Latest / WoT Spoilers / Before the Stone of Tear - The Gathering Storm chapter 42 - EP537

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Before the Stone of Tear - The Gathering Storm chapter 42 - EP537 · WoT Spoilers

0:12
Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. All right,
0:22
Speaker 1: so today we are doing a short chapter. The next
0:26
Speaker 1: three chapters don't really bundle in any way sharpe or form.
0:29
Speaker 1: There are various lengths, and they're good chapters, but they
0:35
Speaker 1: just might be a relatively short episode simply because it's
0:38
Speaker 1: a relatively short page count and and the next one
0:41
Speaker 1: is a long page count. So you know, we're at
0:43
Speaker 1: the point now where we're just going to do one
0:46
Speaker 1: chapter today.
0:47
Speaker 2: We're in the sander Lanch, but we've hit a plateau
0:51
Speaker 2: within the sander Lanch. Right, there's more sander Lanch eness
0:56
Speaker 2: before the end of the book, but this is a
0:59
Speaker 2: weirdly plateau spot these next three chapters. So there it is.
1:03
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when someone's screaming and they take
1:05
Speaker 1: that like a quick breath before they keep screaming.
1:07
Speaker 2: Right, they're not done screaming. They just need to breathe
1:11
Speaker 2: in because that's how screaming works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.
1:14
Speaker 3: Great which pairs well with the raving screaming madness that
1:22
Speaker 3: is rand slash ltt in this chapter.
1:25
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's total nuts. I'm gonna have a lot
1:28
Speaker 1: of fun with this. Read in I already know it.
1:30
Speaker 1: I can't wait.
1:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to get into it. This is beginning
1:36
Speaker 2: of a lot of Rand's final unraveling. I was saying
1:39
Speaker 2: before we turned recording on, and you were saying, this
1:41
Speaker 2: is like his rock bottom, because this is this is
1:44
Speaker 2: a city he comes back to in his post Tam
1:47
Speaker 2: pre Veins of Gold arc, right, he takes a couple
1:50
Speaker 2: of days to wander around and be a vagrant and
1:52
Speaker 2: like think about things, and he comes back here specifically
1:56
Speaker 2: and thinks about the decisions that he made in this chapter.
2:00
Speaker 2: And so this, in my mind is really like that
2:03
Speaker 2: final thread starting to come out, and then when you
2:06
Speaker 2: get Tam into it, you actually pull on the thread.
2:08
Speaker 2: But this is that thread coming loose and being available
2:12
Speaker 2: for that Tam situation.
2:13
Speaker 1: It's his failures. No matter how hard he works, how
2:16
Speaker 1: hard he is, he still fails. He fails to save
2:22
Speaker 1: Abu Dhar, he fails with the Sean Chan. He fails
2:25
Speaker 1: in a lot of different ways. And it's why he
2:27
Speaker 1: feels so bad about the cheering and tear. But yeah,
2:30
Speaker 1: he's at rock bottom and going back and examining those
2:34
Speaker 1: failures and realizing my strategy isn't working. Right, Like I
2:38
Speaker 1: keep getting harder, and the harder I get, the more
2:41
Speaker 1: failures I have under my belt.
2:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is also the Schrodinger's grain. Yes, is
2:49
Speaker 2: it rotten or not? That comes up again later, and
2:54
Speaker 2: there's the question, you know, did they literally just open
2:58
Speaker 2: all of the bad sacks or was there some sort
3:01
Speaker 2: of you know, Schrodinger's superposition situation happening with that? For
3:06
Speaker 2: plot reasons, I'm pretty sure we both agree it's it's
3:08
Speaker 2: the latter. This was it was not rotten or good
3:12
Speaker 2: until it was looked at depending on.
3:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, the collapse of the wave function as to the
3:19
Speaker 1: position of Rand's goodness or badness? Right, how evil is
3:23
Speaker 1: he going to be? Right? He's he's the elementary parduct, right,
3:27
Speaker 1: So I mean in a lot of ways, like think
3:29
Speaker 1: about it, right, the I this is this is fun right.
3:32
Speaker 1: So Jordan certainly was a physicist, and he's making a
3:36
Speaker 1: book where choice matters, right, Individual choice is super important,
3:42
Speaker 1: And in a lot of ways, he's taking that all
3:45
Speaker 1: of that choice, distilling it down into a single person,
3:48
Speaker 1: into a single moment on the mountaintop right in veins
3:52
Speaker 1: of gold. In a lot of ways, you can think
3:55
Speaker 1: of that choice as the collapse of a quantum waveform
3:58
Speaker 1: into a position of a single particle. Right, it's a
4:01
Speaker 1: yes no binary. And so in a lot of ways,
4:04
Speaker 1: we have two worlds that are in superposition existing at
4:07
Speaker 1: the same time, the world in which it will be
4:09
Speaker 1: destroyed in the world which it will not until Rand
4:12
Speaker 1: makes his decision and then he observes the universe.
4:16
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not generally one for binaries, but when
4:19
Speaker 2: it comes to physics, yeah, yeah, that that all checks out.
4:25
Speaker 1: So that's that's just sort of my fun I've been
4:29
Speaker 1: watching too many science shows on YouTube.
4:32
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you have an interest in physics because
4:35
Speaker 2: I do a lot of science on YouTube as well.
4:37
Speaker 2: But it's never physics.
4:39
Speaker 1: It's biology.
4:40
Speaker 2: Ever physics, it's archaeology, geology, history. Yeah, yeah, I do.
4:47
Speaker 2: I'm playing more and more with the softer sciences, the
4:51
Speaker 2: squishy or sciences. In terms of my my infotainment stuff.
4:55
Speaker 2: I'm really like, I'm currently reading Song of the Cell
4:58
Speaker 2: right now, which is way deeper into biology than I
5:02
Speaker 2: ever thought I would be absorbing information. But yeah, physics,
5:06
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you are how I get physics information. Basically,
5:09
Speaker 2: you are the person who tells me about physics.
5:12
Speaker 1: Black holes and quantum particles, Man, I think somehow the
5:17
Speaker 1: biggest and the smallest, right, the singularities on either extreme
5:22
Speaker 1: of gravity and quirks, And I think somehow they're you know,
5:28
Speaker 1: shoehorn theory, right, they go so far around they come
5:31
Speaker 1: back together. There's so many similarities between an elementary particle
5:34
Speaker 1: and a black hole, right, They're all defined by only
5:36
Speaker 1: three you know, charge, spin, and mass.
5:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, I do love astronomy too, black holes and astronomy.
5:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, astronomy is great.
5:45
Speaker 2: I'm more interested in the how do we take pictures
5:47
Speaker 2: of them? Than what the fuck are they? You know,
5:49
Speaker 2: Like I can grasp the photography easier than the math
5:53
Speaker 2: of the thing itself.
5:54
Speaker 1: I think my science interest in science has really come
5:58
Speaker 1: along with an interest in sci fi as well. Those
6:01
Speaker 1: have sort of been going. I've been reading a lot
6:02
Speaker 1: more sci fi as well as looking into a lot
6:05
Speaker 1: more space science, so those two kind of go together
6:09
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways.
6:10
Speaker 2: I love it when when my fictional and nonfictional interests
6:13
Speaker 2: like dovetail and feed in and out of each other, right,
6:16
Speaker 2: Like getting really into history and then also reading historical
6:19
Speaker 2: fictions set in the period you're interested in, like for real,
6:22
Speaker 2: it's really it's nice because then you can bounce back
6:25
Speaker 2: and forth and find the connections between like the artistic
6:27
Speaker 2: interpretation and the messiness of objective science, because like science
6:31
Speaker 2: is messy and there's loose ends, and artists can tie
6:35
Speaker 2: up those loose ends in ways that are emotionally satisfying,
6:37
Speaker 2: and that can be a nice break from just the
6:40
Speaker 2: sheer questions of it.
6:41
Speaker 1: All right, right, and they can fill in the holes.
6:44
Speaker 1: They can be like, Okay, this is how you can
6:46
Speaker 1: actually can Yeah, thanks, exactly, yeah exactly. Like we understand
6:50
Speaker 1: what a rocket ship that could constantly accelerate could do,
6:54
Speaker 1: we have no idea where we're going to get the
6:56
Speaker 1: power for that, So you just make up some sources
6:58
Speaker 1: of power. And if you understand the physics and you
7:00
Speaker 1: understand the fiction, you can understand where they've made up
7:03
Speaker 1: and sort of said, okay, here's where our understanding stops.
7:06
Speaker 1: And in the future, we made this discovery and that
7:09
Speaker 1: led to all of these consequences based on the physics
7:13
Speaker 1: we know and understand.
7:14
Speaker 2: Right, right, Yeah, it's good stuff. It's good stuff. But
7:18
Speaker 2: I'm glad that we have very different science fields of
7:22
Speaker 2: interesting I think a more interesting banter for the podcast.
7:28
Speaker 2: I can put some other links in the episode description.
7:30
Speaker 2: I'm totally blanking on a lot of the stuff, but
7:33
Speaker 2: I can put some more stuff in the episode description.
7:35
Speaker 2: If people are interested in my interests.
7:38
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into this thing.
7:40
Speaker 2: Let's let's do this.
7:41
Speaker 1: Let's do this before the Stone of Tear, because they're
7:44
Speaker 1: here before they go to the Stone of Tear. It's okay.
7:48
Speaker 1: And then they're kind of in front of the Stone
7:50
Speaker 1: of Tears, so before the Stone of Tears.
7:54
Speaker 2: That was how I interpreted it was the in front
7:56
Speaker 2: of but it doesn't seem to be super relevant.
8:00
Speaker 1: So there's this whole chunk of the whole chunk in
8:03
Speaker 1: Budar that happens before they go to the Stone of Tyr.
8:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it makes more sense. Literally, it's time, yeah.
8:10
Speaker 1: In our symbols of the dragon, because it is. We
8:13
Speaker 1: don't know the names of the women who were in
8:15
Speaker 1: Grendall's palace. Lewis there and said, we can't add them
8:18
Speaker 1: to the list. Rand tried to ignore the madman. That
8:21
Speaker 1: proved impossible. Lewis theren continued, how can we continue the
8:26
Speaker 1: list if we don't know the names in the war
8:28
Speaker 1: we sought out the maidens who had fallen. We found everyone.
8:32
Speaker 1: The list is flawed. I can't continue. It's not your list,
8:37
Speaker 1: Ran growled, it's mine. Lewis there and mine. No, the
8:41
Speaker 1: madman sputtered, who are you? It's mine? I made it.
8:44
Speaker 1: I can't continue now that they're dead. Light bail fire?
8:48
Speaker 1: Why did we use bail fire? I promised that I
8:51
Speaker 1: would never do that again. Ran squeezed his eyes shut,
8:55
Speaker 1: holding tightly to tie Dashar's reins. The war horse picked
8:58
Speaker 1: his way down the street. The hoofs hit packed earth
9:00
Speaker 1: one after another. What have we become? Lewis there and whispered,
9:05
Speaker 1: We're going to do it again? Aren't we kill them all?
9:08
Speaker 1: Everyone we've loved again again, again, again and again. Rand whispered,
9:14
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, as long as the world survives. They
9:18
Speaker 1: cursed me before, swore at the Dragon Mount and buy
9:21
Speaker 1: my name, But they lived, were here, ready to fight
9:25
Speaker 1: again and again.
9:28
Speaker 2: Good voices, good voices. It's there's one person with two personalities, yeah,
9:37
Speaker 2: really present there like this is Rand and LTT are
9:40
Speaker 2: just oscillating in and out of each other in every
9:43
Speaker 2: possible way at this point.
9:45
Speaker 1: No, and it's like Lewis theren thinks he's the same one,
9:49
Speaker 1: like the voice in his head thinks he's the same one.
9:51
Speaker 2: Rand is sort of tripping out in his own head
9:54
Speaker 2: as he's writing down the road, and even when Min
9:58
Speaker 2: recalls him to himself, recalls him to hisself, and he's
10:02
Speaker 2: just like, I'm just thinking it's fine. Like he's literally
10:05
Speaker 2: like raving back and forth with his two personalities like
10:09
Speaker 2: at each other. They're just raving at each other, and it's, uh,
10:13
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking I'm fine.
10:15
Speaker 1: And he said that last part out loud, right, he's
10:17
Speaker 1: whispering again and again it doesn't matter, you know, as
10:21
Speaker 1: long as we survive.
10:22
Speaker 2: And he's like, they can't know how close I am
10:24
Speaker 2: to collapsing. It's like, I'm pretty sure they're picking up collapsing.
10:31
Speaker 2: And then yeah, we talk about the city and his
10:35
Speaker 2: issues with then and how Eradomon is a very different
10:40
Speaker 2: conquest than he's been experiencing the whole rest of the series.
10:42
Speaker 2: Every other city he comes to, he does something good.
10:46
Speaker 2: He removes a forsaken, he restores order, he frees them
10:51
Speaker 2: from some affliction, whereas this time he brought afflictions, and
10:55
Speaker 2: the affliction he tried to fix the shan Chan was
10:58
Speaker 2: not fixed. He literally made the situation worse for the
11:02
Speaker 2: first time.
11:03
Speaker 1: So how do you feel about this? He'd brought in food,
11:06
Speaker 1: but that food had drawn even more refugees, straining his supplies.
11:10
Speaker 1: Because this is something I hear about a lot in Portland.
11:14
Speaker 1: So I'm bringing it back to the real world here
11:16
Speaker 1: because so often in Portland, right, I hear the reason
11:20
Speaker 1: we have a homeless problem is because we help the homeless,
11:23
Speaker 1: and so they flock here for resources, which is more
11:28
Speaker 1: and then so we ended up with, you know, half
11:30
Speaker 1: the country's homeless, which is more than a city can
11:32
Speaker 1: provide help for. And that's sort of that overwhelming of
11:37
Speaker 1: local resources by a country of people.
11:40
Speaker 2: It is complicated.
11:44
Speaker 1: I thought you would have opinions on this, so that's
11:46
Speaker 1: why I wanted to hear them.
11:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, with respect to Portland specifically, the
11:50
Speaker 2: weather has a lot to do with it too.
11:52
Speaker 1: That's yes, Yes, the whole West Coast really like that's.
11:56
Speaker 2: A huge part of it. Being on the I five
11:59
Speaker 2: corridor and having the temperate Pacific Northwest climate, those two
12:03
Speaker 2: things in and of themselves are a lot to do
12:05
Speaker 2: with it. But yes, there is something to be said
12:08
Speaker 2: for people will go where there are resources, but like
12:11
Speaker 2: back up a bit, what is the unspoken part of
12:16
Speaker 2: that they should go somewhere else to have less resources.
12:21
Speaker 2: People who are already at the edge of survival need
12:26
Speaker 2: to be responsible about dying out of sight of your backyard.
12:32
Speaker 1: So what do you think about the people in erdomon
12:34
Speaker 1: should they be swarming a band our oven?
12:37
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not about a matter of should. It's
12:39
Speaker 2: a matter of survival.
12:40
Speaker 1: Right.
12:41
Speaker 2: This is not like treating it like it some sort
12:44
Speaker 2: of choice that people are making from a place of
12:47
Speaker 2: resource and rationality is deeply incorrect. These are refugees, right,
12:53
Speaker 2: Even in the real world, these a lot of I
12:55
Speaker 2: mean within the context of COVID, right, Like, there was
12:58
Speaker 2: a huge increase in the almost population because of rent stuff. Right,
13:02
Speaker 2: that was like a huge spike that happened on top
13:04
Speaker 2: of the situation that's been you know, escalating over my
13:08
Speaker 2: entire life living in proximity to the I five corridor.
