Latest / WoT Spoilers / A Halo of Blackness - The Gathering Storm chapters 35 - EP532

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A Halo of Blackness - The Gathering Storm chapters 35 - EP532 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time spoilers.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Podcast, speaking of art. You want to do this podcast
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: about someone else's books?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: A halo of blackness surrounds my desire to do this chapter. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, no,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: this is this is a good chapter. This is a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: good rand chapter. This is the Rand tu On meeting
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and the one that sort of it really does sort
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of spurn the events of the rest of the book. Spurn, No,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: not spurn spar start what word am I looking for there?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Spur spur spur spur the events of the rest of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because this is why she decides on the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: timing of the attack on the White Tower. She already
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: decided that she wanted that attack prepared and ready to go,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: but the timing of are we going to do it?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: When are we going to do it? That was still
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: in doubt until this meeting.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Well, and I'm convinced that if he hadn't had that
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: hail of darkness hadn't been so evil, let's you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what that is. That's evil. It's pure evil.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: She may have actually negotiated with him or yeah, I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if she was necessarily pulled
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the trigger on the attack, if they if the events
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: had turned out differently, if the meeting had turned out differently.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Or if he had just been less scary.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it was very much like he's evil. We
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: need to take his power away right now. One of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the mistaken impression that the White Tower sports the dragon
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: reborn right.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Right, and it reminds me a lot of his meeting
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: with a Gwayn later, where Tuon is able to much
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: like a Gwain is able to say no to Rand, right,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: like Rand is able to like bring all of his
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: tevere and force to bear, and she's able to say no.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Like I don't like to put too on in a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: GWayne on the same level for obvious reasons, but like
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: they do both have very parallel moments.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Oh but I think the comparison is fascinating, right, yeah, right,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: The two of them together are absolutely like, I think
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: they make an excellent pair when you compare like leading empires,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: how they deal with channelers, the fact that they are channelers.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And then just like this denial from Tuon but also
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: from mcgwayn, right, there is this denial of reality on
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: both of their sides.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, they're fascinating, They're fascinating, But yeah,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I do wonder if this could have gone any other way, Like,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: was there a scenario in which Tuon and Rand were
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: going to find any kind of a chord? Because the
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: only reason that they find in a chord later is
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: because he's willing to like, you know, do his little
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: like fake bow end right, you know, Like, I just
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is there any way that he was going to choose
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: to do that here?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Not with the way the power was corrupting him and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the aptitude that he has, right, this is the dragon
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that would have lost the last battle.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, so I don't like, on the one hand, yes,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: this spurs on all the events of the rest of
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: the book, But on the other hand, like it couldn't
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: have happened any other way because there was nothing that
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: either of them could compromise on.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, she is compromising by meeting him as daughter
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of the Nine Moons instead of as the Empress. She
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is stepping down to meet him on his level, right
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: or not ascending to the throne yet, Yeah, that's.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Only a compromise in her mind. He doesn't actually see.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: That at all. Ah, But that's what compromises are, right,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: there's things that you in your own mind.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: No, I mean the negotiation between like leashing people and
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: like who gets to own territory is not It's just
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: that that doesn't that's not in there.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Well, do you want to go at it and see
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: if we can talk about what the compromise is. All right,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you should read the same, all right, Halo blackness, and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: our symbol is the sean Chan helmet because we're dealing
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: with the joh on Jan. In this chapter, the cool
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: sea breeze washed across Rand the moment he rode through
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the gateway. That soft featherlike wind carried with it the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: scents of a thousand cookfires scattered through the city of Falma,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: heating morning stews. Rand rained in tit Ash. Rand reined
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: in Tita as Shadar what the fuck said? Rand reined
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: in Tash. Now, I'm really overthinking it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: We don't need to read it, Ran.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Rained in his horse. I'm prepared for the memories those
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: sense would carry with them, Memories of a time when
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: he'd still been uncertain about his role in the world.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Memories of a time when Matt had constantly ribbed him
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: for wearing fine coats despite the fact that Rand tried
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to avoid them, memories of a time when he had
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: been ashamed of the banners that now flapped behind him.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: He'd once insisted on keeping them hidden, as if in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: doing so he could hide from his own fate. The profession,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the profession, the procession waited for him. Buckles creaking, horses snorting.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Rand had visited Falma once, briefly, back in those days.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: He hadn't been able to stay anywhere for long. He'd
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: spent those months either chasing or being chased. Fain had
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: led him to Falma, bearing the horn of Valier and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the ruby dagger to which Matt had been bound. The
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: colors flashed again as he thought of Matt, but Rand
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: ignored them. For those few moments he wasn't in the present.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Falma marked a turning point in Rand's life, as profound
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: as the one that had later occurred in the barren
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: lands of the Ael, when he had proved himself to
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: be the car Khan. After Falma, there had been no
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: more hiding, no more fighting what he was. This was
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the place where he'd first acknowledge himself as a killer,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the place where he'd first realized what a danger he
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: was to those around him. He tried to leave them
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: all behind. They'd come after him, and Falma the shepherd
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Boy had burned, his ashes, scattered and blown away by
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: those ocean winds. From those ashes, the dragonly born had risen.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I'll stop there.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Nice. That was what I figured it would be a
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: good read too, because it ends on that note of just.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: H yeah, the recap the dragon reborn is reborn. The
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: dragon reborn is born, I suppose from the ashes of
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: what was the farm boy, right, I mean, this is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: sort of just like a recap of book two here
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in book eleven. It's just that's sort of a weird
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: uh book twelve. Yeah, okay, that's in case you don't
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: remember what Falma was. It's the place where book two
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: could place.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe Sanderson didn't.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Everyone's while reading this, I'm like, I'm not sure you're really,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, because like I know, I know Sanderson was
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a fan of Jordan, but I don't think he was
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a obsessive fan of Jordan.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Not the way we are anyway, not the way we are.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he had to reread the books.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I mean enough to get inspired to become a writer,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: so like he was pretty into him, but like, yeah,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the different kind of fan. You know, neither of us
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: have become writers.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So we're too busy reading, Thank you very much.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Sure, because that's definitely a thing writers don't do.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: In a moment, as he's thinking about the sean Chan
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and how he's going to deal with them, he says
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: their inability to travel was one of his greatest advantages,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and really this meeting leads to his loss of that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: right because they that the light tower, they get Alida
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and light of those traveling.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So yeah, if you had been a little less evil,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: maybe you wouldn't have given the shan Chan traveling. Maybe possibly,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: it doesn't actually really come into play in terms of
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: his dealing with the shan Chan. He kind of goes
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: zen and figures out how to just bow to them
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and move on. It doesn't end up actually mattering that
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: they get traveling in terms of his I mean, it
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: matters with the last battle, but it doesn't matter with
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: respect to his conflict with them.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Really. One of my least favorite resolutions is when he
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: goes back to Tuon and is like, okay about I
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: feel the prophecy. Technically, now you have to do what
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I say. We'll get to it, but I wanted something
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: better there.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: This felt like it was setting us up for a
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: very interesting second confrontation. Yeah, yeah, the second confrontation was
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: not nearly as interesting.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: As this one. No, this is a really interesting one. Yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: What do you think about Fall mall being sort of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: in better shape in terms of the grass and everything,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Like it's starting to look yellow, But it actually did
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: grow some grass this spring. I'm like a lot of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: other places that didn't even get sprigs.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: I bet it's because Rand draggoned out so hard over
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the skies of Fall. I think there was sort of
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: a residual echo of just like everything's a little bit
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: more solid here, a little bit more dragony, if that
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: makes any sense, because he, like the heroes showed up,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: he did magic battle in the sky, Like there was
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of like really like metaphysical stuff that happened
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: around this space. And yeah, dragon fallout right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I mean the killing of a shaw maa l major
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: blow against the dark one, that sort of thing, right,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: This is yeah, the last place he could I was
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: also thinking that maybe now that Rand isn't necessarily in
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: charge of it, that his corruption isn't spreading to this area. Oh,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: in fact, the din't have it that like, it's less
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: corrupt because he's the one that's corrupted and he's the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: one who's connected with land and.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: He hasn't really been doing anything out here, so they
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: are less close to that. What that makes sense too?
