Latest / WoT Spoilers / Introducing: Podcast It, Donut! (part 1)

Transcript

Introducing: Podcast It, Donut! (part 1) · WoT Spoilers

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello Watt Spoilers fans, this week and next week are
0:05
Speaker 1: going to be a bit of a departure from our
0:08
Speaker 1: usual content. Over the last several episodes, we've been teasing
0:12
Speaker 1: you that we're starting a new project, and the time
0:15
Speaker 1: to unveil it is now. We are doing a first
0:19
Speaker 1: time reader podcast of the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series,
0:23
Speaker 1: where I am the newbie and Seth is the veteran reader.
0:26
Speaker 1: If you haven't started the books yet, now would be
0:29
Speaker 1: a great time, Or you can just listen to me
0:32
Speaker 1: reacting to the first few chapters cold that will probably
0:35
Speaker 1: be nearly as much fun.
0:36
Speaker 2: We hope that you enjoy this very unwat like side
0:40
Speaker 2: quest while we get our momentum for the new year
0:42
Speaker 2: built up, and that you will join us over on
0:45
Speaker 2: the podcast at donut feed when that is available. That's right,
0:50
Speaker 2: you are experiencing the world premiere of our new podcast
0:54
Speaker 2: before literally anybody else's. You are listening to podcast it Donut,
1:05
Speaker 2: a first time reader podcast about the Dungeon Crawler Carl
1:07
Speaker 2: book series, hosted by Iridia and Seth. I am a Radia,
1:12
Speaker 2: the first time reader who is crawling through the dungeon
1:14
Speaker 2: for the first time.
1:16
Speaker 3: And I am Seth, the veteran reader who is guiding
1:19
Speaker 3: the show.
1:20
Speaker 1: This podcast only contains spoilers up to wher I have
1:22
Speaker 1: read in a given episode, which this week is chapters
1:25
Speaker 1: one through two.
1:29
Speaker 3: New Achievement podcast, Bruiser, you are listening to a new
1:35
Speaker 3: Dungeon Crawler Caral podcast. That's pretty brave of you, considering
1:41
Speaker 3: the quality of most podcasts. Reward. If you like us,
1:46
Speaker 3: you get a new podcast. If you hate us, enjoy
1:50
Speaker 3: your smug sense of superiority. We are here in an
1:59
Speaker 3: attempt to podcasts through Dungeon Crawler Carl. At the current moment,
2:07
Speaker 3: there are seven novels out. My name is Seth. I
2:11
Speaker 3: have read all seven novels several times by listening to
2:14
Speaker 3: the audio books with me today is my partner in crime,
2:19
Speaker 3: my longtime co host as we've gone through the wheel
2:23
Speaker 3: of time spoilers. Is someone who has not read the
2:28
Speaker 3: gossipepl that is Dungeon Crawler Carl, but is starting to.
2:32
Speaker 3: And so we are going on a journey through these
2:36
Speaker 3: books together. I am the guide and for the most
2:40
Speaker 3: part going to be the I don't know, silly voices,
2:43
Speaker 3: I guess. And all right, that's enough.
2:48
Speaker 1: Of that I get that going so much longer than.
2:53
Speaker 3: You know. That's pretty much the theme of these books.
2:56
Speaker 3: They keep you going so much longer than they think
2:57
Speaker 3: you're going to. So yeah, tell me a little bit
3:00
Speaker 3: about your take on these books and why we're podcasting
3:03
Speaker 3: about them.
3:04
Speaker 1: Oh well, first of all, thanks for having me on
3:07
Speaker 1: this new game show called a first Time Reader podcast.
3:11
Speaker 1: I've never done this. I podcast with spoilers, so this
3:15
Speaker 1: is different. This is going to be different the concept
3:19
Speaker 1: of podcasting through books as I read them for the
3:23
Speaker 1: first time. I enjoy listening to other people do that.
3:26
Speaker 1: I've never done it myself. Hey, editing a radio here
3:30
Speaker 1: or not even five minutes into our first episode, and
3:32
Speaker 1: I feel the need to make an appearance. Longtime followers
3:36
Speaker 1: of mine might have noticed that I misspoke here. I
3:39
Speaker 1: did actually do a first time reader podcast a few
3:42
Speaker 1: years ago called The Hot Nuanced Book Club with my
3:45
Speaker 1: two other friends Ali and Brie. That was not identical
3:49
Speaker 1: to this because it was about revisiting childhood favorites with
3:52
Speaker 1: adult peers. But still it had a lot of the
3:55
Speaker 1: same rafo type energy that I'm excited about here on
3:58
Speaker 1: this show. You can find now Inactive Hot Nuanced book
4:01
Speaker 1: Club show on spreaker or at our website Foxndravenmedia dot com.
4:06
Speaker 1: And the first most annoying, ridiculous part of this is
4:11
Speaker 1: that I had to stop at a certain point and
4:13
Speaker 1: not continue because of the sanctity of the podcast, and
4:18
Speaker 1: that was annoying. I already hate you, but otherwise I'm
4:21
Speaker 1: super jazz to give this a spin. You definitely gave
4:26
Speaker 1: it a pretty good pitch, but I wasn't really interested
4:28
Speaker 1: at first when you first mentioned these books. And then
4:30
Speaker 1: like a half dozen other people across various spheres of
4:35
Speaker 1: my online existence have mentioned that these books are really
4:38
Speaker 1: really good, some in direct association with you, others completely
4:41
Speaker 1: unrelated to you. I just keep hearing good things, and
4:43
Speaker 1: I keep hearing good things, and the comparisons being made
4:47
Speaker 1: to other books series, I was like, Okay, it's snarky,
4:51
Speaker 1: fun humor, it's violent but silly, and all these things.
