Series 5 Episode 14

[Purgatory]

did u watch how the goblin walked?  lol amuseing.
it sure as hell wasn't Chris.

[JamesA]

Just one other point: When Chris (as a goblin) was confronted by Brother Mace, the monk said that if they had something of Motley's (i.e the stick!) then Motley would be able to turn them back into a normal dungeoneer again, so Motley would have been able to turn them back to normal AND give them the password for the Blocker. Beats me how the team would have been able to get the firestone though.

[GrimaldineGrimwold]

Just one other point: When Chris (as a goblin) was confronted by Brother Mace, the monk said that if they had something of Motley's (i.e the stick!) then Motley would be able to turn them back into a normal dungeoneer again, so Motley would have been able to turn them back to normal AND give them the password for the Blocker. Beats me how the team would have been able to get the firestone though.

This has got to be one of the best teams as far as wild speculation is concerned, since there are so many possibilities about what could have happened.

It's pretty obvious they were meant to take the Jester's stick thing, although I agree with PunmiesterWhiteley that there wasn't much of a clue between that and the quill thing (even if I don't agree with his taste in puns or ugly ties and jackets). You might say that they should second guess it might be Motley's, but if you apply the principle of "what's likely to be useful to anyone we happen to meet", I'd think the quill is a fair choice. Any mage or monk might be quite happy with that, whereas a Jester's stick thing is only likely to be useful to one person. A hint from Treguard would have been nice. On, the spell to pick, I know Malefact's pointed to the scroll clue a few times, and I think I agree, especially since it's the only other clue they have! It's a pretty crappy clue, though. "Fair trade is no robbery"- meaning you SWITCH and don't get CHANGE. Fair enough. But you might equally say that you do get CHANGE in a fair trade, rather than being swindled and getting no CHANGE. Anyway, the fact we're not sure it was a clue for the spell choice pretty much makes the point that it was a crappy clue!

Thus I guess SWITCH would have worked on the trapped firestone. Elita said they'd need magic to get it. Otherwise, perhaps SWITCH would have turned the stick into Motley himself and he'd have released it. Or perhaps CHANGE might have done that if they'd had the stick ... Oh dear, those were perhaps increasingly speculative. Or perhaps Smirkenorff would have flown in through the roof, toasted the ice, and declared his eternal love for Brother Mace. Or perhaps Elita would have reappeared and melted the ice with insults, and the team would have needed SWITCH to turn her mouth off.  Or perhaps I should go and lie down. The men in white coats are saying it's time for my medication now.

[Billy]

Great episode! First of all, I noticed that the freeze frame of the Knightmare logo has a tape dropout- look at just below middle right of the screen and you'll see it.

Chris' team first take the CHANGE spell from JS, instead of the SWITCH one. Then they enter a room with the firestone frozen in ice...no problem, they just spellcast CHANGE and...whoops. Wrong spell. It seems the rather dubious sounding scroll clue indicated they should have took SWITCH instead, and now Chris has turned into a goblin with the firestone unthawed.

I guess they're in losing status from now on, then- was a bit suspicious that Chris conveniently wanted to stay as a goblin, though. Still, the voice is hysterical- who'd have thought a goblin's voice sounded like a high pitched scouser?

Brother Mace almost blugeoned Chroblin (a name I just made up, short for Chris the Goblin) to death with his stick, but after he squealed "I'm not a goblin!" (Chroblin, not Brother Mace) he realised, and revealed that Motley would return him to his normal self if they had his jester stick. Oh figs, they left it in the clue room! Therefore Chroblin will have to stay as a Goblin for now...

...but wait! Here's the blocker demanding a password, which they were going to get from Motley. So they try spellcasting the causeway code of Red, Blue, Green, Grey...

"Red, Green, Blue, Grey!"

"No Chris! Red, Blue..."

*Blocker lunges forward and eats Chris*

I love that death, one of my favourites! Ranks up there with S2 Team 5's "playpen" death, except it's the humour that tickles me this time instead of the scare factor.