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: That makes sense to.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Or It's just like the weather, because you have a
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: nice ocean breeze and you get more mild weather in
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Fama than you do in some of the other places.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have been sort of positioning it as
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest, which is, yeah, one of those places
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: where everything's just more temperate, more chill, more awesome than
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: everywhere else. Yes, that's right. I think I live in
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the best place. Everyone stay out.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: No, it'sterable, it's really bad. Don't want to come. The
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: weather's awful. It's gray six months out of the year.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: It's really depressing. Yeah, you don't want to be here
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: One thing I thought was cool in here is the
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: design of the buildings.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: He talks about how they're low and squat.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole thing of the geology of the high
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: cliffs and then these low squat buildings as if the
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: inhabitants expected the waves to wash up over the cliffs
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and crash against their homes. I bet that's exactly what
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: that is. Those sound like homes that can survive a tsunami.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I was thinking more just the wind, Like you've got
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: wind coming up over this, and like any broad surface
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: exposed to the ocean is going to catch that like
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: a sail, and so you probably want something like squat
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that's going to like not catch the wind as much.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it also talks about how the there's really
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: high cliffs like this is very like a narrow, jutting
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: kind of topography, which is yeah, going to really funnel
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the wind to even harder, more intense gale force things,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: which is also going to drive the waves to be
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: a lot higher, like storm surge and wind fetch are like,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a thing. So yeah, I just was
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: like he's describing that, like, Oh, it's just so funny
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: how they're like afraid of the ocean or whatever. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's actually like design built
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: on experience, Like these people know that the ocean and
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: the wind are going to be hard on them, they
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: have adjusted their architecture accordingly. It's just you know, as
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a disaster prep person it's neat to see the architecture
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: bowing to the environment that it's in.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Another note about the invasion on the White Tower, the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Shawn Chain apparently had a large stable of rock in here,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: so just these pointing on the things that enable them
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to make that attack.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Right, he has this very bleak thought that even the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: piece here isn't really truly peace. He wouldn't be protecting
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: his people from war, just preserving them so they could
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: die for him. Else swear, Oh, yeah, Rand, you don't
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: feel any guilt at all. No, those are not the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: phrasings of a guilty feeling man, definitely not.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Which is then like almost this idea that everyone's going
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: to die in the last battle, right that, like, oh,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to send the last battle to die, like
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that's it. We might win, but even if we do win,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: everybody's dead.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Who goes and fights, right, a remnant of a remnant
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: will he saved? Right, kind of extending that concept to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the whole world, is going to be a few people
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: left over, but basically everyone's going to die.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: We've got an article defending the Bradford par and chat,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and we'll have to read that and pick it up
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: part later.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: We can respond to that later, but thank you for sharing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Alternative points of view are worth looking.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: At, except when they're trash, nowding.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: They're worth evaluating to determine that they are in fact trash.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Gotta be scientific about it. We get another mention of
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Ninive and her fashion infusion that we've talked about before,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: talking about men being different now and Rand being cold.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It would all be over soon. Yeah, he's he's having
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: a tough time.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that misconception that when Minn looks at him,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: she saw him killing her, Like that's why he thinks
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: she's avoiding him, But we know from her perspective it's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: that she thinks she's a liability and that she's worried
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: she's going to get in the way, and so like, yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: He communication, yeah, in my way.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: To talk to each other, I don't think so.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, no exactly. It's they are completely misunderstanding
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: each other's feelings about that experience, and it's driving a
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: bunch between them, which is making Rand's mental health even worse.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Uh. And here's where we kind of figure out for
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the I don't know if it's it's for the first time,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: but for sure that he's wearing the sort of Justice,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the one that Arthur hawk Wing was wearing when he
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: was called back from the dead, right.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Right, the dream equivalent of this sword.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So he got a new sword. I don't know if
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I think we was mentioned. I don't know if we
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: mentioned it in the last chapter, but basically it was
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: found in a pile of rubble underwater, underwater or something like.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was there was some underwater archaeology in the
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: neighborhood that just happened to find the sword Justice, like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't even merit enough page time for half
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the fandom to notice that it happened. It's so random,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Random, and it's very much drop. It's one of those
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: things that Sanderson, to me, it's very much just like
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Brandon wanted to give him a new sword because what
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: happened to Layman's sword that Avienda gave him, Right, wasn't
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that the key sword that he was supposed to be
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: carrying around and the whole thing, Like Avienda gave it
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to him, and that meant a lot to him, And
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: it was this.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when did he lose Layman's sword?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I think think he still has it, because I think
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he has both swords in the last battle, he has
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Justice and Layman's sword. He has two swords, he.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Has one hand. I know that makes no sense. He
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: literally can't even do a wield and he's got calendar.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, unless I'm totally wrong about this.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Because I know that TAM's sword gets melted on a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: shot ale, but.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: That's that's the initial sword. And then yeah, Avienda gets
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in the replacement. Quick Google tells.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Me how many watery tarts are we involving in this story?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah? No's he just has it. He doesn't use it
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: as much, And like, that's kind of weird to me
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that he's not that there was no real big debate
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: about putting away layman sword and Avianda and all this
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, right, Like it feels like he really
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: should have some significant emotions about the sword.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that feels lazy and unnecessary. As an addition, I'm
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: just gonna memory hole.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: That the Gathering Storm chapter one, scholars find an ancient
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: sword buried under submerged statue and presented to Uran those
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: centuries old. He recognizes it because he saw it.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: When it's just so unnecessary, it's just deeply unnecessary. Sorry Sanderson,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: but he fail No.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I It's one of those bits that he put in
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that I feel like is he's trying to reference the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: real world and sort of him taking over from Jordan
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and like the passing of the torch, the passing of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the sword, and this is the new Sword of Justice.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And I see where he's trying to be, like, oh, well,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Rand is Rand is inheriting Arthur hawk Wing's sort of legacy, right,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And I think that would have been more interesting to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: call out if he'd like pulled it out and been like,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: this is the Sword of Justice from Arterur hawk Wing
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and buy this sword. I declare Bapa Bob, you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: like that would have been interesting if he used it
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: in the confrontation with Tuon kind of the way Matt's like, hey,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: do you mind go having a conversation with two On
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: really quick before you fade back into that's all, you know,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Like that was kind of a cool moment, and I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: think doing that with Justice would have been really cool
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I could have accepted why Randon needed
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: a second sword if he's like, well, yeah, Layman's sword
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: isn't going to have the same cachet with the shad
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: shed as Justice so now justice has to exist, Like, yeah,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: that would be fine, but this just feels like very
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: he did he pulled the punch, he pulled, he threw
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: the punch and then pulled it at the last minute.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was also very much like your DM
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, and by the way, in that last dungeon,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you found the right sword that you were looking for, Like, oh,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's cool. I didn't have to do anything.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: For it cool, right, Yeah, Like.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: There's no discovery. He didn't win anything, he didn't find
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it somewhere, he didn't conquer anything, he didn't kill anybody.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: He just somebody found it and decided to give it
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to him. It's yeah, so random, and I I mean,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened with some of the seals.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: But still, yeah, it should have been just for the seals.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: We didn't need a Vianda's sword to get displaced for
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: no reason.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we just would have loved to still see
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: him caring layman sword that's.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: All, Yeah, because that's from his girlfriend, not from some
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: random Utterwater archaeologists. It's a bent in a pond handing
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: out swords.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So then after he says for more reasons, than one.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: It made him think of the last time as Infalma, right,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: because last time that's the first time he killed a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: blade master. But also that's where he saw the sword
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: when they summoned it, right, yeah.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then he confesses to Ninive that that's when
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: he became a blade master, and she's like, well, what,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: you don't need witnesses, you are a blade master. He's like, no,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: witnesses are the entire point. It feels very pedantic to me.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I'm with Ninive, like whatever.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: She doesn't understand the blade master way the way he does,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Like whatever, I don't know. No, I think I agree.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I always thought he was a blade master since he
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: killed Turoc. Now, I think we debated in the time,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: like maybe there was a different level of blade mastering
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: back then, or maybe Turoc was just overconfident because he
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: thought it didn't matter on this side of the ocean.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: But I do. I think that basically he became by
