Latest / WoT Spoilers / As if the World Were Fog - Knife of Dreams chapter 26 - EP499

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As if the World Were Fog - Knife of Dreams chapter 26 - EP499 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. All right, so should we
• 0:20
  get into this read? Yeah, we're only like an hour into today's time
• 0:26
  slot. Thank you everyone to start us. I really appreciate it. All
• 0:31
  right. So chapter twenty six as if the world were fog and our symbol
• 0:38
  is the snake and the wheel because we've got a time synchronization and multiple povs
• 0:44
  going through a big moment, so we got to have some momentous symbology.
• 0:49
  I feel like we were completely wrong about the timescale last time, right,
• 0:54
  because weren't we saying that Paren was dumping the grains in on the same morning
• 1:00
  that he rescued Fayel. But no, it's a two day gap. It
• 1:03
  takes two days for the grains to flow down. I think we completely missed
• 1:07
  that. Yeah, I think I may have missed that on every prior read.
• 1:11
  Actually, now that you're mentioning that, it's kind of like, hmmm,
• 1:17
  yeah, two days. But I mean they are taking packs of food
• 1:19
  and they're going to go hide, and it's going to be a long trek.
• 1:23
  I mean it makes sense for it to be two days. But yeah,
• 1:26
  I don't think I ever really put that together until this moment, I
• 1:30
  didn't. I always thought that he was putting the grains in the morning and
• 1:36
  then by that afternoon they would have soaked in enough that like what I like
• 1:40
  to But yeah, alas, No, we've been bamboozled by our own assumptions,
• 1:46
  and in a lot of ways, it's why we do the podcast so
• 1:49
  we can figure out how badly our assumptions are fucking us. Speaking of assumptions,
• 1:53
  we start out with tou On Toy set a fast pace through the forest,
• 2:00
  but Tuon road close behind him, with Selucia at her side, of
• 2:05
  course, so she could listen in on him, and Telmanis her own thoughts
• 2:08
  interfered with eavesdropping. However, so he had grown up with the dragon reborn,
• 2:14
  had he the dragon reborn? And he had denied knowing anything at all
• 2:19
  of the man. That was one lie of his she had failed to catch,
• 2:23
  and she was good at catching lies in Schondar. The undetected lie might
• 2:28
  be the one that killed you or sent you to the sail block as property.
• 2:31
  Had she known of his prevarication, she might have slapped his face rather
• 2:36
  than allowing him to kiss her. Now that had been a shock, one
• 2:40
  she was not sure she had recovered from yet Solusha had described being kissed by
• 2:46
  a man, but the actuality made the other woman's descriptions pale. No,
• 2:51
  she had to listen, and I didn't want to read the whole conversation because
• 2:57
  dialog is not interesting to read. Really, I enjoy reading it sometimes,
• 3:02
  this one did not appeal to me. Gotcha, you left in charge that
• 3:07
  potato face, remember him back like one of those kyrieen and nobles from way
• 3:15
  back in the day. Yeah, this is one of those scenes where you're
• 3:17
  seeing the collection of people that like, yeah, I remember the first time
• 3:21
  the podcast went through the stone of tear being like, guys, guys,
• 3:25
  this is all the people that are going to rule the band. Guys,
• 3:29
  guys, it's all of them. They're all right here here we are seeing
• 3:32
  all of them, the ones who have not died having made it. They
• 3:37
  have transitioned from the card table to being regular leaders of Matt's army. And
• 3:44
  it was back the first bubble of evil, right when the cards came alive
• 3:47
  and tried to kill him. They were all in that room. That's the
• 3:51
  one, that's the one. So being that potato faced, rich, ridiculous
• 3:57
  lord to being in charge now in fairness, Matt's like, what the fuck,
• 4:01
  like exactly exactly if I remember him being that bumbling rich idiot, why
• 4:10
  would you leave him in charge? Right? And this is the discussion in
• 4:13
  which we have Matt saying that's it. I'm putting an end to social class
• 4:17
  having any bearing on military rank. Everyone can if they don't like it,
• 4:21
  they can go home. I refuse to let this endanger me in the last
• 4:26
  battle until Monus is like, good idea, No one's going to go home.
• 4:30
  Everyone's going to accept that. That's a reasonable call, dude, totally.
• 4:33
  And we're in Tuon's POV, right, so we actually get some of
• 4:36
  her I would say, confirmation about the prophecy, right, the things that
• 4:43
  have intrigued her about Matt, or in the next paragraph, the red handed
• 4:47
  symbol Talmanus war was intriguing more than intriguing, much more, right, because
• 4:53
  that's the first time she's seeing the red hand, which matches the prophecy.
• 4:57
  Right, and she's like, well, the hand is important, but and
• 5:00
  it's on not Matt, so why But it's Matt's private army. She says
• 5:03
  that. Later she's like, clearly, this is Matt's private army, right,
• 5:06
  right, Talmanus is not important except for that he is the head of
• 5:11
  Matt's army and is coming to report. That's all that Talmanis matters. And
• 5:15
  then she says he remembers hawk Wing's face that was part of the prophecy,
• 5:19
  even though he denied it. That was clearly a lie because he's a terrible
• 5:21
  liar. And then the ring, the ring is really important because that's the
• 5:27
  fox that makes the ravens fly. That's part of the prophecy. So this
• 5:30
  whole paragraph is her being like checking off the prophecy and being like, yep,
• 5:33
  he's the man clearly, and sort of seeing that and matching up again
• 5:39
  what we get later with the prophecy, right, And then as we're eavesdropping,
• 5:43
  we get discussion of the new crossbow crank, which has a lot of
• 5:47
  implications for multiple military engagements moving forward. It's basically like the introduction of guns
• 5:54
  or grenades or cannons in its own right. It is the archery level upgrade
• 6:00
  of like suddenly having guns, to have bows that you can shoot very very
• 6:04
  quickly without needing training, right, because we don't have guns, right,
• 6:10
  It's not we get cannons, but guns are not something we were able to
• 6:13
  invent before the end of the series. So these fast crank crossbow bolts are
• 6:18
  really much more the guns of the era, right, Right, this is
• 6:24
  this is guns with the actual gunpowder being confined to the larger version of cannons.
• 6:29
  Right, We're getting two different kinds of upgrades. Robert Jordan said,
• 6:32
  Yeah, I realized that hand told guns aren't going to work, but I
• 6:34
  still want the non magic users to have a weapons upgrade that like truly increases
• 6:42
  their killing at a distance power. So how about crossbow cranks. That'll have
• 6:46
  to do. And it makes Matt a military It gives Matt a military power
• 6:51
  that isn't channeling, but that so that like because again Matt really represents modern
• 6:59
  military strength, and how would that function against channelers? Right? And yeah,
• 7:03
  later he does use channelers, but for the most part, what he's
• 7:06
  good at is becoming the modern military. That's I think Robert Jordan is using
• 7:11
  Matt to say, in the same way that the circus is an evolution from
• 7:15
  a traveling show to the big tent, big top circus, Right, He's
• 7:19
  doing that same evolution with Matt and the modern military. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 7:25
  And two one is very intrigued by this because she is, you know,
• 7:29
  trained in the art of war and knows how critical this will be just as
• 7:32
  much as Matt does. Again, why Robert Jordan is saying Matt and two
• 7:35
  one are going to be cute together is because they're both going to understand stuff
• 7:39
  like the utility of crossbow cranks, you know. And again we see some
• 7:43
  confirmation, right, she sees Matt calming a horse by whispering in its ear,
• 7:47
  which is something he told her he could do, and she didn't believe
• 7:51
  him. Right, So all of these things that he's told her that we
• 7:55
  know we're true, right, Like Matt's telling the truth. She's like,
• 7:59
  Matt's a bulld this is fucking bullshit. There's no way he can do these
• 8:01
  things. He you know, he doesn't have a private army. He can't
• 8:05
  whisper in a horse's ear. He can't. He's not. And then she's
• 8:09
  watching these things that were she thought were ridiculous boasts being checked off one by
• 8:15
  one, and she's like, oh, I I underestimated this man. That's
• 8:20
  really I think what's going on here is this is really the point and we
• 8:22
  see it later. This is the line on the plane. Yeah, This
• 8:26
  is really a big old chapter of two on getting as close to admitting she
• 8:31
  was wrong as she'll ever get. Mm hmmm, Yeah, that's that's a
• 8:35
  good point. And she's not gonna say she was wrong, but she's gonna
• 8:39
  say this is a different situation. Yeah, and he's looking a little different.
• 8:43
  Yeah, she's realizing that she's confused, but she's not gonna admit it
• 8:48
  to anybody, and she'll never admit she was wrong, just that she's a
• 8:50
  little underestimated him as coach. But she even describes Matt as being kind of
• 8:54
  like Tom here, very much in his element as Tyland's pet. It also
• 9:00
  so when his element among the show's performers end with the mar Demane and the
• 9:03
  escapes to money and in the hell, like that's such a Tom thing.
• 9:07
  Like Matt's really taking after his adopted dad Tom in this. Yeah, the
• 9:13
  ability to blend in in any situation. It's also about like being the sort
• 9:18
  of extrovert who can like socialize with anybody and any like. He just sort
• 9:24
  of everyone wants to be around him. Everyone likes to be around him.
• 9:28
  He's a pleasant person to hang out with, which we like as readers.
• 9:31
  We feel everyone that's that the thing when people like Matt's my favorite character to
• 9:35
  read because he's fun to hang out with. Mm hmm yeah, and he
• 9:41
  he camouflages or he mirrors people well, like, hey, he can move
• 9:46
  between any class because he doesn't really think anything of himself other than that he's
• 9:52
  a person and he just wants to kind of meet whoever he's interacting with where
• 9:56
  they're at, and he's gonna be sort of rude and off putting and crass,
• 10:01
  you know, maybe, but he treats everyone the same amount of that,
• 10:05
  which is you know, important. Later when twuone's like asking the nobles
• 10:09
  like is he is he really a noble or not? And they're like,
• 10:16
  no, but I'm proud to be one of the nobles. He doesn't hate.
• 10:20
  These are the same nobles who were just pissing on commoners earlier and saying
• 10:24
  they couldn't lead. You know. It's it's like somehow Matt is the exception
• 10:28
  in their head, like he's not a noble, He's Matt exactly exactly.
• 10:33
  He's his own category. A weird expectation for people to have, like in
• 10:37
  the real world, that's not generally how it works, but you do get
• 10:41
  these oddballs like Matt and Tom and Odin. Who can do that? They
• 10:48
  can do that, They can just sneaky sneak their way through every social class
• 10:50
  and be welcomed as a guest by all, because you know, he is
• 10:54
  literally Odin. All right? So who is this mechanic Mirandi who invented these
• 11:01
  cranks? Any idea he's got a wagonload of inventions to take up to Camlin
• 11:07
  and Camlin I'm assume he's going to the school that Rand established. I don't
• 11:11
  know who he is, some dude, it's just some Nicelangelo type, just
• 11:16
  or leond da Vinci type, just polymthing his way towards whoever has money.
• 11:24
  And Matt being the severean that he is, just happened to get the right
• 11:28
  invention that he needed at just the right time. Right Well, I mean
• 11:31
  it's Matt plus Rand, right. Rand is the one who started this.
• 11:35
  Rand is the one who founded the schools and told people there's money in glory
• 11:37
  to be had if you can bring an invention. Brand is the reason that
• 11:41
  this man is inventing stuff and going on the road. So it's a double
• 11:43
  Tavie and whammy for Matt to acquire him because rand set the marble rolling down
• 11:50
  the hill. Some more speculation from tu On. There is this conversation about
• 11:54
  the book Fog and Steel. Your book, Matt, What do you mean
• 11:58
  my book? The book you're always quoting? Oh? Yeah, that book?
