Before the Stone of Tear - The Gathering Storm chapter 42 - EP537 - WoT Spoilers

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. All right,
so today we are doing a short chapter. The next
three chapters don't really bundle in any way sharpe or form.
There are various lengths, and they're good chapters, but they

(00:35):
just might be a relatively short episode simply because it's
a relatively short page count and and the next one
is a long page count. So you know, we're at
the point now where we're just going to do one
chapter today.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
We're in the sander Lanch, but we've hit a plateau
within the sander Lanch. Right, there's more sander Lanch eness
before the end of the book, but this is a
weirdly plateau spot these next three chapters. So there it is.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's kind of like when someone's screaming and they take
that like a quick breath before they keep screaming.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Right, they're not done screaming. They just need to breathe
in because that's how screaming works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Great which pairs well with the raving screaming madness that
is rand slash ltt in this chapter.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Oh yeah, he's total nuts. I'm gonna have a lot
of fun with this. Read in I already know it.
I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I'm excited to get into it. This is beginning
of a lot of Rand's final unraveling. I was saying
before we turned recording on, and you were saying, this
is like his rock bottom, because this is this is
a city he comes back to in his post Tam
pre Veins of Gold arc, right, he takes a couple
of days to wander around and be a vagrant and
like think about things, and he comes back here specifically

(01:56):
and thinks about the decisions that he made in this chapter.
And so this, in my mind is really like that
final thread starting to come out, and then when you
get Tam into it, you actually pull on the thread.
But this is that thread coming loose and being available
for that Tam situation.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's his failures. No matter how hard he works, how
hard he is, he still fails. He fails to save
Abu Dhar, he fails with the Sean Chan. He fails
in a lot of different ways. And it's why he
feels so bad about the cheering and tear. But yeah,
he's at rock bottom and going back and examining those

(02:34):
failures and realizing my strategy isn't working. Right, Like I
keep getting harder, and the harder I get, the more
failures I have under my belt.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, and this is also the Schrodinger's grain. Yes, is
it rotten or not? That comes up again later, and
there's the question, you know, did they literally just open
all of the bad sacks or was there some sort
of you know, Schrodinger's superposition situation happening with that? For

(03:06):
plot reasons, I'm pretty sure we both agree it's it's
the latter. This was it was not rotten or good
until it was looked at depending on.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, the collapse of the wave function as to the
position of Rand's goodness or badness? Right, how evil is
he going to be? Right? He's he's the elementary parduct, right,
So I mean in a lot of ways, like think
about it, right, the I this is this is fun right.
So Jordan certainly was a physicist, and he's making a

(03:36):
book where choice matters, right, Individual choice is super important,
And in a lot of ways, he's taking that all
of that choice, distilling it down into a single person,
into a single moment on the mountaintop right in veins
of gold. In a lot of ways, you can think
of that choice as the collapse of a quantum waveform

(03:58):
into a position of a single particle. Right, it's a
yes no binary. And so in a lot of ways,
we have two worlds that are in superposition existing at
the same time, the world in which it will be
destroyed in the world which it will not until Rand
makes his decision and then he observes the universe.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I mean, I'm not generally one for binaries, but when
it comes to physics, yeah, yeah, that that all checks out.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
So that's that's just sort of my fun I've been
watching too many science shows on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
I'm glad that you have an interest in physics because
I do a lot of science on YouTube as well.
But it's never physics.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's biology.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Ever physics, it's archaeology, geology, history. Yeah, yeah, I do.
I'm playing more and more with the softer sciences, the
squishy or sciences. In terms of my my infotainment stuff.
I'm really like, I'm currently reading Song of the Cell
right now, which is way deeper into biology than I

(05:02):
ever thought I would be absorbing information. But yeah, physics,
I'm really glad you are how I get physics information. Basically,
you are the person who tells me about physics.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Black holes and quantum particles, Man, I think somehow the
biggest and the smallest, right, the singularities on either extreme
of gravity and quirks, And I think somehow they're you know,
shoehorn theory, right, they go so far around they come
back together. There's so many similarities between an elementary particle

(05:34):
and a black hole, right, They're all defined by only
three you know, charge, spin, and mass.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, anyway, I do love astronomy too, black holes and astronomy.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, astronomy is great.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I'm more interested in the how do we take pictures
of them? Than what the fuck are they? You know,
Like I can grasp the photography easier than the math
of the thing itself.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
I think my science interest in science has really come
along with an interest in sci fi as well. Those
have sort of been going. I've been reading a lot
more sci fi as well as looking into a lot
more space science, so those two kind of go together
in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
I love it when when my fictional and nonfictional interests
like dovetail and feed in and out of each other, right,
Like getting really into history and then also reading historical
fictions set in the period you're interested in, like for real,
it's really it's nice because then you can bounce back
and forth and find the connections between like the artistic
interpretation and the messiness of objective science, because like science

(06:31):
is messy and there's loose ends, and artists can tie
up those loose ends in ways that are emotionally satisfying,
and that can be a nice break from just the
sheer questions of it.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
All right, right, and they can fill in the holes.
They can be like, Okay, this is how you can
actually can Yeah, thanks, exactly, yeah exactly. Like we understand
what a rocket ship that could constantly accelerate could do,
we have no idea where we're going to get the
power for that, So you just make up some sources
of power. And if you understand the physics and you
understand the fiction, you can understand where they've made up

(07:03):
and sort of said, okay, here's where our understanding stops.
And in the future, we made this discovery and that
led to all of these consequences based on the physics
we know and understand.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Right, right, Yeah, it's good stuff. It's good stuff. But
I'm glad that we have very different science fields of
interesting I think a more interesting banter for the podcast.
I can put some other links in the episode description.
I'm totally blanking on a lot of the stuff, but
I can put some more stuff in the episode description.

(07:35):
If people are interested in my interests.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, let's get into this thing.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Let's let's do this.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Let's do this before the Stone of Tear, because they're
here before they go to the Stone of Tear. It's okay.
And then they're kind of in front of the Stone
of Tears, so before the Stone of Tears.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
That was how I interpreted it was the in front
of but it doesn't seem to be super relevant.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
So there's this whole chunk of the whole chunk in
Budar that happens before they go to the Stone of Tyr.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, yeah, so it makes more sense. Literally, it's time, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
In our symbols of the dragon, because it is. We
don't know the names of the women who were in
Grendall's palace. Lewis there and said, we can't add them
to the list. Rand tried to ignore the madman. That
proved impossible. Lewis theren continued, how can we continue the
list if we don't know the names in the war
we sought out the maidens who had fallen. We found everyone.

(08:32):
The list is flawed. I can't continue. It's not your list,
Ran growled, it's mine. Lewis there and mine. No, the
madman sputtered, who are you? It's mine? I made it.
I can't continue now that they're dead. Light bail fire?
Why did we use bail fire? I promised that I
would never do that again. Ran squeezed his eyes shut,

(08:55):
holding tightly to tie Dashar's reins. The war horse picked
his way down the street. The hoofs hit packed earth
one after another. What have we become? Lewis there and whispered,
We're going to do it again? Aren't we kill them all?
Everyone we've loved again again, again, again and again. Rand whispered,
it doesn't matter, as long as the world survives. They

(09:18):
cursed me before, swore at the Dragon Mount and buy
my name, But they lived, were here, ready to fight
again and again.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Good voices, good voices. It's there's one person with two personalities, yeah,
really present there like this is Rand and LTT are
just oscillating in and out of each other in every
possible way at this point.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
No, and it's like Lewis theren thinks he's the same one,
like the voice in his head thinks he's the same one.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Rand is sort of tripping out in his own head
as he's writing down the road, and even when Min
recalls him to himself, recalls him to hisself, and he's
just like, I'm just thinking it's fine. Like he's literally
like raving back and forth with his two personalities like
at each other. They're just raving at each other, and it's, uh,

(10:13):
I'm just thinking I'm fine.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
And he said that last part out loud, right, he's
whispering again and again it doesn't matter, you know, as
long as we survive.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
And he's like, they can't know how close I am
to collapsing. It's like, I'm pretty sure they're picking up collapsing.
And then yeah, we talk about the city and his
issues with then and how Eradomon is a very different
conquest than he's been experiencing the whole rest of the series.

(10:42):
Every other city he comes to, he does something good.
He removes a forsaken, he restores order, he frees them
from some affliction, whereas this time he brought afflictions, and
the affliction he tried to fix the shan Chan was
not fixed. He literally made the situation worse for the
first time.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
So how do you feel about this? He'd brought in food,
but that food had drawn even more refugees, straining his supplies.
Because this is something I hear about a lot in Portland.
So I'm bringing it back to the real world here
because so often in Portland, right, I hear the reason
we have a homeless problem is because we help the homeless,

(11:23):
and so they flock here for resources, which is more
and then so we ended up with, you know, half
the country's homeless, which is more than a city can
provide help for. And that's sort of that overwhelming of
local resources by a country of people.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
It is complicated.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
I thought you would have opinions on this, so that's
why I wanted to hear them.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, it's I mean, with respect to Portland specifically, the
weather has a lot to do with it too.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
That's yes, Yes, the whole West Coast really like that's.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
A huge part of it. Being on the I five
corridor and having the temperate Pacific Northwest climate, those two
things in and of themselves are a lot to do
with it. But yes, there is something to be said
for people will go where there are resources, but like
back up a bit, what is the unspoken part of
that they should go somewhere else to have less resources.

(12:21):
People who are already at the edge of survival need
to be responsible about dying out of sight of your backyard.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
So what do you think about the people in erdomon
should they be swarming a band our oven?

