A Vow & Use a Pebble - Towers of Midnight chapters 14 & 15 - EP553

Egwene has unrealistic expectations of punctuality in the World of Dreams, the Taint is comparable to an industrial accident, and we spend far too much time researching questions that have no answers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. So, yeah,
we are adults. Are we ready to talk about books
we read as children?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Right?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, this book. We were actually adults by the time
this book came out, That is true.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, we were unfortunately very different place than when it
first came out.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, very much. So good.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh man, I just got reminded about Ravens. Someone's asking
about why does my book start differently and I of
the World, and it's like, oh god, Ravens. That's right.
I forgot about Ravens that chapter, And so that we're
talking about Agwayne. This just it's so funny to think
about that dumb ass chapter. No offense to ever wrote it,
because I know it wasn't Robert Jordan, that dumbass chapter

(01:01):
about Agwayne. But this is a good one. We've got
a couple of good chapters here. I think this is
These are very satisfying. Yeah, if you look at the
three books that Sanderson wrote as one book, this is
sort of We're halfway through the second book, which is
halfway through the trilogy, so we're kind of past most
of the Sander slowness, well not quite. At the sandal Lanche.
There's always a little bit there where he's still warming

(01:23):
up and still moving a few pieces around, but you
get the occasional victory, you get the occasional conclusion, which
we do in these chapters. So really liking that.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, the beginning of Annie Sanderson book is rough, and
we have finally exited the beginning. We're now at like, well,
the beginning of the middle section before the full sander
Lanch initiates. There's a section between the beginning and the
sander Lanch that we are now entering, and this is, yeah,
much better. The last several episodes have been a lot
of really like dragging ourselves through it, But I enjoyed

(01:55):
these chapters. There's a lot of Agwaine being omrelin, yeah,
being a love sick girl, not a GWayne being in
a power struggle a GWayne doing Omorlin's stuff, and she's
competent and she's having reunions with people and it's, yeah,
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And I need healing, right.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Oh, and I need healing madness, which like she's already
done one epic healing scene that we had a good
time with, right, we have like we've already had two healings.
Truly right, she healed Stilling and then she helped Rand
cleanse the taint.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, heal the world.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
And now for a trifecta, she's gonna heal madness, which
we've been looking forward to for a while. And yeah,
it's a really good scene. It's really well written.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
She's like, you know what, I know, I cleansed the taint,
but I didn't cleanse it hard enough. So I'm gonna
wash every little bit of it out of people.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Cann go wash everyone's personal.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Tak Yeah, the meaning of that word has changed over
the years.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh, I under what Robert Jordan thought of that transition
as it was happening, just like, wait it means what now?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Wait wait, Like I'm sure someone came up to him
and was like, sir, why did you pick these words?
He's like, I didn't pick it when it meant that,
right would?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I would be curious to trace the origin of the
word taint to mean the piece of skin down there,
as opposed to like something is tainted.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
What is the chain of custody on that?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I'm sure the Internet could tell me, but I'm not
googling that.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I mean, at least put on safe search, not safe
search incognito man, probably both incognito at the same time.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
So I was like, why what do you do? What's
the both?

Speaker 1 (03:51):
So I can find one result, the only result that
exists at the intersection of those two things.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Now, yeah, the taint is the intersects.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, this is tailspin. We have we have deranged singing
and chat.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Oh no, oh, come on, if we can't giggle at
the taint thing every once in a while, do we
really have fun with this?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm currently wearing my my Harbor Master can find North
Harbor at least fifty percent of the time. Sure, from
what I was boor it yesterday, and Brandon's like, where
did you get that shirt from? Like, oh, you know,
here's a seven layer deep joke. More for like the
forty five people that have followed all of that for

(04:41):
this time, it was for a good cause, it's for charity, it's.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
I haven't oh, but the number of YouTube videos I've
seen pop up where people like have you seen this
island from Wheel of Time? You know? And then yeah, anyway.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Do we want to get into this book.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Phrasing? Uh, yeah, no, all right, we are here to
do chapter fourteen a vow and we've got the dream
Terangreoll because this is in Toeleerandrial and the dream terrangreioll
come up quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Actually, oh yeah, more than just being in the dream world.
This is actually a topic of conversation.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I guess that's my reading, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
It sure is.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Agwain walked up the side of a gentle slope, the
grass green at her feet, the air cool and pleasant.
Lazy butterflies floated from blossom to blossom, not curious children
peeking into cupboards. Agwaine made her shoes vanish so she
could feel the blades beneath her feet. She took a
deep breath, smiling, then looked up at the boiling black clouds, angry, violent, silent,

(05:54):
despite flashes of amethysts, lightning, terrible storm above, quiet placid
that beneath a dichotomy of the world of dreams. Oddly,
till I run Riod felt more unnatural to her now
than it had during her first few visits. Using variants
tear angriol, she'd treated this place like a playground, changing
her clothes on a whim, assuming that she was safe.

(06:16):
She hadn't understood till I run Riod was about as
safe as a bear trap painted a pretty color. If
the Wise Ones hadn't straightened her out, she might not
have lived to become Omerelin. And I'll cut it there
because there's not really a good cut off point for that.
It's just vibes and thinking, and that's really what's happening,
is till I run Riod is dangerous, Agwayne is returning
to her roots. Variance to ron Greal is relevant. And

(06:39):
the Wise Ones, the Wise Ones and their education matter.
Like that's really the core of what this chapter is about.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
I do like the storm above archonology. It kind of again,
I always think of tell Runnernod as the sort of
the shell of the Dark One's prison, and so it
makes sense that you sort of have this descending cloud
as that prison erodes, as it begins to affect more
and more, you know, the Dark Ones basically infecting more
and more of that prison.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, totally, it totally makes sense to me with that headcanon. Yeah,
like he's scratching at the sky, he's pushing on the bubble,
he's creating more friction, and yeah, you got electrical discharge
and the metaphysical firmament.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
And some of that is the bubbles of evil that
he's able to push through, and he's pushing through more
and more and more of those, and those are little
pieces of the dream world that then alter what's going
on in the physical realm. So yeah, very not safe, right,
Like think about that. What if it turns out this
whole world, alternate world they've been playing in is actually
just like the shell of the Dark Ones prison and
it's like, oh, yeah, you've been playing dancing like five

(07:39):
feet away from the Dark One on his glass little prison,
right with your little hoofs.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right, Yeah, totally, he's been watching you the whole time.
He was right there.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
And that's why I always I always liked the theory
that like maybe Eshameel for the most part, was trapped
when he was trapped and he got closer to the edge,
he was trapped in the world of dreams when the
borro was sealed, and so he could actually reach out
because he was a dream walker and that's one of
the ways he was able to affect. Every forty years
or so, he got closer and he wasn't really I know,

(08:12):
he was there in person as an advisor for Ardur
hawk Wing, but I kind of think like maybe he wasn't.
There's a lot of question about like when he was effective,
So maybe he was only out in person for a
few years. But he's able to like being people's dreams
for like a bit of time around that period of
time before he physically got out, as he was getting
closer and closer to the surface.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Right, and then he's like, no, I'm going to show
up like next week, I'll actually be in the flesh.
Oh look here I am. Now you know everything I
say is real? Yeah, I like that. I like adding
weird dream powers to make more Bendy Wendy Eye of
the worlds and stuff. And you need to answer Mom
Jeans's question, because that's a good question. Does that mean
that the dream world was created at the moment he

(08:53):
was imprisoned?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, of course, it was all created at the same time.
The Wheel of the world, the prison the Dark One
was created with the world Old with Teleron Riod at
once as a prison for the Dark One.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
That makes sense to me. The three constants, right, they
all have to come into existence at the same time
in order to be evenly balanced. The Dark One, the
Creator and Teleroon Reodd.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
In the moment of creation, there was the dark One,
there was the Creator, and there was the Dark One's prison.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
First there was none and then there was three.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, right, because the cycle is there's a the dark
One's prison exists, a hole is drilled in it, that
hole is patched, the patch breaks down, it's remade as
a new prison, so that when the wheel comes around again,
it is made whole. Right, And so it must have
been made whole when I mean and again, because this
is the wheel that always rolls, and that doesn't have
been beginning and ending, right. The dark One's always been

(09:41):
in prison.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Right, and the dark One. The world has never existed
without the dark One. As we see in Rand's vision
of like how the world would look Sand's dark One,
It's like, well, that's not a world that exists, right,
it just doesn't. The Dark One is entropy and chaos,
and this is necessary for life to form.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
The choice has to be there, right, The choice to
end everything and end in darkness is a part of
the human experience and without it you're not human.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, you can't actually purify the darkness completely away. If
you're gonna do light, you're gonna have shadow. It's just
kind of the thing, and yeah, shadows exist for exactly
as long as the light does.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
So there's a moment here where she says she would
have to cover an equal distance before this was done
in a far shorter time, sort of talking about her
growth and everything, and like, well, hats because Sanderson started
over again on some characters.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, but also just like we've spent you know, two
years of in book time over all these books, and
now we have to conclude the actual last battle in
like the next two months or something. Right, There's there's
in and out world layers to.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
That totally, so I guess that is the whole. Like
all this has been preparing for the test, but test
is here, and sometimes you learn as much on the
test as you do leading up to it.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Genuinely.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, and I like this line. Both problems and possible
solutions seemed uncountable. They overwhelmed her drowning and all the
things she should be doing, only because I'm feeling that
way sometimes myself. That's just oh my god, I should
be cleaning the house and grocery shopping, and oh I
need to be making money. Oh and I should be socializing.

(11:19):
Oh I need to rest and take care of myself.
Oh you know, like it's like, oh yeah, she's doing that,
except you know, with life and the Last Battle and
the White Tower and everything, right, this idea that like, oh,
she just had to unite the White Tower and then
things would be okay, And now she's past.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
That point, right, And it's like that's a it's a
necessary side effect of tunnel vision, right, you have to
tunnel vision onto something and say, Okay, I'm going to
get through this because that is what I'm working for.
Is that was what I was saying before in earlier books,
right her thing where she says I'm going to scrub
the patch of floor in front of me, and I'm like, yeah,
that's great life advice. But yeah, this is that really
awkward moment after once you get to the goal, you

(12:02):
can exit the tunnel. Now what right? This is this
is a huge existential crisis for like an Olympic gold medalist,
but for someone like a gain, it's just now what's
the next step? And it's options paralysis. You know, looking
at my life, it's like okay, yeah, I've I've got
the house, I've got the degree. Everything's cool. Now what
am I doing with my life? What is the thing

(12:24):
that I'm doing. What's my capital w.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Work or in this case, what am I doing with
the White Tower? Right, Like, this is supposed to be
the most potent force to oppose the dark One. Here's
the last battle. What do I do? Well, She's still
kind of heavily focused on cleaning up the White Tower, right,
She's still focused inward. She still knows there's a forsaken
among the ranks, and she's almost entirely focused on taking

(12:50):
care of that problem.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Right, And I mean, and this is the trap that
you know, the electoral brain worm takes us into. Right,
we just have to get this one person elected in
this one election, and then everything will be fine. And
then like no, you have to keep the pedal to
the medal, and then you have to also be willing
to go back into that hyper focused tunnel in just
two years or four years, and like this is this
is the cycle that is It's a real human problem.

(13:16):
Humans find themselves in this codundrum at scale or in
their personal lives just over and over against this is
a normal thing. But yeah, when you have an institution
as powerful as the White Tower to work with, you
expect to have a little more agency I mean rand
rails against this a lot, right, Like I'm supposed to
be the center of the world, but like I can't
make any choices for myself. It's the soldiers with no

(13:38):
power that have all the agency.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's sometimes too much power in agency is not a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, I feel like presidents have always railed against the
golden chains of the office, right, this idea that like
I have to fall the law. I can't just do
whatever I want. There's procedures in place, and I have
to you know, there's very few points where someone that
gets to make a choice if they're following standard protocol
and the low morals.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, standard moras that have been set by generations of
presidents before them, literal constitutional laws that have been decided
on by generations of people and power, and if there.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Was any enforcement of those said laws.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, but no, I mean it is a common
I mean that's like the entire like thrust of the
crown on netflix, right, It's like, oh, look at these
poor royals and this life that they can't make any choices,
and like that's the entire stick, is that it's a
gilded cage. Right. This is a common theme is that
leaders have less choice, but a GWayne at least chose

(14:42):
this role. And now she's simply overwhelmed by options. It's
not like she was forced into it by virtue of
birth or something.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
No, I mean there was a moment though, where they
were they summoned her, and her being summoned as the
AMBULANCEE right, wasn't much of a choice on her part.
It was set up by Suan.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
No, but she's chosen repeatedly by now.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, But that initial choice was like
it was like definitely a sinker swim moment, because like
if she didn't swim in that moment, I don't think
she would have survived it. So that's why I really
talk about, like how much of a choice was it
for her to become the ambuline that she became, because otherwise,
you know, not very many people survived becoming a former

(15:21):
Amberlin just asked, sou on right, like right, right didn't
go that well for her?

