Latest / WoT Spoilers / An Open Gate & The End of a Legend - Towers of Midnight chapter 21-22 - EP557

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An Open Gate & The End of a Legend - Towers of Midnight chapter 21-22 - EP557 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the weed Let Time Spoilers podcast. Holidays were
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: three days away from Halloween. It's very exciting, spooky, great.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I had a great Halloween party at my place that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: was a lot of fun.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Get that out of the way. Yeah, I don't have
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: scheduled conflicts exact Halloween exactly.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did that last weekend, and well it's also like,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: if we're doing it this weekend, that's kind of after Halloween.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times I find if you do
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a party after the actual holiday, people are done with
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the holiday, They've moved on to the next one, they've
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: put their stuff away. Like, you're much more likely to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: get attendance if you do the party of the week
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: or two before Halloween. People like, well, my Halloween costume's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: not done yet, but I'll dry on it at the party,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: or I'll wear one from last year at the party
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And so you can get just
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: by just better attendants at Halloween parties. That's my here's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: my secret toath to throw in a decent party. Make
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: sure it's before the holiday, not after it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: That makes sense. That makes sense, And.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like the same thing for birthdays, right, you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: want to throw like I know you're not twelve. Birthdays
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: might be different because it sort of it doesn't happen
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: until it happens.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I prefer celebrating birthdays after day. Yeah, like if you're
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: going to extend it. Yeah, it's like, no, I am twelve.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Now you can continue to shower me with praise for
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: achieving my new year for the next week or so.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Right, But if you celebrate ahead of time, then you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: haven't achieved that milestone yet. Right, It's like you can't
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you can't celebrate graduation day, right, yeah, exactly exactly. But
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: yearly holidays that come every year, I feel like you
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: should more celebrate before rather than after. Right, No one
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: celebrates Christmas on the twenty seventh. You want to celebrate
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it on the twenty third, if you need to write,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: like right, But then again, New Year's doesn't. It's more
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of a birthday because it's a birthday for the year.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Holidays are complix.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: What and bell time? You always want to celebrate with
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the poll on the day of. That's very important, no
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: matter what the weather is. Yeah, yeah, because how else
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: are you gonna get struck by lightning?
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: This is true, and that is the most important part
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: of a harvest festival is getting struck by lightning?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: All right, do you want to dig into an open gate?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So, honestly, that's a lot.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: That's a lot.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: It's not a lot here, but there's a lot of
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: pages we have to turn to get through.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is a This is a low density
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: couple of chapters. Now, I do like how much he
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: is flushing out the world in these chapters. Right, this
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: feels a little like doing a good job of Robert
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: jordaning the descriptions. But usually Robert Jordan has more substance
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: mixed in with the descriptions. And again I tend to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: find one or two things per scene that I want
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to talk about rather than an intricate storytelling that's going on.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again we're in paren so we know that
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: we are in pure Sanderson. There's nothing Jordan threaded through this.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: The only really significant thing that I find about this
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: chapter is that Morgae finally gets an answer to what's
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: wrong with her. Yes, that is the reason. Oh my god,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: characters are talking. We're getting a plot loop closing. This
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: is an important part of a growth arc. Everything else
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: is like, Yeah, the handwaving details of Sanderson just fleshing
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: out Paren's camp. But I like Morgaze finally knowing what's
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: wrong and being able to have that closure with Talin
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: for and all that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And just take some of that guilt, like, oh, it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: not my fault, right, Like, and this this feeling I'm
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: having for this man isn't real. It's magically induced.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Right. She's finally getting the diagnosis of having been in
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: an abusive relationship, right, right, She's finally learning that she
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: was dealing with psychosis the whole time. It makes everything
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: makes sense. It's great. But yeah, all the parent stuff
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: before that, about back and forth with the White Cloaks
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: and who's doing what's it? Where's it? It's yeah, low density.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I guess I should read it saying because it's a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: parent chapter if you want to, so, our symbol is
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the Trolucks, because we do get the battle right later
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: on in different behavior Goblin Yeah, the goublin Gublin, Yeah,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: which I do like that he's referencing. I do like
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that they make the trlucks a little more threatening and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: bring back the threat of Trollucks. In this chapters, he's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: trying to make a large group of Trolucs attacking a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: group of soldiers threatening again.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the section with Iteralda in the middle between
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: the two parent sections, yeah, it is. It does have
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: a very eye of the world level of threat feel
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: to it. It's like Sanderson might have been writing it
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: all entirely out of his own head, but he really
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: was marinating in that first wave of terror that you
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: get when trollucks first show up at winter Night.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Or even when I'm thinking book four, right with the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: battle for the Two Rivers, right, because that was Yeah,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the trolucs were threatening the farmers, right. They didn't have
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: any you know, a couple of isid eye channelers, but
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that was it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, this is what it means to fight trollocks
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: when you're outnumbered and have very little magic or no magic,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: very little magic to work with.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Which, despite the last battle being a magical battle, there's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of course going to be tons of fights like this
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: all over the place, right, right, just numbers of the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: number of soldiers versus the number of magic users.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And yeah, like doctor Pant says, it works really well
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: to show just how on the brink of the last
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: battle we are. This really you can smell their horrible
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: breath and see the hair like. That's how close the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: trollocks are. They've been kind of distant and shapeless things
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that get destroyed at a distance. Because magic. Now we
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: are up close and personal again, an open gate.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: We thought it best seen had said, to let one
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of us give the full report. I have gathered information
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: from the others for presentation. Paren nodded absently. He sat
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: on cushions in the meeting pavilion, fay Yel at his side.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: It was crammed full of people again, Carrie In is
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: still a mess. Of course, Sienid began the business like.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Green was a kurtwoman, not mean or disagreeable, but even
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: her interactions with her orders seemed like those of a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: prosperous farmer with his workers. The sun throne has remained
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: unoccupied for far too long. Oh know that the Lord
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Dragon has promised the throne to Elaine cand but she
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: has been struggling to secure her own throne. She has
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: finally done so by reports. She looked to parent for comment.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Smelling satisfied, he scratched at his beard. This was important
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and he needed to pay attention, but thoughts of his
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: training in the Wolf's Dream just kept drawing his mind
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: so Elaine is queen. That must make rand happy. The
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Lord Dragon's reaction is unknown, Senid continued, as if checking
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: off another item on the list. The wise ones made
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: no comments and asked no questions. They sat on their
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: cushions in a little cluster like rivets on a hinge.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Likely the maidens had already told them all of this.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to stop there because there's no real good
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: stopping point at this point. But I was enjoying the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: little snod readings. Those were fun.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like saying, d She's not the most interesting
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: or the most annoying, but she does work. She's not
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: just there to be an isodye placeholder. She actually does
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: like footwork on the ground, running around doing stuff with
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: other plot people, and just like going, oh, yeah, we
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: don't know how the Lord Dragon feels like Paren made
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that comment rhetorically and she just answers it like it's
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: another item. I find that amusing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: She's a lot of parents people work, right, Like, I
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: think there's a certain amount of like leading by example,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: because he's always doing something, he's always working on something,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: he never stops, and so they sort of picked that
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: up by example. Right, you have this this person who's driven.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And that's when when he's like, well, I don't know,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not a good leader, everyone looks around and goes, yeah,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you lead by example. You don't know what you're doing,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: but by being so effective, by being so driven, you
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: force the people around you to also be driven and effective.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And you're willing to delegate, which is a huge part
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: of effective leadership.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Then you know when you don't know.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, huge. The humility to know when you need to
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: defer to an expert is like really critical for being
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: a leader. So they're basically talking about where is Rand.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: That's kind of what the next long section is is
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: all the different cities he could be in and where
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: is he? And no one's wrong about anything. They're just
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: rehashing plot.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of recap stuff. Yeah, he talks about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: going and he talks about, oh, we need to go
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to Kyrie Inn and talk to the queen now that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: she's secured her throat.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And or and or right. But yeah, they're like, we
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: need to go to talk to a lane, Like wherever
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Rand is is beside the point. We need to go
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: to and Or and talk to a lane and sort
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: it out from there. We'll meet up with Rand eventually.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Once we deal with these white cloaks, right, yeah.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: First the white cloaks, then the refugees, then stopping off
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: with the lane. Then we'll get to Rant. And Aleandra
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: is curious where she fits into that, and paren, does
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you know the thing he did to Berlin, which is like,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: you're an annoyance, You're a pain in my ass. I
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: want you to go away now that I'm done using
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: your soldiers from my own ends, which is rude and inappropriate.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And Aleandra doesn't appreciate it, but is also slower to
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: deal with it than Beryline because she's a less adroid ruler.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't take long before everybody's like, listen, last
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: battle is coming. We're gonna fight in last battle. We're
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: an army together who's used to working together. We have
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a better chance just sticking together and fighting last battle
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: with you. Lead us into battle. Follow the dragon Reborn.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: You are a following. By following you, we are following
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the dragon Reborn. You are the You are his general.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: He said you out to do this thing, and you know.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: And a pyramid shape. You are between us and the point.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Listen, and we know it's not.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: An MLM, but it's legally distinct from a pyramid scheme.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It just happens to be a pair of bid shaped.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's wed shaped. The wide part's at
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the top. Okay, it's a funnel.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: So then we talk about the white Cloaks and how
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I guess we're going to beat them up. Paren is
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: not yet decided to be sneaky about it. He thinks
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: he's decided to attack them. He will change his mind,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: but he has not yet done that. He currently thinks
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that he's going to attack them.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: He hasn't quite realized the trap that's set.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he knows that it bothers him. He thinks about
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: what a shame it is to have, you know, regular
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: humans fighting each other when literal evil is coming. But
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: he hasn't yet quite put it together that this is
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: a setup. He's just niggling at the problem.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: The wise ones talk about the problem with the shawn
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Chan and the captives in the air and the day
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and sort of setting up the battle that is foretold
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: in Avienda's dream. Right, this blood feud between the Aeel
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and the shawn Chan.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complicated thing to thread, right, because they
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: literally have no capacity to do anything. Right, the wise
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: ones with Parents' army have no capacity to do anything
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: about the wise ones being held by the shaun Chin.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So they go through the mind pretzel of saying, we'll
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: give it a year in a day. In a year
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: and a day, we will have an ultimatum sort it out,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and we can figure it out somehow, but we're just
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: gonna have to be mad about it until then. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: that is what a mind pretzel. Right, The shan Chan
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: sucked terribly. You know, they don't respect to hear in
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a day wise ones aren't supposed to be taking guyshine
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Like this is a terrible, terrible compromise. But literally, what
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: else can they do other than try to mind pretzel
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: themselves into some kind of peace until a solution can
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: be figured out? Like I could do anything from the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: middle of Giladon.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Why are they not? They could be meeting with the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: other wise ones in the dream and sort of talking
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: about it, like there could be this council going on
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: between the wise.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Ones, but they have to know to meet, right, Like
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: this is information they just got, and like they don't
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: do regular weekly meetings or whatever.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Right, and and I forgot there are very few actual
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: dreamers among right, there's only the three, really, right, the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: ones who were teaching. No, No, I'm getting that wrong.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I think I think every clan has one or two.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: But still you'd need for them to know to go
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: into the dream and be looking for a message at
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the right time. And like, that's a lot of coordination,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: you know. Again, once Rand has them all in one
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: spot and they can plan, then they can figure out
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: how to present an ultimatum that's effective. But for now
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: it's just I guess your guys shine for a year
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: and a day, Wise Ones.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It's terrible, right, and at that point they might be
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: broken because of the leash.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Which I don't know how much the wise ones know
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: about the leash, but we as readers know that that's
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: gonna be a problem. Even for the hardest of a yield.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: The shan chan might be more overwhelming than adeel stubbornness.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Although you could say a GWayne one with idell stubbornness
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: kind of.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: She almost broke under the leash, and that was before
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: she had her ideal training, and then it almost broke
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: her again in the dream, except that she was able
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: to dream her way out of it. After the ayel stuff.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't know, I don't know. I feel
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: like the sean Chan are like a force of nature
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and you can resist for a period of time, but ultimately,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: like I don't know, I don't know. I would hate
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to see the AEO wise ones being broken or post
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: being broken on page I think that would be really hard.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: But we don't have that kind of time pass No.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: No, we don't know. Everything wraps up within just a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: few months, so the year in the day is nowhere
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: near passed by the time that the books conclude.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And so's they've sent some maidens to Kyrie and sorry
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: to Camlin to spy, but I didn't really get any
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: information out of that other than that Elaine is queen, right,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is that basically the only information they got from the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: spies that they sent to Kamlin.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Well, and that there was a forsaken who was had
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: taken over. I mean that's the information that more Gazes
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: tire World hinges on is coming back with the rumors
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: about Gabriel.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So parent knew that Parent confirms it. He's like, oh, yeah, totally.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Well, but they still have to put all that information
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: together in one place, because you know, paren knew that
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Rand kicked someone out, but whatever, it didn't really matter.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: But now they're bringing this like, oh it was Robbie parents.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, oh yeah, that does that does connect.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Some dots, huh.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Interesting, And that he was alias was Gabriel right like
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: that they give him both information, not just that it
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: was a for second, but it actually was the man
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: who you were shacked up with, right right, Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: This information has never been all laid out in one spot,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: certainly not in parents camp.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: So she drops the teapot and like you know, storms off.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she drops the tray and just walks away like
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the most uncharacteristic, like I need a moment, please, thank you,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: and just leaves without asking for permission, like doesn't clean
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: up as an embarrassed like she is one threat away
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: from a complete meltdown. And she goes off to find
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: a nice natural pool that reminds me of the fountain
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: that she likes to hang out at her palace. She
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: goes off and finds a natural feature that sort of