• 12:01
  You know that book? Yeah, I guess I did read that a
• 12:05
  long time ago in another life. And meanwhile it's getting brought back into print
• 12:09
  circulation because of his commentary. King Rohodron has printed up two new copies and
• 12:16
  given one away to the band, Like, this book is coming back into
• 12:20
  circulation because of the freaking memories that Matt has. And didn't he like write
• 12:24
  the damn thing in a previous life or something one of those lives? I
• 12:28
  think that he was ever a magic but he he has multiple lives where he
• 12:33
  read the book and used it extensively. I don't think he was ever the
• 12:37
  author. But I might be wrong about that, because isn't there one book
• 12:41
  that he like he remembers writing that book. It's a poem. It's a
• 12:46
  poem, okay, it's the Color of Trust. Poem is the one that
• 12:48
  he remembers writing. But I wouldn't put it past him to also have been
• 12:54
  Comadrin. And I just forgot it at some point because there's a lot of
• 12:58
  matt memory jumbled stuff to keep track of. Right, I'm not saying he
• 13:01
  was them, he has the memories of being Yeah same potato, potato or
• 13:05
  whatever. I don't care. All right, So should we get into this
• 13:11
  read? And is the fog and steal a reference to this chapter title as
• 13:16
  if the world were fog? I assumed it was a reference to the fog
• 13:20
  of war. That's me too, But like I was just I didn't really
• 13:22
  see a good reference to as if the world were fog. No, no,
• 13:28
  parent, Yeah you missed it, parent things Okay, Okay. Two
• 13:31
  one sets herself to watching for omens, and there's not much to talk about
• 13:35
  there except I just like the absurdity of thinking about how there's no omens about
• 13:39
  cattle. Yeah, because they don't have any cattle. They do too have
• 13:43
  cattle, no minshan jam ok Yeah, I kind of assume they'd be eating
• 13:48
  by all the rock and rock and eat fruit. Oh oh that's right,
• 13:52
  Yeah they don't. They just looked like they would because they're scary bats.
• 13:56
  But they're fruit bats. No, they totally have cattle. But I just
• 14:00
  think it's funny that too. I was like, oh, no, we
• 14:01
  totally don't have prophecies around cattle. And I'm like, first of all,
• 14:05
  have you heard of like the Indus Valley River civilization, Like, have you
• 14:07
  heard of the fact that cows are like uber sacred like and uber important to
• 14:11
  like multiple human civilizations. It's very silly for them to not be omens around
• 14:15
  cattle, you owmen, crazed slaver And these are also these are long horns,
• 14:18
  right, these aren't normal cattle. I don't know what you would define
• 14:24
  normal cattle as tall, lean cattle with very long horns that stuck out almost
• 14:31
  straight to either side. Texas long horns, for sure, Oh for sure,
• 14:33
  for sure. Yeah, which means that they should know about them from
• 14:35
  shan Chin because they're from Texas, America, Texas. That's what I'm saying,
• 14:41
  Like they should have. But I do like the tuon commenting on them
• 14:45
  is important, right, It's it's just it's just fun. Yeah, So
• 14:50
  we're just in her head. She's thinking about how Matt might be part of
• 14:52
  like a White Tower plot, which I think is just the inbred paranoia of
• 14:56
  her culture, like pushing against the obviousness of the fact that it's She's like
• 15:00
  that seems like a weird impulse and say, yes, two On, it's
• 15:03
  because you come from a magically induced levels of paranoia society with slavery, Like,
• 15:09
  no, you're just paranoid. Uh. She thinks that Aludra doesn't like
• 15:13
  her because she doesn't she refuses to accept the return. I think Aludra doesn't
• 15:18
  like her because she's banging Matt. I think Aludra doesn't like her because she's
• 15:22
  the head of the empire that burned all of her colleagues to death because they
• 15:24
  didn't show deference. Yeah, there might be that too. I think I
• 15:28
  think she's a little jealous of Math, though I think it's a more I
• 15:31
  thought, Oh, she's definitely jealous of Matt. But she hates the shan
• 15:33
  Chan for killing the Illuminators. She hated them long before she had personal beef
• 15:39
  with two On, Like two on two one gets a double whammy. She
• 15:41
  is hated as head of empire and as a woman who stole her boyfriend.
• 15:46
  Well not even boyfriend, but fuck buddy, well not even fuck buddy,
• 15:50
  just making out buddy. Yeah, there's there was something because they were kissing.
• 15:54
  Yeah, they were totally kissing, and there is a moment later,
• 15:56
  unfortunately under Brandon Sanderson's pen where they do would explicitly address the fact that Tuon
• 16:03
  has sort of made their interpersonal dynamic weird. That does happen explicitly later.
• 16:08
  But Aludra invented the dragons because she was angry at Sean Chan for killing all
• 16:15
  of her people. That was long before Tuon was in the picture. So
• 16:18
  fair, fair, But yeah, two one does not understand the depth to
• 16:22
  which she is not liked because she doesn't know that Aludra is like the last
• 16:27
  surviving Illuminator, Like, she doesn't understand all of that baggage at all,
• 16:32
  much less the whole thing with Matt. Well, we have a bit of
• 16:33
  a discussion about tavern, yes, then we have Tom's schooling tu On on
• 16:38
  what tavern is. And then Tuan has the most delightfully like I will not
• 16:44
  shout at you, nineve shouted moment, thank you, She told him politely,
• 16:48
  I think I've heard enough Tavern ridiculous these people and they're endless superstitions.
• 16:53
  A small brown bird, Shirley a finch, flew out of a tall oak
• 16:56
  and circled witterershens three times above Toy's head. Before flying on, she had
• 17:00
  found her omen. I will not shout at you nineve shouted. Isn't literally
• 17:06
  what is happening here? These stupid people and they're stupid superstitions. Ooh,
• 17:10
  a bird will tell me what to do with my life. This oral tradition
• 17:15
  of these people like that actually ties into like a cosmological understanding of the world
• 17:22
  that might make sense of like history of a sweeping scale. That's silly.
• 17:25
  But this bird, this bird knows what my fate is. It's silliness.
• 17:30
  It's absolute silliness. Tom is talking about a literal oral tradition with a written
• 17:34
  component, and she's talking about a fucking bird, Like, come on,
• 17:41
  But the bird did say stay close to toy, which is you know.
• 17:44
  The thing is I always wonder if there's some accuracy in their omens. Oh
• 17:48
  you wonder that, now, do you? There never is. It's always
• 17:52
  too vague. But maybe Tavern is making the bird pop out so she stays
• 17:56
  close to Matt. I could definitely buy that. If she is seeking an
• 18:00
  omen. It would be very easy for the pattern to just reach out to
• 18:03
  a bird and be like, how about you just turn around three times?
• 18:06
  Because you were going to fly that way anyway, it'll tell this bitch to
• 18:08
  chill out and stay put and it's no big deal. And or she wants
• 18:14
  to stay close to Toy and is going to see the omen that tells her
• 18:15
  to do that and will ignore all of their omens. Confirmation bias, I
• 18:19
  mean, I would argue that that tavern is kind of making confirmation bias a
• 18:25
  mechanic of the world. Like the argument is basically that confirmation bias is plot
• 18:30
  right, right, That's basically what the argument is here. Uh So,
• 18:34
  as they ride in, everyone's really excited that Matt's back and Tuon's going like
• 18:40
  the people seem to really like him, which is weird because they don't look
• 18:44
  like drunkards. And that's the only time I've actually seen troops like their commander
• 18:48
  is when they let them just drink and be sloppy and lazy. She's like,
• 18:52
  well, obviously it's going to be an army of fuck boys, right
• 18:56
  right. Duon's just been a partier and that's clearly what they are, a
• 19:02
  party or any gambeller. I also noticed that a growing murmur of voices rose,
• 19:06
  rustling through the trees like a breeze, like a wind. Is it
• 19:11
  the rising of a wind, perhaps potentially Lord Matt a wind rose. It
• 19:18
  was not the beginning, but it was a beginning. I also think it's
• 19:22
  very interesting that Tuan has no problem assigning all of this leadership and whatnot to
• 19:29
  Matt when we know it's mostly Telmanis and the few people that Matt interacted with
• 19:37
  instilling a culture on all of the men who have been recruited since Matt took
• 19:41
  off. Yeah, but they're all doing it like that culture is Matt's.
• 19:45
  Matt did establish that culture, and Tilmanus is just executing it. But he's
• 19:51
  executing it effectively. This is just completely sidelining him like the workwife that he
• 19:57
  is. It's invisible work. Okay, it's just really Yeah, I'm affected
• 20:06
  on Timnus's behalf. He should be getting more credit for like doing such a
• 20:10
  good job maintaining what Matt wants and knowing what Matt wants and being able to
• 20:15
  effectively execute Matt's broad desires without Matt there to help, like Tom Monas is
• 20:22
  clearly good at his job. Inherently, I'm not arguing with you at all.
• 20:26
  Yes, it's not at all. I understand why Sanderson gave Tomanus so
• 20:30
  much airtime because he has not been given his due at this point. No,
• 20:36
  although there is there's a line here that I think is pretty fucking funny
• 20:38
  that tel Monus has. That's a really good joke. We'll I'll bring it
• 20:42
  up when we get to it. So everyone starts singing to Dance with the
• 20:45
  Jack of the Shadows because they see Matt and that's like basically his theme song,
• 20:48
  even though he hates it. It just means dancing with death. And
• 20:52
  as a man who's died at least twice, that's you know, and probably
• 20:57
  is going for a third. Yeah, yeah, he knows he's going for
• 21:02
  a third almost certainly. Yeah. But he basically does the thing where he's
• 21:07
  like, all right, we're gonna move fast, get ready to root,
• 21:10
  do the thing you're good at, because where you're gonna kick some ass.
• 21:12
  And that is the one thing that like I think established the band as particularly
• 21:18
  effective is how quickly they moved, right. He took them out of some
• 21:22
  of their traditional roles and said, we are just we're gonna march further and
• 21:26
  faster and harder than you think we can. And that's how we're gonna win
• 21:30
  battles by being in places nobody thinks we can be and not having supply lines
• 21:34
  as a vulnerable weak spot in our strategies. Right, And he doesn't have
• 21:38
  to do you know, he's noted as not o rating. He just speaks,
• 21:42
  right. He has this whole commander vibe that clearly is coming to him
• 21:45
  from his amalgamated memories that make him just you know, quintessential leader when it
• 21:52
  comes to this kind of like generalship and two one is again very impressed by
• 21:57
  that. That does it, That gets her motor running, you know,
• 22:02
  right well, and speaking of how impressive telmanis is right, he's got map
• 22:06
  makers. Now, he's got the best map makers you can find, crew
• 22:10
  of engineers, He's got, yeah, the best map makers you can find.
• 22:14
  And Tuan immediately sees that as a threat. The information in the map
• 22:18
  is as about a big of a threat as the cranks or anything else that
• 22:22
  Matt is doing. And that sort of tells you how important the information in
• 22:27
  that the map maker is coming up with is to the army into Tuon in
• 22:33
  the Sean Chan in the battles. That was something I learned in my geography
• 22:37
  degree is that the science of geography is rooted in military intelligence. That's where
• 22:44
  it starts. That's where mapping technology comes from. That's where all the technology
• 22:48
  is driven from. It is one of the most important pieces of information a
• 22:52
  military can have is the lay of the land and where people are on it.
