Life lessons with Loki: with Louie Stowell

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Have you ever wondered what would happen if a
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Norse god had to survive school? Today we're
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joined by the brilliant Louis Stowell, author
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of the hilarious Loki and Bat God's Guide series.
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So get ready for some mischief as we dive into
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the ironic world of life lessons with Loki and
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find out why the ultimate trickster might just
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be the perfect guide to growing up. So welcome
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to the Valhalla podcast, Louis Stowell. It's
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a brilliant pleasure to have you back in my virtual
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hall again. I'm very excited to be there. I hope
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the feast is great. Well, we haven't encountered
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Loki yet, I'm sure he's probably lurking in the
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background causing some mischief. Because of
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course that is the flavour of the month, I think,
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for you definitely with your writing, although
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you have got many of the brilliant children's
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books out there, because I know those you've
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done one about a dragon in the library, I believe?
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I've done some dragons, I've done some fairies,
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who to be fair is still on the kind of trickster
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theme, but the fairies are slightly more malicious
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than Loki because they steal babies. Definitely
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then, though they're not the kind of like the
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flower fairy. type image. Our fairies are a victorian
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lie so you know, don't believe them, don't mess
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with fairies. So your kind of like journey and
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experience following the greatest trickster god
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of them all, I think definitely that has claimed
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that title in the 21st century at least, Sloki.
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Began Sloki a bad god's guy being good. go out
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in a fancy new colourful edition with extra content
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and mischief involved, I believe. They are, yes.
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Look, look at them in front of my face. Don't
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worry, it will be popping up on the screen. It's
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just how fun during the whole new covers. There
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we go. I've got to start, so I'll finish, so
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I'll have to do them all now. And one, no, two
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more, sorry. And the last one, which is the first
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one. There we go. Yeah, so it was quite fun to
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redraw them because I was thinking about actually
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trying to sum up a book because the original
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ones were all just like random doodles, whereas
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I was trying to have a specific image that sums
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up the book. So that was fun to draw. The cover
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of your books greatly inspired me when I was
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designing the thumbnail for your debut episode
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on our podcast this month. And, of course, not
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many people may realise this, but you are the
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artist and illustrator of these wonderful books,
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as well as the writer for them. Yes, yes, indeed.
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So I'm curious, did you, have you always been
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writing first or were you always drawing first
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or was it always a bit of both? Well, it depends
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how far back we go. If we go back to my childhood,
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then I was drawing first, because, you know,
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you learn to draw before you can write. and and
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I think you know sort of the natural child inclination
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is to draw and write at the same time once you
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can write. So I feel like kind of that that is
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the natural human default and just writing is
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something you're kind of well you get the pictures
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kind of beaten out of you you know metaphorically
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speaking though it was the 80s and yeah so I
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feel like yes so so I when I first came to writing
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novels I did just Well, I did the text primarily,
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but I did design the characters alongside, even
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for books that I was never going to illustrate.
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And with Loki, again, I spent a lot of time doing
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character designs before I really got cracking.
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However, when I'm, you know, as a process, I
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write all the text first. And it's a pragmatic
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thing, really, because I do drastic edits on
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my text. So if I illustrated the text as I went
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along, there'd be so much wasted time because
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I would be throwing those pictures in the bin.
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It will be a whole kind of plot line that goes,
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you know, I'll cut entire loops of plot. So it's
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text first, get that right -ish. And then the
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designer lays it out, leaving space for the drawings.
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Because when I write, I do write myself picture
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briefs. I sometimes leave image briefs as well.
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So, for instance, I've just left myself a hideous
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piece of AI art as a reference for something,
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TBC. And often it's just a TV show I happen to
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be watching and I'm like, I'm just going to draw
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those characters because for background characters,
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I can't be bothered to think of that many faces,
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you know, so it's just like, you know, random
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third mother from the left at school happens
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to be one of the detectives from Deadlock, say,
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that I've just been watching. So, so yeah, so
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that's that's the kind of process and then with
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the illustration then there's edits on illustrations
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as well as you have edits on text, you know,
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not as much but Partly because I sort of my finished
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work isn't that different from my roughs? Really?
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I quite a doodly style either way. So normally
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the changes are about Realizing the joke isn't
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quite landing or arm is a really awkward angle
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or something just a kind of clarity issue so
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the image isn't reading clearly enough. That's
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really insightful because they do seem so natural
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and as you just kind of like very doodle -esque,
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so it almost does, at least to us as readers,
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appear like you've just literally doodled them
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and then that's it. So I was always curious,
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especially with the design of Loki himself, were
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there many versions of him before you settled
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on the one look? Yeah, so the original drawings
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were what I, you know, sent on submission to
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publishers. But once I'd got the deal with Walker,
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we kind of refined it because, I mean, I wasn't
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quite happy with it in various ways. Like he
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had a very weak chin originally and it just didn't
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work. But my designer asked me, originally he
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had a widow's peak, you know, when your hair
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goes down, a bit like Dracula. And the designer
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said it made him look too old. So I basically
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had to kind of make him a bit younger because
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he looked a bit too... you know, like he's in
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his 20s or something, you know. And so little
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things like that. I think the t -shirt came right
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away, you always had that L, L for Loki, L for
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Liam, L for learner, because he's a learner at
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being good. So yeah, so there was quite a lot
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of development work there. I feel like the voice
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came very quickly. So it always sounded like
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that. And we had some back and forth from my
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editor about diction and exactly how formal his
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speech patterns should be. Because as you know,
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he's thousands of years old, he's not necessarily
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going to kind of keep up with the contractions
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of language. But I feel like it's interesting
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actually, because sometimes I really think into
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real detail, it's like, well, okay, so should
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he technically be speaking in Old Norse, but
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we hear him as English? And then I realized people
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don't care enough about that. So I'm just going
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to make him sound the way I think he should sound.
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Because I do an awful lot of world building in
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the background that I never put on the page or
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rather I put on the page in the first draft.
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And then I realized it doesn't need to know that.
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It's just something I needed to work out for
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myself. But yeah, so I feel like Loki did come
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fairly fully formed. And in terms of the look
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of the pages, that's very much what my notes
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looked like to meetings. That's what my university
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essays looked like. That's what my school book
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looked like. I always doodled on everything.
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And I always did it in a way that's very integrated
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with the text. And often when I was taking notes
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for, you know, like a university essay or something,
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I'd have a bit of a dialogue with myself with,
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you know, cartoon, like doodle characters that
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came out of nowhere, questions. So I feel like
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I have actually been working on that design approach
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all my life, without necessarily realising that
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was something I was doing. And in my reading
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habits, I've always been very interested in how
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word and image are combined. So whether that's
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comics in the strict, you know, panels, sequential
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art, kind or graphic novels in the broader sense,
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or graphic fiction or graphic, even nonfiction.
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So something like William Blake, His Marriage
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of Heaven and Hell is, you could argue, a graphic
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novel. It's not sequential art in quite the strictest
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sense, not got panels, but it does tell a story
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using word and image in an inextricable way.
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You can't just take the text out and have no
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pictures and vice versa. You can try, but I feel
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like you're missing something and you're definitely
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changing it and you're almost translating it
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into something else. That is really, really interesting
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to know, especially because I admire lots of
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children's authors, and you clearly admire lots
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of children's illustrators, and I always kind
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of think those authors that also do the illustration,
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they must have a strong passion, if not... a
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unique talent for it as well because it's almost
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like double the workload. Yeah, no it isn't actually
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self -losing in a way because you are doubling
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your work and also I tend to give myself these
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incredibly elaborate pictures to draw so in book
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one there was a bit where when I was doing the
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image brief and my editor was reading it I briefed
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myself that I was going to draw a monkey on a
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bicycle because I was sort of having this idea
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of what's the hardest thing to draw and I was
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like a monkey. bicycle. Though someone said a
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horse on a bicycle is actually harder and I would
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agree. Anyway, monkey on a bicycle. But then
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I drew it and the point of it was it's hard to
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draw so if it wasn't perfect it didn't really
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matter. Well I think the wonderful appeal that
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your wonderful, and I say wonderful many times
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because it is that wonderful, and the Loki books
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has is that you've not completely done what some
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authors have which is almost repel. a lot of
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them are common more popular known legends of
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Loki so to speak in Norse mythology you've really
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kind of like brought him into the 21st century
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very very very physically in that you've have
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Odin effectively banish him down to earth into
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the body of a teenage body to learn from his
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mistakes and correct his ways which I absolutely
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think is a brilliant idea because I don't think
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I've seen anyone else do it before in all the
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other kind of like more teenager to young adult
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loki type fantasy books I've read. Well I think
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people do tend to give him more angst than I
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have given him. That said he's got buried angst
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but he's not very good at acknowledging it. Yeah,
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so I'm always very interested in the intersection
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of the ancient and the modern in stories. So
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I'm much more interested in fantasy set in our
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world than I am in secondary world fantasy. As
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a rule, I mean, with the exceptions, I love talking,
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you know. But I really like, for instance, Rivers
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of London, because you've got that very realistic
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London setting, but there's the hidden magic.
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But I also like the fish out of water narrative.
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So Loki is someone that doesn't belong here.
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And he and it's not just about him not fitting
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in. It's also about him reflecting ourselves
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back to us. So, you know, it takes an outsider
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to point out all the things that we do that are
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weird. And the way that humanity is weird. So
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I've given him this diary that is it sort of
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has two functions. One is he's a liar. So you
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need the reader to be able to trust what's happening
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in the story to an extent. So the diary was originally
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the reason I came up with it was because I needed
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a device to say to fact check Loki effectively
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so that you know so you can actually get into
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the story because otherwise you're in this kind
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of like completely unreliable narrator territory
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which I think can work but was not what I was
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going for. I just want slightly unreliable narrator
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but you can kind of believe in the story. So
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there's the sort of the truth element of the
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diary but also I wanted an opportunity to kind
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of have a commentary on our world without him
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necessarily having to go and learn everything
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for himself. So I've got a little device where
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Odin's written a book for him about a guide to
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the 21st century. And whenever he comes across
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something he's not familiar with, if he needs
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a definition, the book provides it. And that
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definition is filtered through Odin's point of
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view, because Odin wrote it. So they're not going
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to be objective definitions. um but they are
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you know they sometimes reflect my views on things
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um but not not 100 so I'd say it's sort of like
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I hope that children will understand that it's
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coming from a point of view a particular point
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of view it's not this is what the world is this
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is what Odin is telling Loki the world is um
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because I think that kind of understanding of
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narrative perspective is something that children
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absolutely can grasp quite easily but you obviously
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need to give them the opportunity to learn how
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that works. So there was a recent scandal in
00:13:27.230 --> 00:13:30.470
children's books discussing, well basically a
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famous American author said that children's books
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are now too didactic and caused fuss. But I think
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for me the what's really interesting is what
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counts as didacticism. And I think mostly it's
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someone saying something I don't like, you know,
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as in like, it's heavy handed if they're giving
00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:56.230
me a message I don't want. I mean, not always,
00:13:56.230 --> 00:13:59.450
sometimes it is just heavy handed. But I would
00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:02.710
say these books contain a lot of moral points
00:14:02.710 --> 00:14:06.309
of view, but not a single one. So there's not
00:14:06.309 --> 00:14:08.929
a kind of unified, I am saying this is what is
00:14:08.929 --> 00:14:12.129
right and wrong. it's an exploration of what
00:14:12.129 --> 00:14:14.370
right and wrong means from the point of view
00:14:14.370 --> 00:14:17.289
of a child but also of an immortal god in the
00:14:17.289 --> 00:14:20.049
body of a child. So I'm sort of operating at
00:14:20.049 --> 00:14:23.830
the how can children explore their own morality
00:14:23.830 --> 00:14:26.710
but also how does that morality then work for
00:14:26.710 --> 00:14:28.990
someone who is not a child and is not even human.
00:14:29.950 --> 00:14:32.970
So it's, I don't know, I did philosophy A level
00:14:32.970 --> 00:14:35.370
so I spent a long time in my later adolescence
00:14:35.370 --> 00:14:38.639
learning to think about ethics from first principles.