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: mirrors that. To think about it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Mmm, I miss that, and I would saying find talin Bore.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: No, she does not go to find Talibor. She goes
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to sit by a natural pool and think, and then
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: talin for finds.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Her hmm, and she had no idea that was going
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Because that's him coming over to say I'm leaving.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Oh okay.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: He literally says, I'm coming to say goodbye. I have
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: to go to tear I can't be around you in
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: this unrequested state. And she goes, hold up, I had
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: just got some new information. I need a minute to process,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: but can you please just hold on like five more
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: minutes And then he says, yeah, fine, I guess I will.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And you know, you know what's going to be happily
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: ever after blah blah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Blah unless they all die in the last battle, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: they don't. We get information the Aschman are better right
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: from whatever that the bubble of evil red snake snake
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: sickness that was keeping them from making gateways earlier.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: The plots have lned enough that they're allowed to recover. Yeah,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that's what I'm getting from that.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The pattern has decided, and so.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now they can move a reasonable amount of people
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: through a gateway enough to start sending home the people
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: that do want to go home, which it turns out
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: is not many, but some people do, and now they're
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: up to capacity.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Because the shidow were essentially a great filter. They got
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: rid of anyone who was weak or sick. So you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: just have a bunch of able bodied people who are
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: like looking for a fight. Essentially, you don't have a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: lot of people you need to support and camp and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: children and sickly people like none of that, right.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The amount of women and children and elders that
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: can't be combatants who are in this camp are very
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: much in scale with camp followers. You don't have a
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: refugee camp. You have a regular army camp with just
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of new soldiers. But yeah, they're like, oh yeah,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: as the guy Shine are coming out of their shells,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: they're pissed. They're pissed and they're ready to go.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And when he says, guy Shine, these are wetlanders, right,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: These aren't. These aren't ideal Guy Shining. These They are
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: just the people who were taken prisoner, who kind of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: went into that stupor and now come out of it
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and realize their lives were stolen from them and they
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: want revenge and they want to fight somebody, and they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot to lose.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Roughly one hundred thousand people who have just gone through
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: hell and come out the other side, Like, don't be
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: too eager to send them away when you have a
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: battle coming up, just saying.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And the chances are the Shadow destroyed whatever village or
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: town they were in, right, and killed everybody else who
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: was there, right.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So many of those people have nowhere to return to,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: certainly not before the last battle.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Uh. There's one thought here that parent has all too often, right,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: So here, what was wrong with mcgedeon? Erratic behavior like
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: that was disturbing all too often it was followed by
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: some manifestation of the Dark One's power. And I always
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that line sort of makes me think that maybe in
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of places they are killing anyone who acts erratically,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: so the dark One can't like to stop the Dark
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: One from getting into them. And now I have to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: wonder if there's a bunch of witch hunts going on
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: in places. Oh boy, right, that you have these like,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, anyone who's erratic all of a sudden, Well,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: we need to murder that person before they explode with beatles, right,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: because we didn't last time. And that was a problem.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'd never thought about that.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And then you can have these sort of moments in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: places that are essentially you know, killing killing weird people
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: killing others. You know. Come mind, that was this like
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: whole dark friend thing where like you have the Last
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Battle and dark friends are coming out of the woodwork, right, Like,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: there could be really dark aspects of what's going on
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in society and the number of innocent people who could
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: be getting murdered because they don't act normal or their
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: suspected dark friend or they live alone or they're a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: wise woman.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean this is kind of already the world
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: that we open up into book one. It's like if
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: the Dragon's paying is scrawled on your door in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: back country, you'll get lynched, right like that that's the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: vibe we open with. So yeah, the escalation at this
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: point when people are literally like melting into lava pits
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: or whatever, Like, yeah, there's probably a lot of witch hunt, lynching,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: hate crime type things happening on people who literally were
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: not gonna do a bubble of evil, but like Greg
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: did a bubble of evil last week, So clearly Tim
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: needs to go this week. Oh I that's dark and.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: How much that helps the dark one? Right as he's
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: breaking free.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Literally help the dark one break free faster, right, because
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: you're doing evil acts. Oh that's so dark, that's so dark.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I do think that, like you could make the Last
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Battle a much darker experience. Like there's all of this
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: starvation going on, and we don't really talk about the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: people who are actually starving to death, like like, well,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it happened so quickly, and yeah, the food's going bad,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: but people kind of stal eat the rotten food. Well,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: we don't see a lot of people dying from disease
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: from eating that rotten food. See fields of dead bodies
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of people being diseased. We don't see starvation where people are,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't see cannibalism, We don't see There's
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: so many things that could be going on if the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: world was falling apart for.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Longer, Right, we don't see the warlord despots that just
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: are abusing people because they're the only one with food,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: and yeah, just the hordes of skeletons wandering the countryside.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: We get descriptions of refugees, but we don't really dig
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: into the true horrors of what a protracted famine looks like,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: partially because of timeline reasons, and but yeah, there's because yeah,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: it's one of those things where you think this big
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: world changing event is happening, everyone is thinking about it
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: and engaged with it. And that's one of Robert Jordan's
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: big thesises is No, that's actually not how the Apocalypse
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: goes down. Most people are not spending most of their
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: day thinking about the big world changing event. They're trying
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to like feed their kids and get to work. Like
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: this is. This is a theme that Jordan's been playing
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: with since the beginning, but it does also make for
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: some blind spots in a book that needs to be
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: you know, choosy about what it shows. It's like, yeah,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: you could read a lot of fanfic about how awful
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: this is in ways that just don't merit. Plot. No
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: parent notices Fagel and Berylain play acting at friends. Yes,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: doesn't get it, but we see that that plan is
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: going and you.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Can tell by the sense that they're you know, hate
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: each other, but they're acting like friends. So he's like,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on there, but it's working.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the actual friendship hasn't started yet, they're still just
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: in the faked part.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Balwer does his thing. Information about the Sean
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Chan being in league with Children of the Light, which, like,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's even old news at this point
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: because it wasn't that like Walda who made that deal
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and he's dead.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And Baalwar says like, I know it's old news,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: but it's important, and Parent says, I am so over it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I'm so over it on behalf of the audience, Baalwer,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: please leave it alone unless you have actual plot forwarding information.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And then we get more pictures of Paren and Matt
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and Rand and you know, essentially ransom notes on them, right.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: It's more like wanted posters than ransom notes. Sure sure,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: sure yeah, And Ballwar says they're being passed around in
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: certain circles.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: That's the word I was looking for, was wanted poster.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: So Ballwar has some kind of connection to like the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: underworld of Dark Friends, even though he's ostensibly not a
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Dark Friend. He knows how to like get a copy
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: of their newsletter in town or something.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I think he's just good at getting information. He's just
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: got informants. I think he's just that he knows things.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: He has connections, like he's been the spymaster for pedrin
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Niall who was one of the most manipulative people on
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the continent.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Right, He's got connections, and those connections are not all
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: to the light side.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: No, no, definitely not. Eh. These photos I think are
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: coming from and Sindane because their task is to kill right,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: because they were there was the Varren posters. These are
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: not the Varen posters.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Are these not the same?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: These are not the same. Varn's been found, Varen's gone
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: off to the like she's been gone for a while.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: These are promising money. These are circulating among dark friends,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: not just among the area. They've got Rand as well,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: because she doesn't remember. Only She's like, I know Rand's
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: not in there because he's off doing his thing, So
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for Paren or Max. These have Rand in
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: them as well. So these are set up by Sindane
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and Ogeddion who have orders to kill the two helpers, right,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: basically take one of them out, take down the tripod.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And these are very much circulating among dark friends, not
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: just among the genuine popu genuine pop.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Paren's like, who the hell are you really?
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And Baalwark gives a truthful yet still very obfuscated it's
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: very eyes to die. I worked for a man I respected.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: He was killed by the children of the Light. They
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: might recognize me on site. All of those things are
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: true statements. Yes, none of them say I was the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: secretary for the head Haunch show Children of the Light
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: fuck face for the last forty years.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, he was killed by the children Light, and he
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: was among the children of the Light. He was one
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of the children of the Light.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I want to like baal War, I really do. But
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: he facilitated the White Cloaks being as effective and bad
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: as they were for decades because of working for Nile.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And yet you see his reasoning here. Money means nothing
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to me. The information that is what important facts and discoveries.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: They are like nuggets of gold. I would give that
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: cold to a common banker to make coins, but I
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: forgive but I prefer to give it to the master
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: craftsmen to make something of beauty. And that's what he
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: saw Pedronile, Pedro Nile took that information and was plotting
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and had a plan to take over the continent with
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the information that Balwar was giving him. And Balvar doesn't
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: care if the Nazis are taking over. He just wants
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to see his information put to good use.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the part where he says, a master craftsman
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to make a thing of beauty, and I'm like, fascism.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Fascism is a thing of beauty to you. Like, again,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I want to like you, but you need to have
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a little more moral compass than to say it's an
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: elaborate scheme. Therefore I want it to exist.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: In this case. In that particular instance, he's talking about
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: parent making the thing of beauty, which is the army
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that he's forged together. He's talking about parent in this
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: situation as the person who's the master craftsman.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that's fine, because we like parent, yes, But I'm
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: just saying he shifted allegiance from Nile to parent as
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: though they are a similar quality of man, and that
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: really makes me question his critical thinking and like judgment skills.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But I would argue that what he's saying here is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: before I had someone who's intelligent, and now I have
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: someone who's intelligent and good, and I much prefer to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: be with someone who's intelligent and good, even though the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: intelligence is the point, right, you need to be able
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to do both.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Think he should have shopped himself around to a better
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: ruler than the white cloaks if I just, I really
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I want to like him, but I question how much
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I can like him if yeah, he doesn't mind that
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the Nazis are taking ever because his chemical lab is
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: still going to get funding to make weapons of war.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Like I just, I don't want to like you, dude.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but how many scientists right like you think that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: your side is the good side, so you support your
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: side with your best scientific efforts, and how many wars?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Can you know? How many scientists in America work because
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the funding comes from the military, right, how much of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: scientific Almost all of them? Yeah, exactly.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It's it's the thing where all the different chemical warfare
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: engineer guys hung out and we're fine with each other
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: as colleagues after World War Two, even though they were
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: on opposite sides. I forget the name of the one guy,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: but like spent the latter part of his life just
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: like swapping notes and stuff with other colleagues who happened
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: to be on the other side of the war at
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: the time, and like just didn't really see anything in
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Congress because they were just like, well, I wanted to
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: do chemical engineering, like I just wanted to be And
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: it's like wasn't an issue between them as colleagues. It's
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: that it's totally that And yes, obviously we do love
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: our German rocket scientists, big fans of that obviously.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, and even look at now like what we
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: cooperate with the Russians heavily with the NASA Space program
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and they're fighting war on Ukraine that we were supporting
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: out the opposite sides up right, Like, uh huh, I.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Just I just feel like Ballwer had agency as a
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: person to go where he wanted, and he chose to
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: stay where he didn't have to stay. If there's no
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: reason why he had to stay working for the White Cloaks.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: He also helped get more Gayze out, don't forget that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he also helped get her entangled credit.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: So again, he could have had the moral clarity to
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: know he shouldn't have been working for those fuckers long
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: with four more Gaze ever wandered in. It's the thing
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: about him not wanting to get paid more because it
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: would be sneaky sneaky, or it would be not sneaky sneaky.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Think that's how they can tell I'm not just a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: secretary if you're pay me more they'll be able to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It's like not safe for me for me to earn
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: more money.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which I do appreciate the part where he's like, no,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I really am in this for the love of the game,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Like I do not want nice things on the side,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I just want the love of the game, which is cool.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And to answer Fouji's question of what flavor of autism
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: is Ballwer, I say, yes, how does the flavor of
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: autism that Ballwer has the engineer kind, the I don't
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: see people, I just see systems kind.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And so we end this sort of POV of Parent
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: with him going hm, the first time he found himself
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: wondering if he was going to need an army to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: keep himself safe. You think you have forsaken after you?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I mean until you learn to teleport and do the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: you know, animem oops on behind you thing, right, and
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: then he's kind of all super powerful. But before that
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: moment he needs an army to keep him safe.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Parent is very slow to realize things. We
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: know this about him, all right, So POV switch up
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: to the battle in Maradon.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Right, and that was the one we had before where
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a camp a city, walled city behind it, Aeralda.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: They're up on a hill. They've been firing down that
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: hill onto the monsters, but they're getting pushed off that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: hill in this moment.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: They started the retreat. When we were with them last,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: he was deciding to retreat. Now we're sort of two
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: thirds of the way through the retreat process. The trollocks
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: are crusting over the hill, but he's still steadily retreating
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: from the base of the hill. They're planning on breaking
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: around the city and going farther down in south and
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: just leaving the city to its own devices with the Tralucs,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: because that's apparently what the city wants, and.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Hoping the Trluks attack the city instead of them. Right, yeah, please,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: we're going away just to go ahead and attack the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: city and leave us alone.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: And the plan is that if they can get far
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: enough away to disengage, they can use a gateway to
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: hop to their next chosen fighting point. It's not like
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: they're going to just retreat step by step. This is
