An Empty Ink Bottle & For What Has Been Wrought - Towers of Midnight chapters 12 & 13 - EP552

The rest of the cast gets to react to ZenJesusRand, Alanna vanishes by means unknown (and her other warder is also missing), new visions shed no new light on the plot, Tam is the best dad, and Aradia has an unimportant announcement about the Patreon in the aftershow.

Aradia on The Dusty Wheel talking about the pipe: https://www.youtube.com/live/eCFdfeltcL8?si=ys8WWo8Dgsz-raXS

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Before we start,
we do have patrons to do. You actually sent me
the screenshot, so I know we're ready to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
You only you reminded me yesterday instead of right beforehand,
and I was.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Like, oh, yeah, that's right, professional decent.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We actually thanked our patrons pretty recently, and then I
saw we got a little bit of a pop in patrons,
so I said, let's go ahead and thank them again.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yay, more patrons. We love it.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
More patrons, We love it you guys, thank you for
continuing to support us. You know, I was thinking to myself, like,
we have the live listeners, and we have you know,
a couple of people send us emails. I see a
couple of people at cons, but like, it's such a
small percentage of the people who are listening and I
know that and the people who are giving us donations
on patron. So when something like this happens where it's like,

(01:08):
oh yeah, we get a couple of people in a row,
it really reminds me that there's like a silent majority
of you out there listening. Yeah, totally totally, and or
people who have contributed in the past, you know, or
people who have talked to me in the past. And
it's like, because in my head, I when I'm talking,
I'm picturing a room of like fifteen people, like I'm
in front of a classroom, right like, But there's like

(01:29):
two thousand people out there downloading this.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Podcast something like that. It's more than I could keep
trying something like that, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And it varies quite a bit around that number, depending
on you know, who's binging and who's keeping up and
stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So to the ranks of people that we have thanked
over the years and support us, we now add Morgan
hect Woodrow. Very cool name. Thank you, Guias. Guys, it's
a fun name. Maln Larson. That seems like an I
said dynam I'm pretty sure there's a milin isid.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
M Gabriel Macetas Mastas Maistis. I'm sure that is incorrect,
but let's go with Masis.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
We made it a tempt yes, thank you very much.
And last, but certainly not least is a name that
is definitely not their full legal name, Soco. But there's
some zero's in there.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, it's it's zero's instead of o's. Butacau Zaco, Yeah,
which is cool.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
It's fun to say, Zaco, So thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
A nice eight bit mage going on as your screen.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, So thank you to these five new patrons, and
of course to all of our patrons past and present.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
You keep us going.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
So today we're here to discuss one of the shortest
chapters of this book. I think chapter twelve and empty
ink Bottle.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's a real damn short that's real damn short. And
then the chapter after that is a little longer, but
really exactly one thing happens.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, and it's also a relatively short chapter, right, Like
it's uh, maybe half the length of some of the
other chapters that we've booked at. So like these together chapters,
these two chapters together are about four thirds the length
of a normal chapter.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
It feels like, yeah, and just really not a lot
happens in them. It's a very brief slice of an afternoon. Basically,
it's not even a whole day. These two chapters together
are one slice and.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
In time we are jumping way ahead again, right because
this is after What's crazy is the events of these
books are after the end of the book, because the
end of the book is parent sees matt On the
mountaintop and this is days afterwards Rand.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Sorry'd be really funny if Parent and Matt saw each
other up there, but yeah, it's absolutely bonkers that. Yeah,
Rand is coming back from the mountain here early in
the book, and the book's climax is Parent seeing him
pre this.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, very confusing and.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Something I think the first time I read through didn't
really click with me. I was literally like, oh, because
until I didn't realize how early I thought Parent stuff
was happening at the same time Rand stuff was happening.
It's not until you're in the dream and you get
that sync up on the mountaintop that you're like, wait, what,
he's that far back in timeline. I did not realize exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, yeah, you thought maybe it was a little de
sync or what, but no, oh no, we are like
so far back.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, especially the jumping back and forth between the two timelines.
It's not like you get all of parents timeline and
then rans right, there's no catch up.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Very inconsistent, and I can see why they did that.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
They were like, oh, if you got all of Parent's
story right at the beginning of this, which is a
slow burn to say the least. This would be a
really tough book to get through. So I can see
how editing they went. Let's sprinkle in some rand stuff
even though it is asynchronous.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Could have just had less of the parent stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
But then how else would you get to fifty seven
chapters in this book, one of the most chapters of
out of any book.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
That's why they're so short.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And it's one of the reasons why we've been really
pushing the two chapters per episode, because there are as
many as double the chapters, because like I think some
of Jordan's books even have had like thirty five thirty
seven chapters, right, yeah, so yeah, last five five per episode.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Donkill is such an enabler, He's like.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Go faster, guys. Listen, we've got about a year and
a half less left of content and we're gonna end.
We're gonna end this sucker the series right right about
ten years and we're not in a big rush to
beat that, and we're I think we're gonna try and
time it that way. So all right, speaking of which,
let's get into it.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, Chapter twelve an empty ink bottle, and our symbol
is kad Swain's hair ornaments. Men sat on a window
ledge in the stone of Tyr, enjoying the warmth. The
afternoon breeze was refreshing, laden, though it was with humidity
and the sense of the city below. The tyrants have
been calling the weather chilly, which made men smile. How

(06:03):
would these folk respond to a good and door in winter?
With snow piled up at the sides of buildings and
icicles hanging from the eaves. All that could be said
of the weather lately was that it was less sweltering
than usual. The warmth that men was enjoying, however, had
nothing to do with the heat in the air. Sunlight
shone upon the city in the stones courtyards. Defenders in

(06:25):
their striped sleeves and breeches, kept stopping and looking up
toward the open sky. The clouds still lurked on the horizon,
but they were broken around the city in an unnatural ring,
perfectly circular. The warmth that men felt was not caused
by the sunlight. How can you just sit there, nineve
demanded Men turned her head. The window was wide open,

(06:47):
and the walls of the stone were thick. Men sat
on the window still, with her knees bent, her bare
toes touching the wall. On the other side, her boots
and stockings lay on the floor beside a stack of books.
Ninive paced the room. The Stone of Tears had withstood
sieges and storms, wars and desolation, but men wondered if
it had ever survived anything quite like Ninive Almira in

(07:09):
a peak, the dark haired Eyes to Die has spent
the last three days stalking through the corridors like a
crackling thunderhead, intimidating defenders, terrifying servants. I love that little
description of Ninive, like her fury at being frustrated might
be enough to shake the stone down. It's a good
outside view of Ninive and just.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
How terrifying she is right like she is a force
of nature for everybody around her, Like she's always like,
oh what was me? Do I know what I'm doing?
And it's like, yeah, you know what you're doing, Like
everybody else, everybody else is doing what you say, except maybe.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Cod Sway and Kat Swayne is taking her seriously, which
is Kat Swayne's equivalent of obeying.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right, Well, what other person have we seen her take seriously?
Sourrialia so sorely.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, literally, Ninive is elevated to sore Lea's status. Katherine,
it's almost just a small step before right sorely is
still better.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's true that she did view her almost as more
than an.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Equal, right, whereas Ninive is simply worthy of paying attention
to yes.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
And I do like this chapter because it gives us
a chance to react to Rand's zenness, right like, I
do like that there's a payoff. This is something we
didn't get with the cleansing. Despite everybody seeing the cleansing,
nobody went, oh, this is better, right Like, we haven't
really gotten that. Catharsis maybe just a little bit in