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah. Now she thinks about how she's got two meetings tonight,
which is going to take us two chapters. That's why
this is one episode, and she says her biggest difficulty
was going to be the perceptions of the people she
met with. Neither group would see her as what she
had become. That's what makes the reunion aspect of these
chapters so good, as we have to deal with the

(15:47):
characters coming to terms with seeing agwayenasus she's become. It's
it's quite satisfying a Gwayna is set up for disappointment
and she is pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
And I need the willingness to change I think is
the is a big part of it as well. Right,
Ninive has humbled herself finally, right, that almost back to
the willing to accept the One power from when she
was drowning. Right, that was a real change of character
moment in her or she didn't have to go angry anymore,
and she was willing to accept that there are things
she cannot control, including the One Power, right and including

(16:19):
her friends. So she's really grown ever since then. We
just one of the reasons why I really did miss
her on screen is we kind of saw her with Rand,
but like really only from Rand's POV and we didn't
get this sort of like Jordan wrote her as accepting
that she couldn't change things, and then she went and
helped herand and was just there to help Rand, right, Like,
I feel like we didn't really get that from her

(16:40):
POV anymore. It was just like, Okay, she's taken care
of she can go be Rand's you know, second channeler.
She'll hold the calendar at the last battle. But I
do like that we get a little more character development
from her here.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, I know it's really fun, but first we do
the Wise Ones. We go to the Stone of Tier,
the Heart of the Stone, where we always meet, and
we meet with Bear and Amis.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Which I get why they meet there when there's always
that's where people are always watching. I wonder if the
people watching were always like the Ayel the Wise Ones
the whole time.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
That's why they don't mind meeting there. We let's fine
if I'm doing it right exactly. Yeah, I never understood
why they continued to meet in the stone long after
Rand was out of the stone. It's like that that
was a moment for the Ael, the whole Stone of
Tyr Heart of the Stone, like that was a thing,
but like it's over.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Now, but more a moment for Rand right than for
the Aeel.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well, but them conquering the stone was an important part
of why that moment was so big for rand right,
like the stone of Tears shall never fall into the
people of the Dragon Come. It's kind of an important
moment for the ideel. But it seems like, yeah, they
would just maybe go back to like the Waste for
their meetings after dis encamping from Yeah, cold Rocks Hole, Drudian,

(17:57):
you know any of those places? Yeah, we can't go
to until I run around. It's it's warded in weird ways.
Is that not true anymore?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
No, it's not not true anymore that he broke out warning.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
But I would have expected, Yeah, like a favorite spot
in Cold Rocks Hold, like that would have been where
I would assume they would want to go. But no,
Stone them Tear.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, No, I'm pretty sure the fight with Asmodi and
destroyed all protections that Ruddy and had on it.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, I know it did all the ones in the
physical world. But it would that would make sense that
it also applies to the dream world. That would that
would make sense, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Because it's just it's back in the real world. It's
back it was. It doesn't have that that separation anymore,
that magical warding.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, so she gets there. There's two wise ones, and
she updates them on the tower and they go, ah,
so that that's you're not coming back to us. I
guess that's why you're wearing Wetlander clothes. Here have the
stole of the Amorlin. So Leah will be pissed, but congratulations.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
They honor her. They kind of say, ah, it's a
shame you're finding SSS there. We'd hope you'd come back
to us where we could have you. You know. It's
it's very it's good ribbing. It's like, hey, no, we
want you to like I feel like if someone gets
a job at another company who's like a really good worker,
you would say stuff like this to them, like I'm
glad you're doing well. I'm glad you're CEO of that company,
but we miss you over here.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Stuff like that, right, A little bit more cutting than that.
Me and Well are harsh, but yeah, Wannace to be like, hey,
you can't insult my people too much. But also I
get it, I get it. They have good for Poort
and she's, you know, still surprised at how much she
respects them and needs their approval in order to fish.
She's like, I'm a big, strong, confident nomerlin, I don't

(19:33):
need no I eel mom to tell me that I've
did a good job. But then when her ing moms
tell her that she did a good job, she feels
all warm and fuzzy inside.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, you've grown much since we last met. That sent
a thrill through a gwayn.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Because yeah, she did. She's she used their lessons to
grow in ways that they would recognize. And yeah, of
course they recognize it.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
They talk about Rand a little bit. He's embraced death.
He has achieved the strength of the wind, not the
strength of the stones.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
I like that turn of phrase, the strength of the wind,
because like exhibit deserts sand dunes, right, Like who's stronger now, bitch?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Also the opening of every book, right, a wind rows.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well and also that yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
And then you know, if you've read storm lt Archive, right,
Sanderson has the thing with wind.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
I can't imagine where he got it from.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, I always wonder how much that came from the
opening of these books that he I.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Would assume it's entirely from the opening of these books.
He credits Robert Jordan is inspiring him with wanting to
be an author.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
So like the Wind, and especially in his last book
of Storm Archive, the wind really becomes this thing that
is sentient separate from well, it's one of his mysteries
he hasn't revealed yet, but the wind really becomes this
thing that is This gets a voice in his latest
book Spoilers, by the way.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
And then they also say this cool thing about a
GWayne that she gave them good material to work with,
that no amount of untangling will make a shitty piece
of string good, but if it's a good piece of cordage,
then it's worth the work to untangle it. And I
thought that was a cool way of describing Agwayne's arc
with them.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
I also love the day get the White Tower being like, oh, yeah,
the White Tower got you all knotted up and we
straightened you out. Like they fucked it up real bad.
It's like when you get somebody else's dog and you're like, oh,
this dog is the worst training. I'll fix that right totally.
Not to compare agwayn to a dog.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
No, but like to compare the ideal wise ones to
dog owners. Yeah, it seems appropriate.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
And then I think this is a really important line
where she says, I wish there were a way to
train more sisters in the ways of the Wise Ones,
and that sets up what I would call the exchange
student program that get set up between the c Folk,
the Wise Ones, and the White Tower.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeap, the three way magical student exchange program that Agwain
has a whole amazing vision for that she totally was
going to make happen that I don't think Katswyne will
continue with.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
I'm gonna pretend it is going to happen.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
That's fine. I'm fine with that.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Because she's making these bargains already, that's true.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
She's getting a lot of other people on board.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So and then the can is the retirement community, right.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
So truly she's bringing in a fourth She's got a
fourth bonus community.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Right. Is there any group of channelers that we know
about that she's not bringing in.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Well, the Sharons and the shan Chan. Yeah, that's a
good point of Fuji kat Swayin does have a lot
of respect for Sorelia and by extension, Wise Ones, so well, yeah, okay,
that's maybe not the most unrealistic thing.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
And I see her seeing the advantages of that, especially
with the massive numbers of novices they have. She's like
ship them off I know, right, we can't handle them off,
but that sort of builds up, right, That's that's one
of those threads that sort of follows through for the
next couple of encounters with the Gwayn and the wise ones. Yeah,
the other negotiations that build up to that student exchange program.

(22:59):
This is what I'm gonna because I think that's like
they can't come up with a better name for like.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, nobody would be any amount confused if that's what
you called it. Everyone would know what you meant. Like
if you say brands and wives, no one is confused
about who you mean, even though it wasn't technically a marriage,
like we all know. So, yeah, the Magical Student Exchange
Program is definitely that Wetlands to dry Lands to White

(23:23):
Tower Lands.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
And there's like two pages of them talking about, you know,
we're going to send young novices. It does make sense
to send full ice ad eye because then they're not
very multiple and like how to break that, Like, Oh,
tell them it's for cultural understanding, not so they can learn,
not so we can break them or learn from us.
And Gwen's like, yeah, I know, it's kind of the

(23:45):
bold point. So she's basically coaching her how to say it.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah. Also, that's going to be a two way exchange.
It's not going to be one way because the cultural
superiority of the idea is a little overblown. You're not
that much better than us.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, and there's a lot of weaves the IELL can
learn from the Isidi. They are not the best channelers, right,
they've been learning, they've been exposed to them. But there's
there's a lot less complex weaving in the wise ones.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, the different schools of stuff. But it'll be a
two way exchange. There won't be one superior group gracing
the other with the gift of their knowledge and it's
so beneficent. No, it's going to be a two way
exchange where both parties are strengthened.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, Boujie, I think it's hard to remember that Codswain
isn't traditional because she's so old and has this like
old school way about her. But at the same time,
she doesn't do things the way I said I traditionally
do them right. She's willing to break the rules and
make because she just does things differently right.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
That's true. But yeah, once they're done with that, they
move on to rand and this well.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
GWayne breaks the news that they're going to break the
seals in the dark one.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, the Seals discussion, which they she gets a bunch
of reactions. She didn't expect it to this.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
She thinks they are going to resist him on that
because she thinks they're kind of in his pocket, right,
And when they're just like, oh, that is concerning, Yeah,
we really need to talk to him about that, he's
he's kind of dumb. She's like, oh, I didn't expect that.
Whereas when she tells Elayne and I neive right, Elaine's
kind of like, maybe he needs to do that, and
I needs like yeah, and you know, like they support

(25:18):
him a little more and are a little more skeptical.
They don't immediately assume it's the bad thing. And she
thought she'd have support from them because they're her friends.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, and then she immediately will get their one we
get there, But then she immediately is like, well, clearly
they're spending too much time with rand if they don't
agree with me immediately. And I'm just like, your high
horse is way too high. Get down now. But whatever,
we'll get there. One we get there. I guess that
is basically where we're going, because yeah, she ends the
meeting with the wise Ones and then heads off to
the hall of the Tower to wait for Elayne and Ninive.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
And Ninive's not there immediately how dare Yeah, though not
really sure why if we ever get an explanation or
if she's just.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
I think it's just she's on time and a Grain
was early, and a Grain's the kind of person who
thinks that if you're on time, you're.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Late, and the whole like, we don't even get to
mention the fact that time could be running differently in
til he run Riod like we usually do, Like none
of that was like, oh we went just like how
how can you expect someone to be on time and
tell run reod? It doesn't make any.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Sense, especially in a world where clocks are not consistent.
There's like comments in earlier books about like two clocks
will not be telling time exactly the same even if
you're in the same room, like they're not, Like it's
just clock technology is not that good. So yeah, it's
very silly of a Grain to be mad that Ninive
wasn't there waiting for her already, Like she's got CEO
brain girlboss brain mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
And then I really wanted to get into this window.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
All right, Yeah, let's do the window.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Okay, So let's read this. They're set into the glass.
Below the flame of Tarvaalin was a large segment in
the shape of the dragon's fang that wasn't part of
the original window. Agwayne stepped forward, inspecting the glass. There's
a third constant beside the Creator and the Dark One,
Varren's meticulous voice said, a memory from another time. There

(27:11):
is a world that lies within each of these others,
inside all of them at the same time, or perhaps
surrounding them. Writers in the Age of Legends called it
Teleran riad. And so I really so that segment alone, right,
the fact that there is a world that lies within
each of these others, right, there's a center world, just
like the Dark One's prison is the singular prison of

(27:32):
the Dark One that lies at the center of the pattern. Like,
I don't know, it just it lines up so well
with the description of what I think the Dark One's
prison would be. Yeah, and we know the Dark One
has to have always been in prison, which means Teleronriod
was a constant from the beginning.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
That's yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Anyway, but that's a quote that I want to talk about.
But before that, this window that exists, that's not the
window that they built in the physical world. Right, Where
is it coming from? Why is it in here? What
is it a reference to?