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the rules of blade master. He became a blade master
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: on that day.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Right. The reason why he's not a blade master is
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: because he didn't pick up the sword as a trophy.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Just like with Gawain, they both made the same mistake
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: where they were too honorable and busy to take a
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: trophy from the battlefield, and so they literally owned aren't
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a blade master on a point of order, MM, so
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: They're blade masters.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: They're blade masters. Like if if the only thing you
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: didn't do was bring the sword out of the duel
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: to show people, then that fine. Whatever, that's just a formality.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Not to mention, Like just the amount of work that
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Rand is done, Like we know he's a blade master, right,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Like he's taken down groups of five, Like he's shown
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: himself a blade master many many times.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he makes spar he makes sparring for Land kind
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: of fun, you know, like Land actually like has you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: a reasonable amount of challenge with him, like as he's like,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: oh that's a fun student, you know.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It makes a good point. Wood You makes
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a good point, like how much a blade master can
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you be with long ass nails? Like I don't want
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: to break a nail.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I mean I did notice that the show was like,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: we are not going to actually address that question. The
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: show was like we're just gonna skip that question entirely.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Really love Season three still has a lot of issues.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I'm saving those rants for later. I'm saving those rants
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: for later. I'm saving the rests for later. Religion has
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: noticed that there is a line ahead. A sea breeze
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: blew through, carrying with it the scent of rotten fish.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: It's Bradford par season in the book.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Also it is it's springtime. Yeah, sure is. So RAN's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: walking into the shawn Chan stronghold, right, So he's basically like,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I could get away with a quick gateway, but I
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: don't really plan on fighting this. But then there's that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: part of them that like is like, or I could
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just seize all the power of the children.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just walks in there with the nuclear button,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: just has a little fidget spinner in his hands, just
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: like I could escape, I could walk away, or I
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: could nuke everyone. Thing could happen. Spin the wheel, let's
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: see how I feel. But yeah, there's a lot of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: souldom and demani here. There's a lot of guards. This is,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: you know, the Empire at its full threat display, maximum flare,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: and Tuan is lowering herself to be his equal in
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: the seating arrangements, and she thinks that's a great concession,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: and it's just so so amazing of her and shouldn't
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: we be so impressed and give her all the ally cookies?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And I just like I cannot with her.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I love this little section of Rand seizing the one power.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is a good one. This is a
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: good one.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, I almost want to read this a little bit.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do it, do it?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Do it. He reached down and grasped the access key
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: just in case, and slipped it into his oversized outer
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: coat pocket. Then, taking a deep breath, he steadied himself
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and sought the void. There he sees the one power.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Nausea and dizziness threatened to toss him to the ground. He wobbled,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: legs gripping tita shar hand, Clutching the access key in
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: his pocket. He gritted his teeth in the back of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: his mind, Lewis theren roused, the madman scrambled for the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: one Power. It was a desperate fight, and when Rand
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: finally won, he found that he'd slumped in his saddle
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and he was muttering to himself again. Rand ninetive, asked.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Ran straightened his back. He was Rand, wasn't he? Sometimes
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: after a battle like this he had trouble recalling who
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: he was. How'd he finally push Ran the Intruder into
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: seclusion and become Lewis Theren. In the previous day, he'd
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: woken at midday huddled in the corner of his room,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: crying and whispering to himself about Ileena. He could feel
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the soft texture of her long, golden hair in his
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: hands and could remember her holding her close. He could
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: remember seeing her dead at his feet, slain by the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: one power who was he? Did it really matter? Are
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you all right? Nineyve asked again, we are fine. Rand
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: did not realize he'd used the plural until the words
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: were out of his mouth.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It's so good. What the fuck? Rand? You are falling apart.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm convinced that because he's fighting LTT in his head,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: he ends up sort of sidestepping into Morgan's body and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that's where you get the dizziness Spad Michael.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: At least he's still saying shud no, not at all. Yeah,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: we are fine is like a whole mood.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: This always reminds me if you've ever read the dragon
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Lance series Tail, the Twins, the second trilogy, those chronicles,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and then the Twins trilogy. I don't remember the official
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: name of it, and it's a time travel I'm gonna
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: spoil it for you, so spoiler share sort of a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: time traveling loop right where the main character, essentially in
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: his test to become a wizard, is inhabited by the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: spirit of a dead wizard who offers himpower in order
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to give him access back to the physical world in
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: order to fight him. Raslan goes on to become this
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: powerful magic user, goes back in time to kill that
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: wizard before he can essentially corrupt him in his tower.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: They get in a fight. One of them uses the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: stone that sucks the energy out of one into the other.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: But at the end of it, because he's basically you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: he's grown up with the influence of this wizard in
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: his mind and sort of become that wizard, and he
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: goes back in time and sucks and like has been
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: imitating him and kills him and so like, after the fight,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: they look up and they go, wait, I don't know
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: which one I am. I lost track of who I am?
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Like I literally the two wizards fought and in the battle,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you don't know who wins. And so the wizard who
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is Raceland s Physandantialis decides to become Raceland going forward,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: but there really is this like two people become one
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: in a circular timeline. It's it's really well done. I
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: really love that trilogy of dragon Lance in that particular
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: moment where that character looks up and doesn't know who
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: he is, and that reminds me so much of Rand
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in this moment. Yeah, totally religion. I would say the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: first six hold the books written by Margaret Ways and
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman do stand up for sure.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So it's that first six books of the series. I
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: highly recommend them. There are other books that are also
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: very good in the dragon Lance series, but for that's
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you know, Gems among Poop. Even some of the later
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: books written like by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman where
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: they go back to the series, aren't quite as good,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: just because I think, you know, it's twenty years later.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But yeah, now, and I really like the Villains series
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: as well. That was a series of short stories about
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the villains from the dragon Lance Chronicles. I thought that
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: was really good. They've gone on to produce so, I mean,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it's at this point I only read. I stopped reading
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, so.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Y'all are nerds welcome to the global So yeah, Ninieve
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: looks at Rand and says, really, you're you're powering up
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the magic nuke button, and he's like, just in case,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: just a little extra power, just in case they try to,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: which I mean, in fairness, they could totally try to
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: throw a circle of thirteen at him. I would not
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: be at all surprised if tu one had something like that,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I perceive, So having the choodon call, on standby does
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: kind of make sense as a precaution.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But still, yeah, just holding a little more power than
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: any man could unaided.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Oh right, So if yeah, Demani can't link, thank you athlon. Yeah, no,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: that's true. But still thirteen of them could all throw
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: themselves at him and it would still be powerful enough
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: to take down most men. So it can see where
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: he's being paranoid for a good reason.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I wonder about that, if you had thirteen individual shield
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: trying to take you out, would that be different than
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a link to thirteen? I feel like it must be.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I feel like it would be. But like for most men,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the difference would probably be academic. It would be so
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: far beyond the threshold of what power they could put
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: out that like it would be, yeah, just academic, but
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: for rand I think it would actually matter.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Well that's why I wonder, because like most men can
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: destroy a shield held by a single woman on you know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: average man's strengths, average female strength. So I have to
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: wonder if like it would just be shielded, torn apart, shielded,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: torn apart, shielded, torn apart, right, Like I.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Always figured it would be like a shield wall kind
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: of thing, where like they're layered onto each other, kind
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: of Swiss cheese style and like reinforcing.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Kind of the way the Ashman did the dome in
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah Chaosity.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I kind of was imagining it like that, like, yes,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: there are weaker points, but also like they are adding
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: up to slightly more than the some of their parts.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: M I don't know.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I think I was thinking it more like layers of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: tissue paper you could just claw your way through.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it could be it could be totally onion
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: layered and they don't have any ability to interact. I mean,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I'm these are mechanics that are not defined by the
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Word of God.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: So you know this leads right into the encounter with
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the Daughter of the Nine Moons, right, like.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ninie says, maybe if you're feeling paranoid enough to
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: bring that with you, maybe we shouldn't go, And he's like, no,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: we're going. And so they march up to the pavilion,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: and then we pov switch and we switch from Rand
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: to seeing two On for the first time to two
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: On seeing Rand for the first time.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And both of them thinking wow, how young is that person?
