Latest / WoT Spoilers / What the Storm Means - The Gathering Storm prologue part 2 - EP512

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What the Storm Means - The Gathering Storm prologue part 2 - EP512 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: All right, let's stay you want to open up this book,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: this Wheel of Time thing.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have the other half of the prologue to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: get to.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Sorry, we're catching up. Man. We haven't talked much at
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: all lately. I feel like it's been uh, yeah, we
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: took all those weeks off and life is moving back.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Where I blanked on week Web.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Ah so you know, yeah, it feels like several weeks
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: have happened since we talked last talk.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: About I feel in the last couple of months, I've
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: gotten married, I'm buying a house. Trump got elected, I
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: lost timbers A. Holy crap, it has been just wow,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: you guys are lucky. I'm back, Like.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We're lucky.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I love you so much and I can't can't do
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: it and do this without you. But man, there was
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: times when I was like, I don't know if I
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: can get back on the microphone anytime soon.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's uh. It's good to have built habits that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you rely on because then it's harder to stop than
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to than to you know, just keep doing it. But yeah,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we are in it for the love of the game
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and the autistic monotropic focus.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is this is a way to avoid my problems.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So a way to achieve monotropic flow, which is good
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: for your nervous system.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: All right, so dark friends social or I should say
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: forsaken uh fornication, Right.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: They're not fornicating distinctly, not in.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Rendel's head, so you know, it works, it works, it works.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is forsaken Fralicrah.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: There we go, thank you. That's that's a better term.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Forsaken frolic.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is definitely that kind of fun peak behind
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the curtain of the dark side, evil evil thing, and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we get to be in Grandel's head, which is always fun.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: She has a very sarcastic, snarky like sneering way of
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: looking at the world, which is very very cool. And
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: then we also are gonna get.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Into I Tiralda and then oh Wessima Masma.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we get to see the end of Messima. We
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: get to see Ialda like doing his kind of final
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: magical awesome victory before everything totally goes to shit for him.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, we see Missima getting steady stabbed and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: dying and it's very satisfying. I really like the Mesima
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: section the way Fayel's just like, thank you for helping
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: save me. Also, I cannot suffer a bitch to live.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: It's you know, it's one of those things that makes me,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: you know, after all the Fayel hate, this is a
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: scene that really redeems her quite a bit.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Big time, big time. I'm like, how can you not
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: love her and forgive her for everything she's done before
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: after that scene, like, I don't know, I I love
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: her because of that.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: So okay, and I will voice my as always, here's
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: my Sanderson complaint for the chapter. I'll try and get
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: these out of the way early on so I don't
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: harp on them throughout. In this scene, Grendall is right
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: about everything, and that drives me absolutely nuts, because nowhere
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: does Jordan make a character write about everything. They have
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: to have incorrect assumptions, rumors fade to myth, people get confused,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: information changes. But this is where Brandon tells us everything
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: straight out through Grendall's POV by her being right about anything,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and so there's not a lot of guesswork. It's just like, yep,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: that's correct Grendall. Yes, yep, that's Greg Grendall. And when
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Grendall does know what demandr it is. That's because we
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: don't know where demandr it is.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, but what about her not knowing
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: about Demondred? But I see what she mean, like where
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: we know what's going on.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly like you know what happened to the unreliable. The
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: difference between Jordan and Sanderson is really the unreliable narrator.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Sanderson will never give you false information. Sanderson will build mystery.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Sanson is a reliable narrator throughout all of his books.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Jordan is not. None of his characters are.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a very interesting way of looking at it,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: as like the core way to understand what's happening here
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is that we have lost the unreliable narrator and we
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: are now in the hands of a painstakingly, conscientiously reliable narrator,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: like conscientious to the point of observing, which is is
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: it rude to say that that's very Mormon?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, but leave it in anyway.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah, I
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: think we should keep that in mind as we move forward.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And you ready for me to read us in sure?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was just highlighting everything Grandall was
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: saying waiting for her to make a mistake, and I
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: was like, she's just right about everything. That's boring.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: That's boring. It's not a testament to her intelligence. It's
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: bad writing. I love it. I love it. Grand All
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: lounge in a stone work room lined with adoring men
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and women, each one a perfect specimen, each one wearing
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: little more than a robe of diaphanous white cloth. A
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: warm fire played in the hearth, illuminating a fine rug
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: of blood red. That rug was woven in the designs
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of young men and women, entangled in ways that would
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: have made even an experienced Cortisan blush. The open windows
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: lit in afternoon light, the lofty position of her palace
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: giving a view of pines and a shimmering lake below.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: She set sweet pristle juice, wearing a pale blue dress.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: After the Demani cut. She was growing fond of their fashions.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Their Her dress was far more filmy than the ones
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: they wore. These Demani were too fond of whispering. When
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Grandel preferred a nice, sharp scream. She took another sip
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of juice. What an interestingly sour flavor it had. It
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: was exotic during this age, since the trees now grew
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: only on distant islands. I just love being in her head.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: She's just so hedonistic. I mean even the next paragraph
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: she goes on to complain about how she had a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: perfect mix of warm fire and cold air, and then
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: this swirl is introduced by the Gateway, and she's so
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: annoyed that, like this sensual experience she's set up, And
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it's like, I totally empathize with her. I've absolutely been
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: in that position and been like, your turbunence is ruining
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: my atmosphere. Like this is so relatable. I relate to
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: her so much here.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And I kind of love her philosophy of like, you
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: know what, life fucking sucks, So I'm going to enjoy
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: the things that make me feel good.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And make me feel things. I want to feel things,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And like this is her origin story too, right her
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: before she turns to the Shadow. She is an ascetic
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: or however you say that, she like foregoes pleasure, she
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: foregoes luxury. She is dedicated to making the world a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: better place through depriving herself, and then eventually one day
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: she snaps and is like, actually the opposite everything one
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty degrees I'm not exactly the opposite of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: everything I believed is now what I believe, and that's
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: why she is the way she is.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Grendall was Mother Teresa, I know, right, So who's like
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: which which Jordan makes a reference to early on right
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: in the in the series. Yeah, yeah, that's an either world.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: A specific reference.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: But yeah it's like, yeah, mother Terasa or something Healer
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: of All or something, you know, something like that. But
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: just just so you know, right, she was a terrible
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: person in real life. Yeah, yeah, we agree on that.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as I understand it, the best merchment is that
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: she was like, we need the poor so that way
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: we can get into heaven by serving them. And it's like,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that's kind of fucked up, and she was, you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: did things that made that manifest. But that does the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: quote that I understand all the shittiness hangs.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Up right, okay, and that she like kind of didn't
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: give women medical care and made them suffer because suffering
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: is you know, makes us godly and that sort of thing.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: That sounds right. I have never really gone down that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole. I've only sort of cursor cursorially heard it
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: by osmosis, but like I've heard it enough times at
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that one specific quote that I'm like, that's a thing.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I went down the rabbit hole once, but you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: memory being what it is, I don't remember the details.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah, no, anyway, it's I always find it ironic
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: that she's she's immortalized in the wheel of time. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: then I found out maybe in the future that won't
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: necessarily be the legend anyway, moving on, but yeah, the
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: idea that Grendall is this Mother Teresa figure who's all
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: about austerity and you know, suffering and depriving yourself of things,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: has now become this hedonistic I love it. She's wonderful.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that, and also like, you know, there's
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: something to be said for you know, the Epicurean philosophy,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: right gus. Epicurean is the opposite of Stoic in like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: philosophical schools of thought, like Epicurean is now sort of
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: associated with food specifically, but once upon a time it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was the Stoics versus the Epicureans. And the Stoics, of course,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: are stoic and they don't want to have any fun,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and the Epicureans are like yolo, obviously, why are we
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: here with senses, if not to experience things. So it's
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: like Grandel has a lot of the right philosophy, she
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: chooses to apply it in ways that are outside the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: boundary of morality, but like there are pieces of her
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: philosophy in her experience of the world where I'm like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I got it. Like if you spent
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: your life thinking you could save the world through denying
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: yourself this and then Satan comes along and says, you
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: can be immortal and do all the things that you've
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: wish you could do for three hundred years. Like rigid.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It's an insight that happens with Alvirn and Elida that
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that which is rigid, once it breaks, it is the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: most broken, right right, think he actually has multiple people
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: think about that. But like she was very rigidly denying
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: herself and so when that broke, it broke bad, and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: it broke so that way she went from trying to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: save the world to being willing to sacrifice the whole
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: world to herself. Like, don't be so rigid, don't think
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in binaries. Understand everything is confusing and complicated and need context.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: And then even when you change your mind, you probably
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: won't break into the inverse of all your values.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I feel like I saw that a lot at college,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: where people had this very tight, controlled upbringing and then
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: they got this taste of freedom and they broke in
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: ways that were like they had to rebuild themselves later,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: me being possibly one of those people, you know.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Like it's a very common, very common story.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Of just like oh my god, you have this external
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: control or internal control, and when you lose it, like
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: suddenly you were out of control because you have no
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: sense of boundary, you have no rails, you have no
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: way of understanding what's good and what's bad, you know.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's where a less controlled upbringing
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: where you actually get to experiment without consequences is probably
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: better or with fewer consequences. Anyway, who not without consequences,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: but with less serious consequences. It's really important to having
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: adults who are well adjusted.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I say as someone who'd yeah, was
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: given a lot of room to experiment and make my
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: own mistakes and you know, fail within bounds that my
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: caregivers thought were acceptable, Like yeah, I have not really
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: rigidly had an ego death breaking point kind of thing
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: like so many other people seem to have had to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: pass through. I just kind of like vibein along, still
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: feeling like a child most of the time. But like
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I haven't had my worldview really radically upended
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it had my identity thrown out either, so I think
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that's better.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: So you know what Grendall's palace reminds me of. Have
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: you seen the movie Birdcage Robin Williams, No, Okay, there's
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: their place is just has a little bit of a
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: hedonistic bend to it, And there's a scene where they
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: have the parents over and they're pretending to be straight
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: and like this it's elaborate, right, but there's a bowl
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: with a bunch of like basically crude images around the rim,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: and the parents go to put on the glasses to
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: look at it and like fills it up with superly
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: quick to cover it up, and her just like the
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: woven the design of young women and men entertaining entangled
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: in ways that would have made even the experienced courtis
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: and blush. That just brought me back to that whole
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: scene with called like the dirty hedonistic statues and stuff
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: like that. So yeah, great movie. By the way, you
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: should definitely watch that movie if you haven't seen it,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: like that is a Robin Williams. Oh god something Lane.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: What's his first name? Nathan Lane? Nathan Lane?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, I noted, Yeah, just.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Some quotable anyway, I highly recommend it. One of those
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: movies that I didn't appreciate at the time at all
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: because both because of the age I was and because
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: of the culture I was raised in. But going back
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: and watching it, it's an absolute gem.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah gotcha? So's yeah. Grandag gets summoned by a Kendall.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Basically she's like, ooh it, did Moridan send me a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: little and then she decides not to because maybe it's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: not meant as a little treat and she doesn't want,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you know, to piss him off. But she looks at
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: this man like a little fucking treat, and it's just like,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: should I have him? No, I want to diet.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I was wondering about that. Do you think it's just
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: like he's like setting out a lure so he can
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: punish her later if she like takes him to be like, no,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: he was important or do we know even who he is?
