Latest / WoT Spoilers / The Amyrlin’s Anger - Towers of Midnight chapter 3 - EP547

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The Amyrlin’s Anger - Towers of Midnight chapter 3 - EP547 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. All right,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: So we are here today to do one of the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: only single chapters we will be doing this book, probably
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Chapter three.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: It's a banger, which is good because I've got a
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: lot to say about this one.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: There's three povs, there's conclusions to things that should have
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: happened a long time ago.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: There's a lot, there's prophecies, there's visions, there's dreams. Barn's letter.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so much to talk about.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It touches on a lot of it. And then just
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: the conversation between Randon and Gwain is like, every line
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: has something I want to say something about. So this
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: is going to be a good one, I think.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So without further ado, should I just read us in?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I think so? Yeah. I think we can just skip
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: on the extra content today and just go for it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just do it, all right. Chapter three. The
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Omorlin's anchor and our symbol is the flame of Tarvalin
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Agwain floated in blackness. She was without form, lacking shape
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: or body. The thoughts, imaginings, worries, hopes, and ideas of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: all the world extended into eternity around her. This was
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the place between dreams and the waking world, a blackness
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: pinpricked with thousands upon thousands of distant lights, each more
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: focused and intense than the stars of the skies. They
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: were dreams, and she could look in on them, but
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: did not. The ones she wanted to see were warded,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and most of the others were mysteries to her. There
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: was one dream she longed to slip into, she restrained herself.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Though her feelings for Gawin were still strong, her opinion
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of him was muddled recently. Getting lost in his dreams
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: would not help. She turned about, looking through the expanse.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Recently she'd started coming here to float and think. The
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: dreams of all the people here, some from her world,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: some from shadows of it reminded her why she fought
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: she must never forget that there was an entire world
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: outside the White Towers walls. The purpose of Isadai was
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to serve that world. Thought that was a nice readon
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: because that's where she's at. As she, you know, approaches
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: this conversation with Rand right, is really thinking about the global, existential,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: multi dimensional nature of what they're doing, which I think
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: is a good way for her to be. Walking up
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to such an important conversation with Rand right like in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: his awakened state, Like, it's good that she's not just
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: being angry about something small. It's good she's global, universal
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in her thinking right now.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I always thought that she could get information from the
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: dreams of people, not from her world. That would be useful,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: right Like, I feel like I would mind not for technology.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: What is there a world where they have gunpowder? I mean,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: you know, or something equivalent, like better technology than we have,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: where they've they've got more advanced discoveries. Can I figure
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: anything out?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Elevators, right, long distance mail something? Yeah? Yeah. If those
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: worlds exist and have manifest dreams, is there not something
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to be gained from interacting with them?
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: So then she uses the world of dreams as we've
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: seen it her abuse them before, which is basically like
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: communicating Yes.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: This is her long distance communication is Yeah, she basically
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: pages nine eve mm I like that.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's always followed by Ninive waking up, you know,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and being like, oh my god, okay, well.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I mean that buzzing noise is annoying, you know.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And so she yeah, Ninive, it is time to stop
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: avoiding me. There's work to be done me because she's
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: been hanging out with Rand this whole time.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she has said, I need to stay with Rand.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: One of us on the core cast needs to stay
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: with Rand and this whole time, And that's her reason
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: for staying away from Agwain.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: But she also kind of ran away in the middle
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of the night.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Well, but her and Agway have some unresolved issues that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: have definitely been getting swept farther and farther under the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: rug with the Rand Broom.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Because nine even is very much an independent agent in
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways. She's going to do what she
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: wants when she wants. She's never obeyed the Tower and
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: she and she never will, so yeah, and she's too
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: powerful to like just ignore.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. She can't be entirely outside of the fold,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: but neither can she be contained completely within the fold.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: She's a real conundrum even for her old friend Agwain,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I mean friend in quotes.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And she wants them back. She wants them the oaths
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: like everybody else has sworn the oaths. Everyone else has
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: resworn the oaths. She's sworn the oaths. It's time to
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: get them on the oath rod. And you know, really
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: raised the shawl as she wants them to complete the ceremony.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Now that they have the tower, they can do that
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: whole thing right that they weren't able to do out
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: of the tower.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That is kind of the first order of business, right
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: is to raise all the women who were raised by
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a decree, all of them, not just her friends, but
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: everyone who was in that limbo because of the split.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: They should kind of be priority number one now that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the split is healed.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I still think the last battle should
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: be priority. Well.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: No, that is prep for the last battle is to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: get that little issue resolved, because that gets more proper
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Isidye into the ranks of Isidi.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So what do you think about Agwaine's decision to not
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: take the test but have Ninive take it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I am very meh on Agwayne not taking the test.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I think them all taking it makes sense. I'm really
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: meh on her deciding that the omrelin is exempted because
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: she went through a bunch of spankings. I'm not swayed
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: by her logic on that. I think she should have
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: gone through. I think she should have taken the test.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I could see her saying I can't take the test
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: until after the last battle, because you can't lose me
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: to the test on the eve of the last battle.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I could see that argument that she gets a longer extension,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: but I don't see.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: But I would say the same thing about Ninive, that
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: need's too important to be risked.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's I I think she should have done it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I don't see why she needed to be like, no,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I'm too good for that, Like why you don't defeat
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Massana until after? And she literally has the thought, what
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: if I had faced something like this in my test,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is why you should have taken the.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Test exactly exactly.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you would have broken the test, just
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: like you broke Massana. Like, I think that would have
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: been awesome.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But alas, there is the dream aspect of the test,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: and as a dream walker, one wonders if she would
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: be able to like a game the dream a little bit,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: just be like no change.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: That she does say it. That's part of why Ninive
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was able to go as hard on the test as she.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Did is her experience and until her on reality.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I believe that that is a thing that
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Agwayinne says, It's like that's part of why the test
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was maybe a mistake to administer to you is because
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: you had too much experience in the dream. So like,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe there's an argument there that, like
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: people with dream experience can't be tested in the same way.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But I don't know, that feels weak. That feels weak.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: They want to stress test the isidye, stress test the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: ice to die, I don't know, be consistent.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And then just the idea this next paragraph I don't
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: really like where she thinks about how she should deal
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: with the wise ones.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I get where.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: She's going with that, where he's trying to be like, oh, well,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: she's matured. She's now one of the big you know,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the ambulance seat. She has to deal with the other ones.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: But these are her friends who raised her. I don't
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: ever imagine Agwayne seeing the wise ones as something to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: be dealt with, even in quotes.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, she literally thinks the first thing was to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: keep them from thinking they were being dealt with, Meaning
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: she's now infantilizing that she now has like a supremacy
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: mindset over them, and that doesn't feel consistent to how
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: she respects them. To me, to me, she should have
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: said the first thing was to remember that they were
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: not to be quote unquote dell with. That's how that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: sentence should have gone, is to be like I have
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to manage the eyes to die, thinking that they're going
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: to deal with the wise ones while realizing that that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: is the wrong approach, kind of like she is with Rand,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: but instead she takes on this like super colonizer brained
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking of like we got to keep them
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: from realizing they're being manipulated, Like you would never do
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that to the wise ones, though you let them beat
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you for lying to them, Like what what?
