Absolutely. The Red Bull is like
fire. It fills the space it's in and it becomes as immense as it needs to be. Like at a certain
point it's described as being like so large that you couldn't possibly miss it and yet
it's gone. It very much then leads into that metaphor of the Red Bull is fear. It is whatever
it needs to be for you to be scared of it. Because even though it's like so large that
like it fills the entire passageway, like when people throw themselves aside to get
away from it, they don't get hit by it. Like if they're trying to avoid it and hide from
it, it can't really like touch them. This goes on to several points. I love the fact that
I think it's Schmendrick who's almost wondering, he's like, it should have just killed us all
there but it didn't, you know, but it scattered them. They're alone, they're isolated, they've
all jumped in different directions and it sort of then feeds into that element. You
know, it, I'm not, well we learn, it definitely can hurt you physically, but it's almost,
it's not in its nature to. Its nature is to scare you. That's right, it says, it's to
scare you to conquer, not to kill. And so catch me, I think I, because I listened to
this in an audiobook, I think I literally missed the exact second this happens Duncan,
but Schmendrick works one more great feat of magic and he turns the Lady Amalthea back into
the unicorn, right? There was a moment before that that is really
important where Lady Amalthea, as she gets thrown to the side, she's injured. Lír's
weapons, as he takes them out to face down the Red Bull, they turn scorching hot in his
hands and he drops them and they shatter like ice. Yet in that moment Lír still takes his
stand, holding his hands up as if he still was holding his sword and shield and faces
down the bull. There's a funny bit where he sticks his tongue in the side of his mouth
and always looks like a small child, but Schmendrick sees him conquering his fear and that's the
important point that Schmendrick realises about his magic. There's a lovely description where
we get told about the future, Schmendrick would go on and his name would be greater than all
of his masters before him and every time he would cast great magic he would picture Lír
standing there looking a bit foolish conquering his fear and that's what unlocks the power
within him. And that starts off the great end theme of
the story which is that the bull represents fear so it has to be conquered by courage
and Lír has the courage to face it even though he has no power to stop it and what has to
happen is the unicorn needs to find that same courage. She and every other unicorn up to
that point has run away when confronted by the bull so somehow she needs to find the
courage to face it. So Schmendrick casts one more great feat of magic, he transforms the
lady Amalthea back into the unicorn. The red bull starts to chase the unicorn again because
that's what he's programmed to do and because she keeps running from it the bull has power
over her and Lír, this is such a beautiful moment, Lír demands, he's finally found out
that his girlfriend is a unicorn, he doesn't seem too put out by this, he wants the unicorn
to be saved and he demands that Schmendrick save her, Schmendrick says he can't and then
Lír says then what is magic for? Lír demanded wildly, what use is wizardry if it cannot
save a unicorn? He gripped the magician's shoulder hard to keep from falling. Schmendrick
did not turn his head, with a touch of sad mockery in his voice he said that's what
heroes are for. Go on, go on Peter, solid line there, just hits you right in the chest.
So what happens is guided by these words, Lír throws himself before the bull in between
it and the unicorn and is trampled to death. Every time they try to avoid the bull it doesn't
touch them because it wants them to be afraid, trying to meet it one on one, like to actually
touch it, it is tangible and it crushes Lír and the unicorn who previously ran in fear
because she can die from violence but now who has been a human and has memories of being
a human and has memories of human love and an understanding of human loss, she's heartbroken
by Lír's death and she is guided to confront the red bull, to square down against it and
to stand her ground. And what we get here is a really interesting decision that I absolutely
adore because we don't get the unicorn lowering her head and charging the red bull and smiting
it down. What we get is the red bull turning and running. Exactly. This is again, goes
back, she has conquered her fear through her love, through her, I'm not going, almost rage
at this point, seeing his death and appreciating to what death is and I love the fact that
the red bull turns, it runs, it is no longer a threat and eventually she drives the red
bull itself into the sea. And it's, god it's such a beautiful ending and that frees the
other unicorns who come rushing onto the land and it's this triumphant moment but she doesn't
immediately join them. No, we get this lovely almost quiet moment, so first we get this
big torrent, the unicorns are rushing out of the ocean to those that can't truly perceive
them there, it's like the waves are coming over the land, Smentric and Molly huddle down
by Lír's body, Smentric I think works a little bit of magic to stop them being physically
trampled to death. They overflow the castle, they wash it away like the tide washes away
the sand castle. There's a lovely paragraph earlier on by the way where Molly observes
the whole event as if it is just like kids playing on the beach with two dolls, an ivory
unicorn toy and a little sand castle with a little king on top, which I thought was
very cute and wonderful paragraphs that didn't need to be there but did so much. But after
the tide has washed over we're sitting there next to Lír's trampled body, which by the
way I'm not gonna lie it's actually quite brutally trampled. I think we get quite a
good description of this, his head is like half bashed into the sand castle. Do we? I
don't remember that. Yeah well it's not gory by any extent, again there's definitely a
bit about her leg twitching which I thought was like, oh extra step. Okay, fair enough.
