Tooth

References

• Body Horror
• Indian burial ground trope
• The Man Who Knew Too Little
• Marathon Man
• Skyfall
• Javier Bardem
• Aeon Flux
  • Aeon Flux: Gravity
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest
• Avatar
• Wish Dragon
• Eagles
  • Hotel California
• My Fair Lady
• George Washington
  • George Washington’s Teeth
• Know Your Meme: Double Rainbow
• Amazing Stories
  • Hell Toupee
• Tales from the Crypt
• Aladdin
• Mulan
• Raya and the Last Dragon
• The Lord of the Rings
• Small Gods
• Deus ex machina
• On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good
• Wonder Woman 1984
• Dragonslayer
• Studio Zone

Corrections

Warning: The following contains spoilers for the movie Wish Dragon.

Thomas said that in the movie Wish Dragon, all dragons had to “fulfill a certain number of wishes in their lifetime” in order to get into dragon heaven. The actual plot of the film is that Long (the titular wish dragon) used to be a human who cared more about wealth and status than other people. Upon his death, instead of being let into the spirit world, the gods punished Long by transforming him into a wish dragon and sending him back to Earth, where he must serve ten masters and learn the true meaning of life.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
So how does she rebel? Because I feel like she needs to do it. Otherwise, she’s a weak character. We can’t just have the Dragon Guard come in and deus ex machina her out of the situation.

[Shep]
I mean, we could, but it would be bad.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it wouldn’t be an interesting story.

[Emily]
I wouldn’t mind if somebody deus ex machina me out of my life right now.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
And I’m Thomas J. Brown. This episode is all about teeth, something which I find pretty gross. I’m glad there are people who want to be dentists, because the thought of looking in other people’s mouths all day is disgusting to me. How do you two feel about teeth?

[Emily]
It’s not something I normally think about, but I kind of like looking at them in people’s mouth. Like, not like a dentist, you know, like, that close, but, like, I like to see people’s teeth when they talk or smile.

[Shep]
Right. You have a casual interest in teeth.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Not a professional interest.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
So you’re a tooth hobbyist.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I used to get Wish advertisements for a long time, and they used to have these ones where you could just get these bags and bags of teeth. I don’t remember what they were actually for, but they were fake teeth. And I just always wanted to buy, like, this ridiculous amount of fake teeth to just put in jars and have around my house.

[Thomas]
It’s very witchy of you, Emily.

[Emily]
Yeah. I’m in my witch phase.

[Shep]
You started with “I” and then went to “Wish”, and I was like, “Are you making a wish? Are you spending one of your wishes on teeth?” This is like a monkey’s paw, except it’s teeth. So every time you make a wish, a tooth falls out.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Save the pitches, Shep. We’re not there yet.

[Emily]
Okay, Shep, what is your thoughts on teeth?

[Shep]
I never thought of teeth as being gross until Thomas mentioned it just now, and I was like, “Oh, I guess I can see that.” But no, I think teeth are fine. I did break a tooth. My front tooth. Have we ever talked about the I broke the front tooth?

[Thomas]
When you were running home in the dark in the forest and tripped?

[Shep]
No, this is a different time.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Different tooth, different time.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I mean, let’s acknowledge that was a good guess.

[Shep]
That was a very good guess. And based on evidence and my known history.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
No, when I was in Japan, I was in a bicycle accident, and I cracked one of my front teeth.

[Emily]
Oh, I remember this story.

[Shep]
And the dentist at the time was like, “That crack is going to continue spreading until that part just breaks off.” And then it did a few years later, but I wasn’t sure. Like, I bit on a spoon while I was eating accidentally, and I felt some pain.

[Thomas]
Hate that.

[Shep]
And I later went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and I was like, “Oh, was my tooth this crooked before?” And so I go to the dentist, since I live next to my dentist. I went in, I’m like, “Hey, I think I might have broken one of my teeth. Do you guys know if I broke one of my teeth?” And they’re like, “Yes, obviously you broke your tooth.”

[Shep]
I’m like, “Are you sure?” And they’re like “Yes. We took x-rays on Tuesday.” This was Thursday. And they showed me visually a picture of my teeth two days earlier with they were fine. And I’m so unaware of my own teeth that I suddenly had crooked front teeth and couldn’t be sure whether or not they’d just always been like that.

[Thomas]
“Well, Mr. Shepard, if you see in the picture here, teeth don’t normally turn 90 degrees halfway down, so.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
All right, well, it’s time to hear some tooth related pitches. And Shep, you’re up first today.

[Shep]
All right. A woman starts finding teeth coming out of her faucets.

[Thomas]
Well, I’m out. You guys have a good podcast. I will see you later.

[Emily]
I am 100% in.

[Shep]
Right. So at first, she’s horrified because what the hell is this?

[Thomas]
Right. Gross.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s gross. But eventually, she just becomes numb to the situation, habitually emptying out the showerhead of accumulated teeth in the morning.

[Thomas]
Oh, god.

[Shep]
Now she notices that when there are enough teeth together, they start to stick together, and if there’s a whole clump of them, then it can move on its own.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I hate this pitch.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
That’s all I have.

[Thomas]
Oh, god.

[Shep]
I mean, you could go in a horror direction.

[Thomas]
Oh, could you? I hadn’t noticed.

[Shep]
Because what do you do if the topic is tooth? It’s going to be, like, body horror or dentist related, or-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
There’s a finite number of ways you can go. So the first idea was this sort of horror.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
I don’t have anything other after that. That’s just an open beginning.

[Emily]
I like the idea of it slowly building a man or another entity.

[Shep]
Yeah. Her house was built over a tooth burial ground.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Tooth burial ground? Built over the tooth fairy caves, and it’s just-

[Shep]
Tooth fairy caves where they mine the teeth.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s where the oh, this is the tooth fairy storage warehouse is under her house.

[Shep]
Oh. So this house used to be a dentist office in the 1860s, and he was also a serial killer.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So you get that as well. You get the crazy, evil dentist and the horror movie.

[Thomas]
Sounds like she’s got real hard water problems.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Her pipes are all calcified.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I’m done.

[Emily]
That’s what happens when you put fluoride in the water.

[Shep]
Ha.

[Thomas]
Hey.

[Shep]
That’s the winner.

[Thomas]
Yeah, for sure.

[Shep]
So here’s another partial idea. Someone walking home alone at night, steps on something so sharp it pierces their shoe and their foot. And then they begin to grow teeth out of their skin, all over their body, slowly turning into a tooth monster.

[Thomas]
Gross. So gross.

[Emily]
I love this so much.

[Thomas]
These are awful.

