Just Another Man & Veins of Gold & Bathed in Light - The Gathering Storm chapters 49, 50, & epilogue - EP542 - WoT Spoilers

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. So, yeah,
we are here today. We're finishing up with the gathering Storm.
We've reached Veins of Gold, the epiphany upon the mountaintop,
the allegory at the end of the series, or perhaps

(00:34):
the beginning of it. I would say the moment, which
I've argued is the actual triumph over the dark One,
and the rest of it's just semantics, right.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, this is also one of those moments where you just,
I don't know, this moment has a very divisive is
the wrong word because there's way more than two takes
on this moment, But this moment splits a lot of ways.
There's a lot of people who really don't like Veins
of Gold as a resolution to mental health crises, and

(01:05):
there's a lot of people who do, and sometimes they
are pointing at the exact same things and simply having
inverse takes. So it's like there's not one answer. It's
just it's a moment that creates a lot of very
different takes around mental health and trauma and resolution and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm willing to have a magical solution to a magical insanity.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, but if you've been following along empathizing with him
with your real life, non magical insanity. It can create
some strange discords. Discords in the lowercase sense, not in
the messaging platform sense, just in the literal like harmonious sense, right.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Isn't it crazy that now so many platforms have taken
somewhat common use words and turned them into the names
of platforms that were like, oh, yeah, that bird tweeted. No,
it just made a noise. It didn't send out a
message on Twitter, right, Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have
to clarify when you say discord, you're not meaning the platform.

(02:04):
You have to Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
But it's just I've noticed a lot of people being like,
I was really vibing with Rand's mental health issues right
up until he got magically fixed, and then it kind
of all fell apart and I felt weird afterwards, And yeah,
because I mean, yeah, econonically, it is a magic problem.
But like when you've spent a huge part of your
teenagehood holding onto these books as a lifeline, it can

(02:27):
create some strange feelings when that's the resolution or not.
For some people it was really powerful for their real
life stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
For me, it was right because I feel like for
me at least, the idea of sort of having two
sides of yourself that you're able to reconcile, right like,
I think that is powerful. It's also something that I've
seen over and over and over again in fantasy, because
the voice in your head who gives you knowledge and
you later merge with or later becomes part of you

(02:55):
is such a trope in fantasy. Look at Rastlin and
visitandanthalis just as like one older example, I think of
a couple more I think this one. Richard Knack wrote
a series in which someone gets knowledge from his ancestor,
like his grandfather inhibits him. I can think of a
sci fi version of it by Alistair Reynolds where that happens.

(03:16):
Right Like, The idea that an ancestor of yours or
some older person who acquired knowledge merges into the younger
person gives them that knowledge and that's what lets them
overcome Dark City was basically that, except they imprinted memories
instead of another personality. Right. The merger of those of
an experience being with a young personality is such a

(03:40):
fantasy trope. Then, I feel like I saw it coming
from so far away, and for me when I read this,
it was a finally, it was a like, Okay, now
we have the promise of the dragon who is reborn. Yeah,
and he is the leader to fight the last battle, right,
and it's been prophesied and you know, used in so

(04:03):
many other bits of media that this this to me
was that to me, the integration is less the interesting part.
To me, it's the interesting part about deciding not to
destroy the world. To me, that's where the crux of
this series comes down to. And like his reasoning behind
that and his decision, which you know, again it's fantasy, right,

(04:25):
love saves the world? Right, The answer is love. Of course,
the answer is love. Right, It's either choice or love
and the and this is you get to choose love, right,
that's the whole point.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I think for me, by the time I got
to this, it was I had read so many books
where love is the answer that I was like, really
that that you couldn't have noticed that sooner? Like I
thought that was kind of like save the world one
oh one. I don't know, I was kind of expecting
something a little more complicated, just because that's always the punchline.

