Latest / WoT Spoilers / A Dangerous Place & Advantages to a Bond - A Memory of Light ch3&4 - EP596

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A Dangerous Place & Advantages to a Bond - A Memory of Light ch3&4 - EP596 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers Podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And we are here to do a double header of
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: content today. We're actually doing two chapters. This is our
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: first of why is there a chapter break there? That
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: is one scene sort of episodes.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, this is just like, wait, no, these need
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to go together. And I think almost because these had
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to go together is why we had to do the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: last two episodes as singletons.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the last two episodes actually were one thing apiece,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: and this one is half of a thing. So we're
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: going to do two halves, and then you'll get one whole.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: This is sort of a bit of like, it's a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: bunch of different POVs, but it's basically a little bit
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of Rand and then a lot of Andral.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of fun, sneaky, sneaky action that does
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: take a lot of pages. So I can see why
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: editors were like, we need to put a chapter break
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: in there. But from the way we process stuff... It's
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: one scene.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: And a lot of names. A lot of names. Yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So we'll be starting with chapter three, then going into
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: chapter four.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Chapter three, a dangerous place. And our symbol is the dragon.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Because there's a fair amount of Rand in these chapters.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And I mean, the dragon pin is on the line.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And there's just a lot of like, the icon of
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the dragon is very relevant to the symbol of the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Black Tower in so many ways.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: No, this is a good icon pick. You know, I'm
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: surprised I don't see more tattoos of this dragon.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Probably because it looks so much like just some stylized
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Chinese dragon. It's not a specific enough reference that it
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: looks like it could feel like it's just some random
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: flash art as opposed to a specific icon reference. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I do think Wheel of Time has suffered a little
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: bit from that, that a lot of its iconography is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: very generic. And it's very hard to be like, this
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is a Wheel of Time icon. You know, you look
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: at Brandon Sanderson and a lot of his, you know,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Windrunners have specific symbols. And, like, he builds a lot
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of his world around symbols and characters and shapes. And, like,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the medals in Mistborn all have their own symbol. And, like,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you know, that's out there and it's unique to his world.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And sometimes I find that Wheel of Time is like, oh,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it's the yin-yang symbol that you see everywhere. But without
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the dots.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Without the dots for some reason.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I felt the need to include
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of visual elements in my tattoo in order
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to make it very clearly. Like, this is Wheel of Time, right?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It's not just some generic Ouroboros on some sky. Like,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I needed so many different elements to feel like I
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: was saying Wheel of Time loudly enough.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Or the wolf and the fox, right? Like, okay, animals,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: lots of people have. Oh, my God, the triforce leaf.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It's fucking maple leaf. You might as well be, like,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: repping Canada at that point.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Those are more often five than three, but yeah. Yeah,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: dice and foxes and ravens. Because he was trying to
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: do a Tolkien, right? And drawing on a lot of
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: things that are deeply recognizable to say these things repeat.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: That does end up cheapening the symbols if they're stripped
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: of too much context. Not cheapening, but it just makes
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a more generic feeling.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And so then a lot of, I feel like the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: iconography actually ends up coming from the chapter headers, which
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: aren't actually in the text.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Some of them are.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Some of them are.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: The symbol for the Aelfin and Eelfin, right? Those are
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: explicitly described. The seven or the six-pointed star. A couple
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: of things.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I guess, yeah. No, I guess I should really retract
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: that because like the dragon is the dragon on the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: dragon banner, right? The Malkir helmet is Rand's Malkir helmet, right?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: The flame and the fang and the yin-yang. But other ones,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: not so much. But yeah, Fuji, you're saying like, yeah,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you've got the three icons for the boys together, right?
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Like that... Okay, now you've got a line, right? It's
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: not just one. Oh, that's cool.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. The pips on the dice are in a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: hexagon rather than a rectangle.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: The things you take for granted that someone can tweak
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and make you be like, oh, I'm in a fantasy world. Oh,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I'm in a parallel universe. Oh, I'm in an alien's context.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: If everything just looks all square and left to right
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: and top to bottom, then it breaks the immersion of
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: feeling like you're in an alien or exotic context.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I guess I should read this in.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: You probably should.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: A dangerous place. Lord Loghain and Taim have indeed patched
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: up their differences, Weyland said, sitting inside the common room
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of the Great Gathering. He wore bells in his dark braids,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and he smiled widely. He always had smiled too much.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Both were worried about the division we've been suffering, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: agree it isn't good for morale. We need to be
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: focused on the last battle. This isn't a time for squabbling.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Andral stood just inside the door, Pavara beside him. It
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was surprising how quickly this building, a former warehouse, had
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: been transformed into a tavern. Lind had done her work well.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: There were a respectable bar and stools, and though the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: tables and chairs spread through the room didn't match yet,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the place could seat dozens. She also had a library
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: with a considerable number of books, although she was very
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: particular about who she allowed to use it. On the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: second floor, she planned private dining chambers and sleeping rooms
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: for visitors to the Black Tower. Assuming Taim started letting
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: visitors in again. Lind, who is the proprietor of this inn,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: is Lind Taglian, is named for Linda Taglieri of the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: 13th Depository. I have quoted Linda's... I have quoted many, many, many, many,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: many of Linda's articles.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, Linda is one of the goats of the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: documentation out there. 13th Depository is gold.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolute gold. And... Frask, it was her husband, and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that's named after Frank Taglieri, her real-life husband and creator
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of the 13th Depository blog. So that's why the reference
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: to the library that she only let some use.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Linda out there, huge part of the community.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of naming that I have totally
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: thumbs up about, more so than the donated on some
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Patreon page.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: This is a person who helped make these books happen, right?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Because the rest, the repository, the 13th depository, that clearinghouse
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: of information, those blogs, those articles, what they have curated
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: and maintained, that is one of the resources that Sanderson
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: was undoubtedly using to, you know, write these books.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Because, like, yeah, you've got the notes from the author
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and all of his stuff, but, like, what the fandom
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: has put together is its own angle. And he is
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: clearly a fan, right? He was a fan first.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he said many times he used fan resources
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: in organizing and addressing. Like he didn't just depend on,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know, King Jordan, although he certainly used Maria.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is the kind of name drop that
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I want to see in here. You know, seeing Jason,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: seeing Linda, like these are names like, oh, them. I
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: know them. I know of them. I mean, I don't know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: you know, the 13th Suppository people, but I know 13th Suppository.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Like that is Jesus.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Right. The Dusty Wheel. Great reference, right?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, totally. There's certain people where it's you kind
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: of it would be rude not to include them. So
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: that's that's lovely that they're a bar with a library.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And then there's Jonathan Daltrey is also named here and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: his name for Jonathan Hamm, a fan of the Wheel
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of Time.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Right. I remember recently learning that he has not been
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: around since book four, despite the fact that he sounds
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: like he has a freaking eye of the world grade name. No,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: he's actually kind of new.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So here we are with the Andral storyline. And figuring
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: out that Loghain has been captured. So this is the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: process of saving Loghain. Although it is just getting into
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a trap. It's just another falling into a trap.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: In classic Wheel of Time fashion, the best way to
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: deal with a trap is to walk into it. Every time.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Every time. They're like, I see a trap. And if
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I know it's a trap, then clearly it can't be
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: nearly as trap-like once it does, in fact, spring. And then,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: you know, hijinks ensue. Every time.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Then we'll break it down from the inside. Later.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It does usually work, but there are always unexpected hijinks.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Along the way. And sometimes some red shirts die. Yeah,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: we lose a few in this one too. Yeah.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: But yeah, essentially this is the holdouts are being approached
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: one final time to say, you want to join peacefully
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: or dot, dot, dot. And the holdout saying, we're going
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: to take the dot, dot, dot option. Okay. Dr.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Pant saying it's the Elaine Syndrome.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, she is kind of the poster child, but
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it's also one of Robert Jordan's go-to moves that Sanderson
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: picked up on seamlessly.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, there's sort of this, like, propaganda from Waylon
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: where he's, like, basically spouting the party line for a while. Right.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: And there's this honest, upright lad who just doesn't understand why...
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: You would say one thing when you clearly mean another.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: And he's just so gosh darn honest and wants an
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: honest answer. Just can't understand that there's a car salesman
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: simply lying to him through his teeth because fascism is
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: more profitable. And of course, Pavara and Andrel are both,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: you know, slightly more world weary and seasoned and like, oh,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: this child, he means well, but shut up.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we never get into trouble when you believe the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: lies of politicians and support them anyway.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Nope, not at all. Oh, yeah, this line here about Lind.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: She had always seemed to him a model of what
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the Black Tower could be. Civilized, educated, important. Like, this
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: is peak fan. This is a peak fan. This is
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the peak of who is in the fandom as someone
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: who has this ginormous website that has just never changed
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: aside from to grow over time and has just always
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: been there and has never gotten broken or hacked. It
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: is always full of high quality information with all the
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: citations you could want. Like this is the peak of
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the fandom in terms of the kind of nerdly people
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: who would actually write books.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe other people think other parts of the fandom are peak,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: but like those of us who might write books or
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: read them obsessive definitely are going to put a librarian
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: on that shelf.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And so Andral is basically like, hey, you know, by
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the way, you two should probably, you know, chill in
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the basement because there's going to be some shit going
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: down tonight.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we would like you two to not die in
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the crossfire, please and thank you. We want you to
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: be part of the Fourth Age post-Taim Tower, right?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And of course, that's overheard by one of Taim's followers,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Etal Mishrail. Mishrail.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: He's such an asshole. His name just is douchey as hell.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, totally. But he's like, so what? You think something's going?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: He basically catches them because he's like, oh, something's going
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: down tonight. Let me go report that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: That subterfuge is not high on this team's set of skills.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: No, they pretty much just let it slip right there
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that they're trying something tonight. Which, I mean, not that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: they were hiding it that well, but, like, it explains
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: why they're captured later.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Well, but also, like, they're kind of going to get
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: captured either way, right? This was kind of the last
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: come peacefully or we're coming for you tonight meeting sort
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: of deal, right? Pavara's the last eyes to die. Loghain
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: has been captured, right? Like, it's all coming to a
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: head tonight either way. But this definitely does take away
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: what element of surprise they might have had. It evaporates
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: in this moment. And he even describes him as having
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: an evil all his own. Mishra is one of those
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: ones that's not turned, right? This is the same douchey
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: douchey bro.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: He's just a dark friend.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: That's been there the whole time. If you didn't like
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: him since he was introduced in book six, like he
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: is the same man he's been. You know, most of
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: these guys are getting turned because the dark friends are
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: off doing other stuff. But this is one of the
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: dark friends who's still on site.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Like Mezar shows up here and he's one that did
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: have to get turned, right? He wasn't necessarily one of
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: our guys per se, but like he wasn't a dark
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: friend and now he's an automaton.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're automatons. They clearly like maintain
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of their skills and opinions. For me, it's
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: like multiplying by negative one, right? Because when we talk
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: about the idiot here, I forget. Whoa, what's his name again?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: No, I don't remember. But yeah, the thing where someone's
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: amplitude stays the same. They just flip axes.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That someone goes from this guy's going
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: from like a point one good to a point one bad.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, he's basically neutral no matter what.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Versus like, you know, Loghain would have gone from like
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: ultimate good to like ultimate evil. He would have been
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: like super evil, super bad, like really motivated. It's because
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it's like the motivation stays the same. The dedication stays
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the same. It's just to a different cause.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess you're right there because they keep
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: describing it like something else is behind their eyes. But yeah,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that almost feels like misleading because it's like, but it
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: is the same person with the same intensity, the same
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: level of follow through. They're just like you said, inverted.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: If it was truly a different person, then like wouldn't
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: their intensity change also if there's something else there?