13:12
Speaker 2: It's you know, the lack of a social safety net
13:15
Speaker 2: in our real world situation in this context, in this world,
13:19
Speaker 2: first of all, we know we don't have a broad
13:21
Speaker 2: social safety net. We've seen that over and over again.
13:24
Speaker 1: No local at the best.
13:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also the situation that they are
13:29
Speaker 2: dealing with is much more rapid and acute than you know,
13:33
Speaker 2: a big systemic societal creeping issue that's been going for
13:37
Speaker 2: forty years. This is in the last two years, the
13:41
Speaker 2: shan Chan have invaded and the Dark One has completely
13:44
Speaker 2: screwed with the weather, and dragon sworn have come erupting
13:47
Speaker 2: out of the woodwork. Right, it's really in that level
13:51
Speaker 2: of chaos. I mean, that's a civil war. I mean
13:53
Speaker 2: these are internally displaced people, right, Like, that's kind of
13:57
Speaker 2: the situation that these people are in. So they've got
13:59
Speaker 2: even less ability to make a rational or logical or
14:04
Speaker 2: practical decision than people with creeping systemic issues pushing them around.
14:08
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, you go to the city looking for food.
14:13
Speaker 2: That's what people do when food is hard to find
14:17
Speaker 2: in the country. You go to the city. Like there
14:20
Speaker 2: hasn't really even been time for people to learn that
14:24
Speaker 2: that's not going to work, right, Like, remember, people don't
14:27
Speaker 2: have telegraphs. They barely have a postal service by horse, right, Like,
14:31
Speaker 2: there's no like royal post Delane thinks about starting one
14:34
Speaker 2: in and or they don't have one, so like information
14:36
Speaker 2: travels as fast as merchants. So yeah, we're talking a
14:40
Speaker 2: few months of people rushing to the city and overwhelming
14:43
Speaker 2: its resources. People have only just barely started to realize
14:45
Speaker 2: they're overwhelming the city's resources in terms of like people
14:49
Speaker 2: who are still coming. That information probably hasn't propagated out.
14:52
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's one of those unfortunate But what else
14:57
Speaker 2: is going to happen kind of situations, which I mean
15:00
Speaker 2: is true in the real world. If you keep nibbling
15:02
Speaker 2: away at people's social safety nets and you keep driving
15:05
Speaker 2: up the cost of living without also raising the wages, Yeah,
15:10
Speaker 2: then you'll end up with people making unsavory decisions because
15:14
Speaker 2: survival is what matters. Like we're animals, we want to survive. Okay,
15:22
Speaker 2: those are my thoughts.
15:22
Speaker 1: I'm done now, Thank you. I begin you don't articulate
15:27
Speaker 1: it better than I could, so I got you going.
15:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, And one of his failures in terms of
15:37
Speaker 1: not only the refugees, that he's just unable to handle
15:39
Speaker 1: because he's not bringing in enough food I think, even
15:42
Speaker 1: spoiled or not, there's really not enough food, right, Like
15:45
Speaker 1: I mean.
15:48
Speaker 2: Because we're a good six months past the screwed up
15:51
Speaker 2: harvest right, people's stores are starting to run down and
15:54
Speaker 2: the way you're supposed to be starting to have new
15:56
Speaker 2: food coming in at this point, So like the acuteness
16:00
Speaker 2: of the oncoming famine is becoming more present, I think
16:04
Speaker 2: at this point because of where we're at in the
16:08
Speaker 2: cycle of seasons with respect to the dark ones, weather manipulations.
16:12
Speaker 1: So his other failure is he's failed to get a
16:14
Speaker 1: king elected. He can't find enough council members to legally
16:17
Speaker 1: go through the process that he wanted to go through,
16:20
Speaker 1: so that there's no way to elect somebody who's going
16:23
Speaker 1: to be the king after he dies. Right. That's really
16:26
Speaker 1: his goal with these countries is he wants them to
16:28
Speaker 1: go through a due process so the law is continue
16:32
Speaker 1: to be enforced after the Dragon reborn dies or goes away, right,
16:36
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to be He can't be like,
16:39
Speaker 1: you know, right through might, because once the might disappears,
16:42
Speaker 1: the whole system is going to fall apart.
16:44
Speaker 2: Right, and he needs someone that can manage the city
16:47
Speaker 2: and organize things and not need him to be there
16:50
Speaker 2: driving the right thing, right, And he can't find even
16:54
Speaker 2: a temporary leader, much less one that's going to have
16:57
Speaker 2: longevity it's a pretty comprehensive failure on that front.
17:02
Speaker 1: Political resource wise, like, yeah, everything.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did nothing except get resources for himself. Right.
17:11
Speaker 2: He dropped off some food that he didn't particularly need,
17:14
Speaker 2: and he took their fighting force. Like that's that's really
17:18
Speaker 2: a lose lose for the city. I mean, the food
17:22
Speaker 2: ostensibly is going to help, but as we see, it's
17:24
Speaker 2: not going to help until he turns that frown upside down.
17:30
Speaker 2: It's true, though, true.
17:36
Speaker 1: You just got to look at it from a different
17:38
Speaker 1: point of view and all the grain will be good.
17:41
Speaker 2: Just go to the land of mad Men and fix
17:43
Speaker 2: your attitude. Oh wow, Fitzpan a lose lose.
17:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, the problem with LTT sleeping around as much as
17:54
Speaker 1: he does, it's a loose lose the situation. Wow.
18:13
Speaker 2: So yeah, rand who supposedly has no feelings, doesn't like
18:17
Speaker 2: looking at hungry people. He has no feelings. He's super hard,
18:21
Speaker 2: very quainty art. But he also doesn't like looking at
18:23
Speaker 2: starving people. So yeah, yeah, no feelings there whatsoever.
18:28
Speaker 1: Not Just pushing them down into a little place where
18:30
Speaker 1: they're a little rough later couldn't be the problem. No,
18:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, he wants the members of the Council to
18:38
Speaker 1: go home and elect some more members of the council,
18:41
Speaker 1: and then with enough members of the council, then they
18:44
Speaker 1: can elect the King and a.
18:45
Speaker 2: Right, he's asking them to bootstrap their government, right, They're like,
18:48
Speaker 2: we are running like raps right now. We are not
18:52
Speaker 2: sticking around to bootstrap a government that's in the middle
18:54
Speaker 2: of a civil war, being invaded, end of war. No, no, no,
18:58
Speaker 2: we're merchants. We just like power when the times are good.
19:01
Speaker 2: We are fair weather rulers.
19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and ran self sympathy. It's not my problem. I
19:06
Speaker 1: did everything I could. But then he sort of corrects
19:10
Speaker 1: himself and is like, eh, I really came to deal
19:12
Speaker 1: with Sean Chan, track down Grendel and find the Borderlanders, right,
19:18
Speaker 1: just because that was all happening in Airdomon. I needed
19:21
Speaker 1: Airdomond to be stable for that, But like, that wasn't
19:24
Speaker 1: my main goal. He really is kind of admitting in
19:26
Speaker 1: that to himself, or either that or he's changing his
19:29
Speaker 1: goalposts so he doesn't have to admit to feat White's heartily.
19:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am inclined to believe him that he's reached
19:36
Speaker 2: a point of nihilism and utilitarianism where he's just doing
19:46
Speaker 2: things that are good for people because it helps him
19:49
Speaker 2: achieve his goals, not because it needs to be done right, Like,
19:52
Speaker 2: I do think that his inclination to come here and
19:55
Speaker 2: try to fix this city was not motivated by the people.
19:58
Speaker 2: He was like, I need to do good things for
20:00
Speaker 2: He's becoming morally gray, I guess really is what it
20:03
Speaker 2: is is he's not saving people. He's saving people incidental
20:08
Speaker 2: to the tasks that he's doing.
20:10
Speaker 1: The Last Battle is really overriding the concerns for helping
20:15
Speaker 1: the people. Right up to this point, it seems like
20:16
Speaker 1: he's really been trying to make everybody's lives better as
20:19
Speaker 1: he unites them for the last battle. Now he's just like,
20:22
Speaker 1: get in line, shut up, we're fighting.
20:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, he thinks it's not possible to actually improve human
20:27
Speaker 2: life on the way to the Last Battle, which is
20:30
Speaker 2: part of why the Dark One's doing all the things
20:34
Speaker 2: he's doing. Right, This is part of the necessary prep
20:36
Speaker 2: work to get Rand to destroy the world. Is if
20:38
Speaker 2: he believes that it's worth destroying the world to save it, right,
20:42
Speaker 2: Because if you kill everybody, what are you saving? Right?
20:47
Speaker 2: Like that you have to save people in order to
20:50
Speaker 2: have a world to save, right, So if you stop
20:53
Speaker 2: caring about people. You are almost ready to stop caring
20:58
Speaker 2: about the world.
21:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the things I think about is like,
21:02
Speaker 1: what if the dark One doesn't even really need to win.
21:05
Speaker 1: He just needs to make every age worse than the
21:07
Speaker 1: last one, and eventually things will plunge into darkness and
21:11
Speaker 1: he will take over. Right, Like, there's there's the abrupt end,
21:15
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's also the downward spiral.
21:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are many paths into the void. So Rand's
21:23
Speaker 2: talking to the Sheer about all the things, which then
21:30
Speaker 2: moves into talking about the borderlands, and yeah, Aitalda being
21:36
Speaker 2: up in the borderlands, being like something is amassing out there.
21:41
Speaker 2: We're not actually getting assaulted yet, we're just doing patrols
21:44
Speaker 2: and stuff, but we can tell something is brewing in
21:48
Speaker 2: the blight. And that is, you know, again, really motivating
21:52
Speaker 2: Rand to get this whole border Lander situation figured out,
21:55
Speaker 2: because they are still very much a loose end that
21:57
Speaker 2: has not been resolved.
21:58
Speaker 1: Right, And we all know there's that prophecy right where
22:01
Speaker 1: they have to slap him the face and he has
22:03
Speaker 1: to not react, And it's the good thing they don't.
22:06
Speaker 1: They haven't met up with him yet because he would
22:08
Speaker 1: react poorly, and they'd try and kill him, and that
22:10
Speaker 1: would be a whole problem. So we still need to
22:14
Speaker 1: wait until after Veins of Gold before he can confront
22:17
Speaker 1: the borderlanders.
22:18
Speaker 2: This is disproportionate response. Random. Yeah, they would have slapped
22:22
Speaker 2: him and he would have annihilated the entire.
22:24
Speaker 1: City him leaving in public. So he's heading out, right,
22:28
Speaker 1: he's amanding them because he's like, well, I have to
22:30
Speaker 1: go do other stuff now. But he is doing it
22:32
Speaker 1: in public, right, He's not sneaking out, which I feel
22:35
Speaker 1: like we've seen him do a couple of times, right.
22:37
Speaker 1: I feel like when he left here the first time
22:39
Speaker 1: to go with the I Yield and he like ride
22:41
Speaker 1: out through the streets and people gathered to watch.
22:44
Speaker 2: There wasn't a famine that time though.
22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, But like he's always left publicly
22:51
Speaker 1: in those situations.
22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He doesn't usually conquer a city and then
22:56
Speaker 2: sneak out, So it makes sense that he doesn't start
22:59
Speaker 2: now of all time.
23:00
Speaker 1: Like you might sneak back and forth. Right, But when he's.
23:03
Speaker 2: Leaving, sure, yeah yeah yeah.
23:05
Speaker 1: And he's like I'm packing my shit and getting out.
23:07
Speaker 1: He's like, okay, let me do that in front of everybody,
23:10
Speaker 1: so you know, officially, I'm not going to be here anymore.
23:12
Speaker 2: He's also thinking too about how he's not hiding, right,
23:15
Speaker 2: He's very much like the entire concept of subterfuge is
23:18
Speaker 2: completely behind me at this point.
23:21
Speaker 1: So, which is so ironic because then Avienda gives them
23:23
Speaker 1: the bronze knife and he goes right.
23:27
Speaker 2: The pattern is like, sir, you are too bold for
23:30
Speaker 2: your own good. We're gonna put some tools in.
23:34
Speaker 1: And so yeah, all the way out. This is that
23:36
Speaker 1: sort of I don't know this. I feel like this
23:38
Speaker 1: is the classic scene of rand just abandoning people when
23:42
Speaker 1: the person comes up to it and the man says,
23:45
Speaker 1: every barrel, every sack, every bit in our stores and
23:48
Speaker 1: in the sea folks ships, the grain has gone bad.
23:51
Speaker 1: It's not just full of weevils. It's grown black and bitter.
23:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely supernaturally spoiled. In a heartbeat, and.
23:58
Speaker 1: Then later we see how this scene where he goes
24:00
Speaker 1: back and he's had veins of gold and he's like, oh,
24:04
Speaker 1: you only opened up the bad ones. You everyone you
24:07
Speaker 1: randomly picked to check was bad. Irrespect to the fact
24:12
Speaker 1: that there would have been an overwhelming stench if all
24:14
Speaker 1: of the grain was bad right, Like, but let's just
24:18
Speaker 1: go with the fact that it's perfectly sealed and there's
24:20
Speaker 1: no way of knowing until you open it up, right,
24:22
Speaker 1: that this grain is bad. You have to have a situation,
24:26
Speaker 1: like I mean, I I guess we're just talking about odds,
24:29
Speaker 1: the odds of just opening up just bad bags and
24:32
Speaker 1: then making the assumption that it's all bad. But here's
24:35
Speaker 1: the thing, it's Rand's influence, right, I've I actually think
24:41
Speaker 1: I don't know. My head canon is that he actually
24:43
Speaker 1: changes whether it's that it's gone bad, and then when
24:46
Speaker 1: he shows up it changes to having gone good, and
24:49
Speaker 1: he just uses he's just lying when he says you
24:53
Speaker 1: opened up the only the bad ones. Right. In the
24:56
Speaker 1: same way that he's able to grow trees, I feel
24:58
Speaker 1: like Rand is at this point sort of tapping after
25:01
Speaker 1: veins of gold, is able to tap into the pattern
25:04
Speaker 1: a little bit and actually alter the pattern.
25:07
Speaker 2: He's got his neo powers.
25:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think he's actually changing reality in that situation.
25:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm inclined towards the the Schrodinger's grain, Like it
25:18
Speaker 2: truly depended on if they looked at it or not,
25:22
Speaker 2: like which way it was going to go. So they
25:24
Speaker 2: did open up exactly how many were spoiled because everyone
25:28
Speaker 2: that they opened before veins of gold was going to
25:30
Speaker 2: be spoiled, and everyone that they opened after was going
25:34
Speaker 2: to not be. But like it was entirely dependent on
25:38
Speaker 2: their behavior. Like, because it's like I don't I would
25:42
Speaker 2: rather believe that it existed in a ghostly like interplanar
25:47
Speaker 2: state than that it literally spoiled and then went back
25:50
Speaker 2: to good. I would rather believe that it just like
25:53
Speaker 2: was not materially in existing in a way. And just
25:57
Speaker 2: like I wonder if I wonder if they had opened
26:03
Speaker 2: all the sacks, if there would have been no food,
26:06
Speaker 2: you know, they would have If they had opened up
26:09
Speaker 2: literally every single sack, they would have starved. And if
26:12
Speaker 2: they had the less sacks they opened, the more food
26:15
Speaker 2: they had, you know, And that was entirely in their hands.
26:19
Speaker 2: Their choices determined how much food they had once ran
26:21
Speaker 2: had bands of gold.
26:23
Speaker 1: I mean it had to have, right because either explanation,
26:26
Speaker 1: whether it's existing in superposition and collapsing as you open it,
26:31
Speaker 1: or if he changed it. But he's only able to
26:34
Speaker 1: change the ones that weren't opened, because otherwise it would
26:37
Speaker 1: be obvious either way, they're not you know, however, many
26:40
Speaker 1: they open are the ones they're not going to be
26:41
Speaker 1: able to eat.
