Latest / WoT Spoilers / By Grace and Banners Fallen (Bayrd, Isam, Leilwin) - A Memory of Light prologue pt2 - EP592

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By Grace and Banners Fallen (Bayrd, Isam, Leilwin) - A Memory of Light prologue pt2 - EP592 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: All right, so starting a Memory of Light properly this week.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And we should say that it's been smoky in our area,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so if you hear that in our voices, that's why.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everything's on fire, but it's fine because we're reading
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: a book about the end of the world where nothing
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: is on fire at all?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Is the dog holding a book in that famous this
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is fine and everything's on fire?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Me no, I believe it's a cup of coffee, but
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I would love to get to change it. So yeah,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I have the World or Memory of Light cover specifically.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So yeah, today we're doing the first three of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: prologue that are not Tom Honest, right, So POV's one, right,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: three and five, where a Tom Honest was two, four, six.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So we got Baird. Is that how you say that? Yeah,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Baird Isam and Llewellyn, Yes.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And they're good povs. They get you back into
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the world. They bring in perspectives you're not used to.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Mean.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Obviously, Baird is a new character, but Io and Lwyn
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: are both, you know, small characters we don't get to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: be in the heads of very often.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And Baird is basically telling the story of Jared just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: from a different POV.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Right, because Jared Sarand is an attachment to an attachment
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: to an attachment, right, he has never been meaningfully on
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the page. We've never been in his head. We've barely
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: been in his wife's head.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: No, but he's been one of those rebel groups that
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: we've always kind of that Rand has kept track of,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that was pain in his ass back in the day.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: You know, like it's one of those those storylines that
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: pop up again and again and again when as you're
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: talking about Rand's ascension to the throne.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: You mean Elaine, yes, not well, I.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Mean but they were against Rand first, right when he
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: was in Camlin.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I wasn't really a rebellion, right, there was
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: like all that like ass kissing and sycophanting.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I guess rebellion is the wrong term.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: But I associate Jared Sarand with Elaine's succession plot exclusively.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I don't recall him being randall. Elania Sarand was a
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: bitch to Rand, but Jared was off.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: That's That's sort of what I'm implying is Realah, Yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that whole that whole plot line with her and him
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Elania and Jared and that house that's been trying to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: take back power the whole time, whether it's manipulating Rand,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: whether it's rebelling against Elane, whatever that they've been doing.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but this was the biggest knife pressed to Elaine's throat.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I think was how it was described at the time,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: like Jared was the biggest external threat.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a really good point.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And now his wife is completely defanged, she's in prison,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: she's held captive for hostage. He's just out there as
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: a loose cannon flying around. Let's catch up with him
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and see how he's doing. And we pop with, you know,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: just some random soldier essentially, and he gives us the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: entire retrospective and present update on it. What is happening
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: with this guy who's been completely cut loose, cut off
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: from what he was doing, like from his wife who
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: was giving him instructions. Now he's just wandering around the countryside,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: completely adrift, and this dude is going to tell us
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: all about it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: By grace and banners fallen. Baird pressed the coin between
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: his thumb and forefinger. It was thoroughly unnerving to feel
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the metal squish. He removed his thumb. The hard copper
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: now clearly bore its print, reflecting the uncertain torchlight. He
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: felt chilled, as if he'd spent an entire night in
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a cellar. His stomach growled again. The north wind picked up,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: making torches sputter. Baird sat with his back to a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: large rock near the center of the war camp. Hungry
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: men muttered as they warmed their hands around the fire
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: pits the rations had spoiled long ago. Other soldiers nearby
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: began laying all of their metal, swords, armor class mail
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: on the ground like linen to be dried. Perhaps they
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: hope that when the sun rose, it would change the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: material back to normal. I think that sort of summary
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of what's going on, Like all the metal in the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: camp is turned into silly putty.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's somewhere between clay and yeah, it's more solid
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: than mercury, but yeah, it's very And this is a
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: bubble of evil, right, This is a weird bubble of evil,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: but it's got to be that, right, it's that.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And somewhere between a bubble of evil, evil and just
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the corruption of the plane of existence that is happening
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: because the dark One is now arising right, we've seen
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you know, teleporting hallways. Is that a bubble of evil?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Or is that just like reality breaking down?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Like you know what's a bubble and what's a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: flood and what's a river and what's you know, something
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that's fundamentally just a breaking down of reality that used
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to just happen around these little back bubbles, but is
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: now coming out.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Everywhere because the Dark One is coming into the world.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And what is it that? I think grand All says,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: anything that exists can be unmade by the Dark Lord,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: like that's the closest thing she has to a sacred creed,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: is like the Dark One can don't make anything. The
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Dark One is very much coming through as the seals break,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: so like things are becoming undone.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And this kind of feels like knocking them back to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the Stone Age or taking away all of your metal tools,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: you will be, you know, the Stone Age people. And
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the skill of napping flint suddenly becomes the most useful
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: thing this man has because it's the most primitive thing
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: he's got, which is the ability to make stone into spears.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: That's what I really like about this POV is how
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: if you lose all this fancy trappings, all this fancy
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: refined metal and minted coins and manufacturing civilization, large structures.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: But you can lose all that and still know how
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: to just take two rocks and stick and start to
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: build yourself a toolkit back up that will allow you
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: to survive. And how this guy having that skill is
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: vital to everyone else's survival.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Otherwise these are literally naked, weaponless men running around with
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: no direction. But he says, I can make spears, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: that gives them the ability to consolidate, to organize, to
