Gallant by V.E. Schwab: What Lies Behind the Garden Wall

Follow us as we explore the haunted halls and spooky twin world in Gallant by V.E. Scwab. Inside, you'll answer the questions of what does it truly mean to belong somewhere and what secrets hide behind the garden wall?

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Hosted by Alyssa Curtis & Ash Christine. Theme song by Magiksolo. Recording studio provided by Garden Groove 

Until next time, keep wandering - we'll see you in the next world!

Transcript

Welcome And Season Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Worlds Within, where story becomes space. We're your hosts, Alyssa and Ash, and every episode we explore fictional worlds that don't just live on the page, they pull you in, build themselves around you, and let you wander through them. This is a podcast for readers who don't just love books, they live in them. We dive deep into sensory storytelling, character perspectives, and the world-building mechanics that turn fiction into a fully immersive experience.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Here we go for our next episode in our behind closed doors season. Yay! Today we are Looking Behind the Garden Wall in Gallant by V.E. Schwab. Though we are not in the southern United States with this one, like many of our earlier books this season. We are back in England as we were with Whispering House. So we have like sub two sub themes. We have a couple. Oh, we have a lot of sub themes this season. We also, you guessed it, have another protagonist with an O name. And wouldn't you know it? She's an orphan. Five for six. Oh man. Dead moms. Yikes. Yeah, we we couldn't have planned that. No, I definitely tried. No. All right. Well, ignore the shadows and shades for just a moment because we are wandering in.

Tea Pairing And Plot Teaser

SPEAKER_01 1:19

As you all know, we get started with a plot teaser. And there's a very sweet moment in the book where Hannah, one of our characters, gives Olivia a cup of tea that tasted like mint and honey and spring. So today we have a mint green tea with honey for our plot teaser. Just in a nice little nod back to that very sweet moment. It is a very cozy cup of tea. Oh, good. I haven't had mine yet. Um, okay, but the synopsis.

Gallant Synopsis And First Impressions

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Olivia Pryor has grown up at the Maryland School for Girls, and all she has of her past is her mother's journal, which seems to unravel into madness. Then a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home. It doesn't matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile, or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways. Olivia knows Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is gallant but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family and where her father may have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a prior, protecting our world against the master of the house? Or will she take her place beside him?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Doo-doo doo doo. So this book was on my TBR because I have a strange like a I have a lot of V Schwab on my on my TBR right now. Um like a lot of books, like their books have come up. Yeah. In different like forums. So when we were researching for this season, I was like, all right, well, that's that's an option. And that's a that's a a well-written synopsis.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

I like the synopsis quite a bit and fits right in line with our theme for Behind Closed Doors. We've got a spooky house, we've got an orphan, which was not really part of this season but has become we have an own named We have an own name female main character. Um I have never read any VE Schwab, and you cannot open Bookstagram or BookTalk without seeing a recommendation for one of her novels anywhere. Um but the cover and the synopsis of the book really drew me in, and I thought it would be nice to add a true like YA book into our mix. There's ghouls, which we love, found family, mysteries inside, and I was just really eager to like open the book and get started. Yeah. So tell me about your very first impressions.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

So this felt very sometimes you read a YA and it like it feels not a YA or it feels like child grade. Like middle grade to yeah, and I'm like, okay, well, I'm like now, I'm just bored. This was right in that happy medium. Yeah. Um, like there was zero spice to this, like, not even a whisper, and it made sense, like it, and I appreciated that because again, sometimes I think you just you remove it, but you try to keep the romance and you walk this weird line that makes it a little bit older than it needs to be. But it like it all just felt very familial focused, and I really, really liked that.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah, I agree. I liked this book. Um, it was on the money with that like atmospheric, creepy vibes without being too scary. Yeah. Um, it kept me interested up until the end. I did want a little more depth though. I I think just like around our characters, and maybe that would have been um would have come to fruition had this been an adult novel. But as a YA, it felt appropriate for the reading level. Um, and to me, I kind of pictured the entire book and setting almost like the Coraline movie, like the same style of like that dark stop-motion animation. That's just like how I built out this world as I was reading.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

That's a really, that's a really great like connection.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

I love that.