26:42
Speaker 2: So yeah, nodding, it does add up to the same thing,
26:45
Speaker 2: but yeah, it does. It feels like a very cheeky
26:49
Speaker 2: level of Schrodinger's wheat for the plot.
26:52
Speaker 1: This is why quantum physics is so hard. You don't
26:54
Speaker 1: know ahead of time whether or not. Uh oh yeah,
26:59
Speaker 1: you can't, and you have to observe it to find
27:01
Speaker 1: observe the particle to find out. And by the time
27:04
Speaker 1: he observed it, it's collapsed. It's too late.
27:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, So here's here's a good extension of what
27:11
Speaker 2: I was saying. The athlon's posing in chat is if
27:14
Speaker 2: they had started opening sex again after Vans of Gold,
27:17
Speaker 2: but Rand hadn't visited the city, would have been good.
27:22
Speaker 2: I think it would have been good.
27:23
Speaker 1: I think it would have been good. Yeah.
27:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that this week was very tied to
27:28
Speaker 2: Rand's emotional state, so I think that it would have
27:30
Speaker 2: transitioned regardless of if he ever revisited.
27:35
Speaker 1: On the other hand, like I do think that he
27:38
Speaker 1: was pushing back against the Dark One's influence very locally, right,
27:42
Speaker 1: and so it's possible that if they opened it up
27:46
Speaker 1: outside of his influence. If he wasn't there to create
27:49
Speaker 1: the positive influence, then the dark one would have been
27:52
Speaker 1: able to continue to make them be bad.
27:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose, really weird bad things are still happening
27:59
Speaker 2: at an increasing rate everywhere that he's not in like
28:01
Speaker 2: direct proximity too, so and yeah, the tea gets good
28:07
Speaker 2: around him and then bad when he leaves in a
28:10
Speaker 2: similar place. So this grain actually maybe only was good
28:14
Speaker 2: because Rand came back post vans of gold. It's not
28:18
Speaker 2: just the veins of gold of it all. It's that
28:20
Speaker 2: he revisited the city specifically.
28:24
Speaker 1: And it's kind of the same thing with the Taveran. Right.
28:26
Speaker 1: Why are parents armies and Matt's armies so successful because
28:31
Speaker 1: they have the protection of the Tiveran. Whether whether or
28:34
Speaker 1: not it's because of they're tied to Rand or because
28:36
Speaker 1: they're Tiveran, I'm not really sure, but their grain doesn't
28:40
Speaker 1: go bad the way it goes bad everywhere else, so
28:42
Speaker 1: there is some of this connection that allows them to
28:47
Speaker 1: bring armies to the last battle.
28:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. They do still have some spoilage, but
28:53
Speaker 2: like significantly less, like barely above the regular rate. So yeah, yeah,
29:01
Speaker 2: huh interesting. I think maybe. Okay. Another question, shouldn't the
29:08
Speaker 2: grain have gone bad again once he left? No, I
29:11
Speaker 2: think he was able to fix it in place.
29:13
Speaker 1: The for the most part, I think once he has
29:16
Speaker 1: good food, it stays good. Right. I don't think i've ever.
29:19
Speaker 1: I don't think there's an instance of tea going sour
29:22
Speaker 1: again once he leaves.
29:23
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there is, there is. Okay, I ninety nine
29:28
Speaker 2: percent sure that there is an instance of exactly that
29:30
Speaker 2: with the tea. But I won't believe that didn't happen
29:34
Speaker 2: to this gray, to this wheat, because I don't want
29:39
Speaker 2: that to be true. But no, there's definitely. I think
29:42
Speaker 2: it's when he visits the tower. The Tower, I'm pretty
29:48
Speaker 2: sure Gwane's the one commenting on the tea like going
29:51
Speaker 2: back to being, or maybe it's Elaine and Caitlin, But
29:55
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure someone goes, oh Rand left and now
29:57
Speaker 2: the tea tastes bad again, like it tasted good while
30:00
Speaker 2: he was here. So that's an interesting question. We don't
30:07
Speaker 2: hear about this gring flipping back to bad.
30:10
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it would defeat the whole purpose.
30:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this food is really necessary to help him
30:16
Speaker 2: get people to the last battle. So I think that
30:18
Speaker 2: its probability stays fixed on being okay. Also, they eat
30:23
Speaker 2: that food really fast because the city is really close
30:25
Speaker 2: to the starting right right when he comes back and
30:27
Speaker 2: fixes it, so like it doesn't have long for this
30:30
Speaker 2: world anyway.
30:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we don't get super specific about what
30:38
Speaker 1: his influence versus the Dark ones influence versus like the
30:41
Speaker 1: pattern and yeah, let's keep an eye out for that
30:44
Speaker 1: that sort of information as we go through, Like how's
30:47
Speaker 1: the food turning around him, because right now it's all
30:51
Speaker 1: going bad because RAN's a bad influence, right and the
30:53
Speaker 1: Dark oneses but bad influence, so everything's bad.
30:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, And Athlon's pointing out that, yeah, they're
30:57
Speaker 2: going to Marylor pretty soon and you're with the tavern there,
31:01
Speaker 2: and the food stays pretty good at the fields of
31:03
Speaker 2: Marilor because you've got all the people gathering and so
31:08
Speaker 2: the tiver And force field is pretty big at that point.
31:12
Speaker 1: The force is led by the Dragon. Yeah.
31:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're really close to the initiation of the last battle,
31:18
Speaker 2: Like we don't have months left to plan for with
31:22
Speaker 2: most of the timelines. Most of the timelines are going
31:24
Speaker 2: to be compressed down to a week, like a few
31:27
Speaker 2: people do have months long experiences obviously, but in terms
31:30
Speaker 2: of food stores and stuff, like, Rand is pulling all
31:33
Speaker 2: of it north like really rapidly at this point.
31:36
Speaker 1: Which is also good because those people experience less time,
31:38
Speaker 1: which means less food.
31:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, less meals that you have to eat for sure.
31:42
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean the shadows bond gathering in the Borderlanders,
31:45
Speaker 1: those are that's the last battle trunks, right, they are
31:49
Speaker 1: getting ready to attack for the last battle, right, They're
31:51
Speaker 1: not attacking for anything else. Yeah.
31:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that wild, intense attack that opens up the
31:56
Speaker 2: beginning of a memory of light. I think it's that
32:01
Speaker 2: Borderland outpost. And then we go to a Giralda and
32:05
Speaker 2: you've got all the stuff that happens at Maradon and like, yeah,
32:08
Speaker 2: what Giralda is seeing is the stirrings of that attack,
32:12
Speaker 2: which yeah, is very much the last battle getting started.
32:16
Speaker 1: That's a good point. Would you would food stay good
32:19
Speaker 1: longer if you are dedicated to Rand? Right? The light
32:22
Speaker 1: Tower might not be dedicated to Rand, so when he leaves,
32:25
Speaker 1: the food goes bad again, right, versus someplace that is like, yeah.
32:30
Speaker 2: We know that Camelin has a way better rate of food,
32:33
Speaker 2: Like it's spoiling, but not nearly as frequently and as thoroughly.
32:37
Speaker 2: And it would make sense because Elaine is, you know,
32:39
Speaker 2: carrying his child and the love of his life right right,
32:42
Speaker 2: one of the loves of his life. Like, it makes sense,
32:44
Speaker 2: she's very aligned to him carrying his children.
32:47
Speaker 1: Sorry, it makes me wonder why it's not more of
32:50
Speaker 1: a problem in chan Chan land. They don't really talk
32:53
Speaker 1: about food spoil. It just a problem.
32:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be going way worse than shan Chan
33:01
Speaker 2: held lands by that logic. If his allies get a plus,
33:04
Speaker 2: then his enemies should get a minus, because balance is important.
33:10
Speaker 2: I'm going to chalk that up to being a plot
33:12
Speaker 2: hole rather than a mechanic.
33:14
Speaker 1: Me too, because I think I think the shan Chan
33:17
Speaker 1: would just be less of a threat if all Raan
33:19
Speaker 1: had to do was just ignore them and their food
33:20
Speaker 1: went bad.
33:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, if all their food went bad and he still
33:23
Speaker 2: had food, that there goes the base of power, right, Like,
33:27
Speaker 2: that's the thing I like people. They're You're like, civil
33:30
Speaker 2: order is approximately nine missed meals away from completely breaking
33:34
Speaker 2: down or whatever. That axiomic statement is that I'm mangling.
33:38
Speaker 1: Athlon and keep making good points. I think any kind
33:41
Speaker 1: of order pushes the Dark One back. The White Tower
33:43
Speaker 1: has been pretty disordered for a while, and Masan is
33:45
Speaker 1: still hanging out over there. Yeah, so it's yeah, the
33:50
Speaker 1: forsaking are out of the shan Chan. There's a good order,
33:53
Speaker 1: you know, chaos versus order that could be.
33:55
Speaker 2: You know, Oh, sean Chan has order. That's true. Sean
33:59
Speaker 2: Chan is not well, sean Chan the continent is in chaos,
34:03
Speaker 2: but sean Chan on this side of the ocean is
34:06
Speaker 2: very much still ordered. It's got an empress, so is
34:10
Speaker 2: Tuon's sheer personality and hubris holding back the forces of
34:14
Speaker 2: the Dark One. I don't like that extension of this thought.
34:18
Speaker 2: I don't like that at all. I don't like the
34:20
Speaker 2: idea that Tuon is doing a good thing by being
34:23
Speaker 2: so rigid and strong in that way.
34:27
Speaker 1: Well, here's another thought. Maybe proximity to the Bore has
34:30
Speaker 1: some effect on how much the corruption of food is happening, right, Like,
34:35
Speaker 1: the shan Chan is a little further away, so maybe
34:38
Speaker 1: the lands are less affected by that corruption.
34:40
Speaker 2: I mean, we know that they got rid of the
34:42
Speaker 2: last shadow spawned centuries before present day, so yeah, their
34:48
Speaker 2: distance from the Bore is centuries deep in that way,
34:54
Speaker 2: And then Yeah, they've infiltrated and taken over lands that
34:57
Speaker 2: are as far away from the Boor as you can
34:59
Speaker 2: get on this continent. Athlon's typing. We're just gonna wait
35:02
Speaker 2: for the next excellent point.
35:04
Speaker 1: There's no point in moving on until.
35:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. If there's a massive civil war because
35:09
Speaker 2: the whole thing got decapitated, then well.
35:12
Speaker 1: That's what's waning. Proximity mattered, right, So maybe the civil
35:15
Speaker 1: war isn't quite as maybe order isn't quite as important
35:18
Speaker 1: over there because they're further away, although the board being
35:21
Speaker 1: kind of super far north means they're close, kind of
35:23
Speaker 1: equally close to everything.
35:25
Speaker 2: I mean, Seawan Chan is in some extreme chaos right now,
35:29
Speaker 2: so even a small amount of food spoilage is going
35:32
Speaker 2: to probably have an amplified effect because of the whole
35:35
Speaker 2: all all the blood all over the Crystal Thrones situation.
35:40
Speaker 2: You know, if only we had faster communication across the ocean,
35:44
Speaker 2: that would that would be cool, because then we could
35:47
Speaker 2: have a plot going in Shawn Chan proper. Anyway, Yeah,
35:52
Speaker 2: Randon just rides away. He put the coming starvation out
35:56
Speaker 2: of his mind. It was shocking how easy that was.
36:00
Speaker 2: Bleak line. That feels like it's super true of like
36:04
Speaker 2: most of my life paying attention to news from around
36:07
Speaker 2: the world. Oh my god, my entire life. You know,
36:10
Speaker 2: obviously present situations are very acute, but like, literally, I
36:14
Speaker 2: feel like that's been my entire experience of learning about
36:17
Speaker 2: the wider world. Is like, there's a famine, but don't
36:20
Speaker 2: think about it too hard because you're eight and now
36:23
Speaker 2: here I am in my thirties. Like, there's so many famines.
36:26
Speaker 1: I ah, the famines and the genocides that are going on.
36:31
Speaker 1: It's always just remarkable that we let both of those
36:35
Speaker 1: go on at the same time in the same world
36:37
Speaker 1: that you and I get sit down and do this
36:38
Speaker 1: podcast in.
36:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yet because it's been that way for so
36:43
Speaker 2: long and so far away from where we physically are,
36:46
Speaker 2: because our empire is huge, It's shocking how easy it
36:50
Speaker 2: is to just be like, yeah, let's talk about me
36:52
Speaker 2: all the time. They don't need to think about the
36:54
Speaker 2: starvation and genocide happening in Gaza. Let's talk about the
36:56
Speaker 2: one power like it's yes, Rand. It is shocking how
37:02
Speaker 2: this works. The human brain is very confusing to inhabit
37:06
Speaker 2: sometimes most of the time.
37:08
Speaker 1: And you know, I always say God is not the
37:11
Speaker 1: only one going on, Like there's been genocides in Africa
37:14
Speaker 1: going on for a very long time, that we don't
37:17
Speaker 1: give half the attention due that we do.
37:19
Speaker 2: I mean, as I said, my entire life of learning
37:21
Speaker 2: about the world is like, yeah, the continuous pillaging of
37:26
Speaker 2: the entire African continent is just like and yeah, if
37:31
Speaker 2: you don't know about what's going on in the DRC,
37:34
Speaker 2: you probably should, but yeah, it's it's just you know,
37:40
Speaker 2: I really feel for Rand with this because yes, you're
37:42
Speaker 2: causing it in one way, but also like, the world
37:46
Speaker 2: is huge and full of so many of these things.
37:49
Speaker 2: It is. It is really mind numbing. It is. It
37:52
Speaker 2: is truly mind and soul numbing. Like whether you're the
37:55
Speaker 2: savior of the world or not, it's a lot to
37:57
Speaker 2: try to keep up with how many people are staring
38:00
Speaker 2: at any given time in like the last fifty one
38:04
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty five hundred years, you know.
38:09
Speaker 1: Just well, And to me, what's always remarkable is like, yeah,
38:13
Speaker 1: we can talk in percentages, but and like we're like
38:15
Speaker 1: percentages have gotten better, but the world population is so big.
38:19
Speaker 1: The tiniest percentage of people suffering is so many people.
38:23
Speaker 1: It's so many people.
38:24
Speaker 2: And we have the resources to make that not nearly
38:28
Speaker 2: so bad. We probably can't fix literally everyone's problem everywhere.
38:33
Speaker 2: Probably there will always be another problem to solve. But
38:36
Speaker 2: like we could be doing a lot fucking better than
38:40
Speaker 2: we are. We could be doing a lot less funding
38:42
Speaker 2: of genocides and withholding of food, like those things are
38:46
Speaker 2: very much an option.
38:48
Speaker 1: And like Rand is struggling because he really doesn't have
38:51
Speaker 1: the mechanism to do it. He he, for one, has
38:54
Speaker 1: the political will, right because he owns all these countries.
38:57
Speaker 1: He's the king, he's the emperor, right for once you
38:59
Speaker 1: got the political will. And I think, I think what's
39:01
Speaker 1: so discouraging is Rand's like, even with all the political
39:04
Speaker 1: will in the world, even with all the power and
39:07
Speaker 1: the one power and nations behind me, I still can't
39:12
Speaker 1: fix the problems going on in erdmon Right, Like, it
39:18
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how much power I've acquired, this is still
39:21
Speaker 1: a failure for me, in the same way that like
39:23
Speaker 1: attacking the shan Chan with the calendar was a failure
39:26
Speaker 1: for him. Right, doesn't matter how much power he poured
39:28
Speaker 1: into it. If you're doing it dumb, it's not gonna work.
39:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the world is a thorny problem. Don't bring
39:36
Speaker 2: your perfectionism to solving the entire world's problems. But yeah, and.
39:42
Speaker 1: Then this, I would have loved to see this. This
39:44
Speaker 1: would be a great TV shot of him of just
39:46
Speaker 1: the most devastating, starving children, you know, please may I
39:51
Speaker 1: have another? And then he goes through this gateway and
39:54
Speaker 1: it's like, who like arena, Everyone's cheering, fireworks going off
40:00
Speaker 1: in the background. It's the dragon Rabbord, you know, and
40:04
Speaker 1: like just the contrast, and you just you know, I mean,
40:07
Speaker 1: obviously I see the camera going for like a cool
40:09
Speaker 1: color to a warm color, you know, like everything changes,
40:13
Speaker 1: and just the way that settles so poorly in Durand
40:17
Speaker 1: and the guilt that comes along with that, and the
40:20
Speaker 1: failure that comes along with that. Uh, this is such
40:23
Speaker 1: a great scene to me. I love the way this
40:25
Speaker 1: is written. It's one of the reasons I really like
40:27
Speaker 1: this chapter, you know, even though it's so short and
40:29
Speaker 1: it's compact, but it's got this great moment that just, oh,
40:34
Speaker 1: it lands so well for me on how Rand feels.
40:38
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why it's the chapter has named that is
40:41
Speaker 2: because the reason that that transition hits so hard is
40:44
Speaker 2: because of what happens before the Stone of Tyar. That's
40:47
Speaker 2: why that transition is so shocking, is what comes before
40:52
Speaker 2: versus what comes after is just so wildly discordant and incongruous.
40:56
Speaker 2: And yeah, it really really sits emotionally with Rand. How
41:01
Speaker 2: that Yeah, emotional and cognitive dissonance hits it. It's that
41:05
Speaker 2: comfortable and yeah, really cinematic because it's Sanderson.
41:10
Speaker 1: I love the detail of a bunch of boys perched
41:12
Speaker 1: on rooves or you know, edges of roofs.
41:17
Speaker 2: Like Level one Rand.
41:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was like, oh, that's like Rand trying
41:20
Speaker 1: to find Logain and wanting to see him and finding
41:24
Speaker 1: a little spot to watch, like it's very cute.
41:27
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, I guess that's more like level two Rand.
41:30
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean.
41:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Book two Rand.
41:33
Speaker 2: That was Book one?
41:34
Speaker 1: Oh it was, wasn't it.
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah?
41:37
Speaker 1: I always forget how much freaking happens in that first book.
41:41
Speaker 2: That first book is a really good standalone novel. I've
41:44
Speaker 2: said it for years and I stand by it. If
41:47
Speaker 2: you read just that book and then we're like, oh,
41:49
Speaker 2: and then it goes off into the sunset, but I
41:51
Speaker 2: don't want to read anymore, you'd be fine you would
41:53
Speaker 2: have experienced so much of what makes the Wheel of
41:56
Speaker 2: Time good, like that first books so much, so much.
42:00
Speaker 1: I still think the second book is really where it
42:03
Speaker 1: shows you what makes Wheel of Time good, though I
42:04
Speaker 1: think the first book is a little too much Tolkien
42:07
Speaker 1: sure references to really like get the flavor of Wheel
42:12
Speaker 1: of Time. But yeah, I agree with you, you know, like
42:14
Speaker 1: it's like when I got married, I told never she
42:16
Speaker 1: has to read the first book to understand me, Like,
42:18
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to read any more than that. There's
42:20
Speaker 1: enough in the first book that we'd be able to
42:22
Speaker 1: talk about it and make references. But she got she's
42:26
Speaker 1: into book six. She's called out in you know the
42:31
Speaker 1: middle of book six where there's some you know, sloggish
42:36
Speaker 1: parts where it slows down a little bit in the
42:38
Speaker 1: middle there.
42:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you start to get the first few hints of
42:41
Speaker 2: the coming slog in book six. It's not the whole
42:44
Speaker 2: book by any means, but you start to be like, oh,
42:47
Speaker 2: this flows differently. Yeah, that's going to become more present
42:52
Speaker 2: as they continue, and like.
42:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, same thing in book seven. Right. I don't think
42:57
Speaker 1: Book seven is at all sloggish, but there are moments
43:01
Speaker 1: where there's like, ah, you know, he's really good at foreshadowing,
43:05
Speaker 1: and he even foreshadowed this slog really well precisely.
43:10
Speaker 2: It's exactly that he starts to play with something and
43:13
Speaker 2: that ends up becoming foreshadowing for the experiment that he's
43:16
Speaker 2: going to say, Yeah, I tried something and it didn't work.
43:18
Speaker 2: He was playing with something at a smaller scale before
43:21
Speaker 2: he tried it for a whole book.
43:23
Speaker 1: And I always say there's two things that make the
43:25
Speaker 1: slog the slog. The timeline in the story slows way down.
43:28
Speaker 1: So instead of months or you know, multiple months passing
43:32
Speaker 1: by in a single book, it's multiple days or weeks
43:34
Speaker 1: at the most. And two, you get big chunks of
43:38
Speaker 1: POV instead of jumping between povs. So it feels like
43:42
Speaker 1: you wait all this time, you read what essentially amounts
43:46
Speaker 1: to a very long single chapter about that character, and
43:49
Speaker 1: then you never see them again for the rest of
43:50
Speaker 1: the book, and so you wait a long time to
43:54
Speaker 1: find out very little about a character.
43:56
Speaker 2: Yep.
43:57
Speaker 1: So I mean, and that's not to say like the writing.
44:00
Speaker 1: I think the writing could have been, you know, just
44:03
Speaker 1: take that same writing and split it up where you're
44:05
Speaker 1: switching between the POV character multiple times, I think you're
44:08
Speaker 1: getting a much better story. Oh yeah, even just restructuring it, right.
44:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. I was just editing
44:14
Speaker 2: the episode we recorded last week, and that's the Battle
44:17
Speaker 2: for the White Tower, and there's multiple povs from Agway
44:21
Speaker 2: and that really helps make that sequence go in a
44:25
Speaker 2: lot more fun directions. Right, that's really really cool. And yeah,
44:29
Speaker 2: I'm just nodding.
44:30
Speaker 1: And for sure, the slog ends it at the end
44:32
Speaker 1: of book ten, right, book eleven, and then book eleven
44:35
Speaker 1: almost stands on its own. But then the Sanderson book
44:38
Speaker 1: certainly there's no slogginess to it, right, he's back to
44:41
Speaker 1: the traditional format. Yeah, like for sure, sure, sure, all right,
44:58
Speaker 1: So we're tangenting hard on this chapter because it's a
45:01
Speaker 1: short chapter and there's a lot of good concepts in here.
45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're in tier and Rand is like, could
45:11
Speaker 2: I maybe get ahead of rumor entirely? Yeah, he says,
45:15
Speaker 2: I seem to spend half my life tramping down one
45:17
Speaker 2: rumor or another. When will it end ambitious like that
45:19
Speaker 2: when you die? And maybe not even.
45:22
Speaker 1: Then, when you can stop rumor itself, I'll get off
45:26
Speaker 1: my horse and ride a goat hah. And become one
45:28
Speaker 1: of the c folk as well. Beshier laughed, and I
45:32
Speaker 1: love that line because I mean again, so much of
45:35
Speaker 1: this book is based on the sentence you know, rumor
45:38
Speaker 1: fades to myth, this idea that over time and distance,
45:42
Speaker 1: rumor changes. You hear Jordan talk about it in that
45:45
Speaker 1: after interview in the audiobook, right. That is one of
45:49
Speaker 1: the core concepts of why he started writing this book
45:51
Speaker 1: is there is that information changes over distance, time and
45:56
Speaker 1: physical distance, and so the idea of Rand trying to
46:00
Speaker 1: off that, like it really is just like Rand, you
46:03
Speaker 1: can't defeat the whole point of the book.
46:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you can defeat literal satan, but you
46:08
Speaker 2: can't stop rumor. Like, let's be real, really, you know,
46:14
Speaker 2: like people make rumors and your your whole purpose is
46:18
Speaker 2: to preserve people in their wholeness, and rumor is an
46:21
Speaker 2: inherent part of the human experience.
46:23
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite gender jokes in here is
46:26
Speaker 1: when all the women are like, oh, the men, the soldiers,
46:29
Speaker 1: they just gossip so bad, and the men are like
46:31
Speaker 1: the women they just talk like Hans, they gossip so bad,
46:33
Speaker 1: and it's like everybody, everybody's gossip.
46:36
Speaker 2: Everybody that that's just how people are because we're social
46:40
Speaker 2: creatures who like to talk like or we like to communicate.
46:43
Speaker 2: There's many ways to communicate, but it's just like that's
46:46
Speaker 2: who we are. That's inherent to who we are.
46:48
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the reasons why people really
46:50
Speaker 1: misinterpret like the gender dynamic, and we have time like, oh,
46:53
Speaker 1: it's all this men versus women's stuff, and it's like no,
46:55
Speaker 1: but if you look at them, they're saying the exact
46:57
Speaker 1: same things about each other. So it's really commentary on
47:00
Speaker 1: how everybody is actually alike and equal. They just don't
47:04
Speaker 1: think they are.
47:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, perception, we're all doing the same shit versus reality.
47:10
Speaker 4: Right again, it's it's rumor fades to myth, right, like
47:13
Speaker 4: your perception is a rumor to yourself about what reality
47:17
Speaker 4: actually is. Speaking of perception and reality, Rand thinks about
47:22
Speaker 4: how Ninieve and Kat Swayin can't possibly be working together
47:25
Speaker 4: because they can barely stand to be in the same
47:27
Speaker 4: room together, and it's like, sir, sir, you are you
47:31
Speaker 4: are mistaken. They are actually so concerned about you that
47:34
Speaker 4: they have started to become allies and are in fact
47:37
Speaker 4: working together. They don't like each other, but they're working together.
47:41
Speaker 1: This is classic having a character make an absolute statement
47:44
Speaker 1: and being wrong as hell, just the wrongest, the wrongest, right. God,
47:50
Speaker 1: I read this chapter. This reads so compared to the
47:52
Speaker 1: other chapters that we've read earlier in the books, this
47:55
Speaker 1: reads so much like a Jordan chapter to me, Like,
47:58
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I have no way of
48:01
Speaker 1: verifying which chapters, like if he had written a couple
48:04
Speaker 1: of these chapters before he died, especially in this first book, right,
48:08
Speaker 1: like how much of the notes was there, how much
48:10
Speaker 1: of it was written, you know, and we know nothing
48:12
Speaker 1: of Parent was written. But I got to imagine and
48:16
Speaker 1: I know some, but we know some scenes were written,
48:18
Speaker 1: and I got to imagine he was doing a fair
48:20
Speaker 1: amount of that with Rand. And so when I see
48:22
Speaker 1: a chapter like this that's really Rand heavy and is
48:26
Speaker 1: hitting those points that I feel like Sanderson has missed
48:28
Speaker 1: in some of the early ones, the proving the characters wrong,
48:32
Speaker 1: the real sort of overlapping layers of conversation like this
48:37
Speaker 1: just feels Jordan to me in a way that the
48:39
Speaker 1: rest of the book hasn't.
48:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I would say that it feels to me
48:43
Speaker 2: like he wrote a lot of the scenes in the chapter,
48:46
Speaker 2: but he didn't like the whole chapter, right, he wrote, yes,
48:49
Speaker 2: bits of it, and then Sanderson had to, you know,
48:51
Speaker 2: make fill in the gaps. And I genuinely feel like
48:55
Speaker 2: you can tell like paragraph to paragraph, because yeah, parts
48:57
Speaker 2: of it just feel like this is book four Jordan
49:00
Speaker 2: writing to me right now. And then there's parts that
49:02
Speaker 2: are like that was so cinematography fantastic that it had
49:08
Speaker 2: to have been Sanderson, right, Like I feel like this
49:11
Speaker 2: is a chapter where you can see the pen getting
49:14
Speaker 2: passed back and forth. But yeah, I agree, especially in
49:17
Speaker 2: this first book, especially with Rand, there's a lot of
49:21
Speaker 2: just straight up copy and paste from Jordan where he
49:23
Speaker 2: was like, I have halfway sketched this entire interaction. You
49:27
Speaker 2: just have to fill in the other little bits whatever
49:30
Speaker 2: details details, And then yeah, you get to the parent
49:33
Speaker 2: stuff and you're like, I can tell that there's no
49:35
Speaker 2: Jordan here, and it helps you calibrate for picking out
49:39
Speaker 2: the Sanderson because you're like, well, if it sounds like
49:41
Speaker 2: the parent stuff.
49:42
Speaker 1: Then yeah, it's just a thing. Yeah. I just think
49:48
Speaker 1: like we we were told that there was no parent
49:50
Speaker 1: you know, written by Jordan essentially, right, you didn't even
49:53
Speaker 1: have a really a place to go with him, and
49:55
Speaker 1: so we can get any well a few exceptions, pretty
49:58
Speaker 1: much any parent scene is going to be pure Sanderson.
50:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that the mall and ear thing
50:04
Speaker 2: was was wildly set up by Jordan, you know, that
50:06
Speaker 2: was Jordan might not have left notes on it aside
50:09
Speaker 2: from the books, but books very clearly set us up
50:13
Speaker 2: to have him get a magic hammer. That was that
50:16
Speaker 2: was coloring.
50:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's right, there's some broad strokes with paren
50:20
Speaker 1: that like Jordan knew something of what he probably knew
50:24
Speaker 1: he was going to be involved until Ronriod in the
50:26
Speaker 1: last battle, right like.
50:27
Speaker 2: Right Slayer hadn't been resolved. Clearly that was going to
50:31
Speaker 2: be a parent thing. What is relevant is Basher challenging
50:36
Speaker 2: Rand with an eyebrow and not being intimidated by Rand.
50:41
Speaker 2: Like we're really running out of people that can make
50:44
Speaker 2: Rand stop and think at all, and Basher can still
50:46
Speaker 2: do it with an eyebrow. So we love Bashers.
50:50
Speaker 1: Rules well, and there's a certain amount of giving Fayel
50:53
Speaker 1: her you know credit as well, right as the daughter
50:56
Speaker 1: of Basher, and the fact that she kind of had
50:59
Speaker 1: to deal with him and like this those are this
51:01
Speaker 1: like a little bit of like his ability makes Fayeel
51:04
Speaker 1: more badass.
51:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, every time he does something cool and badass.
51:11
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, so the man that Fayla admires most
51:14
Speaker 2: in the world is completely awesome. That's good. That's good.
51:17
Speaker 2: She's modeling herself after a total badass. She just needs
51:20
Speaker 2: to mature, that's all.
51:22
Speaker 1: And who trained her and you know, yeah yeah, And
51:25
Speaker 1: I also like how you've got both parent and Rand
51:27
Speaker 1: with you know, Basher advisors right telling them how to
51:31
Speaker 1: do things.
51:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the Basher family really helped a lot. And yeah,
51:39
Speaker 2: Rand basically is like, what do you want me to do?
51:41
Speaker 2: We just have to go to war with the enemy
51:43
Speaker 2: at our backs. Bashir has to say, yeah, I guess
51:47
Speaker 2: that's what we're doing. That's like the worst possible way
51:52
Speaker 2: to go to war with Satan, but sure, I guess
51:55
Speaker 2: that's what we're doing. And yeah, it's like I don't
51:58
Speaker 2: know how you're supposed to resolve that. But also like,
52:00
Speaker 2: damn it, sean shan can you not suck so much?