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I mean, it's not about a matter of should. It's
a matter of survival.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
This is not like treating it like it some sort
of choice that people are making from a place of
resource and rationality is deeply incorrect. These are refugees, right,
Even in the real world, these a lot of I
mean within the context of COVID, right, Like, there was
a huge increase in the almost population because of rent stuff. Right,

(13:02):
that was like a huge spike that happened on top
of the situation that's been you know, escalating over my
entire life living in proximity to the I five corridor.
It's you know, the lack of a social safety net
in our real world situation in this context, in this world,
first of all, we know we don't have a broad
social safety net. We've seen that over and over again.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
No local at the best.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also the situation that they are
dealing with is much more rapid and acute than you know,
a big systemic societal creeping issue that's been going for
forty years. This is in the last two years, the
shan Chan have invaded and the Dark One has completely
screwed with the weather, and dragon sworn have come erupting

(13:47):
out of the woodwork. Right, it's really in that level
of chaos. I mean, that's a civil war. I mean
these are internally displaced people, right, Like, that's kind of
the situation that these people are in. So they've got
even less ability to make a rational or logical or
practical decision than people with creeping systemic issues pushing them around.

(14:08):
So like, yeah, you go to the city looking for food.
That's what people do when food is hard to find
in the country. You go to the city. Like there
hasn't really even been time for people to learn that
that's not going to work, right, Like, remember, people don't
have telegraphs. They barely have a postal service by horse, right, Like,

(14:31):
there's no like royal post Delane thinks about starting one
in and or they don't have one, so like information
travels as fast as merchants. So yeah, we're talking a
few months of people rushing to the city and overwhelming
its resources. People have only just barely started to realize
they're overwhelming the city's resources in terms of like people
who are still coming. That information probably hasn't propagated out.

(14:52):
So yeah, it's one of those unfortunate But what else
is going to happen kind of situations, which I mean
is true in the real world. If you keep nibbling
away at people's social safety nets and you keep driving
up the cost of living without also raising the wages, Yeah,
then you'll end up with people making unsavory decisions because

(15:14):
survival is what matters. Like we're animals, we want to survive. Okay,
those are my thoughts.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
I'm done now, Thank you. I begin you don't articulate
it better than I could, so I got you going.
So yeah, And one of his failures in terms of
not only the refugees, that he's just unable to handle
because he's not bringing in enough food I think, even
spoiled or not, there's really not enough food, right, Like

(15:45):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Because we're a good six months past the screwed up
harvest right, people's stores are starting to run down and
the way you're supposed to be starting to have new
food coming in at this point, So like the acuteness
of the oncoming famine is becoming more present, I think
at this point because of where we're at in the

(16:08):
cycle of seasons with respect to the dark ones, weather manipulations.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
So his other failure is he's failed to get a
king elected. He can't find enough council members to legally
go through the process that he wanted to go through,
so that there's no way to elect somebody who's going
to be the king after he dies. Right. That's really
his goal with these countries is he wants them to
go through a due process so the law is continue
to be enforced after the Dragon reborn dies or goes away, right,

(16:36):
because he doesn't want to be He can't be like,
you know, right through might, because once the might disappears,
the whole system is going to fall apart.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right, and he needs someone that can manage the city
and organize things and not need him to be there
driving the right thing, right, And he can't find even
a temporary leader, much less one that's going to have
longevity it's a pretty comprehensive failure on that front.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Political resource wise, like, yeah, everything.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, he did nothing except get resources for himself. Right.
He dropped off some food that he didn't particularly need,
and he took their fighting force. Like that's that's really
a lose lose for the city. I mean, the food
ostensibly is going to help, but as we see, it's
not going to help until he turns that frown upside down.

(17:30):
It's true, though, true.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
You just got to look at it from a different
point of view and all the grain will be good.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Just go to the land of mad Men and fix
your attitude. Oh wow, Fitzpan a lose lose.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, the problem with LTT sleeping around as much as
he does, it's a loose lose the situation. Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
So yeah, rand who supposedly has no feelings, doesn't like
looking at hungry people. He has no feelings. He's super hard,
very quainty art. But he also doesn't like looking at
starving people. So yeah, yeah, no feelings there whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Not Just pushing them down into a little place where
they're a little rough later couldn't be the problem. No,
So yeah, he wants the members of the Council to
go home and elect some more members of the council,
and then with enough members of the council, then they
can elect the King and a.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right, he's asking them to bootstrap their government, right, They're like,
we are running like raps right now. We are not
sticking around to bootstrap a government that's in the middle
of a civil war, being invaded, end of war. No, no, no,
we're merchants. We just like power when the times are good.
We are fair weather rulers.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, and ran self sympathy. It's not my problem. I
did everything I could. But then he sort of corrects
himself and is like, eh, I really came to deal
with Sean Chan, track down Grendel and find the Borderlanders, right,
just because that was all happening in Airdomon. I needed
Airdomond to be stable for that, But like, that wasn't

(19:24):
my main goal. He really is kind of admitting in
that to himself, or either that or he's changing his
goalposts so he doesn't have to admit to feat White's heartily.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I am inclined to believe him that he's reached
a point of nihilism and utilitarianism where he's just doing
things that are good for people because it helps him
achieve his goals, not because it needs to be done right, Like,

(19:52):
I do think that his inclination to come here and
try to fix this city was not motivated by the people.
He was like, I need to do good things for
He's becoming morally gray, I guess really is what it
is is he's not saving people. He's saving people incidental
to the tasks that he's doing.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
The Last Battle is really overriding the concerns for helping
the people. Right up to this point, it seems like
he's really been trying to make everybody's lives better as
he unites them for the last battle. Now he's just like,
get in line, shut up, we're fighting.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, he thinks it's not possible to actually improve human
life on the way to the Last Battle, which is
part of why the Dark One's doing all the things
he's doing. Right, This is part of the necessary prep
work to get Rand to destroy the world. Is if
he believes that it's worth destroying the world to save it, right,
Because if you kill everybody, what are you saving? Right?

(20:47):
Like that you have to save people in order to
have a world to save, right, So if you stop
caring about people. You are almost ready to stop caring
about the world.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, And one of the things I think about is like,
what if the dark One doesn't even really need to win.
He just needs to make every age worse than the
last one, and eventually things will plunge into darkness and
he will take over. Right, Like, there's there's the abrupt end,
but I feel like there's also the downward spiral.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, there are many paths into the void. So Rand's
talking to the Sheer about all the things, which then
moves into talking about the borderlands, and yeah, Aitalda being
up in the borderlands, being like something is amassing out there.

(21:41):
We're not actually getting assaulted yet, we're just doing patrols
and stuff, but we can tell something is brewing in
the blight. And that is, you know, again, really motivating
Rand to get this whole border Lander situation figured out,
because they are still very much a loose end that
has not been resolved.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Right, And we all know there's that prophecy right where
they have to slap him the face and he has
to not react, And it's the good thing they don't.
They haven't met up with him yet because he would
react poorly, and they'd try and kill him, and that
would be a whole problem. So we still need to
wait until after Veins of Gold before he can confront
the borderlanders.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
This is disproportionate response. Random. Yeah, they would have slapped
him and he would have annihilated the entire.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
City him leaving in public. So he's heading out, right,
he's amanding them because he's like, well, I have to
go do other stuff now. But he is doing it
in public, right, He's not sneaking out, which I feel
like we've seen him do a couple of times, right.
I feel like when he left here the first time
to go with the I Yield and he like ride
out through the streets and people gathered to watch.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
There wasn't a famine that time though.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, no, no, no, But like he's always left publicly
in those situations.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, yeah. He doesn't usually conquer a city and then
sneak out, So it makes sense that he doesn't start
now of all time.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Like you might sneak back and forth. Right, But when he's.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Leaving, sure, yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
And he's like I'm packing my shit and getting out.
He's like, okay, let me do that in front of everybody,
so you know, officially, I'm not going to be here anymore.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
He's also thinking too about how he's not hiding, right,
He's very much like the entire concept of subterfuge is
completely behind me at this point.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
So, which is so ironic because then Avienda gives them
the bronze knife and he goes right.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
The pattern is like, sir, you are too bold for
your own good. We're gonna put some tools in.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
And so yeah, all the way out. This is that
sort of I don't know this. I feel like this
is the classic scene of rand just abandoning people when
the person comes up to it and the man says,
every barrel, every sack, every bit in our stores and
in the sea folks ships, the grain has gone bad.
It's not just full of weevils. It's grown black and bitter.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, completely supernaturally spoiled. In a heartbeat, and.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Then later we see how this scene where he goes
back and he's had veins of gold and he's like, oh,
you only opened up the bad ones. You everyone you
randomly picked to check was bad. Irrespect to the fact
that there would have been an overwhelming stench if all
of the grain was bad right, Like, but let's just
go with the fact that it's perfectly sealed and there's

(24:20):
no way of knowing until you open it up, right,
that this grain is bad. You have to have a situation,
like I mean, I I guess we're just talking about odds,
the odds of just opening up just bad bags and
then making the assumption that it's all bad. But here's
the thing, it's Rand's influence, right, I've I actually think

(24:41):
I don't know. My head canon is that he actually
changes whether it's that it's gone bad, and then when
he shows up it changes to having gone good, and
he just uses he's just lying when he says you
opened up the only the bad ones. Right. In the
same way that he's able to grow trees, I feel
like Rand is at this point sort of tapping after

(25:01):
veins of gold, is able to tap into the pattern
a little bit and actually alter the pattern.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
He's got his neo powers.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, so I think he's actually changing reality in that situation.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, I'm inclined towards the the Schrodinger's grain, Like it
truly depended on if they looked at it or not,
like which way it was going to go. So they
did open up exactly how many were spoiled because everyone
that they opened before veins of gold was going to
be spoiled, and everyone that they opened after was going

(25:34):
to not be. But like it was entirely dependent on
their behavior. Like, because it's like I don't I would
rather believe that it existed in a ghostly like interplanar
state than that it literally spoiled and then went back
to good. I would rather believe that it just like
was not materially in existing in a way. And just

(25:57):
like I wonder if I wonder if they had opened
all the sacks, if there would have been no food,
you know, they would have If they had opened up
literally every single sack, they would have starved. And if
they had the less sacks they opened, the more food
they had, you know, And that was entirely in their hands.