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And you just came out of this experience where them
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: spanking you saved you from this, you know, let you
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: able to deal with this spanking and overthrow a lighter, right,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Like this is there should be a whole line of respect, right,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and it's it's just not there. It's just not there.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe the point is being made that absolute power corrupts fuck,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: but in that case it's being made clumsily and far
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: too quickly for me to believe. So I don't quite
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: know what the head canon patch for this is. This
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: just feels wrong.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I really do think that Sanderson miss read Agwayne that
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: he missed. He reads her as ambition first, and that's
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: never been Awayne. Does she have ambition, absolutely, but it's
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: people first, and she wants power to help the people
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: around her.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: He listened to the wrong people on Reddit.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah he really did.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah for too many years as a fan.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because there is that aspect of Awayne, but it's
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: not the only aspect of Awayne, and it's tempered by
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: so much more understanding, especially with the whole like the
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: international travel and spending time in Europe, I mean, the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: waste that she like came to appreciate other cultures and like, yeah,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: she's the annoying girl that talks about it all the time,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: but she also does speak fluent French, you know, Like.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: So right right, you know, and I feel like.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: You just this this person has come back and been like, oh, yeah,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: no I live there, but they're just barbarians.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Or this is maybe maybe this is a reflection of
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: my head cannon, that she's spending too much time in
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the dream world thinking about herself as Amor and so
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: she's taking on the institutional biases of the tower like
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: above and beyond her own personality and experiences. Like maybe
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: maybe that's what's going on now. I don't think that's
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that's no. No, I dislike that. I know I just
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: said that, but I dis like it.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: So she steps out of the dream and goes to
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: her own little horny dreams with Gowen.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: She's gonna go take a break, just go rub one out, relax,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: With the Godwin as she imagines him, because this is
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: not the all One as he exists. This is the idea, like,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: this is dream Gowin, This is dream Gowin. This is
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the Golin she has a crush on. And she has
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: a crush on him because she has no idea who
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: he is.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: He is ke enough for her. Yeah, and then right
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: does she's getting cozy in her dream it shatters into
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: prophecy dreams and she gets three true dreams capital letters,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and it completely ruins any hope she was going to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: have of having a good night's sleep. And I think, hey,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: canon a little bit wondering if the reason she got
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: all these true dreams was because Rand came into a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: certain proximity of her.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: That's him walking into like.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: As he crosses the Bridge's sullenly everyone's like abilities, talents
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: for tellings all that like spikes dreaming. So it's like
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and now true prophecy dreams. But it's like she was
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: just trying to be cozy with her dream boyfriend, Like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: come on, man, couldn't you have waited till tomorrow?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry the phrase come on man, when she's trying
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: to be cozy with her boyfriend is not.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Sy.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: You know, when you're when you're imagining you're her boyfriend
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: and your X shows up, it really is quite rude.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: It is extremely rude. It is extremely rude. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: what are you doing crashing my dreams of my future
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: boyfriend situation?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So do you want to dig into these prophecies?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Let's do it because these are juicy and she only
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: has a clear interpretation for one, so we have room
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to speculate on the other two.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Well she interprets two of them.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, well let's got let's get yeah. Yeah, So dream
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: number one all was dust around her, and thirteen black
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: towers rose in the distance beneath a tar like sky.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: One fell and then another, crashing to the ground. As
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: they did, the ones that remained grew taller and taller.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: The ground shook as several more towers fell. Another tower
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: shook and cracked, collapsing most of the way to the ground,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: but then it recovered and grew tallest of all. At
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the end of the quake, six towers remained looming above her.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Let's go, what the hell is happening Forsaken?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: That is one hundred percent the Forsaken. Their's progress to
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: the series. You start with thirteen. They're being killed one
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: by one. Some of them come back because they're resurrected
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: by the dark one, the one that crumbled almost to
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the ground and came back. The tallest is you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a Shamael becoming Mordon and now he's name Bliss. And
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: at the end of the quake you have six towers.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: There are six Forsaken standing.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: That was my interpretation as well. But I had to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: be like, am I missing something because the towers situation
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the towers at midnight and all that I was like,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is this the towers at Midnight? But I mean maybe
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in a way it is thirteen black towers.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: And that's where I think, like, you have multiple towers
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: of Midnight. Right, You've got the initial thirteen towers that
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: were the shawn Chan in the opening scene. By definition,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: the author has said those are the Towers of Midnight, right,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: those are the Towers of the shawn Chan. That's their
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: canonical name for them. But it's hard not to see
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the Forsaken as the another thirteen Towers of Midnight that
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: have existed, and especially with this prophecy, actually, with this
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: prophecy here making them, you know, very clear that you
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: had thirteen, now you have six. You have the like
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: there's nothing else that fits as well as the Forsaken.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: And also I really like the idea that this is
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: kind of like, this book is about the Forsaken gearing
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: up for the last battle as much as anything else.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I that was definitely my intuition, my intuitive
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: leap first, and then I was like, wait, am I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: missing something? Am I missing something? But yeah, no, Forsaken
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: seems pretty straightforward.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I'm the sixth Forsaken. We have, right, We've got Grendall,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: morden Landfair, Sindane.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Sindane, Sindane, Demondred, Demondred, Sammarrog's gone spider. So
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: we've got Mgedion and Sindane their pair. We've got Graindell
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: as a solo doing her thing. We've got dem Andred
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: as a solo doing his thing. That's four. Morden Mordon,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that's five.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Who's left Morden, right, that's one. I'm just going down
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the list. Robbin's dead, the Mandreds still alive, sam Isles dead,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Agonor's dead, Balthaml's dead. They've both been killed again in
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: these timelines as Modian's dead, Thelall's dead. Land fears back now,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: says Sindane. Samarog's dead. Massana. That's who we've been forgetting.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Of course, the one who's the next vision is about.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: That's the one we're forgetting right there.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, Grendall and then Mogedian.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Massana's good at hiding.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: She hid from our idea of Yeah, that's crazy.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of Masana, the next vision, she was looking
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: down at a nest. In it, a group of fledgling
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: eagles screeched towards the sky for their mother. One of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the eglet's uncoiled, and it wasn't an eagle at all,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: but a serpent. It began to strike at the fledglings
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: one at a time, swallowing them whole. The eglets simply
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: continued to stare into the sky, pretending that the serpent
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: was their sibling as it devoured them. Now she gives
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: us the interpretation of this is Masana. But what I
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: think is really interesting is the helplessness and the patiently
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: ignoring their sibling. I find that to be a far
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: more interesting part than the snake itself, you.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Know, pretending the serpent was their sibling as it devoured them.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's yes, Massana, but it's also
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a bit of the entire Black Adja and the way
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: they just ignored it and the way they didn't talk
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: about it, and the way it did consume them as
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: a nest. You know that it definitely is Massana, but
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: it's also I feel like a really good analogy for
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: the Black Adja and the history of it. But that's
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: not really what we're telling because that's already kind of happened.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: It's more of an observation than a prediction, right, Like
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the observation or the prediction is that Masana is going
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: to continue to win until they do something different. But
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: like the conditions of that are that you were just
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: waiting for someone to come save you and actively looking
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: away from anything that makes you uncomfortable, and you are
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: dying as a result, and that has a lot of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: analogies elsewhere in the book and in our lives in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: this present month.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Now. The only thing I'll challenge about that is, what
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: if it's the attack on the White Tower by the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: sean Chan has happened. The raid has happened, which means
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the Blood Knives are in the tower and they are
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: being killed, and she is the one ignoring the Blood Knives.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: She is looking away from them deliberately because she thinks
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: it's Messana. Meanwhile, they're being slaughtered because all of these,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: all the deaths that she thinks her Massana are the
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: blood Knives.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: True, very true.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And those are the fledglings being picked off one time.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So is it possible a misinterpretation of this vision is
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: one of the reasons why she's so hyper fixed on
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Massana when those deaths occur, when it's actually the Blood Knives.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: That is an interesting alternative explanation, because yeah, the part
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: where the eaglets just keep looking for someone to come
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: do the thing like what are you missing? Who is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: supposed to come? And like she's supposed to come, She's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: supposed to come save them. She is the mother Eagle, right,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: She's supposed to show up and deal with the blood
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: knife that's eating them. But yeah, she's as an interesting interpretation.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I think where it's weak is that the serpent is
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: one of the eglets that uncoils, and that doesn't make
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: sense unless it is Misano.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she's right about the interpretation, but like
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's layers Weekend unpacked there and yeah,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it. And regardless, right, the fact that she's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: focusing on the blood knives does lead to more deaths,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: or she's not focusing on the blood knives that she