4:56
Speaker 1: It sounded kind of good, and at this point I'm
4:59
Speaker 1: feeling left out. At this point, I'm just feeling left out,
5:01
Speaker 1: and I'm also feeling left out of the first time
5:03
Speaker 1: reader podcast experience. It seems pretty fun and interesting and
5:07
Speaker 1: outside of my wheelhouse, and you know, our other big
5:10
Speaker 1: podcast Lot Spoilers is nearing its end. We're not done
5:15
Speaker 1: with it yet by any means, but we're much closer
5:17
Speaker 1: to the end than to the start. So, you know,
5:20
Speaker 1: in typical ADHD fashion, hopping onto the next project before
5:24
Speaker 1: I've actually fully finished the last one. But you know,
5:28
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see if this is gonna be fun.
5:31
Speaker 1: So I know the books are fun. I know I'm
5:33
Speaker 1: definitely going to read the books. I'm interested. I'm very
5:35
Speaker 1: curious to see how podcasting through them might work.
5:38
Speaker 3: And one thing that I'm really looking forward to is
5:41
Speaker 3: not being quite as unaccessible as we were with WAT Spoilers,
5:44
Speaker 3: because you had to read and finish a fourteen book
5:47
Speaker 3: series before you could even start the first episode, and
5:50
Speaker 3: so there was a lot of people and they were like, oh,
5:53
Speaker 3: you know, I want I want to listen to your podcast,
5:55
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, there's the barrier to entry. And
5:58
Speaker 3: I feel like the new reader podcast format lets you go, Oh,
6:02
Speaker 3: all you have to do is start these books to
6:05
Speaker 3: start my podcast, and that is just so much more
6:08
Speaker 3: accessible of when you're trying to reach out to people
6:11
Speaker 3: and have them listen to you. So I like this
6:13
Speaker 3: format and I'm really excited to try this format. I
6:16
Speaker 3: am going to try really hard to keep my mouth
6:19
Speaker 3: shut and keep spoilers to a minimum. It is not
6:23
Speaker 3: in my wheelhouse to not spoil things. It is something
6:28
Speaker 3: that I have a lot of trouble with, and it's
6:30
Speaker 3: something that I'm going to probably get yelled at more
6:33
Speaker 3: than a few times during the course of this podcast.
6:35
Speaker 3: But I think I can manage. I think I can manage.
6:38
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take my lessons from the best, hopefully let
6:41
Speaker 3: you lead, and really just stick with doing some voices
6:44
Speaker 3: and some sound effects and we'll see how much of
6:47
Speaker 3: that I can bring in and have fun with. Yeah.
6:49
Speaker 3: I love these books. I was uncertain of them. I
6:52
Speaker 3: had a similar journey to you or I was very
6:54
Speaker 3: uncertain about them. They seemed like very silly progression lit
6:59
Speaker 3: RPG off which I've listened to a few of those,
7:02
Speaker 3: and they haven't really grabbed my attention because they feel
7:06
Speaker 3: very amateurish in some ways. Right like that the quality
7:09
Speaker 3: of writing wasn't there. I It's nothing against the storyline.
7:12
Speaker 3: I just I felt like the quality, you know, it
7:14
Speaker 3: felt like something I would have written when I was fifteen,
7:16
Speaker 3: right or when I was thirty five. Either way, something
7:18
Speaker 3: I would have written and so, but then I came
7:23
Speaker 3: across this one and it very quickly proved me wrong,
7:27
Speaker 3: and so I do. Really, I'm really excited to talk
7:30
Speaker 3: to you about these books because I like talking about books.
7:33
Speaker 1: It is what we do. It is the entire basis
7:36
Speaker 1: of our friendship is talking about books. It's going to
7:38
Speaker 1: be very weird to be told to read and find
7:40
Speaker 1: out by you. I'm not used to that. That's going
7:43
Speaker 1: to be a weird dynamic to add. But I'm game.
7:46
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's start.
7:49
Speaker 3: Okay, I want to read the quote at the beginning. Yeah, right,
7:52
Speaker 3: Rome will exist as long as the Colosseum does. When
7:56
Speaker 3: the Colosseum falls, so will Rome. When Rome falls, so
8:01
Speaker 3: will the world. What do you think about that? I'm
8:04
Speaker 3: curious what do you think about that quote and how
8:06
Speaker 3: it relates to the story as sort of as a
8:07
Speaker 3: foundational quote for this story.
8:10
Speaker 1: Bread and Circus Baby, Yeah, it's always about bread and circus, entertainment,
8:16
Speaker 1: the glorification of violence, distraction from the humdrum oppression of
8:20
Speaker 1: regular life. This is one of the most important ingredients
8:24
Speaker 1: in the glue of civilization, has been for a very
8:26
Speaker 1: long time. I don't know if that's a universal to
8:28
Speaker 1: the human experience, but it is certainly a massive part
8:32
Speaker 1: of the human experience. And to apply that to interdimensional
8:37
Speaker 1: alien type creatures and imply it's in a universal to
8:41
Speaker 1: sentience is not a huge leap, I think. And it
8:45
Speaker 1: definitely also sets you up to understand that this is
8:48
Speaker 1: going to be some violent entertainment anything referencing the Colosseum.
8:53
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, so violence and entertainment is the theme. Okay, good,
8:58
Speaker 1: it's I'm feeling a lot of what it says on
9:00
Speaker 1: the tin energy. The tin is giving me a lot
9:02
Speaker 1: of very clear warnings right off the that.
9:07
Speaker 3: So you're expecting a little bit of gore, a little bit,
9:09
Speaker 3: A little bit, yeah, a little bit. Okay. So we
9:12
Speaker 3: open up with this frigid winter night and Carl, you know,
9:18
Speaker 3: opening the window up for a smoke, and the cat
9:20
Speaker 3: jumps out the window.
9:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. A very difficult, awkward situation, very hum drum relationship troubles,
9:27
Speaker 1: domestic troubles, climate troubles, chronological troubles, cat troubles. It's great,
9:34
Speaker 1: big fan of a cat being here. I will say,
9:38
Speaker 1: just for the sake of the audience, I did message
9:41
Speaker 1: that's at the end of my first reading section, and say,
9:43
Speaker 1: you have to tell me now if don't, Utliss, I
9:45
Speaker 1: cannot read these books with the tension of not knowing.
9:48
Speaker 1: I can handle if she dies if I know it's coming,
9:51
Speaker 1: because then I will not worry about it until I
9:53
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen, and then it will happen.
9:55
Speaker 1: It's fine. But I can't live with not knowing. And
9:57
Speaker 1: he's told me that so far as far as the
9:59
Speaker 1: books have been written, so nutlibs. And that's good because
10:03
Speaker 1: I like the cat. I like the cat being the
10:04
Speaker 1: inciting incident for him being outside. It's just the cat's
10:07
Speaker 1: driving everything. There is a life lesson here. I love it.
10:11
Speaker 1: It's not even his cat. I mean he is her
10:16
Speaker 1: human clearly, But you know, so what.
10:18
Speaker 3: Do you think of Beatrice, the girlfriend, the owner of
10:21
Speaker 3: the cat? So far? Like, what have you learned about her?
10:24
Speaker 1: I learned that she didn't communicate clearly about proximity to
10:30
Speaker 1: her ex, and that is basis for being split up.
10:32
Speaker 1: I assume she was just to throw away world detail,
10:36
Speaker 1: to just create the world before versus world after. Now
10:40
Speaker 1: she's gonna circle back around. She's actually dating the fucking
10:44
Speaker 1: manager of the game or something like, sorry, guys, I'm
10:49
Speaker 1: gonna speculate wildly, this is what I will be doing.
10:52
Speaker 3: Oh no, the speculations great. Yeah. No, There's a lot
10:55
Speaker 3: of characters who circle back around. There's a lot of
10:57
Speaker 3: characters who don't write like there's there's he's definitely a gardener.
11:01
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of shoots that come up, and
11:03
Speaker 3: especially without the books being finished, there hasn't necessarily been
11:05
Speaker 3: payoff for everything, So there's a lot of things where
11:08
Speaker 3: I'll be like, hmm, that might come back around.
11:11
Speaker 1: Sure, because literally nobody knows. Fair enough, Yeah, fair enough,
11:15
Speaker 1: but I mean he does stumble at the house wearing
11:18
Speaker 1: her shoes, chasing her cat, so it does seem logical
11:20
Speaker 1: she would come back around now I think about it.
11:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, all we know is that he's already just
11:26
Speaker 1: cut ties with her immediately, like opening of the book,
11:29
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm done with that person completely. So if
11:33
Speaker 1: she does come back around, that will be an interesting
11:36
Speaker 1: bit of emotional baggage to Reattach to the plot.
11:40
Speaker 3: One thing, there's a moment in here. You know, he
11:44
Speaker 3: is saved by the cat, right, but he's awake, smoking
11:47
Speaker 3: and opening the window and I don't if you remember,
11:50
Speaker 3: the reason he's awake is he was woken up about
11:52
Speaker 3: two am having been startled awake by a dream. Oh
11:56
Speaker 3: and I was wondering if you read anything into that.
11:58
Speaker 1: I well, I read this like a week ago and
12:02
Speaker 1: then immediately was like throttling you to be like, we
12:04
Speaker 1: got a guy. I think that it did strike me
12:09
Speaker 1: as you know, predictably precipitous that someone would be woken
12:14
Speaker 1: up from a dream before becoming the hero of a story,
12:17
Speaker 1: because you know, there was a ripple in the firmament
12:19
Speaker 1: and it woke up you know, people who need to
12:22
Speaker 1: be main characters for a book series kind of thing.
12:24
Speaker 1: That does feel right. Yeah, It's just it's this entire
12:28
Speaker 1: section that I read is just so drippingly tutorial level
12:32
Speaker 1: that like you expected to fulfill every stereotype, right, every
12:35
Speaker 1: line has to be another checkbox on like the stereotypes
12:39
Speaker 1: of tutorial level stories and games forever. So, yeah, having
12:43
Speaker 1: your character have a dream connection to whatever's going on
12:48
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense.
12:50
Speaker 3: Can we talk a lot about dreams and wheel of
12:51
Speaker 3: time and you know there's always that like, yeah, so
12:55
Speaker 3: he's out in the cold, right trying to get the
12:57
Speaker 3: cat down and Miss Parsons starts yelling at him.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, this neighbor lady doing the croshety old neighbor lady thing,
13:07
Speaker 1: and then mmmm and then and then everything inside of
13:16
Speaker 1: the footprint of the building becomes game material, and everything
13:19
Speaker 1: outside of the footprint is not, and her head being
13:22
Speaker 1: outside of the window is not and it's very fucked up.
13:29
Speaker 1: The building vanishes and he looks down and there is
13:31
Speaker 1: a head at his feet, and I'm it's just all
13:34
Speaker 1: so nonchalant and obsurdist, and it's just like, okay, so
13:39
Speaker 1: that's that's how it is, all.
13:41
Speaker 3: Right, feel like feel like a little bit of a
13:43
Speaker 3: tone setter for the for the series.
13:45
Speaker 1: Yep, I'm definitely feeling like the tin is continuing to
13:48
Speaker 1: provide me with warning labels about what I will find inside.