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, and that's the soul is different than
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the mind. It's a different soul inhabiting the same mind. Right,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: because we've separated these things out, right? There's mind, soul,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and body. We've separated those things out in Wheel of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Time repeatedly.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right, right, yeah.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And so body maintains the same, mind maintains the same,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: soul gets multiplied by negative one. So it's a different
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: soul driving the same mind and body. Yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It's very weird. And I feel like we get a
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: lot of uneasy, unanswered questions about free will and all that.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, like Andral wonders about it in these chapters
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and I don't feel like we get good answers to it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: He just poses the questions very eloquently. Yeah.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, the idea of the dark one just in there,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that kind of works, but then I feel like there'd
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: be more of a network where they'd be like all
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: working together.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Like Borg or something.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: They all become much more similar after the transition instead
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: of staying distinct.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: They're still very much individuals. Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Whereas like the Corsuvra, I think when those snap, I
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: think it's much more Borg, like, at least that's the implication,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: is that, like, you do become a literal automaton being puppeted.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Right. But an automaton of the person who's holding your kosuvra. Right.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And, you know, those are much more expensive to make
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: than turning people.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: No, we never really get an answer to what's being
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: done during the ceremony. Right. Like, we never really get
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: an answer, like, your soul's getting corrupted. It's getting taken over.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It's getting replaced. If it's getting replaced, what's the source
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of the replacement? Right.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: And where's your soul going after it gets removed from
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: your mind body?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, one would assume the same place they all go.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Which again, where are they getting new ones from that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: are definitely evil? Like questions.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: The dark one. I mean, the dark one is the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: master of the dead. So one would assume he has
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: like evil souls in his back pocket.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, that actually makes sense.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But usually when he puts them into bodies, you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like with the Forsaken, the personality, he's like bringing the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: mind over as well. That's the whole thing with mind, body, soul.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: The Forsaken, their resurrection is unique because they get the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: mind and the soul. Whereas everyone else, the soul just
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: gets resurrected.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And he specifically has to catch them at the moment
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: of death. If they get bail fired or some other
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: way of just being off the board for a minute,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: then they do go through a more normal recycling process.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: The fact that they're connected to the Dark One and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: he can catch them as they die is kind of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: unique to being chosen.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Unless you're Rand, because that is kind of he uses
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the Dark One's power to access his previous mind, which
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is what all the Forsaken are doing.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's kind of pseudo-chosen, honorary chosen in his
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: own way, you know?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: He's one of the few people who channels the true power.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: As far as we know, only Forsaken do that.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: And they have to have the Dark One's permission. So again,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: literally chosen by the Dark One to wield said power.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: He is chosen by definition.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Well... There's that weird, like, his soul, and we can
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: talk about that when we get to it, but his
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: soul and Morden's soul are the same soul. So, like,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: by giving Morden permission to use the power, he's kind of,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the pattern's like, oh, so you're also giving Ran permission
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: to use it at the same time.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Right, and then I'm like, how can two people have
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: one soul? Like, that doesn't even make sense. Two minds
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: on one soul, like, what?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Well, that's not necessarily, I would say they're two different souls, but,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the addressing got messed up, right? So that, like,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: if you think about pointers and variables... Right. You can
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: have two pointers to the same. I don't know how
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: much you know about programming.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But in programming, you have two pointers to the same variable. Right.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And you can change those pointers around, but it doesn't
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: change the variable.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: OK, sure.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Right. And so I think in a lot of ways
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that you have these two separate souls. But the but anyway,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: moving on from my terrible example, the pattern, because when
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they cross the streams, right, that created a paradox, right? Yeah. Right.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: You can't undo Balefire that's undoing the Balefire that's undoing
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the Balefire that's undoing the Balefire. Right. And so to
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: resolve that, the pattern said, oh, there's not two streams
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of Balefire. There's one stream of Balefire. And for there
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to be one stream of Balefire, they would have to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: come from the same place, which means they would have
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to come from the same person, which means these two
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: people must be the same person. They must have the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: same soul.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: It's just a glitch in the programming of reality.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely a glitch in the programming. Crossing the streams
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and crossing the streams particularly works because it's true power
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and one power canceling each other out. It wouldn't work
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: with two people using the one power. Then you just
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: get a big explosion. Wow. In my opinion. I think
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: it only works if you have true power, one power,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Balefire overlapping each other.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Because Morden only uses the true power, right?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. Okay.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: As far as we're aware, Morden, and there's other things
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: like he didn't feel him channeling and all that kind
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Like there's lots and lots of indications that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: it's true power, Balefire, not one power, Balefire.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: It kind of assumes that Balefire is Balefire and it
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: wouldn't matter which power was generating it. You'd still generate
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the paradox either way.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, but they do talk about how like using the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: true power, the weaves have, it's the same thing, but
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: they have different effects. They do have different results using
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the true power. They talk about that over and over
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and over again. That even if you're weaving the same thing,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: it can be subtly different and have, you know, expectations,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: things you don't expect.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So even the same Balefire woven out of the True Power,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I think, would react differently. Enough differently that you can Balefire, Balefire.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: What about a True Power, a True Power?
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Balefire, Balefire. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So that's where I'm coming from, is I do think
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: there is this crossing of the streams. And this is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: more appropriate to later in the chapter, but that's what
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, for sure.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: All right. So we get some taunting about how Andral
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: can't use gateways and also is being demoted. Mm-hmm.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's just getting demoted because he's a rebel,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and I think Tam's trying to take away any authority
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: he might have.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Well, even though he's not formally a rebel, just the
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: fact that he's not licking Tam's boots is enough, right? Like,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: we're doing the freezing out of everyone who's not with us.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Does some holding of the One Power and being paranoid
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and also thinking about how the Black Tower is... giving
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: him a reason to exist. And all of that's going
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: on while there's a staring contest going down. Essentially, we
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: have a lot of big thoughts behind very fast looks
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: is kind of how this scene is going down.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Yes. Meanwhile, you know, he's also trying to like seize
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the power and his madness is coming on him because
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: he's not cured of that madness yet. He still has
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that blackness on his brain. So he's still seeing, you know,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: these shadows coming in. And of course, he can't convince
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: himself they're not real.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Right, because that's part of what a hallucination is, is
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: it's more than just the visuals. It's like the full
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: comprehensive belief in your brain that the shadows are coming.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And he even talks about how that was something his
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: father dealt with, like specifically that he's having madness that
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: reminds him of how his father went. It's a whole thing,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: which is unusual. But, you know, it adds to the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: realness of his terror that he knows that this is
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: how it came to his father.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Reminds me a little bit of sleep paralysis that like you,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: wake up and you know there's somebody in the doorway
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: watching you. Very common, right? I don't know if you
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: have the sleep paralysis demon.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: That's not how my sleep paralysis has gone. My sleep
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: paralysis has been thankfully demon free.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Well, in a lot of old videos, you see either
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a demon on someone's chest or a demon in the doorway.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've seen the artwork.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And the way I've experienced it is there's somebody in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the doorway when I was younger. The older I'm getting,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the closer that person gets.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Well, that's uncomfortable. Yeah, I've had some sleep paralysis, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: it's always just been, like, the physical paralysis. I've never
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: had a presence to go with it. But I've seen
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: some very good Renaissance art of it, where I'm like, well,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that's how I feel, minus the concept
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: of an evil entity generating it. But, like, the feeling
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: of claustrophobia, yes. But, yeah, that's definitely what he's dealing with,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: is that kind of just, like, you cannot convince yourself
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: that this terror is not real.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. No, and I'll be I think I'm screaming help
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for minutes. And what some of what I've been told
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is like, I might like mumble a little bit, but
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: essentially I'll I'll sit up suddenly go help. And I'll
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: be like, did you not hear me all that time? Like,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you just said it once. Like, oh, I thought I
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was saying it over and over and over and over again.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Like there is like legitimate like my brain is convincing
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: me of things that aren't real or happening during sleep paralysis.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: The sleep state is very poorly understood. The kinds of
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: chemicals that our brains put out, the ways that we
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: move through spaces of memory and perception while transiting from
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: awakeness to a sleepness, like we just don't get it.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It's one of those just dark spots on the map
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: of science where we're like, we need to sleep. We
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: go insane if we don't sleep. We know how to
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: use some drugs to manipulate sleep or memory so we
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: can do surgical anesthesia and stuff like that. But we
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: don't really know what it is we're messing with. We're
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: just kind of poking this black box and seeing what happens.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: My current favorite explanation of why we dream specifically is
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that in someone who's blind, over time, the visual cortex
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: takes on other roles, right? Right.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: That's really high powered hardware. It's not going to get
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: let to go to waste.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And so if for eight hours a day we weren't
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: using that hardware, it would slowly lose its ability to function.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And so the brain is actually has to stimulate the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: visual cortex at night in order to protect it from
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the rest of the brain taking over. And that's why
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: we dream.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: It's like a screensaver.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Basically, it's a screensaver. Yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: No, I'm still using that. You can't have it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm reserving this memory. You can't take it over. Right.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Like it's refreshing the cache. At night.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Interesting theory.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: In our visual cortex. Combined with like, you know, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: then we sleep because we're flushing toxins out of our brain, right?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: That it creates during the day and we can't.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Mysteries around sleep versus dreaming are separate, separate mysteries.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But so the sleep is to flush
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: out the toxins and then the dreams keep our visual
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: cortex active while we're sleeping. So it doesn't get taken
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: over by the rest of the brain.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And I know that there's a lot of, you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: at least preliminary science that suggests that not dreaming can
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: be a early indicator for having like certain kinds of
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: brain issues later in life I know someone who's kind
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: of concerned about that for themselves because they've always had
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: very poor sleep and very erratic non like just basically
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: they don't dream like hardly at all they've had very
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: light sleep their entire life really don't dream much at
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: all and There's scientific research coming out saying that that
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: could be, you know, a precursor for dementia or whatever
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: in this person's sleep. Oh, yeah.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: That's not good for you.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: That is upsetting because this has just been a chronic
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: problem my whole life. It's not lifestyle based. I mean,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: part of it's lifestyle based, but it's, you know, bigger
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: than just, you know, partying in your 20s kind of deal. Yeah,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: we don't know much about how all this stuff works,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but there's definitely indicators that it's deeply important. Whatever is
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: going on there.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: It's also just not ethical to be like, OK, so
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you don't sleep. You sleep. Let's see what the difference are.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. It's like testing drugs on pregnant women. It's
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: like you really don't want to be like doing normal
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: double blind shit in that regard. We kind of just
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: have to wing it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: You're dying of cancer is one thing, but sleep is
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the thing everyone needs all the time.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: So, and I don't know if there's a, also there's
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a difference between dreaming and remembering those dreams, right? Like
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you don't necessarily need to remember those dreams if you're,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you can still be having them and having REM sleep,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you know? So that's, and then like, yeah, that's something
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like weed. Where does that come into effect? Because people
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: who smoke weed don't necessarily remember their dreams, but the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: studies show they're still dreaming.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Right. You're still having REM sleep. It's a, again, dreaming
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: and memory, not synonyms, right? And like, this is something
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: that I've learned, you know, knowing a few people who
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: have gone through surgery. and have come out with weird
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: gaps in the way that their memory works that have
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: taken months to go away. And it's like, Oh, that's
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: because some of the drugs that they give you to
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: knock you out so they can do surgery on you
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: specifically mess with the parts of your brain, the parts
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: of your brain chemistry to do with putting memories into
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: long-term storage. And like that ends up spilling out beyond
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: just the event of the surgery, depending on how your
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: brain works, whatever, whatever. So it's like sleep, And dream
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: and memory are deeply related and not the same.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: No, I just had one of the engineers I work with.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: He's a 24-year-old kid, fresh out of college, on an e-scooter,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: took a dive, no helmet, bad concussion. Oh, no. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was probably weeks to months after that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: where he just couldn't remember stuff I told him. And
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: it was really, he's like the engineer I'm working with.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: He needs to be able to, his memory was not
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: there for quite some time And he was just like, yeah,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling. It took him at least two or three
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: weeks before he was even somewhat back to functional, in
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: my opinion. And longer before he was 100%. Just couldn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: remember shit. And that's just scary. It's scary that the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: brain is just a piece of meat.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, what is it? A pound and a half
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of soggy tapioca. Is that how the name goes? It's
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: not even meat. It's like literally less substantial than actual
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: like muscle.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, sure.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, meat's probably, you know, we're made of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: meat is sort of my, the bones and the, you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: meat is a very generic term there for what people are,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: for what things are made out of. Right.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Like, well, technically it's different.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Because that's who I am as a person. I have
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: to correct you. Well, it's not actually a muscle.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So, um, yes, technically. Okay, then what are people made
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: out of? If meat's not a term you would use,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: because we are made of meat and other things, how
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: would you categorize, like, what is a person made of? Tissue?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, that would be broader, yeah.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: More broad. Goop.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I like goop. Goop is good.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Living goop.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Organic material. I mean, there's not a good word
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: for it. I'm not saying I have good words for it.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I just like to correct people and be pedantic. That's
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: how I like to exist.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: In the world. I'm fine with that if you have
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: an alternative that works better.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Stardust.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Everything's made of stardust. Except technically not, because a lot
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of that stuff isn't necessarily formed in stars. There's lots
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of other mechanisms that do form elements, like supernova explosions
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and Big Bang stuff.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: But those are stars, though. Supernovas are from stars.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: If we're being pedantic.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I'm being pedantic. Where else do you get a supernova from?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Well, so the accretion disks of black holes are not stars,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and that actually may be where a lot of the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: minerals come from. Oh.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Or to neutron stars colliding.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, stars in the name. But you're right, neutron
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: stars are very different. It's like saying planetary nebula. It's
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: just one of those artifacts of astronomy being wrong. Your
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: mom's so dense, she made from neutrons.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: But I think specifically, like, you know, when we think
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of star stuff, we're talking about, like, the main stage
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: stars that go through, like, they burn all the elements
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: as they run out of hydrogen. They burn helium as
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: they run out of helium. They burn lithium as they
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: run out of lithium.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about, like, carbon and iron and, you know, stuff.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But that only gets you up to iron. Right? That's
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the thing. And then in the supernova, you have this
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: instantaneous implosion that can create some of the higher elements. Yeah. But...