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: has no idea they're there, does give them free rein
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: for a long time.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And maybe Galade's the one who's going to come and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: say or Gowan's the one who's going to come and
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: save the Eglitz.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: He's the the Gowan's the mother eagle. Well, actually eagles
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: raise their nests together. Actually, so could be the father eagle.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: That's perfectly within the bounds of biology. Are you ready
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: for the third vision?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, third and final vision.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: She saw an enormous fear made of the finest crystal.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It sparkled in the light of twenty three enormous stars
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: shining down on it where it sat on a dark hilltop.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: There were cracks in it, and it was being held
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: together by ropes. There was Rand walking up the hillside
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: holding a woodsman's axe. He reached the top and hefted
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the axe, then swung at the ropes one at a time,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: shopping them free. The last one parted and the sphere
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: began to break apart, the beautiful globe falling in pieces.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Rand shook his head, what is going on there? What's
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the twenty three? What's the globe? He's literally walking into
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: her dreams as he's walking into the tower.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: So I have so I have a couple of interpretations
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: of this. I definitely went down the rabbit hole trying
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: reading about this and trying to find, you know, the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: answer or what it is she's interpreting, because on a
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: first read through, you might say enormous sphere, finest crystal,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: cracked children call sure, I think that's too shallow, and
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think it fits. There's nothing, no one's trying
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: to hold it together, there's no ropes. The number twenty
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: three doesn't mean anything, right, So then you really kind
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: of have to go to the sphere of crystal being
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: the prison, the dark ones prison, and being the seal
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: on the Dark Ones prison. The twenty three for me
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: is the Hall of the Tower, the Amberlin, and the Keeper,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: because the hall is twenty one sisters plus the Amberlin
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: and the Keeper, that's twenty three. I said, eye trying
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: to hold together the dark Ones prison, and here Ran
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: comes along and he's just going to shatter it. And
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: they're also the keeper of the seals, so they would
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: be the ones holding the net together.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The only other crystal sphere I could think
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of was the Sharom back in the Age of Legends
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: as the only other sphere that has broken spectacularly over
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the plot, but that has no bearing on what's happening
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: here at all. And yeah, twenty three is very important.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: You have to make that make sense, and that explanation
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: ties up all the loose ends with the least amount
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of chaos. So also, that's exactly what he's initiating as
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: he literally walks into the tower, into her dreams, into
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the meeting. I think that's a very straightforward interpretation and
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it goes deep enough to catch all the threads, so
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I'll accept it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I had a couple other alternatives, but that one just
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: it fits all the pieces. A little too well, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: it is later what she and again this is Anderson writing,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and later Rand's later GWayne says, oh, that's him breaking
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the seals, so that's probably what it's about.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Well, I can forget that because I haven't read these
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: books as many times, and I can pretend that there's mystery.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that was fun. We definitely had a good
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: time with those visions.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I guess the only thing to think is the crystal
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: somehow the White Tower itself being held together, and Rand's
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: presence is breaking it apart. But in like, you know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: maybe after the last battle, the White Tower just doesn't
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: exist as an entity and is broken apart by the
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and the Tower is trying to hold it together, the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Tower in the ambulance, and then keep her trying to hold
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: it together. But I can't come up with any other
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: number for twenty three, right, there's nothing else. It's not
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the Forsaken, it's not any main characters stuff like that.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: So it has to have something to do with White.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Tower and has everything symbolically to do with what he's
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: trying to do, which is say, I'm going to break
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the seals. There is a prison, I am going to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: break apart the things that hold it. I need your
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: cooperation in one form or another to make it happen. Right, Like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: he asks her for one thing, meaning to get something else,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: but either way he needs her.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: If there was any way we could link the twenty
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: three stars to Tremulking and for the people who commit suicide,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the Amar, the ami R, you know, maybe if they
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: had some sort of ruling council of twenty three they
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: were around the you know, and ran and cuts the
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: ropes and it shatters when he broke the But it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: such a stretch compared to the just very very upfront.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: It's about breaking the seals.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, it absolutely is. And yeah, with that, she
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: wakes up in a start and is like, oh my god,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: that was very intense. And she goes to her dream
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: journal and she writes it down like a good dream
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: journal person does, and she like works through some interpretations
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and the middle one comes through the most clearly. But
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you know, because it's Sanderson, and because we're omnipotent readers
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: on a reread, like, none of that revelation on her
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: part is particularly exciting. But what is exciting is when
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: she finishes her notes and tries to go back to bed,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: only to be interrupted by you guessed it, Rand, I
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: mean news of Frand it's Sylviana being like, he's here
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: for you. It's good you're awake already.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The only thing I'll say is she the sentence,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: she felt the meaning of it, interpreting it as she
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: sometimes could. Does seem like there is this moment where
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: she knows what dreams mean, right, she can tell. It's
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: not very often, but every time she feels it, she's right.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: It's like with Min when men knows what her visions mean,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: she's correct, but she doesn't always know, so it's like
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: there's a very binary on off with the truth thing.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I figure that Agwayinne's sense for that is
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: much like Min's sense for her foretelling or her visions.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: They're not foretellings. Kind of POV switch. We are going
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: over to Swan as her and Hi Captain Chewbane kind
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of moved through the tower in preparation for the meeting.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Oh and Ciane is there too, so we've got two
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: eyes to die and the captain of the tower guards
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: do want to walk and talk while the tower swirls
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in preparation or in anticipation of grand coming to to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: talk to the hall. So we've jumped maybe twenty minutes
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and twenty hallways.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Right, right, everyone's coming together for this meeting that they
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: woke up the mother for.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm assuming he's come down like kind of early
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Like it's not the middle of the night.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It's probably like six am, you know, so like some
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: people are up, but like the Amerlind maybe was going
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to sleep until six fifteen, you know.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I mean he had to walk from Dragon Mount.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I guess actually have no idea what time of day
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And I assume he came down from Dragon Mount at
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: sunrise because he comes with dawn.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and also there's that like a beam of light
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that comes onto Almond Bunt. It feels very dawn like yes, yes,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that that whole sa plus is the opening of the book.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Books and movies, right, they tend to open on dawns
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: and end on sunsets. So yeah, he's had to walk
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: for a while, So I guess we don't know what
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: time of day it is.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: It's not a whole lot to say in those first
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: couple pages, just you know, Rand walks in with the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: refugees and no one stops him because he looks like
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: another refugee.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: There's some stuff about how Brynn is not gonna become
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: High Captain of the Guard. It's just some like background stuff,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna go fight on the He's gonna fight
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the last battle rather than becoming high Guard.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Chewbane is gonna be secure. But yees. Swan's
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: really commenting mentally and externally on like just how the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Isidie are all the flutter. We're just all a flutter.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Even though he's come to us. It's like we're trapped
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: in here with him. Wait wait wait wait wait, this
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is our home. He's trapped in here with us. Yeah, yeah,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: he's trapped in here with us, right right. Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, they've like they've locked him up in like two
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: different full circles that they can put together, well not
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: full circles, circles of thirteen that they put together.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Full Isidie women only circles. Yeah. And there's you know,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and and Swan has this thought that, like, you know,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: burn Alida, we would have had him in Isidi control
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: if not for her and I'm like, kind of sounds
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: like Elia needed to happen then, because I don't think
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that he was ready for isidie control to a higher
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: degree before now, you.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Know, although later he does say I should have listened
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to you know, like I could have listened to the
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: war because they are wise people. I was just worried about,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: you know, their advice over arching and overcoming my achievements.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Which is a very loose therat interpretation, which again I'm
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just like, yeah, you're not calculating for the same rand now.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a thought about how Swan had hoped
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: she would get chosen as keeper, which I like, that's delusional.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: That's the most she has ever thought, Like that was
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: never going to happen.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: The president never becomes the vice president.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, like that's not a thing, Swan, Like, I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: love that hope from you, but also like, no, you're
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: too politically savvy to have harbored that hope for any
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: reason other than sheer delusion, which is fine. Everyone's allowed
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: a few delusions. That's that's totally cool.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: On their walk there, they come across a bubble of
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: evil slash switching corridor thing. Right, there's a place where
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: the floor tiles of the color of blood when they
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: should have been white and yellow, and they glistened as
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: if wet. It's one little paragraph, right, It's really easy
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: to miss because they turn around and go the other direction.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the White Tower is all sorts of fucked up.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: It's twisted. It's interesting. I feel like the White Tower