• 22:56
  So like reconnaissance, GPS, yeah, GPS, gis all these things
• 23:03
  going back to the very dawn of military anything. It's its maps are critical
• 23:08
  to militaries, and militaries are critical to maps. They're the same thing in
• 23:12
  so many ways. I mean, how are you gonna know where to point
• 23:15
  your guns if you don't know you know, how far away the enemy is,
• 23:18
  or if there's a hill between here and there, and you have to
• 23:21
  be able to calculate the curve of the earth even when you're some random dude
• 23:25
  in a trench because your cannon's firing over a hill and you got to do
• 23:29
  the geometry to like figure it out. Like you got to know these things.
• 23:33
  I love that. Like also, our whole space program is basically like,
• 23:37
  Okay, I want to deliver this warhead on his house. What's the
• 23:41
  most effective way to do that. It's like, okay, rockets. Oh,
• 23:45
  by the way, we can also get to space with those things.
• 23:47
  By the way, Yeah, I guess so yes, cool, Yeah,
• 23:49
  let's have a space mission thing. Yeah right, or like gis, you
• 23:55
  can just go zooming around and staying like Wow, A whole lot of people
• 23:57
  in this like dry as fuck part of California have swimming pools. Also,
• 24:03
  I guess I could be finding like terrorists in a fruit market halfway around the
• 24:07
  world, but for now, I'm just going to count how many swimming pools
• 24:11
  exist in southern California. Same tech. So yeah, information is very important.
• 24:18
  That's all that to say. Maps are very important informations, and maps
• 24:19
  are also really good for pushing back against militaries, pushing back against warfare,
• 24:26
  pushing back against colonialism, and resource extraction counter mapping. I should see if
• 24:30
  I can find a link to the paper that's a very cool paper that's pretty
• 24:33
  old about countermapping that I also got exposed to that was like, it doesn't
• 24:37
  have to only be a weapon of war. We can adapt the concept of
• 24:41
  knowing where things are in space away from the military and just have it be
• 24:45
  a thing. It's morally valueless, it's just information, but it is an
• 24:49
  interesting historical fact that they're intricately linked. Any way. Lopin is awesome.
• 24:56
  He gives to on the perfectly honeyed. Yep, he's learning because he's Matt's
• 25:03
  man servant and he sees that this woman has attached to man's to Matt's household,
• 25:07
  so he's like, I'm gonna learn how to make sure she likes the
• 25:08
  tea, because that's part of making Matt's household function properly. I don't have
• 25:15
  a whole lot for the next page or two. It's you know, her
• 25:22
  watching Matt reunite with some Kyrie. Annon's Matt getting some maps out. Mostly
• 25:29
  what I have is sort of her thoughts in this next section is sort of
• 25:33
  her thoughts on commoner and slave and nobility relations. Okay, so Lucia hits
• 25:41
  a serving man for leering at her, and tu Want thinks about how even
• 25:44
  though she's all super powerful, she can't hit commoners. It's like literally like
• 25:48
  would damage her honor, which I think is an interesting well, but that's
• 25:52
  why solush is there exact command. She's allowed to own slaves in a way
• 25:57
  that Solution is not, but she can hit them in the way that Solushah
• 26:00
  can't. It's a whole it's a whole interesting thing. And then we skip
• 26:04
  ahead to her talking to Mistress on On about the fact that they've been having
• 26:11
  long conversations about the morality of slavery and if you should even be leashing magic
• 26:17
  users at all, and how she's like managed to make Mistress on On concede
• 26:21
  a few points and they don't have arguments, they have discussions. And it's
• 26:23
  like, I don't know how I feel about that, because it feels like
• 26:27
  one of those like, well, we're having a civil discussion, and because
• 26:30
  I'm a racist fuck waffle who will melt down if you push on me too
• 26:34
  hard, I get to dictate the terms and I get to say that we're
• 26:37
  having a civil discussion, and it just I don't know. I'm not sure
• 26:41
  how I feel about Mistress on On giving two on such an easy time.
• 26:47
  I'll come at it from this perspective. The only time I've seen people effectively
• 26:51
  change their minds is when you sit down and have a civil conversation with them
• 26:55
  and don't throw accusations at them. Right, And she's referencing that they've been
• 26:57
  doing this for weeks now and she's only made Mistress on On concede a few
• 27:02
  points. There's no mention of her conceding a few points back like, oh,
• 27:07
  you know, okay, here's but here's where I think that's projection,
• 27:11
  right, I think that she's had to concede a few points, and she's
• 27:14
  like, well, I've I've definitely made her conceded a few points. It's
• 27:17
  like, no, no, no, no, you've had to concede a
• 27:18
  few That's That's where I'm putting it is this unreliable narrator where it's like,
• 27:25
  Okay, you think you're making progress, but really you're being convinced right again,
• 27:30
  this is this is us. I am assuming that Jordan had a plan
• 27:34
  to go further with this, that Sanderson didn't take right that that she was
• 27:41
  being convinced, and as Jordan loves to prove his characters wrong, she is
• 27:45
  saying, I'm convincing Mistress on On when the reverse is true, and in
• 27:49
  the last battle she'd think back to those and be convinced by Mistress on On's
• 27:53
  arguments. Okay, because yeah, I'm just like Mistress on On is both
• 27:59
  a four and a woman who's raised children. There's no way that Tuon is
• 28:04
  winning a series of these discussions. That just makes no sense to me.
• 28:10
  But I like that explanation that it's just her life of course. Yeah,
• 28:18
  true, true, true, She's not, she's not. She's getting convinced
• 28:22
  between Matt and Mistress on On and watching the soul dam start learning to channel,
• 28:30
  right, that's unrefutable evidence in front of her, watching the Isida be
• 28:37
  reasonable not be out of control? That, like, plus the arguments with
• 28:42
  Matt, plus the arguments with Mistress on On, like she was set up
• 28:47
  so well, so well to make a giant change around policy during the last
• 28:52
  battle. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's part of it too, is
• 28:56
  that this feels like a betrayed Like I'm just like, what what are we
• 29:00
  doing here? This feels like it's supposed to build But yeah, no,
• 29:02
  you're right, it is. It is supposed to build something, because yeah,
• 29:07
  it's it's Mistress on On has been having the patience to say, yes,
• 29:10
  you see an entire section of humans as sub humans, and you deny
• 29:15
  my very existence, but I'm going to remain calm in the face of that
• 29:18
  bigotry and like work with you on that. And Mistress On is in a
• 29:22
  unique position to talk to Tuon because she cannot channel, but she could,
• 29:26
  and so she is this person who can make the argument, but is also
• 29:30
  someone who too on will listen to. Right. Yeah, god, that
• 29:34
  is such a because you're right. I mean, no one's ever been convinced
• 29:37
  by being insulted. But like, my god, that is so hard.
• 29:41
  It's just so hard to go into those minds and just chip away at that,
• 29:45
  like she is doing the light's work in the roughest spot, you know,
• 29:49
  and you and you chip away at that by asking questions. You don't
• 29:52
  tell people anything, right, You just ask questions and and and a lot
• 29:57
  of times they think they have the answers and they and but then you ask
• 30:03
  another question that shows them something contradictory, right, and you can agree with
• 30:07
  them on some small, unrelated piece of their argument as sort of that's how
• 30:11
  you have to I don't know, I mean, I hear you, but
• 30:12
  like have you considered and and just yeah, you know at that point is
• 30:17
  that women with a lot of power can be dangerous? Yes, right,
• 30:22
  right? That is objectively true. True, That is objectively true, like
• 30:29
  yeah, no, and then you try and move forward from there. Right,
• 30:30
  given that, given that we both agree that is the case, what
• 30:34
  is the best solution you think slavery? Right? Different? Right? But
• 30:41
  I will see it is a problem that we do have to address. Sure
• 30:45
  exactly, Yeah, yeah, so yeah, mister So has the patience of
• 30:49
  a stone to be doing this, And that's what I'm taking out of this.
• 30:53
  Okay, I'm going to choose to believe that Tuon is just lying to
• 30:57
  me and feel good about mistress's work. So, okay. There's this interaction
• 31:03
  between Tuon and tom Most Oh, yes, that is just hilarious. They're
• 31:10
  going around and tom On is is saying, Lord Matt, this is Lord
• 31:12
  Matt, that right, and she sort of says is he a lord?
• 31:17
  Or is he not? She demanded, and Tomana says, excuse me,
• 31:19
  but would you say that again? I apologize. I must have dirt in
• 31:23
  my ears, which I mean just tom On is totally strung. I must
• 31:29
  have dirt in my ears, right, No, he doesn't like what but
• 31:32
  it takes them a minute to puzzle out what she had said. So I
• 31:37
  thought it was literally just her accent. Mm yeah, No. I thought
• 31:41
  it was a saving face kind of reaction because Kyrie and in politeness is what
• 31:47
  it is. Well, thanks for correcting me on that. I thought it
• 31:51
  was him just not wanting to answer whether or not more Matt was lord or
• 31:53
  not because he doesn't want to admit that he's not one. No, I
• 31:57
  think he's fine with admitting he's not one. I mean, I think he's
• 32:01
  fine with it. I mean. And also because like this is the group,
• 32:05
  I mean, as Ryman says, like, he's not a lord except
• 32:07
  to us, which, like they do basically forced him into accepting the trappings
• 32:12
  of being a lord at various points in the story, but before and after
• 32:15
  this where they're like, we absolutely will not accept less than this level of
• 32:20
  lording from you. And you have to understand, most of his fortune in
• 32:23
  the beginning came from these people. Literally they lost to him. Yeah yeah,
• 32:30
  right, He's the first people that they The band kind of paid for
• 32:34
  itself. He got VC startup money, okay, yeah yeah, in a
• 32:38
  lot of ways, like he used the money from the people in the band
• 32:42
  to pay the band's wages. Trickle down economics actually made to work by the
• 32:46
  not invisible, very red hand of the market. In this case, Matt
• 32:52
  is the government taxing the rich and redistributing the wealth to the poor. But
• 32:55
  he does not believe in the military industrial complex, despite having one World War
• 33:00
  two, because apparently he's Eisenhower. Now, I mean he certainly does believe
• 33:02
  in the military complex. When he goes to a lane and says, build
• 33:06
  my cannons, he does, And get all your companies and get all the
• 33:09
  raw materials, and we are using your monopoly power to force everybody in your
• 33:16
  country who can build bells to start working on these things. Right, But
• 33:21
  he's literally trying to fight fascism, I mean, the dark one, so
• 33:25
  you know, you do what you gotta do, even while also privately critiquing
• 33:29
  a world that's obsessed with war. Okay, so now here's the question.
• 33:34
  Is he's working for the dragon Reborn, who's forcibly taken over country by country
• 33:38
  and put dictorial laws against the duly elected. Now is he fighting against or
• 33:44
  is he fighting for fascism? I mean, I guess fascism is better than
• 33:51
  like the complete annihilation of everything. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But
• 33:58
  in a lot of ways I can Reborn is pretty fucking fascist, don't I
• 34:05
  mean, But like he doesn't fuck with like normal people in a way that
• 34:08
  fascism is kind of like he justus with the rich people. He's definitely a
• 34:14
  dictatorship though, right, yes, yes, his military dictatorship is Yes,
• 34:19
  his utter imperial energy is a lot, but he doesn't have quite the level
• 34:24
  of like social control that I associate with fascism. He just tells people to
• 34:29
  like give him all of the military might he needs to stop entropy from eating
• 34:32
  the world, which is like, again, he's really only fucking with rich
• 34:36
  people and governments, which makes him very like if there's such a thing as
• 34:39
  good fascism, that would be it, I guess benevolent dictatorship. Yeah,
• 34:44
  I mean, like, I mean Rome did not have the office of dictator
• 34:47
  for no reason, right, Like it was a very specific like thing that
• 34:52
  they thought they needed and it didn't get fucky for several centuries, like it
• 34:57
  was a fine thing for a long time. Eco fascism. He's doing it
• 35:00
  for the environment, yeah, I mean kinda. I mean, the Dragon
• 35:07
  is one with land, right Like Captain Planet has nothing on the Dragon reborn.
