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August 21, 2025 95 mins
Almen Bunt gets his orchard restored in the present day, while in the past Perrin is redirected towards an inevitable meeting with Galad (who is being the most Galad he has ever been).
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Weed of Time spoilers poodcast.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Do we want to talk about things that matter to
people who care about Wheel of Time?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, let's talk about apples first, right, because apples first.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, Apple was first, first, Sin first, smartphone Apple first.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
I swear to god, he was reading like an alphabet
and was like, hey, it is for apples that comes first,
let's do that.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Where was he at in his parenthood journey.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
At Yeah, I think he had some Well, I'm Sanderson
has enough kids that I'm pretty sure he's always had
small children in his house.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
They may be growing up now, but certainly in the
beginning of his career, like, yeah, he was, he was
for sure surrounded by small children at this point. So yeah,
I'm gonna go with the apples first.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Inspired by his three year old.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
By three year old and and him read it reading, uh,
the ABC's to the kids.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
But I mean, I don't hate it because it is
a callback to a book one character, So like, totally
a is for Book one works for me.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, and Almond Blunt and yeah, I mean there's just
there's a lot going on here, and it's it's one
of those cool moments where you're man. Yeah, Almond Sorry,
I always call him Almond blunt, even though I know
it's bunt. I just put that l on there for
some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Remember, he's a bunt cake, not a stoner.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Well, you know, I thought you'd be making the bong
out of the apples, right, Like, that's the whole point.
That's why they're growing them the apple pipes, right, that's
really they're all disappointed because they can't smoke out of
the apples.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Oh no, these are just little little what do they
call them, chillums, the little like one hit wonder things.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yep, that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, that's all they're gonna be able to make this year.
It's terrible, just.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
The little tiny pipes. But yeah, this this, this was
a great moment for me. Like this, this really felt
like what is God Rand going to be like? Right,
this is something that we've been waiting to see. It's
he's finally enlightened. We finally have the leader we need
going into the last battle. You know, we have this
chance and this is the moment where we get to
see that.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean the clouds literally part to let through
the light of Rand is back. Baby, We're gonna go.
We're gonna do this thing. We're gonna scoop up our
book one characters, and we are gonna win this fucking
last battle.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And then but in the meantime, we're gonna hang out
with Paren for a long time doing absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
We're just gonna inch as slowly as possible towards the
most obvious conclusion in the entire world.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right, Oh, you know, I really didn't. I was like,
you know, Paren's slog is super long, but once we
get through the first three books, No, he's got a
hold of this slog that happens in this book.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It's just Malden. It's just Fayelle's fault. No, it's not
just Faylle's fault.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
No, this rehashing the whole Barre Laine Fayeel fucking thing
all over again. Like it's just like I'm done with it.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
All right, do the paragraph?

Speaker 1 (03:11):
So excited for them? I always love the paragraph.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And there's a long there's so much seon chan lore
in this paragraph. Like I wouldn't mind if you just
went and went and went, like there's a lot of
good stuff to talk about. Like it's literally like every
other paragraph is like I got shit to comment on
for like a while.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Should I just read up until smoke seemed drives from
the entire continent of sean Chan. That's like two pages in.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, it's it's long, but like it's good. I think
it's good. If anyone doesn't like it, well skip ahead
two minutes, try.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Six editing radio. Let us know how long it's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
We'll do, we'll do here they are three minutes.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Apple's first and our symbol is the dragon. The wheel
of time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories
that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth
is long forgotten when the age that gave it birth
comes again in one age, called the Third Age by some,

(04:14):
an age yet to come, an age long past. A
wind rose above the misty peaks of Imprahrel. The wind
was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings
to the turning of the wheel of time. But it
was a beginning. Crisp and light, the wind danced across
fields of new mountain grass, stiff with frost that frost

(04:39):
lingered past first light, sheltered by the omnipresent clouds that
hung like a death mask high above It had been
weeks since those clouds had budged, and the wan yellowed
grass showed it. The wind churned morning mist, moving southward,
chilling a small pride of torm. They reclined on a
flat like in stained granite shelf, waiting to bask in

(05:01):
morning sunlight that would not arrive. The wind poured over
the shelf, racing down a hillside of scraggly mirror trees
with ropelike bark and green tufts of thick, needlelike leaves
atop them. At the base of the foothills, the wind
turned eastward, passing an open plain kept free of trees
and scrub by the soldier's axe. The killing fields surrounded

(05:23):
thirteen fortresses, tall and cut entirely from unpolished black marble,
their blocks left rough hewn to give them a primal
feeling of unformed strength. These were towers meant for war
by tradition. They were unoccupied. How long would that last?
How long tradition itself would be remembered? And a continent

(05:44):
in chaos remained to be seen. The wind continued eastward,
and soon it was playing with the masts of half
burned ships at the docks of takus rahm out into
the sleeping bay. It passed the attackers enormous great ships,
would sails painted blood red. They sailed southward, their grizzly
work done. The wind blew on to land again, past

(06:07):
smoldering towns and villages, Open plains filled with troops and
docks fat with warships. Smoke, warhalls and banners flew above
dying grass and beneath the dock master's Gloomy sky men
did not whisper that this might be the end of times.
They yelled it. The fields of peace were aflame, the

(06:27):
tower of Ravens was broken, as prophesied, and a murderer
openly ruled in Shandar. This was a time to lift
one's sword and choose a side, then spill blood to
give a final color to the dying land. The wind
howled eastward over the famed Emerald Cliffs and coursed out
over the ocean behind. Smoke seemed to rise from the

(06:49):
entire continent of Sean Chan.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Good read, thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Sometimes the long narrator voices are the hardest ones to read,
because if you have a character voice, you can get
into the character voice, you know, but the narrator. You
want to you want to emphasize the right things, and yeah,
I find the the long, long narrator things the hardest
to sort of keep interesting and vary up as you

(07:16):
read them.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, it's a good reading though, Like there's a lot
of stuff in it to talk about. So you know,
you carried through. You did a good job even though
it was long. Thank you. All right, So stuff to
talk about here. Obviously, the Towers of Midnight, yes we
don't get the name, but this is the Towers or
the Towers of the Ravens are the the same thing.

(07:38):
I assume this is the Towers of Midnight because of
the whole unoccupied thing. Ors I think the Tower of
the Ravens is occupied.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, I believe that's correct. And it's also the guide, right,
So this is the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of
Time aka the Big Bad Book of Bad Art does describe.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's the big kind name.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, but if you open it up, you really the
art's bad, right, Like it's not. It's not one of
those things where you can be like, oh, it's just
you know, some of this art isn't the best.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
And in fairness, the art is unfinished.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
The art is unfinished. Yes, so it's.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Bad because it's literally not done yet, and unfinished art
does look like that.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
We can lay that an Eyewat or Red Eagle Entertainment,
whatever you want to call them. They've changed their name
several times. They did pull out midway through their commitment
of the book, which caused it to be published unfinished.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
So you're pulling from that that this is the Towers
have been Night. We know that.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
I am referencing what encyclopedia that says that. The guide
says that they are the Towers have been Night. Okay, okay,
the Wikipedia says it.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
As everyone knows, Wikipedia is infallible.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Which is because I did not realize these were the
Towers have been Night up until just today, right. I
always thought that it was you know, the Black Tower,
the White Tower, maybe you know one of the I've asked,
I think in previous episodes, like what are the Towers
of Midnight, and people have been like, oh, maybe it's
the tower in Shondar, But then I thought it was

(09:07):
the Raven Tower, not these Towers of Midnight. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
This gives me almost like a like an abandoned Towers
of Malk heir kind of energy.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah. I actually had to read this a couple of
times and be like, wait, is the wind blowing through Malchier?
But I thought that was seven towers.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, so it's it's there's something really eerie and prophetic
and going. Something's going on with these in a way
that reminds me of malk Here, And I do think
they there is a prophecy mentioning them somewhere somehow.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Doing a quickly search. Of course, it's very hard to
find the prophecy Towers of Midnight because everything you google
just brings you right to the book.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, I found it. I found it in the back
of in the glossary of this book. Nice thirteen fortresses
of unpolished black marble located in Inferol, Seanchan. At the
time of the Consolidation of sean Chan, it was the
center of military might. The final battle of the Consolidation
took place there, leaving hawk Wing's descendants in power. Since
that time, it has been unoccupied. Legend says that in

(10:11):
time of dire needs, the Imperial family will return to
the Towers of Midnight and right that which is wrong.
See also Consolidation. So nothing about a prophecy, but you know.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, and the fact that there are thirteen of them,
like you could be like, oh, those are the forsaken, right,
you got these thirteen black towers of evil that are falling.
You know, I don't know's it's, in my opinion, one
of the poorest title choices, like at least the other
ones have. Like on the Heights, you know.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
The paths are paved with daggers, paths.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Are paved with daggers, you know, a knife of dreams
again this form of prophecy, But Towers of Midnight.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Here at the end of the book, there's a shadow
prophecy with the line, yeah, the broken Wolf, the one
whom death has known, shall fall and be consumed by
the Midnight Towers. So that's in a dark prophecy at
the end of the book. But uh, it's a really
cool set of words. To have such an understated, backstage

(11:09):
footnotey kind of meeting would be nice to have it
be a little more flamboyantly front and center, because it's
a cool set of words, Towers of Midnight.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
And also then like, how is he consumed by the
Towers of Midnight?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I don't understand, well, all the dark prophecies don't come
true because reasons. So, you know, I'm not sure. It
didn't seem like he was in any kind of serious
conflict with the Sean Chan. But oh I like that
idea athlon that they would have been relevant to the Outriggers,
like a big part, big forward. Oh yeah, this was

(11:42):
a tiny detail in the main series, but now it's
a huge deal for the Outrigger. Yeah. Yeah, that would
make a lot of sense because it's a really cool
visual ed phrase.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah really, sorry, I'm just doing some research and I'm
not finding anything.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Okay, well that's fine.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Sorry about that. You know, so nothing on the nothing
on the Towers of Midnight.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
We'll figure it out or we won't. It's fine.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Basically, the wind comes to Dragon Mount.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
It makes what would be called trade winds at another age. Okay,
science boys showing off that you took a meteorology one
oh one, congrats.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
I bet I bet the original phrase. I bet he
wrote trade winds. And the editor was like, they didn't
have trade wins back then. He's like, fine in another age, which.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Like true, they don't have trade wins yet. They haven't
figured out sailing across the ocean because the Shawn Chas
sort of preclude that, but yeah, I totally agree, that's
totally what happened. He's like trade wins. They're like the
winds to be known as trade winds, like formerly end
in future known as trade wins. And then yeah, it
gets to the continent and Peter's out until it is

(12:46):
but a wispy little breeze as it curls around Dragonmount
where zen Rand is going to enter the stage. Well, first,
all in Bunch first, All in Blunt first, are awesome
cranky old apple farmer cart driver from the road trip
from Hell Time Travel Adventure.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
And the thing is he's not an apple farmer, right right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's like, this is my brother in law's.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, his sister's farm.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
His sister's farm, right and so, and his brother in
law died, so he's there to help out.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
But like normally in a bubble of evil mind you yes, yes,
burn into a tree shaped thing of sulfur.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Rich stuff, and he's having to decide between helping his
sons versus helping his sister because like his sons were
robbed of all their food.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Because he left his sons behind to take care of
his farm while he went to help his sister, and yeah,
now everything's fucked.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Not everything's fucked because because the food fails. Right, once
the food fails, it's like, what do you do here?
You know, what's there? Three meals away from chaos?

