Therapist Reacts to Dungeons & Dragons: HONOR AMONG THIEVES
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Published 2023-10-03
How do you stop grief from keeping you stuck in the past?
Licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright are taking a look at the surprisingly wonderful Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. They talk about grief and failure, and why both can have good outcomes. Be like Edgin, the champion of failures! They commend the representation of male-female platonic friendship - we need more of it! And Alan explains why the movie is surprisingly good at tonal shifts between adventurous fun and deep emotion that elicit #cryingwithalan.
This episode was filmed during the Writerās Strike. This episode was uploaded before the WGA and the AMPTP reached a deal.
According to SAG-Aftra, independent film reviewers are welcome to discuss movies that have already come out. These films were produced under previous contracts and wouldnāt be affected by any changes resulting from the strike.
Any praise for the films we discuss is praise for the writers, actors, directors, and so many other artists and craftspeople who made them. Without their labor, we wouldnāt be able to watch our favorite films together. Without their labor, our show wouldnāt be as impactful. Without their labor, our show wouldnāt exist.
We support their strike efforts. If youād like to support them as well, go to www.entertainmentcommunity.org.
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Written by: Megan Seawright, Jonathan Decker, and Alan Seawright
Produced by: Jonathan Decker, Megan Seawright, Alan Seawright, and Corinne Demyanovich
Edited by: Sophie TĆ©llez
Director of Photography: Bradley Olsen
English Transcription by: Anna Preis
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All Comments (21)
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Holga: Fantasy story with a non-evil step/replacement mother. No gaslighting. No jealousy. No imprisoning for magic hair. Holga is literally the parent that stepped in and stepped up.
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Society should have treated this like it was The Mummy for the 2020's. It's so good at being what it is, and should be absolutely iconic.
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Jarnathan is clearly just the Dungeon Master needing to think up a name on the spot because they forgot how many NPCs they needed.
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My favorite line from Edgin talking to the disguised red wizard was definitely "I wasn't trying to bring your mom back, I was trying to bring my wife back." Being able to admit that there IS a difference there is so huge. It's what later makes Edgin choose to resurrect Holga instead of his wife. Because that WAS bringing her mom back.
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Yay to more sweet depictions of women and men simply being friends. I loved Edgin and Holga's dynamic, with her helping to raise Kira, without any indication of lingering romantic feelings.
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Love how āJarnathanā is such a DM name, a name the DM had to come up with on the spot for a throwaway npc that the party becomes weirdly obsessed with and ropes into their schenanigans.
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I remember being pleasantly surprised at the choice to make Holga's dynamic with her ex as accepting yet awkward. Like many failed relationships, she doesn't care about him romantically but still harbors a fondness for him. So she shares his joy at a new relationship while grappling with moving on herself, thus crafting a storyline more mature for the audience.
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Edgin finally figuring out that "his wife" and "Kira's mom" are different people kicked me in the chest, let me tell ya!
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I LOVE this movie!!!! When he says āwe can never stop failing because the minute we do, weāve failedā has been SO instrumental to my mental health ā¤ā¤
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One interesting aspect of this movie that a number of D&D fans have noticed is how much the characters actually feel like they're people playing a character in an actual roleplaying game, and the way each failure manages to be sidestepped through the cunning of the party or gentle pushes from the plot like a DM would while playing a campaign. Definitely a nice touch.
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I read somewhere that he walked over the rock because he was directed to walk in a straight line, and no one yelled cut, so he decided as a Paladin the thing to do would be to just walk over the rock in his straight line.
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Underappreciated arc in Holga learning to accept people genuinely caring for her and allowing herself to show vulnerability ššš her revival reaction gets me every time
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As a long time D&D player, YES, the game is best when its not taken too seriously. Literally last night, our party was holding off a massive swarm of spiders in a tunnel, when my rogue lost consciousness. And what did the party do? Yeeted my limp body further down the tunnel to get me out of harms way!! We all laughed so much that it hurt!!! So happy to see the movie embrace and understand that chaotic energy. Really deserved to be a box office smash.
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The friendship between Holga and Edgin not being ruined to make it into a weird romance at the end is such a beautiful thing.
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This film is self-aware and winks at the audience... but it, and it's characters, don't loathe themselves or apologize to the audience. They take things seriously but have fun with it and commit because the writing and the filmmaking are superb. They don't have to feel self-conscious about so they can introduce a ridiculous paladin NPC, lampshade it a bit but accept, and them move on as their characters really would. It's truly a LOVE letter to it's fans instead of awkward, snarky fan service.
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Holga saying, "Why would you waste it on me?" is such a heartbreaking line to me. I'm so glad they all hugged her afterwards. On an unrelated note, someone suggested that if they do a sequel, they keep the main cast of actors and they all play totally different characters and I sincerely hope this happens (not that I don't love this gang, they're excellent.)
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What I love about the forestomping-on-your-face bit is that it feels SO true to the D&D experience as a DM. You'll practically spell out exactly what's happening for your players, and somehow they will STILL misinterpret it and go off in another direction you haven't planned for. It just fits so well!
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I 200% appreciate that they got the cast together, and ran them through a D&D campaign, to help them really understand just how a group functions. The fact that it is never about one singular person, but everyone working in concert, and I think that really clicks for the cast, with them understanding that none of them are the solitary big damn hero. That's not a thing in D&D, and it is awesome.
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I really like that Forge telling the wardens that his mum is responsible for him being as he is is a semi-callback to Xenk saying āSo you blame his mother for his corruptionā