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: a plan. He has a fallback solution. But you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: it would make a lot of sense if the city
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: opened itself up, and it does by the end of
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: this POV. But as with most things in this battle,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: it's always a little too little, too late, right.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you remember, we'll find this out in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: later chapters. But the city is being run by a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: dark friend, and so the guy who runs out and
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: saves them the reason at the end of the chapter,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: he says, will probably you know, it's basically my death
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: sentence is he did it against orders. So he's going
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to be executed.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's even a section later where I Toeralda says, well,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: there's surely your queen can give you a pardon. You
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: did the right thing, and he's like, no, I will
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: demand a trader's death because I know that I did
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: the wrong, right thing for the right wrong reason.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't ram be like, okay, I'll put you
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: on the front lines if you want to death, like
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: go fight the last battle basically.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I got places for this energy.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Trust me, you'll die. If you want to die, I
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: can make you die and make that worthwhile. I don't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: know if he's actually says that. I can't remember that's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: canon or not.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't recall.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they talk about the triple pikeline. We get
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of details about that. Interesting here we get
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about trollics, right, we get the
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: minds as the dragon sworn, as the Army starts calling.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: It's like, now they're starting to interact with these trollics,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and we're getting a whole nother generation of nicknames, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a new group of people interacting with these.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: And also I feel like it's a little bit like, oh,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: this is where Nark comes from, because he was a
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: wolf headed.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Definitely, like, no, no, no, Nark was not an anachronism. Mmm, no, no,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: that wolf headed Trulucks have always been on the edge
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: of humans speaking. People have always that Nark was not
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: an aberration, not an eye of the world ism at all, No, sir.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: And there's a couple of places here, And I notice
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: these last three books where Santisen kind of explains away
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I the world isms that have been forgotten.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I kind of love it. I kind of love the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: callbacks where he's like, no, no, no, I can make this work.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I have the authorial flexibility now to make some of
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: these eye of the worldisms actually fit the cannon. And
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Gonna explain the boy. So yeah, this was a good
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: one where it's like, oh yeah, no, there totally are
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the wolf headed trulucks that can talk, and we have
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: found a bunch of those, and we give them a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: name called mines because they're smarter than the rest and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: there's a step below the fades and in terms of
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: like directing the rest of the troops. And it's like, okay,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: this has never come up when land, with all the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Borderlanders and all the time rauls and all the fighting.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I'll take it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It's fine, it's fine saying. Next thing I've got is
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: his second in command, Lydrin, just losing his shit and
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: basically breaking the retreat. The retreat's going really well, everyone's
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: holding their shit together, and then this one guy kind
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: of loses his mind and everything starts to fall apart
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: pretty dramatically.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Why do you think do you think he just loses
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: his mind or do you think that's a compulsion thing
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: or I.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Mean, the way that it just unzips the whole situation
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: makes me wonder if, yes, someone managed to lob a
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: little blip of evil into that guy's head, just one
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: last little little drop of the taint flying off of
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: a dragcar spittle, just like getting in his eye and
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: like pushing him that bit over the edge or his
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: mind just broke. Because this is a terrible situation.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: What is it possible Grendel is already fucking with Ydrada
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and the opportunity to well, no, because we don't know.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: He's not one of the last four commanders right like
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that hasn't really formed up yet.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: He is known as a great captain, that reputation does exist,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: but this is his second in command who is going down.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And I think Grandall's still busy doing other stuff at
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: this point. But I wouldn't be surprised if, like, maybe
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: there's a dread lord who's like hurling compulsion weaves out
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: there in the hopes that it'll catch someone, or maybe
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: there's some kind of despair aura that the fades can
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: generate a thirteen of them, or like on a battle
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: ground for a day or something like. I would like
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to think that Lyndrin didn't just break. I'd like to
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: think that there's some sort of evil. This is the
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: weak point. If we can break this one link, then
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: you know, and.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: On zips, because there's two things that go wrong, right
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Lindron is one. The other one is the horn that
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: blows for retreat that's not supposed to be able to blow,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: which to me again feels like there has to be
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: if not compulsion, if feel like dark friends at the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: very least.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Right, I was wondering about the horns too, because we
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: don't know who gives the order, and there's no reason
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: to think. I mean, it seems like it's just an accident.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Someone just made that call on their own because they
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: were so desperate, which again, maybe that's what happened to Lligerent, right,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: just so desperate that your entire chain of reasoning falls
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: apart and you start making, you know, rat in a
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: cage calls. But I like the idea that there's some
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: sort of evil influence that's tipping people to make the
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: wrong choice, maybe compulsion, maybe something milder, But it is
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: a really effective one two punch. And we also know
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: we know that there are dark friends watching from behind them,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: right up in a tower in the town. There are
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: dark friends watching able to communicate, like maybe they're able
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: to like do something from their end or provide information
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: to the other side in such a way that certain
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: things can get affected. Like I don't know, but I
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be more than just random chaos. I
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: want it to be machinations of evil.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I think Dark Friends is a really good explanation for
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: what's going on here. Like, I think you've got someone
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: who realized that if they blew the horns, they could
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: be like, whoops, my bad. But then like that would
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: cause complete chaos, And that's just so so stereotypical dark
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: friend behavior. And they hide the evil with incompetence.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was scared for my life. That's why I
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: had to make the irrational, bad decision. Sure you did.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Now with Lindron, it's a little bit harder because he
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: is clearly committing suicide, right, He's jumping out into the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: traulucs and dying.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: So we have every reason to believe he was not
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: a dark Friend. Yeah right, but you know, and also
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, people can just lose their minds in
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: terrible situations, and it might just be a measure of
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: how bad it is that even the Great Captain's second
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: in command can't stand up to the pressure.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: So what follows is a pretty cool, i mean, just
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: very scary eydrawll to fighting trolcs nearly dying battle scene.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the horror becomes a character just long enough for
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: you to care and then it dies immediately. Yeah, it's
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: a really intense, awesome sequence. We've got the symbol of
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the Goblin band. I'm like, okay, Goblin cool. That's that again,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: a very like callback to like I Have the World
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and Book four with the names of trolock bands being
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the names of various like creepy Crawleys from ar Mythology.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I noticed a pair of names. I'm like, I wonder
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: if these are fan names. I don't know. There's a
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: lot of pairs of names in these two chapters, but
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: lots of people dying.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Which names were those?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Wellborn and Lahan, two of his honor Guard they just die.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I just every time I see a pair of names,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I wonder if they're you know, the fan inserts, but
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: also they just died.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Wellborn is named for Brent Welborne, a fan of the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Wheel of Time.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, and Lahan l e h.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Y n e n is name for Brian Leyhan, fan
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: of the Wheel of Time.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Okay. So those two guys show up for the sentence
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: it took them to.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Die yep, which is very typical. That's how he puts
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: those people in as he's like, oh, you get to
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: die in the Wheel of time. Congratulations.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: We have another pair of names a couple of paragraphs later,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: who ride off on horses help and cartaris Help Key.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: H E l M k E name for Christopher Helmkey
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Okay. And the next one is c U T A
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: r I s.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: There is no note saying he was named after somebody
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: in particular.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, next name, what about c A P p r
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: E capri cap pere, cap pre capre.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: That's an animal found in the waste. That's cappar. Oh yeah,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not finding anything, okay.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: And then that guy's supposed to go to Allen's cavalry.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: A l I N. No note about who he's supposed
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to be if he's named after somebody, Okay.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: The next one is Sorrenton s O r r E
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: n t N.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: And it's all just on the wiki. Name for Ed Sorrento,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: a fan of the Wheel of Time. Nice Sorrentino.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: The next okay, there's even there's so many names here
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: we just look them all up. The next one is
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Stavin st A v E N.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And just because there's no note in the wiki doesn't
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: mean they're not named for somebody, sure, Yeah, yeah, Stavin
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: is named for Stephen Connelly.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Okay. The next one is R. E. T. T. Rhett
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Rhett Petcht nice. And then the last one that I've
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: seen here is Timoth, which I'm assuming is a riff
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: off of Timothy T. Y M O t H.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Timothy Brown.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that's an Aushamon that got sent off
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: to burn the second set of siege equipment. He managed
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to really do a number on the trollocks that way,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: so that was very fun. I was reading through this, going,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of names. Surely this is mostly fans,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: and I am gratified that we found out. Yes, they
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: are mostly fans.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and those are fans who are doing I think
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: basically they're beta readers, right, those are people who are
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: helping him by reading through these books, this this book
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: as it was being written and providing feedback.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this podcast hadn't started yet when when all of
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: that was happening, so he couldn't have found us. I mean,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: I hadn't joined the fandom at that point, so.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, It's funny how much time has passed since,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: like Janderson was writing these books, right, because I was
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: like two thousand and eight. Wild Samson's whole career has
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: come since then, basically, you know, other than this born.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a little baby author when this started.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So I draw this saved by.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Yoeli yurly is how they pronounced it in the book.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Where they got the R from? I don't know, but
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: that's how they pronounce it in the audio book is yurly.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Yo yo Eli yo Lai.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I don't understand this name. There's some rule out there
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: somehow that demands that you put an R into the
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: spelling y o e l i. You're supposed to pronounce
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: that yearly. According to Michael and Kate.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I think they just mixed Upalda with the through that
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: R and there by accident as they were reading it
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: could have been.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, he comes out and saves e Toeralda at
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: the last minute, and does so in a very grim manner,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: because you know, he had to kill some of his
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: own and put his own lord into custody in order
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: to do that.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And so they ride into the safety of the town
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: besieged by several hundred thousand shadow spawn. Now that there's
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: no one to stop them from pouring through the pass.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, two more names. We've got two more names here,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Bartall b A R.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: E T T A L named after Robert Burrett, a
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: fan of the Wheal of Time.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And then last name Connall C O N.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: N E L Sean O'Connell.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Nice. So those are two members of I Troalda's honor
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: guard that survived the battle and go in with him
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: to Maredon.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, basically that's a lot of people who got
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: named and they're not dropped in this chapter.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: That was like an entire legion of fans just getting
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: dropped in and immediately pull ver Us with our friends
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: by the shadow spot. That's one of the scenes where
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: he was like, oh, yeah, I can get a lot
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: of you in here, like, everyone take a number, let's go.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Let's kill some folks off. Yeah, all right, let's go. Yeah,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna fight the last battle and you're
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: gonna like it, basically because you need the big names
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to die in the actual last battle. This is sort
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of the skirmish.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be no good to have people we
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: care about dying in a battle around a city we
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: didn't care about. That would be weird. But yeah, right,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Toalda and his broken leg get rescued in that will
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: allow us to stretch the city into a more dramatic
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: fight in the end.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And then we end the chapter with Morgase realizing that
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and the more Geese and Talan vor love story right,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the will they won't they? And she finally realizes, Oh
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: my god, I've been manipulated by my former lover. It
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: is not my fault. I still have feelings for him.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I am compelled. I hate him, but I love him,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: but I hate loving him. It's I feel like days
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of our lives should be playing over the background.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: At least in this case. There's actual magic involved, and
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: that's true narcissism, gaslighting.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: My evil twin fell in love with the forsaken.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's annoying because it's the Talan war plot,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: but it's good because it's actual plot. Closing communication in
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: my wheel of time, you know, Talindvorce says, I've reached
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: a conclusion in an ultimatum, more Gay says, I have
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: information that I'm just going to share with you in
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a straightforward, simple sentence. And as much as I don't
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: like their love story, I like seeing it go somewhere
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: instead of just spinning around the dream, right.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Right, right. And I do like her sort of thinking
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: about Taran Gell and how oh when he died hunting,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: she had been already a long way towards being independent.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, and he was going to kill
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you for it, and if Tom hadn't taken him out,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: you would be dead. Right. He did not like the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: fact that you had that independence, and he was planning
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: on taking you out and taking over the throne.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: So it's like you don't even know how much the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: men were taking advantage of you. You're thinking about how
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: much the men in your life took advantage of you,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and you don't even.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Know the half of it, right, right, And you know,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I do also like, especially as I don't like Talen
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: for I really don't. I do like him saying this
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: is my problem with what's happening here, and she is
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: able to say, well, that's because you don't understand. You
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: think that you're in competition with Gabriel, and that's giving
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: you like little man syndrome, and like that's not what's happening.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: That's not what's happening at all. And it's just so
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like there's potential for me
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to like Tollin for now that he knows the facts.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I don't, but like there's the potential for it.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: My problem with talan w is kind of the same
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: thing that I have a problem with Gowan, where he's told, hey,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you know, if someone's gonna love you, you need to
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: go out and make your own life and they can
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: love you for what you are doing, right. You can't
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: make your entire life about them and expect them to
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: love you, because that's ridiculous. And so I feel like
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Talon bar is doing the same thing. He's making his
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: entire life about more Gaze and then what is there
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: for her to love about him, because he's just reflecting
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: her back at herself.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Right, which she says is kind of what she needs.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: She needs a man who loves her for her and
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: not for other aspects of like her station or whatever.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I still do think it's not a super
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: sustainable way to be in a relationship with someone. I mean,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: it's good that he likes her for her, but also
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: he fell in love with her when she was a queen,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: so I don't really know that he likes her for her.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not totally.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Convinced he's continued to like her kind of like except
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: he doesn't like the way she acts or what she