[Emily]
You’re my favorite, Shep.

[Shep]
You know, a werewolf or a vampire, they get turned.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so this was the tooth of a tooth monster, and it could go another way. It might not be horror. It could be a superhero origin story. You don’t know.

[Emily]
There you go. Tooth Man!

[Thomas]
Truth, man.

[Shep]
At first, they want to not turn into a tooth monster, but then they have to rescue someone or whatever, and then that tooth enamel armor turns out to be really helpful. So it could go lots of ways.

[Thomas]
Then we fast forward 40 years, and he’s all, like, washed up, and he’s, like, doing personal appearances at cutting the ribbon at dentist’s offices and stuff.

[Shep]
Right. With his hands.

[Emily]
Mmhmm.

[Shep]
Because they’re really sharp teeth.

[Thomas]
Right. “Remember to brush, kids.”

[Shep]
Yes, “Or I’ll come for you!”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, here’s another idea. A dentist hides secret information on an unwitting patient’s tooth, and now the patient is being pursued for reasons they don’t understand.

[Thomas]
Oh, I like that.

[Emily]
That’s a good one.

[Shep]
I don’t have anything more than that. It’s just that was just-

[Emily]
He’s a Soviet spy, and he’s passing information to the Kremlin.

[Thomas]
It’s like The Man Who Knew Too Little.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Or it’s what was the one where he’s being tortured by a dentist, and he doesn’t know… Marathon Man.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
“Is it secret? Is it safe?” That’s it for me.

[Thomas]
Your dentist hiding information in an unwitting patient’s tooth, that’s very similar to the first idea that I had, which was a spy who has a false tooth that they can hide a little microfilm or something like that in, but that makes the tooth a container, so I wanted to veer away from that.

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Emily]
That makes me think of that James Bond one with Javier what’s his name, and he has the cyanide capsule in his tooth.

[Thomas]
There’s an episode of Aeon Flux where I think there’s something in her tooth, and actually, I think it’s from the shorts. She, like, gets on some train and makes out with Trevor, and then their tongues are dancing around, and-

[Shep]
Yeah. His tongue, like, opens her tooth to take the thing out.

[Thomas]
Opens her tooth and takes it out and closes her-

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
It was crazy. Yeah.

[Shep]
Old Aeon Flux was just bananas.

[Emily]
It was nutso.

[Thomas]
So the ideas that I came up with that I like, the first one is an archaeologist uncovers a large tooth during an excavation with strange markings carved into it. Unbeknownst to her, by removing the tooth, she has released an evil spirit that wants to destroy all life on Earth. She must uncover the secrets of the tooth and find a way to stop the evil spirit before it grows powerful enough to complete its mission.

[Shep]
I mean, maybe just let it?

[Thomas]
At this point…

[Shep]
I mean, the world’s on fire right now.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And now that I have read this out loud, it strikes me as a FernGully.

[Emily]
Oh, see, I’ve never seen FernGully, but I have seen Avatar.

[Shep]
What? You haven’t seen FernGully?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
It might be too late. It really doesn’t hold up.

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Emily]
That’s what I’ve heard. Like, I missed it. I missed the FernGully train.

[Thomas]
I think I have it behind me on VHS, if I’m not mistaken. But I tried watching it at one point. I was like, “Oh, I loved this as a kid.” And I started watching it. I was like, “All right, we’re turning this off.” It was not great. My other idea, many years ago, a dragon skull was found.

[Shep]
I’m in. I’m on board.

[Thomas]
Its teeth were magical, granting those who possessed them one wish.

[Shep]
Oh, hey, it’s the thing.

[Thomas]
Like I said, wait for the pitches! Now, most of those wishes were used right away, but some of the teeth were handed down over the years, and now there’s only one magical dragon tooth left, and a teenage girl has just inherited it. Now, although she’s told the truth about the tooth’s power, she dismisses the story as an old family fairy tale. Somehow, the dragon’s spirit reveals itself to the girl, asking her to return the tooth to the dragon’s lair. The girl’s still skeptical, so the dragon proves its power, and the girl agrees to return the tooth. On the journey, they are pursued by two factions of men, each attempting to steal the tooth from her. She eventually makes it to the lair and returns the tooth. Both gangs catch up to her, but one of them battles the other and wins. The victors are the Dragon Guard. And over the centuries, their ancestors have gathered together all of the missing bones and teeth, returning them to the Dragon’s Lair. With the final tooth in place, the dragon’s spirit can finally rest in peace. The first person to say Wish Dragon gets smacked.

[Emily]
So this is going to be a case of miscommunication at some point where she just doesn’t let them know what she’s doing because the dragon has beckoned her to return the tooth so it can rest in peace, and they have the same end goal.

[Thomas]
Right. And I think that it’s one of those things where, upon reflection, you realize they’ve actually been helping her. Maybe like, at first they’re trying to get the tooth away from her and actually if they can get the tooth away from her, more’s the better for them because it guarantees for them. But at some point they figure out, like, “Well, she’s headed toward the dragon’s lair. That’s good. She hasn’t used the wish or anything. So-“

[Emily]
Oh, I like that.

[Thomas]
They’re kind of helping keep the other people who were pursuing her at bay and helping maybe things sort of work in her favor.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay. I kind of like that. They’re just making sure that it gets where they want it to go-

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Emily]
Without knowledge of why she wants to get it there.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And so when that other group finally, the other bad, the actual bad guys, when they show up at the end, the Dragon Guard show up to protect her and protect the tooth, which still has its power even though it’s in the lair. I haven’t decided whether the wish gets used or not. Maybe she makes the wish to have the dragon rest in peace. I don’t know.

[Shep]
The actual villains… They’re a splinter group of the Dragon Guard.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
They want to wish dragons back into existence.

[Thomas]
There you go. That’s good.

[Shep]
Because dragons used to rule the Earth and we were kind of subservient to them, but they kept the world nice and orderly and they’re like, “Hey, maybe we need that again.”

[Thomas]
Do you think that there’s sort of a ruling class or like a- So the Dragon Guard are essentially like the priests who interface with the dragons and therefore they have this elevated status among people. So they’re trying to bring the dragons back so that they can be these people of elevated status or, you know, they’ll be wealthier essentially than everybody else.

[Emily]
Ooh. And if they bring the dragon back, even though the dragons used to control everything, they think that they’ll be able to control it because they’ll have the gratitude of it for returning, restoring it.

[Thomas]
Or maybe they are mistaken. Maybe they think they’ll be able to control the dragons.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And it’s like, “What? no.”