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: That's still stars, though.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Yes. But that doesn't account. Basically, they've done the math
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and they realize that like only a tiny percentage of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like gold and stuff can come from those. There has
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to be another source.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I missed that memo. Black holes, huh?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I watch a lot of space black YouTube videos.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I've watched some, but I tend to trend harder into
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: like archaeology for some reason. Fascinated by prehistoric animals. That
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: tends to be more of the science that YouTube serves
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: me that I gobble up. But I do occasionally wander
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: into science, into space science.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the black hole stars that Sam and I was referencing.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those are.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So the little red dots that Hubble has been... Not Hubble.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: James Webb Telescope has been seeing. I've watched a few
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: videos about those.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: The current best theory is that we're actually seeing... light
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: from the accretion disk, but then the gas around them
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: is so dense that it looks like a star. It's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: not just an accretion disk. There's actually enough gas around
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: them that's being illuminated by the accretion disk that it
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: looks like a star.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: That is very cool. I remember hearing about all the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: cool science that we thought we were going to learn
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: when we were doing the, ah, James Webb, look what
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: it's finding. Ooh, that's a very cool graphic that has
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: been posted in chat.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: That's a black hole star.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: That's that's an actual picture with a cool which of
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: course i want to call a black hole sun drawing
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: over there oh yeah sure sure yeah so i can.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Sing the song black hole.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Sun yeah yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah a little sound garden going on.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Hey we both knew a song together for once.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Isn't that cool?
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Wow. Mark that down. First and last time.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: It'll never happen. Every now and then, I happen to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: know a popular song.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of black things, let's talk about the Black
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Tower again.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Because we have wandered far afield.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Back with the science tangent. All right, all right, all right. So, yeah, basically,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that's the end of the Black Tower stuff.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Right, but we get to the point where he gets demoted,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and he tries to overcome that. He gets really close
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to creating a... This is the moment... Again, this is
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: something Sanderson loves to do, where he shows you a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: character trying to do something a couple of times to
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: solve a problem, and it's not until the epic moment
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: at the end of the sequence where he's actually able
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to do it. So we see Andral trying to open
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a gateway inside of the Teron Grial, the spike, the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: dream spike, right? Multiple times. And it's built up to
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at least two times before he actually does it.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Right. Right.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And each time he gets a little bit closer and
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit closer. And it's like until he gets
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a little more desperate. And so we don't see him
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: do it here. But when we come back to him,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: he's been captured. He does trying like I think Tyene
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: tries to kill him and he is able to successfully
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: open up a tiny gateway inside the dream spike to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: save himself. Right.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: He puts the balefire that's going to hit him or
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the firebolt that's going to hit him like into someone else's.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Back or something like that. I think it's balefire. I
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: don't remember. Yeah.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: But yeah, this is the beginning of that like increasingly
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: frantic thing that he's trying to do and you feel
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: sure he's going to do it. But Sanderson loves to
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: have people not be able to break through that barrier
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: until it's literally their life on the line. So here's
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the beginning where he thinks his life is on the line,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: but it's not really. It's just his rank, right? We
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: have to keep escalating until there's literally a Balefire gun
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: pointed at his chest, and then he's going to make
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: it work.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And so he drops the pin, being like, okay, I'm
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: not Ashomon anymore.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: He wasn't even an Ashomon. He was just a dedicated.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. That's right.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Right. He's been demoted back down to soldier. And yeah,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: he marches off, you know, stiff upper lip and then
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: tells the gang, we got to go get Loghain. Screw
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: the pin. We have to make our move tonight. There
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: is no waiting.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to pick the battlefield by going right into
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: their trap.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Well, look, then you at least know where the enemy
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: is closing in on you in the trap. But you
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: know where they are.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Because you know where the enemy is not. And that
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: gets us to Rand.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: POV switch over to Rand, who is being very. productive
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in his Zen state, right? He's using the power for illumination.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: He's thinking about helping to learn a bit about healing, right?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: He's being kind of grounded for all that he's super
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Zen down on a cloud.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, he's been nerfed so hard since the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: streams were crossed, right? That was part of why Rand
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: hasn't been going in, you know, oh, if he's got
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: these incredible Terangriol, you know, Sangriol, Why isn't he just
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: going in and decimating his enemies? And it's like partially
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: he doesn't know where they are, but partially he's been
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: really limited by this whole dizziness, sickness thing from crossing
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of the streams. He was nerfed and now he's not
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: nerfed anymore. And he's like, oh, since I've been nerfed,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I haven't actually learned how to like do what any
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Aes Sedai can do, which is heat up my tea
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: with the one power.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's kind of the lesson a lot of
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: the Black Tower is learning is like, we are just weapons, right?
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: That's what Pavar is looking at them being like, you
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: have nothing except weaponry, right? That's kind of Rand over
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: here being like, oh, I am more than a weapon.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I am a man and I would like my tea
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: to be warm or my wine or my light to
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: not be flickering and expensive and stinky and a fire hazard.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Right. I want all the luxuries of a modern life
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: without knowing what a modern life looks like.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Like, Smoke inside buildings is one of the worst things
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: that people have had to do to themselves for like
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: most of human history. Being around open flames, fires, even,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: you know, all the way into kerosene lamps like. The
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: CO2 output and the particulate ash output of that is
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: just so bad for you. The concept of having light
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: that doesn't give you active respiratory issues, amazing. You know,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I love to put up, you know, potable water and
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: dentistry is like brilliant inventions of the modern age. But
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: light that doesn't give you a cough is also pretty
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: high up on the list of things I like about
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: the modern world.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's why stoves were always so great because
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it was the first time you could actually cook and
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: heat your house without. And then light, you can just
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: have a couple of candles. And that's much less smoky.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And way less hot, too. Can you
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: imagine having to cook in the summer with wood heat? Miserable. Miserable.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a lot of kitchens were just kind of
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: out back, like especially in Virginia, where I used to live.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, outdoor kitchens.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of the kitchens were originally outside and then
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: were enclosed when the house modernized and are actually like
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: separate additions. So it's like this very frequent for the
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: kitchen to be in the back, you know, first floor.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Because also if caught fire, right? Like you didn't want
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that attached to your house.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which, you know, likely to happen if you have
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to have a kitchen running all day and it's wood powered.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Like you're just bringing the rate of fire going where
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: it shouldn't way up.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Indoor plumbing is great.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I love indoor plumbing. Huge fan.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: For me, it's all about having a bed that's not
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: on the ground. Sleeping on... your cloak or your palette
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: or whatever on the ground. Oh my God. Miserable. I
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: think that's the one thing about fantasy that I, I,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: they just cover up when they're like, Oh, we're traveling.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And he wraps himself in his cloak and goes to bed.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, uh-huh. And tossed and turned for six hours,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: got about two hours of sleep, woke up the next morning, miserable, tired,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: having to pee too hot and too cold at the
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: same time. Bruised, twisted.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And with a stick poking you in the back for
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: some fucking reason.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Or a rock.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: For sure. I was just camping this weekend and I
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: was in a nice nylon tent. I had rugs to
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: put on the ground of the tent. And then I
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: had a lovely dense piece of foam that actually kept
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: me up off the ground. And it was quite nice.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I needed someone else's car to help me
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: bring all my stuff. You know, I wasn't going to
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: carry that shit on my back.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. I think that's the big difference is if
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you're carrying everything you need on your back. Yeah.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I have been backpacking and we did have, you know,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: foam things that were okay because we were exhausted because
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: we'd been hiking all day. So it was enough to
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: keep us from getting chilled from sleeping on the ground.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: But I like beds.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I like plumbing.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I like lights.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So the next little bit, I kind of like the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: introspective Rand that we get in this chapter. You know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: he's thinking he's grown too distrustful after Simrog nearly captured
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: him and like reflecting back. I mean, distrustful is one
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: word for it, but it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Is a word.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: You know, he understands that that was trauma and he
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: has to deal with that trauma.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this feels like a very integrated story. Rand LTT
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: thing where he's got that 400-year-old wisdom thing going on,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: but he's actually addressing what has happened to the 20-year-old, right?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: He's not saying, oh, well, Luce Theron went through worse,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: so I can ignore my trauma. He's like, no, no, no,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: that was real trauma that I in this body went through,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: but also I have the gravity of this other man's
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: life to be like, I should probably work on that
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: instead of just reacting and lashing out.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I would say the gravity of the other man's life,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: but even more so the gravity of being raised by Tam.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And then there's that.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Because this is where he tells the whole story about
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: going out to check a post and Tam sends him
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: out twice more until he finally finds the loose post.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, there's a question. He didn't know
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: if Tam had known about the post or if his
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: father had just been being his careful self. Which one
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: do you think it is? Do you think he found
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: the post and sent Rand out to find it? Or
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: do you think he was just like, there's got to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: be a loose post out there somewhere?