Speaker 1 (28:01):
So first of all, help me imagine it. This isn't
just the ancient symbol of ice to die, right, No,
it's not the thing in set with the flame. No,
it's still separated somehow. I'm bad at visualizing things, so
I'm just like trying to, like, okay, okay, it's like
an accent underneath the.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Main I'm trying to. Yeah, So think of if the
flame of Tarvollin kind of looks like a six, right, yeah,
and the fang kind of looks like a nine. Picture
a six sitting on top of a nine. Okay, like
one writer over the other one, yeah, right, as opposed
to a six and a nine nestled together like in
a six the number sixty nine right right?

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, that's exactly because I kept thinking, like, is he
he's not describing the original Isidie symbol? But that's almost yeah, Okay,
So they're separated vertically.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
That's that was my Because they're setting the glass below
the flame of tarvolin. Okay, Okay, it was a large
in the shape of the dragons fang, and I imagine
that that shape is actually larger as well. Then like
it's a small plan of Tarballan and there's a large
dragons fang underneath it.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, that's part of why I was having a hard
to imagine, is like I thought they must be the
same size, But then that feels really visually unbalanced. So okay, anyhow,
the visuals are less important than the symbology.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Right, and the fact that this was not built in
our reality, right, And so I guess you we have
all these instances of other realities are sort of clashing together, right,
We've seen that where rooms are moving, hallways are disappearing,
Like there really does appear to be some flexibility to
the pattern right now.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, to me, this feels more like I mean, first
of all, was in the world of dreams, so it
gets to be a lot looser right with what it's doing.
But it feels to me like it's It has always
read to me like a sign of the beginning of
the reconciliation between Tamerlin and Amberlin and Agwaine's meeting maybe

(30:02):
could have almost gone better, Like maybe there was a
way that like they came out of that meeting hand
in hand, ready to work together, but instead they left
with Rand kind of manipulating her so that way their
next meeting would go. Well. It wasn't bad, right, she
didn't imprison him or anything, but like it is still
the beginning of the healing between the male and female habs,

(30:25):
because now the taint's been cleansed and now you know,
Rand has had a good interaction with the Amerlind and
like they're coming together healing that break. That's always been
my like emotional vibe from it.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
But yeah, I can think of a world where when
the Tower was attacked, the Black Tower came to help
fight off the shan Chan. Oh, and that led to
this reconciliation. And that's why the window was built with
the fang built into it, because that was a memorial
of the fight and the fact that the Black Tower

(31:00):
came to Black Tower. Possibly also Rand came to their
aid in that fight. Oh.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
I hadn't even thought about trying to construct an alternate timeline.
I thought it was all allegory, but like, in what
world would that window design make sense? I hadn't even
thought of pulling that thread. I like that though, because
we do have the Towers sending embassies to be like, hey,
what if we teamed up and like, yeah, what if
the timeline of that was different and they were closer

(31:26):
when the shawn Chan attacked.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
What if Andral had already you know, thrown out the
bad guys in the Black Tower.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Right right? What if Logain was there on a diplomatic
mission to hammer out the last of their treaties and
then oh, I guess we're friends now.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Right right, That's that's a good one. Yeah, oh, I.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
I like that thread to pull on. There's a lot
of fun ways to imagine that could have gone, and
that that battle would have been way harsher on the
shawn Chan. They wouldn't win, they would not have walked
away from that going oh, that was a good decision
on rocket left in the.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Entire army, the one with Alia of course.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Obviously that one would make it through. But yeah, huh,
that's cool, especially given that we do have the Black
Tower doing a cool act of heroism during the last battle,
Like the idea of them coming in to save a
group that's on the brink of destruction does exist. In
the real timeline, albeit in the future.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
So I like it and the idea that, yeah, that's
sort of the the expungement of the Dark Friends then
allows them to come in and save the tower so
that they can do their own expungement of the Dark Friends.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Right, and it wouldn't even have to be like, you know,
them saving the damsels in distress. It's just sometimes the
magic halves have to team up against the anti magic douchebags.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Right right, right right, and really hammering the point that
making circles can beat not circles right by making a
circle with men, which then makes it infinitely, not infinitely,
but exponentially more powerful, all right, So ninive, So they're
they're catching up a little bit, and then Agwen goes, yeah,
so I got a question for you as as my advisor.

(33:06):
You know, I'm an Amberlin, and I'm really struggling with
this thing that like everybody thinks I'm too young and
is treating me like I'm not actually the Amberlin and
I'm just a child and that I don't deserve it.
What do you do with a woman who isn't coming
to your summons? And then like just just absolutely like
nails Ninive on it, and it's just like.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Coats a knife in salt and just twists it.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, just twist it. Because Niniva is like, well, you gotta,
you know, be strict and don't let her ever forget
that you're the Amberlin and you know, hold the line
and do this and do this. And she's like, so
should I be doing that with you? And n He's like,
ah uh fuck, I walked into that one.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's kind of amazing. Yeah, Like, I don't like to
see Ninive being humbled in the face of authority, but
it was really clever and honestly, one of the things
we love about Ninive is that she's a hypocrite. That's
one of the things we find funny about her. So
to have Agwayne very legitimately call out her hypocrisy is like, well,
I mean, you did deserve that.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
And that's where I'm like, I'm Brandon got Ninive in
this way, right, He's really able to nail this character,
who's able, who can walk into this trap, head held
up high, not realizing that she's describing her exact behavior
until it's pointed out to her. Right, that's the kind
of person that Ninive is and that's also the kind
of person that Matt is, and that's where he misses

(34:27):
Matt for me is he gets it with Ninive and
he misses it with Matt.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, and as much as I say, you know, Ninia's
a hypocritmy love that about her. Also, she is displaying
here the thing that I find far too lacking in
the real world, which is internal consistency. When she is
shown through her through logic the error of her ways
and realizes she's been caught, she changes her behavior. Instead
of doubling down and being an asshole because she can't

(34:53):
ever be wrong, she goes, wow, I was wrong and
moves forward with growth as a person. And that's all
I want from anyone is just just to have the
capacity to do that.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
You have me kneeling on the ground and kissing your
ring and yeah, another ambulan, not happily, but you'd have
done it.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, it's it's the station, it's not me, which you
know is a very important distinction. And then she's also
you know, looking at it, and you's like, you're one of
the few people who can see me as something other
than the station. Please stay in my inner circle. I
need people who don't only see the station, but you
have to be able to see the station.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Sometimes in public.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, you have to be able to, like Matt, completely
be okay with bowing to me when there's an audience
with people who don't want to bow to me, Like,
you need to not have that be a personal ego issue, please.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
And then sort of you can start by calling me mother.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yes, mother, but then it's like, but it's to motivate,
and I need better than a competition.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's like, can you do it? Can you do better
than the women who treated you poorly when you became wisdom?
Is that's who she's competing with, is those women?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Can you do better than day's conger at accepting my authority?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Fine, exactly, I love her. And then not Elaine arrives,
and then Elaine arrives. But first, not Elaine.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Arrives, Not Elaine. Suddenly a tinkling bell rang in Agwain's mind.
She'd almost forgotten he awards. I think Elaine has arrived. Nope,
that's not Elaine. That's a dark friend Talva.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
I'm assuming, I'm assuming this is the one that dies
rather than alvi arn It. Yeah, but one of those too,
I'm assuming it's Talfa, yeah, or.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Then arriving together, right, sure, yeah, but once the word's tripped,
it's not going to trigger again. So that's why she
doesn't hear. When Elaine actually arrives, she has to reset
the ward. You only get one morning.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Right, So yeah, they go over there, Elaine's not there,
and then suddenly Elaine is there in a white gown
covered in diamonds. Someone has achieved her throne. You can
tell because she's.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Wearing all white, married to the crown.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Oh, so she's in the dream, so you know.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Also probably maybe a little bit of Rand, like that
glowiness from Rand in the way he's like, Oh.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
She's feeling very angelic because she's in her second trimester
and Rant has had veins of gold. That makes sense.
I think she's in her second trimester at this point.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
God, I fuck if I know timing. It's weird. She
might even be in her like starting her.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Third I don't think.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
So, Oh okay, hold on, Oh no.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Doctor Pants's thing. I don't know, but Boujie feels more
like fifth trimester at this point. You're not wrong.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
There's a wheel of time. FAQ. How far along is
Elane's pregnancy. Elaine's babies were conceived in February seventeenth. In
A Winter's Heart, Chapter twelve. Elaine's due date is about
November tenth, but twins are often born earlier. She had
her first mark medical examination March eighth in Crossroads of Twilight,

(38:06):
when she was about nine or ten weeks pregnant, right
seven to eight since conception.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I guess yeah. They were all on her ass about
it early because they knew that she got pregnant because
of men's visions. There was no question of if she
was pregnant or not.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
At the beginning of June one thousand, only will be
seventeen real works pregnant four months.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I have no idea what month we're at in this chapter, right.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
I'm trying to think, I know there is this calendar.
I can never actually find it when I'm looking for it.
I keep meaning the book market, and I never do.
We're in spring, right, We've come past Winter's Heart, Spring happened,
and they're conceived in February.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Right, Yeah, we're in spring at those point. I have
no idea what month we're in, but we've we've had
discussions about roads being muddy, because it's spring.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah right, so.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, that puts her at being solidly in the second
Tive has to double take to know that she's pregnant, right, Okay.
She looks at Elaine and then looks at her again
and goes, wait a second, you're a price, which is
only she's showing, but she's not showing hugely.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Right, Okay, Yeah, and that does make sense that spring
is you're talking April May, May maybe, and so then.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, because April is equos, so.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, she's just you're right, You're right. She's very still,
very early on in the pregnancy.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
But second trimester is when the glow gets really glowy.
So with veins of gold winning the throne. Second trimester, Yeah,
she's floating on cloud and I no wonder she's dressed
all in white with freaking diamonds dripping off of her intel.
I run reodd and Elaine is very very happy when
she shows up because you know, this is the first
time she's seen Agwayne since the healing of the tower,

(39:48):
and you know, so it's it's a whole bunch of
you fix the tower, you know, as one does.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, there's the next little bit is kind of I'm
having a little troubles framing how I want to talk
about it, because it's at all over the place, lot
of catching up talking about Rand, talking about you know,
she suspects that Elaine has bonded Rand. It's funny she
didn't tell her straight out.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
She's not telling anyone though.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
No, But then she says he's awakened. He's warm now, right, Like, okay,
you're not hiding a girl, right, That was.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
A really unsubtle comment if you wanted to keep that
a secret, Like you're claiming that you have psychic connections
to him that aren't magical. What are you? What are
you doing?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Then they talk about the seals and they're crumbling and
she says he's going to break the seals, very alarming
and night and he's like, maybe you're right, and Elaine's
looking troubled and Gwaen's like, why aren't you freaking out
about this?

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Which it totally makes sense to me that Elaine, as
a tinkerer and an engineer, is like, well, yeah, I
mean it makes sense to clear away the rubble to
begin new. I mean that makes sense just practically because
Elaine's a tinkerer, she's an engineer. Why would she Why
would she not want to get rid of the stupid
old seals and the night I mean, yeah, maybe it's

(41:02):
a bit of who she's hanging out with Rand, so
she's affected by his tavere in nature or more. It's
just that the idea of trying to hold crumbling Swiss
cheese together is it's a fool's errand you should maybe
let the savior of the world dictate what we do
to bring about the salvation of the world.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
And I need one hundred percent on point. The Dark
One will be free to win the file and final
seal crumbles best if it happens when Rand is there
to battle him, which is exactly that's what When the
light appears, right, that's when Rand is ready to face
the Dark One, and that's when the seals are broken.
That's exactly the reasoning that he's using.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, it's actually very important that the timing be done correctly.
That's why you need a watcher of the seals. It's
not just to watch him for three thousand years. It's
to watch the clock for the moment to break them.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Because the seals are imperfect, they always have been. You
have to remake the dark ones prison.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, the dark One's prison is not meant to be
perpetually patched. The patch has to dissolve and go away
because cyclical time.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
And the patches made from Sidine, the male half of
the source, right, because.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
They were the only ones that did the thing the ceiling. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Yeah, and I think we see rand has access to
something else right there. We see later the pure light
that surrounds the taint. I think he has access to
the source, not just to the true power or the one.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Power creator power.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
We'll talk about that when we get there. Yeah, the
power of reality, right, like the thing that lets him
weave reality. There's been a few times where he's woven power,
specifically in the books where they don't recommend, they don't
say which form. Part of that might be his own ignorance,
but like there's a moment, there's a couple of moments
where he's reached out and grabbed power.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And yeah, Threaded through that conversation is
another conversation about bringing a Lan and nineve back to
the tower to be raised. As I said, I properly
these things are all kind of mashed together. But you know,
topically speaking, there's two different conversations happening.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
And bringing back a Lane. Lane's like, I can't. I'm pregnant,
Like you can't. I can't make me sure of the
oaths right if we don't know, Like am I binding
my children to that?