(05:00):
It just felt a little like, I mean, it works
it's satisfying it was set up, but I was I
was expecting a slightly more esoteric, intellectual twist on top
of that. I don't know, I just there was something
missing from it for me, just I think just because
every other book I'd ever read ends with love is

(05:20):
the answer, Like I was expecting more.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
From Wheel of Time, right, right, right.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
It might have not been fair of me. Maybe, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I completely agree with you there, And I think that
the fact there's two more books is the testament to
what more there is a lot of other series would
end here.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Right yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, so but I agree, I agree that that this
is the constant who would have written a better Jordan
or Sanderson?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Right?

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Are there scenes the battles where I think that I
really love that Sanderson wrote those? Yeah? Absolutely, stuff like this,
the moral questions, I feel like Jordan wrote them better
because he didn't give you as many answers.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, that was something I wanted to bring up too.
Was like, this feels like such a pivotal moment for
the whole series, like it was always being built up to.
Jordan clearly had been writing towards it for a long time,
and yet the handling of it just feels entirely Sanderson,
and like, I feel like that also loses something like
Jordan might have had some more sneaky thoughts to put

(06:28):
in at the edges that Sanderson just couldn't possibly. I
don't know if that's just me projecting, but I feel
like there's very little Jordan in this other than I've
been spending thirteen books building up to this moment.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
I think the shortness of these chapters attests to that
as well. I don't think Sanderson. I think Sanderson wanted
to embellish as little as possible from what he had,
and so like it's really I think what he got
was a very bare bones outline of this chapter, and
he fleshed out that outline as little as possible.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
I mean, I would be terrified to write this scene
with his few notes as he clearly had. Yeah you
know you you see what I'm building too, you write it.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Like yeah, right, right right. So that's because these are
these are some of the shortest three chapters in this book,
in any of Sanderson's books that he writes, right, these
chapters are Bam bam bam, right, one, two, three, and
the third ones. You know, Agwayne reacting. His whole thing
is like what six pages for two chapters something like that.
It's super short. It's super short.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah. I think TC Travelers put it really well in
chat Jordan let us sit in shades of gray and
didn't connect the Domori.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah yeah, and and.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
And Sanderson just both of those things are against his
entire style. So yeah, he he had to really push
against his own. He had to lean on very inappropriate
tools to get through this impossible assignment. It shows, but
we props to him for managing as well as he.
I mean, it is good, it is. It is absolutely

(07:55):
passing the grade, passing the curtain. It's fine. I'm critiquing
because I have right.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
For me, you know. To me, this feels like we
are critiquing the thread count on a beautiful tapestry, and it's.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Like exactly right, Like.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
At one point the weaver changed and the new weaver
uses a slightly different style and maybe a slightly rougher weave,
but from a distance you cannot tell the difference until
you get down close and start looking at the way
it's done. A painter using oil paints, maybe a I know,
oils versus a curl like isn't a good comparison here,

(08:34):
but like a different kind of oil paint perhaps.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Right, Like, yeah, it's it's nerd shit, we're being extremely
nerd about all of this, m so, but yeah, this
is this is one of the biggest Anderson chapters. This
is one of the really big, huge scenes that he
gets to write that, like the whole series has been
building towards. It's in terms of plot importance, I'd say
it's comparable to any of the other highlight moment like

(08:58):
this is top shelf. Right, this is you hang the
series on moments like this. It was done fantastically well
given all of the conditions. And I'm glad we're doing
the whole rest of the book today because it really
is just one last grand crescendo and then we close
the book.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
This is the cumulation of Rand's journey, right, This is
where he goes from being a nobody farm boy to
essentially a god.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right, Like he even acknowledges that it's been two years,
which is such a random, rare thing to be reminded,
it's only been two poor boy has been on this journey.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
I know I've said that many times on the podcast, Right,
I reiteriterate over and over again. Oh, we're only this
many months since.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, but like as a reader coming through, like Rand
never thinks about how it's only been two years. But
there's a line in here where he's like, this is
all they about Teddy Harras And he doesn't say only
you know so yeah, culmination, that is the word.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
God, think about that. I thought's six hundred some odd days,
we've done more, We've done as many episodes of this podcast.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Oh my, we can podcast every single day for a day,
passing the books and is wow, yeph wow, poor Rand.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, by the time the series is over, we'll done
an episode for every day that's past in the series,
give or take.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Damn damn. All right, you want to read us into
this thing?