00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.259
So I think Loki was my fictional attempt to do
00:14:41.259 --> 00:14:45.620
that, to have a bit of, to ask the questions
00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:48.120
about what does it mean to be good? Who gets
00:14:48.120 --> 00:14:52.299
to say what is good? Loki gets given a virtue
00:14:52.299 --> 00:14:56.399
score by the diary. And the diary is, you know,
00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:59.019
the consciousness of Odin as downloaded at a
00:14:59.019 --> 00:15:01.639
certain time, but with a purpose. So it's not
00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:04.580
full Odin. It does develop its own personality
00:15:04.580 --> 00:15:08.029
after a while. through talking to Loki and basically
00:15:08.029 --> 00:15:11.690
being influenced by it. But its virtue score
00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:14.610
system is wildly unfair, I would say. It's not
00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:18.409
actually this is what I think Loki deserves.
00:15:18.830 --> 00:15:22.309
It's Odin's particular whims in terms of what
00:15:22.309 --> 00:15:26.250
he's driving points to. And I do sometimes get
00:15:26.250 --> 00:15:27.970
kids saying, it's not fair. And I was like, that's
00:15:27.970 --> 00:15:31.470
sort of the point. Because there's not one person
00:15:31.470 --> 00:15:34.169
who gets to say, this is right, this is wrong.
00:15:35.769 --> 00:15:38.009
it's something we come to collectively, you know,
00:15:38.129 --> 00:15:40.529
and something that can come out of discussion.
00:15:41.269 --> 00:15:45.590
So I would say the Loki books are sort of a bit
00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:49.389
Jesuit in that way, perhaps. Well, they're a
00:15:49.389 --> 00:15:53.429
wonderful vehicle and adventure of exploring
00:15:53.429 --> 00:15:55.450
all these different things, such as what it means
00:15:55.450 --> 00:15:58.600
to be good. Fairness, I know I've got a five
00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:02.080
and a half year old who's going on 15 and sometimes
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:04.100
she uses that word simply because we've said
00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:07.340
no to her. It's not fair and I'm like I'm sorry
00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:10.259
but whatever you said or done or want to do or
00:16:10.259 --> 00:16:13.720
haven't done we're not supporting you on that
00:16:13.720 --> 00:16:15.559
kind of thing and so she sometimes struggles
00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:17.600
to understand what it really means and therefore
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:21.440
how to really use it. As I kind of explained
00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:25.500
the introduction he is kind of like a god that
00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:28.759
has it's a figure that has a lot of appeal to
00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:30.659
all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds
00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:34.100
and children of course can definitely relate
00:16:34.100 --> 00:16:38.200
on the mischief naughtiness level. But children
00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:40.899
I found from reading children's books and of
00:16:40.899 --> 00:16:44.899
course kind of like having one now myself, do
00:16:44.899 --> 00:16:47.779
tend to learn a lot from reading about the children
00:16:47.779 --> 00:16:50.360
more than reading about what good or bad adults
00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.320
are doing. So I think you do explore that really
00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:56.600
well by having Loki as a child, albeit not as
00:16:56.600 --> 00:16:59.419
a full caporal child, he's just child in body
00:16:59.419 --> 00:17:02.840
but not in mind. But he also is, because I think
00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:05.059
actually part of I suppose what I've realised
00:17:05.059 --> 00:17:08.160
is writing this, in writing this, is gods are
00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:10.160
children, they may have never been in a child
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.000
form, but they never have to take responsibility
00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:16.700
for their actions. a child in the sense of they
00:17:16.700 --> 00:17:19.099
haven't come into their sense of adult responsibility
00:17:19.099 --> 00:17:20.480
because they spend their lives doing what they
00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:23.200
want and using magic to solve their problems
00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:25.279
and just having fights you know no one no one
00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:27.240
tells the gods not to be violent they just go
00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:31.660
and bash the giants so it's sort of um he's an
00:17:31.660 --> 00:17:35.119
immortal who kind of has always been a child
00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:38.000
and yes he's never been a human child so he's
00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.160
never had that that experience of the kind of
00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:44.880
physical weakness or the vulnerability So yeah,
00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:48.980
he's a mix of adult and child, but I do have
00:17:48.980 --> 00:17:54.759
real children in the book, in the people of,
00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:58.819
in the persons of Valerie and Georgina, so his
00:17:58.819 --> 00:18:03.839
two best friends. So Valerie is incredibly serious
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:09.900
and very kind of... intellectually rigorous and
00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:14.619
logical in quite a sort of methodical way. Whereas
00:18:14.619 --> 00:18:17.599
Georgina is much more of a wit. So she's much
00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:21.039
more kind of critical and much more kind of quick
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:25.779
thinking. And both of them in their different
00:18:25.779 --> 00:18:30.279
ways call Loki out on his nonsense. Georgina
00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:34.599
mostly by making fun of him. and Valerie by asking
00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:38.180
sort of serious moral questions. But also I suppose
00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:41.359
they show him what friendship means, you know,
00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:43.380
by their example, both their friendship with
00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:45.500
each other, but also how they treat him as a
00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:49.460
friend. And sometimes friendship is someone will
00:18:49.460 --> 00:18:51.339
hold you to account and not let you get away
00:18:51.339 --> 00:18:57.500
with things. And so yeah, I feel like I've been
00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:00.460
trying to explore child friendships Through the
00:19:00.460 --> 00:19:02.079
lens of someone who doesn't know how to have
00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:03.619
them and I think that's something that a lot
00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:07.240
of children can relate to because You know, it
00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:09.400
feels like everyone else knows how to do friendship
00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:11.140
better than you do and they've got the rule book
00:19:11.140 --> 00:19:15.440
and you don't And I know it's not true for everyone
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:17.779
But I think a lot of children feel that sense
00:19:17.779 --> 00:19:20.119
that like it's not easy to make and keep friends
00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:22.299
It's not easy to know what the right thing to
00:19:22.299 --> 00:19:24.680
do for your friends is or how to not make them
00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:29.259
sad or how to cheer them up so I think there's
00:19:30.299 --> 00:19:31.819
Along with the explosion of what does it mean
00:19:31.819 --> 00:19:33.539
to be good, I'm also exploring what does it mean
00:19:33.539 --> 00:19:37.799
to be a friend. For an audience who are still
00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:40.059
navigating the, not early stages of learning
00:19:40.059 --> 00:19:42.279
that, but you know, they're 10. So they've been
00:19:42.279 --> 00:19:44.359
in the friendship game for a while, but they've
00:19:44.359 --> 00:19:47.339
still got a lot of questions and obviously are
00:19:47.339 --> 00:19:50.079
in a phase of life where things are rapidly changing.
00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:55.839
And you know, you're becoming more grown up,
00:19:56.099 --> 00:19:59.339
semi adolescent, you know, so things just keep
00:19:59.339 --> 00:20:01.740
getting more complicated. So hopefully Loki can
00:20:01.740 --> 00:20:04.759
offer a bit of a window into how you can navigate
00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:07.859
that from a position not really knowing anything.
00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:13.579
That is really interesting to learn especially
00:20:13.579 --> 00:20:16.220
on the topic of friendship because I know my
00:20:16.220 --> 00:20:19.180
own five and a half year old daughter, she's
00:20:19.180 --> 00:20:22.559
certainly approaching near the first end of her
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:25.160
first year in reception and she made quite a
00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:27.099
large group of girlfriends, she had many many
00:20:27.099 --> 00:20:29.819
friends who were boys, but quite often, I'll
00:20:29.819 --> 00:20:31.460
say quite often, but now and again she'll come
00:20:31.460 --> 00:20:34.480
home and she'll act a bit sad because a certain
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:36.339
girl told her that oh I'm not going to be friends
00:20:36.339 --> 00:20:38.359
with you if you don't do this or if you do that
00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.259
for me then I'll still play with you or they'll
00:20:40.259 --> 00:20:41.839
just, or they'll just completely say they're
00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:45.359
not going to play with you today. Yeah and my
00:20:45.359 --> 00:20:47.339
daughter's like why are they doing that? Why
00:20:47.339 --> 00:20:49.039
are they saying that? Kind of like what have
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:52.480
I done? They're still learning how to be friends,
00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:54.880
Naomi. As long as you play nice and civil and
00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:56.759
don't hurt their feelings, and as long as they're
00:20:56.759 --> 00:20:59.259
not hurting your feelings, just go and play with
00:20:59.259 --> 00:21:01.880
someone else. You have more than enough to get
00:21:01.880 --> 00:21:06.000
around. But it's a tricky thing to kind of like,
00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:08.539
because we obviously as adults understand that,
00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:11.980
OK, that's a bit cruel, a bit fickle, a bit not
00:21:11.980 --> 00:21:15.150
reliable, not even. loyal, but then we're applying
00:21:15.150 --> 00:21:17.529
kind of really kind of like adult measurements.
00:21:17.569 --> 00:21:19.750
Yeah, yeah, I feel like you get past five year
00:21:19.750 --> 00:21:23.789
olds. So yeah, so we just kind of teach and tolerate
00:21:23.789 --> 00:21:29.630
and move on. Yeah, so I think I very much wanted
00:21:29.630 --> 00:21:32.450
to kind of, as you say, I didn't retell the myths,
00:21:33.069 --> 00:21:36.289
but what I wanted to have was the myths always
00:21:36.289 --> 00:21:38.869
hovering in the background. So there's that added
00:21:38.869 --> 00:21:40.670
layer of meaning for anyone that knows the myths
00:21:40.670 --> 00:21:43.450
well, and lots of little in -jokes for people
00:21:43.450 --> 00:21:47.210
that will get them. So Loki keeps telling fragments
00:21:47.210 --> 00:21:50.210
of Norse myths. So he'll refer to the time he
00:21:50.210 --> 00:21:54.660
was a horse or... the time he turned into a seal
00:21:54.660 --> 00:21:58.420
in Fort Heindal and each time he'll say long
00:21:58.420 --> 00:22:01.539
story with some hints at what the story about
00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:03.480
tell you later and then obviously never tells
00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:09.339
them. Except in these additional new editions
00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:13.900
where he's told some. Wonderful, that is wonderful
00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:17.039
to hear. I was looking through your Book Day
00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:19.980
Book in 2024 and that actually has, I didn't
00:22:19.980 --> 00:22:21.779
realise, because I got it and I never actually
00:22:21.779 --> 00:22:23.559
read it, I apologise. I've kind of hoarded it
00:22:23.559 --> 00:22:25.839
on my daughter's behalf. Of course, still she's
00:22:25.839 --> 00:22:28.319
a bit old enough. But it has actually got my
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:30.480
favourite myth of all, which is of course typically
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:32.619
known as the Lay of Thrim, otherwise known as
00:22:32.619 --> 00:22:34.819
the incident where Thor gets into a wedding dress.
00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:37.299
And I love the illustration you've done for that
00:22:37.299 --> 00:22:39.880
wonderful, wonderful thing. But I know when I
00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:42.400
read the Loki's About God's Guide to Being Good
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:45.730
first, a couple of years ago, it had me laughing,
00:22:45.930 --> 00:22:48.769
and I'm an adult, so it still held the right
00:22:48.769 --> 00:22:51.390
notes on humour. And especially, of course, as
00:22:51.390 --> 00:22:54.809
you say, like those on the inside of Norse mythology
00:22:54.809 --> 00:22:57.410
who know and understand what's going on. And
00:22:57.410 --> 00:22:59.730
I think I'll always remember the bit, I think,
00:22:59.809 --> 00:23:01.650
where he had to draw a family tree for his class,
00:23:01.750 --> 00:23:03.509
and his teacher was criticising him for having,
00:23:03.509 --> 00:23:05.269
kind of like mentioning how he's got a son that's
00:23:05.269 --> 00:23:09.109
a snake. And I'm like, yeah, I know that. but
00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:11.130
the teacher doesn't and it's just, it's that
00:23:11.130 --> 00:23:13.089
kind of that inside knowledge. I think kids really
00:23:13.089 --> 00:23:15.309
love to bounce off that kind of like they know
00:23:15.309 --> 00:23:18.809
more than the characters do if they're that kind
00:23:18.809 --> 00:23:22.470
of like clued up or read up on hospitality because
00:23:22.470 --> 00:23:24.690
there is so much out there for children on hospitality.
