Latest / WoT Spoilers / In Malden - Knife of Dreams chapter 28 - EP501

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In Malden - Knife of Dreams chapter 28 - EP501 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. So, yeah,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: twenty seven days have passed since we've recorded last, and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it feels more like twenty seven months have passed. So
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: many things have happened since we talked to you all last.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I think we need to do maybe an episode that's
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: this might be a lot of catch up for us.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: We have a lot to catch up on. July has
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: been a time.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I kind of want to Can we just go through
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: the topics that I think we want to talk about? Right?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So wat Con, Yes, we last left you with our
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: review of what Idol, which somehow was only this month,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and then yes, we moved off into Walkcon that that
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: was when it all spiraled out.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And the results of that, And then's sort of why
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: we didn't record last week.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Somebody got sick, Yeah, probably from Waltcon, but maybe from
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the other giant event that all the rest of my
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: family went to while I was at Wakon who knows.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And then I was sick. And then I just got
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: back from the desert where my brother just got married,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: which was such a trip, even though it didn't get
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in the way of recording. It feels like it's been
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a thousand years since I took off on that trip.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you since we talked, you've had two trips, a
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: CON and COVID.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's been a time and you've just been in the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: throes of wedding planning.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, no, time doesn't exist. It's it's it's a wake
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: up in the morning thinking about it, go to sleep
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: at night planning about it. It's stupid. We're having a
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: super easy wedding. But part of what we're doing is
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: when not paying people to do some of the things,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: so we're doing it's a lot of DII, which involves
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you know, more work than you estimate in the beginning.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Well, all I know is that I'm really glad that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I get to attend your wedding because it's going to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: be in not a deadly environment and that's going to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: be very pleasant. My brother, Tilly brother, I love him,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I love my new sister in law. They're great and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: they will never listen to this podcast, so I can
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: rant about their choice of location. They decided that they
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to get married in the Alvord Desert, which if
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you are not familiar, First of all, the word desert
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: should clue you in. But if this is in the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: southeast part of Oregon. This as far away from anything
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: as you can get, and it is effectively the same
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: environment as where Burning Man happens. Geologically speaking, it's the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: same environment. It's not literally the same desert, but it
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: is a plia full of extremely basic, extremely fine dust
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: with no trees, no rocks, no nothing. And we had
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to bring all of our own water and our own
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: restroom facilities. And they were like, this is a good
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: place to get married. It was amazing and beautiful and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: so physically demanding and difficult. So I'm really really excited
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to go to Seth's wedding, which is just up in
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the gorge, like a normal location where actual people go.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: It might not be indoors, but there is potable water,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: electricity and shade, also trees, grass, dirt.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Just anything at all.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, goats, goats.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Goats are great. I love goats. And also the smoke
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was awful. On the drive. We had to drive across
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the entirety of Oregon just through like the worst smoke.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: It was so bad. Yeah, it was. It was not
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: great between and like rolling out of COVID and right
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: into like smoke and close.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Desert lungs doing by the way, I'm.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Really glad that I generally have great respiratory health. I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: feel like I have buffer to burn on the abuse
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that I've been heaping upon my system this month.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you should explain why there's a desert in Oregon,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: even though it's like we live in one of the
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: rainiest places in the world. I mean, I guess that's
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: that's why if there's a desert, right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So here's the deal with Oregon is most
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of the people live on the west side, which is
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: where the rain is, and there are approximately seventeen people
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that live in the entire eastern half of the state.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And when you shouldn't use half, right, because.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more like a third. Or yes, it's so
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: we have you know, if you look at the entire
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: North America, there's like the wet side and the dry
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: side because of the Rockies, Oregon has its own equivalent
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: of the same thing, where we've got the Cascade Mountains
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: creating a rain shadow over most of the state by area,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and so we get all the rain on the front end,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: you know, where I live, get tons and tons of rain.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: It's very luscious. But then you go up and over
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the cascades, which are volcanic mountains, and it gets extremely
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: dry and it just becomes sagebrush and ranchland for the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: entire rest of the state. But if you go down
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to the southeast corner of the state, you get into
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a different geologic regime also, where the ground is no longer.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So most of Oregon is a pile of stuff that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: has been scraped off of the Pacific Plate as North
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: America does its subducting thing. But in the southeastern corner,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the crust is actually pulling apart rather than getting smashed together,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and it is rotating, and you've got the Great Basin,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: which is what you think of like Nevada, Utah, all
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that desert and rock and stuff. That geologic area actually
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: extends up into southeastern Oregon. We have the edge of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the Great Basin in our state, and it's basically chunks
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of the crust are breaking apart and rotating up. So
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you get really really cool exposures of all these layers,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and then you get these low places in between where
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: all the sediment fills in, and it's called the basin
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and Range, and it's huge, and lots of famous places
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: like Death Valley, Las Vegas, all kinds of fun geology
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: is created by that, and it's a real, real drive
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: for more reasons than just the rain shadow. But the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: rain shadow definitely doesn't hurt. And yet all of eastern
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Oregon is actually high desert. We have a very cool
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: museum called the High Desert Museum near Bend. That's just
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: it's very neat, and the whole state's very high up there.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It's like we were at like four thy five hundred feet.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I'm used to living at like two hundred feet. I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: live very close to the ocean, so I had to
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: go up into this caustic, attenuated environment. Like I don't
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: mind the altitude. But also when Brandon and I got home,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we then yesterday spent half the day cleaning all of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: our stuff from being dusty, and then the other half
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: of the day going out to the literal ocean to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: just get like blasted with wind, just be like I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: need oxygen and I need humidity. I need to clean
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the desert out of my pores. It was raining on
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the coast. It was like foggy and raining and quote
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: unquote miserable. It felt so good after being in that harsh,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: arid eastern environment.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: You know, my favorite thing about living where we do
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: is that you can go west and you hit this foggy,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: wet ocean. You can go up and you hit snow
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: almost all year round. You can go over the mountains
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and hit desert and dry. You can go north and
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: you hit you know, rainforest, not tropical, but it is
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: definitely rainforest. Separate rainforest. And you go south you hit California,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: which you know, don't. But other than that, like it's
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: all great, Like there's all sorts of cool places to
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: go from where we are. It's I really do love
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: our location. It feels like we live in a little
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: microcosm of all the best environment in the US.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, Oregon is amazing. It is. We have everything.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I meant to look up before we did
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: this recording. I meant to look up how far in
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: like European geography terms. The drive was. I did not
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: because I'm tired and I've been unpacking. But it's a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: really big state, right right, It's it's an complete day
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: process to drive across the state from the desert to
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the ocean.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: How many hours that one? You can tell me?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Eight?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Eight?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was an eight hour drive. I mean it
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: took us, you know, closer to twelve because of various
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: stops and starts and whatnot. It's more like a nine
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: hour drive on the way back because we were really tired,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: didn't stop as.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Often, so you're looking at like five hundred miles or so.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was is a long drive, but yeah,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I mean it was up and over a mountain range
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and then across just so much sage land, just so
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: much beautiful location. And the cool thing is the plaia,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Like there's nothing on it, so you can just drive
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: like as far and as fast as you want because
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: it's like a seventeen by fifteen mile area, like it's huge,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: so like you can just drive as fast as you
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: want straight into the darkness, like and people were doing that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: It was very mad Max. There was a lot of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: really unique opportunities afforded by the sheer lack of anything
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: at all out there. But and then a bunch of
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: people were like, we're gonna go to Bernie Man next year.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: This is great, And me and my mom and a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: few other reasonable people were just like, no.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: This is insane, absolutely not. No. Yeah, you clocked me
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: correct when you were like, there's no you have no
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: desire to go to Bernie Man. I was like, no,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: that's not an environment I won't ever want to spend