• 35:17
  And so yeah, that POV basically ends with Talmana saying, you know,
• 35:22
  if a battle won't get us out of this area, he's gonna plan
• 35:25
  us a war, which is a great way to describe Matt's way of escalating
• 35:30
  his way through situations right just broadly, And then we get a great paragraph
• 35:34
  from Tuon to close the POV out. Tuan looked at him, squatting there
• 35:39
  by the map, moving his fingers over its surface, and suddenly she saw
• 35:44
  him in a new light. A buffoon. No, a lion stuffed into
• 35:49
  a horse stall might look like a peculiar joke, but a lion on the
• 35:52
  high planes was something very different. Toy was loose on the high planes.
• 35:57
  Now she felt a chill. What sort of man had she entangled herself with?
• 36:01
  After all this time, she realized she had hardly a clue. Yeah,
• 36:07
  you don't know what's going on. You're learning that Matt is someone very
• 36:13
  different. Because she did, she encountered him in his you know, pink
• 36:15
  ribbons phase power, Yeah, really really low, where he was sort of
• 36:23
  giving up a lot of his I don't know, I don't even know what
• 36:28
  to call it, a lot of his freedoms, his agency, his power.
• 36:31
  Yeah, yeah, he was just getting buffeted around by circumstance. When
• 36:36
  she met him. She hasn't seen him able to take control of a situation.
• 36:39
  Really, I gotta say that the usually being in someone's PUOV gives me
• 36:45
  sympathy. Being in Tuon's PUOV a lot of sympathy. She's very cold.
• 36:50
  No, I don't I don't like being I like, I like getting to
• 36:55
  see that she really isn't redeemable, Like I'm not misunderstanding her, Like she
• 37:01
  really does suck. But again, if she ended up having a much more
• 37:07
  interesting turnaround later on, I would find this to like, Ooh, it's
• 37:10
  the first real glimmers of the fact that she's turning around, Like this could
• 37:15
  have been that, but instead it's just a brief sparkle that doesn't go anywhere.
• 37:22
  It's when people say that Sanderson really messed up Matt. Part of it
• 37:25
  is, yes, who he is, he really sort of fails on his
• 37:30
  personality, but also he just fails on his development of the people around him
• 37:35
  in the timeline, right, Like he fails with Tuon as much as he
• 37:38
  fails with Matt, and by failing with both of them, their relationship doesn't
• 37:43
  go anywhere and there's no payoff here, right, And that's one thing he
• 37:46
  says he did not do a great job with Matt. He didn't really understand
• 37:50
  Matt. And I think that the lack of Tuon's evolution that you just get
• 37:54
  a very static character with Tuon. What Sanderson takes over is part of that
• 37:58
  misunderstanding over where that storyline was supposed to go. Agreed, strong agree,
• 38:05
  But for now we get to shift over to Perrin. The night was cool
• 38:22
  enough to send a small shiver through Parrien whenever the breeze gusted despite his fur
• 38:28
  lined cloak. A halo around the fat crescent moon said there would be more
• 38:31
  rain before long. Thick clouds drifting across the moon made the pale light dim
• 38:37
  and strengthen, dim and strengthen, Yet it was enough for his eyes.
• 38:43
  He sat stepper just inside the edge of the trees and watched the cluster of
• 38:46
  four tall gray stone windmills and a clearing atop the ridge, their pale sails
• 38:52
  gleaming and shadowed by turns as they rotated. The machinery of the windmills groaned
• 38:58
  loudly. It seemed doubtful the Shidow even knew they should grease the works of
• 39:01
  the things. The stone aqueduct was a dark bar stretching east on a hot
• 39:07
  on high stone arches, past abandoned farms and rail fenced fields. The Shadow
• 39:13
  had planted too early, with this much rain, toward another ridge and the
• 39:16
  lake beyond Maldon lay one more Ridge West. He eased the heavy hammer in
• 39:22
  its sloop on his belt, Malden and Fayelle in a few hours. He
• 39:25
  would add a fifty fourth knot to the leather cord in his pocket. So
• 39:31
  we got a time stamp. We're fifty four days out, which is still
• 39:36
  two days from her getting rescued, right, And this is when we get
• 39:40
  the bail scream as well. Well, I don't want to call it a
• 39:45
  bail scream anymore because we determined it's probably not that. But at the same
• 39:47
  time we're getting the ripples, yeah, which in Fayel's timeline, we're jumping
• 39:54
  forward quite a bit. Parent, the parent of Fayelle po. It feels
• 40:00
  like they should be happening happening simultaneously, But we know that Fayield experienced the
• 40:07
  ripples many days earlier, and I cannot imagine that it happened at different times
• 40:10
  for different characters. It all happened at once, right, So when Parent
• 40:15
  experiences it is actually several days before the Fayel POV that it then switches to,
• 40:22
  which is funky. I think that's part of why we were confused and
• 40:27
  thought that he put the t in No, that's part of the proof of
• 40:30
  why when he put the t in it's not the same day as the ripples.
• 40:34
  All the evidence is there. As Jordan would say, it's intuitively obvious.
• 40:37
  But yeah, we really didn't catch that, No, we really,
• 40:43
  we tried. I tried to jump forward and read this chapter, but I
• 40:46
  think without doing full notes on it, I missed some of the details about
• 40:51
  the two days before he rescued her. But we'll have to go back.
• 40:54
  You have to go back and listen to that and see what we finally came
• 40:58
  down on, because I feel like we debated it for a bit. Yeah,
• 41:00
  and we will undoubtedly debate it again because why not. So yeah,
• 41:06
  we get we get some nice, beautiful descriptions. The solution is, of
• 41:10
  course, to go to the Wheel of Time timeline and actually read which days
• 41:16
  these things happen on, so you remember that you're wrong about something and then
• 41:22
  go check it. And that's the hardest part is remembering that you aren't just
• 41:24
  obviously right to check your expectations, hold on to what, uh your loins.
• 41:37
  Okay, so the timeline states that these are occurring, the ripples are
• 41:42
  occurring on different days for different people, which, yeah, get out of
• 41:50
  here, get out a here. Absolutely not. But I do agree that
• 41:57
  it isn't two days before if it's out, No, it's long before that.
• 42:04
  So they're not wrong in terms of canonical evidence. But Archie fucked up.
• 42:10
  That's not that cannot be. I'm sorry. They are like like two
• 42:15
  miles away from each other, and these things are happening weeks apart. It's
• 42:19
  garbage. It looks like it is five days apart. Why is it just
• 42:29
  gonna happen every five days in that location until the last battle happens? Like,
• 42:34
  what is this some sort of a hinders tappy kind of cycle thing.
• 42:37
  But but Fayal doesn't experience it twice, Failing experiences it once, Paranlel experienced
• 42:43
  it once. None of this makes any sense that basically on, I mean,
• 42:49
  I'm gonna use I'm gonna use our dates because it's I think it's easier
• 42:52
  to try and use the inn world dates. But so April third, Fayel
• 42:57
  Aten, Savanna, Savannah, and Thrava argue with this, shin, I
• 43:00
  should stay in Malden, right, the world ripples three times, Alvon gives
• 43:04
  fail the oth rod, so she gets the oath rod during the first three
• 43:07
  ripples, okay, right, Three days later, Paren gets is wounded with
• 43:13
  the assassination shimped when getting the fork rout right, Remember he gets sad.
• 43:17
  That's three days later. And then we have this April eighth, five days
• 43:23
  after that is this current event is Paren dumping the fork root and then the
• 43:30
  world ripples three times again. I just disagree with that so strongly. Why
• 43:34
  would there just be two ripples slightly offset in time and space like that?
• 43:37
  Why the ever living dog snacks? Would that happen? That makes no sense?
• 43:44
  And then we have and then we have the next two days, which
• 43:45
  isn't you know, the whole oath rod thing, Fie getting trapped, Paren
• 43:49
  going in and rescuing everybody. Yeah, that's the next two days. I
• 43:52
  just I what the hell has happened? But you can see why we But
• 43:59
  this is why we had some troubles, because we assumed those were happening on
• 44:01
  the same at the same day, and we're trying to sink up events around
• 44:05
  those, but they clearly don't. Well, we can hardly be blamed.
• 44:09
  That makes no sense. Why would you have No bubble of evil has ever
• 44:14
  repeated, certainly not like that. It's supposed to be a time sink.
• 44:19
  How are we supposed to get three bizarre ass ripples and not have them be
• 44:22
  a time sink? Like, I know we're in the trope freaking business,
• 44:27
  but that's just that's just rude, and it breaks all of our stuff about
• 44:30
  like how we were like, oh, it's one bubble of evil happening to
• 44:32
  be like like, I know this world is really fucked up, but this
• 44:39
  is pushing me over the fucking edge. I really do think this is a
• 44:43
  mistake. I really do think that Jordan message has to be there's no precedent
• 44:47
  and no mechanic to make this make sense, right, this is supposed to
• 44:51
  be the same thing, ugh, inconsiderate, but to make the timelines work
• 44:57
  out right, like, she has to steal the oath rod quite a bit
• 45:01
  before Parrien dumps the grains in the water yep and starts like there has to
• 45:10
  be a much bigger time gat there. And because she has it for a
• 45:14
  while, she hides it, hmm, really ridiculous, which makes it,
• 45:22
  I mean, even more uncertain as to what those ripples are, right like
• 45:25
  because that now our leading theory was it was a big bubble of evil?
• 45:32
  Is it two bubbles of evil. But then that is it two bail screams,
• 45:37
  right, like, what's going on? How are they occurring so close
• 45:42
  in location and not for me? It has to be a mistake, and
• 45:45
  they were supposed to be the same time. Jordan got a little discinct in
• 45:50
  his timelines. She was supposed to steal the rod two days before she got
• 45:54
  rescued. And I'm leaving it at that. Yeah, yeah, a mistake
• 46:01
  is the simplest way to make that makes sense. But feel free to argue
• 46:07
  with us about it in discord. All right, Well, disappointing, but
• 46:13
  there we go. In the meantime, before we get to the ripples,
• 46:17
  we get to look at the aqueducts, how they work, how we're putting
• 46:21
  the grains in, just kind of get this nice foggy like creeping around pre
• 46:25
  dawn scene. Parent is micromanaging, being like, don't even open the sacks
• 46:30
  except over the aqueduct because every single grain has to go in. And he's
• 46:35
  just you know, he's being parent at the eve of getting his wife back.