Olivia Pryor And The Journal

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And instead of Coraline, we have Olivia as our protagonist. Um, as mentioned in the synopsis, she grew up at the Maryland school for girls, and she can see ghouls, which was so just like there's a ghoul over there, like no big deal.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah, like and and she does reference like when the first time she saw one that it was scary, but that like she's just like, All right, well, you can't touch me, and I can't touch you, and I'm not gonna be scared. You're just you're just sitting there, so like you're not doing anything. I guess it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Another thing about Olivia is she is mute, so she does not communicate using her voice. Um, there is some mention of like sign language or signing of some sort, but she also takes up space making noise in other ways, which I really liked about her character. Um, even though she didn't use her voice to communicate or take up space or make her opinions known, sh you knew by the sounds that she was making, by banging pots or throwing something, um, how her feelings were being expressed.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yeah. And she also um, like, I mean, just physically, her her expressions, like that there was no question and like that she communicates kind of like with uh with her eye contact. Um, and I thought that like it she talks about how frustrating it is like to have all of this pent-up stuff and want to express it and not be able to. And so, like you said, she just she finds any way because she's like, I'm not gonna let this make me feel smart.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Right, right. Ugh, she's a good character. I will say I don't quite remember how old she was, though, or if we ever really had a sense. 17?

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I was gonna say I think eight. I understood 18, and I don't remember if that was me making an assumption because she was being like aging out of the school. Aging out of the school. Yeah. But like that, I don't remember if it was actually said or if it was just kind of implied, and that was my assumption, but that was where I got her to be.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

That probably reads right. Um, she also covets this journal that she assumes is from her mother, and that it becomes true, but uh it's full of like entries that are rambling, and it also has some illustrations and artwork, but um the illustrations are carried through into the actual book that you're read, like that we read, and they're beautiful. And I I really loved them and it made me think of Starling House with some of those illustrations. Oh, it was so great, but the ramblings of her mom, fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah. Well, and and the fact that like as we as we learn that like the ramblings aren't as rambly as they seem when you realize that all of the like charcoal and stuff, all the illustrations are not her mother's, they're her father's response, and the ramblings are actually letters. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

That's heartbreaking at the end there.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

It is heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Um, a few more things about Olivia, like just to kind of round out our main character here. She doesn't get along with the other girls at the school at all. Um there's there's scenes of them picking on her or her retaliating, and you really just get this sense of she's othered in so many ways. By being an orphan, by being at this school, the girls don't even like her. She's a mute. She's mute, yeah. Um, she has charcoal hair and gray eyes. She's pale, like she kind of just blends into the background so often. But there is this really interesting moment where she's like, I'm able to pick locks. And it was so like easy for her. I really loved that about her. She's curious in that way.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah. She doesn't like again, she talks about how she like she does know fear, but she doesn't let her it stop her from like doing the things that she wants to do. Um, and she just wants to know more, and not just about again, like her mother and her father, but like her family, but but also just like everyone she is surrounded by. Like she explores the matron's rooms, and like some of it is obviously to like get treats and stuff, but also she likes knowing like what is your vice? Like, how can I use that to my advantage?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

She also draws in sketches, and it says the first things Olivia learned to draw were flowers, and that made me immediately pause and think, like, what were the first things I learned to draw as a kid? And it was dogs and pumpkins, mostly jack-o'-lanterns. But my brother really loved pumpkins, so he would always ask pumpkin, and that's what I would draw, like endlessly, and then dogs, because obviously dogs are best. Well, I mean, we'll anyway. So the descriptions of her emotions are also really good. You talked about her fear and how she experiences fear, but it doesn't let her, it doesn't stop her. Um, some really good poll quotes I have here. Something wriggles inside her, then half terror and half thrill. Like when you take the stairs too fast and almost slip. And that was such like a perfect way to capture that feeling of like, oh my god, I almost I almost fell. But that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Yeah. It's like when you're on the um, on a roller coaster or uh like specifically the one that goes up and like you're waiting to drop, but you like and you're waiting and you're terrified of the moment it's gonna happen. And then you start like one of us. Certain people do that, I guess. Don't know anybody, I don't think we would do that, but it's that moment of like you're you're the suspense is terrifying, but then it happens and then it's the thrill.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah. Another one I have here is real, she is learning, is a slippery thing, not a solid black line, but a shape with soft edges and a great deal of gray. And just how that like shapes her understanding of the world and you see it change from the beginning of the book to the end. What is real? What is not real? Where do I fit in all of this as I am relearning the world? It's really great.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

It's also such a great, like again, when you think in the context of this being like a young adult novel, that's such a great lesson to like pop like pepper in there. Yeah. Um, because I think for so much of our youth, we're like, we are told things are a certain way, but they're not. They're just that's the structure that which by which we have to learn, and then eventually we have to unlearn that. Um, so what a great way to like have that lesson.