Geez, I have gone on a bit...oh well, this is the last paragraph, so I'm nearly done. This episode ended on a great cliffhanger as the knew team (who have already provided a funny moment when they asked Smirkenoff to land) timed out in an empty void of nothingness, except for the floor. I honestly can't remember what happens next, so can't wait to find out!

[HarveyTowers]

Started at Scaramonger's shop, where theey bought a change SPELL instead of SWITCH.

Tried to use the CHANGE spell to free the firestone (wouldn't it have melted through itself anyway?) but this changed the dungeoneer into a Goblin.

Met Mace again, the dungeoneer was left to talk to him with no help from the team.

Seems team were in losing staus every since they left Motley's stick. Met their end when gobbled by a blocker.

As this level seemed to be a big circle, maybe they should have tried to retrace there steps?

[Drassil]

I am so perplexed by this quest. I wish I knew exactly what was 'supposed' to have happened on Level 2. Although I feel like I'm about three years late with this post, here, for what it's worth, are my thoughts.

One point that hasn't been raised in this thread is that during the spyglass scene in the previous episode, Lord Fear and Aesandre discussed a 'trap' being set. This suggests to me that the team was meant to use a spell on the frozen firestone (Treguard prompts them to ensure this happens), and that the spell was meant to turn the dungeoneer into a goblin. Thus the transformation would have occurred whichever spell they'd bought: in my opinion, CHANGE and SWITCH are largely synonymous, and the rather unclear scroll clue, 'fair trade is no robbery', referred only to the silver, because it's just too ambiguous to indicate one spell or the other. As I said in a post earlier this year: 'The whole goblin transformation 'subplot' seems too unique and detailed for it to have been merely a 50-50 possibility; and a scene where a dungeoneer enters a Level 2 room, casts SWITCH to de-ice a firestone, picks it up then walks out, seems too straightforward'.

Although the team have been criticised as dense, their only real mistake was not taking Motley's bauble, and considering that they had a vague scroll clue and four objects to choose from (Team 4, who went on to win, had only three Level 2 clue objects to choose from), it's maybe not as stupid a mistake as it may seem. Because of what happened to Chris, and the manner of his demise, the team ended up looking even more foolish than perhaps they were. That's just my opinion.

But that speculation by no means solves all the puzzles. Assuming Chris had taken the bauble, summoned Motley, been turned back and got the password, how would he then have got the firestone which Elita said he needed? Surely Motley couldn't have been expected to provide that too, simply for being summoned? And so we're left with no real idea of how the team would have completed Level 2.

I'm not comfortable with the whole idea of Chris having to return to where he entered Level 2 in order to get to Level 3. To me, it's a little too close to breaking the hallowed 'only way is onward, there is no turning back' dictum; plus, the idea of a dungeoneer having two Smirkenorff flights is something I find less than credible. What's more, it throws up a continuity error: during the Level 1 spyglass scene, Lord Fear said he wanted Chris stopped before he could reach the Gate Tower, i.e. inter-level descendor. But if he's doing all his level-to-level travelling on Smirky, he wouldn't be visiting the Gate Tower anyway. From this inconsistency, and the way that the three characters seen in Level 1 of the quest appeared/would have appeared on Level 2 (Elita, Mace, Motley), and the way that the team was required to find a clue object that had already featured in Level 1 (firestone), I suspect that the Level 2 was originally scripted for a different quest, but put into Quest 7 for some reason. It all adds to the confusion. Mr. Child, if you're reading and you have the answers somewhere to all these quest questions about what would have happened, I for one would be extremely grateful to hear them one day!

Puzzlement aside, I really liked the way that Brother Mace harked back to the 'Etruscan brandy' incident of Series 4. A witty touch in his final Knightmare scene.

[HStorm]

I'm not comfortable with the whole idea of Chris having to return to where he entered Level 2 in order to get to Level 3. To me, it's a little too close to breaking the hallowed 'only way is onward, there is no turning back' dictum; plus, the idea of a dungeoneer having two Smirkenorff flights is something I find less than credible.