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Like that's not okay, right, Like can they even survive
being bound? Like yeah, that's very sketchy. And she can't
channel consistently, so it's completely off the table for her
to take the test until after she's recovered from giving
birth giving birth.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah, so it's just like, I'm not I can't do
that anytime soon, but I will do it, but not
until what you know, six more months after.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
The last battle. Like she literally is not going to
be able to get raised until after the last battle.
And then Ninieve says, yeah, fuck it, I can do
it because she's been studying the hundred Weaves with Diagion, right,
Like you remember that on the Cat's pause situation like
just get out of my hair has turned into Ninive
is just ready to do the hundred weaves of the
test more or less at the drop of a hat.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
That's back when they were hanging out in Near domon
the Gathering Storm chapter seven. If you wanna reference.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
That, and that really helps Agwyn out right. Having at
least one of her raised by decree Isidaie come back
and take the test properly does help with her legitimacy.
Even though, as you know we will see when we
get there, it is one of the hardest tests that
has ever been administered to a perspective, Isidie in the
history of the Tower. It's very vindictive and mean and terrible.

(44:25):
Doesn't seem necessary for Agwayne's political career, but nonetheless, the
fact that Niniva is willing to do so is helpful
to her political career. Sure, that's how Agwayne's see, is it?
I trust her?

Speaker 2 (44:37):
No? I get it. Like the only reason they didn't
go through the test is because the Tower was divided, right,
So it's time to go through the test, right, Like,
that's just unfortunately part of it. Now I should do
I think she should change the policy around the oaths.
Am I happy that they keep the three Oaths? No,
I'm glad they sort of temper it a little bit
with the kin, But I still think the three Oaths

(44:57):
are just not necessary for the White Tower didn't prevent
the Black Ajaw. They need to be up. They need
to be updated or changed or something needs to be
done with the oaths something.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
And then there's the thing where Agwayn says she has
no intention of going through the test herself because it's
the law that she's already eyes to die. I dislike
this interpretation of what should be done. Agwayn had no
intention of going through the testing herself, and it didn't
need to. The law was specific by being made Omorland,

(45:30):
she had become eyes to die.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
No, I mean, I get it. I get it where
she feels like because the law says so I don't
have to do it, but it's like you're gonna make
they need do it and you're not gonna do it, Like.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Come on, well, and to me, it's more like, dude,
you're going to be in charge of this institution without
going through one of the most important gauntlets that every
other woman in the entire yr institution has had to
go through. Like, yeah, you've been through some shit and
you will go through some more shit before this is done.
But yeah, this this, I don't know. I mean, maybe

(46:03):
there's some sort of weird like power dynamic with like
she can't be at the mercy of women who are
going to be her subordinates, like for the duration of
the testing. Like, I just it feels like such a
cop out. And Agwaine is such a tryhard that I
don't understand why she's doing a cop out like that's
I think what bothers me is that Agwayne is an

(46:24):
extra credit girly and this is her loophulling her way
out of required work. It just doesn't feel in character.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
It feels more like I don't want to write that.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Scenes to which I say, then do a cut to black.
It's not that hard. Robert Jordan did.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
It, yeah, just to show her like shaken up afterwards
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, we didn't get to see Elaine's test, uh uh,
I mean for accepted, you know, like you can skip
it but have her have the growth. I don't know.
I I just it's not that it's about choice, it's
that it feels out of character to a GWayne, I
guess is more what bothers me.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
I would like to see her maybe if she had
said and I will do it after the last battle,
after the danger is done, I will confirm that I
can do the test right like, and then she dies
and she never gets to do it fine, right, if
that's how you wanted to play it, fine, But this
I don't need to feels out of character to me.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah, this is a woman who has never let extra
credit go unclaimed, and you're telling me that she let
that go unclaimed. I think not.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
So then she asks Elaine to make more dream tron
real because the rest were stolen by Shariam, right.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Which they didn't know Shuriam was a d It's just
like so much catching up news that's getting like YadA
YadA yaguain.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
It was definitely like that moment of like, oh, yeah,
I didn't tell you about that, so hold on, ketch up,
ketch up, catch up. And then well she starts to
tell the story. I guess I should say, because she
doesn't get very far before the word goes off again.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Right, yeah, they bear, They get into the conversation, and
then Igwaine starts doing some really Brandon Sanderson op flippy
flippy tell Dironridde's stuff where she doesn't even think to move.
She just moves like faster than thought, and it's very cool.
I mean, I enjoy it, but it is so Brandon Sanderson.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
But yeah, so she comes face to face with one
dark friend.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Is this a fan insert or does Talva have a
pre existing experience existence in the book.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Ooh, I found two other ones, but I did not
look at Tulva. I don't see any reference. But this
is her only appearance.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
And she dies horribly. Yeah, I guess not every single one.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
No, she might be part of the group that fled.
She might be one of those names.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
No, it says so right here she was one of
the Black Sisters who had fled the tower. Oh okay,
never mind. My reading comprehension is cray up.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
But she is not mentioned in the list. She is
h her. This is still her first mention, even though
they're putting her in that group.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
We never got a complete list.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
I don't think we ever did.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
That seems like a weird oversight, mister r J. Maybe
he was leaving himself room to insert other named characters later,
and he just wanted those blanks as like literal foreshadowing potential.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Uh yeah, I can't find the specific list of the thirteen.
I can find lists of all the black odd Jaws
that we know of, but it would take a minute
to go through that and count which thirteen actually flowed
the tower.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
That would make sense to me that Robert Jordan less
some of them unnamed, just so that way he could
create loop backs later. And then Sanderson was like, oh, interesting, slack,
I'll use that.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Because I know we have some of them because they
went through all the possessions. But I feel like they
were like they'd go through five or six the people's
possessions and then be like, oh, we went through the
rest of them. Yeah, and like they wouldn't. We wouldn't
get the full list of isaid Eye. But I could
be totally wrong. I could go back to those chapters,
but whatever, that's a long time ago in real time
that we've since we've done those chapters.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Yeah, No, I to totally imagine Robert Jorn be like, Nah,
I'm gonna need to name someone later and I don't
know who it's gonna be, so I'm just gonna leave
a few blank. So yeah, anyway, Agwain finds this woman
tell the They begin to have an exchange, and then
alvi Iron shows up and Agwain manages to do the
thing where she dodges out of the way and the
enemies shoot each other. Well, yeah, one shoots the one

(50:19):
and tell the dies in a burning ball of fire
and alvar And gets away, and a Grain is very
annoyed about the entire exchange and starts thinking about weaves
versus Tellirunriod manipulation and the relative speed of those things,
and hinting that this is all going to be very
very relevant in a subsequent experience. We are going to

(50:39):
be really leaning into it's just a weave, right, Like
this is this is some foreshadowing for when parent says
it's just a weave, Like no, really, agwayn everything is
just a weave. That that's it. Like the power of
tell I run Riod is so much greater than the
power of the One Power because it is the only
constant in the universe aside from the in the Dark

(51:00):
One boom.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Right, But you could argue that the One Power is
a manifestation of the Creator in the way that the
True Power is a manifestation of the Dark One, And
so they are in some ways equal in power.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, they're emergent properties, they're attenuated.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I did like this little bit like right as Alviarn disappears,
Aguing goes burner and like that woman is literally burning
alive behind you.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, death behind you, all right?

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, Dark. But yeah, this is sort of the beginning
of the end of the Thirteen. I feel like they slowly,
like Sanderson kills off the Thirteen in battle one by
one until there's really none of them left, even though
there's a bunch of of other Dark friends out there
who die in all sorts of ways. I feel like
he really sort of wants to conclude that plot line
that the girls went off to hunt the Thirteen and

(51:51):
that sort of sent them out of the tower in
the first place, and he's like, all right, I'm going
to finish those girls off. And you know, this is
one of the first ones I think that really just
gets a lot of them burnt. A lot.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Fire is a very effective weapon, unfortunately, it really is.
And yeah, neither of these authors is shy about just
immolating an entire character in one fell swoop.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
And yeah, so Talva is the first.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
I think she's certainly the first of the cat and
Mouse Teleron Riod Tower game that is being initiated. This
is kind of the first round. I mean really, at
the end of this chapter, right, Agwaine says, Okay, I
got preparations to make. Those preparations are what lead up
to the big battle in the tower, but also a
lot of smaller interactions where women die, and like it's

(52:39):
it's a whole long cat and mouse in Teleron Real
that takes many many nights, and this is, yeah, the
first contact of.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
That, and is also the place where parents storyline intersects
there because he brings the dream Spike to the White Tower,
which then prevents the bad guys from fleeing, which sets
up the whole confrontation and changes the stakes and makes
it possible for a going to win.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Really, rat Masana's plant entire plan hinged on getting the
Eyes to die to chase her out of the tower.
When Parent shows up at the dream Spike, everything that
she planned goes to shit.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
And then I love this line by Ninive. Walking into
traps is hardly the best way to defeat the mother,
Nive said flatly, both because of past and present and
future incidents.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
That is the thing you super girls do is you
walk into traps.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Over and over, really, and Ninive, that's like all you've done,
Tan Chico, and that when these.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Three women specialize in is walking into traps. Like these
three women in particular, it's a three three member team
of walk into traps and see what happens next.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
And then away. Depends on your preparation, because that is
really like, if you're prepared, it's less likely to be
disastrous for you.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
And they always think they're prepared. They always say, well,
if I know I'm walking into a trap, then it
will be fine. And then it's you know, one Matt
Troomen later it's funny, right, but.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
You know one Gowin later for Agwayne. Yeah, there's a
certain amount of men pulling them out of traps that
they get themselves into.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Well, in this instance, I guess the men are the
smart ones because they were not inside the trap and
thus they were able to be on the outside of
said trap.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
They see a flutter of black cloth ducking around the corner.
Do you think that's Massana? Do you think it's Alvrn?

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Do you think it's I bet it's Massana? I bet
you yeah. Dying on how Alvrn handled the situation as
alvr and was spying, and how tall thea handled the situation,
you know, like it's one of those strings upon strings.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Is it possible that the first bell being run was
actually Massana?

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Now Massana's too good for that, too good at it
maybe noah, no, that's not true if it was land Fear.
But yeah, no, it might have been, right, It might
have been all three of them arriving and going to
their respective corners.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
I kind of seen Masana spying first, and then the
other ones showing up and attacking immediately, and Masana watching
the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
The Shadows, yeah, because she knows that Agwayne is her
big prize, right, that's the big target. So like these
two Morlands are, you know, studying each other effectively? Right,
as we learn in the next chapter, it's the whole
She's the shadows ombreline, Like they both study and prepare
and watch and think. This is how they both operate.
So yeah, I totally bet she's spying on all of this,

(55:23):
and so yeah, then Agwain says, I'm gonna find you,
but not right now, and then they head off to
the magical Meadow of Butterflies to finish catchup, which we
don't have to see on page and thus we cut
to the next day the next chapter.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Right now, nine Eve is wake after that meeting.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, this is the next morning, right, because she says, okay,
I'll come asap. Agwain says, you have to come tonight
or tomorrow. And then he says, all right, okay, cool,

(55:59):
So here we are next day. She's doing her stuff.
This is chapter fifteen called use a Pebble, and the
symbol is the torn lace of the ages, right, the
bubble of evil symbol, for lack of a better.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Term, the torn pattern.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah. And this is Ninive and Naife, who is the
Ashamon with the paranoid fantasies of fades, just following them
but never doing anything. And they are inspecting a bubble
of evil where everything has turned to the most flammable
powder you've ever experienced.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Just any fine powder, right, with that much surface area.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
That's the thing is, it's so fine. This is like
so in geology, particles sizes. Sand is actually a particle
and clay is actually a particle. It's that's not a
mineral composition. That is a size thing. This makes clay
look ginormous. Okay, Clay particles are the smallest particles you
can have. The it'sy bitsy little flat things that make

(56:57):
things like mudstone.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Right, Remember kid, size matters.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Yeah, it really does. In this case the surface area
of flammability that it doesn't matter what it is if
it's this fine.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Well, especially when it comes to physics, right, like every
different when you look at things at different scales, different
physics actually does apply, especially when you go like atomic
sub atomic, right, Like there's different scales at which different
equations in different forces are much more important than others.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
One of the frustrating things about our reality is that
physics changes depending on scale. It's very annoying, but it
is real as far as we can tell, until we
make better physics, which you know, people are currently burning
themselves out trying to make better physics. They haven't done
it yet.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
But the fact that, like, temperature is an emergent phenomenon
of vibrating molecules, and it's like, what, how can temperature
not be real? But in a lot of ways, it's
just an emergent phenomenon, which and it turns out if
you go all the way down, it's just like, oh,
we're all just an emergent phenomenon of vibrating fucking strength.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Okay, great, Yeah, you think about it long enough, and
then someone comes along and says, do you know that,
like consciousness is just an emergent property of vibrating strings,
And you're like, well, I mean probably, yeah, you know,
like sure.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Probably, why not?