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: does or yeah.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: He just wants her to change everything. Yeah, that way
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: she can be beautiful for him. I'm I like the
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: plot moving forward, I don't like what the plot is.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Right, right, That's kind of how I feel. Their relationship
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: always felt very weird, and there's a power dynamic going
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: on there that's like kind of trying to be the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: reverse of a male you know, older male king and
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: a younger female you know person, But like tali I
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: guess tali War is just the eye candy in this situation, right.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Like, except he's still the one doing the pursuing. So
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: I just, oh, well, at least there was communication.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: We love time, and I do like her, Like this
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: is one of those things that like you and I
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: and everyone of course have known since book five, right,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: like Robbie, you know, like that whole when the khn moment, right,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: that's such a famous moment, and like the idea that
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't realize that that's what's going on when it's
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: been common knowledge for twenty years to us. It's Yeah,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: It's just it's a weird. It's a weird realization to
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: have a character realized relevant information this late into the series,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: when being proximal to one of the main characters the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: entire time, not just like out in the Boonies, right,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Like she's basically been with paring a big chunk of
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: this time, and like it's taken her this long to
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: realize that.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: I like that Sanderson respected her enough to give her
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: the information in a really unequivocal way. She doesn't have
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to piece it together, like it just gets dumped in
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: her lap. I like that Sanderson respected her enough to
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: not keep her in the dark any longer.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: But well, but I would have liked to her to
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: piece it together earlier. Maybe earlier, But like, it would
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: have been cool if she didn't have to be like
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: she's supposed to be this smart, you know, political savvy
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: person who can put together small details and figure out
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you know, grand schemes, and she was a great queen
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff, and she didn't figure
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: out that there was a forsaken in Caitland when that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: was the most common rumor on the street.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Well, he was specifically altering her mind to not suspect him.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: If it had been any other queen getting manipulated, she
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: probably would have put it together from afar, but she
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: was specifically the target.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: And I guess that tells you how much about the
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: target being targeted abuse can affect your mind and here
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of what's actually going on. And that brings us to
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: chapter twenty two.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: All right, less than an hour, we're on to chapter
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: two of today, which is chapter twenty two of the book.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: One of the longest chapter I is I've seen in
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a long time.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Very long chapter, and it's called the End of a Legend,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: which I did not really quite figure out what that
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: meant until I read through today. I was never really
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: sure what that title meant because no legends get ended
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: in this chapter, and I was like, what do you
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: mean there's no legends getting ended? This is just a
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: midpoint connector chapter. And I finally realized today. It's talking
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: about how there are different ends to legends, and Matt
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: learns and end to a legend, not every legend, not
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: every legend ends on a happy note. The end of
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: a legend might be kind of shitty. That's what the
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: chapter title is about.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: This is Brigida dying yeah, it's Brigida dying in the Tower.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Of Gangai, exactly exactly right.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: That was her. She was a legend and she died
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: in Tower Gangjai and that was a bad end.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: But it's like in my mind before, it was always
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: like the end of a legend, like a character is
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: gonna die, And it's like, no, it's just the concept
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: of the fact that legends end. That that's what we're
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: playing with here. I don't know. Maybe I'm the only
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: one who didn't get that, but I wanted to share
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: my ignorance.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: It took me a moment of thinking.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: So we open with everyone's favorite character, having everyone's favorite thoughts,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: doing everyone's favorite plot. One guess oh, when complaining.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: All right, I'll read this in at night, Gowin couldn't
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: see the white towers wound in darkness, One couldn't tell
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the difference between a beautifully intricate mule and a wall
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: full of mismatched titles at night, the most beautiful of
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: tav Allan's buildings became another. Do it's not to the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: holes and scars and the white towel well patch with
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Doing, just mocking, going so hard you've lost the plot.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: In time, I totally lost the plot. It was really bad.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: It's just white or black at night. It didn't really matter.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Some people like leaving in the darkness to the open
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Some people for the curtains of darkness to the open
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: windows of daylight because they let them see the world
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: in all shadow. I mean, it's just, it's so it's
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: really juvenile, this idea. I mean, like, I want it
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: to be deep, and then what do you mean you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: prefer darkness so you can see things in shadow? I
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: don't Why are you so edgy and yet still still stupid.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: He's an edge lord who just discovered Nietzsche. You know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, man, did you know that if you
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: put eyeliner on, you look really like cool? Like he's
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: just I mean, there's a reason why I chose to
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: write an American idiot from the Goblins perspective, you know, when
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I did that for a widle a couple of years ago.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: He's such a little baby edge lord. He has no
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: original thoughts, but so much angst, and I just really
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: don't like him. I can't tell that the tower's white
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: or black.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: It's the white tower. What do you mean, like I don't.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like why are you Why are you so changeable
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: that the state of the weather is enough to completely
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: change your entire moral compass, Like, have a little more
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: fiber than that.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: So he's sort of just stalking around the tower right.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Like he's on a midnight lunch. Okay, it's the cutsy
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Soldiery term. Yeah, he's got professional insomnia because he's.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Been guarding the door at night. So that's just he's
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: on the night time, Like he's awake at night and
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: sleeping during the day and that's just the schedule he's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: been on because he feels like he needs to protect
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: a GWayne at night.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's doing his rounds, trying to talklf out
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: of going to check on her, which he ultimately fails at.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a through line of the chapter, is
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: him trying to stave off going to check on her,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: which he ultimately fails to do.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: What you're saying, Gwin has no self control whatsoever.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: He has a small amount of self control. He makes
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: it for like multiple interactions before he goes to her door.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: We have like a whole chapter to get through before
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: he fucks it up.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: So he has a whole conversation with some of the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: former young lings, which I don't even know why they're
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: talking to him, right, they should see him as a traitor,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: like this is there's some weirdness going on, Like but
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I know the Towers reunited, but like he left them
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: and he killed basically would have killed somebody to do it.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Well, he killed their teacher in order to bring them
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: all together in the first place, so there's like a
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: real seriously twisted trauma bond holding them all together. It's strange,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: and these guys have now drifted so far away from
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: the original mission that they don't even want to be
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: warders anymore. So like the shifting allegiances are shifty, right,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Right that you can see like they were basically hung
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: out to dry by Alida, and it's like we just
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: don't really necessarily we still want to be part of
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the Tower, but we don't necessarily trust individual Isidi anymore,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: which I'm like, go somewhere else. It's not as other armies.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I think it's because they want to stay together and
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Tarvallen is one of the only like non nationalistic armies
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: I guess. I mean, like they would have a hard like,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know, we haven't seen like hardcore nationalism amongst
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: any of the armies like tam went and fought in
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: multiple other war like. It's yeah, I don't I don't
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: really get this other that. I think Sanderson was just
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: trying to give some more closure to Gollin's plot and
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the whole thing with the young Wings. And it would
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: have been weird if they just all ditched him without
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: any more plot. So Sanderson's like trying to make like
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: a more fleshed out separation. We get some more names
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: here that might be more beta readers.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I give them, turn them over.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: The first one is Mazone m A z O n E.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Eric Mazone, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Next name is celarc ce l A. R. K.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Fitzgerald Clark, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Final name Zang z.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: A ng Han Zhang, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Boom boom boom. So these three fans of the Wheel
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: of Time get to exist in the Wheel of Time,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: and they get to tell Gwen that they don't like
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: their job and they want a different job, and Gowen
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: promises to figure that out for them, and yeah, he
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: uses that as a thing with Chew Bayne later and
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: they basically form a new cohort of tower Guards out
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: of former Young Wings, and everyone's happy, no loose strings.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: It's a good chance for soldiery things to happen. It's
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: it's good, it's fine. It's just yeah, I don't really
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: know why we need to hear other than Sanderson felt
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: bad about Gowen. I was like, let's give him something
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: nice to do.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's a way to round out off the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Young Wings plotline, right, like, Okay, they're their division of
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the Tower Guard. That's where they're going to fight from
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: now on. We can just treat them as part of
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the Tower Regard. And the only plot.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: Is ended right right, It's not left hanging, it's actually
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: folded in and woven in. Oh, KABOUCHI imagine being a
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Watt fan who gets to be part of the books
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: and you end up having to talk to.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Gowen and he gives you advice.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Sanderson take me out, And I didn't want it like.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: This, not like this, not like this.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: There's honestly, okay, there is one little part of what
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Gowen says to them that I do like, and I
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: hate to like it, but I do like it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: So he's talking to Silark about how they don't all
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: want to be warders, and he says there's no shame
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: in choosing a different path, and Silark says, the others
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: make it sound like there is, and Gowen immediately comes
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: back with the others are wrong, and I'm just like,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: correct correct. Other people's sense of shame about what you
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: choose to do with your life is not your business.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: You need to do what's right for you. People have
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: different paths, and God's just right here in his little
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Edged Lord twenty something phase, being like, no, you got
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: to live your life. You've got to live your truth.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Don't let other people dictate what you should do with
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: your life. And I'm like, I can't help, but applaud.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: I cannot help, but applaud at him just saying the
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: others are wrong. People who would shame you for your
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: life choices are wrong, just full stop. They're wrong. I
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: love it. I hate that, I love it, but I
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: love it. Gowin says, something right like a broken clock.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: So then he meets with uh. He goes off and
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: meets with Gareth Brynn. So and we've had the brand
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Gawain conversation a few times, right, So we're sort of
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: going back to that conversation they've talked about about where
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Gareth Brn is like, you need to find your purpose
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: in life, you need to Basically the advice this guy
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: just gave to the tower Guard or to the young Lings, right,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: is basically directly from Gareth Brynn in previous chapters.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Look, it's a lot easier to give advice than it
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: is to take it. You can pass through some real
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: good advice without it actually sticking to your brain, though
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: if you do it often enough, it does start to stick,
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: I say, as a coach. But yeah, we've had this
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: conversation with Brynn before. It's good to have it again
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: because apparently we need to reiterate it that you need
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: to not make your entire life wrapped up in someone
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: else's talent for m H. And then there's this really
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: awesome part where Gowan's asking for advice and Brynn is
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: offering the opener to some advice, and Gowan's lashing out
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: and Brynn says, I have only made observations, though I
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: think it is curious that you conclude that you should
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: leave her alone. Mm hmmm. It's almost like you do
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: know the answer and you're just in denial, like a whiny,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: little but hurt baby.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's good advice.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: He's like, what do you want, Gowan? And he says, Agwayne,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I want to be a warder And he's like, which
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: is it? Do you want her or do you want
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to be a warder? Because those are similar but different,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, and that's sort of the difference
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: between Lan who was Maureen's warder but never hers.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they were really really close and yet not
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: like that Ninive there was a spot for an I
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: need to move into, like right there, mm hmmmm. She
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: did not supplant Moreen in any way. In Lance's heart.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: She took up space that Morien was not occupying.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: And I do wish the two of them had just
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: remained lovers and not order.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I said, I Lylewyn is on her way, She's gonna
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: be here soon, and then Gwen can just work with
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Domon to help keep Lylewyn, saying while she deals with
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: being a Gwayne's order, right, Lylewyn could just have a
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: two man team backing her up in her job. That
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: would have been so much better and then yeah, Gawain
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: could have just been the eye candy. He could have
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: been the men of the situation. Go read a book
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: and play with your knives.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: And how much it would have been helpful to Agwayne
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to have an advisor who knows the shan chan when
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: dealing with them.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Right, and also to have an intimate advisor who's not
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: a like part of her like infrastructure, like just her husband.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: Just just be the husband. I think that's enough of
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: a job.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And I like this little bit. Your instincts are usually good,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: just like your mothers were, but because of that, you've
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: never had to face what to do when your instincts
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: lead you in the wrong direction. And to me, that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: reminds me of a kid who never really has to
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: study to get good grades and then goes off to
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: college and all of a sudden they have to figure
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: out like, oh wait, how do I study? I don't
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: know how to do that. I never had to do that.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I'm talented enough. I've never had to do that. And
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: that's sort of how gonwin. He's never really he's talented enough.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: He just kind of goes with his gut and he's
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: never really had to think about how to make a decision.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: And so now when he's faced with the decision where
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: his gut isn't giving him good advice, he doesn't know
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: how to work through it.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly, No, I man, So I went to
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Waldorf School until eighth grade, right, and then I did
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: two years of public high school, two different high schools,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: and then I got my ged and then I went
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: to college. Those two years of high school were so underwhelming.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't have to work for it at all. I'd
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: have to study at all. Waldorf. It's not the same
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: kind of education. It's a completely like creative, organic like
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: there's a process, there's stuff you have to learn, but
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: they do teach you how to study, not in a
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: how to pass school test. It's a different kind of studying,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: but nonetheless how to learn. It's not studying, really, I
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: wouldn't call it studying, But I did learn how to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: learn in a way that set me up very well
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: for the kind of learning that college would introduce to me.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: That weird gap in the middle with public high school
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: was so strange. I was the level of ease to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: gamify that is happening, right. It's not because I was smart,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: It's because the thing was clearly set up to be
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: gamified by anyone who wanted to gamify it, And it
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: was such a weird, weird change of pace after having
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: been taught you have to be creative and original in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: order to regurgitate the lessons, because otherwise how will we
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: know that you learned them? And then you go to
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: college and you know there's a bit of gamification in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: the lower classes. But as you get towards the end
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: of your degree, like, the need to be original is
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: very much what is at least in the program I