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: has had more corridors shifted than almost any other place.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that's just because we've been spending
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: more time with Agwayne, but it feels like every time
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: we're in the Tower there's a hallway that's been moved
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: or shifted. Plus the whole Brown Quarters Novice Quarters switching places.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that was because Agway needed to be up high
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in order to kick Shawn.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Channa ass totally, totally.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of like how men's visions are
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: more attracted to channelers. I think probably bubbles of evil
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: are just more attracted to channels because it's like they're
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: not tevere in, but they are more tapped into the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: intrinsic nature of the universe because of channeling. So plus,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you've got a lot of people with weird talents and
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: important roles to play in the future. Like I can
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: see the White Tower being a hot spot for this
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: sort of thing.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but about the Black.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Tower, I imagine that the Black Towers being run by a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: probationary forsakean at this point, so they might have a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: little bit more safety for themselves because they need to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: be preserved for the actual battle. But I would imagine
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that if they were being led by someone's like say Logaine,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: who is not you know, a probationary Forsaken, then probably
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: it would be just as bad, if not worse, because
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: they have so much taint damage even now after the cleansing.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Well, and so many of them now are connected to
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: the Dark One right in a way.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like Forsaken, don't go insane from the taint, right,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So there is the Dark One has the ability to
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: pick and choose to some extent where this goes. I
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: think maybe or the Black Tower is riddled with these
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: things at like a twice or thrice rate.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: They are a brutal with using the power to stomp
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: them down would be my guess.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Also that they have a different approach to using the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: power defensively, so, but I would imagine it's happening more
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: often at the Black tower unless the dark one is
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: specifically intervening to give them an exception.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Swan, Thanksgwayne's working hard to reforge the tower, but you
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: couldn't mend years worth of broken nets in one month.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I think that's a good analogy about, like, yeah, these
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: are very divided people and bringing them back. If anything,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the best benefit for bringing them back together is so
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: many have been killed or fled that the old guard
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: is such a small percentage of the people because you've
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: had all these novices and all these new people and
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: all these young and I said, I flooding in and
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: all the old guard is basically gone.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: You know. I have seen this in my role in
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: local government. The guy who actually knows how to run
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the department has been there forever. But the board turned
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: over really rapidly from like the old boys club with
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: all the problems associated with that term, to the crew
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it is now. And I was part of that. I
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: came into the end of that transition. And he has
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: so many defensive habits left over from when the board
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: was an old boys club who just talked about fishing
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and never even signed the checks. Like he keeps being
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: surprised that we're engaged and wants to cut him checks
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: for things and our goal. He's just we continue to
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: see these shadows and bends that were made by him
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: spending years just dealing with very abusive, unpleasant people compared
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to who he's dealing with now. So very much what
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: she's saying here, it takes a while to mend broken
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: nets of decades in the making. Also, like everything we
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: all know about trauma and healing from trauma, but you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to stay institutional here.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Suwan's very upset that she's not sort of in the
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: know anymore. Right, She's like, I'm not in the center
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: of what's going on. You know. All I want to
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: do is be there to shepherd the dragon to the
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: last battle, but I'm just not really in a position
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: to do that.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Well, she's having to shift what she means when she
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: says that overarching goal. She's like, I need to just okay,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta reorganize how I support the dragon
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: in the last battle because she's being pushed out in
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a way that she can see as good. But also like, okay,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: so then where's my inn because I have to be
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: part of this because I'm Swan fucking sanche.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: So in the next paragraph, there's a series of sentences
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: that I misinterpreted, which is my fault. Okay, but that
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: was Brent Serene to a fault. He soothed her worries
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: just by being there. And I spent the longest time
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out which I said I Serene was.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Serene Robert Jordan?
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: That is on you because it's it's this capitalized S
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: word Serene Serenes. I was just like the Serene and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: then Serene, and why is she to a fault? Like
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: why is Brent? Like I spent a solid I mean
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: not you know, minutes, but like I spent a solid
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: thirty seconds being like that sentence doesn't make any sense.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Who's Serene?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Robert Jordan? That is one hundred percent on you.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But that's that's the S name Fallacy.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Uh huh, that's amazing. I love that for you. Thank
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you for sharing that with the class. Who's Serene? You know,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that'd be a really good trivia question. Pick out the
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: name that isn't it's just the word Serene.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: You got Saren Serenes.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one of these days is not like that.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Can you tell which one?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Because because earlier in this chapter, Suan has a whole
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: thing about how she's getting to like serene because she's yeah, Saren, Yes,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: but you know, the way I pronounced that word in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: my head is serene, right, That's how it's spelled in
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: my head. And then to have serene be a word
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: that comes up later when serene is how even though
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I know in the audiobook that's not how it's pronounced,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: but in my head that's how I say it. So yeah,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: it thru me. It definitely through me.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: And because of the way it's it's structured. Right, But
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: that was Bran, not comma. That was brand comma. Serene
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: to a fault, It's that was Bran period, new sentence,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: new thought, Serene to a fault, capitalized s.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I mean it's a really reasonable mistake to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: make at this point in our journey through the wheel
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of time, because.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, names are a problem. Yeah, all right, moving on,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Vexam is again coming out.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I did have one other thing, which is it's a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: very Sanderson comment coming from Brnn here, but I think
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: it's a relevant thought. Oh no, she says, I'm isidie.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: My very nature is to be in control of myself
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and my surroundings, and he replies, And yet the more
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: time I spend around Iside, the more I wonder about that.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Are they in control of their emotions or do those
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: emotions just ever change? If one is always concerned, one
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: will always look the same. And that feels like such
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: as Sanderson meta fan comment on like the experience of
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: reading the eyes to eye as you're growing up and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: just being like, because they, yeah, they looks to read,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: but then they have all this inner turmoil and there's
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: so much machinations and it feels so sandersome. But I
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: don't really mind it.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Mm yeah, I do mind it.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: You mind it? What do you mind about it?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: The idea that they're just he's just dismissing all the
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: complex emotions that I said, I are constantly going through
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: in this weird way that he's like, Oh, they just
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: they they're just simple and they just don't have a
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: lot of depth to them.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I was taking it at all. I was taking
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it as like I don't know the mask is. I
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: don't know. I guess I just felt validated in him
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: saying like you just have resting bitch face. It's fine,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Like I get it.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: I mean se on mite. Yeah, there's no doubt about that,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: but uh, I don't know it's And again, I think
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: it comes from just reading a lot of Sanderson and
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: getting to know his humor style. And this feels like
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: a very bat like a not great attempt at being
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: slightly humorous on Sanderson's style. Like this is just very
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: light Sanderson humor. And I think in the moment I
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: appreciated it, but now having read so much Sanderson, going
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: back and seeing this just makes me like he's flanderized
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: his own humor in some of his later books.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And I mean I did kind of pick up some
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: of his other books and go, Ben, they're done that,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: got the T shirt and put them back down again.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: So that tracks with our mutual experience for sure.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. As much as I do love parts about Sanderson,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: his humor is just bad, especially around like two characters
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: who are in love who are bantering together. Least favorite
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: brand of Sanderson humor and here is just it's a
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: bit of a shadow of it.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Just a shadow, gotcha, Oh that makes sense. It's fine
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: and very light doses.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: It's fine. And that's where like it works here right right,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And that's where I think it does. Yeah, yeah, it
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: works fine here, but because of my experience with his
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: other works, it just it's it's like getting a whiff
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: of something that like later rotted, and like, yes, it
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: smells good now, but I've had rotted strawberries, and so
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: now the smell of strawberries kind of makes me.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Go, I'm just gonna not delve into that because I
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: like strawberries. I don't want to think about that.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: No, And that's a terrible analogy, because I do love strawberries,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: and that's but like, yeah, like he had just taken
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: out a huge batch of raw strawberries and put them
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: in the dumpster and came back inside and someone was
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: like strawberry shortcake, and You're like, I just not right now,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: give me five minutes.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's valid. Association is real m. So yeah,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: aside from that, Agwain walks in and commands the room
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: like a queen with her stupid shadow going.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, yet not bonted, tours a warder, yet not cast
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: from the tower either. He'd spend the night since the
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Unification guarding Aguain's doors, despite the fact that it angered her.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: What the things we do for love? What?