13:53
Speaker 1: It's really messed up, the idea that every building everywhere
13:58
Speaker 1: has become instac compress us into its atomic structure atoms
14:04
Speaker 1: so it can be reconstituted into this game. The whole
14:07
Speaker 1: world has been remade, just all at once. Like the
14:11
Speaker 1: power of that, the catastrophe of that, and like he
14:15
Speaker 1: thinks about, like on the daylight side of the world,
14:18
Speaker 1: there's a lot more survivors right on the nighttime side
14:21
Speaker 1: of the world. Most people will die. On the daytime side,
14:23
Speaker 1: it will be different because a lot of people will
14:25
Speaker 1: be outside because it's the daytime. But that just is
14:28
Speaker 1: almost more horrifying because then you know that those gates
14:30
Speaker 1: are being absolutely like crowd crushed as people like scramble
14:34
Speaker 1: to get into them in the middle of this like
14:36
Speaker 1: apocalyptic moment. It's you know, the fact that he's by himself.
14:41
Speaker 1: It's eerie, but at least it's not like, you know,
14:43
Speaker 1: people rushing the exit on a sinking ship kind of thing.
14:47
Speaker 1: It's real messed up. If that's the level of violence
14:50
Speaker 1: that we are starting the book with on like page
14:52
Speaker 1: freaking two, Yeah, we're going hard, I guess, because that's
14:58
Speaker 1: a lot of death to have as the inciting incident
15:02
Speaker 1: for your levels zero character. Everyone on Earth in a
15:05
Speaker 1: building just died. That is so many people. There's too
15:09
Speaker 1: much power. Whoever, these alien interdimensional being creatures are like,
15:13
Speaker 1: it's so terrifying that they have that kind of precision
15:17
Speaker 1: and total capacity.
15:20
Speaker 3: Where do you think that comes from? Any ideas, any
15:22
Speaker 3: clues the.
15:23
Speaker 1: Center of the Earth, the center of the galaxy, Like,
15:26
Speaker 1: I don't know uh, something to do with money, the
15:30
Speaker 1: game announcement thing. There's a corporation behind this. There's some
15:34
Speaker 1: sort of like metaphysical spirit of gold or something that's
15:39
Speaker 1: like master reminding all of this. There's something about capitalism
15:42
Speaker 1: having an embodied avatar. But if it's powered by a sagittarius,
15:47
Speaker 1: a star or just the core of our little old earth,
15:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I really don't you.
15:53
Speaker 3: Notice that none of that language, all those are robotic
15:55
Speaker 3: announcements you're talking about. None of that's in English, right, yeah.
15:59
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The trans lady thing, it was giving me
16:03
Speaker 1: a bit of three body problem with the way that
16:05
Speaker 1: the text was showing up in the vision and you
16:07
Speaker 1: can get rid of it and stuff, and the way
16:09
Speaker 1: it was showing up to Donut. I also love the
16:11
Speaker 1: fact that like somehow they're able to translate into cat,
16:16
Speaker 1: like there's somehow explaining it to the cat, and the
16:19
Speaker 1: cat like does not give a fuck, Like I think
16:21
Speaker 1: she understands more of it than anyone's giving her credit for.
16:24
Speaker 1: But also she's a cat. She's like batting at it.
16:27
Speaker 1: It's so funny, and yeah, not in English, so we
16:30
Speaker 1: have like a Babbelfish tartis Field or something going on.
16:34
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pull out all the all of the
16:36
Speaker 1: references I can.
16:40
Speaker 3: That's fascinating, and I will say the fish and I
16:43
Speaker 3: think it makes it pretty clear. The fish beings on
16:46
Speaker 3: the walls, those are the aliens who are running the corporation.
16:51
Speaker 1: I assumed. So yeah, yeah, that's clearly. Clearly it's impressions
16:55
Speaker 1: of who's in charge, because why else would those be there.
16:58
Speaker 1: This is not some sort of weird like CULTI demonic
17:01
Speaker 1: god thing. This is a corporation. That is very clear.
17:04
Speaker 1: This is clearly the people in charge of the corporation.
17:07
Speaker 3: But they've got to be in his head to sort
17:08
Speaker 3: of do there's something going on with like the ability
17:11
Speaker 3: to make things that he can see and change the
17:14
Speaker 3: languages he can understand, right, Like there's there's something going
17:18
Speaker 3: on there.
17:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, the heads up interface technology is amazing for sure,
17:22
Speaker 1: Like the whole like closing out windows and opening menus
17:25
Speaker 1: and like it's gimmicky, but somehow it works. It's like
17:30
Speaker 1: camp Like the gimmick is like campy because it's like
17:34
Speaker 1: this is too gimmicky to possibly work, but the author
17:37
Speaker 1: is so just that's what we're doing now that like
17:39
Speaker 1: it actually does work, and I mean, obviously I don't
17:42
Speaker 1: want all the violence, but I'm like, man, that is
17:45
Speaker 1: the heads up display I want, you know, I want
17:48
Speaker 1: menus on the world, like I know the whole joke
17:51
Speaker 1: about like we want subtitles on life. I want so
17:53
Speaker 1: much more than subtitles. I want to be able to
17:55
Speaker 1: write click things. I need to be able to write
17:57
Speaker 1: click and query objects in my world like this. It's
18:00
Speaker 1: just like, oh yeah, here's how that would feel in
18:01
Speaker 1: your brain. I'm like, god, I want that. I don't
18:04
Speaker 1: need the aliens with the violence, but I do need
18:07
Speaker 1: their heads up display technology. This is very cool.
18:10
Speaker 3: Well, we're getting those what was the glasses, the Facebook glasses,
18:13
Speaker 3: the metaglasses came out that have screens on them, and
18:15
Speaker 3: apparently they're actually pretty good. Yeah, but that's the you know,
18:19
Speaker 3: the problem is now going to be social, like how
18:21
Speaker 3: are these You think about, like how what you want
18:23
Speaker 3: to use it for, and then you think about how
18:25
Speaker 3: other people are going to use it, and you go, oh, God,
18:27
Speaker 3: maybe I don't want this technology.