52:03
Speaker 2: You know, because this is all this is really about
52:06
Speaker 2: the shan Chan, Like the civil war is not going
52:09
Speaker 2: to hamper Rand's ability to fight the last battle aside
52:12
Speaker 2: from you know, consuming soldiers within that country. But sean
52:16
Speaker 2: Chan wasting its energy on gobbling up sovereign nations instead
52:21
Speaker 2: of joining Rand on the front lines of the last battle.
52:23
Speaker 2: That is a problem. It's like, sean Chan, you suck.
52:27
Speaker 1: Why do you think they don't do that? Why do
52:29
Speaker 1: you think they're not gobbling up nations while everyone's at Marillor.
52:32
Speaker 2: Because they want the last battle to get won by
52:35
Speaker 2: the good guys. They're not Sharan's pointed at literally helping
52:41
Speaker 2: the dark side win. They want the light to win too.
52:45
Speaker 2: They just have a very different idea about what that means.
52:48
Speaker 2: Their intention is to be part of the last battle.
52:50
Speaker 2: Their intention is to carve out their empire in the aftermath,
52:55
Speaker 2: not during, right, Okay, that's my take. Anyway, I was.
52:59
Speaker 1: Gonna say, I think it's partially it just happened much faster.
53:02
Speaker 1: I think they were thinking this was going to be
53:04
Speaker 1: a much much longer battle sort of battle, you know,
53:06
Speaker 1: because he's thinking war of power level, which, how long
53:09
Speaker 1: did the War of power last? Twenty years? Something obscene
53:12
Speaker 1: like that.
53:12
Speaker 2: One hundred No, no, it's one hundred. It's ten years.
53:17
Speaker 2: It's one hundred years between the drilling of the Boar
53:19
Speaker 2: and the start of the war and then it's ten
53:21
Speaker 2: years for the war, that's.
53:22
Speaker 1: Right, So he's probably thinking something along those lines of
53:26
Speaker 1: a multi year fight of survival.
53:29
Speaker 2: Sure, which it takes like a good six months for
53:33
Speaker 2: like the Camelin plot to go down, right, Like, it's
53:36
Speaker 2: a long time.
53:37
Speaker 1: And without gateways it also you know, you don't you
53:41
Speaker 1: have a lot of traveling time where armies are marching
53:44
Speaker 1: around each other. Right, there's the gateways definitely changed the
53:47
Speaker 1: nature of this battle to the point Matt can bring
53:49
Speaker 1: everyone to the field of Mary Lora and say final
53:50
Speaker 1: showdown right here. And I don't think that could have
53:53
Speaker 1: ever happened without gateways, right.
53:55
Speaker 2: Well, in fairness though, those did exist during the War
53:57
Speaker 2: of Power, so damn you ever one and the War
54:00
Speaker 2: of Power had they probably had Turan Grial that made
54:03
Speaker 2: gateways for non channelers, right because it was the age
54:07
Speaker 2: of utopia, so called utopia. I don't know, I don't know.
54:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a really good way to throw a
54:15
Speaker 1: hole in my point.
54:16
Speaker 2: Thank you, you're welcome. That's why you pay me the.
54:21
Speaker 1: Big buck, that is that is yeah. Yea, dear Seth,
54:25
Speaker 1: you are delusional. Please stop talking, Okay, thanks someone he
54:30
Speaker 1: had to say it. Yeah, and then there's some hipocrisy
54:35
Speaker 1: here where he's like I have little patients for men
54:37
Speaker 1: who abandon their duties and little stairs like, ah, you
54:40
Speaker 1: just did that.
54:41
Speaker 2: I know. Like he's mad at the Borderlanders for going
54:45
Speaker 2: on a mysterious mission, but he's expecting Toeralda to just
54:49
Speaker 2: figure it out that he's abandoned his he's just breaking
54:52
Speaker 2: his promise to e Teralda and he's not. He he
54:57
Speaker 2: he's so honorable that he goes out the front door
55:00
Speaker 2: show the people of the city, but he doesn't send
55:02
Speaker 2: a messenger to Eceeralda to let him know. He's just like,
55:04
Speaker 2: now he'll figure it out and then he'll probably abandon
55:06
Speaker 2: his post and come back. And it's fine. I don't
55:10
Speaker 2: even need to text him. It's cool. I just like, man, rand,
55:14
Speaker 2: you are not keeping allies very well right now, you know?
55:19
Speaker 1: And I mean, oh, man, if you I mean and
55:20
Speaker 1: if you look at Adalda's like what happens to him? Right?
55:24
Speaker 1: He essentially starts fighting the last battle with no support.
55:28
Speaker 2: No communication out.
55:29
Speaker 1: They end up stuck in a city basically, and he
55:32
Speaker 1: ends up defending that city and cannibalizing that city. To
55:36
Speaker 1: take down as many of the bad guys, and just
55:38
Speaker 1: before he's defeated, random Masher come rolling in and save him. Yeah. Like,
55:43
Speaker 1: it's really grueling, bad, grueling, grueling campaign where he should
55:48
Speaker 1: have been dead multiple times. If he wasn't a Galda,
55:51
Speaker 1: he would have been right.
55:52
Speaker 2: It's like the Last Stand of Manetharin levels of epic.
55:55
Speaker 2: Like they shouldn't have lasted for an hour, but they
55:58
Speaker 2: lasted for nine days. Quite literally, it's and they don't
56:02
Speaker 2: even know if a message got out about their situation.
56:07
Speaker 2: The whole time they're fighting. They don't even know if
56:10
Speaker 2: anyone south of them is aware of what's happening. It's ridiculous.
56:13
Speaker 2: And yeah, Rand couldn't even be bothered to send a
56:15
Speaker 2: messenger to tell him that he couldn't fulfill his end
56:20
Speaker 2: of the bargain. He just he just leaves.
56:22
Speaker 1: He just leaves no message, and then he's stuck being
56:25
Speaker 1: compelled in the lost battle.
56:27
Speaker 2: But he's the only one who realizes what's happening and
56:30
Speaker 2: manages to freeze himself long enough to not do damage
56:34
Speaker 2: or to do less damage than the others.
56:36
Speaker 1: He lets a Lias take him down.
56:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's literally able to freeze and not give a
56:42
Speaker 2: command that would ruin everything, and then is happy when
56:45
Speaker 2: a wolf man and a pack of wolves show up
56:48
Speaker 2: and like take him out of the fight. He's like,
56:49
Speaker 2: oh good, I can I can be assured that I
56:52
Speaker 2: will not give the order to change the or the
56:55
Speaker 2: fate of the battle.
56:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
56:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's really cool. I like him all right. So
57:01
Speaker 2: we are looking at the Stone of Tier and thinking
57:05
Speaker 2: about how Sean Shan with rock and can probably take
57:09
Speaker 2: it down.
57:10
Speaker 1: Well, not so much rockin as the Maani.
57:12
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I guess the Demani are the more important part, right.
57:15
Speaker 1: Like the walls only work until someone can throw you know,
57:19
Speaker 1: use earth to take them down or fire or and
57:23
Speaker 1: now gateways right because as we know from the last chapter,
57:26
Speaker 1: they have gateways. Right, So the Stone of Tier is
57:29
Speaker 1: you know, no longer a good fortress against anyone who
57:32
Speaker 1: can channel. It is a good fortress against anyone who
57:34
Speaker 1: cannot channel. Though still right, it's not nothing because there's
57:37
Speaker 1: still only so many forces with channelers on their sides.
57:40
Speaker 1: A lot, but still only so many.
57:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess it is actually good to contrast
57:45
Speaker 2: the Stone of Tiers defenses against the White Tower, which
57:48
Speaker 2: we just saw getting you know, completely ravaged by Sean Shannon. Yeah,
57:53
Speaker 2: it's like, is the Tower that much less sturdy than
57:58
Speaker 2: the Stone of Tier. Probably not. The Stone of Tear
58:00
Speaker 2: is built to look more sturdy, but like against fireballs
58:05
Speaker 2: from the air, it's probably about as vulnerable.
58:08
Speaker 1: And if anything right, the White Tower can fire back.
58:12
Speaker 1: What's the stones you're gonna do? Shoot some arrows at
58:15
Speaker 1: people who are flying on rockins. They can't even hit
58:17
Speaker 1: because they're too far away, right, like Demani on rockins.
58:22
Speaker 1: I mean that's air firepower, that's air superiority. They and
58:26
Speaker 1: we know from real world battles that once you have
58:28
Speaker 1: air superiority, there's just not a lot the other team
58:32
Speaker 1: can do to fight back. Look at the drones in Russia,
58:35
Speaker 1: look at you know, it's once you really have the
58:38
Speaker 1: ability to control the airspace. It's really because shooting up
58:43
Speaker 1: into the air at something in three D is really hard, really.
58:48
Speaker 2: Hard, super hard, super hard.
58:50
Speaker 1: Because you're you can't really figure out how far away
58:53
Speaker 1: something is, just visually like that because if you don't
58:55
Speaker 1: know how big it is, right, so, and then you
58:58
Speaker 1: have limited range, you're shooting in a bal arc. All
59:01
Speaker 1: of these things are are always going to be true
59:04
Speaker 1: when you're finding it back against air power.
59:06
Speaker 2: But the good part is is it will it will
59:08
Speaker 2: spur you to figure out a lot of cool stuff
59:10
Speaker 2: about physics and engineering.
59:12
Speaker 1: That's true.
59:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you will be stimulated to discover so many
59:16
Speaker 2: cool principles and gizmos and ways of being clever with
59:20
Speaker 2: math if you have that problem to solve.
59:23
Speaker 1: M Yes, but we're a little far away from surface
59:26
Speaker 1: to air missiles at this point.
59:28
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about like tribute chets and uh,
59:31
Speaker 2: this giant javelin launchy things cannons. I mean, we're about
59:36
Speaker 2: to bring gunpowder into the picture, right right right, like
59:40
Speaker 2: and yeah, you can do a lot with just dropping
59:42
Speaker 2: weights and pulleys, so but really hard to do that
59:46
Speaker 2: at a flying lizard. Yeah, really hard to do that
59:49
Speaker 2: at a flying lizard. Those things are super mobile, do
59:52
Speaker 2: not work great with large, heavy ranged weapons.
59:57
Speaker 1: And the fact that you have someone on the back
59:59
Speaker 1: where you carry using person in that person is essentially
1:00:01
Speaker 1: their own art you know, military weapons facility, right Like
1:00:06
Speaker 1: they can throw fireballs, they can Yeah, we've seen what
1:00:09
Speaker 1: Demani can do.
1:00:10
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so yeah, the Stone of Tier is just
1:00:15
Speaker 2: as vulnerable as the White Tower, if not more so. Yet,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: really more so, truly.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: I would say more so because they can't They can't
1:00:22
Speaker 1: fight back in the same.
1:00:23
Speaker 2: Because they don't have channelers. Tyr has a moratorium un channeling, right, right,
1:00:28
Speaker 2: they don't let channelers be around, so there's no defense.
1:00:35
Speaker 2: It's as close to illegal as without being illegal as
1:00:37
Speaker 2: it can be.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: It was, it was illegal until Rand stop that, right.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's not quite as bad as Amadusia, but
1:00:44
Speaker 2: it's bad enough that they have no channeling defense force
1:00:47
Speaker 2: that could possibly help them.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Ors.
1:00:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, the White Tower at least had that, and it
1:00:51
Speaker 2: still was a hard.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: Battle despite having I believe still a huge collection of
1:00:57
Speaker 1: on grioll and tear on griol.
1:00:58
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, hasn't been clean out or raided or distributed
1:01:02
Speaker 2: or I mean really like either the good guys or
1:01:04
Speaker 2: the bad guys should have been working on the Great
1:01:06
Speaker 2: Holding by now. At this point in the story, everyone
1:01:09
Speaker 2: knows about it. You'd think that Rand and some people
1:01:11
Speaker 2: would be down there, like picking through it looking for
1:01:14
Speaker 2: stuff that seems promising, But nope, it's still just all
1:01:17
Speaker 2: catching dust in the dark.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: Kind of kind of the way Avianda and Elane did
1:01:21
Speaker 1: right with the stuff from uh Rudian exactly.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: Avianda and Elane, the practical women that they are, actually
1:01:28
Speaker 2: grabbed all that stuff and then started sorting through it
1:01:31
Speaker 2: once they had time. Everyone else is just like, I
1:01:33
Speaker 2: don't know, we'll come back to them in the fourth age,
1:01:35
Speaker 2: like now is the time, all right? So now we
1:01:51
Speaker 2: look at some nobility, Darling.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, all these are our you know, usual cast of
1:01:57
Speaker 1: characters from the Stone of Tiers, at least the big names.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: We've got Darlin, who used is now the king, right,
1:02:04
Speaker 1: And there's that whole thing about how you know he
1:02:06
Speaker 1: was hard to win over, so he's gonna stick with
1:02:08
Speaker 1: you because you know, I feel it's kind of true
1:02:11
Speaker 1: in all relationships like that. You don't basically, if someone's
1:02:15
Speaker 1: gonna cheat with you, they will cheat on you.
1:02:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: And Darlin is not that man. He had he to
1:02:24
Speaker 1: be campaigned and won over and maybe be told he
1:02:27
Speaker 1: was the only one and whined and dined, and you
1:02:29
Speaker 1: know someone else is gonna have to do all that
1:02:31
Speaker 1: work to win him over, right like. And Rand's like, no,
1:02:33
Speaker 1: he's good, He's on my side like no one else.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: I'm his one and only no one else is ever
1:02:38
Speaker 1: going to do the work. I did to to prove
1:02:40
Speaker 1: to him how great, and you know, and we're married,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: so he wouldn't chat on me anyway.
1:02:44
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that is that is very accurate. We've
1:02:50
Speaker 2: also got Doe Brain, who was the Kirigan and equivalent
1:02:53
Speaker 2: to Darlin.
1:02:54
Speaker 1: I do get them mixed up because they both are
1:02:56
Speaker 1: both d names.
1:02:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the same guy in two very similar countries,
1:03:02
Speaker 2: and both their names start with D, so like clearly,
1:03:05
Speaker 2: if you remember one, you're remembering both. You just have
1:03:07
Speaker 2: to remember like the fact that there's two, but they're
1:03:11
Speaker 2: the same person. And then we've also got whyram On
1:03:16
Speaker 2: and we have some very interesting thoughts about Whyralman from
1:03:21
Speaker 2: Lewis There?
1:03:23
Speaker 1: I like him Lewis there? In thought, Rand started, you
1:03:26
Speaker 1: don't like anyone. He's honest, Lewis Thearren replied, then laughed
1:03:31
Speaker 1: more than I am. For certain, a man doesn't choose
1:03:33
Speaker 1: to be an idiot, but he just choose to be loyal.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: We could do much worse than have this man as
1:03:41
Speaker 1: a follower dark friend.
1:03:44
Speaker 4: Alert right, he is not loyal, he is not honest.
1:03:49
Speaker 2: Louis there were you this bad of a judge of
1:03:51
Speaker 2: character in real life?
1:03:54
Speaker 1: Well? I think I think him liking him really is
1:03:56
Speaker 1: like he's an honest bad person, right, or maybe just
1:04:01
Speaker 1: honestly stupid. I think that's really gay. I wonder if
1:04:05
Speaker 1: where Aman even knows he's a dark friend Like. I
1:04:09
Speaker 1: wonder if he's really just so fucking dumb that he
1:04:11
Speaker 1: just like got caught up in the meeting and pledged
1:04:14
Speaker 1: to it by accident and then like does what he
1:04:16
Speaker 1: wants to do and he's just so dumb. It looks
1:04:19
Speaker 1: like he's working for the dark Side.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: No, we've already had that with Alia. We know what
1:04:24
Speaker 2: that looks like. I genuinely think that he's uses stupidity
1:04:29
Speaker 2: as a guy is for his dark friend ery. I
1:04:31
Speaker 2: think he's smarter than he lets on. I think loose there.