And the unicorn comes forward and the unicorn's magic is to power over things and in this
moment she has power even over death. That's actually not the lines, it's actually much
better than that. Not even power over things, power to deny things, power to... anyway,
brings Lír back to life and they look at each other and she touches him again and then
she goes. Unicorn can speak but she doesn't speak to them at this point. And they're all
just kind of left standing there, there's this really nice bit where they kind of look
out to the sea expecting to see the bull and they're like, he's disappeared, he shouldn't
have, he's too big to have disappeared this quickly. Did he sink to the depths or what
has happened? And it almost does go a little bit back to Haggar's intro, like Haggar came
from over the sea, is there something beyond the horizon that, again, not gone into, not
got into this story. No it's not. And what happens now is that they're left to sort of
pick up the pieces of their story, like Lír is king now, he's king Lír. The people of
Haggate are like, hey can you fix things and not end a curse? And Lír says, no, you profited
from my father and the curse that was put upon him, put upon you to be fortunate whilst
he was thing, I suggest now you have children, you know, you get on with life, you accept
that life is hard and it's going to be hard for you, deal with it. And so what's happened
here is that the characters are reckoning with the end of their story, they're asking
themselves what comes next and Lír is the great question because Lír has loved a unicorn
and he wants to find the unicorn and he says like to Schmendrick, if I could just chase her
to know that I was following after her, I would be happy just to know that. And Schmendrick
has to sort of take him back to reality and say, no, you must follow your duty, that's
not the end of your fairy tale. You're the hero, the prince has become king, that's the
end of the story. And Lír has to sort of, has to accept that which cannot be, much like
the unicorn, he deals with human feelings of regret and loss. But as they're going through
the kingdom, the three of them, they have one last meeting with the unicorn and Duncan,
you can feel this bit because it's so beautiful.
Yeah, it's so the unicorn comes to all three of them, but comes to them separately, almost
all in their dreams and they each get their own individual sort of interaction. But what's
really lovely, so beautiful about the writing is that we actually only see through Schmendrick
as a POV. So we get his talk with the unicorn, what we discussed earlier about his thoughts
on magic and what's important. And in some respects, I think there's an element, you
show that Schmendrick has come to a greater understanding about the unicorn and about
himself. He's also no longer immortal at this point, that happened earlier when he turned
the unicorn back. Great scene about the immortality falling from him. I don't know, it's something
you'll notice of either as a weight or as armour, as in that's the line, it's like fell
from him like armour or was it or as a weight or something to that effect or veil, something
to that tune. Anyway, he has this great scene with this nice interaction. And what I really
enjoy, isn't actually Schmendrick's one, that's not the one that I think is the most beautiful,
is that when they wake, he wakes, he realizes everyone else has had these dreams. And Lír
has this just heartfelt, did you see her? Did you see her? And they're like, yeah, yeah,
yeah, no, we had a chat. And he's like, she didn't say anything to me. She just looked
at me. And I don't know, it's something I find really powerful about that. I also love
that Schmendrick lies. He's like, what did you chat about? And Schmendrick's just like, oh,
you know, the little things, this and that, the weather. I know, it's so sweet. And but
the best part, the best part is that they say to Molly, what did she say to you? And
she says, no, I will keep that conversation, that secret close to my heart. It is mine
alone to treasure. And as a reader, we'd never know. We don't. Schmendrick asks her about
it later and says, like, you told me, right? And she says, nope.
But Lír actually just get one kind of bit of consolation in all of this, in that, you
know, he's heartbroken. He doesn't want to go back and just be a good king. And I really
like this two kind of elements here that are really nicely done. The first one I like that
there's a talk about, you know, the land will be as good as the people that inhabit it.