(26:19):
Their choices determined how much food they had once ran
had bands of gold.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
I mean it had to have, right because either explanation,
whether it's existing in superposition and collapsing as you open it,
or if he changed it. But he's only able to
change the ones that weren't opened, because otherwise it would
be obvious either way, they're not you know, however, many
they open are the ones they're not going to be
able to eat.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
So yeah, nodding, it does add up to the same thing,
but yeah, it does. It feels like a very cheeky
level of Schrodinger's wheat for the plot.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
This is why quantum physics is so hard. You don't
know ahead of time whether or not. Uh oh yeah,
you can't, and you have to observe it to find
observe the particle to find out. And by the time
he observed it, it's collapsed. It's too late.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah. Okay, So here's here's a good extension of what
I was saying. The athlon's posing in chat is if
they had started opening sex again after Vans of Gold,
but Rand hadn't visited the city, would have been good.
I think it would have been good.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
I think it would have been good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yeah. I think that this week was very tied to
Rand's emotional state, so I think that it would have
transitioned regardless of if he ever revisited.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
On the other hand, like I do think that he
was pushing back against the Dark One's influence very locally, right,
and so it's possible that if they opened it up
outside of his influence. If he wasn't there to create
the positive influence, then the dark one would have been
able to continue to make them be bad.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I suppose, really weird bad things are still happening
at an increasing rate everywhere that he's not in like
direct proximity too, so and yeah, the tea gets good
around him and then bad when he leaves in a
similar place. So this grain actually maybe only was good
because Rand came back post vans of gold. It's not

(28:18):
just the veins of gold of it all. It's that
he revisited the city specifically.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
And it's kind of the same thing with the Taveran. Right.
Why are parents armies and Matt's armies so successful because
they have the protection of the Tiveran. Whether whether or
not it's because of they're tied to Rand or because
they're Tiveran, I'm not really sure, but their grain doesn't
go bad the way it goes bad everywhere else, so
there is some of this connection that allows them to

(28:47):
bring armies to the last battle.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, that's true. They do still have some spoilage, but
like significantly less, like barely above the regular rate. So yeah, yeah,
huh interesting. I think maybe. Okay. Another question, shouldn't the
grain have gone bad again once he left? No, I

(29:11):
think he was able to fix it in place.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
The for the most part, I think once he has
good food, it stays good. Right. I don't think i've ever.
I don't think there's an instance of tea going sour
again once he leaves.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Oh yeah, there is, there is. Okay, I ninety nine
percent sure that there is an instance of exactly that
with the tea. But I won't believe that didn't happen
to this gray, to this wheat, because I don't want
that to be true. But no, there's definitely. I think
it's when he visits the tower. The Tower, I'm pretty

(29:48):
sure Gwane's the one commenting on the tea like going
back to being, or maybe it's Elaine and Caitlin, But
I'm pretty sure someone goes, oh Rand left and now
the tea tastes bad again, like it tasted good while
he was here. So that's an interesting question. We don't
hear about this gring flipping back to bad.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
I can't imagine it would defeat the whole purpose.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, this food is really necessary to help him
get people to the last battle. So I think that
its probability stays fixed on being okay. Also, they eat
that food really fast because the city is really close
to the starting right right when he comes back and
fixes it, so like it doesn't have long for this
world anyway.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, I guess we don't get super specific about what
his influence versus the Dark ones influence versus like the
pattern and yeah, let's keep an eye out for that
that sort of information as we go through, Like how's
the food turning around him, because right now it's all
going bad because RAN's a bad influence, right and the
Dark oneses but bad influence, so everything's bad.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, oh yeah, And Athlon's pointing out that, yeah, they're
going to Marylor pretty soon and you're with the tavern there,
and the food stays pretty good at the fields of
Marilor because you've got all the people gathering and so
the tiver And force field is pretty big at that point.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
The force is led by the Dragon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, we're really close to the initiation of the last battle,
Like we don't have months left to plan for with
most of the timelines. Most of the timelines are going
to be compressed down to a week, like a few
people do have months long experiences obviously, but in terms
of food stores and stuff, like, Rand is pulling all
of it north like really rapidly at this point.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Which is also good because those people experience less time,
which means less food.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, less meals that you have to eat for sure.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
But yeah, I mean the shadows bond gathering in the Borderlanders,
those are that's the last battle trunks, right, they are
getting ready to attack for the last battle, right, They're
not attacking for anything else. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, that's that wild, intense attack that opens up the
beginning of a memory of light. I think it's that
Borderland outpost. And then we go to a Giralda and
you've got all the stuff that happens at Maradon and like, yeah,
what Giralda is seeing is the stirrings of that attack,
which yeah, is very much the last battle getting started.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
That's a good point. Would you would food stay good
longer if you are dedicated to Rand? Right? The light
Tower might not be dedicated to Rand, so when he leaves,
the food goes bad again, right, versus someplace that is like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
We know that Camelin has a way better rate of food,
Like it's spoiling, but not nearly as frequently and as thoroughly.
And it would make sense because Elaine is, you know,
carrying his child and the love of his life right right,
one of the loves of his life. Like, it makes sense,
she's very aligned to him carrying his children.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Sorry, it makes me wonder why it's not more of
a problem in chan Chan land. They don't really talk
about food spoil. It just a problem.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, it should be going way worse than shan Chan
held lands by that logic. If his allies get a plus,
then his enemies should get a minus, because balance is important.
I'm going to chalk that up to being a plot
hole rather than a mechanic.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Me too, because I think I think the shan Chan
would just be less of a threat if all Raan
had to do was just ignore them and their food
went bad.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah, if all their food went bad and he still
had food, that there goes the base of power, right, Like,
that's the thing I like people. They're You're like, civil
order is approximately nine missed meals away from completely breaking
down or whatever. That axiomic statement is that I'm mangling.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Athlon and keep making good points. I think any kind
of order pushes the Dark One back. The White Tower
has been pretty disordered for a while, and Masan is
still hanging out over there. Yeah, so it's yeah, the
forsaking are out of the shan Chan. There's a good order,
you know, chaos versus order that could be.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
You know, Oh, sean Chan has order. That's true. Sean
Chan is not well, sean Chan the continent is in chaos,
but sean Chan on this side of the ocean is
very much still ordered. It's got an empress, so is
Tuon's sheer personality and hubris holding back the forces of
the Dark One. I don't like that extension of this thought.

(34:18):
I don't like that at all. I don't like the
idea that Tuon is doing a good thing by being
so rigid and strong in that way.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Well, here's another thought. Maybe proximity to the Bore has
some effect on how much the corruption of food is happening, right, Like,
the shan Chan is a little further away, so maybe
the lands are less affected by that corruption.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
I mean, we know that they got rid of the
last shadow spawned centuries before present day, so yeah, their
distance from the Bore is centuries deep in that way,
And then Yeah, they've infiltrated and taken over lands that
are as far away from the Boor as you can
get on this continent. Athlon's typing. We're just gonna wait

(35:02):
for the next excellent point.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
There's no point in moving on until.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, exactly exactly. If there's a massive civil war because
the whole thing got decapitated, then well.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
That's what's waning. Proximity mattered, right, So maybe the civil
war isn't quite as maybe order isn't quite as important
over there because they're further away, although the board being
kind of super far north means they're close, kind of
equally close to everything.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I mean, Seawan Chan is in some extreme chaos right now,
so even a small amount of food spoilage is going
to probably have an amplified effect because of the whole
all all the blood all over the Crystal Thrones situation.
You know, if only we had faster communication across the ocean,
that would that would be cool, because then we could

(35:47):
have a plot going in Shawn Chan proper. Anyway, Yeah,
Randon just rides away. He put the coming starvation out
of his mind. It was shocking how easy that was.
Bleak line. That feels like it's super true of like
most of my life paying attention to news from around
the world. Oh my god, my entire life. You know,

(36:10):
obviously present situations are very acute, but like, literally, I
feel like that's been my entire experience of learning about
the wider world. Is like, there's a famine, but don't
think about it too hard because you're eight and now
here I am in my thirties. Like, there's so many famines.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
I ah, the famines and the genocides that are going on.
It's always just remarkable that we let both of those
go on at the same time in the same world
that you and I get sit down and do this
podcast in.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, and yet because it's been that way for so
long and so far away from where we physically are,
because our empire is huge, It's shocking how easy it
is to just be like, yeah, let's talk about me
all the time. They don't need to think about the
starvation and genocide happening in Gaza. Let's talk about the
one power like it's yes, Rand. It is shocking how

(37:02):
this works. The human brain is very confusing to inhabit
sometimes most of the time.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
And you know, I always say God is not the
only one going on, Like there's been genocides in Africa
going on for a very long time, that we don't
give half the attention due that we do.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I mean, as I said, my entire life of learning
about the world is like, yeah, the continuous pillaging of
the entire African continent is just like and yeah, if
you don't know about what's going on in the DRC,
you probably should, but yeah, it's it's just you know,

(37:40):
I really feel for Rand with this because yes, you're
causing it in one way, but also like, the world
is huge and full of so many of these things.
It is. It is really mind numbing. It is. It
is truly mind and soul numbing. Like whether you're the
savior of the world or not, it's a lot to
try to keep up with how many people are staring

(38:00):
at any given time in like the last fifty one
hundred and fifty five hundred years, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Just well, And to me, what's always remarkable is like, yeah,
we can talk in percentages, but and like we're like
percentages have gotten better, but the world population is so big.
The tiniest percentage of people suffering is so many people.
It's so many people.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And we have the resources to make that not nearly
so bad. We probably can't fix literally everyone's problem everywhere.
Probably there will always be another problem to solve. But
like we could be doing a lot fucking better than
we are. We could be doing a lot less funding
of genocides and withholding of food, like those things are

(38:46):
very much an option.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
And like Rand is struggling because he really doesn't have
the mechanism to do it. He he, for one, has
the political will, right because he owns all these countries.
He's the king, he's the emperor, right for once you
got the political will. And I think, I think what's
so discouraging is Rand's like, even with all the political
will in the world, even with all the power and
the one power and nations behind me, I still can't