18:29
Speaker 1: Right Well, and also there's the lack of personal free
18:33
Speaker 1: will agency. When they just get in your head without
18:35
Speaker 1: your consent, they can make you see or hear whatever
18:37
Speaker 1: they want. Can they control your actions? Can they blind?
18:41
Speaker 1: You know? And there's a lot of really creepy implications
18:45
Speaker 1: for technology that can just get in your head. This good,
18:47
Speaker 1: but you know, I still wish I could write click
18:49
Speaker 1: things with my mind.
18:51
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of things here in the rules
18:53
Speaker 3: right that I think are kind of interesting. One, any
18:56
Speaker 3: surviving humans will give the opportunity to reclaim their lost matter.
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's real twisted. Like do they mean like as
19:04
Speaker 1: solid blocks of material or do they mean like restored
19:08
Speaker 1: the way it was before? Like what does reclaim lost
19:12
Speaker 1: materials specifically mean?
19:15
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. So that's I'm curious if you have any
19:18
Speaker 3: thoughts on what you think it means.
19:21
Speaker 1: I'm very concerned that they mean a pile of elemental
19:25
Speaker 1: ingots and everyone's still dead, Like, yeah, we put it back,
19:30
Speaker 1: but like they didn't put it back. The world is
19:31
Speaker 1: still ruined, everyone's still dead, all of that harm has
19:35
Speaker 1: still been done, you know, But oh, we gave you
19:37
Speaker 1: back the literal material spoils technically, Like, I'm worried that
19:40
Speaker 1: there's going to be that's the kind of gotcha that
19:43
Speaker 1: is there in the end, lurking already. I already don't
19:47
Speaker 1: trust these people. There's too much weird game show legallyes
19:51
Speaker 1: this feels like a lottery game and the house always
19:53
Speaker 1: wins at a casino.
19:55
Speaker 3: And so then we have the eighteen level World Dungeon.
19:58
Speaker 3: It's the ideas if you get to the eighteenth level.
20:01
Speaker 3: I'm curious where you think people have gotten to before.
20:04
Speaker 3: How often the game gets won. There's eighteen levels.
20:08
Speaker 1: How many planets of sentience are there to do this too?
20:13
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like this is you know, like
20:15
Speaker 1: the ten thousandth iteration or whatever. This feels like a
20:18
Speaker 1: pretty practiced routine, so I'm guessing it's very very rare.
20:23
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it gets rigged to be like impossible to
20:28
Speaker 1: actually pass the level. It's one of those gotcha games where, yeah,
20:31
Speaker 1: if you roll ten natural twenties in a row, you win,
20:34
Speaker 1: but nobody does that, not even Matt Coffin, you know.
20:37
Speaker 1: So I suspect that no one has ever won, and
20:42
Speaker 1: our hero is going to piss the aliens off something
20:44
Speaker 1: fierce when Donut you know, steals the prize out from
20:47
Speaker 1: under them while they're debating and doing their villain monologue
20:50
Speaker 1: at the end.
20:51
Speaker 3: So then sort of get the information about the entrances
20:54
Speaker 3: and stuff like that.
20:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, which the whole like one hour limit is again
20:57
Speaker 1: like people are getting crowd crushed on the day light
21:00
Speaker 1: side of the world. I mean the daylight side of
21:01
Speaker 1: the world includes freaking India, right, Like all of Asia
21:06
Speaker 1: is on the daylight side of the world if I'm
21:08
Speaker 1: doing my global geography, right, So there's a lot of
21:12
Speaker 1: people who don't make it in because the crowd was
21:14
Speaker 1: too thick, is my thought.
21:16
Speaker 3: I mean there are one hundred and fifty thousand entrances.
21:20
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe well, And he also says the whole thing
21:23
Speaker 1: about like you can see across the city a lot
21:25
Speaker 1: easier because of all the buildings being gone. So I
21:29
Speaker 1: guess it's easier to move across the landscape and all
21:32
Speaker 1: the buildings are removed.
21:33
Speaker 3: Hard to be chrust against walls that aren't there.
21:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is really bleak. Like it's funny, it's hah,
21:41
Speaker 1: it's in physical comedy. It is bleak. We are again
21:45
Speaker 1: three pages in.
21:47
Speaker 3: Additional rules come into play on the tenth floor. Now
21:50
Speaker 3: that's something. And I will say we've the book seven
21:52
Speaker 3: has come out, so we've gotten we just finished the
21:54
Speaker 3: ninth floor.
21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that means that clearly people do get close
21:58
Speaker 1: to eighteen, right, the hope of actually beating level eighteen
22:01
Speaker 1: has to be realistic enough for people to really try,
22:04
Speaker 1: which makes me clearly people past ten and like feel
22:07
Speaker 1: encouraged because they're technically over halfway. Also, why eighteen? Why
22:13
Speaker 1: not twenty? What base are we in if it's eighteen.
22:16
Speaker 3: Easily divisible by a lot of numbers?
22:17
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, so you know the fact that we're not
22:20
Speaker 1: in base ten again says this is not weird computers
22:24
Speaker 1: from the future. This is an alien because they're using
22:27
Speaker 1: a different base count than we are.
22:29
Speaker 3: And so sort of at the end of this chapter,
22:31
Speaker 3: he basically is he heads for the fire that he
22:34
Speaker 3: sees in the.
22:34
Speaker 1: Distance because he's cold.
22:36
Speaker 3: Because he's cold, right, he's not wearing what he's wearing
22:39
Speaker 3: hearted boxers, a jacket and crocs.
22:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's literally as unprepared as you could be.
22:46
Speaker 1: And so even with the alien horror of it all,
22:48
Speaker 1: it's like warm, warm, good, and as much like a cat.
22:53
Speaker 1: He heads towards the warmth, which is also where the
22:55
Speaker 1: cat is going.