1:04:34
Speaker 2: It is just one hundred percent wrong about this guy.
1:04:38
Speaker 1: No, I think he's just dumb. I think he's just dumb.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: I think he's the dumb side of evil. He pledged
1:04:43
Speaker 1: to the dark Side because he's dumb. He's just taking
1:04:46
Speaker 1: shortcuts because he's lazy and he's dumb, and like he's
1:04:50
Speaker 1: absolutely from he's a spoiled brat, he was given everything,
1:04:54
Speaker 1: who wears fancy clothes into battle, someone who doesn't care
1:04:58
Speaker 1: about money, or the quality of or understand how anything works. Like,
1:05:03
Speaker 1: he's just dumb.
1:05:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, And he is paired up with Aniela,
1:05:10
Speaker 2: who's also a dark friend, and obviously they're paired up
1:05:12
Speaker 2: for dark friend reasons, but she also did not appear
1:05:15
Speaker 2: to be the chef the sharpest knife in the box.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: You know.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: I just watched The Glass Onion, the sequel. Deknives out
1:05:22
Speaker 1: and there's a scene in there where he goes, you know,
1:05:24
Speaker 1: he discovers the plot and he's like, it's so dumb,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and the character goes so dumb it's clever. He's like, no,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: it's just dumb. I'm on right, Like, oh, he's so dumb,
1:05:36
Speaker 1: it's clever. He's like no, he's just dumb. He's just stupid.
1:05:39
Speaker 1: He doesn't understand what he's doing. He just legitimately like
1:05:46
Speaker 1: he puts his life in danger all the time with
1:05:48
Speaker 1: these charges right there. I don't understand how he survived them.
1:05:53
Speaker 1: It's just I honestly really just think, God, I don't know.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: This never really made where Ama never made sense to
1:06:00
Speaker 1: me until I had the idea that he doesn't even
1:06:02
Speaker 1: realize he's a dark friend. He just got recruited, like
1:06:05
Speaker 1: he knows he's dark, right, but he's like, I don't know.
1:06:08
Speaker 1: It's like he really is just trying to lead the
1:06:11
Speaker 1: charge and he's such an idiot. The dark is like, yes,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: keep going forward. I don't know how you keep getting promoted,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: but go for it. Like he really is the definition
1:06:19
Speaker 1: of failing upwards.
1:06:21
Speaker 2: So kind of like Shiiam in terms of his motivation
1:06:25
Speaker 2: to go into the dark, but like way less competent
1:06:29
Speaker 2: at the career that is paired that that is paired
1:06:31
Speaker 2: with right right.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the Shariam levels of I'm just trying to
1:06:34
Speaker 1: get ahead.
1:06:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could buy that, and.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: He just never gets punished because he's his incompetence keeps
1:06:41
Speaker 1: getting you know, fucking up the dark the dragon reborn
1:06:43
Speaker 1: and the dark One's like perfect.
1:06:45
Speaker 2: Right, Like we'll give you a promotion into our you know,
1:06:49
Speaker 2: black Card club or whatever, and you just think it's
1:06:52
Speaker 2: a cool, fancy lounge, but actually you're swearing your soul
1:06:55
Speaker 2: to the.
1:06:56
Speaker 1: Dark where imm is the definition of with friends like these,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: who needs amies, right, Like he's the dark ones. Yes,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: take our incompetent people and put them at the front
1:07:06
Speaker 1: of your army. It kind of reminds me now working
1:07:11
Speaker 1: in corporate America, I see this all the time, where like,
1:07:14
Speaker 1: you know, you have different departments, and so sometimes someone
1:07:17
Speaker 1: will want to jump from one department to another, just
1:07:19
Speaker 1: you know, and and so you kind of go to
1:07:21
Speaker 1: their co workers and you're like, you know, how is
1:07:22
Speaker 1: he a good worker? What's the deal? What's going on?
1:07:25
Speaker 1: You know? And what I'm finding is the response I get.
1:07:29
Speaker 1: If they're a really good workers, He's okay, I don't know.
1:07:32
Speaker 1: If you want him, he should probably stay here. And
1:07:37
Speaker 1: if you hear about you know, and if they're terrible,
1:07:39
Speaker 1: they're like, oh man, he's great. You really I think?
1:07:43
Speaker 1: I think you yeah, exactly, He's really you know, he's
1:07:48
Speaker 1: so ambitious, he's really looking to learn more. I think,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a great lateral
1:07:53
Speaker 1: move for him. And you're like lateral hmm, And so
1:07:58
Speaker 1: I think, get where im On's that guy who everyone's
1:08:01
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of.
1:08:03
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. I feel like when I read this, I
1:08:06
Speaker 2: was expecting there to be a turns out. I was
1:08:08
Speaker 2: being clever and evil all along, and I just kept
1:08:11
Speaker 2: waiting for that to drop. And so I'm even though
1:08:14
Speaker 2: it never does, there's part of my brain that's still
1:08:17
Speaker 2: just like looking for it, Like, but surely there was
1:08:19
Speaker 2: something more interesting that came out of this revelation. And no,
1:08:25
Speaker 2: sometimes you really can just explain malice and stupidity by
1:08:30
Speaker 2: the same mechanism, and like, yeah, it's unsatisfying.
1:08:36
Speaker 1: Like I hate to bring him up, but I mean
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, Like the man is doing incalculable damage
1:08:41
Speaker 1: through stupidity, and he's not trying to be evil necessarily, right,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: but he's selfish. Yeah, well, yeah, we can debate that, right,
1:08:50
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do and all right, but one
1:08:53
Speaker 1: hundred percent think he's just a selfish, stupid man.
1:08:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's there's a level of clever us
1:09:00
Speaker 2: that is being attributed to too narrow of a point source.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: It's actually quite a large infrastructure that is doing the
1:09:09
Speaker 2: comprehensive thing. He is a stupid, selfish loud piece that
1:09:15
Speaker 2: is in the center of a bigger machine that's worth knowing.
1:09:19
Speaker 1: And that describes where I'm on perfectly. Yeah.
1:09:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just has less power in the machine. He's
1:09:25
Speaker 2: less central to it, right, right.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a fair amount of power. Is a big
1:09:29
Speaker 1: noble in this particular nation who's you know, very close
1:09:33
Speaker 1: to the dragon reborn.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's clearly lower ranked as a dark Fern than
1:09:36
Speaker 2: he is in his public facing life as.
1:09:40
Speaker 1: The beggar. Would make him down for sure, Yeah, yeah,
1:09:44
Speaker 1: no doubt, no doubt.
1:09:45
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of other people here at
1:09:48
Speaker 1: the end. The lady Caroline shows up, who's just like
1:09:51
Speaker 1: always looks like Moraine, which sets off the list, of course,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: which made me think, right, like, I love tyme being
1:09:58
Speaker 1: the trigger for Rand's transformation. Would rather have it been
1:10:01
Speaker 1: Moraine's return. I think it would have made more sense
1:10:04
Speaker 1: because it would have broken the list because he always
1:10:07
Speaker 1: starts the list off with Moraine. And I think if
1:10:11
Speaker 1: he tried to start the list and he's like, no,
1:10:13
Speaker 1: I can't start the list because Moraine's actually alive, and
1:10:16
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of it, then he can't like, oh.
1:10:19
Speaker 2: It's the thing where you can't learn, where you can't
1:10:21
Speaker 2: recite song lyrics because you can't remember the.
1:10:22
Speaker 1: First word exactly right.
1:10:23
Speaker 2: Scratch Moraine off and the whole list becomes inaccessible.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: The whole list falls apart. It's all hanging off with that,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: it's all hanging off his failure to kill land fear
1:10:32
Speaker 1: right to save Morain. Yeah, that was the first time
1:10:35
Speaker 1: he really failed.
1:10:36
Speaker 2: That would have been great. Yeah.
1:10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think her return should have been the
1:10:41
Speaker 1: trigger for his metamorphosis. Yeah, and I really feel like
1:10:45
Speaker 1: that would have made her return much more significant. It
1:10:47
Speaker 1: would have made Matt's role more significant. I think the
1:10:51
Speaker 1: only reason he didn't do it is timing. I think
1:10:53
Speaker 1: it would have been too hard because then you would
1:10:55
Speaker 1: have had to have veins of gold after Matt goes
1:10:57
Speaker 1: and rescues Moraine, which is written into the next book
1:11:00
Speaker 1: book and it's kind of a central part of it.
1:11:02
Speaker 1: So I just don't think he could make the timing work,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: and he had to pick something else other than Moraine's return.
1:11:08
Speaker 2: But yeah, Tam didn't need that for his character. He's
1:11:11
Speaker 2: been having character growth and progress and plot, and like,
1:11:14
Speaker 2: we didn't need that for Tam. It would have actually
1:11:17
Speaker 2: really done something for Morain in a way that it
1:11:20
Speaker 2: doesn't for Tam. But yeah, I agree.
1:11:23
Speaker 1: And why does Tam trigger it? Because Rand nearly kills
1:11:26
Speaker 1: him because Rand is out of control, Like that could
1:11:28
Speaker 1: have happened with anybody really, Yeah, but.
1:11:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, like Morain is the person, but the
1:11:33
Speaker 2: timing would never.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: And I appreciate the father the timing of the Father.
1:11:37
Speaker 1: I still would have loved to see a reunion with
1:11:39
Speaker 1: Tam and Tyim sorry Tam and Matt, Jesus Christ, sorry Brain,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: Tam and Rand. I would have loved to see that
1:11:48
Speaker 1: reunion between Tam and Rand. Still want that on the page.
1:11:51
Speaker 1: But like, and I still love Moraine's return, But I
1:11:54
Speaker 1: just I think it would have made so much more
1:11:57
Speaker 1: sense to have that happen. Like, I think, you move it,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: you make because Matt's already found out about the plot
1:12:02
Speaker 1: in the Tower, make this book about Matt rescuing Moraine,
1:12:06
Speaker 1: and then you have Veins of Gold in the next book.
1:12:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, Honestly, I thought it was a little soon to
1:12:11
Speaker 2: have vans of Gold in the first of the last three.
1:12:14
Speaker 2: I was like, really, we're going to go through the
1:12:15
Speaker 2: last two books with Rand having gone through the real
1:12:19
Speaker 2: last Battle. Like, one book to wrap up the last
1:12:22
Speaker 2: Battle makes sense, but two books to wrap up the
1:12:24
Speaker 2: last Battle seems excessive?
1:12:26
Speaker 1: It does? It does? Yeah, So I think a reordering
1:12:29
Speaker 1: actually would have worked better to have. I'm not so
1:12:31
Speaker 1: sure about the quality of this first book. I think
1:12:33
Speaker 1: maybe they really wanted to do some Rand development, so
1:12:37
Speaker 1: people got somewhere with rand. I think there was a value,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: like I understand from a marketing perspective why they did
1:12:42
Speaker 1: it the way they did it. But yeah, I would
1:12:44
Speaker 1: have really, really think that Moraine's return would be much
1:12:47
Speaker 1: more significant because it again the whole like, you will
1:12:50
Speaker 1: fail without her return, right, that would work so much
1:12:53
Speaker 1: better if her return had been veins.
1:12:55
Speaker 2: Of gold, because he would fail without vans of gold.
1:12:58
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, no, that would have been way more satisfying.
1:13:02
Speaker 2: But yeah, hindsight is very much twenty twenty when it
1:13:06
Speaker 2: comes to resolving these massive, complicated, built over time monstrosities
1:13:12
Speaker 2: of stories that we've invested our brains in.
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Oh and oh, and that's a good way to kill
1:13:17
Speaker 1: off Matt before the last battle. Well but no, then
1:13:20
Speaker 1: you don't have any Matt leading the last battle. That
1:13:22
Speaker 1: is a tough one because I did want to kill
1:13:23
Speaker 1: Matt off in the tower.
1:13:25
Speaker 2: No, have him very nearly die in the tower, because
1:13:28
Speaker 2: he has to lose half the light of the world,
1:13:29
Speaker 2: so he needs to have some time the light of
1:13:32
Speaker 2: the world being lost, and then he could die later
1:13:35
Speaker 2: in the last last last parts of the last battle. Yeah, yeah,
1:13:39
Speaker 2: if he had to go for a couple of months
1:13:41
Speaker 2: leading the battle with his eyepatch. Then that would have
1:13:44
Speaker 2: satisfied all the prophecies because that.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: Counts and right the whole giving up the half the
1:13:51
Speaker 1: light of the world to save the world again works
1:13:54
Speaker 1: better if Moraine comes back and gives Rand veins of gold, right,
1:13:59
Speaker 1: rather than come back and just like the thing she
1:14:01
Speaker 1: did in the tent.
1:14:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyone could have done that.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that wasn't a Morine.
1:14:07
Speaker 2: That's you know, honestly, I really would have liked that
1:14:10
Speaker 2: to have been Agwaine as Omerlin, to be like, yeah,
1:14:14
Speaker 2: as the institution of the Tower. Let me recite to
1:14:17
Speaker 2: you the deep, put together PhD thesis lore that all
1:14:22
Speaker 2: the Eyes to Die have done. As Omerlin, I am
1:14:24
Speaker 2: here to deliver the White Towers thesis. You know, the
1:14:27
Speaker 2: way that Varyin gave her a thesis. The White Tower
1:14:30
Speaker 2: delivers a thesis.
1:14:32
Speaker 1: And that would have given a GWayne much more supportive Rand,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: which like it feels like she doesn't support him enough.
1:14:37
Speaker 1: To me, Yeah, I would have loved to see more
1:14:39
Speaker 1: support for the dragon ry born and her childhood friend
1:14:41
Speaker 1: in this moment where he is supposed to be leading
1:14:43
Speaker 1: the last battle.
1:14:44
Speaker 2: We didn't need that from Moraine. We know Morain supports him.
1:14:46
Speaker 2: She doesn't need to prove that Agwayne's the one that
1:14:48
Speaker 2: needs to prove that exactly. It would have been just
1:14:51
Speaker 2: such an ombrelin thing to do, to be like I
1:14:53
Speaker 2: have the complete bird's eye view information of how this
1:14:57
Speaker 2: prophecy relates to this moment and how to negotiate like
1:15:01
Speaker 2: a gray because also then she could have had her
1:15:02
Speaker 2: gray moment. She could have really done the negotiation as
1:15:06
Speaker 2: the gray part of being HOMERLT. And we should probably
1:15:09
Speaker 2: finish this chapter instead of rewriting the books point by point.
1:15:14
Speaker 1: But that's the most fun part of these books because
1:15:17
Speaker 1: there's not that much I would want to change, right,
1:15:19
Speaker 1: There's just a couple of points that I think if
1:15:21
Speaker 1: your rearrange a few things could hit a lot better.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: You know, kill off a different character in the final moments,
1:15:28
Speaker 1: you know, make Logain instead of Andrawl. As much as
1:15:30
Speaker 1: I love the Androl Pavara thing, make a lot of
1:15:32
Speaker 1: that Logane instead to give his character because I don't
1:15:35
Speaker 1: feel like I don't like the logan that Sanderson writes
1:15:37
Speaker 1: it all. It doesn't feel like the logan that we
1:15:39
Speaker 1: know from the earlier books. To me, I feel like
1:15:41
Speaker 1: he misses Logane hard.
1:15:43
Speaker 2: I mean in that regard, I'm glad he went with
1:15:45
Speaker 2: Androl instead less time with a mangled Logane.
1:15:49
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, well, and I think what's crazy
1:15:52
Speaker 1: to me is Androl feels, at least in his mind,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: more like Logain, this sort of weary old man who's
1:15:58
Speaker 1: done a lot but still kind of kick in and
1:16:01
Speaker 1: has honor. Right, that to me feels like Logain. It
1:16:05
Speaker 1: just named Himandral.