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: No, he never comes up again. I bet, I honestly
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: bet that if she had just decided to like consume
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: him as a as a little order before the meeting.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Mordan wouldn't have minded it at all. He probably totally
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: sent it along to be like, this is a treat.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You are in for a treat, right, because what he
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: does is he gives her a little information session and says,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: this is a taste of the privileges I could give you.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: It's a reward. Yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So I kind of think that the fact that he
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: presented the information with like a handsome arm candy person
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: was him being like, yeah, no, I like you here
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: have some rewards, have like a nice a nice young man,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and some information in your two favorite things. And it's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: kind of messed up. But I assume that that is
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: what this man was was just a snack that did
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: not get taken one proffered.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Because this while meeting is sort of the final gathering
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: of the troops before the battle, right, Like.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I have no idea if there's any more meetings like
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: this in the next three books. I am so clueless
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: about the next three books, Like I just I've only
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: gone through them like three times. I keep trying to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: get through them on a current reread. But then other
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: books are more interesting, Like I just I'm sorry, Sanderson,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but like I just, I have new books
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: to read, and I know how the story ends now,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Like it's Jordan's stuff that keeps me coming back.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think they all get together again for sure.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like there's definitely some more coordination between
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Mordon and Grendall at some point. But whether that's implied
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: or seen from another character's eyes, or if it's in
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: one of their povs, I don't remember. But I do
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: think that there's at least one more collab between two
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: of them, because she does very much work two Mordon's
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: ends right up through the end of the battle, like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: she is doing the dream manipulation stuff, Like she is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: very much in his pocket the whole way through.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, after the death of Heleima, right with the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: bailfire and Natrum's barrow, she definitely re meets with him
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: and it's like she's, yeah, just scrambling to save her
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: ass because she got in trouble for letting the Forsaken
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: be bail fired, right.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And then she spends it. Yeah, so that we do
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: see a lot more of Morden and Greenball, But yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we see any more meetings that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: involve more than two forsaken at a time. But yeah,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: this is a meeting in which she gets to essentially
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: just watch Morden meeting with Demondred and Massana.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: And here's about Summrog's capture because she didn't know about that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: She just barely had learned that Samarrog was in the Sean.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And she again very fourth wall breaking, We only just learned,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: well I mean kinda not really. We kind of knew
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: for a while.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Well you and I have known for a while, but
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: like this is it was the reveal. Right, it's been
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: revealed officially to everybody. There's no hints, that's no like
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: even Jordan. Yes, this is some rock.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Right right, yeah, I mean like she's now unveiled herself
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and blown her cover. So like grand All is, you know,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: referring to that, reminding us of that fourth wall breaking
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: with that, and then Mora Din is like, but I
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: gotta get you up to speed that like she also
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was captured. That also happened because it's important for Grandal
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to be in the loop, and it is important for
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: us as the readers to be in the loop.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Oh quick question, they're drinking sweet bristle juice. What do
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: you think that is because it's sour? Do you think
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: it's lemonade? Because she says it's from a fruit.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: But lemons aren't bristly. I was just doming like prickly pear,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: which I have no idea if you can make a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: fermented beverage, but you can ferment anything. I mean, it's true.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is very true. So it's got sugar starch
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: in it. You can ferment it, that's for sure. Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So I was imagining, you know, prickly pear, not having
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: any idea how practical that is as a beverage. Oh well,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: apparently you can make delicious desserts from prickly pear. So
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: or yeah, exact cactus juice, Yeah, yeah, I don't. Lemons
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: don't have spines. I would love it if lemons had spines,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that'd be very cool, but they don't.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: She does say it's a tree. The trees now grew
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: only on distant islands.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So well, that doesn't mean anything. It could be a shrub,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it could be a plant that grows only in tall trees.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It could be an actual tree. I mean, trees barely
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: even exists.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Terrible.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: What about rhododendrons are rhododendrons a tree, Well, sometimes they're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: big enough to operate as forests, but they are not
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: really trees. They're shrubs.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I learned recently that tree is just like
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: a phenotype, right.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Much like fish. Yeah, trees and fish do not really
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: exist in the strictest sense. If you actually get scientists
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to drill down on it, then it turns out that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: those the boundaries are completely fuzzy, and it is behold
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a man while holding a featherless chicken, you know, like
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's behold a man all the way.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Down Durian sweet bristle juice, she said, sour, not vomit inducing.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: We do see a member of the Demani council, which
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Rand is looking for, right, one of them is in
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Grendel's possession. Like, so we do get confirmation that, like, yeah,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: he's not going to find her anytime soon.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Her name's Thorsa, which is kind of close to Teresa.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Call back to our conversation a few moments ago.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Well that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just mother Teresa keeps
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: coming up over and over again. Yeah, she confirms Samule's dead,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: like just a lot of confirmations in her own head.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: She's like, oh, yeah, Samuel's dead. He's been gone since
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: shout out a logos.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Right, She's like, I'm pretty sure that the Wall of
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Death Fog took.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Him out or Rand also wall of Death.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Right, But that's again like you're saying, like that's what
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: we know. Yes, as the readers were like, we're pretty
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: sure the Wall of Death Fog took him out. We
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: know it wasn't Rand, but like, Rand's pretty sure it
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: was Masha Darth. There's no evidence not to think it
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: was Masha Dar. So she's literally just echoing back our
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: own thoughts to.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Us, which is crazy because she wasn't there. Why would
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: she think it wasn't Rand who killed him? Why would
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: she think it was Mashadar in any way, shape or form.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: That's where That's what I'm saying, Like she has knowledge
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: that I feel.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Like because they were in shadow Logoth.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but she would assume that Rand killed him unless
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Rand is out there being like no, the like he's
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: not talking and he didn't come back. He he just
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: said he's got on in debt. He didn't tell anybody
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: the Mashadar took him out.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I always figured that she figured that it was
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: like eighty percent likely that Rand had killed him, but
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: on the off chance that it wasn't Rand, than Mashadar
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: definitely did because like he vanished after a trip to
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: shadow Logo, presumably it was Rand. But if it wasn't,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: then like he didn't come out. If they're alive and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Mashadar is the only other thing that it could be.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: That was how I always interpreted her her assessment of
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the situation. Sure, so I wanted to ask about the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: fortress or the farm outside. So it's it's she goes
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to this fortress in the in the blight, and it's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: made out of blackstone for reasons unclear. Again, I'm with Grandall, like, yeah,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: why would you build out a blackstone here? But whatever esthetics,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: it's literally a blackstone thing in a red soil. So
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you've got the black and red theme, like again like ridiculous, overdone.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But who is the they trying out crops? And what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: are the who is the they that are trying out crops?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, is this like the village right? Is he
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: built the fortress right near the village in the I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: mean clearly there what Brandon Sanderson has done here is
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: he has brought an ecosystem to the Blight that we
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: kind of knew had to be there, because how can
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: you get all those troll oks and how can we
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: feed them and all that kind of stuff, and how
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: do you forge blades for the fades? And how do
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: you like, where are they taking all these people? Like
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: we always knew there had to be an ecosystem, but
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I feel like Brandon Sanderson really I'm going to sort
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: of give you some of that ecosystem. And so I'm
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: going to create the village. I'm going to create this fortress.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have people growing crops. How do they
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: survive what's going on? Like somehow people survive in the blight? Right?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That was not my impression from the first eleven books.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But like that's where that's what Brandon has done, That's
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: what he's done. He's taken He's creating this basically dark
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: one refuge in the Blight where the evil guy comes from.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So you're saying that this is the town where Slayer
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: grew up.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Could be or it could be just something else like that.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Right, I thought there was only the one.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: But okay, me too, me too.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I definitely do agree that it makes sense that you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: need someone to make food, because it's very unsustainable to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: be a meat eater with a closed system like you
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: that entropy will not allow you to swell your armies.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: That's not how how carnivorous cycles work. But I just
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: have a such a hard time with the idea that
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: there's a population of universally enslaved humans making it go
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and doing agriculture in the Blight and they've been doing
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it this whole time and no one knows about them.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I just find that really really implausible. And I was
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: hoping that this was some sort of like it's just
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a fortress in the borderlands where shit's really harsh.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: No, but no, Okay, So, like we we know one
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: of the great reveals, right, Athlon's pointing this out that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: you have these red veal veiled Ieel they're being sent
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to the Blight turned and are coming back. Great reveal,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: obviously set up by Jordan. Where have they been this
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: whole time? Who's been feeding them? Yeah, Like, obviously there
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: is a group of people living in the blight. There
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: has to be for a lot of the other things
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: that were set up to make sense.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess but like you have, you have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: all the red veiled I eel you have dark friends.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I'm just so surprised that the Borderlanders are completely unaware
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of them. Like, that's what really blows my mind is
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: that the Borderlanders never once mentioned there being a human
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: presence beyond the line that they were holding. And that
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: just feels really missing to me.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, it feels like none of them ever come
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: out right. You go up and you don't leave essentially.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Well, and you don't leave any trace. There's no smoke trails,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: there's no roads, there's no networks, there's no like mass
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: killing sites that have ever been found. There's no footprints,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: there's no horses, there's no stray chickens, no random patches
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of wheat at a village that got burned down one time,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: but the wheat has kind of gone rogue.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I think we've stumbled onto one of those. Like Jordan
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: just didn't. He's like, that's where the evil creatures live
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: and didn't really think much past that. And Sanderson said,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: oh God, but we've got all these other people that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: need to come down out of the blight. Where the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: fuck do I get them from? And so he created