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: For the power that right?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, And then Rand ultimately is like, wait,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I have actually seen you before because of the Matt visions,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: but it's still the first time that he's you know,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: seen her in an interactive.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Sense in context too, right, the context of traveling in
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a caravan with Matt versus being on the pavili in
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: front of all the shawan Chan like you just it's
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: without contact. He didn't make that connection.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he does actually recognize that the height of
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: the chairs being equal is a concession from her. I
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: just think she puts a lot more weight on that
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: than it deserves.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Sure, of course it does make me the fact that
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: he didn't recognize her right away does make me want
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to do all y'all sean Chan look alike joke.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: But probably but that's not Yeah, that's very much not
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the dynamic.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: But it is like other small, dark childlike woman have
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you seen before that you wouldn't recognize her right away?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It does seem a little just like it feels like
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: she should stand out quite a bit. We don't see
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: anybody else looking anything like her.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have been way less surprised if you'd
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: been like, no, no, no, as he gets closer and
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: she resolves, being like wait, what that would But you know,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: it is a very very different content divisions with Matt
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: versus the heir to the shaw Chan Throwe like, yeah,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: maybe it's not the first that you leave to mentally, then.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: You got to give Matt credit, right, Like who else
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: would be in the company of the sean Chan empress?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and then yeah, there's that. It's like
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: because you're Taver and Rand like, of course it would
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: be her. But yeah, I.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Do think that is a blind spot. They they have
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: trouble thinking of their friends as Tavern as powerful people.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Rand certainly does. I don't think he takes takes it,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: you know, one of he's trying not to write he
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to take advantage of his friends, but also
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: like he probably should, right and he doesn't in a lot.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Of ways, right, Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, we get to switch to her piovy. Do
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you want to read this? Do you want to do
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: like a read into her piovy at all?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think she's got some cool thoughts on
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: her first sight of rand the dragon reborn was a
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: young man to one had been told that, but something
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: about it still surprised her. Why should she be surprised
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: by this youth? Conquering heroes were often young. Arthur hawk
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Wing himself, the Empire's great progenitor, had been a young
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: man when he'd begun his conquest. Those who conquered, those
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: who dominated the world, burned themselves out quickly, like lamps
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: with untrimmed wicks. He wore gold and red on black,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the buttons on his coat sparkling as he dismounted from
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: his large black gelding and approached the pavilion. The black
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: coat had red and gold embroidery on the cuffs. The
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: missing hand was quite obvious looking at those cuffs, but
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: his clothing was otherwise unadorned, as if he saw no
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: need to distract from his face with finery.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, just her view of Rand Yo and.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: She thinks about how he walks, how he holds himself,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: like I don't think which is partially the moraine and
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: a lane training and his own thing, but also I
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: think it's a lot of the LTT right, walking like
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: LTT with the assurance of a four hundred year old
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: hemisphere owning magic user.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Don't underestimate Tom's influence as well.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Also Tom. Yeah, it's like rand is all of that
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: is coming together into maximum presentation and land.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Kakos's the courtyard right.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Like he is as king doubt as he could possibly.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: He's been trained by so many people who know how
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: royalty works. And two I was like wow, like is
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: he even actually a peasant? Like maybe the peasant story
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: is just propaganda, and it's like, no, it's just the
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: madman in his head, plus all the Royalty people who
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: have worked on mentoring him throughout his last two years.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: But I bet they're The LTT effect I think is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: something that cannot be understated when he's saying we in
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: this situation, right, he's gonna walk like somebody else. Yeah,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and then maybe even moridin right, there may be some
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: bleed over from who's got all that experience and nobility,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and like you know, kind of the way he's inhabiting
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Morgan's body in the way it's he's maybe he's walking
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: like his Morgan's inhabiting his body, right, Like you have
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: this definite crossover ability.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And I mean also he's you know, his
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: genetic parents were a princess and the clan chief of
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: photograph right, Like, it's just it's epigenetic, it's cultural, it's
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: bleed over from other lives. It's a bleed over from
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: other minds. Like there's nothing about him that's not pointing
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: at being able to walk into a room like he
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: owns the place.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Hell, even in his village, he was going to be
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: like on the council.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I'm sure, Oh definitely, yeah, would be on the village
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: council because Tam Tam taught him to stand up straight
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: and walk into a room like he owned the place.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: You know, it's all starts at home.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Tuon thinks about how she's still really uncomfortable with Isidai,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: and she kind of thought she'd be a little desensitized
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: after her time with them, But like, no, two On,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: you have to do the inner work, not just the
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: external performance work. Of like doing the DEI training, you
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: actually have to like process what that means in your body.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: She thinks it's like exposure. Exposure therapy is like something
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: it's gross enough times they'll stop gagging quite as often,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and it's like, it's not These are people you need.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: To reframe why you think it's gross at all and
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: realize that it's not gross. That's actually the work you
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: need to do. But that's the desensitization you need, is
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: not just trying to put up with it better.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And she of course things men who can channel are
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you know, just as bad, if not worse. Right, they
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: should just be killed immediately. Doesn't understand why they're still alive, which, like.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: You know, in the world before the taint was cleansed,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: totally makes sense. She also talks about how in shawn
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Shan occasionally some people had tried to use make essentially
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: ashaman as a military force, and what were they called
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: h They had tried to train these surrevn Dee Dune,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: these black souled tempests like wow, Shan Shan poetic black
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: sould tenthists like nice, ooh, that's just that's a good line.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: That's a good line. But yeah, Apparently some Sean Chan
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: have thought that perhaps male soldom could be a thing,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: and it never works because of the insanity. So, you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Tuan does not know about the cleansing for obvious reasons.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: This would be a good thing for him to present. Maybe, Hey,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: shan Chan, did you know? But I guess not because
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: of the whole leash thing. But that would have been
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: a cool thing for him to lay down as like
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: an informational like move in this conversation, like, hey, did
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: you know I'm so powerful I cleanse the source? Maybe
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: don't fuck with me.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You know, but no one believes. No one believes.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: It's so frustrating.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: He's the only people who can verify it are insane.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, the shawn Chan are going to be the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: last people convinced in the world. That's super fair. Tuon
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: thinks about how exposed she is because the Dragon to
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: be Born is scary. Dragon Reborn was a bonfire inexplicably
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: lit inside a house. You could not prevent it from
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: damaging the room. You just hoped to save the building.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So accurate and bleak. I suppose when it's the end
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: of the world, you do have to expect things to
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: be pretty apocalyptic, because that's kind of what it says
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: on the tin. But also you do have an obligation
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to try to keep something standing, you know, like hate