(39:12):
fix the problems going on in erdmon Right, Like, it
doesn't matter how much power I've acquired, this is still
a failure for me, in the same way that like
attacking the shan Chan with the calendar was a failure
for him. Right, doesn't matter how much power he poured
into it. If you're doing it dumb, it's not gonna work.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah. Yeah, the world is a thorny problem. Don't bring
your perfectionism to solving the entire world's problems. But yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Then this, I would have loved to see this. This
would be a great TV shot of him of just
the most devastating, starving children, you know, please may I
have another? And then he goes through this gateway and
it's like, who like arena, Everyone's cheering, fireworks going off
in the background. It's the dragon Rabbord, you know, and

(40:04):
like just the contrast, and you just you know, I mean,
obviously I see the camera going for like a cool
color to a warm color, you know, like everything changes,
and just the way that settles so poorly in Durand
and the guilt that comes along with that, and the
failure that comes along with that. Uh, this is such
a great scene to me. I love the way this

(40:25):
is written. It's one of the reasons I really like
this chapter, you know, even though it's so short and
it's compact, but it's got this great moment that just, oh,
it lands so well for me on how Rand feels.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Maybe that's why it's the chapter has named that is
because the reason that that transition hits so hard is
because of what happens before the Stone of Tyar. That's
why that transition is so shocking, is what comes before
versus what comes after is just so wildly discordant and incongruous.
And yeah, it really really sits emotionally with Rand. How

(41:01):
that Yeah, emotional and cognitive dissonance hits it. It's that
comfortable and yeah, really cinematic because it's Sanderson.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
I love the detail of a bunch of boys perched
on rooves or you know, edges of roofs.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Like Level one Rand.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, And I was like, oh, that's like Rand trying
to find Logain and wanting to see him and finding
a little spot to watch, like it's very cute.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I guess that's more like level two Rand.
But you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, Book two Rand.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
That was Book one?

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Oh it was, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:37):
I always forget how much freaking happens in that first book.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
That first book is a really good standalone novel. I've
said it for years and I stand by it. If
you read just that book and then we're like, oh,
and then it goes off into the sunset, but I
don't want to read anymore, you'd be fine you would
have experienced so much of what makes the Wheel of
Time good, like that first books so much, so much.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
I still think the second book is really where it
shows you what makes Wheel of Time good, though I
think the first book is a little too much Tolkien
sure references to really like get the flavor of Wheel
of Time. But yeah, I agree with you, you know, like
it's like when I got married, I told never she
has to read the first book to understand me, Like,
she doesn't have to read any more than that. There's
enough in the first book that we'd be able to

(42:22):
talk about it and make references. But she got she's
into book six. She's called out in you know the
middle of book six where there's some you know, sloggish
parts where it slows down a little bit in the
middle there.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, you start to get the first few hints of
the coming slog in book six. It's not the whole
book by any means, but you start to be like, oh,
this flows differently. Yeah, that's going to become more present
as they continue, and like.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, same thing in book seven. Right. I don't think
Book seven is at all sloggish, but there are moments
where there's like, ah, you know, he's really good at foreshadowing,
and he even foreshadowed this slog really well precisely.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
It's exactly that he starts to play with something and
that ends up becoming foreshadowing for the experiment that he's
going to say, Yeah, I tried something and it didn't work.
He was playing with something at a smaller scale before
he tried it for a whole book.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
And I always say there's two things that make the
slog the slog. The timeline in the story slows way down.
So instead of months or you know, multiple months passing
by in a single book, it's multiple days or weeks
at the most. And two, you get big chunks of
POV instead of jumping between povs. So it feels like
you wait all this time, you read what essentially amounts

(43:46):
to a very long single chapter about that character, and
then you never see them again for the rest of
the book, and so you wait a long time to
find out very little about a character.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
So I mean, and that's not to say like the writing.
I think the writing could have been, you know, just
take that same writing and split it up where you're
switching between the POV character multiple times, I think you're
getting a much better story. Oh yeah, even just restructuring it, right.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. I was just editing
the episode we recorded last week, and that's the Battle
for the White Tower, and there's multiple povs from Agway
and that really helps make that sequence go in a
lot more fun directions. Right, that's really really cool. And yeah,
I'm just nodding.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
And for sure, the slog ends it at the end
of book ten, right, book eleven, and then book eleven
almost stands on its own. But then the Sanderson book
certainly there's no slogginess to it, right, he's back to
the traditional format. Yeah, like for sure, sure, sure, all right,

(44:58):
So we're tangenting hard on this chapter because it's a
short chapter and there's a lot of good concepts in here.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, so we're in tier and Rand is like, could
I maybe get ahead of rumor entirely? Yeah, he says,
I seem to spend half my life tramping down one
rumor or another. When will it end ambitious like that
when you die? And maybe not even.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Then, when you can stop rumor itself, I'll get off
my horse and ride a goat hah. And become one
of the c folk as well. Beshier laughed, and I
love that line because I mean again, so much of
this book is based on the sentence you know, rumor
fades to myth, this idea that over time and distance,

(45:42):
rumor changes. You hear Jordan talk about it in that
after interview in the audiobook, right. That is one of
the core concepts of why he started writing this book
is there is that information changes over distance, time and
physical distance, and so the idea of Rand trying to
off that, like it really is just like Rand, you

(46:03):
can't defeat the whole point of the book.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, it's like you can defeat literal satan, but you
can't stop rumor. Like, let's be real, really, you know,
like people make rumors and your your whole purpose is
to preserve people in their wholeness, and rumor is an
inherent part of the human experience.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's one of my favorite gender jokes in here is
when all the women are like, oh, the men, the soldiers,
they just gossip so bad, and the men are like
the women they just talk like Hans, they gossip so bad,
and it's like everybody, everybody's gossip.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Everybody that that's just how people are because we're social
creatures who like to talk like or we like to communicate.
There's many ways to communicate, but it's just like that's
who we are. That's inherent to who we are.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
I think it's one of the reasons why people really
misinterpret like the gender dynamic, and we have time like, oh,
it's all this men versus women's stuff, and it's like no,
but if you look at them, they're saying the exact
same things about each other. So it's really commentary on
how everybody is actually alike and equal. They just don't
think they are.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
Yeah, yeah, perception, we're all doing the same shit versus reality.
Right again, it's it's rumor fades to myth, right, like
your perception is a rumor to yourself about what reality
actually is. Speaking of perception and reality, Rand thinks about
how Ninieve and Kat Swayin can't possibly be working together
because they can barely stand to be in the same

(47:27):
room together, and it's like, sir, sir, you are you
are mistaken. They are actually so concerned about you that
they have started to become allies and are in fact
working together. They don't like each other, but they're working together.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
This is classic having a character make an absolute statement
and being wrong as hell, just the wrongest, the wrongest, right. God,
I read this chapter. This reads so compared to the
other chapters that we've read earlier in the books, this
reads so much like a Jordan chapter to me, Like,
I don't know, you know, I have no way of

(48:01):
verifying which chapters, like if he had written a couple
of these chapters before he died, especially in this first book, right,
like how much of the notes was there, how much
of it was written, you know, and we know nothing
of Parent was written. But I got to imagine and
I know some, but we know some scenes were written,
and I got to imagine he was doing a fair
amount of that with Rand. And so when I see

(48:22):
a chapter like this that's really Rand heavy and is
hitting those points that I feel like Sanderson has missed
in some of the early ones, the proving the characters wrong,
the real sort of overlapping layers of conversation like this
just feels Jordan to me in a way that the
rest of the book hasn't.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, And I would say that it feels to me
like he wrote a lot of the scenes in the chapter,
but he didn't like the whole chapter, right, he wrote, yes,
bits of it, and then Sanderson had to, you know,
make fill in the gaps. And I genuinely feel like
you can tell like paragraph to paragraph, because yeah, parts
of it just feel like this is book four Jordan
writing to me right now. And then there's parts that

(49:02):
are like that was so cinematography fantastic that it had
to have been Sanderson, right, Like I feel like this
is a chapter where you can see the pen getting
passed back and forth. But yeah, I agree, especially in
this first book, especially with Rand, there's a lot of
just straight up copy and paste from Jordan where he

(49:23):
was like, I have halfway sketched this entire interaction. You
just have to fill in the other little bits whatever
details details, And then yeah, you get to the parent
stuff and you're like, I can tell that there's no
Jordan here, and it helps you calibrate for picking out
the Sanderson because you're like, well, if it sounds like
the parent stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Then yeah, it's just a thing. Yeah. I just think
like we we were told that there was no parent
you know, written by Jordan essentially, right, you didn't even
have a really a place to go with him, and
so we can get any well a few exceptions, pretty
much any parent scene is going to be pure Sanderson.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, I do think that the mall and ear thing
was was wildly set up by Jordan, you know, that
was Jordan might not have left notes on it aside
from the books, but books very clearly set us up
to have him get a magic hammer. That was that
was coloring.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, no, there's right, there's some broad strokes with paren
that like Jordan knew something of what he probably knew
he was going to be involved until Ronriod in the
last battle, right like.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Right Slayer hadn't been resolved. Clearly that was going to
be a parent thing. What is relevant is Basher challenging
Rand with an eyebrow and not being intimidated by Rand.
Like we're really running out of people that can make
Rand stop and think at all, and Basher can still
do it with an eyebrow. So we love Bashers.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Rules well, and there's a certain amount of giving Fayel
her you know credit as well, right as the daughter
of Basher, and the fact that she kind of had
to deal with him and like this those are this
like a little bit of like his ability makes Fayeel
more badass.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Yeah. Yeah, every time he does something cool and badass.
It's like, oh, so the man that Fayla admires most
in the world is completely awesome. That's good. That's good.
She's modeling herself after a total badass. She just needs
to mature, that's all.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
And who trained her and you know, yeah yeah, And
I also like how you've got both parent and Rand
with you know, Basher advisors right telling them how to
do things.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah. Yeah, the Basher family really helped a lot. And yeah,
Rand basically is like, what do you want me to do?
We just have to go to war with the enemy
at our backs. Bashir has to say, yeah, I guess
that's what we're doing. That's like the worst possible way