[Shep]
I think these are all valid perspectives, but I think maybe they’re not super villainous and they really want the dragons to come back and be in charge. But how can you trust them? Because for the exact reasons that you said, maybe they don’t really want the dragons to be in charge. Maybe they want to be in charge, or maybe they want to be elevated over other people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But maybe the world would be better off with dragons in charge? It’s on fire right now.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’ll be super comfortable.

[Emily]
It can’t get worse.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Can’t be much more on fire than it already is, so. Those are my pitches. Emily, what have you brought for us?

[Emily]
Oh, wow. You two. So, my pitches. A young woman who’s a model known for her winning smile, loses her teeth in a motorcycle accident. She’s driven mad by the loss of her beauty. She goes on to kill up and coming young actresses and models and steals one tooth at a time to build the perfect smile.

[Shep]
I love it.

[Thomas]
The fuck is wrong with you two? God.

[Emily]
All right. The next one is way out there.

[Shep]
Hang on, I’m still digesting this one. You started with a serial killer one? That’s your opener? This is like going to the Eagles and having them start with Hotel California. I was like, “Where are you going to go after this?”

[Emily]
Oh, just you wait, Henry Higgins. A quirky young historian wins George Washington’s dentures at an auction. He puts them in lovingly on display at his study. He’s drawn to them more than he thought he would be. At first, he just finds himself staring at them longingly from his desk as he works on his latest academic book on the history of oral prosthetics. Then he can’t get close enough to them. He eventually cannot resist putting them in his mouth, but it’s uncomfortable and it still doesn’t feel right. So he pulls out all of his teeth so he can wear them properly, and he becomes possessed and goes on a killing rampage. Turns out they were not George Washington’s dentures after all, but the teeth of a long ago and undiscovered colonial serial killer.

[Shep]
Double serial killers this week?!

[Emily]
Double serial killers this week.

[Shep]
What a twist!

[Thomas]
“What does it mean?”

[Shep]
(Laughs)

[Thomas]
I gotta say, I… I do like this one a lot. It’s very funny.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was thinking it would be one of those really good camp horror movies.

[Shep]
What was the… maybe it was an episode of the Amazing Stories where it was a possessed hairpiece that made people kill.

[Emily]
Oh, yes.

[Shep]
And the hairpiece itself was alive, and so it would move around.

[Emily]
Was that Amazing Stories or was that Tales from the Crypt?

[Shep]
I don’t know. I remember it hiding as a beard on a statue at one point or maybe a mannequin. And I thought that was very funny as a child when I’m watching it. This kind of reminds me of that-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Where it’s a possessed set of teeth and maybe it’s alive and could move on its own. And so it could show up in funny places inside a jack-o’-lantern.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or a dog picks it up and the dog’s got the teeth.

[Thomas]
Or it’s doing that, like, the chattering teeth toy thing. It’s like doing that.

[Shep]
Yes, that’s how it moves around, like a clam.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Is there one of these that jumps out at us? Not in like a it’s-about-to-kill-us type of way, but.

[Shep]
Not like chattering teeth would in the middle of the night, in the dark.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But in like a, “We want to develop this story some more.”

[Emily]
I’m down for the Dragon Tooth. I like that one.

[Thomas]
And I’m not married to any of the details. That’s just kind of the plot that I came up with. If it makes sense to change what she does, what the goal is, who the characters are, that’s fine.

[Shep]
I was thinking, what if she found a dragon jawbone? It’s got several teeth on it, and she could make a couple wishes before making the right choice. But then I realized this is just Aladdin.

[Thomas]
It’s like nearly every wish granting story.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And that’s actually part of the reason I wanted it to be just one wish. Originally, my thought was after you make the wish, then the tooth just sort of crumbles into dust.

[Emily]
Yeah. I was going to ask what happens to the tooth after, but it just becomes a tooth. Does it glow or have some kind of cool glowy inscription design on it? That’s why, you know it’s still active.

[Thomas]
Well, I think that well, yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t know how you know.

[Emily]
Maybe they turn to stone.

[Thomas]
Oh, it fossilizes.

[Emily]
Yeah, but how do we see that?

[Shep]
Visually in a movie.

[Emily]
But I was thinking she’s got the last one and she doesn’t believe it. Is that something she discovers along the way?

[Shep]
Yeah. How do you make her believe it without her using any wishes.

[Thomas]
If it’s been handed down? I imagine this taking place in modern times. Modern day. Right?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, like, how has nobody in the previous generations over hundreds or potentially a couple thousand- well, I guess not a couple of thousand years, but over hundreds of years, how has nobody else used this? And how come the dragon spirit hasn’t revealed itself to anybody else?

[Shep]
These are good questions.

[Emily]
Her family is one of the original Dragon Guard family, like the last descendants. And so he’s been protecting it because something happened and he got separated. He thought they were all lost. He doesn’t know they’re still around. He thought they died in an avalanche.

[Shep]
Mulan!

[Emily]
He thought he was the last protector of it. And so he didn’t know what to do because he’s lost without the rest of his group.

[Thomas]
So are we saying the dragon caves are in Tibet? Is that what we’re going with?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be an avalanche. It could be a tornado, I guess.

[Shep]
But why is that part of the story not passed down? This is the problem, is how do you make her believe it enough to return the tooth without some sort of magic.

[Thomas]
So the thought I had is that the dragon tooth was kept in a box, and whenever it’s handed down, people always just leave it in the box. Like, okay, we have this. And so nobody has actually handled it until her. For whatever reason, she takes it out of the box and because she touches it. So maybe that’s how, you know, the dragon spirit will reveal itself. It’s like rubbing the lamp, right? Like handling the- do you rub the tooth? That seems so standard genie, though. I don’t like that. So how come if dragons previously existed, how come no one has ever found their bones? How come people don’t believe in dragons?

[Shep]
It can’t turn into stone. It has to just disintegrate entirely.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Which is a bummer, because I was thinking you could have a statue of a dragon that was actually a former dragon.

[Thomas]
That would be cool.

[Shep]
If it turns to stone, because, like, the dragon spirit could know that person. Oh, no, it’s Raya and the Last Dragon.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was going to say that. That’s Raya.

[Shep]
Dang it. Coming up with completely new ideas is really hard.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What were you going to say, Emily?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, if it disintegrates, why do they want it into the one location to put the dragon to rest? How have they collected the other dust or whatever?

[Thomas]
Right. The Dragon Guard’s job would be very different.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And her whole journey would be different, I think, if that’s the case. But I do like the visual aspect of that.

[Emily]
What if the Dragon Guard’s not as altruistic as setting the spirit to rest? Instead of the two factions, one wanting it to rest and one wanting it to resurrect, then I was like, it would make more sense if the one wanted to resurrect the dragon. So they need that tooth to do that.

