Australians (me included) are going to be all over this video like ants in honey, this series is a national treasure

"no ones heard of this series" THERE'S DOZENS OF US

AND WE'RE ALL SCHOLASTIC KIDS

Edit: holy smokes, I take it back, there's thousands

Noah: "I've never met anyone who has heard of Deltora quest"
Me an Australian: "What? everyone knows Deltora quest..."
Noah: "That may partially be because Deltora quest is an Australian book."
Me an Australian: "Ooh."

The thing that makes the shadow lord so grim, is quoted in the first book.

"Neither did he forget that the Enemy, though defeated, was not destroyed. He knew that the Enemy is clever and sly, and that to its anger and envy a thousand years is like the blink of an eye"

The shadow lord is immortal, and patient and can afford to let the people of Deltora forget his reign to history and strike  when they drop their guard again

Deltora quest isn't fantasy. it's an accurate eyewitness description of 90's Australia and 'how to get to school' as a teenager

with respect to 33:38 there is a full explanation for why all the characters are so ignorant about the monsters they encounter, and why so many parts of the story require puzzles and riddles—the Shadow Lord's agents had for multiple generations been working to doctor, censor and/or destroy all records of Deltora's history, magic, etc. The only fragments of information that escaped these efforts survived because they had been hidden in riddles, children's stories or other innocuous or encoded forms

Nah dude, as a kid, the revelation of the belt needing to be spelt out as Deltora from the gems was so cool. Also yeah, the whole world of Deltora is just so awesome when you get into any of the finer details of the books and/or the extended stuff on top of that

"He knew that the Enemy is clever and sly, and that to its anger and envy a thousand years is like the blink of an eye."
is a quote from the book basically saying that the shadow lord will wait however long it needs to too destroy deltora. this has stuck with me for some reason

Hearing someone say the name "Skulduggery Pleasant" in 2026 feels insane.

I feel like the maze of the beast needs to be expanded on in terms of "yeah it eats you alive like everything else, but it's a slug". The Glus doesn't chomp you down quickly while you run from it: you get stuck, lie glued in place as it slowly crawls toward you, and then it just slowly rolls over you and you're eaten alive over the course of many minutes as it meticulously picks all of the flesh off your bones. Which by the way happens in the book right in front of the main characters in decent detail. They watch as a living man gets engulfed and as the slug crawls over him the only thing left are his bones.

I found the powers of the geme interesting because they are the sort of powers a monarch would need : protection against poison (so it's harder to assassinate you), detecting evil (to detect evil chancellors), clearing the mind and piercing illusions (to avoid mind manipulations), etc... Basically, it's a way to avoid the leader from falling to the enemy, one way or another.

It's way less useful when nearly everyone is your enemy, and there's an army of monsters against you.

Shadowlands is legitimately the best Deltora Quest has to offer (and the Dragons series has some of the eeriest segments that 11-year-old me could imagine), so I absolutely would watch a follow-up about them!

bro as an australian, seeing this video was like being slapped in the face by nostalgia. absolutely loved these books as a kid. still remember seeing those covers in the school library.

Man, everything involving the Sisters in Dragons of Deltora is so beyond nightmare fuel. Please make a video on the sequels, the ignorant masses must be schooled on the kino that is this franchise.

14:21 homie forgets to mention that this sorceress is also KNOWN for eating LIVE ravens whole to the point Jasmine makes kree leave to keep them safe only for him to comeback and be the MVP.

I had the first eight books, the next three about the Pippan Pipe, the four about the dragons of Deltora, one large hardback book about the old lore of both Deltora AND the Shadow Lord, another large hardback about the beasts of Deltora, and lastly a book on drawing the beasts of Deltora. I live in the USA and this is one of my favorite book series ever and it lives rent free in my head.
"Plans within plans" -Shadow Lord

"Barda's superpower is being an adult man with a sword."

That got a chuckle out of me

You know its good obscure childhood content when retelling the plot makes you sound completely insane.

As an Australian I can confirm Deltora Quest was actually peak and very popular when I was in primary school

I read all the books and watched the anime. The darkness of the world was so engaging to me as a kid. Met the artist at a book convention through school he taught us how to draw a dragon. Good bloke very talented

Ranger's Apprentice, Skullduggery Pleasant, Deepgate Codex, and yes, even Deltora Quest were all staples of my formative years. Crazy how underrated and unknown all these works are.