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: time in. I know myself and I know what I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: can stand, and that's definitely not it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Everything's so white, it's white and tan, and like we're
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: going long, we have food, we're going to do pictures,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and this just wall of dust suddenly comes hurtling at us,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and we spent the next thirty minutes all like basically dying,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: as like my tent got flipped upside down, like the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: food tent got knocked over like absolute like it's a
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it's an F zero tornado force winds basically just like
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: blowing through and we just had to kind of all
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: endure that because there's nowhere to hide, Like there were
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: people who had RVs, but like there's no like cliff
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to break the wind that there's no facilities to hide.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And it was just like and I was no banned
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: for most of the RVs because I had COVID obviously
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: it was it was a very difficult environment.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: H Yeah, I pledge shoe my wedding won't be that hard.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like I'm gonna have to meet like way
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: more people that I don't know and like schmoos in
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a different way. But at least the air will not
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: be actively trying to kill me. So that's going to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: be a win.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And there'll be a nice score of people, you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: so it's not like there's going to be all strangers.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: They'll be you know, probably a dozen people there you
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: are familiar with.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be great. But yeah,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that's what I've been doing. But before I was doing that,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I wasn't walkcon technically, if you can believe it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should talk about WALKCN because I was not
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: obviously a wedding planning vacation time and money did not
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: permit me to go, which you know much my regret
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: is high. I really wish I could have gone, but
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I just couldn't make them both happen financially. It just
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: didn't make sense. But tell me about it so I
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: can live vicariously.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Walkan was amazing. I never actually took any like journaling
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: notes about it because I'm a liar and a cheat,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: but it was fantastic. As per usual, it's just the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: greatest thing to get to be together in a space
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: with other wat freaks for you know, days at a time.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The hotel is so wonderfully arranged where the rooms are
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: far away from the socializing space so that way we
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: can be loud all the way into the night. I
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: did a much better job of hanging out with my
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: friends from online rather than just hanging out with new people.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I actually was able to deliberately make time to hang
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: out with my online friends. Also met a bunch of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: new people. I continue to have a great time meeting
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: new people, but I didn't do good job of taking selfies.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I took zero selfies. I'm gonna do better about that
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: next year. I swear. I am had my usual difficulties
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: with eating, which I have now realized is I need
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: hot sauce. I think, I think if I bring hot sauce,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: because the problem is I'm too overstimulated to have my
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: salivary response kick in.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Hmm. Interesting, So it's.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Really hard to eat if you can't salivate. Yeah, I'm
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: trying to eat like crackers and granola bars, and it's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: just like this is all sticky and dry, and I'm like,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: at the end of the event, it suddenly occurred to me,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: oh fuck, if I just had like a little bottle
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: of tabasco. I could have eaten that. Because hot sauce
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: trigger is a salvary response. It doesn't matter how over
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: stimulated you are, hot sauce will make you do that.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So next year I think I might actually be able
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to eat because I think I figured out the trick.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: But I didn't eat very much. It was a bummer.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: My trick is to just go with liquids. I just
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a Gatorade drinker all weekend, you know, and that
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: keeps me going. It's enough electrolytes and everything that I
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: don't enough fluids that I don't have to eat anything solid.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: I can just pretty much drink gatorade and make it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: That's my plan for the wedding. By the way, it's
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: caffeine and gatorade.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, yeah, it's all for cons. And I drank beer,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you know, because beer does have a food value to it,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: but it does limit how much beer you can drink
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: when it is also your food. It's like right, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it's an event where I don't want to
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: get sick, though I did actually make myself sick the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: night of the dance party, because I love the dance party.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: It's my favorite thing in the world. But it turns
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: out if you jump up and down a whole bunch
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: in a hot room very little food, which was your
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: first meal for the day, you will need to retreat
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and then go play trivia instead of dancing. But the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: fun thing was well, first of all, trivia was very fun.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I never do the trivia because I'm always busy dancing,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: so being forced to experience the fun that is trivia
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: was very cool. And then I won, of course, yeah,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and that was very cool because some of my teammates
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: were like very new to the Wheel of Time and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: did not know a lot of things, and so they
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: got to have the experience of just being on like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: my winning team, so that was very very fun.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: You were next wert the Wheel of Time, and then
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you started doing this podcast, which is a deep dive
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: study into it. So I mean at this point, like
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the trivia.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So no, it talk around. Riodd set it up and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: they made it well balanced between the show and the books,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and they kept it really to like the first three books,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: so like there was one whole round that was like
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: actor questions that I was very much helpful, but someone
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: else on the team had that one covered.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: It's always nice when you were well round it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that that was very fun. Yeah, there was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: well obviously. So we had the special guest of Guy
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Roberts Kane and he travels with his daughter, and they
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: were very very nice. I of course was too shy
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to actually introduce myself organically, but there was a photo
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: signing like event where I was able to get in
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: line and like get Guy to sign a cool picture
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of him as Uno, and like I got to talk
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to him for a bit and be like, I really
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: love your work and I love the way you inhabit
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the space, and I really liked the interview at Jordan
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Conn about how you like made yourself into Guidlekine, and like,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I did get to have that interaction with him, but
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I needed it to be facilitated. I never talked to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Michael and Kate just by telling you I would, because
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I just get too tongue tied whenever I'm within twenty
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: feet of them. So everyone else had a fantastic time
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with Michael and Kate because they are the most fantastic people.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Michael continues to absolutely shred the dance floor to smither veins.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Kate continues to drink everyone under the table.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I love them.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: They're just the absolute best, and I witnessed that at
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a distance but could not make myself actually go talk
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to them. And Maria Simmons obviously is always there and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: always fantastic, and she was on a mission this year
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to talk to every single person at the con. So
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: she had a sheet of like stars, like teacher stars,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and she was putting them on people's lanyards to like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: make sure that she talked to them. And I'm pretty
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: sure she managed to talk to everybody. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: she's just so sweet. I had a great time doing
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: my panels. I had two panels. One of them was
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: like a games panel where we were doing like puns
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and stuff and that was really fun. And then I
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: did my content creation panel, which was not super well attended,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: but I don't really care because it's my baby and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I just want it to be a thing. So but
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I hear that my other panels did well. Of course,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I was way too overstimulated to actually attend the other
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: panels that I organized, because you know, I'm the creative
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: track director, so there's four panels I can check in on,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: but I haven't even had the brain space to Walt
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: watch the recordings back yet, I'm sure they're great though.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I heard lots of good things, like we had an
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: AI panel that Michael and Kate specifically asked for. They said,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: can we please do like an AI discasion panel? And
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I made sure to check in with the other panelists
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: about how it went, and they all said it was great.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I still need to watch it myself, but I was
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: very proud of putting that together and having it be
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: so well received. The main stage programming was a fun
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: mix of you know, games and audience participation and then
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: what idol videos. We got to watch a lot of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: what Idle videos as part of the main stage programming.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Guy Roberts clearly just had a ton of fun doing
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: main stage programming and being silly and also interacting with people.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And then the cosplay this year was absolutely off the charts,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like everyone stepped up to some degree or other. But
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: this one woman whose name I didn't catch, she brought
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a baby, like a whole ass baby and did the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Schai eel Rand birth scene as her costplay. It was amazing,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Like I don't even I'm not even sure how old
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: this baby was, like four months, like sitting up and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: waving around, but not like ambulatory, very even tempered. Had
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: a great time at the con, but like when we
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: did the the costume parade, she literally like gave birth
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to the dragon reborn, like just like from the show.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: It was amazing, most fantastic. And then there were also
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: two Yeah, there was two different pregnancies at the Cohn