[Thomas]
Right. I wonder if all of the Dragon Guard are the former priests, as we were talking about earlier. And so there’s the group that realizes, “Hey, we could have all this power if we brought the dragons back.” Those are the quote unquote “bad guys”. And then there’s the quote unquote “good guys” who are like, it was bad, it was terrible. Dragons subjugated humans. We need to make sure this never happens again. That’s their natural conflict. But both groups know the history of dragons and how they interacted with people.

[Shep]
Okay, so the villains are the Dragon Knights. These are the people that worked for the dragons and helped subjugate humanity. The Dragon Guard are the ones that rebelled.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They were the bad guys of their time-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And they overthrew the yoke of suppression the dragons had over humanity. So the Dragon Knights want to bring the dragons back because that’s their whole reason for being. And the Dragon Guard want to prevent that from happening. They’re guarding against the rule of dragons, and they’re all immortal because they are from back when dragons were prevalent. And so they’ve all wished for immortality. So they’re all thousands of years old.

[Emily]
What is the characterization of the dragon? Neutral? Is it benevolent towards the girl because it wants to rest in peace? Was it a lone good dragon?

[Shep]
There are no good dragons.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I think the dragon’s self-serving. So what does it want?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Is it unable to, is its spirit unable to rest until the last wish is made?

[Shep]
Oh.

[Thomas]
So it wants the wishes made? No, that’s fucking Wish Dragon again.

[Shep]
It doesn’t want to die. It doesn’t want to rest. It wants to go home. Dragons are not from this dimension. There is this crack in reality somewhere, and he wants to get back to that location and just go through it. He’s not going to this cave with the other pieces of his bones or whatever. He wants to go back to that crack and go through to the dragon dimension where he’s a spirit, he’s a dragon spirit. He can be reborn. He can remake his body if he were in that other dimension where their power resides.

[Thomas]
It’s a lot like Wish Dragon.

[Shep]
I haven’t seen Wish Dragon, so I don’t know-

[Thomas]
There’s like a constellation or something. There’s like a dragon heaven that they all want to go to, and they have to fulfill a certain number of wishes in their lifetime, and then they get to go to dragon heaven.

[Shep]
I was thinking it’s more like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, where it wants to get back to its location. So it might grant wishes, it might give you power, but most of it is a lie because it’s trying to get you to take it to where it can escape from you.

[Thomas]
Okay, what if, so what you said is the case. There is a rift somewhere. The dragon knows where the rift is, is able to open the rift, whatever it is. The dragon wants to get back to the dimension it belongs in. It doesn’t want to be here. Here sucked.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
People attacked the dragons. People suck. Whereas in the other place, it was immortal, it was omnipotent, basically. It was a great place. It wants to go back there. The dragon is self-serving. It is trying to recorporealize so that it can be in control of itself, of its destiny, and it can go back to that place and it can leave Earth. So the sort of big ultimate, maybe false issue or whatever, there’s some big, like late in the movie, the dragon does recorporealize. Maybe the Dragon Knights get their hands on the Tooth and they make that wish, and the dragon comes back to life and is like, “Thank god. See ya.” And immediately and maybe not immediately leaves, but it leaves. But then that’s not like she hasn’t accomplished anything, I guess.

[Shep]
I don’t want us to call it wishes, though, because then it’s Wish Dragon.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Don’t make that association. So it’s not wishes.

[Thomas]
It’s desires.

[Shep]
It’s not discrete elements of “I wish for (whatever)” it’s the dragon can expend its power to influence reality.

[Thomas]
Right. Mmm.

[Shep]
So it’s not a limited number, but the amount of power it has is limited.

[Thomas]
Is it a bit like Small Gods in that respect, where it’s like there is some factor that determines how much power it has?

[Shep]
So in Small Gods, it’s like the amount of belief that Om is receiving.

[Thomas]
Right. So more belief equals more power.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Is it like a proximity? The closer you are to the rift, the more you’re getting that cross dimensional stuff?

[Shep]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
So its goal is to get the Tooth to the rift.

[Shep]
That’s good, because then you have escalating power as the movie goes on. Rather than using up power, it’s only getting stronger and more powerful.

[Thomas]
So the reason the spirit has never revealed itself to anybody is at some point, the tooth was put in a box. The family moved to the New World, and it’s too far from the rift.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It doesn’t have enough power. It’s still there. It’s still encapsulated in the tooth, but it can’t materialize in any way. It can’t let anybody know. But this tooth has recently been given to this girl. She’s inherited it. Right? And she lives somewhere else that’s closer to the rift. And so now the dragon suddenly has power again. It can suddenly come back after hundreds of years of being trapped.

[Shep]
How big is the tooth?

[Thomas]
Size of your fist? Fits in one hand.

[Shep]
Size of the fist is, I think, too big for what I was imagining.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I was thinking if it were, like, a shark tooth, she made jewelry out of it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She inherits this tooth but doesn’t believe the stories.

[Thomas]
Doesn’t believe the stories, but it’s-

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s cool. It’s unique looking. It would make a good necklace. So she’s wearing it as a necklace, and she has for a number of years. She got it when she was 16, and now she’s 19, and she’s taking a gap year, and she’s traveling to Europe. And while she’s in Europe now, she’s closer to the rift. That’s when it activates, basically.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

[Emily]
That’s good. I can behind that.

[Thomas]
Okay. Lots of problems solved with that. And so now the spirit reveals itself and is trying to get her to go closer.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
How can it convince her to do that? “Hey, check out Nepal. It’s pretty great this time of year.”

[Shep]
I mean, maybe it tries different things. It tries bullying her, threatening her. Then it tries promising her power. It’s going through all of the-

[Emily]
What man wanted before in the before times.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Wealth, power.

[Thomas]
It has to be able to do something relatively small but impactful enough to demonstrate to her that, like, “Hey, I can give you these things.”

[Shep]
It gets rid of a small mole she has on her face.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. I was thinking, like, it changes her appearance somehow, or it affects some something. It brings her some sort of luck that, oh, maybe there’s a guy on the trip. She’s on a trip with friends, and there’s a guy she likes, but he kind of doesn’t pay a lot of attention to her for whatever reason. And the dragon does something that causes them to be closer together, and he’s like, “I did that. I can make more of these things happen, but you guys need to move closer to where I want you.” So I think that works with the Dragon Guard and the Dragon Knights.

[Emily]
What is her character like, that she would be willing to go? So the dragon made her hair fuller and her skin clearer, and the hot guy that she’s touring around Europe with is now super interested in her. Is that what she’s after? Is that who she is as a person?

