Latest / WoT Spoilers / Foxheads - Towers of Midnight chapter 23 - EP558

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Foxheads - Towers of Midnight chapter 23 - EP558 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. We do
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: have a Wheel of Time chapter to do today, just
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the one. We're just doing one because a lot actually
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: happens in this one.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This is action filled and a little bit complicated. Elaine
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: has a trap getting into to do and getting out
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: of and getting Yeah, which is amazing. She actually gets
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: out of it in one chapter. And you know, I
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: don't know how much that's just pure luck really.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And more or less onto her own power. Like there's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of confounding factors, but none of the people
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: coming to rescue her actually have to rescue her, like
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: they all arrive in the aftermath of what goes down.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: She also gets lucky that they don't want her dead, right,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Like if they want her dead, she would have been dead.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there's a lot of luck involved, but still
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: there's a fairly rapid trap cycle compared to what has
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: come in prior books.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: A mini trap.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You need a Meani trap well, because she's leveled up
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: so much, you know, like she can really get in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and out of a situation, because she has so.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Much experience getting into traps.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. You don't have to be slow about it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Anymore, just with the added confidence of my babies will survive.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So you know, this is also the chapter where she
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: starts to actually realize how foolish of an assurance she's
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: been having in that.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't mitigate her behavior in the future in
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: any way, shape or form.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Mostly you're I mean, she accepts the bed rest as
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: an insistence, changes her behavior for.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: A little bit, but then she makes them carry the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: bed and she.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Makes some hoister over the edge of the fucking city wall,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: which I just yeah, yeah, it's unfortunate. It bothers me.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Good it should. Yeah, moving forward, you want to read
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: us into Foxheads with the icon of the called the
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: two facing women, which is the black ajaw symbol.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where should I read too? I have no idea.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: This is a long, meandering thing.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think read until you're sick of reading.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, that works, that works.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Or you find something that you feel like is a
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: stopping point. But yeah, there's not a good stopping spot
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: in the middle. It's just kind of like, go till
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: it's peters out.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Until I'm sick of Elaine turned the strange medallion around
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: in her fingers, tracing the fox's head worked into the front.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: As with many turangriol, it was difficult to tell exactly
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: what kind of metal had been used to create it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Originally she suspected silver with the senses of her talent. However,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the medallion was no longer silver. It was something else,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: something new. The song Mistress of the Lucky Man's Theater
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Troop continued her song. It was beautiful, pure and high.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Elaine sat on a cushioned chair on the right side
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of the hall, which had been repurposed with a raised
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: area at the front for the players. A pair of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Brigida's guards stood behind her. That's all we need fox
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: head Theater because the fox has the important part of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: this chapter. The theater stuff is just set dressing for the opening.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I did notice that it's called the Lucky Man's Theater
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Troop while she's playing with Matt's like medallion.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Oh that is fun. I hadn't even noticed that. But
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: you're so right, the Lucky Man's Theater Troup while the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Lucky Man's medallion m hmm, with the woman who's about
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to be very very very very very lucky.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, And it's lucky that she has it, right,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: that's the only thing that keeps her alive for sure. Yeah,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and we get a little more information about Tara. I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: like this part where it's like, let's get into the
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: nitty gritty of making Taran griol. Right. This is again
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: where I think Sanderson really shines is when you get
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: into some of the hard magics of the world, and
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: making Terroran real is certainly something that feels like a
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: hard magic. Right. We had that line that we of
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Elaine's earlier was talking about like intersecting Matrice's right, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: so like very quickly, you know, Jordan established the making
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: of Tarran greal is this hard science that Elaine is
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: good at that nobody else has really figured out. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: she has a talent for reading the weaves in that
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: make up a Tarnrell.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: She's got engineer brain right in a way that a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: lot of the other magic users have expressed a much
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: more like druidic kind of interaction with their magic. Elaine
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: can actually get done into some like blueprints and diagrams
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and stuff in a very different way.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: That.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Sanderson really excels at fleshing that out and making
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: it believable and fit with her character and fit with
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the Magic System, and it's really good. It's really fun.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I enjoy it quite a lot. Even though I don't
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: have engineer brain, I like it when other people do.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons I really like A Rhythm
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: of War, which is Sanderson's the worth book of a
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Stormline Archive series, because that just goes heavily into the
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: engineering of the Magic System, and I think that that's
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite parts about it. I think it's
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: first the first two books in that series really shine,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: and then the last three struggle with various aspects of
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: the story. But my favorite thing about book four is
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the engineering aspect of it, and I think that's that's
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: by far the strongest part of that book. And some
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: people hate it, but for me, that's that's the strongest part.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense given that you are very much
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: an engineer branch person. Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I think some people hate it because it's done by
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: the women.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Oh oh, well, screw.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Them, And also, like I think it is, it feels
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: a little bit like a distraction. It does feel like
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: a side quest, so if you're like wanting to get
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: back to the main quest, it does it's like, Okay,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: come on, let's get past this.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the perfect kind of getting lost in the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: weeds that I like it. I like an author, I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: have a world that's that complex. You can get lost
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in the weeds of engineering for a whole book. That's fun,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: all right, So we're doing this, this ballot to this operatic,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: shrieky soprano aria death spiral thing. It's fun, it's great.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I am pleasantly irritated at how Elaine is the kind
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of person who likes sopranos, just going on and on
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and on and on. I'm very much more with Brigida
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in the last chapter, being like, bring me some wax
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: from my ears. It's just very shrill, like I like
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: singing and all, but like you just really hang out
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: at the top end of a soprano's range for too long.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: My ear drum, like the cilia in my ears have
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: been flattened at that point and there's just nothing but tones.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And it's hilarious to me that Elaine likes it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Not. I mean, she's in the Aristocrat, right, She's supposed
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: to like all that stuff. Yeah, that's the character exactly.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I'm pleasantly annoyed by it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And the fact that this is the move from something
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: like a single bar to opera to plays to Shakespeare,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Like we're moving through that that sort of evolution of entertainment.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And the reason that we're doing this particular play, it's
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: not just a throwaway concept. It's because it is a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Laurian's favorite ballad. Elaine is doing four dimensional chests on
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Olurian's feelings about how streck Hand, which means catering to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: her specific artistic preferences, which is this is her favorite story.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with Elaine wanting to support
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the arts in this particular way. This is her saying,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: how can I support the arts to entice Alurian's guard
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to come down ever so slightly?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Not that it really matters, right, because I don't believe
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: at any point does Lauren actually kind of become like
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: you know, Towers at Midnight chapter twenty three. She's still spiteful.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: This is chapter twenty three, so that's not a fair comparison.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: But that's last she does.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I think the idea with Alurian is that she could
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: have become an antagonist, and Elaine diffuses it before it happens.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's one of those what doesn't happen.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Is the point Alurian could have decided to be like
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: a thorn in Elaine's foot and instead she just kind
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of is in the back of the group, supporting Elaine
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: really grudgingly. And it's because of stuff like this, but
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: like nothing happens, right, It's not as exciting a plot
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: when something doesn't happen, But Elaine is doing something internally consistent, right,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: which is being long term political politically speaking.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess if you want
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to call this like the last that, it's just we
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: don't get anymore Alarian. It's not like this ever, payof
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: where Laurian's like, fine, I will fight with you in
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the last battle, or you know, there's a nod or
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: like she just never appears again.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: But she could have as an antagonist very easy.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and this means.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. Plus, you know Sanderson and his shedding
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of plots that he doesn't have time and energy for.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I think he made a graceful exit for this one.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I would have liked a more final exit, some sort