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And then this is great paragraph that just describes Agway
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and it's great. She's brought the tower to its knees
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: from the inside while being beaten every day and dows
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: with so much forker she could barely light a candle
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: so young, and yet what was age to annuice to die? Literally,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: it's so true. Brought the tower to its knees while
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: being beaten and drugged like that is an accurate description
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of what happened.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Pretty impressive, and I think that's why we really like
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: her journey through like into towers. When she first got
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: kidnapped at the end of the whatever book she gets
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: kidnapped at end of Crossroads of Twilight. She spends the
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Knife of Dreams in the tower doing her whole rebellion
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: thing that's written by Jordan. We sort of get that
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: from Suan being well, she's a better ambulan than I
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: could have been, because she can lead by presence instead
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: of by pushing people, you know, lead by example type situation.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: She's way better at crowd work than Swan ever was, right.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Ga Swan liked to sit up in the inner study
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: and sort of very bureaucratic leader. Right. She issued commands
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: ye you know, and it was like it works. It's fine,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: but like a Gwayne's out there giving speeches fighting is
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: the fire coming from the tower against the invaders of
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: the shan Chan. Like there's a certain amount of awe
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that I don't think Swan ever had a right.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Swan's fierce, but yeah, she's wielded her power bureaucratically, and yeah,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: so she's saying, like, you know, it's good that Agwayne
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: is here and now the way she is, that's really
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: good walking up into this moment despite what it cost
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: me and what it costs the tower, Like at least
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: we're set up for this moment really really well, which
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: is not a wrong take, I guess. I guess it's right.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I feel like I probably could have made better choices
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to get to this moment. But whatever same goes for Rand.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: It's fine. It made good drama. We've read all the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: books about it. It was fun.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: So I guess the next thing I have is Rand
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: walks in surrounded by twenty six figures, which I assume
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: is a full circle to shield them in a full circle,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: to like bind them in air.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think they're binding because he's walking easily.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's just literally two layered shields. Like even
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: if you break out of one, there's another one.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Listen. I know it's tempting, but two condoms does not
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: work better than one, all right, Like they rub against
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: each other, they cause breakage. It's really not a good idea.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: You want one layer of protection. If you're gonna double up,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: you want to double up on different kinds of protection.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: You know, you want one one layer that's getting physical
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: and one layer against magical. You don't want to do
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: the double double layer. That's just going to cause problems.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: You're not wrong.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Use hormonal birth control and condoms.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah magic as we.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Said, magic condoms, a magic hormonal birth control.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're they're only doing I think they're only
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: doing the one because he's moving completely unencumbered through this
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and he is walking like an ise to die. He's
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: walking with complete com he's walking like an omrelin.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Really, I was thinking the second one just you know,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: because you're not allowed to divert any power from the shield,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: you want a second group of channelers there in case
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: they need to use, you know, weaves of air to
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: imprison him. Ah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: They have one circle for the for the magical shield
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and one circle for the backup spring trap. That will be.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly yeah, that's that's what I was kind of saying,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: is like usily that they are binding him, but they
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: could you know, because you don't that there's that policy
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: if you don't want to divert any of your power
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: away from the shield, which makes sense because then they
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: could break the shield, that you have another group or
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: another circle there to do the physical binding if necessary.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: If Agwain said no, you can't leave.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Right, no, that makes sense, that makes sense, and then
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: for some reason he does bust out of the one,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: then they're ready to go exactly right, right, But yeah,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: he he is walking in with the same kind of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: command and presence that Agwain has. He doesn't really care
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: about all the kerfuffle. He's not concerned about the guards.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: He's just moving through, assuming deference from people when they're
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: afraid of him, and it works out fine because you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: there is deference there and he glows to her us right,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: getting reminded she can see tavern.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Which is again because it's mentioned here, it's one of
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: the reasons we can be like, well, you know, Ninive
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: is not probably not Taveran you know Gwayne's not Taveran,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: because like, you know, she would have pointed it out
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: and be like, yes, they're also Tiveran, unlike in the
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: show where they are.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I blow all the raspberries that, oh well, the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: girls are tavern because only the three special boys can
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: be Tiveran. No, that's in bullshit. I don't care what
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Swan can see. That's just the thorial choice being wrong.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: This is heart cannon, damn it.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: We at least tavern By proxied them a couple of times.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. For sure Rand needed one of
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: his childhood friends to be the Omorlin like that was
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: needed to happen for sure.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: And so you can be like, as was everything on
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: her journey set up, Like even if she's not Taveran,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: she needed to be in that position and Rand needed
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to be there. So her journey was you know, set
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: up by Teveran. So her thread being pulled by Taveran
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: kind of makes her Taveran in of itself, right if like,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: if Rand is pulling on the threads around him to
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: change the world, he's pulling on a Gwain's in I
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: needs thread more than.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Most Exactly, He's pulling on everyone. But he's gonna pull
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: on these people harder than everyone else. It's just it's
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: how he is connected to the world.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would have been fine if from the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: beginning all five of them were tavern.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: It would have been much simpler. We would not need
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: all these brain preussels to just stay they're all Taverian
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: and have done with it. Again, that's why the show
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: did that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it gives them a different motivation for leaving
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: the Two Rivers, right, I think Agwaine and I needs
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: motivation for leaving the Two Rivers is much more interesting
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: because they're not just under attack.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've made that argument since book one of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: this podcasts, and I think that's a really interesting take
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: that by not being tevere and Agwaine has way more
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: agency over her adventure, and that's super important. So not
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: a bad take. But they're definitely both moving through the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: world with the same out of gravitas at this point,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: now that she is literally the center of the reunited
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: White Tower, right, the spindle around which the wheel turns,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: And this is the cool moment, right, these two people
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: that two and a half years ago left their small
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: town village not knowing what a city looked like, are
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: now coming to meet as what one could argue are
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: the two most powerful people in the world, right, the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: ambulance Seat, which is the head of the white tower
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: around which the world turns, and the dragon reborn, you know,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: king of multiple countries, prophecied to fight the last battle,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: coming together to talk, and I really hate their conversation.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I love everything about it other than the actual contents.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly exactly.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: But before we get to that, we do have him
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: talking briefly to Swan, which is cool. I do like
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Swan and Rand's conversation.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good interaction.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Like first he starts talking to Brinn and just completely
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: reads their entire situation, which is very cute.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Right, He's like, oh, yeah, you two were together.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It's like Elaine will have some things to say about that. Anyway.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Moving on, it's just so like, I don't know homie
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: almost And.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: I like that he thanks her for the arrow that
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: she took right like when she got stabbed, like that
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: was way back in the day. Sort of a lot
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: of these callback references.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like he's almost making sure that she knows
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: why that happened, Like just in case she hadn't figured
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: out who that arrow was for. It's like, I just like,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I know you're a puzzle solver, so just in case
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you never solved that puzzle, it was me. It was
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: me that that era was meant for, just so you know.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, he frames it in terms of a thank you,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: but I feel like he's doing it because she's a
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: puzzle person and she maybe didn't figure that out and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: it might still be bothering her, or she figured it out,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: in which case the thanks are appropriate.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: And he has a lot of apologizing to do, and
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: he's working. You know, he's like, oh, yeah, I gotta
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: apologize to you for this, and you for that and
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: you for that. Like he's like I was, I was
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: on a you know. Fitzpant is saying, yeah, he's coming
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: down off of his high of the taint.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Right, coming down off of his high Horse mountain.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah that too, that too, well, like, yeah,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: the taint has been his drug and he's finally licked it. Right.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: He took some counter drug, which was the golden.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Like divine narcan, Yeah, divine nice.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Veins of darkhan.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: The tant oh no, why does the sentence exist?
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: He injected the taint into his veins. Yeah, no, it
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: was his cursed but it was affecting his brain. Right.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: And now he's like, listen, I was not myself. I
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: did some ship that I really regret and I should apologize.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: And I need to thank everybody for all the ship
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: they've done for me as well.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Right right, And and also I need to kind of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: do a little reality check and be like, hey, Agwaine
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: seems like a cool omorlind but as a former mrelin,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: is she a good Morland? Like, just just let me know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: give me the four one one before I go in there?
