Latest / WoT Spoilers / To Die Well & The Use of Dragons - A Memory of Light ch9&10 - EP599

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To Die Well & The Use of Dragons - A Memory of Light ch9&10 - EP599 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers Podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Shall we get into the chapter that we're doing today? Actually,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: we're doing two chapters today.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Two chapters, yeah. This is battle preparations, battle starting. I'm
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: not really.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: This is battle happening, for sure.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: This is battle happening, I should say. Yeah, yeah. Well,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Rand's kind of in battle prep mode. He's getting ready
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for the last battle.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: But we're spending a lot of time with the Borderlanders
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: who are actively getting pressed, so... Yeah, yeah.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We're in that space now where we're jumping between a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: lot of storylines. We're touching a lot of different people
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in every chapter, and this is how it's going to go,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: because it's like, what is this chapter about? A lot
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of stuff.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our PPC... Our PPC count is going up. Our
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: POV is per chapter. It's like a BPM.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I was noticing that like suddenly we're hopping back and
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: forth and all around. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Yeah, I know, Athlon.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I'm breaking the rule of having acronyms inside acronyms. I'm sorry.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: It's NA, nested acronyms. Yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Anyway, now I want to die. To die well.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: To die well. And we have the Heronmark Blade, because
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: it's a land chapter. And that's often used for land,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: even though it also used to be used for Tam's sword.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It means blade master, and they both are, so it's okay.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Fair, fair. Gotcha. Land split the head of the murdral
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in half, down to the neck. He danced Mandar back,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: letting the fade thrash as it died, its convulsions twisting
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the pieces of its skull from the neck Putrid black
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: blood poured onto the rock, which had already been bloodied
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a dozen times. Lord Bandragrin! Lan wheeled toward the call.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: One of his men pointed back toward their camp, where
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a spout of bright red light was shooting in the air.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Noon already, Lan thought, raising his sword and signaling for
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: his Malkyar to retreat. The Kandori and Arafelan troops were
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: swinging in. light cavalry with bows, sending wave after wave
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of arrows into the mass of Trollocs. The stench was tremendous.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Lan and his men rode away from the front lines,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: passing two Ashaman and an Aes Sedai. Kuldara, who had
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: insisted on staying as King Pantir's advisor, channeling to set
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the Trolloc corpses aflame. That would make it more difficult
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: for the next wave of Shadowspawn. So, just front of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the line war stuff.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: This is what they've been doing for two days in
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: hour-long rotations. Just solidly building up these piles, burning them.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: It's war stuff at its grindiest.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's like piles of bodies, channeling... Wow, what
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: did I blank on that word? Things that you... Poles
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: on horses that you poke things with. Lances! Lances! I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: blanked on the word lances! Okay, okay. Yeah, Lance charges,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Everything's muddy and bloody and smoke-stained and scratched and, yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Kuldara is a New Spring channeler.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I thought I recognized that name.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Fate unknown.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: And then we have, you know, from this very, as
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I said, grinding, almost generic sort of war stuff, we
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: move to the heart-wrenching loss of Bulan, which is on-screen
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: and off-screen. At the same time, right? You go through
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: this discovery of the fact that he's already dead.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Right, you don't see the wound.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Right, he died off screen, but you deal with the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: impact of it on screen. Right there. Like, the body
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: is right there. He's not even cold yet.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: So, okay, side question. There's this, quote, fool-land thought feeling
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: at Bulan's neck. Do you see that? Yeah. No pulse.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: What's the line after that?
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: He was gone. Okay.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Okay. In my book, I think it transcribed he as Fi, F-I-E.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And I think that might just be.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not right. That's not right. It's he was gone.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that might just be the... My book
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: might not be... Arr.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Arr.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I spend so much money on these books.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I know, right?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: At this point. For real, though. Oh, jeez. So anyway, OK,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I think that's that. It happens two or three times
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in this chapter. I'm like, I think that's just a
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: transcription error. But that's that's a weird one. Yeah. The
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: whole you wouldn't leave my side.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: While his side is gushing blood everywhere.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, go get healed. Like you dying. Like
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: what you think you're going to be able to help
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: him after you're dead. Like, I hate that logic. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: hate it. I hate it.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I understand the concept of tunnel vision where you just
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: sort of end up wrapped around one mission that makes
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: no sense anymore because that's like the only thing your
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: brain is left doing. But yeah, it's a little bit
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: hero dumb ways to die as a hero 101, right?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Right. So then there's sort of this this moment of mourning.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And in order to get over it, Lan starts calling
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: out these names and stories of people who have died
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and how they died gloriously, basically killing Trollocs or, you know,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: saving somebody's life. Right.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: He denies his grief by saying, you know, I will
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: not mourn. I will celebrate. I'm going to celebrate this guy.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to celebrate that guy. I'm going to turn
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: this grief into joy somehow through the memory of their deeds, right?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And that's part of the whole thing with taking the
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Hidori from the corpse, right? And taking it back into battle.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: It's like, we're not mourning until after returning the mourning
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: into joy somehow. It's war alchemy.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: And would you guess these three guys named after Wheel
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of Time fans?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I'm shocked. Shocked, I say.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Bach, B-A-K-H, named after... bach payson and bach died with
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the uh he was the crossbow guy i.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Love the idea of like he was riding around with
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: a loaded gun essentially and his superior was like if
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: that thing goes off i swear to god and then
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: like he managed to use it before he died properly
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: killing a trolloc so i guess you know he was
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: vindicated in the end but just the idea that someone
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: was riding around with a crossbow and everyone was like
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: that man is crazy He's going to get someone killed.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Put a safety on that thing. Exactly. Also, how long
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: does the tension last in a crossbow?
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. Maybe he reset it once a day.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Certainly not as long as a gun stays loaded. I
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: imagine that the string has to... I mean, the point
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: of a crossbow is you don't have to pull it immediately,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: but it can't stay like that forever. It would bend
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: too much.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know where the tension in a crossbow is stored.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's different than in a bow itself, which
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: is stored in the flexed wood.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: It's a spring?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But the spring has to be in the bow itself.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That's the bow is a cross. Yeah. I need to
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: look into how crossbows work.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently we're not good nerds of medieval warfare.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Really not. Really not. How come neither one of us
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: knows that? That seems like an absurd hole in our
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: knowledge at this point. Yeah.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Why don't we know that?
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Right? Why don't we know that? Come on. And I
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: know I've watched a YouTube video about it. I just didn't.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: It's not in my head. Ray Gunn. who charged his
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: horse straight at a group of 30 Trollocs, is named
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: for Brian Reagan. And Kragle is named for Craig Foster. Nice. Nice.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So they are just nice little anecdotes of men who
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: died well. And that's, you know, the name of the chapter.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: That's the point of this POV. And Saman Nassai, Brown
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Anja to the core, has given us a diagram in
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: chat explaining the force of a crossbow somehow does this
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: explain the question.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: I don't think so it looks like science but it
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: doesn't answer the question intuitively oh and then dr pants
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: with the literal phd coming in with a how stuff
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: works link.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Is there a picture that goes with this okay it
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: is a spring elastic potential energy.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It seems like it's still storing energy in the front bow.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The difference is there's a ratchet system that you release.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So instead of pulling it back and having to hold it,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you can ratchet it one at a time with a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: big lever arm, have that stored, and then release it.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to have the strength to pull
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it back because you can use a ratchet, and you
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: don't have to have the strength to hold it in
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: place because it's ratcheted in place. All you have to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: do is be able to hit the trigger. So the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: tension is held the same way as a bow and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a string. Okay.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you understood that faster than I did, because
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I was just like, those are so many words and
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I'm bad at knowing how these things work.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I was pretty sure I looked down and saw the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: ratchet system and went, oh, OK, that's how it works.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you've got a more mechanically minded brain than me,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: because I can get that sort of stuff eventually. It's
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: not intuitive.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It's also I know I've seen it before. I just
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: need a reminder. So it's not like I was learning
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it for the first time. Right.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. Like it's, but this is me with geology stuff.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, I have to skim Wikipedia, but it's
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: reminding me of things I already knew. Whereas, yeah, like
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: many other things I can't, I can't trust Wikipedia because
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: it's not reminding me of shit I already know. It's
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: telling me things I've never learned before.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And I, yeah. And I think modern ones have a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: whole different like spring system built into it. And like
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: they optimize it a little bit more, but I'm thinking
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: more obviously the crossbow bolts we'd be dealing with here
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: in real time do not have the, you know, fancy
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: new stuff. It's not, there's the cams and police and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: cables that are on all the modern crossbows are not used.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in these medieval ones.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Sure, right. These are very, very primitive compared to what
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: you'll find at a modern archery range. Good nerding, everyone.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: We have more gateway abuse.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: It's for putting Beulah in the morgue, okay?
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: What, Narishma's not tired opening a gateway since it's just
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: so easy for him? He can just close one, open
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: another one, no big deal. Man, you want to save
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that strength for fighting. I just... Or movement of troops.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just editing our episode where you have
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: your first rant against this, and it's... Yeah, reading this
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and doing these notes is like, man, Sanderson really just...
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Hand waved all of that, didn't he?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Gateways just become easy at this point, right? Like it's
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: just gateways just aren't a hard. And maybe I'm harping
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: on this point too much. That like once people learn
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the weave, it's fine.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Elsewhere in this chapter, there's talk about how tiring they are.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: It feels inconsistent. But yeah, Lan wants to put Beulah
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: somewhere cold so that way he can, in theory, be
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: buried in Malkir after all of this is over because
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: he'll just be, you know, a corpsicle in the meantime.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And he's not doing anybody else, just Bulan.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I feel like by the end of the battle, there's
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: a small collection of super special corpses stashed up there.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's not just Bulan by the end, but yeah, it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: not everybody by any means because that would be too much, right?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: There is still an accepting of some limit.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And Lan asks for the location of the mountain in
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: case Narishma dies, assuming that he's not going to die.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: He doesn't, like, write it down anywhere. That would be silly.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think Lan ever plans to die. He's definitely
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: never thought that he's going to die.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's never once assumed he was about to die.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Not once in all these books. And the next thing
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: we get is the Doomcracks.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is, I think, probably the first time
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: we've seen this. I mean, this is an after effect
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: of Balefire, right?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: This is the thing that the Flame of Tar Valon counters, right?
