Trivia / The Adventure Zone: Balance

Trivia Index

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• Ascended Fanon: Some character design elements from fan art have wormed their way into canon:
  • It was common for Lucretia to be depicted with dark skin and white hair even before she was described as such in canon.
  • Wonderland!Jenkins was described as wearing a red suit, but Jenkins himself wasn't. in fan art on the other hand, he nearly always had a red suit or vest.
  • Fan art of Angus wearing glasses was very common, despite him never being described as having such. Then in the Story and Song Finale, his glasses were finally canonized.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • After Griffin was informed of the greater context of the fully-subtextual lesbian relationship ending in Bury Your Gays in the Petals to the Metal arc, he brought in an explicitly mentioned relationship between Carey and Killian, as well as a budding one between Taako and Kravitz, for subsequent arcs and interludes. Then in Story and Song, he reveals that Sloane and Hurley have become dryads. He rolled really well on this saving throw.
    • The graphic novel adaptation of Petals to the Metal doubles down on this by revealing Sloane and Hurley's transformation into dryads within its pages rather than make readers wait until the adaptation of Story and Song.
  • Griffin explicitly said that this is why Lup's name is just "Lup" rather than being short for "Chalupa" as originally intended.
  • Griffin also acknowledges that, given one particular Continuity Drift-induced Plot Hole — specifically, "how could Gundren Rockseeker be Merle's cousin with the same magical properties to his blood if Merle is from another universe?" — he has to introduce an explanation for it (the universe where the IPRE crew manage to grab the Light of Creation after agreeing to the plan to divide it into the Grand Relics just happened to be remarkably similar to their own universe, with the Rockseekers being alternate versions of Merle's real distant relatives) and preemptively agrees that it sucks as an explanation.
  • Rather than pull the trigger on Taako inventing the taco, a situation rife with Unfortunate Implications, Griffin instead fulfills the storyline by having Taako meet a Hispanic person from our world who teaches him the recipe.
  • Fans found it hard to reconcile Davenport's retcon into using only Pokémon Speak after he became an Ascended Extra at the end of The Suffering Game where he was revealed to be the IPRE's captain. Griffin's narration in Episode 66 turns this into a Cerebus Retcon by saying that while he did know how to say words other than his name, he was so thoroughly traumatized from having his memory wiped that most days he could not manage to say them.
  • In response to the criticisms regarding the original graphic novel preview, where the main characters were all depicted as white, their designs were revised to depict more diversity.
• Blooper: In the first episode of The Crystal Kingdom, a Candlenights-appropriate jingle suddenly cuts in at 39:16 and cuts out three seconds later, which doesn't fit the moment at all—Lucretia is incensed and is ordering the party to drag in Lucas. The music may have been intended to start with the next line, when Davenport bursts into the room in a silly costume and starts dancing only for Lucretia to angrily cut him off.
• Bonus Episode: Every year as part of Max Fun Drive they release a bonus episode only available to monthly donors. One of these is an Origins Episode of how the team first met.
• Creator's Favorite: Griffin has stated in TTAZZ that his favorite NPC to voice is Angus, while his favorite character overall is Lucretia due to the complexity of her actions and motivations.
• Fandom Nod: Occasionally the cast will reference aspects of their fanbase in the show; like Justin-as-Taako insisting on the group carrying a body together because "it'll make better fanart that way."
  • When the team decides to turn against the Bureau, Travis remarks that this twist "surprises absolutely nobody on Reddit".
• Incestuous Casting: Most romances in the show are between NPCs, but when one of the player characters does get a romantic scene, this is obviously the case. This is why Justin mentioned in the second The The Adventure Zone Zone that if Kravitz and Taako go on any more dates (or if they have already) it will be entirely off-camera; he likes their relationship but concedes that going on a fake date with Griffin was "really, really awkward."
• Reality Subtext: In the second and third The The Adventure Zone Zones, the McElroys discuss how much of the show was influenced by the boys' mother and her death when they were young adults. In particular, Travis says that he based Magnus' backstory on the way he was affected by her death, specifically pointing to Magnus telling Julia in the Astral Plane that he just wanted her to be proud of him as something he feels in real life.
• Shrug of God: In the second The The Adventure Zone Zone, Griffin refuses to answer why Garfield created a new Magnus body, preferring to keep Garfield a creepy and enigmatic figure, and Justin refuses to answer if Taako and Kravitz had gone on other dates, wanting to let the fans make up their own answers.
• Teasing Creator: During the first The The Adventure Zone Zone, Griffin says "why is Barry Bluejeans so popular? He's dead, guys. His soul has left his body." This was actually Exact Words once Barry was revealed as a lich.
• Throw It In!: An interesting case during the Suffering Games. Griffin had an entire subplot planned where one or multiple party members would be sucked into the Ethereal Plane, but because of the sheer Rule of Cool factor and Taako rolling a NAT 20, Griffin traded that for an epic moment of seamless teamwork between the party that demonstrates character development and friendship.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Due to the players regularly going Off the Rails from Griffin's planned campaign, Griffin mentions he's had to scrap pages of combat and puzzle notes of areas they either solved unexpectedly or bypassed entirely.
    • Griffin had planned an epic battle in the Murder on the Rockport Limited arc, planned to happen on top of the moving train.
    • The unused song A Wizard's Duel implies that originally, the fight with Sheriff Isaak was to be more of an all out duel than the Quick Draw match that it was.
    • At the end of The Eleventh Hour, Griffin apparently planned out a several-episode, multi-timeline redemption arc in anticipation of Magnus taking the Temporal Chalice's offer to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, involving Taako, Merle and Lucretia somehow traveling to the alternate timeline to either convince Magnus to give up the Chalice or take it by force—an offer which Magnus ended up refusing.
    • Kravitz was supposed to have a much larger role in The Suffering Game, teaming up with Magnus to fight The Hunger in the Astral Plane, all of which had to be thrown out when Taako and Merle successfully stopped Magnus from falling into the Astral Plane.
    • Originally, when faced with what to do with the soul-crystal in the TAZ Nights world in The Stolen Century, they destroyed it, along with every last inhabitant of the plane. No one was happy about it, considering it to be far too dark for the story they were telling, and went back and recorded the version of the scene used in the episode.
  • When performing the Bond Attacks in the final battle, some other familiar faces were intended to show up, but didn't make it for various reasons.
    • Clint was going to summon Scales, but it was ruled out, since Merle never met him.
    • Travis initially considered summoning Julia, but ruled her out in favor of a grander reunion later in the story. It paid off.
    • Travis also considered bringing back Hodge-Podge, but couldn't think of what he could do, so instead summoned the Royal Bear.
• Word of Gay: Sloane and Hurley's subtext-heavy relationship was confirmed to be romantic in this way. To be fair though, if you didn’t get that one you really weren’t paying attention.
  • Taako was originally this, as Justin had stated that while Taako was gay, he was hesitant to bring it up in canon because he didn't want to make the character seem like an offensive stereotype. However, as of episode 50, Taako is indeed canonically gay and has a male Love Interest.