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Just is she good Homborlin? Because I'm a little confused.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Randall thor. I don't know what's happening.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Why she goes? Why ask me he couldn't know the
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: closeness between Suan and Aguaine? What do you why do
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you think do you think he knows or do you
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: think it's just because she's a fla.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's real obvious that she's standing there looking
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: like a proud mother hen with a new chick as
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Agwayne walks in. I think everyone with a brain can notice,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: but no one is because politics. But Rand is in
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: his perceptive mode. He's really zen. He's picking up on
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: subtle cues. I think Swan looks way too proud of
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Agwayne for him to not know that she feels like
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: some responsibility for this moment. That's what I think.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: You don't think he has any inside information. He didn't
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: get any Nah.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: He's just reading people. He's reading the aura, the vibe,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: the body language.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: So as he's making his way from Suan to the Amberlyn,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: we get Tana delivering a letter from Varren. I actually
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: didn't look up Tiana. Is she at all interesting as
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: a character.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: She was the two young mistress of novices of Saladar
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: who was super overwhelmed, and that's all I remember about her.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that seems just fine. And so she was
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: given the letter by Varn and we identify it. We've
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: got a red seal. So all right, I gotta say.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I read on the thirteenth Depository there's an article by
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Linda is All. It says called Varren in her Letters,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: and this was quite an interesting amount of information about
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Varn and the various letters that she given out. I
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: highly recommend it to read that we should definitely drop that.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I love thirteenth Depository.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really good content.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, we'll put a link in the show notes.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, link in the show notes right there. It talks
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: about how before all her letters have yellow seals, but
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: now she's paid the blood price, they've got red seals. Really,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and so you're looking.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, the wax changes color.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: She uses a different color wax for these death letters.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: What she used yellow wax? When did she use yellow wax?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: But what? I never heard the words yellow wax together
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: and wheel have time in my life.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Rand took out Varren's letter and broke the blob of
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: yellow wax ceiling, impressed with the great serpent ring, I
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: love being a liar. The Brown sister's spidery hand covered
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: most of the page, A few letters blotted where rain
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: drops had soaked the paper.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Huh. I never noticed that. I never, in my entire
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: life noticed she changed changed wax color.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: So, and this is her saying, So, whether or not
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: you follow Padswain's advice, and I repeat that you should
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: follow mine, be very wary.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: That was the yellow one.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the yellow one. This is where she says,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I believe I can fulfill my oath to you better elsewhere.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: So I've taken Talmanus and I'm gonna go, you know,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: fuck off bit Thomas Demas right now, Tomma's.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Very different character. She's going off to pick up Thomas,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: or to pick up Tomana's Jesus. Names are hard. Fuck.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Names are hard, hard, all.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Right, Serene. So that letter right back when she's still
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: kind of under she's she's writing in her code. It's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: all flowers and stuff like that, right, All all of
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: her letters pre betraying the Dark One are yellow wax.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, that was a tangent from this letter. I
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: just needed to have that what I today, I was
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: today years old when I learned.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Okay. Also, and here's another point she makes. There is
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: a chapter called red Wax in Lord of Chaos, which
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: is the seal on the agreement more Gasee made with
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: the White Cloaks to give the major concessions, right, and
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: pedro Nile's blood was spilled and destroyed.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: That right, right, yeah, yeah.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And that was a red wax one, right, So just
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a little bit of the red wax
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: versus anyway, So that's a bit of a tangent, right,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: it seems to indicate hard to really tell what's in it, right,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: because we don't get direct evidence for it. But Rand
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: does say someone told him that Stepanaeus, a little birdie
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: basically told him that Stepaneus was being kidnapped by the
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: White Tower. One would assume that's in this letter.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Because Kats Twaine disavows knowing anything about it. Right, she's
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: as surprised as anyone else. Okay, I forgot about that,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: but I think you're right. I'm obviously you're right because
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: you're reading from Linda. But like that rings a bell.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: So here's the quote the king of Aradmon, where did
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: she find him? And said, how did you know a
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: friend left me a secret? The White Tower collected Matt
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: and Stepaneus to protect him. Well, it wasn't too much
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: of a leap to wonder if they might have done
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: the same thing with other monarchs.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Ah uh huh. So that was a very eyes to
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: die move of her. That wasn't even like a dark
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: one betrayal kind of thing. That was just some regular
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Isidae machinations that she could have done as a brown Also.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: It's possible the letter says that where am on and
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: oh who's that the girl with him and a Yella. Yeah,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Wheremon and Anni Yella were dark friends. It may also
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: have told him that.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Well, he sees it on them with his magic vision
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the next time he sees them.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then he says, so it is you both
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: of you. So maybe not where am on? But like
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: she says, hey, be these people, I think you've got
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: a dark friend in this group, right, Because he says
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: it is you both of you. Right, there's that moment
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: where like he's confirming something that somebody already told him.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, I could accept that.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Maybe not necessarily that's where I'm on, but that there
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: is a dark friend in.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: There, because I just don't see why she would give
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: him regularized to dyet stuff that seems underwhelming, but dark
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: friend's stuff that she couldn't know he would get magic
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: vision for seeing anyway, that seems reasonable.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: But again, this is all I'm reading this from because
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: I couldn't find anything else where he react to the
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: information here.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it must be a warning that there's
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: some dark friends in people he knows and trusts, knows
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and trusts quote unquote among those people. Yeah, that's that
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: makes the most sense because I love the idea that
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: she was just dropping him eyes to eye stuff as well.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe she put both things in the letter. I mean,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: maybe she gave him like cake with frosting. I don't know.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Something else to realize. Gallad has a letter that maybe
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: from Varren. Oh yeah, I saw Gallad of the letter,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: which matches the description of Varrein's letter. Galad was talking
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: something to his pocket. A small letter appeared with a
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: red seal. Where had he gotten that? He looked troubled,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Those expression lightened as he arrived.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: We never get any follow up on that. No, I
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: do like the idea that Varn decided just as an extra,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: extra extra contingency, she was going to get a letter
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: to Galad Damadrete of all people.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: But I wonder it's like that's the brother too. I mean,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: he doesn't know he's Grhand's brother at that point, does he.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: No, he doesn't learn that until the last battle.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: He learns that with Gawan and dying in his arms.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: And he's not told his mother's alive. Galad finds out
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: no Varren the letter doesn't tell him.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no no.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: So it's one of those moments where I don't know
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: what that letter says to Golla, no idea.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was about Valda.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Mm.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe she was gonna be like, hey, goody too, shoes lawful,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: good guy, you should know that the head of your
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: order is a raging dark friend.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, because she she can prepare those
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: letters ahead of time as a dark friend and then
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: send them once she's taken the tea or if nobody
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: maybe if nobody gets them before she dies.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if she, if she hands them out and says,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: don't give this out unless certain conditions are met, and
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: those conditions will only be met if she has died,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: then it's safe. It fits within the range of her oaths.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: So I bet it was a warning about Valda, and
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: he's confused as to why an is said die woulden
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: know that and tell him? I think that's why he's troubled.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: I'm head canning that that's what it is, even though
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: he's already killed Walda. The fact that Varin knew and
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: is telling him is perplexing in its own right.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: May have also said that he did not kill his mother.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: No, because he's shocked as hell when he finally sees her.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: I'm really curious why Tiana is the one that was
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: picked to give a letter to Rand, maybe because she
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: was mistress of Novices and so Varrein figured like she
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: will definitely make it through the unification. She won't die
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: or run away.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, she knows she's not a dark friend, and
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: she knows.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: She's a dark friend. Also very helpful. But yeah, Rand
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't read the note now because he knows that that's
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: information that can keep because he needs to really focus
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: on again. And he tells Swan, do your best to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: call mcgwaine when I'm done, Like he knows he's going
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to piss her off, and he knows that Swan is
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: someone that Agwaine can vent to, or at least she
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: was before the rescue. But then he strides into a
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: POV switch to Agwaine third POV of the chapter, I.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Mean kind of the first POV over again, right, because
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: we're back to Agwayne. It's really good, is that two
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: or three povs in a chapter if you do a
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: character switch away from them and then come back.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are you counting the number of characters of the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: number of times we switch between them? Because I can't
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: like number of POV switches because as an editor, those
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: are really good. Hinge points to like structure, ad breaks
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and stuff around. But yeah, if there's only two characters
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: represented by three switches, two switches anyway, numbers are fun.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Numbers are fun. So the okay, the whole journey for me,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: for this little POV is a GWayne going from Rand
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Alphor is the dragon reborn, who's the most dangerous man
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: ever to oh, Rand Alphor is the one you want
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: to trust with the fate of the world. And she
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: does that in three pages.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she really goes on a full sign wave of
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: a journey or half of a sign wave of a journey.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Know, again, I see a lot of the institution of
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the White Tower really coming through and clashing with who
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: she is as a person, as an individual. I really
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: see the conflict of those two you know, unstoppable for
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: us and amovable object, right, because she is Agway an
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: alvier of the two rivers, but also she's the amorlane seat,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: and how she thinks of Rand really oscillates between those
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: two pieces of her.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: And she's like, you know, he has destroyed, he has conquered,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: but like, is that not what the Dragon reborn is supposed.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: To do right, and then I love his insight of
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: like I wanted to avoid eyes said, I control, But
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: that was because that would have meant that you were
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: responsible for what I did, and that would have been
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: really nice. Actually, it turns out to have someone else
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: be responsible for all this shit that I've done.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Listen, if you've been the boss long enough, you know
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: it's nice when you got some else to blame shit
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: on and you can, uh, just not my responsibility.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: I like this sentence. I was broken, Rand said, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: then remarkably, I was re forged. I think he almost
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: had me, Agwayne, it was cod Swain who set me
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: to fixing it, though she did so by accident. Still,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: I shall have to lift her exile. I suspect they offhanded.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I guess I should revoke her exile.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: She did fix me. But that's you know, and this
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: is the fulfillment of everything that men's prophecy said that
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: she was going to teach him something, and later in
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: a later chapter in this book, he says, she taught
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: me that we weren't just weapons, that were men too,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: and that's where he sends that letter to the Black
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: Hour and says, you know, you're not just weapons, you're
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: men too. That's the lesson that god Swain taught him
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: by accident.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: And all she did to do that was bring Tam
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: into the picture.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: That seems to be what's going on?
