Latest / WoT Spoilers / Into Bander Eban & Old Advice - The Gathering Storm chapters 29 & 30 - EP528

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Into Bander Eban & Old Advice - The Gathering Storm chapters 29 & 30 - EP528 · WoT Spoilers

0:12
Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. All right, well, uh, anyway,
0:23
Speaker 1: I feel like this is off topic because we're pro
0:28
Speaker 1: cap procrastinating.
0:31
Speaker 2: So who's excited for Militaire? Chadmarn Gowan, Tracantom.
0:40
Speaker 1: Anybody else? Anybody? No, this is this is a bit
0:44
Speaker 1: of a slow after Hinders Tap, which was just like
0:47
Speaker 1: the height of Heights. This does feel like a bit
0:50
Speaker 1: of an emotional Uh Nader Is that the right word? Nadir?
0:55
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Zenith is at the top and Nader
0:58
Speaker 2: is at the bottom, and yeah, it's we just went
1:00
Speaker 2: from one of the best most epic scenes to just like,
1:04
Speaker 2: what in the wet fart what's happening?
1:10
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the setup of a new plot line, right,
1:13
Speaker 1: this is the setup, the beginning of tracking down Grendall
1:18
Speaker 1: and the beginning of whatever the fuck Cowen is doing. Hey,
1:24
Speaker 1: it starts out with a pretty cool map of Aridomon
1:27
Speaker 1: and bandar Eban. Cool little city actually reminds me a
1:31
Speaker 1: little bit of Portland, just in terms of like the
1:34
Speaker 1: it's on a peninsula in the meeting of two bodies
1:37
Speaker 1: of water.
1:38
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it is described as the premiere port
1:41
Speaker 2: city of the Northwest, right, So I mean, yeah, yeah,
1:45
Speaker 2: it's very hard and with like square houses built of
1:48
Speaker 2: wood two to three stories tall and neat rows. I'm like,
1:51
Speaker 2: it's kind of Portland with this kind of Portland.
1:54
Speaker 1: But like the West Hills and stuff like that where
1:57
Speaker 1: the nice houses are being built. Yeah, I mean to me,
2:00
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's other people who see their own city
2:01
Speaker 1: in it, but like maybe Seattle. You can maybe argue
2:05
Speaker 1: because it's on the ocean, well, Scotland's Upper River, right,
2:08
Speaker 1: so I feel like you could argue it's.
2:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. It definitely gives
2:13
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest in general. So yeah, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, right,
2:19
Speaker 2: like any of them, you could really like easily envision this.
2:22
Speaker 1: Also, all the scantily clad women, I guess, I don't know,
2:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, scant all the scantily clad era demon
2:28
Speaker 1: women that he could get.
2:29
Speaker 2: That's not really the Pacific Northwest is not generally clad
2:33
Speaker 2: in in rayon, no all the time.
2:36
Speaker 1: Flannel might be more accurate.
2:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly. The very Scandinavian like Germanic esthetic of
2:45
Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest does not fit with the like Italian
2:49
Speaker 2: demani energy, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's it's yeah, the
2:54
Speaker 2: clothing style feels disjunct to the climate that I'm imagining. Whatever,
3:01
Speaker 2: it's fantasy.
3:02
Speaker 1: We are also imagining a very Pacific Northwest, rainy, cloudy.
3:06
Speaker 1: You've got the ocean breeze hitting the coast which is
3:09
Speaker 1: going to cause fog, and you know, pretty stable temperatures
3:14
Speaker 1: but nothing hot.
3:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, anyway, but yeah, it's a cool It's nice
3:21
Speaker 2: to get a map. I mean, we don't get that
3:23
Speaker 2: many maps.
3:23
Speaker 1: We don't have a.
3:24
Speaker 2: Map for every city in the world. We have a
3:26
Speaker 2: lot of apps, but it's still fun to come across them.
3:28
Speaker 2: And Randon does think later about how like the geography
3:31
Speaker 2: of the city sort of dictates where the various socioeconomic
3:34
Speaker 2: classes will be, and it's like, yeah, human geography is
3:37
Speaker 2: an interesting and important thing, for sure.
3:40
Speaker 1: I think that's almost always true. Geography almost always determines
3:43
Speaker 1: where the rich people are going to be.
3:44
Speaker 2: It's really true. There's a book I haven't read yet
3:47
Speaker 2: but that I have purchased called Prisoners of Geography that
3:50
Speaker 2: is more about global geopolitics than city design, but same
3:54
Speaker 2: basic idea. Right, Like, geography plays way more of a
3:59
Speaker 2: role into our economics and politics then we would often
4:02
Speaker 2: think just is a thing.
4:04
Speaker 1: I mean, the example that hit me recently is just
4:07
Speaker 1: looking at the you know, United States South and you
4:10
Speaker 1: look at like where the Pembroke is and where essentially
4:17
Speaker 1: sea flooding created rich valleys which were used to farm crops,
4:22
Speaker 1: which led to led to voting blocks, which led to
4:27
Speaker 1: politics in a very specific area of the South being
4:30
Speaker 1: a very specific way, and you can track like the
4:33
Speaker 1: politics match up perfectly with this like flooding zone in
4:37
Speaker 1: the you know, pre Cambrian era or whatever, you know.
4:40
Speaker 2: And so it's just yeah, ancient coastline dictates modern elections
4:43
Speaker 2: is wild? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen this this info before. Yeah,
4:47
Speaker 2: it's like wait, wait, like ancient, ancient geologic forces are
4:52
Speaker 2: creating a solid predictor for how an election is going
4:55
Speaker 2: to go. What? But yeah, we we build and do
4:59
Speaker 2: things where the resources are. We don't put resources where
5:02
Speaker 2: we want them. We want to be where the resources
5:04
Speaker 2: are right right, And that's why you know, talk is
5:08
Speaker 2: this astrology for geography. You're not wrong. I mean it's
5:16
Speaker 2: a little bit more grounded than astrology. But yes, that
5:18
Speaker 2: sort of predictiveness, Yeah, it is a little bit like
5:23
Speaker 2: do we have free will or you know right, It's
5:26
Speaker 2: that like, how much of what we do is our
5:28
Speaker 2: own choice and how much is our conditions? This goes
5:31
Speaker 2: down to the geology spoilers.
5:33
Speaker 1: It's all conditions, our machines responding to external stimuli. No,
5:41
Speaker 1: I make choices, so computers. All right, shall we start
5:54
Speaker 1: off on this list one last time for fun?
5:57
Speaker 2: Is this the last time we go through the list?
6:00
Speaker 1: I mean it might be the last time we go
6:01
Speaker 1: through the list, but no, no, it was definitely not
6:04
Speaker 1: the last time Ram goes through the list.
6:06
Speaker 2: All right, read us into this damned.
6:07
Speaker 1: Chapter, into bandar Eben, and our chapter is the Dragon
6:12
Speaker 1: because it's a Ran chapter. And we have not gotten
6:15
Speaker 1: creative with the petters in this book yet. Loraine Domandred
6:20
Speaker 1: who died because of my weakness, Ran slowed Tita Shar
6:24
Speaker 1: to a walk as he passed through the massive gateway
6:26
Speaker 1: to bandar Eben, his entourage following ranks of a heel
6:30
Speaker 1: leading him. The gates were said to be carved with
6:32
Speaker 1: the city seal, but swung open as they were, Rand
6:35
Speaker 1: couldn't see them. The nameless dark friend I beheaded in
6:38
Speaker 1: those Morandian hills. I've forgotten the looks of the others
6:42
Speaker 1: with her, but I will never forget her face. The
6:45
Speaker 1: list ran through his head, almost a daily ritual, now,
6:48
Speaker 1: the name of every woman who had died by his
6:50
Speaker 1: hand or because of his actions. The street inside the
6:53
Speaker 1: city was of packed earth, lined with ruts that criss
6:56
Speaker 1: crossed at the intersection. The dirt was lighter here than
6:58
Speaker 1: he was used to Your Saigon, who died because I
7:02
Speaker 1: made her a popper. He rode past the ranks of
7:04
Speaker 1: Domani women in diaphanous gowns, men with thin mustaches and
7:08
Speaker 1: colorful coats. The roadways here had wooden boardwalks at the sides,
7:12
Speaker 1: and the people crowded them watching ran could hear banners
7:15
Speaker 1: and flags flapping in the wind. There seemed to be
7:18
Speaker 1: a lot of them in the city. The list always
7:20
Speaker 1: began with Moraine. The name hurt most of all, for
7:23
Speaker 1: he could have saved her, He should have. He hated
7:25
Speaker 1: himself for allowing her to sacrifice herself for him. Stop there,
7:31
Speaker 1: it's colds the list. You know, it's awkward sentence, isn't there.
7:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this whole rand section feels very like early books.
7:42
Speaker 2: This feels like him going nuts and like Dragon Reborn
7:45
Speaker 2: or something like this style of writing just feels older.
7:50
Speaker 2: It feels very Jordan early on. It doesn't even feel
7:53
Speaker 2: like recent Jordan. Maybe it's because Rand's not in a
7:56
Speaker 2: good headspace. He can't, he's not feeling poetic, you know.
7:59
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, I struggle with this as well, because
8:01
Speaker 1: it does it feels very much like, yes, this is
8:03
Speaker 1: something that Rand has struggled with, but the list felt
8:06
Speaker 1: like something he wasn't really obsessing over as much. Right,
8:10
Speaker 1: it does. It feels like we've moved beyond the list. Yeah,
8:13
Speaker 1: not that the list isn't there, but that's it's more
8:15
Speaker 1: of a with everything else going on in his head,
8:17
Speaker 1: the list is just one of many, and it becomes
8:19
Speaker 1: this really central thing that he that kind of the
8:24
Speaker 1: breaking of the list is what brings him back to sanity. Right,
8:27
Speaker 1: this like understanding that, like I have to give these
8:31
Speaker 1: people their own autonomy to live and to die and
8:34
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and it's okay, like he lets go
8:37
Speaker 1: of it. That's super important.
8:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes sense that it's kind of
8:41
Speaker 2: coming up for him more because of the whole men
8:44
Speaker 2: samarag sure thing right right right, It's it's sort of
8:47
Speaker 2: an uppermost point just the way he's thinking about it.
8:51
Speaker 2: It just it's not like bad, It just this This
8:53
Speaker 2: is one of those parts that really feels like Jordan
8:55
Speaker 2: wrote it, And it also feels like he wrote it
8:57
Speaker 2: a long time ago.
8:58
Speaker 1: That's fair that maybe if this is taken from Jordan,
9:01
Speaker 1: but it feels like older Jordan wrote it and like
9:03
Speaker 1: didn't get updated really.
9:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I guess makes sense because he's revisiting events
9:09
Speaker 2: from old books, so he's like literally getting back into
9:12
Speaker 2: old book headspace. But also we're updating the list, right,
9:16
Speaker 2: We're slipping Iliana onto the list and Rand is just like,
9:20
Speaker 2: that's fine, and then we're also adding Semarag to the
9:23
Speaker 2: list and that's fine too, and then we're adding minto
9:27
Speaker 2: the list and wait, hold up, record scratch.
9:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's not dead. No, it is crazy that he's
9:32
Speaker 1: just adding throwing people on there left and right.
9:35
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, I genuinely am so upset with
9:38
Speaker 2: him for the whole Semarog and what's her face? Who
9:42
Speaker 2: was with Semarag? Like, no, she was your enemy, don't
9:46
Speaker 2: put her on the list. The whole point of you
9:48
Speaker 2: being the Dragon Reborn is that you have to defeat
9:50
Speaker 2: these people. She does not deserve to be on the
9:52
Speaker 2: damn list.
9:53
Speaker 1: But before he's always been fighting the mail forsaken.
9:56
Speaker 2: Yeah again, forsaken over anything else. Yeah, bro, bro, I
10:03
Speaker 2: mean I get And he's like, oh, I shouldn't put
10:04
Speaker 2: her on the list, but he still lets her on
10:06
Speaker 2: the list. Don't put her on the list. It's so weird.
10:08
Speaker 2: If you're going to have the list, at least have
10:10
Speaker 2: it be for deserving people.
10:12
Speaker 1: So he's basically saying, and we set out the whole
10:14
Speaker 1: premise of this arc of chapters where he says, if
10:17
Speaker 1: he found her talking about Grendall, perhaps that would assuage
10:20
Speaker 1: his conscious at invading the area that she's in. Eric
10:24
Speaker 1: Domont So, Yeah, you know, his whole arc besides him,
10:28
Speaker 1: you know, mourning the people in his head, his whole
10:30
Speaker 1: arc is here trying to find Grendel. And I feel
10:33
Speaker 1: like Sanderson's just laying that out right there.
10:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, rand is really focused on handling the city, but
10:41
Speaker 2: it's all a smoke screen for finding Grendall. Right, He's
10:45
Speaker 2: doing that, and Sanderson makes it very clear that that's
10:48
Speaker 2: what he's doing in this case. I really appreciate Sanderson's
10:51
Speaker 2: clarity because I don't see the why he needs to
10:54
Speaker 2: put up so much of a facade, but he does.