This goes back to Hagsgate, you know, is they can find happiness and joy and you know, the
orchard that they enjoy just for the growing of it is the one that they'll will grow the
most beautiful and they'll appreciate the most. Again, going back to the inner beauty,
inner beauty, outer beauty, tell the story, you know, Haggard was evil through and through.
Also I love the fact that Schmendrick goes, the unicorn touched you twice when he brought
you back to life. And he's like, yes, he's like, she only had to do that once to bring
you back to life. The second touch was only for you. Heart melt again.
That's beautiful. So beautiful. Oh my God. Beautiful scene. And then Leo gets on this
horse rise away. And I actually really enjoyed that Schmendrick and Molly, who have had a very
interesting relationship throughout most of the book, because it's all pivoting off the
unicorn by and large. She's the focal point of their connection.
Yeah, there's, you know, there's not actually anything that ties them. But I love that it's
basically unspoken that they're like, we're going to head off together. Like, yeah. Heading
the same way. Yeah. And then we get the last little beautiful moment, which again, I suppose
leans I'm going to call it telepractitism. I know this predates him like, like 20 years.
But it's what it feels like. It's what it feels like because that's where my origins
lie. A princess runs up to them and is like, oh, bequeath thee. My good Lord King has been
betrayed by his villainous uncle, the Van Wolfblood, and goes on about my good brothers
entrap to I need help. And Smidra is just like, yeah, the guy you need is that way.
Take my horse. You'll catch up with him soon. Go and enjoy your story.
It's great. It's great because and this is the difference, and this is not a dig at Pratchett
because we both love Terry Pratchett and his books are very heartwarming. But I don't,
what I don't think would happen in a Terry Pratchett book is that the character, like
you can imagine Rincewind or Sam Vimes, Sam Vimes doing the exact same thing. She say,
you're talking to the wrong guy. The guy you're looking for, the hero is that way.
But I don't think what happened next is the Schmendrick getting off his horse, giving it
to her and having to walk the rest of the way by himself. But then just like tipping
back his head and laughing at it and laughing for a long time, laughing about the fact that
about about the twist of fate and about the completion of the story, but also about the
place he's in in his life and how he's been changed and the hope he has for the future.
You know, it's it's this beautiful, sweet moment to end the story with. And it is a
beautiful and sweet story through and through. Geordie, I really like this book. I like it
too, man. I really like this book. It's definitely holds a place. It holds a very interesting
place Geordie, where I throughout the start, I was saying, you know, we've mentioned Terry
Pratchett quite a lot throughout this and I've mentioned The Hobbit and I mentioned
Howl's Moving Castle and there's an element of The Wizards of Earthsea. It's closest
to Howl's Moving Castle of all the ones you've mentioned. I think you're probably right.
I think you're probably right. Not that we've done that one yet. We have a plan for that
episode. So if you like any of the above, which is an awful lot, I would recommend The
Last Unicorn to you. Full heartedly. I would strongly recommend it too. Maybe the movie.
I can't say we haven't seen it. I like the song. Yeah, the animation looks, you know,
it's not or is it Ghibli? It's almost Ghibli. It doesn't look like it, but you know. We
haven't talked about that much about the Robin Hoods in this and that would imply this is
set some point post Robin Hood era England. It's ten, it's eleven hundred. Yes. Time
of the first crusade. No, it's not. Third crusade. I don't know the number of crusades.
I think John. I feel like I've said all I mean to of this book. I really hope that people
do read this. I know it's commonly read. Like I've read an article this morning about the
rights issues with Peter S. Beagle who managed to get them back from his like agent or whatever.
It's a sad story really. But anyway, and like people it sells like twenty thousand copies
a year, which is a lot. It has never been out of print. A book written in 1968. That's
pretty impressive. Weirdly though, it has been quite elusive in my life. Books that have
been out of print since the 1960s. The Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings has been
out of date in that same span of time. Not out of date, out of print. Wow. I did not
know that fact. That's kind of that's kind of cheeky on my part because it had a really
shaky launch in America. So there was a period of time where this got brought up on our Conan
episode, which people should listen to because Duncan did a really good job on it. And I
did an OK job bringing it down from like probably close to two straight hours of talking about
Conan history. But we mentioned in it that like the Lord of the Rings launch in America
was super shaky. They only sold just over 3000 copies because that's how many they printed.