(08:34):
some of these books, but really like, this is an
opportunity for Rand to come up and be like, oh, like,
look at me, I am glowing with the halo of goodness,
and I can.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Now sending down off the mountain with the billowing clouds
and alien lights behind him.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
You know, we get to enjoy the character's success. We
get to see like, no matter what happens in the
last battle, he has won. And there's a quote in
here where he says something like the time has passed
in which he could avoid the conflict, right, because now
I have essentially ascended to something more like he's not
gonna drive me crazy. He's not gonna have me kill myself.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
It's one of the quotes that was chosen by Pants
for the by doctor Pants for the art The Shadow
made its play for me and lost. Yeah, something else
like it's yeah, it's it's a good it's a good.
You're right. I hadn't thought about the fact that this
is the payoff we should have gotten after the cleansing.
I was just annoyed that the chapter had so little
to it, But you're right, what it does have to

(09:34):
it is the kind of resolution that we've been looking
for for a long time.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, Doctor Pants, that is the good summary quote.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, not every chapter has a really good quote. This
chapter very much. It's like, well, obviously, right, obviously, Jesus
rand is what we're calling him, right, He's he's returned.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
He's been gone for three days hmmm, and he's resurrected
as a new man. Right. This he really he went
up to the mountaintop and came down with the you know,
ten commandments, Like there really is this.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Whole I mean that was Moses, but you know, but I'm.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Saying, like he is all of those things, right, This
is massic figure from and like the Bible in you know,
because it's.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
A legends fate, legends.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Fate, the myth. Myth becomes the Bible, the Bible becomes
this thing. Right he he is all of those legends
in the same way that he's also Zeus, in the
same way that parent is also kind of Zeus.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
But you know, I'm I mean, none of them are
running around nearly as much as Zeus. I do not
think they have the prolific inability to keep it in
their pants. That is a defining characteristic of Zeus.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh you should have waited for the Outriggers. Those would
have just been straight porn.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
I'll accept that.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Head can just Ran bouncing from woman to woman to
woman having multiple you know, the three wives having multiple children.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Saying that is Zeus's entire person cannot keep it in
his pants.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I mean, but think about how many children Ran is
gonna have, right, Like aviend is gonna have kids, Elaine's
gonna have kids. He's gonna have six kids, just off
the right off the bat, and he's still got a
whole nother body to abuse.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
It's true, that's true. That is true. Yeah, anyway, But
the point is he's being very messianic, and he's getting
a lot of page time to do that in and
it is satisfying, Like the Renaissance painters and composers knew
what they were doing when they put together these big,
elaborate images of how this vibe should be. Like it's

(11:26):
not not satisfying, Like it's satisfying for a reason. It
was designed to be very gratifying. And Sanderson is like,
let me just revel in it. And it's good.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's good, And I mean, you need a Mormon to
tell these kind of stories. He knows, I mean, he's
got a lot of very familiar with the exactly right,
and he knows how to evoke it in a way
that he's.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Coming from a craft a workshop where this sort of
thing is crafted at an industrial scale. He's gonna be
good at it, right.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I love the little bit vignette of nine discovering iced tea.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Men being horrified at the concept of iced tea, which,
like you know, I am personally not a huge fan
of iced tea, but I'm not a fan of tea broadly,
Like I really only like chai, and that's just I
don't know if I'm gonna put ice in my beverages.
It's gonna be coffee, but I just want coffee more.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
As I sit here and drink a cup of tea.
It's hot, but yeah, I love my tea. I love tea.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I'm mid on tea. How do you feel about iced tea?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's wonderful in the South, sure, because you are sweating
so much and you want something, you know, and it's
a good way pre soda to get, especially if you
had sweet tea, right Like, you're sweating out salt and
sugar and so you can get some of that back
in this tea. And I like the caffeine that comes
with tea. Coffee's caffeine can be a little harsh. It

(12:55):
can leave you a little jittery. I can leave you
a little you know, go go go. I feel like
the caffeine that comes with tea gets processed a little
more gently and it's a little more of a just
a gentle stimulant, it doesn't, you know, like just for example,
I don't usually immediately have to use the restroom after
I drink tea, unlike coffee. Right, So there's it's just
it gives you some that stimulant without quite that much stimulant.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Sure, yeah, I would agree. It doesn't kick as hard,
and that's why I prefer coffee, right.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
So that's that there are reasons that you might prefer
the stimulants a little bit more stimulant. Tea, the ADHD
maybe a little bit.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Stimulants work very well for me, yes.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, so you know some people, there's times when I
find that I don't need that kind of.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Kick, Okay. Yeah, so and yeah, I guess that's super
valid because I really like iced coffee in the summer
when heat is a problem, like, it totally makes sense
to have your stimulant beverage. You can just kind of
clutch and move through your life with being coal because
it's hot out. So yeah, I guess it really just
comes down to a preference on if you like tea

(14:05):
or not. Okay. So, Ninieve is freaking out that Rand
is gonna be leveling cities in the days he's unsupervised,
whereas Men knows that for the last three days he's
just been vibing. Right, She's not worried, she's not anxious.
She's like, he'll come when he's ready to come. It's fine.
I'm not taking you to him, but I guess if
you're gonna literally explode, I'll promise to take him, to

(14:27):
take you to him in a few days. But it's
not gonna be relevant because he's vibing and he's gonna
come back after three days because he's Jesus right.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Because men felt the whole transformation. She felt him go
through the angst, she felt him overcome, She felt the light.
And now this is the warmth that she's basking in. Right,
it's not the sun, she keeps saying, it's not the sun,
but it feels like the sun. And that's just the
warmth that is the veins of gold coming off of
Rand through the bond, right, And so she's totally chill

(14:55):
because she knows that Rand is totally chill. Yeah, she
sensed that change, saw dark out.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah right, she is like floating on cloud niners blissed out.
While Niniva's like, the last time I saw Rand, he
was a darth Rand and I still haven't gotten military
support for my husband, So like, how can you be
so calm? And it's like what here you do all
the class.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
It's like you really gotta try this drug?

Speaker 1 (15:23):
And nine he was like, I have actual shit to do, right, now.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
And so there as they're talking, Serene comes in and
basically says Alana has gone. She's vanished right from her chambers.
No sign of a gateway.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Here's the isode that justifies you being confused about Serene. Yes,
it's literally Serene. It's not spelled Serene, but it's pronounced Serene.
So when you were like Serene, I mean, here, she
is Serene. Why why would you have been you know,
why would you know? It totally makes sense?