• 46:38
  He's micromanaging. So yeah, I mean, and there's a lot of
• 46:43
  like, yeah, dumping the grains in and how long are you going to
• 46:45
  take and the add that albsorb water and sink eventually, is that going to
• 46:49
  be long enough to get them in? Clearly it is, right like,
• 46:52
  even if it's not, they're going to sit at the bottom of the cistern
• 46:54
  and just turn it into tee And then we get a look, get everyone
• 47:00
  who's going in on the mission, and they all give pair and whatever commentary
• 47:04
  they're going to give. We have Sayonid with two warders plus a third warder
• 47:08
  who's not hers Elias, the two riversmen Cha Fayeel and I definitely have missed
• 47:15
  this before all these people went through the cistern, got out, or went
• 47:21
  through the aqueduct to the cistern, got out of the cistern, and are
• 47:23
  hiding inside a broken down fortress that the Ayeel aren't going in because they don't
• 47:30
  like being inside. They like camping outside. Right, No, it's because
• 47:34
  it's in the burned out part of town where no one goes anymore. Okay,
• 47:37
  they're just hiding out in this fortress where there's nothing of value in.
• 47:40
  Everything's a burned out mess. So the Ayale just don't go there. They
• 47:44
  don't really like being behind still walls anyway though, right, they just don't
• 47:47
  like being in the town. They sort of burned the town down partially and
• 47:53
  they camped outside, so like part of the town is kind of usable and
• 47:58
  part of the town's completely un usable. So the idea is everyone goes and
• 48:01
  hides in the totally unusable part and there won't be anyone there to spot them,
• 48:05
  and Fayel and co. Are supposed to make their way there and meet
• 48:08
  everyone up in the fortress, which is a defensible location. They don't know
• 48:14
  to go there, So this entire party just waits the fight out doing nothing
• 48:17
  because no one ever shows up to be with them. All of this preparation
• 48:22
  is for nothing. All these people going down there is for nothing. But
• 48:27
  that's just because Galina lied. So apparently this line you'll have to use the
• 48:31
  ark on the wall, and there might even me shin on the town.
• 48:35
  Even at this hour, Elise had seemed unsure on that thunderboomed hollowly in the
• 48:38
  distance. Apparently in the original printing it said Galina ah ah, But paren
• 48:45
  wouldn't have known her name was Galina. He would have known her by Elise.
• 48:50
  And so yeah, if that is wrong in your book, you have
• 48:53
  an earlier printing I never noticed that it was wrong in the audiobook, but
• 48:58
  it obviously would be because audiobook it would be they're based on the original.
• 49:01
  I never noticed that error. That is really funny. My copy has a
• 49:06
  lease. But that's because you know, it's it's just it's the original cover,
• 49:09
  but it's not in original printing. Right. The pants says she's got
• 49:14
  Galina in hers. So yeah, you get Elias being, you know,
• 49:19
  doing his fun alias misogyny thing, being like, yeah, cold showers help
• 49:23
  with your troubles, because troubles will come from women. Get it because women.
• 49:30
  Mountain Man doesn't have a great sense of humor. I mean, yeah,
• 49:35
  he's Elias is a single dude who's been out in the forest without any
• 49:39
  contact with women for a long time, and his last contact with women was
• 49:45
  the Isida who tried to kill him. Yeah, he's got more basis than
• 49:50
  some to say stuff like that. Yeah, I think we can give him
• 49:53
  a pass based on specific trauma. You can have an environmental pass. It's
• 49:59
  fine. But I think he's jokeing. I think it's just like, oh,
• 50:01
  take a cold bath, that will help. And he's and parents like
• 50:05
  that's what you told me about women. He's like that's that's my advice for
• 50:07
  everything. Just take a cold bath. I just like jumping in rivers,
• 50:12
  that's all. Yeah, Tollin Vor gets to go because Paren apparently can smell
• 50:21
  caution, which I find a bit much. Oh, he mostly smells stressed
• 50:27
  out, but he smells a little bit cautious too, And I'm like,
• 50:30
  how were you sure you're interpreting that correctly? I just remember, Paren isn't
• 50:37
  written to be an autistic EmPATH. He can sense other people's emotions, he
• 50:43
  just doesn't understand and you know, I know, the scentse thing we like,
• 50:47
  he stretches it far to be like all emotions have sense, but like
• 50:52
  threat of caution. Really, Parent's just an EmPATH. Like you just have
• 50:57
  to like believe he's an EmPATH. And the sense thing is just Jordan's magic
• 51:01
  way of being able to tell that. I've gotten in too much trouble thinking
• 51:07
  that I have empathic abilities. I've gotten too much trouble to believe that they're
• 51:12
  real anymore. So, Nah, they're not real. This is a fantasy
• 51:16
  novel and they don't actually exist. So what you don't have them? Paren
• 51:27
  does? He's an EmPATH? You were not. That's pretty much Oh it
• 51:31
  is. Yeah, interesting that the ability to assume you know what's going on
• 51:38
  in somebody else's head to the point where you make actions based on that and
• 51:43
  be completely wrong. Yeah, I'm just saying like, it's understanding how someone
• 51:49
  is going to behave is different than understanding their current emotional state. It's not
• 51:54
  the same anyway. Paren overreads into things in my pinion, but he's always
• 52:00
  right for plot reasons, so it's fine. Paren respects Chaffayeel, Chaffayelle respects
• 52:06
  him. That's very nice. Ban tells us that the aqueduct is all slimy,
• 52:12
  so no one's going to be climbing back up it. They're going to
• 52:14
  have to sit tight and wait to get rescued. We get mentioned that Paren
• 52:17
  has a member of his kin that is alive, Billy Adara. Apparently it's
• 52:22
  technically related to Parent, so that's nice. He has someone who's technically related
• 52:27
  to him. And then Gall shows up and he's going in, and Paren
• 52:31
  did not expect Gall to be going in, But we get the very fun
• 52:37
  Gall situation, which I will wait to expand on until Seth returns because he
• 52:44
  is taruggling and has now left the stage. Can't stop sneezing till I wash
• 52:52
  my face. Allergies washing your face, oh, just to get the trigger,
• 52:55
  like the physical stuff off of your face. Yeah, it's like in
• 52:59
  your eye basic or whatever, just like falling into your nose. I think
• 53:01
  it just gets in my nose and like in my beard maybe. I mean
• 53:05
  Nettie pots are recommended for allergies because that'll flush it all the way. I
• 53:08
  cannot stand nddy pots, but Brandon does them kind of a lot. When
• 53:12
  it's back. The idea of it just makes my skin crawl, and the
• 53:15
  idea of something in the water getting in my nostrils bothers me too. I
• 53:20
  don't know. I feel like nose hairs are there for a reason. I'm
• 53:22
  a really big fan of steaming. That was bad for a second. Yeah,
• 53:24
  he's getting a little bit shower and steam. I'll probably do that after
• 53:28
  we're on recording. But uh, yeah, excuse me, I'm sorry about
• 53:30
  that. That was It's hopefully you're all right now we can power through a
• 53:35
  little bit. Yeah. So the next thing I've got is talking about Gaul
• 53:38
  going after Chiad and the whole thing with the maidens sort of egging him on
• 53:44
  sneakily he's really dismissive of Bain. I care nothing for her. He's like,
• 53:50
  I don't give a shit about her. I care nothing for her.
• 53:52
  And it's like, dude, I mean, even if you don't care about
• 53:54
  her, the person you care about cares about her, right, So shouldn't
• 53:58
  it be something Yeah, why would you? Why would shed want to be
• 54:01
  with you if you care nothing for her? Best friend and spear wife,
• 54:06
  Like, what are you doing with your affection sir? But it's funny that
• 54:12
  the maidens have encouraged this by they're sending him in to go prove himself right
• 54:19
  right now? Yeah, they've they've challenged him. They'll be like, oh,
• 54:21
  we're gonna get him first and make them our guy shine. He's like,
• 54:23
  no, I want them to mean my guy shine, which we've already
• 54:27
  seen is a pretty established way for people to you know, and a lot
• 54:30
  of times the guy shine have the power because they get to see everything.
• 54:35
  They can come go as they please, Like there's a certain amount of like
• 54:38
  you have to be careful because after a year and a day they go back
• 54:43
  to being normal and they've seen all your shit. And so I think in
• 54:47
  a certain way, this banning giod becoming Galls guy Shine is a bit of
• 54:53
  a test for him, right. The Maidens have decided that if he's up
• 54:58
  to rescuing them and acquiring their guy Shine ship, then he'll be up to
• 55:05
  then they need to give him a proper test from the position of being Guyshine.
• 55:09
  And they're saying, look, ladies, you gotta give him a test.
• 55:13
  Look at how much he's proven himself. You at least have to give
• 55:15
  him a chance to get run through the ringer of your attention as guy Shine.
• 55:20
  But yeah, in no way is gall going to be the one in
• 55:22
  charge in that situation when Bane ever. But he's willing to do it.
• 55:29
  He's that in love with Chiod that he's willing to just go in there,
• 55:36
  take the risk, take the and bring Baine into it as well. Yeah,
• 55:39
  he doesn't do it on purpose, but he's willing to stick with it
• 55:42
  once he's there. And I think that's what he's trying to say when he
• 55:45
  says I care nothing about her. Is not necessarily that like he hates her,
• 55:51
  right, don't care about her. It's just like I care about Chiod
• 55:52
  and I'm willing to rescue Bain as well. I think he accidentally rescues Bain.
• 55:58
  As I recall when it gets discussed later, he tried to just rescue
• 56:02
  one of them, right, but he you know, because it's the heat
• 56:05
  of battle, he ends up taking both and it's frustrating to him. But
• 56:08
  the Maidens think it's funny. And but yeah, I like how the Maidens
• 56:13
  have decided that they want to play in this matchmaking game interesting. About Gaul
• 56:21
  getting into the water, Oh, I hadn't even thought about that to go
• 56:25
  rescue them, and how much that must have affected him. I wonder how
• 56:31
  to get into a tunnel half full of water when you're in a eel who
• 56:36
  you know doesn't like being enclosed and doesn't like water. That's a lot of
• 56:39
  G. Not a lot of G. He had to been almost parallel to
• 56:44
  the surface to get under the aqueduct's top. He's so tall. Yeah,
• 56:50
  so the religion said, was he one of the original rafters back in the
• 56:52
  Supergirl Captivity days? No religion, he wasn't. Oh he might have been,
• 57:00
  because he was always Golfers shows up in tyr I believe, yeah,
• 57:04
  Alvianda was with some other women. No golfers shows up in in parents are
• 57:10
  not in tear in the cage the whole released me wet Land thing. But
• 57:15
  no, he was at a different party. Avianda was with some other Tarda
• 57:20
  and a bunch of maidens, and Ruarc was in that group. But I
• 57:24
  don't believe Gol was because Goll was busy being caged. But Ruark is the
• 57:30
  named male I yell that you're thinking of from that I believe he's the only
• 57:34
  male named I yell from that group. I'm nodding because they're like behind everybody
• 57:40
  else. Then they like stay behind because Aviando, I forget. Yeah,
• 57:46
  yeah, it was Avianda. It was because Alvianda was foot dragging, right,
• 57:51
  because she didn't want to be She wanted to keep being a spirit sister
• 57:53
  and not be a wise one's apprentice, right, exactly exactly, So here
• 57:59
  misha Mus said, the banner General was right about you. He said,
• 58:02
  slowly, what does she say? You'll have to ask her, my lord,
• 58:07
  any idea? No, what the fuck was that comment? Why?