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: this this culture and it's not that well laid out
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: or anything, but he created an ecosystem in the Blight,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: and it's this is what we live with, right, I.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Mean an economy sure, because I mean we knew there
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was an ecosystem. We knew there was Styx and Jumara,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and like I thought there were plants and animals. I
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: just didn't think there was like a whole alternative mirror
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: world of people happening. I just I guess that's more
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: on Jordan than on Sanderson, right, right, So I guess
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: we'll just have to live with it as a I have.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: The world isn't on a grand scale, because.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Like, where else are all these dreadlords gonna where these
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: armies gonna come from? If not the Blight?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I mean I always thought that was a weird week
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: hole in the dark Ones plan. It's like you can't
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: just keep spawning. This isn't a video game, Like what
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: are your logistics? Dark One? So I guess this is
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: that answer.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I think Sanderson had to sit down and come up
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: with something. And basically what we're getting some vague references
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to making crops work, right, and that's actually something we
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: also see. I'll call out Misbourne, which is a series
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: where they're living in an apocalypse with ash raining from
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the sky and they're constantly trying to come up with
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: crops that will survive, and this what should be non
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: survivable environment, right, and this is sort of this feels
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: very similar to me in terms of like him creating
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: that system.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that is one of the Sanderson books I've read,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and you're right, that does feel like an expansion out
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: from this little taste here. All right. Well, I've always
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: wondered if it was bad guys or just some weird
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: borderlander situation I didn't understand, and I was tending towards
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the latter. So it's good to know that I was
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: wrong and that there is a solid reason to believe
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that it is in fact the former.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: It's a hard plot hold solve, right. I really do
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: think Jordan didn't address it very well. It was just
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that there will be a last battle, there will be Trullocks,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: there will be dread Lords, you know, And I think
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: it would have been cool if a lot of the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: dread Lords just popped out, like betrayed the White Tower
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: in the middle of the last battle. But you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: then we wouldn't have had the Varren reveal, Right, So yeah,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I'm happy with how they did it. I'm not super
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: upset with it, but I do wonder what Jordan was
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: thinking when he was like, I mean, if we go
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: back to his experience in the Vietnam War, just endless
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: enemies coming out of the jungle doesn't seem that crazy, right,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: and then he doesn't really worry about where they come from.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but in this world they're like magical evil monsters
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and in the real world they were human beings whose
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: homes were being infronted. Right, there are.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Different logistics, yeah, obviously.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think the problem is that he
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: was operating with nineteen eighties fantasy book logic, which is
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: that you're going to write a trilogy at most, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you don't need to think about long things.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we see him catching himself mid trip on
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that repeatedly throughout the series. And this is just a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: really big one that Sanderson actually had to catch because like.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Go back to the Eye of the World. How big was
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: that troloc army that ran destroyed with the Eye of
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: the World, right, that was going to end the world
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: if that because there wasn't enough armies to stop it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: They were gonna flood down and nobody was going to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: be prepared, right, so we oft and I often argue,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: what was the eye of the world floor? It was
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: literally to stop that army, right like otherwise last battle
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: over world conquered, no fighting back, no chance.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But god, can you imagine how it's been for people
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: living in the blight this whole time, Like they don't
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: get a choice, right, They're just born there and they
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: have to cause I mean, like, no matter how many
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: borderland like contingents you you know, mind pixie away into
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the blight, like you're gonna need the population will have
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: to be self sustaining at some point over like however
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: many centuries each you know, thing exists. So like what
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: we even see in the descriptions of the town that
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Slayer talks about that there are children. It is a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: multi age population.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So although I did who some of those children were kidnapped.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah that could be, but still, I mean, you've
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: got people growing up there who don't have a choice.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: It's like I don't know, being in North Korea or something, right,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: like you're you're under an oppressive regime and you can't
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: leave but like you did nothing on your own to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: get there, Like you're just there and existing in it.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And that's apparently how people have been living like unbeknownst
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: to the rest of the world for like however, many centuries,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: as much as three thousand years. Like that's kind of bleak.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Can we move back to the actual book now?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Uh. The one thing I will say about the blackstone
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: keep I think you're asking, like where did that come from?
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Like maybe it was a pre breaking artifact stone keep right,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and that it got you know, with the land moving
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: around and everything, it ended up in the Blight.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Athlon gave a horrible, horrible idea and
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Chat I'm just gonna have to give voice too. There
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: were extensive breeding programs in the Plight, but that makes
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: sense because we know Grand Alt not Grand Alt Masana
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: had like schools of children and stuff, and like they
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: were a terror, like as the war was winding down,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and we had the breeding programs that Agonor did to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: like make trolix and murdrawl. So like breeding programming, eugenic
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: y kind of weirdness would definitely have been in the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: uh initial scaffolding that the Blight started out with in
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the post breaking world. That's bleak, that's terrible and bleak.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your contribution.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And you have lots of spurn donors in the male
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: isida or the male channelers, right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, so many male channelers you'd have, and you would
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: be like reverse culling, right, it'd be the reverse of culling.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: You'd actually be concentrating the channeling gene with having so
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: many rejected male channelers going and finding a second life.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Woo disline like strong dislike.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: The one piece of information Grendall doesn't know about Morden
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: is that they've crossed the streams, and the things that
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: affect Rand affect Morgan. Although there's a couple of clues
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: in this chapter.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he flexes his left hand. I mean, you get
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the idea. But yes, that is the one thing she
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't know. It's like he flexed his left hand for
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: some reason. But we still know. It's very very clear
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and obvious to us. So it doesn't feel like a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: big mystery because it's not.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: And then and she asked herself, why not just kill
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Rand and be done with it? And it's obvious that, like, well,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: they're linked, and that would probably kill Mordan as well.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And the whole like, I need to kill him at
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: the right time in place to make the magic ritual work.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many metaphysical reasons that she's just being
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: willfully ignorant of.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: We get yeah, and then Demandrad and Masana walk in
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: together because they didn't think Grendall would be there, so
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: they didn't try and hide their alliance. So then they're like, ah, fuck,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: it's like the Mondre and Masana sitting in a tree p.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: L O t ti ng nice nice.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I was going with channeling cha and that's where Yeah,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: and she gets to be this passive observer throughout the
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: whole meeting, which gives her a lot of clues. So
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: then sort of we get a list of where all
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: the Forsaken are in her head, right, she says Massan's
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: in the White Tower. She says agon Or's and the
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: rebels more than just gathering the Great Lord's forces, Sindane
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and Mogeddion are under his control, you know, rallying the
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Dark Friends and trying to kill Parente bar and Matt Coffin.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: But she doesn't know what Demandran's doing. So it's just
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: like this rapid fire two paragraphs. This is what every
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: single Foresaken is doing. In case you've forgotten, here's some recap.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Because it's the opening of the book and it is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: exposition time. That is how books work it. Books in
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: this series, not necessarily new books, obviously, but books in.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Gret La makes no wrong assumptions. She's right about every
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: single Forestaken and the ones she doesn't know. She says
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: straight out, I don't know, and doesn't try.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And guess yep, yep.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And also think there's this line she was confident she
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: knew the plans of all of every one of the
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: other seven remaining chosen except DEMANDREDE. And again I think
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: this little fourth wall breaking. I think that all of
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: the other ones had plans written by Jordan or was
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: obviously what they were doing based on context clues, except Demondred.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I think Demandred wasn't. There wasn't a lot written about
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: what Demandrad was supposed to do.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: So Demandre is kind of like parent.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my guess.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I really just like I like that. I like that.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I like the idea that like Sanderson's just telling us
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: what he's doing and what he had to work with
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and just kind of laying it all out like cards
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: on the table. This is what we got. I like
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: this interpretation, even if we're completely wrong. I like it.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: I mean I could be reading into it. Yeah, but
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: it's fun to think of it that way.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a book. You're supposed to read into it. Ahha.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: She thinks here about how dumb Demondred is to bear
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: this grudge against Luce thereon which you know, we know, Yes,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that is all that he does in the last battle
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to stand on a battle feeling come ote me brot pro,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: come out and pro And that's like literally his contribution.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: What a disappointing end. Such a schemer and like mastermind.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I know, he takes out a couple of minor characters
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that's taken out by he doesn't take out Gollic, he
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: only Maimes Gollad and it's fine. And then Land takes
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: him out through some sort of weird superhero maneuver that
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: made no sense because he clearly was killed. But then tatah,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: he's not the whatever writing trick.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Well, that's because Rand brought him back to life, because
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Rand's God.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I whatever, Yeah, neo, like what fucking ever? But anyhow,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it is such a waste and amy. She even thinks
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: here like he could have been the dragon on the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: other side, he could have been a champion for the light.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: The only reason he is a dark friend, the only
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: reason he is friends with us is because this one time,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: this one guy was kind of mean to him in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: middle school. And that's the entire reason why he's a Nazi.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Now, Like, damn it, Snape, this man is pathetic.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: This man is pathetic. I love Grandell just being like
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: this man is correct. He will continue to be pathetic
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the entire series, even at the end when he's like,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I want to have a redemption arc by falling in
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: love with a random woman, It's like, no, that is
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: not compelling.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: You're pathetic because he also treats her terribly, like and
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: like a slave. Right, Like, it's no, not her.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: As much, but like he treats all of her people
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: like slaves. But he brings her chocolate, right, so it's fine.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It's fine.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: She also obeys every command.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because she loves him. Oh, okay, it's different.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: That's how love works. Sorry, my bad, That.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Is totally how love works.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: And it's let me hold on, I have to go