[Shep]
Maybe she’s discovering that. Maybe the lesson is that “I’m good the way that I am,” that kind of thing. But at first, because it’s a character arc, she doesn’t start at the end.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
No, I just-

[Shep]
At the beginning, she’s like, “Oh, this is great. I can have everything that I want and my life can be perfect.” And then she realizes that the brainwashed guy is kind of brainwashed right now, and he’s lost his personality.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Is it the case that as the power grows and as they’re getting closer to where the dragon wants to be, their relationship is getting more and more, I don’t know, solid and intimate or whatever? They’re spending more time together, but he just sort of agrees with everything she says.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“I like what you like.” He doesn’t have a personality anymore, and that’s frankly boring.

[Shep]
They used to argue, and it was kind of flirtatious arguing, and now they don’t do that anymore.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I think it would be better if you just made him more aggressive. Like he just becomes more and more obsessed and jealous and possessive of her. And a dragon with its hoard becomes greedier for her, and that’s like a big, giant turnoff and scary, and it creates stakes for her.

[Thomas]
Well, that kind of goes back to the idea of the One Ring, right? Like, yeah, use it more and more, and you continue to have that benefit, but the drawbacks get bigger and bigger, and so, yeah, I like that idea of, like, because it’s the dragon, greed is what it is. And so-

[Emily]
And as they get closer, because the power of the Tooth intensifies, the closer they get the possession, the greed for her becomes greater. Until in the end, he’s one of the things that she has to battle along with the other two factions.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Then he bites her finger off and falls into the volcano.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
What does she covet?

[Emily]
I don’t know. Is she from a broken home? Does she covet stability, love?

[Thomas]
How does she recognize that she’s become very greedy and that this is a bad thing? If the dragon’s getting more powerful, surely its sway over her is growing. So how does she rebel? Because I feel like she needs to do it. Otherwise, she’s a weak character. We can’t just have the Dragon Guard come in and deus ex machina her out of the situation.

[Shep]
I mean, we could, but it would be bad.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it wouldn’t be an interesting story.

[Emily]
I wouldn’t mind if somebody deus ex machina me out of my life right now.

[Thomas]
Well, but since that’s not going to happen and we want our story to be realistic.

[Emily]
Good question.

[Thomas]
Well, while we ponder that, let’s take a break, and when we come back, the rest of our story for Tooth.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. We are trying to figure out how our main character overcomes the power of the dragon as it’s getting stronger and stronger. At the moment, we’re thinking its greed is the big negative aspect that everyone’s sort of succumbing to.

[Emily]
So I just finished this really great feminist book on the seven deadly sins and how women are supposed to behave based off of that. And when she talked about envy, she talked about reframing it in our minds instead of being like, “Oh, my god, I hate her, I’m so jealous. She’s a terrible piece of shit. That should all be mine,” we should reframe it into thinking, “What is this jealousy, this envy telling me that I really want to go for? And how can I now recognize that this is a goal of mine and that I can reach for it?”

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Emily]
I think that’s something that we could maybe have her do is whatever she is envious of or greedy for, she sees it as a means to an end for her. I think we need to know what it is before we can get there.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. I think going back to your idea about stability or feeling loved or whatever, that’s not a bad way to go, because maybe she is trying to become an influencer, and so that’s how she ends up wearing the necklace on an Instagram or probably a TikTok, whatever it is, on some sort of a social media post. And then that’s how the Dragon Guard and the Dragon Knights find out where that tooth is. They’re like, “Oh, my gosh, there it is.”

[Emily]
Oh, and that would explain why she’s on her gap year in Europe. She’s doing the whole travel bloggist type thing.

[Thomas]
Right. Exactly. And so she wants that attention from the guy. She wants the attention from the people around her. She wants attention from people online. So she is getting more and more attention everywhere she goes, she’s being, maybe she’s starting to be recognized because the dragon is causing that sort of thing to happen. And she’s really liking the feeling of it. So how do we get her to recognize this is all fake?

[Shep]
That’s really good. I like that setup, that framing. Because she has changed by the end. She’s a different person.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She’s under the influence. And because it’s social media and there are comments and feedback, her fans could be like, “Oh, no, she’s gone too far this time.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“She’s completely different. Her old videos were great, and now she’s just this crazy, greedy person.”

[Thomas]
You got to have at least one comment that’s like, “Is she doing this for the algorithm?”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because that’s always why people change. It drives me crazy.

[Emily]
Right? I like that.

[Shep]
So instead of getting a lot of likes and positive feedback, now she’s getting all this negative feedback. And that’s when she realizes, “Oh, no, I’m not getting what I want.”

[Thomas]
Something she posts goes viral, but in a bad way. And so she’s getting what she wants, lots of attention. But now all of a sudden, it’s very negative attention.

[Shep]
It’s monkey’s paw.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, well, yeah. She’s become so accustomed in this little journey that she’s getting more recognized. She’s getting things for free. She’s being allowed to do things that other tourists aren’t. And so she has a complete meltdown when she’s not allowed to swim in one of the big fancy fountains in Italy, and they’re like, “That’s too far.”

[Thomas]
Sure. Sure.

[Emily]
And she’s like, there’s this huge hissy fit, and everybody films it and posts it, and she gets all this crazy attention now for being this absurdly, privileged bitch.

[Shep]
Or maybe she’s talking to her friend during her journey. She has a friend who’s not with her, her best friend. And so they’re catching up every now and again. And so her best friend is the one who’s trying to wake her up and get her to realize how much she’s changed because she sees all the haters online. And so she’s calling her friend for comfort, like, “Hey, this terrible thing happened to me.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And her friend’s like, “No, you did that.”

[Thomas]
You talked about reframing that envy or that jealousy into a goal. So let’s say she reframes her feelings. What is her new goal? Or what is the new journey she’s going to take to reach that?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because I think the goal is still the same of wanting to be loved.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I think it’s pared way down. She doesn’t need that attention.

[Emily]
Right. She doesn’t need that scale of attention that she’s looking for.

[Thomas]
Right. And the intimacy or the attention she wants is now a more genuine affection than a superficial one.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And does she stay with the guy or-

[Emily]
No, I want him to die.

[Shep]
No, he was brainwashed. Have some compassion.

[Thomas]
When the power, the when the dragon’s power finally goes away, when the spell is broken, what does he think about the past month or two?

[Emily]
Yeah. What does he think about the past month or two?

[Thomas]
I mean, is he mad at her?

[Shep]
Does he know that he was manipulated?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Maybe he just felt that this was a whirlwind romance in Europe, but he doesn’t feel that way anymore.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Now that the influence is gone, he’s like, “I don’t know what I saw in you, but I don’t anymore. I’m out of here.”