10:57
Speaker 2: He thinks he does, so he does. Okay, we talk
11:01
Speaker 2: about kad Swain and doing her whole. If you can't
11:05
Speaker 2: see my face, then I can still be in your entourage.
11:07
Speaker 1: Thing mm hmm. Meanwhile, rattling off maidens, rattling off all
11:13
Speaker 1: sorts of people, while you know, just in the middle
11:15
Speaker 1: of all this, the list is still going on, right.
11:17
Speaker 2: Oh, and also chastising Doughbrain for not bringing peace to
11:21
Speaker 2: the entire country, right, just like he's been chastising the
11:24
Speaker 2: Ael for like not doing these impossible things. Like he's
11:28
Speaker 2: chanting the list in his head and snapping at his enemies.
11:30
Speaker 2: He's doing great.
11:32
Speaker 1: Also, suicidal idelation, idealation, idolation ideation, ideation, Thank you, suicidal ideation.
11:39
Speaker 1: Death no longer worried him. Finally he understood lewis Then's
11:42
Speaker 1: cries to let it end. Rand deserve to die. Was
11:46
Speaker 1: there a death so strong that man would never have
11:48
Speaker 1: to be reborn? I mean, these are Morgan's thoughts, these
11:52
Speaker 1: are Mordan's thoughts, right, Like I don't love if they're
11:56
Speaker 1: Mordan's thoughts, but they're right in line with Morden's ideal Again,
12:00
Speaker 1: idal ideation of just like I don't want to be
12:02
Speaker 1: here anymore. I need it to end, and I don't
12:04
Speaker 1: need to just end where I die. I needed to
12:06
Speaker 1: end so I never come back.
12:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is something I assume that, well,
12:11
Speaker 2: this is something that we know as Shamel broke his
12:14
Speaker 2: brain thinking about this. I assume that because he was
12:18
Speaker 2: friends with Lou's there and Loose Theren probably also had
12:22
Speaker 2: these thoughts while they were getting high in college. You know,
12:24
Speaker 2: like they've both gone down these spirals while they were
12:27
Speaker 2: on mushrooms together.
12:28
Speaker 1: And they're currently brain linked.
12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like this is a very you can tell
12:34
Speaker 2: that all the spirals are converging on their event horizon
12:37
Speaker 2: because Rand is now generating that revelation from within and
12:42
Speaker 2: it's like, dude, you are literally becoming one with your
12:45
Speaker 2: main nemesis. You're going to need to break this loop
12:48
Speaker 2: real soon, otherwise you're going to be indistinguishable people.
12:52
Speaker 1: And he's burned out, right, He's his feelings were different
12:55
Speaker 1: since the day he killed them wrong, Like he's sort
12:57
Speaker 1: of the last that could be done whatever it is.
13:00
Speaker 1: It's like he no longer is feeling emotionally, and you
13:03
Speaker 1: see that where he's like he hasn't sent men away,
13:06
Speaker 1: not because he doesn't want to protect her, you know,
13:09
Speaker 1: he just doesn't really care if something happens to her.
13:13
Speaker 1: He's just like, yeah, of course we're all going to die.
13:15
Speaker 1: So if she dies hanging out with me, I guess
13:16
Speaker 1: that's just what happens, you know. And it's like, whoa,
13:20
Speaker 1: how do you not care what happens to men anymore?
13:25
Speaker 1: On that level?
13:25
Speaker 2: And like, the thing is that he should have had
13:29
Speaker 2: a piece of that attitude this whole time, specifically with
13:32
Speaker 2: respect to the maidens, Like that is a level of
13:37
Speaker 2: detachment that you were supposed to have when the warrior
13:41
Speaker 2: women came to you and said, yo, like life is
13:45
Speaker 2: a dream from which we all must awake, and we
13:47
Speaker 2: have chosen to be warriors. He was supposed to say, Okay,
13:51
Speaker 2: then I am going to be relatively speaking, emotionally uninvested
13:55
Speaker 2: in whether or not any individual lives or dies. This
13:57
Speaker 2: is what you are asking for, Okay, can do that. Instead,
14:02
Speaker 2: he waits until this point to say, yeah, I literally
14:06
Speaker 2: care so much that I can't care if my actual
14:08
Speaker 2: wife dies in front of me. Like, dude, no, you've
14:12
Speaker 2: resisted it so hard, You've snapped into a very unhealthy
14:15
Speaker 2: extreme expression of what should have just been a piece
14:19
Speaker 2: of the overall picture.
14:23
Speaker 1: Bullgin points out a gathering storm refers to rand also
14:27
Speaker 1: a spiral of a hurricane gathering together. So that dark spiral, right,
14:32
Speaker 1: is the gathering storm.
14:34
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, boom boom boom, spirals all the way down.
14:41
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of is fractals all the way down.
14:43
Speaker 1: I'm convinced somehow.
14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is definitely what's happening. I have found no
14:49
Speaker 2: evidence to the contrary.
14:52
Speaker 1: So we get a as he's going through bandar Eben, right,
14:55
Speaker 1: he's heading to his home, his new home and bandar
14:57
Speaker 1: Eben that he's going to stay in for a while,
14:58
Speaker 1: which is just like a merch fancy house that's nicer
15:01
Speaker 1: than the Kings.
15:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, Melissaire Chadmar's house has been expropriated by the dragon reborn.
15:07
Speaker 1: So we see him walking through vander Evan and basically
15:11
Speaker 1: seeing people starving and evidence of like chaos in the
15:14
Speaker 1: city a couple of.
15:15
Speaker 2: Weeks ago, right, And this starvation is a driving pressure
15:19
Speaker 2: on a lot of different plot points going forward through
15:22
Speaker 2: the remainder of the books, Like we have the sea
15:25
Speaker 2: folks who can't offload their food, we have the weird
15:28
Speaker 2: like bubble of inverse evil where they open up all
15:30
Speaker 2: the bad sacks before veins of gold. Like this particular
15:34
Speaker 2: famine is very central to a lot of what happens.
15:37
Speaker 1: I'm Covinsid's reality changing that before veins of gold, all
15:40
Speaker 1: those sacks would have been bad, and after veins of gold,
15:42
Speaker 1: reality ripples and like he's able to actually change them
15:45
Speaker 1: into good sacks.
15:47
Speaker 2: It's amazing what you can do when you are the
15:49
Speaker 2: god author.
15:50
Speaker 1: Yes, it's well, it's probability. It's it's Schrodinger's grain. Right,
15:54
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, bad and good grain until you open it.
15:58
Speaker 1: And Ran has the ability to change probabilities when he
16:03
Speaker 1: goes up into the mat. That's like the whole thing
16:05
Speaker 1: is he gets to counter the dark ones thumb on
16:07
Speaker 1: the scale of the pattern, and so Rand can actively
16:11
Speaker 1: change probabilities, as you know, the Golden Child, whatever you
16:15
Speaker 1: want to call it, I can call him that from
16:17
Speaker 1: now on. After veins of gold, he's going to be
16:19
Speaker 1: we have Darth Rand. Now he's going to be the
16:20
Speaker 1: Golden Child.
16:21
Speaker 2: After that point, Jesus Rand isn't good enough.
16:26
Speaker 1: Zen Rand, Yeah, all those I kind of like the
16:29
Speaker 1: Golden Child, I think, But Yeah, all those are phrases work.
16:35
Speaker 2: Jesus rand, Jesus because Jesus.
16:39
Speaker 1: I think Jesus rand really is after he comes back
16:43
Speaker 1: in Morgan, right, that's after he gets resurrected. That's Jesus rand.
16:47
Speaker 2: Wow, Jesus is a body snatching zombie. Great, Yeah, Jesus
16:53
Speaker 2: is a body snatching I love it. I love it.
16:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, zen rand is probably the term I've mostly used,
16:58
Speaker 1: but Golden Boy might slip in there every once in
17:01
Speaker 1: a while.
17:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Jesus ran really is truly just all of it.
17:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So what part of Jesus's journey do you
17:09
Speaker 1: want it to be him to be on because he's
17:10
Speaker 1: on it at some point in the series. They match
17:13
Speaker 1: up pretty one to one, except maybe pulling the sword
17:16
Speaker 1: from the stone, because that's very otherean.
17:20
Speaker 2: I'm just going to memory hold a line about how
17:22
Speaker 2: demani girls practice seduction on men. We're just going to
17:25
Speaker 2: memory hold that line. Unnecessary?
17:27
Speaker 1: What line? God? No, I mean, what no? What line?
17:53
Speaker 2: What's up next?
17:54
Speaker 1: When we're talking about the city, the location, We talked
17:57
Speaker 1: about the location stuff, the city's landscape, all but the
18:00
Speaker 1: man to the location kind of back, I get to
18:03
Speaker 1: the conversation with Maray's.
18:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's really all I've got. Yeah, notes on
18:07
Speaker 2: food is important and okay, yeah, yeah, Maurice, we're at
18:11
Speaker 2: the Eyes to Die, badgering Rand to accept Kat's swayin.
18:13
Speaker 1: Back and his whole people did not respond to anger,
18:17
Speaker 1: they didn't respond to demands. Silence and questions were far
18:20
Speaker 1: more effective. Basically answering demands with silence, respond to demands
18:25
Speaker 1: with silence, respond to challenges with questions. Yeah, and so
18:28
Speaker 1: that's kind of what he's doing here, is she's trying
18:30
Speaker 1: to get him to it, you know, go with Codswayne,
18:32
Speaker 1: and he's just being like, why do you think I
18:34
Speaker 1: should do that?
18:35
Speaker 2: Right, Which, like he's not wrong. If you engage with
18:38
Speaker 2: someone on the terms of the conversation as they set them,
18:43
Speaker 2: they are going to get to set the terms of
18:44
Speaker 2: the conversation, right, Like this is sort of like fundamental
18:48
Speaker 2: like art of war in conversation one oh one. He's
18:52
Speaker 2: just really maxing out being an asshole and just only
18:56
Speaker 2: ever asking questions, never once engaging. That's, you know, not
19:01
Speaker 2: a great way to have good conversations with people, but
19:03
Speaker 2: it is a very effective way to keep someone else
19:06
Speaker 2: from driving the conversation.
19:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what else really helps the conversation,
19:10
Speaker 1: stroking the button the whole time, You're just having that conversation,
19:15
Speaker 1: just stroking, just like I'm not gonna push the button.
19:18
Speaker 1: What makes you think that stroking your thumb over the
19:20
Speaker 1: big red button that ends the world.
19:22
Speaker 2: Just play with the safety cover just.
19:26
Speaker 1: Down, Yeah, turning the key, turning it back, turning it back.
19:34
Speaker 1: I can hit the button. What Yeah, no, I mean
19:37
Speaker 1: that's and and of course yeah, I wonder why that
19:40
Speaker 1: has an effect on the people around you, right, Like
19:43
Speaker 1: it's like watching a pyro play with a match you know, yeah,
19:47
Speaker 1: like I don't. He promises he won't burn the place down,
19:50
Speaker 1: but he has burned places down before, and he is
19:53
Speaker 1: playing with a matchbook.
19:55
Speaker 2: Right And the eyes Tode's entire approach is to bully him,
19:59
Speaker 2: Like the are the same as they were before into
20:02
Speaker 2: accepting kat swayinn back, They're still like we can just
20:05
Speaker 2: put everything back a small temperate tantrum and it's like,
20:09
Speaker 2: no things are different. You need a different strategy now,
20:13
Speaker 2: a completely different strategy, like this is not the rand
20:16
Speaker 2: author you had, But only Katswain gets it. All the
20:19
Speaker 2: eyes that die between them do not get it. Only
20:23
Speaker 2: Rand and Katswayin know that everything has changed. And also
20:26
Speaker 2: Rand's basic argument here is that kat Swain needs consequences
20:31
Speaker 2: for her failures.
20:33
Speaker 1: Right, but he doesn't because he's paying for them with
20:37
Speaker 1: the list, apparently, I think is what he's implying there, right.
20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that internal self flagellation counts. Actually, No,
20:46
Speaker 2: you need to actually do real repair in the world
20:49
Speaker 2: where other people exist. And I don't know that kat
20:53
Speaker 2: Swain failed in such a way that Merritt's taking her
20:56
Speaker 2: out of the advisory circle of the Savior of the
20:59
Speaker 2: world who having a bad mental health month.
21:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know about that. Like the charge to
21:06
Speaker 1: keep those items safe was pretty important, and she put
21:09
Speaker 1: them in a box with some wards on it, like
21:12
Speaker 1: come on.
21:13
Speaker 2: Shout o her on was gonna get those and implicate
21:16
Speaker 2: her no matter what she guess like, this was gonna happen,
21:19
Speaker 2: so you know, don't. I don't really like Rand or
21:23
Speaker 2: Maurice's arguments back and forth here either way. I think
21:26
Speaker 2: they're both not making good arguments from a good place.
21:30
Speaker 1: No, you don't have to pay for your mistakes. You
21:32
Speaker 1: learn from your mistakes. That's what you're supposed to do.
21:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I'm really not into the punitive like stick
21:40
Speaker 2: based system of morality. I'm much more like internal motivation
21:45
Speaker 2: and carrot right like this. No, this is not gonna
21:50
Speaker 2: help anyone to be punitive. You need to learn, and
21:54
Speaker 2: neither of you were getting a chance to learn when
21:55
Speaker 2: you stomp off into separate corners.
21:58
Speaker 1: Speaking of separate corners and or separate balconies as they're
22:02
Speaker 1: arguing on either side of them. Two balconies basically come
22:05
Speaker 1: crashing down from you know, too many people on them
22:08
Speaker 1: or poor construction or whatever. So we're seeing Rand's tevereness
22:12
Speaker 1: effect here, right, That's highly unusual, and so this is
22:15
Speaker 1: not a bubble of evil, not channeling, it's just tevere
22:18
Speaker 1: in effect. But there's no he says, Oh, I've gotten
22:22
Speaker 1: used to them, the weddings, the marriages, and the deaths
22:26
Speaker 1: and the divorces and the births. But there's no good
22:30
Speaker 1: happening anymore. Since he's touched the true power, Severeness is
22:34
Speaker 1: only causing bad things to happen.
22:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we don't get that confirmed by anyone other
22:40
Speaker 2: than Rand for a couple more chapters. But he is
22:42
Speaker 2: starting to wonder like huh, and It is interesting how
22:47
Speaker 2: he sort of like flexes his charisma really hard at Maurice,
22:52
Speaker 2: and that's when the two balconies break.
22:54
Speaker 1: It's like this.
22:54
Speaker 2: Sheer intensity of him being in the world is just
22:59
Speaker 2: too much.
23:00
Speaker 1: Well, he does kind of know how to flex his
23:02
Speaker 1: teverenness now, right, like if you I will, maybe I
23:05
Speaker 1: can start to stop your heart. And I'm wondering if
23:07
Speaker 1: maybe like that causes effects around him the more he
23:11
Speaker 1: flexes his to verenness.
23:12
Speaker 2: I think so. I think that if you're gonna push
23:15
Speaker 2: on the pattern that hard, there's gonna have to be
23:18
Speaker 2: like a corresponding amount of resistance, right, that's going to
23:22
Speaker 2: show up in something like two balconies both breaking at
23:25
Speaker 2: the same time, not just one balcony breaking two. And yeah,
23:28
Speaker 2: it's not great, right, there's no indication that people like
23:31
Speaker 2: miraculously weren't hurt or something. Right, it's not a good instance.
23:36
Speaker 2: And he doesn't even care. This is again Randa doesn't
23:40
Speaker 2: care about people like you.
23:41
Speaker 1: He was trying to help them. He doesn't try and
23:43
Speaker 1: do anything. Yeah, yeah, the old.
23:44
Speaker 2: Rand would have been like, oh, obviously some isid I
23:46
Speaker 2: and soldiers need to go over there, like I have
23:49
Speaker 2: shit to do. I can't personally, but like I need
23:52
Speaker 2: some of my entourage to go help. He doesn't care.
23:54
Speaker 2: Some of his entourage chooses to help, and he doesn't
23:56
Speaker 2: care about that either. Like, yeah, he's so nut, he's
24:01
Speaker 2: really problematically numb.
24:02
Speaker 1: And then we sort of we get his brain where
24:04
Speaker 1: he speculates why he's strumming this, you know the button
24:07
Speaker 1: of the children call, Why he's thumbing that is because
24:10
Speaker 1: he's trying to tempt himself with that in order to
24:12
Speaker 1: prevent himself from embrace embracing the true power and using
24:15
Speaker 1: that instead. He's basically saying, if I have these two temptations,
24:18
Speaker 1: I can avoid both of them.
24:20
Speaker 2: So, as someone who has done multiple drugs at one time,
24:23
Speaker 2: I don't understand this, lotchic. You're telling me that if
24:29
Speaker 2: I have a beer in one hand and a joint
24:32
Speaker 2: in the other, I'm supposed to have an easier time
24:35
Speaker 2: staying sober. That's that's not how it works with alcohol
24:41
Speaker 2: and joints.
24:42
Speaker 1: Well, I would. I would argue though, that there is
24:45
Speaker 1: evidence that in places where marijuana has been legalized, alcohol
24:49
Speaker 1: use has dropped.
24:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not what he's saying here. He's saying that
24:57
Speaker 2: he's doing neither because he has both, not that he's
25:00
Speaker 2: choosing one over the other.
25:02
Speaker 1: I just well, it's like having he's having a beer
25:05
Speaker 1: in one hand and a joint in the other, and
25:06
Speaker 1: he's like, well, I could drink this or like this,
25:09
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna since I'm kind of am debating,
25:13
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do either.
25:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, which just do you just do both in that?
25:18
Speaker 1: Yeah?
25:18
Speaker 2: I know, right, So I just.
25:20
Speaker 1: Well, that's what happens in the last battle.
25:23
Speaker 2: Right, that's true? That is actually true.
25:26
Speaker 1: You know he does he does cocaine.
25:32
Speaker 2: Fine, so the metaphor doesn't work since he only has
25:35
Speaker 2: one hand. Whatever.
25:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he's at his new home. He thinks about
25:39
Speaker 1: the new home for a while. He thinks about Avienda
25:42
Speaker 1: and why she's in the waist, which we know she's
25:44
Speaker 1: getting tested, right.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, what could she possibly be doing in
25:49
Speaker 2: the IEO waist as an apprentice wise, one who clearly
25:52
Speaker 2: has shit to do, could never imagine what that is,
25:56
Speaker 2: couldn't possibly put those dots together?
25:59
Speaker 1: Oh?
25:59
Speaker 2: He he thinks about how his enemies don't know about Avianda.
26:04
Speaker 2: May I refer to you to book five, which is Avienda. Yeah,
26:10
Speaker 2: she screamed, which is Avienda for the whole world to hear.
26:13
Speaker 2: I think people might know that Avianda is.
26:16
Speaker 1: Of interest to you, sir, Who's Avienda? Or which is Aviendo?
26:19
Speaker 2: It's which is Avienda because it's Igwaine and Avianda are
26:22
Speaker 2: both standing there and she grabs them both with the
26:25
Speaker 2: power and she's screaming which one is it. It's very
26:28
Speaker 2: silly because one of them is clearly Agwayne and the
26:31
Speaker 2: other one is clearly Ayel. So I think it's pretty obvious.
26:34
Speaker 1: But whatever a bearon stein Beard bears that in my
26:37
Speaker 1: head to who is Aviendo?
26:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of felt that happening in my head
26:44
Speaker 2: and then thought about the context, and I'm pretty sure
26:47
Speaker 2: it's which, but who knows. We might all have collectively.
26:50
Speaker 2: Berenstein bears it. Eqwayine kind of looks Ayeel, but she's
26:55
Speaker 2: short and dark haired. And also, if you knew Rand's
26:58
Speaker 2: party before she went into the waist, she would know
27:00
Speaker 2: that she's not ideal because she was with them before
27:03
Speaker 2: the waist. Like, I don't know, I just feel like
27:05
Speaker 2: it's really obvious that Agwaine is not ideal because she
27:09
Speaker 2: was there before the idea were part of the picture.
27:11
Speaker 1: I had Kennon that that Landfeir just doesn't care enough
27:13
Speaker 1: about the people, and it's just like, tell me, I
27:16
Speaker 1: don't really want to spend.
27:17
Speaker 2: Like you know, I mean, I get that, but I
27:20
Speaker 2: that just feels like a very nineteen nineties villain move
27:22
Speaker 2: and it just doesn't fly in twenty twenty five. I
27:24
Speaker 2: don't care if they're written in the nineties. You get
27:26
Speaker 2: out of here with your facts.
27:28
Speaker 1: And also Agwaine, like the cotton swor covers up her
27:32
Speaker 1: hair so you can't tell she's got dark hair. She's tanned,
27:34
Speaker 1: so the skin looks about the same. And dark eyes
27:37
Speaker 1: while unusual in the iel, aren't you know, if you're
27:41
Speaker 1: not looking closely, you don't necessarily notice eye color. And
27:44
Speaker 1: she's certainly not looking closely at anybody except Rand, so
27:48
Speaker 1: I can see where like if you're dressed like an
27:49
Speaker 1: Aeel and your hair is covered and your skin is
27:52
Speaker 1: tanned like it could be, it might take a few
27:56
Speaker 1: seconds that Landfear doesn't care to take to a fire Witches, which.
28:01
Speaker 2: Lazy mustache twirling cartoon villain.
28:04
Speaker 1: Yeah no, And I agree that like as Carrie or
28:07
Speaker 1: as the you know, the lady who was in with
28:10
Speaker 1: the Tinkers, she had so much yeah, I think, Yeah,
28:15
Speaker 1: not Carrie. That was Rand's mother, yea with the yeah peddlers.
28:19
Speaker 1: She had plenty of time to get to know the
28:20
Speaker 1: party who Ran was spent, although she did say I
28:22
Speaker 1: went away for a while, right, like she disappeared for
28:26
Speaker 1: a big chunk of time. It was only coming back.
28:29
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, if maybe she forgot who all
28:31
Speaker 1: the people were, maybe she didn't really have the time
28:34
Speaker 1: to get to know the party the same way. Yeah,
28:36
Speaker 1: I don't, because remember that's the whole thing is she
28:37
Speaker 1: left Kadir to keep an eye on Rand.
28:40
Speaker 2: That's the thing though, is that like Rand has been
28:43
Speaker 2: around Agwayne since the beginning of the books, she's been
28:46
Speaker 2: relevant to Rand. I mean, Landfair saw Agwayne at the
28:50
Speaker 2: end of book two, like it just there's so many
28:53
Speaker 2: opportunities for her to know that that one has been
28:56
Speaker 2: with Rand for a while, so clearly the other one
28:59
Speaker 2: must be the new edition.
29:01
Speaker 1: We complained about it at the time.
29:04
Speaker 2: Well I'm complaining about it again anyway. That's all I'm
29:13
Speaker 2: saying is that Rand is silly to think that Avianda
29:16
Speaker 2: hasn't been noticed by the dark given that her name
29:19
Speaker 2: was screamed by land Fear right before Morraine bodied her
29:22
Speaker 2: into the doorway.
29:24
Speaker 1: I mean, but everybody who knew about it is dead,
29:26
Speaker 1: except maybe not right, because he knows that Shamel's back.
29:30
Speaker 1: So then he's like, well, anyone who I haven't bailfired
29:32
Speaker 1: come back, and that includes land Fear because she wasn't bailfired.
29:37
Speaker 1: And I know, well he doesn't know Moraine is alive,
29:40
Speaker 1: but he thinks her sacrifice might be for nothing, if
29:42
Speaker 1: killing land Feir can just be undone, right. I love
29:47
Speaker 1: this quote Sore as he goes in to talk to.
29:53
Speaker 3: What's her name, Milissar Chadmar Milsair. Thank you Milissar Milisair.
29:58
Speaker 3: He goes in and talk to Milsair. I love the
30:00
Speaker 3: should we keep telling her she's not a prisoner, she
30:02
Speaker 3: just can't leave. She is like, isn't that the definition
30:06
Speaker 3: of a prisoner.
30:08
Speaker 2: That's why it's funny. That's where the I think it's hilarious.
30:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like, no, I got on this one.
30:17
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I laughed along with that one too. That
30:19
Speaker 1: was fun.
30:20
Speaker 2: And as far as I can tell, Rand picked her
30:23
Speaker 2: at random. It's sort of just a coincidence that she
30:27
Speaker 2: also happens to be the one who has the messenger
30:31
Speaker 2: from the king, last received from the king. Like, as
30:33
Speaker 2: far as I can tell, that's not related to his
30:35
Speaker 2: choice of inhabiting her house.
30:37
Speaker 1: I just thought it was like, she's one of the
30:39
Speaker 1: few people on the council. She was able, he was
30:43
Speaker 1: able to.
30:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's the only one who stayed in the city,
30:47
Speaker 2: I think. So.
30:48
Speaker 1: I think that's why she's the major point of contact,
30:50
Speaker 1: because she's the one who stayed in the city.
30:52
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so it's not they are technically unrelated, but
30:57
Speaker 2: they're related. Okay, No, that makes sense. That makes sense
31:00
Speaker 2: that obviously everything's gonna happen with her because she is
31:03
Speaker 2: the only point of power in the city. Makes sense.
31:06
Speaker 1: There's a whole scene with dobrain right where he's talking
31:09
Speaker 1: about thank you for calming the city, which you'd done more,
31:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to send you to tear.
31:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's He tells Ruark, you can take the fifth
31:19
Speaker 2: albeit only from the rich people, but still you can
31:21
Speaker 2: loot the city, and then turns to his other ally
31:24
Speaker 2: who's been with him nearly as long, and says, go away,
31:28
Speaker 2: go do something else, Go be elsewhere and do things
31:32
Speaker 2: you don't want to do at a distance. It's a
31:35
Speaker 2: complicated message for do brain to absorb.