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, totally right, right, Yeah, because it's pronounced like the
words word that means calm.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
When you saw the actual word on the page, of course,
your mind went to the isodyte because it sounds the same.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I listened to the audiobooks more than I read
the books these days. Right, so.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Exactly, so there's the isidyet that justifies that little mistake.
But yeah, she shows up to say plot twist, Alana's
gone missing, which is you know, important, ish, I guess.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
So how do you think she got out? Because I
don't think they answer that in this chapter, right, they
sort of get she there's no sign of a gateway
unless she invented flying. They do say, unless she invented flying, right,
which makes me think it has something to do with flying,
but I have no theories.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
It's like Verared was able to hand her like an
invisibility potion in that note or something. Right.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, so we didn't really talk about that, but she
got she's a note that they find has the red
wax seal.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
There's no actual evidence of the note itself, and it's
like the information somehow allowed Alana to get out more easily,
but that doesn't actually make any sense with what we
know about the magic of the world. So my thought
is that she maybe just knew how to do like
an invisibility weave, just like a bending light sneak out

(17:18):
kind of thing, or very new.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Of a secret passageway in the wall that allowed her
to like sneak out, Like I don't I mean, yeah,
something to do with flying, just because that's the red
herring fuel on the page.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we ever get
an answer. I don't think that this would be her
getting kidnapped, though, I think she left under her own power,
whatever the mechanism was. I don't think that she gets
abducted and taken into custody for the last battle cave
scene until later, but I don't know. Maybe maybe she

(17:53):
wasn't maybe she didn't leave, maybe she was taken.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I think she was taken. I think that this is
another one of Varren's letters, arriving a little too late,
in the same way that Camberlon got invaded. I think
that the letter was a warning to Alana to get
out there coming for you. You were tied to the dragon,
and she was taken by someone who didn't channel the

(18:17):
one power, but channeled the true power. I think you've
got a forsaken I think is Shammel came in and
kidnapped her, and that's why she ends up in the cave,
and that's why they sense her in the borderlands. She's
a little bit north of the borderlands.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
That makes so much sense because.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
You have a hard time determining distance. You know direction
really accurately, but you have a hard time with distance.
So if they sense, oh, she's in the direction of
the borderlands, well what if she's just a little bit
further and she'll goool.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
This is her actually getting captured. So you think Varren
didn't facilitate the capture. Think Varen was attempting to subvert
the capture and it just didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
And that's why they took letter, because the letter would
have warned whoever found you know, says basically, you're gonna
get taken. Run. You know. It's a theory, right, Like,
I don't have a lot of direct evidence for it
other than this statement that A, she's in the borderlands.
B we know she does eventually get kidnapped, and this
is the last time we see her before she shows

(19:16):
up in the cave. Right, We'd have no idea what
happens between then and now, so one could assume that, like,
she gets kidnapped now.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Also, I feel like unless they learned to fly is
often a line used when it's actually a kidnapping. I
feel like this is perhaps, yeah, a thing that like
often when a person is missing, not because they had
their own ability to get at It's like that's usually
the detective throwing their hands up, like, well, I guess
they must have learned to fly then, and it's like
now they were taken. I had never thought that this

(19:44):
was the point at which she got kidnapped, But that
does tie up all of the loose ends the most neatly,
with the most conservation of plot. So I'm inclined to
believe it. I mean, we don't need evidence. It's just
like a lot like Aukham's razor, like well that fits
with no loose ends.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
The only loocends is her stuff is still there or
isn't there. She packed her stuff up and took it right,
so then that that to me then indicates that she
went willingly or that.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
She was about to get away, and it was literally
like a five minutes sooner and she would have gotten out,
but like because she just didn't take Varn's letter, she
didn't like get around to opening it soon enough, like
it could have just been a photo finish kind of
thing where she actually was ready to go, and so
the alibi was even easier for the kidnappers than it

(20:32):
would have had to be, or the kidnappers know that
it will be easier for them to get away with
it if they take all of her stuff. Maybe possibly,
but I like the idea of a photo finish where
if Alana had just taken the letter a little bit
more seriously and gotten out ten minutes sooner than she
would have been fine. I prefer that as a heart
pounding head canon.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And I wish we had some more evidence right, I
just I have nothing else to go on in terms
of what happens between now and the last battle when
she shows up in the cave ready to be.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Killed, send us your head, Canons.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
And like, also, where's her order?

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah? What did happen to.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Ellen? Let's let's do a quick that. This is where
the show has confused the hell out of me, because
she's got such a bigger role in the show than
she did in the books. This is the TV show wiki.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Damn you, God, damn it. What happened to referencing the.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Books change their names?

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, I got nothing, So he just kind of ceases
to exist at some point, Like what, we can't just
lose a whole warder.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Let's see i've on an Owen Owen all right? So yeah,
he's last mentioned in Winter's Heart. He accompanies Alan as
they travel from Kyrieen to Formatting. Although it is not
mentioned directly, we can assume that i've on travels back
to Kyrieanne with Alana and then Tear where they stay
at the Stone in Knife of Dreams. But he like
hasn't to mention since when it's heart that.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Is some bullshit. Just as for the fucking Wards God, ah,
So I'm gonna assume that he was hovering around Alana
so protectively that he got killed and whisked off and
dropped in a pit when she got kidnapped. Here bailfired
something something he's he's disposed of at the point she

(22:27):
gets kidnapped. I'm gonna assume he's with her until the
point she gets kidnapped, at which point he gets disposed of.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
But then, like, why isn't Rand feeling any of this
if her warder is dead, if she's being kidnapped, Like
you feel like Rand would like feel her panic, her fear, right,
Like yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, so maybe they had to just give them both
a bunch of work routine and put them in a
weird place where they're think they're okay until yeah, because
Rand never once says, oh, one of my eyes to
die is having a bad time. He just ignores her
so completely that he doesn't notice her going through existential
panic and fear and dread at the loss of her

(23:04):
actual worder. Like, that's a really weird plot hole. First,
we're losing a warder. Now we're completely ignoring Alana having
the worst fear for life. That feels like a plot hole.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Her popping out of nowhere in the cave just feels weird.
I mean, my only maybe in shale Goul the rules
work differently, and she's been there. She gets kidnapped to
show Gooul this is a.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Knoll field around shale Gooul is a weak ass exponer.
But you know, it kind of fits with how Swan
didn't notice her warder getting knifed in the back right
we look four, So you know, I guess that's consistent
in this world.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
The women are so into themselves they don't notice their
men dying.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
No, the author doesn't care enough about the warder isisidie
relationship to remember it exists all the time. It's only
there for plot reasons sometimes, which.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Is funny because it's gets so emphasized in the show.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well maybe Raife was also annoyed at the disrespect the
same and was trying to like offer a correction.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Anyhow, anywhow, there's a funny line here where in Nive
this whole time, she's been going why is Alana important?
Why is Alana important? And then finally Codswayne goes because
if the Shadow has her, they can find Rand and
then Ninive goes, We've been fools. There should have been
one hundred maidens guarding her. And it's like you were
just complaining that she's not important and you don't care.

(24:25):
Well written, Well done like that. The hypocriticalness, that turning
on the dime, that gas.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Lighting shouting I need shouting exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, well done, well done. That's she's she's proven wrong,
and instead of admitting she's wrong, she pretends she had
the opposite to take the whole time.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Such a nice to die.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, well done. So god Swayne gets some tea and
it tastes good because of course Rand is returning and
he is preventing everything from going bad.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Oh yeah. She also mentally chastises herself for thinking that
Ninive might be lying to her. She's like, no, Nieve
didn't send the note because Naive prize herself on being honest,
and if I distrust her, then I'm gonna be really paranoid. Yeah,
as paranoid Rand. And then yeah, she braces herself for
the bitter tea, which is a lovely little setup for