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: This is the thing she sees spreading out and threatening
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to take over everything. So she fills it with like
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: actual crystals. Like this is that darkness. And as far
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: as I know, that is the result of Balefire.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Do you think the Dark One is also, as he's
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: just breaking down the pattern as he's getting in, do
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you think he's also having an effect on that? Do
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: you think it's a combo of him? Because he is
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: corrupting the pattern. We're seeing all these weird physical things
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: happening to the world as he is fucking with it.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And they talk about the world is tired, the world
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: is breaking down. Do you think maybe even if he's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: not causing it, that situation makes it less resilient to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the Balefire? Yeah.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I'd say that there's definitely a bit of a feedback
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: loop because both the Dark One and Balefire are kind
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: of all about unmaking. Mm-hmm. The dissolving of things, the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: entropy of things, the increase in chaos, the reduction of order.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: They both kind of do that. So it makes sense
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: to me that their mutual influence could have a sort
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of resonance back and forth and not be totally unrelated,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: even though, yeah, different sources, but not aiming at different things. Also,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: we're not seeing Balefire getting used here. This is just
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: general Dark One is stirring energy, whereas with what Egwene sees,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the Balefire is being used right there, right in front
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: of her. She's countering it in a very present way.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: There's no displacement over time and space to argue there,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: which this is just an earthquake. Also, the bending of
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the world, like Athelon's pointing out in chat, the world
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: is literally almost spaghettifying towards... shale ghoul.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Sure, if you want to talk about the Dark One
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: as a black hole, which, you know, if we want
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: to talk about the, we haven't really gotten to the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: time bending yet.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Right, we haven't gotten there, but it's, you know, coming.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It's coming.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, if he's pulling on the world at
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: different rates, you know, the further away you are, you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: get pulled at different rates, that creates tension in the ground,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: causing cracks and shit. Yeah, I can see that.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: It all kind of adds up to the same thing,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: which would make it more likely to happen, right? If
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: they're all additive things.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Attributes. They seemed to be cracks into nothingness. They drew
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the light in, sucked it away. Drew the light in.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Black hole. It was as if he was looking at
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: fractures in the nature of reality itself, like singularities.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of the edge of nothing that gets
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: created in His Dark Materials with the big cosmic bomb.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Or the nothing in Neverending Story.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: The concept of an endless void that sucks in the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: light exists in many different pieces of art. It's recognizable. Yeah.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: The idea of chaos over order, right? Like you create
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: this chaos where nothing can exist. Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty primal existential dread in the human psyche,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And often is a way to bring together heroes and antiheroes. Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Because everyone wants a reality to fight over.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. That's how you get like some of the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: worst bad guys fighting on the side of the good guys.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We're like, oh, fuck, I don't get to do my
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: like evil deeds in a world that doesn't exist. I
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: won't exist.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Which is why being a dark friend is so fucking dumb. No,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I'll be in the better world he creates afterwards. We've
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: seen those worlds. You don't want to be in them. Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Also, like half of his minions are aiming to destroy everything.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Right. When you're like, I want to rule the better
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: world and leaders like I want the world to end.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Follow me. Okay, Shawmail. Yeah. Tenobia wants to fight.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Foreshadowing really intensely that she's not going to survive the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: last battle.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she'll be off into the battle herself at some
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: point if we don't watch her. Yep, that's what happens.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And she dies.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: That is what happens. As soon as you are unable
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to keep an eye on her, she rides out into
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: battle and promptly gets swarmed under. It's one of the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: ways you know that all hope is lost right before
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: the breaking of the light. But we have to heavily
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: foreshadow it here, just to sort of Camp flavor.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: And then I feel like there's a really important point
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: here about war and battle, right? And propaganda, especially here
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in the United States.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Teaching the men to accept that they might die and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: revere the honor of the fallen. That was different from
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: singing songs about how wonderful it was to fight on
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the front lines.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Those are different things. And I think we confuse them
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: They're very different.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And often if you're accused of not doing the first...
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Your cue's not doing the first when you're not doing
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the second. Right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The conflagration of the two, or the conflation of the two,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: is a problem.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: To praise actively doing the thing and to have that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: be the same as revering the fallen, they're not the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: same thing. But here in the United States, it's very
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: hard to do the former without seeming to be involved
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: in the latter, and it's really hard to avoid the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: latter without seeming to be avoiding the former. But that's, yeah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: not a real conflation. That's artificial.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I got really confused on the former and the latters there,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: but I think I agree with you.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I'm fairly certain I didn't mess it up.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I always, when I'm reading and they start using former
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and latter, I have to remind myself which one's which,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: go back, look at which statement's first and which one's second,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and then match that with the former and latter. And
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: then I have to reread the sentence that says former
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and latter in it using the substitutions in parentheses.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I'm bad at math, but I'm good at word parentheses.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: It's honestly one of my least favorite written. I understand
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: why it's useful, but I don't like it when it's used.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: just refer to the first thing or the second thing
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: or refer to like something in the paragraph. Anyway, moving on,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: not important. And so then we get this argument between
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Algamar and land about basically whether to hold their ground
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and just get ground down to nothing or just slowly retreat,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you know, wearing away the bad guys as they retreat
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and delaying them longer. And land is like sort of
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: making this. I don't want to abandon Malkier. Malkier is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: my home. I've abandoned it once. I don't want to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: do it again. And Agumar's like, that's not our mission.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Our mission is to delay, delay, delay, delay until the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Camelon force can come and reinforce us. Right.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: This isn't about you and Malkir. This is about how
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: long can we bottle these Trollocs? Pure and simple. There
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: is one bottom line and it has nothing to do
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: with your pride and your trauma. And Lan has the thought,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: how am I different from Tanobia? And it's like, Thank you.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that self-reflection, because this is no different
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: than Tanobia. You're trying to sacrifice people for something that
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: is emotionally important to you, but that's not the mission.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: No, your duty is heavier than that. It's heavier than
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a mountain. Heavier than a mountain. Yeah, and that makes
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: land flinch, which is like, I mean, we know how
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: stoic land is. Words making him flinch is crazy.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Only someone like Agomar could do it. Agomar, Moraine, that's
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: basically it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: So basically they are, the channelers come on the scene,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: which is a real problem for him. And so he
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: has to retreat like Alec Moore suggested. Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Basically they thought they could hold here more or less indefinitely,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: like for weeks. They've only been fighting for two days
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: and then the channelers roll out and they're really not
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: going to be able to hold even for a month,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe for a week, but not weeks.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, Any force in this war needs channelers to
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: reinforce it. You really can't have a soldiers-only group anymore.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Especially if the other side has channelers that you can't
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: get to. Like that's the thing is like keeping your
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: channelers back, but also getting to their channelers, right? That's
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: such a critical part of warfare in the last battle
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: is how can you get to the other side's channelers?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Which is why the Sharan attack is so devastating because
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it really just takes out most of the light sides,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: you know, experienced channelers takes out the white tower basically. Yeah.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: If the White Tower had actually been effective at all,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: it might have made a difference. That's not fair. The
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: White Tower was pretty effective as a body.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: It was. Then we get to the whole setting up
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of the healing station and the novices. That's actually really effective.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: They do actually do a lot. I'm unfairly maligning them
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: because the Greens didn't do their job for the last 3,000 years.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: It's not really the same thing as what they participated
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: in at the last battle. I'm being mean. And speaking of,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: let's POV switch over to the White Tower, to Egwene
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: on the field of Merilor. Actually, not really the tower, but,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: you know, the Aes Sedai leadership.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And Gowen Whining.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Is there another state that he existed?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I don't like being forced to wait this long, Gowen Whined.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Writing decider.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: My book says said. I think your transcription might be
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: slightly wrong there.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Man, I don't know. I guess this book is altered
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: all sorts of ways because it definitely says whined in mind.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I may have like crossed it out with
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Sharpie and written wind in there myself, but it definitely
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: says wind.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, they're what? Newlyweds now?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: They only just got married last night. So apparently this
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: whole time since Gawain died, Egwene has been a virgin?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's true.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Do they get, do they bang last night? Do they
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: do anything about it? I mean, it's, it's such as weird.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Like all the other, my parents' marriage, this big fucking thing.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Rand's marriage is a big fucking thing. Matt's marriage is
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: like three books long. Like, um, nine Eve to land.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: That's a huge deal. Like all of our Emmons field five,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: their marriages are big deals. And then fucking a Gwaine
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I got married last night. What about it?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Fuck off.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I'll throw my own wedding. What of it?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Anyway, And like, when you're the highest authority, maybe you
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: go to the fucking Aiel and have the wise women
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: marry you in their tradition.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Or what about your future sister-in-law, a literal queen?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Queen, yeah.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: What about your other childhood friend who's a lord, who
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: is a lord in your hometown now? You don't think
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Perrin wouldn't be happy to marry you? You know? It's
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: so weird to have Sylviana officiate, but you think Perrin
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be happy to officiate? I mean, Perrin would be
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: awkward about it, but, like, Fahil would be a great...
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You know, anyone in the extended family. Why Sylviana?
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I think it would have even been cool to have
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Rand be the officiant. The Lord Dragon, right? Oh, my gosh! Like,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: marrying the Amarylline.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: There's the higher authority in the land, right?
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And, like, the bringing together of the Amarylline and the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: dragon and her marriage could have been, like, really something special.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Or an Ogier? I mean, these are the chapters that really... Like,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: what happened to the Egwene of... The previous book. For real, though.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: You know, Towers of Midnight.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: She's dickmatized.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Egwene nodded at Susan, riding at Brynn's side in
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: smile and satisfaction. He's bound to us tightly now. Oh, she's... No!
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so glad Suan and Brynn are
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: finding love. None of that. No.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: She just became Omerland. It's like when she broke Masana's mind,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: she also broke her own. She became Perma-Omerland.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, new theory. New theory. Right. The way that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: people go into Tehran, the way that people go into
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Tehran and become less human when they're in the flesh. Right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Because they alter their own mind. Maybe there's some like
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: you can the way Perrin is able to escape compulsion
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: with land fear. You can alter your own mind in Tehran.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: She did that to win with Masana. And that's why
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: she is the way she is now.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: She took on a much more institutionally blank persona and
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: became much more simply the tower after that. Or, as
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Captain Fitz says in chat, maybe it's an anti-feminist statement.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: You only get a big wedding when the man initiates.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Though I would argue that Fahil initiated that wedding.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it does feel a little bit
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: like a wartime wedding where it's just like, OK, we
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: had to do it in secret. But just doing it
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: so off screen to me feels just a little disrespectful.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, just the whole relationship.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Or maybe it's partially because, like, Aes Sedai are generally
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: seen as, like, above sex and gender, and it's weird
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that she would, like, lower herself to the human mortal
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: standard of having, like, a regular husband, and, like, it
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: somehow demeans her status as Omerlin or something.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And then there's this whole scene where Sylviana is snapping
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: at Gawain, and it's like, you just married them, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you're already just, like, You shouldn't have married them if
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you don't like the dude.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Again, having someone who hates your relationship be your officiant
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: makes no sense. Makes no sense.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Pretty sure Travis didn't hate me and never being together.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: No, no. I'm fairly certain he was overjoyed to be
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: helping you guys get married.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Man, going to weddings is such a mind trip because
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you're always wondering, like, why did they make those decisions? Mm-hmm.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, once you've done it and you've passed through that
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: whole experience, you're like, how does mine map against theirs?