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: to agree with too on, but it is a cogent
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: way of looking at the situation logically.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I love how quickly ran clock Solusha. He's like, oh,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you can tell your body going to relax. Yeah. When Matt,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: like still after months, was like, man, Solusha her handmaiden.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: It seems really protective for some reason.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like, man, no one ever guesses
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: what's going on there. Rand is like obviously obviously, and
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, isn't it kind of obvious that this
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: woman is always right next to you constantly.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I think some people just dismiss women as protectors.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I just feel like Shan Chin, of all places, would
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: be smarter than that. But I guess not.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Well, what did you think about this her omen right,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: lightning on a day without rain means tread very lightly,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: be careful what you speak. Well.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I do think is interesting that she had a weatherwise
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Demani say there wouldn't be any lightning, and then Rand
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: shows up and there is lightning. I do think that
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: interpreting be very fucking careful because tever it is in
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the house is a valid take.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The Demani said there be no rain, didn't say anything
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: about lightning.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I said weather, right, ye, Like yeah,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I mean just the concept that like Rand shows up
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and there's a bolt of lightning and you decide to
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: take that as a note from the gods to be
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: a little more cautious. It's like, yeah, I think that's
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: a pretty solid omen like nice, Yeah, you know, Rand
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: did probably help cause that to happen, weird weather, probably
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: because he's there, and like, yeah, you should be careful
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: as fuck when dealing with him. That is a really
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: logical way to approach talking to this man right now.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Well, and he can strike, you know, like lightning on
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a day without rain. There's no warning, just sudden strike.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like this one is she takes such a solid
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: conclusion from it that it's like, well, sure, why not.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's as as she puts it, you know,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: it's not a very illuminating omen like be cautious, Like yeah, okay,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: you didn't need an omen to tell you that. You
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: could have just understood that you're dealing with the dragon Raborn.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: That would have been fine.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Too, So I want to talk a little bit about
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: her prophecies that she sort of goes over here the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: last battle would be between the Empire and the forces
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: of the Dark One. Yes, and a bunch of other people. Yeah, Like,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think anything she says here isn't true. It
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: just doesn't have.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Context, right, I mean, the shan Chant are really instrumental
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: in fighting the Sharans specifically, like that the Sharans are
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: collectively one of the forces of the Dark One, and
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: the Empress very much deals with them.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And in a lot of ways, they do kind of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: come in like the Americans at the end of World
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: War Two, right after the battle has been fought for
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: ages and ages and ages. They come in at the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: end and sweep over everybody and declare, look, the shan
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Chan won the battle, which is true, exactly true from
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a certain point of view.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But also back up and take it into account some context. Yeah,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: context context.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: That the battle was fought by a lot more people
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: for a lot longer before you stepped in and did
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: The fact that you've got to strike the killing blow
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: without doing all the work ahead of time is a
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: little bit of a caveat a little bit of an
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: asterisk there.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: But the prophecy clearly show the Empress would defeat those
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: who served the Shadow. True, and she would send the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: dragonry Warn in to deal with light Eater. True. I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: mean I don't sure she sends send him in. After
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: he meets with her, he goes, and you could say
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: that that is the prophecy.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's one of those. The first half
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: of the sentence was real, and then the other half
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: was like scribbled in and pencil totally.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: She talks about how much how he had fulfilled. He
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: didn't seem blinded yet. Well, he's been blinded. He's just
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: getting better.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he has experienced actual damage to his eyeballs. Plus
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: he is pretty losing the path. He's losing the plot
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of his own story. Like as legend said, he's blinded
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: by his problems. But yeah, he has actually experienced an
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: oracular damage at this point.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the fireball that took his hand also damaged his
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: eyes and like blinded him in a way.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And he mentioned at the beginning of the chapter
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: that he's gotten used to how bad his vision is.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: It's not actually getting better.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: And then the cycle said he would stand on his
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: own grave and weep, which is you know that happens
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: later on in Dragonmount in Veins of Gold.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is about to happen, but it has not
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: happened yet, you know.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And then some sort of she's like, well, maybe that's
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: just talking about spirits walking across graves. Maybe not dragon
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: reborn and specific, but we know it is about random Yeah.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Definitely standing on top of the mountain and rediscovering laughter
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: and tears is kind of a rand thing.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: So I know, like, canonically, the Isnach cycle is supposedly
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the corrupted version of prophecies that Moridan feeds the shan Chan.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's where they come from, right, or he
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: at least corrupted them a little bit, But that doesn't
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: mean there's not a grain of truth and or they
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: haven't had their own I said, I give their own problem,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: like they understand that isaid I give prophecies. Right, she
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: has this one read her. That's how she knows that
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: she's going to marry.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Matt, right. Yeah. Yeah, the Shanchen have access to foretelling's
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: style stuff the same as everyone else.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe even more if they understand doom seers and stuff
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: like that. So I firmly believe there are clues in
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the Asinak cycle that are just as valid as in
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the prophecies of the Dragon. I just think they're a
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: little more corrupted when they say, oh, but these things
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: will cause the empress to have power.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly, They just kept adding these little you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: may she live forever appendages. They just kept adding that
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: to the end of stuff. Oh, and then the empress
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: has a thing to do. But like, yeah, they're working
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: off of the originals. They have to stay within certain bounds,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: and errors are going to creep in organically on both. Anyway,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: I assume that there are parts of the prophecies of
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the Dragon that are broken because people just messed up
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: in general.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Sure, well, and then the self fulfilling parts that like
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: he has to kneel to the throne, and he does
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: that just to fulfill the prophecy so they can move.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: On, right, because it was an addendum that doesn't really
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: have the weight of actual prophecy behind it, but.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Or does it because he does it right, Like.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying it's an equal and opposite reaction, Like
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the only reason he did it was because someone wanted
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: him to do it, Like there's no cosmic reason for
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: it to happen. It's just that, like Tuon won't budge
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: unless that part of the prophecy gets fulfilled that her
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: ancestors inserted. So he's just like whatever, it's fine, that's
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: not a real part of the prophecy, but you care
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: about it, so sure, we'll make it real. We'll make
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: it real for you as a treat.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Then two one basically calls him down and says, hey,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: we expected you guys to be reunited and prepared to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: like praise us and lend us armies for the last battle. Instead,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you're a bunch of fighting, squabbling children. And again that's
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I want to point out, Like, yeah, her prophecies were wrong.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: They said that when the omens were right, they'd come
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: back and get a united Westlands that was ready to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: listen to them. Like that just doesn't make any sense.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: What world in what world is a united world going
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to listen to you?