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Sure? And just another man, what's our? Is it? The leaf?

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, it's the leaves. I'm guessing for all of the
twath On connections, the way the leaf thoughts that he's
having about those.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Again, I think in this book it's as simple as
there were tweth one in this chapter. So one leaf,
leaf of peace, the way the leaf.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
It's profound, damn it. He thought about them two pages.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
So the way of leif is mentioned, meant more than
once and everything like that. Sorry, I don't know why
I I I do not give them the benefit of
the doubt in this book. It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
We're just nitpicky little snark goblins.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
We really are, We really are. And I guess that's
why everybody's here so welcome.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Why we get paid the not exactly big but still
existent bucks.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Thank you to everybody who gives us a portion of
your income. We really appreciate it. I know it's a
you give us.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Some of your money in exchange for this bullshit.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
You're amazing, You're bringing it hard to pull myself together. Okay, okay.
Ran walked stump shoved in the pocket of his coat,
head down, carrying the access key securely wrapped in white

(11:45):
linen and looped to his belt at his side. Nobody
paid attention to him. He was just another man walking
the streets of Abu Dhar, nothing special, despite the fact
that he was taller than most. He had reddish gold hair,
maybe suggesting some my ill blood. But a lot of
strange people had fled to the city recently to seek
shon chan protection. What was one more, as long as

(12:09):
the person was enabled to channel. He or she could
find stability here. Safety. That bothered him. They were his enemies,
they were conquerors. He felt their land shouldn't be peaceful,
they should be terrible, full of suffering because of the
tyrannical rule. But it wasn't like that at all, not
unless you could channel. What if the shawn Chan did

(12:31):
with this group of people was horrifying. Not all was
well beneath this happy surface, And yet it was shocking
to realize how well they treated others. Tinkers camped outside
the city in large groups. Their wagons had not moved
for weeks, and it seemed they were forming villages. As
Rand had moved among them. He'd heard some of them
speak of settling down. Others had objected to this. Of course,

(12:53):
they were the Tinkers, the traveling people. How would they
find the song if they did not search for it.
It was as much a part of them as the
way of the leaf. So the sean Chan are sort
of the impetus for how this all starts. Right, Like,
he wants to destroy the shan Chan, he wants to
take them out, but he sees among them a people, right,

(13:17):
he sees himself in the enemy right.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Because you know they're occupying a city full of regular people, right.
This is not a entirely military barracks. This is a city.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
And in a lot of ways, him trying to force
the nobles under him to do what he wants to,
not fleece, you know, the farmers. He's like, man, I
really barely was able to get any improvement in these
farmers' lives, yelling and screaming and bashing. And here the
sean Chan come in and take some of the most

(13:48):
chaotic parts of the country of the continent, hammer them together,
install some local rulers, spread the influence of the people
that matter, and all of a sudden, people living in
peace and harmony and are able to improve their lives.
You know, as long as you're not a channeler. Jeez
has a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, but it is I wonder how realistic that is
that the shan Chan can just come in and hammer
peace and stability down on literally everyone except the one
percent of people who can channel the one to two percent.
Like that seems overly simple, because I mean, you know,

(14:28):
the shan Chan are obviously the Americans, right, Like that's
their analogy. So thinking you know about parallels between Shawn
Chan and the Americans the Ussians. I mean, we're not
doing a very good job of that, right, Like we're
like horribly oppressing huge spots of our population, and it's

(14:49):
not even making that great of a time for the
people who are ostensibly winning in that caste system. So like,
how how well could you know some other power come
in and impose happiness and order on us? Right? Like,
I just it feels a little simplistic and fast for