(51:52):
to go to war with Satan, but sure, I guess
that's what we're doing. And yeah, it's like I don't
know how you're supposed to resolve that. But also like,
damn it, sean shan can you not suck so much?
You know, because this is all this is really about
the shan Chan, Like the civil war is not going
to hamper Rand's ability to fight the last battle aside

(52:12):
from you know, consuming soldiers within that country. But sean
Chan wasting its energy on gobbling up sovereign nations instead
of joining Rand on the front lines of the last battle.
That is a problem. It's like, sean Chan, you suck.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Why do you think they don't do that? Why do
you think they're not gobbling up nations while everyone's at Marillor.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Because they want the last battle to get won by
the good guys. They're not Sharan's pointed at literally helping
the dark side win. They want the light to win too.
They just have a very different idea about what that means.
Their intention is to be part of the last battle.
Their intention is to carve out their empire in the aftermath,

(52:55):
not during, right, Okay, that's my take. Anyway, I was.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Gonna say, I think it's partially it just happened much faster.
I think they were thinking this was going to be
a much much longer battle sort of battle, you know,
because he's thinking war of power level, which, how long
did the War of power last? Twenty years? Something obscene
like that.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
One hundred No, no, it's one hundred. It's ten years.
It's one hundred years between the drilling of the Boar
and the start of the war and then it's ten
years for the war, that's.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Right, So he's probably thinking something along those lines of
a multi year fight of survival.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Sure, which it takes like a good six months for
like the Camelin plot to go down, right, Like, it's
a long time.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
And without gateways it also you know, you don't you
have a lot of traveling time where armies are marching
around each other. Right, there's the gateways definitely changed the
nature of this battle to the point Matt can bring
everyone to the field of Mary Lora and say final
showdown right here. And I don't think that could have
ever happened without gateways, right.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Well, in fairness though, those did exist during the War
of Power, so damn you ever one and the War
of Power had they probably had Turan Grial that made
gateways for non channelers, right because it was the age
of utopia, so called utopia. I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Yeah, that's that's a really good way to throw a
hole in my point.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Thank you, you're welcome. That's why you pay me the.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Big buck, that is that is yeah. Yea, dear Seth,
you are delusional. Please stop talking, Okay, thanks someone he
had to say it. Yeah, and then there's some hipocrisy
here where he's like I have little patients for men
who abandon their duties and little stairs like, ah, you
just did that.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
I know. Like he's mad at the Borderlanders for going
on a mysterious mission, but he's expecting Toeralda to just
figure it out that he's abandoned his he's just breaking
his promise to e Teralda and he's not. He he
he's so honorable that he goes out the front door
show the people of the city, but he doesn't send

(55:02):
a messenger to Eceeralda to let him know. He's just like,
now he'll figure it out and then he'll probably abandon
his post and come back. And it's fine. I don't
even need to text him. It's cool. I just like, man, rand,
you are not keeping allies very well right now, you know?

Speaker 1 (55:19):
And I mean, oh, man, if you I mean and
if you look at Adalda's like what happens to him? Right?
He essentially starts fighting the last battle with no support.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
No communication out.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
They end up stuck in a city basically, and he
ends up defending that city and cannibalizing that city. To
take down as many of the bad guys, and just
before he's defeated, random Masher come rolling in and save him. Yeah. Like,
it's really grueling, bad, grueling, grueling campaign where he should
have been dead multiple times. If he wasn't a Galda,

(55:51):
he would have been right.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
It's like the Last Stand of Manetharin levels of epic.
Like they shouldn't have lasted for an hour, but they
lasted for nine days. Quite literally, it's and they don't
even know if a message got out about their situation.
The whole time they're fighting. They don't even know if
anyone south of them is aware of what's happening. It's ridiculous.

(56:13):
And yeah, Rand couldn't even be bothered to send a
messenger to tell him that he couldn't fulfill his end
of the bargain. He just he just leaves.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
He just leaves no message, and then he's stuck being
compelled in the lost battle.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
But he's the only one who realizes what's happening and
manages to freeze himself long enough to not do damage
or to do less damage than the others.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
He lets a Lias take him down.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Yeah, he's literally able to freeze and not give a
command that would ruin everything, and then is happy when
a wolf man and a pack of wolves show up
and like take him out of the fight. He's like,
oh good, I can I can be assured that I
will not give the order to change the or the
fate of the battle.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, he's really cool. I like him all right. So
we are looking at the Stone of Tier and thinking
about how Sean Shan with rock and can probably take
it down.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Well, not so much rockin as the Maani.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Oh yeah, I guess the Demani are the more important part, right.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Like the walls only work until someone can throw you know,
use earth to take them down or fire or and
now gateways right because as we know from the last chapter,
they have gateways. Right, So the Stone of Tier is
you know, no longer a good fortress against anyone who
can channel. It is a good fortress against anyone who
cannot channel. Though still right, it's not nothing because there's

(57:37):
still only so many forces with channelers on their sides.
A lot, but still only so many.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it is actually good to contrast
the Stone of Tiers defenses against the White Tower, which
we just saw getting you know, completely ravaged by Sean Shannon. Yeah,
it's like, is the Tower that much less sturdy than
the Stone of Tier. Probably not. The Stone of Tear
is built to look more sturdy, but like against fireballs

(58:05):
from the air, it's probably about as vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
And if anything right, the White Tower can fire back.
What's the stones you're gonna do? Shoot some arrows at
people who are flying on rockins. They can't even hit
because they're too far away, right, like Demani on rockins.
I mean that's air firepower, that's air superiority. They and
we know from real world battles that once you have
air superiority, there's just not a lot the other team

(58:32):
can do to fight back. Look at the drones in Russia,
look at you know, it's once you really have the
ability to control the airspace. It's really because shooting up
into the air at something in three D is really hard, really.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Hard, super hard, super hard.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Because you're you can't really figure out how far away
something is, just visually like that because if you don't
know how big it is, right, so, and then you
have limited range, you're shooting in a bal arc. All
of these things are are always going to be true
when you're finding it back against air power.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
But the good part is is it will it will
spur you to figure out a lot of cool stuff
about physics and engineering.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, Like you will be stimulated to discover so many
cool principles and gizmos and ways of being clever with
math if you have that problem to solve.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
M Yes, but we're a little far away from surface
to air missiles at this point.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I was just thinking about like tribute chets and uh,
this giant javelin launchy things cannons. I mean, we're about
to bring gunpowder into the picture, right right right, like
and yeah, you can do a lot with just dropping
weights and pulleys, so but really hard to do that
at a flying lizard. Yeah, really hard to do that

(59:49):
at a flying lizard. Those things are super mobile, do
not work great with large, heavy ranged weapons.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
And the fact that you have someone on the back
where you carry using person in that person is essentially
their own art you know, military weapons facility, right Like
they can throw fireballs, they can Yeah, we've seen what
Demani can do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, the Stone of Tier is just
as vulnerable as the White Tower, if not more so. Yet,
really more so, truly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
I would say more so because they can't They can't
fight back in the same.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Because they don't have channelers. Tyr has a moratorium un channeling, right, right,
they don't let channelers be around, so there's no defense.
It's as close to illegal as without being illegal as
it can be.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
It was, it was illegal until Rand stop that, right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Yeah. Yeah, it's not quite as bad as Amadusia, but
it's bad enough that they have no channeling defense force
that could possibly help them.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Ors.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Yeah, the White Tower at least had that, and it
still was a hard.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Battle despite having I believe still a huge collection of
on grioll and tear on griol.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Right, Yeah, hasn't been clean out or raided or distributed
or I mean really like either the good guys or
the bad guys should have been working on the Great
Holding by now. At this point in the story, everyone
knows about it. You'd think that Rand and some people
would be down there, like picking through it looking for
stuff that seems promising, But nope, it's still just all
catching dust in the dark.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Kind of kind of the way Avianda and Elane did
right with the stuff from uh Rudian exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Avianda and Elane, the practical women that they are, actually
grabbed all that stuff and then started sorting through it
once they had time. Everyone else is just like, I
don't know, we'll come back to them in the fourth age,
like now is the time, all right? So now we

(01:01:51):
look at some nobility, Darling.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah, all these are our you know, usual cast of
characters from the Stone of Tiers, at least the big names.
We've got Darlin, who used is now the king, right,
And there's that whole thing about how you know he
was hard to win over, so he's gonna stick with
you because you know, I feel it's kind of true
in all relationships like that. You don't basically, if someone's

(01:02:15):
gonna cheat with you, they will cheat on you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
And Darlin is not that man. He had he to
be campaigned and won over and maybe be told he
was the only one and whined and dined, and you
know someone else is gonna have to do all that
work to win him over, right like. And Rand's like, no,
he's good, He's on my side like no one else.
I'm his one and only no one else is ever
going to do the work. I did to to prove
to him how great, and you know, and we're married,

(01:02:43):
so he wouldn't chat on me anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
So yeah, yeah, that is that is very accurate. We've
also got Doe Brain, who was the Kirigan and equivalent
to Darlin.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
I do get them mixed up because they both are
both d names.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah, they're the same guy in two very similar countries,
and both their names start with D, so like clearly,
if you remember one, you're remembering both. You just have
to remember like the fact that there's two, but they're
the same person. And then we've also got whyram On
and we have some very interesting thoughts about Whyralman from

(01:03:21):
Lewis There?

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I like him Lewis there? In thought, Rand started, you
don't like anyone. He's honest, Lewis Thearren replied, then laughed
more than I am. For certain, a man doesn't choose
to be an idiot, but he just choose to be loyal.
We could do much worse than have this man as
a follower dark friend.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Alert right, he is not loyal, he is not honest.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Louis there were you this bad of a judge of
character in real life?