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: was in, Like, you have to be original otherwise you're
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: not gonna be able to process the information. And yeah,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine how hard it would be to show
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: up at university never having been told Now you just
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: need to figure out how to say it in your
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: own words. That's the assignment. High school didn't have that
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: the two years I went to it. It's just that's.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was creepy and sort of a comparison between
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: there's also comparison here between Gawa and gallad Right, Galla
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't get everything a great deal of thought. He's worked
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: out his quote of morality ahead of time. That way
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: he knows how he's going to respond in any situation
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: until he comes across the situation where he hasn't actually
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: worked it out ahead of time.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This, so we we're having a very like Gowen
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: is adhd and God is autism baptism. Like I have
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: thought out every possible branch that this conversation could take
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: me on. I know what all of my answers are
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: like until you throw me a curveball, because that's how
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: life is. Whereas, yeah, Gawen is just like I'll do
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: whatever feels right. That's the very adhd thing where Yeah,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: often your instincts are good, your pattern recognition is good,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: you will make the right call. But when you don't,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: you have no idea what to do next.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Whereas with the planning, it's like, oh, I've planned everything
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: out until I'm presented with situation I haven't planned for,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: and then I need to go away and go think
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: about it for three days and have multiple meetings with
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: paren until I figure out what to do next.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Right, yea right, Yeah, Galad dot Ex has failed to execute.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and here's the sentence where Brinn says, no woman
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: wants that in a man. It seems to me that
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: men who spend time making something of themselves rather than
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: professing their devotion. Are the ones who get somewhere both
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: with women and with life itself.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which I definitely feel a little bit of sanderson
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: fourth wall breaking talking to fans of the fantasy genre
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: who don't maybe understand how relationships work in the real world.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Because he might be a big old nerd, but he
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: is married. He knows a thing or two about the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: opposite gender.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I also think there's a little bit of preachiness there though,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: because there is this like, because he is this personure it's.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: An overcorrection, but it's too a real thing. I feel,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: I feel a real thing being addressed. Just yeah, sorry.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Then Suon comes in and I had I have nothing
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: except that, Like, she's in a relationship with Brenn, Like,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I hate how.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Much she's been diminished to brings tea and flirts and scolds,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Oh she's mothering him. Isn't it funny how she looks
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: so much younger. I'm like, that's the Omerlin seat former.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: But still, like, why is her only job to like
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: bustle in with some tea and kiss Breyne on the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: head and shoe going off? Like what what? How the
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Mighty have fallen. I don't like it.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a weird one. No, I didn't like
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: it either. And the way like now now Algwayne doesn't
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: mean me, so I'm just gonna go off and be
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: like housewife. And it's like, and I have the power back,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: So I guess that's okay too. I don't know.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the point at which it's like, it's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: really hard to like what Suan sarc is doing at
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't like Suan. Don't really like Suon for the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: rest of the series, like her and Brind's death and everything.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, we whoops, we separated one too many times.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Now we have to die like.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: Dumb, Yeah, we're The best case scenario is that she
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: gets to live in a happily straight marriage where she
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: looks half her husband's age. That's the best case scenario,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: and instead we get an inglorious, barely on page death. Like, yeah,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: there's really not anything fun with Swan for the rest
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: of the series.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: For such a major POV throughout the series, who got
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: so much screen time. I really am disappointed with how
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: she got handled in these books.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point, at this point, the disappointment is
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: in full swing. Sucks all right, Speaking of disappointing, Gowan
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: is going to go first appear cool and then completely
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: step in it and ruin everything instead.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Well, he does discover the assassin, right, he discovers one
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: of the blood knives. He chases it around, throws a
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: knife at him. He figures out that the shadows are
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: where they're hiding, right, Like, he kind of figures out
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: the mechanisms of the blood knives and how it gives
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: them a boost to speed and a hidden speed, and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: he chases one off. And then once he chases it off,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: he goes, oh, maybe it already kill Dagwayne. Let me
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: go run into a room and check on her, And
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: he immediately falls into the trap meant for the forsaken.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Right, anyone who weors to walk through the door, which
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: apparently no one had done yet.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Right, and that would have included the assassins, right like,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it would have captured the blood knives.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and then she would have known she had two
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: hazards to.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Worry about, exactly exactly so the whole like, oh, he
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: saves her from blood knives later, yeah, but like he
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: kind of ruined her trap for them, tonight.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it would have been better if he had
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: left well enough alone, because her waves were perfectly adequate
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: to protect herself, because she's not a dumb little girl,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: You dumb little boy.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: And that's a lot of pages that I just summarized.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you had anything else in there.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Now. It's a fun action sequence if you want to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: see GWA learn about the mechanics of the blood knives.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: But I liked your summary, I'm happy to move on.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: We are now switching locales entirely over to Matt in
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: and Or.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: And this is Matt preparing for the attack on the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Tower of Ganjai. So they're trying to figure out any
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: advantage they can get anyway in that sort of thing.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: They're trying to, you know, basically get information about saving Moraine.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: And collecting the materials. Yes, they're gathering intel, they're gathering materials.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: They're winding up. They are not ready to take on
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: the goal on yet because Elaine has not yet delivered
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the awesome news of duplicate medallions. Matt is still feeling
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: very naked without the medallion. But yeah, we are gearing
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: up for multiple epic heroic adventures while also bitching heroically
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: about how much everyone is hearing about all of his
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: heroic adventures. It's very funny. He's literally gearing up to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: do interdimensional hostage rescuing while being angry that people are
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: talking about how he's walked into Death's realm to demand answers.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: It's very funny. And he's talking to an old man
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: at a bar, and it's just like every bar has
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: an old man that will just like, yammer your ear
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: off if you buy him a drink. This is true.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: And he's hiding under a scarf, right, that's his disguise
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: is basically a scarf over his head. That's best I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: can tell. I don't really fully understand how he's supposed
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: to be wearing it. That's hiding his features.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: He's wrapped it around the bottom half of his face,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: so only his eyes are showing. He's kind of going
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: with like that bandit look.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: And for part of me is like, how is he
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: hiding the missing eye? But that hasn't happened.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: Yet, because it's in the future.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: In the future, and I read these out of order
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: way too often. That's the problem, Prince. And so he
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: gets told, you know that whole thing where you're at
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: a bar and the guy talked to you is like,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, that Prince of Ravens guy, and it's like,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's me.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm. Yeah, he's hearing about himself in rumor from
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: a barfly. It's great.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: He thinks a lot about he's walking through Low Camlin,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: which has sprung up as essentially becoming its own city,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: which that's not gonna last for very long because the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: trucks are gonna burn it down.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He thinks about how it's going to need another
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: wall built around it in another couple of years, and
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, maybe in another decade when it's completely rebuilt.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's pretty much toasted. That's back at the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: end of this book because of that letter you're carrying
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: around that you need to freaking open up.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Literally, you are holding the answer to saving this place
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: in your pocket. But no, I don't like Ace Today.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Checks out a serving girl who's good for Tom Honus,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: and we see from I think from Bergida's POV that
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: she's like, well, he's not slapping him anymore, but he's
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: still looking.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I will have a soap box to drag out
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: when we get to that line.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, He's joined by Noel. Right, Jane aka Jane VARs writer.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: You're gonna be more famous than Jane Frestrider pretty soon there.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: How would you know? I heard him talk about it,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: because he's admitted to being Jane's cousin cousin at this point,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: yeah my roll.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, how would you know how hard it
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: is to be talked about all the time? Oh, Jane
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: complained about it. It's like, your cover story is shit,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: my dude.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: It's really really thin. Tom, Tom's like, how is Matt
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: not even? I was even Matt not figured this out right?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Right? Tom already knows at this point. I'm pretty sure
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: it's dropped enough hints at this point that Tom doesn't
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: need to have even heard this comment to have put
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: it together.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Tom is known for a while. Yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I also love how Tom shows up and Matt thinks, like,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: you know, I'd offer to make Tom a backstory, but
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: he just you know, coughed politely and said he already
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: had a backstory worked out. He's like, no, Matt, I
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: don't need three pages of your D and D fanfic.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: I am literally a court bard. I got this.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: I got it. I can cover it up. I can
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: make it up on the fly. I don't don't need
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to realize. And no one cares about backstory either, right.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Literally, nobody, No, It is the best part about setting
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: up a new D and D character for you, for
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: nobody else.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: Does it matter because you have to know how you're
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: going to react to things based on your background, but
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: nobody else needs to know exactly. So we're getting a
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: sort of gamification of how to beat the snakes and foxes,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: right and sot they're talking about, well, we've got the
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: rhyme from.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: Oliver, Well, we've got the run from the game. Right,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: it's literally the opening of the game. Olver had that
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: story from Brigida about how to get in using the knife.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Totally totally.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: They're talking about how to break the rules and Tom's like, well,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: maybe we should, you know, try to bargain with them,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: to which Matt is like, have you met the concept
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: of devils? We're not doing that, And you know, Brigida
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: emphasizes that later, like, do not bargain with them on
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: their terms. You have to bargain on your terms. She says,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: don't bargain at all. And we know that technically there
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: is a bargain because he does exchange his eye for morain,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: like it is a bargain, but it's a bargain on
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: his terms, right, it's within the bounds of the prophecy,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: not the way that you know any other way.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Well, and I always imagine a bargain was made for
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: the people who went through the doorways, right, because if
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: you go through the doorways, you were bound by whatever
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: bargain was made when those doorways were rade, and that
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: includes no blood shall be shed. However, someone who made
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that bargain didn't think about rope hanging deaths or other
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: sorts of non blood shed deaths, bludgeoning deaths, that sort
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: of thing.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I was I was talking about he gives up
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: his eye. I mean, that's.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely yeah no, But there's there's another bargain, right,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: So that I realized that there must have been this
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: other bargain at some point, right, because here they talking
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: about it. If we knew what the eyes that I had,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the snakes and fox wanted, the reason they were willing
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: to bargain, right, that bargain comes from going through the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: twisted red stone doorways. Those were created at some point
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: by an I said eye, and at some point a
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: bargain was made that you follow the three rules. If
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: you come in right, there's that hole. Do you have fire,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: do you have musical instruments?
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: And so bargain is, and then you're you're safe. You're
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: protected to some degree until you reach the room and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: make that like all that was. Somebody made that bargain
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: right when they created the stone doorways. But if you
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: go in through the Tower of Genji, you are not
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: protected by that bargain in the slightest. But that bargain
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: is the reason that Matt was hung and not.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: Stabbed right, And I think to a certain extent, that's
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: part of why he's able to get away with the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: bargain to get Marinus, because it's I mean, giving up
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: half the light of the world to save the world.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: They kind of set that in motion. That was set
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: in motion under the auspices of the twisted stone doorways.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: So even though he came in through the tower this time,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: if he can manage to, you know, get to the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: Great Hall and give up half the light of the world,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: he's gonna have to be allowed a chance to save
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Right, it's in the rules it's in the rules. But
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: he does make a good point here that where he's like,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: they know I have to come back. They see the future, right,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: there's a chance that they can get me then, and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: so they are willing to let me go on the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: chance that they can get me back.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is the thing about these kinds of devils
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: is they are lawful evil. They have to follow the rules.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: There is no never mind we change the rules. There's
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: no Calvin ball when dealing with these kinds of creatures.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Well, and one of the things I really like, and
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: we don't realize this until much later, but he asked
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: for a way out, and they gave him the Ashendary,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: but then they didn't make him use it to get out,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: so he wouldn't realize it was a key, so that
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: he couldn't use it when he came back, right, And
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: so they literally not only gave him a way out,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: but they then kicked him out on top of that,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: which was not part of the bargain. But that was
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: their way of hiding that the Ashindarai.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: Was the key, right, which is the entire reason Jane
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: forrest Ryder does because if he'd known it was a key,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: then they could have bailed before Jane died.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, he just buys them time for Matt to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: realize that. Which that's a very Sanderson thing, right, This,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: Like you get in this situation where there is no
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: escape and you realize something that you could have realized
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: at any point, but because you realize it in this moment,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: it saves the day.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like Wizard of Oz, you had
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: the shoes with you the whole time.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Sanderson loves to give you the key to
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: your survival and have you have it the whole time,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: and just if you just realized it. That's such a
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Sanderson plot point.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I hated it in Wizard of Oz and
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: I still hate it.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Well, especially if you look at Stormlite archive. Right, that
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: is all about swearing oaths at an opportune moment, right,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: And so basically his characters can reason through their oh's
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: and oh, I need to be loyal to these people
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: for this reason, and I can come to this moral
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: realization that gives me a boost of power. So there's
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: so many moments in the Stormlight archive where his characters
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: are down on their luck, about to be defeated and
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: they go wait, a minute. I need to sacrifice for
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: other people and then they get more powerful and survive.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never wanted to play a paladin. This all
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: makes a sense, a kind of sense.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Kaladin the paladin, I guess.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Marsa pens bring you up a good point
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: in chat too. They also signed the key like it
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: was a letter or a contract, further disguising its key
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: like properties. Right, the ashin Darai has the cool script
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: on it that feels like a letterhead on like a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: participation trophy, sound something you'd put on a key.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Unless it's like the key to the city, which I
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: suppose it kind of is.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's the key to the realm and key
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: to the entire portal between dimensions.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: And so do you think the al fin can watch
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: through his eyes? Do you think they can read his thoughts? Like?