Found Family And A Hostile Cousin

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah. A couple other characters we have here are Hannah and Edgar, and they live at the house at Gallant. Um, they are not blood related to Priors, but they are a part of the family because they've been around forever. And Olivia describes them as stout and rough hewn with wild brown curls, threaded with silver. Every emotion played out on skin, open, expressive, so very unlike the people that she had been encountering at Maryland's. And it was just the contrast was good. But they care deeply for her and they want her to be here, be there at Gallant with them.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

And she comments when she's at Maryland's that like there was one matron who is no longer there who like worked on signing with her and actively would try to like communicate with her. And so then to come, then that goes away. So she's like basically ignored, and then to come here and Edgar is like, I'm out of practice, but I will try. And Hannah's like, I have no how to idea how to do it, but I will try. And like they, even if they're not using actual hand signs, they find ways to communicate and they actively make an effort to like to communicate with her and not just at her.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

And make her feel included, right? Um, and Edgar like seemingly appreciates having Olivia around, like as he's working around the house, um, asking, like, hey, can you like hand me the tools while I'm up on this ladder? Just like you're a part of us now. And that was so needed for her. Um, however, we also have her cousin, Matthew, at the house, who is a strange guy. Um, he reminded me a lot of Arthur in Starling House. He see he sees himself as the last prior. He's plagued by nightmares and this like incredible sense of duty and responsibility. Um, he lost his father and his brother to the other gallant house and and what lies behind it. It was just it was such a mirror of Arthur. But I felt like Arthur from Starling House had much more depth. And I wish we had that with Matthew.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Agreed. Um also I d he was kind of he was kind of a dick, at least at the start. And like for sure, I it was it was a little too abrupt, the switch too harsh from I don't want you here, go away, you don't belong, get out, to I'm going to I need you, like I yeah, like we're gonna fix this, we're gonna make this work. Like, help me, help let me help you.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah. Again, I think some of that is due to it being YA. And had we had an adult version of this novel, we'd have more emotional depth and more time to develop that relationship. So this the the change wouldn't feel so abrupt.

Meet Death And His Shadows

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Agreed. Um, the last character I want to talk about before we move into kind of the world of this book is the master of the other house, who is death himself.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Every time you say the master of the house, or I bring it up. I know all I hear is Master of the House.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, Lamez. Um I saw a reel recently that this girl was saying she she had met a guy for a date. This is such a side change tangent. And she said he had never heard of Lamez. N Never seen it, fine, but never heard of it. What so folks, if you don't know what we're talking about, this is an incredible musical and you should all go listen to it.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

It's it's also based on a very classic novel. Yes. French novel. So um it's also been referenced in pop culture and like political culture.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

So men recently. If we have any cis men listeners, please go brush up on Lamez. Anyway, this master of the house is seemingly death, and he is very cool, I think. In every description that we've had of like this other shadowy, scary figure representing death. I think didn't um Ceris also call Quicksilver or not Quicksilver, Kingfisher death, like this guy's cooler than Kingfisher for sure. Um Olivia describes him as he is drawn in ink, dressed in a high-collared coat, his hair was the black of wet soil, his skin the off-white of ashes gone cold, and his eyes, his eyes the flat and milky white of death.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Ah scary guy. I was gonna say that was the scariest part about him because I was like all the rest of it is like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Oh my god. Milky white eyes. Cause that's so like you think when like when you are when you go blind or you have cataracts or whatever, like then your eyes milk go milky and stuff. And so, like the that blindness factor, but like obviously he can see because he chases everybody. But oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

He was so cool, and he um has created knights, I would say, around him. There are three shadows, there are formerly four, and these are kind of like the knights that do his bidding um or keep him protected or not even protected, just do his bidding.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Yeah, coming back to that phrase. Like they are his bodyguards, not that he needs them, but just so that it's like almost so he doesn't have to get his hands dirty all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah, and you find out that they are actually like made from parts of other people. Of him. Of him. Like, I'm gonna reach in and take this rib back, and then you will cease to exist. And I'm gonna put it back inside of me. Very cool. Uh any other characters you want to talk about before we kind of transition to the world?