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Why did they choose this instead of that? I would
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: have done this differently. Oh, man, if I was going to... No,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to do it again. That sounds like
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of work. But, like, it's such an interesting
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: experience after.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Especially when you realize people are sometimes more influenced by
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: their families than you realized ahead of time.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in Marzipan, no one... You're talking about Will and
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean... getting married mid-battle, and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you're saying, yeah, the problem is not married to get married,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: they're married to get fucked.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And that's the problem with so many relationships, especially young
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: religious relationships, where you're like, why do you two people
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: get married as soon as you're 18 and then get
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: divorced a year later? Oh.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: And a lot of heroes in our books tend to
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: follow that pattern, except that it's happily ever after, because
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: that's where the book ends.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Sure, and which is not saying it can't be happily
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: ever after, but the fact that all three of Rand's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: wives were virgins before he slept with them is just
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: eye-rollingly stupid. One of the few things I really do
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: think the show did better than the books is show
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: them all fucking. Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So the next thing we've got is Egwene and is
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: this everything about Elaine, right? We kind of move into
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: talking about Elaine and getting How they're trying to downplay.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: They're mad at Elaine about how she's maneuvered with the kin.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So they're calling her Elaine Sedai instead of Queen Elaine.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Because, yeah, Elaine Sedai is subject to the White Tower
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: as opposed to Queen Elaine, who's an independent queen. Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And then they pick the hospital. Yeah, they decide that
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Bear Elaine should be voluntold, that she's figuring out the
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: hospital now.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Which like honestly makes a lot of sense given her
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: relative distance from the front lines. It's a really good
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: place for the hospital.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And let me tell you, if anyone ever asks, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: where would you go if you were plopped down, you know,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: into the Rand land at the beginning of Eye of
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the World? Man. Go to Man. Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: It's a great place to just ride at the events
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of these books. And that city is more or less fine.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Through the whole last battle and everything.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Not city.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Country. Yeah. What is the city in Man? Man. The
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: capital of Mayenne. Oh, it's a city state.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, Mayenne is both.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. I'm like, how could
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I not know the capital city of Mayenne? Because it
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: is its own capital city. Gotcha. And the next thing
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: that we've got is talking to Lylewyn. Egwene talking to Lylewyn,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: specifically beginning what should have been an awesome relationship that
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: instead is going to wither on the vine. But this
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: is a start of what could have been something cool.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Basically this debt of failing the bracelets and the conversation
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: is Llewellyn wants to repay that debt.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: By swearing the strongest oath she knows how to swear,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: like invoking the crystal throne and everything.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So, okay.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: You know, my pet peeve passion is the crystal throne.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, I was going to come up on
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: this one because this is the vow they swear in
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: front of the compulsion device that is the crystal throne. Right.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And this explains everything about the way the Sean Chan act.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: If they are bound by this, by the one power,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: When they swear on the crystal throne. Yeah. Yeah. I,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: you know, instead of Amaryllis of the ruler of the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: white tower, it would be Empress ruler of the Sean Chan.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I vow to serve you and protect you. Amaryllis ruler
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: of the white tower by the crystal throne and the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: blood of the Empress. I bind myself to you to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: do as commanded in all things and to put your
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: life before my own under the light. May it be so.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: All the Death Watch guards swear that. I bet a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: lot of the nobles have to swear that. Like, there's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: just a lot going on. Probably not everybody in the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: world swears that, but.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: A lot of people do. That is the oath by
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the Crystal Throne and the Blood of the Empress. Put
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: my life before her own. I mean, no wonder they say,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: may she live forever. Because they might be asked to
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: die if she's not going to live forever.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Her life before theirs.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, she swears that oath and... Whether or not
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: there's any ability for her to transition where her magical
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: bond may or may not be, she doesn't even have
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: one actually because she didn't go back to shawn chain
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: when she got raised i don't think so you know
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: this is entirely symbolic for her but she doesn't even
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: necessarily know that there's a magical binding component higher up
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: in the imperial circles right this is just the form
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: of the oath that you.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Take I don't know if anybody knows. That's the thing.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if the Empress knows.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: You think the Empress doesn't know? Then why do they
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: keep doing it?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Shan-Chan are bound in so much tradition.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: You think they're literally just like running in circles on
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: a program run loose?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I always thought there was some degree of awareness
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of what was happening there. I'd never thought of like,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: what if even the Empress herself didn't understand what was happening?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: But I guess- She would have sworn the oath as
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: like the daughter of the nine moons before she was Empress.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: So a self-perpetuating loop?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: That's like almost Black Mirror levels of creepy.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And then all that does is confirm that the Empress
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is powerful. The Empress has this like pseudo-natural ability to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: make people obey her. And it sort of elevates the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: station quite a bit. Yeah, Buji, of course they obey me. Absolutely.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I'm the Empress. Why wouldn't they? I don't see the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: problem here.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: A worldview that's magically reinforced, but nobody knows that it's
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: magically reinforced.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yep. A hundred percent.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize that wrinkle to your theory. That's cool.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: There's no secret to discover. There's no one to like
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: get blackmailed about it. It's not like the Suldom thing
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: now where there's like this information they're trying to control.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's done because I think Samaraj, Samaraj, Samaraj, whatever.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: trashed the fucking throne, right, when she killed the Empress
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and destroyed the whole royal family.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure, she killed everyone to whom that oath was
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: actually effective. All the blood was spilled. But that doesn't
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: change people's belief in it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Right, and yeah, as you said, it could have been
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: set up by Ishii, of course. Because he set up
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the Shang-Chan. He sent them over the seas, right? He
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: gave them the Crystal Throne. It's 100%. Like, that is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Ishii's baby over there. Because he set them up to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: come back. I set up the Doom of Two Worlds.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And sealed two dooms.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: That combined with the fucked up prophecies. Rand has to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: kneel to the crystal throne, the compulsion device, if she
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: is essentially setting it up so that Rand had to
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: swear an oath to the goddess, to the empress. And
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: if he did it on the actual crystal throne, he
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: would be bound to her. And that would be one
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: way in which he could fuck with the dragon reborn.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Rand circumvents it by kneeling to the persona of the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: crystal throne rather than the item itself.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Right. Separated by an ocean. He's like, I'm not getting
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: within three weeks sale of that thing. No, no, no, no.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. So that's, you know, it's my headcanon.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I like that. That really deepens the headcanon to have
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: more roots and more loose ends tied up. I like that.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, never in my theory did I believe the Sean
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Chan Empress knew about it. It's just that people kneel
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: and swear oaths, and she's on there making... I mean,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of course, someone will go back and find a quote
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of me being like, of course she knows, but... I
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: don't trust myself, but....
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that had not occurred to me, so trippy. But yeah,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Aegionnon believes that she has transferred that level of intensity
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to Egwene and will behave accordingly. for the rest of
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: her life, particularly once the Warder Bond is invoked. It
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: gets taken away at the same time that Egwene literally dies,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: so she is forced to figure that out in the
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Fourth Age afresh. But for now, at least, she has
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: recommitted herself to a person that's in front of her.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It really robs her of her redemption arc, I feel like.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: It does. Egwene robs her of her redemption arc. Her
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: redemption arc could still be happening at this point.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: But it would have to happen without Egwene.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Domon's going to have his work cut out for
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: him once the dust has settled.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. No kidding.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: She's going to have to pick a hell of a
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: lost cause that he's going to have to support her in.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: There's also that whole, I mean, ethical thing of like, oh,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: if Egwene can release the bond when she knows she's
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: going to die, couldn't a bunch of other Aes Sedai
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: be doing that instead of taking their warders with them
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to the grave? Don't you think they would be doing
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that because they care and love them? That's another one
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of those twists that I'm just like, I don't feel
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: like that's something you can do in the heat of
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the battle.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even having a high power level doesn't seem like
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: enough to justify that.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Awkward.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: All right, back to Rand.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And we're back to Rand. And he is considering if
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: an idea is alive and what the world without the
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Dark One and without evil would be. He's marinating on
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: that puzzle.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Someone sent us a note. I think, was it? Anyway,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say who it was because I
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: don't remember who sent us the note, but was essentially
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: saying that the look in the eyes of the people
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: who have been turned by the 13 murder all and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: 13 channelers is very similar to the one that we
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: see in Rand's world without the dark one.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember this comment. It was in Discord somewhere,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And the answer was basically, that's the... evidence of having
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: free will taken away, whether that's the inability to choose
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: good or the inability to choose evil. That shadow is
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: essentially lack of choice. Yeah. And then I read a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: whole debate about, you know, Wheel of Time is really
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: interesting because it does not insist on free will. It
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: insists that you have choices sometimes, but does not say
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: that you have free will because often your choices are
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: between two very structured paths. And so that kind of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: makes sense that free will can be taken away.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You can make choices in your life, but you don't
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: necessarily always have free will. An interesting distinction, in my mind.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I was kind of thinking about that. Yeah. Yeah, the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: classic cow looks like there's two paths, but there's really,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: they funnel down to one and you end up in
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the same destination. There's that, but I think there's like...
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: maybe you get to choose two distinct paths, but once
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: you start down that path, you don't really have free
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: will on that path. You're going to the end of
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: it either way. But, you know, I mean, and we
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit with the prophecies and
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, right? The prophecies, if they are prescriptive,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: how much free choice are you making? How much is
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the pattern forcing you into a place where you have
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: to fulfill these prophecies?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Right, right. I mean, even like in the initial Eye
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: of the World discussion, right, where Loyal is explaining what
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Tevirit is. that some things are more fixed than others.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And Rand's example of like, I can choose where to
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: live in town, but choosing to become a king is
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: a bigger ask.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: And as Athlon says in chat, maybe we don't have
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: totally free will. We have free-ish will with the greater
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the magnitude of the choice, the less free it is.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: It's a dynamic thing rather than an absolutely definitive thing.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I think I go back to the Lycanus trilogy, different
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: book series, but, One of the things I really like
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: about that is it sort of, you know, the whole
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: premise of the book, what the good guys and bad
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: guys are fighting about is in a world with prophecy.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And this is a world with very detailed, very specific prophecy.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Do you have free will? And if the God is
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: giving you those prophecies, has he taken away your free will?