(25:13):
drinking the tea. And it's not bitter. It tastes good.
It tastes better than it possibly could because Jesus Rand
is in the house.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's not better. It's bitter. Right now, it's not bitter, it's.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Better, exactly exactly, And just like that, Men and her
maiden attendance are off down the hallway to greet Rand.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
And then because the chapter breaks are weird and arbitrary,
we go right continuing the scene, like, honestly, this could
have been one chapter, right, like, because it just Men's
POV the whole time, right, yeah, or at least through
the chapter break. It's it's one minute.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
To another, and I don't need to like do it,
We don't even need to do a read in it's
it's just, it's just And we switch to another chapter
for what has been wrought with the ideal spears, because
we have an important ideal moment. But yeah, it's just
Men leaves the room and then we pick up with
Men having left the room, running towards Rand with the
AEEL and everyone's excited to have him back.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Meanwhile, Men's like, God, damn, I put some weight on
sitting here studying these books.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
You know, a college degree will do that to you.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
The freshman fifteen, she's like puffing and off and.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Like she has not been focusing on her diet or
on getting enough exercise. Well, she's been plowing through these books,
getting a PhD in triple time.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I can just see the donuts, the pastries like piled
up on one side, the books next to them, right,
her and Loyal chilling out like study buddies.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, exactly, she's outpacing the eyes to die only because
the eyes that I refused to look silly. But it's like,
it's totally makes sense that, like, yeah, you're not going
to be in tip top ideal athletic shape given that
you've been literally studying for like fifteen hours a day.
That totally makes sense.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
And I like that that. That's where her character goes
is into the library.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, yes, fashion icon and a bookworm. We love it.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
So in comes Rand wearing his Beggar's cloak because he
you know, his tinker's cloak, I should say, and I
like this this line where he says later, I'm no
longer blind, right, because this is that was the end
of Beggar. You know, he wasn't he was kind of blinded, right,
there's that symbolic blinding by the fireball, right where everything
was kind of fuzzy. But that's not the blinding he's
talking about it. Was blind to the corruption and the

(27:47):
evil around him, and now his eyes are open to
that well, and.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
He was blind to his full humanity, right, he was
blind to real pain, he was blind to real love.
He was blind to all the realness. And yeah, that
cut him off from being able to do auto detect
on all of the bad guys.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Your dot's turned red, all right, easy to tell. And
now the air is distorting around him. But she's like,
instead of that dark halo, She's like, is that a
trick of the sunlight, because he's kind of got this
halo around him, right, is this aura around him?

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, it's a positive distortion rather than a darkening shrinking
in like black hole energy. Now it's a radiative, glowing
energy and with it comes new viewings.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yes, and it really mirrors the things in his brain, right,
because before there was darkness and now it's wrapped with
the glowing light.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yes, almost like she's seeing a manifestation of the war
for his mind that the Dark One and the Reverse
Power are doing.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Right, So visions an open cavern gaping like a mouth,
blood stained rocks. That's him walking up the shale ghoul, right,
his blood.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Which is not new. That's an old viewing, like the
blood on the rocks of shale Ghul Is and that's
in the Korea's encycle Like, that's not a new one.
It's just a more high fidelity vision of what we
already know is coming.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And seeing the cavern, knowing that he's going to go
into a cavern, right, Like I don't think we knew
that before necessarily.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
But did we really think it was going to be
anything other than a cavern?

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Right because we've seen all the forsaken enter that halway
right with the ceiling that closes right like, that's you know,
we know where shale Goul is.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, it was all and the eye of the world
was in a cave. Like, clearly this battle is going
to be in a cave, in a mountain.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Dull, in a cave with scraps, I'm sorry. The next one,
two dead men on the ground, surrounded by ranks and
ranks of trollicks.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
The moment of the body swap, that.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Would be my assumption as well. Is rand and interesting
that it's two dead men, but I guess, yeah, they're
both dying at one point.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, the bodies are both very much at the edge
of death, right, Rand like, Morden comes out holding the
Rand body. The Mordan body comes out holding the Rand body,
but they both collapse and look rather dead. And then
just I figured the ranks and ranks of trollicks is
the fact that the battle is still actively raging even
at the moment of the climax.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
And then a pipe with smoke curling from it, which
is and.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
That is new. That is a completely new vision that
has not existed before. And as we all know, that
is the final moment of Rand on the page as
the book closes, is him lighting a pipe with his mind.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
And that question, right, like, so, I think that's one
of the reasons it makes that moment even more iconic,
Right is this there's that little bit of foreshadowing of
it is an important moment.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's not some sort of weird symbol about coziness.
It's like, no, he's going to have weird magic powers
as the books close. That's what's happening. And I will
remind everyone that I got to go on Dusty Wheel
and talk about speculations for what was up with the
pipe at the end, and I will put a link
for that in the description because I think it was
a really fun conversation. Being on Dusty Wheel is always fun,
and I was very honored to get to do that

(31:00):
particular looney theory deep dive.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Oh, can you give us a summary of what you argued?

Speaker 1 (31:05):
I cannot. It was like two years ago. I have
no idea what I said, but I know it was
a really fun conversation and many people said that they
really enjoyed it, so I encourage everyone to go watch that.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
So apart from that discussion, do you have a favorite
theory about what's going on with Rand in the pipe?

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I think the theory I like most, and people can
go watch the video and tell me if I'm wrong,
But I think the theory I like most is that
he's connected to tell I run Riod. Now, he's just
a little bit part of the dream existing in the
real world. I'm pretty sure that's what I settled on.
It's what I like now anyway.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Oh, and I like that that that kind of blends
in with the whole till round Reod is the dark
One's prison, right because if he fixes, if he recreates
a portion of that, because he fixes the whole right,
So he's.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Got the one saw in his eye, right, he's holding
that spot in himself. So anyhow, so.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, those are divisions, none of none of them are
a big you know shock to us. Right, that's the
last battle and what happens afterwards, right, like exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
The battle is happening now, right, She's seeing a vision
that says, this is how the battle's going to go
down now that we know what's happening. And she looks
at him, and he looks a lot older. She's like,
he has crows feet, he looks ancient in his eyes.
There's all this like there's this moment of did he
get swapped out with Luce Theren essentially? And no, he
just super aged like really fast.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, I can see wisdom and also just like you
know the way presidents age over four years, only faster, right,
Like I can see Ran like looking very haggard, because
I mean, he hasn't been sleeping. He's really relied on
his worder bond to keep him going and sleep only
a couple hours a night. Like he's been going one
hundred percent of the time. Every day. He's fought in

(32:46):
you know, death defying battles over and over and over again.
He's dealt with his guilt, he's dealt with pressure, he's
dealt with manipulation, right, like, and in two years. This
is all in two years, most of it in the
last like six months. You know. It's one of those
things where he's like you look at old pictures of like,
uh oh, what is that a six year old coal miner? No,

(33:06):
he's fifteen, Like.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Right, that's right, right, yeah, absolutely all that.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
But then also the fact that like now he has
the memories of four hundred years of being Louis Theron
and they have integrated. And I do like this this
moment where Min is saying, was this the same man?
Had the Rand she loved been stolen away? Replaced with
an ancient force of a man she could never know
or understand? Had she lost him? After all? Because I
think there's this moment where you're like, oh my god,

(33:33):
if this ancient person and Rand of the same person,
does Rand sort of taken over by this person? This
lewis theren who existed? Who was this king? Who was
this you know, ice diye? And is the farmer gone? Right?