SPEAKER_03 17:48

No, I mean I think that this was a very like, not for lack of a better word, this was a very small cast, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Like this just it was very tight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

So um,

Maryland School And The Ghouls

SPEAKER_01 17:58

okay, cool. So transitioning to kind of where we're at. We know the players on the board, but what does the board look like? First, I want to talk about the Maryland School for Ghouls. Haha. Um, it's school for girls, but there's so many ghouls there that I couldn't not make the joke.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Which also I I mean that's why I had my my squad ghouls make up for today. Um I I was a little thrown off by the ghouls there. Like initially, not like okay, yeah, there's ghouls there, cool, whatever. But then like the ghouls become so central to gallant that I was like, were these gallant ghouls that followed you? Were these or do you just see ghouls everywhere? Do you just see ghouls everywhere? And like these are the only places you've been. Like, and but also are those ghouls like the ghouls at gallant have a purpose, but the ghouls at Maryland's just are? Like that was that was a question. It's just a school for ghouls. It is a school.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

But this is an orphanage of sorts. It is led by women. There are classes, there are chores assigned, um, but it's described as just being gray through and through. The gray day is beginning to melt into a gray night, thin gray light lapping against the gray gravel path that surrounds the gray stone walls. And Olivia kind of blends into that. She is described as a charcoal painting among or charcoal sketch among oil paintings. She has a grayness about her. Like she is a product of this orphanage that she has been raised in.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Well, and it's such you you even pulled this quote. She, you know, she studies the dusty silk roses that sit on the old woman's desk, the color leached by window light, tries to remember a time when they were anything but gray. Yeah. And she talks about this in a lot of aspects about the school, that it does seem to just leech the color, and that occasionally you'll get like a wildflower bloom and it will it'll die very quickly. Yeah. Um, and just I it's such a stark, like I know what that like when you see something sitting there for a long, long time, and then you like you move it and you realize like it used to be so much more vibrant and that it has been been leached by time.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

She doesn't have the best time at Maryland's. She's girls are awful. Well, she sneaks away to the garden shed quite a bit. Um, where there's a ghoul there just hanging out with her, but she just is is eager to leave but has nowhere to go until that letter arrives um saying, Come back, like come to Gallant, you're a part of us. Uh, we talked a little bit about the ghouls. I loved every single one of them. I thought they were excellent descriptions because they're half formed. Like she would say, like, well, they're just like an eyeball and part of a jaw, and like the rest is kind of misty. And I'm like, Yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

It's so creepy. I got this, I pictured a more youth-oriented depiction of the mummy from the mummy, um, Imotep. Because like when he comes out and he's like, but like just slightly less scary or less moist, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I had a mouthful of tea as she was doing that, and I had to really hold it in to not spit out. Yeah, uh dry emotep.

unknown 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Um Olivia says something about the ghouls, though, that they want you to look, but they don't want to be seen. And I really thought, like, oh, such a good description of just paranormal in general. Like they want you to look, but they don't want to be seen or exp I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

I just But also what a great, like a great inflection on her, too. Like she she wants you to look at her and she wants you to like see her physically, but she doesn't want Me. She doesn't want you to be she doesn't want to be known.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah. So moving right along, let's go to Gallant.

Gallant Estate And Secret Passages

SPEAKER_01 22:07

This is not just like an a house. This is an estate. It is a mansion twice the size of Maryland's and many times grander. It's described as an old estate that is fighting to fall into disrepair, an elegant figure beginning to droop, like skin sagging a little over bones. And I was like, man, what a good description of a house that's just sad.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

And again, it takes us back to Starling House, where it's like, you know, but where I think Starling House was fighting to rejuvenate. This one is just like, no, just let me die.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah. Almost like Whispering House.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Like the sides and the back of the house was all falling apart, but the the facade was bright and cheery because of the weddings. Yeah. But it's it's falling into disrepair. It has a roof that peaks like eggs, egg whites and carved windows and walls of pale stone that catch the sunset the way canvas catches paint. Ooh, love. And then it has quite an expansive garden in the back. And there's a quote here last night it was a moonlit tangle of hedge and vine. Now it is sun-drenched, stunning, a field of green interrupted everywhere by red, gold, violet, and white. And coming from the gray of Maryland to this abundance of color in the garden at Gallant, Olivia is like completely blown away.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yeah. Well, and as an artist, like thinking, like moving from that that charcoal world to the the vibrancy and life that you know that she was looking for at Maryland's.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah. It's also described Gallant as um a house that has too much space and too few sounds to fill it. And this took me back to our very first book that we covered, Dark Fever and the dark zones there, and just how Mac would walk through and there'd be too little sound.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And it was just like, ooh, what else is happening in the shadows at Gallant?