00:23:24.890 --> 00:23:26.849
I mean I've got a little stash of books for my
00:23:26.849 --> 00:23:29.210
daughter trying to slowly kind of like convert
00:23:29.210 --> 00:23:32.369
it to mummy's ways. It's still obviously not
00:23:32.369 --> 00:23:36.630
as well known as Greek myths and I think there's
00:23:36.650 --> 00:23:38.930
obviously a lot of cultural reasons for that,
00:23:39.549 --> 00:23:43.250
including the kind of classical education being
00:23:43.250 --> 00:23:47.109
the high status thing within kind of colonial
00:23:47.109 --> 00:23:51.750
Britain. And yeah, Norse myths sort of fell a
00:23:51.750 --> 00:23:55.569
bit by the wayside. They were never kind of never
00:23:55.569 --> 00:23:57.670
seen as quite as classy and they aren't because
00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.809
they're a lot more like silly actually, like
00:24:00.809 --> 00:24:03.849
Greek myths. horrible, very upsetting, but not
00:24:03.849 --> 00:24:07.589
very funny. There might be a funny one, but not
00:24:07.589 --> 00:24:11.369
many. Whereas Norse myths are very much on the
00:24:11.369 --> 00:24:16.289
like, and then he fell over. And then he put
00:24:16.289 --> 00:24:22.529
on a girly frock. Some of them are sad, but a
00:24:22.529 --> 00:24:25.710
lot of them are sad and silly at the same time.
00:24:26.890 --> 00:24:28.849
So yes, I would very much like for children to
00:24:28.849 --> 00:24:33.359
learn more Norse myths because I think they they
00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:36.839
are funny and they are also I think you know
00:24:36.839 --> 00:24:38.740
if you're a British kid they're very much part
00:24:38.740 --> 00:24:41.160
of our culture in ways that we don't necessarily
00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:45.680
know whether that's ice names whether that's
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:49.660
kind of you know certain stories stories like
00:24:49.660 --> 00:24:53.079
Beowulf which obviously is effectively a north
00:24:53.079 --> 00:24:57.890
story and and all the kind of the stories that
00:24:57.890 --> 00:24:59.210
then come after that, you know, you've kind of
00:24:59.210 --> 00:25:02.309
got that sort of story, story DNA coming down
00:25:02.309 --> 00:25:07.990
from Scandinavia down through us. But generally
00:25:07.990 --> 00:25:10.549
I just think they're great stories and they're
00:25:10.549 --> 00:25:14.069
very much fun to play with because you can just
00:25:14.069 --> 00:25:16.109
pick out silly details like my son's a giant
00:25:16.109 --> 00:25:21.940
snake or at that time I was a horse. And they're
00:25:21.940 --> 00:25:24.299
just funny, even just those little snippets are
00:25:24.299 --> 00:25:28.420
quite funny. So I've got this sort of background
00:25:28.420 --> 00:25:31.339
of the power dynamics of all the gods when I'm
00:25:31.339 --> 00:25:34.200
establishing the family dynamics. So we've got
00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:37.019
Alda who comes down to earth to babysit basically.
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.980
So he's Odin's favourite son. He's perfect and
00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:44.720
handsome and everything can do no wrong, almost
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:49.380
invulnerable. And in my version of the story
00:25:49.380 --> 00:25:53.769
is very close to Thor and Loki's basically jealous.
00:25:54.049 --> 00:25:55.650
But also, I mean, Baldr is kind of mean to him,
00:25:55.690 --> 00:25:58.190
like he's because he thinks he's not a good person.
00:25:59.730 --> 00:26:02.349
So playing with that sort of family dynamic where
00:26:02.349 --> 00:26:05.529
also Thor feels insecure because Baldr is Odin's
00:26:05.529 --> 00:26:09.650
favourite son. He's the legitimate son. I mean,
00:26:09.650 --> 00:26:12.490
we don't talk with those terms, but he's the
00:26:12.490 --> 00:26:17.589
child of both Frigg and Odin rather than extramarital
00:26:17.589 --> 00:26:22.190
business with Thor's mother. But I'm actually,
00:26:22.269 --> 00:26:24.430
I'm working on book six at the moment and I do
00:26:24.430 --> 00:26:27.230
dig a bit more into all of that family background
00:26:27.230 --> 00:26:31.650
and those family traits and how they impact on
00:26:31.650 --> 00:26:34.230
the characters emotionally, as well as what the
00:26:34.230 --> 00:26:37.609
myths actually say. So I tend to kind of, as
00:26:37.609 --> 00:26:41.269
a rule of thumb, I will, I kind of set myself
00:26:41.269 --> 00:26:45.609
a limit to which text I was going to use as,
00:26:45.710 --> 00:26:48.940
for want of better word, the canon. So I kept
00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:52.740
it pre 14th century. After that, it starts being
00:26:52.740 --> 00:26:57.319
folklore. That's its own thing. So the kind of,
00:26:57.319 --> 00:26:59.680
you know, the peak edder, you know, the poetic
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:03.380
edder and prose edder, with a few other little
00:27:03.380 --> 00:27:05.079
texts here, some of the vol songs, that kind
00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:10.640
of thing. And I thought, I want everything that
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:12.980
I'm portraying in terms of the mythology to have
00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:16.180
textual evidence within that scope of texts.
00:27:17.910 --> 00:27:20.630
Unless I think of something funnier and I want
00:27:20.630 --> 00:27:24.390
to change it. So every now and then I will change
00:27:24.390 --> 00:27:28.750
something. Not very often, but I'm giving myself
00:27:28.750 --> 00:27:31.210
that license because the joy about mythology
00:27:31.210 --> 00:27:36.150
is there is no fixed source of it. It is potentially
00:27:36.150 --> 00:27:39.930
infinitely variable and we don't even have the
00:27:39.930 --> 00:27:42.529
version written down from the year when the Vikings
00:27:42.529 --> 00:27:46.799
believed it. All we've got is the Christian lens.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.160
So I feel like the Christian lens is something
00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:53.660
I've had kind of in my mind. So the kind of the
00:27:53.660 --> 00:27:58.319
snorry of it all. And the fact that snorry is
00:27:58.319 --> 00:28:01.500
potentially an unreliable narrator as a result.
00:28:02.119 --> 00:28:04.119
Especially the bit where he says that basically
00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:07.859
Loki is Odysseus. But I mean, that could be true.
00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:10.920
Maybe Odysseus didn't exist and Christopher Nolan's
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:16.279
film is all about Loki. I would buy that. But
00:28:16.279 --> 00:28:20.460
yeah, so then with those kind of mythological
00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:27.119
roots, roots in the true sense, kind of, I want
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:30.160
them to have a certain authenticity, then how
00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:32.759
I play with those within the story can be as
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:36.099
playful as I like, because I feel like you do
00:28:36.099 --> 00:28:40.880
owe your readers a degree of, accuracy is completely
00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:42.680
the wrong word, but yes, let's go with authenticity.
00:28:45.830 --> 00:28:50.309
I think, for the jokes to be funny, they need
00:28:50.309 --> 00:28:54.650
to be referring to something. But one thing I
00:28:54.650 --> 00:29:00.009
haven't done in any way is I haven't tried to
00:29:00.009 --> 00:29:03.670
replicate Viking morality. So I haven't tried
00:29:03.670 --> 00:29:07.609
to say the gods have the same ethical framework
00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:11.369
as the Vikings. Because I see the gods as very
00:29:11.369 --> 00:29:15.670
much their own family of weirdos. And some of
00:29:15.670 --> 00:29:18.170
the things that Vikings thought were important,
00:29:18.269 --> 00:29:19.890
they think are important, too, like fighting.
00:29:21.349 --> 00:29:24.130
But that's not because they're basically Vikings.
00:29:24.309 --> 00:29:26.490
It's because Vikings might have absorbed some
00:29:26.490 --> 00:29:29.869
of their rules. And also because a lot of people
00:29:29.869 --> 00:29:34.910
like fighting. So for instance, when I was costuming
00:29:34.910 --> 00:29:37.710
the gods, I didn't want them to have Viking -looking
00:29:37.710 --> 00:29:42.220
outfits. so I very much went with, so the gods
00:29:42.220 --> 00:29:46.220
have a slightly kind of 1970s glam rock vibe
00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:50.019
in their outfit, or occasionally Saturday Night
00:29:50.019 --> 00:29:54.740
Fever in Odin's case, and then the giants, the
00:29:54.740 --> 00:29:58.359
frost giants, the evil giants have a more of
00:29:58.359 --> 00:30:02.940
a kind of like 80s hair metal look, and so I
00:30:02.940 --> 00:30:04.500
wanted them to have that sense of like they've
00:30:04.500 --> 00:30:07.980
got their own cultural specificity, but it doesn't
00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:12.259
map onto a specific uh viking vibe and and then
00:30:12.259 --> 00:30:15.019
the elves are a lot more kind of overdressed
00:30:15.019 --> 00:30:20.140
in a slightly david bowie from labyrinth way
00:30:20.140 --> 00:30:23.579
but also with kind of royalty elements because
00:30:23.579 --> 00:30:25.000
they've got they haven't got kings they've just
00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:27.000
got lots of princes because everyone's a bit
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:29.160
out themselves in the elven realms well that's
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:33.019
yeah so i've i go into this later but the there
00:30:33.019 --> 00:30:34.799
are two elven realms because i was i was thinking
00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:36.140
about the different you know the nine realms
00:30:36.140 --> 00:30:39.220
and which ones count and obviously there's um
00:30:39.799 --> 00:30:41.839
I don't know how widely accepted it is but most
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:43.920
people seem to think that Svartalfheim is actually
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:45.640
just another word for Nidavellir rather than
00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:49.420
it being a separate elven realm. However I have
00:30:49.420 --> 00:30:51.039
gone with it being a separate elven realm because
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:54.200
I really like the idea of light elves and dark
00:30:54.200 --> 00:30:59.559
elves and to interpret them as dark elves are
00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:02.579
elves who like forests and shade and light elves
00:31:02.579 --> 00:31:07.619
are ones who like sunshine and beaches and so
00:31:07.660 --> 00:31:10.240
And the Dark Elves are nastier, but it's sort
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:16.339
of a particular kind of like royalist, petty
00:31:16.339 --> 00:31:22.160
nastiness. And the Sun Elves are kind of slightly
00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:26.170
more... communal living. Basically because in
00:31:26.170 --> 00:31:28.250
that kind of spirit of like if you live in a
00:31:28.250 --> 00:31:30.470
nice place where everything is quite hospitable
00:31:30.470 --> 00:31:32.529
then you don't need to fight as much, whereas
00:31:32.529 --> 00:31:34.670
if you live in a forest that might have some
00:31:34.670 --> 00:31:36.490
wild beasts you're probably going to be a bit
00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:40.710
more dog eat dog about it all. So yes, in terms
00:31:40.710 --> 00:31:43.130
of my interpretations of the nine realms I was
00:31:43.130 --> 00:31:46.150
thinking about which ones I'm counting. I mean,
00:31:46.230 --> 00:31:47.869
also bearing in mind that there's a map at the
00:31:47.869 --> 00:31:50.109
front where Loki has not drawn it in a reliable
00:31:50.109 --> 00:31:52.890
way. He's written things like elves, more elves,
00:31:53.069 --> 00:31:57.869
fire, ice. So it's not that this map is anyway
00:31:57.869 --> 00:32:02.130
supposed to portray accuracy. And partly because
00:32:02.130 --> 00:32:04.950
I think it's funny that Loki doesn't care, but
00:32:04.950 --> 00:32:09.809
also that it sort of expresses what I think about
00:32:09.809 --> 00:32:13.710
mythology, which is any attempt to systematise
00:32:13.710 --> 00:32:16.299
it is missing the point. and actually stories
00:32:16.299 --> 00:32:22.559
have kind of more viability beyond something
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:26.700
strict as a set of categories. So they kind of
00:32:26.700 --> 00:32:32.440
burst their banks a bit, stories. And so it's
00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:33.920
sort of, yeah, it's character but it's also,
00:32:33.980 --> 00:32:37.740
I suppose, my notion of what story is and should
00:32:37.740 --> 00:32:42.839
be and can be. That is really cool to learn and
00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:44.990
I never actually thought about it kind of like
00:32:44.990 --> 00:32:48.130
having light elves and dark elves because of
00:32:48.130 --> 00:32:52.349
course from my many years ago excuse me reading
00:32:52.349 --> 00:32:56.829
about Norse mythology I just excuse me always
00:32:56.829 --> 00:32:59.369
came across dark elves meaning an alternative
00:32:59.369 --> 00:33:02.410
word for dwarves effectively yeah yeah which
00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:06.069
is I guess the more fantasy canon type that's
00:33:06.069 --> 00:33:07.970
been set that kind of like the opposite to elves
00:33:07.970 --> 00:33:10.130
and dwarves basically. Yeah obviously I also
00:33:10.130 --> 00:33:12.349
didn't want elves and dwarves to be in opposition
00:33:12.349 --> 00:33:16.849
in that way because I was like other than Tolkien
00:33:16.849 --> 00:33:20.250
what's the logic? Why should they be in opposition
00:33:20.250 --> 00:33:23.190
to each other except I love the hobbits and they
00:33:23.190 --> 00:33:27.349
fight and I quite like the idea of them just
00:33:27.349 --> 00:33:30.589
being sort of like related but separate cultures
00:33:30.589 --> 00:33:34.720
and it's actually elves that have a bit more
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:38.380
internal conflict because they are quite inward
00:33:38.380 --> 00:33:40.740
looking. I mean, the elves in the way I've portrayed
00:33:40.740 --> 00:33:43.599
them are both inward looking in their kind of
00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:45.660
infighting sense, but also they're very obsessed
00:33:45.660 --> 00:33:50.119
with humans. I see elves mapping in that sense
00:33:50.119 --> 00:33:53.160
as mapping onto fairies, as in part of what they
00:33:53.160 --> 00:33:57.619
enjoy doing is messing with us. But in the sense
00:33:57.619 --> 00:34:02.910
of elves, I've I've said that they're quite likely
00:34:02.910 --> 00:34:06.269
to live amongst us and all the most glamorous
00:34:06.269 --> 00:34:08.429
people in the world are potentially elves. So
00:34:08.429 --> 00:34:12.130
a lot of pop stars secretly elves, actors, all
00:34:12.130 --> 00:34:15.409
those kinds of professions hiding in plain sight.