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, it's a legitimate moment because he went over some
kind of massive crux, you know, and it's a reasonable question.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Is the reason he's sur is because there's this foreign
entity who's taken over? Right? I think that's that's a
real question to ask and a real possibility. Right, This
idea that like the crazy voice in his head has
taken over is not an unreasonable one.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
It was an option, yeah, just not when he took.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
But then he smiles and he's back to being you know,
the boyish rand that we know in love from the
early books, right, Like, this is the rand that we
fell in love with, who would you know, wouldn't kill
a woman and who cared about his friends, And.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Though this one will kill a woman because he understands
that men and women are equally in need of being
killed sometimes.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Absolutely absolutely, but like that's sort of that innocence, right,
Like that is is back, right that and the innocence
is the wrong word. But the belief that things can
get better, that things will work out in the end.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, the hopeful soft sheep herder boy is that everyone's
been saying he's in there somewhere, right, even I need
in the last chapter was like he's in there. I'm
just afraid he's not coming back. And it's like, no,
he's there. He's more himself than he's ever been, right,
He's come around on the spiral and has so much
more experience, but is coming back to himself in a

(35:07):
really meaningful way. And then yeah, Min runs up to
him and says, how dare you make me wait for
three days? And he says, I was just existing, which
is like such a mood, right, that's what a vacation
should be, a chance to just exist, not needing to
do things. I mean, sometimes a vacation of doing things
is great, but like I totally get the need to

(35:29):
just sit and stare at the river for three days
like that is absolutely a real thing that real human
beings need to do sometimes. And yeah, it's a total mood.
Sometimes you just need to take three days to just
be completely disconnected.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
He's like, listen, I was tripping.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Okay, look, look there was more than apples growing in
that field.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I thought they I thought they were edible mushrooms. They
were certainly edibles.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Any mushrooms edible.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
He just wants at least once that's like your parachute fails,
you know, the rest of your life to figure it out.
So true, Yeah, so true.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, no, Rand even says he felt a Lona go
and that she went north, And it's like if he
felt her go but didn't feel her panicking, that does
suggest that she was drugged or under her own power
or not aware that she was being kidnapped, because the
subterfuge was really good.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
And it's possible that she went up the borderline up
to the borderlands thinking she would accomplish something and then
that's where she was taken, right, Like she could be
an RFL doing something.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
That was my old assumption was that she got herself
out of there. But once you really put me to
the question of like, but how did she leave, then
it was like, well, I guess kidnapping. But I've always
assumed that, yeah, she figured she was gonna meet him
in the borderlands with some kind of a pre assembled
force organized as a peace offering.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
I just have no way of explaining how she got
out of there, right, so she physically sneak out and
then do a gateway somewhere, like it doesn't make sense to.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Me, but greens are clever, so I totally could see
her doing some D and D shenanigans to like just
bend some light and open a window and not use
channeling in the big way, but use channeling in the
little way. That would be a very sandersome thing to do.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
But like I said, as far as I'm aware, we
don't get any answers on that. But we'll keep an
eye out to see if there's someone captured somebody in
airfl right, Like, if there's some maybe offhanded mention that
we can make a connection there.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
You know, yeah, yeah, and yeah. Then here's the line
that you were trying to reference earlier, the other one
aside from the one that got used in the chapter icon.
But the time when it the dark one could silence
me quietly, and therefore wind has passed, the confrontation is assured.
That's the vibe. Now we're doing this, we've tipped over
the edge.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
And the scream that begins the avalanche has been sounded.
That's a really interesting line to me. Which scream is
he talking about? In which avalanche? Like that's really I
don't really as a metaphor, fine, but is he what
is he referring to there? Like just the inevitability of
the confrontation, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I mean, if we're gonna try to be literal about it,
I think the scream is his full throated laughter at
the end of the last book, like the first one
in a long time, like a full belly laugh coming
off at the top of the mountain. We're going to
try to be real literal. I think that's the quote
unquote scream that begins the avalanche. Either that or it
is the scream of frustration, the dark one let out

(38:28):
when rand started laughing.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Either way, it's the laughter. I think that moment of resolution.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
But it follows the line that time when he could
silence me quietly, right, So it seems to be his.
It has to be his scream.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, And that laughter is really what reverberates through the
rest of his experiences, laughter and tears. Right, he rediscovers
that great vagus nerve stimulator of using your voice fully
and completely. And I mean that's a scream. It's happier
than a scream in many ways, but it's still a
loud noise that comes out of your face.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
And he's no longer yet when he could silence me quietly,
and therefore when like that, the it's almost like silence
me quietly, it's that that voice of hope, like he's
broken out from Darth Rand, Like there was that almost
as though the voice in Rand's head Lewis Thearren had
taken over and the insane man in his head had
taken over, and this was the little quiet voice in

(39:24):
the back of his head screaming, and that was going
to get silenced. And he broke out from behind the
barrier of the dark one.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Right, the disconnect, the iciness, the distance, all of that
is gone. No, now Rand is here and he is
kicking and screaming and going to spit inside Blinder's eye
right Like he's not holding himself back in some weird
dissociative state. He's present and that's why the Ayeel are
so jazzed. The a Yelle can see that presence in him.
I think the wise ones later call it embracing death.

(39:56):
He's just this is what they were waiting for. They
could see that connect and rigidity in him before, and
this is the moment they've been like, all right, you
finally have your head screwed on straight.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Finally in the same way that like he had to
learn Agwayne had to learn to embrace pain. Yeah, right,
Like there's this this embracing pain, embracing death, realizing it's
something that like just because that is inevitable. Right, Pain
is inevitable, death is inevitable. It shouldn't ruin your life.
It shouldn't ruin the rest of the time you have

(40:27):
and what you have to enjoy.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Nothing matters, So everything matters, right right, right, it's positive nihilism.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Ruark calls it. Basically calls him a meager ling, which
is like someone who avoids danger, a.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Stupid rat that can't learn from its mistakes.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah I can't, yeah, basically, yeah, yeah, it won't avoid danger.
I should say, it'll run right, like we're headfirst in
because he's been avoiding his guards. Right, this is the
whole I think we've talked about this a lot, where
he like makes this pledge that he will keep maidens
with him, and then he keeps dodging them, right, he
keeps leaving them behind. There's that whole thing where the
head of the maidens before Sulan, Sulan like broke this

(41:04):
was going to break the spears, and he stopped her,
and then he's pledged to be with her, but then
he's still left them behind, right, Like, I mean it's
still like I didn't fix the problem, and so now
he's like, yeah, I've been doing that. I will never
do that again. Like I have reached the point in
my journey where I will not leave you ever again,
not of my own choice, not without informing. And if

(41:26):
they can sent bringing maidens as a guard.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
And then Ruurka lays down the hammer of an apology
involves actual acknowledgment of the wrong and changed behavior. There
will be restitution, there will be repair. It's like the
whole apology, the whole entire apology. Like you can promise
all you want, but like the actual apology is going

(41:49):
to involve some toe as well as some ge.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, I think they do. Do they beat him again?
I forget exactly what happens.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
I don't think so. I think they do something more
elegant than beating him, because he's all mature and stuff.
But I think something happens. I don't recall what it is.
It's not beating. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
I'm like, mmm, I wouldn't put it past him. Let
me do a quick check. Yeah, I don't. I don't
see what the payment is. I don't see how your
stores the toe. I'm not finding that anymore.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Huh, Well, maybe him and Ruark just figure it out
later somehow, Oh, is it part of the Dragon's piece?
Maybe no, that's Avienda is the reason why the AEO
and the Dragon's piece, but I don't know. Anyway, he
makes a future promise to deal with his toe, and
that's enough for the iel to be like, Okay, you're

(42:43):
committed to this apology and it's not just I don't
even know, but Ruark is Ruark, so it's fine.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, No, I don't have any The last thing I
have about this is he promises he will repay the toe.
But maybe, yeah, I feel like the Dragon's piece is
part of that, Like that's his toe to the is
like creating this piece for them in the future, right.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I feel like the way he writes them into the
Dragon's Piece factors this in Avianda insists on adding them
to it, and then I feel like the Toho's them
is incorporated. But I don't know. I might be talking
out of my ass. Yeah, but yeah, I just love
that Rurke is like this, promising to change in the
future is not restitution for what you've done in the past,