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: to tell never something really quick.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Where's that life insurance policy?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And then and then I love this grandle. There
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: are no other armies moving anywhere in the world, like
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: there are other continents on like and gateways, the euro.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: The euro Centris is a lot from these.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah seriously, you know. Yeah, he shows up with the
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Mongol army and they go, where did these people come from? Right, Like, yeah,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: From a whole other planet. There's no other people in
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the world, Like, that're the Mongols.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: You know. Asia is like over there, right, Like there's
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: It's not even an ocean, guys. I know, mountains are tall,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: but like, it's not even an ocean.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: There's a desert. There's some mountains, but it's land. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: you trade with those people. You have silk, You are
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: aware of the people who make silk.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: You have actively sold resources in this direction. You have
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: seen money go that way.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Now in fariness think I found the Sharn's a complete
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: surprise at the end of the book, even though having
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: gone through the podcast, I realized how heavily they are
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: for shadowed as being something.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was expecting the place where silk comes
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: from to come out of nowhere at some point, like
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the kool aid Man. The way it was being foreshadowed.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, when this hits, when we finally get
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: an explanation, it's not going to be what any of
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: us expected, Like that's clearly what's gonna happen. So I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was anticipating it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I was thinking it was going to come out more
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: with Matt because he's got Nol with him, who's been there,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: and so Noel's always telling the stories, right, and I
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: thought that would like be relevant somehow.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Right, because then we could have gotten some exposition as
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the explosions were going down. It would have been awesome.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Who are those people? Those are the damn Sharns, like.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: You know, right right, yeah, totally totally. But you know,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I was content with how they got used, you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: like the White Tower was definitely getting op and needed
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to get knocked down to keep the tension high. So
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, de Mandred really was not necessary
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: to make that plot work. We just needed someone to
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: go over and teach them how to travel. They just
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: needed someone to help them with traveling. That's it.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: You know, here's my biggest disappointment with Demandred. Full fucking
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: circle and he got taken out with the.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Sword right right right.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Massana was a scholar to the core. Sometimes Grendall thought
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Massana going over the shadow because it offered a more
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: interesting opportunity for research. I thought you'd have something to
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: say about that.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, no, that's not what she did.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: She went over to the dark side because she got
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: spurned for research. They told her that she was better
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: stuited to teaching them to research, and she was a
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: spurned academic. And every academic I've talked to says that
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: this is one hundred percent completely reasonable. I didn't get
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that deep into academia, so I wouldn't know, but that
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: sounds right based on academics I've known. But I do Again,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: this is one of those sections where I'm just like,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: these these person are getting too relatable, because like, if
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: there was ever something that would tempt me to unholy
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: acts like immortality or whatever, it's like it's for the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: research opportunities. Like people are like, oh, I don't want
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to be imortal, to be ridiculous now the research though,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like like for me, the opportunity for more interesting research
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: is like I will I will re examine a lot
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: of my boundaries in the quest for a more interesting
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: research opportunity. So you know, I mean I think of
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: myself that way. I don't know if that's actually true,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: but like because I've never been given interesting research opportunities
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: in that regard, but it just feels very relatable. Massana
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: feels very relatable in this interpretation by grandalp all.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Right, So if you be Masana, if you were forsaken,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: what forsaken would I be?
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, definitely. I've always identified Massana as being my
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: favorite forsaken, Like that is my avataric foresake. And it's
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the academic who's like, really, just leave me alone to
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: read the cursed book please.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: As much as I would like to claim somebody different,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I think I gotta go with Mordan. The nihilist perspective
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: is just a little too on the point.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I mean it is a mood. Yeah, it's literally and faxatively.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: All right, Morgan, we get we get his new body,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: which is handsome enough, almost pretty. And oh, I want
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: to ask you about this, what do you think about
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: her Gretnall's assessment as Massana as a second rate chosen
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: See, yeah, I mean we see a track record in
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the books that is very lackluster. Right, she does a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: lot to fuck up the tower, but a lot of
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the things she tries to do within that don't work
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the way she wants them to. Right, she succeeds in
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the big mission to fuck up the tower, but a
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: lot of the little things she tries to do she
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't succeed in. And a lot of the other forsakens
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: assessments of her are like, eh, yeah, a little bit
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: of a of a bee student, and like, we have
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: some pretty epic forsaken. So yeah, I'd say we have
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: like Agin or Asthmodian Massana, like they're.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Shelf.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a different tier. It's not that they're bad
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: at being forsaken, it just it's not quite grand all
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: samarag Land fear kinds of exciting.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: And they were probably better forsaken in the age of Legends,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: where they had labs and societies they were familiar with,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: and you know, academic I.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Mean that might you know what that might be. It
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: is that some of the forsaken were much more specialized
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to the environment that they came up in, and some
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of them are much more generalists. And you know, anyone
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: who's studied anything in that kind of science realm knows
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that like generalists are gonna do better with catastrophic change.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why mammals took over after the K
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: T extinction, right, because they were generalists rather than the
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: specialists the dinosaurs were, broadly speaking.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And so we look at agin or, who's this geneticist,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: right like, and he's used probably using the one power
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: on a scale that no other forsaken can even comprehend
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: deal with all the like the genetic manipulation that he's
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: dealing with, and he's there's no microbiotary micro you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: he's not doing anything, right, So now he's stuck as
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: a farm pretending to be a farmer on a horse,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: as an ashaman, right Like, he's pathetic.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly Asmodion was doing art. He was an art
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and culture person. The art and culture have completely changed.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: He's completely not tapped in. He's not like a traveling
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: gleam and barred type person. He was like a court
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: barred you know, like I mean the equivalent of right,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: he's a rock star and there's no stadium concerts anymore,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: right Like, how is he supposed to do his shit?
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And there's not even amplification, right Like, it's whereas you know,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: you've got sadism and hedonism. Those are timeless. Those are
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: they could find a home anywhere, right, Like torturing people
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: is torturing people, is torturing people. Yeah, I wonder if
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that's part of why we have different tears of forsake
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and it is just because they're more fish out of
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: water than the others. Missana was a researcher, who knows
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: what the fuck she was researching, but probably nothing that's
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: relevant to the modern day.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they were on like the cutting edge of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: all these cool things they could do, right, And it's like,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't care if you know how to
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: create nuclear power if you can't build the steam engine,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: right Like right, Yeah, there's so many levels between here
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: and there. You know my job where I'm like working
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: on computing machines that make computer chips, right, Like the
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: amount of infrastructure that has to be in place before
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: any of my knowledge becomes even slightly relevant is astronomical.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Right, or like to hop over to my other topic
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: with my other podcasts, used to sew like a modern surger,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a modern like get in the seat and drive this
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: massive thing like embroidery machine versus like, you know, one
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: of the early prototype machines versus hand sewing like these are.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: These are become very uncomparable, like doing a modern long
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: arm embroidery machine or quilting machine versus like a hand
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: crank in eight like these are not. These are not
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the same. These are both technically sewing, but these are.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: These are both sewing machines even but they're you can't
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: translate the skills from one to the other. And now
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you're being asked to make an entire dress with a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: mouse bone. Yeah, like, I mean, these are just this
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: is not helpful. I'm not a seamstress at this scale,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she wonders who what The next thing I have
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: is what possessed someone to build a fortress out of
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: black rock in the black's heat. I think this goes
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: again with like I think it was moved during the breaking,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: so I bet I doubt it was built in the blight.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's just old.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Sure maybe maybe maybe it wasn't even black rock. Maybe
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: it's all desert patina at this point because it's that old. No,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: three thousand years would not be long enough.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: At NO. I was like, come on, you know better,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: But wouldn't it be cool. And then and then we
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: get the most unforsaken like exchange.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, we have.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: A duty to rescue our friend because she's one of us. Like,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: in what world has a force can ever appeal to? Yeah,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: like no, come on, shut up, Yeah no, exactly what
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: is a GWayne doing in this way? It's ridiculous, Getty brand.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: We have to rescue a GWayne, I know it. And
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: it's like, what is going on with these forsaken Yeah, like.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: You're forsaken, You're not the heroes. Stop acting like you're not.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Shush Massana, Your alliance ends the moment she gets captured.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: You know that. I know that Sanderson should everyone knows.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Everyone knows that, right.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows that alliances so sad. That's very silly, Like
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: I almost think it's the only reason it's there is
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to give him the conversational room to have the exposition necessary,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: like because it makes no sense, like like Massana would
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: never say that.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: It just gives more than a chance to say she
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: deserves her imprisonment and flex his hand, right, and like
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: get all frustrated that.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: It's just like we needed that line, But how do
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: we get there by Massana being out of character, honorable.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: What now right? And beyond that, she's a member of
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: the little alliance you made, perhaps the strongest member. Losing
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: her will be a book. No, losing the strongest member
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: means that's more for the other two.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I have listened to enough of Ali and Guss describing
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: survivor rules with respect to the forsakends jockeying. Yeah, yeah, no,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: that is absolutely not how that logic works. This is nonsense.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, question for you. We get report from our woman
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: from Messana who was in the room, thinks that the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: bolt of fire was a reaction of surprise, not an
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: intention to kill. Who is that woman in the room
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: who's not captured?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, I was wondering who, because we're talking
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: about a shan shan, right.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe I think that's the only person who could be
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: could also Could it be Elsa?