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of understanding between Elaine and Alorian.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I was definitely waiting for that for the whole last battle.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I was waiting for a moment when Alurian came through
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and she didn't, and it was like, but she never
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: betrayed or obstructed or caused friction. Sure, so Sanderson explains
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: why she doesn't exist by being like, well, she was
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: mollified enough to not be a problem less satisfying than
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it could be. But also at least there's not a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: super long loose end hanging.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Right right right, More about the voxhead. It was a
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: complex work of art despite being only a single solid
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: piece of metal. She could feel the weaves that have
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: been used to create it. Its intricacy was far beyond
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the simplicity of the twisted dream rings. Right, So, just
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: how complex and how important and how hard of an
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: On Greol This is ter On Greil to create.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Well, right back when she figured out the dream turan grill,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it was a pretty big feat for her and was
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: very impressive to all of the other eyes to die.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And now she's saying that is relatively simple compared to this.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So that's again a sense of the level ups that
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: she's done in her tinkering abilities.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And we find out that the form of the silver
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: isn't important, but the amount is fascinating, fascinating. I love it.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: The weight of the object, the purity of the silver,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: not the form. The aesthetic form is completely immaterial, but
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the weight and purity matters.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense that everyone has their own little custom
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: form of arrangreol they carry around, right, like totally the
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: size may be different, but yeah, I like these little
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: details about how teraron greoll are made, and then you
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: get the idea. And then I especially like the when
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: we later find out that on gre all and soanreall
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: are made with tearan greol. Right, and so there's this
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: like where do all these bits of magic come from? Well,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: we're able to take care, you know, pieces of metal,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: put weaves in them, and then use those to create
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the onngreoll basically computers.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah really, if you think about it, you just write
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: magic runes with special metals and then you shove lightning
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: into them and cool functions come out. Like really, there's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: no difference.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And then important information about the copy. Right, not only
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: does it prevent you from channeling, but it can be
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed if the weaves are powerful enough.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do we ever get a sense for like what
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: she's missing about that? Or does her study basically end here.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she makes a lot more imperfect copies.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think she ever makes a perfect copy.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think she has a break I'm not
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: recalling any kind of breakthrough where she understands what's going
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: on here. All she's been able to do is consistently
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: have the same range of problems.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: It kind of feels like the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: where like Harry Potter has the perfect invisibility cloak and
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: all of the ones are flawed in some way, and
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: like it's kind of impossible to recreate the one, perfect,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: true invisibility cloak.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I wonder what that trope is in fiction? What's the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: name for this trope?
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's because if you give someone a
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: powerful artifact and a way to copy it, you have
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to be like, oh shit, how do I not give
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: everybody in this world a copy of this powerful artifact? Right?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Same thing with like guns, right, Like it's hard to
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: introduce guns into a world because they very quickly become
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: something that everybody uses, and suddenly you have a gun, yeah,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: an equalizer, you know, and so you know something else
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: that Sanderson I think did a lot with in his
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: second era of Miss Born is because he introduced guns
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: into that society. But that changed everything about the way
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: magic was used in his world, and and in a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, his wax and weighing characters are an
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: exploration of what do you do if you give these
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: magic users who can move metal guns?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Interesting sandbox?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, Yeah, so yeah, a little bit more
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: mechanics of how she uses the touching the medallion will
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: shut down her weaves and turn everything off, right, like
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: being shielded is how they say. It's sort of like, okay,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: that lets us know some more mechanics about it before
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: we go into this battle, right, because the medallion is
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: going to be used a lot, So he's giving us
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a bunch of mechanics about how it's used because this
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is a new thing, this this imperfect medallion, and it
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: sort of gives them some of these new rules to
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: play with, right, and think.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: About the cost benefit analysis of making more of them.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: How many of these does she want to have available
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: given how effective they are against magic users, Like they
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: are very effective against magic users, but they're very effective
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: against magic users, And how does she want to play
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: with that particular fire and.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: More importantly, they're effective against the Golam.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Well, she's thinking so far beyond that, right, Like that's
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the thing is her and Matt have such different use cases.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: She does say, like the presence of the golm did
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: warrior how to deal with the thing? Perhaps copies of
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the medallion for all her guards wouldn't be such a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: bad idea after all, So the golam is still on
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: her mind as much as anything else.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, once the Golum's dealt with, But once the Gol'm's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: dealt with, right, right, you have to get over that boundary,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: which seems impossible at this point. And yes, having what
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like a dozen of these is how they're able to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: finally take the Golam down. Is because they just have
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: more and more and more of them to keep throwing
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: it the thing, to force it into a corner. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I do like the moment where she thinks very briefly
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: about not giving Matt back his original and then immediately
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: slaps it down. And I'm like, that's the Avianda, that's
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: that's your really internalizing the parts of Getoe that makes
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: sense to you, and like trying to live up to
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Avienda's sense of honor like, good for you, good for
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you really internalizing that, because yeah, it's okay to have
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that thought as long as you immediately shut it down.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: It's like, so you immediately shut it down, We're not
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: gonna hold it against you. It's okay. But I just
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I see the Avienda in that knee jerk reaction to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: her own selfish impulse.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Right, because for her growing up like yes, for the
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: for the good of the kingdom, the queendom, right, she
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: should keep that. Yeah, but then she's got that honor
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: from Avienda that she has to maintain.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do anything in the name of controlling
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: your own power, but for your girlfriend, yeah it is.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: You gotta have a different standard for your girlfriend.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So the play ends and Elane sort of claps politely.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: You know, she's not obviously does not like it very much, right,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: but she's she liked.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: It well enough, but it was background, NOI to what
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: she was actually doing.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So it comes silvas. I I've got a weird feeling
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: off sylves I'm trying to figure out what her deal
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: is because she's got this emotionless display but a deep
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: cunning I want to make her a dark friend, but
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I don't find any evidence for that.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Other than her personal secretary that she knows as a torturer,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: being a dark wry right right, which is like big
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: red flag.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Also like maybe she's informing people, Like how do they
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: know what's going on? Is she an informant to the
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Black Aja here? Yeah?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I also have a lingering sense of distrust around Silveys
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: even after all these rereads, because we don't get a
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: clear answer in the narrative. I don't know if there's
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: like some word of Brandon or entry in one of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the supplemental materials out there that gives us an answer.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: But nothing that I googled.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the narrative, it's very ambiguous. Is she just
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: traumatized and surviving as best she knows how, or has
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: she actually thrown in with the Dark Friends on purpose
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: deliberately of her own will? Like where is her actual allegiance?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Because the secretary is not a smoking gun, it's just
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: a red flag. She works with this guy, she uses
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: his statistic skills, but that doesn't mean that she knows
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: condones joins up with his deeper allegiances. It would make
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense for Dark Friends to have someone
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: like that in as many noble houses as possible, and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of someone who's close but not quite is great.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Her demeanor is clearly like the result of you know,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: her grandfather's weird behavior towards her in control of her life.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: But also how much has she leaned into that versus
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: how much of it is just protective and she's going
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to come out of it after a few years, you know,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Like we don't get long with her, so it's hard
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to say, but yeah, I still don't know how I
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: feel about her.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Right because it's her secretary who frees everybody in this chapter,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: uh huh exactly, So it feels like she's there to
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: mess things up. But we never get a follow up again,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: this is the last chapter she's in. We never find out, like,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: does Elaine go to her and be like, your secretary
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: did bad things? You are responsible for your secretary? What's
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: going on?