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: who were also incorporated into their costplays, like Delusions of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Grandolf freaking didn't the Elaine bath scene, Like.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Wait is delusions pregnant?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and use the pregnancy to do pregnant alone.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: This is why I didn't get to catch up with
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: anybody this year. I don't know anything that's going on.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I'm so sad that I didn't get a chance to
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: But it is just fantastic. Yeah. Oh and Thirsty the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Clown was there. Oh, ten hours into the first book,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: new reader does not know anything except what he's learned,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you know, doing the parodies, and ten hours of listening
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: to the books on the drive to Walt Con and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: like we're trying to like talk to him and then
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: we keep spoiling stuff and it was just it was
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: so funny. But yeah, getting to talk to Thirsty was
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: very fun. I got to tell him all about how
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: much you loved the Origin of Taint, so he was
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: very pleased about that. Gus ended up spending Gus and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Ryan ended up spending like two hours drunkenly telling me,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I have to read Malasan. I don't hate the audiobook narrator.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I have acquired the first audiobook, but July has been
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: very busy. But like I got very thoroughly pitched on Malasan.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I've tried so many times. I've listened to six of
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: the ten books, that's how, and I still cannot get
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: into it. You were like, just give it a chance.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like, sorry, I have I don't know what. It's
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: something with me, it's something with the books. I don't
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: know what it is. But like, oh, I don't care
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: about the characters at all.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't had the ability to get into it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: But it was a very fun evening of being drunkenly
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: pitched on this book repeating. And I guess we'd be like,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I'll stop. I'm like, no, you won't,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and then of course he would not. Of course sleeping
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: is difficult, but I tried. There was instead of so
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: last year there was this annoying, freaking little League swarm
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that like got in the hotel and made everything well.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: This year, the place was occupied by a bunch of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: older motorcycle ladies that they're called the motor Maids and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: they're like the oldest all women motorcycle gang group club
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't know. They were fantastic.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: There were all these older ladies, just tons of motorcycles
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: about the whole thing, and they all had their jackets
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: with their names on it, and all of their doors
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: in the hotel were like decorated, and so then some
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of the walk on people were like, we want the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: idea of door decoration. They were running around like decorating
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: all of our doors with like flames and fangs. The
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: motor Maids seemed to be mused, but amused by us,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and like they were very nice because like their convention
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: was ending and ours was starting, and like there was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: some very pleasant like interactions, like we are from very
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: different cultures, but like we can all vibe because you
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: are not annoying little baseball kids. You are motormaids, motor maids,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: special interest people. Yeah, exactly. And they're older, so they're
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: like cool instead of like entitled little ships.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: The audiences at these cons are getting older every time
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I go, about a year older every every year.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was fun. A lot of our favorite
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: staff people were there, you know, like the bar I
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: can't remember his face is very vivid, but yes, I can.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I remember his face from a year ago.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was there. And being a good sport
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: about all of us being our trunk and weird sells
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: just so many good conversations with people. There was There's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: a Cards Against Humanity version or game, but it's questioners
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: seeking dark friends, and there's a fandom pack within that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: where you and I are immortalized on some of the cards.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Because Koala is just bonkers and continues to just like
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: escalate her card games. The Cards of Time was continuing
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to go. She got to present a big ole like
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Cards of Time poster to Guy Roberts at the end,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and yeah, dates for next year have already been set.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Tickets are already at least they were on sale briefly.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I already got my ticket because they were like, we're
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: going to give you ten percent off if you order
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it like before the event ends. I'm like, okay, I'm
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: gonna order that and then figure out if I have
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: time later. Yeah, I did a really bad job of
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: taking pictures, but there's lots of good pictures out there
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in the wat Con server. Definitely. The photography and videography
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: was happening. Just a really great event, and it wasn't
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that much bigger than last year. You know, it's like
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the same size. It's not really escalating, So it's just
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of new people and a lot
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of people who couldn't make it for whatever reason last minute.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: So there was a really huge percentage of new people,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: but the size of the event was the same and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it was fantastic.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: That's my memory from Jordan Cohn is like Jordan Cohn
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: always there's a percentage of new people every year and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: a percentage of returning people. And you always think the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: percentage of returning people is going to be higher, but
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: like we all just have lives and some of us
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: can't get make it because we're getting married or whatever,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: you know. So I do remember Jordan conn always had
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: like around forty percent, Like maybe I don't even know
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: it was that high, but I remember being pretty high
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: forty percent, like new people every year.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and yet the vibe is still really good and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: people still have the same like magical interactions and like
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I made a new friend on Saturday night who ended
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: up being my ride to the airport the next day
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: because it was the only person who was there, and
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I was like, you want to share it uber? Then
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: he was like, well, I have a car. I'm like, well,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: will you be my uber then? Because we both have
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to go to the airport. But I have also decided
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I hate flying so much. It really just sucks, and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: particularly the part where I have to make connecting flights
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: just really sucks. So I'm like direct flight. I really
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: want to figure out a direct flight, but I'd have
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to go to like San Francisco or Seattle to make
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that happen.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: So I thought there were direct flights from Portland.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I've been told both without doing my
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: own research onto it. But I'm I'm seriously considering going
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to greater lengths to only have to take one flight
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: because connecting flights suck so bad.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Well, if we can find one in Portland, you come
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: up here and we fly out.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Together exactly exactly this is I can I can do
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: this and take the stupid train to stupid Portland and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: not have to make a stupid Laver and stupid Denver
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: because have I'm the Denver Airport can go fuck itself,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Like why do you have to be arranged that way? Denver?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Stop it? Stop being like that, Like seventy minute layover
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is not enough to learn that you have to take
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a train to a different terminal, Like, ugh, this is
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the one time I fly a year. I am not
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: a seasoned flying person. That's not what I do a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: one flight please, But it's still worth it though, Like
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that's the thing is like being with all those people
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: for those days and taking the extra days to like
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: arrive Thursday, leave Monday, Like it it makes for a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: really profoundly awesome social event.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I know it's a three day event,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: but I need more than a week off, right, like
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: just between the because it's three days, but then you
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: need to be there a day before and a day after,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: so that's five days. And then you gotta travel, so
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: that's seven days. And then you need a day of
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: recovery when you get back, so that's eight days. And
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: like it's really quick. It's amazing how much I'm like,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I will not do this unless I can recover from it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that is the only
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: way to make it like not a burnout inducing event
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: basically and like a crisis inducing events. But it's worth it. It's
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: worth it if you can possibly manage it. So yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: just don't get married every year, and you should be
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: able to make it happen.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I don't plan on getting married again. I really do
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: plan on making this a one time thing, you know,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: unless unless never you know, really actually get to know
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: me in that case.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the other bummers that I really want to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: go to Oregon country Fair, which I'm pretty sure is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: going to forever be on the same weekend, so I'm
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: going to have to pick which one I go to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: every year, which is sort of a bummer.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: You could try going to a Jordan Con one year
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and Orgon country Fair.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: That would be That's no, No, I think I'm just
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: gonna so. I've learned recently that the solar maximum that's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: currently happening is really physically tangible, and that makes the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: summer much hotter. So I'm not gonna bother going to
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Oregon country Fair until we hit solar minimum. This is
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: part of how I'm going to organize it. I'm gonna
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: probably wotcon the year of the solar minimum because it
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: will be the least miserable at Oregon Country Fair. I
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: am a nerd deal with it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I think other things will make a bigger difference.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: No, it's genuinely like people like this was a very
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: very hot year at fair. People throughout various events are
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: all talking about like, no, I'm getting sunburned faster. I'm
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: having a harder time with the heat. Like this is