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: choose to go into battle. Right, this gives them the confidences.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: And now and now we're marching north. And it's such
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: an ancient skill, right, Napping is not something that you
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: just know. It's a very specific taught skill that, like
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: you could lose in favor of civilization and technology and
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: be like, who needs that silly rock breaking skill? No
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: one whatever need that. We're civilized now we have technology.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And then then to turn around also and say, listen,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you nobleman, you aristocrat, you business owner. The world is ending.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We can no longer listen to what you're doing. We
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: have to go our own way to go save the world.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Everything that made you think you're special is meaningless. Your
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: money is literally melted into a lump, and your tent
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: fell apart because all the metal fell apart. It's all gone.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Everything is gone. I also think it's interesting that stone
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: is still fine. Right, It's not a thing that people
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: have manipulated at all. It's just of the purely natural world.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be one of the last things that the
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Dark One one makes is the literal bones of the
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: planet itself.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the more altered it is by man, the more
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it seems to not function anymore.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Right, kind of like in you know, his Dark Materials. Right,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: dust congregates more around more manipulated and more complex objects
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and less around natural objects. So it's kind of that principle.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: There's enough dust on it, then the Dark One can
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: unmake it much sooner.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Right, Right, because in both worlds the dust is a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: bit of corruption.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Well, in that world, dust is just an elementary particle.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: But right, But then why is I was I remind
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: me again, why is it attracted to things that are
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: more manipulated by humans? Is that just like a property
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It is a sort of metaphysical expression of the divine
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: angels and like if you put your intent into it,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: then you are like communing with this like other plane
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: of existence kind of deal. And like the dust is
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: sort of a manifestation of that. I think, like literally
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: at the end, the angels say like we are dust.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: But it's very esoteric at that point, wibbly wobbly timey
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: whimy kind of shit. But yeah, the dust is more
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: of an emergent phenomena at that point and less of
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a cause.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Got it right, Because I forget that in those books,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: like Heaven's real, like this other metaphysical plane and there's
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a God and angels don't think like angels and it's
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a whole Yeah, God is, but don't think like murder
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: him or something, or he's already dead.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, God was put into basically stasis like a
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: bajillion years ago and wishes that he could die, like
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: he's just the ghost of a ghost of a ghost,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: but is just incapable of dying until they break open
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the like impenetrable statis box and then he's able to
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: relax into fucking dying finally, millennia after he ceased, being
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: like a functional, competent deity and like the God that
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: we know has always been Metatron or whoever.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You know, right, the archangel or something who took over.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but yeah yeah, and that world angels and
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: gods are are very real phenomena, so you know, so
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: dust yeah, so yeah, Dust was kind of a sign
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: of all that existing. And Marca pan is asking in
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: the chat Baird is named after somebody, Oh the dragonwak guy?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: That would Jason Denzel. No, he's he's elsewhere.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we saw him. He was very much called out.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Let me look up, Oh, Tandy Simone. How would Baird
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: come from that name? Though? I mean maybe it's like
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a D and DP deep cut.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like Beard, I don't know. Let me
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: let me look.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Pants has a quote in chat. The name comes from
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a personal communication between d Simon and Sanderson.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Oh okay. Bird is named after Tom d Simon. I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: did not know that. Tom de Simone, Uh, moderated my
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: first panels at walt Con. It was me the White
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Tower girls.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Wait you made it Jordan Conn not at wt Con.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, sorry, Jordan Conn and Daniel Green actually and Tom
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: de Simone and so that was yeah, the five of
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: us on that. So Tom, Yeah, Tom, Tom's a good
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I always had a great parent costume. And he's that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: got that ridiculous metal hammer, yeah, that he carries around
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and because he's a giant dude.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen him at wat Con. I have hung
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: out with him. He's very nice.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: He's very very very nice, very positive part of the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: wheal Time community.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, very much, so very much. So lights up
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the room. So that's I would never have guessed that
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: he was the originator of that name based on you
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: know what the name literally looks like. Right, But yay
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: for the community collectively managing to know things.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: He does have a ridiculously large baird I mean beard.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Ah, this is true. This is true. That is one
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: of his more noticeable you can spot him across the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: room by it kind of features.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Right, Oh neat, that's fun. It's fun knowing a bunch
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of the people who were were named for, you know,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: these characters in the all Time. It's like, oh, yeah,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I know him, I hung out with him. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it's like the second two degrees of separation between the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: author even knows like it's more like three, right, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it's you.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, it's still fun though. Speaking of names, then
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: there's also a Karam is a random name that's started here,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: and you should probably look that up just to make
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: sure it's not somebody that's the dude that Jared is
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: mainly yelling at through this scene and then takes the
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: gold and walks away into the darkness and does not
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: join the stone tool wielding battalion that Baird is putting together.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Cram is named for Stephen Stephen Koram, so he is
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: named after someone. And then let's look up Lord Davies.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I bet he's somebody too, named after Sean Davis, a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Next, there's a name Eerie Er.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Let's see aery. Well, yeah, there's a bunch of these
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: guys all right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: That's the guy who says, how is someone going to
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: bring you Elaine's head? What are they going to cut
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: it off with their teeth? It's a good line.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Name for Eric Peters, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And more Year More Year is named for Robert Moreau.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And then I think I had one more Rose Rosse
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Rose all day. I don't think that's what that's that's for. Uh,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: name for Robert Rose, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Nice so big old bevy of those guys here in