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I thought there was a conversation about that later in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: this chapter. No, like later in the series. I thought
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: there was some kind of mention about Silveys in her
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: post secretary being a dark front status. I could have
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: did I just make that up? I could have just
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: made that up. I had not read these books as
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: many times as the other ones.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, the last mention of
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: her is in this chapter.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, I totally m all right, Well, either mandala effect
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: or it's so small of a throwaway line that it's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: not in the documentation.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I think they may talk about her secretary. Let me
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: see if I can find some information about him. I
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: could have.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Swore Elaine thought about having confronted Silveys over it, or
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: having been given reassure. I could have sworn there was something.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the only mention is the secretary. You know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: he's killed in this chapter by what's his name, Melar Melar.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Jacques is killed by Melar, and so they mentioned that
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: he's killed in the next chapter. But that's it. No
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: mention of Sylves.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Huh oh fascinating, Okay, moving on anyway. So, yeah, Silveys
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and Elaine talk about Alorian, so we get some insights
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: intoto Elaine's view of Sylves as a person. And then yeah,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: we switched to talking about the secretary, who will shortly
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: be revealed to be a dark friend, and Elaine thinks
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: about basically her willingness to use torture. As a queen,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you can order someone to do torture and not have
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to actually physically perform it yourself. But it's still on
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the buck stops with you. It's on your head, and.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I have to wonder what would happen if she's ordering
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: a dark friend to be the torturer of the black
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: a jaw right, Like, I feel like that because you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: from Melar we get this idea that there's a no
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: survivor's thing, So I get the feeling that Jack would
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: have killed them all pretty quickly by accident.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I think what's happening, honestly, is that that's how
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: they're being informed of potential rescue plans and how the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: invasion is going. Right, Elaine's like, how do you know
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: this stuff? It's probably because they're being tortured and being
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: given information at the same time.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Right, right, Jack would be the one who could pass
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: that on.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's doing the because she's not ordering him to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: do hardcore torture yet, right, She's just like, oh, you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: can only go so far, so it's easy for him
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to be like, yeah, I did the thing, and they
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: didn't say anything because he was telling them information instead.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Got it, got it?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, she's in an extra kind undrum. Because on
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: top of not wanting to you know, violate human rights
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: because torture, she also knows that these women have no
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: reason to talk, right because they're going to die or
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: they're going to die, right. There's really no bargaining that
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: she's to do with them. So she's in a bit
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of a pickle. And that's I think part of why
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: she makes the bad decisions she does is because she
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: feels out of options.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she basically fakes being a forsaken. That's this
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: idea occurs to her in the middle of this or
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I guess at the end of this opera, where she's like,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: you know what, I'm just gonna pretend to be forsaken,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: put all my mask of mirrors and go try and
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: convince them to tell me what's going on, just by
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: like pretending to be somebody else.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's a very rapidly assembled plan. Like she's
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: literally in the middle of doing her mingling after the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: opera and stuff, and then she suddenly decides, you know what,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I should do, play a forsaken and try to scare
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the secrets out of my prisoners, Like in the middle
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of mingling with like Alaurian and Sylvas and doing all
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this stuff.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: It's because she finds out Brigida and Matt are out
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: drinking and she's like, oh, Brigida is not going to
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: be able to stop me. So it's a little bit
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: of like, well the cat's away, the mice will play
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: type situation because her handler, her responsibility, her adult in
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the room is off with Matt for a minute.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And this, I think is one of the moments that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: makes me the most mad in Elaine is that her
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: response to Bergida is a way is I can get
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: away with stuff, and like that is a profoundly disrespectful
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and immature way to view your relationship with your bodyguard.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: You used to have so much more respect for her
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and so much more respect for what she was doing
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: for her and for the position you had put her in,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and now you're just treating her like an annoying, overbearing
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: helicopter parent Like this is this is not the growth
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I expected or wanted in this particular regard like.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Heh of their relationship. Yeah, yeah, again, this is one
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: of those things where yeah, Samson may missed a little
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: bit where they went from older sister, younger sister to
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: adult child.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Which like they never were. It's not even like he
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: regressed them to where they were. He regressed them farther
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: back than they ever have been.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's weird. It's weird. But if arness Elaine
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: like load up for bear before she's going off to fight, right,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: she pulls out the on grea all of the woman
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: in her own hair, which is we haven't seen that
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: one in a while, but that's a great little ungreol
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: and she brings the amulet. So she's you know, basically
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: immune from other people's weaving and has an incredible amount
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: of power herself. So she is loaded up for bear.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Now she can't hold on to the goddamn thing, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: that pisses me off a little bit, like the amount
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: of just dropping it rather than just like having it
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: around your neck like Matt did, Like she should have
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the original around her neck, not in her hand.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Right, there's a lot of lack of thorough preparation, Like
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: she literally turns to her guards women at one point
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and says, how do I look? And they say amazing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: The slippers are ruining it though, Like she didn't think
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to deal with her slippers until she had just some
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: random guardswomen notice that they were there, I'm like, how
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: many other things are you missing? Is not thoroughly checking
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: every single preparation and considering contingencies like what if it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: gets knocked out of your hand, maybe put it around
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: your neck where your hand is not relevant to the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you know, like she just half an hour of going
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: over the plan with Matt and Bergida and this could
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: have been flawlessly executed, but no, instead she rushed to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: get out ahead of.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Them with contingency plans.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly, with contingencies totally.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Because like, who was the problem, Melar who would have
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: stopped them? A couple of soldiers, right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And like when she gets startled, she loses the gateway.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: What if there had been someone ready to snap unto
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the gateway open, or someone else who had made the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: gateway in the first place so it couldn't get closed, right?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Like little things, little things.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: So as she's heading down there, she's all prepped out.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, she does think she's prepared. She does do
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: more preparation than she usually does before getting stuck in
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a trap. I get where her confidence is coming from.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I don't get where her confidence
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: is sustaining its power from.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: She wasn't worried she'd be safe men's viewing promised that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: that's where she's getting the confidence.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Right there, She's loaded for a bear and she has