00:34:17.630 --> 00:34:20.269
And it was very fun to play in the world of the
00:34:20.269 --> 00:34:21.769
elves because in Norse mythology, there just
00:34:21.769 --> 00:34:24.150
isn't very much about elves. There's quite a
00:34:24.150 --> 00:34:27.440
lot in... of up -to -date not up to more recent
00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:29.639
folklore in terms of the hidden folk in Iceland
00:34:29.639 --> 00:34:33.119
but this is pre that um so there's as far as
00:34:33.119 --> 00:34:36.880
I can find in that sort of era I could only find
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:41.139
the name of one elf who at least gets a story
00:34:41.139 --> 00:34:46.019
and that's Voland um so he was sort of where
00:34:46.019 --> 00:34:50.119
I started with um and he is someone who has quite
00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:53.059
a hard life and doesn't react well to that hardship
00:34:53.059 --> 00:34:58.400
so he's kidnapped and and sort of tortured effectively
00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:02.860
and he responds by killing the children of the
00:35:02.860 --> 00:35:05.840
person who captured him and turning their skulls
00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:09.159
into jewelry so I feel like he's quite he's sort
00:35:09.159 --> 00:35:11.820
of yeah bad things were done to him but also
00:35:11.820 --> 00:35:16.139
he's quite bad too so I made my main elf character
00:35:16.139 --> 00:35:21.239
his son who is brought in in book four as Loki's
00:35:21.239 --> 00:35:24.599
enemy so I should be able to stay a bit more
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:29.619
in here. As God's guide to making enemies. Because
00:35:29.619 --> 00:35:31.940
that's going to bring me onto my next question.
00:35:32.280 --> 00:35:34.780
There we go. Because if Loki's, yeah, there it
00:35:34.780 --> 00:35:37.860
is, glorious. So you can see he's got slightly
00:35:37.860 --> 00:35:42.440
kind of like, you know, royal ermine and little
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:45.199
princey hat and everything. Princey hat at the
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:49.949
crown. Well yes I mean I was going to ask as
00:35:49.949 --> 00:35:52.610
well kind of like with Loki being protagonist
00:35:52.610 --> 00:35:57.550
and effectively trying to not always say always
00:35:57.550 --> 00:35:59.989
be good but kind of I learn about being good
00:35:59.989 --> 00:36:03.170
through some mischievous means. Yeah. Kind of
00:36:03.170 --> 00:36:07.039
like who if he's not the typed bad guy in the
00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:09.300
book who is, and of course you've got more than
00:36:09.300 --> 00:36:11.500
one book going on, so he must come across different
00:36:11.500 --> 00:36:15.860
opponents, challenges, enemies. So partly he's
00:36:15.860 --> 00:36:18.139
his own enemy and in book three that becomes
00:36:18.139 --> 00:36:22.099
quite, he becomes the bad guy in book three because
00:36:22.099 --> 00:36:26.119
he gets hold of Andvari's ring. So Andvari was
00:36:26.119 --> 00:36:30.519
a dwarf in the Osung saga in the saga with the
00:36:30.519 --> 00:36:35.829
ring. And he curses this ring because Loki steals
00:36:35.829 --> 00:36:38.590
it off him. And that leads to a multi -generational
00:36:38.590 --> 00:36:40.250
curse with everyone dying and terrible things
00:36:40.250 --> 00:36:42.750
happening. So I've slightly tweaked the powers
00:36:42.750 --> 00:36:45.449
of the ring for story purposes. So what happened,
00:36:45.670 --> 00:36:48.449
the reason the curse works is it basically makes
00:36:48.449 --> 00:36:52.610
you hurt the people around you. And this one
00:36:52.610 --> 00:36:54.469
is probably my biggest nod to Tolkien, where
00:36:54.469 --> 00:36:56.570
the ring kind of talks to you and tells you to
00:36:56.570 --> 00:37:00.639
do bad things. And so Loki gets taken over by
00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:02.260
the power of the ring and it sort of brings out
00:37:02.260 --> 00:37:04.320
all these worst impulses and he nearly kills
00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:07.480
Thor as a result. But in most of the books there
00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:13.039
is a villain. So in book one, it's the Frost
00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:16.440
Giants who are trying to kidnap Thor and do various
00:37:16.440 --> 00:37:21.019
nefarious businesses. In book two, well, there's
00:37:21.019 --> 00:37:23.360
an antagonist who's not, I would say, a villain.
00:37:24.679 --> 00:37:26.860
I sort of don't want to say in case someone hasn't
00:37:26.860 --> 00:37:29.099
read book two because it's It's quite a big spoiler.
00:37:30.380 --> 00:37:34.360
But also giants. The giants are kind of a consistent
00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:36.900
villain. They nip off in book three. They actually
00:37:36.900 --> 00:37:42.159
go on holiday. And basically, because I thought
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:45.820
Loki is his own villain there. So in a way, they
00:37:45.820 --> 00:37:48.579
were a bit extra. So in book four, we have Vinyar
00:37:48.579 --> 00:37:50.900
the elf who comes down to earth because Loki's
00:37:50.900 --> 00:37:55.829
insulted him and he's coming to declare. to challenge
00:37:55.829 --> 00:38:00.190
him to a duel and elves are incredibly adept
00:38:00.190 --> 00:38:04.349
at wand magic, which is very loosely based on
00:38:04.349 --> 00:38:06.010
the magic that I do not know how to say, but
00:38:06.010 --> 00:38:10.369
it's something like saith in... Oh, saither or
00:38:10.369 --> 00:38:16.090
saither. Yeah, it's the woman's magic of... So
00:38:16.090 --> 00:38:19.969
elves are great and Loki is just learning, so
00:38:19.969 --> 00:38:24.090
he's sort of... mother on earth is a giant and
00:38:24.090 --> 00:38:27.510
giants are also very good at this magic and his
00:38:27.510 --> 00:38:29.469
mother has given him a wand to learn and he's
00:38:29.469 --> 00:38:31.070
trying to learn magic he's not very good at it
00:38:31.070 --> 00:38:34.250
because you have to practice but Veneer the elf
00:38:34.250 --> 00:38:37.730
who turns up challenges him to a duel so so kind
00:38:37.730 --> 00:38:39.170
of Loki spends a lot of that book thinking he's
00:38:39.170 --> 00:38:42.369
going to die because he's he's going to face
00:38:42.369 --> 00:38:44.889
this elf and the giants always pop up as well
00:38:44.889 --> 00:38:48.110
that they cause extra trouble but then he has
00:38:48.110 --> 00:38:53.179
I suppose kind of antagonists that are more about
00:38:53.179 --> 00:38:55.940
things he's bad. Most of his antagonists are
00:38:55.940 --> 00:38:57.880
bad things he's done to other people that come
00:38:57.880 --> 00:39:00.239
back to haunt him. So he spends a lot of book
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:02.320
four having ruined his friendship with Georgina
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:05.699
trying to repair that, as well as the fact that
00:39:05.699 --> 00:39:07.519
he actually insulted Veneer and that's why Veneer
00:39:07.519 --> 00:39:12.480
is here. And the antagonist in book two is also
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:17.480
there because Loki messed with them. And then
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:20.730
as we get into book five, that's where I suppose
00:39:20.730 --> 00:39:24.489
we would start thinking about a bigger villain
00:39:24.489 --> 00:39:30.210
and the stakes are kind of risen so obviously
00:39:30.210 --> 00:39:34.250
in book four Loki might die that's bad but in
00:39:34.250 --> 00:39:37.710
in book five we have Freya the goddess coming
00:39:37.710 --> 00:39:41.269
to earth and she has power over love and war
00:39:41.269 --> 00:39:44.769
and her magic becomes corrupted by insert mysterious
00:39:44.769 --> 00:39:50.500
villain and this means that the characters start
00:39:50.500 --> 00:39:52.860
behaving very extremely and quite out of character.
00:39:53.719 --> 00:39:56.599
And you sort of realize that the people that
00:39:56.599 --> 00:39:59.559
normally are friends or, you know, beloved to
00:39:59.559 --> 00:40:02.300
each other are going to war, and the people who
00:40:02.300 --> 00:40:06.820
are normally enemies fall in love. So you have
00:40:06.820 --> 00:40:09.519
that kind of raising of the emotional stakes,
00:40:09.539 --> 00:40:12.199
but also these the spell gets really out of hand
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:14.579
and it's sort of, you know, battle at school
00:40:14.579 --> 00:40:18.900
and all these kind of big, terrible things. that
00:40:18.900 --> 00:40:22.179
aren't just easily solved. And like I said, I'm
00:40:22.179 --> 00:40:26.059
writing book six at the moment. So that's too
00:40:26.059 --> 00:40:28.440
much of a spoiler, I think, to say that Loki
00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:33.760
goes on a quest to find his children. His monster,
00:40:33.860 --> 00:40:37.539
monstrous. So, you know, Jormungandr and Fenrir
00:40:37.539 --> 00:40:41.480
and Hel. I'm not counting Sleipnir among those
00:40:41.480 --> 00:40:43.539
because he's their mum and that's slightly different.
