SEASON 5 EPISODE 1: DESTINY
New season baby! We are very excited to get stuck into The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, the first book in The Raven Cycle. Our overarching theme is connection and we’ll carry this through for the whole series - which we will be reading! This week, we read introduce the text by reading the prologue to chapter 4 through the theme of destiny. Cannot wait to spend more time with Blue, Gansey, Noah, Ronan and Adam.
This episode was recorded on 2 October 2021.
Show notes
This week we’re reading the prologue through to chapter 4. If you’d like to read along with us, you can find the full breakdown here.
We talk about prophecy and of course the prophecy in The Order of the Phoenix came up.
Gansey’s “old money” accent - it’s called the Tidewater accent and here’s a reference for it shared by the author. While Henrietta is fictional, it’s meant to be located on the western side of Virginia. Maggie has noted that the local accent would be somewhere between the accent in West Virginia and the one found in the mountains of North Carolina.
Tia Dalma from the second Pirates of the Caribbean film - “You have a touch of destiny about you.” Here’s the clip.
More on the Lyke-Wyke Dirge which we learned about in Neverwhere (S2 E8!).
American Gods by Neil Gaiman deals a lot with sacred spaces, and the power of places/land. This is the quote Jen V was thinking of:
“In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power… And so they would build temples, or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or… well, you get the idea."
"There are churches all across the States, though," said Shadow.
"In every town… And about as significant, in this context, as dentists' offices. No, in the USA, people still get the call, or some of them, and they feel themselves being called to from the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they've never visited... Roadside attractions: people feel themselves being pulled to places where, in other parts of the world, they would recognize that part of themselves that is truly transcendent, and buy a hot dog and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath that.”
“It’s your destiny, Destiny!”
Jenn D references this quote from the Blue Castle by LM Montgomery (For those curious, the book itself is on Project Gutenberg!):
“Just the same,” Valancy said determinedly, “there is no use in sending things to hell as you’re always doing. And I’m not going to have you tracking mud all over a floor I’ve just scrubbed. You must use the scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not.”
Harry Potter and the time Hermione went to the library - here’s an article about Hermione and the magic of knowledge. And here’s the clip of Gandalf surrounded by stacks of books like a scholar obsessed deep in the archives of Gondor. Also, Strange the Dreamer - Lazlo is the ultimate scholar obsessed - which we covered in our third season!
Our intro and outro music is by the excellent Scott Buckley. Check him out here.
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Thanks for listening! Next week, we’re reading Chapters 5-9 through the theme of vices.