31:38
Speaker 1: And complicated for the demanis to absorb as well. Is
31:42
Speaker 1: like these people who have conquered you in created peace
31:45
Speaker 1: are now leaving and now these iyiel are taking over
31:47
Speaker 1: and they're going to loot, but just from the rich people.
31:50
Speaker 1: Also food's being brought in, but it's bad.
31:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the the money you're getting, the fuzzy end
31:55
Speaker 2: of the lollipop. This whole situation.
32:00
Speaker 1: Whiplash from all the changes and all the things that
32:02
Speaker 1: are happening.
32:02
Speaker 2: And then that too, Yeah, that's true for sure.
32:05
Speaker 1: And then god, yeah, just more evidence of Lewis Thearn
32:08
Speaker 1: being the sane one right when he's when Rand is
32:10
Speaker 1: thinking about whether or not he can trust your Dobrain,
32:12
Speaker 1: Lewis Aran's like trust, yes, perhaps we can trust him.
32:15
Speaker 1: He cannot channel like the ones we can't trust at
32:18
Speaker 1: all is ourselves.
32:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the sanest take for sure.
32:23
Speaker 1: We really come to the point now where Lewis Tharan's
32:25
Speaker 1: like pretty sane and it's been like, yo, Rand, you're
32:29
Speaker 1: doing some crazy fucking shit right now. Maybe you should
32:33
Speaker 1: trust somebody. Maybe you shouldn't try and kill everybody like
32:36
Speaker 1: Lewis Thearon, although you know, still the crazy person in
32:39
Speaker 1: Rand's head. I really think we've hit the switch where
32:42
Speaker 1: the insanity is now out and it's being expressed, and
32:45
Speaker 1: so the voice in his head doesn't need to.
32:47
Speaker 2: Be as insane right right now, the voice in his
32:51
Speaker 2: head can hold on to what little bit of sanity
32:53
Speaker 2: he has left. Mm hmm right now, like his sanity
32:56
Speaker 2: is in loose Thearan's keeping basically, and do Brain, we know,
33:01
Speaker 2: is a perfectly good guy. He has no ulterior motives.
33:04
Speaker 2: He is exactly what he says on the tin. He's
33:06
Speaker 2: a good ally like everything that Rand is interpreting is
33:09
Speaker 2: maybe suspicious. Oh no, no, what's going on here? Like
33:12
Speaker 2: that's entirely paranoia. Do Brain is true through and through.
33:16
Speaker 1: Right, Like the reason Do Brain looks crestfallen isn't because
33:20
Speaker 1: he's plotting against Rand and wants to be there. It's
33:23
Speaker 1: because he's loyal to Rand and doesn't want to be
33:24
Speaker 1: sent away.
33:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly like normal ally.
33:27
Speaker 1: Shit, Oh, he wants to help you.
33:30
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, maybe I get to be with him,
33:32
Speaker 2: I get to help I get to be close. Oh
33:34
Speaker 2: I gotta go away again?
33:36
Speaker 1: And Rand's like, ooh trader.
33:38
Speaker 2: Right exactly. It's rough, very rough, so yeah. Next, we've
33:43
Speaker 2: got Militaire Chadmar being led in and negotiating with Rand,
33:48
Speaker 2: which mostly means just being turned topsy turvy by Rand's
33:51
Speaker 2: angry Teverinness.
33:53
Speaker 1: And this is she's the one who's interviewed the Messenger.
33:56
Speaker 1: And when I say interviewed, thrown the messenger in a prison.
34:00
Speaker 2: No, thrown him to a torturer at a special torture facility.
34:04
Speaker 1: But they still they try and keep him alive, and
34:06
Speaker 1: he ends up getting poisoned by the you know, the
34:08
Speaker 1: boy or whatever who's being a dark friend, right.
34:12
Speaker 2: Who's being No, he's a sock puppet of grand Dolls.
34:15
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, that's right.
34:16
Speaker 2: Right, He's completely looped through with compulsion to just be
34:19
Speaker 2: her security system contingency plan on site, basically.
34:23
Speaker 1: Right, And then interviewing him is how she Rand finds
34:26
Speaker 1: out the location.
34:27
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, after a ninive lobotomizes him by taking the
34:30
Speaker 2: compulsion back out of his brain.
34:32
Speaker 1: Right, So, Mila, so this is the beginning of that hole,
34:35
Speaker 1: leading this the beginning of the chain that leads to
34:37
Speaker 1: bail firing Natrum Sparrow.
34:40
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And all Militaire did was like normal political
34:44
Speaker 2: prisoner stuff. You know, you take the Messenger, you torch room,
34:46
Speaker 2: you keep him in a prison. The part where he
34:48
Speaker 2: gets slowly poisoned to death is a plot way way
34:51
Speaker 2: above her pay grade. She has nothing to do with
34:54
Speaker 2: that as far as I know. She's not even a
34:55
Speaker 2: dark friend. She actually is also getting poisoned when Ninive
35:00
Speaker 2: goes there and like figures everything out, like she's in
35:03
Speaker 2: the act of being poisoned in the same way as
35:06
Speaker 2: the Messenger.
35:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's just a shitty, hitty politician.
35:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, she's totally caught in the crossfire of the
35:13
Speaker 2: cosmic evil that Rand is fighting. But yeah, Rand asked
35:17
Speaker 2: to speak to the Messenger because he thinks that will
35:18
Speaker 2: lead him to the King aka Grand Doll. It's a
35:21
Speaker 2: whole like Fetch quest D and D style, you know.
35:24
Speaker 1: And of course she's she's trying to manipulate him. It's
35:27
Speaker 1: very Kyrie in in but he's so like he's not
35:29
Speaker 1: looking down her skirt. She's worried about the Oh my god,
35:32
Speaker 1: what if the king comes back because I've overstepped my
35:34
Speaker 1: bounds because I've been the only power here and he's
35:36
Speaker 1: gonna think I've tried to be king and I'm gonna
35:38
Speaker 1: get in trouble, So I don't really want the king
35:40
Speaker 1: to come back. Maybe there's something way we can arrange that.
35:43
Speaker 1: Like all is going on around, I almost see rand
35:46
Speaker 1: rolling his eyes and being like yeah whatever.
35:48
Speaker 2: Like yeah, totally, he should.
35:50
Speaker 1: Care about this, like that's the things he needs to
35:52
Speaker 1: care about this, and he doesn't.
35:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it matters who the king is, it matters
35:57
Speaker 2: how the power gets added, and he ostensibly can, but
36:00
Speaker 2: he doesn't know why he cares. He's just going through
36:02
Speaker 2: the forms of what caring looks like. And yeah, all
36:07
Speaker 2: he wants is Grandall he will brush aside any other
36:10
Speaker 2: detail if it gets him closer to Grandel.
36:12
Speaker 1: No, and he's just he's can't figure out other people's emotions.
36:15
Speaker 1: He doesn't know how men feels about him, He doesn't
36:17
Speaker 1: know how Olivia feels about him, Like all these characters
36:20
Speaker 1: that around him, he's just like questioning because I think
36:22
Speaker 1: he's so out of his own head he can't understand
36:24
Speaker 1: their motivations.
36:26
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to understand other people. Where people
36:28
Speaker 2: are at in their shoes. If you aren't even in
36:30
Speaker 2: your own shoes, if you're running around barefoot, how are
36:33
Speaker 2: you supposed to imagine someone else's shot experience and yeah, yeah.
36:38
Speaker 1: The readout for this that Yale sent runners, and Ran
36:41
Speaker 1: settled back into his chair. He would see the people fed,
36:44
Speaker 1: restore order, and gather the Council of Merchants. He would
36:47
Speaker 1: even see that a new king was chosen. He would
36:49
Speaker 1: also find out where Oslam had gone, for there, his
36:53
Speaker 1: instincts said, was the best place to find Grendel. It
36:56
Speaker 1: was his best lead. If he did find her, he
36:58
Speaker 1: would see that she died by bailf Just like Samarog.
37:01
Speaker 1: He would do what must be done, which kind of
37:05
Speaker 1: echoes the last that could be done.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, it's ironic that he's so convinced of this
37:10
Speaker 2: working when it absolutely isn't true. He does not find
37:14
Speaker 2: the King, He just finds Grandal. He skips the entire
37:17
Speaker 2: finding the king part of the plan because it turns
37:20
Speaker 2: out that the king is available to be found in
37:22
Speaker 2: a completely different location.
37:24
Speaker 1: Right, and it has nothing to do with Grendell. It's
37:26
Speaker 1: all stolen by the White Tower.
37:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, the finding of the king is a complete red
37:32
Speaker 2: herring that moves the plot forward. Kind of funny. Yeah,
37:36
Speaker 2: there you have it, the initiation of the plot thread
37:40
Speaker 2: that leads to Natron's barrow going up in a puff
37:42
Speaker 2: of white.
37:43
Speaker 1: Which is that the bail scream that we saw Fi'll
37:47
Speaker 1: react to probably.
37:48
Speaker 2: Oh no, we worked through that. It's not a bail scream.
37:54
Speaker 1: We don't. So the only other thought I had, or
37:57
Speaker 1: something I read is it could be related to Demon
38:00
Speaker 1: Dread using bail firing cities in Shara, because at that
38:06
Speaker 1: time he's kind of taking over power, and I think
38:09
Speaker 1: one of the things they said is he used bailfire
38:10
Speaker 1: on cities right because he was let the Lord of
38:13
Speaker 1: Chaos rule, And that would explain why there's two different
38:15
Speaker 1: bail screams that are like a couple of days apart,
38:18
Speaker 1: one experienced by Faiyel, one experienced by Parent. It's just
38:20
Speaker 1: weird that it's happening halfway across the continent and they
38:23
Speaker 1: seem to be experiencing it in a very localized area.
38:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. I could buy it if they were like directly
38:28
Speaker 2: antipodal to Shara, but they're not. Shara's not nearly far
38:32
Speaker 2: enough around the planet for that, I don't think.
38:36
Speaker 1: Anyway, just something I was sort of I know, we
38:38
Speaker 1: never I never felt like we fully resolved what those
38:40
Speaker 1: bail screams were or what those that three flattening of
38:45
Speaker 1: the world.
38:46
Speaker 2: Was Yeah, the best we ever got was a very
38:48
Speaker 2: mild bubble of evil. That was the best explanation we
38:51
Speaker 2: came up with, and it's so unsatisfying. But yeah, I
38:54
Speaker 2: don't think there's any hint of a Bale's scream other
38:58
Speaker 2: than just what men experience is at the time of
39:01
Speaker 2: Naturals Barrow, like men experiences the bail firing of Naturals
39:04
Speaker 2: Barrow in a way that I think you could say, like, well,
39:06
Speaker 2: that kind of sounds like a bail scream, just the
39:08
Speaker 2: way that reality is screaming around her like, but there's
39:13
Speaker 2: there's no other events in the book that we could
39:15
Speaker 2: assign that to, aside from the apocryphal bail scream that
39:19
Speaker 2: we have disproven.
39:20
Speaker 1: Lets.
39:21
Speaker 2: I well, that was a chapter.
39:24
Speaker 1: That was a chapter.
39:26
Speaker 2: I was just trying trying to just distall even more.
39:28
Speaker 2: I don't I don't, I don't want to.
39:30
Speaker 1: I mean, there was more detail in that chapter, but
39:33
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like it was anything, you know, it
39:36
Speaker 1: was pretty much what it said it was. It was
39:38
Speaker 1: either descriptions of people, descriptions of the city, Like I
39:41
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I had a lot to dig into
39:43
Speaker 1: with that one, or it's like, yeah, the what it
39:46
Speaker 1: is is what it is on the surface.
39:48
Speaker 2: Right, The bulk of it is the finding the King plot,
39:51
Speaker 2: which we just talked about, and yeah, that's pretty much
39:55
Speaker 2: all therese. But I mean, it's fine for a plot
39:57
Speaker 2: to start with an unremarkable chapter that's perfectly an ordinary
40:00
Speaker 2: and normal for books to say, oh, look at these
40:02
Speaker 2: unremarkable details that are going to eventually build to something.
40:05
Speaker 1: Impressive, like okay, cool.
40:07
Speaker 2: I don't think we can say that for this upcoming chapter.
40:23
Speaker 1: This upcoming chapter is a goot one chapter, And I
40:26
Speaker 1: mean it certainly helps round out his character, does it?
40:30
Speaker 2: Does it?
40:31
Speaker 1: It makes them a rounder asshole?
40:34
Speaker 2: I genuinely, when I was doing my notes for this chapter,
40:37
Speaker 2: I genuinely didn't see what this added to any plot,
40:41
Speaker 2: his plot, the rebel plot. Like, I genuinely don't know
40:45
Speaker 2: what this was other than really annoying character studies, Like
40:49
Speaker 2: please tell me if there's anything plot related in this chapter,
40:52
Speaker 2: because I did not see it.
40:54
Speaker 1: Well, we'll start with my first you know, so this
40:56
Speaker 1: is called old advice, which I think you know is, uh,
41:00
Speaker 1: you can ignore old advice from old men sometimes. I
41:02
Speaker 1: think that's what I take away from this chapter.