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a viewing and nothing could possibly go wrong based on that.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, she knew that Brigida would never let this happen,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: but Kayla was not Brigida, thankfully.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like having the babysitter or the step parent
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: or the substitute teacher and getting away with something, And
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: it's just very immature and out of keeping with the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: level of maturity Elaine has gone through in general and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: with Brigida in particular.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So she goes down those rats. I'm assuming the rats
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: are keeping an eye on the prisoners, and that's why
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: it is a bunch round.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: One would assume, Yeah, that many rats, like instantly hearing
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the scratching of rats, Like, I'm a little annoyed that
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: she doesn't think that her palace needs to have slightly
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: better pest control, but yeah, presumably eyes and ears are
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the dark one all over.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And so then we get her basically bluffing chesmel and
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: saying I'm a forsaken you don't know which one bow
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: down to.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Me, which it starts out well, but then she's we
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: are to asking questions based on the answers she's gotten,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and that's never a good sign. I've been re listening
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to Shadow Rising and I was just last night or
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: this morning whatever, listening to Matt dealing with the Finn
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the first time, and he does the same thing. He
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: gets one answer and then tangents off based on that
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: answer rather than sticking to the plan. And Matt and
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Elaine very very similar characters. So you see the same
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: dynamic here where she doesn't stick to the plan she had,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: she starts improvising and that's what unravels everything.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Well, and I'm glad that you and I don't have
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: that problem of getting caught in a tangent. And we
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: definitely stick to our script every time.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: But we are not on a death timer. But yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: for sure, I'm glad that we don't do tangents. That
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: would be really annoying. No one would listen to us
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: if we did tangents.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: We know because we have those episodes. We know the statistics.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Y'all skip it, No, I know you do. Some of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: you do it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: They do get a little bit less play, but not much.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do we get a couple of hints from Cheesmul
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: right that there's an invasion that's coming up. It's about
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: to begin soon. We also have that information in Matt's
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: letter if you ever opened it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is hints about what's in the letter. The
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: invasion is almost ready. That's the invasion that Varren's letter
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: is about.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And they're planning an assassination, one would assume through Jacques
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: and then Ta Melar.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: And that's of Matt. The Dark Friends were hunting Matt.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: This is the first thing she gets really tangented on,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: which I guess it's a good thing to get tangented
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: on learning that Matt is the target of assassinations, which
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I guess means that's probably what the assassination he experienced
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: in the last chapter was. Was an attempt or a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: test run of this, I guess.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: And then yes, side level is I'm testing your gaps
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: in knowledge. That's what I'm doing. That's why I'm asking
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: these questions. I need to know what you know when
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, no, that's not going to work.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, the best lies are tinged with truth, but
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: this might have been slightly too truthful. I also noticed
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: when she walked in and she says you are less
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: than a rat, and I'm like, the Forsaken usually go
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: with a much lower ranked animals for their opening insults.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: You've already started out too soft for your foresake. In disguise,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: they say stuff like you are a worm under a rock.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: They don't go with mammals for their opening salvo.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: So she's getting this information right and not doing a
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: medium okay job. And then in comes this group of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: black adjaw and Salvas's secretary who's Jacques Tamel eldrith? Are
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: they there to free Jazz Mel? What's going on? Like?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Why are these what's the coincidence that these two three
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: walk in right when Elaine is down there? It seems
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: very random.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I was really hoping you were gonna tell me that, which, honestly,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: this might be the best thing we've got for pointing
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: at Silvey's as an active problem because she saw Elaine leave.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: But that seems like very I knew, because it's like
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Elaine said I'm gonna go do black Gauja subterfuge and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: then bailed, right, she just left, like you know, a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: pregnant woman that needs to go use the bathroom might leave, right,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: So I don't know that Sylves is really obviously implicated,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't find anything. I have no idea why
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: these people decide to bust in at the exact moment
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: when Elaine is in there losing control of the conversation.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I like the idea that this is support for Sylves
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: being dark friend and passing that on. That's that's my
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: best guess that, like, she set up a trap, they
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: set up the reverse trap. They have spies, they're watching her.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It's tenuous, but there's got to be something. This can't
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: be just Teverein of the dark right. There has to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: be some level of plot somewhere.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And I think that might be why they like catch
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: it right away as they're like, oh, yeah, she's fake,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: because we came down here knowing she was probably gonna
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: be down here, right. That's why Eldereth knows.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: No, because Elaine turns around and her companion believes the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: act and Eldreth doesn't. It's entirely a body language thing.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: It's not a knowledge thing.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I guess that's right. Yeah, because Tamil's Yeah, Tamel and
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: the secretary both throw themselves down and Eldreth does not.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Elaine just hesitates a little bit too much
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: at Eldrith, you know, makes a snap decision and is
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: correct in the way she snaps. The fight starts. You know,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: it goes pretty well for Elaine for the first few seconds.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: She's kicking ass and taken names because of having Matt's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: real medallion in her hand. And then it is and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: everything you know turns around. Yeah, yeah, and the Augreill health.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: She is very strong as a channeler goes. This is
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: why she can take on multiple channelers and hold her
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: own for a bit.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Right, because I mean, even just by herself, she's stronger
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: than any of these three. And then you give her
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: an ongriol, and she's going to be much stronger.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And she's got surprise on her side.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Surprise on her side, and the onre all that's gonna
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: basically she doesn't have to worry about defense.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Except then the secretary decides that if she's immune to
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: magical attacks, she's still not immune to momentum and physically
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: throws himself at her and shoves her into the wall.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: That way.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Jack is smart. He does he uses the ninive offense,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: which is, if magic doesn't work, punch him in the face.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: It's a tried and true strategy. It's a lot harder
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to stop literal momentum than to do all the fancy
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: or yeah, it's just momentum's hard to argue with. It's physics,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: pure and simple.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And this is one of those ones where it's like, oh, man,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: come on, e Lane, just wrap everybody in flows of
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: air and throw out shields. You should be able to
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: do that all at once. You're powerful enough. You're strong enough.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Again, if she had thought through contingencies with strategists for
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: half an hour, she would have thought of that and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: in her mind been like, if I lose control, I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: just use spider web on everyone and we're good. But no,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: she didn't think about that. She assumed it would all
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: go according to her first plan, and she didn't need