• 58:09
  Why would you say something so cryptic and then be like, oh, not
• 58:13
  my place to comment on that. You just commented on it. What the
• 58:16
  hell, dude? Why? But no, I have no idea, I
• 58:20
  have zero idea. What that I mean something about he's a good commander,
• 58:25
  I guess, but I can't think of what specifically she said smart with the
• 58:30
  details or so yeah, I got nothing. Nothing gets past him. Those
• 58:36
  eyes see more than you think, like something to that effect. I don't
• 58:38
  know, I got nothing, all right, So yeah, Paren rides down
• 58:42
  the hill thinking about how easy it would be to not ride down the hill,
• 58:45
  and then he goes and checks in with Grady and thinks about how tired
• 58:47
  the oshamn are without thinking about how to use them more efficiently, which is
• 58:52
  just frustrating. But you know, we're not to the Sanderson efficiency area yet,
• 58:57
  so well, yeah, and it's just like, I don't know why
• 59:00
  why it feels like these gateways. I guess they must just be holding them
• 59:04
  open for a long period of time, and that's what's hard. But you
• 59:07
  can't really tie them off because you know, we saw what happens when you
• 59:13
  tie a gateway off and it closes unexpectedly. You get cut, people cut
• 59:16
  in half. Right now, he does tie them off. He had He
• 59:19
  literally says he's been tying them off. I know, but it's risk,
• 59:21
  is what I'm saying is you don't want to be doing that because it is
• 59:23
  risky. It's only risky if you try to unweave them. Right. The
• 59:28
  only the reason that it exploded was because the lane tried to unweave it so
• 59:30
  it wouldn't leave a residue. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm
• 59:34
  talking about remember when the shadow hit the fool boxes, Oh and Samuel create
• 59:40
  the gateways and tie them off. There's a period of time in which they
• 59:45
  will unravel and shut naturally, and you don't have good control over how long
• 59:51
  that's gonna be once you tie them off. They could they could unravel eventually,
• 59:57
  and it could be soon, or it could be a little bit later.
• 1:00:00
  Right, So it's not ideal because you are risking them shutting unexpectedly when
• 1:00:05
  you tie them off. I assume that they has sort of had a way
• 1:00:08
  of controlling that. But I mean, maybe maybe you can tie it off
• 1:00:13
  with a thicker knot and it'll last longer and you can be like, this
• 1:00:15
  is at least a three hour not Yeah, that was that was my idea,
• 1:00:19
  was my impression. But yeah, I hadn't thought of how that's less
• 1:00:23
  secure. But then why are we not tying them off more often? Right?
• 1:00:27
  Well, there's a lot of mechanics that I think are good questions that
• 1:00:30
  Archie just didn't experience. But yeah, I don't know. My parents just
• 1:00:34
  being very inefficient with his use of the Ashama here, but he's aware that
• 1:00:37
  he's burning them up really hard, so it's you know, kind of good,
• 1:00:43
  I guess. Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those things that
• 1:00:45
  really feels one of the few places where I feel like Jordan really went like,
• 1:00:51
  I need an excuse why these gateways aren't being used left and right because
• 1:00:54
  they would really make this a lot simpler. I'm gonna make them tired.
• 1:00:58
  Yeah. It's one of those places where it really does feel like the plot
• 1:01:01
  is driving the magic system in a way that isn't consistent. Yeah, And
• 1:01:07
  it's one of the few times where I really really don't like how Jordan uses
• 1:01:14
  parents to Aschamon, Grady and Yield could be so much more effect because we
• 1:01:19
  don't see him using them a lot, right, he just thinks about how
• 1:01:22
  much he's using them. Yeah, And then we get the report from Grady
• 1:01:27
  that he tried to freeze him Tomani and they freaked out and were unhappy,
• 1:01:30
  and parents like, you don't don't do that, don't try to do that.
• 1:01:35
  That's not the battle that we're fighting right now, which, okay,
• 1:01:39
  is the whole problem with Demani. Right whatever happens with Demani Grady, it
• 1:01:44
  won't be this week or next and it won't be us who fixes it.
• 1:01:47
  Yeah, that's some that's some kick in the can, passing the buck bullshit.
• 1:01:52
  Yeah, now, again, would have been better if we'd had Matt
• 1:01:55
  be the one who was fixing it. I do get parents saying I contracted
• 1:02:00
  with them for a very specific reason and I can't be distracted trying to fix
• 1:02:06
  their society while I conscript with them to do this one campaign. I get
• 1:02:09
  Paren making that morally great choice. But yeah, again, if Matt somehow
• 1:02:16
  took that ball and ran with it and was the one fixing it, and
• 1:02:21
  Paren got a chance to like pitch in later being like Aha, there's the
• 1:02:24
  person fixing it, that that would have that would have been satisfying. Again
• 1:02:30
  more Evans, I think I think Robert Jordan was really intending that to happen
• 1:02:34
  when writing this chapter. That would be a really good line for parent to
• 1:02:37
  say, well, this is too big for me, and then you know,
• 1:02:40
  a month later in world time be like, oh my god, Matt's
• 1:02:44
  fixing it. I can participate now now I have the capacity to join into
• 1:02:47
  this thing that I wanted to fix earlier. That would have been great,
• 1:02:52
  especially because he's thinking too here about like his issues with Tyleye. Right,
• 1:02:54
  He's like, it's hard to think of tiy Kirgan as the dark One or
• 1:03:00
  being in league with the dark One, but also the slavery thing, and
• 1:03:06
  like again it's it's we wanted to see Tyley go through a process like lyle
• 1:03:10
  One and be like, hmmm, right, this might be a problem.
• 1:03:15
  I might be exposed to ideas that I can't shake. Now, oh dear,
• 1:03:17
  we want to see that I wanted to one to go through that I
• 1:03:21
  wanted, Like, that's what you want really more than anything else, exactly
• 1:03:24
  exactly. There's supposed to be motion here. It's supposed to build, it's
• 1:03:29
  supposed to snowball and and too one is supposed to yeah, be riding that
• 1:03:34
  snowball and ah, so paren I basically have him going to his blankets and
• 1:03:52
  encountering Barreline. Next yep, yep. He's heading to his tent and he
• 1:03:57
  notices that there is a messenger that's around and that it appears they're being entertained
• 1:04:01
  in his tent, and sure enough, Berylaine is commandeered his tent because she
• 1:04:06
  figured Paren would want to see the messenger, who is Tyley? Also,
• 1:04:11
  I noticed that the Rockin' handler looks at Paren like she recognizes him with without
• 1:04:16
  saying anything, And I'm like, does that mean dark front? Hmmm?
• 1:04:19
  Does that mean dark friend? Going? Ah, there he is. I'd
• 1:04:23
  better note that for my next report. No, that's a good catch.
• 1:04:26
  Yeah, because why else is that lying there? Why would she look at
• 1:04:29
  him like she recognized him but then not say anything? Why why is that
• 1:04:31
  ink being spilled to tell us that? Like, I'm assuming low level dark
• 1:04:35
  friend just for fun? I completely miss that. So yeah, we go
• 1:04:39
  into the tent and Tyley is disappointed to hear that Paren followed through with what
• 1:04:44
  he said he was going to do, and he says that he would have
• 1:04:48
  put the tea in the water two days earlier if not for someone dragging their
• 1:04:53
  feet. Well, that was the supply, right, It took a while
• 1:04:56
  to get all the supplies basically, So that's I just took him two days
• 1:05:00
  to get all of the four group together. That's interesting that this could have
• 1:05:03
  been two days sooner. Sure, maybe maybe then the ripples would have happened
• 1:05:08
  at the same time, Well, the ripples would have happened when he was
• 1:05:14
  invading if if he'd done it two days earlier. Right, Oh, that
• 1:05:16
  would have been a weird moment on the battlefield. Are we human enough to
• 1:05:20
  keep fighting? Like? Are you solid enough for me to try to kill?
• 1:05:24
  Can we just reassure each other before we go back to murdering? Right?
• 1:05:28
  And it's like, oh, I survived the ripples staph crap, now
• 1:05:30
  I'm dead right, right right, yeah, totally totally. Honestly, I'm
• 1:05:34
  so confused by those ripples right now, I'm so confused by though. I'm
• 1:05:39
  upset, yeah, perturbed, unsettled, discombobulated. I'm also not doing great.
• 1:05:45
  I'm sorry, Ok, yeah, totally totally. So next week,
• 1:05:49
  get an interaction with aarm That's the next thing I've got where Aaron's like,
• 1:05:55
  I want more wine and Lenny's like absolutely not stop giving the radical eye teenager
• 1:06:00
  wine and Aaron's like, well, I'm gonna go drink with my frat bros.
• 1:06:03
  Then and gives this horrible sullen look to parent and it's just like,
• 1:06:08
  yeah, he's so far gone. Paren knows how far gone he is,
• 1:06:12
  and it's he's a teenager at the dinner table who's like, I'm gonna go
• 1:06:15
  go do drugs and skateboard with my friends and fuck you dad and like and
• 1:06:19
  it's like, what do you do about that? Like go rebel? I
• 1:06:24
  guess, but you're still getting involved in shit that's gonna ruin your life.
• 1:06:28
  So I don't want you to, like I've never that's tough, right,
• 1:06:30
  When someone's actively trying to ruin their life, what do you do about that?
• 1:06:34
  Yeah? Truly, I mean, even setting aside the being radicalized part,
• 1:06:39
  but yeah, just the self destructive track is like how do you convince
• 1:06:43
  someone to stop self destructing? Like that's difficult, It's very difficult. It's
• 1:06:48
  really hard. It's really hard. And it's like we have suicide self help,
• 1:06:53
  you know, suicidelines and we have you know, helplines, but like
• 1:06:57
  if someone's really like I see people self destructing on the street all the time,
• 1:07:01
  you know, yeah, yeah, no, I mean there's definitely some
• 1:07:05
  local characters around where I live where it's like there they go, self destruction
• 1:07:11
  person number seven that we know in this area, Like they're having another another
• 1:07:16
  day in their self destruction. Spiral anyway, So it's it's rough. But
• 1:07:23
  you know, at this point, it's like the ship has sailed and is
• 1:07:25
  disappearing over the horizon. Yeah right, you know, right, the last
• 1:07:29
  of the ship is disappearing below the horizon with the Arab situation at this point,
• 1:07:32
  this this is Aaron, you know, getting his guns, getting ready
• 1:07:35
  to head to a protest so he can shoot some protesters, right, like
• 1:07:40
  right right, and parents just like, man, someone should do something.
• 1:07:45
  Yeah, he's like, I'm scutting my wife over here. Okay, it's
• 1:07:50
  great. He's like at least he recognizes he's not stable enough to go in.
• 1:07:55
  But at the same time that's probably radicalizing him more because he's like,
• 1:07:58
  parent doesn't trust me anymore, which just proves what MSIMA has been saying,
• 1:08:01
  Like it's it's exactly. We need to get to shove airm through a gateway
• 1:08:06
  to like a completely different country and be like, I'm sorry, here's like
• 1:08:11
  a week's worth of food. Just go find literally anyone anywhere else. Just
• 1:08:15
  be away from this. Here's a snow igglue we found for some reason.
• 1:08:18
  Yeah, yeah, just just go away so far away. But that's not
• 1:08:26
  what is happening here. We're gonna talk about the news, which the news
• 1:08:31
  includes, first of all, something else. I think we might be able
• 1:08:35
  to be frustrated about the seven thousand white cloaks known to be led by Gala
• 1:08:42
  Dread Damadred known to be led by Gala Dredmadread. Bulwer knows, paren knows.
• 1:08:51
  Why does the fucking trial situation take so long to resolve? With them
• 1:08:57
  knowing that Galadrad Damadred isn't shar of those white cloaks, this is the point
• 1:09:01
  at which they become aware of the fact that he's in charge of the white
• 1:09:05
  cloaks, Like, why is this chapter ignored? Later? Yeah, because
• 1:09:11
  this point where he says, Oh, I wish I'd known who you were
• 1:09:13
  and maybe we could have resolved this. But it's like you did did know.