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Nine I think nine nine missed meals away.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
From three days worth of meals.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly, because you can handle a day
without like totally losing civic control. But once you've gone
through three days and your children are like really freaking out,
like things get messy, and it's been a lot more
than three days at this point. In these books, we
often talk about how fast it is, but if you're
talking about the speed at which civil order and infrastructure
breaks down, it's been a long time since the inciting

(14:17):
incidents for some of these people.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Well, and I do think that, like the food spoilage
is increasing, right, there didn't there's not. I think in
the beginning it.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Was like the great of change.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, and so now all of a sudden it went
from like half the food spoiling, like all the food spoiling,
and so they've become desperate in the last few days,
which is you know, basically a recruiting tool for the
side of the light, but.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
I mean the darks also treats it as a recruiting tool,
like desperate people will do desperate things. But like it
seems to really work in favor of the Light if
you just have anyone that's remotely competent and also Parent
has the tavere and halo effect that makes his food
go bad a lot slower. So that also really readly helps.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Because that seems to be like what our heroes are
able to do, right, They are preventing the dark ones
touch somehow, whether that's their connection to Rand and now
that he is of the light, but even but okay,
so here's the thing. When we get the Parent section,
that's back in time quite a bit before Rand has
an epiphany, but Paren is still able to protect the

(15:17):
food from being spoiled.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
I think it has to do with the fact that
because they're tied to the pattern, reality is a little
more solid where they are. They're like a anchor point almost,
and so as reality is unraveling and breaking the rules,
the rules are just less able to break around these
people on whom the pattern hinges like it's going to
be the last place to break down. That's kind of

(15:40):
how I hit canon, and that's true regardless of where
Rand's at in his epiphany status. That's just like inherent
to who they are as Taveran. I think that's just
my head canon. It's very you know, navel gaysy and meta.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
But which kind of balances out the bubbles of evil
seeking out the tavern and breaking the pattern around them.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
And we do like balance in our FMO headcare.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
So yeah, we get the story about how the man
who died right he turned the corner and turned into
an evil tree that smelled of sulfur and then they
cut it down.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, and that was his brother in law. So now
he's up trying to take care of the orchard. But
now he's standing there with his two nephews looking at
a bunch of you know, barely started fruit that has
all dropped to the ground.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
At once it started, laid, it grew slow, but at
least it was fruit, and then all of a sudden
rotted and died.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Then dropped to the ground. Just all of it so
wildly unnatural, like someone just hit a key command in
a video game. Like it's entire and the kids are
pretty freaked, and he's trying to be chill and cool
about it. But there's not a lot of ways to
be chill and cool about your orchard. Just like controls
the failing on itself.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
And this isn't like a person's orchard. This is like
a region's orchard. This is like the Google of orchards, right,
Like this is like we produce more apples that distributed
them the more places.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, this is an apple producing region. This is an
economy supporting thing. This is a not truly a bread basket,
but a fruit basket sort of thing. Is a Yeah,
it's a really big deal. It's not just four or
five trees in the backyard.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
In the way that like wool and to back are
the industries of the two rivers. This place produces apples.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, right exactly. Yeah, this is their product agriculturally, and
this is one of the biggest farms in the region.
Like this is it's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
And he's like all in blonds, putting up a good face.
He's like, oh, you know, I've had worse Aviaviada. But
he's like, yeah, I've had worse, but at least the
food wasn't going rotten, right, Like, right, I don't know
what to do like at this point he is really
just totally freaking out and trying to hide it from
the younger guys.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
A little bit of a callback to the very first
prologue of the Sanderson books. Right, here's how an old
farmer responds to the world falling apart, and how he
right tells his younger generations like how to deal with
the situation and reflecting on how in all his years
he's never seen anything like this, right, Like, we saw

(18:09):
it with a random character at the beginning of the
last book. Now we're seeing it with a character and
we know, albeit not since the first book, but still
it's iterating this is what it's like to just be
a random person trying to exist in this world.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
And I do like the way he's able to bring
in that he makes this character instead of just some
random farmer someone we've encountered before, although I do think
it is stretched a little bit to make that lundering
merchant suddenly an apple farmer. I'm like, okay, that he was.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
A farmer before. He wasn't a merchant. He was just
like running his farm products to town.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Oh that's right, that's right, My bad.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
How dare you?

Speaker 1 (18:45):
How dare I how how dare I besmirch the name
of the man? Well, and this is the guy like
if we go back right I the world he was
the one who gave him a scarf, which means he
appeared in a couple of different the flashbacks got all
weird and so like he's the guy who you think, oh,
are there two of them giving him a scarf? And
is like no, we just see that scene twice.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
It was foreshadowing that he would come back in book thirteen.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
That's really what it was all about. It's like, yeah,
he's gonna totally I like that idea, the.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
One that you keep seeing multiple times, and also the
one that gave them a thing, not just a ride,
but the scarves, Like he gets to come back. He
earned the right to get to come back in Last
Battle times.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
And didn't he also identify them as like being hunted
and like didn't say anything about it and helped him out, Like.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
He offered to let them come out to his farm.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's right and high.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
It's like if I don't know what you're running from,
but if you need a place to hide, you can
come to my farm. And Matt was all daggrimatted out
and ran away, right, and he was like, fine, you're right.
I shouldn't have offered here have some scarves anyway, My
house is over there if you change your mind. Fucking weirdos.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
So yeah, I really like the way this comes together
for him, and it's just like, yeah, he's a good dude.
He's a good dude, and it's obviously trying to do
the best for all the people in his employee and
then his brother's employ and just like, yeah, I respect him,
I like him. He's a good character.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
More of these calls backs, more of this back is
what we really really wanted. This is exactly the kind
of this is the whole full circle nature of the
series kind of thing, because.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
So often you and I are like, oh man, we
just why is he introducing all these characters to never
use them again? And this is a great like this
is what the characters should be used for. It's like,
what have they been doing? Let's bring back all those
characters from the initial book from the initial series.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, yeah, they have a backstory. We know their backstory
because it was book one, Like, we don't need the
backstory in the notes, like.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
And they and they continue to live after that, you know,
all these characters exist in the world, and like some
of my favorite things is like when Pater comes back
as the kid, the evil kid, or when what's his
name gets his forehead stomped on and he shows up later.
Uh yeah, So I just I like it when there's

(21:08):
there's full circleness, and you know, I know some people
are like, well, but you know, the world's a big place,
and I think it makes sense to have someone who
like appears and then disappears and you never see them again,
because that's kind of how life works. But like, you
know what, this isn't there.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's a book. Yeah, give me fantasy. So he kind
of gives up. He thinks to himself, you know, kind

(21:43):
of in an echo of what Rand has been going
through up on the mountain in the preceding hours, is like, well,
there it is. The fight's been lost. We've lost, we
have nothing left. What can I possibly do? Maybe it's
time to like join my wife in the afterlife, Like
this is this is it. I'm giving up and might
as well just die. And then that is a perfect

(22:05):
echo of the land as one with the dragon, and
the farmers are one with the land. So the farmers
are one with a dragon too, and as he gives up,
a beam of sunlight reaches him and zen Rand comes
floating in on a chorus of angels.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
It is a little bit like that, though, isn't it.
It's just like, oh, yeah, he's just gonna go ahead.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
You can see it in that classic Mormon art style.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's really like renaissance through a Mormon, flowing silken robes,
long flowing hair.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Isn't there also, like God came down from the mountain
and present it, Like, isn't that a whole thing in
religion is like coming down.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Only a dozen hundred times. Yeah, yeah, God's coming out
of clouds and deities and prophets and like divine beings
coming out of clouds is a thing. It's just a thing.
They descend from mountaintops bearing tablets of wisdom, they throw
lightning bolts, like it's just mountains and clouds and the

(23:10):
divine are a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Oh the mountaintop sermon Jesus had the Booji is saying, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Mean that was a slightly lower elevation so that way
more people could get to the amphitheater than you know.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Well, everything was at a lower elevation than Dragon Mount
Jesus Christ, it's above the clouds.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, I'm just saying Moses went up on a mountain
to talk to some aliens that had to pick him
up from a sufficiently high elevation that the tractor beam
wouldn't you know, also get a bear or whatever. Yeah,
also Mufasa, I mean to lean on our nineties cannon, right.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Like Moufasa who's head again?