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to have plan bcdef.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So she's got a broken arm from being thrown into
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: the wall basically, and she's lost the good on greall
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: because the secretary just clawed out of her hand. He
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: saw it, he was smart enough. He grabbed it, dude.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And she hit him with a blast of air to
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: get him off of her as he achieved the medallion,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: So she literally like helped him get it essentially again,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: should have put it around your neck and tucked it
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: under your dress where no one could have seen a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: flash of silver to try to call at.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: So then she basically uses the onngreol she has, right,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well, don't have the medalion anymore, let's
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: use the ngreol. Knocks out to mail with the blast
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: of air mm hmm.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: She and she throws Chesmel at the second secretary, like,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: find you throw yourself at me, I'll throw one of
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: your combatant fellow combatants at you. It's pretty fun.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: So she gets the facts head of medallion back right
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: from the secretary because he's been you know, knocked down.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: She ties everybody up shields chesz Mel but has an
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: active shield on her. She's tied off the other two shields.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then she wonders where the guards and the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: kin are, and that's where like we're into the like, yeah,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: how did someone know to come down and knock all
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of them out? Like was it just a coincidence that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: this is when the escape attempt was planned or the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: rescue attempt? I suppose more than escape.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: It feels more like a trap for a lane than
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: anything else.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And yet assembled so quickly, so comprehensively. It's Sanderson, give
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: us slightly more information, please.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what what was? What were the inciting incidents for
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: this exactly?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And she can feel Burgida coming now because you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: being thrown into the wall and breaking shoulder bones is
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you know what initially lets Brigida know that there's a problem.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: And so she basically thinks, Okay, this is all wrapped up.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty much done, just waiting for the cavalry to arrive.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: But I've got all the bad guys tied up and shielded.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: And then Melar steps out from behind her and stabs
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: her in.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: The back quite literally and kind of the side but
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: like it really is a come from behind knife in
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: an unprotected part, like stab.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Knife and the kidneysy, yeah, totally, and that causes her
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: to lose the shield on Chez mel who then shields
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: her in return, cutting off all the other shields right.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And cutting off all of their bonds of air and yeah,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: and so Melar got out because of the support team
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: that was coming in to fuck Alaane's plans up. Basically
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: let Mellar out on the way in to the other cell.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Jack seems to be the one who did all of that. Right,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: he's the dark friend who went in and freed Melar
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: and freed these other dark friends and got them.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Out right because he would know where everyone was, because
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: he's been going down there to quote unquote help the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: queen get information.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: So then Mellar insisted Alane get healed because he had
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: only stabbed her enough to make her lose the shields. Right,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: she's in a fatal kind of way, but he doesn't
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: want her to die yet, so she gets healed. That's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that's how she survives losing the babies. This time she
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: does take a fatal blow, but magic fixes it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Dark friend magic. But still, yeah, it's just like healing
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: and still healing, right, yeah, and it's still Liesoni healing.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: So now this is one where I think she does.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: It's the old school battlefield healing, right, it's the one
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: that makes her tired.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And they haven't been given the ninevapgrade yet, absolutely not so.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And then Melar is creepy as hell, just so creepy.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: You have to heal her so that I can do
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: creepy man things.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, yes, he wants to rape a queen. I
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: mean that's his goal in life.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: She doesn't die until I've had time to enjoy her.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I need him to die.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: It's one of the more satisfying deaths in the series.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: When Brigida comes back and kills him. Yeah, really nice,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: really really happy about that one. Him being such a
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: scumback for such a long time gets payoff.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: So then Elaine uses her secret weapon right which is
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: basically the flawed medallion, and she's being shielded by chesz Mel.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Throws the medallion to ches Mel, she catches it. The
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: fact that it cuts her off like shielding her basically
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: freeze Elaine from that shield.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: It's really clever. It's very clever when when the flaw
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: becomes a feature is a lovely little plot twist.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Again, the things that Sanderson is so good at is
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: taking things though, defining the limits of the magic system,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: and using the limits as something to help you out. Yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good It's just a really it's
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: a good narrative device. It's not something that Sanderson invented.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: It's just something he's masterful at wielding.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And so you know the at that moment where chez
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Mel' is like, oh, I'll shield you again, Lane's like, nope,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: fire in your face.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I no, you are. We are beyond normal polite
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: rules of war. I'm just going to literally immolate you.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And then she tries to do the same to Melar,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately he has the original and no amount of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: power can overwhelm the original's strength at diffusing.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Weaves, and so then yeah, basically she kind of backs
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: up because she doesn't really have a way to take
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: him down, although, you know, throw the burning chesz mel
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: at him, right, Like, I don't understand you already thrown
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: ches melt once. Throw her again now that she's on fire, right,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: take him out that way?
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I know, I know. I think she's a little bit
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: horrified that setting a woman on fire would be that bad.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I'm a little confused. She like weaves her fire at
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: ches Meel and then thinks, wow, I didn't mean to
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: kill her, Like the fuck did you weave fire for?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't use fire unless you want to kill someone.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty selfish.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, oh, I just wanted
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: to set her foot on fire to distract her a
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: little bit, and I used a gallon of gasoline. You know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: it's like hot foot gone wrong.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Right, I would have hit her with like a wall
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: of water if you wanted to like temporarily get her
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: knocked out at the fight, you know, give her a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: moment of feeling water boarded, so she just cannot figure
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: out what's happening while you deal with the other guy.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Like fire is irreversible anyway.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: But yeah, she literally picks up Eldrith to protect herself
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: from melar throwing a knife. Just throw Eldrith at her,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: like at him, like you're picking her up already.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, She's tired, she's running out of it,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: she's lost blood, she's been healed, she's used a lot
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: of power, she's running on fumes. And also he needs
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: to slit Ultra's throat for plot reasons, right, right, right,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: That makes for a more excellent moment when she pulls
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the woman up as a shield, thinking she'll be a
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: meat shield, and instead he's like, oh, thank you for
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: making it easier for me to kill her. I had
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to do that anyway, check off my list.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: So he slits her throat and kills Tamile just by
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: stabbing her in the heart cause she's on the ground unconscious. Yeah,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: so we have the death of three Black sisters pretty much.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: And these are you know again, he's these are the
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: three black sisters that fled the tower way back. When
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: are they part of the thirteen?