(43:23):
Like you gotta do something about that too. Like again,
apologies are complicated machines. They are not just words, and.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Then Rand sort of says, here's a list of things
I need to fix. That's one of the things I
need to fix. Here's a bunch more, right, And I
almost feel like that's somewhere. Sanderson has this checklist of
like things I need to get done before the last battle,
and I need Rand to just be like, I'm gonna
get all these things done really quick in a row,
because otherwise the last battle can't happen.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yep, I completely agree, and.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I need to get there with the next like fu chapters.
So I'm going to have Rand just list them off
and knock them out, either dispatch somebody or go do
them himself really quick. So he said Arshma to meet
with the Borderlanders and say, hey, I will accept your
terms and meet you in formatting and I will, you know,
let you slap the shit out of me.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Right, I'll meet my toe.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Essentially, And then he has to go meet with Agwayne.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
He set up this whole meeting with Aguayin and but
first he has to go to aer Doomon and fix
the mess he left behind there with all the lack
of food.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Right. Right. He also scoops up Darlin to organize some stuff,
brings kad Swain over to forgive her and pardon her
and apologize.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
He sets men off to study calendar and figure out
how to use that and last battle and how that's
like how he's like I and that's I think the
most important one, right.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, yeah, I do like his political suaveness with the
like oh okay, maybe well, Min points out that he
shouldn't announce that the is is a dired divide, and
he yes, okay, let's say that Agwayne succeeded Elaida and
then if you know, you know, and otherwise face can
be saved, right right, Otherwise.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
It's a direct secession one after the other. She was
just elected a little before Elida resigned, that's all. Yeah,
I don't need to talk about the exact timeline of
how long a Qwaine's been ambuln. Yeah, it was Suan,
then Elida, then the quaen Yeah yeah, yeah, straight secession

(45:17):
no forks.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah then Nineve asks about getting together help for Land,
to which Rand feels real pain. Like right, Min has
the sensation of Rand having a fully human experience of
emotional pain, as he says today, nev, I understand that
I have been putting that off too long. No, that's
not the plan I'm making right now. But like, give
me five more minutes. I am getting to that. I

(45:40):
promise I am getting to that.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
He's not there yet, he's still writing.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah. Fortunately he still has a couple more people to
pick up before he's going to get to Tarbin's gap.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And he starts. He's apologizes right to cod Swain, which
is great, Like he's actually like, yeah, I was under
a little bit of stress and she's like too bad, Like, yeah, bitch,
give him a little bit of slack.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Well, I mean there is that little detonte where he's like,
you know, this was just a minor inconvenience and she's like, bitch,
if you think being in a heavy hood in this.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Fucking weather, it's pretty fun.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
A minor inconvenience that you need a lesson in contrast,
but it's like.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Your eyes ada, you don't, you can ignore the heat, right,
So that's it is a pretty minor convenience.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, it's sarcasm though. They're having this like fun little
advisory advisy, Like there's humor there, there's rapport. They're going
to go back to a much better relationship than they
had before. And then he attempts to explain the lesson
that Kat's been taught him, and I still don't buy

(46:43):
it it.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Yeah, you tried to manipulate me, and you failed horribly.
But in that failure you have shown me something which
is literally like by manipulating, by trying to force my
father to do something to me, you manipulated me and
show me that I'm still a person.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Okay, sure, I feel like Xanderson is stretching so hard
to make it work, and it's just not working for me.
I know he's a tall man, but I don't think
his arms can stretch quite that far.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
But the sentiment is right, Rand's not a weapon. The
ashaman are not a weapon.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, it's a good point. I just really don't think
that this clumsy and ridiculous Katswain situation was remotely necessary.
You can't explain it away. And like he literally also
was like she says, you can't let the pressures of
life drive you, and then he says, well, that's how
you make a sword. Also, I'm not a sword, Like,

(47:43):
which is it? You can't have two sword metaphors but
opposite points in the same statement, Sir, that makes no sense.
So I find this whole attempt to make cat Swains
existence be justified here to be unsatisfying and inadequate.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I'm not disagreeing with you at all. Dead silence on that.
I'm just like, yeah, should.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
I leave all that silence in the edit? And just
like normally I take that much silence out, I think
I'm gonna just leave it there for.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Okay. So then here's a moment. He says, I've been
informed the White Towers holding mattin Stepaneus. You informed him
with that? Was that in his letter from Varren?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Probably? I think so?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
And then the person he wants is somewhere in the
Caroline Grass, right, So this is not mattin Stepaneus, isn't
it the King of.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Radmon, Right, That's who he's looking for.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Right, And so he was informed, Hey, mattin Stepaneus was
taken by the White Tower chances are And I'm sorry
I'm blinking on his name.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yeah, it's the guy that a Giralda wants to serve.
And he doesn't exist on page very much, so I
don't remember his name.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Because he's been kidnapped for the last like three books.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
For the entire series as far as the timeline is concerned.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Olam al salam.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
There we go, that's what it is. So yeah, he says,
the White Taber's in the habit of kidnapping kings that
don't have a lot of stuff to do on the page.
So can you go find the one that will make
rodal Itcelda happy when he survives the last battle and
we can give him his king and his kingdom back
and there we go.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, and King Oslam he went just basically he went
disappearing after the war in Falma.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Oh wow, all the way back then.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, back then, so he was probably Yeah, he was
just kidnapped and taking the by you know, allied his orders.
So some red probably took him and they were just
I don't know if they were stuck in the Caroline grass,
if they set up in a little hot and we're
just keeping him safe, right, Like I think they just
got lost. Like I just think it took him like
a year to travel. They just travel and try and
travel cross country to the White Tower and just took

(50:00):
him forever.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Yeah, something went wrong, But it's not like dark friendery
or anything. There's no hint of like a black Ajia plot.
It's just shit happens on the road.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, and the snow it got snow, and they couldn't
go anywhere, right, because they're in the middle of nowhere, right.
Think about being in the Midwest, in the country, in
the middle of the snow, right, no plows nothing, right,
eight foot feet snows. You're not going anywhere, right.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
It's like, I guess we're gonna get really good at
playing poker now exactly.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
So the Rand then finds him.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
It's a great moment where I Toalda just is so
happy to get him back, and his mind isn't melted
by grand all or anything, and it's it's a good moment.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Of course, then he's immediately killed in the last battle
and Oralda has to take the kingship.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Now that is before the last battle, isn't it. But
then I Toalda takes over the Kingship in his friend's
memory rather than because his friend was never found, right,
And it's it's a different dynamic.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
And if he was found after Arteralda through the kingship,
that would be awkward. Right.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
So now we have really the final event, well, the
second to last event of the chapter, which is Rand
using his spidy senses to suss out dark friends.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
And his glowing you know, power of holiness. Right, like
the dark friends, he blinds them because he is such
a shining beacon of goodness that they literally cannot see it.
Like they see that glow, right, that distortion that we
talked about earlier is so bright to them that it's
blinding them. And the further into the dark you are,
the brighter it is.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
It seems right to men who is on the side
of goodness and is close to Rand, the brightness feels
like warmth and comfort and joy and bliss, and she
can look at him through the distortion with no pain
and they as committed dark friends. Yeah, it's like a
cave creature being hit with a ray of sunlight.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
It's no good or too near a bonfire.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yeah, totally. It's like, yeah, just trying to stare at
the sun directly, you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Near the end of the line where Amon kept golam
it ran then looking away, right, it's like looking at
the sun. He can glance at it, but it's too bright.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah. Rand just lines up the nobility and just walks
down the line and yeah, Wyraman is like squinting the
closer and closer Ran gets and Anniyella is on the
far side of Wyraman also squinting in his shadow.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Almost more so. I think she's deeper in the dark
than he ever was.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Yeah, but she's at the farther end of the line,
so he doesn't see her at first, right, right, But yeah,
I do wonder which of them was a dark friend
first and most seriously, and probably her. I think that
seems on brand that between the two of them, he's
going to be a weak, sauce, little bit pipsqueak even
as a dark friend.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Where Amon kind of reminds me of land Fear and
that he is only a dark friend for his own gain. Sure,
and like really isn't a very good dark friend because
he keeps looking at he keeps fucking up dark friend
plans because he's looking out for himself.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
I like that interpretation of him. His incompetence is born
of greed and self centeredness, right, rather than his evilness.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
And he's still incompetent, right, Like, no matter what side
he's working for, he's.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Because he's he's just incompetent as a person, right, Like, yeah, alignment,
I like that. I like that. And now Nayella is
incompetent as a front and is actually extremely good at
what she's doing as a dark friend, doing subterfuge, dark
friendly things and looking like a simpering fool as a smokescreen.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Where Mom was always an the obvious dark friend. Ayanna Yella,
I didn't know really think about. Right, there's that moment
where she almost she talks about stabbing Rand, right, but
he's like half unconscious and she's got the knife.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Out, and he's in a bad way in terms of
treating her countryman like it's a good person could like
someone in Discord just the other day was saying like,
I don't think Eagan Padress was a dark friend. I
think he was a good man who was paid to
kill Rand. Because from where a random guy is standing,
Rand seems pretty freaking awful, So it would not be
a hard sell to give him a bag of gold
and say all your problems will be fixed if you

