Girls Gone Canon Cast - Trick or Treat—Special Episode: Neil Gaiman’s ”The Sandman” with Shiloh Carroll

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

!! GIVEAWAY ALERT !! Shiloh Carroll's new book, The Medieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman: From Beowulf to Sleeping Beauty, is now out! Carroll joins us this week to discuss medievalism in Gaiman's works and to dig into The Sandman TV series and a bit of the comic books. You can buy Shiloh's book now or tune into the episode to learn how to win a SIGNED COPY for free: Buy Shiloh's book - Available in paperback, ebook, or audiobook Learn more about Shiloh's work and other essays on her site — https://shilohcarroll.wordpress.com/ Follow Shiloh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/medievalismish Follow Shiloh on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/medievalismist.bsky.social Follow Shiloh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medievalismist/ From the author of Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, comes a new collection of essays: Neil Gaiman is one of the most widely known writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, having produced fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and horror, television, comics, and prose. He often attributes this eclecticism to his “compost heap” approach to writing, gathering inspiration from life, religion, literature, and mythology. Readers love to sink into Gaiman’s medieval worlds—but what makes them “medieval”? Shiloh Carroll offers an introduction to the idea of medievalism, how the literature and culture of the Middle Ages have been reinterpreted and repurposed over the centuries, and how the layers of interpretation have impacted Gaiman’s own use of medieval material. She examines influences from Norse mythology and Beowulf to medieval romances and fairy tales in order to expand readers’ understanding and appreciation of Gaiman’s work, as well as the rest of the medievalist films, TV shows, and books that are so popular today. Out now for purchase as paperback, audiobook, or ebook—or check out our episode to learn how to win a free, signed copy. ---- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Girls Gone Canon. Shiloh and the Sandman. Yes, featuring our friend Shiloh Carroll, no stranger to the podcast. You've heard her voice before back during Brienne in A Song of Ice and Fire, but also Shiloh is on today to help us talk about Neil Gaiman and the many worlds, the medieval worlds specifically, of Neil Gaiman. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. Yes, this week is a special trick-or-treat episode

that is both a trick and a treat. You are not getting an Aswath episode, nor a Sailor Moon episode. You are getting a Neil Gaiman episode with the treats of both Shiloh and... Oh, we'll get to this in a second. Gotta leave a little suspense in our relationships, everyone. Anticipation. Some tension. little leave a little suspense in our relationships everyone some tension welcome shiloh thank you so much for joining us today thanks for having me yeah thanks for coming

back they don't all come back you know i don't know if that's like an us thing or what but sometimes they just don't come back no i'm just kidding we're so lucky to have you on and if you are familiar with shiloh this is not shiloh's first foray into the the world of pages and pages of words and books rodeo no not our first rodeo shiloh you have a great book about game of thrones and my god you've done it again with the medieval worlds of neil gaiman tell us a little bit about your new novel. Well, it's not a novel. It is to me. No, it's not a novel. It's not. Yeah, Medieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman. It was kind of a follow on to sort of a what do I do next after medievalism and A Song of Ice and Fire.

And I, like Neil Gaiman, have since probably undergrad, I think. So it was probably 23, 24 when I first started reading Neil Gaiman and fell madly in love. And then I went, hey, there's a lot going on here that I could absolutely talk about as far as medievalism goes. More than my first thought was Buffy. And then I looked at it and went, there's not enough here. There's enough for a couple of essays, which I did end up doing and putting up on it and went, there's not enough here. There's enough for a couple of essays, which I did end up doing and putting up on my website. But there wasn't enough for a book. But there is absolutely enough in Neil Gaiman. So yeah. Tell us a little bit about what people can expect. Because you know, I was actually telling

a friend about having you on and what we were going to talk about. And he really likes Neil Gaiman. I remember one time he and I were on a trip and he was like, he was reading the Norse mythology book by Gaiman. And he was like, Neil Gaiman doesn't have a lot of medieval worlds. I was like, that's not true. So you're reading Norse mythology,

my dude. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Yeah. I mean, and Norse mythology specifically is just, he rewrote the Eddas, which are medieval.

What we have of them is written down around 1000 CE. Some of it by an unknown author, we have no idea who did it. And then some of it was written down by snorri sterlison so the stuff we have written obviously is predated by an incredibly long tradition of these these myths and legends and all of that fun stuff so yes if he's reading he's reading um norse mythology he is reading medieval literature well i think that's like a great clarification, right? Because I think a lot of people don't associate the two with one another. That is a medievalism that we have all passed down culturally, right?

Like we think of the medieval worlds as things that take place in mostly Western Europe during this time of knights and chivalry. But like, as you pointed out, Norse mythology is absolutely. Absolutely part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, to share background, I'm not, I'm not big into Gaiman. I like Gaiman.