[Thomas]
Who breaks up with who?

[Emily]
I think it’s got to be a mutual thing, because it’s got to be part of her end journey, because she wanted that affection, but she doesn’t need it now. She’s found something else to fulfill her,

[Thomas]
She does still want it, though. She wants the affection.

[Emily]
But not from him. She wanted it from him because he was attractive and it would boost her numbers. And it was-

[Thomas]
I don’t think the things are mutually exclusive. I think he can still be attractive to her.

[Emily]
I’m saying, it just needs to be a mutual thing where he’s just like, “Wow, that was a crazy three months we had. But I got to get back to my real life or whatever,” and she’s like-

[Shep]
Yeah. “My wife doesn’t even know that I’m in Europe.”

[Emily]
And she’s just got to be like, “Yeah, I mean, you’re hot, don’t get me wrong. But-“

[Shep]
I don’t think that it should be mutual. I think she’s still into him-

[Emily]
No?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I agree.

[Shep]
But he’s not into her. But. That’s from the guys’ perspective, you’re the girl on this panel.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
You’re like, “It should be mutual.”

[Thomas]
Are you trying to save her from heartbreak?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I think her attraction to him is superficial.

[Shep]
I think that she thought that they were very flirty when they were arguing before the influence took over, but he was just arguing with her. He wasn’t being in a flirty way. She thought there was an attraction there that there wasn’t.

[Emily]
I don’t know. I had it in my mind that it was sort of superficial for her. It’s the “He’s showing me attention because we’re arguing about things,” and it’s coming across as flirty to her because she likes the attention, because she wants the attention, and he’s hot, so she’s like, “We’re meant to be.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And then at the end, she’s realized that it was all superficial to begin with, and while he’s still hot, she doesn’t need that kind of attention from that kind of a person.

[Shep]
But does she even really know what he’s really like? Because they got together when he is under the influence of the dragon, so she doesn’t even really know him.

[Emily]
Where did he come from?

[Shep]
They were in college together or something. I don’t know. Oh, no, she wasn’t in college yet. She was taking a gap year.

[Emily]
Is he just some dude she meets in a hostel?

[Thomas]
I think that this is a really great transition to an idea or a thought that I had had previously, which is how does she convince her group of friends to change their plans and travel to Tibet or wherever? So if he’s just a guy who’s traveling that she met in a hostel, then yeah, he could easily just go with her. It could just be the two of them and not a whole group of people.

[Emily]
Well, see, I would buy that more than with her not knowing him in any way whatsoever. And it was just they were kind of she thought flirty, but not-

[Shep]
See, I didn’t imagine the whole group was going together. I imagined part of the reason the dragon influenced this guy is to help finance the trip.

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Shep]
They’re using him.

[Thomas]
It’s a good idea.

[Emily]
So he is not staying in a hostel. She meets him at lunch.

[Shep]
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe she does see a handsome guy and she’s like, “Oh, Dragon, you’re so powerful. I want that. I want that guy.”

[Thomas]
Right. That could be what convinces her. She’s like, “I must be on drugs. This is insane. Dragons aren’t real. You’re clearly a hallucination.”

[Shep]
Right. She needs that external confirmation that it’s not in her mind, and so she chooses this external person.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right, okay.

[Thomas]
She goes, “That guy.”

[Shep]
Yeah. “Make him fall in love with me.”

[Emily]
Stepping out from his Lambo.

[Thomas]
Right. And the dragon’s like, “Okay.” And the dude comes over and sits down, and she’s like, “Wait, is this the dragon’s doing? Or…”

[Shep]
So they didn’t have a previous relationship.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
They didn’t have flirty fighting.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It was just from day one, he’s into her because that’s what he was influenced.

[Thomas]
And so in his mind, he’s trying to jump through whatever hoops necessary, do whatever mental gymnastics necessary to explain to himself, “Why did I pay for this trip with this person I don’t know?”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“She’s not ugly, but she’s definitely not the kind of person I would go for.”

[Shep]
Right. “I’m gay. I’m into men.”

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
But, yeah, I mean, you can do those mental gymnastics.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It was a whirlwind romance. He went on an adventure.

[Thomas]
Well, she was an up-and-coming influencer. “That was kind of exciting to have that popularity. I like that spotlight, too.” And maybe that spotlight was good for him, boosted his Instagram followers or whatever.

[Emily]
Well, then, in that case, then it doesn’t have to be mutual, but she’s definitely not heartbroken over it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because she wasn’t into him to begin with. It was a test for the dragon.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It was just a random dude.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, okay.

[Thomas]
So then it can be mutual with nobody-

[Emily]
Yeah,

[Shep]
It was just a quick three month stand.

[Emily]
We’ll see. And then we’re not falling into the trap of Wonder Woman 1984, where it’s like, but the body he’s in, that belonged to a person, and where did that guy go?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And they used his body for things.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Or in this case, it’s not so out of his reality to have done that because he’s this jet-setter who is wild and crazy and does insane things once in a while.

[Shep]
Or maybe he’s not, but this is his way of justifying doing that is “I haven’t ever been wild and crazy. This is my opportunity to be wild and crazy.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And that’s kind of what they’re both there for.

[Emily]
Right, okay.

[Thomas]
I think we’ve got a pretty solid start. Like, we have explained the history and how she ended up with the Tooth. We know her arc pretty well. We don’t know a lot about the Knights and the Guard so much. We don’t know a lot about the second act or really the third act at all.

[Shep]
Yeah. What happens to the dragon?

[Emily]
Is the dragon just kind of, like, neutral, chaotic? I mean, is it just it wants to get where it’s going?

[Thomas]
It’ll do whatever it takes to get where it’s going.

[Emily]
And it’s not evil, it’s not benevolent. It’s just-

[Thomas]
Right. It’s purely self-serving.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
If it can get close enough to the rift, it can I don’t know, maybe not even recorporealize. Maybe it can just-

[Shep]
Leave the Tooth, and its spirit-

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Since we spent so much time on them being a couple, Is her lowest low losing that? Or no, that’s going to be like a denouement thing.

[Shep]
No. Her lowest low is realizing that all of her fame and popularity is fake. And she’s losing popularity because she’s under the influence of the dragon and being all greedy and selfish and being recorded being greedy and selfish and not realizing it and going viral for all the wrong reasons.

[Emily]
Okay. When you had mentioned she has the friend that she checks in with every now and again, and so she does the check in with the friend after the viral video of her and all of the negative repercussions, and her friend’s like, “You haven’t called.”

[Thomas]
Right. Their communications have dropped off.

