S1E2 Updated Audio and Retrospective

I just released the new recording for Episode 2, “A Prayer to the Palace”. In many ways, even though it’s the second episode, the story starts here. In the novel draft “The Story of the End” is the prologue. Originally I had a Lord of the Rings style prologue that just kind of walked the reader through the history of the universe. It worked in a very nuts and bolts kind of way, but wasn’t really a good opening. Tying it together with Kathy’s death and the telling of a story just worked on a much more emotional and thematic level.

So in that early draft the text that became Episode 2 really was the start. It sets the tone for the story and gets some of the threads that run through the story going. I do think it lacks a bit when it comes to forward momentum. This is one of the tensions I’ve had in turning what is essentially a book into a podcast. You can open a book with a few scenes like those in “A Prayer,” because, while they lack direct action, they go quickly when you’re reading through them. On a podcast they become an entire 20 minute episode that has to carry a lot of weight being only the second episode, when the listener is likely still deciding if they’re going to keep listening.

I considered making major changes, but at the end of the day decided that everything in the episode is pretty important. It sets up what Darien’s life has been like and the tension between that life and the life promised in Kathy’s stories. This tension drives the narrative of the book, maybe as much or more than the actual things that take place (Marialla’s kidnapping, the finding of Night, his time on the Kraken). It’s the underlying internal conflict that Darien can’t escape.

Many elements in the episode directly set up things that take place later in the series, maybe none so important as the establishment of the religion surrounding the Palace of Mirrors. It’s one of the most idiosyncratic ideas in the story, the idea that the Palace of Mirrors wasn’t just a place. It was considered a deity and the people of the Empire, and some still—like Kathy and Bluebeard—worshiped it and prayed to it through reflective objects.

Finally, of course, I end it with the set-up for the entire season—Bluebeard and his crew of pirates off in the distant shadows of the beginning of this story. I wanted to give the ending of this episode (and Darien) a jolt. This final scene is intended to be a promise to the audience: yes, the podcast is often contemplative and quiet, but there are dragons lurking under the surface, and they’re hungry.