I've read a little bit of Gaiman. I've read Norse mythology, which I'm excited now to kind of break into this book and read some of that part, some of the parts you've written about it. I actually read that before we did Bran on our A Song of Ice and Fire podcast, just because I was like, this could come in handy. This could be an interesting read because I really also am very, very into mythology and like recreations of mythology that embrace certain parts of the story and expand on them. I think those are rad. But I've also read American Gods, which I think definitely has a little bit here and there sprinkled throughout some some of that same

mythology and kind of leads back to some of the middle ages in some areas too so i'm really curious to see what all is in there whether it's fairy tales and beowulf to to what's going on all kinds of stuff what would you say is one of your favorite parts of the book or one of the parts of the book that you felt really passionately about that you could share with us i'm gonna say i loved all of them and know some were more slogging yeah i think i the one that i had the most fun with was beowulf because there's so much going on there both with their adapting a medieval text and doing it in ways that unknowingly to to them feed right into the ways that scholars have been talking about beowulf for like 500 years at this point and it's just like hmm so this seems to be baked into the way that modern that people approach beowulf is this is too christian how do we stop it

where is the original pagan story in here i know it's in here i'm gonna go find it and it's no it's not the version that we have is foundationally christian sorry got it that's interesting that is interesting. Can you give us a definition of what it is like that you're interested in studying what medievalism is for the people period of time between about 500 and 15 ish hundred depending on how you decide to split it mostly in europe and the middle east and maybe north africa is usually where we think of the middle ages happening because stuff was happening differently obviously in like china and sure the americas and stuff it's not really accurate to talk about like medieval south america because they had their own thing happening and all of the politics and religion and culture and literature that was happening during that time in those places

and medieval studies is looking directly at those texts and all of that stuff. Medievalism is what happened after that and how people have talked about and recast and sort of added layers to this onion of historiography around the Middle Ages. And then I sit and kind of unpack all of that and look at why do we think this about this time period why do we insist on everybody was dirty and they all wore brown what's going on there what does that serve how does that serve us how does that serve the text that's being written in order to cast them

that way the narrative and i love that you called out the onion because like the onion plays a really important part in one of like my, you know, favorite medieval stories, Shrek. So. It's a medievalist fairy tale. It counts. I think it's actually a foundational text, as you were saying, right, of Beowulf. It's an actual true story that we've passed down for generations sure but sure can't argue with that one can you Shiloh? Shiloh's like what have I agreed to why am I here? Eliana's only gotten better with age in my opinion like an og an ogre. Okay, sorry. Let's continue. So Eliana, what would you say is like

your Gaiman background? I know you have a little bit of reading background with Gaiman. Honestly, it is like a little right. I've read maybe like a couple of shorts that I like don't remember anymore. Sometimes I just like don't know. And I've read a short story. I read the the children's book about a father being a goldfish or something like that oh the day I swapped my dad for two goldfish yep yes that one that one um I have that one somewhere at home American Gods which you and I have discussed privately I guess Chloe and I read The Sandman a long time ago now in like fall 2010. It had been out for a while and I'd heard about it. I'd taken a class about comics in university and people kept talking about it.

And that was actually just a very fateful season for me. That was the one that I also met my partner in. So yeah, very fateful. Yeah, and I guess I had not read it. I had friends who had read Stardust when I was like, what, in middle school. But I had not read it. And eventually friends who had read Stardust when I was like, what, in middle school, but I had not read it. And eventually it came out as a movie, watched it. And apparently it is not very much like the book, is what I've heard.

Some of it is and some of it isn't. They've changed some stuff around. They completely changed the ending. That's what I remember them saying. And they made Captain Shakespeare's part a lot bigger, which, you know what, I was like, I'm American Gods, definitely Norse mythology. And other than that, you actually, Eliana, are the reason I read American Gods. And I don't think you remember this, but we've mentioned it. You've reminded me of that. Yeah, Eliana was reading American Gods around 2017-ish and was like, oh, yeah, I just read that. It was pretty good.

And I was like, well, I'm gonna read it then because we had a cute little group friendship message going on with our uh our friend and sweet yft as well and we were all talking about gaiman and what books and stories we had read from so that's about that's it i did watch season one of american gods which i liked a lot of the changes i thought that they did great and then i watched one episode of season two and I will not return to it. And, you know, justice for fucking Orlando after what they did out there. That was what the fuck was that? But that was a little I wasn't into that. And so I did watch Sandman for both of you.

Literally, you two and the things I do for love. Right. Am I right? for love right am i right and i it's interesting because from what i'm hearing it's a much better adaptation compared to what happened with american gods in season two rest in peace and i don't know i'm very interested to hear today as we get into it some of you guys's thoughts on the adaptation and uh as people have read the comics my roommate uh has read the comic and has, you know, he's been invested in Sandman already. So it's funny because he was watching. He's like, yeah, that happens here. This is where it happens.