00:40:45.660 --> 00:40:48.780
and also Slepnir is very much in with the gods,
00:40:49.280 --> 00:40:52.699
you know, Slepnir is owed in steed and accepted
00:40:52.699 --> 00:40:56.820
in that framework, Hel was exiled to Hel and
00:40:56.820 --> 00:41:00.940
Jorgen to Midgard and Fenrir bound, obviously
00:41:00.940 --> 00:41:06.539
he escapes, spoiler. But yeah, so that's sort
00:41:06.539 --> 00:41:11.400
of, I think I've had like, you know, the villainy
00:41:11.400 --> 00:41:14.980
has to get bigger as the series goes on. The
00:41:14.980 --> 00:41:17.179
kind of end of the arc is at book seven where
00:41:17.179 --> 00:41:22.460
we will get Ragnarok of a kind. And will we get
00:41:22.460 --> 00:41:30.679
Loki going home? That's one. Well it all sounds
00:41:30.679 --> 00:41:32.739
absolutely fascinating and at some point I will
00:41:32.739 --> 00:41:35.420
continue the series because you give me the itch
00:41:35.420 --> 00:41:37.500
now to read book two and see what else he gets
00:41:37.500 --> 00:41:42.070
up to. because as you say there are so many antagonists
00:41:42.070 --> 00:41:46.409
and challenges and lessons quite literally in
00:41:46.409 --> 00:41:48.730
various ways that Loki has to learn about himself
00:41:48.730 --> 00:41:51.429
or about other people or just about how to get
00:41:51.429 --> 00:41:52.949
along with the people as you mentioned kind of
00:41:52.949 --> 00:41:54.769
like friendships there's relationships kind of
00:41:54.769 --> 00:41:59.269
like siblings um obviously kind of like trying
00:41:59.269 --> 00:42:01.570
not to always kill the first giant that you see
00:42:01.570 --> 00:42:06.559
kind of thing um so as well as having all those
00:42:06.559 --> 00:42:08.739
antagonists and challenges come up, did you also
00:42:08.739 --> 00:42:11.480
have to think of it, okay, what's the kind of
00:42:11.480 --> 00:42:15.039
arc or theme that I want children or even indeed
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:19.019
Loki to get out of this latest book? So I think
00:42:19.019 --> 00:42:21.599
what children get out of it is their own business,
00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:25.639
so I've always thought, because I think as a
00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:27.260
writer I have no control over what the reader
00:42:27.260 --> 00:42:30.340
responds, that's their prerogative, the reading
00:42:30.340 --> 00:42:33.500
is an act, it's a reader meets you in the middle
00:42:33.500 --> 00:42:37.210
or wherever they want to meet you, and they create
00:42:37.210 --> 00:42:39.969
their own meaning. So I think about it just in
00:42:39.969 --> 00:42:42.210
terms of, I suppose, what journey I want Loki
00:42:42.210 --> 00:42:45.809
to go on, and what I want him to learn and not
00:42:45.809 --> 00:42:48.389
learn. Because one of the things I realized,
00:42:49.110 --> 00:42:52.110
and the reason book three came about was, if
00:42:52.110 --> 00:42:55.610
Loki got good too quickly, became good, then
00:42:55.610 --> 00:42:58.429
I'd not really have a story anymore. So I needed
00:42:58.429 --> 00:43:01.250
to kind of give him speed bumps and kind of...
00:43:01.019 --> 00:43:03.340
of the ante of his moral challenges as well.
00:43:03.460 --> 00:43:07.360
So book three is a bit of a backslide because
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:09.000
he had actually learned some stuff in book two,
00:43:09.119 --> 00:43:12.280
not loads, but some. So it's sort of a dance
00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:15.239
of like, he can't become too virtuous because
00:43:15.239 --> 00:43:18.900
then he won't be himself. And also the sort of
00:43:18.900 --> 00:43:23.039
story engine goes away. And I suppose it's never
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:24.940
gonna be about being good. It's gonna be about
00:43:24.940 --> 00:43:30.059
being better. So. And I suppose authentic to
00:43:30.059 --> 00:43:32.780
himself and telling the truth to himself, because
00:43:32.780 --> 00:43:37.500
even though the diary fact checks, the sort of
00:43:37.500 --> 00:43:39.860
objective truth of statements that Loki makes,
00:43:40.260 --> 00:43:42.840
it doesn't, it can't stop him from lying to himself.
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:46.019
So if he fully believes something, the diary
00:43:46.019 --> 00:43:47.599
is a little bit iffy on whether that counts as
00:43:47.599 --> 00:43:51.619
a lie or not, you know, and he's very sort of
00:43:51.619 --> 00:43:55.969
twisted in his own thinking. So I think at each
00:43:55.969 --> 00:43:58.449
book I tend to think of like, what is Loki going
00:43:58.449 --> 00:44:00.110
to get out of this? What's he going to learn?
00:44:00.690 --> 00:44:03.869
Where does he start? You know, the kind of classic
00:44:03.869 --> 00:44:06.849
writer asking themselves questions of like, you
00:44:06.849 --> 00:44:10.730
know, what does he want? What does he need? And
00:44:10.730 --> 00:44:17.010
I think about writing funny books as what does
00:44:17.010 --> 00:44:19.849
my character want? And what's the funniest way
00:44:19.849 --> 00:44:23.489
to stop them getting it? so at each stage it's
00:44:23.489 --> 00:44:25.349
sort of how you frustrate your character and
00:44:25.349 --> 00:44:28.809
when I go and give talks to kids about writing
00:44:28.809 --> 00:44:31.750
I will basically sort of say that your duty as
00:44:31.750 --> 00:44:34.030
an author is to make your characters lives a
00:44:34.030 --> 00:44:37.130
living hell because the more problems you have
00:44:37.130 --> 00:44:40.210
in a story the more interesting the story and
00:44:40.210 --> 00:44:42.570
obviously fallible characters are very appealing
00:44:42.570 --> 00:44:45.710
so if your character tries to solve problems
00:44:45.710 --> 00:44:47.730
in a way that is absolutely wrong -headed that's
00:44:47.730 --> 00:44:49.550
a lot more fun than if they make a very sensible
00:44:49.550 --> 00:44:53.750
set of choices. And I think this is true of Loki
00:44:53.750 --> 00:44:58.690
more than most. He is his own worst enemy. So
00:44:58.690 --> 00:45:02.110
he has external antagonists. But I think in the
00:45:02.110 --> 00:45:04.550
end, he's often fighting himself more than he's
00:45:04.550 --> 00:45:11.269
fighting them. And the giants, they're not that
00:45:11.269 --> 00:45:15.809
bright. They're not very formidable villains
00:45:15.809 --> 00:45:19.230
in the end because they can be beaten quite easily
00:45:19.230 --> 00:45:21.099
because they're not. they're not necessarily
00:45:21.099 --> 00:45:26.019
thinking things through. But it's often Loki's
00:45:26.019 --> 00:45:28.679
getting in his own way that stops him beating
00:45:28.679 --> 00:45:32.079
the giants or whatever's in in in case like you
00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:34.119
know with Veneer he tends to make things worse
00:45:34.119 --> 00:45:38.519
before he makes them better. So yeah there'll
00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:40.760
be a little kind of mini journey within each
00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:43.500
book but then also his kind of macro journey
00:45:43.500 --> 00:45:46.610
which I think is actually much less about being
00:45:46.610 --> 00:45:49.230
good and more about learning who he is and what
00:45:49.230 --> 00:45:54.329
he wants, where he belongs, what family means,
00:45:54.730 --> 00:45:59.230
what friendship means, and his place in the world.
00:45:59.789 --> 00:46:01.030
And you know, because obviously like his sort
00:46:01.030 --> 00:46:04.869
of goal is to get back to Asgard, but whether
00:46:04.869 --> 00:46:07.010
he'll actually want that by the end or not, you
00:46:07.010 --> 00:46:18.659
know, that's slightly up for grabs. I think that
00:46:18.659 --> 00:46:21.860
is probably in a nutshell the absolute appeal
00:46:21.860 --> 00:46:24.380
of Loki in that we, I mean it's certainly something
00:46:24.380 --> 00:46:28.760
I think I've connected to with a lot of the pantheon
00:46:28.760 --> 00:46:30.820
characters from the legends is that they're all,
00:46:32.039 --> 00:46:33.679
I've often described them as human that just
00:46:33.679 --> 00:46:36.159
happen to have magical supernatural powers, toys
00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:39.340
or life -plucking apples. They're just guys,
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:43.809
just a bunch of guys. Because they all make mistakes.
00:46:44.050 --> 00:46:46.630
Freya gets incredibly jealous. Loki, of course,
00:46:46.889 --> 00:46:49.489
always makes mistakes to get into or out of trouble.
00:46:50.570 --> 00:46:53.869
Thor just doesn't often seem to be too bright.
00:46:54.849 --> 00:46:57.349
He's also very violent, like if you're a giant.
00:46:58.889 --> 00:47:01.630
He's very kind of like aggressive, combative.
00:47:03.639 --> 00:47:05.440
But of course kind of like the way kind of like
00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:07.599
Odin never seems to get tarnished with being
00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:09.380
even labelled as a trickster, although I think
00:47:09.380 --> 00:47:11.460
in some ways he is an absolute trickster because
00:47:11.460 --> 00:47:14.440
he deceives everyone about it. But you know what,
00:47:14.539 --> 00:47:16.980
he's the boss so he gets to say what he wants.
00:47:18.300 --> 00:47:22.280
That's the secret. Yes, I was saying to some
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:24.699
group of children, they do blur after a while
00:47:24.699 --> 00:47:26.400
because I just talked to so many of them, but
00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:28.820
basically like what's the lesson you can learn
00:47:28.820 --> 00:47:31.619
from Loki and it's like be the boss and you can
00:47:31.619 --> 00:47:34.559
get away with whatever you want. And I'm not
00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:36.519
saying that's a good lesson but it's a lesson
00:47:36.519 --> 00:47:42.139
one could learn. And I think that links back
00:47:42.139 --> 00:47:44.360
to kind of like Loki kind of like always trying
00:47:44.360 --> 00:47:47.480
to not to get the upper hand but certainly kind
00:47:47.480 --> 00:47:51.940
of like get into a position of maybe manipulation,
00:47:52.139 --> 00:47:54.500
persuasion kind of like convincing so kind of
00:47:54.500 --> 00:47:57.480
like people will then believe him or then hearing
00:47:57.480 --> 00:48:00.380
what other people are saying about him. Yeah.
00:48:00.380 --> 00:48:02.789
Almost like coming to his point of view. or that
00:48:02.789 --> 00:48:05.889
having him as a sort of self -protection isn't
00:48:05.889 --> 00:48:10.869
it he he sort of uses tricks to as a form of
00:48:10.869 --> 00:48:12.630
safety whether it's physical safety because he
00:48:12.630 --> 00:48:15.829
uses tricks to get out of trouble or emotional
00:48:15.829 --> 00:48:19.050
safety in a way by having a reputation as the
00:48:19.050 --> 00:48:22.269
trickster it's much easier to pretend that no
00:48:22.269 --> 00:48:24.139
one hurts your feelings Because it's like, oh,
00:48:24.159 --> 00:48:27.139
it's all a joke. I don't care. I'm just a Mary
00:48:27.139 --> 00:48:30.500
Japester, not someone who has really profound
00:48:30.500 --> 00:48:35.519
feelings of sadness or rejection. I suppose it's
00:48:35.519 --> 00:48:40.800
the sad clown thing. He's not a sad person, but
00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:44.840
he does have a well of sadness inside him in
00:48:44.840 --> 00:48:47.239
a sense that he doesn't belong, and he's an outsider,
00:48:47.340 --> 00:48:51.349
and no one loves him. and therefore he does terrible
00:48:51.349 --> 00:48:53.349
things to stop people loving him in a way because
00:48:53.349 --> 00:48:56.230
it's a you know in a way he's sort of saying
00:48:56.230 --> 00:48:58.289
I'm choosing to stop people loving me it's not
00:48:58.289 --> 00:49:00.010
that they don't it's just that I'm doing these
00:49:00.010 --> 00:49:02.329
tricks and that's why they don't like me rather
00:49:02.329 --> 00:49:05.449
than because of something fundamentally unlovable
00:49:05.449 --> 00:49:10.349
in me. Yeah that's a really nice really nice
00:49:10.349 --> 00:49:12.349
way to encapsulate Loki's character that's a
00:49:12.349 --> 00:49:15.349
really good insight. It certainly kind of like
00:49:15.349 --> 00:49:18.389
made me think to kind of slightly off topic,
00:49:18.510 --> 00:49:20.889
but I recently finished binging the latest Devil
00:49:20.889 --> 00:49:23.969
May Cry series on Netflix. And of course the
00:49:23.969 --> 00:49:26.989
hero of that film, well anime series called Dante,
00:49:27.170 --> 00:49:31.130
he's got the low -key kind of like the wit, the
00:49:31.130 --> 00:49:33.070
sarcasm, he's always got kind of like epic one
00:49:33.070 --> 00:49:34.989
-liners that he drops when he's in combat with
00:49:34.989 --> 00:49:38.349
all these bad things and yet kind of like in
00:49:38.349 --> 00:49:41.590
one kind of romantic slash emotional scene where
00:49:41.590 --> 00:49:44.269
he's speaking with the female protagonist lady.
