Director's Notes - 200 "Susan Willman Comes Clean"

Well, here we are. Our 200th episode. Or is it?

This is not our 200th episode, despite the number in front of it. Because we have made all sorts of double episodes and bonus episodes. The result is I have no idea the real number of this episode, but, as they say, mathematics is more of an art than a science.

No matter how you count them. We’ve made a lot of episodes. And of course that’s not counting the three novels and eight live shows we’ve written within the world of Night Vale. It has been years since our last attempt at calculating the total word count of every Night Vale thing we’ve made, but I am confident that it is well over a million at this point. Given the proverbial exchange rate, we have created the equivalent of over 1000 pictures of Night Vale.

The beauty of Night Vale is that it is not a story, but a world. And a world can always be further explored. There are always new corners to look into, characters who we have not yet gotten to know. It’s a place. It’s a community. And, like any community, it changes with time, both reacting to and creating its own circumstances.

Which is to say that I think we could write another million words in this world and not run out of things to say about it. After all, people have written at least that many words about England, and England doesn’t even have a single Glow Cloud.

A question we get asked a lot is “when will Night Vale end?” Going all the way back to 2013 I have seen people on various corners of the internet confidently say that they can tell that Night Vale will definitely end soon. So far, they haven’t been right.

The answer to the question is: we don’t know. At some point, for sure. Either because we choose to or because we can no longer make it. Nothing is more finite than a human creation. But we don’t think it will end any time soon. We’re still having too much fun.

For instance, take Susan Willman. Now, did we have her fate planned out from the moment the word “Huntokar” appeared in the podcast in episode (one quick search on http://www.nightvalepresents.com/transcripts later) 14? Did we have her fate planned from the time that we brought in Tina Parker, voice of Huntokar?

No. What happened is how so many Night Vale stories get made. Jeffrey wrote episode 172, Return of the Obelisk, in which Susan Willman communes with a powerful obelisk . And, upon reading it, I thought, Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder what happens next.

And I kept wondering, for a few weeks. She should transform into some other kind of being as a result of this. But what kind of being? And I realized it had to be Huntokar, savior and destroyer of the town of Night Vale.

I’ll save the real reminiscing for our ten year anniversary, which arrives in just six months (how is that possible???). Thanks for listening. See you in 2022.

-Joseph Fink