SPEAKER_03 24:09

You know? Yeah. Well, and it's like even like all of the sound that she makes is muffled, you know, and it's just like, what is what is taking that happening?

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Um Gallant, also very much in theme with our season here, has has secret rooms. Um, it has passageways, it has mysteries to it. And in one of these rooms, Olivia finds um what she describes as like half clock, half sculpture, and there's two houses set inside, each one balanced on its own metal ring. Almost it feels like like a like a gyroscope. Yeah. That if you moved one, they would move in tandem. Um and I think that's what the image on the on the cover is trying to convey. But that gives us our first hint that there's the upside down or the other gallant, um, which is our next part of this world that I want to talk about.

The Other Gallant And The Curse

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Um I love that when when Matthew explains the other side, he says, everything casts a shadow, even the world we live in. And as every as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch, a seam where the shadow meets its source. Oh, so good. And part of me, of course, went a little Peter Pan and like the idea that you stitch your shadow back to you and like that that they are separate entities, but obviously this is a much darker. Well, depending on which version of Peter Pan you've subscribed to. Okay, fair. This is a a little bit darker of a theme.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, and just it I don't know, it's it's a little bit upside down from Stranger Things. It's a little bit um coralline and like going through that door and going to like the other world or with the other mother and things like that. But Matthew goes on to explain that um this is kind of a curse for the priors. To be a prior is to live and die on these grounds, driven mad by ghosts. And that is confirming that, well, Olivia fits right in then because she sees these ghouls. She's not driven mad by them, but there's something deeper, darker, more sinister at play. And this curse reminded me of Honeysuckle House and like how we had that familial kind of um curse tracing in that in that story, and then same with Starling of I have to be the last person of this, how the last Starling.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

What's interesting though is, and you you have it in the notes as well. He he says that the house called like that this place existed, yeah, and the priors were drawn there. Okay, so he wants to be the last. And I have the same issue I had with Arthur in Starling House. If the house keeps calling more people, Yank gonna be the last. Yank gonna be the last. Also, could you guys just move? Well, and that's the thing. It's like, so it can't you just go? You can leave. Or can you leave and then let somebody else take care of it? But also, if you are the last, will it just call somebody new or will will all hell truly break loose? Now, the I I understand in theory where this one differs from Starling House, he as a prior has like they they've locked the door with their blood. And so, in theory, if he dies, he is the last, and that's where it stays sealed, but also everything's still falling apart around it. So, like, what what happens when when everything else rusts?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, and Matthew even says, like, has it have you begun to hear it yet? Like, does it come to you in your dreams? And it kind of set me up to think, oh, this is like Starling House. Like the house is sentient in some way, reaching out to people to call them home or call them to the house. But that doesn't really get expanded on here.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Well, and she doesn't, she's like, I I never dreamed until I got to the house. I never had a dream in my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Um, you touched on the the ceiling of a gate by blood. Uh so beyond the garden wall, there's a portal to the other gallant. So that's how Olivia crosses into this shadowy place um where there is a version of the of the house and of the gardens, but again, everything is is dying and gray and kind of reminds you of Maryland's and then makes you think is Maryland's the upside down version of something else? And how does Olivia where what is happening? Um but there is a an iron door, an iron gate between upside down and right side up. I keep using because I don't know what else to call it, other and real, maybe, yeah, but it has to be sealed by blood on the iron. And there's a moment in the end of the book where they go to seal the gate and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and death comes through, and he was like, uh, uh the whole thing is iron or blood on iron, not on moss or dirt, because the gate is dirty, and that made me gasp out loud while I was reading, was like, I've got to go clean everything in my house.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Wild. Yeah. Um, but what I what I was a little confused about with this portal is she doesn't go through the door.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

She just climbs over the wall, she goes behind the gate, or like behind the wall. It just kind of like ends and she's like, Well, I'm gonna go walk over there and see what happens. And so she does that. And then, but she can't get back that way.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

No.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

But like, it's just so wild that I'm like, okay, so you can you can go in, but you can't come out. Never leave. All right, it's the Hotel California.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Um, so this this other gallant is inhabited by death and his shadows. And the shadows, like we've talked about, are are more um well formed than the than the ghouls. They have like a corporeal, like body sense to them. There's a moment where Olivia is is grasped by one of one of the shadows, and she says it's not a hint of a hand, not spider silk or mist, but long rotten fruit and two dry sticks. And she's kind of shocked because the ghouls in reality can't touch her. She can reach right through them. But here, she was kind of expecting the same, and yet she feels the actual bodily feeling of them whole grasping her.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