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And should you not rebel against God to get your
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: free will back?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Righteous, righteous. That's a really strong pitch. But it's the,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: bad guys you told us before the bad guys making
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a good argument like.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: No yeah and it's like oh okay yeah all right
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: um yeah and so it's just it's it's a very
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: interesting argument and and obviously in the real world we
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: don't have prophecies but we do have statistics which are
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: very good at predicting what people do except when they're
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: not in mass well they can be used to deceive
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: but in situations where you have large groups of people
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: are remarkably predictable In weird ways.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, Harry Seldon.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Just populations of animals.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Speaking of statistics, Rand is looking at all these maps
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: and numbers and being existentially bothered by people's lives being
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: reduced to statistics and how upsetting it is that war
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: can be turned into data, essentially. It's a very necessary
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: aspect of war, but it is also existentially upsetting when
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: you're trying to feel your feelings.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: You can't get to know every hundred thousand soldier that
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you need personally. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: You can't write all of their autobiographies and have all
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: of them fully annotated on the map. You have to
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: just have, you know, 45,000 dead.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Which in a lot of ways is Rand's struggle through
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the end of the last battle. The moment when he
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: releases the guilt and says, why can't I let others
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: be a hero too? That's his struggle in the last battle.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: That's what the Dark One's using against him. And here's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: sort of Egwene pointing that out, that this is something
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: he needs to work on. He needs to figure out...
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: that other people can also be heroes and that his
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: sacrifice isn't enough.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I feel like basically half of the cast tells him
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: that before he takes off for the thing. I've been
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: like looking for it and I've been noticing that every
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: time he has a good heart to heart with anyone,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: they say, well, what about me? What about my choice?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: What about my agency? Like he does really get seeded
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: with that concept quite intensely before he goes into that confrontation.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: It doesn't just spring out of nowhere, you know?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Well, and Sanderson will tell you what he's going to
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: tell you. Then he'll tell you. Then he'll tell you
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: what he told you. So this is him telling you
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: what he's going to tell you.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's closer to a Jordanian level of foreshadowing.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Closer to it. It's just like, yeah, Rand did actually
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: get told this repeatedly. He didn't make this choice for
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: other people. He's actually distilling the feedback he's gotten into
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: a choice, which is nice.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. then I like the line, Randolph, are you going
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to talk to me or do you wish to ogle
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: me further? If I can't ogle you, who can I argue?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: You're my wife. I'm going to check you out.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: That is a husbandly line right there.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: But also like your other two wives, technically. But yes, yes, Elaine.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: You just surprised him with your beautiful self. He's going
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: to take a minute to just appreciate that. Make a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: nice long memory to take with him into battle.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And, you know, what's with Elaine's lover sneaking into her tent?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: First Avienda, now Rand.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I guess that's just the energy she gives off. She's like,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: sneak into my tent. That's what I want. Oh my God,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Captain Fitz. He took a pregnant pause.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I'm banning you for that pun. No, I'm not. I
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: would expect that of Seth.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Hey, at least I don't have an excuse for the puns.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: They're all dad jokes.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Well, Tam's going to be a grandfather, assuming he ever
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: is willing to go to the royal court of Camelon.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I bet he'll be more in the kid's life than
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Rand will be.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Which Rand? Uh, they talk about naming. Oh, the first
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: he talks about fatherlessness.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I hate this quote.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Tam erasure here. The Tam erasure.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Not cool.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: First he says, Oh, Tam's going to be a grandfather.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Then he says, I was left fatherless. And it's like,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: did you, is Tam chopped liver? What is happening?
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Just cause John, when he's like, I turned out all right. Yeah.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Cause someone else stepped up and was your father. Exactly.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: It wasn't, you weren't fatherless. You had Tam. Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: The whole time. Tam picked you up while you were
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: still actively connected to your mother's placenta.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it wasn't like he came in later in
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: life and was like, oh, well, now that you're, you know,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: five or ten or whatever, I'm going to teach you
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: how to be a man. It's like, baby, mine. Yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Like he changed your first diaper ever. He's the first
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: person that ever diapered you. Like, shut up.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: In the show, it's literally like as she births the kid.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: In the books, does she, is it that newborn or
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: is it like?
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: It's like 20 minutes later.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: She's been there for a couple of days.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Not days. It's like 20 minutes later because she's dead
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: when he shows up. She's already dead. And she had
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: wrapped the baby in her cloak, but it had blown
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: away and he was actively getting hypothermic. So like 20
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: minutes tops.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Because in the show, she's dying and he takes the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: baby and she gives him permission. Right.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: He's actively in the delivery room in the show.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Which was very emotionally impactful, for sure. In the book,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: she's already fully passed and Brand is very likely to
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: die of hypothermia right away.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he even thought Tam was his father up
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: until the beginning of the series. Yes.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Recently so like you're not fatherless you grew up motherless
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: right you barely were not motherless but like you were
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: orphaned of your mother at a very young age the
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: woman that you called mother died when you were young
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and that did give you a little bit of emotional
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: attachment issues but like not too much but like yeah
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: the tam and carrie erasure in that is just like
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: bro bro He never thinks about how Kari wasn't his
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: real mother in that same kind of emotional abandonment way. Like,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, he kind of is mad at, you know, Shail,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: but that's different. Whatever.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: He moves on to trying to break intergenerational trauma curses
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: by saying, please do not name the children for me.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Because that is, they already have enough burden and baggage
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: with being my children. They don't need to literally have
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: my name on top of that.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they're getting away from that. Between
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: being Elaine's child, ridiculously powerful channelers, which I'm sure they
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: will be, Rand's kids.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: They deserve to at least have a name that's not
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: literally copied and pasted.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Because at this point, Randall Thor is like the most
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: well-known name in the world. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Naming them something. I mean, just farther back in the chain, right?
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Farther back in the family tree. They both know multiple
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: family names. I mean, Elaine's royalty. She has so many
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: generations of family names she can pick from, you know?
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Talk to the Aiel. Johnwin's family tree.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You get so many names to pick from. You
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: don't need to copy and paste Rand's name.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Or Shahil's family tree, because we know that's also Andoran.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: And then Elaine has a very nice line here that
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: all of us who get caught in rumination spirals could
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: do to ruminate on. It's all right to plan for
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the worst possibilities, but you must not bask in them.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: You must not fixate on them. Have hope before all else.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Shut up, Elaine. No, I don't need to listen to that.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: That's not relevant to me whatsoever. Moving on. Don't throw
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: that in my face. Come on. I was going to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: say I highlighted it, but I didn't want to talk
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: You, me, and everyone listening. They talk tactics over dinner, basically.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they start talking about the battle. Yeah. Some reflecting
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: on the relationship. You know, this Rand had fallen in
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: love with her during those days. Real love, not the
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: admiration of a boy falling off a wall. And we've
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: talked about that moment enough where it was like, what,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a couple weeks? Three weeks? I mean... True love?
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Or was it like three days? Wasn't it like three days?
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's always a very... Every time we
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: come across this question, it's like, how long were they
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: there for? It's somewhere between days and weeks. But I
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: can never remember because there's like a book time jump
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: in between, right? Like, it's literally between books that a
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: lot of that time passes.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: So... But he's literally, like, waiting for something, and it's
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: like he has, like, a very brief period of time
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to hang out with her.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not very long. Yeah, it is three days,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: isn't it? But anyway, it's an intellectual connection, not just
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: making out. Sure, buddy.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. And, I mean, I do like the explanation. They're
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: both kings and queens now. They can relate on that level.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: There's a certain, like, he hasn't really had a chance. His,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you know, Avienda certainly doesn't relate to him on that level,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and neither does Minn. And there is a certain level
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: of like.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: That's super fair. They both understand what it means to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: be responsible for thousands of people. This kind of pressure
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: that no human brain was meant to handle. They both
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: understand it. She has a lifetime of being trained for it.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: So she can pass that on to him. But it's
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: something they can connect on. Like, Evander's the brave one.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Elaine is the responsible. That's such a weird word to use.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: But Elaine is the responsible for other people one. And
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: then Min is the heart, the emotion, the hope, the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: just sheer persistence. Not the bravery, but the stubbornness.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, Avienda matches his Aiel heritage. Min
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: matches his Two Rivers heritage. And Lane matches his Andorran
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: royalty heritage. Right.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Min does really stand in for the Two Rivers
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: of it all because she's from just down the road
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: a piece from the Two Rivers.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: The Andorra commoner. Marzipan saying that he was there for weeks,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but I think it was only in the last two
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: or three days of their before the things happened that
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Elaine came to him and they started making out. She
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't there the whole time. So that's why we're confusing
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: weeks and days.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: But they had been talking and becoming acquainted with each other.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: So presumably some of their intellectual connections started before their
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: romantic connection.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But that is the moment when she
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: comes to him is like, you will have an idiot.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I want to kiss you, basically. Right.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Right. Like we've been talking politics for weeks. Why are
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: you picking up what I'm laying down?
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: That's sort of the subtext that we can map onto that.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: And then Elaine has emotional intelligence about Rand and asks
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: him about what happened that day on Top Dragon Mount
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: because she knows about it because of the water bond.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: He hasn't talked about it with anyone, but with someone
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: like her where the bond exists, she's like, so spill
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: on the big emotional catharsis that we both know you had.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: That leads to one of the most fun unexpected responses
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: that he's ever gotten to talking about the voice in
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: his head. Yeah. Elaine says, what an advantage.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: What an advantage.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: She doesn't say, oh, no, I'm so sorry. How can
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: we deal with this? She says, fuck, yeah, let's go.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Which is something he said to a few other people.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Like he said, even said to Perrin, like the corruption
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: could be the thing that wins us the war because
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I have this knowledge. And Perrin was like, oh, yeah, damn,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I guess it could.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Elaine is there ahead of him.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: But she's there ahead of him. Yeah. Which is just
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's a really good job of
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: showing the strategic mind, thinking about the advantages, the politics. Right.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: She's on that same level of being a ruler, seeing
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: what advantages they can use to help their people. So
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I really, you know, as much as I criticize Sanderson,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I think he nailed Elaine probably better than any of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the other secondary characters.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I do like Elaine. I do believe her progression from
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Jordan's writing. I do believe that Sanderson picked her up
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: more or less where Jordan left off and is continuing
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the progress I was expecting.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's some ridiculousness around the pregnancy and the
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: bed lifting stuff, but I don't know. That kind of
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: fit her character a little bit.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: And it was also so set up by Jordan. Like,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: you really had to graft onto the pre-existing material and
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: just write it out.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And then, yeah, here's... Shortly after that is like him, somehow,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I wish I could make this all stop. Shouldn't my
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: sacrifice be enough? And her response, you know, it's more
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: than just me, Rand. It's about everyone. Can you understand that?