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I believe so. Yes, yes, And she doesn't even kill them.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: A fellow dark friend kills them. She watches helplessly, because
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you know, dark friends are really good at killing each other.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And that's just like orders. You were captured, therefore die.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I mean maybe that's what it was. That's what the
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: orders were, is like, we came down here to kill
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: these captured dark friends because captured dark friends are meant
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: You know, that might actually make sense. Lunaalt's orders were
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: to release Melar so that he could punish those sisters
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: who were captured and slip away, and Elaine just happened
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: to be there in the middle of that. And then
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Elaine goes for one more practical blunt force attack by
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: just basically trying to collapse the hallway on Melar as
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: he runs away with the medallions and just manages to
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: keep the original that is, she loses Melar, she loses
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a copy, but she does manage to keep the original medallion,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: which is really important for Matt.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, and for the killing, the goal, and for like
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: everything going forward.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's very If Mellar had gotten away with
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that one, a lot of plots would have had to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: go very differently.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Brigida runs up says, we found all the guards killed,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: stuffed in the you know stairwell.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Brigida and Matt finally arrive again, like a little
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: bit too late to actually help her with the situation,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: but soon enough to help her deal with the aftermath.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: And that switches us to Gowan, brings us to the
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: end of that POV.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really funny how the first line is an
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: hour after the failed assassination attempt, and I immediately I'm
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: always expecting it to be like an hour after the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: failed you know, the thing with a Laane, And then no,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: we're actually with again. We're switching back to the Gowen
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Agwayne situation of it all to one of their worst moments,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: A lot of bad moments, but this is really bottom shelf,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: like peak bottom shelf.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: This is when Gawen storms off and gets really sulky
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: about like being chewed out.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Essentially, well, it seems like you no man will ever
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: be good enough for a warder. Yeah, maybe not maybe
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the person who doesn't want a warder, doesn't want a warter, well,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: fuck you, then it's so childish.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Or maybe it shouldn't be a man, maybe it should
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: be a woman, a shawn Chan woman who's coming.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Seriously, just hold out for Lylewn. She's gonna be so
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: much better at this job than this punk ass princeling.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, there's the argument back and forth
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: of like, you stop, I would have captured the forsaken.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: You you know, fucked that up by triggering the trap early.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Now any deaths that are caused by the Forsaken or
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: on you now of course, like not realizing that there's
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the blood knives. So they're both wrong in a lot
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: of ways because yes, the trap would have captured a
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: blood knife, and then you would have known about the
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: blood knives, right, But she wouldn't have captured the Forsaken.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what I find frustrating is that Agwain cannot accept
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that Gawain might have any useful information to bring to bear, Like, yeah,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: he made a rash decision. Why could we please interrogate
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: why he made that decision.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: They're both very frustrating in this moment.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he has information that is relevant to what you're
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: mad about him messing up. You need to call aborrate communicate,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: but no, no, no communication in my wheel of time. Yeah,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: it's very disappointing from both of them. I get its
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: late at night. I get their miscommunicating and having a
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: tough time, But her inability to admit that he has
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: any value at all is a problem. This is not
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: all on him.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: No, And that knife that got thrown at him, right,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: let's examine that knife with a guayin and be like,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: this is not a Forsaken knife. This is a sean
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Chan knife. Like you might recognize it, even if you don't,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: maybe we can get a little information, right, like why
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: are Forsaken throwing knives? That doesn't make sense. They just
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: just communicate.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're just talking past each other though. All
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: they're doing is talking past each other about what they
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: think happened and what they think the other one's thinking,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and they're not actually really hearing a damn word each
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: other are saying.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: So we get the scene where he talks to Cubain
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: about getting the younglings into the Tower army, and Cubain says, sure,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: sounds good, I'll make a division out of them.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: No drama there. Yeah, it's a good little resolution.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: You know, Gwin is getting along fine with Juwbain and
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: making this like tying up loose ends from the younglings. Right,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of loose ends there, and this is
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: just a really neat, no drama economic way to just
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: tuck it all away. And it's nice to have some
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: amount of communication working, like clearly Gowain can communicate with
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: some people, just not with a grain so.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: And then I just have him basically storming off saying,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to visit my sister. It's about tom I
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: went to see her, and me going, yes it is.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: It's not that you're gonna make it right. You're gonna
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: he's gonna turn around before he goes anywhere and come
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: back to say Agwayne's life a second time. But oh
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: my god, would I have not been so happy for
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: him to just go to a Lane and take over
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: from Brigida and be there when Brigida dies to take
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: over the army for a Lane. I think he would
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: have been a better character that way.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It would have been really satisfying, and then we could
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: have had some sort of moment where him and Agwain
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: can come together and talk and be like, yeah, we
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: weren't really well suited. That was a thing that we did,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and we're mature and we can recognize that that's not
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: going to have worked now and it could have been fine.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Or have her bond Lylewyn and be like, listen, I
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: have a worder. I don't need a order, but I
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: would love to have you as my husband and they
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: could fall in love.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: That would have been great. That would have been great.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: We need to have slightly more fears of our lives
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: not overlapping, but we can have this part of our
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: lives overlap. That would have been.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Awesome, and then we could be on more equal terms.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: You can be the prints over in Camlin. I can
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: be the ambulance seat and you're not just my worder.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it could have been really cool. This could have
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: been when the Gwaen and GWayne thing turned around. This
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: is a moment at which multiple paths open up and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: could have gone ways. And then Sanderson picked the worst
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: possible option of all those paths.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, and then talk saying, could you imagine if you
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: actually saved Camlin, Like if, for example, Matt read the
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: thing too late and was running in but Gowen was
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: at the gate and was saved, you know, holding the
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: line and preventing the incoming trollicks.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: That would have been so cool, you know.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Him maybe maybe him in some younglings, or him in
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: some of his troops that you know, were loyal to
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: him back in and Or that followed him down into
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: the cave, or you know, for example, maybe Oliver opens
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: the letter and instead of going to Matt, Gowin's there,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and Gowin's able to save the city.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's there with like friends that you never met
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: from before the books even started, like school friends, and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: they're out there just completely saving the day. And then
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Tilmanis gets to be the cavalry that backs them up.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: And like, and that's just or just him. Even if
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: he doesn't save the day and stop the invasion of
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: and Or, he's there to fight for and Or to
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: fight for his homeland, to fight for for Camlin.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And if he dies, he dies defending his home terf
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: rather than some patch of ground that Demondred was like
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Dick waving over.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: And not bonded to Elaine or not bonded to Awayne.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Not bonded to either of them.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's unbonded. Yeah, really unbonded. He he doesn't need
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: to be bonded to anybody. That's not how his story