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: this yep.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Pretty much every name there's name for someone who is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a fan of the Wheel of time.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Except for Jared because he existed books and books ago,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So right. There is a line here, though, in all
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: this napping stuff that I do think is kind of
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: weird sounding. He talks about slapping the stones together. I've
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: never done rock napping, but that just does not sound
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: like the right verb.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Slack.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: That just doesn't sound I don't believe that Sanderson has
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: ever tried to nap rocks, and I have never tried
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: to nap rox but I he has either.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: No clapping or cracking or striking. Striking, Yeah, striking, but
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you know he's used when thesaurus. He's trying to come
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: up with something more than saying striking, like over and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: over and over again. Cut the man system some slack,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: no me his biggest critic, cut the man, I.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Know, right, the Lord and his garter arguing while this
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: dude just thinks about the fact that his grandfather taught
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: him how to knap stone.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Right. You know, the food is spoiling. They've got no
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: protection from that, so everybody's starving.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Right, they have no protection. They are having the worst. Right,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: we've been like, oh, you know, more proximity to Tavere
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: and makes it better for the food they have, like
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the farthest proximity from Tavern or taveran friends the enemies
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: of a lane. Right, of course their food is completely spoiled.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Right, And Jared the whole time is like it's her plot.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: It's this eyesediple. It's like, dude, just because you suck
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: at your job doesn't mean people are plotting against you.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not always a conspiracy about you. Sometimes the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: world is on fire.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Just because you hired incompetent people to paint the bottom
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of the reflecting pool doesn't mean people went out there
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and cut the right lining. It's actually you. You're a failure.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: You're the problem.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: You are the constant factor here.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: You don't there's no one else there to blame.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we get a mention of the difference in texture
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: between slate and granite, and I will say Sanderson has
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: apparently held slate and granite in his hands at least
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: once in his life. Soft and smooth slate versus bumpy
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: ridge granite. Okay, I can buy that those are that
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: sounds correct. Slapping the rocks together doesn't sound correct, but
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: like the smooth versus the bumpy.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, slapping sounds like he's trying to clap
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: with the rocks in his hands.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: You know. It's just like yeah, but like kind of
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: is missing. It's like one of those bad like like
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a nerd high five or the hands do not hit
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the way they should.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the idea that creating something pushes back
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the darkness, like because the dark one destroys, so the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: act of creation helps fight him.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Literally, he's literally unmaking things. So if you are creating,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: if you are putting things together.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: That's why the ogiro is so powerful, right.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And it's why you know, being a team and having
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: community is like a big part of what the last
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Battle is about. Right, It's not who lives or who dies,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: it's the fact that we're coming together to have that
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: fight and we're continuing to fight as a collective. And
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: you know we experience that in our own lives, right,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Like crafting as opposed to just doom scrolling, it does
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: push the darkness back to get into you know, your
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: garden or sewing room or kitchen instead of just reading
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: another think piece on why we're all doomed.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Do you think that Jared gets left behind forever? Do
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: you think he just dies tied to that tree? Oh yeah, yeah,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: No one frees him.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: No, no's he's lost his mind. He's almost part of
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: what has been unmade already, you know, like his army
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: is leaving like ghosts, and then they leave him, and
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: then the ghosts move in, right, I just like, No,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: he gets swallowed by a Mashadar like experience. I think you.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Think still kind of part of the bubble of evil.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Something happens to him.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's he's lost and then he's left vulnerable.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Who's gonna save him? He has no belief in the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: reality of what he needs to do to save himself
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: at all. He's waiting for Elaine to get held to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: account so that way he can go back to life
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: as it was before and were never going back to
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: the old normal. That's simply not happening. But he's fully
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: dedicated to it. So he's going to get literally left
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: behind to the ghosts.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And that's yeah. I think it ends with him saying
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: he has an oath older than the One Dear Family,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: an oath the Dragon himself couldn't undo. It was an
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: oath to the land. Right, So this idea that he
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: owes his blood to the land in the stone, and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that's still there for him. The dragon, the dark One,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: hasn't corrupted that yet.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And I love how he says, even the dragon camp
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: break it, right, the dragon breaks all ties that bind.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: He does not break the fact that you are of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the land right right, ties that bind is an intentional, applied,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: human social thing, being of the stone, being connected to
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the land. That is not civilization, that's not interpersonal. That
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: is the reality of the animated star dust that you
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: and the planet are both made of.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Right. No, I thought that was a fun way to
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: open the book. It's a good POV. It's a good
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: resolution of one of the plot lines. It shows you
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that the world is breaking down. It shows you what
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the people who aren't in the main group are doing, right,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: They're discovering like we need to go ahead and join
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the last battle, like it is time.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And even though we don't have the paragraph because
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: we're in the prologue, there are multiple mentions of wind, right,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: they're all heading north into the wind. There's a couple
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of different mentions of wind where I'm like, yeah, we
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: are sweeping up these loose ends and gathering them all
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: in to the last battle. And yeah, it's a really
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: good opening to the book. It was a very satisfying
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: way to start the book on my first read for sure.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: All right, now we get to go to the town,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: the town, which we didn't know existed until this pov.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I think, so the village in the blight has been
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: hinted at, I think, but yeah, not like the town.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: It felt like news to me when same it came up.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I was like, we've heard of a village in the blight.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't think so, but yeah, Esom apparently spent his