It holds up the comic strip to me. And he's like, so, you know, I'm like, thanks. Interesting. He's been giving me kind of the rundown. But I'm really interested in hearing all that. Before we jump into that, though, there is one really exciting thing we're going to do, which is a giveaway of your book of the medieval worlds of neil gaiman exclusive giveaway one of you listening could get this copy and wait

it's gonna be signed it's gonna be is that true oh my god whoa whoa that value just shot up i'm fucking jealous i'm making burner accounts in the background you can't see me YouTube but I'm just like they'll never know it's me send it to a PO box it's going to Shmloey from Shmoral's Shmon Shman uh they'll never know and you can win

a signed copy of Shiloh's book if you send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com from the email that you would like to be's book if you send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com from the email that you would like to be contacted at if you win. So please keep that in mind. Do not make a burner that you'll never come back to. Do not make a burner.

You'll have to share your shipping information with us, but that'll come if you win. So don't send it yet. We don't want that. Don't dox yourself. Yeah, don't dox yourself to me yet unless you win but send us a quick blurb telling us about your favorite game and piece it could be one sentence it could be a few sentences you can make an essay it will not improve your chances

of winning but i mean we'll still read it we love a good email and we will be selecting a random winner from this again how good your email is does not influence your odds yeah we will select this at the front of november and we will be emailing you in the front of november so get your entry in by november 5th 2023 to us if you're listening to this later than the release date please get it in by november 5th and we will randomly select a winner i'm excited remember remember the 5th of november we'll remind you throughout this episode this recording so we've talked about our favorites and like are you allowed to like pick a favorite what is your favorite is it like picking a favorite child? Yeah, that's legitimately what I'm asking. Oh, God.

I think if I had... It depends on my mood, I think. Because Sandman has a lot of stuff going on and it's just really rich and lovely and I love every bit of it. But it can get kind of dark and you don't always want dark. Interesting. Stardust is light and fluffy and happy and nice.

And I love that too. But you know, sometimes you want something a little more serious. And it just depends. I really, really do like his take on Norse mythology though. I love what he's done with that. Interesting. Sandman is really dark. I was like, we'll talk about it, but it's very dark.

As you said, right? Sandman has like a lot of different things it's come out recently on netflix and i think because it touches on so many it's a very flexible story the way that gaiman has approached it and touches many different parts of time stories including medieval worlds is part of why we're like oh this could be a good intro for people into your book so let's dig into it a little like this is like as far as i know the first adaptation of this story they tried to adapt other parts of the sandman cinematically a couple different ways but yeah let's talk about this one. Start with the casting. Yeah. This casting is fabulous. This is absolutely great casting.

I was trying to list out an especially, like I especially like these people, and it ended up just like with the entire cast. But it was like Charles Dance and Gwendolyn Christie and Boyd Holbrook, who's just killing it, by the way. We've got Jenna Coleman. We've got Kirby Howell-Bapt've got kirby howell baptiste mason alexander park was a sleeper hit for me i had no idea who they were before it started and then

they show up as desire the first time and i went oh that is desire wow nailed it yeah yeah that was so great it was like sensual and very scary and i really loved that you know having them as desire was beautiful it was just beautifully done just perfect like those lips and those teeth yeah and they got like basically every brit you know they took the entire pool of casting like happens in shows that are mostly cast from the uk and they cast every damn actor david thulis i was like no oh my god David Thewlis I do have to shout out the American actor Patton Oswalt as the birb as the the so much I loved the way they adapted Matthew so I didn't know Oswald yeah he was kind of my

favorite actually it was jarring like it was very jarring that he had like the here's the american voice yeah so true about about the casting they also like did a lot of things you know to make it more diverse than in the comic that i thought worked brilliantly makes a lot of sense and yeah mason alexander park great choice i didn't realize this they are apparently also sorry to them in the cowboy bebop live action adaptation not nearly as good oh no uh rest in pieces quick plug though for the uh I like the one piece I like the one piece live action that was fun I'm hearing fucking phenomenal things about that and I really want to watch it by the. I watched some of the original anime, so I feel like it might be for me.

Yeah. And love Kirby Howell-Baptiste, right? She was great as death as well. I was kind of, and this comes from somebody who obviously has not read the comic and the graphic adaptation. I was bummed.

I wanted more of death. I thought death was supposed to... Listen, I'm coming from a world where I've been going to conventions for 20 years and seen random death cosplayers stares at Eliana. Random death cosplayers my whole life. So I was hyped.