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Oh no, No, it has to be Elsa because Samaraki
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: is the person in charge of all the shan shan,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: so none of their eyes and ears would be reporting
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to Masana. Masana would be getting reports from people on
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Rand's side of the equation. So it has to be Elsa.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: It has to be Alza And you know it's a woman, clearly.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Then we get this line nobody kills Althor but me
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: from Demandred, which it's very interesting that like Mordan agrees
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: with them and is like, you are the great Lord, right,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: and it's basically like you have permission to kill him.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: That okay, I guess that must be one of Demondred's
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: conditions for continuing to fight. But it's like why maybe
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: because he's being effective and has these armies, that's the
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: demand he's made.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: But like I thought that earlier in the series, Mordan
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: said that only he.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Gets to yeah, only he gets to decide when rand dies.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: I think he said something like that, right, like.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, you're right, you're right. But then also we
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: know that what actually happens, of course, is that Randon
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Moridan do the final sword fight and Demondred is like
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hundreds of miles away.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Right, So I think this might be one one place
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: where Morden is just lying. He's just like, yeah, I.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Think that's the only explanation.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, sure, you can kill him.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: De Madrid spends the whole battle expecting Rantish show up
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and battle him, like he doesn't have a duel with
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the Devil to do, so like, yeah, Morgan's just like sure, buddy,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: you get whatever you want. Yeah, Rand will definitely be
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: packaged up and washed and clean and with a bow
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: on his head and ready for you to kill, like absolutely, buddy,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: trusts me, pinky promise, and he's just lying through his teeth.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Well, and there's he I think maybe possibly Demandrad does
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: think that he will get warning if Rand approaches the
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Dark One, because remember Rand gets that dagger, Bronz dagger
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: from Avienda that hides it from the Dark One. So
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I bet that there's this idea that, oh, if he approaches,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I will summon you back to shale Ghul and you'll
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: be able to fight him there, right, And he's not
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: getting that message. So he's like, oh yeah, he's out
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: on the field doing the fighting right, and he is right,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: but he's also then when Miss travels the shale Ghul
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: at a mysterious time holding the dagger, and the Dark
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: One is surprised when he shows up. Morgan's not really though.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: No, because they're because they're quantum entangled. It's not Dark
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: One stuff. The bronze dagger does not guard against being
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: quantum entangled with someone that makes sense.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, yeah we'll get that line that
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: that some wrong failed utterly leaving wounded despite my express
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: command that he wasn't to be harmed, and I forbid
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: you to send her any aid except the Dark One
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: sends her aid, right, because like the Dark One goes
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: and freeze her with shut at her on.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Well as grand All thinks perhaps the dark word will
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: have use or maybe Morgan says like, perhaps I'll have
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: use for her later he does, the Dark One literally
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: decides at some point, you know, yeah, the most useful
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: thing to do with her is going to be to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: release her and have her kill men with Rand's hand,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: like you know, he just she's just on ice. She's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: just on ice in storage. The Dark One will let
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: her out when he's good and ready.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: The next little bit is just more about what the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Forsaken are doing, right, mass hanas say, I will deliver
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: the tower broken.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: One of the lines I really like from her in
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that is more and more join our cause, some intentionally,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: others unwittingly. It is the same either way. I thought
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that was a very interesting line because it makes you
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: question all the good guys. Right. It means that every
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: single thing that the Black Auja Hunters and a GWayne
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and soon to be Varren's revealed. Like all of that
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: feels like in jeopardy, because what if it's actually all working,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: especially the dark the Black Aja Hunters, Like are they
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: actually working against their own cause by doing what they're doing?
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I mean they're not, but it throws it throws down
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: on that, which.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: This makes me feel like Massan is bluffing, so like, oh, yeah,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I got it all under control. Meanwhile totally slipping out
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: of her control.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I like it as a line because it's
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: such blanket suspicion on everything. Every single thing has to
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: be re examined with that sort of a claim. And also,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes yeah, you can actually be co opted
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: to do things that are against what you think you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: should be doing despite your intention. You can actually you know,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: work too opposite ends and it doesn't really matter your intention.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: The impact is what counts.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, meanwhile, you've got Ara and gar in the
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: rebels saying she's got that all under control and she's
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: going to deliver the tower, and I love that, Like
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Agwayne takes them both down, just like, no, you're both
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: useless in her sleep, literally and then demandrad. Of course
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: we get the I my rules secure, I gather for war, right,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: So he's ruling somebody, which is more than we knew before.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: And he's getting ready for war. So he has armies.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Now we know now of course that's the Sharon's but
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: it was mysterious. She's thinking the Borderlanders. I still think
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: the Band of the Red Hand, because he's you know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: fan in Dread is very real. I still think this
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: is evidence for Van and Dred.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: This does not poke holes in.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: It does not, It does not at all.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: In many ways, it very strongly supports it. This is
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: a supporting evidence piece for a Van and Dred. The
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: old problem is that my favorite late serious head Canada.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: If he's trying to kill Matt or paren right killing
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Matt Van it would be very well positioned to kill Matt,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: but not until.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: The right moment.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Killinghim at the right time is very important. I like
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: that Grandall has a moment of being a little bit
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: grateful that the fruit juice she's drinking hasn't spoiled, or
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: the wine that she's drinking hasn't spoiled. It's kind of like, yeah,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the dark One's spoiling all the food and
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: drink and things that shouldn't be spoiled, and we're gonna
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: have to suffer through that, just like everyone else. And
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: it's nice that this wine isn't spoiled. It's she's just
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: enjoying that little moment of like, enough stuff is spoiling,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: that this is nice to not have be spoiled.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Why. I'm just like, why are you supporting the dark
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Lord if he's gonna spoil your wine? Right? If they
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: can't even drink good wine?
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Like, oh god, so frustrating, Like he's obviously lying about
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: all the good stuff.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Obviously obviously, Like how can you be so smart and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: so stupid? So yeah, Morgen dismisses the two of them
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: and then turns to Grandall and says, so, did you
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: like did you like getting to eavesdrop without actually eavesdropping?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Did you like just getting to be in the room
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: and lord it over the other two? Did you enjoy
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: that I can give you more of that you can
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: be naborless to the nabless? Would that be nice? And
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: she's like, I did enjoy that.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Per per per assistant to the branch manager.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Right right, right, But she's like this is how I
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: climb the corporate ladder, and I'm very here for it.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: And then she says, you know, what's my assignment? He
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: tells her. She's like, I obey away and serve and
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: goes off to do her thing.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Create chaos and era Doman when she's already done by
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: kidnapping a bunch of the you know, council members or
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: whatever they're called.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he says, you cannot let peace come. Randall
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Thorpe is going to do his darnedest to make peace
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: happen despite all the merchant council kidnappings you've done, so
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: like keep that pot a boiling, And she's like, okay,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: that's my job, and she.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Pretty much successfully does until he comes down off the mountain.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And but that's after he bail fires her, right.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, yeah, she she's doing a great job,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: right until she loses all of her ability to exist
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: in that world. She doesn't technically die, but you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: all of her power dies in terms of her ability
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: to mess with Erdomont. All of her Eradomont persona dies
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: in that bail fire stream.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: And basically all parents arc with the White Cloaks and
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: the trap and all that coming up has to do
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: with her trap trying to kill him, Like his entire
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: arc is basically established here because Grendall is setting a
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: trap for him.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: With the trolis established here. How is it established here?
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Because he says, if you're going to do anything, kill
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: parent and rand her parent in Matt Matt and so
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Grendall says, oh I have Well, first of all, you
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: know I've already sent and when we'll talk about that,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: because Grendall is the lord dragon in mess On as POV,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: so we're going to talk about that in a second.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: But she has been trying to kill paren. She sent
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: the tinker after him a bar, and she's setting the
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: trollic trap up that's going to be sprung later.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I kind of thought that the trollic trap was
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: something that she got going after she was on her
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: last her last chance so to speak before she's actually
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a last chance. But no, she sets it up now
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and then pulls the pin off.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: I think so, I think so.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Later, yeah, but she is setting it up now, that's right,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah, So yeah, She's like, I'm a good little
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: dark friend, I'm a good little for second and goes
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: off to cause chaos as she does, and yeah, goes
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: back to Aradomon, which I think might be like our fine,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: it's a good reminder that she's in Aerodomon. She's not
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: just in a palace somewhere. She's specifically in Era Doomon.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Which we later learned is Natron's barrow, which later gets fired. Right,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: So I do like her pointing out strangely, he looks
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: a great deal like a Thor al Thor when he
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: stood like that looking at Mordan, and it's like, yes,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: they are linked, they are entangled. It's they're picking up
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: each other's mannerisms. The black and gold is something they're
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: both picking up and fixated on. So I had the
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: black and red, not the black and gold. They're feeling
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: each other's pain. There's a lot of like, yeah, there's
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: some interesting things going on between the two of them
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: in terms of like they are. They're linked very closely,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: and he's making that very clear as we get ready
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: for the body swap.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are be coming into a place of sharing
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: their brain cells.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: And then I thought, this is a prophecy that Morgan
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: is quoting. This final line, The end is near, the
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: wheel has growned its final rotation, the clock has lost
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: its spring, the serpent heaves its final gasps. He must
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: no pain of heart, he must know frustration, and he
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: must no anguish.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that does sound very prophetic.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: I get the feeling that he is quoting a dark
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: prophecy there. The wheel has growned its final rotation. It's like,
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: this is in order to win. These are the things
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: that have to happen. The dragon must know anguish because
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: again I go back to the fact that the last
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: battle was won on the mountain right Veins of Gold
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: is when Rand won the last battle, because only he
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: can destroy the earth. At that point on, it was
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: just like how bad is the Fourth Age gonna be? Right?