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Well? I think I think him liking him really is
like he's an honest bad person, right, or maybe just
honestly stupid. I think that's really gay. I wonder if
where Aman even knows he's a dark friend Like. I
wonder if he's really just so fucking dumb that he
just like got caught up in the meeting and pledged
to it by accident and then like does what he

(01:04:16):
wants to do and he's just so dumb. It looks
like he's working for the dark Side.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
No, we've already had that with Alia. We know what
that looks like. I genuinely think that he's uses stupidity
as a guy is for his dark friend ery. I
think he's smarter than he lets on. I think loose there.
It is just one hundred percent wrong about this guy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
No, I think he's just dumb. I think he's just dumb.
I think he's the dumb side of evil. He pledged
to the dark Side because he's dumb. He's just taking
shortcuts because he's lazy and he's dumb, and like he's
absolutely from he's a spoiled brat, he was given everything,
who wears fancy clothes into battle, someone who doesn't care

(01:04:58):
about money, or the quality of or understand how anything works. Like,
he's just dumb.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, I mean yeah, And he is paired up with Aniela,
who's also a dark friend, and obviously they're paired up
for dark friend reasons, but she also did not appear
to be the chef the sharpest knife in the box.
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I just watched The Glass Onion, the sequel. Deknives out
and there's a scene in there where he goes, you know,
he discovers the plot and he's like, it's so dumb,
and the character goes so dumb it's clever. He's like, no,
it's just dumb. I'm on right, Like, oh, he's so dumb,
it's clever. He's like no, he's just dumb. He's just stupid.

(01:05:39):
He doesn't understand what he's doing. He just legitimately like
he puts his life in danger all the time with
these charges right there. I don't understand how he survived them.
It's just I honestly really just think, God, I don't know.
This never really made where Ama never made sense to

(01:06:00):
me until I had the idea that he doesn't even
realize he's a dark friend. He just got recruited, like
he knows he's dark, right, but he's like, I don't know.
It's like he really is just trying to lead the
charge and he's such an idiot. The dark is like, yes,
keep going forward. I don't know how you keep getting promoted,
but go for it. Like he really is the definition
of failing upwards.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
So kind of like Shiiam in terms of his motivation
to go into the dark, but like way less competent
at the career that is paired that that is paired
with right right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
Yeah, yeah, the Shariam levels of I'm just trying to
get ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Yeah, I could buy that, and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
He just never gets punished because he's his incompetence keeps
getting you know, fucking up the dark the dragon reborn
and the dark One's like perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Right, Like we'll give you a promotion into our you know,
black Card club or whatever, and you just think it's
a cool, fancy lounge, but actually you're swearing your soul
to the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Dark where imm is the definition of with friends like these,
who needs amies, right, Like he's the dark ones. Yes,
take our incompetent people and put them at the front
of your army. It kind of reminds me now working
in corporate America, I see this all the time, where like,
you know, you have different departments, and so sometimes someone

(01:07:17):
will want to jump from one department to another, just
you know, and and so you kind of go to
their co workers and you're like, you know, how is
he a good worker? What's the deal? What's going on?
You know? And what I'm finding is the response I get.
If they're a really good workers, He's okay, I don't know.
If you want him, he should probably stay here. And

(01:07:37):
if you hear about you know, and if they're terrible,
they're like, oh man, he's great. You really I think?
I think you yeah, exactly, He's really you know, he's
so ambitious, he's really looking to learn more. I think,
I think this is going to be a great lateral
move for him. And you're like lateral hmm, And so

(01:07:58):
I think, get where im On's that guy who everyone's
trying to get rid of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
Yeah? Yeah. I feel like when I read this, I
was expecting there to be a turns out. I was
being clever and evil all along, and I just kept
waiting for that to drop. And so I'm even though
it never does, there's part of my brain that's still
just like looking for it, Like, but surely there was
something more interesting that came out of this revelation. And no,

(01:08:25):
sometimes you really can just explain malice and stupidity by
the same mechanism, and like, yeah, it's unsatisfying.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Like I hate to bring him up, but I mean
Donald Trump, right, Like the man is doing incalculable damage
through stupidity, and he's not trying to be evil necessarily, right,
but he's selfish. Yeah, well, yeah, we can debate that, right,
what he's trying to do and all right, but one
hundred percent think he's just a selfish, stupid man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's there's a level of clever us
that is being attributed to too narrow of a point source.
It's actually quite a large infrastructure that is doing the
comprehensive thing. He is a stupid, selfish loud piece that
is in the center of a bigger machine that's worth knowing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
And that describes where I'm on perfectly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Yeah, he just has less power in the machine. He's
less central to it, right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Yeah, but a fair amount of power. Is a big
noble in this particular nation who's you know, very close
to the dragon reborn.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, he's clearly lower ranked as a dark Fern than
he is in his public facing life as.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
The beggar. Would make him down for sure, Yeah, yeah,
no doubt, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
And then there's a bunch of other people here at
the end. The lady Caroline shows up, who's just like
always looks like Moraine, which sets off the list, of course,
which made me think, right, like, I love tyme being
the trigger for Rand's transformation. Would rather have it been
Moraine's return. I think it would have made more sense
because it would have broken the list because he always

(01:10:07):
starts the list off with Moraine. And I think if
he tried to start the list and he's like, no,
I can't start the list because Moraine's actually alive, and
that's the beginning of it, then he can't like, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
It's the thing where you can't learn, where you can't
recite song lyrics because you can't remember the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
First word exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
Scratch Moraine off and the whole list becomes inaccessible.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
The whole list falls apart. It's all hanging off with that,
it's all hanging off his failure to kill land fear
right to save Morain. Yeah, that was the first time
he really failed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
That would have been great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Yeah, and I think her return should have been the
trigger for his metamorphosis. Yeah, and I really feel like
that would have made her return much more significant. It
would have made Matt's role more significant. I think the
only reason he didn't do it is timing. I think
it would have been too hard because then you would
have had to have veins of gold after Matt goes
and rescues Moraine, which is written into the next book

(01:11:00):
book and it's kind of a central part of it.
So I just don't think he could make the timing work,
and he had to pick something else other than Moraine's return.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
But yeah, Tam didn't need that for his character. He's
been having character growth and progress and plot, and like,
we didn't need that for Tam. It would have actually
really done something for Morain in a way that it
doesn't for Tam. But yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
And why does Tam trigger it? Because Rand nearly kills
him because Rand is out of control, Like that could
have happened with anybody really, Yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Yeah, you're right, like Morain is the person, but the
timing would never.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
And I appreciate the father the timing of the Father.
I still would have loved to see a reunion with
Tam and Tyim sorry Tam and Matt, Jesus Christ, sorry Brain,
Tam and Rand. I would have loved to see that
reunion between Tam and Rand. Still want that on the page.
But like, and I still love Moraine's return, But I
just I think it would have made so much more

(01:11:57):
sense to have that happen. Like, I think, you move it,
you make because Matt's already found out about the plot
in the Tower, make this book about Matt rescuing Moraine,
and then you have Veins of Gold in the next book.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Yeah, Honestly, I thought it was a little soon to
have vans of Gold in the first of the last three.
I was like, really, we're going to go through the
last two books with Rand having gone through the real
last Battle. Like, one book to wrap up the last
Battle makes sense, but two books to wrap up the
last Battle seems excessive?

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
It does? It does? Yeah, So I think a reordering
actually would have worked better to have. I'm not so
sure about the quality of this first book. I think
maybe they really wanted to do some Rand development, so
people got somewhere with rand. I think there was a value,
like I understand from a marketing perspective why they did
it the way they did it. But yeah, I would
have really, really think that Moraine's return would be much

(01:12:47):
more significant because it again the whole like, you will
fail without her return, right, that would work so much
better if her return had been veins.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Of gold, because he would fail without vans of gold.
So yeah, yeah, no, that would have been way more satisfying.
But yeah, hindsight is very much twenty twenty when it
comes to resolving these massive, complicated, built over time monstrosities
of stories that we've invested our brains in.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Oh and oh, and that's a good way to kill
off Matt before the last battle. Well but no, then
you don't have any Matt leading the last battle. That
is a tough one because I did want to kill
Matt off in the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
No, have him very nearly die in the tower, because
he has to lose half the light of the world,
so he needs to have some time the light of
the world being lost, and then he could die later
in the last last last parts of the last battle. Yeah, yeah,
if he had to go for a couple of months
leading the battle with his eyepatch. Then that would have
satisfied all the prophecies because that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Counts and right the whole giving up the half the
light of the world to save the world again works
better if Moraine comes back and gives Rand veins of gold, right,
rather than come back and just like the thing she
did in the tent.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Yeah, anyone could have done that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Yeah, Yeah, that wasn't a Morine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
That's you know, honestly, I really would have liked that
to have been Agwaine as Omerlin, to be like, yeah,
as the institution of the Tower. Let me recite to
you the deep, put together PhD thesis lore that all
the Eyes to Die have done. As Omerlin, I am
here to deliver the White Towers thesis. You know, the

(01:14:27):
way that Varyin gave her a thesis. The White Tower
delivers a thesis.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
And that would have given a GWayne much more supportive Rand,
which like it feels like she doesn't support him enough.
To me, Yeah, I would have loved to see more
support for the dragon ry born and her childhood friend
in this moment where he is supposed to be leading
the last battle.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
We didn't need that from Moraine. We know Morain supports him.
She doesn't need to prove that Agwayne's the one that
needs to prove that exactly. It would have been just
such an ombrelin thing to do, to be like I
have the complete bird's eye view information of how this
prophecy relates to this moment and how to negotiate like
a gray because also then she could have had her
gray moment. She could have really done the negotiation as

(01:15:06):
the gray part of being HOMERLT. And we should probably
finish this chapter instead of rewriting the books point by point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
But that's the most fun part of these books because
there's not that much I would want to change, right,
There's just a couple of points that I think if
your rearrange a few things could hit a lot better.
You know, kill off a different character in the final moments,
you know, make Logain instead of Andrawl. As much as
I love the Androl Pavara thing, make a lot of
that Logane instead to give his character because I don't

(01:15:35):
feel like I don't like the logan that Sanderson writes
it all. It doesn't feel like the logan that we
know from the earlier books. To me, I feel like
he misses Logane hard.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
I mean in that regard, I'm glad he went with
Androl instead less time with a mangled Logane.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
But you know, yeah, well, and I think what's crazy
to me is Androl feels, at least in his mind,
more like Logain, this sort of weary old man who's
done a lot but still kind of kick in and
has honor. Right, that to me feels like Logain. It
just named Himandral.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of change.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
There's a lot of change.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
There's lots of wish could be changed as far as
what else is in this chapter at this time. Yeah,
we've got annay Ella who's apparently paired up with wirem
On now for dark friend reasons that don't seem to
ever amount to anything. Alana is there, and Rand ignores
her because she's a Lana, And I think that's everyone. Yeah,

(01:16:38):
I think that's it. And then general collected high lords
and ladies that don't get named. It's a large gathering
of notables, right if you named people at the.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Front, it feels like Sanderson went, you know, and everyone
who's in tear right like he like everyone that, don't
you know, there might be a few other people there
that the name characters that I didn't come up with.
I'm not really going to worry about like making sure
I nail who's in tier. I'm just going to name
a few people that we know are there. Alana being
sort of I mean, I feel like he's trying to

(01:17:06):
sprinkle her in in places so you remember that she's
because she's gonna come into play in the last battle
with the whole, like dying in the corner thing. So
I feel like he's trying to like bring her back
into some of these moments. So you're like, oh, wait,
why does she disappear? What happens when she gets kidnapped?