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: They're manifesting the destiny.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Just as hard as but it seems like they're just
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: more evidence that their prophecies, or at least their omens,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: are lies about or fed to them by I mean,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: when we know this right, shameel back. When he said.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Shameel talked about how he fed lies in the Empress
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: for the to secure two dooms, right, the doom of
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the people who left and the doom of the people
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: who return. That's not the exact quote, but there's there's
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: a prophecy where he talks durand about how he's the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: reason the sean Chann are coming back.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and because all he had to do is add
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: a couple of little extra bits to what already existed,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: these prophecies that were going to get believed, and he
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: just had to add a few modifications, and now everything
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: is just off from what it should be. It's there,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: but it's not there the right way, and it creates
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of problems. You know, the last battle is
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: nearly lost multiple times because of the shan Chan's inflexibility,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: because of like early starting conditions on how they understood
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: their cosmology.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I also wonder if leaving them out of it though
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: till the end maybe made a big difference too. Right,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: they weren't able to get caught up in some of
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the other things that may have wiped them out early on.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, hard to say. It's a big battle to
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: reverse engineer.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: He talks about how the alliance needs only last until
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: my life ends because he's going to die in the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: last battle. So just you know, make a deal with
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: me till then, and I guarantee I'm going to be
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: dead anyway. The prophecies, I'll say it, and you believe
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the prophecies.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and he says this thing of like if
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: not for me existing, then your war of conquest would
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: be commendable, like in the face of the last battle,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: like you're on the right page. You just need to
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: get behind me. And they're like, n hmm, we sort
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: of feel constitutionally incapable of doing that one thing.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: And it's all because they're missing They're both looking at
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: different prophecies. Right. Rand is looking at the prophecy saying,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I will be the leader of the last battle. You
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: need to, you know, get in line, because that's what
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the prophecy says, and they're saying, no, our prophecy says,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: you're going to bow down to us and we're going
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: to lead the last battle and have you as a tool.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: And that's because again the corruption of the asin X
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: cycle from the Chan Chan. Yeah.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: And then and then we get into the bargaining where
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Rand just has a hard line against slavery, and that
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: is unacceptable to the slave empire.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Well, they see, the only way to deal with channelers
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: is the caller. Any other way is ineffective, inappropriate, and
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: it's just going to lead more to more pain and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: death in the long run when the channeler goes wild
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and ends up killing a bunch of people. Better to
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: have one person in slavery than have them running free
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: causing chaos and death and pain their entire lives.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: But we've managed without those outcomes for centuries. Actually, despite
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: all of our chaos and disunity, we actually have not
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: been run rough shod over roughshod by insane channelers of
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: both genders.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: The existence of the West Lens disproves everything that sean
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Chans say constantly, the existence of the Ieel and the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: wise women, the existence of the c folk and their channelers, right, like,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: there are good ways in good societies that you can
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: have channelers be part of society.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Shara arguably is kind of on Sean
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Chan's level when it comes to how you have to
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: control channelers. But they come in entirely on the side
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: of the bad guys in the last battle, so they're
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: not a great example.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And secretly they are kind of being controlled by the
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: handlers are the ones in control. It's just in secret, right, Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: But it's not a good system, right, People don't get
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: to live their lives, right, It's a highly controlled, top down,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: rigid like system. Whereas you know the Westlands, the ael
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: the c Folks, they have their hierarchies. But people different
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: cultures are living their own different ways. You know, only
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Sean Channon Shara have like fascism levels of control over
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: their entire society.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Which if you think about rand Land as being Europe,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: it really is a commentary on America and China, right now. Yeah, anyway, Yeah,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: so then she brings up Matt right something we have
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: in common, right, and she's basically testing to see whether
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: he knows Matt right.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: And I mean this is a good conversational move, right,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Like she is being drawn into the conversation on Rand's terms,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: and she's like curveball Matt Coffin. It's kind of like
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: like a Pokemon, right, you just like a smoke bomb,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: You just like random Matt Coffin the conversation.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: And I declare Matt Coffin. You can't just declare Matt Coffin.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Apparently you can.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Wohilch I know she says he kidnapped me and dragged
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: me halfway across Altara. No mention of the fact that
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: she married.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Him casually, doesn't mention that, doesn't mention.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: That at all, which actually would be really good information.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: He may have actually treated with you differently knowing you
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: were Matt's wife.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Ni need certainly would have had a whole lot of
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: her gears spinning. Might have just exploded at the spot
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: trying to process that information.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: That's pretty funny.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Actually, can you imagine, like Ninive is giving two on,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: you know, a very good rip up one side and
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: down the other for being a slaver and a terrible person,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: And how dare you talk about Matt that way? Can
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: you imagine how she would have reacted to On saying he's.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: My husband, I'll talk about him anyway I want.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, that would Nini would literally explode.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And this is a very redeeming moment for Ninive, Right,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: this is her, you know, someone who's always talked about
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Matt poorly, ripping somebody else for talking about Matt poorly
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and supporting her in a lot of ways. This is
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: why I see her as having more growth than a
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: lot of the other characters, is because it seems like
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: she's really come, you know. But at the same time,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I kind of hate the way Sanderson's forcing it on
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Ninive to be like, oh, yeah, she's forgiven Moraine, She's
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: forgiven Matt all of a sudden, she's this changed woman.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, but this is also deeply consistent
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: to all of our Two Rivers people that they'll fight
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: like cats amongst themselves, but the second any of you
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: turn on them like no, no, no, no no, Like
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: this is consistent to that Two Rivers, like in group loyalty.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: But I do I do know what you mean. There
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: is a certain amount of like sometimes it feels forced.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: This doesn't feel forced. This feels very correct. Naive would
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: never let Matt hear her say this, right, but she
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: would never let anyone shit talk him as long as
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: he's not in the room. He's in the room, the
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: rules are different. But if he's not in the room,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: she will defend him.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Right. That's good, that's a good point. Yeah, I just
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: feel like like someone said, hey, hey, Sanderson, can you
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: take all the things that annoy me about and I
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: even have her apologize for them. Thanks.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that does sometimes feel like it's coming through less
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: so here though, because someone needed to tell too Wan
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to fuck off, Like Rand interrupting her is not the
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: level of funk off she needs to be told. Ni
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Neve shrieking at her that her husband is a good
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: man is more correct.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: She thinks bad. She thinks Rand's insane because he's like, oh, yeah,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I saw you, and she's like, okay, not so when
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: we know that's actually.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Like not inanity, Yeah, like your husband gets those visions too,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: dear Like.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Earlier she was like, oh, he seems to really have
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: it under control, and it's like, no, he does not.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: You're just just doesn't that.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: How are you this bad of a read of people
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: want this man is not okay? How are you looking
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: into those eyes and saying, yeah, he seems under control.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: He seems under control. But then the one thing you
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: think actually is the thing that makes them insane is
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the one thing that's like.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Real, right, Yeah, No, they're missing on every level.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I want to say, it's cultural, like they're just operating
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: on two very cultural different levels and they don't understand
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: each other in any way, shape or form.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they needed a little bit more translation between them.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: They needed like Bashir to do like an exchange course
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: for a week or something.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: They needed Matt sitting there, or Matt could have been there.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: That would have helped. Yeah, yeah, I.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Would have liked to see that in the second meeting.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: If Matt was it was somehow a mediating between the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: two of them.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of mediating that awful meeting between tu On
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and a Gwain, he could have mediated between Matt or
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: between Rand and Agwain. That would have been way better.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Because I feel like he never understood awayin at all.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: But at least he someone understands Rand.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. But then Rand is like, none of
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: this matters. This is all very interesting, but it doesn't matter.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: You need to just do what I want because Tavan
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: and I'm tired of being in this pavilion and he
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: just really I'm surprised we don't get a mention of
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: wine souring in.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: This instance, right right, or Tee turning bitter.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Or yeah, or a sudden gust of wind like ripping
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: the pavilion roof off or something, you know.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: But yeah, essentially he tries to use his he does
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: his hold. You think I could make your heart stop?