I was like, ooh, I get to understand it. And there was barely any death in it. What the fuck was that? You gotta watch season two. Yeah, will they have more? I think that there must be more i i love her in the good place and also i just like that choice because when i played death i am not a pale person i threw on a bunch of like i had to like throw on like a bunch of like white

body paint it was only for halloween costumes so it wasn't like anything serious it was really bad it was looked really bad on me but that's the point maybe no no it was fun in a way but also looked really bad anyway so but now we have a canon black death so you can exactly totally cosplay without having to do that lighten yourself yeah so i again i didn't really have background knowledge entering this. So I was very like, just riding the motherfucking wave, letting it all wash over me, coming to our group chat and yelling to you guys about what the fuck this just happened. In fact, a fun anecdote is that I spent the first half and this is just like based on how we watch TV. I was like, some of the characters are I didn't understand the the flavor of the weak variety of the mini plots you know

like oh this is just showing you what's happening like you some of the characters yes will come back but you don't need to remember all these little one-off things right this moment by exact detail it's in a slug of ice and fire fan problem is what i'm fucking trying to say so i kind of i think was taking the first half too seriously and now i'm like oh i could have just let it ride a little more what do you think adaptation wise i mean how do you guys feel from reading it before and seeing it put on a screen the pacing everything how do you feel about that i think that the way that they went about it is was really really good and also introduced some kind of weird issues where they had so sandman kind of goes in arcs and they gave us two of the arcs for the first season and i think if you didn't know that it would be like wait on the back half of the season where are we what is happening who are these people it doesn't

necessarily feel unified as a single season that first half was absolutely brilliant they it was almost lockstep with the way that it shows up in the comics. And you can even, the way that Emmett was doing, the way your roommate was doing, literally look at panels in the comic and see exactly, they shot it to look exactly like panels in the comic, and it was absolutely lovely. Especially with the capturing Dream and then his escape.

Yes. Yeah. Exactly. It looks exactly like that. I was like dream and then his escape. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. It looks exactly like that. I was like, wow, brilliant job. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think they did a great job of establishing because it is kind of different in all those episodes, which is, I think, unexpected.

Like, each episode kind of has a different texture, I would even say. Which makes sense because, like, visually in the comic, like, so many different artists were tapped into illustrating the different things. So each one kind of has its own different style, too, which also makes sense, right? You know, when I dream, each dream kind of has its own texture as well. So. Oh, I love that. That's a great way to contextualize it. Why didn't you tell me that seven days ago? Well, it turns out I forgot to tell you a lot of things i was like i forgot how graphic this was every episode i'd be like i'm on this episode and she'd be like shit i should have warned you shit i should have warned

you well and then you're like reacting i'm like my bad i'm sorry this was like this was a lot wasn't it it's okay it's okay shiloh yeah yeah shiloh shiloh warned me thankfully about some stuff so i got to miss out. We won't probably go too much into it. But there's a little animal violence that Shiloh has warned me about that I was able to not get too upset over except when I was about to watch it today. And I was like holding my cat and I was like looking in her eyes. And I was like, I'm so sorry.

I'll never put a thing like that on our screen ever. So it's normal at my house. Things are great. I'm normal. It's interesting that the first half has different pacing kind of than the second half to the comic because I actually found myself starting to get really invested in the second half.

And maybe that's because of Rose and Jed. When they enter the plot, I really did get a little more into it. So I find that really interesting on the pacing. I mean, that works too, too i think because a lot of through kind of throughout the series it's way more about people and their stories and kind of how those stories intersect with dream and all of the other stuff i think because if it was just about him we would probably get bored so yes setting it up and having his story being first great but then yeah we get into here are some people and they're having actual people problems that kind of cross over with supernatural issues and bring

them into contact with the dreaming but it's not just dream going around putting everything back together i really loved that too because i was thinking it would not just dream going around putting everything back together i really loved that too because i was thinking it would be very dream centric every episode and it was great that he just disappeared several episodes at a time and didn't fucking matter i mean that's kind of neat and they still held to me without him and we'll talk about our favorite episodes in just a minute but like the diner episode for example that was where i was like oh this show's kind of fucked up okay cool cool and i'm watching and i'm like because i was really expecting dream to start coming back and those couple of episodes don't revolve around him in my opinion which are

pretty good yeah reminder we have a giveaway for shiloh's book don't forget send us yeah you can also buy shiloh's book we'll put a link yeah if you don't think the odds are in your favor go out and buy the medievalieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman. You should probably be able to get it at a store near you. I know it's out now on shelves. Yeah. It is ranked, apparently, on Amazon. I didn't notice its top new release.

Yeah. For 21st century literary criticism, yeah. Which is super cool. Congrats. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Which is super cool. Congrats. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, you were talking about the diner episode,

and that was actually, like, my favorite episode, I think, of these. And maybe that was also the most gory. I'm like, you sick fuck. You're so fucked up. I am a little bit. When I saw you jot down that the diner episode was your favorite episode, I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Who hurt you?