00:49:44.679 --> 00:49:47.139
He kind of says, it's not that I don't care.
00:49:47.199 --> 00:49:48.920
It's not that I find everything funny. It's that
00:49:48.920 --> 00:49:51.280
if I show my pain, it's going to be too much.
00:49:51.320 --> 00:49:54.780
There's too much of it. And that really kind
00:49:54.780 --> 00:49:57.280
of made me think when you were describing Loki,
00:49:57.579 --> 00:49:59.880
back to how Dante basically summarized it up.
00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:02.800
And I thought, I think that we see a lot in a
00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:05.920
lot of modern day heroes. We want them to be
00:50:05.920 --> 00:50:09.400
witty and sarcastic and have these mic drop moments
00:50:09.400 --> 00:50:11.880
with the dialogue. But equally, we like to see
00:50:11.880 --> 00:50:15.760
that they are. very much like us they hurt for
00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:17.400
the same reasons that we would be upset like
00:50:17.400 --> 00:50:19.639
if they got betrayed or if their mother or father
00:50:19.639 --> 00:50:23.139
died or that kind of thing. Lots of emotional
00:50:23.139 --> 00:50:26.079
baggage and certainly in the fantasy fiction
00:50:26.079 --> 00:50:29.239
that I've read for young adults Loki is very
00:50:29.239 --> 00:50:31.960
much as you say kind of like highlighting angst
00:50:31.960 --> 00:50:36.780
and emotional turmoil and the whole point of
00:50:36.780 --> 00:50:39.219
view is spun on its heels so we kind of see how
00:50:39.219 --> 00:50:41.900
he would feel in the way he is and being treated
00:50:41.900 --> 00:50:44.809
the way he is. by the other Asgardians and given
00:50:44.809 --> 00:50:48.050
that real outsider kind of like someone who's
00:50:48.050 --> 00:50:50.409
made to do things that he doesn't always want
00:50:50.409 --> 00:50:54.329
to do and that might not be more to him. And
00:50:54.329 --> 00:50:57.750
I guess that relates when you're taking mythical
00:50:57.750 --> 00:51:02.300
characters. often in the way myths are recorded,
00:51:02.659 --> 00:51:04.519
you don't have a very fleshed out psychology
00:51:04.519 --> 00:51:07.579
for people's actions. It'll just be, this person
00:51:07.579 --> 00:51:11.480
did this. So in the story of, at the start of
00:51:11.480 --> 00:51:15.860
the Vol'song saga, where Loki and Thor and one
00:51:15.860 --> 00:51:17.500
other person, I can't remember who that is now.
00:51:17.880 --> 00:51:19.239
Anyway, someone else. I'm pretty sure it's Odin
00:51:19.239 --> 00:51:22.139
as well. Yeah, anyway, they're just, you know,
00:51:22.139 --> 00:51:25.300
they're having a laugh and they come across a
00:51:25.300 --> 00:51:28.849
stream and Loki just randomly kills an otter
00:51:28.849 --> 00:51:35.289
for no reason. Was it for food? Was it just because
00:51:35.289 --> 00:51:38.349
it was there? And I feel like that kind of unmotivated
00:51:38.349 --> 00:51:41.050
malice or unmotivated just actions in general.
00:51:42.050 --> 00:51:43.650
There's no context for these things. It's often
00:51:43.650 --> 00:51:46.230
like they go off on a journey. Why? I don't know.
00:51:46.570 --> 00:51:51.849
They just do. So when you're writing the interiority
00:51:51.849 --> 00:51:53.369
of those characters, you have to come up with
00:51:53.369 --> 00:51:54.949
reasons for why they do the things that they
00:51:54.949 --> 00:51:58.409
do. And a lot of children ask me, why is Loki
00:51:58.409 --> 00:52:06.010
bad? And I can't necessarily go into the adult
00:52:06.010 --> 00:52:11.579
idea, but I think I sort of... I slightly hedge
00:52:11.579 --> 00:52:13.800
my bets and I'll say a little bit like sometimes
00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:15.719
to an extent it's his nature because he is a
00:52:15.719 --> 00:52:18.880
trickster god but it's also a reaction to how
00:52:18.880 --> 00:52:21.719
he's treated by others and his way of coping
00:52:21.719 --> 00:52:25.659
with the fact that he doesn't quite fit in. So
00:52:25.659 --> 00:52:28.719
you know describing it as a bit like you know
00:52:28.719 --> 00:52:31.260
sometimes you know when you when people at your
00:52:31.260 --> 00:52:33.400
school are being naughty it's because they're
00:52:33.400 --> 00:52:36.500
having a bad time at home or something so trying
00:52:36.500 --> 00:52:40.159
to describe it as It's partly because he's got
00:52:40.159 --> 00:52:43.300
a personality where he's a bit of a, kind of
00:52:43.300 --> 00:52:48.679
think a non -swear word, so and so. But also
00:52:48.679 --> 00:52:51.340
there is a reason he's doing it in reaction to
00:52:51.340 --> 00:52:54.239
something, whether that is someone how he's being
00:52:54.239 --> 00:52:58.980
treated or just his own emotional makeup. So
00:52:58.980 --> 00:53:02.380
yeah, I think sometimes, so when I do do the
00:53:02.380 --> 00:53:06.150
retellings of stories, I often realize, wow,
00:53:06.309 --> 00:53:08.090
that just makes no sense in the midst at all.
00:53:08.469 --> 00:53:09.829
Why would someone do that? So I have to come
00:53:09.829 --> 00:53:12.230
up with a reason why they do it, or kind of skip
00:53:12.230 --> 00:53:15.590
over the reason by making a joke, you know? Because
00:53:15.590 --> 00:53:20.489
in the story of Thor's fishing trip that I have
00:53:20.489 --> 00:53:27.010
in the extended edition of book one, I sort of
00:53:27.010 --> 00:53:29.190
have the running joke that Thor's terrible at
00:53:29.190 --> 00:53:32.030
telling stories. so he keeps not giving reasons
00:53:32.030 --> 00:53:34.650
for anything and then Loki has to kind of weed
00:53:34.650 --> 00:53:36.449
all the reasons out of him and help him tell
00:53:36.449 --> 00:53:40.949
the story, not help, help by snap, so Thor's
00:53:40.949 --> 00:53:43.849
writing the story in the diary and Loki keeps
00:53:43.849 --> 00:53:47.469
snatching the book back and adding doodles and
00:53:47.469 --> 00:53:49.110
sort of eventually we get the whole story out
00:53:49.110 --> 00:53:52.050
of it but it's I think that was partly my way
00:53:52.050 --> 00:53:54.190
of exploring the fact that myths don't make sense
00:53:54.190 --> 00:53:57.510
or they don't have you know narrative coherence
00:53:57.510 --> 00:54:00.429
necessarily. Especially when you have different
00:54:00.429 --> 00:54:03.469
versions that pull in different directions. Or
00:54:03.469 --> 00:54:06.050
it's not opposite, but slightly competing directions.
00:54:08.190 --> 00:54:10.889
But I do love the kind of weirdness of the specificity
00:54:10.889 --> 00:54:15.030
of myths. So like Loki in bird form turning someone
00:54:15.030 --> 00:54:17.510
into a nut to carry them. So I did actually just
00:54:17.510 --> 00:54:20.230
take that wholesale and put it in book one. So
00:54:20.230 --> 00:54:22.869
he turns Valerie into a nut to carry her. No
00:54:22.869 --> 00:54:26.400
explanation why, I guess Tita. And it sort of
00:54:26.400 --> 00:54:28.219
makes an intuitive sense of it. It's like about
00:54:28.219 --> 00:54:32.119
an eagle's claw or whatever kind of bird it was.
00:54:32.619 --> 00:54:38.340
That could fit a lot in. But yeah, kind of. So
00:54:38.340 --> 00:54:39.960
it's an interesting line to walk between the
00:54:39.960 --> 00:54:42.079
absurdity of the myth and then taking the story
00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:49.239
seriously. Yeah, I mean, it makes so much sense
00:54:49.239 --> 00:54:53.670
when you. Excuse me. kind of like how almost
00:54:53.670 --> 00:54:56.269
simple on the nose and if not direct a lot of
00:54:56.269 --> 00:54:58.969
the Norse myths are at least like the recorded
00:54:58.969 --> 00:55:01.510
versions of them that we have. So as you said
00:55:01.510 --> 00:55:04.650
earlier on kind of like we don't know how either
00:55:04.650 --> 00:55:07.170
we're told at the time the Vikings were around,
00:55:07.570 --> 00:55:09.510
we don't know who told them, we don't you know
00:55:09.510 --> 00:55:11.389
half the time who even wrote them down to begin
00:55:11.389 --> 00:55:13.690
with. A lot of these kind of like scribes are
00:55:13.690 --> 00:55:18.969
all anonymous. So it's always going to be open
00:55:18.969 --> 00:55:21.789
for interpretation, but I think that's the magic
00:55:21.789 --> 00:55:23.630
ingredient behind these myths, and that they
00:55:23.630 --> 00:55:27.610
are so open to interpretation, that we can, that
00:55:27.610 --> 00:55:29.409
your stories amongst with many others that I've
00:55:29.409 --> 00:55:32.250
read, kind of like Joanne Harris with her Gospel
00:55:32.250 --> 00:55:35.630
of Loki and the Green Marks series and other
00:55:35.630 --> 00:55:39.750
authors, are just so able to bring them forward
00:55:39.750 --> 00:55:41.809
into the state as well to make them relatable
00:55:41.809 --> 00:55:44.050
and connectable for one readers, both children
00:55:44.050 --> 00:55:47.039
and young adults and adult alike. But I guess
00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:48.639
the most important question I should ask you,
00:55:48.679 --> 00:55:51.699
Louie, is what brought you into Norse mythology
00:55:51.699 --> 00:55:54.219
to begin with? What captured your imagination?
00:55:54.679 --> 00:55:58.260
OK, well, I think we need to rewind to the early
00:55:58.260 --> 00:56:03.119
80s. Imagine me, age three, something like that.
00:56:04.059 --> 00:56:07.500
I'm watching TV and I'm absolutely transfixed
00:56:07.500 --> 00:56:12.420
by what is on the screen. And it's giants. There's
00:56:12.420 --> 00:56:16.139
these giants walking around on a stage. And it
00:56:16.139 --> 00:56:19.159
was a production of Wagner that happened to be
00:56:19.159 --> 00:56:21.719
on TV that my parents turned on. And I just kept
00:56:21.719 --> 00:56:26.000
watching it. I was obsessed. I liked the music
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:27.739
because I was quite a nerdy child, obviously,
00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:32.820
but it was loud. and so but it was most of the
00:56:32.820 --> 00:56:34.760
giants that I was captivated by because it was
00:56:34.760 --> 00:56:36.739
I think the giants were either people on stilts
00:56:36.739 --> 00:56:38.340
or people on each other's shoulders I'm not sure
00:56:38.340 --> 00:56:41.300
I will look up the production because it will
00:56:41.300 --> 00:56:43.360
be it was quite a specific one that was very
00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:48.860
much a kind of industrial Soviet landscape. And
00:56:48.860 --> 00:56:51.059
so I got really into that. And then later I took
00:56:51.059 --> 00:56:54.219
up the trumpet. And so that got me further into
00:56:54.219 --> 00:56:57.880
Wagner and sort of learning the stories. Because
00:56:57.880 --> 00:57:00.639
as a trumpeter in an orchestra, I played jazz
00:57:00.639 --> 00:57:04.460
as well, but in a youth orchestra, Wagner has
00:57:04.460 --> 00:57:09.679
great trumpet parts. Most of the Wagner songs,
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:12.880
tunes that you might sing, it's the trumpet part
00:57:12.880 --> 00:57:14.800
you're singing, the ride of the Valkyries and
00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:18.880
things. And so that kind of got me further into
00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:20.860
the stories from that way, but I was coming at
00:57:20.860 --> 00:57:23.519
it from different angles. So I also got quite
00:57:23.519 --> 00:57:28.760
into sort of Viking legends in general and sagas.