Speaker 2 (23:47):
But yeah, it's clouds and the divine is a thing.
But I just you know, it's just the way that
like a sunbeam comes down and then zen rand comes down.
I'm just like I can see the Mormon magazine illustration
very clearly.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
But like at what point, like grand is so clearly Jesus, right,
Like I get that this there's the very Mormons Jesus,
but he's Jesus is part of what he is, right,
and his story and the telling. It's not just Sanderson
coming in being like I'm Mormon, therefore I'm going to
invent this thing.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
No, I'm just saying the visuals of it are like
those flowy Renaissance paintings that the Mormon illustrators are apic.
I'm just saying I can see the billowing silk billowing
no reason, just excess billowing silk everywhere. Like that's all
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well, that's the wind, right. We spend pages describing the
wind totally.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Local, it's totally yes, yes, I have no problems with it.
I'm just like, we're really, we really are using a
Mormon illustrator to make sure we all get the Jesus
imagery real clear. Which is fine, It's fine.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
All right, Jesus move on.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
No, he's going to really just like favor this moment
and live in the now because that's who he is now.
I'm not lost finally, right, He's he's really living in
the present moment.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Oh yeah, No, this is this is him being like,
oh I've had enlightenment, right, this is enlightened Rand. He
understands the point of life now, you know, and he
still has some He's not perfect, right, And I think
that's a good part of his enlightenment is him realizing, like,
you know, and especially later on, he has to let
go of his list, like he still hasn't let go

(25:34):
of the list, which I think is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Oh yeah, because he's he's human, He's an enlightened human.
He's not pure enlightenment. He has not entered Nirvana and
stayed there. Right, He briefly touched Nirvana and has come
back into a dynamic, embodied, suffering human experience which involves
tears and mistakes and anguish and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
But I think a big what I really like about
this because I do really like the scene, right, like
as much as I'm sort of criticizing you, like, it's
a great scene. And I think the difference is when
Rand cleansed the source, there was no moment where he
got to come down and be like I have done
it to everyone and went ooh. But now he's going
around basically going from ally to ally being like, yo,

(26:20):
I'm cool, and everyone be like, whoa, you are cool? Yeah,
And I think that that's such a profound difference in
terms of the catharsis, like we got to see the
moment on the mountain and now we're seeing the after effects.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, yeah, very much so. And I also love what
he says about like to learn but not be overwhelmed.
Is the balance, Like just coming right out of the
gate with Rand gets balanced. Now all of these lessons
that people have been begging for him to learn like.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Is the balance? Yeah, he has balance. I think that's
the real key here, is like, oh yeah, he's balanced.
Finally he's not like quendy are getting harder exactly real time,
Like the point of real time is the balance, right,
Like that is the everything from the ancient symbol of
the eye sid die to evil versus good to like

(27:10):
the way the pattern enforces balance. And he's finally come
to that realization, which makes him one with the pattern
in a way that he hasn't been.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
He's graduated to another set of lessons, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, definitely Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
And then almond Bunt himself is looking at Rand, calling
him lad one minute and then man the next, like
in his head like Rand looks so young, but he
is so old. And you can see almond Bunt like
going from huh, there's something odd about this lad. Wow,
there is something about this man, this man right right,
the maturity that Rand has acquired very visible to an

(27:48):
outsider who doesn't know him.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Right, even though he's you know, physically young right.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Like right exactly, he's literally twenty three.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
No, no, see, this is the thing that always throws me.
He was eighteen when he left the two Rivers.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
So he's like twenty one at this point.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
He's like twenty twenty one now, yeah, God, so young.
A GWayne was sixteen, he was eighteen when they left
the Two Rivers and it's been just over two years.
So depending on when birthdays are and all that kind
of stuff, he's twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
One, a very old twenty one.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
This is like the world leader who can't like necessarily
order a drink at a bar, right, like right right,
he would get id That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, and then you.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Look in his eyes and go, oh ancient.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, four hundred never mind, you're four hundred.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah. Memories, So that's that's I think where the contradiction
comes from. Right, It's like physically he is, you know, twenty,
but mentally he has the memories and the age and
the wisdom of a four hundred year old.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, and then yeah, Rand says, pick the apples now,
because if you if you pick them, that puts a
permanent save on them, and they'll be good until you
eat them. He somehow knows that in some metaphysical way
that like if you harvest them while I'm here, they
will stay good. They won't go bad even when I leave.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
It's like he can lock in that protection if they're picked.
It's like, while they're growing, they're still vulnerable, but once
they're picked, they're no longer connected to the dark one
and they're insulated and he can like freeze them with
his goodness or something like that. There is like what
is he doing? Like is he making the apples grow?
Is this a bubble of good? Right? We've had the
bubbles of evil?

Speaker 2 (29:25):
I mean I think so, right, because the apples just
had a bubble of evil hit them, So like the
pattern would allow for Rand to bubble of good back
at them.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
You know what this kind of reminds me of you
ever watch Doctor Who? Yeah, so this is the moment
where he's a new doctor, eleventh doctor I think, and
he gets his hand cut off and like in that moment,
it regrows because he's still doing his regeneration right, and
it's like, whoa, that's really cool And that's kind of
what it reminds me of Rand, Like he's still kind
of in the middle of his epiphany. Yeah, and so

(29:53):
there was this like bubble of evil that created all
this bad stuff and he's like, nope, uno reverse this
In the bubble of good because I'm in my epiphany moments,
I can just like reverse the bubble of evil and
make it a bubble look good and grow those apples
right back, right.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, he like has that attribute until his next short
rest and.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Exactly and.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
It's still basically is in effect when he goes to Tarvalin, right,
like all the tea and wine and everything gets good
like while he's there, and then it gets bad again
once he leaves.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Like yeah, I mean that's just his like normal aura
presence that's affecting his ability to like, yeah this.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Was that's true. That does stay with him for the
rest of the rest of the time.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
But the growing of the apples not necessarily being good.
Being good is something he gets for the rest of
the time.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
And locking in the goodness and locking.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
In the goodness. Yeah, well I think that's because they
were grown.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
But I guess he doesn't go to any other farms. Yeah,
maybe he was singing the growing, So maybe he came
down the mountain like singing mm hmmm, like just like
a walking song, right, because we know that the song
is more about vibes than about lyrics, and like he
was just doing like a two rivers walking song, like
revisiting his roots and being like, ah, yeah, sweep for
a minute, and like suddenly noticed the apples were growing

(31:10):
and was like, oh shit, I'm gonna make someone's day,
and then just walk through the orchard.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
I think he's literally, yeah, I don't think this was
the song of growing, right, I don't think that that's
something he was using in this situation. Like it is
something he uses later to grow those trees in the tent, right,
Like he's totally using it at that point, and the
peaches and the peaches, but maybe I don't know. I
feel like they grew too fast.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
No, that's what happens in the peach scene is he
makes them go through this exact cycle. He literally repeats
this performance but with the peaches in a private courtyard,
and that works as an omen for the shan chan ah.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I forgot that.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
So he might very well be using his epiphany vibes
to discover how to do the song of growing on
those apple orchard well.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
And again he doesn't need to, like he remembers the
song of growing now.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Maybe he's maybe it is just the lyrics, Maybe he
doesn't the lyrics, but yeah, I mean I think maybe
Ran did that because he does do we know he
does it to the peaches, Yeah know that, So he
might be doing it for the first time here I
could see that. Or maybe it's just epipennie vibes. I
mean either way, we don't know. It's off screen either way.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Right right, we don't have an idea of like, oh,
did he do something to cause them to grow? Or
was that just a side effect of like Rand's goodness
and wholesomeness and coming down off the mountain and being
near his presence and he's one with the land and
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Well lfe Blanded flu brings up a good point that
the tea and all of that is pattern balancing, but
peaches and apples are growing, all right. The song is
for growing. Maybe maybe there's something to that.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
I mean, yes, the song is for growing, but like
that's still balancing, right, Like, because the dark one is destroying,
growing is balancing the destruction.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Maybe it's both. Maybe he used the song of growing. Wow,
he had epiphany vibes and that's why it's so excellent.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, I mean a combination of things, right, and this
is leading towards him being able to light the pipe, right,
he's able to do things without necessarily embracing the power.
He's affecting the pattern. He's affecting the way the world
is working, and this is one example of it. And
that's going I think maybe foreshadowing for him fighting the
Dark One.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
I mean, he's starting to get some real creator esque powers,
which makes him seem maybe leveled up to being able
to deal with all caps Dark One.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Right, right, because he's doing things finally, he's affecting reality
without using the One power or the true power.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, Now maybe he's using the power of the singing,
but I think he's just using the power of teverin
the power of balancing the pattern. Right, that's really what
he is. He's the balance to the Dark One. And
before when he was you know, Darth Rand, he wasn't
balancing the Dark One at all, and so the Dark
One was just winning. Things were getting just worse and
worse and worse. He was balanced in the beginning, and

(34:02):
then he became Dark Rand and then all the Taban
events around him were bad. There were no none of
the good events. And now he's just creating good events.
And the more the Dark One gets free, the more
powerful he becomes because you know, on two sides of scale,
if you put more weight on the other side, you
end up with you know, for some reason, I think
of v eqles ir right, like rand is the voltage

(34:24):
and the dark one is current and you have to
balance them out. And yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, I like the idea that he used the song
on these apples. I don't really I.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Just like it. I'm gonna head canon it. Yeah. I
like the head cannon that that's how we grew them.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Yeah, it gives me better vibes and.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
That he's kind of doing the whole like he's good,
but he's also a little bit of a charlatan. Sometimes
he has his little tricks to make make himself like
feel more powerful than he is. We see him use
that with the Sean Chan.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
I mean is that being a Is that a trick?
Or is that just using your knowledge that they don't have?

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah? I mean both both. Yeah, I mean you know
that's isn't that what magic is? Is just like knowing
something the audience doesn't. That is most magic, yes, or
at least illusions.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, and not all magic is illusion.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
They're not tricks, Michael. They're illusions.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
I would call illusions tricks for sure. That's kind of
the whole point. But whatever, that's just me. I like
getting into semantic arguments anyway, Almond Bunt remembers who Rand is,
just in case anyone in the audience wasn't quite picking
that up because they hadn't done rereads umpteen times between
that book and this book. You know, maybe you only

(35:48):
read it once and you need to be reminded.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
I honestly think though, when he says do I know you,
he's like literally referring to like, are you the dragon Reborn?