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Like could have really ended the world in that moment.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: From then on out, it was like, Okay, is the
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Fourth Age going to be overrun by Trolix and Shitty
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: or are we actually going to win this battle and
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: have like a future. But to win the last battle,
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I think the dark One must have the dragon reborn
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: no anguish, and he must destroy.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: The world right right, And you know, Natural's barrow in
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: its own way as part of how he knows true anguish,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: like she doesn't intend it that way, but it does happen.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Her actions do lead to Rand hitting the kind of
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: rock bottom that will let him pass.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Through that crucial somewhat unintentionally on her part, but yes,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: it works.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Moredon isn't doing this for Grandall's benefit?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: You know? Rodal E tiralda Yeah, fun name to say,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: He does have a good name.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: And this is just a lot of wisdom and I
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: feel like this chapter a lot of battle wisdom with
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: this guy. This is really like where I think Sanderson's like, oh, yeah,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to write one of the four Generals, and
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to write in a pretty badass because he's
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: fighting Sean Chan.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of good material to work
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: with set up by Jordan, and Sanderson was like, I'm
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: in the group with this right out of the gate.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Rhodeal I Told's mother, now thirty years buried in the
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: clay hills of his Demani homeland, had been fond of
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: a particular saying things always have to get worse before
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: they can get better. She'd said it when he she'd
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: yanked free his festering tooth as a boy, an ailment
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: he'd earned while playing at swords with the village boys.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: She'd said it when he'd lost his first love to
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: a lordling who wore a hat with feather, and whose
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: soft hands and jeweled sword had proven he'd never known
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: a real battle. And she'd say it now if she were,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: if she were with him on the ridge, watching the
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: shawan Chan march upon the city. Nestled in the shallow
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: valley below, he studied the city dar Luna through his
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: looking glass, shading the end with his left hand, His
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: gelding quiet beneath him. In the evening light, he and
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: several of his demani kept to this small stand of trees.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: It would take the dark one's own luck for the
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: shon Chan to spot him, even without looking glasses of
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: their own. Things always had to get worse before they
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: could get better. He'd lit a fire under the shan
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Chan by destroying their supply depots all across the almost
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: plane and in the Terrabh. He shouldn't be surprised, then,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: to see a grand army like this one, one hundred
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: and fifty thousand strong at least to come quench that fire.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: It showed a measure of respect. They did not underestimate him,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: these shawn Chan invaders. He wished that they did.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Hm hmmm, Yeah, there's just so much wisdom in that.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: I love it and just like, yeah, good battle sense,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: and I mean he's setting up a trap, right, This
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: is great general stuff that I kind of love the
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: way it's written.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: So this is the army that we were confused about
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: last time, right.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: I think? So remember our confusion last time?
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I believe what happened is that he had
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the one army and then he shoved them all into
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the houses and through their hid them and through their
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: costumes on other people, and thus invented and you know,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: poofed an army out of nowhere. And that's the quote
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: unquote missing army. I'm pretty sure it's like because the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: one army vanished, Right, they're still out there, but they're
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: not known because all their outfits are now on people
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: who aren't soldiers, creating a ghost.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Army, gotcha. Okay.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I believe that's what's going on here, and that was
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: where our confusion was coming from last time. Just from
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: thinking about it and from some comments people have made
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: a discord. Sure, that's what's going on there.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: And so he wins this battle, right. We find out
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: in chapter six he wins this battle. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: he you know, absolutely, it destroys this But then there's
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: another sean Chan army that pops up and has him trapped,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: and that's when Rand shows up.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Right, he loses enough of his forces on this battle
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: and in subsequent engagements that like, yeah, the army that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: comes after this one is the problem army because the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: sean Chan have endless bodies to throw at this compared
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to what It'serla has. I mean, technically there's an end
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: to it, but not compared to what it Isorola has.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: So he can defeat a whole army, great, they'll just
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: send another one and he doesn't have just another one
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to throw back at them. So that's when Rand comes
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: in and saves them. But yeah, for now, he has
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: set up a perfect death trap and it's going to
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: go so well. And so according to plan that, we're
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: going to spend no page time on the battle itself, right, Yeah,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: it's just the staid to black as it starts, and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: then when we come back, he's walking through the aftermath,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: which I love battles that you don't actually see, you
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: just see this set up in the aftermath. I love
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that as like a device to pass time.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: I like that too, because not necessarily that writing a
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: battle is boring, right, I do enjoy a good battle,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: But when a book is all battles, sometimes I'm like, okay,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I can the guy is swinging the sword for the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: eighteenth time bashing in another head. I get it, Like
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: there is a certain amount of like battles can be
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: overdone in fantasy books and.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: In fantasy shows. Same thing. It's like, I do want
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: some battle sequences, but sometimes you can just show me
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: that the battle plan was really well laid out by
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: not showing me the battle all and just being like,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and then the hero won because obviously, duh. We didn't
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: need to waste page time on the hero being in
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: peril when you know he's their next episode.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: So, because this is really setting up background for Egeralta,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: this is this is his background, his situation, so that
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: when Rand does recruit him, right, he's he's amenable to it,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: but also showing he's a bad ass quality general recruiting.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, we've been seeing that this is just a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: continuation of the utter Aldi plot. He's just having battles
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: every now and then in another plot, and yeah, eventually
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Rand will pick him up and be like, hey, you
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the guy who keeps pissing off the Shan chant be
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Mike General and it works.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And this is a giant battle. I mean, you're talking
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty thousand on one side and gosh
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: another a couple hundred thousand.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: How big is the one hundred and fifty I think the.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Shawan Chan forces one hundred and fifty. Yeah, so it's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: you're talking half a million people are involved in this battle.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of people. I'm not a mathematician, but
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of people.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: At a mathematician, that's a lot.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not a social scientist and I'm not a lot
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: of things, but I know that's a lot of people.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's an epic, epic battle on any scale,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: and it just kind of gets skipped over here.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: It's some d plot sort of stuff, you know, which
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I don't I don't know if I
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: agree with that designation.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: And I think it's one of the reasons that I
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: hear complaints about that, Like basically, the battles were kind
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: of small in the last battle because the armies could
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: have been so much bigger. The numbers when you bring
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: all the armies from all the different nations together, are
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: massive and much bigger than what we saw in the
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: final battle. But it would have just been hard to write,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: I think. I think it had just been hard to
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: keep track of the battles of that size and numbers
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: of that size, although it would have been kind of cool.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: I I do think we could have seen more, like again,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: this is going back to Demandred, right, like not just
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: breaking up fortresses, but like, oh my god, he just
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: killed one hundred thousand troops. Like let's see Demandred scything
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: down half a million troops at once, right, and that
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: let's talk about like, oh my god, this entire army
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: that we spent six books gathering together just gets mowed down, right,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Like I would Yeah, so that I would, I would see.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't mind seeing more battle fodder because I think
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: the armies could have been bigger.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I think think that the problems that the armies got
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: too big too fast, and then they plateaued too soon,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: they peaked, they peaked too early. I think like at
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: this point, I don't know that we need a half
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: a million people in a D plot. I feel like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: we could have gotten away with much smaller armies to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: still make the same point and had those big numbers
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: reserved for the last battle. Feels like where you should
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: have like a half a million people, like on a side,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: not in a plot that sets up Rodaliterralda's character for later.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: That seems like a waste of numbers. So I just
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like how Dragon reborn Rand's insanity has
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: really escalated in ways that are unsustainable.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: This kind of feels like that. It's like, yeah, you might,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: you might have shot you at a little too soon
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: We're gonna pull it back a little bit, yeah, pull back. Yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: And also, these armies keep smashing each other to smithereens,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: which is not great for final numbers actual confrontation. If
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: you have a half a million people fighting, that's a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: lot of people who aren't going to make it to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the battle.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: And considering the Sean Channer basically wiped out and then
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: he doesn't have enough people left to defend himself, that's
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: pretty much all of those half a million just gone.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Here's a lot of people. It's a lot of people,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: and they all could have killed trolocks, but no, he
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: had to spend them on a stupid trench warfare. It's great,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: it's not truly trench warfare, but it's just as pointless.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: And so and then we end that scene with him
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: spring the trap. Right. He's got a bunch of soldiers
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: that he somehow hid. They got there by being not
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: in uniforms, right, and so he gave the uniforms to civilians,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: and then his soldiers marched into the city and hid
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: his minunderstanding.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really cool how he sort of sets
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: this up because he talks about how he would have
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: traded ten thousand shoulders for one of the rock Into
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and yees head. But he thinks that's what the trade
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: off feels like, and then he exploits that very desire
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: right the end of the POV. He's the reason that
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: I want one of those Rockins so bad is how
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to defeat them. They obviously consider these Rockin
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: to be equivalent to legions upon legions of men. So
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I will take advantage of the blind spot that happens
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: when you're reviewing everything from ten thousand feet.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Which is I will feed the Rockins the information they
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: want to see while I'm doing something else undercover.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. His his lust for that kind of aerial information.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Let him know what the blind spot to that sort
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: of surveillance would be. And that's how he makes this
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: plan work is he's like, well, you guys don't really
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: uh ground truth your satellite data, So I uh, I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: made some ground lies.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: This is like early Esque when they basically putting camouflage
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: over a tank and then driving it, you know, somewhere
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: to hide from the satellites, Like basically basically what you did.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's if your satellite can only resolve to
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: this resolution, then make sure you're you're diskies is at
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: that resolution's fidelity or better done. Now you can do