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, couldn't someone else have done that without being a
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: raging bully for fucking books upon books.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: And only says it was Codswain who set me to
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: fixing hit. She put me on the path to fixing
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: it by accident is literally what he says.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Could someone else who was not a bully not have
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: had that happy accident? Could Min not have thought, maybe
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: my father in law should know what's going on with
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: his son, you know, I mean they should be married, right,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: so like should be father in law right? Like, maybe
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Min could have thought of that and it wouldn't have
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: been just all the angst of cad Swain. Like anyone
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: can have an accident. We didn't need Kadswain for that.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: And then there's this moment where she notices he's talking
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: in this very sort of elevated educated speech and that's
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Lewis Thearren coming through.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: He suddenly sounds like he went to Eton. He suddenly
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: has the Eton accent out of nowhere.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: And it's because he literally has the memories of someone
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: who did go to Eton in his head. Now like
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: he's reintegrated with that person, and so some of that
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: unconscious training and tutelage, right, like if you know more
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: words and you use more words, suddenly talk different one.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Also, he's inside, both literally and figuratively, an institution which
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: has held on to a lot of the trappings of
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: the age that loose their incomes from. Right, he is
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: addressing the omorland seat formally in a packed hall of
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: the tower. Their institution has moved much slower than the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: culture outside the White Tower. Like this is a space
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: where that sort of formal, old timey way of presenting
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: yourself is actually like logical and appropriate. So he fits
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: here more than a lot of the modernized to die,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: because he has memories of what they were trying to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: rebuild when they put this place together in the first place.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Pavara and Javindra hadn't returned from their unknown mission. Where
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: are they going?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Black Tower? Okay, to mostly die except for Pavara because
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: andrel Yeah.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: It is amazing how many of that group just dies
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: again a winnowing of the old school White Tower. This
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: is just not very many of them left, even going
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: into the last battle. And that's before Shara comes along
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: and goes, fuck you. Yeah, seriously, GWayne, why is Ran
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: just talking idle philosophy? What's the point? Right? Like, because
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: he is, He's in this very like, uh. It reminds
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: me a lot of actual Michael Kramer when he gets classifizing.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Love Michael so much. But yeah, it also reminds me
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: of like, this is good as Chameo, right, this is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: the philosopher that's kind of nihilistic. He's like nothing matters,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: so everything matters, and isn't that neat right? This is
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the student that Harod Fell wanted to have as his
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: grad student, right when Harrod Felt was like, you should
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: come study philosophy with me. You shouldn't be bothering with
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: all this whatever else you're doing, you should just say.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: This is that side of him. This is if Aeshameo
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: had love mm hmm.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: And this is very much the glass is half full,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: whereas the Shamele's the glass is half empty. And then
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: you know the White Tower saying the glass is exactly
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: fifty percent liquid fifty percent air.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly exactly. Randon is very much on a cloud
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: nine glasses half full.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: He's just he's listing all the things that he needs,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: a bunch of things he needs to fix. And it's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: a subset. But right, he's like, I have too much
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: to do to hang around, right, people starve. He's talking
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: about air Demon. Others live in terror. What I've done,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's tons of people. A friend rides to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: his death without allies, that's lamb, and there's so you know,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: so like there's so little time to do what I must.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh my god, I've made so many mistakes.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: I have to go direct to fy a bunch of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: this stuff. And he also has a better understanding of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: how to use his powers as the dragon Reborn of Balance. Right,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: so he knows he can go fix some of the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: starvation and fight the Dark One's influence on his troops
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: and on the people around him. Now he can do
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: the thing with the apples in air domon.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Right, Like, Meanwhile, I Gwinne's like, so can we like
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: back him into a padded room if we walk slowly?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Like She's having a completely different trend of thought, like Ran,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: we need to like we need you to let us
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: look at you with our magic medicine. He's just like, look,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I girl, I really I don't want to defy you
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: in your seat of power, because I know that it's
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: a very shaky seat. But also no, no, we're not,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: We're not doing that.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Like you can't keep me. It's interesting to me that
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: we don't really see it in the moment, but later
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: they talk about how everybody else is just tongue tied,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: and Gwain doesn't seem to feel that at all. She's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: just kind of annoyed at him.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: They're having a normal conversation as far as she's concerned.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: It's an important and weird conversation, but there's nothing heavy
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: or tight about the space. The way the others describe.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Again makes me go severe and by proxy right, like
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: she's somehow not affected by his severeness around her.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Well, also in this case, I think he doesn't want
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to hear from the rest of them while he talks to.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Her, right right, he's shutting them down.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: His severeness is, yeah, he wants to have an uninterrupted
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: conversation with her, so tevereness allows them that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: I like that idea that he's actually using his powers
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: to shut down everybody else, but not a GWayne, because
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: he wants to hear what she has to say.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Because if she has to split her attention between talking
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: to him and controlling the tower controlling the Hall, they're
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: not going to have a good conversation. He needs her
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: undivided attention to get this message through. I am going
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: to break the seals in one month. You need to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: plan for that. And it's so funny. She's like, Rand,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: we have to talk about this and plan. He's like,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: that's why I told you, so you can plan.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: I do love that.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Like he knows how the White Tower is, he knows
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: how iside are right. This is a Tomerlin to Omerlin thing.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: He's like, you need a month to plan, So I'm
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: giving you your month to plan.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: And his plan is, you know A I want you
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: as an ally because I feel like I need sidin Insidar.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the solution is, but I know
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I'm going to need both powers. I can't just use one,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: so that's why I'm giving you a heads up.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: But also out of respect to the fact that she's
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Watcher of the Seals and he's saying, look, watcher of
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the Seals. The seals need broke, like, I feel like
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: you deserve a heads up because that's been your charge
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: for three thousand years.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Would have much rather see her break the seals and
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Logan give himself up to the flame of Tarvalin. I
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: think that would have been a better way to do it.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Making angry agreement faces.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: The Watcher of the Seals should have broken the seals.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and then Logan should have been freed of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: his life of trauma by doing a cool thing and
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: doing the Flame of Tarvalin and helping redeem the concept
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: of Ashamon would have been awesome.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Anyway, the Oshaman undid bail fire when the Ice and
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: I thought that it couldn't be done.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: It would be cool, but we should get out of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: here with our shitty head cannons and go back to
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: the real story.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Did someone tell us to stop going on our shitty
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: head canton just.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Like out there on the internet at large, because I
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: was browsing comments that have been made on our Facebook.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: It's just like ah boy, oh yeah. And the other
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: important thing that he's doing here, right is he's tricking
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: her into organizing a bunch of other people to also
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: come to the fields of yes, or he's offloading a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: lot of bureaucratic work on hers. Honestly, kind of sexist.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: He's making a girl do all the work.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: All the organizing. You talk to everybody, get everybody together
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: for the party, get the balloons exactly, and I'll show up.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: I'll be there, I promise.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Mmm mmm mm hmmm, something like that.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: In one month's time, which does give us a bit
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: of a timeline, right, in one month's time, I'm going
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: to travel to shale Gool and break the last remaining
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: seals on the dark one. I want your help, and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: I want you to meet me on the day before
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I go to Shoe Goal.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: We've abandoned the old timeline. Now we have a ticking clock.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Right, although I don't think he exactly follows that timeline,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: because I feel like he meets with him for a
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: while and then like he goes fights, Like I feel
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: like the battles go on for a while after the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: meeting at marrillor before he goes to shale Gool. He
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: doesn't do it the next day.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Am I misremembering that wibbly wobbly timey? Whymy the closer
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: you get to Shaye Gool the faster time goes, so
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: for him it is basically an afternoon.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: I feel like that only happens after he enters show goool.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: Before that, I think time is still running linearly everywhere.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it breaks sooner than that, but I'm
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: not sure. It's very wibblewobble timey.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: Whymy, because I think he goes in the morning, and
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: that's when you get time that like stretches out.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't remember when it starts or any fat,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: but yeah, he does want to have the meeting with
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: time to have discussions, right. He wants to hammer out
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the dragons piece. He says, he has terms before he
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: is going to go in, right, he knows is it
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: going to take a while, And.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: He's been so I guess he's been sitting up on
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: the mountain planning some of this stuff while he's been