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: It's about everyone.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: It's about everyone. Like she says it right there.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I highlighted that. It's just like, oh, yeah,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: he is actually literally hearing this. When he brings that
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: thought together, it's because people have been telling it to him.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing they talk about is he
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: fixes the tea for her and we get the sort
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of the conversation about balance in the pattern and sort
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: of this is the real Explanation about how he can
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: create good things because the dark ones doing bad things
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: and so he balances out the essentially It's inertia right
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: nothing changes about the pattern until acted upon by an
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: outside force the dark ones the outside force and Rand
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: is that normal force restoring order and the harder the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: dark one pushes and the harder Rand, you know, almost
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: instinctively pushes back.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an isostatic rebound on a cosmic scale.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And so Elaine says, the growing grass, the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: splitting clouds, the food unspoiled. And then he says, yes, well,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: some other tricks helped on occasion, but he didn't mention them.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: So then the other tricks he's talking about has to
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: be tree singing.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or tree humming, as the case may be, which
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: I think confirms that the grass was definitely a little
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: extra helpful.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: You think the growing grass was a little extra?
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he was humming to help make that happen.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, all of that, definitely. All the things
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, for sure. And the way he says that,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, which one of those could he have
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: been doing a little extra trick for? And we know
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: that the splitting clouds and the unspoiling food are things
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: that just happen. So that leaves the grass. So that's
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: my interpretation of that. And then Rand, I think, explains
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: one of his big mistakes. what he will realize is
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: a mistake, is saying that the Dark One is a
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: force from outside of the pattern that's influencing it. And
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: that's not true.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I guess, how do you define what's outside the pattern, right?
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Because the Dark One exists in a prison that does
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: separate it from the pattern. And by sealing that pattern,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: you seal it off, right?
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: But the Dark One, like, the influence of the dark
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: one on the pattern is not an outside force, right?
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: It's inherent to humanity, right? Like darkness, evil, free choice.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: That's inherent to the reality that the pattern is made of.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: You can't take it out, right? That's what he gets
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: wrong in that vision of like killing the dark one.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: You can't kill the dark one and put the world
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: back the way it should be without the dark one
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: because there is no world without that. shadow it's inherent
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: to the pattern as we know it at a really fundamental.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Level right and people have to have the ability to
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: make that choice for the pattern to be.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah the pattern didn't exist before and then the dark
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: one came along and ruined it right the dark one
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: of the pattern came about at the same time right
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: it's like there is no before the big bang you
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: know there is no pattern that has ever existed without the.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Dark one right Yeah, is the dark one at the
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: center of the wheel, is the center of the wheel
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the prison?
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: If the ages are on the outside of the wheel,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and the way I think about it is that spoke
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: is Teleron Riad, because that connects to all the ages
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: and all the worlds. And the dark one's inside the spoke,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and is Teleron Riad layers of prison.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And how does the catechism go, right? Was
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: sealed away by the creator at the moment of creation.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: And there were three constants, right? The pattern... the creator,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and Teleron Riad. And if the prison was created and
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Teleron Riad not, if the prison had to be there
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: from the beginning, then one of those three things has
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: to be the prison. Yeah.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: So I think that's the flaw in his argument is
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: the idea that the pattern can exist without the Dark One.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: It can't. It just, it can't. The pattern is too
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: intrinsically bound to the concept of the Dark One to
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: ever have existed without it.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And because the Dark one is at the spoke where
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the battle only happens once because it connects to all
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: ages all at the same time. Right.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: It's a driving. Entropy is a driving force of order. Right.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: In the way that humans experience the emergent properties of reality.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: But also a singularity in the dark and a black
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: hole at the center of creation as well. Like there's
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: a black hole at the center of the galaxy. Right.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the black hole's gravitational force drives matter to
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: move in such a way that you get beautiful, glowy
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: spiral arms full of material that might possibly get moldy
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: and start talking to itself.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: And make up stories about the wheel of time. Exactly.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: And then the last bit of the chapter is the seed.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we finally find out how Angriol are made.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sanderson gets to just do a nice little blast
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: of technical world building to close the chapter out.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: It begins with one of these, an object created to
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: draw your power and instill it into something else. It
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: takes time and will weaken you for several months, so
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: you should not attempt it while we're at war.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Or pregnant.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or pregnant. And, you know, this is how we
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: create Angrial. We're never told how do you create a song, Angrial,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: but my theory has always been you do the same
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: thing just with a circle of people.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: It's just a matter of scale.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so the women-only song, Angrial, are created with
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: a circle of women only, you know, the ones that
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: use both power. I guess, I don't really, we don't
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: really have song real, they're both. They're all men or
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: women only.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that we've ever seen a hybrid one.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Presumably that was one of the things that frustrated Mieren
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: into doing her non-binary power experiment.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: That even the Chodin Call are gendered. And then he
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: gets the brass dagger that hides.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she's like, well, I didn't plan on it,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: but here, I have a present for you too. And yeah,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: it's the dagger that Avienda said makes it so the
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Dark One can't see you. So the shadow can't detect you?
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it basically lets him get to the shale ghoul
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: without being attacked the whole way there.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: It would have been a lot harder for him to
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: get to the battle proper if he hadn't had that.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: He's able to sneak up on the dark one.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, they hang out long into the night.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: As we turn the page and the POV into a
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: new chapter. Okay, so next chapter, chapter 10, The Use
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: of Dragons, has the line of Andor as its symbol
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: because this is all about the battle in Andor. That
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: is the big thrust of this chapter. Although we are,
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: of course, doing the POV hopping all over the place,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: that's the big bulk of the chapter.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the battle to get the Trollocs out of Camelon.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to get them out of Camelon and into the woods.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: So at some point in this chapter, Elaine suddenly has
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: a sword. Do we remember when she decided she was
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: going to become a sword carrying pregnant lady or a
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: sword carrying person at all?
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Is it not just a ceremonial sword?
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: She doesn't talk about it like a ceremonial sword. She's
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: just like draws her sword and points her sword and
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: waves her sword and gesticulates with her sword. And I'm like,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: when did you ever get a sword?
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: It's a good call. I don't know.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: This should have been a thing. We should have had
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: a scene where you like confront Gawain about how he
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: has to teach you how to do a little bit
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: of sword play because even though you're pregnant, it's the
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: end of the world. And he does it because he's
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: your brother. And that should have been a little montage
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: scene where he was sulking at your palace. But instead,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: you just have a sword out of nowhere.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine that she's going out onto a
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: battlefield that someone handed her a sword.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: And Brigitte didn't body check that person and say, how
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: dare you? Like, I just, it's so weird that she
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: just has a sword without ever once mentioning it.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: I agree. I don't, yeah, I didn't really think about that.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: But that is, now that you point it out, I'm
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: just like, oh yeah, that is weird. Do you want
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: to talk about Perrin first, though? Yeah, sure.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Perrin. Perrin. Perrin. Go in order. Really short POV with Perrin, though.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is at the city walls, right? Elaine
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: is off in the woods to draw the force, but
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Perrin is at the city immediately pissing them off and saying,
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: come and get us, come and get us, come and
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: get us. This is the force that's supposed to do
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: the longest, hardest run of the plan.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: And this is more, you know, I kind of forget
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: that Perrin is leading his armies in the beginning of
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: this battle.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: He doesn't get tired enough to take a nap until later.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But I think it's because this is such a
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: short POV without really a lot happening.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's pretty generic. Perrin successfully does general leadership stuff.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: That's not as interesting. It's that Tolkien Hobbit thing of
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: like the good times are no fun to tell stories about.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: So we'll just skip three months. Anyway, back to the
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: time that I was miserable for one night and it
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: takes three chapters to get through.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: So this is presumably the next day because we're back
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: with Elaine again.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Because the last chapter ended on they stayed together long
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: into the night. Rand has done all of his conversations
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: before the long rest.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, this is the next morning. The sun
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: has come up. People have gotten in position.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: That's what we're doing with Egwene in the last thing.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: It was like people are moving through gateways, getting in position.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So here we are in position and starting another front.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Right. And Elaine is frustrated that TechSport hasn't gotten Zoom working.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's so true.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I wish we could have made those Terra and Grial work.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Aviana said that one lets you see over distance, another
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: one talk that way.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I want a telephone. I want a video call.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: But they don't have it. No cell phones. Yet. Yet.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: And then she sort of ostentatiously says, hmm, sure would
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: be nice if I could see things. I'll just go
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: see things for myself. It's fine. And then her and
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Brigitte have just the snippiest conversation. This is what Brigitte
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: apologizes for later, right? Like I pointed it out before,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: but like she's in that really snippy phase and I'm,
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: it is bad at this point. She really doesn't have
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: any sense of humor or levity.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: She's lost her memories.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: She's lost her memories and she's lost her sense of adventure.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: She doesn't even get laid anymore.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: And who she is really, I think.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: She's getting turned on by watching Uno walk away because
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: she's that just pent up, you know?
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Well, she's always been attracted to Uno. He's just ugly enough.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: It's true. It's true. But it's just everything about her
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: is anxiety and stress. And then when she dies and
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: comes back when the horn gets blown, she's like, oh,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I feel so relaxed and free. And like, how could
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: you put up with me? What was wrong with me?