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: should end.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe he does still have one of the blood Knife
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: rings though, and like decides to use it because his
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: sister's kingdom is more important than his life and it's
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: all still epic and heroic, and he still dies, but
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: like with his prize from Jahatman, more of our shitty,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: terrible fanfic.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because we yeah, we'd have to rewrite the
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: whole last three books and we're not going to do that.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: No, but this is a moment where we might not
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: have been so annoyed with Gwen if this had gone
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: different ways from this point, this departure could have been
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the nadir of the story for him.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Right, This could have been his low point where he
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: comes back as a different person. Not Oh, I'm this
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: love sick puppy who wants to be Agwain's order, But
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I'm a leader of an army holding my own in
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: and Or and that's the reason she can love.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Me, right, right, That's what he wants as much in
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: conjunction with Agwayne is to be yeah, the defender of Andrew.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: That would have been cool, but alas he's not going
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: to make that choice. But for now we are going
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to make the choice to move to the final POV
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of the chapter.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Land And this is not quite raising the golden crane
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: for Tarmer Guiden, but the golden crane is there.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're really reaching that tip over point at the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: top of the roller coaster, like we're doing the curvy
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: thing right at the top before the drop happens. Like
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: we are now at dozens. We are changing our alibi.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: There is definitely a banner and a saddle bag that
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: we're not quite looking at yet. Like it is all
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: coming together.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Very interesting. The difference between Land's banner, which is a
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: golden crane on a white background, and Rand's banner, which
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: is a red dragon on a white background. How similar.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: It's like them on this these noble forces of light,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: which is their their image, their icon, their creature, on
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: this white background because the white is the purity, the goodness, right,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: Like they are heroes, Rand and Land.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's easy to see across the battlefield too, right,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: It's like it's just that. Yeah, that's how you know
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: it's hero coded. It's very hero coded. And also, I
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: mean when rand got it. He was really coming out
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of a period of mentorship with Land in the border Lands.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: It's a very border Land or again hero coded esthetic
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: because of that, and it feels like a good callback
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to early books to be like, hey, Lan, you know
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: how your mentor you know how your mentee had to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: go through that in book two and three. Yeah, you're
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to, you know, follow in your
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: mentees' footsteps with accepting this banner situation.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: And it's not nearly as frustrating as parents banner situation,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: where he's taking it out, putting it away, taking it out,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: putting it away, taking it out, putting it away. Like
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: it's like Land just puts it away until the moment
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: make it out and then he says, okay, let's do this.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Land also has you know, twenty five some
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: odd forty years of practice before paren ever got into
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: the game.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: So Land is in his forties now. I believe it's
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: the official there's the old of the Moraine.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: He's not much older than Marine. So but he's been
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: doing this banner thing for the twenty years that parent's
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: been alive. You know, I'm just saying parent's a novice
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: at how to handle not wanting a banner compared to Land.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like Land. If Rand has to deal
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: with a banner for the whole world, you're gonna have
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to do your part and accept the banner on behalf
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of the borderlands that want to be backing up Rand
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and his banner, like this is this is where you
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: need to be in the structure. He's very close to
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: admitting it because the camp is now expanding rapidly. We
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: are getting dozens of men, right, yeah, the acceleration of
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: his force. Yeah yeah, yeah, all not in the make.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, We're definitely not here for the raising
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: the Golden Crane. No, no, not at all.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's starting to accept like, well, they didn't really
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: ask to ride with me, they just started doing it.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: But I still can't say no because I've accepted that
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: they are riding with me, and I've promised to accept
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: people who want to ride with me. Even if they
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: don't say they want to ride with me, they are
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: demonstrating they want to ride with me. So, and we
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: get lots of names here. I'm assuming more fan names,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: but so.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I'm looking up Wellyn was one who's visited by Marine
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: or by Ninive, So that was one where we actually
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: saw him before.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: These are the merchants that Ninive was visiting to get
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the news out, because merchants have networks exactly.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so and so was Mannigan, right, he was
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: with them in.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: My husband rides for Tarman Giden. Will he write alone?
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Like they're the ones who actually witnessed that.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I heard that? Yeah, yeah, same with Corney Ellen. Yeah,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Let's see, let me look up Qui.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: That seems like it might be these are Shanaran's yep. Yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Qui is named for ja a fan of Wheel of Time.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: So that first group were the ones we saw before.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: But it looks like we have this second group of characters.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Who are these Shinaarns.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, five Shinarns who just have names that feel like
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: fan inserts, and I love that for them.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Joo is named for jow Pinheiro, a fan of the
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Wheel of Time. Miracle is named for Joseph Merckling, a
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: fan of the Wheel of Time. Jan Or is named
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: for Ian Norris, a fan of the Wheel of Time.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Coheen is named after Joel Queen of the Fan of
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: the Wheel of Time. So yeah, those last five are
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: definitely all fan inserts for sure.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: And I noticed too if you look on the next page,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: they go through this you know, little montage of a
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: discussion where they're offering their stuff up, and none of
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: them are named in that exchange. It's like it's like
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the first one said this, the second one said that,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the third one said this. So like Sanderson wrote this
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and just left blanks for the names in the preceding paragraph,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: but didn't actually insert those names into how the subsequent
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: conversation goes like it really was just like pop them
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: in there and let's go like at the last minute,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming because you know it was.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of them were beta readers, right,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: They were like helping him like near the end of
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: the writing process with making sure everything was good. So
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and so. Yeah, basically, these guys sold everything that they
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: own and turned it into the most dense war materials
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: they could so that they could carry literally all of
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: their wealth to join the fight.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And I'll just maybe read us out, yeah.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Do it. This is this is a swelling moment of
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: music as we're approaching the beginning of the end.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: It's it's great, we have brought what we could to
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: the cause of the golden crane. Another of the merchants added,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: all that we could gather in a little time. It
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: is not much, said the third, but we lend you
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: our swords as well. We may look to have grown soft,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: but we can fight. We will fight. I don't need
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: what you brought, Land said, exasperated. Aye, before you say
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: too much, old friend, Andre said, laying a hand on
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Land's shoulder, Perhaps you should have a look at that.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: He nodded to the side. Land frowned. Hearing a rattling sound.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: He stepped past a patch of trees to look upon
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: the path to the camp. Two dozen wagons were approaching,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: each piled high with supplies, weapons, sacks of grain tents.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Land opened his eyes wide. A good dozen war horses
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: were hitched in a line, and strong oxen pulled the wagons.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Teen stirs and servants walked alongside them. When they said,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: they sold what they could and brought supplies. Andre said,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: they meant it. We will never be able to move
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: quickly with all of this, Land said, and deer shrugged.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Land took a deep breath. Very well, he would work
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: with it. Moving quietly appears to be failing. Anyway. From