22:56
Speaker 3: Well, and he's carrying the cat.
22:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that was a really startling way to open
23:04
Speaker 1: a book.
23:05
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say, and then we also read chapter two, right, yes, yes,
23:23
Speaker 4: I did.
23:23
Speaker 3: So this is in the dungeon. You know, he's the
23:26
Speaker 3: city of a million people. He's the only one there
23:29
Speaker 3: tells you about your survival eight right, there's a couple
23:31
Speaker 3: other entrances, so maybe three or four people survived in
23:34
Speaker 3: the whole city, but like that's very low.
23:36
Speaker 1: Right, because even the houseless population was in shelters because
23:40
Speaker 1: it was too cold to be out that night. So yeah, so.
23:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where we get the information about the interface,
23:46
Speaker 3: which we've been talking about how you can click the
23:48
Speaker 3: ex's with your mind and get tool tips.
23:50
Speaker 1: There's a little tutorial pop ups are going on like
23:53
Speaker 1: every new thing, you know, a new enemy shows up
23:55
Speaker 1: and he gets like here's the racial characteristics, and it's
23:57
Speaker 1: straight out of the D and D source book. And
23:58
Speaker 1: again it's just it's so over the top that it's
24:02
Speaker 1: a campy level of good and just tutorial shit after tutoria,
24:05
Speaker 1: like I wanted to click X to like fast forward
24:08
Speaker 1: through something that I'm just like I get it, I
24:10
Speaker 1: get it, Like so funny, it's so funny because on
24:13
Speaker 1: the page I knew so I'm doing the audiobook for this,
24:17
Speaker 1: and I know that if I was reading it on
24:18
Speaker 1: the page, I would be skimming a lot of this
24:20
Speaker 1: because it would it's I'm assuming in like italics and
24:23
Speaker 1: different justification and stuff would be very easy to be like, Okay,
24:26
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like skim for the keywords because I
24:28
Speaker 1: know the gist of what's happening. But in an audio book,
24:31
Speaker 1: there's no skimming for the keywords. You're going to listen
24:33
Speaker 1: to it at one word at a time, and it's
24:36
Speaker 1: how it is.
24:37
Speaker 3: No, So he gets a couple let's go through the
24:38
Speaker 3: achievements Crazy Cat Lady, which I love. He's entered the inn.
24:42
Speaker 3: It's the first person entered with the cat.
24:44
Speaker 1: I love the participation trophies of all, like they made
24:47
Speaker 1: enough different achievements that like, no matter how you enter
24:50
Speaker 1: the world, you're going to get like many participation trophies
24:52
Speaker 1: to start your characters.
24:54
Speaker 3: So funny, Well, and there is this AI, right, and
24:56
Speaker 3: so I think it's coming up. It's able to invent
24:59
Speaker 3: achievements on the spot as well. Yeah, I think that's
25:03
Speaker 3: partially how it's doing it, and partially it's just like, yeah,
25:05
Speaker 3: this has been going on for so long and it's
25:08
Speaker 3: every Coco. There's a set of rules that exist. One
25:12
Speaker 3: of the first five thousand crawlers to enter the New
25:14
Speaker 3: World dungeon. Right, So that's actually because he was running
25:18
Speaker 3: and it appeared right next to him and he immediately
25:20
Speaker 3: be lined for it.
25:21
Speaker 1: So he's because he was starting to freeze. He was
25:23
Speaker 1: very motivated.
25:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he gets gets a good reward for that
25:27
Speaker 3: empty pockets because he didn't bring anything, and he's.
25:31
Speaker 1: An award for having no pants, which is great, and
25:37
Speaker 1: he gets a gold apparel box.
25:38
Speaker 3: You're like, maybe it'll be pants. Spoiler, it's not pants.
25:42
Speaker 1: The whole like getting different achievement boxes of different like
25:45
Speaker 1: metal types. It's just again, is so ridiculous. I love it.
25:50
Speaker 3: And then it ends with new achievement loner reward none.
25:54
Speaker 3: You are so dead. The humor's really good. I just
26:00
Speaker 3: love the way that the achievements and the audiobook leans
26:03
Speaker 3: into it really hard. Yeah, that's really where I love it. Right,
26:07
Speaker 3: It is like, because the audiobook does such a good job.
26:09
Speaker 3: Reminds me a little bit of Portal, where you have
26:10
Speaker 3: like this artificial humored robot that's also a little nihilistic
26:15
Speaker 3: over your shoulder, spouting funny funny things.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do love the slightly nihilistic, silly AI assistant
26:23
Speaker 1: in a video game. It's it's a good gimmick. I'm
26:26
Speaker 1: okay with it.
26:27
Speaker 3: So he immediately falls into a trap by following a
26:30
Speaker 3: sign that says the datorial guide instead of the editorial guide,
26:35
Speaker 3: as he's sort of going out, and so then we
26:37
Speaker 3: have this whole interaction with the goblins.
26:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is the art cover for the audiobook, is
26:44
Speaker 1: the goblins on this murder wagon chasing a very poorly
26:48
Speaker 1: equipped humanoid man person. And yeah, so I knew that
26:53
Speaker 1: scene was coming because I'm like, oh, three goblins trying
26:55
Speaker 1: to like giggle and kill. Like that is such a
26:58
Speaker 1: tutorial level monster, Like the levels are all correct and
27:01
Speaker 1: he gets the little health bars and like it's just
27:05
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous. But like there's also this real violent fear,
27:10
Speaker 1: right because we saw the neighbor lady get beheaded by
27:13
Speaker 1: the house being removed while her head was outside, right, Like,
27:16
Speaker 1: this isn't gonna just like bounce back and reset you
27:20
Speaker 1: to the start level. Like this is real. He will
27:23
Speaker 1: die a horrible death if he doesn't deal with this
27:26
Speaker 1: right now, it's a game, and it's not a game,
27:29
Speaker 1: That's the real whiplash of this section is where it
27:33
Speaker 1: is both a game and not a game at the
27:35
Speaker 1: same time.