• 1:09:16
  Oh we don't know who the sigil is. Why are you not wondering
• 1:09:19
  if maybe it's Gollade's sigil maybe possibly? Why would you not even why does
• 1:09:25
  Ballwer never remember hearing this, never think to follow up on it, like
• 1:09:29
  it's absolutely ridiculous? Later and this is why, I mean, they do
• 1:09:33
  make a point of Lenny leaving before the name is announced. They they make
• 1:09:42
  he does make a point of making sure all of the Briand is still there.
• 1:09:46
  Camelin yeah, is she yea Brian. Brian specifically is told to stay
• 1:09:53
  to serve them. Lenny leaves and Barylyn says, yeah, Brian, you
• 1:09:57
  can stay and take care of all of us. Granted Brian is barely barely
• 1:10:01
  and Doran she's and Dooran by virtue of being attached to the party, she's
• 1:10:04
  technically Kyrie in and but like she knows who Galadidrid Demodrid is. You think
• 1:10:10
  she'd go back and be like, by the way, your son is in
• 1:10:14
  charge of the White Cloaks, I just heard that. You would think that
• 1:10:16
  she would let her, would let Morgaze know when that comes up. You'd
• 1:10:21
  think that she would tell Lenny when she goes back to the tent that night.
• 1:10:26
  But it never comes up. It's like it doesn't matter at all.
• 1:10:30
  But it says it right here. Galadadred Damondred boom boom boom. I mean
• 1:10:34
  baalwar even says I feel I owe this galad Demadred a favor for having killed
• 1:10:40
  Valda. You'd think that he would show a little more interest in connecting those
• 1:10:44
  dots later, when Paren is being threatened by a mysterious white cloak commander who
• 1:10:47
  seems to have a strange sense of honor and who has recently risen to his
• 1:10:51
  position. You'd think Balwar would be like, hmm, I wonder if it's
• 1:10:55
  Gollad, But he doesn't. Also, yeah, like, and he knows
• 1:10:59
  that Bollwer is here. He knows who he hears about Galad. He knows
• 1:11:03
  who more Gaze is. Yeah, he knows who Gold is. He helped
• 1:11:08
  pedro Nile blackmail more Gaze with Golad. He helped that happen. Yeah,
• 1:11:14
  that's that's That's got to be a mistake on Sanderson's part. That's a big
• 1:11:17
  one too, just because he wanted tension. He's just like, I'm gonna
• 1:11:20
  not fix this mistake when it's inevidently put it now. We're just gonna because
• 1:11:26
  it's one of my least favorite kinds of tension. When two people are headed
• 1:11:30
  towards a train wreck that's just one piece of information could solve. It's one
• 1:11:32
  of my least favorite kinds of tension, and I fucking hate lot. It's
• 1:11:36
  part of what I don't like his writing. And the more that I circle
• 1:11:41
  around that particular scene, and where that tension comes from. The more like,
• 1:11:44
  but it didn't even have to be there. The information's right here,
• 1:11:46
  literally that none of that had to happen. Yeah, nor burn it all
• 1:11:50
  down to the ground. Next paragraph. So, yeah, Berlane's about to
• 1:11:56
  leave, and we get a little bit of comment on her and how she's
• 1:12:00
  not trying to fuck him anymore, She's just there to help I guess.
• 1:12:05
  Oh my god. So she goes over to Paren, lays her hand on
• 1:12:09
  his arm and looks up and devotedly says, I don't mind leaving, And
• 1:12:14
  Paren looks down at her and thinks, Wow, it's amazing anyone thinks there's
• 1:12:18
  anything between us. I'm like, but from the outside, that looks like
• 1:12:23
  a very functional married couple. From the outside, that is the body language
• 1:12:27
  of two people who are intimate and comfortable at working together. And I just
• 1:12:31
  like Paren. I get that she smells like she's not trying to fuck you
• 1:12:34
  anymore. But if you think that this doesn't look like a functioning relationship,
• 1:12:41
  you are so fucking clueless, my dude. And it it's just because the
• 1:12:45
  only reason that she's pursuing Paren at this point is to stick it to Fayel.
• 1:12:47
  So that's why she's dedicated to finding Fayelle, because the game won't work
• 1:12:51
  until Faye's back in the equation, right, right, Yeah, if there's
• 1:12:58
  no opponent. Yeah, Like she doesn't want to win by default. She
• 1:13:00
  wants to play the game exactly. And Parent's like, wow, she respects
• 1:13:05
  everything now and we just get to work together and it's great, and it's
• 1:13:09
  like dude, dude, she's gonna go ah, And everyone is looking at
• 1:13:14
  them, going, so, are they sleeping together or not? Lenny's saying,
• 1:13:20
  yes, they are, exactly Why would she not? Why would people?
• 1:13:25
  People are having good visual evidence. Nobody is in Parent's head interpreting his
• 1:13:29
  idea of what emotions are. Anyway, Parent says, no, don't leave
• 1:13:34
  everyone in the tent. Can hear the next piece of news. The next
• 1:13:36
  piece of news is that there are two bands of ideel coming from the South
• 1:13:40
  that are going to complicate the situation in three days. But Parent says it
• 1:13:44
  doesn't matter because it'll be in two days. But before he can actually say
• 1:13:46
  that, we get the ripples, and we get the title of the chapter.
• 1:13:53
  Do you want to read the section? You do want me to?
• 1:13:56
  Suddenly everything seemed to ripple in Parent's sight, he felt himself ripple. Briann
• 1:14:00
  gave a cry and dropped the picture. The world rippled again, and Berrelne
• 1:14:04
  clutched his arm. Tylee's hands seemed frozen in that odd gesture, thumb and
• 1:14:10
  forefinger forming a crescent. Everything rippled for a third time, and Parent felt
• 1:14:14
  as if you were made of fog, as if the world were fog with
• 1:14:16
  a high wind coming. Parentlane shuddered and he put a comforting arm around her.
• 1:14:21
  She clung to him, trembling silence, and the scentse of fear filled
• 1:14:25
  the tent. You could hear voices being raised outside and they sounded afraid too.
• 1:14:30
  It's it's pretty good. It's pretty good paragraph as if the world were
• 1:14:34
  fog and a high wind coming. Ooh, it's good, it is.
• 1:14:40
  But it doesn't give us almost any details because he just moves on, you
• 1:14:44
  know, because Paren's way to deal with bubbles of evil is to ignore them.
• 1:14:47
  Right. He saw a man turn into beetles. He said, Eh,
• 1:14:50
  so what's the world rippling? For a moment? Like? Who cares?
• 1:14:57
  But it does sound a lot like what Fayla experience in it should have
• 1:15:00
  been a time sink. So I'm gonna stay mad about that. I'm just
• 1:15:02
  yeah, I still don't believe it's not, like, yeah, how is
• 1:15:06
  it not? But here we do have a time sink where we jump over
• 1:15:11
  to her POV right after this, right, yes, we switched to Fayel's
• 1:15:14
  POV. We're in the morning on the day of Is this the day of
• 1:15:26
  the rescue? So this is when she talks to Savannah rightlea or to Glina
• 1:15:30
  about having it. Yeah, this is no, no, no, Glena
• 1:15:35
  says, you'll give it to me tomorrow morning in the town. So this
• 1:15:40
  is one day before. Okay. So so Paren just put the tea in
• 1:15:44
  the water in the pre dawn and now we're post dawn, pre noon,
• 1:15:49
  same day. No, this is the next day. This is the next
• 1:15:53
  day okay. So we're like, because remember he puts the stuff in and
• 1:15:58
  he says, in two days we're going to be rescued. This is the
• 1:16:00
  day before okay. So we're like twenty eight hours later. Yeah, okay,
• 1:16:04
  good because again I was not just not sure where these lined up.
• 1:16:08
  Okay, So jumping forward a day and a few hours, we switched to
• 1:16:11
  Fayo and she's apparently getting floods of people asking to swear fealty to her and
• 1:16:17
  then immediately suggesting that they do a slave rebellion and rise up. She's feeling
• 1:16:23
  this powder keg blowing up under her, and she's trying to keep a lid
• 1:16:27
  on it, but she knows that a lot of people are going to get
• 1:16:30
  killed very soon unless she can figure something out very quickly. But while she's
• 1:16:34
  thinking such pleasant thoughts, we return to telling Roland that no means no,
• 1:16:40
  does it? Does it really not? To Roland? Wow, it's only
• 1:16:44
  a kissing game. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas the same way that
• 1:16:49
  Matt and Aludra were just playing kissing games, except that Roland is going to
• 1:16:56
  escalate his games away faster than Matt or Aludra ever did. In the game's
• 1:17:00
  adults play, the forfeits are fun, Losing can be as pleasant as winning.
• 1:17:03
  You have big flirt, I mean, I love it for you that
• 1:17:08
  you're a switch, but consent still matters. He's a power bottle. Yeah,
• 1:17:17
  And before we get into too much of uncomfortable territory, Galina comes running
• 1:17:21
  up, thankfully clothed for the first time in a while. Right, not
• 1:17:26
  just in a gems, It's been allowed clothes as of this morning, and
• 1:17:30
  her hair has grown out in inch, which again puts us at quite a
• 1:17:33
  few days away from when the rod got stolen and we last were really like
• 1:17:40
  in that space, right, because that's when that's when the ripples happen,
• 1:17:43
  is when the rod got stolen. And that's also the instance where she gets
• 1:17:45
  her head shaved right here, all her hair shaved. I don't remember when
• 1:17:50
  she gets her head shaved. I'll be honest, you know, I might
• 1:17:54
  be conflagrating things. I don't remember when all the things happen. It's a
• 1:18:00
  bad time in the ideal camp. Well, because again it's been four books
• 1:18:03
  and fifty four days, right, yeah, and for that so it's like
• 1:18:06
  two years. Yeah, yeah, So yeah. She goes to tocically,
• 1:18:15
  but not before Rollan like basically gives her a kiss, which is like,
• 1:18:18
  it's just it's uh of the cheek is very you know, like, yes,
• 1:18:25
  it's supposed to be romantic, but it's not when you're a fucking stalker
• 1:18:28
  who won't take no for an answer, right, who's a kidnapper basically,
• 1:18:31
  and he's sake, I'm essentially going to kidnap you again, right if I
• 1:18:35
  feel like it for your own good that in a way that you want to
• 1:18:40
  rescue you from the people I kidnapped you for, who I realize now are
• 1:18:44
  bad people, but didn't realize that in the last couple of years, just
• 1:18:46
  in the last time, and like, yeah, I'm just gonna just give
• 1:18:50
  you this really intimate gesture that you very much don't want, and it's it's
• 1:18:56
  gonna be fine, h Glad pair and just wax him out with a hammer.