That, like, I could I could smell and feel that, and I was like, No, no, thank you. No, thank you. Um, so obviously, we you know, we talked about uh like death has has these different shadows. So he has the four, well, he has three now. One is no longer, but those are like his bodyguards, right? But we also see like a ballroom full of other shades so creepy that are just like dancing and having a good time until they're so creepy. But when we when we see them, we already have kind of been prepared for them because we had heard about them in in uh Olivia's mother's journal. And she very much distinguishes between his shadows and his shades. And I I thought that was interesting because they seem to be similar. Similar. They're made, they they're manifested the same way, but like they definitely serve different purposes.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah. Oh, that scene in the ballroom is so creepy.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

I would never hurt you.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Anyway, you guys should read this book, it's really good. Um and what's interesting here is that death is he has a goal. He has a goal because he is sucking the life out of things, and that's why this upside down is so gray and why everybody in there is dead. Um there's a quote here that he lifts a flower to his nose, inhales, and as he does, it wilts again. The flower is dying because he is literally inhaling the life from it. The petals wither, the head droops, the leaves curl like dry paper. As it dies, the faintest color floods back into his cheeks, brief as a fish darting underwater. And we realize, and Olivia comes to realize, that she is literally bringing life to other gallant as she's walking, as she's touching things, plants are coming back to life. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

Well, it's very much like in uh it's very much a like different sides of the same coin, like where he hungers and drains like for for life and therefore drains and absorbs it. She is so full of it that she can restore it, which is why he wants her. Yeah. Because he wants to be able to rege off of you for so long.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

And this is also a mirror of what death does when he enters Rio Gallant. As he walks, the grass dies, which is very much like Starling as well. But he's taking the life from things around him. Um, and here we reach our birds within moment. Olivia is forced to bring a crow back to life while she's kind of under the capture of death. He hands her some of these bones of a crow, and she can't help but bring it back to life because she's so full of it. And the crow comes back to life, and then death immediately takes it back.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

I I again, like they are both, they are opposite sides of the same coin, much like Alara and uh uh Norovan in Court of Winter, where he sucks souls and she generates life.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Yeah. Uh, even at the end where Olivia's tending the garden, right, in the epilogue, um, it reminded me so much of Alara.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yes, yeah, agreed. Because like, and also a little bit like in Spinning Silver from last season, where like your power doesn't work the same way in the real world, but there's like elements of it that you like pull through it, shades of it, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

So that's the world that we are are living in in this book. We have the Maryland School for Independent Girls, we have Gallant on the right side up, and then the other gallant, which is inhabited and and ruled by Death himself. Um, anything else about the world before we get into some of our favorite like sensory descriptions? No, I think this was good. Great, great job. One of my favorites is

Death Drains Life Olivia Restores It

SPEAKER_01 34:53

early on in the book, um, Olivia is

Sensory Writing That Makes It Real

SPEAKER_01 34:56

experiencing the rain in the garden shed, and it says the rain had slowed from pounding fists to the soft and frequent tapping of bored fingers. So lyrically written, so atmospheric, and so, I don't know, relatable that we all know when you're tapping your fingers on the table because you're bored, like what that sounds like, and can relate to the rain on the shed roof in that way. I just really thought that was um a great reflection of the real world.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Yeah. Um, I really liked honestly, right from the beginning, um when we like in the prologue, you know, the master of the house stands at a garden wall. It's a grim stretch of stone, an iron door locked and bolted at its center. There's a narrow gap between the door and the rock, and when the breeze is right, it carries the scent of summer, sweet as melons, and the distant warmth of sun. There is no breeze tonight. I was like from the get, I was like, my I was tingly. I was like, yes, okay. Yes. I'm here, I'm in. I'm in. Because like I can I I can smell that breeze, but also like I like you know the the absence of it when you've like you've experienced it and now it's not there. Like the that absence is just so profound. Yeah. So I that was my note was ooh, my senses are tingly.

unknown 36:20

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

One of the um points where my senses were tingly was Olivia eats toast with raspberry jam. And I'm like, I need that right now. Right now. And it just says she takes another bite, the raspberry's bursting brightly in her mouth, and it's just toast with butter and raspberry jam. And I want it right now.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