[Shep]
Right. She was swept up in the adventure. Right.

[Thomas]
And now the only reason she’s called is because, “Boohoo, I’m the victim.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “I don’t like you anymore.”

[Emily]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
“Can you believe they said no to me?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So what is her third act journey then? If she’s already learned her lesson? She needs to overcome the dragon. She knows what the dragon wants. Right? The dragon wants to get to a specific place.

[Emily]
Well, she figures it out at some point. Right?

[Thomas]
Or is the dragon just like, hey, let’s go to Nepal? Like, how upfront is the dragon? Or is the dragon like, “Ooh, you know where you should go next?” And it’s, like, moving her closer and closer so its power can-

[Emily]
I don’t think it should be upfront at all because then it could influence her on like, “You know what would get a lot of likes? You know, what people would be really interested in seeing…” And so after she has the big meltdown, he’s like, “You know what could restore your reputation?”

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Emily]
“Let’s go on this meditation trip here in this very remote area.”

[Thomas]
Right. “You’ve got to get away from everybody. Everyone.”

[Emily]
And-

[Thomas]
“You’re too popular right now. You need to get where people aren’t. Like, this cave I know about in Nepal.”

[Shep]
I was thinking that it’s having her go to locations not in a straight line, but where other tooths are.

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Shep]
And so she’s, like, building up her necklace. Here’s a tooth over here, here’s a tooth over here. It’s growing its power as well. So it’s not just getting closer to the rift. It’s getting more of its teeth back. It doesn’t need that many, just needs some.

[Emily]
Maybe it does need more than just a tooth.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s, like, a scale under a rock.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But how does it explain that to her?

[Emily]
It doesn’t. I think that’s part of what it keeps to itself.

[Shep]
Then why is she collecting the scale and what does she do with it?

[Thomas]
Right. I suppose it could be the case that the dragon’s saying, “Hey, look, I can give you more of what you want, but I need this to give me the power that I need to- I can only affect so much, but this will extend my reach.”

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
“I can get you more followers. I can do more for you.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I think that’s pretty believable.

[Thomas]
Especially if you’re under the influence of the dragon’s spell.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So if she realizes at the end, she realizes she’s being manipulated, then what? Then what? This is the part of that I don’t understand.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
What’s the resolution?

[Emily]
Wow.

[Shep]
Does the dragon win at the end and go home through the rift? Does the Dragon Guard go “No, you can’t let it go home through the rift. That’ll reopen the rift and the other dragons will come back to this world. It will be the end of this world. You’re not just sending the dragon home, you’re destroying Earth.”

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah, I’m good with that. And then she can smash the tooth or something.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
It’s Dragonslayer where he smashes the amulet at the end. Yeah, I think she has to destroy the teeth.

[Emily]
Yeah, because she cannot let the dragon get through.

[Shep]
Right. So the Guard and the Knights are fighting, she starts destroying the teeth. The dragon freaks out, influences the boyfriend to come and fight her, but she manages to destroy all the teeth and then everyone sobers up. The end.

[Thomas]
Do the Dragon Guard and Knight still exist?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. Do we need them anymore?

[Emily]
No, because if she can destroy this one, the last of the little bit of the rift closes, whatever’s left of the rift. It’s open for as long as there’s dragons in this world?

[Shep]
Oh, and that’s what’s keeping the Guard and the Knights alive. So not only is it, destroying the last of the teeth, going to close the rift, but the spells keeping them alive will wear off and they’ll all die. So the Knights have extra motivation to stop that tooth destruction from happening and the Guard are resolved to make it happen.

[Thomas]
Does she get a false ally? Does one of the factions send someone to be her personal assistant or something like that? Somebody close to her who-

[Emily]
Yeah, whichever one is the bad one.

[Shep]
See, I thought it would be whichever one was the good one is her personal assistant.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
So that at the end, when the mesmerized boyfriend comes to fight her, the personal assistant can also be there to fight him and to give her time to break the final tooth.

[Thomas]
That’s good. Right. So the Dragon Guard sends the personal assistant because the boyfriend is kind of on the side of the Dragon Knights because the dragon uses him to stop her.

[Shep]
Yeah, right.

[Thomas]
So he kind of again, unwittingly. Poor guy. He just keeps being shuffled around against his will. But now he’s sided with the Dragon Knights. Where’s this big battle happening? Is this like a nice small cave set that we build? Or is this like a town, like a location shoot? But it looks cool and there’s like buildings being smashed. Like does the dragon ever corporealize?

[Shep]
I think if we just skip the dragon corporealizing because for budget reasons and then just do it on a small cave set.

[Thomas]
Okay. Yeah.

[Emily]
Even cheaper. We do it in a field outside of a cave.

[Shep]
Right. She can’t go in the cave because that’s too close to the rift.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
The dragon is like, “Oh, quick, run to the cave for safety.”

[Thomas]
Find somewhere in the thirty-mile zone (TMZ) that looks like a field with a cave.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I’m sure that, I mean, we know those exist.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I grew up on a farm in California next to caves, so yes, they’re everywhere.

[Thomas]
There we go. Well, so I think we’ve clearly established the whole idea of the lowest low is that realization. And so at that point, from that point on, she has to be actively working against the dragon without letting the dragon know that that’s what she’s doing. Like, why does she not just find a hammer right that moment?

[Emily]
Right. Why doesn’t she just destroy it right away? And why doesn’t she just go away from the rift?

[Thomas]
Oh, she can’t go away from the rift because the Dragon Knights are trying are, like, not letting her. What would the Dragon Guard want?

[Shep]
The Dragon Guard wants the necklace destroyed.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, does she not know about the Dragon Knights yet? Versus the Dragon Guard?

[Thomas]
She wouldn’t know that.

[Emily]
Okay, so the Dragon Knights trick her into thinking they’re more like the Dragon Guard.

[Shep]
Right. The Dragon Knights have been helping her.

[Emily]
Yeah. And they’re going to take her to safety, away from the dragon.

[Thomas]
Right. Because the Dragon Guard are constantly trying to get the necklace away from her. They want to get their hands on the tooth to destroy it. And so the Dragon Knights recognize, “Hey, she’s moving toward the cave.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
She’s going to fulfill the prophecy or whatever. And so, yeah, they’re like, “Hey, these guys are jerks. We can protect you. We want the same thing you want.” We have to establish relatively early that these people exist. So at some point, not too far into the film, the Dragon Guard attacks her initially, and the Dragon Knights protect her, and she just, like, escapes.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. She doesn’t know-

[Thomas]
She doesn’t know who these guys are. What the hell’s going on?

[Emily]
Yeah, she has no idea what’s going on.