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: something that like anecdotally everyone is like, oh no, no,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: like this summer is weirdly hot, and not just in
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a climate way, like the sun burns faster. And that's
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: why we got the Aurora, that really cool Aurora event
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a while back, because it's it's the solar maximum. Yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: so it's eleven year cycle. So in a couple of years,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like starting to look at which watcon
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna skip. And it makes me sad, but I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: gotta go to fair eventually. Sometime. It's like my other
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: weird people, So.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Why do all the weird people get together on the
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: same weekend?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I know, right, And like, really both my people have
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to pick the same weekend, and like, I'm sure that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: there is there is overlap between people who are into
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Wheel of Time and people who like, do you know
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Oregon Country fair stuff, But like these are not the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: same offense at all. It's a very very very different events.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: So one week was the con right, and then one
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: week was definitely recovering from the con because, like I said,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: it needs more than seven days, yes, to recover from.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So I remember coming back being like I just got back.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: There's I'm so burned out. And then the next week
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: you had COVID, which yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't that bad really, but like I was
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: just trying to extra baby it and not like, you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: give myself long COVID or whatever. So and plus I
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: knew I was going to the desert, so I was like,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: all right, I just got to take a week to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: like do my best to heal and then I can
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: go to the desert and hopefully not die. As you
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: can all hear in my voice, I am not completely
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: recovered from said one to two punch. But whatever I.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Was gonna say, how are you feeling now?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'm tired and there's definitely something going on in my respiration,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: but it's hard to say if it's like COVID or
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: if it's I was breathing air that had a really
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: fucked up pH for several days and I was, yeah,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it was. It was real basic, like the most basic.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: But like I said, I went to the coast yesterday
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: to like breathe in this wind blast of just like
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: rain and humidity, and it was glorious. So I'm feeling good,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: but definitely still recovering a little bit from just all
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of the everything.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Well, welcome back and welcome to a lot spoilers recording.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Do we want to actually, like, maybe, is that everything
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: that has happened in the last month that we want
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: to talk about? Is there anything else that we need
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to hit on before we dig into this book.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I had people at Waltcon, multiple people at Waltcon talking
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to me about podcast editing. Nice, it's happening. The part
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: where I just keep saying, I want to do podcast production.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I want to do editing. I want to make this
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: part of my thing. The universe is responding. People are
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: coming to me with questions and requests and not necessarily
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: job offers, but at least pitches. I also failed an
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: audition for a gig, which made me sad. Someone contacted me.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you submitted to a forum forever ago,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: so like, maybe work on this thing and here's a
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: little sample. Do your best. And I did my best
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and they wrote back and they were like, your best
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: is not good enough, moving we're going forward with someone else.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So that was sad. But I am still working on
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and feeling confident in my expansion of my podcast production life,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and that is fun. So keep bringing me your pitches people.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to keep working to find my people and
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: make that product happen. And it's exciting. It's nice that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: people are hearing me and responding, so keep it coming.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Eventually one of you is going to bring me the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: client that makes it all happen. I think that's all
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: that happened, unless we want to like talk about like
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the larger world. But as far as my personal life,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I believe that that's all that's happened.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I don't think anything important is happening in the larger world. Yes,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: it was balked, it's still pretty boring, right, I haven't
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: had anything significant happen.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just just for time stamp purposes. This is
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the interval in which Biden decided to step back, and
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Harris decided to step up.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And we had an assassination attempt on one of the candidates.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Oh that was a weird thing to catch on a
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: silent TV at the bar at wat Con. I was
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: just like having my walkkon experience. And then there's just
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: these like images on the TV behind the bar, and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: like we're all just like kind of collectively ignoring it,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and yet we can't help but discuss it, like you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: out in the smoker circle, like it ends up coming
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: up anyway. Like that was a weird thing to have
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: in the backdrop.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no I can't.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, the politics has moved really really fast
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to see nothing of the Olympics are happening. I was
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: watching some of Simone Biles' routines last night on YouTube
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and god damn, she is talented. Like the Olympics are happening.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, what I'm again? So things that used to
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: like I used to would never have missed when I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: was a kid, Now I don't even I'm not even
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: trying to watch the Olympics like I am. So let's
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: see other things. Yeah, I just it's it's it's not
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: something that's important in my life anymore because I just
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: have so much other things going on that I'm just like,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: you know what, I can't. I can't. I want to.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I used to care.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I really care about Simone Bile. I
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: really really likes It's like, oh, Simone Biles did an
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: amazing thing. I'm like, all right, well, this is the
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: cut together like five minutes. I don't have to watch
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the entire thing. It's just the highlights.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I think what's happened to me? Is I really end
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the point now where I rarely watch anything live. I
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: almost always watch it a summary of it cut together afterwards,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: and that just might be the Internet ruining me, right, Like.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not watching all of the Olympics. That's that's ridiculous.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I just want to watch Simone Biles absolutely nail it
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: because wow, like, just can you slow that down? My
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: brain cannot process how fast she just moved like she's amazing. Also,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg with his got to like do the Olympic
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: torch thing and they made it look like a blunt
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: because of course they did, and it's just the most
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: like U, I'm like, this is the absurdity that I
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: need to temper the fact that like Gaza is still
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: being turned into rubble at and terrifying right like this,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: this is the absurd fucking dichotomy of the world right
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: now that I can barely even pay attention to because
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I'm too busy wondering if I can survive the plaia
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and like celebrating my new sister in law, like it,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: just what has this month been, you guys? Like seriously,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: like so much has happened in this month alone? Anyway?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: About our Escapism podcast.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: This is the culmon. I mean, these three chapters are
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: the end of a four book arc that began when
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Fayla was kidnapped. This is not only and also, like
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: we've been putting off in a lot of ways, We've
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: really been edging these chapters for a long time, by
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: putting them off after episode five hundred, with this long
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: break and then just all the build up. It really
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is this slog. It's this slog in the podcast too.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: We're just really putting it off.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, we really did hurt people. Hurt people.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: This is how intergenerational trauma works.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: We're hurting you because Jordan hurt us exactly. But no,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm I was actually really excited to be
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: reading these chapters because it was like there was a
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: little bit of a finally, but these are actually just
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: really good chapters. Like I think our original plans to
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: do too. We'll see if we get to that, depending
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: on what our energy looks like, yeah, when we get
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: to the break, but yeah, I mean it's the battle
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: is fucking like when Paren rides out and then there's
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: just from the fog and all the our guide cis
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: why are like, oh, all right, let's kill these two
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: and then his entire army comes out of a fog
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: behind him. They're like like oh oh oh yeah, such
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: a good scene, such a good scene. So yeah, no, really,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: these are fun chapters.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons I think Knife of Dreams is
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: considered such a good chapter or such a good book
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: because we finally finished this fucking flow line.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is It takes a really long build up
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to get this level of satisfaction, right, Like if r
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: J hadn't taken so long to get us to this point,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: it might, I mean it would still hit really good.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: It's a really good battle, but like there is a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: slog's worth of satisfaction coming down behind the initiation of
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: this battle, right and the initiation of fail you know,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: actually escaping and actually getting betrayed by Galina because we
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: could all see she was going to get betrayed by
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Glena the whole time, Like we all knew that was coming.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So like to finally not be waiting for it to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: happen anymore is very very satisfying. But yeah, I don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: know if we're going to get through two, much less
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: three chapters. This is gonna be a minute. We're gonna
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: just like marinate in the glory of this wrapping up
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the way our j intended.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I predict this will take us two episodes. Sure, however,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: that balance is gonna be sure. Well, do you want
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to read us in?