I so cooked. I was gonna say, I eat a lot of that because I get the and I do the sourdough bread. Nice. So you get the tang of the sourdough.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

I don't think I have any jam in my house right now.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

I I have I have plenty if you'd like some extra. I will give you some.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I will go shop for some jam. Um, another one I pulled out here is just interesting in how like Olivia experiences the world and has made sense of it. Ghouls make no sound when they move, but humans do. They make a lot of noise simply being. And that gave me pause to think about how much noise we do make as humans just moving about a house or moving about our day. Um, whether we are aware of it or not. I don't know. It just gave me a moment of reflection on my own self.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Yeah, I as a as a mother who has had to put a toddler down for a nap, I'm very unfortunately, I become hyper-aware of how much noise I make doing very little thing. Like, I'm like sometimes I just have to sit there. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah, I am so loud.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

But so I I felt that one. I was like, yeah, we are very loud.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah. I can be as loud as I want in my house because my dog is deaf. So she's not waking up if I'm making sound.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

She's a good dog though, most of the time. Okay. Anything else before we move to portal moments?

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Um, because you you put it and I also put it, I will say I really liked in the uh when she's at Maryland's and she steals the cookie in the Clementine. Oh yeah. And uh it oh hang on now, I have to find it. Um uh unre she, you know, unraveling to reveal the happy segments. The whole room will smell like stolen citrus, but she doesn't care. It tastes like spring, like bare feet in grassy fields, like somewhere warm and green. And just like that, she has this concept of something that she really hasn't experienced because Maryland's does not have that, and then she gets to go, you know, to Gallant later and and experience something like it was very nice.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

And just stolen citrus. Yeah. Is so great. Schwab is a great writer.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

It yeah. Uh the only other thing I wanted to point out, because I just resaw it, um, she makes a comment at one point that they don't teach you how to exist in a world that does not, or they teach you how to exist in a world that does not want you, how to be a ghost in someone else's home. And like the parallel of like the ghouls that exist alongside her, and that that's what she's learning to be. There's there's a lot of really great moments.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Sweet Olivia. Um, speaking of really great moments, should we get to our portal moments? Oh, I suppose we

Portal Moments And Big Twists

SPEAKER_01 39:23

could do that. All right. As you know, folks, this is where we talk about our peak moment where immersion was the biggest, the realest, where we were like so fully in it.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

This was a tough one. This was a tough one. There were a lot. I I so I while I really enjoyed a lot of things about this book, I will say I don't, I it was hard for me to pick a moment because I couldn't I couldn't say at any point I was fully in it in the same way. And I think that's not to say anything about the writing, it's because it's a young adult novel and there is some depth that we lost. But it was all so beautifully done that, like, if I were of a younger mind, I think that I would have been fully immersed in a lot more, if that makes sense. Sure. That being said, um, you kind of referenced this moment uh when we were talking about the world, but um so Olivia goes to the other side of the wall and uh she's trying to rescue Thomas, the the younger Matthew's younger brother, and she get like she goes through the whole time and she's like, This feels too easy. This feels too easy, and you're like, It's gotta be too easy, it is too easy, it's too easy. Why is it so easy? And she gets to the door and Matthew opens it, and he's like, That's not my brother. And she's like, but he matches the picture, and then like as she's looking at him, he changes and it's not the brother, and she's like, Well, crap. And so Matthew's like, Okay, well, I gotta close the door. So he like comes onto that side and he seals the door, allegedly, allegedly, but he doesn't seal the door.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

So one of his so high action in that moment.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

He's like, he's grappling with this is not my brother. I've my brother's been gone for two years. I've been led to believe that I'm gonna get him back, and now I'm realizing that I'm not gonna get him back. And I'm realizing that I've failed in the one thing that I like I knew I could do, which is sealing the door. And why didn't I think of this? Oh, just the despair. Like, there's so much going on in that moment, and you can feel all of those emotions happening. Oh, it was just it was really, really well written. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

That was I I told you I audibly gasped when the door when the gate didn't seal. Yeah. And you thought, you thought, like, okay, we're in the clear, we got it. Like, oh my gosh, she's a hero, let's go. And then death just walks right through it and you're like, what?

SPEAKER_03 42:01

And she had like she had been pounding on that door, and all the debris is like falling off. So, like, he must have hit the iron, right? No, because that side of the door wasn't maintained. It's rusty.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Dang it, you better go clean your gates, y'all.