The worst thing about it is that, if you think about it, it makes Level 2 seem utterly superfluous. (I've thought that about Smirkenorff's presence in general in fact; if he can take dungeoneers to Level 2, why can't he just take them to Level 3 and have done with it? For that matter, why did they need a different short cut in season eight?) It would've been okay in the early years when quest objects were 'broken' into three or four pieces; you'd need to go to Level 2 to find at least one of the quest pieces. But it never made much sense to me going through Level 2 when the quest object was intact, unless the only entrance to Level 3 was to be found there (i.e. the descender). If Smirkenorff was the way in and the way out, he could also be the way past it altogether.

[WackerJr]

I loved the quotes from the advisor in glasses in the 2nd team:

"There is a couple of boxes on your left, and to your right there's some more boxes... so can you go over to the boxes? So walk forwards!"

"There's two people at a stall. Do you wanna walk over to it?" *waits a few seconds while the dungeoneer stands there confused, then remembers the dungeoneer can't see anything!*

"You're going into... a room it looks like" (I love the way he then sighs & raises his eyebrows, realising what he's just said!)

(ok, I should let him off the 1st one, he did mumble very quickly "left... morelikecrates")

I'm looking forward to the next episode now, they've started well this team.

[Anonymous]

I am so perplexed by this quest. I wish I knew exactly what was 'supposed' to have happened on Level 2. Although I feel like I'm about three years late with this post, here, for what it's worth, are my thoughts.

One point that hasn't been raised in this thread is that during the spyglass scene in the previous episode, Lord Fear and Aesandre discussed a 'trap' being set. This suggests to me that the team was meant to use a spell on the frozen firestone (Treguard prompts them to ensure this happens), and that the spell was meant to turn the dungeoneer into a goblin. Thus the transformation would have occurred whichever spell they'd bought: in my opinion, CHANGE and SWITCH are largely synonymous, and the rather unclear scroll clue, 'fair trade is no robbery', referred only to the silver, because it's just too ambiguous to indicate one spell or the other. As I said in a post earlier this year: 'The whole goblin transformation 'subplot' seems too unique and detailed for it to have been merely a 50-50 possibility; and a scene where a dungeoneer enters a Level 2 room, casts SWITCH to de-ice a firestone, picks it up then walks out, seems too straightforward'.

Although the team have been criticised as dense, their only real mistake was not taking Motley's bauble, and considering that they had a vague scroll clue and four objects to choose from (Team 4, who went on to win, had only three Level 2 clue objects to choose from), it's maybe not as stupid a mistake as it may seem. Because of what happened to Chris, and the manner of his demise, the team ended up looking even more foolish than perhaps they were. That's just my opinion.

But that speculation by no means solves all the puzzles. Assuming Chris had taken the bauble, summoned Motley, been turned back and got the password, how would he then have got the firestone which Elita said he needed? Surely Motley couldn't have been expected to provide that too, simply for being summoned? And so we're left with no real idea of how the team would have completed Level 2.

I'm not comfortable with the whole idea of Chris having to return to where he entered Level 2 in order to get to Level 3. To me, it's a little too close to breaking the hallowed 'only way is onward, there is no turning back' dictum; plus, the idea of a dungeoneer having two Smirkenorff flights is something I find less than credible. What's more, it throws up a continuity error: during the Level 1 spyglass scene, Lord Fear said he wanted Chris stopped before he could reach the Gate Tower, i.e. inter-level descendor. But if he's doing all his level-to-level travelling on Smirky, he wouldn't be visiting the Gate Tower anyway. From this inconsistency, and the way that the three characters seen in Level 1 of the quest appeared/would have appeared on Level 2 (Elita, Mace, Motley), and the way that the team was required to find a clue object that had already featured in Level 1 (firestone), I suspect that the Level 2 was originally scripted for a different quest, but put into Quest 7 for some reason. It all adds to the confusion.

I am very glad to be drawn to this. This is yet another quest that stands out for its distinct happenings. The team itself was quite unique, the death by blocker was unique, the cast-locking, I think, was unique (am I right on that?) Yet another excellent quest to watch.

Certainly, I agree it is wrong to criticise this team for intelligence. They are clearly quite young, but they acquit themselves very well. They answer a full quota of Brother Mace's questions at the end of level 1; they do what they think is right in level 2, and were unlucky with it. Even Christopher's idea of remaining a goblin had merit (one thinks of Chris Green (S6) dressing the part as a witch). More so, the team quickly attempt to dis-spell when Mace appears a threat, and easily win him around.