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: entire life growing up here. And Esom, remember, is a
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: small child when he gets lost in the blight, right,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Like he is a blending of Luke and Esam. Luke
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: was a young adult. Luke was like eighteen twenty something
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: like that when he got lost in the plight. Esom
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: was a babe in arms, right, He was like probably
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: under the age of five when all of that stuff
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: with mal Kiir went down. So Esom specifically grew up
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: in the town and is very shaped by the town
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: in a way that someone like Luke not so much.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: But Luke only exists in the dream, Esom is the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: one in real life? Or no, they both? They can
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: they can switch back and forth, right, they.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Can switch back and forth. I think we've decided, at
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: least based on the evidence here, that they they mostly dominate,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that Luke is in the real life and Esom is
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: mostly in the dream. But they can choose to be
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: either way. Now, I think the question we didn't have
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: is can they change outside of the dream or can
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they only switch faces inside the dream?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I would assume so, but it would be a
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: heartbeat of a flicker right to pop in change and pop.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be trivial, So I guess it doesn't
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: really matter. We can pretty much assume that they could
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: do it outside and effectively it would mean the same thing.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Sure, But yeah, I just think it's worth any This
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: is not Luke. This is not the twenty something that
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: got lost in the blight. This is the child that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: got lost in the blight and managed to survive in
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: this town somehow, I mean, he sees children here in
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: this pavy like clearly somehow that keeps being survivable, but barely.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: You almost feel bad for him in this POV like
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: knowing where he came from and being like, oh God,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: damn dude.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Sure. In a lot of ways, I think of him
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: as the anti Land. Right, Land was brought away and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: raised in the land of light to be good, and
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he was brought away into the land of evil to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: be raised bad. And like those two that we have
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that black and white face symbol. I bet you could
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: start this segment with that one, right, Like, because he's
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: like the dark Land in a lot of ways.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Because they're cousins, They're closely related, people who came from
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: the same social circle, in the same generation, in the
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: same community, and I.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Have a lot of the same Like they are dedicated
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: warriors who are very taciturn don't have a lot to say.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Are you willing to let a more gregarious, outgoing person
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: take the lead while they follow for the most part? Right, Like,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: they are very similar characters. Just Esam's on the side
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: of evil but driven to perfection.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And in this POV you learned that like he
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: might have not even ever had a choice to be
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: anything but evil, right, you know, like he was a
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: child surviving, so like, is he evil or is he
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: what the world made him?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Or was he taught to kill at the age of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: you know, five or whatever. He didn't say how old
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: he was killing people, but as a child he was
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: killing people.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because I don't think that it gives us
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: a specific age for how old he was. But like
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you know, when we get told that story, it's like
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I can feel sorry only for the child, Like he
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: was young when he got lost out there. Oh my god. Yeah,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: imagine Rand if schooled by Esam instead of land Darth.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Rand would have been like the beginning level.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: He's like, first you murdered people, then you gain power.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know step four profit.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: We jumped around a little bit in this one, but.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: What's relevant here. Most of the buildings were constructed by
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: prisoners with no knowledge of the craft, supervised by men
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: equally ignorant. That sounds ramshackle as.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: For two thousand years, it's just like buildings going up
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and coming back down again and getting raised and destroyed,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and nobody really knowing what they're doing to build this place,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: because anyone with any knowledge leaves.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Right or never made it in the first place.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: This is quite close to the Valley of Thakandar and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: shale Ghoul. And the forge right where people are getting sortified.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, and that's sort of what's speculating on, like
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: what is the purpose of the town right, Like it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: it's got to be for because people wonder, like, what's
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the machinery that keeps the armies equipped? This has got
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to be part of.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: It seems like it seems like this is a place
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: where humans who are doing that work can cut for
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: food and rest and recreational murder or something.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And the dark one has human armies, right, human soldiers
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: as well, so it seems like there has to be
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: someplace for them to live, Like it makes sense that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it almost feels like this should be a bigger city.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or that there are more of.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Them, yeah, but it's just the town, which wouldn't make
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: sense if there are more of them.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I mean some people use the word town very loosely.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: No, but it would be the first town or the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: prime town or the like yeah.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Doom prime. And then we get to the term that
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I tend to associate quite positively with our friends Salm
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and Desai, who's basically always in chat. But here we
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: get to learn that are actually these people called eyeblinders
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: that scare literally everybody. Weird choice of name.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: My friend, well, Eyeblinder, right, because it's the Ieel who
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: set out to blind the dark One, right and then
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: get converted. Right, So that's their sort of their title
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: is their origin. They are the good I said, eye
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: who learned they could channel, the men who could learn
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: they can channel who iell sorry, And so they were
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: sent out to that. You know, we're told they go
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: out to blind the dark One. So they head to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the blight, they to attack the dark One. They get
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: captured and converted into these sight blinders who are converted Ieel.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Sight blinder is one of their names for the dark One,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and now these people are eye blinders. It's like, yeah,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: he takes the spear that the ideal throw at him,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and he turns it around, turns it back on them.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: And we get the contrast between that and the talentless. Right,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the talentless are other people who are very committed to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: the Dark One but don't have the one power and