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (58:15):
We haven't proven it yet, but we think that's our
best theory right now.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Right exactly, like we're out in some really weird weeds
at this point.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
And then when you're like, oh yeah, Robert Jordan news
string theory. He called it the pattern.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Mm mmmmm yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not really stretching here.
Robert Jordan was a literal string theory interested physics snowing person, right, yes, exactly,
a light blinded fool science has finally arrived at the
realization that it is just vibes.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Man. Well, I mean, you want to really piss off
a physicists to ask him, can you tell me what
what a wave function represents? Please? Sir?

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, all right? So nineven naife and he thinks about
how Nate is not getting worse in the aftermath of
the tank being cleansed, but he's not getting better either.
This was one of the questions Rand and others had
going into the cleansing, and here we are seeing the
answer that the scars remain, the damage remains, that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Go away, damage was done. Yeah, exactly right. I also
noticed that you know, her storm sense she's feeling the
last battle to the north.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, she's you know, frustrated by having to
obey agwayin because she just wants to go north and
do the land stuff. But like, you know, this is
what she's got to do.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
And they're being someone to this bubble of evil, right,
So they're walking and she's kind of like, I wish
I could gateway like spoiled spoiled nine eve.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
And then she thinks, like kids these days have it
too easy with gateways. Her own feet aren't good enough
for us. So embodying contradiction as she is wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
She's like Rand said he was going to fetch something.
What is he fetching? Is it calendar?

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Must be because he squirreled he had kad swin squirrel
it away somewhere. I think, I don't know what would
he be fetching.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Yeah, And it's interesting that he noticed it wasn't taken.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Or is it the seals that he thinks he has.
Remember he thinks he has some of the seals and
then they learned later that they were that they were swapped.
Maybe this was him going to get those seals that
he hands to people.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
A lot of research in this chapter. Sorry, we keep
pausing to do research, but we keep hitting questions. Yeah. Sorry,
it's either calendar or the seals. I can't find any
evidence for either one. There's also the seed that he
gives to a lane. Ah yeah, sorry, yeah, I'm just
not sure where what he's one of the many things

(01:00:46):
that he has in his possession. He went to fetch
really quick.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Rand has an undramatic experience of getting one of the many,
many objects that he needs to collect. I guess tata
doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Doesn't really matter. Sorry, I just well, you know, he
said you need to fetch something, and this is where
he's like doing a bunch of things.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
But don't apologize for being a nerd. It's just sometimes
there's nothing to that. There's no answer, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
So they get to the beige section of the city.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Yeah, which seems to be a perfect circle, right. They
say that they find people who just had like a
toe into the circumference of the thing and they're dead too, right. Like,
most of the scene we see is her walking through
the middle of it where everything is destroyed, but apparently
all along the edge there's people who have been hurt
and buildings that have been partially damaged by this. It's
not like it was building specific. It's like just an

(01:01:36):
area of effect.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
It's like everything was changed to a very specific one
material right one. Everything was transformed into whatever it is,
into a calcum powder or something like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
It's or like, yeah, it's almost like a broken Earth
sort of transformation, like when they explode turned that whole
city into stone all at once. It's kind of like that,
except this is not solid stone. This is the finest
powderiest stone you could ever have come across. And they
you know, collected into a pile and set it on fire.
And it's not a big deal. But clearly the Bubble

(01:02:11):
of Evil was supposed to be twofold, right, it was
supposed to be first everyone dies and then essentially a
bomb goes off in the middle of the city when
like someone's you know, cigar spark like drifts on the
wind into the zone and just sets the whole you know,
five blocks off. It would have been like an explosion
to have all of that stuff light up at once
well spread out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Well, that's what I wonder is like, because they condensed it,
I would have think it would have been more of
an explosion when it all went off at once, as
opposed to when it spread out, like you're gonna have
more of a slow burn. It takes a while for
the fire to spread.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I was assuming it was like when flowers in the air.
The fact that it's spread out makes for a more
concussive experience, Like if you just light a pile of
flour on fire, it doesn't explode.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I guess that's true. Yeah, that maybe there wasn't enough
oxygen when they can then sit down that prevented it
from really exploding, exploding.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
You know, right, That's what I imagine is that really what's
happening here is there's a lot of air in the particles,
and that's what would make the fire would have roared
outward and caught regular buildings on fire in all directions,
and then you would have had the city on fire.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
That's kind of what I pictured, is like if any
of this caught on fire, it would just create a
conflagration around its border, right, it would all spread out,
and like there'd be this ring of fire where everything
would catch on fire on the outside.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yeah, exactly, Like you'd just be going along and then
a man taps out the dottle from his pipe and
suddenly the whole building is on fire, like in just
a few seconds, just like where did all that fire
come from? And it comes from this but no instaid
they condensed it into a little thing. And yeah, it's
a really bright flame, but it's it's not along the
edge of five city blocks.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Well, and this is this is an incredibly creepy scene, right,
crunching along through everything that used to be alive and
everything just disintegrating right like that. The horror of like
they see children playing, that's just it's everything. Imagine everyone's
life within you know, two block radius four block square
just ends. It's pretty horrific.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
It's like Pompeii, right, It's that sort of like seeing
the cast from Pompeii, but even faster, even faster. And
then yeah, the eeriness of she steps on the solid
stone of the street and the stone crumbles and her
foot doesn't stop until she touches the bare earth and
then that turns into nafe, like almost walking into a cellar.

(01:04:29):
And then when they clear the area, it's just this
bare ground with these like weird pock marked holes in it,
like even the stones of everything that a human ever touched,
anything that had any amount of human intention in it
gone just gone so creepy. And the visual of her
walking through, you know, up to her knees, up to

(01:04:50):
her hips in the building because you can't walk up
into the building like you should, you're just pushing through
these ghost floorboards. It's just so eerie. It's so post apocalyptic.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Yeah, And once they cleared out, there's no foundations. All
that's left is these holes in the ground where cellars
used to be. And it's just like in the middle
of the city, someone just scowed a hole and picked
everybody out. Everything that wasn't earth just got removed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Like down to the last scraps of like trash that
had been kicked under the house and not looked for
in fifty years. That's gone too. Cat's scale attention, that
cat that like you never found right, Like, all of
it's gone. The dead rats in the attic, the everything
that one innkeeper that vanished mysteriously and then his wife

(01:05:37):
took over the business, no evidence of that crime left.
It's all gone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
And so I think what that basically does then need
is it gets her frustration up a little bit, right,
She's like, God, damn it, I couldn't help any of
these people. They're all dead before I even got there.
I can't heal death. Well, God damn it, I'm gonna
help heal Nafe because I'm sick of this madness stuff. Right,
And so that frustration, I think with her inability to

(01:06:03):
solve the problem of the bubble of evil is what
spurs her to take another shot at healing the madness
in Nafe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
That's exactly how she healed Logan. She was so pissed
off at the eyes Toda, trying to fix her block
and dealing with Mghetti and being a prisoner and just
everything sucked. She was so mad that she just fixed Stilling. Yeah,
so same deal here. She's mad that she can't fix
the world, so she cures cancer. She just cures cancer.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
It's fine, and it's sort of interesting that, Like, her
ability to cure has always been unquestionable, but it's her
ability to delve that's been refined over time, the ability
to find smaller and smaller things. Again, we were just
talking about the level of scale, right, She's able to
look at a finer scale and find things that work differently, right,

(01:06:53):
instead of just a blob of madness, she looks at
the little hooks that dig into the brain, and she
can see where those hooks are so she can get
to them. And the way she can pry those hooks
away is different than just trying to negate the whole
compulsion at once.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Yeah, and I love it both in world and at
a meta level, because this is again very Sanderson right,
very like ooh, we can zoom in, we can make
higher fidelity magic rules. You know, we've upgraded our writing skills.
But also Niinieve's been studying with us to die. She's
been getting yellows to teach her even though they don't

(01:07:31):
really want to. Like, again, we're seeing actual growth because yeah,
she And it's also nice just the idea that, yeah,
raw power is important and skill is important. Right Oftentimes
in this world magic allows people to skip skill, but
it makes sense that medicine would be one of the
exceptions to that. And no, you actually do need to

(01:07:52):
study in order to get the data. You need to
use your great power with the skill and dexterity necessary.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
And a lot of ways this isn't just the healing, right,
she heals the little spots where the hook was in
the brain. Right, even though I don't know, brains don't
really but whatever. But she's also fighting this thing, right,
She's using raw power to hold it in place like
a slippery little bastard. Right, this is the enemy. It's
a piece of the enemy, and so she has to

(01:08:21):
hold it in place while she also removes the spikes
and heals.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
It's a very complicated procedure. It's not just a one
and done hit it with power. There's an order of operations,
and you can't unlock certain things until you've completed other steps.
And yeah, the whole healing the brain. There's definitely some
blurring of the metaphysical and the physical in that, but honestly,
that's kind of how good channeling scenes have always been.

(01:08:45):
It's like you can't quite tell what is just happening
in their like theater of mind, versus what's literally happening
to the patient. It's kind of a fun part of healing. Yeah,
she manages to use lessons learned while lobottomizing curb tootomized Mefe.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
She literally kind of sort of risks lobotomizing him because
she's so pissed she doesn't even ask his consent, but
it works. The compulsion from the dark one is different
than compulsion from grandall in that it doesn't leave you
scrambled at the end. Also, I wonder if she could
have healed Curb's brain.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Doing it pulling it out that way, as it was
just overlaying an anti weave and then it leaves all
these like holes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Gotta wonder.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Yeah, And it could also be the way something grows
versus like something that's implanted.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, this isn't an installed module.
This is, yeah, a growth.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
But you could also think of it as like, oh,
you put your drywall anchors in the brain, and if
you just yank that out, you're pulling out like all
the brain with it, right, because it's just it's anchored
in there. But if you carefully take out everyone and
then patch it, you can actually get away without destroying
the brain.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, And I need does not ask for consent very
frequently when she's doing her healing. Yeah, just come here
and let me do it. It's best for you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Yeah. Just because she knows that she means well doesn't
mean that the patient knows. And yeah, it's the assumption
of benevolence is Yeah, I could do with the healer
having slightly more awareness of consent. That would have been nice.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
It's the motherly instinct. The dark patch undulated and shook
like something alive. Then it vanished. Where did it go
back to the Dark One?

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
I would assume. So, yeah, like a little little gust
of self that gets returned.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Did it just like dissipate into the air, So there's
a little more taint like radiation in the environment.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
It's like a matter antimatter interaction, where like the power
she put into it like perfectly matched and negated the
absence that because I mean that's what the Dark One is, right,
is entropy and absence. So if she puts the precise
amount of power into it, maybe it just poofs away.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Mmm. I think more it's attached from its anchor point,
and it's just like I think it just slithers back
to the Dark One basically.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Yeah, that makes the most sense.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Slithers it's got some attachment to him. Yeah, fades back,
goes through the metaphysical Teleron read back to the Dark
One into his prison, right, Like, Yeah, if you can
think of again the Dark One, you can think of
him a bit of as a black hole. Right, and
so he's got this gravitational pull, so.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
They just cross back over the event horizon into the
black hole, yeah, basically, and then she has this great thought,
you know, because Nate is very happy, and then Ninievea's like,
I can't let myself begin to think that nothing I
do matters. That's what the dark One wants, which you know, yeah,
don't give up prematurely in the face of creeping evil.