I think what fascinates me so much about this synopsis is the false illusion of a second chance. As David notes, even if they are able to acquire the password and survive the blocker, they are without the firestone, and would be unable to continue.

My interpretation for how this level would have been completed seems straightforward, perhaps too much so, and it builds on David's suggestions made already.

Pretty much all of the speculation on this thread surrounds the spells - there has been precious little attention to what else is offered. The key to this surely stems from the scroll: 'Fair trade is no robbery'. This implies, certainly, that the silver will be required. However, the 'no robbery' idea, in my view, implies that whatever they are offered will be 'fair' - the right item. They do need magic of some description - that much is made clear by Elita in the previous episode. This could come in the form of a spell, charm or potion, and the team are, understandably enough, keen to purchase a spell. However, Elita also mentions that the firestone is frozen, and so a potion of impurity would be just what the team would need to break through the ice. Not blindingly obvious, granted, but just about fair enough.

Alarm bells ring as soon as CHANGE and SWITCH are mentioned. Both are as disconcertingly vague as the other - it seems very clear to me then that both spells are the wrong option, and the scroll seems to encourage a belief in 'fair trade', which is the integrity of the initial item offered. They do, after all, chase quite hard for spells, when there are other forms of magic.

That, if it were true, would solve the firestone mystery: I don't think the spells come into it at all. But, as mentioned, they are other problems which this hypothesis does not solve. Would Brother Mace have been able to supply the password if Chris had not been tricked? Would they have had to suffer from not taking a a wild guess on Motley's stick from a wider choice than normal? One might hope that if they handled the mental challenge of the level - melting the ice with the right implement - that they would be afforded some leniency for the rest of the level.

I just liked the way it seemed that a fairly unlucky mistake could have been rectified by some better luck had they taken the jester's bauble, but not to be. I thought this unorthodox bunch did quite well. And, like I said earlier, for the spectator, it's great fun to watch.

[Selphie]

I've really enjoyed reading this thread with everyone's opinions on how level 2 could have been different . I'm afraid I don't have any detailed analysis to offer, but my tuppence worth

My reading of the scroll was just to take the silver, if it was a cryptic clue about spells then I completely missed it too. The choice of the clue objects between the feather and the fool on a stick isn't that easy; if Treguard had done some hinting maybe about how Motley had helped them before so could prove useful if they helped him out again then fair enough (maybe this did happen and never made it into the final edit), but given that choice I'm not sure what I would have taken. I think the painful part of this is that the team so nearly took it but then didn't. I think Chris is judged a bit harshly in this; everyone complains when the dungeoneers just do what they're told and have to be prompted to say and do anything and then when this lad has his own opinions on their quest it's his fault for taking the wrong item *shrugs*.

I hadn't thought about if the spells were the right thing to buy from JS before, it's a very interesting point. However it is quite in character for JS to attempt to sell the team something of no use and then have to be pressed before he offers them something that they do need. I think the CHANGE and SWITCH spells would have done exactly the same thing and Chroblin was meant to happen, so the main issue to me is how would they get out of it and how would they get the firestone. We know that Motley could have changed them back. I'm also going to speculate that maybe, since they were returning to where they started from in level 2, they might come back through into that room at the end of the level and by that point have the magic they needed to free the gem. I know it's a horrible idea because the only was is meant to be forwards, but this level 2 story was based upon the awful concept of returning back to where they started from. Throughout the whole of level 2 I did keep thinking that it would have solved all their problems if they'd managed to hold onto their firestone from level 1.... (I do know you can't keep objects between levels ).

I didn't really like this incarnation of level 2 at all. Returning to the beginning of the level grates against everything the adventurer's code is meant to say. Chroblin was funny for about the first 2 minutes, then I felt a bit sorry for the team who seemed to have one of the most drawn out deaths in the shows history and one that made them seem a lot sillier then they were. A lot of the younger teams have seemed to get a lot more hints then this bunch did. Have to agree with Drassil (albeit over 2 years later) that this level 2 felt like it was made for a different quest, but seemed a bit too tempting for the production team to use. In my mind this again backs up that the dungeoneer would have turned into a goblin no matter what magic or item they'd bought from JS.