SPEAKER_03 42:15

That's what the lesson here is. That is the lesson. Just 10 out or uh just a little tip: Coca-Cola or Pepsi and some tinfoil will get rust off of anything.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Uh yeah. Uh my portal moment, I had a hard time because I did feel like the writing really contributed to my immersion. And there were moments where I was like, man, this felt really big, or this felt really true, or like I experienced this alongside of our characters. And the first one um I want to call out is Olivia has a dream of her mom while she's at Gallant. Um, and she's laying in bed, and she has this like very, very vivid dream of her mom laying next to her, and her fingers slide over the sheets, and Olivia doesn't know whether to reach for her mom's hand or to retreat. And in the end, she does neither because she can't move. Um and and then when she wakes, she realizes she opens her eyes, realizing it's a dream, and there is a ghoul in the place where her mother was just a moment ago in her dream. And it's so heartbreakingly creepy. But I loved it. I loved it. And I've had those moments of like night terrors where like night paralysis, like where you cannot move your body, and that is what Olivia is experiencing. It's her limbs are leaden in the bed, and perhaps she should be afraid, but she isn't because her mom is there, and then she opens her eyes and it's a ghoul. It was just the heartbreak, the the hope that Olivia had. In that moment, the the feeling of her like the weight of her mother in the bed next to her that she has just longed for and missed. And and then it's just remnants of a ghost, not even a full ghost. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

But also like it is the it is her mother's ghoul, is what she comes to realize. But I mean, yeah, in the moment, the shock.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Yeah. Oh. Um, another one for me is it was not this is why it wasn't my peak portal moment, but the first time Olivia goes beyond the wall and she's on the porch of Gallant and she sees that there's these small white seeds on the porch and she goes to pick them up to see what they are. They're just scattered at her feet, and she bends down and picks them up, and then they form back into a mouse because they're not seeds, they're mouse bones.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

And at that moment I was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I am very into this book.

SPEAKER_03 44:59

Well, that's the first time we like I guess not the first time, because does she touch the flower after that?

SPEAKER_01 45:05

No, I think she touches it before because she's from the garden wall to the porch.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

But the I thought the mouse bones were at the wall because that's the mouse that he kills when he's at the door at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

I don't rem I it this was, you know, it's fine. I it was two weeks ago, I could be wrong. But um, yeah, but like this, we're getting this sense of like you are a life giver. And whether you like the extent of which you are a life giver.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

So any other no.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

Okay. I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Well, I think that's a wrap on this episode, then.

Immersion Rating And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Um, before we go, we're gonna give Gallant our immersion rating on a scale of one to ten portals. So why don't you go ahead and go first?

SPEAKER_03 45:52

All right. Well, um, I think we're pretty much of the same mind on this one. I was gonna give it a seven. Yeah. Um, it it was beautifully written. The the sensory storytelling was fantastic. Um, I think I was just a little out of it because I was waiting for more depth the whole a lot of the time. But again, for the the type of novel, like the fact that this is a um your a younger oriented novel, it was I think it was really well done. Um, I just like I just was a little bit removed.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, fully agree. Seven out of ten for me too, for these same reasons. I wanted some more emotional depth or um more time in the other gallant. I think this could be expanded into a an adult novel or a a series, but it it doesn't need to be to give me that depth, but it doesn't, it doesn't happen in this book. However, there are so many moments here, and I was able to picture them all, granted they were in a Coraline stop motion animation style, but I think that really helped and like set the tone for me throughout the whole book and all of these creepy, heartbreaking, or hopeful and triumphant moments. Um, but yeah, seven out of ten. Awesome. It's just a great read. It was a great read. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Again, vibes were 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Yeah. Thanks y'all for listening to us yap about gallant by V.E. Schwab. We did love the ghouls, we loved our found family and finding out what truly is beyond that garden wall. And this serves as a reminder to, like we've said, clean our fences, clean your gates uh and locks because there is ain't no way dirt is getting in my way from keeping death out of my house. Okay. Uh, anyway, I think we've belabored that point.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Next time, we're revisiting our author from episode one. Yay! One of my favorites. It is time to see what our gal pal Karen Marie Moning is bringing us in her latest book, The House at Watch Hill. Until then, weed the garden, lock your diary, and follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Bye. Bye. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of Worlds Within, where story becomes space. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at World Within Pod for more episodes, sensory guides to your favorite books, and more.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Bye!