41:05
Speaker 2: Sometimes the old man's advice is in fact.
41:07
Speaker 1: Not worth listening to exactly.
41:11
Speaker 2: That seems like a good message for today.
41:12
Speaker 1: And I've got the symbol of a hero and marked
41:14
Speaker 1: blade because Gollad is a blade master, I guess is
41:17
Speaker 1: where we're going with that. Again, doesn't feel very creative,
41:20
Speaker 1: but fine, Sure, And I don't really feel like the
41:22
Speaker 1: hero and marked blade is a good symbol for Gollad.
41:25
Speaker 1: I'd rather see the line of andor or flame of
41:28
Speaker 1: tarvallin something like that.
41:30
Speaker 2: Right, Like, I think it has to do with like
41:33
Speaker 2: the leadership discussion that Brinn brings into it, who to
41:36
Speaker 2: serve with your blade master's skill? But sure, I guess.
41:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to read a same because it's goin.
41:45
Speaker 1: You get some backstory.
41:47
Speaker 2: It's a terrible little backstory. I don't like it. It's
41:50
Speaker 2: just like, here's misogyny from Godwin's dad.
41:54
Speaker 1: There are two types of people you should never trust,
41:57
Speaker 1: the man had been saying to Goald as they passed.
42:00
Speaker 1: The first are pretty women. The second, or I said,
42:03
Speaker 1: I light help you son if you ever have to
42:05
Speaker 1: face someone who is both, which of course describes like
42:09
Speaker 1: all the main characters, right.
42:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, ugly women are the only inherently trustworthy women.
42:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he goes on to like great ly
42:17
Speaker 1: leanne as less like or.
42:19
Speaker 2: Like a paragraph which is kind of hot but not
42:22
Speaker 2: too hot, but like pretty hot, but like not entirely hot,
42:24
Speaker 2: like you know, the kind of hot I'm talking the
42:26
Speaker 2: hot you.
42:27
Speaker 1: Can approach, Not the kind of hot that you like,
42:29
Speaker 1: like is off putting and like offensive because she's too
42:32
Speaker 1: hot to approach, but the kind of hot that makes
42:33
Speaker 1: you think that, like she just might be willing to
42:35
Speaker 1: fuck you.
42:36
Speaker 2: But like not the kind of hot you wouldn't marry,
42:38
Speaker 2: like just the kind of hot.
42:39
Speaker 1: You would fuck.
42:40
Speaker 2: It's just like I didn't need this from you, gotwin.
42:43
Speaker 2: I didn't need this from you. No one needed this
42:45
Speaker 2: from you. No one needed your commentary on exactly how
42:49
Speaker 2: seven and a half l Lane.
42:50
Speaker 1: Is right, Like, oh my god, he's like raiding every
42:55
Speaker 1: woman in his head. Then it's like, good god, man,
42:58
Speaker 1: like get go get laid please.
43:04
Speaker 4: Its like and not even go like go back to
43:10
Speaker 4: go back to Elaine, go back to your sister and
43:12
Speaker 4: do what she tells you to do.
43:13
Speaker 1: You cannot make your own choices. You suck at it.
43:16
Speaker 1: You need somebody to tell you what to do, and
43:18
Speaker 1: your sister is perfect for that. She'll make bad choices too,
43:21
Speaker 1: but you know, at least like they're better than yours.
43:24
Speaker 2: The other thing that really annoys me about Gobwin in
43:27
Speaker 2: this regard is how he thinks that he's automatically in
43:32
Speaker 2: a better place to judge Agwainne's safety and state of
43:36
Speaker 2: mind than she is. Repeatedly, he's like, well, if you
43:41
Speaker 2: could just tell me everything that's going on, then I
43:44
Speaker 2: could judge better. And it's like, why do we care
43:48
Speaker 2: what your judgment is? Why do you think you are
43:50
Speaker 2: automatically capable of making a meaningful judgment? Why should we care?
43:56
Speaker 1: And insisting that Agwayne can't make her own decision and
44:01
Speaker 1: can't be Oh, she just doesn't want you to risk yourself.
44:05
Speaker 1: She's self sacrificing, not that she's not making a judgment,
44:08
Speaker 1: that she's actually as safe as she needs to be, right,
44:11
Speaker 1: Like right, yeah, No, she just doesn't know. She doesn't know.
44:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, she couldn't possibly know as well as me and
44:17
Speaker 2: my ivy league education. Do you know who my mom is? Like,
44:21
Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here, going, And then they're like,
44:24
Speaker 2: do what we do know her sister? So it's then
44:28
Speaker 2: he's like, oh fine, I'll do weird politicking like selling
44:32
Speaker 2: my sister. I don't even fucking know the way Jesus,
44:37
Speaker 2: the way he oh my god, seriously, the way he
44:39
Speaker 2: thinks that he needs to be involved. Neo warder. He
44:42
Speaker 2: is a Nepo word. That is, his new title is
44:44
Speaker 2: neo warterer.
44:44
Speaker 1: I feel like that. How did you get into the
44:48
Speaker 1: White Tower? Well, my mommy was nice and I and
44:51
Speaker 1: she brought me along on her trips, and so I
44:53
Speaker 1: got the practice with the warders, and I was really
44:56
Speaker 1: good at it. So they gave me a sword and
44:58
Speaker 1: I got to fight the bad eyes. And then there
45:01
Speaker 1: was a rebellion and I joined the amberlyn seat and
45:04
Speaker 1: I killed my my mentors, and and now I'm sad. Right, yeah,
45:09
Speaker 1: some some talking about why it. You know, Elighta is
45:12
Speaker 1: so mad with power. She doesn't consider the rightful Amerlin
45:15
Speaker 1: a threat? Right, Like why Agwayn is safe?
45:18
Speaker 2: Oh? I do like how Gawain is two books behind
45:21
Speaker 2: us on figuring out the Romaine situation. He's like, I've
45:24
Speaker 2: discovered that Romaine exists and that they hate each other,
45:27
Speaker 2: and then I can do I can play them off
45:29
Speaker 2: of each other. And like he's he's discovering this like
45:31
Speaker 2: a big boy, and we're like, dude, that is two
45:34
Speaker 2: books ago that we all figured that shit out.
45:37
Speaker 1: I was like this quote, After all this time in
45:38
Speaker 1: the White Tower, he still had a little idea of
45:40
Speaker 1: what the power could and couldn't do. And it's like,
45:42
Speaker 1: oh my god, you grew up with channelers.
45:47
Speaker 2: What you could have paid so much more attention. You
45:51
Speaker 2: could have paid so much more attention, gawen, Oh my god. Yeah. No,
45:57
Speaker 2: it's like I have seen so many wars and novices
46:01
Speaker 2: pick up on ten times what you have managed to
46:04
Speaker 2: figure out in your privileged lifetime up close and personal access,
46:08
Speaker 2: Like you're so because he's so caught up in his
46:13
Speaker 2: main hero syndrome, he's so her main character syndrome. He's
46:17
Speaker 2: so caught up in his main character syndrome that he
46:19
Speaker 2: he figures that if he needs to know about the power,
46:21
Speaker 2: he'll get told, right.
46:23
Speaker 1: But no, so Lelaine promises to maybe bring up the
46:27
Speaker 1: rescue of Agwayne at the meeting, right at the meeting
46:32
Speaker 1: of the Hall, and so god might she might yeah,
46:36
Speaker 1: And so then she goes, so, now that I've done
46:38
Speaker 1: something for you, which has promised that she might do something.
46:44
Speaker 1: What a great twisting of words that was well written.
46:46
Speaker 1: I promise I might do something now that I've done
46:48
Speaker 1: something for you by promising I may Wow. Yeah, And
46:56
Speaker 1: so she grills him about what Elaine's plans are for
46:59
Speaker 1: or Richard's basically economics.
47:02
Speaker 2: Basically how she's going to use taxation to sweeten or
47:07
Speaker 2: harden various political alliances, which I think is in the
47:11
Speaker 2: ordinary course of things, exactly the kind of shit that
47:14
Speaker 2: the Tower cares about most, particularly the Blues, because that's
47:17
Speaker 2: how you can anticipate different political fractures and head off
47:20
Speaker 2: wars before they even get started. Like in the ordinary
47:23
Speaker 2: course of things, I'm sure this is very normal Blue
47:26
Speaker 2: political backroom dealing, but in this point of the apocalypse,
47:31
Speaker 2: and with a dumb ass like Gawain, it just feels
47:34
Speaker 2: very like what what.
47:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like, well, we know and Or is going
47:39
Speaker 1: to be like taken over Hydraulos pretty soon and none
47:41
Speaker 1: of this is going to matter, and like, yeah, it
47:44
Speaker 1: just it feels like a total waste of time from
47:46
Speaker 1: both of these characters.
47:47
Speaker 2: Well, and even without our meta knowledge, even just within
47:50
Speaker 2: in world, it's like we all need to band together
47:53
Speaker 2: to deal with the last battle like how how Tremaine
47:57
Speaker 2: feels about its fruit taxation is very much a fourth
48:01
Speaker 2: age people problem, right, Like that's just like we're not
48:04
Speaker 2: even going to get to the next fruit harvest before
48:08
Speaker 2: the last battle is upon us. Like this is just
48:11
Speaker 2: you should be doing something else, worry about something else.
48:15
Speaker 2: But I mean no, it's Romayne. That's what they do.
48:19
Speaker 2: So Gowan plays along because he's too dumb to realize
48:22
Speaker 2: that this is a dumb thing to do. And the POV.
48:25
Speaker 1: Ends, well, he's being led through the ice that I camp.
48:28
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, POV sort of phades out and then fades
48:31
Speaker 2: back in. It's still going, but it's some time later.
48:35
Speaker 1: Well over an hour's ride later. So he's going to
48:38
Speaker 1: talk to Gareth Brnn.
48:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, strange POV break, but whatever, it's because it's not
48:43
Speaker 2: a POV break but a time time jump. Yeah, yeah,
48:46
Speaker 2: it's a time jump. And yeah, he goes to meet
48:48
Speaker 2: with brynn On immediately he had set up in order
48:52
Speaker 2: to be able to get out of hanging out with Ulane, because.
48:55
Speaker 1: That's more and more he was coming to realize, coming
49:00
Speaker 1: to realize the people here really did see her as Amberlin.
49:04
Speaker 2: Oh again two books ago.
49:06
Speaker 1: Dude, Yeah, the way to catch up. Gwene really was
49:09
Speaker 1: Amberlin to them? Yet, no shit, like so much of
49:13
Speaker 1: an ambulin that she's been gone for a while and
49:15
Speaker 1: she's still Amberlin to it.
49:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean, in fairness, he's catching up, right,
49:19
Speaker 2: he's been under a rock. This is him catching up.
49:22
Speaker 2: But just his his shock that the woman he loves
49:25
Speaker 2: could be competent is just like, do you even love her?
49:29
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, he compares it it was like his mother's own
49:31
Speaker 1: rise to power and or many years before. Yeah, yeah,
49:34
Speaker 1: so they can respect it. Yeah maybe, Why can't you
49:36
Speaker 1: make that connection earlier? Like if a young girl can
49:39
Speaker 1: rise up to rule and or and be queen more gaze,
49:42
Speaker 1: queen fucking more gaze, Right, why cannot she do the
49:45
Speaker 1: same thing as Amberlin? The woman you love and you
49:48
Speaker 1: know think is highly competent and a good person. Why
49:52
Speaker 1: is it shocking to you? Why is it shocking to
49:54
Speaker 1: you that she's competent enough to do the thing your
49:56
Speaker 1: mother did?
49:57
Speaker 2: Literally literally the amount of dis respect you are showing
50:01
Speaker 2: the woman you claim to love when you are shocked
50:03
Speaker 2: that she would have the ambition to be at all
50:05
Speaker 2: like your mom, Like, come on, dude, come on, she's
50:10
Speaker 2: so much better than you. She can do so much
50:12
Speaker 2: better than you. Be better Gowin and I.
50:15
Speaker 1: Love this whole meeting with Gareth Brynn is totally an
50:18
Speaker 1: escapephone call the oh my god was ringing, I gotta go, Sorry,
50:22
Speaker 1: can't hang out anymore.
50:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, I had a thing come up. Yeah, no,
50:28
Speaker 2: gotta go. Well we'll catch up later. We'll put a
50:29
Speaker 2: pin and that will circle back. Yeah, totally.
50:31
Speaker 1: When you know your friend call you on a first
50:33
Speaker 1: date so you can be like, oh, I gotta go
50:36
Speaker 1: emergency exactly.
50:37
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, which, Jamay is not bad strategy. It's just
50:42
Speaker 2: silly that we need that to fluff the plot here.
50:45
Speaker 1: I feel like I totally support the warder of the
50:47
Speaker 1: other soldiers who spar with him and try to cause
50:50
Speaker 1: an accident, Like wow, insufferable. Does he have to be
50:53
Speaker 1: that every single person who is willing to spare it
50:55
Speaker 1: with him is literally trying to hurt him?
50:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yah, yeah, I just like I get that,
51:03
Speaker 2: like you follow the allegiances of your power structure, but
51:07
Speaker 2: like this one lone warrior from the other side who
51:11
Speaker 2: was instrumental in casualties on your side, just offering to
51:15
Speaker 2: spar Like yeah, you're gonna probably try to hurt him.
51:20
Speaker 2: That makes sense, That seems fair.
51:22
Speaker 1: My sword slipped and cracked you over the head.
51:25
Speaker 3: Oh no.
51:26
Speaker 2: Also, it's going so well, and then there's not, and
51:29
Speaker 2: then there's that. But they don't know that. They just
51:32
Speaker 2: know he's some guy.
51:33
Speaker 1: I don't know. I bet they talked to him for
51:34
Speaker 1: about three thirty seconds ago, this dude.
51:37
Speaker 2: That's true. I bet most cidentally make small talk in
51:40
Speaker 2: the line for food or whatever.
51:43
Speaker 1: My head canon is, nobody knows he's the opposed like
51:46
Speaker 1: Bareth Brand would never advertise that, and he would never
51:48
Speaker 1: say it, So nobody knows that he's the opposing commander.
51:51
Speaker 1: They just meet him and hate him so fucking much
51:53
Speaker 1: they all hurt. It's like, I hate this guy who's
51:59
Speaker 1: the I don't know, but I'm gonna try and hurt him.
52:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone clearly has not hit him in the face
52:04
Speaker 2: on office, so I'm gonna do my best.
52:08
Speaker 1: Where's Matt when he needed him with a stick?
52:10
Speaker 2: I know?
52:11
Speaker 1: And then Godwin complaining he didn't have a mind for
52:14
Speaker 1: the Game of Stones lately lately lately, yet no mind
52:18
Speaker 1: for strategy ever. He's like the worst Stones player. I
52:22
Speaker 1: think it's like canomic.
52:23
Speaker 2: Well, he does say that he was. He literally says
52:26
Speaker 2: in the next line, like the truth was he'd never
52:27
Speaker 2: been very good at the games.
52:29
Speaker 1: Like I can believe that, really, you don't think very strategically, geez,
52:36
Speaker 1: you know, like.
52:36
Speaker 2: Brinn made him learn how like the forms because battlefield strategy,
52:41
Speaker 2: but like he is a mediocre player on his best days. Yeah.
52:47
Speaker 2: I do like the inclusion of that as a detail though, Like,
52:49
Speaker 2: you know, he is literally as you would assume, he's
52:51
Speaker 2: bad at Stones. Yes, he is, in fact very bad
52:53
Speaker 2: at Stones. You are correct to your reader.
52:55
Speaker 1: Well, because so often we get oh, this character is
52:58
Speaker 1: so amazing at Stones, to show how you know, how
53:00
Speaker 1: good they are at battle and strategy and prowess, and
53:03
Speaker 1: like it's nice to be like, oh, yeah, this dude,
53:05
Speaker 1: he sucks at it. Yeah, he's just because you have
53:10
Speaker 1: to be better than somebody. They can't have everybody being
53:13
Speaker 1: amazing at it. Yeah.
53:14
Speaker 2: No, it is realistic to have a spoiled princeling who
53:17
Speaker 2: got to go to Harvard be absolutely terrible at everything
53:20
Speaker 2: he studied.
53:21
Speaker 1: NEPO order sucks at Stones figures.
53:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, so Gareth Brinn is like, could
53:27
Speaker 2: you please betray your comrades, and Gowen says, could I
53:32
Speaker 2: please not? Brynn says, fine, but conditionally I still.
53:37
Speaker 1: Think this has poorly written.
53:38
Speaker 2: Gareth Brynn Eh, yeah, I mean I don't know that
53:42
Speaker 2: Gareth Bryn could be well written with Gawaen as his
53:45
Speaker 2: conversational partner.
53:46
Speaker 1: That's fair, that's fair. I just don't see him. I
53:48
Speaker 1: don't see him being okay with Gawa not. He's like, no,
53:51
Speaker 1: you're you wrote, you're an opposing leader, you wrote into
53:54
Speaker 1: our ranks, you're our prisoner. Right, he's a fucking prisoner
53:57
Speaker 1: of war.
53:58
Speaker 2: He's not a colleague, yeah, exactly, but he gets treated
54:03
Speaker 2: like a colleague because he's gone tracnned.
54:06
Speaker 1: And he should be a prisoner of war. He should
54:08
Speaker 1: be the opposing commander held for ransom. Yeah, absolutely, whether
54:13
Speaker 1: or not he says he gave up his command who cares.
54:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah absolutely, I don't. I don't think that just
54:19
Speaker 2: because you declassified the documents in your mind, they're now
54:22
Speaker 2: declassified for everyone else. I just don't buy that logic.
54:25
Speaker 2: And that's essentially what Golin's doing is like, well, I'm
54:28
Speaker 2: not part of them anymore, but you are still part
54:33
Speaker 2: of them. You have that information in your head, and
54:36
Speaker 2: you don't just in your head and have that count
54:40
Speaker 2: Like it's.
54:42
Speaker 1: Like the CEO of a company being like, oh, I'm
54:44
Speaker 1: not the CEO anymore, so I'm not responsible for any
54:46
Speaker 1: of the crimes my company did under my watch.
54:49
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, exactly exactly. And Gareth Brinn's like, well,
54:53
Speaker 2: I watched him grow up and he did go to Harvard,
54:55
Speaker 2: so it's fine. I wouldn't want to ruin his future.
55:00
Speaker 1: By holding him accountable for any of the things he's
55:02
Speaker 1: he died.
55:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it would have been much truer
55:06
Speaker 2: to the like stoic paladin warrior archetype that Brynn is
55:10
Speaker 2: to have him say I don't care who you are.
55:13
Speaker 2: I am going to throw you in the stockades and
55:15
Speaker 2: I'm going to ransom you back to somebody, and like,
55:18
Speaker 2: I don't care what your reasoning was, and Gawain gets
55:20
Speaker 2: to sit in a prison and think about the consequences
55:22
Speaker 2: of his actions while the last battle rages.
55:25
Speaker 1: Or until Lagwayne comes and gets him and says, oh,
55:27
Speaker 1: you idiot, you thought you were going to rescue me,
55:29
Speaker 1: Well now I have to pull you out of the stocks.
55:31
Speaker 2: Which would have been really cute let's see real that
55:34
Speaker 2: would have been cute for releasing him from the stocks
55:37
Speaker 2: would have been an adorable scene and I would have
55:39
Speaker 2: loved it. Yeah, no, I agree. This does not feel
55:42
Speaker 2: like the Gareth Brynn that I was promised in book one.
55:45
Speaker 1: More gowin craziness talking thinking about rand he had fooled
55:48
Speaker 1: the Lane herself. The only way to help any of
55:50
Speaker 1: them would be to be exposed this dragon and dispose
55:54
Speaker 1: of him. No thought about the last battle.
55:57
Speaker 2: Where did he get the idea that rand All thought
56:00
Speaker 2: or has insane charisma? Like, where did that idea even
56:04
Speaker 2: come from? Dude? He's what what? Like his whole the
56:09
Speaker 2: rant in his mind exists nowhere else in the entirety
56:13
Speaker 2: of the world.
56:13
Speaker 1: Rumors that rand exists in rumors.
56:16
Speaker 2: It's so ridiculous. Well, I mean, yeah, there is the
56:19
Speaker 2: part where he does obviously have an unrecredited crush on
56:21
Speaker 2: rand I mean that does amp someone's charisma in your
56:23
Speaker 2: own personal estimation, for sure, But yeah, I just it's
56:29
Speaker 2: it's so weird to me.
56:30
Speaker 1: Is he just jealous of his sister? He's like, goddamn,
56:33
Speaker 1: I want him to basically, you claim him.
56:37
Speaker 2: Always get the nice things, always get what I want he.
56:42
Speaker 1: Just be like you always Steel my boyfriends got a lane.
56:45
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yes, yes, bisexual, like the bisexual disaster
56:50
Speaker 2: of the both of them always going for the same person.
56:53
Speaker 1: Uh huh, and that person being like, oh my god,
56:55
Speaker 1: I have a queen, a prince and a princess coming
56:58
Speaker 1: after me at the same time. What do I do?
57:00
Speaker 2: And then they always run away because they're scared of
57:02
Speaker 2: the pressure.
57:05
Speaker 1: Oh god, Colin. The best thing he could do for
57:08
Speaker 1: the young wings would be helped divide this division between
57:10
Speaker 1: the rebels and the loyalists. Yes, and that would help Agwayne,
57:13
Speaker 1: but that seemed far beyond the scope of what he
57:16
Speaker 1: could accomplish. Immediately gives up.
57:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I can relate. If I can't fix the world,
57:21
Speaker 2: why bother trying at all? I do relate to that.
57:26
Speaker 1: But yeah, But the difference in someone who's in a
57:28
Speaker 1: position of power and privilege saying that.
57:32
Speaker 2: Right, exactly right, Like you have so much ability to
57:35
Speaker 2: influence things, like go help Elane. She's one of the
57:38
Speaker 2: most powerful rulers, Like she could really use your help
57:41
Speaker 2: organizing things for the last battle, Like you could actually.
57:44
Speaker 1: Be helpful or do what Agwayne asks of you. That
57:47
Speaker 1: would also be helpful. If you're gonna help a GWayne,
57:50
Speaker 1: just do what she asks, which is not try and
57:52
Speaker 1: rescue her and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
57:55
Speaker 2: Right, like support her, ask what Swan needs because Swan
57:58
Speaker 2: is a Gwayne's hand here in the camp, Like that
58:01
Speaker 2: would be helpful.
58:02
Speaker 1: M hm. He doesn't even realize that. He doesn't even
58:04
Speaker 1: get that far into the like goings on to realize that,
58:07
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't even see Swan. I don't think.
58:09
Speaker 2: No, he spays all this time with Brent and barely
58:12
Speaker 2: notices that Swan exists until he needs something from her.
58:15
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing.
58:16
Speaker 1: He's doing his power play with Romayne. He has you know,
58:19
Speaker 1: no contact.
58:20
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly exactly, So, yes, he could be helpful, but
58:24
Speaker 2: he's too dent to realize where his help is needed,
58:27
Speaker 2: so he just gets in the way.
58:30
Speaker 1: Like blinded fool. He can't help Elaine because Elaine is
58:32
Speaker 1: into Rand, and he's compelled not to do anything to
58:34
Speaker 1: help Rand.
58:37
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe obey the omrelin and fuck over Rand. These
58:43
Speaker 2: are your two charges, go Unracand I.
58:45
Speaker 1: Mean really like this this whole like she had fooled
58:49
Speaker 1: Elaine herself like, how hard in your how compelled you
58:55
Speaker 1: have to be to believe rumors over the testimony of
58:59
Speaker 1: your own sister and be like, oh, no, I'm not wrong.
59:03
Speaker 1: It's it's my sister who's wrong and can't you know,
59:06
Speaker 1: figure out her own mind she's been tricked.
59:08
Speaker 2: And my girlfriend and they're extremely strong willed. Third friend who.
59:13
Speaker 1: Doesn't completely hate and Gareth Brynn.
59:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, like all these people you have maximum social capital with. No,
59:19
Speaker 2: they are all they all tell you the same thing.
59:21
Speaker 2: They're all wrong, and these rumors that can't agree on
59:24
Speaker 2: anything are all correct. It's truly truly stunning his cognitiveness.
59:32
Speaker 1: It's the number one reason why I do think a
59:34
Speaker 1: little compulsion got involved in here somewhere, Like I really
59:37
Speaker 1: do think that that's if everyone's like, oh, it's just jealousy,
59:40
Speaker 1: but like it feels outsized, even like especially for rand
59:45
Speaker 1: who he kind of liked the first time he met, right,
59:47
Speaker 1: it really feels like he turned on the dime on
59:49
Speaker 1: that ooh ooh I just thought of So even if
59:52
Speaker 1: he's not, like, doesn't have to obey the ambulance seat.
59:55
Speaker 1: Even if I'm wrong about that convulsion, I do think
59:57
Speaker 1: there is something there that makes him hate Randell Thorr.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, we don't know when Massana replaced Danell.
1:00:06
Speaker 2: We assume it was early in the series, if not
1:00:09
Speaker 2: like the second that she was.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: Let out, certainly before we ever met her.
1:00:14
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly long before we have any eyes on her,
1:00:17
Speaker 2: which meant.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Which and that was in I mean that was what
1:00:20
Speaker 1: book three, that she was we saw her for the
1:00:22
Speaker 1: first time, and it had to have been after the
1:00:25
Speaker 1: end of book one, so like you know, there's the
1:00:28
Speaker 1: book two. Does a company does happen over the longest
1:00:32
Speaker 1: period of time, Like that's almost like a year and
1:00:34
Speaker 1: three months, right.