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's the memories. The memories aren't just... memories,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: they're pieces of her personality.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Because she was torn wholesale out of, you know, Telerunriad
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: as an adult person. It's not like she has a
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: growing up life. You know, no one grew up into
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: the body of Brigitte.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: So like, on the one hand, it kind of feels
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: like Sanderson totally changing the character. On the other hand,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: it's like, I mean, you do suffer personality changes when
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: you lose your memories. That is a known thing that happens.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: We get a summary of where the Fox, all the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Fox and Medallion and their copies are.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Melar has one out there, but there's a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: lot more on our side. Even if they're flawed copies,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: they still give many people an advantage now.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Matt has the original, and then Melar has a copy,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Brigitte has a copy, and then Matt also has a copy.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: So Matt has two of them.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: Right, and he gives that to Tuon, I think?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's a way to protect her from channeling.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: He's like, you know, yeah.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Doesn't he make a bunch to fight the golem?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, he also has, like, a dozen that he
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: fights the golem with, I think. So he probably gives those, like,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: the commanders of the band and stuff.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, she doesn't even mention it. She's like, oh, yeah, there's...
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Here are three imperfect copies Lane has made. Is there
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: no mention of all those other copies that he has?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems to have been forgotten about.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Because she made a bunch more for it.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he had so many in his pockets for the
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: fight with the golem.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just those three, right? I mean, Mellor had
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: already stolen one of those three.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Or did he only have... Like three on him for
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: that fight. And we're just expanding it out because we
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: have bad reading comprehension. Marzipan has chimed in with a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: vote of only three. Look, sometimes you see things in quadruple, okay?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it looks like he's got one on the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Ashindari and one in each hand. Oh.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: Well, that is significantly less than 12.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Matt intends to give the extra medallions to Oliver and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: two on.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: Matt has... The original Foxhead and two copies. Brigitte has one.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Mellor has one. So that means that there's four in
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: the world in addition to the original.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Unless he gave some of those back. Because I don't
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: think that Oliver has one.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: No. I think he does give one to Tuan, though.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: But he does give one to Tuan. Because we know
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: that he has one copy in the original. So he
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: gives Tuan the one copy. So he must either give
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: those back to her except for one. Or it's very unclear.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: I have to go back and read and just track
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: those down in particular. But, yeah, I guess maybe there
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: are only the three copies.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we run into Uno, and that's very fun.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Uno is fun. Always fun. Elaine says, you can swear
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: all you want. Nynaeve isn't around.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: So I think I found an interesting parallel. Elaine would have,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you know, there's this whole letter between Elaine and Egwene
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: where basically Egwene's pretty fucking pissed that Elaine has the
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: kin serving her. It's basically like setting up an alternate
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: white tower. And I realized this is just the Anglican church.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: This is England going to the Pope and saying, I'm
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: setting up my own copy of the church here in England,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and you're going to have to deal with it, and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: I'm the new Pope now. And Andor is England, Egwene's
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the Pope, and this is just a splinter group of
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: people who she's essentially setting up her own church in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: her own state.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's... Very parallel, yeah. Hopefully they don't fight quite
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: as hard as the Catholics and the Anglicans.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: And then, yeah, Elaine uses one of her worst curses,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: you son of a shepherd's boil, which of course startles Uno.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Because she always says things not knowing what they mean,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: which then makes the Stoic soldier.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Go like, That's not what that means in that context.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: You should not have said that to me. If you
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: were a real soldier, I would have to beat you
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: to death now. But because you're a princess who doesn't
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: know what she said, I'm just going to have to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: walk away feeling very awkward.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: And I forget, why is Uno even there?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: He says he was sent.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: He's just basically reporting about Kandor. So yeah, he's reporting
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: about the Kandor battle, which is also just a delaying tactic. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: He's bringing news because someone has to go and he
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: might as well because he's good at showing up places.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Brigitte hated battle planning, something she found odd in someone
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: who'd fought in thousands of battles. Brigitte, man, she just one,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: she knows the consequences of battles because she's fought in them.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: And two, she mostly just flies by the seat of
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: her pants. Right. She's a fighter, not a planner. Generally,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: she's never been a general. She's always been just like
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: really talented fighter.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Sometimes she's kind of in charge of a small band
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: of merry men, as we get indicated here, but it's
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: not generaling. It's very different.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Refugees from Kandor are flocking to the Amaryllis and they're soldiers,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: and they're a bunch of borderland fighters, so you have
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: this sort of reinforcement of troops coming in. We see
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: that a lot, where Perrin's group is recruiting. Basically, everyone
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: who can pick up a weapon is finding they will
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: and are really good at it.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for plot.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Because otherwise it doesn't make sense to have a bunch
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: of half-trained soldiers fighting. Right, right, right.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: And so Elaine is a little bit skeptical of the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: retreating plan, kind of like Lan. She's like, ooh, are
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: we really retreating? But everyone's like, you should listen to Agomar.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Agomar knows what he's doing. And at this point, there's
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: no reason to believe that he has been brainwarmed by Grandal.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: But somewhere along the line, that happens. There's a reason
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: why Agomar is who she goes for, why she goes
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: for the four great captains, right? Everyone's like, trust Agomar.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Just trust him, whatever he's doing. Even if it feels
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: wrong to you intuitively, just trust him. That's part of
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: what makes her insidious warping of his plans so damn effective.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and so we sort of have this,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: they reinforce the whole strategy, fighting on four fronts is
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: going to drain resources quickly. We have to finish off
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the Andor issue so that we can go reinforce the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: other people because they are really not designed to fight
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: on their own.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you want to concentrate your forces and knock the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: enemies down. Being on four fronts is a situation you
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: want to remedy as quickly as possible.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: And so Elaine says, basically, let's go get them to charge.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: We need to harass them as hard as we can.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And she says, if it doesn't work soon enough,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: I will literally level my own city with dragons rather
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: than wait too long.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: She's already burned most of it down.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: But she still wants to draw them out. She wants
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: to use the dragons on the enemy, not on her
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: own walls.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Right. And we do see that later, which is very impressive.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: And it's awesome. But she's willing to throw whatever she
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: has to throw into the fight in order to be
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: able to bring the number of battlefields down by one.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: And then we POV switch over to and roll.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: This is the you are captive and we are turning
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: you one by one suspension. It's sort of increasing the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: tension because we don't really get a resolution in this POV.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: No, it's just ratcheting up the tension. We do get
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: an explanation that part of why the turning has slowed
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: down is that it's exhausting and they've run out of
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: people and they mismanaged their resources at the beginning. That
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: feels like Sanderson spackling over some awkward plot stuff with
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit of canonical retconning. But like, whatever, I'll
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: accept it.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: What I put in my notes is he changes the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: rules for timing rather than let things evolve as they
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: have to based on the rules that have been established.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. He does not allow the canon to force
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: him to write characters being clever in a new way.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: He just changes canon to suit what he wants his
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: characters to do. Gardner versus Architect.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because he has these plot things built
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: in that he has these plot points built in that
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: he knows he has to hit. And so he will
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: change his magic system to hit those plot points. And
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why I'm so much less
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: interested in the Stormlight Archive than I used to be.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Because he set up a bunch of rules in those
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: first two books and I don't feel like he is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: sticking with them. I feel like he's like, okay, now
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: I can change everything. And it breaks my immersion a
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: little bit when he changes the rules of the magic system.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: And like, you know, in Stormlight Archive, I get he's
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: doing it in that like the gods have changed, the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: rules have changed. He's literally creating a situation where he
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: gets to change the rules. But like, stick with it, man.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Just for a minute. Yeah.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: For sure. For sure. So we learned that part of
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: the reason why we're not going to get resolution in
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: this chapter is because Pavara was mistakenly drugged. She's supposed
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: to be getting turned now, but you can't do that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: while someone's asleep and she's been fork-rooted. So they have
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: to wait for her to wake up.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: And apparently you have to, not only do you have
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: to be able to channel, but you have to be
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: able to channel. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. One would assume
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: embracing the source somehow is involved in the corruption. Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: And then they drag Tovain in as an alternate woman
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: to get turned while they wait and also maybe potentially
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: increase the pressure on Loghain, right? Because Tovain is bonded
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: to him and it does stir him to some kind
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: of agitation.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: And it helps to have another woman who's turned to
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: help turn another man because apparently there's the gender imbalance here.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: We see the seals of the Dark Ones prison.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: We do. So we know. We know for a fact
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: that they are now In the hands of the bad guys.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: At this point in the timeline, the ones that Rand
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: and Egwene are fighting over are fakes.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Tam sat at the table. He fondled something in his hands,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: some kind of disc, perhaps half black, half white, in
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the sinuous S-curve made out of quendiar, sealing the Dark
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: One's prison. Obvious. And then he does the classic villain
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: thing of, I want you to turn this woman before
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: I get back, but I'm going to leave the room
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: and not watch the process.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no actual timeline, just a vague sense of when
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: I get back, the job is done. And yeah, I agree,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Captain Fitz. The word fondle is... radically overused in this
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: sort of context it's really not ever the word that
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: was necessary there's so many better words i do.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Think there is that like though it's because it's corrupted
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: by the dark one whilst everyone else like is like
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: you this is gross and wants to put it down
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: time's like this feels good i like that corruption oh
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: yeah i.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Don't need time lusting after the dark one like that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: but okay.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: I mean you know what they talk they talk about
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: the true power like it's very sexual in.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Nature true that's true.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Addictive almost drug-like and back to lan on our pov.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: Switch we really haven't jumped forward by more than a
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: couple of hours at this point i think oh yeah
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: and this is when the channelers show up they actually
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: hadn't showed up in the last time we were with
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: lan but i think this is later in the same
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: day and the dark friend channelers show up and that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: really puts the pressure on them there's as many as
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: two dozen or more channelers out there And yeah, they
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: go from, we're going to, because they say at the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: other POV, they're like, oh, we can hold here for
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: as much as a week, but we're going to have
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: to retreat. And then the channelers show up and they say, oh,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: we're retreating now. Right now. Like this very now is
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: when we're retreating. We're not retreating in 10 days or
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: in three days. We're retreating now.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So we kind of already talked about this POV
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: in our previous LAN section.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: So then we can jump forward again back to Elaine,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: who is now inside the woods again. big old growth
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: woods where the trees make you feel small and tiny
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: and you like you should whisper because it's got cathedral
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: energy and she looks at brigitte and says made marion