(01:11:47):
That is what they want. That is what the Dark
One wants. That is what the forces that are trying
to ruin your entire existence want, is for you to
give up prematurely so they don't actually have to fight you.
That's the evil guys always want, So don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
And that's what rand overcame with veins of.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Gold, right right exactly. We might have to fight again,
but we also can love again, so it's worth it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
So rand returns with two Maidens of the Spear, Soma
and Kanara.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Are these the fan inserts you found? You referenced?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
These are fan inserts I found? Yeah, these are both fans.
Let's see. Soma is named for Lisa Sommerfield, a fan
of the Wheel of Time, and Kanara is named for
Karen Clark, a fan of the Wheel of Time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Fantastic. I like now just every time there's like ideal
guards that get a name that we don't recognize, I'm like, oh,
a fan got to be an ideal alig Berkeley technically
in a small way. And also I like that Ninieve
is also doing the pr humanitarian thing of like meeting
with the survivors of the bubble and like talking with them.

(01:12:59):
That it was like a thing that Moraine did, like
way back when, yeah, when there was a disaster.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Yeah, even if she was just searching for information.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
Yeah, like she it's this rich person thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
She was a little cynical about it. Yeah, No, I.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Neve was cynical about Moraine doing. And I don't think
Moraine was cynical about it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Oh you mean back when she was looking for rand.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
No, no, no, Like it's not in Barra long because
they have to leave too fast. But there's an instance
where she gets down and is interacting with people and god,
I cannot remember, like what city was it in who
through the fire bomb? But anyway, I just think it's
nice to see And I said, I doing more than

(01:13:42):
magic stuff, but actually interacting with the commoners, and like
doing the the human thing, you know, not just doing
the magic god thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
The thing that the yellow Ajash should be doing this
entire time, which is being out there and healing people
and outreaching.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
And yes, basically I'm really enjoying seeing Ninive be a
yellow in every capacity. Right, She's healing stuff because she's
angry at the world. She's finding her purpose through healing.
She's you know, just telling people that she hears them
and that that was frustrating. Oh yeah, she did that
thing in Vandor Evan. Yes, but it's just, you know,

(01:14:16):
it's just nice.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
I like to little exchange between Rand and I. Neve
you care for my people. Thank you. I care for
when even need it, as you've always done, along with
caring for some who don't need it like you, she said,
raising an eyebrow. No, I've always needed it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
That and more, No, I've always needed it. Is such
a fantastic line, the teasing rapport between them, but also like,
oh yeah, Rand's grown up a lot. Rand's grown up
a lot a lot. He's saying that he always needed
I need even when she wasn't there, He needed her,
That's what he's saying.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
And even when he denied it, he always needed her.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
He's like, there's never been a time I didn't need you,
no matter what has happened. I actually needed you, regardless
of what I thought. And it's just aw And.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Then so he's sort of being shown the bubble of
evil and he's like, oh, yep, he wants to do
this the whole world. And that's why we can't delay anymore. Right,
We've really gotten to this point where he's winning by
slowly eroding away the fabric of the universe. He's corrupting
our food, he's breaking down what location means. He's creating

(01:15:19):
bubbles of evil that are killing lots of people. He
is slowly wearing away our ability to fight by slowly
breaking down the pattern. And if we wait too much longer,
we're not going to be able to fight against him
because our world is going to be in such disarray.
And so I have to take the fight to him.
He is perfectly fine winning by sitting up in his

(01:15:39):
castle and dropping bombs on us.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Yeah, a war of attrition can be very effective. If
you're on the losing side, at some point, it is
worth throwing everything you've got into a final assault rather
than just getting nibbled to death, bite ducks. And like
you were saying earlier, as the dark Ones pushing harder
and harder and harder to break through, the bubbles of
evils are coming harder and faster. Right, this is a

(01:16:05):
direct representation of how long the dark One has been
pushing on the seals. And so, yeah, it does make
sense to pick a date to break the seals. And
I am I don't think it's tevere and that convinces
I neive that Rand is right. I think it's logic and.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Common greeds and trusting Rand.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Interesting Rand because he's literally a dragon reborn. Maybe he
knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
So and he does the thing where he's like, all right,
if you're going back to the White Tower, that's fine,
but don't let them ruin you. Right, Like I tried
to be like them, cold and logical, But you have
to care. The caring is what makes you who you are.
You care about people I need, even if you don't ask,
necessarily care about their consent.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
You care too much for him to care about consent.
But yeah, no, the way he says that there are
many kinds of strength, the way that the eyes to
die hold up on a pedestal is not superior to
the other kinds of strength that exists in this world.
And that's a nice thing to be told. After these
books have gone on for two decades about how there's
only one right way to exist. It's nice to be well,

(01:17:06):
maybe there's a couple different right ways to exist.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
Then he says, I want you by my side at
shale Ghoul. I need you to help me fight the
dark one basically use one and use calendar specifically.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
I trust you to not manipulate me in the bad
way while having control over me in this most important
of fights. I don't know who's gonna be your number two,
but I know that you're going to be my number one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
It's Moraine because she's going to be rescued.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
By Well, that's why Rand doesn't know who the second
is going to be is because the perfect candidate has
yet to be rescued from the Tower of Genschai. Because
obviously he would pick Moraine, like obviously if she was here,
he would pick her without a second thought.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
So and can't be Alaye because she's babies, impregnant and
all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Yeah, Avianda would have worked. Avianda is strong enough and
unattached enough and good enough with hand to hand combat
that she would have been an acceptable choice, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
And she's there fighting for him, defending him in that moment,
she's just outside.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Yeah, yeah, she's one tier of defense, well, two tiers
of defenders out because technically Tom is another tier of defender.
But yeah, she is fighting in the pit of shale
Ghoul to keep the entrance of the cave safe. But
she would have been fine in the cave too. As
far as effectiveness goes, she definitely would have been more stabby,
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
And then she delves Rand and sees the darkness in
his mind, and I just want to read this, She stiffened.
The darkness was enormous, covering the entirety of his mind.
Thousands upon thousands of the tiny black thorns pricked into
his brain, but beneath them was a brilliant white lacing
of something, a white radiance like liquid power, light given

(01:18:43):
form and life. She gasped. It coated each of the
dark tines, driving into his mind alongside them. What did
it mean? She didn't have any idea how to begin
working on this. There were so many barbs. How could
he even think with that much darkness pressing against his brain,
and what had created the whiteness. She'd healed ran before

(01:19:03):
and hadn't noticed it then. Of course, she'd never seen
the darkness until recently. Her practice with delving was likely
the reason. So it's not Sidine because she can see it,
because she can see it, And.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
It's not the dark one because that would be dumb. So, yeah,
the creator, power.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Nature, the power pee and here this liquid power right,
this radiance, this weave, this lattice, this lattice of the
pattern that he's using, right, and it's something we've seen
amused before. It really seems to be the power directly
of the Creator.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
The synthesized male and female existing at once to drive
the wheel of the universe in its completed state rather
than in its dynamo pieces. Yeah, exactly, it can't be
Sidine or Sidar because she would identify it either as
an absence or as a sidear. Right, she would know
if it was Sidar.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
No, I mean, and in a lot of ways, I
could say, well when did this last appear? Well, the
last appears during veins of gold. A lattice in veins
of gold seem like they might be related.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Oh, I assume that this is entirely a veins of
gold moment thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
And what is veins of gold, veins of gold is love.
So what is the power love?

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Love is the power.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Love is the power. That's the power that's he's using
to you know, that is the true one power that
drives the wheel.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Yeah, and it's not like the Creator has intervened and
woven a counterweave in Rand's brain against the dark one.
I don't think that his brain is literally a chessboard
for two different like beings. I think like it's literally love.
Like he his revelation is what unlocks that. It's not
like he's he's not just a battlefield. It's it's his choice.

(01:20:47):
It's his revelation that makes that possible.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Yeah, but he's also keeping those connections right because that
gives him the knowledge of his past life. That is,
that corrupts the pattern enough to give him the unknawn
trollability of having the memories of a past life.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
You got a yes, and you can't just shut the
thing down. You have to yes. And rules of improv
apply to the end of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
And so I wonder, you know, and that's where like, oh,
all these thorns are all throughout his brain. If she
were able to remove those, would he lose Lewis theren
Would you go back to being just Rand?

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
I mean probably probably he would still maintain all of
the lived experience he had talking to Luce there and
it wouldn't vanish. But yeah, he I totally think so.
I totally think if she was able to do that,
she would lose LuSE thearin.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
In the way that Nate lost the mrdrawl in his head.
And they are just an hallucination, right, like the memories.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
No, in fairness, Rand doesn't hear luctherin anymore, right, He's
got that whole We're integrated.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Now, yes, right, right, right right?

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
You know again he's kind of ahead of her.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
On that, like yeah, yeah, I mean he's merging together.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Yeah yeah. And that's a really interesting question. Would he
he'd have to lose something right or not? Or has
he fixed it? I mean that's the thing is like
does the whiteness yes, and or does it in the
gate right?

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
That's that's kind of the question to me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
He feels like it's working with the darkness.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I prefer yes, and as an
answer to all situations. I just it's more narratively satisfying
because you have to deal with it because I'm a
theater kid. Yes, and uh, I love too. How Rand
has no idea what she's healing or attempting to heal, right,
like normally, like he describes you to her feeling it

(01:22:37):
and he's just like, oh, I'm so sorry, it's my
side wounds, like it's fine. She's like no, I wasn't
even thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
About this, right, She's like, I'm trying to heal from
your madness. And he's like, oh, you can deal madness.
She's like, well I did it inna if. He's like
to lean with that next time.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
And it's so fun too, because again Rand has discovered
his full humanity again. Right, He's so excited about this
because Lose Farren even like this, this is something that
would have impressed those there, and like Frand is so
excited for her that she has discovered this. This is
truly new information.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Well, but how much of this is a misnomwork because like, oh,
even the age of Legends, they couldn't heal diseases of
the mind. And I'm like this, this is a very
specific corruption of the mind. This madness comes from a source,
and she is removing the source. This isn't applicable to
people who have actual mental illness, true, but.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
It's also not the first time she's healed something that
people in the Age of Legends couldn't heal, right, because
they couldn't heal severing, and she did so. Not the
first time that she's literally surprised in Age of Legends
level person. But that is an interesting question.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
I just wonder if Frank's overblowing it and being like, oh,
you can now heal like mental health disorders, and it's like, well, no,
I can heal like specifically the people who are affected
by the taint.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
This is such a Mormon way of looking at things,
though the ableism baked into Mormon theology is like, really,
overt tell me more. The just Heaven involves everyone being
fixed healed. Yeah, oh and made white also, But we
don't need to get into that part right now. Literally

(01:24:14):
people will yeah, people will be will be fixed of
their physical, mental, and racial ailments and made into the
perfect white beings that everyone is truly destined to be.
I did not know that was, But we don't need
to get deep into that but just the the ableism
that is super baked into this worldview feels so Mormon,

(01:24:36):
just like well, to be to be saved is to
be corrected to a normal, functional person, and madness can
be cured. Madness can be cured is a thing that
has led to a lot of terrible things in this world.
The idea that you can be cured of your mental illness.

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):
Is that boy needs a lobotomy.