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: How much access to him do you think they have
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: once he's gone through the twisted Stone Tarankreil, Because they're
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: able to implant thoughts from someone, thoughts, memories, perceptions from
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: anyone who goes to the Twisted Stone doorway right right
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: up until their death. Right, this is the thing he remembered,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: This is his realization right, because he remembers dying. There's
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: no way to get someone's memories of dying after or
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: they die, so you must be able to read their
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: mind at the moment of death, which means once you
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: pass through that doorway, the snakes and foxes have a
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: connection to you and can read your mind at any
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: point in your life, your past, your future, maybe not
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: or your past, but any point. I think it's any
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: point after you go through the doorway. They can they
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: know exactly what's going through your head.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if there's though some sort of limitation on,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: like they can capture it all after you're dead, but
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: like while it's still recording, while you're still in motion,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: it's like not accessible. Like I don't know they can
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: they get a real time update or like do they
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: only get like packetized chunks like when you go to
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: sleep or something.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: I think they know what's coming.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, why should there be rules for these guys?
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: Right? Right?
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Why should there be rules? They exist in a non
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: Euclidean relationship to the real world.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Right, they exist in a fifth dimensional space. Right, Space
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: and time do not make sense in the world, Like
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: he's there for nine days even though we only see
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: him there for like an hour or so when he
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: goes through the gateway, right, Like, there's a lot of space,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't Walls turn when they shouldn't, Angles don't make sense.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of weird stuff going on with time
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: and space.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it makes the most sense that they're up
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: to date with everything that he's thinking and doing. And yeah,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: he goes through that other in that other scene that
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: there's no memories of childhoods from all the people who
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: have gone through. They only have information from the moment
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: you enter their world until death. They don't they can't
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: go backwards. Time still has an arrow to it for them,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: like it's different than ours, but it's not going backwards.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: And we've seen that a lot in the wheel of time, right,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: the time and wheel of time will often move at
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: different speeds right where you can move faster or slower,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: but never backwards the time. The arrow of time is
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: always forward. And that's you know, that's a very realistic
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: way of looking at it, right, because it is ground
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: and physics. Right, we know Robert Jordan's a physicist, We
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: know I had a physicist background, and we know that like, yes,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: you can have dark holes. You can have mass at
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: slow time, you can have acceleration that slows time. Time
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: can always move at different speeds, but it's always moving forward.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: And it kind of makes sense. You have these pocket
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: dimensions that you can pop into and like where time
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: moves slower, Right, that just makes sense to me. You
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: can be closer to a gravity.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, totally. So Yeah, they kind of go through
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: their materials and Noel coming along. How they're going to
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: break the rules.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: We've got fireworks, we've got music, We've got iron. Now
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: here's one thing I want to ask you about. Shouldn't
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like steel should count as iron? You know,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: it's just iron with a like chromium atoms in it,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: It's still steel.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: M I was just listening to a podcast the other
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: day talking about kind of Halloween theme stuff is kind
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: of like origin of and stuff, and it was like,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: why iron, Well, because iron can point the way north.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: That's why iron has magical property magnetic terms of It's like,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: why is it relevant to European folklore and fay stuff.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, because it's a rock that literally will
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: point the way home. So if we're going by those
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: rules for why is it relevant to fay stuff. Then
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: steel wouldn't cut it because you put a steel needle
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: in water, it's not going to point north, right, there's
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: got too much other stuff in it.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: But you know what, I think it depends on the steel.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I think it depends on well, the kind of steel
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: you're using, because you can still have magnetic steel, not
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: all of it.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, yeah, I guess steel should count.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: And I've seen different fandoms where it does, right, where
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, you know, anything made out of iron
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: or steel, anything made of iron, right, So steel or
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: you know, any other alloy that has enough iron in
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: it is a problem for them. But in this case,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: it does appear that it just has to be pure iron.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: And to me, there's a little bit of like, well,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: iron rust, so it's reactive in a way that steel
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: might not be. And so maybe that reactivity is important.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: It's also, you know, a myth, and it doesn't have
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: to make sense, right, It could just be maybe steel
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: would work, but they're not sure about it. Fair enough,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think it does. I think they use a
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: steel blade and it doesn't do shit.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Now that's that's an interesting because, yeah, how different
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: imaginary worlds choose to use shared lore is part of
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: how folklore exists and how it works and how it
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: is a living collective document that you know, people share,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: and it's.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: The reason it's not science, right, because you know, Pascal's
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: triangle is Pascal's triangle no matter what culture you're in,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: and you can go back in time and see every culture.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: Write the fucker down, right, it's super important to mathematics,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: and no matter where you are, you discover Pascal's triangle.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: There's not a universal law to iron.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: No, but there is a universal fascination with the fae
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: that is really interesting to see how that fascination permutates.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's interesting that these fae apparently are only
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: reactive to one hundred percent iron. They don't do alloys.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: Alloys take it down below the threshold of screwing them up.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: But then again, this is the bait. You know, wheel
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: time is the basis for our myths, and they fade
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: the legends, so you know, it's possible you get misinformation
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: in there.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or it's possible that Sanderson didn't know that that
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: was the level of nuance he needed to address, and
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: like iron, moving on anyway, I.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: Think it's fine iron to bind, Like, that's that's what
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't say stealed to bind. It doesn't say iron,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: iron alloys. It says iron. And it's an element, right,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: there's something about like, oh, it's an element. It's not
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: like an alloy. It's not a compound. It's it's just
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: an element, and it's one of those elements that somehow,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: and iron is kind of a special element, right because
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: it's the the element that is the lowest, lowest atomic energy.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, but like
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: in stars, right, as atoms fuse together, it's not let, No,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: it's iron iron. Yeah.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: I feel like I remember learning this and being very
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: confused by it when I learned it. So that tracks.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: Essentially, as atoms bind together, the nucleus of iron binds
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: together if it's smaller than iron, right, If the atoms
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: are smaller than iron, it actually releases energy when you
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: bind them together, right, And that can cause more elements
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: to bind together, which causes it. And that's where basically
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: our sun is fueling itself by fusing together elements until
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: it forms iron iron. If you try and fuse anything
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: with iron, it takes more energy than you get out
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: of it. And that's the first time that trying to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: make an element with a bigger atomic number requires more
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: energy input than energy output. And so all of a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: sudden you have this inversion where essentially iron is this
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: lowest common denominator in terms of atomic energy, right, and
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: so the only way to get higher atomic number elements
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: is through supernovas and explosions where you kind of compare
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: act iron more than is natural, and that's why you
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: end up with supernova and black hole mergers and neutron
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: star mergers. Like to make gold, you basically a neutron
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: star merger. That's the only thing energetic enough to force
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: those atoms together, the nucleus of the atoms together.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I do vaguely remember this from third term chemistry
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: and just being like what, yeah, so hard to wrap
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: my head around, but no I remember this. Yeah.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Iron as an element is pretty cool because it's
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: kind of the last natural I don't say natural, the
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: last element that's formed in stars without big explosions and supernova.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: That does kind of make it special as an element,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: especially if we're talking about interdimensional properties in this like
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: Fay context.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, and any element that's a higher atomic
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: number than iron is going to be much more rare
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: than something with a lower atomic number than.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: Iron, right right, right, yeah, and be the result of yeah,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: much more impressive things. It's pretty cool to think about
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: the conditions necessary to make gold at them, because it's impressive.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: It's you don't just get that in your your garden
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: variety star. It's a pretty particular set of circumstances.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: And then just how much our modern society is based
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: on iron and steel and like the ability to to
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: it's just so strong for weight.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what else is trippy is there's
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: like so much gold in the Earth's mantle, Like most
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: of it has is in the Earth's mantle. It's not
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: even available to be had in the crust. But for
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: mathy reasons, we have been able to figure out how
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: much is in like the mantle mass of the Earth,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: and it's a lot.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Actually not in water, right, I mean again, it's not
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: water molecules right, there are oh, molecules and hydrogen ions, but.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hydrous minerals and solutions and fluids and other things
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: that are beyond comprehension because of how much pressure and
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: heat is going on down there.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: Anyway, this is not a geology lesson.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about it.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Apparently, geology and science. That's why you came to Aeel
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: of Time.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, come for the lowest stay for the science.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah. Basically, they finish their conversation and Matt heads
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: out into rain, a rain like event that sounds very
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Pacific northwest. Yes, yes, gorizzling ambivalently is the kind of
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: rain where things that are undercover still get wet because
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: the rain isn't coming down vertically. It's just the air
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: is wet and there's little tiny particles just drifting everywhere,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: and nothing is dry.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: It's why we make fun of people. He use umbrellas
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: up here.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: It's pointless, yes, exactly. This is the weather that makes
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: umbrella so silly.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: So he's got a couple of things going on. He's
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: carrying a sword as a distraction from his staff. He's
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: got dice thundering in his head. I don't know if
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: we've seen that start, but that is going on. Do
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: you know what these stop on? I forget to look
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: that up. I feel like this is the Tower of
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: AGENI dice, right.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: I don't remember when the dice stop exactly, but I
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: think you're right that dice do stop while he's in
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: the tower, So that's got to be these It's got
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: a big tower dice, which I guess makes sense because
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: his fate is not to be part of the defense
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: of Camlan. So the letter would not be related to
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: the dice in his head, as much as one wishes
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: it would be.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: It's not right, right, And so he's got the He
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: has the baron we know mention of the letter. He's
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: not going to give that up. We see a moment
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: of Rand, and I was trying hard to place this.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: Matt saw him sitting on a fine chair, staring down
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: at the floor in front of himself in a dark room,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: a single lamp flickering. He looked worn and exhausted, his
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: eyes wide, his expression grim. I'm really struggling to place
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: what the timeline is here? What room is he in
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: where there's just a single lantern? What is he grim about?
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Is this post veins of gold? Rand? Is this pre
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: veins of gold? Rand? The looking grim seems to imply
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: its pre veins of gold? But I can't think of
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: a single time when he's sitting in a single room.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Well, and also, like, didn't we agree earlier that Matt
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: and the Lane are farther along in the timeline than paren.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, because Elane's done her thing where she's yeah,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: she's she's felt post Veins of Gold at this point. Yeah, exactly,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: because she's like, oh no, he's warm, So this has
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: to be post Veins of Gold because she's felt him
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: and Matt is in her timeline.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: So my thought was that this is a moment where
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: he's really feeling all the negative emotions in a post
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: Fans of Gold state, but he's actually like dealing with
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: like a hard day, Like I don't know, he's like
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: still not getting to deal with Lan or he hasn't
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: seen Maredon yet, I don't think, but like something has
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: happened and he's just dealing with those feelings and just
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: kind of having a moment. Like just because he's post
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: Fans of Gold doesn't mean he's always calm and happy
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: and surrounded by people and having a good time. It
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: means that he can have a good time and can
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: also like genuinely experience a rough time. So I'd like
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: to think that this is him just of being like,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: I need a moment to just have some rough emotions
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: and just kind of process that by myself and not
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: have it be in the brooding, isolating way it has been,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: but be in the more just sometimes you need to
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: be by yourself to think your thoughts. And maybe this
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: is Maredon. I don't think it is, but the timelines
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: are squirrely Maredon. He isn't going to come to defend
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: to Maradon's defense for like another week or two. I
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: think they're in the city for quite a while before
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: Rand comes to save them. But I'm pretty sure it's
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: post fans of Gold and everything else I'm not sure about.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: I agree with you on that doing our best. So
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: he realizes in this moment that like Oliver knows how
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: to get into the tower because Brigita told him, and
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: of course Brigita would know because she's a hero of
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: the Horn. He's like, why haven't I been questioning Brigita
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: about all of this. She's a great source of information.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, that's actually a good point. Then again,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: the things we like about Sanderson he has the characters
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: actually talk to each other. He goes to Brigida and says,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: you are a hero. You know stuff about the tower.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it. Instead of being like, I don't
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: want to bring it up because it's.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: Sensitive, right, right, And also again I feel like Sanderson
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: probably thought of this when he was a fan of
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: the books, yes, and was like, why doesn't he ask her?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: And then he got handed the pen and said, fuck, yes,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: now he can ask her.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he asks right right. So then on his way
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: to Burgido, there's this weird moment where there's nobody in
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: the streets, which I don't really understand why there's nobody
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: in the streets except this one dude getting robbed who
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: turns out to be a dark friend who's hunting him.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: So he saves the dark friend. The dark friend realizes
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: who he is and then attacks him immediately after that.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: It's really weird and I don't know what to make
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: of it. You summed it up accurately, but I don't
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: know what to make of any of it, because.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: What town are they in right now? Right? He's in Camlin, Right,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: He's in Camelin, So why And he's like, Wow, there's
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: no bad activity on the street. It's just dead on
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: the streets. And I don't can't think of any reason
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: why Camlin would be abandoned even late at night. It's
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: a big city.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: I also think it's weird that he's so unnerved by
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: the idea that there isn't crime happening. It's like, right
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: inhospitable not to get mugged on the streets of New York. Like,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: I don't what, Like it's a strange interaction. It's weird.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: I get that there's no one out on the street
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: because it is two in the morning and kind of raining.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: It's a great time for no one to be out.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: Don't get why he finds that disturbing. And then the
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: part where he feels the need to like go batman
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: on a robbery, Like why why are you doing like
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: casual vigilantism on your way to meet up with a friend?