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: and robin hood and brigitte says i was a very
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: sexy fox about it i don't see what the problem
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: is very.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Disney inspired yeah totally totally No, it definitely has to
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: be a Robin Hood reference.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. For sure. There was a band of
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: thieves in the woods who were robbing the queen and
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: being very polite about it. Yeah, definitely a Robin Hood reference.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: It's England.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: It's Andor, obviously.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: And Camelot at the same time.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's all of that rolled together.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: But Camelot's also kind of England and.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: Camelot is England, yeah.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, King Arthur is the first proper English king after
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: the Romans retreat and leave a power vacuum.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Is Camelot... Like London? Or is it a fictional... It's like,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: you know, on the island of Avalon.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: It's fictional. Yeah, it's all rolled up. Many, many myths
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: rolled up into bits of history and just straight folklore
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: and pantheon stuff. You'll have to get Fire Phoenix to
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: really give you the 411 on all of that. Fire
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: Phoenix is your go-to source for that. But it's all
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: British Isles stuff.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Robin Hood. Robin Hood is out of Nottingham,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: which I think that is a real place. Oh, yeah.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I I'll put the link in the show notes.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: Cool people who did cool stuff. Very fun podcast from
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media. It's like the opposite of Behind the Bastards.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: Recently did a set of episodes about the real Robin Hood.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: And yes, Sherwood Forest in Nottingham. Very real place.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: King Richard. Very real king.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: All of the historical stuff in it is it's kind
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: of like the Trojan War. It's an amalgamation of a
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: lot of different things into a story that contains real history,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: but is not one single version of it. It's a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: coherent thing.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: So it's like a kind of like a legend that
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: like faded to like a myth. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: But yes, Nottingham is a very real place. I actually
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: have in-laws who... Or from there, very specifically. Robin Hood
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: was a real vibe, not necessarily a real singular person,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: but kind of like actually the Luddites, another very fun
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: episode from cool people who did cool stuff. The Luddites
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: claimed allegiance to King Ludd, who may or may not
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: have ever been a person and might have just been
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: pure avatar.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: My understanding of the Luddites is they were basically a
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: union and they wanted proper compensation when machines took over
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: their jobs. And protection for the jobs. And it's not
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: like they were against technology. They just wanted to not
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: be taken advantage of by the business owners. Yes.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: I believe I've talked about this here before. But yes,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: they claimed allegiance to a King Lud.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Totally. Totally.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: And when they would do property damage, they're like, oh yeah,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: King Lud told us to do it. And he's definitely
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: in the town over for sure. You should go find him.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: And he never existed, right? It was always a wild
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: goose chase. And it seems to be drawing kind of
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: on a Robin Hood-esque perspective. pattern of like kind.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Of reminds me of uh kilroy was here like sabotaging
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: equipment and then like drawing a little kilroy on.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: It exactly exactly robin hood may actually fit into that
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: pattern as well of any time anyone did brigadier brigandy
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: stuff oh yeah robin hood that's definitely what happened that's
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: who led us that's why that.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Happens like the mythical robin hood Some.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: People may have taken it more literally with their behavior
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: than others, but the stories and myths we have are
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: most likely an amalgamation of many stories. Same with the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Mulan story, actually. The podcast Our Fake History did a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: whole thing about Mulan and was like, so actually there's
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: like eight Mulans throughout Chinese folklore that all definitely existed.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: You can tell in those stories and those legends, like
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: specific places and dates and wars that And they all
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: amalgamate into the modern version. It's just a living story
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: that you tell about various women that have gone to war.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: And you kind of keep adding to it. And Robert
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: Jordan was on to something with his cosmology around narratives.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: I thought for a second you were referring to Moulin Rouge,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: which is also a bit of an amalgamation of different things.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, no. Back to my obvious Disney kid vibes.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: I meant Moulin like the Disney movie.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So they get news that Perrin has basically drawn
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: the Trollocs out and they're coming. Yeah.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: And then there's a page like line break, but it's
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: not really a line break. It's just like 20 minutes later.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Time jumps. We talked that Sanderson likes his time
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: jumps and Jordan never really did that. He almost always
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: did POV switches.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So. We get news, okay, finally Perrin's got
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: them running out of the city. We're not going to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: have to shoot the city. So we can now get
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: in position to absolutely mow down these guys on the road.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: They start out with, you know, volleying arrows into the
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: trollocs and creating a little space for Perrin's people. But
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: it's all about drawing them into the woods, onto the road,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: into the line of fire.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: And this is where we see the power of the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: two rivers archers. And there's this little bit of moment
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: where Like, they go to fire, and Elaine's like, are
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: you crazy? They're too far away? And Tam's like, no,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: they're not.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: Like, calm down.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, okay, then fire. It is a
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: bit of a weird interaction where she tells them not
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: to draw, and then all of a sudden she says.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: She says, archers to the front, hold. Right, they all
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: think that archers to the front means it's time to fire,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: and she's like, what are you doing? And they're like,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: we're two riversmen, we know that it.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: They're coming. Are you going to let us shoot?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: And then she's like loose. So it's interesting that she
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: says hold.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: She's overthinking it. And then she orders the crossbowmen forward
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: and draws her sword. The sword that she did not
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: have previously and has never mentioned having before. Not once.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: She just suddenly has a sword.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the other time when she ran at the Trollocs,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: like they were breaking. Or not Trollocs. This was when
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: she was fighting the battle for her city. And she
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: grabs a sword from another soldier and runs forward.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: That's coming in the future. That hasn't happened yet.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. I thought that was in game one.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: No, it's later in this when everything's getting really desperate
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: and she is nine months pregnant and swings her sword
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: at a trolloc and it's insane.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it's very difficult to find out if she had
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: a searching sword is not great.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: No, that's not going to help you. If you have
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: to search for a lane and sword in a certain
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: range and that's not quite as simple. But yeah, it's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: basically just a hit and run thing to try to
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: draw them in, right? They're not standing and fighting yet.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: My only thought is just in this, she's in this
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: moment where they are waiting for Trox to come that
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: she said, someone give me a sword. And it was
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: just off screen.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: It shouldn't have been. Elaine deciding to wear a sword,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: even symbolically, should have gotten the line. So yeah, they
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: get chased through the woods onto the road where Talman
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: is somehow restored to the ability to stand upright, is
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: smiling and waiting. And her force kind of ducks out
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: of the way. I'm unclear on the exact movement of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: all the troops, but the TLDR is that four ranks
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: of cannons go off in quick succession and mow down
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: literally everyone and everything, which is all Dark Friends, or
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: all Trollocs, all Shadowspawn.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: And it's like there's this moment where the firing creates
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: so much smoke, they're not even sure they killed everyone,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: and then the smoke clears, and like, ooh, yeah, there's
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: nothing left.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we killed them good. The horses are not having
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: a good time. Everyone's bones are rattling. And Brigitte says,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: those are messy and effective. And Elaine says, I've solved war.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: There will never be war again because I have made
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: such a tremendously monstrous weapon that no one would be
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: stupid enough to fight with me. And from the age
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: of nuclear overarmament, I would like to say, hold your
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: goat's milk. No, that's not how it works.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: But I almost feel like that is a direct quote
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: about nuclear weapons that he threw in there. Like he
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: pulled directly from... 100%.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, all we have to do is drop these bombs
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: on Japan and there will never be war. again. Yeah.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: The Behind the Bastards episodes about the nuclear arms race
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: makes it very clear that that was the central load-bearing
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: thesis of every argument that got us to where we
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: are now. It's the central conceit. And it kind of
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: goes back to the invention of cannons and the introduction
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: of better cannons in Western medieval warfare. Like that argument,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: that dragon has been getting chased for centuries. And we
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: have yet to come up with a weapon so terrible
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: that we won't continue to do war.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: And yet it's always an excuse to continue to build
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the bigger bomb. And I really do think there's a
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: point where someone said, wait, we can destroy the planet
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: and every living thing on it. I don't think we
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: need to build a bigger bomb, right? We do like
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: there is just is no bigger bomb to build.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: We've never hit that point. We've never had that adult
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: in the room. You know, Carl Sagan made such a
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: good argument about like we're arguing over who has more
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: matches while we stand waist deep in a pool of gasoline.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: Like this is insane. Like what are we doing? And
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: Carl Sagan, you know, did not live to see the 2000s.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: So this problem is old. We've been doing this stupid
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: bullshit for a long time. And Elaine just being like,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: I solved wars. Like, ah. I appreciate Sanderson putting the
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: hubris on the page for us to look at and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: laugh at.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: Goddamn, Elaine. You're so smart and savvy right up until
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: it comes to this. And then you make the same
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: mistake every other superpower in actual history has decided to
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: make also. Because, yeah, Fuji. Imperialism. It's a hell of
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: a drug.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: And, well, Elaine's not thinking about taking over Saldea, too.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this will end war. By the way,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about conquering another country.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: And Brigitte is like, uh-huh, sure, buddy. Again, I appreciate
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: how Sanderson handles it. He has Elaine, the superpower, say,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: I will definitely use this. And Brigitte, the commoner, say,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: sure you will. Sure you're going to be good about this.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: You're going to save the world? Okay.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe I have less faith in the wisdom of people
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: than you do. Yeah. Yeah. There is that just edge
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: of naivete to Elaine that never really goes away. Yeah.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: Brigitte says if any boy with a tube of metal
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: can destroy an army, that's a problem. And Elaine says
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: everyone would be so impressed that it'll just change the world.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: We know which is more realistic.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: So and the whole plan is to draw the Trollocs
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: into the forest to be able to murder them. But
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the cannons are so effective. that I don't think there's
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: any Trollocs left to go fight in the woods.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, we'll draw them in for the Siswasaemon to
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: hunt down and we'll be able to dodge between the
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: trees and stuff like that. It's like, no, you just
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: murdered them all. I mean, maybe there's more waves coming.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: There are more waves coming. They do get pressed later.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, the part where she swings a sword at
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: a Trolloc. I mean, the battle continues. But this particular sortie,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: this particular engagement was really effective. And that's the end
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: of the chapter.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The early tactics are sometimes much more effective, and
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: then later it's like the Trollocs don't run into the
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: same traps.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing is, no plan survives first contact with
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: the enemy, but also plans don't shatter all at once.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: They shatter progressively. They unravel. They start out pretty good
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: and then come apart. Sometimes they shatter immediately, but something
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: this big, it can start out fine and then spiral
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: out of control later, and it still is true to
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: the axiom.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Well, those were a fun couple of chapters. We're getting
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: really into the battle stuff now and the planning. I mean,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: this is stage one of the last battle. This is
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: the four battlefronts before we come together at Merilor.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the last line of the chapter is the first
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: step in destroying this Trolloc army had been taken. They
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: have to destroy this army so that they can destroy