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Right? She in order to vanish abruptly, she has to
be present exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Yes, yes, yes, So that's why I feel like we're
getting Alana name drops.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
Yeah, I would agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
And then Rand's just announcement that they're heading off the
shale goual.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Yeah, the hurry up and wait is almost over. Now
we're going to move to a different location to hurry
up and wait because it's really it's really happening now.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
And do you know what happens next to this group?

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
I did not think to look that up. I'm guessing
they start setting up the fields of Mary Laura. I'm
guessing that they're the first army to show up and
start like defining that as battle central.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Well, they do rescue a Toalda at one point, okay, yeah,
I mean the next time we see him, they go
he heads off to Maradon.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Oh that's the next time we see them.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Yeah, Towersan mid Night, chapter thirteen, he returns to tier Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
Then Twers mid Night chapter thirty two, he leads his
caval lee with Rand to rescue Maradon. He's horrified what Maradon?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
Yeah, yeah, Maradon is opposed to Mara Lore because we
just can't have anything nice and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
So yeah, basically he says, get ready for the last battle,
and then he comes back and does his whole redemption
arc in bendar Evan and then says, shit, we got
a rescue at Eraldo.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Okay, they are just really on ice, but we could
go to battle any minute, guys, I see, yeah, exactly
any minute now. For like literally a month, this poor
army they're trying so hard to be ready.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
So yeah, it doesn't appear that they march anywhere. Even
he says, we're marching. The show. Well, it appears that
they stay in here until he calls them up and
does a gateway to uh Maredon.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
They do a scenic side quest to do a little
mini last battle at Maradon.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Yeah, because that is I mean, that's the borderlands, right,
so that is where Eeralda is fighting, and it's totally
empty from Borderlanders because they're all running after Rand. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Yeah, there's just the local lord and his like local levies.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Who's there's a dark friend in charge, I think or something.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Yeah, Lord Torquemen and his wife are both dark friends,
and yeah, there's a whole there's a whole thing. The
guy has the head of the military there betrays his
orders to bring Eyeralda in because he them getting slaughtered,
but dark friends above him say keep the gates closed

(01:19:48):
and all of that. Well, we'll get there. It's a
very exciting sequence.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
But yeah, isn't it the opening of the next book.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
No, the attack happens on the watch tower in the
opening of the next book, and then I think throughout
the book we check in with the battle with I Giralda.
I'm pretty sure that's how it goes because in.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
A lot of ways. It feels like one of the
first battles of the Last Battle, right because it's even
before Land charges the Gap and everything like that. So yeah,
all right, well that that was a fun one. Actually,
that again, that felt very Jordanesque to me, the fact
that we got let's see, one hour and forty three minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Jesus, we had few things to say.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
Yeah, that was That was a long recording for a
few few pages. So yeah, that's that's how I know
it feels Jordan to me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
We tangented hard because Jordan truly did give us a
skeleton key to understand the real world with when he
wrote these books. And yeah, there's a lot of Jordan
in this, so we tangented hard on all those connections.
And yeah, did you want to do a readout or.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
Oh sure, Yeah, I guess it's not a very good readout.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Well, the last line's kind of a banger.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
That's true. That's true, that's true. You have done well.
King Darlin Rand said, it's about time someone in tear
learned to obey orders. I know your men are impatient,
but they will have to wait a short time longer
make rooms for me in the stone and see to
quartering Basher's soldiers and the iel Darlin's confusion deepened. Very well,

(01:21:26):
are we not needed an arrow? Demon? Then what aarrow
demand needs? Nobody can give. Rand said, your forces will
be coming with me, of course, my lord. And where
will we be marching to shale ghoule done done to
Shale goold.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
It's it's it's it's imposing. When you say to literal
hell itself and then you close the chapter, it's a
banger moment.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
Yeah, no, it definitely is. We're going to straight to
hell like in a handbasket. And there's something much of
this book series who've been talking about the last battle
is coming, the last battle is coming. And finally, like
I think there's a little bit of Sanderson saying like
we are going to the last battle. There is like
this is the last book. We are We're not stalling,
We're not doing politics anymore. We are marching to the

(01:22:16):
last battle. The next place you see these troops they
will be fighting trollis on the borderlands in the last battle.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Yeah, it won't be literally at Shale cool, but it'll
be close enough for this level of cliffhanger to be true. Yeah. Yeah,
We're accelerating towards the end of the book. Here, we
really are, we really are.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
Yeah, what's chapter forty? We got ten chapters left or so,
so that's we're certainly in the last fifth of this book.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Well, do we want to talk about the news before
we go?

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Which news? Oh? The show? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Have an initial reaction to that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
I'm not totally shocked. I'm disappointed. I'm not mad. I'm
just disappointed.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
I'm surprised, given how much better it was this season.
I thought, with that sort of an upward quality trajectory,
that like we were past the of worrying if it
was going to get greenlit. But I don't really pay
much attention to these things. I'm a very casual observer
of the industry, So like, I was surprised, but I
also have not deeply invested myself in having an informed opinion,

(01:24:11):
so like, the surprise can only go so deep. But
I am surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
I mean, am I surprised that the there's a disconnect
between the equality of the show and whether or not
it gets re up for another season. No, absolutely not.
Some of the best shows I've ever seen are canceled
right like it's yeah, yeah, it's budget and viewership. And
I don't think Wheel of Time ever got popular the
way they wanted it to, certainly not the way I

(01:24:37):
wanted it to. Right, it wasn't. I couldn't find anyone
at work to talk about Wheel of Time the TV
show who hadn't already read the books, and they didn't
want to talk about it because they didn't like it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
Yeah, I there's so much to nitpick about what they
did wrong. But also no show gets to exist now
because being counters who don't understand art are the ones
in charge. So like we can dissect why this show
didn't do well, But also is any show being allowed

(01:25:13):
to do well? Is any show being allowed to have
the natural ups and downs that any creative project, because
the thing is they want line to go up always, perpetually.
They want profit forever in a very cancerous way that
is destroying the planet. And like, if you make your
artistic decisions based on line go up, this is the

(01:25:33):
inevitable result. So like it's it's I just don't think
we're ever getting a show that gets finished again until
something fundamental about the model gets changed. Like it's I,
as much as I'm angry about how the show was
handled and and why it's canceled. I'm also like, I
don't know if there was any combination of factors that
was going to change this outcome, because it's about line

(01:25:56):
go up.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
Yeah, I think the only thing is again a breakaway,
massive success on the level of Stranger Things Game of Thrones.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
And I don't know if we're going to get those
at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
Yeah, And I don't think I think the industry is
too fragmented among different streaming services to ever really bring
back that level of success.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Like, and it's too reactive, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
And it's too reactive and yeah, and these books at
their core are not for everybody, right, They are a
niche in a way that like, I love them, but
I definitely don't recommend them to everybody to read.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
And I just think that the idea that you can
just make the next Game of Thrones or just make
the next Stranger Things is like, if you are making
quarterly decisions chasing that high, you are going to shit
on everything and cheapen everything and fuck over every career
and every hope and dream of every fan. I just
don't see how this approach is ever going to let

(01:26:55):
us have nice things like we have to fundamentally change
stuff and then we can get in. So whether or
not the show is good, but like, I don't think
the best show is going to get through unless someone
just doesn't care about like bean counters looking at quarterly
reports and going, well, the line didn't go up at
the same rate as last quarter. We have to pull
the plug, like, we can't do that, We can't. I

(01:27:16):
think that's why Stranger Things can exist because Netflix is like,
we just want it. We just Netflix wants it, and
that's the end of the discussion.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
So I think also they look at their viewership numbers
every time a season comes out and go oh, okay,
like none of people have talked about it, is like, oh,
I cancel Netflix, but I still want to watch Stranger
Things every when it comes out. You know, Like there's
a certain level of like if you have that one
anchor show that can anchor your entire viewership or at
least a huge segment of it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
And I think part of what having an anchor show
means is not jerking it around every time that the
next quarter comes up and going, oh, I don't know
if we're gonna know. You have to commit to the
bit totally then you will give the artistic directors and
all of that the space they need to do the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
And there was no doubt that, Like, if you look
back at season one, the vast majority of the issues
that we had with it really come back to studio decisions,
everything from fridging parent's wife to the jerky cut cuttingness
of it because they, you know, restricted the run time
of the pilot down by like an hour to the

(01:28:18):
number of episodes they put out, so that, oh my god,
I fucking hated the a lot of maximum you know,
plotline or whatever. Well, you know, it wouldn't have mattered.
If we had another two, three for six episodes per season,
then those filler episodes would be wonderful. Background story building
would have loved them. But the problem is we didn't