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, secret third option, Rand was being an annoying
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: little shit and Tan kept sending him out to redo
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: tasks over and over again until he worked that energy off,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: like the wise ones being like sort through a sandpile,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: you know? That would be my first thought, but I
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: would bet that it was Tan trying to teach Rand
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: a lesson saying, I've spotted this post. Because I don't
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: feel like Tan would just waste Rand's time for no
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: reason and just send him out to check a fence
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: that doesn't need something fixed but i could see him
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: being like yeah you're 12 you're old enough to be
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: held to account about finding something i'll just keep sending
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: him out until you fix the post that i know
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: is loose that feels way more like how tam would
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: do it as a quiet but instructive.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Lesson and also how as a teacher i would do
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: something where it's like you know i taught math for
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a while people would go through a problem they get
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: to the end of it oh no you have the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: wrong answer there go back and work work the problem
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: again i tried didn't find anything You still have the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: wrong answer. Why don't you go back and look at
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it one more time? You know, like I know there's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: something wrong without saying there's something wrong. Right. I don't
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: say the answer is wrong. I'll just be like, why
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: don't you check your work one more time? I've seen
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: that they're getting to the wrong answer. They don't know that.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I know where the problem is. But if I tell
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: them where it is, defeats the whole purpose. They're not
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to follow that logic
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and figure out where the error was in the math.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: People like you are why I ran away screaming from
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: math in college. Because seventh time I've been told to
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: just do it again, I'm going to burn this building
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: to the ground.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I'm over it.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I'm done. I'm changing majors. I'm going to go into
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: a words-based degree. Thank you.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I did the same thing when I was trying to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: teach a friend of mine pottery. And I was like, okay, good.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: You've centered it once. Now I'm going to knock it
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: off center so you can practice again. I'm like, no,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I centered it. I'm done. I'm like, okay, we're trying.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. The result is not what we're going for.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: It's the skill we're trying to build. If you can't
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: deal with it being knocked off center so you can
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: recenter it, you're not practicing the skill. We're not going
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to teach you. I'm not teaching you this. Because, like,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it's the skill that needs to be learned, not the result. So...
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: same thing with math, where it's like, I don't really
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: care if you get the right answer or not. It's
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: the skill in getting to the right answer that you
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: need to practice.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Well, I was in school where actually it does matter
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: if you get the right answer because you fail the
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: homework assignment or the test. And there are only so
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: many hours in the day and I only have so
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: many meltdowns in me per week.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, God. Well, don't get me started on the whole
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: issue with the way we grade things.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Start a whole other podcast about that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And the way we don't allow people to fail. The
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: way school isn't designed to let people try and fail.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: You have to succeed every single time. Yeah. Which is
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: not good for learning.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: You want my perfectionistic and rejection-sensitive ass to go in
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: there and just fail because I have fucking dyscalculia that
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: nobody has a fucking word for?
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Rand is trying to write a legal document all
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: by himself. So technically he has a team of lawyers,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: but he doesn't have a team of lawyers. But he
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: has a team of lawyers, but he's not using them.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But he did use them. He's writing the dragon's piece, right?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: He consulted with WikiHow on how to write up a will.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: And now he's trying to write the will for the
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: entire world by himself the night before the assignment is due.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Which, of course, means it has mistakes. And it took
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: the pattern intervening and being like, Avienda... Fix his mistakes.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And so here she is coming to fix his mistakes.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Speaking of, she walks up with the approbation of the
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: maidens on her heels, right? They're all screaming insults at Rand,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: but it's because they're happy for Avienda.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: So, you know. It's the he's taking you away from us.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of the marriage giving away. But
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the pun. She's not going to be
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a maiden anymore. She's not going to be a virgin anymore.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: So he's taking her away from the group of maidens, right? Like,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: which goes back to the prophecy, right? Rand born of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: a maiden. That was always a double on top of you. Like, wait.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And then of course that goes back to the whole,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: like Jesus reference, right? Like born of a virgin. So yes,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, this is, this is a
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Jesus reference somehow.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And that's also just funny. The sorority shouting their former
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: sister out and being like.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get that dick. Nemtok, yeah. Those maidens fucked.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not actually like some vessel virgin bullshit.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: These are not virginal maidens for sure.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Though it does seem like Avienda was before, you know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Snow Igloo.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Well, all of them were. All three women lost their
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: virginity to Rand. We have verified that. Oh, oh, yeah.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: I thought you meant the maidens. I'm like, no, the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: maidens are not all virgin.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. All three of Rand's wives were virginal
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: before they fucked him. Yeah.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Avienda's the only one that took Rand's virginity.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: He can only be taken once. Sadly, I don't believe
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: that Min... Yeah, I don't believe Min would have actually
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: been a virgin, but.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Canonically on the page, she's a virgin. She's fucking not. No,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: she's not.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Canonically, she says Rand is my first. Yeah.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I also don't really buy that Avienda, the athlete, didn't
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: know how that part of her body worked.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: She's like, men? I didn't even think about men. I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: have no interest in men. Oh, Rand. For the first
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: time in my life, I'm going to think about men. Ever.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't really accept. Yeah, exactly. I choose headcanon
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: instead of true canon because it makes me angry.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And you think Elaine didn't slum with a couple of commoners?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: She's a princess in the most quintessential sense. She, I
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: could believe, was actually a boy virgin. I don't think
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: she was a sexual virgin. Because virginity is a really
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: atrocious and nebulous concept, actually.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: It's a whole other giant discussion.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: We can We have enough tangents tonight. Let's move on. Yeah.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: We don't need to define virginity.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: What's happening now is that Avienda shows up to Rand
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: and is like, let's do it. And he's like, but
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: I have three wives. That's weird. And she's like, bro,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: we have talked about this. You need to just sleep
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: with me now. Just shut up and take your clothes off.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And her being like, it's all of us or
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: none of us. You don't get to pick. You don't
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: get to choose. You're not coming between us because the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: one you picked would always... The other two would be jealous, basically.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then we get the really important discussion that
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: does build up to Egwene's, I want to be a hero,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: can't I be a hero too? Him saying, it's not
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: my pain I fear, it's yours. Are we so weak then?
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: The pain is ours to accept. Your decision is simple,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: though you strive to make it difficult. Choose yes or no.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: We've already made our choice. We've already decided what price
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: we're paying. And you're being weird by not allowing us
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to do that, by not accepting the terms and conditions
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: that we are like, pick yes or no. This is
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: the contract. You don't get to negotiate on parts of it.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And it's, I think, a part of how he releases
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: the list later is saying, oh, if someone wants to
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: be a hero, if someone wants to be in my bodyguard,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: if someone wants to be in the vanguard of the
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: last battle, like, who am I to deny them that?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Light-blinded fool. I like that theory. Ovienda actually wanted Elaine
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: for herself, so she tried to seduce Rand so he'd
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: leave Elaine, and then she could go back to Elaine
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: and get her for herself.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not mad about it.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not mad about it.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, Rand makes the very funny joke about
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: how it's really late and I was hoping to get
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: some sleep. I'm not getting any sleep, am I? She's like, uh-uh. No,
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: you are not.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: This is not a five-minute thing we're doing.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no. Remember how the first time we fucked it
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: took a couple of hours? Yeah, it's not taking less
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: than that tonight, buddy.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Also, this is probably the last time they're ever going
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: to fuck.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You think she's not going to get multiple rounds in?
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: No.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: They do ultimately end up napping because they are tired,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: but the intention is very much there will be no sleep.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: You will simply have to drink coffee tomorrow.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: You think they're washing away their exhaustion?
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm exhausted, but let's just get a drink of water,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: put some weaves on each other, and then we can
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: go for another round.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Does healing shorten the refractory period?
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a question I've never heard asked before.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I can't get it up. Boing. Okay, we're good to go.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. The water bond helps with endurance.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: She's got a special weave. There's a Turangreal for that,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Listen, the maidens know how to handle spears.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: There's probably way more than one Turangreal for that. There's
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: probably a whole shop of Turangreal for various applications of that.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: A red stone cock ring. Ha!
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Auto-resizing.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you got the red rod for her,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you got the stone ring for him. Yeah, exactly. Where
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: is that red rod, Terran? Where did that end up, anyway?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: We talked about the caches. I think they just end
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: up being stored in Tyr or something.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would imagine that it's in a, you know,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: satin-lined box under Elaine's bed, but... Presumably, yeah, it's in
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: a crate somewhere in a cache that'll get dealt with.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I figured it's in Elaine's nightstand drawer because right.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Next to the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah. Yeah.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: All right. So back to the Black Tower.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I will say the one line that I do like
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: at the end of this is, well, at least I
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry about you freezing to death this time.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Slightly more comfortable. We're not exactly camping on an icy glue.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Last time there was a lot more existential dread.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: This time it's all horniness.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, back to the Black Tower with Pavara.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're doing reconnaissance and waiting and talking, contemplating
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: what's going on with the Black Tower. Essentially, Pavara's using
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: first principles as an experienced Aes Sedai to be like, well,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: it's probably a Turangrial of some sort. I don't know
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: exactly what kind of Turangrial stops gateways, because we didn't
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: even know what gateways were six months ago, but Just
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: based on being an Aes Sedai and what I know
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: about Turang Rial, probably there's a physical object that is
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: preventing gateways. She's just feeding us information in a more
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: coherent manner than any Aes Sedai has ever deigned to do.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's supposition, but it's correct.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's the kind of supposition most Aes Sedai keep
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: to themselves. But Pavara is very locked on Andral at
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: this point. They're practicing their telepathy in the course of
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: these two chapters, right?
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: She's a lot.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Developing telepathy, really.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: She's open with him in a way that reminds me
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: of Moraine immediately being open with Lan in New Spring.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Like when you spot someone who's going to be your warder,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: you just do all of your OPSEC differently with them.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Also, when you're bonded mind to mind, it's just harder
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: to hide shit, right?
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Well, as you said, they're developing telepathy. They actively take
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: that skill from vague to specific in the course of
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: this section.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And then I like this thing where he's like, I'm experimenting.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: And she goes, I doubt there are things that haven't
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: ever been tried, she said. The Forsaken had access to
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the knowledge of ages. But we know for a fact
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the Forsaken are constantly surprised by things people come up
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: with in this new age. It's like in a different context.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They're put up on a pedestal. It's this assumption
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: that they're omnipotent when they're in fact just petty human beings.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Who had a very narrow focus, right? Like on a
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: very narrow range of information.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like we said before, you know, a microbiologist set
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: back in the Middle Ages is not going to be
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: any better at anything than a completely illiterate dumbass.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Other than like, you should wash your hands!
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, sure, sure. But like, DNA sequencing? What does
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: that have to do with farming?
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Right? Nothing. So they're arguing about, you know, whose fault
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: it was that they're bonded together.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: And like, what's up with the Black Tower? Like, it's,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: you know, just... You just ripened a bunch of dreadlords
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: and handed them over. Also, we're psychic now. It's, you know,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: good world building on multiple fronts.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Let's see. Omen and who? Leish is named for Leisha Springer. L-E-I-S-H-A.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Leisha?
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Leisha. Leisha Springer, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: And her husband, Candler, is named for nobody. He's an
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: old Ashaman.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been around for a long time. He's like
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: one of the original Ashaman. I think he's always been
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: one of the two guys who's kind of the poster
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: child for the married Ashaman.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: But we never had a named wife before, and so
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: she got named as a fan.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: We had the named wife, the woman who's the mother
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: of the kid that we all thought was Godal Cain.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: No, I mean his wife hadn't been named before.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh, yeah, gotcha, gotcha, yeah. Right, yeah, we knew
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: he was married, but not who she was.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. So now we have her name, and that
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: name is based on a Wheel of Time fan. Gotcha.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: So yeah, they're basically waiting to steal one of the
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: dudes from the other team and get information out of him.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: That's basically what this is all building up to, is
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: their little, like, hi-yah! snatch and grab of this guy, Dobser.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming that's another fan, because it's a weird name, so.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: No, it is not, actually. Even though he's only in
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: this chapter and the next one. Apparently, Sanderson was not
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: cruel enough to name anybody after this dude.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I guess good for them, then.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: He's our. 01 over the side of good.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right. He's the dumbass we were talking about before. Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: And then they grab these other two guys, Weiland and Leems.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Is Leems a person?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, Leems is not, even though he's only in these chapters.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: So he seems like they would be good places for
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: fan insert names, but they did not get used. Yeah.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: So Pavara essentially does Red Aja ninja stuff and takes
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: down three channelers more or less by herself. Like technically
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: she's got an assist, but she impresses everyone because for
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: once we're seeing that Red Aja people can do more
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: than just, you know, misandry and war crimes.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, kind of. She didn't even get her shield
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: intact before one of the guys got knocked out.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: But she kept what she had going and then used
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: flows of air to physically disable them, even as her
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: magical disabling didn't work. She stayed on. She continued to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: think on her feet, even as she fell over physically.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Because Pavara falls in the most powerful of the White
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Tower channelers in their standard power. There's the highest tier,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: which is the Moraine, the Suwan. the Elida. But she's,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I believe, in the tier right after that.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right. She's what used to be like a
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: standardized Hedaya and now is kind of remarkably strong. But
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: like even 400 years ago, she would have been like
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: right in the middle of the bell curve instead.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Pavar specifically was training to fight other channelers, right? Right.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: That's part of, she implies that this is part of
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: what the Red Aja does, is they fight with each
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: other in this kind of way. Like it's a wrestling
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: almost with the power. Like I imagine like a lot
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: of the Red Aja stuff is trying to like, imagine
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: you can't see the float, now cut them, you know?