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, also that, but it does it does say remembering
an odd pair of youths he had given a lift
too in his cart years ago. He does literally say that,
so the audience at least knows that this is in
fact that.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Guy, right right.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Rand's like, I mean, yeah, probably, you know, men are
often speaking of me just walked away like what a
celebrity move.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Well, and that's why I think he's like, you, Yes,
people are often talking to me because I'm the dragon reborn,
Like that's Rand at least thinks that's where he recognizes
him from. I don't know if Rand realizes this is
the same.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
No, Rand doesn't know no, no, no, no, Rand has no
idea he's met this man before. Only okay, audience are
sure of that. I think almond BoNT is unsure Rand
is clueless.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
I guess okay, that makes sense. That's because I thought
Rand remembered him as well.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
I don't think so, at least not in this scene.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
So like, dude, Rand, come on, that's kind of shitty,
Like you're supposed to be the good celebrity who remembers
people and is like, oh yeah, bro, you get me
a scarf?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:58):
What really would have been nice? If Rand has said
probably people are often speaking of wait, a scarf, like
that's how that should or.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
If you like left the scarf for him, right, like
return the scarf.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I think that would Well, this isn't your scarf, but
I hope that it replaces the one that you gave me,
kind of like how he was.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
With the sword exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, that would have been awesome.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Like I wasn't able to give you. I can give
you back what you gave me in my moment of need.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Right in es Sex's humble scarf. But it means the world. Yeah,
it was Rand who was sick in his cart, I think.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, because Rand had it was channeling sickness.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, Matt was blinded from the lightning that Rand channeled.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yes, But then Rand was the one having weird dreams
and visions where he wasn't sure what time it was
or who he you know. That's where we get the
repeated vision where we see Almond Blunt twice because Rand
is like confused about reality. He's like, wait, what the fuck?
Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing?
What time is it?

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Matt was holding it together barely despite the degger in
the blindedness, because Rand needed him.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
But he was very suspicious on this walk the whole time.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, which is probably whyt B doesn't remember Rand is
because he's paid way more attention to Matt that trip,
because it was the one next to him being weird,
whereas just sleeping in the back and occasionally shouting in nightmares.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Well, he did know he was sick, right, and he
was taking care of him because he was sick, and
and he knew they were in trouble too. That's the
other reason, Like, right.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, because he was laughing at the innkeeper who was
talking to the mergerll and He's like, you're a dumb
ass for talking to Merderrall the other guy's like, well,
you're a dumb ass for driving at night. And that
was when Rand was like, we should talk to him.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah, totally, totally.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
If I'm recalling all that correctly, it was the road
trip from Hell. I might be confusing some of the instances.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Some of my favorite scenes. I really do that that
trip with Matt and Rand just made me fall in
love with the books, I think in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, and all these years later, I still can't keep
trek of exactly which farmer did which part of the
road trip. But whatever, No.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
It doesn't really matter because the only one that's important
is Aman Blunt. All the other ones are just like, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
gave him little scenes but whatever.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
So yeah, Rand walks away more or less saying like
can you's got like a fifty mile radius on his
charm or whatever, so it'll be fine. And Almond Bunt
runs into town or into the house or wherever it
is that people are into the village and is like,
oh my god, we gotta gore at the apples. We
go go at the apples. You guys, you don't understand
I got gore at the Apples and it's a good
end to a chapter.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
No, and that's that's where we get the he has
to do the apples first before they go do which
is basically before they go fight in the last battle.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, two things Rand talks about. I have to do
something I've been putting off. I doubt she will be
pleased by what I tell her. I believe that's referencing
talking to a gwayn.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's the next thing he does.
Because they are almond Bunt thinks about how they're on
those slips of Dragon Mountain. They're so close to the
ice of dye, and he doesn't like being that close
to it. So yeah, that Rand is going to walk
from the height of Dragon mount all the way down
to the river bottom where Tarvalin is and talk.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
To her again. Very if you if you remember Sanderson
the Walk to Uruthu, where they're walking to the mountain
instead of coming down off of it. But it's a
very similar vibe The Way of Kings. The Way of
Kings in his first book is the book exists inside
the book, right, So his his first book is The
Way of kings. But in the world there is a
book called The Way of Kings where a king describes

(40:28):
his journey walking to the mountain, the Great Mountain, so
very similar vibes there. And then the other thing. There
is a lightness to the air, warped and bent around
the wind, as opposed to the darkness that was around
him before. And so that's that's when I talk about
like I do, I legitimately think he's getting anti bubble
of evil.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Powers totally, totally. He literally is warping the other direction.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Mm hmm. If he has any power, that's that's where
I think the power is coming from. That's different than
the power he.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Had with channeling, definitely.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
And then there's this moment where Almond Blunt says, gather everyone,
and you know everyone, and I always think of Leon
the Professional if you're familiar with that movie. There's a
point where Gary Oldman turns and goes, he goes get everyone,
and he goes who you mean everyone? He goes freye

(41:23):
the most intense like yelling, and so that's yeah. So
now now of course Am Blunt is Gary Oldman in
my head because of that line where he turns and
goes everyone.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I have no problem with this casting Aim and Almond
bunt as with Gary Oldman. Yeah, let's do it. Let's
do it.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
And let's see, I'm gonna have to drop the gift
and chat Aman Oldman. Nice, light minded fool. So do
we need that?

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah? Nice, nice Gary?

Speaker 1 (41:59):
All right? So oh that's all I have for that chapter.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
I think, yep, I am ready to move on to
chapter two. Questions of leadership with the wolf symbol because

(42:22):
parent time and also a bit of glade, who's basically
just parent time.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah, definitely more parent time. Questions of leadership that does
parent want to be a leader? And obviously does Galad
become leader of the White Cloaks?

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, exactly. Neither of them want it. One of them
accepts it much more gracefully than the other. But it
is a question of who gets to lead. That is
what both armies are kind of dealing. Well, one army
has already made up its mind and the leader stillso
figure it out, whereas Goalad's army literally just decided to
change leaders. So it's a little more acute for them.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
And we'll have a correction when we there we were wrong.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, we'll get there.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
And I think the other really important thing to realize
is this is a huge step back in time. Right,
It's not obvious. It's really not obvious considering the Rand
thing happens before this in the chapter. But this is
as far as I can tell. Right, There is this
line in the opening paragraph. A few days ago, the
pervasive cloud cover had turned black, darkening, like the advent

(43:24):
of a horrible storm. I assume that happened when Samarag
took off Rand's hand, Darth. That's when the sky, the
cloud cover turned, went from gray to black. And so
I think that's our time stamp. Right, we are a
few days after Rand gets his hand taken off. Okay,

(43:45):
that would be my guess. I haven't confirmed that that's.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
The case, but okay, but that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, we're deep in Darth Rand at this point.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Okay. I like that. It's like, let's like, even if
you're wrong about the exact event, like we're rough roughly,
that's about how far back we are. And also he
talks about how it's been a month since they left Malden,
a distance he had planned to cover in a week,
and I feel like that's a little bit of a
nod too. Yeah, so there's some timeline funkiness going on. Yeah,

(44:15):
so just to understand that there's some wrinkles and folds
that we didn't really want but we have.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
And so yeah, sinking that up with like, yeah, it's
been a month since he left Malden. Remember, like Faya
was only in Maldon for like a month and a.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Half, right, right, it's been almost as long again since Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Totally because we had the knots and he had like
fifty knots or something like that, which is like, yeah,
it's not even two months. So yeah, we're in this
one line. We're delaying pretty much as much as the
last three books. There.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
It's a lot.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
It's a lot. It's a lot. So some time is passing,
and in order to let time pass, we have what
is I consider the weakest bubble of evil. It's really
just here for plotline reasons, which is random red snakes
appeared in camp Bit, a bunch of people. Everybody got sick.
The Channelers got more sick than most.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
How convenient, I mean inconvenient?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, how inconvenient? And so you know plot yeah means
the Channelers have been useless, which you know, if you
want somehow taverin Right, Tavern is keeping in place because
he needs to recruit the White Cloaks, So the bubble
of evil is somehow good for him, right, Like, if
I don't like it, I don't like the Tavereness.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Bad luck, good luck.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
I don't like that Tevereness is using evil to make
things happen for him, right. The bubbles of evil always
seem to be random? Yeah, no other time do our
characters benefit from it?

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
So not my favorite. Not my favorite bubble of evil.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Not my favorite.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Also because it's told like very quickly in retrospective when
it should be this like big thing, but it seems
like the only.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Well if it's going to be that week, I'd rather
not spend page time on That's true.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
God though, But like would that not have been a
better chapter than what we get here than being like.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Just done this much more efficiently?

Speaker 1 (46:10):
But yeah, yeah whatever, So yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Paren is in the process of interviewing yet another batch
of random mercenaries bandits vagabonds, people who are willing to
behave in exchange for regular meals, and that's really how
he builds the force he has. In addition to scooping
up odds and ends of actual armies. He's also just
building this backdrop grab bag noise of men with swords

(46:35):
who are hungry.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
And you know, Tavern is making him recruiting army. He
doesn't want an army. He's getting a fucking army.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Too bad. Pen. It's really funny how he's like, everyone
needs to understand that a thing is a thing, and
I'm not a leader. And it's like, sir, you are
the only one in denial about the fact that a
thing is a thing. Right now, everyone is calling you
a leader. You are effectively a leader. You're the one
being delusional claiming you're not a leader. Everyone else is

(47:02):
actually very feet to the ground, head screwed on straight,
right about this.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Right, You've been leading literally.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Effectively two three months at this point, which is a
long time in book terms.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
M hm. And like everybody is sworn fieldy to you.
You have queens who's worn fieldy to you. You're and like,
despite your best efforts, your force keeps growing. Right, you
went into Malden and you came out with more troops
than you went in with. You have Oh my god,
there's this moment where she's like, yeah, and all the
guys shine suddenly want to fight for some fucking reason,

(47:35):
and all these people who've never picked up a spear
before find that they're incredibly talented at it. Right before
the last battle. It's like you were building an army
unlike any other.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if I really breaks the fourth wall
pretty hard in an effort to try to speed this
plot along, and it still doesn't help.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
It's only it doesn't really help a bunch at all.
And also, I guess my frustration is also like, at
no point does Paren's army become a deciding factor in
the last battle. So it's like he does all of
this work and all of this like effort to get
these people together, and then they're just like another kind
of not very effective army during the force during the

(48:13):
last battle because they're mostly non channelers.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
They just do fighty stuff and that's not very interesting.
Like I think it does a good scene with Tam
where he's doing trollick slaughter, just like absolutely epic and
stuff like you know, infantry fighty stuff. There's only so
many pages we can spend on it.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, And it's like, oh, yes, the Two Rivers Force
is good with arrows, but then why why did he
need the white Cloaks. Why did he need to hang
out with the Shawan Chan, Why did he need Aleandra
and the winged guards?