There's a lot wrong with me yeah i thought that was like such a such a great like singular episode and how they adapted all of that and like the very i don't know surrealist but like haunting nature of it and then maybe also because i was warned maybe i'm like a little biased in that when i was going into that episode my uh partner who had watched the series already I think before me was like oh it's this episode I was like okay what does that mean I was like interesting so yeah I think my first pass through it it was like 24 7 and I'm like oh here we go yeah so I thought that was like really yeah it was fun how about how about all of you what were your favorite episodes I'm gonna be super basic probably it's probably everybody's favorite episode and say the sound of her wings what's not mine so it's probably a lot of people's

favorite episode partly because of the death thing I love how Kirby Howell Baptiste plays death and then I loved how they just blended right into essentially then one of the later issues yeah and just right on into hobb and hobb gadling is one of my favorite characters so i loved getting to to see his whole story like really early yeah especially because those two are back to back right five and six right uh diner and then that the diner and then sound of her wings i was watching i think the diner episode like i said is what really got me kind of like oh this show's fucked up i gotta finish it out just to figure out what the fuck's going on i gotta make sense of it and so i'm watching the

diner episode and i was so engrossed in the diner episode that i missed the netflix next screen and it i guess it just kept playing and i don't know how i missed it but it just kept playing and i thought i was in the middle of a very long episode. I was like, holy shit, is this like two hours? I was super fucking confused. But those two episodes really got me interested. They were really good mid-season episodes because I feel like a lot of adaptations

can sometimes get a little mid-season. It's like sometimes filler kills you. Filler can be killer in a bad way, but not in this. It really ramped up i loved probably dollhouse and playing house i really loved those two episodes huge doctor who fan which gaiman obviously has uh tranced around in that world here and there and i think uh had very doctor who-esque plot lines and that's what gripped me of you know cause and effect and dream travel and dreams i

and we'll talk more but i love the dream i love the dream worlds in general from the very beginning to the very end and being on those different worlds and how time moves different time streams flow differently there i thought that was a really great run had me hooked and i really love galt's character and character design so Playing House might be one of my favorites for that. I have to say the costuming and the prosthetic work and some of like the little bits like the purpley pink veins almost like thunder almost running through her body was just incredible. So probably my favorites are that run of Dollhouse and Playing House. I thought those were fun episodes too. And yeah, I like Galt's storyline

and how it plays into some of the themes that we'll talk about in a second of the story in regards to change. And yeah, I mean, all of you, you can also let us know what you think about the adaptation and the Sandman when you enter for the giveaway and send an email to us to win Shiloh's book.

Or, I mean, again, you can also buy it. and send us your email to us to win Shiloh's book. Or, I mean, again, you can also buy it. Yeah, head to the store, buy The Medieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman by Shiloh Carroll, or pop us an email to enter that drawing at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. C-A-N-O-N, one N. Well, two, but... That's true, but one N in the middle.

Only one hump. You'll figure it out. One hump in the middle. You'll get. You'll figure it out. One hump in the middle. You'll get it bounced back. A single humped camel. Speaking of things that change with time, like our knowledge of making emails, Galt.

Galt is, I think, a fantastic way of approaching that, as does this idea of change and dreams changing or nightmares changing. They started it with like the Gregory stuff in the beginning, but it comes up, you know, over and over throughout the series. But how about all of you? What are some of the themes that you like that came through in this adaptation? Speaking like blindly, because I don't know what the fucking themes are in the story until I watch this. So this is really I'm grasping. There's a lot about family, right? There's hubris, legacy.

One thing that didn't change throughout time is Charles Dance. Shout out to that sexy, fine old man. And he was so mean. I was so mad at him in this. I was like, Emmett, my roommate, was asking me where I was, what was going on. I'm like, Charles Dance is a fucking prick. I love him. He did what he does best

in this show, you know? He gets typecast for a reason, because God, he's good at it. But, you know, from the very start with Charles Dance, he does himself in when Dream isn't even what he wanted. Like, the whole entire reason half of this is happening is because he kept Dream captive, even though Dream wasn't

death, he got the wrong motherfucker. And he, like like keeps him captive and then like ruins his entire family like he already treated his kid like shit because the other one died and dream can't give him what he wants and so you see that like because he can't reach this great idea of legacy takes down on everyone around him kid ends up you know he dies because of his son thank god and good for him sure it fucked the kid up but like good for him at the same time but it's interesting how that is the cause to the effect of the whole series of all of the world's kind of disintegrating and how dream's kingdom has uh

crumbled a little bit without him there and kind of riding off of the hubris issue was morpheus just absolutely refusing to give alex even the consideration to say no i won't hurt you if you let me out and that's all that he wanted because he was terrified like he wasn't his his dad charles dance they're asking for gifts and stuff that he couldn't get but and the the jessamine thing isn't in the comics but i think putting it in really gave them a reason for morpheus to be like no motherfucker you killed my bird i'm not promising you anything yeah i did think that was an interesting part of this adaptation but first coming back to you know chloe you're talking about family hubris and legacy and that is absolutely i think an astute and like i think that that speaks to the strength of this adaptation as well that you picked up on that because that is i think something that