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):
Sometimes there are good things to be discovered from trying
to figure out why someone's brain seems to be malfunctioning,
and sometimes you end up with really state wide systemic eugenics.
So uh yeah, So that's a thing that always felt

(01:25:19):
warm and fuzzy to me until now you have just
ruined this moment for me. I still like this exchange
between them and now I just my neive, don't be
an ablest ran. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
But but this is I do feel though, Right like
if if for some reason, someone was in an accident
and they got a chemical in their eye and you
could spray a neutralizer that gave them their eyesight back, right, like,
no one would be like, oh no, I don't want
that because I don't want to be ablest right, Like
everyone be like yeah, I want my eyes back, yeah right,

(01:25:56):
Like for sure, this is like you can't heal all blindness,
but you can heal the people who were exposed to
this very dangerous chemical.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Yeah, which is super valid. We should heal people who
have been damaged by industrial accidents. Those people deserve top
level medical care.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
And really, if you think about what the Dark One is,
he's I mean, they were drilling for power, so he
really is an industrial accident and all the fallout from
him really is just the toxic waste in order to
get power. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
I mean, if you could just throw a foam onto
radioactive waste and have it, you know, just stop being radioactive,
we would put a lot of money into that, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Yeah totally.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
So yeah, all that to say is complicated, and your
mileage may vary on those takes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
So I like how she's like, I might not have
a chance to get to the Black Tower, but I'll
heal them too. She's healed one person, right, and she's like, yeah,
I'll just get the rest of the Black Tower, no problem,
narishma everybody here, and then you know, I don't know
if I'll be able to get to the Black Tower.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
Yeah, she says, she'll heal the other Twuashamon that are
there and maybe everyone else.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
And maybe everyone else if I can get out to it.
It's just like, okay, and I need maybe you should
teach some people how to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
But go to the White Tower and teach a bunch
of yellows how to do this, and then we will
go to the Black Tower. That would be a much
better project pitch.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
And then this moment pisses me off with rand. I
will need to send someone there, but we'll be handled carefully.
Something's happening with them, but I have so much to do.
He never fucking handles the Black Tower. He sends them
a letter that says be men, not tools.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
After after everything has been dealt with, after Logane and
Andrel have completely cleaned up his mess with the help
of Pavar, and that's about it, and some two rivers boys.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
I'm like, dude, Brand, yes, you needed to send somebody.
You needed to do something about this right like it was.
I think he lost a lot of warriors who got
turned that he didn't need to lose because he led
it faster.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
If he had sent someone at this point. If he
had said, oh yeah, he heil up those three asham
on and then this evening we're to go to the
Black Tower and start sorting stuff out, he could potentially
have had a lot more people on his side instead
of functioning as dread lords. That's yeah, it is one
of his biggest failures in zen Rand state, that's one

(01:28:15):
of zen Rand's biggest failures by a long shot. It's
just never dealing with the Black Tower. But you know,
much like Agwayne, he's dealing with too many things to
do all at once. He's got a certain amount of
resolution and power. He's out of the tunnel of trying
to just survive another minute with himself. Now he has

(01:28:36):
a million things to do and he has to prioritize,
and it's really hard.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
Why do I again feel like this is Sanderson talking
to us on the metal level, being like, I can't
include all your favorite things. There's too much to do.
I have to get to the last battle.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
I do feel like he's looking at us straight in
the eye saying I can't do it all.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Everything's crumbling, it's falling apart. I might as well like
I have to pull the trigger at some point while
we're still strong, I can still write this book.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
Yeah. And then yeah, she takes off to go to
the White Tower to get more as a die like
and also traumatized, and we return to the White Tower

(01:29:26):
and to GWayne. Though we're in the real world now,
we're not in the dream world. We are in the physical,
waking world.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
Yeah, I would assume this is also the next morning,
so kind of the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Yeah, same day. Yeah. Yeah, she's mid meeting when we
join her.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
And so things are going stale again. Rand's been away
long enough that the dark Ones influences creeping back in
when she thinks the land is one with the dragon. Right,
how many times have I said that it's always funny
to see someone Oh yeah, Agwayne's thinking that when she's
thinking about the food corrupting, right, Like that is what's
going on.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
Because Sanderson wants us to I know that he knows that. Yeah,
we know that he's a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
It's yeah, like the way he's of that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
And then yeah, she goes back into the meeting, which
is the meeting where the Black Aja Hunters have turned
their energy to figuring out how Masana is still in
the tower and Ciane is reporting on the ways that
one might subvert the oathrad. We go through three different methods,
which are interesting. I don't know if you want to

(01:30:29):
go through them in detail. But the upshot is that
if you can find three methods, that means that she
found a way to defeat it. You don't have to
determine which method she used. The point is there are
ways to defeat the oath rad. That is empirically true.
She figured it out. Move on to the next problem.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
And I think we have a word to Brandon that
one of those three is the way she used. They
guessed correctly. One of the methods. I think it's the
one where she altered her voice so she said I
will do whatever I want.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
I agree. That seems like the simplest with the mechanics
of the world as we understand them. You set those weaves,
you tie them off in your room, all of that
good stuff. You go to the meeting done.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
Maybe later you snink back in, grab the oth rod
and break it, you know, and take the oath off
of yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
Thank you. Just swear to continue enjoying to eat blue
cheese on crackers.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
But there is an effect of having an oath on you. Right,
there is that shortened life span. Oh that's true tightening,
right like all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
But apparently it's easy to steal. So now that's a
really good point that the life span thing. She would
want to release herself, even from a frivolous of But what.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
Okay, you can either send a look alike to take
the oath right or someone under compulsion so they could
swear that they weren't under they weren't a Dark friend, okay, whatever,
or if she just has another oath Rod right like,
because they're not sure. Again, it's plausible, but nobody knows
for sure if one oath Rod could take off the
oath of the other. Remember that was the whole problem

(01:31:57):
with Galina, right, is that she couldn't flee because she
wasn't sure if you could remove one oath Rod taken
away because they've only ever had the one oath rod,
right so, and they barely knew that that oath Rod.
They are only finding out, the non Dark friends are
only finding out now that that oath rod can take
off the oaths. That was not something that was widely
known until GWayne made them do it all.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
But the voice weave is the easiest one to imagine.
And then you just sneak in and unswear totally. And
then we get the title of the chapter. The chapter
is titled use a pebble, and this is wisdom from
Maren alvir Agwain's mom. Never use a boulder when a
pebble will do. This is a GWayne realizing she's overcomplicated
the problem. She thought it would be hard for someone

(01:32:42):
to defeat the oath rod. Turns out it's easy. She
was assuming it would need a boulder when it turns
out not Pebble's fine, Oh you need it was a pebble.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
You can do. You can do literally a magic trick
right to fool them, rather than using the One power
to defeat the oath rod.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
Right, don't defeat the oath ride. You just find a loophole.

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
Yeah, it's just a weave. Right, She's really exactly the
exactly mind. The power is not the be all end
all of things. You can get around it in a
lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
This is this is the blind spot that the Amberlance
Seat is going to have because she is the institution
of women who use the One power academically.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
So they get some information about Massana, right, like some
backstory that more than we get for most forsake. And
I'm not sure how much of this we knew before
the scene.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
I think we knew most of it because I'm pretty
sure this information has been included in.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
Like the companion and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
Yeah, like the sort Yeah, exactly, the other source book
type stuff that goes along. I'm pretty sure that we
knew most of their backstories by now. But yes, this
is another one of those instances of we need to
make the bad guys less of myths and more of people,
So let's just put the myths together and try to
like determine facts from it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
And it's basically she didn't get tenure, she went and
got her PhD and did not get tenure and went
to the evil side, but then they stuck her in
a library anyway, and she's pissed about it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
The way Agwain describes her as an administrator who hates
being relegated to that role, like you're good at this,
so you will never get to do anything you want
to do because you're good at this and no one
wants to do it, so we're going to make you
do it. Even in the evil side. It keeps happening
to her.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
She wished to be a researcher but was rejected. Yeah,
a lot of people who can't have rejection in the forsaken.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
I mean, I feel like rejection, sensitivity, ridiculousness, and selfishness
are probably wound together, you know that hole, Like they
have to be selfish, Like being unable to handle anyone
not respecting them in every particular would go along with selfishness,
right I think so?

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Yeah. Oh, and about the shortened life span, So I
think the Forsaken are immortal in the way that if
they die they get a new body, not immortal in
the way that they don't age. Ever, I think their
age is slowed because their channelers. But I think the
whole like forsaking can never die, is just like, oh well,
then the dark If you die, the dark one will
just make you a new body. Or if you get
too old, you can like he'll just put you in

(01:35:13):
a new body. But like that's not you live forever.
That's he controls death, that can pop your soul into
a new body and you start over again.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
It has a lot to do with healing too, right,
So for some reason, evil powers can always max out
your cellular life.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
Yeah. Yeah, and we did see what agon or reverse age.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
Yeah, I'm sucking on that pure male power, that pure
male power. He was just sucking on it phrasing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
Okay, speaking of right access to the pure power that
was on Rand's brain. Right, Maybe part of the reason
the eye of the world had to be there is
to prime him for being to channel this like pure
one power thing that exists outside. I've heard a lot
of people speculate that I don't necessarily thing, So I
think it was just a well of power to use

(01:36:05):
to defeat the army that would have otherwise destroyed Randland.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
Right, That's what I think. But that's an interesting theory.

Speaker 2 (01:36:11):
But yeah, I've heard the theory that like it was
a primer to get him ready to fight the last
battle that he needed that sort of like kickoup and
skill level and to experience what channeling the true power,
like the true one power? God? Yeah, will want true power?
Oh my god, the way that that's such an overloaded term. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
So with respect to Masana, the other really interesting thing
about her is that, in addition to being a failed
researcher and a relegated administrator, she is a general who
is capable of getting down in the mud and showing
the soldiers what to do. She is actually someone who
will fight directly in a way that Grandall will always flee, right,

(01:36:54):
Messana will actually at some point choose to stand and fight,
and that will be her undoing in a little.

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
Bit, even though we've never seen that from her, No.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
But that's part of the lore of who people think
of or like what we know of her through the histories.
We haven't seen that, but now, honestly we kind of
have because she has been very dogged in every mission.
She's set herself too, right, she hasn't left the White Tower,
despite the fact that the coup happened or the reverse
coup happened, right, but like she's locked onto it. She's

(01:37:27):
just absolutely she does not switch missions. When it gets hard,
she digs in harder and that's very Agwain like.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
And she has been successful. Right, She's broken the White Tower.
It has remained broken for a long time. It has
been corrupted on both sides with a dark friend, you know,
right behind the Amulin. She nearly brought them to battle
multiple times. She was essentially crippling them. And like, if
you look at what happened in the White Tower, and

(01:37:54):
the way Elida banished a bunch of them, and then
the way they're invaded, Like the countdown to the number
of actual eyesaid Ie left in the tower was like
two hundred or something maybe less right, Like it's just
crazy as if you think about the White Tower as
they talk about being it being empty, when there were
three thousand people inside of it, and so you know

(01:38:15):
this institution that must have been ten, maybe you know,
twenty thirty thousand people living in there at one time,
as we'reduced to a couple hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
And then the other really interesting thing that we get
from the lore is that Masana was second only to
Demondred in sheer Anger, which I think is a very
interesting observation. Demondred obviously being just come at me bro
for the entire last battle, like until three successive men

(01:38:47):
managed to kill him, and it you know, they even
point out here like because Gwen says, well, I thought
they were all hateful, and you know Ciane has to
say or Sayeren has to say no, no, not hate anger,
and like really making you the reader think about the
difference between those two things and how that exists. There

(01:39:07):
is nuance even within evil. Right, evil is not one
monolithic thing. There's many many facets.

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
Because I'd say, like jealousy also, right, there's hate, there's anger,
there's jealousy. Right, all of those are different characteristics that
made people, especially the men, turn to the dark one.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
Yeah. So I think it's really interesting that the thwarted
academic who's good at administration but doesn't like it is
the angry one. I just think that's so interesting and
almost relatable. Like, if I was going to be evil,
I feel like my uppermost emotion I would be like
leading with to take me through my evil path would

(01:39:46):
be anger. Like that would be how I would drive
my evil direction. So, and I've always liked Massana as
in terms of being like, yeah, she's the bookish one
who just will not let go of her mission. I
don't know, I like hurt the most of the various
forsaken archetype things. And yeah, the fact that anger is
her primary emotion just feels relatable.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
I feel like she's a toddler who wants to break
things right, and she's like, oh, white tower, I'm gonna
break it, you know, cracks it in half, he throws
this piece away, throw those that piece away. Anytime someone
tries to build something, she's just stomping all over it.
She's like, screw you. I don't want you to build
anything successful, and I will go out of my way
to ruin anything you do rather than build something on

(01:40:30):
my own, because you denied me from getting into your
ivory tower.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
Yeah, Toddler in a meltdown. Absolutely. I love the image
of her just stomping on a sand castle, kicking over
a Jenga tower.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
Yeah, with like Suan and Elida and like Ggwayne trying
to set up their respective towers all at the same time. Yeah,
and she's going from one to the other, like undermining
them each, like digging a hole next to it so
it falls, flashing water on the other one, kicking the

(01:41:03):
third one down.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
And yeah, that's all I got. There's I got. I
got the readout.