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: And then why is that vigilantism directed at people who
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: actually want to attack you? Like was it all a setup?
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: Like is the entire was the city block clear so
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: that the robbery could be put in his path to
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: trick him? Like that seems really elaborate and fast and strange.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: What's happening here? Why are we doing this?
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I'm right there with you. I have more questions
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: about this trunk was written in It feels like a
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: piece taken out of a different chapter, out of a
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: different moment, and stuck into this chapter.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it feels like it. Yeah again, Yeah,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: athlent totally. It does feel like the setup before the
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: hunt for the Golum, but it's not. I don't see
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: why we need foreshadowing for the concept of walking through
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: the city streets at night.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: It.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't feel necessary. It feels like a weird
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: side quest that could have been cut.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: So to me, what it is is introducing the pictures, right,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: because we saw Paren discover the photos of him in
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: the last chapter, and this is how Matt is supposed
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: to discover that those photos are circulating and he's being hunted.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: But like he kind of knew that from the Varren
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: thing already.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: But it's not the Varren thing. This is different.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: But she still warned him about this exact thing.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: Right, right, because she got the photos from being shown
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: it as a dark friend, right, So the source of
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: the photos is kind of the same.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like she's already told him that this is a
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: thing that's happening, So I don't.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So he stabs the guy in the eyes, you know,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: by accident. I guess even though he threw two knives,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: he had.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: One knife in each eye because he's lucky. His luck
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: feet has leveled up again. I guess that's what we're
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: here to show. And yeah, he heads off into the
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: rain and we pov switched to Bergida at approximately the
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: same time. Who is doing bodyguard duty at a opera.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: One more thing to say about Matt. The way he
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: defends himself with the scarf, which is whatever's on hand.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: It's a very Jackie Chan in the whole, like yeah, totally, yeah,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: he's being knife and he's like, oh I got a scarf,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: quick stab the scarf, not me, and then takes the
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: guy out with the scarf.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: Which not mad about because Jackie Chan's fun. And Sanderson
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: writes that sort of thing well, and it fits with
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: Matt's character. Now we're gonna swing over to Brigida at
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: approximately the same time, doing bodyguard duty at literally an opera.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: Literally they're at the opera, they're doing the opera thing.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: Sanderson did not like to just write single Gleaman and
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: court bards playing the flute. He wanted to write a
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: full opera scene.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: So but I also feel like that is something Sanderson
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: is doing Sanderson turns that is also something Jordan was doing, right,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Jordan created the Big Top circus.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: Oh he even introduced players back then, didn't he.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he introduced players and like it was starting to
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: create plays. And that's really more what this is. You know, yes,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: it's opera, but it's also the beginning of plays and
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: like playhouses, and you're getting almost setting up like Shakespeare.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, exactly exactly. I've been to opera. I've
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: been to a bajillion different kinds of musical theater. I've
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: been to regular non musis theater, like Jordan definitely set
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: this up. But Sanderson decided he wanted to go for
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: an opera scene. He could have gone with any he
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: would have done Shakespeare in the Park, but no, we
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: have a shrieking Aria with a dramatic death and little
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: candles around the front of the thing. It's it's so
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: it's great, unlike.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: How Brigide is. Like God, I hope this fashion of
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: seeing players represent people passes quickly. And you know what's
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: so funny to me is this is how I feel
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: about audiobooks, right, I feel like I love an audio
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: book that is told by a single bard doing multiple voices, right,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: For example, Dongeon, Carler, Carl, which I'm going to bring
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: up again, that's one actor for the most part. There's
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: one or two other actors later on some of the
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: later books who do a few voices, but for the
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: most part, that's one person telling the story as though
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: he's a bard, right. And then they're like, oh, we
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: want you to do these storytelling audio books with sound
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: effects in multiple voice actors, and I hate them. I
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: hate the fad that is multip people doing multiple players.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: It's very hard to understand. Everyone's at a different volume.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: Full cast soundscape.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all those radio plays, right, Like, do not like them?
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: And so I very much. I'm like, oh yeah, Brigida,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: I get you. I get you. It's let's actually focus
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: on the story told by one person, and it's going
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: to be better than having all these random actors play
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: these different characters. How dumb of an idea is that?
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I have fallen in love with exactly one
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: radio play ever, and that was early on in my
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: audiobook obsessed era, And yeah, now I find the concept
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: totally unsettling. I even find too much voice affectation to
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: be a real hit or miss. So yeah, I definitely
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: feel a Brigida on the You kids, get off my
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: lawn with your bullshit gimmicky bells and whistles and give
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: me some good old fashioned narration.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: Tell me the story.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: Totally feel it.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And at some level I do feel out of
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: way about our movies. It's like, I'm so sick of
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: jo actors and special effects. Tell me a good story. Yeah,
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: we get a little bit of gut wrenching memory forgetting
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: right Brigada's forgetting her memories. She barely remembers guidl Caine,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: you know, And I think we know later. What's happening
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: is she's kind of her physical presence because she's stayed
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: alive this whole time, she's been able to leak back
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: into tell her run Riod, and like everything she's losing
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: is sort of anchored to her. But I feel like
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: it's intel he run Riod so that when she dies
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: she can go back and become Burgida of legend.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she has too many memories for one person to hold.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: They have to go somewhere else in order to exist
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: and back to tell I run Riod makes sense.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: But I think if she died right away without being
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: bonded order, she would not have had a chance to
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: leak back into tell her run Riod. She would have
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: just died in that moment and been taken out of
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: the pattern.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: That makes sense, and the opera that's being done seems
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: to be some sort of I'm not sure if it's
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: a you know, Romeo and jul style thing or some
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: other kind of deal, but it's all about the death
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: of a princess, and that's you know, poignant giving. Given
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: that you know, the nation of and Or just managed
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: to put a succession crisis to rest without the death
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: of a princess.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: It does seem a bit of a weird story to
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: be telling right after a secession war.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's just because it's a really old story,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: because you'll notice that the title of the story is
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: the Death of Princess Walishen, and we've only ever seen
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: the word princess in these books. One other time, when
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: Elaine was thinking about one of the people that they
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: met on their way back to Camlin, who because this
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: is not calling her your highness, and Elaine kept trying
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: to explain, like, you can't call me your highness. I'm
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: not queen yet, you can call me daughter heir. You
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: can even call me princess. It's a very old fashioned term,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: but you can call me that. That's the only other
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: time the word princess has ever been used. So the
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: fact that in the title of this story tells us
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: that this is an old folk tale, and I'm guessing
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: that's why they picked it is because it's like it's
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: not a modern, controversial, current events kind of story, Like
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: this is a story we all grew up on. This
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: is part of the lore of.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: And Or and this Guard's women. Kyla bent is named
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: for Kyla Bentley, a fan of The Wheel of Time.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, she actually gets a lot of page time too.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: She interacts with Burgida for a bit and is like
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: very much present. Oh good for you, Kayla.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: And then Brigida. I love this line from Brigida. How
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: did you protect a woman who seemed at times so
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: determined to see herself dead? And yet Lane is so
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: very capable. So there's that little bit of struggle that
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: Brigida has because Elaine is a getting into trap machine,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: right like getting kidnapped, getting but she's very effective at grueling.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: She's very effective at getting out of those traps as well.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: Well, mainly because she has friends like Matt and Burgda.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: But yeah, and then she has this really foreshadowing line
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: she'd be good for and or assuming Brigida could keep
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: that golden haired head from being lopped off its neck,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Oh, Brigita, that's how she.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: Gets her own gold Yeah, yeah.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: Called the marrina gets left off it's neck.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: It's so's I miss that. That's a good catch.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: Sanderson put that there on purpose. I feel like at
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: that moment, Sanderson was like, I know exactly how Brigida died.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: Foreshadowing.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: He does like to do that, which is say, I
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: have the characters say things that are like going to
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: happen to them later.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean I like it. I think that's
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: a good thing for a spoiler's podcast to be able
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: to catch. And then yeah, Kayla brings news of a
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: disturbance to try to give Brigita a break from, you know,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: listening to a soprano doing yet another long aria and
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: yeah it's Matt. It's a it's a great little moment
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: where Brigida gets to go hang out with Matt.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: And this moment of Matt dicing with the soldiers while
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: he waits for her and knowing like this to me
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: is just this is distilled Sanderson writing, right, this is core,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: Like this is something he loves to do with his
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: humorous characters, to have them hang out with the common
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: soldiers as a method to get somebody's attention. Bouji, I
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: like that my body is a machine that turns traps
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: into sprung traps.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought this even without knowing Sanderson's style when
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: I read this the first time. It's one of those
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: moments where I was like, oh, I can tell I'm
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: not in Kansas anymore. Like I can just tell that
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: this is peak Sanderson, even though I've never read the
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: man's work before, aside from the prior book in this trilogy, like, oh,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: we are in deep deep Sanderson attitude and territory, and
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: it feels like Matt. It does seem like the kind
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: of thing Matt would do.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: But it's yeah, it's end's well written and all that
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, It's one of those moments where, even as a
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: very first time reader, I was like, oh, oh, this
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: is Sanderson, pure, pure Sanderson.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: And then Brigida shows up and they they hang they
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: take off and she says, uh Raven prince. I don't
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: want to talk about it. Why not because I'm getting
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: too bloody famous for my own good. That's why. Wait
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: until it tracks you across generations. She said. I love
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: that little interaction because they're both super right. He's basically
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be Odin. She's you know, Brigita the Amazon archer. Right,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: there are these incredible legendary stereotypes in our world, and
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: they're kind of talking about, oh my god, I don't
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: want to be famous. Well, too fucking bad, you're about
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: to be generationally famous. And I just I like that
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: little reaction between It's like two celebrities being like, yeah,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: I just wait for it.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, no for sure. And then they have
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: the or she has a thought to herself later but like, oh,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: Matt's seen the Finn. That's what all of this is about.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: We've talked about his memories. I should have put it together,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: and yeah, it's nice to have their camaraderie as colleagues
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: of a very specific niche club where you have spare
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: memories that aren't really yours in your head and you're
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: connected to the horde, and it's it's so fun to
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: see their rapport talking about that, and I.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Love that she clocks that the sword is decoy right away,
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: so he doesn't carry a sword. Oh decoy from the staff, gotcha, right?
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: He immediately blocks that, Yeah, totally.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: Then yeah, he takes her out for a drink and
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: she's like, fine, but I have to drink milk because
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm using any excuse I can to not
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: be a raging alcoholic.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think they are. They don't want a LA.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: It's a legitimate concern, right that. Like if you know
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: alcohol is bad for a baby, and you know that
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: if your order drinks, you feel it, which is not
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: normal for other orders, right, male orders, they don't get
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: the mirroring. So is it possible that somehow your body
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: is affected by the alcohol and then the baby's body
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: is affected by the alcohol? Right, and developmentally that could
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: be a problem.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: The magic is misogynistic, got it?
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: No, just the author who wrote it?