The blocker death is one of my favourites from this season I remember it from when I was little and being suspicious of innocent looking walls for a while afterwards!

[Canadanne]

I honestly don't think they were ever supposed to get the firestone. The entire goblin plot was so obviously planned in advance (including Chris choosing to "stay a goblin" - like S8 Daniel having to insist on using the Fearsome potion), I'm pretty sure the firestone and the similar spells were there purely to get them into that bizarre situation. I have no doubt the same thing would have happened if they'd bought SWITCH instead - the illusion of choice simply provides an explanation for this strange "accident", as the team and viewers will assume they must have picked the wrong spell. In fact their only mistake was not taking Motley's stick to gain his help, which is a little unfair without any clues, but then again I personally felt it was quite an obvious item to take. Has that thing *ever* been on a clue table for no reason?

The scroll is definitely confusing, though (as so many of them are!), and of course there's no way of knowing how they would have proceeded to Level 3. I can only assume Elita was mistaken or lying about Smirky being their only option (again, all part of the elaborate setup for the goblin incident). Perhaps Motley would have told them where to find the Descender or something.

The theory about needing to buy the potion is interesting, but I don't think it's right. It just seems to be JS doing his usual routine of trying to sell them useless things first (thus further convincing them to buy a plot device... I mean spell), and the "impurity" bit makes it a fairly obvious red herring. As I said above, I'm sure the production team were determined to show off the goblin trick and everything else was simply leading up to it.

[Pooka]

Having rewatched this, I'm pretty sure Chris wasn't supposed to win. It makes me wonder, though, what SWITCH would have done. My guess - although it's a rudimentary one - is that SWITCH may have switched the properties of the ice block - from solid to liquid or something - and allowed the team to get the firestone. That's the only use of it I can think of. However, if they did do that and it worked that way, the whole subplot with Chris being a goblin, and the subsequent scene(s) with Mace (and Motley) would be virtually eliminated. So I fail to see how they could have got the firestone!

As many people have already said in this thread, Motley's role in the quest would have been to give the password, and/or effect a change back to the human form - although nevertheless, they still didn't have the firestone. Maybe it was a red herring, or as I said, maybe they just weren't meant to win! A bit mean of the production team to do this, as it was a mystifying Level 2 all the way through, really!

Sad to see Mace go. It was a great scene and even a hearken back to Series 4 with the lizard fiasco, as David points out - Mace seems the continuity cop of this entire series, actually, having mentioned Merlin in its earlier stages. Trivia Fact-O-Time: out of a poll we held at the RPG Series 7 filming, Mace was voted our favourite character, judging by the amount of times he was placed on our sheet (we used AV, happily enough) - perhaps the only PTB character to be in our top three! And talking of top threes, he was my third choice - always has been one of my favourites. A very good end scene, if he had to go at all.

[Drassil]

As I said in a post earlier this year: 'The whole goblin transformation 'subplot' seems too unique and detailed for it to have been merely a 50-50 possibility; and a scene where a dungeoneer enters a Level 2 room, casts [a spell] to de-ice a firestone, picks it up then walks out, seems too straightforward'.

If I'd thought of it at the time, I would have added: And besides, I doubt the production team would have sought to repeat what we had already seen with the Shield at the end of Ben's quest, where it was only justifiable as a sort of post-final-encounter formality.

A few thoughts about Impurity. (By Calvin Klein.) Scaramonger's description of it as a goblin deterrent implies to me that there would have been a goblin element to its effect, i.e. the same as the spells. The recommendation to sprinkle it, when by definition a potion should be drunk, could also be taken as evidence that it's a suspicious item. The drinking of potions by dungeoneers had its tentative introduction with the bizarrely labelled Shield in Series 6 (unless we count Dickon's anti-poison in Series 4), before Knightmare went potion potty in Series 7. Also, if we consider the consequences of the team buying Impurity, should we not also consider what would have happened if the team had bought the sword?