00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:33.000
So I had a Terry Jones book called Eric the Viking,
00:57:35.039 --> 00:57:39.000
the kind of saga Eric the, which Eric was it?
00:57:39.099 --> 00:57:45.119
I actually don't remember now. I've done that
00:57:45.119 --> 00:57:47.280
a couple of months ago. And I think you're the
00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:49.179
only second person I've come across that actually
00:57:49.179 --> 00:57:51.380
has heard of it or read the book. So I actually
00:57:51.380 --> 00:57:53.360
met Terry Jones when I was a kid. That was my
00:57:53.360 --> 00:57:57.300
first book signing. It was Terry Jones. And he
00:57:57.300 --> 00:57:59.099
was very kind. And he talked to me for quite
00:57:59.099 --> 00:58:01.099
a long time. I was probably about six at this
00:58:01.099 --> 00:58:04.630
point. And he was. We were talking about the
00:58:04.630 --> 00:58:06.989
fact that I was named after my great auntie Louisa,
00:58:07.829 --> 00:58:09.489
but everyone called her Louie, so I was called
00:58:09.489 --> 00:58:11.670
Louie. And he was talking about the fact that
00:58:11.670 --> 00:58:15.150
he had a great auntie Louisa. And until about
00:58:15.150 --> 00:58:18.610
20 years later, possibly longer than that, I
00:58:18.610 --> 00:58:20.449
thought we were related because I thought it
00:58:20.449 --> 00:58:24.349
was the same great auntie Louisa. And I later
00:58:24.349 --> 00:58:26.230
realized, no, no, he just had an auntie called
00:58:26.230 --> 00:58:28.369
Louisa and he was humoring a six -year -old.
00:58:29.599 --> 00:58:32.619
But yeah, so there's that strand as well. And
00:58:32.619 --> 00:58:35.340
then there's Beowulf, which I loved. I had the
00:58:35.340 --> 00:58:37.099
Dragon Slayer version, which was the Rosemary
00:58:37.099 --> 00:58:39.059
Sutcliffe version without all the boring bits.
00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:42.900
So it's just the fights. So it's Grendel, Grendel's
00:58:42.900 --> 00:58:47.079
mum, the dragon, Bosch. And when I came to read
00:58:47.079 --> 00:58:49.559
Beowulf in full at university, I was a little
00:58:49.559 --> 00:58:51.179
bit disappointed with all the bits that are like
00:58:51.179 --> 00:58:55.639
lists of names and things. But yeah, so Beowulf,
00:58:55.639 --> 00:58:59.670
love that. And then Tolkien. so obviously Tolkien
00:58:59.670 --> 00:59:02.670
is sort of a lot of it comes from Norse mythology
00:59:02.670 --> 00:59:07.469
whether it's you know elves or trolls or languages
00:59:07.469 --> 00:59:13.989
and the ring. Even Gandalf his name is from the
00:59:13.989 --> 00:59:16.190
list of dwarf names. Yeah yeah which is hilarious
00:59:16.190 --> 00:59:19.929
from a list of dwarves random but it means one
00:59:19.929 --> 00:59:23.289
elf and yes all the dwarf the list of dwarves
00:59:23.289 --> 00:59:27.389
when I when I you know so I I'll come on to reading
00:59:27.389 --> 00:59:30.690
the Edda later. But yeah, in the list of dwarves,
00:59:30.750 --> 00:59:32.909
it's like, wow, that's Feely, Keely, whatever,
00:59:33.070 --> 00:59:35.170
like all these guys, they're in the Norse myths.
00:59:37.130 --> 00:59:40.110
So yeah, so had it through Tolkien, had it through
00:59:40.110 --> 00:59:42.329
like the Usborne book of Norse myths, like I
00:59:42.329 --> 00:59:44.090
imagine a lot of people do, which had very heavy
00:59:44.090 --> 00:59:49.190
metal illustrations. And later I went on to work
00:59:49.190 --> 00:59:53.110
at Usborne. So I was... I was tasked with writing
00:59:53.110 --> 00:59:56.050
a book of Norse myths retellings. So this was
00:59:56.050 --> 00:59:59.690
probably 2010 or something like that, God, over
00:59:59.690 --> 01:00:04.650
15 years ago. And in doing the research for that,
01:00:04.730 --> 01:00:07.769
I went and read the Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda,
01:00:07.829 --> 01:00:10.809
the Volsung Saga, various other sagas before
01:00:10.809 --> 01:00:12.469
realizing they didn't have any myths in them.
01:00:13.670 --> 01:00:17.550
And so that was my first experience of the Norse
01:00:17.550 --> 01:00:20.809
texts, the Icelandic, you know, writing down
01:00:20.809 --> 01:00:25.489
of those myths. And that's where I really made
01:00:25.489 --> 01:00:29.610
the connection with Tolkien, because Tolkien
01:00:29.610 --> 01:00:31.170
had given me the kind of innate love of it, but
01:00:31.170 --> 01:00:32.909
I didn't realise I was loving Norse mythology
01:00:32.909 --> 01:00:36.030
at that time. So I feel like, yeah, and again,
01:00:36.130 --> 01:00:38.989
I didn't realise the stories in Wagner were the
01:00:38.989 --> 01:00:43.210
same stories, up to a point, because of the Germanic
01:00:43.210 --> 01:00:46.539
version. Oh, yes. I mean actually this is the
01:00:46.539 --> 01:00:48.980
Germanic versions, in theory older, but not Wagner's
01:00:48.980 --> 01:00:54.139
version. And I don't know that much about the
01:00:54.139 --> 01:00:56.940
great migration period, but definitely that Germanic
01:00:56.940 --> 01:01:01.760
tribes came into Scandinavia. So yeah, so I had
01:01:01.760 --> 01:01:04.000
the kind of, I suppose, over determination of
01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:05.940
a love of Norse mythology from lots of different
01:01:05.940 --> 01:01:11.099
angles. But it was the kind of, I suppose, the
01:01:11.099 --> 01:01:14.179
slightly more scholarly approach I took in researching
01:01:14.179 --> 01:01:19.739
this book of Norse mythology tellings and I was
01:01:19.739 --> 01:01:23.260
working on it with another colleague and basically
01:01:23.260 --> 01:01:24.760
we sort of divvied up, I was more interested
01:01:24.760 --> 01:01:26.480
in Loki and was more interested in Thor so he
01:01:26.480 --> 01:01:28.940
focused on the Thor story, the Loki ones and
01:01:28.940 --> 01:01:30.780
the ones that are both we just kind of muddled
01:01:30.780 --> 01:01:35.539
through and I like you know the end of the world
01:01:35.539 --> 01:01:41.519
so I did Ragnarok. And so kind of going back
01:01:41.519 --> 01:01:44.119
to those texts and I sort of got very into the
01:01:44.119 --> 01:01:48.260
character of Loki as a result, because so much
01:01:48.260 --> 01:01:51.480
of what he does is like, wow, you're such a dick.
01:01:53.300 --> 01:01:57.960
So reading Lokasenna, so his insult battle, fascinating.
01:01:58.539 --> 01:02:00.980
But it wasn't until later that I read that there's
01:02:00.980 --> 01:02:06.559
the insult battle between Thor and Odin. And
01:02:06.559 --> 01:02:09.059
it's really mean. He doesn't even declare himself.
01:02:09.219 --> 01:02:11.079
He just does it all behind the disguise. That
01:02:11.079 --> 01:02:14.579
is like an act of child, not neglect, but like
01:02:14.579 --> 01:02:19.179
cruelty. Yeah, it's horrible. So it's interesting.
01:02:19.340 --> 01:02:20.900
I feel like Locust Center gets all the attention
01:02:20.900 --> 01:02:23.219
for how mean Loki is. But then it's like, well,
01:02:23.679 --> 01:02:26.300
Odin, always getting away with things. He's up
01:02:26.300 --> 01:02:29.670
to something. But I love reading Lokasenna and
01:02:29.670 --> 01:02:32.269
it's like, wow, those insults are pretty, pretty
01:02:32.269 --> 01:02:35.829
harsh and definitely quite scurrilous. One of
01:02:35.829 --> 01:02:37.829
the things I found quite strange was in terms
01:02:37.829 --> 01:02:41.190
of people's academic discussion of Lokasenna.
01:02:41.429 --> 01:02:43.289
So many of them seem to just believe Loki's telling
01:02:43.289 --> 01:02:46.690
the truth. I mean, as in that's how it's treated.
01:02:48.989 --> 01:02:51.090
He's probably making stuff up, right? He is a
01:02:51.090 --> 01:02:54.050
liar. But I suppose it's the ones where they
01:02:54.050 --> 01:02:56.050
don't deny it. That's the ones where you think,
01:02:56.889 --> 01:03:03.429
OK. that probably is true. But yeah, and you
01:03:03.429 --> 01:03:05.849
get beautiful little fragments of myths that
01:03:05.849 --> 01:03:08.130
you don't get elsewhere in Locust Centre. Yes,
01:03:08.489 --> 01:03:11.929
yes you do. He mentions so many names or people
01:03:11.929 --> 01:03:13.989
mention names in the kind of like rebuttal of
01:03:13.989 --> 01:03:16.449
his events because like so many people he kind
01:03:16.449 --> 01:03:17.969
of like picks them all by one and they all kind
01:03:17.969 --> 01:03:20.710
of like step up and it kind of like goes a paper
01:03:20.710 --> 01:03:23.599
chain of exchange of insults. So I remember speaking
01:03:23.599 --> 01:03:26.380
to an American artist called Sam Flegel, who's
01:03:26.380 --> 01:03:29.900
done a beautiful kind of like ink blob and line
01:03:29.900 --> 01:03:32.840
illustration, his interpretation of the Locust
01:03:32.840 --> 01:03:34.199
Centre. And I would have loved to have done it
01:03:34.199 --> 01:03:36.059
back on Kickstarter, but you can't afford shipping
01:03:36.059 --> 01:03:39.159
costs to the UK. So never had a copy. And it's
01:03:39.159 --> 01:03:42.199
like a physical print edition. But yeah, he was,
01:03:42.199 --> 01:03:43.800
it was really interesting talking to him because
01:03:43.800 --> 01:03:45.860
of course he stood at each verse and then kind
01:03:45.860 --> 01:03:47.989
of like meditates on it and then. brought it
01:03:47.989 --> 01:03:50.949
into our work and so many names kind of like
01:03:50.949 --> 01:03:53.309
related to so -and -so's brother or so -and -so's
01:03:53.309 --> 01:03:56.610
kind of like servant or thrall or kind of like
01:03:56.610 --> 01:03:59.150
how many times he mentions that Freya has basically
01:03:59.150 --> 01:04:02.530
slept with everyone yeah like Frig and Zif step
01:04:02.530 --> 01:04:08.190
up and say she's not projecting um but in so
01:04:08.190 --> 01:04:10.309
Lucas and I was one of the stories that is genuinely
01:04:10.309 --> 01:04:13.230
too rude for me to retell for children however
01:04:13.230 --> 01:04:16.389
I did a version of it so in um I've done an did
01:04:16.389 --> 01:04:18.150
an activity book that had some short stories
01:04:18.150 --> 01:04:23.820
and things for Loki. And I basically, instead
01:04:23.820 --> 01:04:26.539
of it being set in the future before Ragnarok,
01:04:26.659 --> 01:04:29.440
Lokasenna is in the past, and it's just before
01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:31.199
he gets kicked out. It's actually the night before
01:04:31.199 --> 01:04:34.039
he gets kicked out of Asgard. And it's the night
01:04:34.039 --> 01:04:36.139
that he cuts off Sif's hair. Now, this is not
01:04:36.139 --> 01:04:38.559
the first time he's done it. So in the mythological
01:04:38.559 --> 01:04:40.440
past, he already cut her hair off and got the
01:04:40.440 --> 01:04:43.119
gold wig and everything. That's the past. So
01:04:43.119 --> 01:04:45.619
this is the second offense. So the same night
01:04:45.619 --> 01:04:48.159
that he does that, he also insults Veneer the
01:04:48.159 --> 01:04:50.199
elf. who then comes back and gets him in book
01:04:50.199 --> 01:04:54.280
four. So I had quite a lot of fun with that story
01:04:54.280 --> 01:04:56.159
so it's basically he does sort of go around insulting
01:04:56.159 --> 01:04:59.119
people but I just made the insults a bit less
01:04:59.119 --> 01:05:03.159
sexual basically and you know in keeping with
01:05:03.159 --> 01:05:14.190
his child -friendly persona. It's stated so simply
01:05:14.190 --> 01:05:16.309
that kind of like Sif wakes up to find no hair
01:05:16.309 --> 01:05:19.789
and Thor immediately accuses Loki and Loki eventually
01:05:19.789 --> 01:05:22.670
admits it under some brutal beatings. But obviously
01:05:22.670 --> 01:05:26.349
it's Loki. But then when it's you know there's
01:05:26.349 --> 01:05:28.750
sometimes he didn't do things and he gets accused
01:05:28.750 --> 01:05:32.369
of them you know. So that's kind of what book
01:05:32.369 --> 01:05:34.369
two is about is him being accused of something
01:05:34.369 --> 01:05:37.469
that for once he didn't actually do. Sometimes
01:05:37.469 --> 01:05:39.250
it was a giant or something you know like there
01:05:39.250 --> 01:05:41.090
are there are the villains out there it's not
01:05:41.090 --> 01:05:42.880
every you know. It's not everything with Loki.