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: whatever you want. And that's that's the weakness of the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: shan Shin. Part of their strength is that they can
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: move fast and see everything. Their weakness is that their
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: pixel size is kind of fucked. So you know, he
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: manages to make that work for him because he is
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: a great general. Also, there's another good piece of like
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: war lessons in here, one of the bitter lessons of warfare.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Winning didn't necessarily mean living, and following orders often didn't
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: mean either winning or living. Yeah, and that's why I
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: would make a terrible soldier. There's a lot of reasons
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: i'd be a terrible soldier, but I feel like that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: right there is It's like I don't want to follow
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: anyone's orders anyway, and if I do, it's good because
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: I think they're gonna help. And I don't think the wood,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like following orders isn't enough.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: No, and I don't.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think my brain could handle that.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: And that brings me to probably my favorite POV in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: this particular prologue.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: Let's settle in for some sweet sweet Stebby Stebby time.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: The death of Massonnaema. We just saw Masana, now death
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: of Missima.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you Jordan, Thank you, Jeffrey Jordan. I appreciate you
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: Names though, names though, so Yeah, this is and the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: redemption of fail in my opinion.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if she needed redeemed in your eyes, which you
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: know your mileage may vary, this is the redemption, final
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: nail on the coffin of the slog yes fuji.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the end of the final end of like when
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: fucking rand through Parrin out the door when they had
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: the argument about the treatment of the eyes that I
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: preserves and said, get the fuck out. I want you
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: to cover up and do this that whole plot line. Finally,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: and I want you to go get Messima and bring
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: him back.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: No more messema, no more mes doune with Messima, and
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: into doing we will gain Fayel in her full glory.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: The prophet's fingers bit dirt, tearing trenches in the soil
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: as he scrambled up to the top of the forested hillside.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: His followers straggled behind him, So few, so few, But
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: he would rebuild the glory of the dragon. Reborn followed him.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: No matter where he went. He found willing souls, those
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: hearts that were pure, those who had hands that burned
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: to destroy the shadow. Yes, think thought of the past,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Think of the future, when the Lord Dragon would rule
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: all the land, when the man would be only subject
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: to him and to his profit beneath him. Those days
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: would be glorious, indeed, days when none would dare scorn
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: the prophet or deny his will, Days when the prophet
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of living near the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: very camp, the very wish shadow spawn like that creature Abara.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Glorious days, glorious days were coming.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I love it when you do crazy characters. You just
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: get so into the insane people.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's nuts, he's nuts, right, He's been compelled
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: by Grendall, this shining figure in his dreams, which we
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: know is Grendall. Right, Like she talks about her tools,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: and that's compulsion and.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Through he's clearly not talking about right now he's being
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: visited by someone. Yeah, no, it's it's yeah. He was
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: already crazy and broken and having a hard time, and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: now he has completely broken down within the context of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the broken person he.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: Was, right, And like, I honestly think there is you know,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: we see in the beginning of this chapter this where
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Grendall says, no, I don't want to use that compulsion
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: on them, because once you use that level of compulsion,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: they're broken. They're not themselves anymore. And I think this
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: crazy version, and I think that is a direct reference
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: to what we're seeing here with Prophet.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought of that.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: He's not himself anymore, his brain is broken, he is compelled,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: and what we see as he dies is a moment
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: of lucidity as he comes back to himself a little
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: bit as as he's dying, in my.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Opinion, right, and he and he thinks about how his
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: like memories of his past life are like really fuzzy.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: You know. Now that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: because I assumed that Grandal's comment was only about, you know,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: the level of compulsion she needs in order to practice
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: safe sex for her own you know, mental well being.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: But and you know, Mesteema is obviously not a sexual
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: partner to Grandal, and I mean, and not all levels
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: of compulsion cost brand damage. We know that Grandal is
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: very good at every kind of compulsion and can choose
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: how much damage she creates basically, But I do think
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: that there might be some merit to that that, Yeah,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: missteema has been compelled to a degree that has kind
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: of maybe lobotomized him in a couple of ways, sort
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: of cut him off, like you know, sliced his corpus
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: colosm and like broken up some of the connectivity of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: his brain. And like, yeah, he's kinda not totally dysfunctional,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: but more of an automaton than he used to be.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: And yeah, maybe he is kind of getting it back
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit as he dies. But he's having a
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: very bad time because grandaw has abandoned him, right, Like
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: he's not getting the guidance that he needs in order
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: to turn this around. His mind is just looping looking
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: for an explanation, or I mean he oscillates between thinking
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: about his beloved followers and then how his followers are
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: cowards and how he treasures them, and then he spits
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: at their feet like he is like flipping through every
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: possible reaction looking for something to hold onto.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: Because his faith was betrayed. Right, he had this idea
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: that he was going to go up into battle and
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: with nothing more than his you know, faith in the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: Lord Dragon, which because the Lord Dragon appeared dooming his
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: dreams and can helped him to think that he was
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: going to charge into battle and he was going to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: be protected by his holy faith, which is very white
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: cloak of him. Yes, and his faith was betrayed. He
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: lost all of his followers except for a bear hundred.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: They were all murdered, and he doesn't know how to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: deal with that. So he's blaming his followers, but at
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: the same time understands like that's his power, is his followers,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: So he's blaming them but also needs them.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Right, It's not like I want to feel bad for him,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: but also like you do understand that a person's mind
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: is going to have a hard time in this moment.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Like if you think that you are bulletproof and you
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: lead all of your friends into battle and you learn
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: that they are not bulletproof and you get away with
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: just a few of them, you're going to be in
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: a very confused and upset place. Like that's just how
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: things work. You don't have to be sympathetic, That's just
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: how it works. And that's essentially what happened. Right, He
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: thought he had holy powers, and that was a very
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: explicit lie from the devil that was meant to set
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: him up for failure.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: The dragon had appeared to him the night before the attack,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: appeared Glory, a figure of light glowing in the air
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: and shimmering roads kill parente Barrow. The dragon and command
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: did kill him, and so the prophet had sent his
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: very best tool, a Barra's own dear friend. Right, so
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: he sent Aaron. Oh yeah, at the command of Grendel,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: who I assume sent that, I kind of. I assume
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: the Dark Friend's social actually occurred before the Battle of Malden.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Sorryed out Dark Friends Social the forsaken fornication, Right, I
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: think we're playing with timelines here, So I think that
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: like the scene we just saw, probably occurred before, because
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: then she went and said she was told to go
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: kill Parente Barra, she appeared in his dreams, et cetera,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, I kind of thought that she had been
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: pulling the strings on Masteema for.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: A while, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: And I thought that that had set up Aarm's corruption
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: a while ago. I thought that Mastema had corrupted Aaron
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: kind of on Grandall's suggestion, maybe more than order.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: But he's saying literally the night before she appeared to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: me and commanded me to send Aaron, right, that's a
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: special appearance.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I hadn't quite thought of that, but yeah,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: the timeline has officially broken loose of all bonds. So yeah, no,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think you're right that that
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: makes sense with the way that we're getting set up
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: with like set up fallout, set up fallout, that through
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: this whole prologue. That totally makes sense.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: And we do. It's not infrequent to see Robert Jordan
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: Wright scenes in the prologue that occurred before the final
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: scene of the previous book. That is a pattern he
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: has long established to be like, oh guess what the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: context was around and even our last forsaken meeting right
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: with Grendall occurred at the beginning of book six, but
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: it happened before the events at the end of book five,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: because we know that like Grendall comes out of that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: meeting and then kills Asmodian. Right, So this is literally
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: the forsaken meeting that occurred before the events at the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: end of the previous book. Sanderson is doing that just
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: like Jordan did at the end of in Lord of Chaos.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Well, it fits an established pattern that totally makes sense. Yeah,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I don't feel bad for Messima, but also like he
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: is just a tool being toyed with by like Demi
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: gods working on behalf of Satan. Like he didn't have
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: a chance. That's sort of a bummer. He was he
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: was genuinely a person fighting for the light before. You know,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: he was not a dark friend before he got snapped up,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: not for any sin of being a dark friend.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: For his literal faith in seeing Rand and seeing the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: literal dragon reborn. Right, this literal Jesus figure comes to
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: Earth and he literally believes in him and literally like,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, he hates him and then goes a little
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: fanatic and there's some lovers to friends over compensation something
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: going on there, right, Like that was bad.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some weird shit.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's not what caused the prophet.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all. It's set up
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the conditions by which Grandal was able to say, oh,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: I barely even have to do any work on you.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: You're already at the brink.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: But you can imagine a world where she didn't show up.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: Messana preaching the word of the Dragon recruits people. Parent
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: shows up and he goes, sweet, I've growdeled these people
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: for the Dragon Reborn. They're great, we're going to contribute
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: to the army and help with the last battle and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: you can help me train them up, and they're not
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: gonna be meat cannon fodder, right, But because of Grendel's influence,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: they end up going into the meat grinder for paren
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: and that whole group of people gets cut off.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: There could have been a really funny plot line where
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: parents dealing with this prophet guy who just like will
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: not stop hero worshiping him and like following him around
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: and being just like an overly annoying puppy and like,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: but it's a good thing instead of a creepy thing.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Here's one way that Parent ends up with way more
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: troops than he wants in the final battle as he
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: keeps trying to send them away. And meanwhile, the prop
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: is going out recruiting people for Parent, right, because he's like,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: you need a bigger army if you're gonna fight for
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: the dragon reborn. Man, you know, these dudes, come on,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: let's go. Parents like stop recruiting. Oh my god, I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: don't need another fucking army, you know. And like the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: prophets out there like, hey, the religion is spreading, man,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: Like what can you do? And parents like I don't
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: want a religious figure, you know, right?