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Which is what the green should be doing,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: but they don't.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: They really should be. They really should be.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: And that's why you can really see an alliance between
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: the red and the green if they're like training together
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to actually fight, but they don't.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, what if reds bonded greens as warders and
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: you could have like a pyramid shape of badassery? The
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: greens have the swarm of men and then the reds
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: have the greens. Could be really cool. It could be
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: like Christmas, but dark.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: No, but in a lot of ways, like Pavar bringing
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: down three guys is the equivalent to a female fighter
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: bringing down three male fighters.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Like just they're bigger, they're stronger. They might not be
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: more skilled, but she walks in and is able to individually.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: They are stronger than her.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: It feels like if three like big bar bouncers with
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: like ginormous muscles get suddenly facedown by like a five
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: foot tall Muay Thai boxer.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just like, oh, oh, you have a
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: different set of skills than those guys. And you completely
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: owned that situation.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: That's cool. And it's like, you can't hold them all
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: down individually. You need somebody else to like tie them
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: up and make sure they're not going to escape. But
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: this is why they end up drugging them and knocking
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: them out repeatedly.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: We do some fantasy concussions, you know, knock them out
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: for a bit. And Pavara actually has a real concussion, right?
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: We actually have Sanderson writing in a real concussion where
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Andral is specifically like checking her eyes and giving her
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: a cold ice pack and telling her not to go
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: to sleep because she has an actual slight concussion. It's
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: not a fantasy concussion. It's a real concussion. Slight, but still.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: And so then we get another background story for Andral
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: that like, oh, he was an apprentice to a wise
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: woman once. He also was a doctor, just casually.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: He just picked up doctoring, again, from someone who would
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: not normally give him this knowledge. He's in how many
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: secret societies?
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Too many for a 27-year-old.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. But, you know, she says, well, a
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: good long story will help keep me from falling asleep
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: while we transition chapters, so lay it on me.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: You know what else will keep her from falling asleep?
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Bow chicka wow wow.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Too soon. Also, she does not need the jostling.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. That was Rand's storyline. My bad.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So with that, we can transition over to chapter four.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: The advantages to a bond.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: With the dragon's fang as the symbol. Because, you know,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: we're still dark towering. And we literally just get to
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: the end of her telling her story back, right? He
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: tells the story of how he became a doctor. And
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: then she responds with, and this is why I chose
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: the red Aja, blah, blah, blah. And we get to
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the start of the chapter of her saying, and that
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: was the end of that.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Right, because her story about her family being killed by
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: dark friends, and we've heard that story before. Right, right.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: But he only got it in the double bonding, like
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: a whole brain flash drive situation. This is her actually
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: telling him in a more normal narrative sense, the stuff
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: that we already know.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: While they're sitting there, we're seeing like the grain rotted
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: right underneath them, right? The world is falling apart.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: You're just sitting there in the barn and suddenly it
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: smells like rotten food when it didn't before. And it's
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: barely even worth remarking on. The world is falling apart.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, Andral responds to her talking about this
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: deeply painful part of her life with one of the deepest, darkest,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: painful secrets of his life, which is that his father
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: killed himself and he didn't even know that that's what
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: happened for many years. But then it all, you know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: comes out. And that's why he's in the Black Tower.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Right. His father was a channeler. Channeling is somehow genetic,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: but also tied to the soul. Moving on. And he
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: basically he was good at Earth.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: We can see because he could always find queries of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: stone to mine.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Right. He was really successful in business and his business
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: was knowing where minerals were.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Actually, I feel like Sanderson took that from Shallan's father
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: in Stormlight Archive would create queries of stone with his
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: soul caster. And that's how he became rich. And that's
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: how her whole storyline started is the whole like her
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: dad would go out. When he couldn't find any more
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: valuable deposits of minerals, he would actually create them and
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: pretend that he was just finding them.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, that sounds suspect.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, where have I heard this storyline before?
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, this totally gets reused in Stormlight Archive.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely gets reused, yeah. So there's this moment where they're like, okay,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: basically everything's coming to a head. There's a confrontation with Corteen.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: So like that's going to be a problem. And we've
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: got these captives. So that's going to be a problem.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: It's like it's now or never. They really put themselves
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: on this clock where they have to then rescue Loghain
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: or they're going to be seen as enemies and captured
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: either way.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're on a clock anyway. There's they're changing
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: the timing by like five whole minutes by taking on captives.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: But yeah, Amarin shows up because he is supposedly going
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: to be the master interrogator because he's a people person.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Amarin is not showing up with a pack of knives
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: or whatever. He's showing up with the attitudes of a
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: tyrant high lord and knowing how to just he's got
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: one of those faces where people just tell him stuff
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: and he's going to use that for our team.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I think he is naturally a high lord and
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: he's actually been putting on he's been masking the high
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: lordness to blend in and he just took that mask off.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. But also we've seen high lords who
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: do not have good social skills. Like Amarin is clearly
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: one of those people. Like, I don't know how true
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: this is for you, but me and my husband are
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: both the kind of person who just constantly get told
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: people's life stories.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Constantly.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Does not matter the context. Someone is going to walk
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: up and tell us their entire life story and their deep,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: dark secrets. And it's like, why did you think I
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: would be a good person to tell that to?
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: That's my wife. Everyone tells her, including myself, the first
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: night I met her, she's like, you told me your
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: entire life story. And I was like, yes, I did.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: I told you too many things about myself that first night. Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: But that's how I flirt. That's how I flirt. Yeah.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: It's I have had so many people unload on me.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Definitely not always in a flirty context. It's just a thing.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: So I feel like Amaran is kind of naturally one
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: of those people. And then add to that Tyron Highlord.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: attributes and you know developing those skills on purpose like
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: he's he doesn't need knives to get someone to talk
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: he's got all the skills he needs in his head. No.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: And he uses the the good cop. Right. The like, oh,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: those those those bad cops all protect you. Let's go.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Come on. Let's go, buddy, buddy. I'll bring you in. Right.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: That's how we kind of get stopster on his side. Yeah.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Which, again, we've agreed, you know, dude was not super
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: committed in the first place, so he's not super committed now,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: even though he's been turned. And this is also where
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Andral is saying, like, I cannot accept that someone can
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: be made to serve the Dark One. And I kind
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: of agree with him. I have a real issue with
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the notion that someone's free will can be that intensely subverted.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think we ever get a solid answer to it.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: I just like that Andral is, like, no, that doesn't
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: fit with what I know about the world, and I
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: just don't agree. So I'm kind of with him on that.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I 100% am on the new soul thing, but I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: do think your mind is still there, right? I think
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: there's something weird going on where, like, you're aware in
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: a way of what's going on, but you have no
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: control over it. Yeah. But I don't know if you're
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: there or not anymore. That's the question, right? Are you dead,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: or are you the guy in the backseat who has
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: no control after this happens to you?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: It seems like you're still there because you still have
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: your personality, your word choice, your body language, your life
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: experience stories that you're going to talk about.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: But here Andral's saying the man is gone, right? Dead
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: and killed versus like just taken over and controlled. Because
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: I feel like if you're in the back just being controlled,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: there's some idea that that thing could be purged and
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you could take back over.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Right. Is there hope to come back?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I think the answer has to be no.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: That does seem pretty solid.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So then I think you are dead and I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: think something else has taken over. And I don't think
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you're I don't think you're John Malkovich.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: But like, is your soul available to be reborn at
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: that point? Or are you locked into some kind of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: like limbo purgatory thing until the body dies and like
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: releases that earthly attachment that you had?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: I think you're dead dead.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: So you think the soul could get reborn even while
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: the body is still being puppeted by the inverse soul thing?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: I'm glad we don't live in a world with channeling
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: because I don't like this entire.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Or souls.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: But they use actual souls! Yeah, when you assume that
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: the soul is a tangible unit of your magic or
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: science system, that just puts you into a whole other
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: sandbox than the real world that I actually live in.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: The concept of a soul is way more nebulous out
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: here than it is in a fantasy world where there's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: actually rules and stuff.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Right, because the soul is an intangible thing that we
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: can't touch or affect in any way, assuming it exists,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: which I don't. And then you have, we can still
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: separate mind and body, but can we? That's a whole
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: other thing that we can talk about, right? We can't
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: really separate the physicalness of the brain from the abstract
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: that is the mind.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, your mind is built out of your
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: literal brain, which is literally part of your body. There
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: is no separation.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: There is no software running on this abstraction, right? You
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: are just machine code running on machine hardware.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And yet... the results of that are so complex and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: complicated that it sure does feel like there's some sort
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: of emergent phenomena that's worth identifying as being above separate outside.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's where I think emergent phenomena is really
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: where we have failed as a society to study, because
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: we are really good at taking something and breaking it
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: down into its linear components and then bringing those back
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: together to have an emergent whole. But when you have
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: nonlinear effects interacting and that creates an emergent phenomenon that
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: exists but isn't the result of any individual action it's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: very very hard to analyze you know.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah and that sheer horizon of confusion is such a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: handy place to put philosophical questions like souls and meaning.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Yes but like even something like temperature is an emergent
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: phenomenon Right.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Or time.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Or time. Well, that's that's a whole nother debate that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: we can talk about, like whether is time an emergent
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: phenomenon or not.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Or space.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to fall into the idea that time and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: space are because they're the same thing, essentially, according to Einstein.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: But they might be emergent phenomenon based on quantum mechanics.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: It really does seem to be that the way that
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: quantum mechanics is more fundamental in space and time seem
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: to emerge from that. But again, you know, that's the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: edge of our scientific knowledge. Right. So we're still trying
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: to figure that out.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, and then looping back to what we
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: were talking about at the beginning, like dreams, what the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: fuck are dreams? What the fuck is memory? How does
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: memory and dream come out? How, I mean, those dreams
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: are so often an emergent phenomena of the necessity of
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: sleep and whatever's going on in your head. But then
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: also there can be just the most random things that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: have no connection to what's been going on in your life.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: And we don't fucking understand how any of those things
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: are happening, but we do understand that it's necessary and
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: literally happening. Like, there's a lot of interactions there's a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: lot of interactions both cosmic and personal that are uh.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: What i also love in this section the only canonical
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: reference we get to a gray tower when as he's
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: lying through his teeth through his teeth but because like
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: there was so much i think fan speculation around a
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: gray tower right we've got the black tower got the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: white tower we have these people bonding right why wouldn't
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: they form together to form a gray tower that was
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: like a mix of the two It is.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: A nice hat tip to just the way the fandom
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: has always talked about it, for sure. And then, and then,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: here we get what feels like a simply incorrect anachronistic moment.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: It's just wrong. He cannot hear what we say? No.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: He literally can, though. Pavara says no in direct response
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: to a question. It's a lie. Because Amarin says, I
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: want you to make it so that way Dobbser can
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: start to hear what we're saying. I want you to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: release the audio block weaves just enough that he can
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: start to hear. And then in his act, in the roleplay,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: he turns to her and says he can't hear what
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: we say. And she, ostensibly in roleplay, says no. But
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: she can't. She literally can't. The... The three O's do
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: not allow for role play. They allow for sarcasm, but
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: they don't allow for straight up pretending.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: No, no. Read what she says. He cannot hear what
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: we say. No. So that's a double negative. She's saying
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: he can hear what we say. He's asking. He cannot
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: hear what we say. And she contradicts him and says, no,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: you're wrong. That's it's it's in that that no can
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: mean yes and yes can mean no in that way.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Back me up on this, guys. Like, chat, help me
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: out here, right?