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the turning and the filed teeth and all of that.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And of course you know they're the opposite of the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: regular ideal. Raise their veils most of the time and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: only show you their face your face when they're going
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to kill you.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Right, seeing their face is the sign that you're about
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: to die. Essentially, no person lives after seeing their face. Right.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: They have this very like if you look upon my face,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: you are dead kind of energy.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: This is the way.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: But these Some and Asai are willing to give respect
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: to nobody except for Mordon, who is the actual point
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: of this meeting. This is why Some is in this
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: town and you know, twitchly holding himself back from the
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: edge of leaping back until I run rio because Mordon
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: wants to talk to him.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Not just Mordon. One of the female eyes forsaken is
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: also with him, right right, which one? Which one? She
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: was a pretty woman dressed in black trimmed with red,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: slim figure, delicate face. That's send In or Heslam in disguise.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: No Hessalama is being required to look ugly as hell.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: She's not going to get to ply go into a disguise.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: This has got to be Sindane even though he's not
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: describing her hair.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I don't have any other details that narrow it down.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: All I've really got is that it's probably sinday In
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: or Haslam.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I've always operated under the assumption that it's Synday, and.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: That would explain why he hadn't wouldn't recognize her even
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: though he knows what Landfear looks like exactly.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And she's very confident in the dream and she's very
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: determined to get Rant dead. It just fits the profile.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And doesn't she continue to look like land Fear in
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the dream and not like Syndane.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, starts? Is that kind of where that starts?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Because I keep waiting for it and being like
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: when this para I'm going to start getting because I'm
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: waiting for that whole like land Fear survived plotline that
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I want to like debunk, and so I've been like
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: looking for it and I just don't, like, Wow, we
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: really haven't encountered that yet. It really must all be
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in the last book.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mentions of casual accidental cannibalism in the town because
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: that's just you know, part of the course. And then
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: we look at how Luke has an unusual amount of
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: hatred prepared. The wound that Perin gave him in the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: dream is still hurting his body, right, they both carry
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: scars and wounds from that big fight that they.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Had, right, because wounds in the dream do not heal
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: as well as wounds outside of dream, So even though
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: they've been healed, it still carries aches and pains and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: continues to not maybe be fully healed. Even though there's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: no physical evidence of the wound, it's still there on
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: some metaphysical level, because you were wound in your soul.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he got gut wounded quite significantly. Like the soul
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: will be keeping the score even if the body can't.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: M hm. And so then I also like this line
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: where they're like, why haven't you taken down Ran yet?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He's like, because every time I get started, I get
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: another high priority and I have to ask you what
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: do you want to deprioritize And you say the hunt
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: for Rand And I say, you know that's a you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: priority one task, and they're like, we know what we
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: want you out on this other task. It's like, okay, well,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the priority one task is not going to get done
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: again in corporate speak, it just it does. It feels
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: like that, like, you know, it takes me a certain
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: amount of time to do the hunt. It's not instant,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and you keep pulling me off to do these other things.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Right. I love how the Chosen are described as bickering
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: like children and also as being as incompetent as corporate bureaucrats.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Because I often think you could describe corporate bureaucrats as children.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And as you know, archminions of all evil.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So yeah, she commands him like kill rand al thor
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: you know, unless the dark One himself says otherwise, like
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: this is your goal, And pretty much that's what we
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: see him do. The problem is Paren gets in the way,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and so then he has to kill Paren to get.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: To Rand, right, and at that point it becomes boot
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: because he's dead and rant to save the world. But yeah,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: this is basically if Paren didn't, you know, take it
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: upon himself to bring that dream spike to Rand, this
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: would have ended the war. The other direction, he sees
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a bevy of thirteen women and thirteen murder all headed
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: off to turn people.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: He gets a commitment for help. What is that help
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: that he gets? It's isn't it. It's just the Sam
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and Asai who are going to help him out. That's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: what that's the belief.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: So channel it doesn't seem to do a lot of help. Really,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem to actually give him any kind of edge.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It seems to just get in his way.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: No, because they're in the world of dreams and I
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: think Gall takes them all out just because he's that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: much better world of dreams than they are.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I kind of forgot about that. Gall just
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: casually takes down like eight other ideal channels. Yeah, just yes,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: one of those things is like barely even on screen.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Gall's just like I did that anyway.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: M hmm, because they're like confused, they don't know where
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: they are, and he saw him didn't explain it to them.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: At all, right, and Gall, you know, is a fast
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: study m hm. So yeah, Gol rules.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, almost a male wise one and that you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: like I think you should be honorary wise one for
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: dream walking like that and being that good at it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: He's going to have a very hard time not getting
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: clan chiefed up after that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, he definitely ends up as clan chief.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: They were already eyeing him for clan.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Chef, especially with Ruar dead.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Is Gall Tardad, I thought so,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I can never remember.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It's hard.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: He's a stone dog, but that's his warrior society, not
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a Clan Tardad Sharad. Okay, So he's not going to
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: replace Ruwark, but he's definitely going to be in leadership
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: because yeah, he owned it in the dream.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I covered everything. Just that, you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: we get more of these semin Asi that accompany him
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and sort of low they lower their veil to go
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: with him. I assume that's just because they're in killing