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: having in emphany. It's like, what do I need to do?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Well? Also, that was a long walk, like you said,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: so he had a lot of time to plan on
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the walk.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Did he write the Dragon's piece in his
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: head on his walkover from Dragon Mount?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: I guess so? Yeah?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so then he's like, all right, so anyway, Mike,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: drop piece, I'm out and he turns to walk away,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: and she is like, absolutely, you know you do not
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: turn your back on the Omorland seat Randolph Thord. And
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: he doesn't. He turns back and has a much more
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: respectful exit, but he also his eyes says, do not
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: make me make this weird. I will make this weird
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: if you force to issue another fucking.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: Hair and he says I must go, and she says, okay, right,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: that's which good for her not trying to keep him.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: In that moment, she recognizes how to pick her battles,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: and then we have a lovely moment where she says,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: this is not ended, and he responds, there are no endings.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: Take that isid eye? Get your own isid eye answer back?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Well, also, it's just like that's what any of us
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: in the fandom would say. And someone said anyone endings
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: to us, we're all going to reflexively say there are
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: no endings. So it is random fan of the Wheel
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: of Time. That's the question.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: I mean he reads the prophecies, right.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he is a fan. He is a fan.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: He's a fellow fan. Randal Thora is one of us,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: one of us.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, Yosha certainly was true.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: He still is, the man's still alive. He's still a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: fan of the books.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I you know, I don't know. He's still a
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: fan of the books.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Right, So he can't not be a fan of the books, right.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: I heard he reread them too, So but is that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: is he a fan or is that, you know, something
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: that he feels like would make him better at his job.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like, honestly, if I had a major
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: role across multiple years that had involved a series of books,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: the first thing I would do is sit down and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: read those books.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, but was you reread them?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: If they were maybe just saying he's.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: Got really moody Instagram pictures. I think he might just
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: like the books.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: He likes the books. I agree, I agree, And I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: know it is sceptical, but I do think he likes
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: the books.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, he leaves and they said, I go, wow,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: that was really really weird. That's basically the readout. I
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: don't really have much else to talk about in this no.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: I think just the conversation between Agwayne and Rand. I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: would have loved to see a little more commisering of
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Rand being like, I don't know them being friends. It
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: was very Amberlyn Dragon reborn, and I would have loved
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: to see more Randagwayn.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: There was no reunion.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: There was no reunion.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was just a negotiation between heads of state.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Right, And I think that's something that I really miss
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: in these books is when these characters who have been
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: a part since really end of book seven do my
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: as well as comes together. And then Rand sends off
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: Parrien and sends off Matt and he hasn't seen Agwayne
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: in a long time. And the only character of the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: five who comes back together is really naive And that's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: a great right his whole like dressing up as the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: ugly guy and sneaking in and telling her she needs
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: to come with him to cleanse the seals and everything
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: like that. I love that reunification scene, and I feel
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: like none of the rest of them get that level
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: of moment together.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: It would have been nice if frant had asked for
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: a bit of a private audience as part of this
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: whole thing, to be like, Mother, can we step into
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: your chambers for like a few minutes away from the
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: hall properly, not just with Tevere and Cone of silence,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: but like actual behind closed doors, can we like hug.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: You know, right, right, like I've missed you like that
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: level of like I missed you, Agwayne and your stubbornness,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: oh you stubborn full randolphor right.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: And congratulations on surviving this? Where how do you lose
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: your hand?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Right, she sees that he's lost a hand as he
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: turns to go. It'd be so nice if she like
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: grabbed his arm and was like, bro, what the hell
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: did you let happen to you? You know?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: But they're just they're they're fronting with each other so much,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: they're hiding so much and sad, Yeah, it's sad.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: She sees him as an antagonist, even though she comes
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: through all the thoughts she had, which we really ignored
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: her thought process in its details throughout this chapter.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about beginning.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: And despite the fact that she came through that, she
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: still sees him as more of a changed antagonist then
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: as someone she used to know. Like, despite all the
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: thoughts she had, she still ultimately falls on the side
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: of he's a problem to be fixed, he's someone to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: be dealt with, quote.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: Unquote, and I don't feel anybody else of the Emmonsfield
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: five feels like that, Like Matt kind of has some
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: of those thoughts early on, but later he's like, yeah,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: you know, he's still the dragonry born. He still ran,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to fight for him, you know.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty consistent with how he treats Agwayne. So
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: Matt's fine, that's consistent in that way. But again, I
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: really just look at Agwaine as like inhabiting the institution
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: to a point that her personality is eroding into the institution.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: She really is the White Tower to a degree that
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: is upsetting.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Like, and we've talked about this a bunch of times,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: but back when she thought the elves were too much
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: and needed to be banished, and now she's like, one
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: hundred percent oath serve the way to go. That's what
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: the White Tower needs. And you're just like, uh, I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: kind of like two reasons for getting rid of them.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but alas she has very much not chosen that
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: fork on the path, and we get this, Agwayne, and
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, I'm ready to read her out if you
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: can give it this or anything else. Okay, how did
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: you resist it? Mother, Sylviana asked Agwainne frowned. She hadn't
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: felt that way, perhaps because she thought of him as Rand.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: We need to discuss his words. The hull of the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: tower will reconvene in one hour's time for discussion. That
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: conversation would be sealed to the hall, and someone followed
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to make sure he really leaves. Gareth Brynn is doing so,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Chuw Baines said from outside. The sitters pulled themselves to
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: their feet, shaken, Sylviana leaned down. You're right, mother, he
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: can't be allowed to break the seals. But what are
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: we to do if you won't hold him captive? I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: doubt we could have held him, Agwaine said, there's something
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: about him. I had the sense he would have broken
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: that shield without a struggle. Then how how do we
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: stop him? We need allies, Agwaine said. She took a
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: deep breath. He might be persuaded by people that he trusts,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: or he might be forced to change his mind if
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: confronted by a large enough group united to stop him.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: It was now more vital that she speak with Elaine
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and to nim Eve. There it is.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: That's a fun chapter.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: It's good, as much as we don't really like the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: Aguaine Rand interactions, specifically, It's a good chapter for plot,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: for tie ins, for talking about other tangents and stuff like.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: There's lots of good prophecy. Yeah, the dreams so good
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: to ya.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: I really like that one. Glad we did as a
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: standalone so we could really because I knew we were
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: going to tangent hard on.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: That one took us an hour and twenty minutes. Yeah,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: that totally makes sense.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you everybody for joining us. Once again, I don't
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: think we have anything important to announce or say at
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: this point, and by.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: The time that you hear this as a recording what
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Idol voting will already be over. But I do encourage everyone.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: If you have not seen the w Idol playlist, definitely
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: should go check it out. I'll include the link to
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: it in the show notes for this episode. You can
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: find it also in our server if you're listening to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: this live. Definitely vote. But yeah, I will just say
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: what Idol was really really fun this year, as per usual,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: and I do think we're going to need to do
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: a bonus episode covering some of the entries because there
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: was a lot, as we said before. Other than that,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: do you remember to listen to my other podcasts autistic
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: stuff for artistic people and used to sew remember to
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: stay paying enough attention to the world that you're angry,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: but not so much that your blood pressure goes up
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: too much.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll say I've been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: for the second time, very much enjoying it. It's definitely
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: not a book I can recommend to everybody, but it's
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: a book that does a good job of expanding the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: world building after book three. It's like some other series
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: that we're familiar with. So the first three books definitely
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: established sort of a central character and theme, and then
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: book four and from then on continues to grow the
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: world world and grow the characters and become a bit
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: more than just a simple lit RPG, which I think
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: is the genre. So if you're looking for something to read,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: I think it's worth giving a try. But I don't
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: think everybody's gonna love it, but I do think it's
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: it's it's worth trying as a serious awesome.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: On that note, we will bid you all and you
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: should I do Patreon kiddings, bye bye. Thank you for
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Please rate
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app, and consider supporting
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: us on Patreon for ad free episodes. Watts Spoilers is
• 1:17:26
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• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: from Fox and Raven Media, visit our website at Foxendravenmedia
• 1:17:33
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