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Like, no, because they just fill in on stuff that
we don't look at because it's just backdrop. Paren brings
the backdrop cast. They're necessary, but they don't get page time.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
So and I think that is one of the biggest
flaws of the Last Battle. Is as big and as
epic as it is, and it's big and epic, there
are so many armies in the two in the in
the this world that just don't really get page time
or screen time or are shown to be effective in battle.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Well that's what you get when you try to get
half a continent's worth of people fighting in a single battle,
you're gonna lose some focus.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
It is. Yeah, there's some detail that gets lost, for sure. Yeah,
And so they get we get broken down into these
big broad groups and then you only really see from
a minority of those big broad groups.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Well then you headcanon and fan fiction and all of
that to fill in the gaps based on what you
know going in.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah. Yeah, still could have written another three books about
this thing, Like the Last Battle itself could have been
like another three books seriously.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
And yeah, so we get a little check in with
some characters, right, we got Arganda and Gallien. They've they've
gotten over their honeymoon period in the relief of getting
their respective you know, in the relief of Malden's aftermath,
and they're back to fighting, you know, like, which we've
never seen them not fighting, but you know, apparently, according
to Paren, there was a period where they weren't fighting.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Well because we have this sort of no more common enemy, right,
there is this idea that they had this common enemy
in the Shidoh and the queen's were gone, and everybody
wanted their leaders back, and everyone reunited behind Parent to
get their leader back. But now we're in this situation
where the leaders are back and everyone's like, well, what
do we do now? Are we following Paren? Are we

(50:32):
you know, what's our goal? Shouldn't I be elevated over
those other people because I'm more important to Parent? Right
that level of just like internal fighting, And not to mention,
you've got the whole thing with Berylaine and Fayel that
hasn't gotten worked out yet, shockingly, even though they worked
out before she got taken to Malden. Basically we have

(50:53):
the added thing of everyone thinking Beryline slept with parent
or parents slept with Beryline entertain and that's leading to
all sorts of problems.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, you think they would have resolved that by now,
but no, a classic book fashion, nothing has happened in
the intervening time, and now things will happen that the
focus of the narrator is back on the scene. So
what happens next is they connect with a scout that
was left behind from their baggage train that they sent
ahead ahead of Maldon. Right, Remember Parens sent Basil Gil

(51:22):
and everyone and all of the baggage forward to and
Or in case Malden went badly, the baggage train and
the non combatants wouldn't be taken by the Shadow. So
they're looking for them on the road and they have
no come across a scout who was left behind to
tell them, Hey, the plan changed because of road conditions
and you got to turn left here. And that's all

(51:45):
very taberny. It guarantees the intersection with the White Cloaks,
but you know it's important.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
No, that's that's been being manipulated by Grendall.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Oh right, that's not even Severian, Right, that's grand All.
That's the trap, that's the t's I wonder if grand
Doll's the one messing with his dreams. He mentions his
dreams being messy. Here again, I wonder if it's Grandall
instead of land Fear and Grendell's less in his head
because she doesn't know him as well, because she's manipulating
stuff in the real world. So I guess she's not
as dreamy of a person. The land Fear is really

(52:15):
the dream bitch.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
She's not. I think land Fear is in his dreams
while Grendall's fucking with his army.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Man getting assaulted by two forsaken at the same If
they're not working together, that's still a lot.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
But yeah, this is we one hundred percent learned that,
Like the road conditions are totally fine, right, This was
absolutely just I forgot about that. This is the whole
trap set up by Grendall, and she wants the army
to be in the right place at the right time,
and it just happens to be where the white Cloaks are,
and like, yeah, there's all sorts of reasons why it
doesn't go off the way she plans, But them getting

(52:49):
this message and sending their supplies in the other direction
is one hundred percent Grendel trying to get his army
into place for the trap that's coming.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Good damn catch right past that. Every other read ever, because.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
It is it's like, wait, why are they Yeah, because
it happens, but yeah, you you believe just like parent did.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
I am not clever like grained Dolphin.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Well. The other thing I want to point out in
this chapter is that Paren has a blacksmith's puzzle that
he's constantly figuring that like, this is the hardest puzzle
he's ever encountered, and he's having a lot of trouble
pulling it apart, and like every time he encounters trouble
in the real world, he fingers the puzzle because he
hasn't figured out how to fix the puzzle that came
out of all then, And it's like, Okay, I know

(53:39):
it's not the ambulance seat seat, but it's just as blatant,
you know, the blacksmith's puzzle.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
A blacksmith's puzzle for the blacksmith's puzzling.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Oh exactly.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Yeah, it's cute, but it is a little on the nose.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
It's a really on the nose. It's just like, oh, okay,
and I don't think he ever Actually, I don't remember
him solving the puzzle at any point, or this coming
back up or being carried through. After this chapter it
comes up again.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
I think he manages to make some progress on it.
Maybe he just hucks it away at the end. I
don't remember. We should try to keep an eye out
for it.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, I don't remember what happens with this puzzle. That's
definitely something to look out for going forward. It's like,
what's going on with this puzzle and is it something
that works as an analogy going forward?

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah? So then Paren goes through his laundry list of
once everyone goes away and does their job, then everything
can go back to the way it was. It's just like,
I'm really ready for you to stop thinking that that's
an option. You can never step in the same river twice. Okay,
it's been a long time. You can't go back to
the way things.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
You can't go back. And like everyone else, everybody else
knows the last battle is coming. You're friends with the
Dragon Reborn. You know you have a role in the
last battle. What the fuck are you doing? Paren? Like
what the fuck, Like I'm this, Yeah, I really get
frustrated with this, Like you need an army for the
last battle. You have an army, Like why are you
trying to send these people home? Like you don't know that?

(55:11):
Oh look the dark the sky's been dark for months
and we've and turned ultimate crazy black hm hm oh.
And I'm friends with the dragon Reborn who's gonna be
at the last battle, and he is preparing for the
last battle. Hmmm, Like I just uh.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Better go home and bury my head in the sand
like a child.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Right, I get so frustrated, so frustrated with parent.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
In these sections, he regressed, He regressed really far, regressed
so hard, Like he needs to be like you know what,
I have been leading these people, yeah, and like it
just it doesn't need to be a struggle, and he
needs to be like I see what's coming out of Malden,
I see the last battle coming.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
I don't want to be a leader, but I have
to be.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, exactly, Galad knows it. Goalad does it in like
two fucking seconds, Like two seconds.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
It's your duty, pick it up, run with it. I
don't need four more chapters about this.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, So that's that's happening. And then we think about Messima. Right,
there's there's the conclusion of we know that Paren knows
that Massima will not pop out of the woodwork to
haunt him found the body. He knows that Massima is
very super dead and that's not going to be an issue,
and he's going to go report hiss quote unquote failure
to Rand and he's unsure how Rand will feel about it,

(56:22):
and we know that Rand will go, eh, bummer movie.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah, that's don't I really just wanted him to stop
killing people.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
That was all, like, I guess you accomplished the core
of the mission.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
It does seem. I always think it's kind of sad though,
that you have all these people who were should have
been the people of the Dragon who would have supported Rand,
and just like got murdered taking Malden.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
The dark One really laughed about that one.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah, I mean, and I know they were corrupted, and
I know Messima, you know, has the mash at our corruption.
You know that whatever you want to call it, and
that none of those people were any good that they had,
you know, they smelled bad or whatever.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
So that Masha dart Wash whatever happened to him, in
the portal world and then whatever grand All infected him with, right.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Right, and that was infecting all of his followers. Right,
So there's zero chance that we're ever gonna redeem those people.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
But they were cult people.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
They weren't evil exactly, right, Like I feel like there
should be Like I would have loved to see something
with aarm, where like aarm becomes an example and is
like leading all those people. When Massima dies and like
his and Parent wins him over and with that conversion
is able to win over a bunch more of the

(57:36):
dragon folk. Yeah, the dragon sworn exactly Like I would
love to see that redemption through aarm instead of what
felt like a fairly random, nonsensical death. And I get
that it kind of proves the point that Paren like
wasn't really doing his job, but like that makes me
feel bad. I want Paren to be doing his job.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Right, and then Paren uses that outlier of a failure
to justify falling down on the rest of his job
that he is, yeah, and competent at doing.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeah, So you know I want some competency porn, right.
I want to see Parent being an incredibly good leader,
incredibly competent bringing people together. And like really unifying these
forces before the last battle, and that's just not what
we get. And it kind of makes me sad. I
really think that there was a better opportunity to do
something interesting with Parent's plotline and with aarum and the

(58:27):
prophet and stuff like that. But you know, Robert Jordan
just didn't have a plan for him, right, there was
no notes about Paren.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Yeah, and Feyil is doing her best, right, she is
breaking the fourth wall. She is listing his accomplishments in
a sultruy voice because she does see competency porn. She
is saying that Maldon was good for their plot. Like,
she is doing everything she can to drag this man forward,
and it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
It doesn't work because it's very much a talent show. Right,
she's telling us how competent he was. We didn't. We're
not really seeing his competency in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
And it would I mean, he could be in the
occasion in working with what she's saying, but alas he
is just stubborn as a mule.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Two revers that's how we do it.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Yeah. And then as Paren is dealing with the very
strange concept that Maldon was good for Fayel. We have
an Adel coming up to say, hey, we found I
think white cloaks is what they're saying. You know, you
got to deal with the fact we see a white cloaks,
but we cut over two said white cloaks with Gallad
And here is where we get to start issuing corrections