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: God's Wayne thing, right, He uses his severeness.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: He doesn't go quite that dramatic, it's not quite that threatening.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: But it's that move. Yeah, it's that move.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that move and that creates the halo of
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: darkness that creates the reaction from tu On.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: These are not requests, they are my will.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: We see the same pressure he brings to bear when
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: he meets with Agwayne after he goes up on the mountain,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: so he still has this ability to bring that pressure,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: but here it's tainted by the darkness of touching the
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: dark One.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's darkness rather than that halo of light that
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: comes with him later, because of course we have to
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: go with darkness and light as allegories.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Sure, but this is the thing that spurs her to
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: make the attack to me is how dark he goes.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: She realizes this man has embraced evil and I have
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to combat him. I cannot be his ally in the
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: last battle because, like Katswain says, if this man goes
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to fight the dark One, we will lose, and she
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: has to do everything she can to stop him.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Which, like as much as I don't like her, and
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I don't like her empire. Like, yeah, I can kind
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: of see where this interview makes her convinced that he's
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: gone off the wrong side of that knife edge, and
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: you have to do what you have to do. I mean,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: just the way the Bolderlanders are preparing to assassinate him
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: if he does not come correct right, Like, it makes
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: sense for the jan Chin Empire to be one of
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: those checks and balances that the pattern has set up
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: against the potential of Rand choosing wrong.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: And really, like you have to think about it, this
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: would be a good time to stop him, right because
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: once he goes up on the on the mountain in
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: veins of gold, that's when you take the gamble. That's
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: when the world can potentially end. That to me is
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I've said so many times, but that to me is
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: the moment where he wins the last battle or loses
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the last battle in terms of destroying the world. Now,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: how bad the Fourth Age is going to be in
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: terms of the trucks ruling over things and forsaken and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: nastiness and the dark One being out like all of
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: that I think could have been much worse if you
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: lost the on the ground last battle. But whether or
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: not the wheel continues to spin happens in Veins of Gold.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the beginning of the Last Hunt. We hunt or
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: we do not or.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: We do not? Yeah.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's also interesting going back to the Matt thing,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: like how much Ninive and Rand both saying whatever Matt
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: did he had a reason changes the way that Tuon
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: thinks about him, Like once again she was forced to
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: reassess her view of mattrim Coffin. Like a lot of
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: how she does her whole Americans coming in at the
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: last minute in World War two thing is because she
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: trusts Matt, right, Like, being able to trust Matt at
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: a really deep level is what allows her to play
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: out that series of false attacks and starts and all
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: of that is because she trusts Matt implicitly. And this
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: this really helps. She trusted him a certain amount, but
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: she trusts him a lot more after seeing the way
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: his old friends respond to her. Trust him, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It's because he seems worthy of trust, right.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's you know, even though Randa is doing
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: this dark halo of maybe don't align with me right
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: now because I'm absolutely not having a good time, He's
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: also communicating that you should trust Matt, even as I
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: am deeply untrustworth that you can trust me when I
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: say that Matt is worth trusting, right, Like, that's what
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: she's getting from.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: This, And I feel like that's an important part of
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: like being in a relationship with someone is you go
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to their friends and you're like, hey, what is this
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: person like, because I've been with people where the friends
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: are like, she's kind of a flake and we'll probably
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: end up dating somebody else pretty quickly, or or yeah,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: this dude, yeah he's gonna cheat right like, and I know, uh,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: one of my wife's exes, Like all of his friends
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: were like, hmm, girl, you better keep an eye out,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: right like, and sure enough, he was cheating the whole time.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And they never said he's cheating, but they said, like,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: careful of his vibe. You may want to investigate what
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: he's doing with other women and stuff like that. You know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: it's like the friends know.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, when the friends have a united opinion on someone,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: you should trust it. Like it's that's crowdsource. It's pure rooting.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: And they might not tell you the whole truth, but
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: they're not going to lie to you because they know
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: whether their friend's a good person to date or not?
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So Tuon's like, hey, he kidnapped me, and
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: these two people are like, well, I'm sure that his
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: explanation is going to be real long, but it's going
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: to be it's going to be solid. It's just just
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: going to take a minute.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, he must have had a good reason.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't have kidnapped you unless he needed to do.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: It, right, which, like you know, generally speaking, when a
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: woman says that a man kidnapped her, you're supposed to say,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: oh my god, can I help. Not well, I'm sure
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: he had his reasons.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, And the fact that they are willing to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: do that, it's like, oh wow, he really they must
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: have incredible faith in him.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Right, right, which is good feedback for her. She might
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: not trust them as people, but that that reaction is
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: important information she files away.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Well, and it all has to do with her first
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: impression of him, right, She had this terrible first impression
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: of him as Tuon's toy and over time toy Tyland. Sorry,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: he's two ons toy. Now she does call him toy, yeah,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I know, not my favorite.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: She switched to matrim Now now that they're marriede. She
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: calls him Mattrium and then she's gonna call him no tie. So, oh,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: we haven't gotten there yet, but we will.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Well because you know, he doesn't want to wear tie
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: like nobles do, so no tie.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: We will get to those bad jokes when we get
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: in to that session.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: So she rejects Rand, right, She's like, I am not
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: going to bow before you. You will bow before me.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not giving into any of your demands. And so Rand,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: instead of negotiating, turns around and walks the fuck away.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: He doesn't try, and he's like, you give into everything
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I demand or nothing.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: If at first you don't succeed.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Stalk away in a fucking snit of duh.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: But like he did all of his he you know,
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: did his persuasion role and it didn't work out. So
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: he knows the DM isn't going to let him try again,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: so he just leaves the encounter.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: You know, he watched for a moment longer very well.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: He spun stalked away from pavilion, not looking back, like
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: what all right? Anyway? I get he's he's very much
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: in black and white. You do what I say or
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: do nothing? Moment right now right, he's just trying to
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: solve all his problems instantly. But he's spent so long
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: trying to set up this meeting to not negotiate at all.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Well, because he can feel the fact that the tavern
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: is working into her mind, right, Like she inside her mind,
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: she cannot come up with reasons to say no. All
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: she wants to say yes, Every fiber for being wants
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: to say yes. And it's a real testament to her
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: strength of will that she just simply opposes him because
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: she wants to say yes so bad. Like I'm convinced
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: that's the only reason she's able to say no is
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: because she just has that empire momentum behind her to
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: say no. If you want me to do something, I
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: shouldn't do it. But like he knows that he was
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: maxing out his Teverit influence and she still said no,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: So he knows that there's nothing no lesser tool is
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: going to work.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: To make her give in to everything he wants.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and everything he wants is for her to ally
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: with him and stop enslaving people. They're not really negotiable things.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, he literally negotiates away slavery. Later he says, fine,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: you can keep everyone that you've got, Like, at this point,
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: he literally has a better line on slavery than when
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: he's all zened out. Compromise with slavers is not the
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: life lesson that I want to be getting from.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: My Kintasy books. Uh yeah, we all had canon that
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Matt does something about that later, Yes, we do.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: I totally agree. Athlon if he had not been so
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: overbearingly to Verin, she might have actually been more interested
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: in negotiating with the fact that he's just like, he's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: basically crystal throning at her. But she comes from a
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: long line of people who have been dealing with the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Crystal Throne for a long time, So she's just like no,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: I on pure, pure resistance.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: No. So, now that the meeting's over, she declares herself Empress.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the only reason she was waiting was so
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: she could talk to him. And if he's gonna stalk
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: away from her like that, then all right, I guess
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: it's time to be Empress.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: And then he can bow down to the Empress and
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the Crystal Throne and you know, take away from that, Hey,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: we are not allies. It's time to undermine his power,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: time to attack the White Tower.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she did not want to piss him off unnecessarily.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: But now he's as pissed off. He's passed the threshold
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: of pissed off for her purposes. So it's time to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: do what they've always wanted to do, which is raid
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the White Tower. Nobody spoke in the time at took
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: her to calm herself. Perhaps they were as shaken as she.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Perhaps they sensed her worry. Finally, long after aarthor had
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: gone Tuon stood, She turned and regarded the collected Blood generals, soldiers,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: and guards. I am the Empress, she said in a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: soft voice. As one. They fell to their knees, even
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: the High Blood, prostrating themselves. That was the only ceremony needed. Oh,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: there would be a formal crowning back in Abu Dhar,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: with processions and parades and audiences. She would accept the