27:36
Speaker 3: It's a game where the stakes are real.
27:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the cat is just wandering through it like
27:42
Speaker 1: a little gremlin, and I love that for her.
27:45
Speaker 3: So he flees up to he finds the tutorial guild
27:48
Speaker 3: and he's banging on the door and it's all locked,
27:50
Speaker 3: and the guy opening the door is like, what, Chaine's
27:53
Speaker 3: still on?
27:54
Speaker 1: Right, He's like, they didn't tell me that we're launching
27:56
Speaker 1: a new dungeon. Like there's this whole bureaucratic like hierarchy
28:00
Speaker 1: likes fuck up, it's wild. Like, so, on the one hand,
28:03
Speaker 1: this is an operation that works and has been done
28:06
Speaker 1: a bazillion times. On the other hand, it's a you know,
28:09
Speaker 1: kind of corner cutting, bureaucratic profit making machine. And so
28:13
Speaker 1: the grunts at the bottom are not being properly taken
28:15
Speaker 1: care of her informed.
28:16
Speaker 3: Right and yeah, so and there's already that little hint
28:19
Speaker 3: of like corporate incompetence going on right there at the beginning.
28:23
Speaker 1: It's trying to give me a little Hitchecker's Guide to
28:25
Speaker 1: the galaxy. At this point, it's less violent, but like
28:28
Speaker 1: that level of absurdism of like this man is asking
28:31
Speaker 1: for his life, and the guy's like, man, I thought
28:33
Speaker 1: we weren't opening for another week. That is the kind
28:36
Speaker 1: of absurdity expect from Hitchhiker.
28:38
Speaker 3: But it's like you should be open right, like this
28:40
Speaker 3: is I'm not asking for the like this is I
28:43
Speaker 3: want to play that. If I'm supposed to play the game,
28:44
Speaker 3: the game should be open and starting right right.
28:48
Speaker 1: But that's I mean, and and honestly it's even less
28:51
Speaker 1: Hitchecker's Guide and more like some Terry Gilliam movie.
28:55
Speaker 3: And then I love he's like, well, I can't open
28:57
Speaker 3: the door. You took too long. There's a dem there's
28:59
Speaker 3: a monster right there. And he's like, I took too long.
29:02
Speaker 3: You could have opened the door twenty minutes.
29:04
Speaker 1: Ago, right, it's ridiculous. And then the cat goes in.
29:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he can sneak into the open and you.
29:10
Speaker 1: Have to get your cat, like if you're not your
29:12
Speaker 1: cat's not allowed to be in here, and it's like, oh,
29:14
Speaker 1: so I can just break the rules. Yeah, it's really funny.
29:19
Speaker 1: I just love that the impudence of the cat is
29:22
Speaker 1: clearly the cat wandering into things and fixing the situation
29:27
Speaker 1: through just sheer arrogance is going to be a theme,
29:30
Speaker 1: and I love that for us, especially now that I
29:32
Speaker 1: know she lives at least up until book seven.
29:34
Speaker 3: What do you think about his first murder, the killing
29:37
Speaker 3: that first goblin?
29:38
Speaker 1: Okay, so this was another moment where I was like,
29:42
Speaker 1: thank you for letting me know upfront book what you
29:46
Speaker 1: are going to be from here on out, because the
29:48
Speaker 1: way that he takes to the violence, both in terms
29:51
Speaker 1: of being capable of doing it and not being upset
29:54
Speaker 1: by it, and how graphically viscerally it is written a
29:59
Speaker 1: very video game. It's a very video game, but it's
30:02
Speaker 1: also like, oh, we're doing murder hobo. This man is
30:05
Speaker 1: a murder hobo. That's that is the kind of game
30:08
Speaker 1: type we're going for. Everyone's a murder hobo. I'm a
30:11
Speaker 1: murder hobo. You're a murder hobo. Everyone's a murder hobo.
30:13
Speaker 1: No shade.
30:14
Speaker 3: The only way to survive this game is to murder
30:15
Speaker 3: the things that come after you and gain experience.
30:17
Speaker 1: But coming from Wheel of Time, yeah, where characters spend
30:22
Speaker 1: books upon books agonizing about the morality of killing other
30:27
Speaker 1: people over and over and over again, and we deal
30:30
Speaker 1: with the fog and trauma of war over and over again.
30:33
Speaker 1: To then switch to this where the man goes from
30:36
Speaker 1: never having murdered anyone I assume based on the opening
30:39
Speaker 1: of the book, he seems like a non murdery person.
30:42
Speaker 1: To beating this guy to death, this goblin to death
30:46
Speaker 1: with his fists with no remorse or anxiety or any
30:52
Speaker 1: of the emotions that I would expect from a Wheel
30:54
Speaker 1: of Time character. To just immediately switch into murder hobo
30:58
Speaker 1: mode like a twelve year old picking up a first
31:02
Speaker 1: person shooter is just jarring and also perfectly in line
31:08
Speaker 1: with the other feelings of tutorialness to it. But uh yeah,
31:13
Speaker 1: I felt I won't say shocked. I felt like I
31:17
Speaker 1: was getting my expectations reset again and again. We are
31:20
Speaker 1: on like page eight of the first book. You're like, okay, okay,
31:24
Speaker 1: I am. I am calibrating. This guy is not going
31:27
Speaker 1: to be wrestling with the morality of getting brains on
31:30
Speaker 1: his knuckles. Cool. Good to know. Uh not what I'm
31:35
Speaker 1: used to from the other books that we podcast through.
31:38
Speaker 1: But I can handle this. That's how I felt about it.