(59:29):
in this POV.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
A couple things about parent stuff to say he never
figured out why Aleandra had met with the prophet and
probably never would. I feel like that's a meta line
where like Sanderson looked into it and was like, yeah,
see why they were meeting Anora, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah, yeah yeah. Tying a bow on the fact that
there will never be a bow tide on it is like, ah,
thank you for letting us know that that's going to
be annoying, and.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Like we have our theory. She thought she could redeem him,
and it turns out she couldn't write like I think
that's what she eventually says, like I thought I could
redeem him. I can't. Moving on, but that doesn't explain
what Yeah, I don't like that explanation. Also about Missima,
he was robbed, right, so like, oh, he was killed
by bandits.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a deception on fight
Iel and chow Fa Yelle's part.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Totally. They picked up five thousand people in the last
few weeks, so whatever they went into Malden with, they
came out with more, and then another five thousand, and
then we end the POV with a messenger saying, up, Hey,
this something ahead you want to see. Two chapters later,
it turns out that's a patch of the blight has
gotten transported.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Oh, that's what it is. It's not the White Cloaks.
It's a bubble of area of effect evil. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
The pattern is breaking down, and location doesn't matter as
much anymore. Right, we see things switch.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
The landscape is glitching. It's data mashing, like we've seen
that in the White Tower. We've seen it, Like hallways
are changing. And this is just a bigger version of
the blight. And or you could say the blight spreading.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Is spreading in a non congruent manner. Yeh, spores are
drifting on the wind and lighting in new places.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
It's like patches of death and evil and stuff like that. Yeah,
but yeah, this is not quite yet the White Cloaks.
They have not encountered them yet.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Okay, look, guys, I have not read these last three
books very many times. I've said it before, I will
say it again. I will not apologize. I will just
be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
No, these are We're definitely on a journey of discovery
for these last three books, more so than we were
with the rest of them. Although you know, I feel
like the podcast started out as a journey of discovery
and being like I want to talk about these books
because I don't know everything about them. Not that I
know everything about them and I want to impart it,
but because there's a lot of mysteries I haven't figured out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Yeah, I know the lore up until these three books,
and now I'm just like, still helpful for the read through,
but research is important that right, Or I'm glad to
know that you corrected that so we know where we're at.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
It. I mean again, I didn't until I was That's
why I was slipping through. I was like, I've got
my notes in here. I feel like I have some
things to say, and those notes did tell me what
that patch was. So yeah, next is the Gallet POV.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
The Gallt POV, and this is I feel like there's
multiple corrections we have to make in this section because
like I thought it was days where he'd been tortured
before he got rescued out of this. No, it hasn't been.
It's like literally just been a day and he's anticipating torture.
And also we thought that trom and his cohort is

(01:02:39):
who rebelled and killed Osunawa, it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
It's Austin as I think. I stated that like Asinowa's
people were like participated in that, but it's not just participated.
They did the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
They initiated, they completed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
They basically saw, you know, the person at the head
of their party was corrupt and doing things for his
own benefit rather than the good of the people, and
rather than sticking the party politics, they went ahead and actually,
you know, brought that person down now by killing him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
But I mean, they are the white cloaks. That's kind
of their only response to anything. We have to stay
in the cannon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Sometimes they torture then kill.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Sure, sure, yeah, just saying the analogy can only go
so far without breaking cannon. But yeah, they looked at
what was patently and clearly false and they responded according
to reality instead of whatever their leader wanted them to think.
And we have Gallad getting told that he, instead of
being tortured to death, will be made the leader of

(01:03:41):
what is left of the White Cloaks. But we start
with him in the tent kind of getting his bearings
and like again thinking about how like he still has
crusted blood on him and he's anticipating torture. Like I
was totally wrong about the time that I thought this
was days. I literally thought this was days. It's ours, yeah,
because I.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Think I was, Like, he goes to sleep and basically
up and in that time he's yeah, the things happen, yeah, exactly,
Like he wakes up going like, oh, yeah, no, you're
free now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Yeah. He literally passes out from the pain and when
he comes to, it's all over.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
It's all over. So he's cleaning himself with a strip
of cloth, which I'm always like, h I'm so grossed
out by that, Like cleaning yourself off with spit and
a piece of canvas, Like spit is just the grossest
thing to clean yourself with, because.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Like I'm also like, this man is very dehydrated. I
don't think he has that much spit to give.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
No, No, it's just very.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
I mean, I get it. He's encrusted with dirt and
blood like any moisture in a storm. But it's gross,
and I do I roll my eyes. But I'm also
pleased at his thought. Her is naive thought. Of the
one he was angry at was Astunaba, who took what
was true and muddied it. There were many who did
that in the world. But the children should be different,
And I'm like, thank you for articulating the entire fallacy

(01:04:53):
of your belief system. Right right, The children aren't different.
They never have been. You never should have joined them
based on their actual actions. It's but they have the world.
There is no such thing as a perfect philosophy that
makes people good. People are good or bad in the
communities that they are in. It has nothing to do
with the philosophy at the top, or very little to do.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
It has more to do with the incentive structure rather
than the philosophy. Like what are INCENTI people incentivized to do?
And in the White Cloaks, they're incentivized to torture people
to prove that they're dark friends.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Yeah, exactly, And Glad should have seen that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Because you're trying to because every time you do you
have like this victory where you're like, oh, yeah, I
have taken down the dark friends. That makes me victorious.
And it's like, actually, you've just killed a bunch of
innocent people and call them dark friends. But you're incentivized
to call them dark friends because then otherwise you're just
killing innocent people and an ineffective fighting force. Yeah, yeah,
where the ice and I have an actual like enforced

(01:05:52):
oaths that you have to follow.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Yeah, but he uses the cleaning as much to center
himself as kind of a meditation. Sure, else, I'll allow
it because you know, we need him to again prove
that he's got the mind of someone who could learn
to channel if he just wanted to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
I think that I would have liked it if he'd
been left with a little bit of water that he
could like dip the cloth in, like a little bit
of drinking water.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Yeah, a bucket of wash water kind of thing. Yeah,
that would have been a lot more satisfying. The less Yeah,
it gross. I kind of just skipped over everything. Yeah,
spit like now now Lucky, Yes, lucky.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
And so you know he's he's like, my strategy work.
I'm victorious. I saved the lives of my people, even
though like I'm going to suffer for it like I
want essentially is what he's thinking. And I can win
again by not giving in and claiming not to be dark. Friend,
you know I will be killed as a man who
you know, proclaiming I am of the light the whole time.

(01:06:55):
Sort of what his thoughts are.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Right, He's like, I can stand here naked as a
day was, but still be a man of honor who
knows that he will not break under torture. He's like
psyching himself up. He's standing straight, he's thinking about how
he's definitely not going to crack under torture. He is
gallotting as hard as he.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Can, totally totally because not because like he thinks he
can resist torture, but because it would be the wrong
thing to do to give into the torture. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
He will not lie. It's literally against his entire nature
to ever lie. So he knows that he's not going
to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
And there's this moment here where he says his pains
were nothing now he felt insect bites that were worse,
And I'm like, yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Him and Randon Agwain just like I don't feel my body?
What body? No pain?

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
That is sort of an interesting like part of the
wheel of time philosophy, is this idea that you can
separate from your brain and like just not experience pain.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
And we've talked about it a lot with respect to
like people in the real world and their chronic pain issues.
But this is Galad dealing with a very acute pain issue.
This is not chronic at all. It's just I think
Robert Jordan had a specific relationship with pain and suffering,
you know what, with the whole going through the military
and everything. I think he just, yeah, he knew how
to separate from a cute discomfort in a way that

(01:08:15):
he gives to all of his main characters.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Mmmm.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
And then yeah, his allies walk in and he goes,
excuse me, did you just break your o's go back
out there and surrender to the men you just killed, right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
It's like I told you not to fight, like we didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
He's like, you turned your swords on fellow children. Like
he's so pissed off. At first, he wants to reject this,
and they're like, nah, you kind of were so honorable.
We had to do a murder and he's like, shit,
that's like my entire life's ambition.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
It was wrong. What they were doing to him was wrong,
like and that's for once, for once, the children believe
that when it happens to one of their own, right, you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Know, yeah, when it comes after the golden Boy of
their own organization, then the lions too far. But all
the innocent women and children from other nations that were
killed beforehand, that wasn't a lie too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Far, that's not a problem. Yeah, yeah, no, I have
some issues with the White Cloaks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
One or two. Fortunately I think Robert Jordan meant for
them to be that, so it's all yes there will
don't have to be mad at Robert Jordan about this.
He wrote them to beat this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
The consequences. They killed about a third of the questioners.
We have the We saw the amedicians who were a
good portion of the force, and they didn't interfere. They
want to be away from the shawn Chan, so they're
willing to join the White.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Cloaks, which like fair, I mean, an invading force versus
your own Homebrew militia. Yeah, I would probably a side
with the Homebrew militia better the devil, you know, right,
I guess, especially because Amadicia is extremely anti channeling and
the shawn Channer coming in with channelers like the calculus
makes a lot of sense for an infantry force like

(01:09:58):
these people represent.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
I like the way you put that that there's this
sort of common anti channeling bend among the two of them,
and that helps them.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I mean, Amiditians are where the the white Cloaks are from, right,
Like they have a big cultural.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Open that's a good point that, okay, and white Cloaks
is kind of the same nation. So in a lot
of ways, O, Amiditians are like, yeah, we are. White
Cloaks are Ameditians in a way they're not technically in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
The face of a common enemy like the shan Chan,
the differences are immaterial. We're all Amidesians, even the ones
who are you know, children from other nations like, nah,
we we like you guys better than whoever these flame throwing,
eyes to die wielding invaders are. And yeah, Galad the
way parents should looks at the weight of men offering

(01:10:48):
their swords to him and says, I accept. Someone needs
to drive this train, and I know that I have
the capacity to drive it effectively. So that's what I'm
going to do even though I have a lot of
foster syndrome. I can't leave it up to just anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
And then he is the leader from then on out.
He doesn't question it, he doesn't second guess it. He
doesn't He.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
Doesn't even make huge mistakes, aside from listening to some
of his subordinates a little too much in the face
of overwhelming evidence. But he doesn't make like massive casualty
event blunders.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
No, No, he does. Like the only thing he does
that he shouldn't is like basically declare a war against Paren,
and then he fortunately listens to parent well enough to
get out of that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Which in large part is because Paren saves him from
a dark friend trap or from a Trollek trap. That's
a lot of what helps. But still, I mean, they
were setting up for battle. He was gonna make a
huge mistake, but he manages to not make a huge mistake.
So we're gonna count that as an almost win. Yeah,
And I like how he uses his faith and delight
to help protect him to he's like, you know what,