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: personal oaths of allegiance from each member of the Blood,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: and would have the chance, by tradition, to execute any
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: of them by her own hand without reason, who she
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: felt had opposed her assent to the throne. They were
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: to be all of that and more. But her declaration
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: was the true coronation, spoken by the daughter of the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: nine moons. After the period of mourning festivities began. The
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: moment she bade them all rise, there would be a
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: week of jubilation, a necessary distraction. The world needed her,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: it needed an empress. From this moment on, everything would change.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: As the Daco Vale rose and began to sing the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: praises of her coronation, Tuan stepped up to General Galgan
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: passed the word to General Yulan. She said, softly, tell
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: him to prepare his attack against the Marath Demani of Tarvalan.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: We must strike against the dragon reborn, and quickly. This
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: man cannot be allowed to gain any more strength than
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: he already has.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fun chapter. I like that. That's a
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: layered chapter for me. I feel like with the two
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: povs and the way they're talking past each other, I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: really like that chapter.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: Agreed. Agreed. That felt like a good blend of Jordan
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: and Sanderson. You can really see that Sanderson did a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: lot of the actual legwork to write it. But also
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: this meeting has been books in the making. Jordan had
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of ideas about what was going to happen
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: and how that was going to go, So it it's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: it feels like a really good necessary check mark on
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: the Bengo card of like we knew this was going
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: to happen. We eventually Rand into one had to have
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: this meeting. We've been working on it for a long time.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it slaps as a meeting. It is not
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: a letdown. There are other meetings that are let downs.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: This is not one of them. This is a good meeting,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: and it's bad in terms of the outcome, but it's
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: good in terms of reading.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, And I'd like to see it reflected with
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the second meeting as well. When it's like I like
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: the way it reflects over Rand's transformation.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I mean literally thinking about his first violent
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: encounter with the shan Chan and then this attempted negotiation
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: that doesn't work, Like he has a bad track record
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: in fallm with sean Chan.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean going back to You've got fam and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: You've got you know when we ride lightning with then
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Bashir has to tackle him, right.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Like oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: That's patron Dagger's to Then this the meeting with the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Forsaken that goes badly, to this meeting with Tuon that
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: goes badly, no matter how much he tries, it seems
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: like he's just getting He's unsuccessful with dealing with Sean Chan,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: whether militarily or in negotiations.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: I just thought too infam before he fought to Sean Chan,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: partially to save Agwayne. And at the end of this meeting,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Tuwan decides to initiate the attack on the White Tower
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: very much, putting Agwade in so much danger from the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Jean Chan. M hmm, yeah, good chapter.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Goodchuks everyone, Yeah, see you next time. We are. We
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: are in sander Lanche. We are at the end of
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: this book. We've got a lot of good chapters coming up.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Very excited about that, very very cool.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: We will see you all next week.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: See you next week. Ah.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Recording is on bitching about Bradford Pears Engaged.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so the well you were what were you
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: complaining about Bradford Pears. They got me started.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Well, you said that you felt a little bit stuffy,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: and I suggested allergies and you're like, who knows what.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Well, the Bradford Pears are out.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: And then I said, yeah, well my whole street's full
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: of them. Because that's you know, I moved into a
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: new place there's a bunch of trees. You don't really
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: know what they are until they start to bloom and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: you realize every single one is a Bradford paar.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Bradford pears. I have never met a person
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: who likes the s medal of Bradford pear trees. Some
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: people have a more violently negative reaction to them than others,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: but no one likes them.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: No, what I've ever heard.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: And yet every city ever is like, you know what
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: tree we should have on every single street, just in
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: perpetuity is these fucking Bradford pairs. And I think whoever
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: made that decision and whoever underwrote it, and every single
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: person who has ever said yes, this is fine goes
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: to a special circle of hell.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: It's like heaven, but everything smells bad.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they get to go live in a hell of
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: their own making. Apparently they like it.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's it's a terrible smell. Unfortunately, it did
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: only last a short period of time. I felt like
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: it was like the flowers died within a couple of weeks.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: So it's not like I'm dealing with it year round,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: but for those couple of weeks, it's kind of miserable.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It just has such distinct memories of being in
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: college and walking across town and being like dumpster or
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Bradford pear tree dumpster or Bradford pair dumpster or Bradford pair,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: because like they smell the same to me, like rotten
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: protein and garbage.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: They just smell like garbage, like garbage. Some sour beer
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: somehow smell works its way in there.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: It smells like a college town student housing dumpster that's overflowing.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: Like that's what they smell like. And then like we
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: should put in a college town trees that make sure
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: everywhere smells like.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: And I tell you what, we had a big one
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: right outside my college dorm, the dorm I was in
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: for at least two years. So to me, that is
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: a very college smell to me.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, yeah, totally. We actually have one out
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: here that we have cut down and it is currently
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: sprouting again, and it's like, oh, you want to come
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: back for another round. This will not end well for you.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to do about because those are
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: those trees on the part of the road that's maintained
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: by the city.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: So I wonder if you can use your prerogative as
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: the person being easemented on to insist that they put
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: a different tree there.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Tree just yeah, I mean, but you probably need to
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: install a tree of a certain age, which gets pretty
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: expensive because you have to transplant it in place.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: And like, yeah, I wonder if you can make the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: city do that. I wonder if you can insist because
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: it's a doubt onto your property.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can look into it.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, like, those things are terrible and it's
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: going to need to be removed by some agency.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: The issue is it's the entire street has them, right,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: So even if I took out the one on my property,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: there's still eighty more right next to it. So it's
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: not like this. It was not like this one tree
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: is going to make a difference. It would have to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: be a whole street thing to really make a big difference.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Neighborhood Watch Neighborhood Neighborhood Association against Bradford Pairs.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll look into it if you're curious, Like, if
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard about the Bradford pair and the scourge
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: of it, it's it's bad. It's really bad. Yeah.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: It feels like a malicious design choice.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: Along with like putting all male trees in cities like, oh,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: so they don't breed and don't put Yeah, you male
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: trees do they produce fucking pollen? Make my life a
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: misery without drugs.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: And you know what what's really cool about trees that
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: are pollinated is they can grow free food. Right, but
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't want people to have access to free food.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: That would be bad. American city design is frustrating.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's actually one of my favorite things about
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Portland is the number of fruit trees that we do have, right.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: We have lots of fig trees, lots of pear trees.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The town I went to in college, there are
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: so many fig trees. I had never eaten fresh figs before,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: and there was a couple of summers where it was
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, I had no idea that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: there was just these mountains of figs just falling into
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: our laps as we walk by, like wow, so good.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I know I've said this before, but in the Bible,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: the apple that they eat it's never defined just a fruit, right,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: they never define what kind of fruit it is, right,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: and you know, convinced that it you know, the legend
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: that faded, the myth was actually a fig totally because
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: figs have been around. I mean, this is I act
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: think it's actually David Attenborough therey that I'm stealing because
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: he sort of talks about how, like essentially monkeys, true
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: tribes of monkeys that became our ancestors probably traveled from
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: tree to tree. And because in the tropics, figs don't
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: have a particular season in which they bloom, if you know,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: but they always bloom the same time every year. So
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: if you know, if your tribe knows basically when the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: next fig tree is going to be blooming, you can
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: have a path and just follow the fig trees and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: essentially eat figs all time. And it's like, imagine if
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: your life was just like yep, on to the next
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: fig tree, eat figs till your full collapse, sleep, move
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: to the next one.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a good life.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, figs.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: I want to plant some fig trees.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: And then can you imagine being kicked out of that
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: into like a plains area, be like being kicked out
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: of a garden of eden mmm mm hmm.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the transition to savannah was a bad choice,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: but that was a big mistake, ye big mistakes. Shouldn't
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: have done it I mean done it.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Forss to walk upright, get big brains.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: It's been downhill from the society. Fuck yeah, art, terrible
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: choice agriculture. Speaking of art, you want to do this
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: podcast about someone else's books?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: A halo of blackness surrounds my desire to do this chapter.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 1:11:29
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• 1:11:31
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• 1:11:36
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• 1:11:39
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• 1:11:42
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