is ongoing throughout the whole series i also like the way that you said family it made me think a little bit of the fast and the furious another long time saga that is also I think you know spans a lot of different things too but yeah in this adaptation they kind of like fleshed out Alex's character is better like some of those parts where his father is asking for certain things Alex is the one who I think if I'm not mistaken asks for those in the comic and like pushes for it so I thought it was really interesting the way that they they changed it so i thought it was really interesting the way that they they changed it to make his character more sympathetic but also complicit yeah yeah because he still keeps him there yeah exactly exactly it's not his first move a good

person's first move would have been i'm so sorry weird monster person that my dad who was evil to both of us which is the complicated part right like because even though tywin i mean charles dance i mean his dad was like awful and abusive to him like he was still his dad and that tie to family was still so strong for alex of never being able to explore who he was yeah yeah and i think um you know you're you're really touching on something interesting here that goes throughout in all the different episodes right like later on you have edith like you're you're talking about this like parent child thing going on yeah or like lita right uh having the child that dream is supposed to come for eventually i'm like no or some of those parent child relationships like dollhouse especially galt being jed's mom in the fantasy and like that was so sad

to me like she was like don't you see this child suffering can't i give him something and dreams like but you're not like you're giving him horrible false hope like he's suffering in real life like all you're doing is just extending it and whatever jed and kind of the foster home right that awful relationship oh that was so emotionally devastating for me. It reminded me of some Lifetime movies I've seen. The Corinthian, right? Why the Corinthian is able to leverage himself with these children and get them to come along because their relationships are already so riddled and horrible with abuse and with pain in their life, these children, that they're like, oh, okay. Or the whole demons in general, the demon, the serial convention, if you will. Yeah, there's a lot of like that found family versus family and abuse and greed and leveraging relationships. And it does come back a lot,

in my opinion, to like Dream and Lucienne. Like, I'd say they're almost like siblings, right? They aren't real siblings, but their relationship seems it was much closer before he disappeared and then blamed her for everything and said she's bad at her job and she's just a librarian. But I'm like, Dream, don't fucking start with me. Just because you're hot doesn't mean you can act like that, okay? Yeah. Okay.

Oddly, Galt was one of the things that, when I watched it the first time through, I was like, what are you doing as an adaptation because it's very very different in the comics um the second time through watching the doll's house arc i liked it a lot better i think stuff kind of clicked and i went oh okay i see what you're you're doing here the first time through is like this isn't like as faithful an adaptation as the first half when it's happening here. But I don't think that they quite nailed the why does she take him out of the proper dreaming. I don't think we got a really good explanation for that.

In the comics, what we have is a pair of demons named Brute, or not demons, but nightmares, named Brute and Glob. They're DC staples. They're actual DC characters. And I think part of getting them out of there was jettisoning a lot of the DC lore that would have kind of kept it down. But they want to build their own version of the Dreaming in Jed's head.

They want to be in charge of the Dreaming. So that's what they're doing there. But that wasn't what Galt was doing. So it was a little like i don't quite see quite what you're you're doing with this exactly but she was fabulous i liked her as a character and the way that kind of the way that they yeah let her stand up to dream of it and be like people can change yeah and that he had to like come to terms with his own hubris about it and bring her back and and the metamorphosis they were going off of a very famous film called a bug's life where the caterpillar says that he's a very beautiful butterfly and i love that but no i'm not i'm half kidding about the bugs like that's also a

foundational thank you bugs have been around for bugs have been around for a really long time i don't know if all of you know up there next to shrek um they also have a you know they also have a monarchy in a bug's life oh a bug's life wed feudalism you're right hopper and his crew yeah we should yeah we'll talk about this offline but i'm into this idea of a bug's life and then we can talk about ants with the z oh a whole series helena targaryen does girls go on canon uh yeah i that's so interesting that i fucking i'm obsessed with the galt shit and the the dollhouse art great there that's interesting they were doing it for me and me alone i almost wonder if they made him too soft in those, though.

But, like, for some of the stuff. Yeah. For, like, where his story is going. Yeah. Even on the second time through, I was like, he's too nice. No spoilers. Like, you're doing this too early, you guys. You need to keep him kind of standoffish and kind of mean a little bit still at this phase.

It's too early for him to be all all soft and nice right because at the end they finally he finally said it was so funny because the whole entire season i kept saying to uh my roommate i just kept saying like okay but this is literally your fault dream like don't be mad at them like you disappeared and got your ass captured by tywin like this is not don't you need to admit like that they at least tried to upkeep shit while you're gone and then finally he literally said it to them when he was standing on the cliff. He's like, yes, I have been a tool because I have been being mean to you all because of my own issues. But I do think that's a fast resolution.