• 1:19:02
  Love that for parent. But in the meantime we get to have a
• 1:19:06
  slapping fight with Galina. But basically glenas like, give me the rod,
• 1:19:14
  and fieels like, not till you promise me a bunch of stuff in your
• 1:19:17
  eyes to die, So you have to if you promise it straight out,
• 1:19:19
  you're gonna have to do it well. And she says, promise me again,
• 1:19:24
  reiterate the promise you already made, say it straight out because I have
• 1:19:27
  trust issues in your eyes to die and Galina's response is to slap her,
• 1:19:31
  which gets her slapped in return, and it's just all very short, fusey,
• 1:19:38
  and this is where we get the set up for the Glena making the
• 1:19:41
  house collapse on her, where Fiel's like, I'm gonna go get it for
• 1:19:44
  you right now. We can go get it, and I got a hidden
• 1:19:45
  you know, and Glena's like no, no, no, no, no,
• 1:19:48
  meeting this special place. I'll set up a red scarf. Yeah,
• 1:19:51
  yeah, because you know, the slaps happen. And then Galina's is fine,
• 1:19:55
  I promise I'll take you and your friends, because you know she's by
• 1:19:57
  cosious she can lie. And then yes, sets up to conditions and I'll
• 1:20:00
  use a red scarf, which just have to notice that you know it's a
• 1:20:03
  red flag and her guys is as a red and you know red. We
• 1:20:09
  got the red just to cover everything up. And this, yeah, sets
• 1:20:12
  up the whole magden ark. I also wonder if the whole collapsing the houses
• 1:20:17
  was Glena's revenge for getting slapped, that she wasn't going to do that initially,
• 1:20:21
  but after she got slapped, she's like, fine, I'll collapse the
• 1:20:24
  house on your ass. She does think later about how and thus the last
• 1:20:30
  chance that she could leave Fayla and her friend's alive alone died or something like
• 1:20:34
  that. She thinks that after this interaction, So yeah, I definitely think
• 1:20:38
  that the house collapsing schemes started as a vindictive plot and ended as a practical
• 1:20:44
  efficiency for covering her tracks. Like, I definitely think she was planning to
• 1:20:48
  collapse the house on her for petty reasons. It just so happened that later
• 1:20:53
  on she was like, Oh, I guess I have to do it for
• 1:20:55
  you know, tying up loose ends reasons, right, right? Right?
• 1:20:59
  I may not have if I felt generous. You know that that whole I
• 1:21:04
  have control over life or death, right that I have. I might kill
• 1:21:08
  them, I might not. But then she no longer has control because of
• 1:21:13
  I forget exactly what the statement is. But she lies basically, Yeah,
• 1:21:15
  she lies directly and thus reveals herself as Blackacha if she leaves them alive.
• 1:21:21
  Yeah. Yeah, No, she totally could have been prepared to play mind
• 1:21:25
  games and then decided now just go full destruction instead. But yeah, the
• 1:21:29
  slab definitely factors into her reasoning because she is a petty person under the best
• 1:21:33
  of circumstances, and these are not the best. Uh do you want to
• 1:21:38
  read us out? Yeah? Fayl frowned as she watched the woman go.
• 1:21:43
  She should have felt exultation, but she did not. Gillina seemed almost a
• 1:21:46
  wild thing, unpredictable. Still, I said, I could not lie.
• 1:21:53
  There seemed no way for her to wriggle out of her promise, and if
• 1:21:56
  she found one, there were still her own plans for an escape, though
• 1:22:00
  those seemed no further along, if much more dangerous than they had when first
• 1:22:03
  begun, which left Roland and his kissing games. Gilina had to prove true.
• 1:22:11
  She had to, and with that we end episode four hundred and ninety
• 1:22:58
  nine of War Spoilers four hundred and ninety nine. Wow, yeah, wow,
• 1:23:04
  Yeah. Next week we are doing a plane wooden box. Rand is
• 1:23:10
  losing a hand and we are cracking the big five oh, big five hundred.
• 1:23:15
  And the fact that we got the timing to come out five hundred for
• 1:23:19
  a good for we didn't end up on this chapter for five hundred r.
• 1:23:23
  Yeah, we made it work. We made it work. We made it
• 1:23:25
  work. I am so happy about that. I cannot believe we're hitting episode
• 1:23:29
  five hundred. That is incredible. We're doing it. God, we might
• 1:23:32
  have to do something special next week, just like make cupcakes. Yeah,
• 1:23:36
  I made a cheesecake this week. I've been practicing for the wedding. As
• 1:23:41
  a test for the wedding, Yeah, test for the wedding. Definitely had
• 1:23:45
  an issue with the bottom sticking. I need to oil it better because it
• 1:23:48
  kind of fell apart pulling it out of the pan. I do want to
• 1:23:50
  find that out now in June. Yeah, yep, there's a reason I'm
• 1:23:56
  trying it, right. But the cake is delicious, right, it's just
• 1:23:59
  you have to eat your way through experimental k how terrible darn oreo base.
• 1:24:08
  So the bass is I take twenty eight oreos, not double stuff that's too
• 1:24:13
  much sugar, twenty eight regular oreos. Throw them in the blender, add
• 1:24:17
  four tablespoons of butter, and that's your base. You just pack that into
• 1:24:24
  the bottom and I bake that for ten minutes. And then my recipe is
• 1:24:29
  two pounds of cream cheese, eight ounces of sour cream, teaspoon, vanilla,
• 1:24:34
  five eggs. Eat all that together, pour that in the crust,
• 1:24:40
  bake that for an hour three p fifty, turn off the oven and let
• 1:24:43
  it sit for an hour. Then you can pull it out. Nice.
• 1:24:47
  That sounds awesome, and I look forward to eating the perfected version. You
• 1:24:53
  want to see it? Yeah, all right, I'll be back. Yeah
• 1:24:59
  that is nice. That looks good. Yeah, So let me hold that
• 1:25:03
  up where you can see it, so yeah, I can see the the
• 1:25:06
  base and this will get some frosting on it, but you can see.
• 1:25:11
  And I just kind of crumbled it up, but you can see kind of
• 1:25:14
  fell apart as I was pulling it out and cracked it, but it didn't
• 1:25:16
  have any cracks in it when I was done cooking it. Yeah, it's
• 1:25:19
  uh, it's good. It's delicious. So all your friends and neighbors are
• 1:25:26
  going to have to help you just deal with all these experimental cakes. Yep,
• 1:25:30
  I've already given away a bunch of pieces today. I wish I lived
• 1:25:32
  closer, like they're not the prettiest, but yeah, but yeah, basically
• 1:25:38
  I didn't oil the pants. That was my problem. Yeah, So I
• 1:25:41
  had the paper down and I just everything stucked to the pan. And it
• 1:25:45
  was me, me being silly because normally in the past I've just eaten it
• 1:25:48
  right off the bottom of the spring form. I just don't take it out
• 1:25:51
  of the bottom, I take the edges off. But what I realized is
• 1:25:56
  if I want to make enough of these, I need to be able to
• 1:25:58
  reuse my spring form pants, which means I need to be able get an
• 1:26:00
  out of the spring form pants, so that that does make sense. Yeah,
• 1:26:04
  this is a different context than you usually make cake for. Yeah,
• 1:26:08
  yep, and it's it's just a simple thing. So that, and then
• 1:26:11
  we're gonna use a mars Capone frosting basically the stuff we used in Tara Masou
• 1:26:15
  is going to be the frosting on top of that. And I've got three
• 1:26:17
  different sized spring form pants, so I can do a three tiered cake.
• 1:26:20
  Do you have toppers? No? I guess we could have some people get
• 1:26:26
  really into it. Yeah. My mom made little female models of me and
• 1:26:30
  my husband for our cake, just like. They're so funny, they're so
• 1:26:34
  cute. Her dad has a three D printer. I could probably get them
• 1:26:38
  to three D print anything I wanted. I'm just saying having a custom cake
• 1:26:43
  topper does add an extra layer of special because I mean, how often are
• 1:26:46
  you going to make a three tiered cake for yourself? You might as well
• 1:26:48
  put a cherry on top, so to speak. And a three D printed
• 1:26:53
  anything could be very very fun, right, think about it, right,
• 1:26:57
  the fun little thing for him to contribute. Oh, it is your cocording
• 1:27:00
  still on? Yes, let's turn that off. Yeah? So in better
• 1:27:08
  news, Yeah, I want to include two links because I wasted my morning.
• 1:27:15
  But I essentially found that I could emulate macOS nine in a web browser,
• 1:27:21
  which means that I could download my favorite game, Odyssey Legend of Nemesis
• 1:27:26
  from when I was a child, copy it into a web browser emulation of
• 1:27:31
  mac Os nine, and play a game that I thought was forever lost to
• 1:27:36
  me. And I had a lot of fun doing that this morning, and
• 1:27:41
  I definitely put my fingers on the keys and was able to play, didn't
• 1:27:46
  have to relearn the key bindings or anything like that. Instantly knew where to
• 1:27:49
  go. The puzzles came right back to me. It was It was brilliant.
• 1:27:55
  It was really brilliant. And I played for way too long. And
• 1:27:58
  that's partially why we're getting a late start on a day that my allergies are
• 1:28:00
  out of fucking control. So if I sound weird today, it's because my
• 1:28:04
  nose is completely clogged up. Oh that's fantastic. I love that for you.
• 1:28:10
  I have experienced that joy one time with one of the very few games
• 1:28:14
  I ever played, and yeah, it's amazing how it just all comes flooding
• 1:28:18
  back and you're just like a happy kid without a game in the world just
• 1:28:23
  playing your video game and it's just your computer game, and it's just it's
• 1:28:26
  just the best. Uh, that's so great. I will definitely include those
• 1:28:29
  links, and I cannot cannot objectively recommend the game to anybody right inside the
• 1:28:35
  point beside the point. But man, oh the first Okay, So it's
• 1:28:41
  the basic outline. Right, There's seven islands and you travel between them,
• 1:28:44
  and each one has their own unique situation with monsters on the outside. The
• 1:28:48
  first one. There are two islands, but it's all it's all very literature
• 1:28:51
  based, right. So the first island has these two villages, Nayak and
• 1:28:58
  Elba, and they hate each other, and Nayak is all about violence and
• 1:29:02
  Elbow's all about peace. And then you spell those backwards and you realize they're
• 1:29:06
  spelled backwards cane and able, and the whole story is about like the biblical
• 1:29:13
  attack between these two people. But it's two villages who hate each other,
• 1:29:15
  right, and your goal is to basically make peace between them. And that's
• 1:29:19
  island one. And it's like and so many literary things that I know about
• 1:29:26
  come from playing this stupid game that uses, you know, literary references to
• 1:29:30
  name their characters there's an island where it's been ruined by this guy who just
• 1:29:36
  wants to make money and he's driven this guy named Carl Underground who's all about
• 1:29:41
  sharing and talks about the consumption and how consumption should be distributed among the workers.
• 1:29:49
  And you're like, wait a minute, this island's about communist red flex
• 1:29:54
  and how red flex. Yeah, you're like, oh, this is just
• 1:30:00
  an island where they talk about communism and how that might be a good idea
• 1:30:02
  and how capitalism will ruin it every time. That's that's amazing. And then
• 1:30:08
  it's just yeah, it's just amazing. It's got shit like that all throughout
• 1:30:11
  it that like, as a kid, I had no idea, But playing
• 1:30:13
  it as an adult, I realize that it's all of these literary references and
• 1:30:16
  political references, and you know, it talks about castor and pollocks and you
• 1:30:21
  know, it's just weird references that I finally am like, oh, yeah,
• 1:30:26
  this is fun. This is fun. So nostalgia beautiful, beautiful thing
• 1:30:30
  to indulge in. But the wonderful thing is the game is completely free online.
• 1:30:34
  You can download the source code and you can download a playable version of
• 1:30:38
  it from a website right that they've made available and so if you have an
• 1:30:43
  emulator, it's totally free. That's fantastic. Anyway, thank you for listening
• 1:30:47
  to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Rate us in the Apple Podcast app,
• 1:30:53
  or support us on patreons. Good enough