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: mode more than they're trying to kill him.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: But maybe also like they're going to make sure he
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't go off task. As long as you're pointed at author,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: we won't kill you, right, I mean, even he even
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: thinks they will accompany you, not, they will serve you. Right.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: He doesn't get given control of them, he gets them
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: assigned to him different mm hmm.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Oh. He thinks about his power to switch between the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: dream and the real world and how the chill And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: can't do that. They have to build a gateway which
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: takes time, and like that gives him the ability almost
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, makes him as powerful that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: as a Chosen. Yeah, in a lot of ways, right,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: that that ability to escape from them. You know, he
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: still serves the dark One, but he's almost an equal
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: with the Chosen, certainly in the threat that he poses
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to a parent and Rand.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I mean he looks down on the Chosen. He has
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: powers comparable to their own in his own way. He's
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: off to the side, but he's at the same tier.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: It's a very interesting position for a weapon to have
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: that much self awareness in that way.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: He's kind of the Darth Vader to the Grand Tarken
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: of the Chosen of Morgan. Sure, a dangerous, dangerous weapon,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: but that takes me to the end of that pov.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have anything else other than yeah,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be hunting Rand and that'll set up his
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: fight between him and Parin.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And then our last POV of the day is Lylewin
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: forcibly inserting herself into the eyes Toedayes world.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I just wish it. You know, at this point a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: certain order had died and that she could become the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: new order. Because we've seen that in visions, right, we
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: knew it was going to happen, that she was going
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to have a shan chand standing by her side as
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a order, and it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Does happen later that she plugs the whole of the
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: grief of losing Godwin with Lylewin, Like, why can't that
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: happen now, Why can't go and have died in her
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: arms before she could accept his marriage proposal and she's
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: still dealing with that. And then she just immediately snatches
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: this woman up right away and they start building rapport
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and we actually make those damn dream visions mean something. God,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: that would have been awesome.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And I also don't fully understand her, like, well, I
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: can never captain a ship again because one child had
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a snit who and I'm not even part of that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: empire anymore.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: It feels very like on her code to the point
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: of absurdity. Also that like adhd intensity of emotion thing
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: where you're like, i feel this emotion so intensely that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna feel it forever, and I like can't imagine
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: not feeling like this in the future. I feel like
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: she's a little bit overcommitted to this current moment of
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: anngs to being.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: You think her life, it's just like, yea.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Once the world is over, once you and Bail have
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: like had a few years to like put this all
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: behind you and really think about it, you might at
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: least want to do a little freshwater boat. Maybe you
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: don't want to go back in the ocean for a
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: few years, like I don't know, a cruise.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know, once those are invented, we've got steam
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: powered boats pretty soon.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, and maybe they help Eludra figure out steam
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: powered boats. I don't know, but yeah, Bail is here
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: as her rider or died, but I think he's gonna
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: convince it to get back on a boat like another
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: five years.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: So they're they're pulling the sneaky and not being very successful, right.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: They slip through a gateway. She puts on a fake accent.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: They're trying to get taken to ninety Verlaine, and of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: course the needs the one they get taken to, and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you know, she does this really bad fake doman. I
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: just imagine it is like a bad Jamaican accent where
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: she's like, yah, man, I'm here, like really really obvious
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and bad, and Baiale's like, yeah, that's pretty good, even
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: though it's like, of course he would think he doesn't
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: he can't tell. It's gonna sound bad to him no
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Well, and he's going to be supportive of his wife
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: no matter what, right, right, right, But you know, like
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Sleet looks surprised by the barrage of words, he's also
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: surprised by how bad her accent is. That's part of
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: the facial exuppression. Yeah, definitely, definitely, But yeah, Lylwin is
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: on a mission to say, essentially, I am loyal to
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: the Empress, but not to the empire. I want to
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: tear down the structure of the empire so that way
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the Empress can rule over something better. It's a very
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: interesting needle she's trying to thread here.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Almost like you're trying to work around some compulsion from
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: a certain threat that may force you to be loyal
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: to the empress and you want to tear down the empire,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: and you can't give up that loyalty, which would also
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: explain her ridiculous reaction to being told she.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Can't be.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: But she never got crystal throned. She got raised to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the blood on this side of the ocean, that's true.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: And you don't, i think, get crystal throne a fied
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: unless you're of the blood to some degree. And she
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: was elevated from normal person to the blood on this
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: side of the ocean, which has no crystal throne. So
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: unless there's some sort of like it rubs off on
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: you from the chain of command sort of effect that propagates.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: It can't be.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Or maybe everyone is exposed to the oath and it's
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: only once you become the blood that it kicks in,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: because it's like the blood will be loyal or something
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: It's like some sort of like sleeper cell that's just
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: in every shod sham, like when you take your first
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: month of office right at gard after graduating high school
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly. It's a conditional oath, right, like it
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: only applies once you become blood.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like that. That's even creepier than your
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: original cannon for this damn chair. I mean it's good,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: it's good canon. I think you might be right. That's
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: a powerful magic though, to be able to just be
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: like anyone who's taken an oath of office has like
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: sleep or cell code in their brain. Like that's insidiously powerful.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: It's a powerful tog real and I mean especially it
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: think about the way they're using it, right, like it's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: being used on civilians in mass kind of by definition, Yeah,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it's essentially an o throd and I think it's like