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: Fair enough? Fair enough, But I.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: Mean that does seem to be like there is this
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: connection between the female orders and their isid I that
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: is not between male orders and their isid. Ee.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I prefer to think of it as Brigida just
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: looking for an excuse to stop being an alcoholic and
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: needing an external reason to hold yourself in check.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: To me, it has the same source of women falling
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: in to the same period pattern. Is this idea that
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: there's this mirroring going on in terms of emotions and
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: periods and stuff like that, except.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: That actually has a grain of truth to it, whereas
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: there's no you know, real mechanic for bonding to compare to.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: But that's what I'm wondering, Like, that's where he's started
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: to say. He's anchoring this mirroring in that sort of
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: period mirroring that that Yeah, anyway.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 4: Light blinded fall went before it takes to as Andrew's balls,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, Marsa Pan's right, we don't ever see.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: The Osham on bonding women or men and experimenting with
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: this sort of thing.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, men bonding other men.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd be really funny if same gender bonding
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: just always made the alcohol thing go, that would be
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: really funny. I also do respect Purgida's decisions to not
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: get a lane drunk during a negotiation, even like pregnancy,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: aside just the cognitive load of suddenly getting tipsy when
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: you're trying to be like politically astute, tough.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think the drinking thing is more of
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: a symptom of the feedback, right, because they have this
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: emotional feedback where one can get angry, can make the
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: other one angry, which can make the other one angry.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: And like there is this resonance between them that doesn't
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: that is blocked or at least dampened between I said,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: I and her mail orders. And then I love this
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: little exchange. There's this issue, what isu the Tower of Gunjai.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: That's not an issue. You stay away from it. I can't,
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: of course you can. It's a flaming building, Matt. It
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: can't exactly chase you down.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: It is funny. It is funny.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: It's like when I stumble over my own feet and
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: like the ground reached out and grabbed me. Couldn't not
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: my fault yep yeap. So there's some good exchanges, there's
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: some funny. I like their relationship and this exchange helps it. Right.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: I do think that there's they're at that level of
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: comfort with each other where they can joke around like
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: old army buddies. Yeah, and she's like, look at that bartender,
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: he's hot, and it's like missing several teeth. The most
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: of his hair, and she's like, oh yeah, and.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Sre we get the amazing line. She likes ugly beer
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: as much as she likes ugly men, and I'm just like,
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: I love Burgida so much. She's just like, give me
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: that gnarly, yeasty stick of fork in it beer and
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: also give me a one eyed, scraggle toothed barely at
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: a hair man to serve it, just like you are
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: ridiculous man, and.
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: I love Matts. I've never seen an uglier man, Brigida.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: You haven't been around long enough, because I've seen him
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: uglier and they look good.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: This is the best looking man in this location. That's
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: all like wow wow. But you know, there's a lid
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: for every pot. Brigida is the archetypal proof of that.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: She's a lid to a lot of ulitded pots out there.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: I guess, I guess, But she only wants that one
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: pot tight.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: I guess well, and it does. It comes back to
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: the fact that her soulmate is ugliest sin traditionally.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: Right, right, And it's just they all look like him
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: in that regard, And you know that's that's how being
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: in love with someone across many lifetimes works.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: Apparently, she notices that Matt looks at a girl's black side,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: but doesn't actually slap it like he normally would, so.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: This line uncharacteristically. Yeah, he didn't slap her ass. This
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: line helped a lot of us who've been calling out
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: what Ali has called Matt's sogyny. We felt very gratified
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: by this line because Brigita, a whole ass woman, is
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: saying it is uncharacteristic for Matt to not unconsensually touch
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: someone who is working. This is not a thing that
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: he just started doing under Sanderson. This is not a
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: thing we've been imagining. This is something that is uncharacteristic of.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: Him to not do a lot of taking people have
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: taken refuge behind the idea that he's only doing it
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: to people who are interested. It's stated multiple times he
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: has a knack for only harassing people who are willing
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: to be harassed.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: No bugs, Bunny Gift, No, absolutely not. That is some bullshit. Yeah.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: I'm a man, and I can tell when a working
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: woman doesn't mind the fact that I just sexually assaulted
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: her in front of her boss. Totally legit. Yeah, I
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: just I find the idea that he only goes after
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: women who want to be accosted to just be the
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: most like somewhere between cowardly and straight up in cell energy, like, no,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: have some more respect for your adult autonomy and agency.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think this is trying to suggest that
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: he has grown right, that there is a certain amount
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: of like he understands that's wrong, He understands that he
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: should be doing it.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: No, he understands that that is cheating on his wife.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: That is not the same thing. He has not grown
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: in the slightest with respect to respecting women's bodies. He
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: just thinks that it's disrespectful to your wife to assault
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: a women. Like that's it. That is not redeeming. That's
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: not growth, that's just more misogyny. Like I'm glad he's
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: not slapping women's asses, but he's still leering at them.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: And the only reason he's not doing it is because
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: he thinks that his wife might slap him if he
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: did that. Like, it's just I it's so funny that
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: Sanderson would be the one giving all of this fuel
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: to the feminist age, but like, it's.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: Real, right, I wanted to see him mature a little
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: bit more here in this moment. I want to see
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: him have different reasons for restraining himself. Now, it still
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: might be oh, once you marry a woman, only then
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: do you realize women or people? Right, But at least
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: I would like him to realize that would be better
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: than this, that would be better than this.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's it's the most disappointing level
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: of not really growth that you could have. And it's
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: just so it's just so unequivocal to me that this
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: is who Brigida has always.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: Known, especially after all the tail and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to see a little more reflection
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little more maybe only an enthusiastic yes is
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: what I'm interested in now, you know. Anyway does a
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: very short lived soapbox. But I did need to get
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: it out and just pound it for a moment. Put
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: it away now.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: So they start talking about the Alefin and the Elfin,
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: and he's like, so, how did you survive? Right? How
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: did you get out? And her answers, I didn't. I died.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: If you go in, you're dead, right. There's if you
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: go in not through the gateways, the treaties won't be
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: in effect. So the ale Fin and the elfin can
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: draw blood. Normally you only have to worry about tricks
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: with pits or ropes since they can't. Hey, how did
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: you get hanged anyway? Yeah, that's a little interaction there,
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: that's kind of Yeah, she's like, oh, yeah, ropes, that
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: might have been why now the fact she didn't make
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: that connection earlier, but I guess they haven't really talked
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: about the snakes in the boxes before.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: No, it was not a good memory for her. It's
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: not like she was going to bring it up out
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: of Yeah, exactly, exactly, and yeah, this is where she says,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: that's the end of that particular legend. That's where the
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: title of the thing is, like, sometimes the end is
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: you die. Sometimes that's the end. It's not you don't
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: always get through, and that's you know.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: And then she tries to make it seem impossible by saying, oh,
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: only one out of a thousand people come out. I
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: think it's even less than that, but.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: I mean that's like a forty days and forty night's
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: kind of number that didn't actually have any mathematical basis
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: behind it.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: And so he throws up coins and they all land
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: face up right. Two dozen, Yeah, just out of curiosity.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think the odds of all two dozen
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: coins landing face up are?
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. The only reason that I passed
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: statistics was because Brandon did my homework for me. I
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: have no idea how to estimate that.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: So each coin has a fifty to fifty shot, right,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: and there are twenty four of them. So if you
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: have one coin, the chances of getting a face up
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: is one out of two yep, two coins getting them
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: both face up, Well, you multiply those together, so it's
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: one out of four. Okay, three coins. You multiply those together,
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: so two times two times two is eight, right, so
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: one out of eight. Yeah, twenty four coins. You multiply
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: two times two times two times two twenty four times,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: so that's two to the twenty fourth quick Math says
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: that is one in sixteen point seven million.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, that does seem more comparable to the odds of
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: getting through Finland without losing. That's way better than one
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: in a thousand, As he says, one in one thousand
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: is good odds because he can get one in a
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: one point six million.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: One in sixteen million, right there, just randomly throwing a
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: one in sixteen million chance.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I believe him when he says that he
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: can beat the fin on their home turf.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: As long as he's got you know, odds on his side.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: As long as he can figure out how to bring
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: random chance into the mix. That's the only way to
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: cheat effectively.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: And he almost screws himself up by using dice because
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: dice only haves six options, and he needs an infinite
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: number of options random options. And that's where the spinning
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: it with his eyes closed works better for him.
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: But it also helps when you're in an arms race
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: of trickery to change tactics every now and then so
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: the dice do buy him necessary time.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: There's this line here. There was that one time when
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: she's been forced to grow old together peacefully, the most
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: boring life she'd ever known, though at the time, ignorant
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: of her greater, grander part in the pattern, she'd been
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: happy with it.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, that whole little insight into Brigida and
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: Guide are like, no, we need to burn out and
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: die young and tragic epic flames, rock star heroic. Oh god,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: the idea of retiring comfortably for fifty years to just
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: be happy. Ew, I'm like right, you're weird. But yeah,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: I like you, but you're weird. Like your taste in
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: men is nothing as weird as your taste in life, you.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: Know, but I think that that's it's important to be
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: Like but she was happy with it and like without
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: knowing the grander purpose, the bigger life. Like they were
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: very happy together, but.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: Like only one life in a thousand have they ever
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: been allowed to just like live into old age? Like
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: what did you do to piss off the wheel man?
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: Like geez well, I mean according to her, that's what
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: she wants, right, Like, that's not something that the like,
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to do that again, that was a waste.
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: There is a world in which she is the frontman
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: and a really hardcore like rock band, just like she
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: is twenty seven club all the way totally.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like flicker flicker flicker, where there's like no
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: peaceful lives pretty much.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She even has a paragraph that kind of reminded
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: me of that. Early on in this she had been
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: a guard, a noble thief, a lady, a peasant, a killer,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: and a savior. It's like you trying to get the
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: flicker flicker rhythm going on.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: There Sanderson, And there is a little bit to be said, right,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: because there's multiple situations where our characters get to see
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: how their lives could have played out, and that information
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: guides them in the future, even if they can't remember
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: it all. Think of the Portalstone Flicker Flicker flicker, Right,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: that's one of them, the Wise Ones, apprentice going through
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: the Three Rings. Yeah, that's one of them. Matt living
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of lives, which isn't exactly the same thing
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: Brigida here having memories from all these different lives, but
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: the way they're kind of fading from her memory because
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: one person can't hold all those memories. Even though it's slower.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: It's in the same way that the people who go
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: through Flicker Flicker Flicker are the people who go through
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: the Apprentice rings lose those memories over time.
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's true, and.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: They only have memories from their own lives and then
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: sort of vague intuitions based around the memories and the
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: experiences they have.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we also don't know. The reason that she was
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: in the tower in that story was because Geidel had
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: had a head injury after some battle and they were
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: in there for months trying to get to the point
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: of getting him healed of a traumatic brain injury. I
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: just thought that that little detail is extra grueling. It's
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: not heroic to try to take someone with like balance
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: and memory issues through a maze for months. That's not
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: the heroic dungeons and dragons battle. That's grueling and grinding
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: and hard and miserable and doesn't make a good story. Actually,
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's not a good legend. That's dismal.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: No wonder the story is not still being told around
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: these parts, you know.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it's the kind of typical we wandered for forty
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: days and forty nights, right, Like, there's a bit of
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: a you could do a biblical type theme to it. All.
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: The two months is going to be even longer than that, right,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: and then even longer so assuming they lasted like another
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: month after their supplies ran out, right before they starved
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: to death, assuming they can get water.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: I guess the fin would probably have wanted to give
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: them enough water and food to really drag the game
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: out for as long as possible for the ratings, you know,
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: do it for the gram.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, so she gives them some advice, right, fire can
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: you can cheat? But fire musical grow will grow less
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: effective as they get used to them. We get some
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: sort of again, he lays out, like they need emotion.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: That's why they built a portal into the world. That's
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: why they work with us. They feed off our emotion,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: and they don't really generate their own, right.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: And also that the tower is the nexus between the
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: snakes and the foxes, and sometimes they're working together, sometimes
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: they're not. But if you go through the tower, you'll
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: access both of them, whereas each door only goes to
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: one world.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: Well, and to me that goes back to the snakes
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: and the foxes are a spider web, and I can't remember,
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which is which. But one of them
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: live on the radial strands and the other one lives
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: on the circular strands, right, And so where do those intersect, Well,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: at the center, there's a spot where all the radial
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: scent lines come together and the circles come together, and
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: you can actually when you go through the Tower of Genji,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: you have access to both of those worlds because you're
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: at their intersection, whereas if you go through the stone doorway,
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: you're only in one store. When Delroy one leads to
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: the ale Fin. The other one leads to the eel Fin,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: and we see that geometry when Matt goes through the tower,
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: right like, we see how he's able to look out
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: the window and kind of see the other world, and
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: then they interact.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: It's cool. I like getting the interdimensional lore dumps from
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: our multi generational heroes. It's fun. But that's all I
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 2: got for the rest of the chapter, just to have
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: a Yeah, last little tiny bit of readout that you know,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 2: cliffhangers us over into the next chapter, which we will
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: be getting to next week. She raised her mug to
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: drink the last of her milk. The mug never got there.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: She froze when she felt a jolt of emotion from
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: a lane anger fury, pain or get a. Slammed the
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: mug down on the table, then threw coins down and
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: stood up, cursing what Matt said on his feet in
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: an eyeblink. Elaine in trouble again. She's hurt, bloody ashes,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: Matt snapped, grabbing his coat and staff as they ran
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 2: for the exit. And we will pick up with Elaine's
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 2: bad decisions next week.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: Damn it, track hands, stop making bad decisions.
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: Never never, ever, That's what they do.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Talk to you guys next week.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 3: Let's go record the other podcast.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 1:59:10
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• 1:59:13
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• 1:59:17
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• 1:59:21
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• 1:59:24
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