Speaker 2 (01:41:10):
But yeah, yeah, I would agree read out.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
She tried to deliver a broken white tower, Agwayne thought,
but that has failed. She was probably part of the
attempt to kidnap rand as well. Another fiasco, and the
women sent to destroy the Black Tower. Masana would need
something grand to offset so many failures. Killing Agwayin would
work that might send the White Tower back into division.

(01:41:35):
Gwen had been mortified when she said she might use
herself as bait. Did she do so? She gripped the
railing standing above the tower, above the city that depended
on her, looking out on a world that needed her.
Something had to be done, Masana had to be drawn out.
If what Sarahen said was true, then the woman would

(01:41:55):
be willing to fight directly. She wouldn't hide hope from
the shadows. No, she can do both. Equain's task then
was to tempt her with an opportunity, one that didn't
seem obvious, one she couldn't resist. Come again, said, walking
toward the ramp back down into the dower. I have
some preparations to make quilting. Quilting, quilting, quilting.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
That counter is just going up every time you say quilting.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Show of hands from the audience, live and recorded, how
many of you are quilters? Because I have just been
bit by the quilting book. I have finished my first
piece top. I have not done my sandwiching because I
don't have enough batting. But I officially would like to
quit everything in my life except for cutting and pressing
and stitching. That's the only thing I would like to

(01:43:19):
do with my life from now on, please and thank you.
That is my ted talk.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
I'm familiar with some of those words, you're using them
in a context I am not familiar with. And that's
confusing me a little bit because I don't understand. You know,
I kind of do, because I kind of know what
quilting is, but I really don't.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
Well, I barely know what quilting is. My mom decided
she wanted to get me into quilting this summer. So
she's now given me several books that she's gotten from
second hand stores and stuff strip quilting and machine quilting
and peace quilting and all this stuff, and she got
me started on my very first set of blocks. Like
it's just square, well triangles. Actually, it starts out with

(01:43:57):
you cut out squares and then you make them into
try and then you assemble them and it's like the
simplest possible design. But it's just very satisfying because it's
all about precision, right. You make first of okay, first
of all, so with sewing, you normally have shears like scissors, right,
and they distort the fabric as you cut. With quilting

(01:44:20):
that will never work for how precise everything is. So
you have a rotary cutter, and that is the coolest
thing ever, Oh my god, the fact they're so sharp
and and it just it cuts so precisely. So you
have all of these like hard plastic things that you
can use to create guidelines, so you can cut things
super precisely, so precise, and then you line them up

(01:44:41):
and you pin them really precisely, and then you put
them through the sewing machine at an extremely precise seam
allowance and it's very very precise. And then you have
to press it iron it the very hot iron, and
turn it and press it again and make it all
very very crispy and like laid out, and the seama
allowance has to be like all pressed to one side
and like extremely pressed and crispy. And then you just
keep doing that in bigger and bigger spirals, and it

(01:45:03):
not spirals, but like it iterates upwards. Sometimes it's spirals,
and it's I guess said, this is my very first quilt,
so it's not super precise. There's a lot of things
wrong with it. I just picked some random fabric and
kind of just started slamming it together because I wanted
to learn the basic mechanical skills before getting like lost
in the weeds of like, oh no, my points don't match.
This is really important fabric Like that's for later. And yeah,

(01:45:27):
I've gotten to the point where I've done the top,
so I have six big squares and it's like it's
not a huge quilt, but you know, and a quilt,
a quilt is defined as a sandwich, right, It's two
layers of fabric with something squishy in between. Like that
is a quilt in terms of it being a blanket.
And yeah, I don't have quite enough batting to do that,

(01:45:48):
so I get to skip the part that's boring where
you have to sandwich the thing together and like baste
it and figure out how to stitch over the whole
thing to like make it get held together, which apparently
there's this whole machine called a long armish where the
quilt basically stays in place and the machine moves over
it to do the like invisible patterned stitching that holds
everything together and keeps it from sliding. Yeah, apparently a

(01:46:10):
lot of people just do the top part and then
pay someone else to do the other parts, kind of
like taking a picture to a frame shop, like you
pick out the batting and the fabric, but then they
have the cool machine and the skills and they actually
assemble it and make it look nice so that you
have a finished thing. And some people use quilts for
wall hangings or for blankets or tablecloths, you know, Like

(01:46:31):
there's so many different kinds of applications for the basic
concept of quilting. Obviously, Also, quilting is like a thing
poor people do to save fabric, right. There's lots of
instances of people who are poverty stricken being like, well,
if we take these bits and pieces of fabric and
stick them together, we're still warm, right, So there's many
many regional cultures or regional styles of quilting that are
based on that. Gleaman Gleaman obviously a great example of

(01:46:53):
a quilting style sort of thing being done there.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
They're just like letting the ends. I feel like they're
quilting it together, just not trimming the ends, and that's
where you get that fluttering in the wind bit of.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
It, which definitely makes all of the quilters who like
precision very angry. But it's a stylistic choice especially, I
mean that's the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
Is he's advertising it right like this is this is
an advertised not the normal way of doing it. Right,
These are my multi colored lots of different patches quilting.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
Right. And now I have a new way in which
to conceptualize what I'm going to do with all my
scraps from other projects. I can say, like, I don't
know what to do with these. I guess I'll give
them to like Saint Vinnie's so that they can shred
it for packing material. And I was like, oh no,
if this is a cool fabric, I can just put
it into a basket and say, eventually I can quilt it.
Eventually I can quilt it into something like this is

(01:47:42):
gonna be it? Just it satisfies so many parts of
my crow brain, my goblin brain.

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
The horder part, the back rat part.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
Uh huh. Well, all hoarders, all quilters are hoarders. Like,
that's just a thing. All of them have fabric, more
fabric than they could ever sown their lives. It's just
a thing. Sewing people are like that. Sewing people are
materially grounded people. We need our stuff in order to exist, right,
But it's just it fits the same boxes as like
candy crush. Right, it's like these just these little these

(01:48:13):
little hitzo dopamine as you just go through these steps.
And also it's so autistic, like it's so freaking autistic. Like, yeah,
autism didn't exist until just recently. Tell that to all
of our grandmothers who invented sitting in a room cutting
up tiny little pieces of fabric into very precise shapes
and putting them all together very precisely, over and over
and over again. Yeah. No, autism definitely just just came
about for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
For sure. I also can't think evolutionarily why that would
be uh advantageous for anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:48:40):
Nah. Nah, we do have we do have quilting in
the chat. Okay, so mom Jean says, there's an event
called Victoria Quilts where sixty quilts were made in an
afternoon by a troop of volunteers. Yeah, those are people
who have done many quilts already. Yes, it's definitely experienced quilters.

(01:49:04):
But yeah, if you want to listen more to more
of me talking about quilting and all other things sewing
with my mom, who has infected me with this bug,
you can go over to Ust to sew. It's a
podcast that I do. We talk about all things sewing,
and quilting is definitely coming up a lot lately because
I have been introduced to this and now quilting is
my life. Like I don't want to do anything. I'm

(01:49:25):
not going to cook, I'm not gonna eat, I'm not
going to sleep. I'm definitely not going to podcast or
have relationships with people. Absolutely not. I am back into
the room to find more things I can cut up
and put together.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
I'm deep into home ownership land. I'm swapping out light
fixtures today. I was up on a ladder. We got
a well, so we had one of those fluorescent office
long lights in our closet which was just awful and
wasn't really working that well. So I ripped that out,
and of course I pulled the anchors behind it were
they were jammed up in there, so I had to

(01:49:57):
pull them through the drywall, so I kind of have
to patch up the drywall everything. But never bought this
pretty light that she decided she wanted inside the bedroom.
So now I'm replacing the bedroom light and then bedroom
light's going in the closet right, So it's a multi
step process. So I got about halfway through that today
before I realized I was running late for the podcast
and I had to run. But yeah, similar sort of like, yeah,

(01:50:19):
I like that sort of You know, this is my
first time owning a house. Right, We've been in here
for nine months ish, and there's a few little things
I've had to fix. Right, there's a clog in the
drain pipe for my water my AC condenser, and that
involved cutting PVC and finding replaced some pieces and glowing
it back together. And then there was you know, light

(01:50:39):
fixtures to change out and locks failing to fix and
little things like that. But I find those not frustrating
but fun to fix. Right, I'm still enjoying that part
of like the homeowners. I think a lot of people
really struggle for their first year in homeownership, either because
they end up in house that's too expensive, right, don't

(01:51:00):
realize all the unforeseen costs. But unfortunately, we ended up
in house that that's in pretty good shape and I
only have to fix little minor things and tweak little things,
and so far I've been enjoying all of those little
things to adjust. And so yeah, that's sort of been
my little obsession lately. Is like the things that I
am able to sort of control in my environment for

(01:51:21):
the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:51:22):
In my life, right right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:24):
I've been a renter the rest of my life, and
now it's like, oh, that thing's broken, I can fix it,
and I can make it better and I can make
it fit my preference.

Speaker 1 (01:51:31):
Hell yeah. So I'm enjoying that having agency over the
environment you live in.

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
Yes, And I'm still getting used to it, Like there's
still I know, my brain has been renting for such
a long time. You know, it's like I want to paint,
but I think it's become very difficult me for me
to even decide on the color, right because it's just like,
oh wow, yeah, I can control the color, but there's
so many options. So I'm building up to it slowly,
which is fixing things as they break and replacing things.

(01:52:00):
And I've read a few things that say, you know,
it takes a year or two or three to really
understand what you want in a space when you first
move in, You're not necessarily going to be able to
move in and do a bunch of renovations right up
front that are going to be worthwhile.

Speaker 1 (01:52:14):
Yeah. I was really glad with our house that we
moved in, it was like, well, there's no woodstove, so
we know what our first project is. And then that
led us to learning that our roof was in much
worse shape than we thought it was, So like our
first two years, we didn't even have to make a choice.
We just had a big project that like shaped all
of the other like ancillary projects around it. So that

(01:52:36):
got us through that kind of like we didn't get
stuck because it was like no, no, no, this is
this is where all the brain power's going. All the money.

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):
Yeah, yeah, because there's a limit, there's how many things
you can do it once where you're like, Okay, I
want to do this, but I'm trying to stay within
the budget and I'm trying to spend too much money
and just like replace all the fixtures of my house
at once, and you know there is no need to
do that when they're all working.

Speaker 1 (01:52:58):
Right right after we're done with the recording today, I'm
going to be helping mister homeowner replace all the breakers
in our house.

Speaker 2 (01:53:05):
Oh wow, that's a big project.

Speaker 1 (01:53:08):
Yeah. The power out here when it goes off, sometimes
it goes off very messily, like on off, on off,
and it like we've had like ninety second long like
brownout cycles before it finally finishes turning off. So we've
had a few weird electrical things where we're like, you
know what, let's just replace all the breakers. Let's just
it seems like one of them might be faulty, so

(01:53:30):
let's just replace all of them and then hopefully we
don't have to go to the bigger box or the
bigger box. Hopefully just the regular house breakers will fix
the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:53:39):
But A, so you're not replacing your box at all,
just every breaker inside of it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, So.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
At least you can turn off the switch off the
main breaker. Yeah, yeah, the main again, and so you're
not Yeah, so still, that's that's definitely one of those
things that you want to be careful with, right, That's
that's a very Yeah, that's one of the more dangerous
things you can do as a homeowner is fuck with
your breaker box.

Speaker 1 (01:53:59):
It's wild to me the shit that you're allowed to
do with your electrical as a homeowner. Yeah, Like it
amazes me the stuff that the homeowner is expected to do.
Like we're like, yeah, you can get an electrician if
you want, and it's like, really you're just gonna let
me make that call. It seems a little dangerous, but okay.
But yeah, Fortunately I've gotten many engineering and construction minded

(01:54:22):
people factory into how Brandon is approaching it, so we'll
be all right. But yeah, that's that's after recording today,
I'm gonna help him turn off the house and fix
all of the breakers.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
Yeah. One thing I'm discovering in my house is all
the wire connections are made with nuts and no tape,
and I'm like, we're going to tape those up. Every
time we open one of those, We're taping it up again.

Speaker 1 (01:54:44):
Homeowners and the electrical shenanigans that the state has no
problem letting people get up to. So, yeah, we are adults. Yeah,
are we ready to talk about books we read as children?
Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.

(01:55:05):
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