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that it could have been humorous and funny, and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: it's all it's all Grandell's fault. It's Grandell's fault that
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Missimo was not just a funny sidekick preacher character and
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: instead had to suck and be like a pivotal figure
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: in one of the sloggiest plots, Like it's all Grandell's fault.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: So the way that the prophet is written in this
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: chapter reminds me a lot of the way that Jordan
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: wrote Fame big time, right, Like, I feel like he's
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: definitely using that sort of you know, gonna kill him,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: this repetitive, the bouncing all over the place, that sort
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: of I almost use the Fame voice by default when
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: I was reading.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: It, right, yeah, it was like, it's Faine and Mestima.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: You have the most fun with these, with these characters
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: when they're having their little mental mint TV.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah that or Mashadar eat this all all this right, Like,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: there's definitely this like much Chin Ruian Chin.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but yeah, I know the the insane voices,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the ranting voices there. The fund read a different vibe.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: They'd been like I'm a queen, I'm an omnipotent narrator.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: I'm a stoic hero. Like nah, I want to be
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: the crazy villain cackling in the corner nuts and.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: I know it and I don't care. Yeah, right, it's fun.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: It's fun to read.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, yeah, he's thinking about how his followers are great,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: but also they should have fought better because they suck,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, I should have been able to
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: win that battle, and he's angry.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: The ones I have left are the best of the best, right,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: these are the ones, the real zeal the ones who
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: really care, the ones who didn't drive off, and it's like,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: these are the ones who are really nuts. These are
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: the real crazies.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well and also the lucky ones, right, just
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: the shear statistics of the battle. A few people got
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: through the meat grinder and like they're in his honor guard.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: They you know, just got lucky. And this is not enough.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is enough to rebuild with. You've got
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: some hard corselates now, but a.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: Corps of one hundred. I think you need like one
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: hundred followers to start a cult. That's what my understanding.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, but wow yeah, Fayel hiding shaw Fayel, Hello Messima.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: How many people do you think have bows? Because they
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: mowed down one hundred people pretty much, no problem, and
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: several of them have several shafts in them.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Faya once it kept a secret, So I'm not quite
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: sure how she keeps a secret With the task force
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: that's able to take out one hundred people in five minutes,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty big, big secret circle. Maybe it's all
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: Chaffai yom. Maybe I'm just underestimating how many cho fayo,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: there are.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: They've been growing. They've been growing.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: Probably also more people joined while she was gone, right.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: Right, So I'm wondering if maybe, like if she had
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: slightly less than one hundred and everybody fired a couple
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: of arrows and that was enough, or if you have
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: like more than a hundred to let everyone you know,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: basically fires once and then if anybody's still standing, you
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: fire again.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, so it's all it's probably yeah, up to
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: two hundred shafay.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just shapes and shadows, because.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, these people are running, they are tired and
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: confused and don't have ranged weapons, and they are running
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: at the archers, so like the archers have time to
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: get off two or three shots, I think.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: So I'd say, I mean, you can probably get away
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: with fifty people with Bose to take out a force
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: of one hundred tired.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: You know, fifty good shots that are fresh and well rested, well,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: I mean relatively well rested. Yeah, that's gonna be. They're
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: gonna have quite the advantage on speed and processing time
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: compared to the people who have just drugged themselves out
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: of a war zone.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: The prophet you remember time when you've been called something else.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: Messima those days were growing very blurry to him, like
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: memories of a former life. Indeed, just as all men
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: were reborn in the patterns, so had Messimo been reborn,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: he'd cast off his old profane life and had become
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: the prophet. And I really do think that's just his
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: compulsion brain, which.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: Like many people talk like that and think like that
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: and act like that, so it's not like it's exclusive
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: to compulsion. But certainly, like again, Grandall didn't pick him randomly,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: She picked someone who was ready to have that conversion
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: process anyway, and just yes ended him because it took
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: less effort that way, and he'd be more creative in
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: the motivation that way he was going there. But like, yeah,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: he's he's got compulsion. He's got compulsion locking him in.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: I think, up until I think there's a moment where
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: we get Messima back, it's my fault, the prophet whispered
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: as the last of his followers died. I feel like,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: you know, it taken several he's very taking several arrows
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: stops some of his followers that made him proud. So
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: he's still a little insane, but like there's a little
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: bit of honor coming back. I think he realizes he's dead,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: his followers are dead, he's got an arrow in him, and.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: The programming starts to fail because the programming doesn't cover
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: the situation. So the old, buried Messima is what comes
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: up to fill the space that he doesn't have anything.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: Else to do, and he sees the blade that's gonna
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: kill him, and he goes, oh, it's a good blade,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: and I'm glad I get to die with a little
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: bit of honor to a good blade, like this seems
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: to be the bestland. Yeah, there's just a little bit
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: of that like relief that maybe I've been stopped.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: And he's like, did I do well?
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: Father?
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Right, there's just this part again. He wasn't a dark friend.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: He wanted to fight on the side of the light.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: He wanted to defeat the dark and like you see
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: in his fatal moments, him being like did I do it?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Did I fulfill my mission? And you have to, you know,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: shake your head and be like, you know, kind of
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: like in the last POV, like some people are fighting
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: for the dark one without realizing it, and it doesn't
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: matter that they don't know. The effect is the same.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: Massima is a perfect example of that, because he never
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: wants anywhere in his delusions thought I'm working for the
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: side of the shadow. He never wanted that, he never
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: chose that.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: And his whole death Puov is brutal. I mean this
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: whole like, you know, she cuts his throat and you
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: get this fade to black in his head.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: And it's like no, she ramps her knife into his heart.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: Sorry, thank you. I don't know why I said that.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: I thought he was gonna be I thought she was
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: gonna slit his throat and then she stab it in
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: the heart. And for some reason my brain is like this,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: head can I can't head canon that one. That's actual canon, right,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: So yeah, he stabs him in the heart, and as
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: he's dying, you sort of see this like reversion to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: Messima that it has been his name. He'd earned his
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: sword on his fifteenth birthday. His father had been so proud.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: It's over, then, he thought. Unable to keep his eyes open,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: he closed them, falling as though through an endless void.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: Did I do well, father? Or did I fail? There
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: was no answer, and he joined with the void, tumbling
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: into an endless sea of blackness.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: There was no answer.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: There was no answer, just brutal, just brutal, like and
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: just that, you know, I mean really pov and to
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: like just there's no afterlife, like I mean, I guess rebirth, right.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: That's the one thing I'm not super fan of. The
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: tumbling into blackness. I would have been like, would have
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: been like an joined tell the heroes and tell I
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: don't know, we don't that's the first time we really
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: see character be like I'm dying. I feel like I
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: feel like we don't get a lot of povs from Jordan.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong, But I can't think of
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: time when we're really in somebody's head who dies and
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, I'm dying and the fade to black what?
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Right, I don't think we see a lot of deaths.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: No, No, Like I feel like we see people pass out,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: like they get stabbed and they like and they fade.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: We could do some fade to blacks, but this, like
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: I asked my father if I was forgiven and he
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: said no, you know, or there was no answer, Like
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: we don't get a lot of that, you know. No.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: I like the visual of just tumbling into the void
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: without any conclusion, Like I think that's a brilliant way
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: to have a death that like, you don't know, you
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: don't know, you're still alive as you ask that question,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: and a live people don't get to know what happens
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: after you die. That's not how it works. You just
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: don't get to know. And so there's I like the
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: empty hanging unresolved. Note that it's so sour in the
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: right way, you know, It's just it's off key in
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: that perfect like I want resolution. But also the fact
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: that there's no resolution is so perfect, especially for a
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: character who's like intentions are good but whose impact is bad,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: so he kind of like averages out to like it.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: How do we judge him? Eh, there is no judgment.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: There is just fading back into the void from which
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: we all came. It's so eerie. And again, I just
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: love Fayel being like, thank you, I do genuinely appreciate
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: the whole helping me escape my captivity, super solid move
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: that you did for me, But I cannot let you
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: continue to exist, and so I am going to murder
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: you in cold blood right here, right now. Like I
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: love that she embodies both of those motivations honestly and genuinely. Again,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: very borderlander. I mean, these are two border landers border
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: landing as hard as they can right here. Yeah, and
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: then she tells everyone who helped her, you know, sometimes
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: wives have to do murders that their husbands can't know about.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: So help me hide this body, help me bury all
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: these bodies. I mean, she's really girl bossing pretty hard.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: She has a posse helping her hide bodies.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: And we've been around Parent enough to be like, yeah, okay,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: you go like, yes, Paren can't know about.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: This, and Paren wouldn't have done this one done this, Yeah,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: and it needed to be done. Like we know that
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Messima is dangerous, broken and corrupted, Like there is no
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: redeeming this, this husk of a person at this point. Sure,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: if I yel, you do your cold hard Celldeian thing, yep.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's it's fun. I'm glad Fayel did it.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: It makes her, I think, a more rounded, more interesting
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: person who takes her own initiative in a way that
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: she hasn't for a little while in the books, she's
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: sort of been controlled by circumstances and didn't effectively escape
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: in a weird way like she escaped but didn't like
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: his parents still had to take down the whole place
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: to get to her, so and.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: Roland had to get her out of the basement.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, so this there is a certain amount
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: of agency that I'm glad.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: She takes here, and she will continue to take She's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: a much more like this is an actual turn for her.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: She will continue to take agency and make decisions moving forward.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's we're into good fa Yale times again.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: That's all I've got for the for the prologue, That's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: all I got.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's good about the chapter.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so next week we will be back with chapter
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: one of.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: The chapter one. Who's pov?
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Is that? That is Rand?
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Good tears from steel? That's random men?
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, because this is the post strangle.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, we haven't had the strength yet. This
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: is just Rand being nuts. He hasn't tried to kill
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: men with his hands yet.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: Oh no, he's I thought he lost hand already, wasn't that.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he lost a hand to Summarrog, but he isn't
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: going to strangle men until later.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: I get those two scenes confused. I always think he
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: loses the hand in that first No, you're right, it's right.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: That's what he gains the one Power the Power. Sorry,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: we've been recording for over two hours.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: My brain self working. I also was looking at houses yesterday.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: The looking at houses is surprisingly exhausting.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: No, it is not surprising. It is so real. But
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: let's turn recording off. Thank you everyone so much for listening.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it a.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 1:31:00
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• 1:31:02
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• 1:31:07
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• 1:31:10
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• 1:31:13
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