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, this is a fay reading, isn't it? All?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: What is this chapter icon? Just looks like random hardware.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: It's a blacksmith's puzzle.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Oh it's a blacksmith. But I thought it looked like
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a really cool steampunk like buckle or something.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean makes sense. Yeah, random bendings of
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: wire that you have to pull apart and put back
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: together again.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is not a commonly used chapter.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Icon, No, not that often, but I do. It's one
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: of my favorites because it's parent one and it's when
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: it's he's pulling that puzzle apart.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, they have it chapter twenty eight in Malden,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: and our symbol is the Blacksmith's puzzle. Just before first light,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Fayil was fastening the wide belt of golden links around
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: her waist for the last time. When Darin entered the small,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: already crowded, peaked tent where they all slept. Outside, the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: sky would be starting to turn gray, but inside it
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: might have still been night. Fayle's eyes had adapted to
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the darkness, though the slender little woman with black hair
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that spilled to her waist in waves, was frowning around
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: her yawns. She had stood just below the high seat
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of her house in Kyrine, but she had been wakened
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in the night because Savannah could not sleep and wanted
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: to be read to. Savannah enjoyed Dorn's voice and likely
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the tails she carried of supposed misdeeds among Savannah's guy shine,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the Kyrigane and woman was never chosen out as one
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: of those who failed to please her. Hands went to
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: her golden collar, then hesitated when she took in Fayil,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Aleandra and Magden, already dressed and on their feet. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: forgot to put the book back in the proper place,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: she said in a voice like crystal chimes, turning back
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: toward the tent flap. Vana will have me beaten if
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: she sees it out of place. When she wakes, she's lying,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: megged and growled, and Darvane darted for outside. I just
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: love Megdan just like Nope, she's lying and then bolts
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: for the door. Like the way that that situation turns
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: around is I love those little moments.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: That's good. Well, and she realizes what's going on because
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: she saw the people gathered outside.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly if I Yiel doesn't realize that at this point.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: They spend a bit of page time wondering what could
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: have tipped her off, and then she goes outside and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, maybe it's the Happy Escape Day Banners
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: surprise party that is set up outside the tent. Maybe
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that flewed her into it.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: The ticker tape parade exactly by the way, I looked
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: up the puzzle icon and it's this. This is the
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: first time it appears in the series, Okay, why it does.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: It does appear later in the Gathering Storm and Towers
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: of Midnight, and it might appear in the final book,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: A Memory of Light, but that might not be Encyclopedia
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Watt hasn't completely gone through a Memory of Light, so
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: they may be missing some of those. But yes, this
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: is the first appearance of the Blacksmith's Puzzle, so you
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: were like right to be puzzled about it. Puzzled Okay, yeah, yeah,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: thank you over here, Elie.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yours.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they basically beat her up and tie her up, right,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, she's the kiss ass, she's the brown noser,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: She's the one who wants to betray them to get
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: more clout for herself.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: She's she loves the taste of boot polish. Yeah that
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: is that is this character. And so they tie her up,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: don't know what to do with her, and then Bane
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and Chad you know, take over and do a great
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: little figs in my sort of like mind game. They
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: pet her hair and say I would be very upset
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: if I had to hurt you, and it's like this
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: really creepy serial killer like kind of thing to say,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: but like it was just her doing like an eyes,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: tode words but thing thing of just like, yeah, I
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: will hate the amount of tow I have to if
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I have to hurt her in order to make her
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: be quiet.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Like because she's guy shine right and ban giod also
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: guy shine well, they can't do violence because they are
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: guy shining too. They can't hurt guy shine right exactly.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Both of those are huge violations of TOE. So she
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: would be extremely upset because she would be. I mean,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: I can't think of much else that's worse.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I mean we're talking like many years more guy shinery
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: being added, like like it would be bad, it would
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: be bad. But you know, by saying it in a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: very particular tone of voice and with a certain piece
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: of body language, she made the threat very much implied
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: in a different way. And I like how there's a
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: isid diet need to adhere to the truth here, just
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: like it's more honor to say something true that is
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: misleading than to just outright lie. That's kind of what
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I get from it, is like there's there's a strange
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: sort of isidye g happening there. Like I said, I
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: understand that much that one little piece of G. It's like, well,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: I mean yeah, you don't want to lie. You need
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: magic to make it happen. We just need our honor.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: But you know, it is one thing where I think
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Robert Jordan falls into this trap where I said I
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: can't lie, and so he writes a lot of characters
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: as using the truth and not lying. I think you
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: should write more characters just straight up telling lies, right,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Like so often characters are do this thing where they
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: don't just lie, where they say the truth in a
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: misleading way. Whereas like I feel like being a geod
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: could just be like I'll hurt you if you don't
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: do anything, and then be like I threatened her believably
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: because I wouldn't fucking do it, like you know, like
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: that just straight up lie about it. I don't see
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: a problem there, But a lot of people act like
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: they can't lie, and so a lot of people and
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I do think Jordan just gets in a habit of
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: writing characters that tell the truth for various reasons. I
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: yield don't like to lie because it's honorable. Two of
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: his his people don't like to lie. Borderlanders don't like
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: to lie. You know, there's all these people who think
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: it's honorable not to lie. Aside from the I said
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I who can't physically do it, And so you end
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: up with a lot of people who all these half truths.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: It's not lying, I mean, it's sort of a literary trope, right,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: That's how you know the good guys. The good guys
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: don't lie. It's it's a type thing. And he did
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: not trope reverse that. No, he could have though he's
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he is in the trop perversal business. He could have
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: had people who are very honorable but also lie constantly.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And the closest he get is he gets is like Matt,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and that really isn't what we're talking about.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: But even Matt honors his words, so he does a
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: lot of that wordplay, right, And especially the girls when
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: they're trying to be isid eye and so they're trying
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: not to lie when they could lie. There's a lot
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: of that as well. So there's a lot of That's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: where I think where I think it's coming from in
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: my head is how often we're in the girl's head
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, I could lie, but I'm not
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: supposed to.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And here we have Ban and Chia doing the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: same thing just because I yeel are cool, right, right,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Also in this whole course of events, we get yet
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: another mention it for you being like Magdan's a really
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: bad ladies maid, but she's really observant about people she
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: really knows, despite being horrible at being a maid.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, the Magnan's a queen, not a queen's maid.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Just gets thrown in her face so many times in
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: this chapter. It's like over and over and over again
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: where she's like doing these things that. Like, so Fila
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: goes out and dismisses the crowd, doesn't tell them how
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: dumb ass they were, and like how how like, yeah,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: you almost ruined it because we hadn't tied this woman up,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: you would have screwed us. And now we have a
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: tied up woman. They're like, I don't know where to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: hide the body, but they're hiding a tied up woman.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's like Band and Chiad can
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: at least sit on her and be like, oh, yeah,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: she's just sitting here quietly.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I was thinking they could do Anwayne with
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Varren's body and just be like, she's just asleep.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: It's fine, Yeah, it's it seems like the ticking time
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: clock is the same whether or not she's dead, right, right,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I guess it's easier to hide someone who is not
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: ultimately going to turn up as a dead body. It's
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: like easier to just because you can hold her aside
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and then release her. And it's like, but yeah, I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're trying to escape. Yeah they're gone.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like the same ticking time clock either
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: way whatever. In Faya's mind, it's important that Daria not die,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: so she doesn't.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: So Man and Chiad have a conversation and fayl they're
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: basically doing what anyone in a foreign language does and
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: they don't want you to hear, which is talking and
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: slanging and talking real fast, and Fils like, I couldn't
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: follow that. We don't know what's going on because she
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: speaks a little bit of maid in hand talk.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: She also deliberately looks away because she wants to respect
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: their privacy, and she's like, also, I don't think I
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: could have followed that, but even if I could, I'm
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: not going to. And yeah, they agree that they're going
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: to do whatever they need to do to protect the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: escape attempt.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: And feels like we need to be self sufficient because
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: she wouldn't put it past the eyes and I to
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: abandon them as soon as she was able. Yeah. Think
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Also they a sooner.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Bane and Chiad attempt to stave off Gall one more time.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: They Baine says, when you see Gall, tell him Chiad
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: is guy shine to some guy. And here's here's some
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: like ideal way of saying that. That seems to be like,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: we really aren't interested Gaul. We found someone else to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: be with. And yet they respond quite positively when Gall
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: does actually find them on the battlefield. So it's like, oh, yeah,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: will they won't they? In the background with this relationship
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: is just continuing to flutter.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Well, And it's interesting that Bain is the one, right,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Bain's the one who doesn't who Baine and Gall don't
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: get along, And she's the one telling Fayel to pass
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: along the word that Chiad has found somebody else. Yeah right,
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: And it's like, m yeah, maybe maybe not maybe not
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: well and yeah, I mean Baine and that whole relationship
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: is kind of funny, is this like? And it's it's