(01:11:51):
I don't think I'm ready, but the children have made
their decision, and the Light will have to protect them
for it. I'm like, that's a good approach and just
be like you know what, You're right, You've chosen me,
and the dice have now been cast. Good luck with me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
And he says we're marching to and Or. I assume
that's basically to join the battle, right, that's because that's
where he's like, I can get to Elaine, I can
join the battle. She will have me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Yeah, I think that's the idea.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
The idea is like she can tell me the where
to point the white Cloaks for the last battle because
she's the biggest kind of army nation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
He's basically anticipating her being the meta general that she's
going to be assigned to be later. He's almost anticipating that.
He's like, well, Elaine is a good person to go
to if I don't know who else to talk to.
She'll know how to handle the battle.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Yeah, well, and she is. He found out that she
did rule and Or right, so she's a queen and
she's my brother or sis, I'm her brother, right, So
of course, like, yeah, that's going to work.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
Yeah. The plan he had before joining up with these
guys still applies. Now. He just has many more swords
to come to bring to bear. But again, he's not
marching to and Or to invade. He's marching to Andor
to get marching orders in maybe even gateways up to
where the real battle is. So you know, he knows
that he can talk a lane down from freaking out totally.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
And he knows he has to work with Isidi, right,
and he knows that like Elaine is a good way
to bring the White Cloaks, like and Or has a
history of being cooperative with the Isidi that in a
way that the White Cloaks don't. And he's like, but
I know I can negotiate with Elaine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
And and Or, Yeah, they have diplomatic rapport.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
Exactly, exactly, exactly as much as she doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Like him, but he knows that like she will listen
to reason as queen totally with knowing who they are.
He's like, I can make this work. And then you know,
she's a lot more reasonable than anyone expected once he
actually shows up in the room.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Well, and especially you know, as he basically becomes part
of parents force and is negotiated that truce right, Like,
he doesn't even negotiate for the White Cloaks. He negotiates
to be part of Parents Force and Parents Force negotiates
they're joining the last battle and they're like only allowed
to do it under parent Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Well yeah, but I mean it would have worked even
if he hadn't teamed up with PAREN, Like, it would
have worked. He would have been able to get his
army to the last battle effectively by going to a line.
But yeah, he comes with PAREN, which makes it even
more efficient.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Yeah, there we go, and that's that's the two chapter
the opening two chapters.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
Yeah not that was like about an hour and a
half of chapter content.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
So glad we doubled those chapters up. That was a
good call.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
And it's looking, based on our pre view of the book,
pretty much every chapter, at least in the first half
of the book is going to get doubled up.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Next week is the exception to that. We will be
doing the chapter next week, but then yeah, it's doubles
for like two months after that. But Duenko, you are
welcomed at Well, I'm not going to say you're welcome
to start a rival podcast because that seems very counterproductive, but.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
You know it's sometimes we skip one just so like
the pairings work better, right, because it's like, if chapter
four five work really well together, then it's important to
do just to standalone chapter three so we can link
them up.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
And I promise you, guys, I've done enough editing to
know we really do run out of quality brain output
at about three hours, Like we really stopping it an
hour and a half, two hours, Like by the time
you get to three hours, we sound like drunk people
in terms of our logic, Like it's just it's not
good stuff. You're much better off with having us cut

(01:15:26):
ourselves off at one hundred and twenty minutes. Definitely promise,
And with that, let's turn recording off. Recording is on.

(01:16:11):
You don't have to sew in order to appreciate Use
to Sew. Used to Sew is a podcast about sewing machines,
sewing culture, and sewing history in the past and present.
We talk about dealing with fast fashion. We talk about
the invention of sewing machines. We talk about how the
American experiment has been influenced by sewing machines and vice versa.
We go all over the place. It has nothing to

(01:16:32):
do with how to sew, that's not the point. And
then you get to meet my mom in all of
her creative stage persona glory. They want to hear you
are demanding Spadoinkle telling us how many chapters to do,
demanding guests hosts. It's nice to have such a rapid fan.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Well, I have finished going through Dungeon Crawler Carl the
book series. What's out so far? Which would be book seven?
I believe that's correct. Whatever, Yes, yeah, I think it's
a really good series, and I think it's interesting the
way it has progressed beyond a game type RPG. Gotta say,
a lot of fun, definitely worth reading. It gets a

(01:17:17):
little crazy, Like I have two criticisms with Dungeon Crawler Kral,
I'll say I love it. Sometimes the battle scenes get
a little repetitive, right, because it's kind of like a
video game, right. Sometimes there's the same kind of fight
over and over again, and then it gets really complicated
really fast, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of
all the characters. And I don't even know if that's

(01:17:38):
a criticism so much as I need to go back
and reread it, and and I'm on my sort of
going back through it again. But it's worth it that,
like after the first seven books, I'm going back through
and rereading it, and I'm sort of catching things and
foreshadowing and stuff like that. There's there's some good work.
I really really highly recommend the series if you're looking
for something that's it's a fun read that escalates, you know,

(01:17:58):
I'm putting it in the I don't want to call
it the Dresden Files, the Bob of Verse. These these
categories of books that are somewhat lighthearted or often told
from a first person perspective, from a dude who's just
trying to, you know, make things work as best they
can and getting along, you know, but then often has

(01:18:21):
a power progression or power creep as they get more
Like Dresden gets more powerful Bob Averse as he spreads
you know, he destroys the fucking galaxy spoilers right, like
or solar system. He destroys a solar system, right. So
there's that level of like, Okay, there's some power creep
going on in these in these books, and but they're fun,

(01:18:41):
light reads. They're a very different category than what I
would call epic fantasy. You know, these like heroes journeys
where lots of characters because they are so focused on
the protagonist that one person who's telling the story from
an eye perspective, first person perspective, and yeah, I think
they're all you can get bored with them if you want,
or you can engage with the characters. This kind of

(01:19:03):
you know, it reminds me a lot of old school
nineties television where you had twenty six episodes, like they're
not all good, right, but like if you care about
the characters, it's worth watching them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
All right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
As opposed to like we might have these new shows.
We're all eight, you know, we have eight episodes and
they're all fucking you know, top notch, high octane, every
moment counts episodes. Yeah, but that can also be detrimental.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
It's a different approach. It's a very different approach. They're
not really equivalent. I know which one I prefer.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Lightlighted fool. I have not read The Frugal Wizard. I
think it's the only Sanderson book I haven't read because
it's not Cosmeer and so I never got around reading it.
It's also a little harder to get a hold of because,
like you know, epic fantasy is hard. It's hard to
find good stuff, right, I'd say the last thing that
I liked, that I would classify as epic fantasy. Was
like Heinous trilogy that was really sort of this big

(01:19:56):
epic world, lots of characters, lots of plotlines, switching pobs,
that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Yeah, I should read that sometime sometime sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
Other news, my cat's still missing. I'm pretty upset about that.
Not much you can do at this point that we
haven't already done.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
That sucks every week we come back and I'm hoping
for a better update. That's a bummer. That puts it
three weeks now.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
I want to say, it's only been two two as
of Sunday, so we're into the third week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
Gotcha, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
It's just it's the uncertainty, I think, is what's really
rough about that. Did someone just snatch my cat and
it's living somewhere fine in somebody else's house. Did a
iote get him hit by a car somewhere and in
a couple of those scenarios you'll never find out. Yeah,
and I did all the things you're supposed to do.
We've done all the things you're supposed to do for cat.
He's chipped, we put up posters, we've done the next

(01:20:52):
doors thing, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
So well, I promise y'all an update on my sewing
machine in contrast with the cat situation. And apparently you're
not supposed to take a sewing machine apart three different
sewing machines apart, intending to put them back together into
one sewing machine, assuming they're all the parts are interoperable,
eight months before you decide to do the reassembly. According

(01:21:15):
to my mom's extensive research, this is not the correct
way to efficiently put the thing back together. So she's
been slowly but surely troubleshooting her way into assembling this
Davis vertical feed out of three different machines worth of
parts that because it's like they're spread out across like
forty years, so sometimes even screws that are meant to
be the same, there's enough drift over time in how

(01:21:37):
they were getting made that, like the thread patterns don't
line up if the machines are forty years apart in
their manufactured day, even though they're ostensibly the same. So
it's been a bit of a journey. But I've been
getting a lot of little fiddley projects done in my
sewing room while she works on that. We're just kind
of parallel playing while she you know, yells at the
sewing machine and threatens to you know, can't be stuck

(01:21:58):
if it's liquid. There's a lot of restoration happening. But
she's getting there. She's getting there every work session. It
does move forward, just is taking a lot longer than
she thought.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
So that reminds me so much of my job because
I work in these microchip industry, but I work on
machines that were built, you know usually or at least
designed thirty years ago, and they've been buying new ones
ever since. But it's the same machine, and so you
think it's the same machine. It's going to have the
same parts until you need to replace something and the
new one you buy doesn't fit and it's like, well,
it's the same part number it's always been. It's like, yeah,

(01:22:32):
but you changed it somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
It changed Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, just the casting
that they made, the precision of what they were doing, right,
because this is a machine from like the eighteen seventies, eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
Something like that, eighteen or nineteen eighteen, wholl okay, so
one hundred and forty years.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Yeah, this's an old Treuttle machine. So like the amount
of progression that they had in their ability to precisely
make things over like a forty year period, pretty radical
changes right from the oldest of these versions through the
newest one that she has that's from you know, like
nineteen ten or twenty right, Like there's a big range
of machine precision over that time. But it's you know,

(01:23:17):
we're going along and I like have Like I said,
I've made little tiny lacy curtains to put up in
my kitchen in the high windows. So there's just like
these cute little lacy curtains of them. Okayay, yeah, yeah,
it's just little. The parallel play of working on stuff
together with her is great. And then we did a
great work session today for us to sew because we
had like email logins and other you know stuff to

(01:23:39):
do that was just easier to do in person to
just be there working on troubleshooting stuff together. And in
the course of that, I learned I can upload RSS
feeds to YouTube automatically, so now instead of having to
do the Watt spoilers episodes manually every week, where I
have to remember on Friday to like put all the