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: Chat's not helping you out because no.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: He cannot hear what we say. No. That's a double negative.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Take cannot, negate it. What's that statement?
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: He can hear what we say, no. Uh-huh. But he
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: can hear what they can say.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Right, so if Amarin had said, he can hear what
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: we say, and she'd said no, that would be the lie.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: This is why I don't do math.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Just ignore what's on the page. Amaran says, he can
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: hear what we say? No, that's a lie because he
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: can hear what they say.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: I guess. Well, Athlon's backing you.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Up at least. If he said he cannot hear what
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: we say, yes, that would be a lie because then
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: she'd be agreeing with him. She's contradicting him. But and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: that's where the no. That's why oftentimes when someone says no,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you have to go, wait, do you mean no? Or
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: do you mean like a one word answer to those
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: to a negative statement? The second you say he cannot
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: hear this.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: Could either mean I'm contradicting you or yes, I'm agreeing
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: with you because there is a negative statement in the question.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: It's not the point of the three O's. It's not
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: the point of words at all.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: But if you take him literally, she is saying, no,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: that is wrong.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, you're right. Yes, you're wrong.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: As a person who says, yeah, no, a lot, I
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: feel like I have no legs to stand on here,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: but I'm still mad. I might not have the moral
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: high ground, but I'm still going to be mad about it.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: No, that is really the Aes Sedai dance on that
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: head of that pin based on your assumptions on what
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: you think is being asked. And she used that right
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: there to have Dauber make an assumption about the question.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Well, call me Dauber because I apparently don't get it.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I get it now you've explained it, but.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: No, I'm glad you brought that up because it did.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: It went over. I was like, of course, that's fine
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: to be deceptive.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: Sound off in the audience how many people were already
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: in Seth's headspace and how many were making the same
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: mistake as me.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: And how many didn't even think about it, you know? Because,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't think about it until you brought
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: it up, so I'm glad you did.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: It was just so obvious. It was intuitively obvious. Okay,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: so essentially Amarin is convincing Dobser to, like, be on
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: his team. And be like, I'm going to pay you to.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Let me exactly. Amaran's being the good cop.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: With a little bit of bribery just to pad it out.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to talk to you.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know why he arrested you, threw you in handcuffs,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: put you in an interrogation room and beat you for
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: two hours. That's not what I wanted at all. He'll
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: be severely punished for that. I promise. Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: And so amara is essentially saying you know the only
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: reason i look like i'm with logain is because i
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: didn't want to be a teacher's pet with taim because
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: you know like i'm a high lord right he's playing
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: up all of that hierarchy like pecking order bullshit like
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: even though he is literally a high lord that's not
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: how he's been actually approaching his human relationships in the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: black tower but he's playing that up to this douchebag.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and in the Black Tower, it doesn't matter. That's
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the whole point.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: But it does under Taim, right? That's the thing. That's
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: part of the corruption of Taim is that he would
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: make that matter again.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. Yeah. When you have, I hate
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: to bring it back to Trump, but when you have
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: someone who's corrupt in office, he cares about things that
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: don't matter for governing, but that matter outside of that.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: That, that. The nepotism of power, right?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You just want sycophants and yes-men. You don't actually
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: want competency or meaningful checks and balances. That's part of
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: how you know that Tayim is not somehow going to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: come out of left field with a cool black tower.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: His motivations are entirely suspect.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: Yes-men with connections.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. So here now we're getting the suggestion that definitive
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: proof that Loghain's willpower is factoring into the turning process,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: which we thought was not how the turning process works.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: But here is the part where it says, at least
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: under Sanderson's pen, that is how the turning process works
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: for some reason.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like the turning process is just poorly defined.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: And Sanderson was like, what can I do for the plot?
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: That seems like the simplest explanation, unfortunately.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Because in all our other visions, it just seems like
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: they come in and once they're in, it's like flipping
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: a switch. Maybe a complicated switch. Maybe it's like, you know,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: there's like compulsion. Right.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: It's like diffusing a bomb or something. It takes steps.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: But like compulsion is sort of the same taking of
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: the will. This is just a little more permanent with
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: the murder all. The hard part has always been gathering
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: 13 Mergerall, 13 channelers, and having them have access to you.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Nothing about free will. Nothing about the amount of time.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Nothing about that.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: And I can't imagine that they would have burned up
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: all of their supply of Mergerall before getting to Logain.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: They knew they were going for Logain. They would still
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: have enough Mergerall left over to do Logain. They would
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: not have spent all their Mergerall on people like Dobser.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: If this does, in fact, burn up Murdral in any way,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: shape or form, like they would have been prioritizing doing
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: it to Loghain.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to ask, like, where's the soul,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: dark soul coming from? Maybe, you know, the 13 Murdral
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: have their souls drained out. Whatever evil soul, corrupted souls
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: in the Murdral gets put into them. Or maybe you
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: lose one purr, right? That would make sense to me.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I could see one purr, yeah.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: That soul from that murdral is actually what goes into
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the person and replaces. That's the source of the soul.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: And so then you get 12 murdral and one turned
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: dreadlord walking out of the ceremony, where 13 walked in
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: with their victim.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: That'd be kind of cool.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: That's my headcanon around where the souls come from.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Not by a don't sail it target.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Because those souls, remember, we already speculate, those are the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: corrupted souls of channelers. And so that would make sense
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: that would go into a channeler's body and they would
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: still be able to channel. Sure. Yeah.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: And so then, yeah, from Dobbs where we get information
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: about the fact that much like the White Tower, the
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: Black Tower has hidden basements, except in this case, there
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: is no tower over the basements. It's just basically open
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: foundations with tunnels under them. But, you know, one assumes
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: that at one point the White Tower was being built
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: in the same way. Oh, we're going to make secret
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: passages here, there, and everywhere, and then build the tower
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: on top, you know, kind of deal. And then we
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: get one of the other great insults from Imaran. I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: didn't suggest picking Dobser because I thought he'd be easy
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: to bribe. I picked him because of his understated powers
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: of cognitive expression.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Understated powers of cognitive expression. Why use one word to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: call people stupid? Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Like, put that in your pocket and pull it out.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, explains basically the way to get someone
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: like this to talk is to control the environment around
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: the conversation, right? Rather than straight ahead bribery or torture,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: like change who he's around and who he's looking to
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: for reassurance because this is a follower. So way easier
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: to lead someone like that just by, yeah, changing it up.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: And convinces Dobster that Amarin is basically already in Tam's camp.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: So when you're sharing information, all you're doing is just
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: spreading information among someone who's already loyal to Tam, Taim.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: So you're not going to end up, you're not betraying anybody,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: because I'm already loyal, so you might as well tell me.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly, exactly. If someone comes up to you
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: at a festival and asks you for drugs, surely you're
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: going to tell them everything that you have on offer
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: and not notice that they're a cop, right? Like, same
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: kind of logic.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we just, we sort of get, this is
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: where we get the information about how the turning works,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: that it's willpower, you talked about that. you know, the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: collapse was an excuse for the work being done. There
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: was no collapse. That was just when they were doing
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: the digging. And then I guess they just douse the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: three with, is it forkroot tea?
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Well, something that will keep them sleeping till bell time.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: So probably heroin, but yeah, forkroot probably realistically, because we
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: know that that's very effective as both a sedative and
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: a power dulling thing.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: And interesting that In the next section, they are violent
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: and take out the guards and kill them. But in
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: this section, they just knock them out and drug them.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there is escalating levels of ticking time clock, right?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: Once they're trying to break into the building itself, they
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: don't have time to wait or they don't have time
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: to tie people up. Whereas the other guys, like, yeah,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: you got a few hours. Whereas once they're busting into
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: the doors, you're down to minutes, right?
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I think they'd kill these
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: people because they've had the darkness in their eyes. They're
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: not they're basically dead. Like, why would he dobs are
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: alive at this point? He knows he's been turned because.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: They don't want to kill them because slitting a man's
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: throat is just like a thing that causes moral injury.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: It's easier to fireball someone in the head later once
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: you're feeling a little more stressed out would be my guess.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: It's just that it's hard to kill people. And yeah,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: he says, we're going to solve everything and fix the day.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: And Pavara says, oh, good. I'm glad you have a
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: realistic plan for us. As long as it's not a
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: difficult task you're proposing.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: And we know it goes very sideways.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: Hijinks will be ensuing.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: But for now, we will POV switch over to Rand,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: who's going to have a little heart to heart with
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: Moradin in a dream shard.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: Because Avienda let him sleep. So this is why he's
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: dozing off to sleep and, you know, doing his, you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: going to communicate with his other lover.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: Definitely his ex, though.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know. She was real crazy. She's got it
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: more under control now. Yeah. No, it was funny earlier
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: when he's like, I've got four women in my head.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: And you got Moradin because it's not even your head.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: It's his head now. Yes.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: And he falls asleep, you know, wrapped around Avienda and
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: then Moradin's immediately like, oh, yeah, well, was that a
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: eel that carries weapons that you were with that Lanfear almost,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: you know, completely killed that one time? Remember her? Remember that?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: And Bran's like actively like, no. I definitely did not
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: just spend two hours reacquainting myself with her.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: Every inch of her. This might be the first time
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: we get the word dream shard.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: Is it? We've been using the word for so many years.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: I know we have. Well, okay. It's definitely not because
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: it's mentioned in the prologue a couple of times. Okay.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: So we're only on chapter four.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think this book is
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: the first time it's mentioned.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you did surprise me with that information last time.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: I was like, there's no way. And then you were like, wait,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: here are the receipts. And it was upsetting to me.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: So this is like the second time we've actually heard
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: the word dream shard.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're really emphasizing it to make sure that people
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: get the memo that that's the terminology we're using now.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is it's used in the prologue, chapter four
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: and chapter 12. And that's it.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: Well, it's used a lot more often than that in
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: the fandom and all the discussions.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, and because of here, right? Because this reference
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: basically says all the weirdness in Eye of the World,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: all the weirdness with Ishii in the first three books,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: all the weirdness with the battles and him ascending in
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the clouds, that was all Dream Shard shit. Whenever, you know,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: he went in person and fled into his Dream Shard
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: to escape Rand and that's where Rand chased him and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: that's where all the battles took place.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime there's a weird dreamy thing, it was a
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: dream shard. You just retcon every single weird instance of that.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: Dream shard. It's a good word, if we're being honest.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: And again, Sanderson loves his shards.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: He does.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: He overuses that word.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: He overuses that word way too much.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: But it's so good here. This is the time when
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: it's not being overused.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Because, like, in... I was just reading one of his books, because,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I read them sometimes when they come out.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: There is... Dawn Shard is like the most powerful thing
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: in the Cosmere. There is that vacuole thing, right?