On reflection, I'm not entirely at ease with the idea of a jester somehow being able to undo cast-locked Opposition magic (in addition to all the other saving-the-day that the team's predicament seemingly demanded of him), even though Brother Mace presented it as the only option. This is beyond anything we saw Motley do. He is a man who made it clear in his first series that he wanted "no truck" with the Opposition, and had enough trouble avoiding their schemes as it was!

Anyway, after thinking myself into and out of knots over this for years, I've come up with a rundown of how I wish the latter part of this quest had gone.

At the end of Level 1, Chris reaches the Gate Tower, as per Lord Fear's spyglass remark. The Gatemaster allows him into the Travelling Gate with instructions on how many floors to count before commanding it to halt.

Chris finds the Level 2 clue room. As in various other S5 quests, there are three clue objects and not four. Reading the clue scroll, the team decide to take the silver (as implied by "trade") and the green gem ("fair trade and "no robbery" suggesting some kind of straight swap of gemstones may be possible). The spyglass scene includes an explanation of the frozen firestone, the need for strong magic to free it and the dungeoneer's need for it.

Chris meets Julius Scaramonger and the encounter plays out as before.

Chris finds the frozen firestone and the scene runs as it did.

Chris meets Skarkill again. In a moment of continuity platinum, he is nursing stings and still has the firestone he took from Chris on Level 1. Chris gets to put his goblin guise to use as he thought he might, chatting with the unsuspecting Goblin Master and persuading him to swap gemstones. It ends with the amazing situation of a team having acquired the same clue object twice over. (Thank you to Selphie for inspiring this with her earlier comment.)

Chris meets Brother Mace and must explain who he really is. He has to answer the questions Mace would have asked him on Level 1. Mace confesses that his "Staff of Saint Smasher" in fact has some magic in that he may be able to use to banish the cast-locked spell. It's déja vu as a monk strikes a dungeoneer with a staff, but this time the outcome is far less lethal, and Chris' goblin form is "dismissed". Treguard regards the staff, or "mace" as he calls it, with great interest. At some point during the encounter, Brother Mace offers Chris the grapes rather than waiting for him to ask, thereby ensuring that his final words on Knightmare are not "well, you might as well, yes".

As in Quest 3, there is no Level 2 Blocker. (It may only have been in Chris' already-complex L2 because of his losing status anyway.)

Chris tackles the colour-coded causeway. If he succeeds, Smirkenorff is waiting for him through the next portal, and will fly him to Level 3 for a firestone.

I feel better for writing that.

[Canadanne]

I love the advisors' bemusement over Chris wanting to stay a goblin, especially the one who goes "Fine, if you wanna be like that"!

"The score doesn't matter, Pickle, it's playing the game that counts!" Yeah right Treguard, since when did you believe that?!

Having a flight sequence into Wolfenden throws up a couple of continuity goofs... the shield and boxes under the Market Hall are clearly not there when Smirky lands, but have appeared by the time Duncan walks over to them! (Also the square is deserted, yet a couple of minutes later Julius Scaramonger is serving a customer there.)

Not sure why Pickle says "There, master, I told you it was risky!" and makes them hurry out after using the spyglass. There was no indication that Lord Fear had noticed them spying at all!

[Canadanne]

I wonder if the "fair trade" clue meant they were supposed to take the green gem, and use the silver to buy the SWITCH spell, which would swap the gems round so that Christopher had the firestone and the green one was left in the block of ice. It kind of makes sense, but then it also seems unlikely, because the goblin transformation effect would have gone unused (presumably that was the "trap" mentioned in the spyglass scene), and they wouldn't have been able to pick up Motley's bauble or had any reason to call him. So who would have told them the Blocker password? Or would they not have encountered the Blocker in that case?

It really is weird how the Descender is apparently not an option for changing levels in this quest, especially after Lord Fear was expecting them to reach the Gate Tower in Level 1, only for them to fly on Smirkenorff instead. How is Aesandre getting in and out of Level 2 to set her trap, if she walks instead of travelling by magic?! I can't imagine Smirky giving her a lift.