(15:09):
them to just show up and have it work seamlessly.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Here's what I'll say is I think what he's seeing
is selection bias. Right, he is going to the nice
areas that Sean Chan have good control over and being like,
oh man, they have such good control over it, there's
probably areas he's not seeing, right, If you and I've
lived in a city long enough, right, no matter how
nice the city, there are slums.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, they like specifically clean up the rat and like
take everyone away to work camps. And that's good, right.
They cleaned down all the homeless encampments and put them
in controlled work camps and everyone's fine with that, and
it's good. And only the channelers are the ones being oppressed. Okay, okay, hmm, yeah, yeah,

(15:55):
I just feel like Rand is oversimplifying the happiness that
the Sean Chance are or experiencing, Like, yeah, they're praising it.
It's like, well, I don't know, I don't know. It's like,
I mean to go farther back in history, right, I
mean all the way back to the freaking Romans.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
They moved in, installed their own people on top, and
left people to live their own lives. But that's not
imposing their own order in the same way.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, And I think the Shawn Chan are Americans is
a little too simplistic, right, Like, I mean, I think
there's certain lots of elements.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yet well Jordan wrote that, so you know, but I think.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
I think he you know, he doesn't ever just say
they're one culture, right. Oh, I mean it is a version, right, right,
So you know, and one thing picturing it from Rand's head,
I'm always trying to see what is he doing. Well,
he's comparing it to his rule, right, That's what he's doing.
So of course he's in self doubt mode, so he's

(16:47):
going to see the rosy best side of the Shawn
Chan rule because he's being like, man, I'm a real
piece of shit and I can't even do what they did,
so of course he's he's looking at the Instagram reels
right of of culture.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Sure. Yeah. And also I mean, like the Shaun Chin
are so brutal on critiques that, yeah, you're not going
to see a lot of people being loudly unhappy because
people who are going to be effectively unhappy are going
to do so very quietly.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
And he's walking the streets, he's not going into people's homes,
he's not in their private spaces, he's not talking to them,
you know, after a hard day work, right, And.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Again, this has not lasted for very long. People haven't
realized the true cost of this. And it really breaks
my heart with the Tuatha on too, because they're like
this is fine. Like we've had centuries of persecution as
a people. We've never had a nation who was willing
to take care of us. These people will take care
of us. And I can't help but think of the

(17:46):
Jewish niaspora across Eastern Europe, you know, just like that
went well in the end. My ancestors can attest. It's
I just I just I understand and Rand's critiques of
himself versus the shan Chin. I get it right. He
is one man who was trying to like single handedly

(18:06):
force feudalism to stop being a thing overnight. Like he
did not give himself an easy job. I can see
where his critiques are when he looks at the shan Chan,
but I also just really question his critical thinking and
assessment of the actual shan Chan empire Faustian bargain that
these people are making. I don't think he's seeing all
of it.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
I just had to sit back and spend a few
seconds considering a settlement of the Tinkers as the formation
of like an Israelite country.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
I was thinking, not so much that, more like being
in the pale of settlement, because they're they're not doing
the imperializing right. They're like creeping into someone else's empire,
like a Polish Lithuania Commonwealth saying please move here, we
really need people with your skills. We definitely won't turn
on you in three hundred years. That's definitely not going
to happen. But again, everything in these books is happening

(18:56):
so fast.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
It's like yeah, yeah, the timeline it's hard.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
To compare to some other things.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
It's you kind of like remember where the oh God,
not where the world things are clanning the cave bear
and she in one lifetime discovers like one hundred thousand
years worth of like technical advancement, right, you know, it's
like to show that happening in a way that makes
sense and not be like so then one hundred years