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: Vacuoles exist outside of what people make though, right? They're
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: just like quantum foam that people can access.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And those kind of, they run at different speeds
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and that's a different reality. Whereas this is still part
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: of Teleron Riad, just your own little section of it.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: So I think a vacuole and a dream shard are
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: actually different.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is a good word that Sanderson should
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: have found a way to use vacuole.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: But you're right. The vacuoles did kind of get forgotten. Right.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Ever since that was just like it was used for punishment.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: They were a one time thing, basically, because they're dangerous.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Everyone stays out of them because, oh, my God, they
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: could just like. because I think Grendel is talking about it. Right.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: And how it's like, oh, you could be hang out
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: one of those and it could just bubble off and
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: separate from the rest of reality. And then you can
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: never get back. Not to mention time runs differently in those,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: which is mostly why they get used. But like that's
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: how she gets tortured for. Is it Grendel or is it.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: Mageddon.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: Mageddon. Mogetian gets tortured for an extended period of time,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: but then comes back into the real world and only
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: like a week has passed or something like that.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: Right, she spent like a month in captivity, but it
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: was only a week of being out of the loop
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: But that was the vacuole thing that she was involved in.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Whereas a dream shard, yeah, again, seems to be something
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: that is like a personal VR bubble on the side
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: of Teleron Riad. And it's attached to Teleron Riad so
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: you can borrow the rules. It's like inheritance in programming, right?
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Where you get all the same rules, but then you
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: get to alter them to your preference.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: So then, yeah, we kind of talk about how Mieren
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: Lanfear Sindane is still alive, has a new name. Does
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: that mean that Moraine still lives? Up until now, Min
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: has kept the potential information that Moraine is still alive
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: from him, right?
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: Well, she has said you will fail without a woman
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: who is dead and gone.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: She, you know, keeps that to herself. This is Ran's
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: first instance of like, but what if Moraine isn't dead
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: and gone?
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: What? He's not going to do anything about it, though.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: He's just assuming his taverness is going to take care
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: Well, he knows that Moraine will find him. If she's
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: let back into the world with any amount of agency,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: she will find him.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: He's like, if she's alive, I can't get away from her.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: I do not need to seek her out. She will
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: show up.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. And then there's this line here I think
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: is really important. Well, first of all, Rand does say
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: he's not a dreamwalker. He's never as good at many
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: of the Forsaken as walking dreams. I think we've speculated
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: about that before, but like... Yeah, he's not a dreamwalker.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: He just seems to get pulled into them by Moradin.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Because Moradin certainly is.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: And Lusteran knows about what dreamwalking is, so he's able
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: to navigate it with slightly more grace than someone who
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: knows nothing. He's been to Teleran Riyadh through a terror
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: in Grial or whatever. As Lusteran, he knew the world
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: of dreams in a way that no one in the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: modern age does.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: To me, the dreamwalker seems to be someone who can
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: access the dreams with no external aid. And it's like,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: Rand kind of does that all the time, but mostly
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: he's pulled into Moradin's dreams. Right.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: And he enters the dreams physically as well.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: Right. Which is a completely different form of access.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Right. But yeah, here's the moment where Morden says, I
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: knew if I created this place, you would join me
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: in it. You can't keep away from me. The pattern
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: won't allow it. We are drawn together, you and I,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: time after time after time. Two ships moored on the
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: same beach, beating against each other with each new tide.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: And I think, again, in the beginning of the story,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: we're like, okay, whatever, you delusional crackhead, right? Like, you
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: two are just drawn together because you think you're the
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: champion for evil and he's the champion for good. But then.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: With the crossing of the streams, which in a lot
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: of ways I consider the beginning of the turning of
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: the wheel.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: Like some big bang inciting incident kind of thing.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that type of thing where it's like, yes, the
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: wheel is always going to turn around that. But that
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: is a anchoring moment in which Rand's soul is tied
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: with Moradin's. And I think that's where he has some
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: validity in this rant of you and I are tied together.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: We will always be. We will fight over and over
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: and over and over again. And I think that has
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: to do with the crossing of the streams and their
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: souls being actually tied together in a certain way. And
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: it's also why Elon can never die.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Because he's tied to the dragon. His soul is tied
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: to the dragon's soul.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: But then they both have also different interpretations of what
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: that means, right? Elon is like this very nihilistic, we're
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: doomed to always fight, da-da-da-da-da. And Rand is like, we're
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: tied together, but I choose to focus on something else.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: This isn't just about us. This isn't some navel-gazing, great
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: man of history bullshit. This is just... a part of
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: who I am.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: Well, and to me, it's like Elon is just a
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: normal soul who's tied to the Dragon Reborn, who's this
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: creator of the Avatar. Like he's sort of hooked his ship,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: you know, his little tugboat onto a giant aircraft carrier.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: And he's just going along for the ride, in my opinion.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: Like that's why he's so miserable is he has no control.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: He has tied himself to this much larger ship that
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: has a purpose and he does not.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it has become a whole like personality defining
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: conspiracy for him at this point whereas it's not for
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: Rand Rand understands that he's part of a greater whole
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: that yeah he might be the dragon but the only
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: reason that the dragon means anything is because other people
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: exist and the dragon exists in the world the land
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: and the dragon are equally relevant in making meaning out
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: of this and Elon is just everything's a conspiracy to
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: take him down he is so narrow and paranoid compared
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: to Rand's like everything is connected.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: We get the line that Lanfear still now hates Rand.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: We've gone past the, oh, she's going to love him.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, she hates you. She wants to kill you.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: There is no more conflicting emotions in Lanfear.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's not going to try to play games with you,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: subterfuge plots. You're going to need a wolfy bodyguard to
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: protect you from her because she's just going for your jugular.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, Rand... takes control of the dream shard
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: and forces sunlight and growth and fresh air into a
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: space that Moradin's nihilism is supposed to be 100% in
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: charge of because he's just that draconic.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: Moradin and Rand are shocked by his ability to control that.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: But again, because it's Moradin's dream shard, he should have
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: ultimate control. But they have the same soul according to
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: the wheel and the pattern. So if it's one dream shard,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: it's both of their dream shards. So Rand has just
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: as much control over it as Moradin does.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: So that's, again, that explanation works really well if you
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: think of their souls as being merged or treated as
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: a single thread in the pattern. So, of course, he
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: can control the dream shard that belongs to the other person.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: And he uses that to essentially tell the Dark One,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: I'm using your own minion to come for you, right?
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: I'm coming for you to the point that even....
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: And here's the line. However, to draw another in, he
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: had to place it close to Teleron Riad. Those rules applied.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: So the rules of Teleron Riad mostly apply, right? So
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: if you think it, you can change it. There was
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: something else, too. Something about the connection between the two
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: of them, dot, dot, dot.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like your... misaligned address theory the geolocation in
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: the web of the pattern has screwed up between the
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: two of them I like that as a way of
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: understanding the incongruities of what's going on with them.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: And how they're able to switch bodies and because it's
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: like if they have the same soul it doesn't matter
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: which body the soul is in right yeah it was
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: always two souls and two bodies but it doesn't really
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: matter which one's which if they're considered the same soul
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: in the addressing address book.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah Rand uh scares Moradin off and then goes
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: back to sleep because he has a big day tomorrow. Basically.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: And Moradin like, this is wrong. This isn't, he's like,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: what's going on? Like he thinks he's still fighting the
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: mortal Rand, the boy Rand, the kid Rand. And he's
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: facing the dragon reborn, which is, yes, it's still Rand. Yes,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: it's still LTT. But at the same time, he has
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: these sort of metaphysical realizations that.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: It reminds me a lot of Egwene crushing Missana's mind
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: in Talaeran Riond, right? Becoming the White Tower in all
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: of its three-dimensional complexity as opposed to just a 20-year-old girl.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: Right. Riond becoming the Dragon Reborn and all his complexity,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: not just a 400-year-old man.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: He's so much bigger than just a person. He's a
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: cosmic force. And when you express that in Talaeran Riond, yeah,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: the minions are going to scuttle away.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, he is using tricks, right?
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: It's the His trick of tree singing that lets him
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: grow those trees that he uses later in the Ogier tent. Right.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: And creates that Ogier Grove. It's really just a trick
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: that he's learned how to use because he is. And
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: in the same way, like this is a trick because
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: he is able to control Moradin's dream shard.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: It's still impressive.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: It's still impressive. But it is the result of something
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: that happened to them, which was the crossing of the streams.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: It's not some metaphysical. He's the dragon reborn. So he
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: has powers that nobody else does. this is a consequence
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: of events that happened between the two of them. True. True.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: I really liked the Rand POVs in the, the Rand
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Moradin confrontation has to be one of my favorite, like
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: dream sequences in most of these books. Like I really,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: that's one of my favorites. I feel like there's just
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of meaning there and a lot of like answers,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: but without giving us the answers quite as obviously as
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: he usually does. Like, No one's referencing, oh, he didn't
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: say like, oh, ever since we crossed the streams in
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Shadar Logith, we've been able to invade each other's dreams.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: And that's probably why I'm able to control your dream shard. Right.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: Like he didn't say that, which is what I would
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: normally expect Sanderson to do.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: I feel like Jordan had a lot of the metaphysics
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: of the Rand Moradin thing figured out really early on.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: I feel like that was something that was very load
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: bearing to how he developed everything else in the world. Right.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: Part of me has to wonder if this confrontation between
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: the two of them wasn't mapped out and it was
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: just able to be inserted at some point when you
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: know rand was dreaming.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: This is one of those sequences that feels like yes
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: anderson just had to get in there and polish up
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: a few edges to make it fit with what he
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: had written around it but the heart of it was
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: simply written by jordan it was a matter of like
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: oh you know change a few place names and events
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: and stuff to like make it canonical with whatever the
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: hell else you've been written been writing but this conversation
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: this heart to heart this rand declaring tell your master
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: i'm done with minions i'm coming for him that feels
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: like jordan circa 95 or so.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: It does it does this is one of those things
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: that's like oh, he knew how the battle was going
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: to end. He had some scenes between Rand and the
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: Dark One, and he may have had some scenes, at
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: least detailed, outlined between Moradin and Rand going into the
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: last battle.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: This is one of the scenes that supports that hypothesis
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: for me. Yeah.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: And again, just because we switch back to the Pavara
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: Andral writing, and it feels very different.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we just suddenly jumped forward 30 years into a
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: whole other man's psyche.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. So let's make that jump.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: All right, let's make that jump. So they're now out
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: in the rain preparing to bust in on these secret
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: foundations and secret rooms under the back tower.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: I know that the tunnels probably don't get wet very
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: far into them, but I just want this whole thing
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: to be done in mud.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: Like World War I trench warfare kind of mud.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, trench warfare. Yeah, totally.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we get a lot more of the practicing
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: of telepathy. They start actually sending like not just vague emotions,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: but words and even sentences. By the end, it's still fuzzy.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: They're still practicing and sometimes using verbal backups to reinforce
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: what they're saying, but they're really developing their telepathy in
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: this POV.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: And I would say he starts by trying to plug
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: up some plot holes about why no one's noticed giant
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: tunnels before. Oh, there's a curfew. We didn't notice. What?
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we had lived in a prison this whole time
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: and didn't have an issue until we were literally getting turned.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, okay, whatever. I just, we didn't notice the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: guards because we never went out at night and during
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: the day it was covered up and it's just like, oh,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: all right, fine, fine. Feels like a plot hole. Smells
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: like a plot hole. Tastes like a plot hole. Probably
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: not a plot hole.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then we have her thinking about how they're
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: all weapons because they kill the guards right away, right?
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: Like we saw in the previous POV, they like tied
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: those guys up and sedated them. And these ones, they just,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: you know, magic missile them right to the head.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: And here they're killed.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: And she even thinks, well, it's outside of my experience.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: It's nice to die. We don't kill even false dragons
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: if we can help it. And I'm like, bitch, please.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: And then Andral goes, bitch, please. I was like, thank you, Andral. Yeah.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: No red has ever killed a dragon reborn in the last,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: potential dragon reborn in the last 20 years. Wait. What?
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: The vileness? What? Pavar, are you around for all of that? Yeah.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: It's like, so you're either like completely delusional or lying
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: through your teeth. Actually what right now?