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: maybe a weaker form of compulsion, a weaker It's like you.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Have to buy into it a little bit more intentionally
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: before it works, right, But once it works, it lucks
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: in with magical barbs that just make it very hard
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: to ever back out again.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Yeesh, it's self fulfilling, like this, nudging you towards loyalty
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: that makes you more loyal and the further you go
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: down that road, these you I don't know. I'm pulling
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: his straws a little bit here, but I don't know.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know that loyalty is the empress, which seems
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: very very dogmatic.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but also you know, people have a sunk cost
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: fallacy as a pretty normal human way of responding to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: power struct right, right, right, Like I will do mental
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: gymnastics to defend the worldview I've invested forty years of
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: my life in.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: It's why compulsions so insidious? Right? What is Oh, this
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is just something that a view that I have versus
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: we use the same justifications to ourselves.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And she wants to believe so much that it's
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: possible to do some sort of radical yet incremental change
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: to her slave based empire to somehow reform it, get
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: it to ride through realizing that demani are people.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Well not overthrowing the Empress.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I think she's tilting at windmills with
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: that one. I think slave empires simply have to be
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: dismantled wholesale in order to reach the kind of idealized
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: thing that she thinks she can uh make happen with
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: one little, one little revelation, like she's an idealist.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Well, and the fact that frankly, at this point the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Empress knows about it, she's already dismissed it as well.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It's a choice to channel, which is ridiculous because they
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: chang up people who haven't channeled all the time. But
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: for them, it's the people who have no choice but
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: to eventually channel that they chang up.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Right. Also, she still thinks it's cool to like have docovail,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: just ones that can channel.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: So it's like slavery is not so much a problem
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: in her eyes.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's only slavery of magic people that's wrong. I
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: don't know that's she's working on it. She is, she
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: is working on it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So Sleet leads them to Ninive, who's doing paperwork. I
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: honestly don't remember.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: She's doing something behind a desk. Very uncharacteristic.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I mean because this is the field of Marillor though,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: so she's like probably writing letters between various factions trying
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: to make peace, right, Like.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correspondence is probably it sending notes to various people
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: and trying to coordinate stuff. Yeah, she's not doing clerical work.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: She's doing networking. Yeah, diplomacy because she is, you know,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: one of the most powerful and well connected women in
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: the world. So yeah, that's probably really important for her
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: to be sending and receiving information amongst people in the camp.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And then I love sleets like take down of it
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: where he's just like, yeah, they slip through. Yeah, she's
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: doing a bad accent. Yeah, they need money, Like.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: We decided that this was interesting enough, we should bring
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: it to you. But also they have a lot of
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: subtrifuge that they thought was working until right now.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And it's not. But it's his way of saying like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: he'd never turning to them, but also saying, you never
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: tricked me.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Right right, Our security is so good that we're just
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: going to allow you to hang yourself here, have some
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: more rope mm hmmm, because like, the farther they walk
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: into the camp, the more vulnerable they are, right, like
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: the warders know what they're doing and so yeah, basically
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Ninieve says, what the hell are you doing in my face?
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: After you let the sad bracelets not get dropped into
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the ocean, Like how dare you show your face after
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: failing at that one? Which you had one job and
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: you failed.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: At it and that's why we had darth Rand.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: And that's why we nearly lost the world before the
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: last battle could even start. So why are you here?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Why should I not just fireball you?
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I love llewell and being like why didn't you tell
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: me that? In bail being I did many times you
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: weren't listening.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty solid I told you so.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah that was pretty good. That was pretty much fun
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and also explains like why she just has felt delusional
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: about it this whole time, where she's like, whatever, it's
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: just just one object.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: We'll be fine. What could one little whatever make a
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: difference about?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: And bail domon if time was a slave, so he
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: had no say whatsoever.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: He tried to fight, she prevented him from fighting instead
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: of joining him, and she bought her life with giving
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: that shit to Suroth, like she would have been so
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: much better off, like taking those things grabbing them and
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: just heaving herself over the side of the boat. That
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: would have been, you know, better for the world. But
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: she didn't understand the mission. She didn't understand that her
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: life would have been a small price to pay for
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: keeping those things out of Sara's hands.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: But again, another tying up of a storyline, that storyline
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of nineve giving the sad Relists to dome On and
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: saying toss these in the deepest ocean and them was like,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that's another one of these. Like one of the things
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that things that I noticed Sanderson is trying to do
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: is like tie. He is sweeping these loose threads up
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and tying them up and trying to you know, these
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: plot lines that have come up multiple times in multiple books,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: saying okay, this is pretty much where it resolves. So
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: this is where the characters come back together and say we're.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Good, right, and like the sad Bracelets are done, Samarag
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: is done, Sir Roth is done. But Lylewood and Bail
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: and their culpability, that was one last little postscripts that
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: had to get wrapped up. And it's a chance to
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: attempt to make that dream of Agwain's come true.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And that's Honestly, one of my favorite parts of getting
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: these final books written by Sanderson is seeing these moments
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: play out and seeing and having these on page that
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: we would have never gotten if he hadn't come and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: finished the books. Is like, I no longer have to wonder, oh,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: are they ever going to like talk about that or
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: resolve it, or you know, is she ever going to
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: come down on them? Is rand ever going to come
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: down on them for that?
