OKAY. This is a thread, but it’s worth it I promise.

On Reddit today, user u/NoNoNo_OhOhOh posted a page from acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne’s latest book, ‘The Traveller At the Gates of Wisdom.

Note the ingredients.

If those ingredients look weird to you, it is because they are straight of out of the Zelda game Breath of the Wild

Is it an homage? An Easter egg? Hmm. The book is *not* a fantasy. It’s a historical drama set in the real world. I had a hunch, and tried a google search.

So: while John Boyne was doing a perfunctory google search for how to dye clothes red he found a site listing monster parts and accidentally put them in his Very Serious book. I am very embarrassed for him and this is my nightmare but it’s also very funny

(Love that he capitalized Octorok, gotta get the grammar for the balloon squid creatures right.)

Anyway. Let this be a lesson to all novelists to read the full context of the things you’re looking up for your books but if you do make mistakes, at least let them be hilarious.

Sorry, mistyped the original reddit username: it’s u/nonono_ohhoho

THE END OF THE THREAD! A response from the author: https://twitter.com/john_boyne/status/1290144321367240707