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: It's like a headline I saw today about a soldier's
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: widow not getting paid proper compensation for losing their spouse
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: because the war wasn't formally declared. so they don't have to.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: Pay war benefits.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: This is kind of like that. It's like, well, I
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: didn't kill him. No, he killed himself after you took
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: away everything he had and kicked him back out into
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: the rain. But sure, you're not the one that literally
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: tied the rope around this guy's neck.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate that Andral immediately retorts, gentle and kills. Like,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: get out of here with your legalese.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, kill slow. And the fact that, like, Well,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact they did just absolutely murder a
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: bunch of people as well.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: And Maren's brother is a great example of what Pavara
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: is referencing, right? Of a man who was gentled and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: then was given therapy and support and was able to
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: live like another 10 years not being completely. Yeah, he
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: still died ultimately from this medical treatment, but he had
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: 10 years he wasn't going to have otherwise. That's what
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: Pavara seems to be saying. Well, that's what I said
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: I do. And it's like literally only Cad Swain. has
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: ever even attempted that, of all the Aes Sedai that
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: we have seen and interacted with across the three years
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: of this story. Like, come on, Pavare, you're not that naive.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: Are you? Oh, man, yeah. Light-Blinded Fool, the idea of, like,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: moving gateways, you could totally dig with those.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: Who needs an Earthworks machine when you have gateways? You
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: can just remove dirt from one area and dump it
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: somewhere else.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: Brilliant.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Especially if you can move the gateway through the Earth.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: Which if you're working on a job site for months
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: on end, you know that area, right? You know a
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: job site, a home remodel, a construction. You learn that
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: space real good. Like, yeah, you don't have to know
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: where they're dumping out. Just make a pile out, you know,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: the town dump at the edge of town or whatever.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Give them a bunch of fill dirt to use.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Or work on your gateways so that you can control
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: both ends but move. I mean, the idea of a
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: moving gateway.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: And roll as an earth worker. Yeah.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Let's do some tunneling through these mountains, bro. Wouldn't
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: even need, you know, like explosives or anything. You just
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: use a gateway. Gateways are uncompromising.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is a good question. Like if, I
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: guess to me, if the gateway is moving, then you
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: are probably randomly changing its location, which then changes the
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: output location. I can see how that, maybe like you
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: can't not make it random if the gateway is moving.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: But maybe you could like, somehow find a way to
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: tweak it to make it random like within a certain
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: known zone so it could be like here's the area
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: where we dump all of our fill dirt from all
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: of our projects and people can come pick it up
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: you know later i.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Kind of imagine is it's like a uh a seed
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: going through a complex algorithm, right? You take its current location.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: There's a complex algorithm that gives it its output location.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: And if you change the input at all, that it's
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: complex enough that you get a completely different output, you know,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: chaos theory type situation. So that moving the gateway even
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: just a little bit puts you at a very different location, right?
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: And we see that with Rand who tries to like
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: drop a gateway right where Asmodian is going to put it.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: He's like, even if I put it on that same location,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: exact same location, it's going to be in a completely
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: different area. It's going to come out somewhere else.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't completely different. It was just offset, right?
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: It was predictable. It was technically different, but it was
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: offset slightly.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But that's in the same location, right? If you're
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: moving it, I imagine... Oh, sure.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: That you're going to get just crazy results. That's why
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: a death gate's output is random.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: Also, kind of imagine how a death gate kills you, right?
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Imagine it advances a millimeter, and it sends that millimeter
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: of your body to one location... And then advances another
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: millimeter and sends that millimeter of your body to a
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: different location. It's not whole troughs that are dropping out
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: of the sky dead. It's literally like slices of them.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: Cross section. That are just going to randomly like rain
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: down all over the place. That's disgusting. And that's why
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: it kills you. It's because the location is random based
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: on movement placement.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: Good lord.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: Anyway, but Deathgate should still be really effective at moving Earth. Yeah.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: All right. So let's see what's happening. Andrel takes charge
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: because like all the good people in these books, he
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't want to be a leader. He just is a leader.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: He tells Pavara that he trained as a scout in
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: the Mountains of Mist. And she's like, bitch, please. How
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: many careers can one man have? This is ridiculous. But
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: maybe it's because he's just a seeker and he just
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: hasn't quite found what's right for him yet.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I do like that as someone who
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: has worked a lot of jobs in my life. and
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: has gone into corporate and then out of corporate and
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: then back into corporate, it does resonate with me, right?
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: This idea of finally finding something. And I've been at
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: my current job for almost five years now, which is
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: about three and a half years longer than I've managed
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: to hold down any other job. And so I do
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: identify with this a little bit of having multiple careers
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: that I've gone through and tried and failed at and
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: come back around to. to now finding something that I
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: am good at and I'm able to do. And it
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: does feel good to be able to do that and make,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: make a difference or make them for me, it's making
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: enough money to survive. But like, I think there is
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: an aspect of people identifying with Andral because I think
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of people do search for purpose in life
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: and are not willing to stop in whatever job, whatever career,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: whatever hobby is good enough for them. And so I
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: think Andral is a really good, it's one of the
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: reasons why like I do love Andral as a character
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: because there's that seeking that he does that I think
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of people can identify with. Yeah.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: Cause it's silly to think that you should settle on
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: the first thing that you pick, right? The first of whatever.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: What do you want to be when you grew up?
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: I am 12. Why would I have to stay committed
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: to that now? Or the first degree you go into
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: in college, the first job you try, even the first
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: person you get into a relationship with, the first place
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: you live, like Or.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: Whatever my dad did or whatever my father's father, father, father,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: father's did.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: Totally. What kind of car you want to drive or
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: drive at all. Whatever it is, you shouldn't feel completely
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: married to the first thing you try. You should feel
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: like you have the agency to say, no, I want
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: to reassess. I want to do something else. It's okay
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: to change majors, change careers. Andrel is a great expression
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: of that. Like, I just haven't found what I want
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: to not move on from yet. And like, that's a
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: perfectly valid way of existing. There's nothing wrong or shiftless
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: with that. If you can't commit to something you said
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: you were going to commit to, that's different. But he
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: has never decided to settle down and commit to something.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: He's just been looking. And yeah, lots of people are
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: seekers and it's totally.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: cool. It's a fine, if stressful, way to live your life.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: It's good if you know what you want in like
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: a very somatic sense of like, this is not working
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: for me. I'm going to change something. If you're just
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: aimlessly throwing shit at the wall, it does get exhausting.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: But if you have some kind of North Star that
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: you're following... and you're grounded in who you are as
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: a person while you seek the context that fulfills you,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: hopefully it becomes less stressful over time because you manage
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: to hone in on something that works for you through
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: trial and error. Which, you know, it seems like Andral
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: has found that as he's, you know, coming up to
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: his 30th birthday. He's figured out that he's a channeler
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: and he wants to make the Black Tower work. I
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: also like how he's like, wow, Pavara, do they teach
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: you how to psychoanalyze people at the White Tower? She's like, no,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: I'm over 100 years old. I have thoughts and feelings
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: about how people are. I've observed people in my life.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: Patterns.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: It's what happens if you want to get together with
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: someone who's 150. She's going to have more perspective on
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: stuff like that.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: So as they're going down, Jonath kills Coteron with a bow.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: And Coteron made fun of him for carrying a bow,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: and then he kills him with it. Which I feel
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: like that's happened before with like a little knife or
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: something like that where someone got made fun of for
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: carrying a knife and ended up killing. I think it
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: was Min got made fun of for her knives or
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: something like that and then ends up killing the person
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: who made fun of her knives and was like, ha,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: that's why I carry those, you stupid idiot.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: I feel like that moment's been used a couple of times.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: This is perhaps one of the more satisfying ones, even
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: though Jonathan is such a new character, like a Two
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: Rivers guy being like, that's why I carry a bow,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: you idiot. It's just very full circle.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: But and also like just back to why, why does
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Ashman carry swords? Like, why are they being trained in swordsmanship?
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: And why is Taim so against it? Right. That's another
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: one of those like red flags lets you know here's
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: the moral bankruptcy of Taim is because he doesn't believe
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: in a backup system for self-defense.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: Because he doesn't think that these people are worthy or
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: that they're worth anything. They're disposable channelers. That's it. They're
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: not people. Right.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: And he has the bias of a chosen, of thinking
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: that only the power matters and anyone who uses their
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: body for mechanical protection is just a ding-dong, you know?
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: And that actually, referencing the earlier chapter, Lind and her
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: husband Frask. Frask was brought in to help teach the Ashaman... Right.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: He's another one of the physical teachers.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: So canonically, that's why Lind is there with the library
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: in the end. She's there because her husband was brought
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: in to help teach the sword training. Yeah.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: So they get in, they find Loghain, they pull him
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: out of his absolutely awful cell, right? These are very
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: comparable to like the cells in the White Tower where
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: Egwene was put, right? Just tomb-like.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not for long term storage. You're literally there
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: till you're turned. Right. That's the only and most people
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: are being turned within a few hours. So it's not
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: even designed to be long term holding.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: Not even as much as the White Towers ones were.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: But it's equally nightmarish in terms of the claustrophobia.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Totally. Totally.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: And yeah, Loghain's still not turned. So that's good. But,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: you know, someone has found the guards and now the
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: hijinks can ensue.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: They've achieved the plan so far. They've gotten to Loghain.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: And now is when things go sideways. And Pavara is
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: using deadly weaves as people attack them because she knows
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: she's facing dark friends.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: So the prohibition against protecting or against using the powers
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: of weapons completely out the window.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: Not to mention you can protect yourself. Right. That's one
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: thing that I think like you can use deadly weaves
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: in the protection of yourself or a warder. Right.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: In the last extreme of defending your life.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: Which if you're trapped in a hole and someone's attacking you.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: You're good to go. Right.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: And they're all dark friends, so she can even be offensive.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: If they get out of that door, she can keep
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: attacking even as they run away because they're dark friends.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. She doesn't have to
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: stop attacking if they're fleeing. She can act like a cop. Yeah.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: And kill them while they're fleeing. Sorry, wait.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: She is Red Aja, so... It's their most comfortable position. Yeah.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: Saw another autopsy of somebody being shot in the back
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: by the cops while he was running away recently, so.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: Protect and serve. Yay. So, yeah. Loghain says, Andral, you
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: need to make a gateway. Get us out of here.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: We're not going to get out of here traditionally. And
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: he's trying. He's trying. He's trying. And he's trying. He's trying.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: This is the second attempt where he gets really, really
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: close because their lives are in danger. Yeah. You're not
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: quite in.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: Enough existential danger for him to overcome literal magic physics.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: Also, you haven't tried three times. And don't you know
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: you have to try three times on page for that
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: to work?
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: And yeah, this is a fade to black. That's much
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: more like that time that Matt got stuck under a wall.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: You know, this is the building collapses on them kind
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: of fade to black.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: And I think who's with them? Nalem, I think, is killed.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, because it's a lot of them that the
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: wall collapses on. So it makes sense that they lose.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: One in that. So Nalem's the red shirt, I think,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: that dies here.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: And he's been around for a while. He's not a
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: one episode red shirt. He's a, oh, the stakes are
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: high because we're losing people kind of red shirt.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: But then the rest are captured. And yeah, we'll go.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: Check back in with them as the rescue continues, and
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: he finally overcomes the dream spike at the end. Now,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: he overcomes it seconds before it disappears, and then he's
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: able to be all badass with all of his gateways.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: It's almost like he breaks it. That's how it seems
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: like from his perspective, is because he gets through it once,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: the thing just shatters. That's not what happened, but it
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: sure is what it feels like.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: It does feel like that way, yeah. We'll go with that.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: So that was fun. That was a long recording.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: That was a fun episode.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: But those chapters did need to go together because they
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: were just a continuation of one scene.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: They did.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of tangenting because I like
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: the philosophical Rand stuff. But under two hours. Thank you
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: We'll be back next week with more exciting memory and
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: flight stuff.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: Do do.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: Please rate and review us on your podcast app and
• 1:45:12
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• 1:45:17
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• 1:45:20
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