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: the other armies so that they can ultimately defend Merilor.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: There's an order, a spiral, a progression to this, but
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: We've now gotten a good first step in that journey
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: of many, many steps.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for joining us for episode 599. Join
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: us next week where we record episode 600. That's insane. 600.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: So much. That's so much.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: We got to do something for next week. Okay.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if we can do anything special,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: but we got to think about it between now and then.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: We can both bake cupcakes at our home and eat
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: them together on Zoom. I don't know, something.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Because it is, I mean, 600. I mean, and that
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: will probably be the last hundred we get to because
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: there's not another hundred episodes to 700. Yeah.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're not going to get anywhere near 700. We're
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: going to make it to like 660 something, I think.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: We're not going to make it to seven. So yeah,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: our last hundred. That's wild.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: That's wild. So big celebration. I mean, I remember when
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I started this podcast that like getting to 100 episodes
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: for a podcast is a big accomplishment. Like just getting
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: to 100 episodes like that. People celebrate that. You know,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: that's that's rare.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: If you do one a week and you take a
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: couple weeks off, it's still two years minimum to get
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: to 100 episodes.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: Right. And we're hitting six of those.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: I remember making the art for the 300th episode or
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: not making, but finding the art. I remember specifically like
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: it was a firecracker light delay picture that said 300
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: and being like, Oh, this is the, cause of the
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: first one. It was the first hundred that I had
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: made the post for.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: 600 is what's coming next is quite the Testament to
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: how long this has been in my brain.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. No. And you and I have now been doing
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: this for at least six years, six plus years. together. Damn.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: We'll come back for episode 600 next week. And for now,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: we bid you adieu. Athlon, you just missed us oohing
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: and aahing over dog pictures. This is an old man dog.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: He's a, what, amber-orange puppy? But he's not a puppy.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: He's like 12 years old. And he has ginormous bat
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: ears and buggy eyes and looks like a fruit bat.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: And it just is very cute.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I'm dog sitting for a couple weeks.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we've been oohing and aahing over that. And
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: that's the vibe that we're taking into this recording is cute,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: cute puppy energy. Cute old man dog energy.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: Title of the chapter, to die well.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: Has nothing to do with the energy of the content,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: but like, I'm feeling very happy about dogs right now.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, old gruff, old men, dogs, warriors.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: We can make a transition. We can do something. Speaking
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: of old men, let's talk about Bulan.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: Bulan's like the one one who's not old.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Right, that's right.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: He's like a reasonable age. But yes, there is much
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: old man dying well energy in this. And this is
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: clearly a dog who is living well as an old man.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Yes. I, you know, we get to play grandparents. We
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: spoil him a little bit more than he gets at home.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: There's a little more treats in his bowl. He gets
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: probably more snuggles and pets because, you know, he's not
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: our dog. So he gets ridiculous amounts of attention. And
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: because he's just cute.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: He gets to go away to summer camp.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Grandma and grandpa. Aunt and uncle, however you want
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: to call it.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: Fall camp, technically, since today is, in fact, equinox. Happy equinox, everyone.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: We are now officially half and half on the light
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: day balance. We are done with celestial summer. We are
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: ready to move into fall, into the darker times, except
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: for everyone in the south. Congratulations. The sun is now
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: fully coming back. You can now look forward to getting
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: absolutely roasted by the sun. It's going to be summer
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: for you soon. We used it.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: Well, but- That's the global South, not the American South.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, the antipodal hemisphere of us, the other place. You know,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: the land of Mad Men, the place that doesn't exist,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: but where we do definitely have lots of listeners and friends. Man,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: speaking of people down under, Watt Idol this last week,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: Koala- her entries into the competition just so much fun
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: i mean everyone's entries were so much fun but koala
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: was co-hosting the show and was represented in multiple entries
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: there was a group entry she was in and she
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: did her own couple of entries it was man she's
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: she's amazing i love her i love everyone in this
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: community but koala you're just everyone's grandma you're so great.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: I have a pile of her playing cards sitting right
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: here on my desk next to me yeah I look
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: through those all the time. She's very creative, very cool.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: And just, yeah, all the support we've had from our
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Australians over the course of the podcast and the spoiler
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: cons and everything has been amazing.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I highly encourage everyone to go check
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: out Watt Idol. The playlist of all the videos is up,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: so you don't have to watch the live streams. You
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: can just go watch the videos. Voting is open until
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: this Saturday, which means that if you're hearing this on
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: the recording, it's not relevant. But if you're hearing it live,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: voting is still open, and the awards show where we
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: do live voting will be happening on Saturday. So that'll
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: be exciting.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: All right. have to sit down and listen to a
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: bunch of those because I did not. I kind of
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: spaced it because I was so sick.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: That's fair. Yeah, I can get you a link, Dr.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Pants.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: Some in the side there were originally 69 entries and
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: then the niceness was ruined by a surprise 70th entry
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: at the last minute.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Because that's the zeroth entry.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: There we go. There we go.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: Cause it was Matt Hatch. So, you know, and he's like, Oh,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: don't even vote for me. But like, he's still entered. So,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a really good entry. I'm just going
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: to say like Matt Hatch is like full blown sick.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: Like you've heard him do creep before, but this was
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: on a whole other level.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Dr.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: Pantsy at 70 is less than the past. So last
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: year was 80 or 82, something like that.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: But I feel like that was like bigger than the
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: year before. So I feel like it's not.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, massively bigger.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: Than the year before.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: And this year they let people enter two.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: Up to two. They were really encouraging lots of group
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: entries and for people to like not have to, you know,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: choose between their favorites that they'd been working on. So
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: that also gave sort of an artificial boost to it.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: There was definitely significantly less new people coming into it,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: though there were a lot of cool novice entries. They
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: have that as an awards category is the novice ones. Yeah.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: So if you look in the What Idol channel in
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: the server, then you'll find the link and I'll put
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: it in the show notes also for this episode. And yeah,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: it's after Saturday, you'll be able to know which ones
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: became the top 16. And so then that allows you to,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: you know, pick through the ones that you maybe don't
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: want to listen to. But there were some really good entries,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: so many of them that I have listened back to
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: for voting purposes. I've been like, I'm just going to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: let this run. Like, this is really an excellent version
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: of this for one reason or another. Uh, lots of
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: very creative videos. Jess re-entered her Dolly Parton one with
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: a new video because her first one had just been
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: a lyric video. And she was like, I don't want to,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: you know, get votes for this, but because Dolly Parton
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: died and I got the chops to do the like
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: video editing thing, I want to add a video to it.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: And it was just, you know, like a show, super
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: real thing.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: But, um, I think there's some value to, I mean,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: if you don't feel like you have the time waiting
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: until the voting comes out and like going from the
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: top of the playlist down to see the ones you like.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: And I mean, sometimes watching all of them can be
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: a chore.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: It's a lot. It is a lot. And some of
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: them are definitely easier to want to skip than others.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: Yes. I mean. Having submitted one or two that I
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: would skip if I came across them because they're that bad.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: You've only submitted one that was that bad. That was
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: our Bohemian Rhapsody. Everything else has been watchable.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, yeah. Okay, yeah. I think I put together
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: one or two more that I never submitted because they
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: were just so bad. It was one of me singing,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: and the reality is my singing voice is just nothing
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can put together.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you are one of the people who cannot carry
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: a tune in a bucket that I didn't believe existed
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: until I met you. Like, I was not sure that
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: it was possible to actually not be able to carry
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: a tune in a bucket. But you are one of
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: the data points that has convinced me that that is,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: in fact, not an exaggeration. I'm already inspired for what
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: I want to try to do for next year. This year,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: I just did Alanis Morissette's You Ought to Know. At
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: the very last minute when I had actual other work
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: I needed to do, I decided to do that. It
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: was so incredibly ADHD of me.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: The lyrics are really good.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: It was really fun, but I have already written much
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: more ambitious lyrics for my choice next year.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: Right. I always get the most ambitious about Watt Idle
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: the week after Watt Idle.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. Well, I picked You Oughta Know specifically. I
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: didn't put this in my rolling credits because I, again,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: put the video together so fast. I didn't even realize
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: I still was crediting Dusty Wheel instead of unraveling the
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: pattern as the organizer. Very embarrassing. Anyway, I was inspired
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: by Watt Idol or by Watt Con sing-along. That was
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: why I picked You Oughta Know because that's a song
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: that we all have really enjoyed singing. And even though
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to Watt Con anymore, it was still like,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: but it would be really fun to make that a
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: Watt Idol, Con, karaoke song. crossover thing so that's why
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: i chose that song the next song i'm doing maybe
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: slightly more out of annoyance but we'll see if i
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: actually get along to there but yeah we got a
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: performance by priyanka that was recorded at watcon which was
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: pretty incredible even though you know she's not a professional
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: singer the fact that she was willing to do it
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: is like starstruck energy the whole time it's great But yeah,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: after Saturday, there will be the top 16 for people
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: who want to speed run the complete collection. Yeah, so
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: that's what I've been doing. That's what I'm looking forward to.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: I'm still struggling with the voting. Voting is done on
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: a very cool... page on the website of YIDL and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: it's just agonizing trying to organize my thoughts and I
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: want everyone to win something but also some of these
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: are so much more amazing that I want to put
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: them in every single category and how am I going
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: to like spreadsheet out my votes so that way I
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: know what I'm doing before I interact with the ballot
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: itself and so then of course I put in a
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: ballot and now they're like you can change it if
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: you want so I'm like well now I got to
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: rethink every single decision that I made it's exhausting why
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: do I do this to myself I'm so glad they're
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: not making us do live voting for the whole thing.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: They're making us do live voting on Saturday for the
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: top 16, and that is going to suck. But at
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: least I'll already have put myself through the larger voting process,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: so I'll more or less know my.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Thoughts, hopefully. Right, right. And it is always so hard
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: to compare creative endeavors. You know, you inevitably narrow it
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: down to a very weird criteria.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: But then some of them are just so incredibly talented
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: and over the top that it's like, I mean, how
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: do you not, right?
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: We will see. We will see. Everyone gets five votes
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: per category and the Gleeman Best in Show Award is
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: going to be 16 entries. So we will see. Anyhow,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: that's fun Watt news. Shall we get into the chapter
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: that we're doing today? Actually, we're doing two chapters today.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers Podcast.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: Please rate and review us on your podcast app and
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: consider supporting us on Patreon for ad-free episodes. Watt Spoilers
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: is a production of Fox and Raven Media. For more
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: podcasts from Fox and Raven Media, visit our website at foxandravenmedia.com.