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: And so Lylewyn here says that she belongs to the
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: White Tower as Docaveil for now and forever. What does
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: she do in the aftermath of Agwayne's death? Do you
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: think she stays in the White Tower and finds someone
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: else to attach to or does she consider her debt
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: paid after all that chaos. That's a tough one because
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: we know that Agwayne releases the water bond as she
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: shoves her through the gateway, So her only you know,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: emotional impact from that is going to be the normal stuff,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: not magically induced like water Ridge. So what does she do?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I like to think the bail Domon talks her into
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: living an independent life. I would like that too, Yeah,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: because she doesn't go into a murders rampage because the
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: bond is released. She's like, Okay, more people should do
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: that big time.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Well, of course, Agwayne figured out the one smart thing.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I like the idea that domont can have ultimately convinced
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: her that, like, she paid her life debt and she
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: should take up riverboating with him, and they just sail
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: off into.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: The sunset like that steamboat.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they steam off into the sunset.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, because it's not she was told she couldn't sail
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a ship. Again, that's not sailing.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Ah, you can't. You didn't prevent me from from doing
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: that because that technology hadn't been invented when you cursed me.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: A companies do that shit all the time. They're like, ah,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: this is a different technology when they alter one little thing.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: We had invented this when you legislated the problem. So
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: now we're using you know, right.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Or like research chemicals, like Sasha Shulgan being like, I
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: added one molecule, therefore it's not illegal.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: It's gone from a twelve molecule chain to a thirteen
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: molecule chain, but functionally it's exactly the same.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Or is it? Who will never know? Yeah, so yeah,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: I guess I should read us out.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because this leads us up to her becoming
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: a order. But will that will happen later?
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Lylwyn Shipless now belonged to White Tower. Whatever they said,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: whatever they tried to do with her, that fact would
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: not change. They owned her. She would be da qua
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: vail to this Omerlin and would ride the storm like
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: a ship whose sail had been shredded by the wind.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Perhaps with what remained of her honor, she could earn
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: this woman's trust. You can five minutes before she decides
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: to kill herself over her dead warder husband. But yeah,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: for five whole minutes.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Sure, it really feels like a mean like it would
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: have been nice to see some redemption there where Agwayne
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: actually like gave up the anger at the sean Chan
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: for imprisoning her.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if she'd been able to go through that like
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: healing thing where she lets go of that loop. Yeah,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: but no, it's sort of a grudging tolerance until it
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: gets cut off. It's very underwhelming. But God, there's so
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: much promise here.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And it just ruins her. I will live centuries when
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: she goes up against On.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people that should have died,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: and there's a couple of people that shouldn't have died.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a gwayn dyeing. Just man, she was set up
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: to be such a good ambulance seat and the just
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: redemption of the.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Tower me half nah, forget healing. If she'd lived, I
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: would have wanted to see her bend every rule of
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: the agreements to go against the shan chit at.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Least be wary of them.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean seeing her and lyle Win wrestling with
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: that for you know, the entirety of Lowland's natural life
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: would have been some cool books.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many books. I would have loved to have.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: The follow on books would be so good. Like this
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: is one of those things where you know, there's some
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: authors who just keep writing more and more books in
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: their series long after you thought the series was over,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and like sometimes I don't want that. I wanted that
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: for a wheel of time.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was fun. It was kind of short.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: That was fun. Yeah. I did say going into this,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: this was going to be a shorter recording because it
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: is only the three po and we're gonna do three
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: next week. But then we're and looking at, honestly, the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: rest of the book. We're doing anywhere from four to
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: eight povs for most episodes, So I think for most
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: episodes we will be a bit longer. But if I,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: if I sort of planned it better, we could have
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: done the whole other half of the prologue in one episode.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't sure how much time. You know, I'm
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: still gauging how much time we're spending on these povs. Yeah,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: for sure, but they do seem to be pointed right there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: There is a reason why there is the POV and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: we can talk about it. But it's very straightforward usually
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: what he's doing, right, he's not necessarily trying to do two, three,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: four five things in each POV. Yeah, it depends on
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: depends on the POV.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: But for use for wrapping up, right, it's just it's
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: all downhill from here. Everything that he's writing is it
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: almost writes itself because you have to conclude it on
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: like a diminishing number of options, right, Like, as we
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: get to the end, we're not expanding anymore, we are contracting.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Please please rate and review us on your podcast app,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: and consider supporting us on Patreon for ad free episodes.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Watt Spoilers is a production of Fox and Raven Media.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from Fox and Raven Media, visit our
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: website at foxendravenmedia dot com.