And I wonder if it's just we got to keep him likable, you know, keep that pretty face on money. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you got to make him likable enough and, you know, have people kind of see that because they're like we got to secure that second season etc um but also like as as pointed out they the sandman was what published by vertigo comics i think which is an offshoot like of of dc comics it gets a little more um they get a little more creative like artistic freedom but it does have a lot of stuff from the like batman batman shows up in the fucking sandman comics all right like i don't think they had the money to do all of that dc ip plus what dc did they pull out they pulled out of it right like netflix's stuff i think yeah maybe um and that's another another thing with lida and hector who again in the comics if

you want to be really pedantic about it hector was the i want to say silver age sandman oh i don't remember i don't know okay and what what was happening with that whole storyline was brute and glob had grabbed him right as he was dying and shoved him into this faux dreaming. And Leto went with him. So Leto was sitting there being pregnant for like five years. Jesus. Being like nine months pregnant for five years. Poor thing.

So she was part of Jed's storyline in the comics instead of part of Rose's. So yeah, that was another thing the first time through. I was like, what is happening here but i think it worked better if you didn't want to acknowledge that hector and lida were dc characters which you didn't they didn't really need to it was fine instead i just let jed be sandman basically and just rolled with it yeah and that was cute i think that was a really cute nod too to have him in his little costume. I'm worried about that kid. I don't want to talk about it,

but I'm just, I'm real worried about him, especially the face my roommate made about him when I said that I was worried about him. My roommate was like, what the fuck does that mean? But don't tell me, don't tell me anyone. I'm interested to see where they go in season two. I'm not sure if I'll watch it or not yet.

I might get sucked back in because of YouTube, but they do have season two, right? It's's screen lit is that what i've heard from you yes and they had been shooting for about two weeks before the writer's strike hit shit oh so as soon as the as soon as the actors come back from strike they're gonna resume shooting yep awesome yeah like at the end of the episodes it says it's official more episodes are coming at the end of like what episode 11 i guess and then also when you pull it up on netflix it says it there right at the top just so you all know that it's not a canceled show yet because netflix is notorious for doing that it says it's official more episodes are coming also there on the little

netflix app so don't worry we'll wait till season three to cancel it that's actually what they do because contracts are renegotiated after the second season and like the rates yeah anyway that's what the whole striking thing is about yep so if we come back hopefully we will have something good or than that maybe Netflix will have a new clause that they'll be like fine we'll renegotiate after three seasons I haven't done that it'll be a season four cancel I haven't fully done the math but if I had to

guesstimate if they're gonna get all the way through all of the comics we're looking at five maybe six seasons maybe a little longer I'd have to do math if we're doing like two arcs per season and then maybe like a bonus episode with one of some of the standalones i guess they could like they could maybe condense some of them but i don't know yet how they would

do that i'm just wondering if they're gonna like explore that or whatever i don't know but they do like a lot of groundwork that would happen in later seasons and i think in my opinion granted i didn't know that there would be like foreshadowing when i read the comics through the first time i was like what the fuck but knowing what i know now i think they did a really good job of laying the groundwork for foreshadowing for absolutely and even with all the better job even with all the major changes they made on the second half of the season, they still managed to keep all of the important stuff. Yeah. Like, Lida's baby.

Yeah. Like, you had to have that in there in order to keep the series going. Like, she has to have that kid. So they managed to work it in there, even without doing the Sandman and Jeb's dreams thing. And, like, David Thewlis' character obviously will have to come back. Yes? No? Yes. Okay, good. doing the uh the sand the sandman and jeb's dreams thing and like david thules's character obviously will have to come back yes no yes okay good i don't know who that is remus lupin i also son oh okay john d i i was like who are you i don't i'm really bad i'm really bad with actors names well that's why i'm just giving you names of the characters in uh these are very accurate

names like eyeball guy took me a very long time to call him corinthian yeah he's just if you had said eyeball i'd be like i know who that is i know that person ruby gem son yeah i would have known that person too see i'll do better next time i'm sorry thank you thank you yeah i imagine he's got to come back into play. That's one thing I will say. They seem to have shuffled different characters and give them just enough screen time to fulfill those contracts they made for those actors and bring them back.

I can see where they're going to come back. But what would you say are your favorite bits of foreshadowing? And don't worry, it won't spoil me too much because I'll be like, what are you talking about? The question of change. Can it happen? How does it happen? What happens after it happens? Because that is a

massive theme throughout the series, but then really when you get to the end. Yeah. And then for me, it would also be, like, how he reacts to finding out Desire's plot. Like silly little plot at the end.

Yeah. Desire having a plot is some massive foreshadowing for the rest of the series too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I figured they're going to be coming back with more plots that they've had that we're going to learn about. They've been busy. They've been busy, busy, busy.