[Thomas]
“This is a gang fight in Thailand that I’m not a part of” or something like that.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. That’s why the Dragon Guard sneak that personal assistant in, when she is looking for a personal assistant when her fame is taking off.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
This is their way to get in.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They can’t come to her directly. But now they have an inside person.

[Emily]
And that’s how the Dragon Guard knows when the Dragon Knights take her closer to the rift.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Do the Dragon Guards know where the rift is the whole time? Does anyone know where the rift is the whole time besides the dragon?

[Shep]
I think they both know where the rift is.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Or maybe they don’t. Maybe just the dragon himself knows.

[Thomas]
Sure. They know, maybe, the general area. They know what country and what region of that country.

[Shep]
It would make sense that they don’t know, as Emily said, because otherwise they would have taken precautions and blocked up the cave.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Which didn’t happen because they didn’t know for sure where the rift was.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
If they know, they’re like, “Hey, it’s somewhere in Nepal,” or whatever, like, “We don’t know exactly where she is, but we know she needs to get there.”

[Shep]
Right. I like the idea that they have a rough idea, as if the power keeping them alive is also based on the distance from the rift.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
So they have to stay relatively close, but both groups are relatively close, so they keep running into each other if they’re close to the rift. But if they get too far away, then they lose the power, they start aging. Whatever. This is why the fighting gets more intense the closer you get.

[Thomas]
Right. I guess anytime we need… I think this is more maybe a thing for the writers, but anytime there needs to be some conflict, you can just drop the Dragon Guard in and suddenly there’s conflict. Now she has to move on. She’s got to keep moving. Or maybe the Dragon Knights tell her that early on, like, “You got to keep moving. You got to stay away from these guys. These guys are going to keep coming after you.” Does anyone ever come up to her and be like, “Look, we know about the Dragon’s Tooth. We know what’s going on.” Does anyone ever show their hand like that?

[Shep]
Yeah, I think the Dragon Guard tried to reason with her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She sees them as a hostile force, and so they try to come up to her at some point where maybe she’s isolated and have a quick conversation with her and dump plot development on her. But she just sees them as the bad guys and flees.

[Thomas]
They’re trying to steal this thing from her.

[Shep]
Right, because she’s still under the influence at the time.

[Thomas]
Right. Is there any way that we hint to the audience that the personal assistant is a Dragon Guard member? Or do we keep that completely secret till the end, or until the right moment?

[Shep]
Maybe she keeps talking about more scheduled things like the Dragon Knights are trying to get her to move on, and the personal assistant is like, “Oh, but we thought we could do this and this and this. Like, you have other things you could do in this location before you move on.” And the Dragon Knights are like, “Nope, it’s time to go. Nope, it’s time to go.” So that’s the hint to the audience. The personal assistant is trying to keep her from moving on.

[Thomas]
Right. She just seems like she’s doing a good job. “I’m booking you media appearances.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“You can cut the ribbon at the new grocery store,” like, whatever it is.

[Shep]
That’s good cover for the reason why she’s doing what she’s doing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But it’s also a very subtle hint to the audience that she was on the Dragon Guard side the whole time.

[Thomas]
Not only is she trying to keep her in a location, she’s trying to put her in a specific place at a specific time. She has a schedule, and the Dragon Knights are like, “You can’t follow a schedule. You need to be unpredictable.”

[Shep]
Yep,

[Thomas]
And maybe they’re even leaning on, like, “Hey, this is a travel blog. You need to travel.”

[Shep]
These are all good. Yeah.

[Thomas]
I think that’s great. It makes perfect sense from both sides. Like, yes, she needs to be making appearances and promoting things and growing her brand, but she can’t stay in any one place for too long because the whole point is to generate content, and you can only do that by visiting new places.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So that takes care of a lot of second act stuff. What is her goal during the second act? Just to grow her brand, to be more popular, to move toward the rift, somewhat unwittingly.

[Shep]
Right. It’s all success for her. That first half of the second act.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Her numbers are going up. She’s liked more and more.

[Thomas]
So what’s the mid second act turning point? I like that idea of building success during the first part of the second act, but we need something that… When do the Dragon Guard, like, really start to get rough with her?

[Shep]
Maybe that’s the mid second act turning point.

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Now you’re in danger.”

[Shep]
Right. They’re literally attacking.

[Thomas]
Oh, god. So the Dragon Knights are like, “Hey, we heard about how those people were trying to attack you. We can provide security services for you.” And so they’re going to be her bodyguards.

[Shep]
Right. Because they’re big fans, and that really feeds into her ego.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, they don’t need to be paid. They’re going to work for free.

[Thomas]
So now there’s this sort of constant pressure to move around and not publicize where she’s going to be. So they’re sort of like, “Yes, excellent.” And so the Dragon Guards recognize, like, “Okay, we still need an in.” So they give her the personal assistant. So even when she’s being shuffled around Europe and Asia, they can still know where she is because the assistant is texting or whatever.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So does the assistant know about the Dragon Knights? And the Dragon Knights suspect the assistant but not know for sure? Or are they both ignorant of each other?

[Thomas]
I think this assistant has to know about the Dragon Knight bodyguards because that’s why she’s there, because the Dragon Guards know that they can’t approach.

[Emily]
Okay, that makes sense.

[Shep]
I think the Knights wouldn’t know, because if they did, they would take steps and eliminate the assistant.

[Emily]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Thomas]
We’re pretty… our recording is getting long in the tooth, so-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Aha.

[Thomas]
We should probably figure out the end of our story here. Do we have enough? I mean, I think we have a bit of a weak second act, but that’s something that writers could fill out.

[Emily]
But who doesn’t have a weak second act? I mean, come on.

[Thomas]
I mean, it’s a pretty common problem, and we know overall what happens, and I feel like everyone’s motivations are pretty clear.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Is there anything that we haven’t figured out that we feel like we’re really missing?

[Shep]
I’m sure listening to this episode after it comes out, I’ll go, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe we didn’t say (whatever).”

[Thomas]
“How did we not address…” yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s always what happens.

[Emily]
Well, we’ve addressed all of my questions, so I’m satisfied.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
All right.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a tooth. Did we have a brush with success, or would you rather have had a root canal? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com I’m sure there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of people out there who would love to hear this podcast, but they just don’t know about it yet. With your help, we can get the word out to them. So be sure to tell other people about the podcast. Together, we can continue to grow the show, making it bigger and better. Hopefully everyone you tell will join Emily, Shep, and I on another episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
FernGully is a fairy. Right? Kind of like a tooth fairy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
FernGully is a place. But yeah, there are fairies who live there.