(01:28:39):
even get the story that was in the books, and
we're getting this other story. That's fine background information, but
who get like there's so much other background shit that
they just didn't explain or skipped over or you know,
especially around the power, Like you know, spend all this
time talking about the water bond, but spend almost no
time talking about how the one power works. We still

(01:29:00):
don't know whether men and women can see each other's weaves.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
After three seasons, it's yeah, I've all my complaints have
always been from suits.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
It's still not clear if non channelers can see weaves.
Like they didn't even get that really nailed down at
any point, So you know, I have some sympathy for them,
but like, at the same time, the show really failed
to capitalize on some of the things that I thought
were the most valuable about the Wheel of Time, everything

(01:29:31):
from hard magic mechanics to layered political conversations.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
Yeah, so it's really disappointing that we can't have nice things.
But also I don't think we get nice things regardless
of the IP at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
So yeah, and let's not talk about the fucking commercials
that they threw and decided to throw on Amazon Prime
before the last season.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
Oh my god, I paid extra money to get rid
of because I was about to do serious property damage
the first time one of those things came on, I.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
Did the opposite of paying more to get rid of them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Yeah, I'm about ready to learn how to do that,
because the only reason I had Prime, the only reason
I was holding my nose and giving more money to
that fucking guy, was for a wheel of Time. Like,
I've been on an Amazon boycott for years with a
couple of exceptions, and coming back to Prime for seasons
of Wheel of Time was like that was my price,

(01:30:30):
that was I'm not proud of it, but it's real.
And and this is like I'm going to be forced
to learn how to pirate things from you people because
I am now pissed off enough to learn a new skill.
I'm mad. I'm mad because I don't mind paying for
access to things in principle, but like this is nope, nope,

(01:30:54):
now I'm mad.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Well, hey, you won't have to learn how to pirate
season four. There is no season four.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
I I'm just that's the disappointing part. That's the really
disappointing part. Is that just the lack of anticipation for
how things are going to continue to go.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
And I think, I think, I bet even if they
were informed that they only had three seasons, they could
have told a very different then I would have I
would have been so much more forgiving of all the
cuts and all of the stuff. If it was like,
we have three seasons to tell a fourteen book series.
We have to write a different story. If we're going
to do that in three seasons, right, like like oh okay, yeah, totally,
Like I get that, like if that's all you got,

(01:31:34):
but they didn't. They set it up to have many, many,
many more seasons yeap eight specifically, but yeah, and they
spend a lot of time of the first three seasons
setting up the rest of the show, which never happened.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
Yeah, which I mean in a world where you trust
that the artistic vision that gets you there in the
first place, where you trust it, that makes sense to
spend three seasons establishing a world and then five seasons
playing that makes sense. But if you're like, oh, no,
it's going too slow, like things go in waves, things

(01:32:08):
don't go in a linear your fucking pattern, But like, no,
we have to just watch the beginnings of things and
then watch people who don't even like shows at all
take them away again because it makes more sense for
their fucking money.

Speaker 1 (01:32:26):
Do you think it'll get picked up by another network?

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
I hope. So I've really liked what Apple has been
doing with like Silo, for example, has been awesome. That's
a great adaptation, so you know it wouldn't. And I've
liked other stuff I've seen from Apple, so I wouldn't
mind if Apple decided to get into I think that
would be cool. I mean, it might. I'm I'm personally
not going to invest a lot of energy in trying

(01:32:51):
to like save the show because I just think that
the age of streaming means that we don't get nice things.
I'm just gonna be sad and find another show that
I know doesn't get finished to watch and just continue
my sad little way distracting myself from all of the
genocides and wars in the world. Famines.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
I'm watching another ninety show on repeat because I know
it's got seven seasons and I know it ends.

Speaker 2 (01:33:15):
Yeah, yeah, I recently picked up a new show that
I went and read about it and learned it does
get canceled. I'm just like, okay, so I know that
I'm gonna be annoyed at the end. You know, I
know what's coming, so it's you know, but I still
want the content in between.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
And why is it, Like, why can't they figure out
like they used to do, like oh my god, seven eight, nine,
ten seasons and these shows would be obviously extended way
beyond their life and be like, can they just give
us like the right amount of episodes and like, sure,
you can have two seasons. It's like no, no, no, no,
hold on no wait like that like that, right, like,
give us an appropriate Can we just have a five

(01:33:55):
season show that's been told it's gonna have five seasons
from beginning to end? Right, Like, Babylon five did a
great job. Whether you like Babylon five or not, one
of the things that did really well is it had
five seasons. It planned for five seasons, it executed on
those five seasons, and there's an incredibly coherent story in
those five seasons of television, right, Like more of that, please?

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Yeah, you need to know where you're gonna land, and
you need to be given the space and time to
get from the beginning to that landing. This this doesn't
feel like rocket science. This feels like really fundamental to
the concept of making art.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
But and I would get it if like, Okay, they
gambled on five shows or you know, four shows, and
only two of them got that space and two of
them got canceled, right Like, But it's not that every
single show gets canceled or or ends it after two

(01:34:55):
or three seasons and figures out a way to come
to a conclusion in that time.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
The people continue to get more money, they continue to
be more wealthy, they continue to have a larger, more
comprehensive share of the entire industry in which they work,
and yet somehow they're becoming more incompetent at actually giving
us finished complete projects, Like I don't fucking buy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):
That well, because it's becoming harder to work in the
industry right, Like people are are really at this point
where they're not getting residuals from the streaming services and
so essentially, you know, they're just not making the money
these two all the all the profits are going to
the owners of the content rather than the actors. Shocking.
Wherever I heard this before? Oh everywhere?

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
Yeah, and the owners are like bad at knowing what
is good art?

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's it's it's hard
to watch because I really the inshiitification of things.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
Yep, we deserve better everything.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
The Internet. The Internet's becoming worse, Our media is becoming worse.
I feel like an old man, like I don't know
at what point I became that guy who sits on
the Internet's front lawn and says, the Internet used to
be a better place until you messed it up. But
I really I'm at that point where the Internet is
controlled by a very few number of large companies and

(01:36:17):
the portals on which we enter the net have become
very very narrow and highly regulated.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
Yeah, very controlled, very curated, and not by us. Yeah,
I definitely know that I have become a raving luedtite
yelling at clouds with the introduction of everyone using AI
for fucking everything. Like I was building up towards that transition,
and then the AI thing has really been what has
catalyzed me into my old man yelling at clouds era

(01:36:46):
like it. I'm so angry at the look can you do?
It's everywhere? I'm just like I would burn this place
to the ground if AI wasn't already burning it to
the ground, quite literally, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Because AI is a useful tool. It is a useful
tool for doing things like feeding it information and having
it restructure that information. Right, but you but garbage in
garbage out right, Like you have to give it good information.
If you ask it for information, it's going to tell
you something with confidence that may or may not be correct.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
Yep, over and over and over again, and that tiny,
infinitesimal nonsense amount of progress we've made in our climate
change goals. We just burned it all up so that
people could get AI pictures of their cat.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Right, right, And it's soup. Yeah, it's super process or intensive.
It's not an all good, a good way to use
the computing power. Right. It's highly inefficient for what it does.
And so if you're just replacing a normal query, they
could be done efficiently in a way that a human
looked at and said, oh, I can think of a
very efficient way to do this that doesn't require that

(01:37:51):
optimizes for lower power usage. Right, Like the Internet and
Google have been optimized for such a long time, and
now they're putting this AI stuff in there, and I
know every time my googling, it's coming up with this
AI message that's like burning tons of energy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
Yeah, Like you can try to remember to put minus
AI in your search every single time, and that might work.
Sometimes they might be respecting that key command if you
remember to put it in most of the time. Like,
it's just yeah, So I don't know, I'm so mad
at so many things that it's like, yeah about the

(01:38:27):
show being canceled, Yeah, I'm not really mad. I'm just
disappointed really that is the most distinct way to sum up,
like how it fits into my angst about the world
at large.

Speaker 1 (01:38:38):
Yeah no, And it really comes back to this deregulation, right,
you have a deregulation where bribes created politicians who no
longer attempt to better the world for individuals, but attempt
to better it for corporations. And that has then essentially
echoed out into every part of our society as regulations

(01:39:00):
have gone away, or we've had a lack of regulations
with new technology and a lack of changing the Constitution.
Like you know, how often we used to pass amendments
and changes to the Constitution. Wasn't it like once every
twenty years or something like that, or even more frequently
in the you know, in the beginning, like the Constitution
was a living document for most of American history, and
in the freaking seventies, we you know, or you know,

(01:39:23):
by the end of the seventies, Reagan of course, let's
go back and play Reagan for everything. All of a sudden,
it's like, oh, yeah, no, change the Constitution is this
immaculate document that you know, the opinion of the founder,
the opinion of the founders was we're supposed to change
this bitch, it doesn't work. We don't know the future.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
Yeah. Also, it's okay to own human beings, so.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
Yeah, right, you know, not the greatest opinions in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
But yeah, Also, the idea it should be it should
be malleable, right, is much older and more traditional.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
Yeah, a real fundamental part of the constitution. And so
the fact that we are no longer updating it, the
fact that Congress has really sort of given over any
responsibility to the president, which is just like, do you
not understand our country was founded on taking responsibility away
from He was supposed to be almost powerless, Like our
president was supposed to be the most powerless of powerless

(01:40:15):
presidents because we didn't want a king.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
Right, it's a giant government. You need a keystone in
the art, right, But you can also take away god
powers from said keystone and just have him be a keystone.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
H Yeah, no, I you know, and it's the same thing.
And this should even be.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
In Okay, So we're very much done talking about the show.
We can turn recording off. Yeah that Yeah, I just
wanted us to respond to the show being canceled as
part of the recording. 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

(01:40:57):
for ad free episodes a lot. Spoilers is a production
of Fox and Raven Media. For more podcasts from Fox
and Dravenmedia, visit our website at Foxendravenmedia dot com.

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Before the Stone of Tear - The Gathering Storm chapter 42 - EP537

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Before the Stone of Tear - The Gathering Storm chapter 42 - EP537