31:42
Speaker 1: It's very very expectation setting.
31:44
Speaker 3: And I will say it doesn't mean he doesn't struggle
31:46
Speaker 3: with the morality of what he's doing sometimes, right, Like sure, sure,
31:50
Speaker 3: I know in the beginning it does feel like that,
31:52
Speaker 3: but like there are certain moments when like this, this
31:55
Speaker 3: callousness is addressed.
31:58
Speaker 1: I would hope so, given that we are are so
32:00
Speaker 1: early on and you've given me the pitches that you've
32:02
Speaker 1: given me. But that was my feeling was like, oh,
32:05
Speaker 1: that's where we're starting, that is that is the floor. Okay,
32:10
Speaker 1: But yes, I would expect this to get addressed at
32:12
Speaker 1: some point. Otherwise isn't going to be a lot to
32:15
Speaker 1: talk about if harder issues don't come up.
32:19
Speaker 3: Any thoughts about Mordecai, the guy in the cabinet, I
32:22
Speaker 3: know he barely had an introduction to him, but hint,
32:25
Speaker 3: he's some big character. Yeah.
32:26
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he's clearly the crusty old janitor Italian
32:32
Speaker 1: grandpa uncle father figure who's actually got a heart of
32:35
Speaker 1: gold and is a big softy and is going to
32:37
Speaker 1: help our hero. But first you have to win him over,
32:39
Speaker 1: and he's going to seem kind of morally gray, but
32:41
Speaker 1: it turns out he's pretty cool. That's the vibe I'm
32:44
Speaker 1: getting at this point.
32:48
Speaker 3: I think you have that one pretty good. Yeah, it's
32:51
Speaker 3: not bad.
32:52
Speaker 1: Stereotypes and type casting is going to give me some
32:57
Speaker 1: advantages here. I won't always be plot twists and expected things.
33:00
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's going to be what it looks like and
33:04
Speaker 1: the hey, kid, you can't do this. Is like I've
33:06
Speaker 1: seen that character in every cool movie with an adventure
33:09
Speaker 1: who's going to level up in a classic way, like
33:12
Speaker 1: he's going to be awesome and great, but he's also
33:14
Speaker 1: going to give us the hairy eyeball many times before
33:17
Speaker 1: we fully see the softy inside.
33:19
Speaker 3: And I will say I think that I am in
33:22
Speaker 3: the way that I of the World is very much
33:25
Speaker 3: modeled on Lord of the Rings. And then the series
33:28
Speaker 3: goes from there into its own unique interesting way. And
33:31
Speaker 3: the world certainly is its own unique interesting thing, but
33:33
Speaker 3: you can see the imprints of Lord of the Rings
33:36
Speaker 3: on it from where he took the casting off, you know,
33:38
Speaker 3: like is there.
33:39
Speaker 1: It's really easy to explain that book through that.
33:41
Speaker 3: Model exactly, And so I feel like this series has
33:45
Speaker 3: a similar sort of there's some type casting going on
33:48
Speaker 3: in this book that then that gives you the structure
33:51
Speaker 3: and familiarity to start the story, but then it goes
33:54
Speaker 3: its own way. As the series goes.
33:56
Speaker 1: On right right, which again was part of what I
34:00
Speaker 1: was pitched on for being like, okay, all right, I
34:03
Speaker 1: will power through the weirdness of the first book in
34:06
Speaker 1: order to get to the juiciness of book four or
34:08
Speaker 1: five and see where that world really expands and all that, Like, yeah, okay,
34:12
Speaker 1: I have the time to read.
34:16
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I think that's it for those first
34:19
Speaker 3: two chapters. That was actually a lot of fun to
34:21
Speaker 3: talk to you about. I enjoyed some of the speculation
34:24
Speaker 3: and the things that you said, and where you were
34:27
Speaker 3: right on and where you were way off both made
34:30
Speaker 3: me really really happy to listen to. So I'm really
34:34
Speaker 3: excited to see some of these things evolve. I think
34:39
Speaker 3: we should talk about how much we want to do
34:41
Speaker 3: in each episode. These are pretty short chapters, and I
34:45
Speaker 3: feel like we could plow through a good amount of this.
34:47
Speaker 3: You know what, we've done the one or two chapters
34:50
Speaker 3: per episode in Wheel of Time, But I feel like
34:52
Speaker 3: we could do bigger chunks here and talk about it
34:55
Speaker 3: in a little more generalities. But that's something we have
34:58
Speaker 3: to work on and decide. But I I really like that.
35:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that this was a really good first
35:03
Speaker 1: bite to just get me my little toesies wet and
35:06
Speaker 1: get this conversation started. But yeah, I would like a
35:09
Speaker 1: larger reading assignment for the next episode, please.
35:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was really fun and really interesting seeing you
35:15
Speaker 1: hold yourself back from correcting me or confirming me or whatever.
35:20
Speaker 1: This is going to be a different dynamic. But I
35:22
Speaker 1: do enjoy getting to speculate rampantly without needing to be right.
35:25
Speaker 1: That is definitely a bit of freedom. I did have
35:28
Speaker 1: that on Hot Nuance when I was doing Hot Nuance
35:30
Speaker 1: with Alian Brie. I did get the experience of getting
35:33
Speaker 1: to speculate without worrying about being right, but doing it
35:37
Speaker 1: in the arena that you and I have created with
35:38
Speaker 1: wat spoilers is a whole different ballgame. But I think
35:43
Speaker 1: it's fun, I think it's interesting, and I'm excited to
35:46
Speaker 1: see what happens next. Thank you for listening to Podcast Donut.
35:56
Speaker 1: Support us on Patreon for ad free episodes at patreon
35:59
Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast it Donut. This podcast is a
36:03
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36:06
Speaker 1: Fox and Draven Media, visit our website Foxendravenmedia dot com.