(01:24:00):
stuff to get they're going to dobe Premiere Pro and
export it manually. I can just have the RSS feed
from spreaker, just trigger a whole thing with YouTube and
just have it be all connected and we'll just be automatic.
And I'm so jazzed. This is going to actually save
me a lot of time per week and add way
more reach to all my podcasts. Because I didn't know

(01:24:21):
that was an option. I learned it was an option.
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
So for the forty of you, and we see it's
pretty much almost always about forty people that are listening
on YouTube, this should be you shouldn't have any more
delays on the episodes. Although you won't get the pretty pictures.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
You won't get the pretty picture. You will still have
to go back to our You'll have to go back
to our social media for that for sure. But yeah,
it will be precisely on time every week, So look
forward to that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Except I'm sure like the first two weeks when it'll
break horribly because technology is the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
Well, I mean there is that factor, but you know,
mercury retrograde ended yesterday, so we're good.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
Yeah. Other than that, I think I spent this weekend
hanging shelves. I bought a bunch of shelving for the
house in various locations that needed it, laundry room, the bathroom,
some other places that I can't remember right now. And
we got and we got a real mattress for our
guest bed. We had an inflatable one that we were
like it was co playing as our guest bed slash
camping mattress. Now it's just a camping mattress and we

(01:25:24):
have a real mattress for the guestbed.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
So nice.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
You know, nesting, I've been nesting. It's been fun. It's
nice too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
So what we did over the weekend was we went
up to the Selett's pow Wow in Selet's, Oregon, the
niska Ilahi pow Wow, And that was really cool. I'd
never been to a pow wow before. And we were
only there for like four hours because it was a
long drive. It's a long day overall, but it was
really cool. It was really cool sitting on the ground

(01:25:51):
while all those drums were going and all the regalia
is just so pretty.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
And so what does a powow involve? I don't know
anything about.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Lots of dancing, lots of dancing. It's on the like
I guess this one. A lot of competitive dancers come
to it. So there's like a big central circle and
everything is set up around the central circle and only
the dancers and the drums, and a drum means a
group of musicians who all play the same drum. It's
like band. So only the drums and the dancers go

(01:26:21):
into the circle. And yeah, there's a grand entry a
couple of times where they all process through, and then
there's like what they call intertribal dances where anyone can
just kind of go do whatever. And then they have
like actual divisions like little kids, Like we saw the
little kids. We saw the little kids doing their practice divisions.
And they go out there and they do like two dances,

(01:26:43):
I think, and they're just wearing all these beautiful jingle
dresses and feather head dresses, and they have fans made
out of turkey feathers and just really elaborate regalia. Some
of it's obviously very old and like family heirloom stuff,
and some of it's obviously made much more recently. Everyone jingles.
Everyone's wearing sleigh bells and jingle bells and these rattles

(01:27:05):
and just the smellscape and the soundscape was so different
from any other like gathering, summer party, street fair market
I've ever been to. It was a lot of the same,
like pop up tends and curls of smoke from the
food vendors and you know, trays of earrings you can buy.
But also it all just smelled and sounded different.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
So what makes it a powow versus just like a
festival or like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
The tribes are doing it? Okay, this is an actual
tribal event, like we were very much in the racial
minority as white people, Like, it's open to non natives.
Non natives are welcome to come. It's a front facing
cultural event, but it is a cultural event of the
confederated tribes of the Sallettes. And like I said, a
lot of dancers come from like all over.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
I was concerned that it wasn't a tribal event, and
I was like, hmmm.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
No, no, this is like an actual, real tribal event.
And my mom was pointing out you could see in
the beadwork designs that are like from the Great Lakes
region or whatever, like you could tell just from looking
at the regalia there are people from all over who
have come for the competitive dancing because it's like a
three day event. And yeah, I bought some earrings and necklace,

(01:28:12):
and we had some food. I didn't really have very
much food because my food was timed weird for the
day and do you know me and.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Travel and food, Yeah, it doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
But Brandon had some food and it all just smelled
so different, and there was lots of sage burning, and
there was like booths full of tanned animal furs and hides,
and it was just and like seriously mostly Native people,
like it was mostly Native. We were very much like
these weird white people outsiders, just kind of like politely
hanging out on the back edge, being like, wow, this

(01:28:43):
is so cool. My mom knew some people who were there,
but it was a much bigger powwow than she had
ever been to before, because she'd been many times to
many other powows, which she was like, this is the
biggest one I've ever been to. And so we did
not find her friends, who's ostensibly had a booth somewhere
in all of that, right, right, But yeah, they had
a great like shuttle system. So we went into Selects,

(01:29:04):
which is a reservation town. Like the whole thing is
selects tribal space as far as I know, and like
we just parked at the school and then went to
a little stop and then a shuttle came by and
took everyone up the hill and so it was a
shuttle running like every fifteen minutes, so you could get
taken up to the event space and not have to
deal with like crowded parking. Like our actual parking was

(01:29:25):
very chill. But yeah, it was really beautiful and you know,
nice of them to let that be a front facing,
public facing tribal event, and you know, lots of stuff
I didn't understand, and lots of people who obviously knew
each other very well, and you know, it was like
we were very much like tourists. But like I mean,
I was reading on like all the Reddit forums, like

(01:29:46):
how to politely go to a pow wow and like
not be disrespectful and like because there's rules, right, like
you can't take pictures of people without they're permission, and
like pointing is rude, and like there's all these little
things and.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
I feel like some of those should be you know,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
Respect for elders. A lot of the rules made me cringe.
With the knowledge of the events that precipitated the rules
needing to get me, and it goes looking at different
tribal websites where like they had very specific rules about
like you can't just wander across the central dance space
like it's a beer garden. That's actually like sacred space.

(01:30:20):
And I'm just like wow, just the some of these
rules seem like common sense, some of them seem like
event logistics, and some of them seem like dear God,
can white people please not be the worst? Like, oh
my god, this should not need to stated, Like fuck. Yeah.
It was just a really cool sense of like we
literally went to another nation. We went like touristing in

(01:30:42):
another nation, and like did the thing, and it was
it was a cool way to spend a Saturday.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
I think that the the presence of Native Americans in
the United States is something that in the East Coast
I was very separated from, and it's much more common
out here on the West coast because there is a presence, right.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Like it's a much more recent colonization.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
Yeah now, and just how much that like I kind
of grew up with the idea that there were no
Native Americans left, like never seen one, never met one,
until I came out here, you know, it was this whole.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Oh, and they exist on the East coast, but.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
Yeah, it's very small enclaves compared to what's what's going
on out here, and with very few resources.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
I would not bet money on that. I would not
bet money.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
On that compared to what's out here, I would.

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
Not bet money on that. There's a concerted effort to
make sure that we don't know what the fuck we're
talking about when it comes to the indigenous population of
this country. So I'm just gonna not make strong claims
about anything fair. Yeah, it was. And now that I've
liked one powipp page on Facebook, now I'm being informed
of the like seventy five other ones that are happening

(01:31:53):
within a three hour drive of me. There's a lot
out here. There's a lot out here, and it's it's
pow wow season because summer.

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):
Yeah, and people are saying there's there's a there's a
large presence in the Midwest, and that I was aware
of as well, but uh Man, East Coast and south.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
It's complicated everywhere. Yeah, our ignorance is a really important
part of how the powers that be keep exploiting the
land and ruining the planet for everyone? Is us being
ignorant of all that?

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
That's a universal well us ignorant?

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
No, yeah, our ignorance is really important for them to
maintain power.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Actually, right, yeah, which you know, right now, I'm sort
of buried in a flood of information that keeps me ignorant,
which is kind of a crazy way to think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
But yeah, the Internet had this moment of feeling so
hopeful and now it's like the worst tool.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
Yeah, yeah, I really do. I really feel like it's
just when I get onto Google, like I can't find
anything I'm looking for that's not sponsored ads, like even
just simple Like I hate to say this, but like
they've kind of shut down effective pirate and maybe I'm
just not a teenager anymore, so I don't have to
know how to affect pirate anymore. But like, I really
do feel like there's this this moment in the Internet

(01:33:05):
where it's like it used to be open and free
and they couldn't stop anything, and now it's like, oh yeah,
but except now the people in England needed their IDs
to look at, you know, any sort of adult website
and it's like wait, what, how how is that a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
It's a mess, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):
And it's just an example. You know, it's just a mess.
It's just a huge mess of like control. And you know,
some people are like, well, we need the regulation, and
it's like, yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
We need different regulations than this puritanical controlling stace.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
I'm just we need the regulations that nerds have been
asking for since the mid nineties that we just can't
be bothered to get around to. Those are the regulations
we need, not whatever. This fucking just.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
Like do you want to accept cookies? Yes? Or no?
On every fucking website that pops up.

Speaker 2 (01:33:50):
Like, hey, wiretap, how do I make pancakes? You've seen
that comic. Used to be Oh no, there's a wire
tap in the wall. Now it's hey, wiretap, how do
I make pancakes?

Speaker 1 (01:34:01):
That is so true. I resisted Alexa for so long,
and now I can't turn my lights on without her.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
I will continue to resist voice command technology until it
is as cool as Star Trek and literally talks to
me in the Star Trek lady's voice.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
I will say, the ability to say good night Alexa
and have every single light in my house turn off
is really convenient. At the end of the night and
also then have them all like on a schedule and
stuff like that. The only thing I did was link
the smart light lights to Alexa, So I mean, I
have an app that I can use, but I can
also verbally.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
I just don't want to talk to my computer.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):
That just yeah, yeah, it mostly sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
Not until it is literally the Star Trek lady talking
back to me with the level of intelligence and creativity
that Star Trek computers had, Like not until then.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
I do like the fact that you can change the
keyword and you can change it to computer if you
want to, so you can be like computer, just like.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
I do appreciate that. I do appreciate that. I'm like,
I'm glad for everyone who that is the line that
allowed awesome to cross over it will not be me.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
Anyway, is that these are totally random thoughts about life
and the Internet that just don't matter to anybody who
cares about Wheel of Time.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Do we want to talk about things that matter to
people who care about Wheel of Time?

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
Yeah, let's talk about apples.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
Thank you for 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 episodes. Watt
Spoilers is a production of Fox and Raven Media. For
more podcasts from Fox and Raven Media, visit our website
at foxendravenmedia dot com.
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