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: same thing with like Rand and Land's relationships with Nanive
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: and Elaine in the beginning, when he's constantly like just
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: let them know that I can't love them. They should
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: move on. I'm not worth it, right like that whole
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: relationship is. What's going on here is like these warriors
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: for some reason can't love each other and they have
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to swear each other off. And then if you don't
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: overcome that barrier, it's not romantic enough somehow.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Except in this case, I have no idea what Chiod
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: actually feels. We know that Bain doesn't approve of Gaul's
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: interest in Chiod, but we never actually get a sense
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: for how Chiod feels about it. So I have no
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: idea where this rejection is coming from us, if it's
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: coming from a self sacrificing place or a please stop
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: being a creeper kind of place, you know, Like with
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Land and Rand, they're very clear that they're doing this
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: weird stoic thing. But with Chiod, I don't know what
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: she's thinking.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I think they are flirting and getting along, but Bain
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't like him, and I think she's just like stuck
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: in this place where she's like, this guy likes me.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: I like him, but I also have to be committed
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: to my existing partner who doesn't like him, and like
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I think basically they have to convince Bain to accept
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Gaul into their lives because I think she's just not interested.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I guess Chia's just kind of letting Bain
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: keep pushing goll off until one or the other of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: them gives up on it, and she's just like, you
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: two have to sort it out.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: You do work it out.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess that makes the most sense, given
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that we have literally no povs from her about it.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: That is the best explanation. I guess.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: You know, it seems like Gall and Gall and Bain
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: obviously don't get.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Along, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: But he keeps coming back, right, and he's still interested
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: in Chiad, and he's like, fine, I guess I'll have
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: to win over Bin anyway. It seems like that's what
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: he's come to the conclusion of.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's silly. It's giving me taming of the true energy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, groups of three are always difficult to figure out, right, Like,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of communication that has to happen. There's
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: a reason it took them a long time to do
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the negotiation to figure it out.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I also wonder how much of that is because you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: there's always the joke, like people like why did Jordan
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: give not the joke, but the question why did Jordan
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: give Ran three girlfriends? And his answer is, well, I
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: used to have two, and I figure, if I'm a
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: regular old guy and I can have two girlfriends, the
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Savior of the world can can juggle three, right, Like
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: that's that's literally his quote, you know. And I'm like,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: maybe there's a little bit of a write in here
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: with Baine and gall and Chiad and the relationship and
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: like what he went through with his girlfriends at the time.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm guessing I don't think that's accurate
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's fun having more you know, attempts
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: at polly representation with like the regular cast as opposed
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to like the central like demigod heroes. It's nice to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: see that as something that like literally does just exist
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: in the world.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Because we've seen it with Rourc and his two wives
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: and that's sort of an established relationship and the way
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: they have that going on, and then you have sort
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: of a relationship that's being established, right.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: You to see young dumb kids in love in a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: different culture, in a different arrangement, and like that is
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: nice for sure, and the different.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Ways, and didn't we also have a wise one who
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: joined a marriage as well that existed. Yeah, so I
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: feel like we've seen it, you know, an existing one
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: one where there's a couple, a man and one couple
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: and they're joined by another woman. We've seen one where
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: there are two women and they're joined by another man.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: What we we haven't seen is, you know, two men
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: joining together. Yeah.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Well, let's not get too progressive. That would be that
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: would this was.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Still the nineties, well two thousands, we're in two thousands.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still the gender dynamics of ninety nine. To
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: quote a certain watt idle parody.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking of.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, what's next? We go into Malden. Nice,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: nice visual description of the whole situation.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Which is it's been stripped of anything useful basically.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we get the unsettling sentence that women have
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: been assaulted there, sometimes by groups of men, just further
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: illustrating how much the shidow are losing any right to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: call themselves I yield because of the way that they
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: do not protect their guys shine. Just the detrite us
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of the takeover of Malden, you know, panoramic view of
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: how trashed everything is and how parasitic and destructive the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Shidow are. When they settle into a place, they.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Start talking about and I think, oh, and at any time,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: the fetching of the water is about to begin. That's
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: very important because at this is the point at which
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: people should be feeling the effects of the fork routine.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: This water that they're about to fetch is the water
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: that is full of the forkroot that is about to
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: change the battle. So he brings it up a couple
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: of times, like the water hasn't been fetched yet. She's
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: wondering why, And then they look again, and then the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: water's being fetched, and it's like, okay, yeah, he's sort
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: of giving us the timeline of the water being fetched.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Then the wolves howl, then the invasion begins.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he really wants us to not be confused
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: about the timeline on this particular day.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Right, which, despite the freaking bail scream thing being out
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: of sync, we need to I would appreciate feedback on
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that if anyone can figure out what's going on. Is
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: the bail scream on the same day or is it
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: two days apart, like it says in the timeline, is
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: it a time sink? Is it not? I? You know, hmmm,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: the way the events happen, it can't be at the
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: same time. But then what the hell is going on?
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Chaos peer chaos, peer chas.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I these are one of those things where I feel
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: like I need to actually go back and reread that
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: chunk again and see if I can figure something out,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: because I'm confused.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: So if I retrieves the oath rod and Megden gives
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: yet another hint that she has exposure to as to
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: diet things by like being willing to like touch it
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and say, oh yeah, it definitely feels like a magical object.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Probably like just you know.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: She claimed to have never been to the White Tower,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: but file was not so sure as she had once been, right, like, yeah,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: she was trained in the White Tower. She wasn't someone
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: who's expelled, She's not embarrassed. She's hiding the fact that
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: she was a queen who was trained in the Tower
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: in this very unique situation where she normally wouldn't be
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: with the amount of power that she has. So that's
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: what's throwing everybody off, is like someone that week would
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: never be trained in the tower. Yet you seem to
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: have been trained in the tower. Yeah, you haven't been stilled,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: So what's going on? You know? And it's it's because
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: she's the Queen of Camlin and they had this Queen
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: of Andor and they had this tradition that she got
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: trained in the tower.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: That's also gonna come in real handy and about forty
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: minutes on.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Their sideline yep. So yeah, the only thing I wanted
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: to ask about is here's this is lying here. The
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: first guy Shine should be coming for water by now.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Maybe something happened in the camp, Magnan said, And then
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: later they're fetching water like normal. So I'm like, is
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: it just too early? Is something delaying them? Like? What's
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: going on with that statement?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I think they're just nervous and not correctly counting how
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the time is going by, because they're really nervous, Like
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I don't see anything in it other than they're having
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: too precisive an expectation for their understanding of time passing.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: And it's like you're adrenaline doubt time is passing different
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: than it usually does. You think it's delayed, but it's
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it's it's just movie tension. It's just that tension where
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: there's just tension for tension's sake. That's always been my
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: interpretation is they're just overthinking it, right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Because because in literally two paragraphs later, she was relieved
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: to finally see Guy Shine carrying buckets on yolkes. Literally,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: they go in, they retrieve the rod. When they're coming back,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the water's being carried back, which is fork routine full
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: of water, so or tea full of fork water full
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: of fork routine, That's what I'm trying to say.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: And then they come upon the house with the scarf,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the red scarf that's going to save their lives. And
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: they look at the house and they're like, this seems
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: like a death trap, and going and says it's my
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: death trap. So it'll be fine.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: It's quite sound. I inspected it, and so it up
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: to fall as I pull this lever over here.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be perfectly sound until I pull
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: this one piece of wood over here like a lever.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So pants is asking is it a red cloth
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: or a red scarf?
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Mine says cloth.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Mine does say cloth, but maybe in the next chapter
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: it says scarf.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: It says a long length of red cloth, Like, that's
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: just a synonym for a scarf. That's a long way
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: of saying right.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Right, because you can use any long length. I mean,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: it could be a very narrow one.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I genuinely have no idea if the word scarf ever
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: gets used. Oh no, there it is on the next
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: two pages later, staring at the.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Staring at the scarf, she sees Magnan shoulders, I want
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: you to try and make that scarf do something that
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Wood wouldn't make it do. For a long while she
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: stared at the scarf, then shook her head dejectedly. Time
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: pass with it starts out.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Piece of cloth, and then it transitions being called a scarf.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Right, So it's only the first mention where it's a long,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: red piece of cloth.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Which is a literal definition of a scarf. So yeah,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Gillina very easily leads them into a dark whole, like
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: like a stranger, like leading a child with candy into
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: a van. It's just like, really, like, how dumb do
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: you have to be to follow her down there?