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: now on, we will pose as a caravan delivering supplies
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: to Shinar. But you will swear to me, he said,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: turning towards the men. Each of you will swear not
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: to reveal who I am or send word to anyone
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: else who might be looking for me. You will swear it.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: Naziar looked like he would object, but Land silenced him
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: with a stern look. One by one they swore the
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: five had become dozens, but it would stop there.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Spoilers. It won't, It won't.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Also, they're swearing to you right like there's loyalty. There's
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: a band right that you've claimed authority over them.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is doing his best parent impression, having it
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: both ways at this point. It's going to pass relatively quickly.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: But he is doing a parent impression right now.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty much it for that chapter.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're moving forward, we're tidying plots up, we're getting
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: people collected.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Gowin's being a little prick.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Gowin's being annoying, but we are at least moving him around.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: We've got some of his younglings pushed off into the tower.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: We've got him going to talk to a lane. We've
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: got a Gwaine learning that there's more going on in
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: terms of threats to her life than before. Like we're
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: at least getting some kind of motion and not just spiraling.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's cutting characters off, right, there's a lot
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: of characters, Like this is the final chapter they're in, right,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: this is the.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Group killing characters, he's killing plots. He's again, we're streamlining,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: we're densifying, we are collapsing the floors towards the final level.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: And let's just run down those thirteen. I've got the
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: list of the thirteen members. So Leandren ends up serving
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: as a doc oveil cheesmul Emory. We just saw her
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: get toasted, fried toast Eldrith.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: She just died too, on Melar's knife.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Melar. Yeah, Marlyn captured by Elaine and then escapes. I
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: don't think we get a final death or anything on her.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: She's just escaped at some point as Nay killed by
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Chanell trying to take Elaine out of Kamlin. That was
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: a knife of dreams.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, in the big bail fire battle thing.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, Jeanine green Aja killed by Tom in the
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: last battle. She's the one who's trying to get in,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: sneaks in and Tom stabs her in the back.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: She walks in looking like kad Swain, but she doesn't
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: walk like kadswayn, so Tom just knifes her without hesitation.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Falane serves Milly Skane but escapes. In Abu Dhar Towers
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: of Midnight, Marilla blew Aja, location unknown. We never get
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: any information on her. Really, Wow, Ispahan killed by Karin
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: carry inn I. Everyone say that in Abudar. Remember that
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Karrian the Dark Friend, the dark Friend.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, you're cool, just making showers remembering that
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: name correctly. Okay. So sometimes the dark Friends take each
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: other out in the name of keeping their subterfuge.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Mostly what they get captured and they're not allowed. It's
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: basically they get killed as prisoners, so they don't give
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: over any information.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, yeah, man, it seems like a really bad
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: cost benefit analysis to.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Go into being a dark d oh yeah, tirre terrible.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Your own allies are your most major danger.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: Like uh Rihanna. She's white. She survives the last battle
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: and is captured in the.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Steading Oh okay, okay, she's one of.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: The stetting ones. Joya By are killed by Slayer after
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: being captured in the Stone of Tears, so again captured
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: and killed.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are really distinct. If you get captured, you
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: get killed. That's two Isidi get killed in that if
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I'm are calling correctly right, it's Joya and.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Amiko Amiko Yep, yeah, joy and Amika was the next one,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: and then to mile So, Tamile, Amiko, Joya, Ispahn, Eldrith,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: and chezmel So. At least six of the thirteen are
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: killed after being captured.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: By other Dark Friends.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really don't see the benefit and being a
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: dark friend.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: And the rest of them, and then of the ones
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: that weren't killed, Leandern was captured by as doc O
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: vail Rihanna's stuck in the setting. So that's two, and
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: then like like two more captured permanently, and then a
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: couple others are killed but in actual battle. But yeah,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: for the most part, for those parts of those thirteen,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: of those original thirteen Black Aja who we you know
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: are going to be such a big part of the series,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: we think most of them are just captured and then
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: killed at some various points in time.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Not by our heroes, captured by our heroes and then
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: killed ingloriously by their fellows. That is kind of wild.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So chess Mel is killed by Lane, Jeanine is killed
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: by Tom. That's it wow, because the everyone else is
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: either killed is either captured permanently or killed after being captured,
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: or the one that we don't know anything about. Just wow,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: our girls are not very so literally that chapter. This
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: chapter is the only time one of the Supergirls kills
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: one of the thirteen. The only time.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Is this that is wow is when.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: She takes out Chessmel. She didn't even mean to do
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: it either.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I really debate setting someone on fire and not meaning
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: to kill them as being at all thought. But what
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: you mean like it's a in the moom heat of
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: battle kind of kill rather than a deliberate like.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take this person out?
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Wow. That is an incredibly unsuccessful I mean,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Moraine kills more Forsaken than the super Girls kill of
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: the thirteen. Like Moraine by herself kills more of the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: literal forsaken than all the Supergirls manage to kill of
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the thirteen that they went out hunting. That is bonkers.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, granted, a lot of the ones that get
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: killed by dark friends would have been executed by the
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: eyes to die judicial process.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, they captured many of them, right, Yeah, of the
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: six that were killed, they captured those.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they would have been taken to to a calculated death,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: but still they didn't actually get there. The Dark Friends
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: had beat them to it.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: So that was a fun little It's kind of like,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: when you look at the Forsaken, you like, didn't Ran
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: kill a bunch of them? You're like, not really, Moraine did.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: But Ryan kill about the same number a forsaken.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Wow, it's an interesting perspective.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: I mean Rand kills a Shameel three times four times?
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Actually is that one or four?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: The question, and.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: He's not, you know, kill defeat. He doesn't technically kill
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: him in those first couple of books, even though he
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: stabs he does for the sword. Yeah, he thinks he does.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: He takes a lot of personal damage and thinks he does,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: so I mean it feels like it counts initially as
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: a first time reader. Fun. Well, we got through that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: in an hour.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: That was it was long enough. I don't think we
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: want to do another chapter on top of that, but
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: short enough that we did blow through it pretty quickly.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, This is definitely the most variable length of
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: all my podcasts. Everything else I produce has a much
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: more consistent pocket that its length falls into. Watt Spoilers
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: is really a wild animal.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: It depends a lot on the chapter, for sure.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: It really does. It really does, And.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Maybe we could have packed two into this one. But
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: I'm happy we didn't.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I'm really happy we didn't. I'm tired and still have
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: as we've been hinting another project to work on. Are
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: what are we telling this audience about that?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know how closer to when it comes out,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: I think we want to hype it up a little
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: bit more.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, stay tuned, Stay tuned for news that we're doing
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a bad job of keeping secret. I thank you for
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Please rate
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app, and consider supporting
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: us on Patreon for ad free episodes. Watts Spoilers is
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a production of Fox and Raven Media. For more podcasts
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: from Fox and Raven Media, visit our website at Foxendravenmedia
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: dot com.