(53:53):
just take out this man who's clearly making the world worse.
So yeah, I could totally see, and.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I could see the dark friends don't always have a
bag of gold on them, right. They're doing it because
they're ordered to, and they are they have to because
that's what being a Dark Friend means, whereas he has
a bag of gold, so that his only motivation is.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
The pay right. And so yeah, Aniyela was very good
at seeming like that kind of person who was just
needed for the regular old fashioned degreed and it's like
turns out actually much like Grandall that was a front.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
So but he lets them go and basically says, you know,
spread the word that the Dark Friends can't hide. It's
it's time for the sides to separate. No more treachery.
Note where you're going to simplify this battle. You cannot
stop it. You cannot subvert it from the inside. All
the Dark Friends get the fuck out, you know. And
Agwayne did it in the White Tower, right, We're having

(54:45):
a purge. It's purge time, right, get out or die,
And then you're going to have to be on the side,
you know, literally line up against us. And I think
that's really important that there is this purge before the
last battle, or else you're going to have, you know,
advantage of the Dark Friends being able to stab people
in the back. And I think they thought they were
going to have that.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, and they still manage some, but a lot get
blown out because of this. Just it's like when the
sun ignited and like made all the planets like coalesce
out of the dust. It's kind of that Rand is
ignited and like you get your planets or your dust
that is getting the hell out.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
And it's why the four generals aren't dark friends, right,
Rand would have detected Bank. You know, they can't be
the dark Friends, but they can be under compulsion. And
he didn't that he missed that because he didn't see
them after the compulsion started.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Right, because you know, you got to start with it
a simple assumption that people are either good or bad,
and the concept of being corruptible against one's own will
isn't even on the table, but it is on the
table because we're dealing with three thousand year old evil.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
You know. It's one of those things where I'm like,
I'm glad that compulsion got used in the way that
they're like, you could use it more. I think that
because it is such this incredible power, and it was,
especially in the War of Power, is described as one
of those things where you had people who were spent
years under compulsion and did horrible things without knowing it.
So like I think you could almost have used it more,

(56:06):
but it goes back to really, only the Forsaken are
good at it, and there aren't that many of them left,
so they use it on the generals and hope that
that's good enough.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Right exactly, And then we get to the last event
of the chapter, which is resolution from last book and
a very sweet moment and a very important expression of
healthy masculinity as Rand gets to reunite with Tam and
not make it weird and murderous this time.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Oh, just one more thing about where mom. They wander off,
and he sends three Maidens of the Spear after them,
Lee and two others. I couldn't find evidence that Lee
was a fan insert, but I'm almost but it's got
to be.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
They don't die horribly then, No, that's a good point.
But I also highlighted that name as like, hmmm, could
be fancy, that could be a person because they've never
been mentioned before and then mentioned.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
And they never mentioned again. So just like I be,
I want to be a you know, I'm sure someone
wanted to be made to the Spear mentioned once, you know,
and they got mentioned. So that's my head canon is
that that was a fan. So let us know, if
you find any evidence for that one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I can't accept it. But yeah, Rand goes up to
Tam and does this thing with the stairs where he
like literally lets Tam be taller than him, Yeah, and
like clings onto him like a small child hugging his parent,
which is just again, like such a healthy expression of
like the vulnerability you need in a leader and healthy
masculinity where like the need for a father figure is

(57:34):
not weakness, and where tears are not weakness. Like nobody
is uncomfortable with the fact that Rand is crying in
this moment. Everyone's like, well, that seems appropriate given the everything,
and it just is so cathartic. Like yes, it's very Mormon,
and it's very formulaic, and it's perfect and auto tuned,
but it is satisfying. Also, this needed to happen, and

(57:56):
like Kat Swayne was trying to make it happen, and
that's what triggered rains of gold, Like it would be
weird if Tam and Rand didn't have this moment, given
how the last time happened.

Speaker 4 (58:06):
And you know, TAM's just so tam about it. He's like,
it's okay that you fucked up like you got up
and picked yourself up and you're gonna try again. Like
it's okay, buddy, And it's just so Tam.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
It's just the dad you want, right, Like that's the
because he's he was such a good dad in the
beginning and we haven't been like the reunion had to happen,
and then Rand fucked it up and that was really
important that he fucked it up, and now he needs
to repair it, right, Like that whole circle is a
really important part of Veins of Gold, and so yeah,
I really do like it. And then he's like, oh,
I want to introduce you to my girlfriend, and TAM's

(58:38):
like I've met her, like we've been hanging out for
a couple of days, Like I know, but I didn't
get to introduce you. So that yeah, it's very cute.
It's very cute. It's family, right, Like that's that's something
that like Rand hasn't really had. He gets he's been
by himself as this loaner, and now he's introducing his
father to his wife. I'll say wife. They're married at

(58:58):
this point, right, Yeah, they've been married. So yeah, if you.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Consider the bond to be equivalent to marriage, then yes, yeah, exactly,
And it's just so like, this is what Ranch has
been thinking he had to cut off. This was the
first thing he thought I had to cut off. The
second he thought he might be the dragon reborn. He said, well,
I gotta pretend I don't care about my family, Pretend
I don't care about having a family. I have no
loved ones. And now here he is in full view
of everyone saying father, this is my wife, and just