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And she lies three times? What like? So she says
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: why not right here? And Glenis tells her three lies
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: it's because I don't want anyone to see it in
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: my hands because no one will look inside the ruin
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: and because I say so, And it's like they're not
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: really three lies, three statements that are like any one
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: of those would have been fine, but when someone lies,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: they often lie in three and they say the same
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: like the lie and tell three different.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Lies, right, like that repetition of reasons.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: That repetition is like a real good indication that like
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: one of those would have if you had a good reason,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: you would have said a good reason and stopped.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Well, some people are just chronic over explainers too. But yeah,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the part where she's like because I said so, like
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: anyone who has to go with because I said so
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: should be given serious side eye. It's just people who
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: have good reasons can provide something better than because I
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: said so. And it's very silly, Like just the whole
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the whole thing just feels like they're so tunnel vision
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: focused on Galina is going to help us escape that
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: they lose all their critical thinking skills because they have
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the goal. The goal has been to give her this
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: rod this whole time, and that she Fayla is blindsided
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: by achieving.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: That goal because the isid I said she would help
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: you Clane out. No, you know, it's like she lied
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: and and and she's an isid eye. She's got the
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: angel's face, so she can't lie right and and that's
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: just a fact in Faylle's head and she cannot see
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: past that. Yeah, and she's like, oh I I have
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: I put my back against this wall, which is an
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: isidized statement of truth. And little does she know that
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: that that's just a crumpling wall of black aja.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The idea that there are black aja is just
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: very much not It is a thing that people have
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: been trained to shy away from considering.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: I also like this subtle burn. The area around Maldon
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: had produced a great deal of a mediocre wine.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do like that subtle dig Like Fayel is
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: someone who understands mediocre versus high quality wine.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: So there's a whole production where Fayel gives Gleana the
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: rod and you can see gleans like afraid of something.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: It's like because she has been ordered not to pick
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: it up, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: to take it if it was handed to her. So
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: obviously the answer is that that question was asked earlier
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: and the answer is yes, she can't take it if
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: it's handed to her.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: But for now she thinks that she's scott free, so
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: she grabs the rod and then yet does this whole
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: pantomime about like, ooh, I heard something. You have to
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: wait for me to go up and see if there's
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: a thing to have hurt.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh my god, it's so bad.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: She's so full.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Also, why did everyone go into the basement right like?
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: That doesn't Yeah, yeah, it's so leave someone outside the looks,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: leave a lookout, right, like who could have gone in front?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: But no, they're just dumb women that don't know how
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: to do scouting shit or whatever.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Oh another trap getting into right, Like.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I mean in this case, they because they're not from
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the two rivers. They didn't know what they were doing first,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: They didn't have those two rivers and instincts for knowing.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: It was a trap, right, right, despite it being super obvious.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: That's so obvious. But yeah, so Galina, you know, triggers
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the slide, Everything gets hurt, everyone gets injured, but then
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: each of them is like, well that doesn't count as
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: a real injury, which is sort of a little running
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: gag that runs in the back of this is like
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: everyone is like, no, no, no, everyone else is to
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: get treated first. My injuries aren't real because they're all
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: like leaders in their own right, and so none of
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: them are willing to accept help. And we love strong,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: independent women forced to accept help. It's great.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Actually, this is little detail I didn't notice before. Is
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: right before the collapse, Magden's saying I've never seen her
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: embracing she's gonna say the true source, which is an
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: interesting like that could have been a clue for Fayel
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: that like she's bound somehow by the oath Rod did
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: not channel right that, like they were something that Magnan
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: maybe should have shared earlier, right, Like, I've never seen
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: her like, are you we sure she's I said, eye
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: because we do not see her embracing the true source,
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: and that might have something to do with why she
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: needs that oath rod, right, Like, so I don't know
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: the logic the information was there, but again, what would
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: we ol time be without a lack of communication a
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: much shorter series.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and it really is true that when you're right
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: at the brink of achieving your goal, you get totally
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: tunnel visioned out and can't consider that anything other than
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: this thing you've been anticipating is going to happen, like
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: it's a foible of the human mind. Even outside of
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the books.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: They're trapped under the debris. There's a lot of you know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: back and forth. Fayel calls it. She says, with us
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: trapped down here, maybe dead, she has the perfect excuse
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: for leaving us behind, which is why she.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Did it right, Well, it's more because she wants to
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: kill them so they can't expose her lies. That's yes,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: literally what's happening. But yeah, it fits with the model
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: as she has it. And then we have the great
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: moment where meg Din and Fayel both say at the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: same time, we dig ourselves out. Like Aleandra as the lesser,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: weaker queen is like, what are we gonna do? Damsel
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: in distress, and meg Din and Fayeel are both way
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: made of sterner stuff than that, and they're like, no,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: we just start digging. We're gonna figure this out somehow.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. Oleander does the big dramatic show, I'm getting
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: rid of these belts and fails like we actually need those,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: they're gold, we need that's that's worth a lot of money,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Like you don't throw it away. Please pick back up.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. We'll all take ours off too, but
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: we do need to take this with us. It's pure gold, right,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: it's throwing money away, literally quite Yeah, it's just that like, yeah,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Aleander is willing to make the emotional gesture but not
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: think through the consequences, which is why she's sort of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: like that lesser tear Noble.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. We just get constant reminders that you know,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: she's doing her best, but she's just not cut from
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: the same cloths as these other more heroic people.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: And so this is time passing, right, they've been that.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: I think they are in here for a couple of hours, right,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: The tea is being drunk in the camp. The events
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: of the next chapter with parent are happening right at
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: this point. Right, there's some there's some overlapping timelines, but
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: we all get that synced up with the wolf hat.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, they they go into a very different space,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: but they still hear the wolves. They don't know what
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: that corresponds to. It doesn't really mean anything in their timeline,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: but it lets us know that despite the fact that yeah,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: they are in you know, a completely different world of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: dealing with like a deadly Esher puzzle. Basically, the battle
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: is also happening a different kind of deadly esher puzzle
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: is happened up above.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: And like how it says, normally that would make her
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: think of Parent, but not this time because she's so
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: absorbed in the work when it actually is Paren, right
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: the one time, like the wolves howling actually is Paren.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, you should probably think about him.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: He's gone right, well, but Gallina didn't give her the
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: message that when you hear wolves howl, you have to
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: go to this place, Like all that is meaning to the.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: Tower, right, because yeah, Parent's expecting her to hide in
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: the specific tower, which is why he's like fighting on
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: that side of the battlefield and heading for those open
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: gates because he has expected that message has gotten passed
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: tofa Yeel and it has not. I never really understood
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: how he ends up finding her in the crowd. It feels,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is just luck.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: I guess it's literally just Tiverian. They just happened to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: both be crossing through the gates of the town at
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the same time, and he's able to see them. Like
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: it's really just Taverin. That's it.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And so then the next chunk is the whispering encouragent
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: to Magden as she reaches deep into herself and flutters
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: the scarf to gain attention.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they spend hours carefully digging themselves out, and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: then one board moves and the whole thing becomes completely
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: untenable and they have to change strategies, right like they
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: they spent hours working on one strategy and now they
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: have to completely back up and rethink it. And Fayo
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: has to switch her priorities from we will dig ourselves
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: out to we will get rescued by our captors, so
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: that way we're still alive to be rescued by parent, Like,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: we will die down here unless someone finds us. So
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: now instead of quietly digging out, we have to do
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: the loudest thing possible. And we're stuck in a hole
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: in the ground, what can we possibly do? And then
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Galina very handily left them a flag and that it's like,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: all right, Magden, that tiny little scrap of power that's
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: good for nothing, it's going to need to be good
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: for something.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Well, And I love her strategy because people are so
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: good at seeing things that don't move naturally that don't
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: move with the wind or don't like the second you