It feels like. mm-hmm they've been busy they've been busy busy busy it feels like and they did give us leading right into the beginning of probably of season two with lucifer's whole i'm going to do something that i have that i've never done before and it's like oh yeah oh here we go oh yeah so yeah if they they do it exactly like it is in the comics the very beginning of season two you're gonna get to see the entire family destiny desire death everybody at a family family dinner oh my god don't pull a dune don't pull a dune don't delete the dinner scene everyone that's the most important scene and they took it from both adepts i'm gonna assume they're gonna do it just because like i don't know they've been wanting to like adapt the sandman for cinematically for a

long time a lot of people have for a lot of reasons because it was popular and i think they would be like think of all the money we could make i mean you can't have all those great actors and not put them in a room together to feel like uh i mean, this is gonna be Sandman Portal's scene. Come on. My god. I can't wait to see Delirium. She's gonna be a trip and a delight all at the same time. Eliana sounds pretty good there.

Interesting. I see you, Shiloh. Well, you also can see Shiloh by participating in this giveaway or buying Shiloh. Well, you also can see Shiloh by participating in this giveaway or buying Shiloh's book. With your brain. You're gonna see Shiloh with your own brain.

Yeah. Eliana, before we kind of close up and remind everyone where to find Shiloh's book in the giveaway, can you tell me what you would look forward to most in a season two? What character, plot, what? Honestly, the exact same thing as Shiloh I love delirium's uh character and portrayal and I'm just I that is something that I really want to see is there a delusional because that might be my favorite character that's delirium all of them all know all of them are a little bit

delusional in their own ways I think that's a that's its own little like endless thing that they all have. Oh, yeah, I think it would be also delirium, to be honest. Cool. All right. All right. I look forward to delirium. To being delirious. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Who is she? We're gonna find out. Shiloh, thanks for spending time with us chatting about your new book a little bit. And of course chatting about Sandman. It was very interesting to kind of watch along and know absolutely nothing about this one. It doesn't happen to me often. I'm like, as I was kind of telling you guys, I almost stopped and started reading volume one or something to see if I could catch up.

But and I might now, who knows? Maybe I'll get into it. You never know. Maybe by the next time you throw out a Medieval Worlds of something book, we'll be able to catch up on it. Yeah, it had been like a decade since I read the comics. So some of it, it felt like very new to me again. And I was like, memory unlocked, memory unlocked. So again, we are doing a giveaway for Shiloh's new book that is out.

It's out on the shelves. You can have an opportunity to get it for free from us if you send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com from the email you would like to be contacted back at with a quick blurb telling us about your favorite Neil Gaiman piece. We will randomly be selecting a winner on November 5th, 2023 and contacting them via email to update them on their prize, get your contact info and shipping, et cetera, et cetera,

to get that signed copy of the book. But as said, the book is out now. Shiloh, correct me if I'm wrong. You can get an ebook. You can get a physical copy. You can go audiobook if you so choose to listen in. All these, where would you buy it if you were buying it right now though, Shiloh? If you're like, I'm going to go to the store, buy my

book or go online, buy my book. Where would you get it from? Literally anywhere that has books either is going to have it or can get it for you, probably. If you like audiobooks, Petrae Bouchard does the audio reading and she is fabulous. sounds wonderful it sounds pretty much just exactly like it does in my head so oh faithful adaptation of my book from print to to audio there bringing your dreams about the audiobook into our waking world better than nightmares better than nightmares. Better than nightmares. True. Shiloh, where online, if anyone's looking to read your essays, I know we were talking about some of your Buffy essays you've posted up.

Where can they find you online? On social media, on webpage? Tell us, spill all. So all of that stuff is at shilohcarroll.wordpress.com. I am still on Twitter for some godforsaken reason. Medievalism-ish. I am on BlueSky at medievalist.bluesky.social or whatever their thingy thing is there.

And, you know, Instagram. I'm around. Come find me. I appreciate you acknowledging, like, also that, like, it is hard to tell people I think your username's on Blue Sky. I'm like, I don't know, just go search for it. Well, thank you so much for your time again. Thanks for having me.

Priceless. This was so much fun. Priceless. Yeah, we'll have to watch something else soon together, all of us. That was kind of a blast to catch up on this together. American Gods Season 2. No, I'm joking. I'd rather die.

Well, as usual, you can catch us here, Girls Gone Canon, on a streaming provider, whether it's Spotify, Google Play, wherever you listen to your podcasts. Give us a Google. Give us a Google. And you can send us an email, even if you don't want to enter. You could just hit us an email with your thoughts on Gaiman and some of your favorite parts of the season or what you're looking forward to. We'd love to hear it. That's at girlsgonecanon, C-A-N-O-N, at gmail.com.

And we will be back next week with Arya in A Clash of Kings. Arya 9, actually, with our friend B-Word from Kissed by Fire podcast. And we'll be back to A Song of Ice and Fire in November, so look forward to seeing you there. And of course, check us out over at Patreon, patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon, where there are tons of perks like bonus episodes or

a private Discord server that you can participate in. Super fun! Shiloh knows, Shiloh verified. Checkmark. I've been one of your hosts, Chloe. I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana. Thank you again to our other hosts this week, Shiloh.