01:05:45.079 --> 01:05:48.659
Well I for one cannot wait to read two, three,
01:05:48.679 --> 01:05:50.659
four, five and of course eventually six when
01:05:50.659 --> 01:05:54.920
it comes out later and I guess kind of like I'll
01:05:54.920 --> 01:05:56.820
close up by asking kind of like do you know how
01:05:56.820 --> 01:05:59.320
many more books there might be of Loki's life
01:05:59.320 --> 01:06:05.639
story on earth? So my arc is seven books that
01:06:05.639 --> 01:06:11.719
takes us to Ragnarok so two more but I do have
01:06:11.719 --> 01:06:14.019
an idea of how you'd open that story arc out
01:06:14.019 --> 01:06:17.360
again and broaden out the world. Whether I'll
01:06:17.360 --> 01:06:19.159
ever get to do that, I don't know because I've
01:06:19.159 --> 01:06:22.659
got other books I want to write. But the story
01:06:22.659 --> 01:06:24.219
is there and has been from the start. So I've
01:06:24.219 --> 01:06:26.980
always had the complete arc and then the next
01:06:26.980 --> 01:06:32.159
arc in my mind. And I think because for me, the
01:06:32.159 --> 01:06:35.199
Norse myths are cyclical. They do begin again.
01:06:35.559 --> 01:06:38.900
So you've got the Michael Finnegan of Balder.
01:06:38.940 --> 01:06:41.800
being kind of part of the new regime of gods,
01:06:43.380 --> 01:06:46.260
and the chest, the golden chess pieces left behind
01:06:46.260 --> 01:06:50.739
and the idea of like, I suppose, again, the Tolkien
01:06:50.739 --> 01:06:53.219
thing of like the fourth age, the age of, you
01:06:53.219 --> 01:06:55.000
know, the age after the gods, even though there
01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.179
are still gods. So that that's sort of I do want
01:06:59.179 --> 01:07:02.000
to reflect that mythological shape to an extent,
01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:04.079
even if it's just at the end of book seven, you
01:07:04.079 --> 01:07:09.280
get a sense that things could continue. Yeah,
01:07:09.599 --> 01:07:12.840
but it's been really fun doing the expanded editions
01:07:12.840 --> 01:07:15.599
because it's that chance to go deeper into the
01:07:15.599 --> 01:07:19.199
world. So in one of them, I've got an interview
01:07:19.199 --> 01:07:23.019
with Caroline Larrington. It's done with Loki
01:07:23.019 --> 01:07:27.139
interviewing her. Oh, wonderful. Really knocked
01:07:27.139 --> 01:07:29.059
that she's more interested in Odin than Loki
01:07:29.059 --> 01:07:33.260
in her academic work. So yeah, so he's pretty,
01:07:33.619 --> 01:07:36.440
he's pretty petty about that. But it was great
01:07:36.440 --> 01:07:38.820
to get her kind of point of view on things and,
01:07:38.820 --> 01:07:40.320
you know, asking things like what got her into
01:07:40.320 --> 01:07:45.179
Norse myths and it involved a holiday in Iceland
01:07:45.179 --> 01:07:47.179
for part of it and meeting some, no, it was a
01:07:47.179 --> 01:07:48.820
holiday in Iceland, but it was meeting some Icelandic
01:07:48.820 --> 01:07:50.400
people on holiday and hearing their stories.
01:07:52.739 --> 01:07:55.179
So yes, it's nice to delve into that. And then
01:07:55.179 --> 01:08:00.139
I've got more kind of context about what life
01:08:00.139 --> 01:08:03.260
in asgard is like um and how that contrasts with
01:08:03.260 --> 01:08:06.900
life on earth and then some more kind of playful
01:08:06.900 --> 01:08:09.159
things like there's an insult generator and a
01:08:09.159 --> 01:08:14.019
prophecy generator so you think like the first
01:08:14.019 --> 01:08:17.020
letter of your name the day you were born your
01:08:17.020 --> 01:08:18.819
favorite color and then that gives you your prophecy
01:08:18.819 --> 01:08:24.000
or your insult very good Very good, that just
01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:26.079
makes them even more appealing and attractive
01:08:26.079 --> 01:08:28.659
and fun for any child to look enough to get them
01:08:28.659 --> 01:08:31.579
given birthday presents, Christmas presents or
01:08:31.579 --> 01:08:33.539
just generally being a good bookworm and just
01:08:33.539 --> 01:08:35.260
encouraging reading because I know you're a big
01:08:35.260 --> 01:08:38.060
ambassador for reading of all things. Yeah so
01:08:38.060 --> 01:08:40.819
with that in mind actually I should say I'm an
01:08:40.819 --> 01:08:45.220
ambassador for reading in many ways so whether
01:08:45.220 --> 01:08:47.920
you read with your eyes or with your ears so
01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:51.340
I would highly recommend the the Loki audiobooks
01:08:51.340 --> 01:08:54.060
actually. So they're read by Ben Wilbond who
01:08:54.060 --> 01:08:55.960
he plays the captain in Ghosts and he was in
01:08:55.960 --> 01:09:02.060
Horrible Histories and he does such a good job.
01:09:02.279 --> 01:09:05.399
He's incredibly, he plays Loki as this slightly
01:09:05.399 --> 01:09:11.699
kind of pompous public school boy but also with
01:09:11.699 --> 01:09:17.180
a sadness in him and he does an incredible Heindel
01:09:17.180 --> 01:09:20.050
voice as well which I'm not sure, I can't do
01:09:20.050 --> 01:09:23.909
justice to, but Heimdall's job in Asgard is to
01:09:23.909 --> 01:09:26.449
guard the Rainbow Bridge and his job on Earth,
01:09:26.590 --> 01:09:28.250
when he's pretending to be human, to be Loki's
01:09:28.250 --> 01:09:32.630
father, is as a bouncer and as a security guard.
01:09:33.770 --> 01:09:36.350
So Ben's version of him is very much like, well,
01:09:36.409 --> 01:09:38.970
a bit like a bouncer, you know, so he's got that
01:09:38.970 --> 01:09:44.239
kind of like roughness. Oh that's wonderful to
01:09:44.239 --> 01:09:46.220
hear because I know my daughter's got the box
01:09:46.220 --> 01:09:48.760
block audio book player which I actually discovered
01:09:48.760 --> 01:09:50.819
simply because I remember you reposting it and
01:09:50.819 --> 01:09:53.539
how it had the loop. I thought oh that looks
01:09:53.539 --> 01:09:56.220
perfect for Naomi. I would like my questions
01:09:56.220 --> 01:10:01.619
in the box block then. But yes, but I'm just
01:10:01.619 --> 01:10:03.680
waiting for it to get that little bit bigger
01:10:03.680 --> 01:10:05.539
and then I will definitely be interested in these
01:10:05.539 --> 01:10:09.199
books. How old are you now? Five. Five and a
01:10:09.199 --> 01:10:11.699
half. Five and a half. I think you could probably
01:10:11.699 --> 01:10:14.140
do the audiobooks at six and a half, I think.
01:10:15.399 --> 01:10:17.439
Yeah. I mean, it depends. Obviously, everyone's
01:10:17.439 --> 01:10:20.779
different. My nephew's five and he just likes
01:10:20.779 --> 01:10:22.420
looking at pictures with the bums in the book.
01:10:22.739 --> 01:10:27.609
So, you know. Oh. Well, kind of like she has
01:10:27.609 --> 01:10:29.750
got a slight, slight interest in Viking. So I
01:10:29.750 --> 01:10:33.750
did get this wonderful, big, it's called Page
01:10:33.750 --> 01:10:37.149
and Seek History. And it's like a big flap book,
01:10:37.529 --> 01:10:40.050
but kind of like Flaps, but this one's like for
01:10:40.050 --> 01:10:42.229
big kids. And there's often like flaps within
01:10:42.229 --> 01:10:46.279
flaps within flaps, like sometimes. and there's
01:10:46.279 --> 01:10:48.439
a nice page about mythology and I kind of like
01:10:48.439 --> 01:10:51.399
mentioned how she knows about Thor and I said
01:10:51.399 --> 01:10:53.399
oh well there's also Loki and there's Odin and
01:10:53.399 --> 01:10:55.079
of course they've got brothers and sisters and
01:10:55.079 --> 01:10:56.680
mums and she goes oh tell me about Thor's mum
01:10:56.680 --> 01:11:03.359
and dad and I'm like okay, one night. But I think
01:11:03.359 --> 01:11:06.520
she'd love and find this funny because she's
01:11:06.520 --> 01:11:08.760
got a very good sense of humour. It's just a
01:11:08.760 --> 01:11:13.060
case of working out how much her own understanding
01:11:13.060 --> 01:11:15.640
of how the world is and of course that's beautifully
01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:19.100
explored through Loki without getting her upset
01:11:19.100 --> 01:11:21.619
of this and the other because she has got a sensitive
01:11:21.619 --> 01:11:24.500
soul, bless her. But I do absolutely applaud
01:11:24.500 --> 01:11:27.180
anyone with kids aged six and upwards to get
01:11:27.180 --> 01:11:29.600
these books, whether it's an audio or the World
01:11:29.600 --> 01:11:32.520
Book Day book or the activity pack, they're all
01:11:32.520 --> 01:11:34.460
absolutely brilliant, they're all entertaining
01:11:34.460 --> 01:11:36.880
for us adults to read as well as read with the
01:11:36.880 --> 01:11:38.619
children because that's also a great aspect of
01:11:38.619 --> 01:11:41.909
reading and I will continue to follow you and
01:11:41.909 --> 01:11:43.710
your Loki adventures and of course your wonderful
01:11:43.710 --> 01:11:46.109
work for reading in all forms, shapes and sizes
01:11:46.109 --> 01:11:49.350
for many years yet to come, I think. Thank you.
01:11:49.489 --> 01:11:52.569
It's been a joy to talk to you. Yes, thank you
01:11:52.569 --> 01:11:55.189
for joining me in Valhalla. Excellent.