1:16:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of change.
1:16:11
Speaker 1: There's a lot of change.
1:16:12
Speaker 2: There's lots of wish could be changed as far as
1:16:15
Speaker 2: what else is in this chapter at this time. Yeah,
1:16:20
Speaker 2: we've got annay Ella who's apparently paired up with wirem
1:16:23
Speaker 2: On now for dark friend reasons that don't seem to
1:16:26
Speaker 2: ever amount to anything. Alana is there, and Rand ignores
1:16:31
Speaker 2: her because she's a Lana, And I think that's everyone. Yeah,
1:16:38
Speaker 2: I think that's it. And then general collected high lords
1:16:41
Speaker 2: and ladies that don't get named. It's a large gathering
1:16:44
Speaker 2: of notables, right if you named people at the.
1:16:46
Speaker 1: Front, it feels like Sanderson went, you know, and everyone
1:16:49
Speaker 1: who's in tear right like he like everyone that, don't
1:16:53
Speaker 1: you know, there might be a few other people there
1:16:54
Speaker 1: that the name characters that I didn't come up with.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: I'm not really going to worry about like making sure
1:16:58
Speaker 1: I nail who's in tier. I'm just going to name
1:17:01
Speaker 1: a few people that we know are there. Alana being
1:17:05
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, I feel like he's trying to
1:17:06
Speaker 1: sprinkle her in in places so you remember that she's
1:17:09
Speaker 1: because she's gonna come into play in the last battle
1:17:11
Speaker 1: with the whole, like dying in the corner thing. So
1:17:13
Speaker 1: I feel like he's trying to like bring her back
1:17:15
Speaker 1: into some of these moments. So you're like, oh, wait,
1:17:17
Speaker 1: why does she disappear? What happens when she gets kidnapped?
1:17:20
Speaker 2: Right? She in order to vanish abruptly, she has to
1:17:23
Speaker 2: be present exactly.
1:17:26
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, So that's why I feel like we're
1:17:28
Speaker 1: getting Alana name drops.
1:17:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: And then Rand's just announcement that they're heading off the
1:17:35
Speaker 1: shale goual.
1:17:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, the hurry up and wait is almost over. Now
1:17:39
Speaker 2: we're going to move to a different location to hurry
1:17:41
Speaker 2: up and wait because it's really it's really happening now.
1:17:46
Speaker 1: And do you know what happens next to this group?
1:17:51
Speaker 2: I did not think to look that up. I'm guessing
1:17:54
Speaker 2: they start setting up the fields of Mary Laura. I'm
1:17:56
Speaker 2: guessing that they're the first army to show up and
1:17:58
Speaker 2: start like defining that as battle central.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: Well, they do rescue a Toalda at one point, okay, yeah,
1:18:05
Speaker 1: I mean the next time we see him, they go
1:18:07
Speaker 1: he heads off to Maradon.
1:18:09
Speaker 2: Oh that's the next time we see them.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, Towersan mid Night, chapter thirteen, he returns to tier Wow.
1:18:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:18:15
Speaker 1: Then Twers mid Night chapter thirty two, he leads his
1:18:18
Speaker 1: caval lee with Rand to rescue Maradon. He's horrified what Maradon?
1:18:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Maradon is opposed to Mara Lore because we
1:18:26
Speaker 2: just can't have anything nice and.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically he says, get ready for the last battle,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: and then he comes back and does his whole redemption
1:18:38
Speaker 1: arc in bendar Evan and then says, shit, we got
1:18:40
Speaker 1: a rescue at Eraldo.
1:18:42
Speaker 2: Okay, they are just really on ice, but we could
1:18:46
Speaker 2: go to battle any minute, guys, I see, yeah, exactly
1:18:48
Speaker 2: any minute now. For like literally a month, this poor
1:18:53
Speaker 2: army they're trying so hard to be ready.
1:18:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, it doesn't appear that they march anywhere. Even
1:18:58
Speaker 1: he says, we're marching. The show. Well, it appears that
1:19:00
Speaker 1: they stay in here until he calls them up and
1:19:02
Speaker 1: does a gateway to uh Maredon.
1:19:05
Speaker 2: They do a scenic side quest to do a little
1:19:07
Speaker 2: mini last battle at Maradon.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that is I mean, that's the borderlands, right,
1:19:13
Speaker 1: so that is where Eeralda is fighting, and it's totally
1:19:16
Speaker 1: empty from Borderlanders because they're all running after Rand. Right.
1:19:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just the local lord and his like local levies.
1:19:24
Speaker 1: Who's there's a dark friend in charge, I think or something.
1:19:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lord Torquemen and his wife are both dark friends,
1:19:31
Speaker 2: and yeah, there's a whole there's a whole thing. The
1:19:34
Speaker 2: guy has the head of the military there betrays his
1:19:40
Speaker 2: orders to bring Eyeralda in because he them getting slaughtered,
1:19:45
Speaker 2: but dark friends above him say keep the gates closed
1:19:48
Speaker 2: and all of that. Well, we'll get there. It's a
1:19:51
Speaker 2: very exciting sequence.
1:19:52
Speaker 1: But yeah, isn't it the opening of the next book.
1:19:56
Speaker 2: No, the attack happens on the watch tower in the
1:19:59
Speaker 2: opening of the next book, and then I think throughout
1:20:02
Speaker 2: the book we check in with the battle with I Giralda.
1:20:07
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's how it goes because in.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: A lot of ways. It feels like one of the
1:20:10
Speaker 1: first battles of the Last Battle, right because it's even
1:20:13
Speaker 1: before Land charges the Gap and everything like that. So yeah,
1:20:18
Speaker 1: all right, well that that was a fun one. Actually,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: that again, that felt very Jordanesque to me, the fact
1:20:25
Speaker 1: that we got let's see, one hour and forty three minutes.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: Jesus, we had few things to say.
1:20:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was That was a long recording for a
1:20:36
Speaker 1: few few pages. So yeah, that's that's how I know
1:20:39
Speaker 1: it feels Jordan to me.
1:20:41
Speaker 2: We tangented hard because Jordan truly did give us a
1:20:45
Speaker 2: skeleton key to understand the real world with when he
1:20:47
Speaker 2: wrote these books. And yeah, there's a lot of Jordan
1:20:49
Speaker 2: in this, so we tangented hard on all those connections.
1:20:54
Speaker 2: And yeah, did you want to do a readout or.
1:20:58
Speaker 1: Oh sure, Yeah, I guess it's not a very good readout.
1:21:01
Speaker 2: Well, the last line's kind of a banger.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true, that's true. You have done well.
1:21:08
Speaker 1: King Darlin Rand said, it's about time someone in tear
1:21:11
Speaker 1: learned to obey orders. I know your men are impatient,
1:21:14
Speaker 1: but they will have to wait a short time longer
1:21:17
Speaker 1: make rooms for me in the stone and see to
1:21:20
Speaker 1: quartering Basher's soldiers and the iel Darlin's confusion deepened. Very well,
1:21:26
Speaker 1: are we not needed an arrow? Demon? Then what aarrow
1:21:29
Speaker 1: demand needs? Nobody can give. Rand said, your forces will
1:21:33
Speaker 1: be coming with me, of course, my lord. And where
1:21:37
Speaker 1: will we be marching to shale ghoule done done to
1:21:42
Speaker 1: Shale goold.
1:21:46
Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's imposing. When you say to literal
1:21:50
Speaker 2: hell itself and then you close the chapter, it's a
1:21:53
Speaker 2: banger moment.
1:21:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it definitely is. We're going to straight to
1:21:55
Speaker 1: hell like in a handbasket. And there's something much of
1:22:00
Speaker 1: this book series who've been talking about the last battle
1:22:02
Speaker 1: is coming, the last battle is coming. And finally, like
1:22:06
Speaker 1: I think there's a little bit of Sanderson saying like
1:22:08
Speaker 1: we are going to the last battle. There is like
1:22:10
Speaker 1: this is the last book. We are We're not stalling,
1:22:13
Speaker 1: We're not doing politics anymore. We are marching to the
1:22:16
Speaker 1: last battle. The next place you see these troops they
1:22:18
Speaker 1: will be fighting trollis on the borderlands in the last battle.
1:22:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it won't be literally at Shale cool, but it'll
1:22:24
Speaker 2: be close enough for this level of cliffhanger to be true. Yeah. Yeah,
1:22:30
Speaker 2: We're accelerating towards the end of the book. Here, we
1:22:33
Speaker 2: really are, we really are.
1:22:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's chapter forty? We got ten chapters left or so,
1:22:38
Speaker 1: so that's we're certainly in the last fifth of this book.
1:23:24
Speaker 2: Well, do we want to talk about the news before
1:23:31
Speaker 2: we go?
1:23:32
Speaker 1: Which news? Oh? The show? Yeah?
1:23:37
Speaker 2: Have an initial reaction to that.
1:23:40
Speaker 1: I'm not totally shocked. I'm disappointed. I'm not mad. I'm
1:23:47
Speaker 1: just disappointed.
1:23:51
Speaker 2: I'm surprised, given how much better it was this season.
1:23:55
Speaker 2: I thought, with that sort of an upward quality trajectory,
1:23:58
Speaker 2: that like we were past the of worrying if it
1:24:01
Speaker 2: was going to get greenlit. But I don't really pay
1:24:03
Speaker 2: much attention to these things. I'm a very casual observer
1:24:05
Speaker 2: of the industry, So like, I was surprised, but I
1:24:07
Speaker 2: also have not deeply invested myself in having an informed opinion,
1:24:11
Speaker 2: so like, the surprise can only go so deep. But
1:24:14
Speaker 2: I am surprised.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: I mean, am I surprised that the there's a disconnect
1:24:18
Speaker 1: between the equality of the show and whether or not
1:24:20
Speaker 1: it gets re up for another season. No, absolutely not.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Some of the best shows I've ever seen are canceled
1:24:27
Speaker 1: right like it's yeah, yeah, it's budget and viewership. And
1:24:32
Speaker 1: I don't think Wheel of Time ever got popular the
1:24:34
Speaker 1: way they wanted it to, certainly not the way I
1:24:37
Speaker 1: wanted it to. Right, it wasn't. I couldn't find anyone
1:24:42
Speaker 1: at work to talk about Wheel of Time the TV
1:24:44
Speaker 1: show who hadn't already read the books, and they didn't
1:24:48
Speaker 1: want to talk about it because they didn't like it.
1:24:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I there's so much to nitpick about what they
1:24:55
Speaker 2: did wrong. But also no show gets to exist now
1:25:01
Speaker 2: because being counters who don't understand art are the ones
1:25:04
Speaker 2: in charge. So like we can dissect why this show
1:25:09
Speaker 2: didn't do well, But also is any show being allowed
1:25:13
Speaker 2: to do well? Is any show being allowed to have
1:25:16
Speaker 2: the natural ups and downs that any creative project, because
1:25:20
Speaker 2: the thing is they want line to go up always, perpetually.
1:25:23
Speaker 2: They want profit forever in a very cancerous way that
1:25:26
Speaker 2: is destroying the planet. And like, if you make your
1:25:30
Speaker 2: artistic decisions based on line go up, this is the
1:25:33
Speaker 2: inevitable result. So like it's it's I just don't think
1:25:38
Speaker 2: we're ever getting a show that gets finished again until
1:25:40
Speaker 2: something fundamental about the model gets changed. Like it's I,
1:25:45
Speaker 2: as much as I'm angry about how the show was
1:25:47
Speaker 2: handled and and why it's canceled. I'm also like, I
1:25:50
Speaker 2: don't know if there was any combination of factors that
1:25:53
Speaker 2: was going to change this outcome, because it's about line
1:25:56
Speaker 2: go up.
1:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the only thing is again a breakaway,
1:26:01
Speaker 1: massive success on the level of Stranger Things Game of Thrones.
1:26:05
Speaker 2: And I don't know if we're going to get those
1:26:07
Speaker 2: at this point.
1:26:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't think I think the industry is
1:26:09
Speaker 1: too fragmented among different streaming services to ever really bring
1:26:14
Speaker 1: back that level of success.
1:26:16
Speaker 2: Like, and it's too reactive, yeah.
1:26:18
Speaker 1: And it's too reactive and yeah, and these books at
1:26:23
Speaker 1: their core are not for everybody, right, They are a
1:26:27
Speaker 1: niche in a way that like, I love them, but
1:26:31
Speaker 1: I definitely don't recommend them to everybody to read.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: And I just think that the idea that you can
1:26:36
Speaker 2: just make the next Game of Thrones or just make
1:26:38
Speaker 2: the next Stranger Things is like, if you are making
1:26:42
Speaker 2: quarterly decisions chasing that high, you are going to shit
1:26:46
Speaker 2: on everything and cheapen everything and fuck over every career
1:26:49
Speaker 2: and every hope and dream of every fan. I just
1:26:52
Speaker 2: don't see how this approach is ever going to let
1:26:55
Speaker 2: us have nice things like we have to fundamentally change
1:26:58
Speaker 2: stuff and then we can get in. So whether or
1:27:00
Speaker 2: not the show is good, but like, I don't think
1:27:02
Speaker 2: the best show is going to get through unless someone
1:27:04
Speaker 2: just doesn't care about like bean counters looking at quarterly
1:27:08
Speaker 2: reports and going, well, the line didn't go up at
1:27:10
Speaker 2: the same rate as last quarter. We have to pull
1:27:12
Speaker 2: the plug, like, we can't do that, We can't. I
1:27:16
Speaker 2: think that's why Stranger Things can exist because Netflix is like,
1:27:18
Speaker 2: we just want it. We just Netflix wants it, and
1:27:22
Speaker 2: that's the end of the discussion.
1:27:23
Speaker 1: So I think also they look at their viewership numbers
1:27:26
Speaker 1: every time a season comes out and go oh, okay,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: like none of people have talked about it, is like, oh,
1:27:30
Speaker 1: I cancel Netflix, but I still want to watch Stranger
1:27:32
Speaker 1: Things every when it comes out. You know, Like there's
1:27:35
Speaker 1: a certain level of like if you have that one
1:27:37
Speaker 1: anchor show that can anchor your entire viewership or at
1:27:41
Speaker 1: least a huge segment of it.
1:27:42
Speaker 2: And I think part of what having an anchor show
1:27:44
Speaker 2: means is not jerking it around every time that the
1:27:48
Speaker 2: next quarter comes up and going, oh, I don't know
1:27:50
Speaker 2: if we're gonna know. You have to commit to the
1:27:52
Speaker 2: bit totally then you will give the artistic directors and
1:27:55
Speaker 2: all of that the space they need to do the thing.
1:27:58
Speaker 1: And there was no doubt that, Like, if you look
1:28:00
Speaker 1: back at season one, the vast majority of the issues
1:28:04
Speaker 1: that we had with it really come back to studio decisions,
1:28:07
Speaker 1: everything from fridging parent's wife to the jerky cut cuttingness
1:28:12
Speaker 1: of it because they, you know, restricted the run time
1:28:15
Speaker 1: of the pilot down by like an hour to the
1:28:18
Speaker 1: number of episodes they put out, so that, oh my god,
1:28:22
Speaker 1: I fucking hated the a lot of maximum you know,
1:28:26
Speaker 1: plotline or whatever. Well, you know, it wouldn't have mattered.