(59:25):
having that full connection to the family experience and not
cutting himself off from it, because that's really what it's
all about. As humans were social animals, family is actually
the core of what makes our little brands go pit
or potter.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
And this is the moment where I really wanted a
reunion between the three boys as well, and we never
get that. That's probably my biggest regret, is like, and
the reunion that we do get, which is coming up,
is terrible.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Also, I would have loved it if Tam had gotten
to meet his other two wives.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of that.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yeah, that would have been nice. And to have Tam
go like completely take it without even blinking. You're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
my son has three wives. That's not a thing I'm
going to be shocked about at all because I'm tam
and I accept my child. But uh yeah, we get
one good reunion here, and it gives us a template
to extrapolate the reunions we should have had.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yes, this, that's that's why I have a fondness in
my heart for these chapters. These these chapters don't make
me regret reading them like some of like the occasional
chapter does. No.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
They're short and brief, but they are sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
They are sweet, they are heartwarming. They're a good reaction
to this. This ran coming home to his family, his
grouchy aunt who's you know, bullied him, his you know, father,
his his wife, the i eel, the people who are
around him and care about him, and he gets to
basically apologize and say I'm going to do better, and
then he starts to do better and and and and

(01:00:54):
I think, even for us as readers, that's so important
because we have been fighting Darth Rand for such a
long time to be like, come on, be smarter, see
the patterns around you, support the people who are trying
to support you. Stop lashing out right, Like, I really
really like these chapters for that reason. So even though

(01:01:16):
they're you know, relatively low density chapters, they are important
chapters in Rand's journey, and I love Rand's journey.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
So if it had just been one chapter, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I just don't think it needed a chapter break. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yeah, so you know, there you go, there you have it.
It was short and sweet, and now Rand is back
with the gang and they can start kicking ass and
taking names.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Yeah, it's time for the last battle to really kick off, right,
Like this is the the battle has started and things
are happening, but this is the moment where it's like, Okay,
we have a united front. We are going to I
have hope for the last battle finally, right right, yeah, right, yeah,
I think that's That's what I'm looking for, is like
this is this they're all pulling in the same direction again,

(01:02:02):
which is anti Dark one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Brand has had his revelation to himself and now he's
bringing it together with everyone who's been trying to be
on his team this whole time. It's good to see
and yeah that's all I got.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
That's it, and then we're back to Aguain next chapter. Awesome, Awesome,
once again, thanks to our patreons, our new patreons, and
everyone who's supported us in the past. Thanks to all
of our listeners and thanks for sticking with us through
the Sanderson books.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
And in other fun news, I do have another fun
announcement for the few people who are into the rewind
episodes on the Patreon. Speaking of patre if you are
a Patreon, in case anyone doesn't know, it is very
few steps to get an RSS feed of an ad
free podcast from us through our Patreon. It's really very

(01:03:46):
few clicks. You can message me in Discord, you can
google it. It's really easy to use our Patreon to
get AD free episodes delivered to your podcast app right
along every other podcast. It's not like you need a
special app to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Like.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
It's so simple, so seamless. You can do that on
our Patreon.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
And that's been true for a while, and.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
That's been true since Path of Daggers. Path of Daggers
is the book when we got recruited by Spreaker and
started to get to put ads in and I had
to figure out how to do the whole ad transitions
and blah blah blah. It was a messy time and
at one point someone I forget who, but you know

(01:04:26):
who you are. Asked me essentially like, hey, so we're
getting new episodes without ads in the Patreon, but the
back catalog is entirely stuffed with ads. Now there's no
ad free version of the back catalog. Can you fix it?
And ultimately I said, yeah, I can fix it. I'm
going to give you five hour ish long compilation episodes

(01:04:50):
every Tuesday of our back catalog until it is done.
That will be the compromise of how I make that happen,
and I am please to an out and I have finally, finally,
after like eighteen months, I have finally finished setting those
episodes up. They will continue to run for you in

(01:05:13):
Patreon up through December second, and at that point the
last of the Path of Dagger episode compilations will go
up and I will be done with that project. You
will be done getting those massive episodes on Tuesdays. Everything
will be ad free and in Patreon, and I don't

(01:05:34):
have to think about it anymore. And I am just
so jazz that that is off of my plate.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Now. Every time you finish a big chunk of that,
E've been like, I'm done with this chunk, and I
don't have to do it again because you do it
in big chunks and then you upload them for and
so yeah, when you said I'm finally done with this project,
I was like, this has been a multi year project,
get those recompiled, re uploaded, and I'm just I'm happy
that we did it. I do wish we'd have the
forethought to do it before we switched over to ads,

(01:06:02):
so people never had that interruption and they always could
have done it. But like the reality is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Well, we're figuring stuff out as we go.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
We're figuring things stuff out as we go. Yeah, so
we didn't think about that beforehand. But I'm really really
pleased that we do have that done and that you
can listen to if you're a Patreon you can listen
to our whole back catalog with no ads, because I
think that's worth a worthy you know. For me, that's
sort of like, if you're gonna pay, why do you
have listen to ads?

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Yeah? No, for sure, I hate ads. I firmly believe
in being able to buy your way past ads. I'm
conflicted on the fact that we even have.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Them same for as little.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
As a dollar a month, you can just bypass the
whole thing, right, And it's Yeah, so that's a whole
process that I've been going through, and yeah, but it's
been it's been kind of fun systematizing it. I have
like a whole spreadsheet process thing where I would set
all of the compilations up and then let my program

(01:06:55):
run and just like crunch files for two hours and
be uploading them like one at a time. I had
a whole systematized process that I had really dialed in.
It was very efficient by the end, but I'm so
glad that it's done yet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
And now you'll never use it again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Yeah. I've made a couple of different systematized processes at
various points in my podcasting career. But every time I
learn cool tools that do apply in future, I learn
new efficiencies, make a new hot key, figure out a
new utility. So it's always worthwhile to do these sorts
of bass process things. I do enjoy that process of optimizing.
But yeah, and also pro tip, if anyone really doesn't

(01:07:37):
like the ads and they can't afford a dollar a month,
like I shouldn't tell you this, but I'm going to
tell you this YouTube, go to YouTube because I'm not
monetizing the videos there. It's only about forty people watch them,
but they are there. It's an RSS feed that has
just piped over from spreaker. I don't even have to

(01:07:57):
put the episode our in it anymore and do all that.
Like I've saved fifteen minutes now because YouTube added an
RSS input thing, which is saving me time. But like,
you can just go do that. If you get your
podcast through YouTube, you won't get pestered with ads because
I'm not going through all the hassle of monetizing the
YouTube videos for the forty people that watch them. It's
just that is so not worth. So that's an alternative.

(01:08:19):
If you don't want to deal with ads and you
can't give us a dollar a month. I should not
be telling you that. That's completely anti capitalist of me.
But you know what, I'm not super pro capitalist. So
this is me fighting against my own existence as a
capitalist unit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
And if anybody wanted to download those episodes and put
them in a Torrent and upload that somewhere, I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Care if you want to go through that much effort.
That is on you. On you, like, good on you,
I guess, yeah, but we.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Really, you know, I've always been happy we've provided a
free product in the beginning, you know, It's just it's
one of those things where I'm happy when people donate,
and I'm happy, I'm more happy when people listen. That's
really the thing, right It's I'm very happy when people
give us money. But really the key is I'm just
happy people are listening to this, right, Like, it still
blows my own I think I was just talking about that.

(01:09:08):
How Like when I sit down and think about how
many people actually listen to this and spend their time
listening to my voice, I feel guilty because I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
People go to sleep to this nonsense.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Oh I know, I know, I know. Well, at least
they sleep through most of it. That's probably the only No.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
It's it's an important thing to provide parasocial content that
isn't super messed up and toxicrative to a person's brain.
You know, we're providing a parasocial space to hang out
in that isn't going to cause harm. We're just going
to cause bad puns. That's That's the worst harm you're
going to come to is bad puns. Thank you for

(01:09:51):
listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Please rate
and review us on your podcast app, and consider supporting
us on Patreon. For ad free. Watt Spoilers is a
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