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: move in a way that nature couldn't do. It draws
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: our eye and attention immediately, And so I love her
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: strategy of just like, make it move in some way
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: that's just not natural, and that will get somebody's attention
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: because they'll be like, what the fuck is that? Yeah?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you don't have to say what what's
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: going on? You don't have to describe anything. You simply
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: have to create a snag in the normal visual field
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and somebody will investigate.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: In this case, therell right is this He's one of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: the dudes we saw in the beginning of the chapter.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: He was part of the crowd that was gathered. He
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: was supposed to go home, but he followed them and
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: he saw I mean, I think he saw the first
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: wave of it right, Like he was there crying after
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: the collapse. I don't know how long it took him
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: to notice it was waving, but it took her a
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: while after the collapse to start waving it, right, So
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming he saw the first wave and then to.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Look for help. Yeah. That's the wild thing is that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: there's no guarantee anyone would have seen it because they
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: were in a very deserted part of the town where
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: people don't normally go. That was kind of the point.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: So the ode of someone seeing that scarf for quite low,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: unless unless someone had followed them and was specifically watching
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: to see what would happen next. Like they're very, very
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: lucky that that teenager could not be contained, you know.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: And then Magden is like not at all convinced she
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: can do it, you know, Like she tries and she's
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: like nope, I can't do it and fails, like no,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: that's not how we're doing this. You are simply going
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: to have to make this mental effort until you keel
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: over from exhaustion and die, like this is the only
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: thing you have left to do in your life. If
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: you can't make this work, we all die. So like,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: sit down, make yourself comfortable. We're going to set up
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: a support circle rotation because we don't have any water
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: so we can't wet our whistles. And they just they
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: basically give her the strength like mentally and emotionally to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: do what she needs to do, like she could never
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: have done this just on her own. But because they're
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: people saying, you're going to save us. We need you
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to save us. Like that's enough for her to like
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: maintain just enough focus to, like I'm assuming, basically stretch
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: her channeling ability. She basically forces herself through sheer willpower
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: to expand her ability just enough to be able to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: spend hours infrequently managing to get this thing to like
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: jutter and and look weird in the air well.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: And I think this is one of one of Jordan's
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: themes that he harps on over and over again. He
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: writes that there's a difference between men and women, right,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: And that difference, you know, like gin and yang, like
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Sidin and sidar, works best when those people work together, right.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: But he writes women as working as collaborators and men
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: is working as competitors. Right. And here's a moment where
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: you have a bunch of women collaborating together to get
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: themselves out of a situation by giving strength to one person.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: And that's very similar to the way circles work, right,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: and the way you know, you bond your strength together
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: and give it to one person so they can accomplish
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: something you couldn't do on your own. And it's one
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: of the reasons why I think the Shawn Chain are
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: such abominations, right because they force people into that circle,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: and it's this one on one it's the taking of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: the power from one person rather than the sharing of
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: it from a group of people.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. It's like the ideals of like community and
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: sharing and then the like horrors of state sponsored communism, right,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Like on paper, both of those things kind of used
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: the same language to describe the same things, this utopian
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: ideal of everyone sharing, but one is awesome and the
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: other is very very shitty.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Like that hasn't really worked out.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: But you know, ideas about community and sharing and each
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: according to their needs like that can also be really
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: really cool in other communities. It can work. It has
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: worked many times.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: And and I do think Jordan makes a point of
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: saying like that women are much better at it. Women
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: are women can do it in a way that men can't,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: you know, And that's just something you see over and
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: over and over again in his themes, right, and but
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: then but then he goes on to make this point
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: of like that is a difference between men and women,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: but when those two groups work together, you can you
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: can go from a group with thirteen women working together
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: to this much larger group when you add in men, right,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: like they do help with the collaboration. You just need
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of women to manage them. Yeah.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is definitely.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Which as someone who you know, was a writer who
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: had an editor who was his wife who was managing
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: him all the time, right, Like it's on what he knows. Yeah,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: I just I couldn't help. But this felt like a
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Isidie circle where they're not exactly bonding to her to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: give her strength, but they are using an emotional bonding
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: to give of her strength.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going through a really intense bonding experience and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: they are lending her strength. And yeah, it is very
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: much like even if you don't have magic, you can
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: make magic. It's it's the Michael Livingston thing. Magic is real. Yeah.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Then we switched to a little wrap up POV from
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Galina just to remind us that she is in fact
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: the worst and whatever happens to her, you can feel
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: good about it.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: Oh god. Yeah. She dreams of stabbing Galina in the night,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: but then has nightmares about Glena waking up and turning
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: the tables on her basically and how bad that would be.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: She thinks about how arrogant Fayola is and how glad
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: she is that her and her silly friends are dead,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: you know, just really making sure that we know to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: be happy when she gets captured again.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm hm.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: And yeah, she's excited to be free. And then she
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: hears wolves and she's like, wow, that pair and really
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: is doing the wolf thing. Good thing. I'm out of here.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: And then she takes off and you, as a first
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: time reader, are worried that she going to just get
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: away scott free and she doesn't, which we know, but
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: like she does have a moment of thinking that she
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: has achieved escape velocity, and that's how the chapter ends.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanking the Great Lord that Thrava had not forbidden
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: her to ride. The woman had much preferred dangling the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: possibility that she might be allowed if she groveled sufficiently.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Glena hurried towards her hidden stores. Let the fools who
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: wanted to die here die. She was free, free, until
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: Glena gets a hold of you again.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Therava is going to pull you right back down
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: to earth. But she does have that moment of sailing
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: off into the blue sky free as a bird.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Let's just see she gets captured.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: This I believe it's the end of this book.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: So going forward, it is chapter thirty outside the Gates
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: where she gets recaptured.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's not even the end of the book.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: That's just no, just just like in a couple chapters. Yeah,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: a handslapped or at least somehow, you have the rod,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Thrava said, you would not be out here else. Give
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: it to me, Lena. There was no question of even
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: resisting straightening, Glena dung the rod out of her saddle
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: bags and hand it to the hawk eyed woman. Yeah.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so she gets a whole chapter, She gets one
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: entire chapter of being free, and then she immediately gets
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: a yanked back to her.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's it for that, for that chapter, and
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: that's pretty much it for Galina.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all Galina has left to do is get captured,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: but for the moment she thinks she's free.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is pretty much the end of the Shadow, right,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Thrava takes the rest of the Shadow that survived Malden.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: They retreat to the Waste, where presumably they suffer the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: fate of those who didn't come to who didn't obey
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: the wise ones, which is they were going to die
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: at right any because the wise ones saw the prophecy
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: that any who did not come to the Golden Bowl
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: right and obey rand would die.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think in like three generations. So yeah, presumably
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: they go to the waste to go extinct.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: I heard someone argue that the shidow or the remnant
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: of the remnant because the only ones who are true
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: ideal left because they're in the waist and all the
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: other ideal change to be enforces or whatever. Like, No, no,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: they are.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: I'm really sure that some shidow false prophet chooses to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: make that argument at some point as they are dying.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: But it's not true.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: It's not true because they are no longer ideal. That
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: point is made several times during the course of this
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: that their corruption and their evil and their culture has
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: changed the point where they are not ideal anymore. They're
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: they're a corrupted version of ideal.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they've just they've lost the thread there.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: It's it's the kind of break that created the tuatha
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: on versus the violent i yeal and the gen But
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: because they're letting go of Geto so thoroughly, it's like
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: not even a new version, it's just they've lost the thread.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Now they're just highway robbers.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: The open
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: And thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Spoilers podcast, Rate us in the Apple Podcast app, or
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: support us on Patreon is good enough.