1:28:28
Speaker 1: If we had another two, three for six episodes per season,
1:28:32
Speaker 1: then those filler episodes would be wonderful. Background story building
1:28:36
Speaker 1: would have loved them. But the problem is we didn't
1:28:39
Speaker 1: even get the story that was in the books, and
1:28:41
Speaker 1: we're getting this other story. That's fine background information, but
1:28:46
Speaker 1: who get like there's so much other background shit that
1:28:49
Speaker 1: they just didn't explain or skipped over or you know,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: especially around the power, Like you know, spend all this
1:28:55
Speaker 1: time talking about the water bond, but spend almost no
1:28:57
Speaker 1: time talking about how the one power works. We still
1:29:00
Speaker 1: don't know whether men and women can see each other's weaves.
1:29:03
Speaker 2: After three seasons, it's yeah, I've all my complaints have
1:29:07
Speaker 2: always been from suits.
1:29:08
Speaker 1: It's still not clear if non channelers can see weaves.
1:29:11
Speaker 1: Like they didn't even get that really nailed down at
1:29:14
Speaker 1: any point, So you know, I have some sympathy for them,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: but like, at the same time, the show really failed
1:29:24
Speaker 1: to capitalize on some of the things that I thought
1:29:27
Speaker 1: were the most valuable about the Wheel of Time, everything
1:29:31
Speaker 1: from hard magic mechanics to layered political conversations.
1:29:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's really disappointing that we can't have nice things.
1:29:45
Speaker 2: But also I don't think we get nice things regardless
1:29:49
Speaker 2: of the IP at this point.
1:29:51
Speaker 1: So yeah, and let's not talk about the fucking commercials
1:29:54
Speaker 1: that they threw and decided to throw on Amazon Prime
1:29:56
Speaker 1: before the last season.
1:29:57
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I paid extra money to get rid
1:29:59
Speaker 2: of because I was about to do serious property damage
1:30:03
Speaker 2: the first time one of those things came on, I.
1:30:05
Speaker 1: Did the opposite of paying more to get rid of them.
1:30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm about ready to learn how to do that,
1:30:10
Speaker 2: because the only reason I had Prime, the only reason
1:30:14
Speaker 2: I was holding my nose and giving more money to
1:30:16
Speaker 2: that fucking guy, was for a wheel of Time. Like,
1:30:20
Speaker 2: I've been on an Amazon boycott for years with a
1:30:23
Speaker 2: couple of exceptions, and coming back to Prime for seasons
1:30:27
Speaker 2: of Wheel of Time was like that was my price,
1:30:30
Speaker 2: that was I'm not proud of it, but it's real.
1:30:33
Speaker 2: And and this is like I'm going to be forced
1:30:37
Speaker 2: to learn how to pirate things from you people because
1:30:39
Speaker 2: I am now pissed off enough to learn a new skill.
1:30:45
Speaker 2: I'm mad. I'm mad because I don't mind paying for
1:30:49
Speaker 2: access to things in principle, but like this is nope, nope,
1:30:54
Speaker 2: now I'm mad.
1:30:55
Speaker 1: Well, hey, you won't have to learn how to pirate
1:30:58
Speaker 1: season four. There is no season four.
1:31:03
Speaker 2: I I'm just that's the disappointing part. That's the really
1:31:07
Speaker 2: disappointing part. Is that just the lack of anticipation for
1:31:10
Speaker 2: how things are going to continue to go.
1:31:13
Speaker 1: And I think, I think, I bet even if they
1:31:15
Speaker 1: were informed that they only had three seasons, they could
1:31:17
Speaker 1: have told a very different then I would have I
1:31:19
Speaker 1: would have been so much more forgiving of all the
1:31:21
Speaker 1: cuts and all of the stuff. If it was like,
1:31:23
Speaker 1: we have three seasons to tell a fourteen book series.
1:31:26
Speaker 1: We have to write a different story. If we're going
1:31:28
Speaker 1: to do that in three seasons, right, like like oh okay, yeah, totally,
1:31:32
Speaker 1: Like I get that, like if that's all you got,
1:31:34
Speaker 1: but they didn't. They set it up to have many, many,
1:31:37
Speaker 1: many more seasons yeap eight specifically, but yeah, and they
1:31:41
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time of the first three seasons
1:31:44
Speaker 1: setting up the rest of the show, which never happened.
1:31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean in a world where you trust
1:31:50
Speaker 2: that the artistic vision that gets you there in the
1:31:53
Speaker 2: first place, where you trust it, that makes sense to
1:31:56
Speaker 2: spend three seasons establishing a world and then five seasons
1:31:59
Speaker 2: playing that makes sense. But if you're like, oh, no,
1:32:03
Speaker 2: it's going too slow, like things go in waves, things
1:32:08
Speaker 2: don't go in a linear your fucking pattern, But like, no,
1:32:13
Speaker 2: we have to just watch the beginnings of things and
1:32:17
Speaker 2: then watch people who don't even like shows at all
1:32:21
Speaker 2: take them away again because it makes more sense for
1:32:24
Speaker 2: their fucking money.
1:32:26
Speaker 1: Do you think it'll get picked up by another network?
1:32:28
Speaker 2: I hope. So I've really liked what Apple has been
1:32:32
Speaker 2: doing with like Silo, for example, has been awesome. That's
1:32:36
Speaker 2: a great adaptation, so you know it wouldn't. And I've
1:32:40
Speaker 2: liked other stuff I've seen from Apple, so I wouldn't
1:32:42
Speaker 2: mind if Apple decided to get into I think that
1:32:44
Speaker 2: would be cool. I mean, it might. I'm I'm personally
1:32:48
Speaker 2: not going to invest a lot of energy in trying
1:32:51
Speaker 2: to like save the show because I just think that
1:32:53
Speaker 2: the age of streaming means that we don't get nice things.
1:32:56
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna be sad and find another show that
1:32:58
Speaker 2: I know doesn't get finished to watch and just continue
1:33:04
Speaker 2: my sad little way distracting myself from all of the
1:33:06
Speaker 2: genocides and wars in the world. Famines.
1:33:09
Speaker 1: I'm watching another ninety show on repeat because I know
1:33:13
Speaker 1: it's got seven seasons and I know it ends.
1:33:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I recently picked up a new show that
1:33:19
Speaker 2: I went and read about it and learned it does
1:33:21
Speaker 2: get canceled. I'm just like, okay, so I know that
1:33:25
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be annoyed at the end. You know, I
1:33:28
Speaker 2: know what's coming, so it's you know, but I still
1:33:31
Speaker 2: want the content in between.
1:33:32
Speaker 1: And why is it, Like, why can't they figure out
1:33:34
Speaker 1: like they used to do, like oh my god, seven eight, nine,
1:33:37
Speaker 1: ten seasons and these shows would be obviously extended way
1:33:40
Speaker 1: beyond their life and be like, can they just give
1:33:42
Speaker 1: us like the right amount of episodes and like, sure,
1:33:44
Speaker 1: you can have two seasons. It's like no, no, no, no,
1:33:46
Speaker 1: hold on no wait like that like that, right, like,
1:33:52
Speaker 1: give us an appropriate Can we just have a five
1:33:55
Speaker 1: season show that's been told it's gonna have five seasons
1:33:58
Speaker 1: from beginning to end? Right, Like, Babylon five did a
1:34:02
Speaker 1: great job. Whether you like Babylon five or not, one
1:34:06
Speaker 1: of the things that did really well is it had
1:34:08
Speaker 1: five seasons. It planned for five seasons, it executed on
1:34:11
Speaker 1: those five seasons, and there's an incredibly coherent story in
1:34:14
Speaker 1: those five seasons of television, right, Like more of that, please?
1:34:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to know where you're gonna land, and
1:34:22
Speaker 2: you need to be given the space and time to
1:34:24
Speaker 2: get from the beginning to that landing. This this doesn't
1:34:28
Speaker 2: feel like rocket science. This feels like really fundamental to
1:34:32
Speaker 2: the concept of making art.
1:34:34
Speaker 1: But and I would get it if like, Okay, they
1:34:39
Speaker 1: gambled on five shows or you know, four shows, and
1:34:43
Speaker 1: only two of them got that space and two of
1:34:45
Speaker 1: them got canceled, right Like, But it's not that every
1:34:49
Speaker 1: single show gets canceled or or ends it after two
1:34:55
Speaker 1: or three seasons and figures out a way to come
1:34:57
Speaker 1: to a conclusion in that time.
1:34:59
Speaker 2: The people continue to get more money, they continue to
1:35:02
Speaker 2: be more wealthy, they continue to have a larger, more
1:35:06
Speaker 2: comprehensive share of the entire industry in which they work,
1:35:10
Speaker 2: and yet somehow they're becoming more incompetent at actually giving
1:35:13
Speaker 2: us finished complete projects, Like I don't fucking buy.
1:35:17
Speaker 1: That well, because it's becoming harder to work in the
1:35:20
Speaker 1: industry right, Like people are are really at this point
1:35:22
Speaker 1: where they're not getting residuals from the streaming services and
1:35:27
Speaker 1: so essentially, you know, they're just not making the money
1:35:29
Speaker 1: these two all the all the profits are going to
1:35:31
Speaker 1: the owners of the content rather than the actors. Shocking.
1:35:35
Speaker 1: Wherever I heard this before? Oh everywhere?
1:35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the owners are like bad at knowing what
1:35:41
Speaker 2: is good art?
1:35:42
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's it's it's hard
1:35:48
Speaker 1: to watch because I really the inshiitification of things.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: Yep, we deserve better everything.
1:35:54
Speaker 1: The Internet. The Internet's becoming worse, Our media is becoming worse.
1:35:58
Speaker 1: I feel like an old man, like I don't know
1:36:00
Speaker 1: at what point I became that guy who sits on
1:36:03
Speaker 1: the Internet's front lawn and says, the Internet used to
1:36:06
Speaker 1: be a better place until you messed it up. But
1:36:09
Speaker 1: I really I'm at that point where the Internet is
1:36:13
Speaker 1: controlled by a very few number of large companies and
1:36:17
Speaker 1: the portals on which we enter the net have become
1:36:21
Speaker 1: very very narrow and highly regulated.
1:36:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, very controlled, very curated, and not by us. Yeah,
1:36:29
Speaker 2: I definitely know that I have become a raving luedtite
1:36:33
Speaker 2: yelling at clouds with the introduction of everyone using AI
1:36:36
Speaker 2: for fucking everything. Like I was building up towards that transition,
1:36:40
Speaker 2: and then the AI thing has really been what has
1:36:43
Speaker 2: catalyzed me into my old man yelling at clouds era
1:36:46
Speaker 2: like it. I'm so angry at the look can you do?
1:36:51
Speaker 2: It's everywhere? I'm just like I would burn this place
1:36:55
Speaker 2: to the ground if AI wasn't already burning it to
1:36:57
Speaker 2: the ground, quite literally, Like.
1:36:59
Speaker 1: Because AI is a useful tool. It is a useful
1:37:02
Speaker 1: tool for doing things like feeding it information and having
1:37:04
Speaker 1: it restructure that information. Right, but you but garbage in
1:37:09
Speaker 1: garbage out right, Like you have to give it good information.
1:37:13
Speaker 1: If you ask it for information, it's going to tell
1:37:15
Speaker 1: you something with confidence that may or may not be correct.
1:37:19
Speaker 2: Yep, over and over and over again, and that tiny,
1:37:22
Speaker 2: infinitesimal nonsense amount of progress we've made in our climate
1:37:26
Speaker 2: change goals. We just burned it all up so that
1:37:28
Speaker 2: people could get AI pictures of their cat.
1:37:30
Speaker 1: Right, right, And it's soup. Yeah, it's super process or intensive.
1:37:34
Speaker 1: It's not an all good, a good way to use
1:37:37
Speaker 1: the computing power. Right. It's highly inefficient for what it does.
1:37:40
Speaker 1: And so if you're just replacing a normal query, they
1:37:43
Speaker 1: could be done efficiently in a way that a human
1:37:47
Speaker 1: looked at and said, oh, I can think of a
1:37:49
Speaker 1: very efficient way to do this that doesn't require that
1:37:51
Speaker 1: optimizes for lower power usage. Right, Like the Internet and
1:37:56
Speaker 1: Google have been optimized for such a long time, and
1:37:59
Speaker 1: now they're putting this AI stuff in there, and I
1:38:01
Speaker 1: know every time my googling, it's coming up with this
1:38:02
Speaker 1: AI message that's like burning tons of energy.
1:38:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you can try to remember to put minus
1:38:09
Speaker 2: AI in your search every single time, and that might work.
1:38:13
Speaker 2: Sometimes they might be respecting that key command if you
1:38:17
Speaker 2: remember to put it in most of the time. Like,
1:38:19
Speaker 2: it's just yeah, So I don't know, I'm so mad
1:38:24
Speaker 2: at so many things that it's like, yeah about the
1:38:27
Speaker 2: show being canceled, Yeah, I'm not really mad. I'm just
1:38:30
Speaker 2: disappointed really that is the most distinct way to sum up,
1:38:34
Speaker 2: like how it fits into my angst about the world
1:38:37
Speaker 2: at large.
1:38:38
Speaker 1: Yeah no, And it really comes back to this deregulation, right,
1:38:41
Speaker 1: you have a deregulation where bribes created politicians who no
1:38:46
Speaker 1: longer attempt to better the world for individuals, but attempt
1:38:51
Speaker 1: to better it for corporations. And that has then essentially
1:38:56
Speaker 1: echoed out into every part of our society as regulations
1:39:00
Speaker 1: have gone away, or we've had a lack of regulations
1:39:03
Speaker 1: with new technology and a lack of changing the Constitution.
1:39:06
Speaker 1: Like you know, how often we used to pass amendments
1:39:09
Speaker 1: and changes to the Constitution. Wasn't it like once every
1:39:12
Speaker 1: twenty years or something like that, or even more frequently
1:39:14
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the beginning, like the Constitution
1:39:17
Speaker 1: was a living document for most of American history, and
1:39:20
Speaker 1: in the freaking seventies, we you know, or you know,
1:39:23
Speaker 1: by the end of the seventies, Reagan of course, let's
1:39:26
Speaker 1: go back and play Reagan for everything. All of a sudden,
1:39:29
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, yeah, no, change the Constitution is this
1:39:32
Speaker 1: immaculate document that you know, the opinion of the founder,
1:39:36
Speaker 1: the opinion of the founders was we're supposed to change
1:39:38
Speaker 1: this bitch, it doesn't work. We don't know the future.
1:39:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, it's okay to own human beings, so.
1:39:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, you know, not the greatest opinions in the world.
1:39:48
Speaker 2: But yeah, Also, the idea it should be it should
1:39:50
Speaker 2: be malleable, right, is much older and more traditional.
1:39:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, a real fundamental part of the constitution. And so
1:39:57
Speaker 1: the fact that we are no longer updating it, the
1:40:00
Speaker 1: fact that Congress has really sort of given over any
1:40:03
Speaker 1: responsibility to the president, which is just like, do you
1:40:07
Speaker 1: not understand our country was founded on taking responsibility away
1:40:10
Speaker 1: from He was supposed to be almost powerless, Like our
1:40:13
Speaker 1: president was supposed to be the most powerless of powerless
1:40:15
Speaker 1: presidents because we didn't want a king.
1:40:18
Speaker 2: Right, it's a giant government. You need a keystone in
1:40:23
Speaker 2: the art, right, But you can also take away god
1:40:26
Speaker 2: powers from said keystone and just have him be a keystone.
1:40:29
Speaker 1: H Yeah, no, I you know, and it's the same thing.
1:40:34
Speaker 1: And this should even be.
1:40:35
Speaker 2: In Okay, So we're very much done talking about the show.
1:40:38
Speaker 2: We can turn recording off. Yeah that Yeah, I just
1:40:43
Speaker 2: wanted us to respond to the show being canceled as
1:40:45
Speaker 2: part of the recording. Thank you for listening. To the
1:40:50
Speaker 2: Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Please rate and review us
1:40:54
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1:41:01
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