And then they just didn't print more, which led to a period of time where people were
selling basically bootlegs of the Lord of the Rings in America and none of that money
went to the Tolkien estate. Well, that's awful. It's sure in it. But I went to a museum once
that was displaying the original American release covers and you're like, did this artist
even get a plot synopsis? So that's not the focus. But I do think maybe that does highlight
something, Geordie. Maybe this is something that on the other side of the pond and our
American listeners, probably maybe this is just a little bit more widely read because
I feel like I had to dig for this. So maybe the recommendation goes out to more. I think
it is well read, but it's not exactly commonplace. Like people don't talk about this on our slash
fantasy, you know? Well, let's try and turn that trend around because this is a fantastic
book and if you like any of those other fantasies mentioned, you owe it to yourself to read
this. This will bring a level of both maturity and emotional nuance to what seems on the
surface such a fairy tale story. But what you'll probably enjoy the absolute most is
the fact that it is written in such a beautiful way and will give time to moments. And the
only person I can think who might not enjoy this, if you're someone who and it is a very
much a taste thing, if you enjoy more direct, simple prose, get to the action, let's get
moving. This is not for people who like, that's not this. Whose favourite novel is Red Storm
writing? You know, if you're a Tom Clancy fan and you want to get in to reading fantasy,
this is not the one to go for. Read Promise of Blood, that's more your speed. But no,
if you like fantasy, for the love of God, read this book.
And as someone who loves fantasy, Geordie, what are we going to be reading next time?
Uh, whose choice was this? I'm going to hand it over to you to pick the next book.
Yeah, I picked Priory. So technically, we never did. Yes, this was your choice. We just
had to do it like in a Facebook messenger chat instead of doing it. Duncan, I haven't
I haven't picked the next book. I forgot I had to. You know what? Fuck it. Let's do
the heroes. Beautiful. I've been meaning to read it. I don't have anything else planned
for us to do at this point. I thought we were going to enjoy Priory and I was wrong. So
I really am a bit lost. I'm pretty confident we'll enjoy the heroes. I mean, I know you
will. I have already. This is the heroes by Jay Abercrombie. Wait, wait, that right? What
did I just say? Yeah, Joe Abercrombie. Yeah, Jay Abercrombie. It's not it's not incorrect.
I said it a bit wrong and I got so confused. That's right. The heroes by Jay Abercrombie
to follow up to best served cold loosely. I'm really interested in reading this. I got
it at Christmas. It's been sat on my shelf this whole time. I think it's going to slap.
I will not give you any spoilers on how much this will slap. Oh, it will slap though. It's
just how hard will it slap. It's an excellent book. It is the fifth in the first all series
by Joe Abercrombie is technically a standalone to do feel free to just jump in with it. Probably
less of a standalone than the last one best served cold. But that is something to experience
along with us next time. If you enjoyed listening to this episode and have read The Last Unicorn,
please tell us your thoughts. Tell us how you read it, when you read it, what influence
it had, what books you recommend that are like it. Let us know. I would love to read
more like this. Best places. Is this just fancy podcasts on Instagram or you can email
us at it's just fancy podcasts at gmail.com love to hear with you. Please rate review
thumbs up whatever it is this episode on whatever platform you are leave us a review even if
your view is just two words. Always appreciated. Yeah, good pod. Till next time, Geordie. Till
next time. I've been your host Geordie Bailey. I've been your host Duncan Nicholl. So long.
Geordie. Oh, and one more thing before we go. I promised Duncan I would try to learn the
theme to The Last Unicorn on guitar for this episode. So I did my best. I'm a pretty novice
guitarist but hey, this is what I got. Thanks for listening. Solo for real this time.
When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain. When the last lion roars at the
last dusty fountain and shadow of the forest. Though she may be old and warm. They will
stare unbelieving at The Last Unicorn. When the first breath of winter through the flowers
is icing and you look to the north. And the pale moon is rising and it seems the call
is dying. And would leave the world to mourn in the distance in the laughter of the last
unicorn. I'm alive. I'm alive.
When the last moon is cast over the last starry morning. And the future has passed without
even a last desperate warning. Then look into the sky where through the clouds the path
is told. I can see how she sparkles. It's The Last Unicorn. I'm alive. I'm alive.