1:00:36
Speaker 2: So I'm just thinking that I wonder if Danelle was
1:00:41
Speaker 2: there when Gowan and Galad got their heads whacked by Matt,
1:00:46
Speaker 2: and if she repaired. Yeah, she's the one who specifically
1:00:51
Speaker 2: repaired Gowan's head injury, because he comes over to Matt
1:00:54
Speaker 2: and talks to him while Galata is still being mobbed
1:00:57
Speaker 2: and he's been healed at that point, we didn't see
1:01:00
Speaker 2: healed him. He got healed right away. I'm just could
1:01:02
Speaker 2: could that have been to no, possibly maybe possibly.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: Maybe slipping a little extra channeling on top of the healing.
1:01:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, because it's it's truly
1:01:15
Speaker 2: stunning how dense he is. And it's like either he's
1:01:17
Speaker 2: just written to be the most obnoxious character of all
1:01:20
Speaker 2: time or there's something going on there, like there's no
1:01:23
Speaker 2: reason we can't flip flop on both while we do this.
1:01:26
Speaker 1: And light Blinded Fool brings up that land Fear was
1:01:28
Speaker 1: in the tower right like Matt saw her at that time.
1:01:31
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was the Landfear the time when she
1:01:34
Speaker 2: was there because she was messing with Matt like that day.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: She was definitely keeping track of him, so she would
1:01:40
Speaker 2: have been watching when he whacked those guys on the head.
1:01:43
Speaker 1: So maybe land Fear implants the I hate rand al
1:01:46
Speaker 1: Thor compulsion, and then later Masonic comes around and implants
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the obey the Amerlind compulsion. And that's one of the
1:01:54
Speaker 1: reasons why he struggles so much, is he has these
1:01:55
Speaker 1: two weird, like combating compulsions on his head.
1:01:58
Speaker 2: I mean, that would definitely make his cognition really impaired
1:02:02
Speaker 2: for sure, two different compulsions or yeah.
1:02:07
Speaker 1: And it fails Oukham's raisor test hard. But still it's
1:02:10
Speaker 1: just like a lot of what ifs and characters, you know,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: like to compulsions. One compulsion, maybe two compulsions. That's that's
1:02:17
Speaker 1: rough with no evidence.
1:02:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oukham's Raiser doesn't need to apply and fantasy, no,
1:02:25
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to. But yeah, light bunded bull my head.
1:02:31
Speaker 2: Canada's Landford tried to compulse him and found nothing there
1:02:33
Speaker 2: to compulse.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: It's the joke that the braining zombies would always starve
1:02:43
Speaker 1: around Gwen, right, like.
1:02:46
Speaker 2: He he'd be immune. They wouldn't even bother m all right,
1:02:51
Speaker 2: So back to the book, Britain tries to give Gawen
1:02:55
Speaker 2: some pretty cool advice about leadership, and Gowen is sort
1:02:57
Speaker 2: of a butteat about it. Like Brynn says, if you
1:03:02
Speaker 2: have great skill and great agency and exercising that skill,
1:03:06
Speaker 2: then you become very aware of how important it is
1:03:10
Speaker 2: to choose to give that to the right person. Like
1:03:12
Speaker 2: regular people without much influence, without much agency, they just
1:03:17
Speaker 2: kind of do what they need to do to survive.
1:03:19
Speaker 2: But like some people actually have like serious choices to
1:03:22
Speaker 2: make and it's kind of a heavy burden to bear
1:03:24
Speaker 2: and every person's answer is going to be different for them.
1:03:28
Speaker 2: And Gowan's like, boo, I wanted a flowchart that told
1:03:32
Speaker 2: me the correct answer to all of life's problems.
1:03:34
Speaker 1: Boo Well and Gareth Brynn asks that one question that
1:03:38
Speaker 1: teenagers who are taken up in fancies never answer for themselves,
1:03:42
Speaker 1: which is and then what?
1:03:44
Speaker 2: And then what?
1:03:45
Speaker 1: And then what? You're gonna go get her? And then
1:03:48
Speaker 1: what what happens if she doesn't want to come? Are
1:03:50
Speaker 1: you going to force her? Are you gonna hold her
1:03:53
Speaker 1: down and steal her away? Because I know she doesn't
1:03:55
Speaker 1: want to leave, and you're acting like somehow she's just
1:03:58
Speaker 1: gonna see it from your point of view if you
1:04:00
Speaker 1: show up like no, right, and then what are you
1:04:04
Speaker 1: going to pull her away? Are you going to go
1:04:06
Speaker 1: to and or are you gonna go to a little
1:04:09
Speaker 1: farm in the countryside? How are you going to live
1:04:10
Speaker 1: with this woman? How does she want to live? You
1:04:12
Speaker 1: don't know, you haven't thought about any of this? And
1:04:15
Speaker 1: then what and go goes I'll make it work, We'll
1:04:19
Speaker 1: figure it out. We'll figure it out, okay, teenager. Yeah?
1:04:23
Speaker 2: And this is also a part of why, Like he
1:04:25
Speaker 2: talks about how he questioned his role in the AE
1:04:29
Speaker 2: War and God and says, how on earth could you
1:04:30
Speaker 2: question your role in the ae War? And it's because
1:04:33
Speaker 2: Brinn thought about the and what like, what are the
1:04:36
Speaker 2: AEO here to do? They're not just here to kill
1:04:38
Speaker 2: everyone in the Westlands. That makes no sense. They're here
1:04:41
Speaker 2: to kill lemon and what and probably go home because
1:04:45
Speaker 2: they're here to kill lemon, like right, Like thinking through
1:04:49
Speaker 2: the implications is important, Gowen.
1:04:53
Speaker 1: So the next paragraph is this this he talks about honor,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: and of course whenever Sanderson talks about honor have to
1:05:00
Speaker 1: go with Stormlin Archive, and reading this paragraph in particular
1:05:04
Speaker 1: makes me go Okay, Gareth Brynn is Dalanar. I like,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: if you read this paragraph and think of Dalenar saying
1:05:11
Speaker 1: it from Stormloint Archive, the backstory is almost identical. I
1:05:14
Speaker 1: fought when I was young. I fought for honor. Eventually
1:05:17
Speaker 1: I realized that there was little honor to be found
1:05:19
Speaker 1: in killing, and I found that I had changed. Then
1:05:22
Speaker 1: I fought because I served your mother. I trusted her.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: When she failed me, I began to wonder again, what
1:05:27
Speaker 1: of all those years of service, what of the men
1:05:29
Speaker 1: I'd killed in her name? What did any of that mean?
1:05:33
Speaker 1: The details maybe don't perfectly line up, but like that
1:05:37
Speaker 1: idea of killing for honor and then realizing you kill
1:05:39
Speaker 1: for somebody else and then trying to wonder, like, what
1:05:43
Speaker 1: does all of that killing mean? Why did you do it?
1:05:45
Speaker 1: What's the point of it? Were you doing the right
1:05:48
Speaker 1: thing in the right time for the right person. So
1:05:52
Speaker 1: again more sort of seeing Sanderson's writing in the Stormline.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: Now that he's written these five other massive books that
1:06:00
Speaker 1: have come out, I can see a lot of the
1:06:03
Speaker 1: stuff that ended up being in those books foreshadowed here,
1:06:07
Speaker 1: because he certainly had a lot of the ideas that
1:06:09
Speaker 1: ended up in Stormlant Archive while he was writing. You know,
1:06:11
Speaker 1: we're in his head while he was writing.
1:06:13
Speaker 2: These books, right, And I remember when I was first
1:06:16
Speaker 2: reading this, getting two sections like this where Brynn was
1:06:21
Speaker 2: having this very poetic series of rhetorical questions and thinking, huh,
1:06:26
Speaker 2: so that's Sanderson's writing. Like early on, right, it was
1:06:29
Speaker 2: just like it was hitting these patches where it's like, oh,
1:06:31
Speaker 2: that's clearly Jordan, that's clearly Sanderson. This was one of
1:06:35
Speaker 2: those patches where I was like, Yeah, that is not Jordan,
1:06:38
Speaker 2: that is Sanderson. That is a whole new voice giving
1:06:42
Speaker 2: me this character. I remember this part being a really
1:06:45
Speaker 2: distinctive moment of getting that sense of the difference, not
1:06:48
Speaker 2: in a bad way just in a oh wow, oh wow,
1:06:51
Speaker 2: that's different. That's a whole other key.
1:06:54
Speaker 1: And now having read all of his other books and
1:06:56
Speaker 1: seeing in even in those books character theme, if not
1:06:59
Speaker 1: the same character repeat character themes repeat between characters, I
1:07:03
Speaker 1: can sort of see that same thing. I can go backwards,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: like a bail scream, going back through time and actually
1:07:09
Speaker 1: see the echoes of his writing in these novels, even
1:07:17
Speaker 1: though these were written first. In a lot of cases.
1:07:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, time is a flat puddle.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: We all know this, and like, and I'm firmly convinced
1:07:25
Speaker 1: that authors only have so many ideas in their head
1:07:28
Speaker 1: at any given time, and like they can gain more.
1:07:31
Speaker 1: But for the most part, when authors start writing, they
1:07:34
Speaker 1: have a set number of ideas that they have to
1:07:36
Speaker 1: put out on the book.
1:07:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I've not said about people. People tend to
1:07:41
Speaker 2: have a few themes that they always return to, a
1:07:45
Speaker 2: few like ways of looking at the world that they
1:07:47
Speaker 2: always return to. And sometimes people grow and change and
1:07:51
Speaker 2: move on. But usually they stick in their theme and
1:07:56
Speaker 2: just iterate on that.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: And that's why you know, early books of authors oftentimes
1:08:02
Speaker 1: are the first the first trilogy might be rough as
1:08:05
Speaker 1: they're getting their feet underneath them, and then they have
1:08:07
Speaker 1: a really good trilogy or two where they're you know,
1:08:09
Speaker 1: banging out ideas and things are really working. And then
1:08:13
Speaker 1: after that things tend to get repetitive as they sort
1:08:16
Speaker 1: of go back over these same ideas because those are
1:08:18
Speaker 1: the ideas they have, and they maybe want to approach
1:08:21
Speaker 1: them in a different way. Maybe they want to, you know,
1:08:24
Speaker 1: reiterate them on the podcast. A third time for you
1:08:26
Speaker 1: to cut out?
1:08:30
Speaker 2: Do you want to do the readout?
1:08:31
Speaker 1: No? I picked it because I'm a fool nice but
1:08:40
Speaker 1: I stayed because it was right that which has been
1:08:42
Speaker 1: broken must be made whole. And I've seen what a
1:08:45
Speaker 1: terrible leader can do to a kingdom. Elida can't be
1:08:47
Speaker 1: allowed to pull this world down with her. Golwin stared, yes.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: Brynn said, I've actually come to believe them, fool women.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: By the light, Gowain, They're right. What I'm doing is right,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: She's right. Who Gowain shook his head, muttering, bloody woman.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: Agwaine Gowin wondered, su.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: On, obviously, yeah, obviously, yes, definitely, Swan.
1:09:09
Speaker 1: My motivations aren't important to you, Sun Blue Eyes, Brynn said,
1:09:14
Speaker 1: you're not one of my soldiers, but you need to
1:09:16
Speaker 1: make some decisions in the days coming. You'll need to
1:09:18
Speaker 1: have a side, and you only need to know why
1:09:20
Speaker 1: you've chosen it. That's all I'll say on the matter.
1:09:22
Speaker 1: Gowin fails at all of that. He kicked his horse
1:09:25
Speaker 1: into a faster gate. In the distance Gollwaen could pick
1:09:28
Speaker 1: out another guard post. He hung back his brin and
1:09:30
Speaker 1: his soldiers approached it. Pick a side. What if Agwayne
1:09:34
Speaker 1: wouldn't go with him? Brynn was right, something was coming.
1:09:37
Speaker 1: You could smell it in the air, feel it in
1:09:39
Speaker 1: the weak sunlight that managed to shoulder its way through
1:09:42
Speaker 1: the clouds. You could sense it distantly in the north,
1:09:44
Speaker 1: distantly in the north, crackling like unseen energy on that
1:09:47
Speaker 1: dark horizon. War battles, conflict changes. Gowin felt as if
1:09:52
Speaker 1: he didn't know what the different size were, let alone
1:09:55
Speaker 1: which one to pick for himself. And he never really
1:09:59
Speaker 1: successfully picks a side because he never really gets on
1:10:02
Speaker 1: the Wwayne's side. Yeah, he never really supports her.
1:10:05
Speaker 2: He compromises and waffles and doesn't know what to do
1:10:10
Speaker 2: and is indecisive so long that he effectively chooses the
1:10:13
Speaker 2: wrong side and works for the side of evil. If
1:10:17
Speaker 2: you sit around waiting too long, You're gonna the decisions
1:10:21
Speaker 2: made for you. And that's that's really.
1:10:24
Speaker 1: And I feel like it's all supposed to be, like
1:10:26
Speaker 1: there's this redeeming moment where he saves Agwayne's life, right,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: he disobeys orders, he shows up, and he protects her
1:10:32
Speaker 1: from the blood knives, and I feel like it's supposed
1:10:34
Speaker 1: to be a redeeming moment, but it really feels more like, yeah,
1:10:38
Speaker 1: broken Clack is you know, right twice a day situation,
1:10:42
Speaker 1: rather than oh my god, he was actually right about something.
1:10:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially because his reasoning is just really immediate.
1:10:51
Speaker 2: He doesn't have large paradigm shifting reasoning. He just realizes
1:10:57
Speaker 2: that there's an assassin.
1:10:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just like, oh wait, no, this time I'm right.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: I've been wrong all these other times, but this time
1:11:04
Speaker 1: I'm right.
1:11:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't redeem or repair his decision
1:11:09
Speaker 2: making process, right, right, It doesn't show growth in any way.
1:11:13
Speaker 1: And then he rubs it into Gwayne's face.
1:11:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so like Gowa needs to like it's
1:11:23
Speaker 2: so funny. We we accuse him of having main characters syndrome,
1:11:26
Speaker 2: but truly he needs to recenter himself, not his ambitions
1:11:31
Speaker 2: for someone's politics, not his relationship with Agwayn, not his
1:11:36
Speaker 2: relationship to his teachers. He needs to actually center himself alone.
1:11:41
Speaker 2: He never does work from there, Yeah, exactly. He only
1:11:44
Speaker 2: ever sees himself in relation to other people and tries
1:11:47
Speaker 2: to force them into being who he wants them to be,
1:11:49
Speaker 2: rather than just being himself authentically and realizing that Alida
1:11:54
Speaker 2: is a fascist demagogue and anything that gets her out
1:11:57
Speaker 2: of power needs to be done forthwith Oh my god,
1:12:03
Speaker 2: light blanded full, He's dovererin.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: That's good. Oh and I've heard it pe People be like, well,
1:12:12
Speaker 1: you know, why does he get so much hate going
1:12:15
Speaker 1: after Demandrad and dying whereas Land, who's bonded to Ninive,
1:12:19
Speaker 1: which is also key to the last battle, you know,
1:12:22
Speaker 1: could have died if he'd gone off and Demandrad and failed. Right, Like,
1:12:25
Speaker 1: there is this moment where people are like, I don't
1:12:27
Speaker 1: see why it's so bad, and I like the difference
1:12:29
Speaker 1: to me is Gollan put on the blood knive Taran Greel,
1:12:32
Speaker 1: because once you put those on, your death is inevitable.
1:12:36
Speaker 2: I would argue that me and everyone I know give
1:12:38
Speaker 2: Lan a lot of shit for going in to do
1:12:41
Speaker 2: the demon dread fight while being bonded to one of
1:12:43
Speaker 2: the batteries that's hooked up to the Saving of the World.
1:12:46
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it is, it is, it is,
1:12:51
Speaker 1: but no, and what I'm saying is I think it
1:12:53
Speaker 1: should be leveled still, even more so at Dolin. Right.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: What I'm arguing is why why do is Gollin get
1:12:58
Speaker 1: more hate for it? And I think that like he
1:13:00
Speaker 1: legitimately deserves more hate for it because because of the
1:13:04
Speaker 1: blood knife drong real right there, he was never coming
1:13:08
Speaker 1: out of that alive.
1:13:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, if he was gonna do that, he should have
1:13:12
Speaker 2: told Agwayne, you need to let my bond go now
1:13:15
Speaker 2: because I am putting myself on a suicide mission and
1:13:19
Speaker 2: you can come with me into the suicide if you want,
1:13:23
Speaker 2: but better to unbond me now so that I can
1:13:26
Speaker 2: go do the thing.
1:13:28
Speaker 1: And also, land dying is something that's much more expected, right,
1:13:33
Speaker 1: not that Ninive expects him to die, but like she
1:13:36
Speaker 1: sent him into the battle first with this like him
1:13:38
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, that's what he's doing. Yeah, like he
1:13:42
Speaker 1: is the one of the spirit like him dying would
1:13:44
Speaker 1: be tragic, but Nini would be like, oh my god,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: he's dead, which is like terrible, but part of the
1:13:50
Speaker 1: battle that he was in, and whereas Godwin wasn't even
1:13:53
Speaker 1: supposed to be on the battlefield.
1:13:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was supposed to be guarding his eyes to
1:13:58
Speaker 2: die like a good order, right. That's the thing is
1:14:01
Speaker 2: he should have found one of his younglings, one of
1:14:04
Speaker 2: his very fav unbonded young things like Jussau and been like, look,
1:14:08
Speaker 2: this is a suicide mission, but it's very important. But no,
1:14:14
Speaker 2: he's a special boy and can't tell his wife slash
1:14:18
Speaker 2: eyes to die what he's gonna do. Yeah. No, it's
1:14:21
Speaker 2: the part where Gwen doesn't know what side he's on
1:14:24
Speaker 2: leads directly to him making such a terrible decision. He
1:14:26
Speaker 2: can't think through the and then what he can't He
1:14:29
Speaker 2: can't center himself and focus on the future. He's just
1:14:33
Speaker 2: reacting constantly based on how he thinks other people have
1:14:36
Speaker 2: slighted him.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: I think that's a good place to end it.
1:14:40
Speaker 2: We don't like going on this podcast, does I mean.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: Does anybody really the goe hate out there is real.
1:14:47
Speaker 1: It's very real.
1:14:49
Speaker 2: It's very real. Sometimes I think we're getting too extreme
1:14:51
Speaker 2: about it. But the more I talk about it, the
1:14:53
Speaker 2: more I'm like, no, sir, the hate you receive is correct,
1:14:58
Speaker 2: so yes, anyway, good, please to stand it. Thank you
1:15:01
Speaker 2: all for listening. This has been strange and weird, and
1:15:05
Speaker 2: we'll be back for more strange weirdness next week.
1:15:44
Speaker 1: But you know, we know one stops these authors from
1:15:47
Speaker 1: writing another trilogy with a lot of the same themes,
1:15:49
Speaker 1: a lot of the same characters, and so you know,
1:15:52
Speaker 1: I'm noticing this a little bit. I've talked about the
1:15:55
Speaker 1: Realm of the Elderly Series by Robin Hobble lot lately.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: Loved the first two trilogies, really love the third book
1:16:01
Speaker 1: of the third trilogy, but there's just there's a point
1:16:05
Speaker 1: where some of the themes have gotten even even in
1:16:08
Speaker 1: this third trilogy, just very repetitive, and you can see
1:16:11
Speaker 1: that she's going over the same characters, are hitting the
1:16:14
Speaker 1: same beats again, and it's like, I love those first
1:16:16
Speaker 1: two trilogies. I'm much more struggling with the third trilogy,
1:16:20
Speaker 1: not because it's bad, but because again we're hitting a
1:16:22
Speaker 1: lot of the same themes, just with the different generation.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: And so then you have to immerse yourself in, like
1:16:27
Speaker 1: I care about these characters and I want to see
1:16:29
Speaker 1: them grow and I want to see them relate to
1:16:30
Speaker 1: each other, and that's why I want to keep reading this.
1:16:33
Speaker 1: But the ideas are no longer novel, even though they're
1:16:39
Speaker 1: in a novel. Yeah, so, I know I've been recommending
1:16:45
Speaker 1: remb with the other Doings, and I do really really
1:16:47
Speaker 1: love it. The third trilogy is not my favorite bit
1:16:51
Speaker 1: of writing, and I know the fourth trilogy is also
1:16:53
Speaker 1: something is another one where like the pacing is a
1:16:58
Speaker 1: little hard, right, it starts off slow, So I think
1:17:01
Speaker 1: I think that her second two trilogy, I know I'm
1:17:03
Speaker 1: going in this a little too much, but her third
1:17:05
Speaker 1: and fourth trilogy, the pacing is pretty rough in the
1:17:08
Speaker 1: beginning and then there's usually fun stuff at the end,
1:17:11
Speaker 1: but there's some slogginess to it.
1:17:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, there's also a slog that gave us the
1:17:17
Speaker 2: term slog. So all authors that we experience at least
1:17:23
Speaker 2: seem to have this tendency at some point or other.
1:17:27
Speaker 1: I think it's also capitalism if you have a successful series,
1:17:31
Speaker 1: you know, instead of ending the wheel of time in
1:17:33
Speaker 1: six or eight books or a nine trilogy book trilogy,
1:17:36
Speaker 1: they said this is successful. Stretch it out a little bit.
1:17:38
Speaker 1: Let's make Rand's insanity last a little longer. Right. That
1:17:42
Speaker 1: wasn't all Robert Jordan not knowing what to do. That
1:17:46
Speaker 1: was the publishing company saying, hey, you know, let's extend
1:17:50
Speaker 1: this for another three books. Let's extend the contract. And
1:17:53
Speaker 1: Robert Jones like, all right, so I'm bringing some forsaken
1:17:55
Speaker 1: back to life. You know. Rand's not quite as insane
1:17:59
Speaker 1: as we thought he was, you know, And so I
1:18:01
Speaker 1: think some of that like early insanity, right, Like we
1:18:04
Speaker 1: referenced it in this earlier chapter when Rand killed that
1:18:07
Speaker 1: woman in the cart that was supposed to be this
1:18:09
Speaker 1: big moment of where he like was so insane that
1:18:12
Speaker 1: he killed woman without even thinking about it, without even
1:18:14
Speaker 1: being conscious of what he was doing. And then he
1:18:17
Speaker 1: got to the end of Dragon Reborn got calendar, and
1:18:20
Speaker 1: we kind of stepped that insanity back a little bit
1:18:22
Speaker 1: because I think after that book was over, Robert Jordan went, oh,
1:18:25
Speaker 1: I'm not this is not going to be a six
1:18:27
Speaker 1: book series, and he was ramping up the insanity to
1:18:30
Speaker 1: be over in six books.
1:18:32
Speaker 2: Capitalism just reining on our parade again.
1:18:37
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm pretty happy that we got more
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Wheel of Time though, even.
1:18:41
Speaker 2: If but maybe we would have gotten good outriggers if
1:18:45
Speaker 2: he'd had all that time.
1:18:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe if you had a chance to end
1:18:50
Speaker 1: it and then keep going.
1:18:51
Speaker 2: Right exactly, like, oh, keep writing in this world now
1:18:54
Speaker 2: that you finish the main story. Now you can write
1:18:56
Speaker 2: the outriggers and the side plots and what was going
1:18:59
Speaker 2: on in the lad of mad this whole time.
1:19:01
Speaker 1: I mean, fuck blood disease. I wanted to have him
1:19:03
Speaker 1: write for so much longer.
1:19:05
Speaker 2: But well, people need to stop getting blood diseases. I'm
1:19:08
Speaker 2: just calling it right now, everyone with the blood disease
1:19:11
Speaker 2: stop there, I fixed it.
1:19:14
Speaker 1: I declare health doesn't work.
1:19:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, having having your favorite artist conk out early
1:19:23
Speaker 2: mid career at the height. Yeah, and that's not capitalism's fault.
1:19:27
Speaker 2: That's medicine not being perfect fault, which maybe is capitalism's fault.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: And don't come at me, because the fucking Knife of
1:19:34
Speaker 1: Dreams was good, so good.
1:19:37
Speaker 2: But you know, if he had been able to do
1:19:40
Speaker 2: the books in the original pacing he wanted and then
1:19:43
Speaker 2: continue writing in that world rather than being like, oh,
1:19:46
Speaker 2: this series specifically is going to be your meal train,
1:19:50
Speaker 2: right right, and just yeah, maybe capitalism could take its
1:19:53
Speaker 2: hands off the artistic grains.
1:19:56
Speaker 1: Nope, until we decouple them UBI UBI.
1:20:02
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, that would help like a lot.
1:20:06
Speaker 1: So all right, so total tangent. But the thing I
1:20:09
Speaker 1: worry about UBI is the same thing I worry about
1:20:11
Speaker 1: minimum wage. Right, as long as the minimum wage keeps
1:20:14
Speaker 1: up with inflation and is high enough that you could
1:20:18
Speaker 1: actually feasibly live have a living wage off the minimum wage,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: the minimal wage is great. Same thing with UBI. As
1:20:25
Speaker 1: long as you can survive a certain you know, you
1:20:27
Speaker 1: can pay your rent and get a certain amount of
1:20:29
Speaker 1: minimum groceries off UBI, well then it's successful. The problem
1:20:34
Speaker 1: is they'll cut it back, cut it back, cut it
1:20:35
Speaker 1: back until yeah, I got I got my three dollars
1:20:37
Speaker 1: UBI this month. That's really going to do a lot
1:20:40
Speaker 1: for me. You know. So that's that's where I worry
1:20:42
Speaker 1: about the logistics of it.
1:20:44
Speaker 2: Well, that that just comes back to unfettered capitalism. Yeah, yeah, right,
1:20:49
Speaker 2: It's like we would have a UBI automatically, if we
1:20:53
Speaker 2: had a system that led with humanity, then a UBI
1:20:56
Speaker 2: would be a natural part of the social safety net
1:20:58
Speaker 2: and hundred yeah, you know, symptoms versus root causes. Thank
1:21:06
Speaker 2: you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
1:21:09
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1:21:12
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1:21:16
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1:21:20
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