(19:23):
later we have another generation of people and they figured
out this thing, and then like, yeah, yeah, you have
to compress it down a little bit.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, And again, in fairness, Rand is having a very
bad time his critical thinking skills. I do not expect
to be up to par I just in my critical
reading of it. I'm just like, I don't I don't
think that's how the Sean channel are. I don't think
everyone's happy. I don't think everyone's having a good time.
I don't think this is actually the utopia that Rand
is judging himself against.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Mm hmmmm. And my head canon is just that he's
seeing it through his own self doubt and so of
course he's seeing the best side of it.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, that's super fair. I mean, I don't deserve any
grace whatsoever. I will give all the grace in the
world to my friends, but I deserve none. Right, like
I get, I get rand having a different standard for
himself than everyone.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
So we get the fisher King, the beggar King, whatever
you want to call him. You know, the final transformation
into prophecy, right because it was a prophecy.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, the blind man will stand on his own grave
and weep all of that he's building. He is blind
right now. I mean even says at the end of
the book. You know, he opens his eyes for the
first time in a long time, right, Like he is
in a fully blinded state metaphorically.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
And a somewhat blinded state physically because of the fire literal. Yes,
and so yeah, this is a parent parent had a
dream of Randon Rags wearing a rough cloak with the
bandages on his eyes, and men had a viewing of
him with a beggar staff.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, the beggar's staff. He's very much acquired at this point.
It's not truly a beggar's staff, but the vibe he's
giving it is definitely beggar's staff, and he cast it
aside later. I'm assuming a beggar picks it up at
some point.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Sure that makes sense, but I like that he's using
it just to hide his height, like he does all
the time, right, because he's always slouching, and he's like,
oh it hurts my back, which.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Again very beggar posture. Yeah, right, punched over thing, Like yeah,
he looks like it. He looks like the hermit from
a taro deck.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
And so you know, he's walking through the shan Chan
territory being like, I suck. You know, I have no excuses.
I basically killed my father, you know, I was. I was,
you know, milliseconds away from releasing that weave and taking
him out.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
And he says that he wasn't insane and he can't
blame insanity, and I'm like, please refer to Varren's comment
that you are being driven absolutely bonkers by the pressures
that the world has placed on you, Like, please allow
yourself some grace for that.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Come on, and let's be honest, Like he is insane,
Like he's merged that the sanity is that voice, yeah,
that he snuffed out. He snuffed out the voice of sanity,
the Rand that was, you know, the boy of the
two rivers who still cared about moral things that one's
dead for all intensive purposes. That was the voice he killed.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, And it's like, yeah, Rand, you are not in
your right mind. Like, yes, you are responsible for your actions.
You should feel bad and have a big cathartic moment,
but like, please, let's not pretend that you were in regular, normal,
baseline control of yourself.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
And there's so many things here where he's like, oh,
and Rand's voice sounded like his own voice, and it's
like it's clear that Rand, the insane part of Rand,
has taken over.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah. Yeah, he is finally picking up on what the
rest of us have noticed over the course of the
last several books, is that he is totally himself off
the edge. Yeah, Rand says, there don't seem like an
oppressed people, and there's no undercurrent of resentment. My man,
you are stressed the hell out, and you have been
here for a day. You are not necessarily able to
assess all of the nuances of what's happening here. Plus

(22:59):
Deshan chapin here for like a week, So let the
undercurrent stir a little bit.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Okay, I love this one. When Ran heard the commoner speaking,
they were glad for the stability. They actually praised the
seann Chan for conquering them out in the open where
anybody can hear, and they know about listeners. Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah. Also you're probably listening to like middle class people
who had issues with the poores who have been swept
up into work camps. Of course they're praising the new overseers,
especially where the overseers can hear and are glaring at
them while holding their weapons suggestively.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Or they're danger kittens.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right, Yeah, the danger kittens for sure. And Nintok made
a really good point in chat before he was a
tyrant who just popped in and said do this, And
what he's seeing in the shan Chan is a full
system and it's able to come in and do that,
And I think that's a really good point. He is
judging himself against an entire infrastructure. Me one human being

(23:59):
is not as good as a massive bureaucracy that has
spent hundreds of years designing itself into interoperability. Come on, dude.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Even in Air Demon, he's trying to get like the
people together to elect the king, and he's trying to
get some form of a bureaucracy together, and he fails
miserably at that too.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Again, one person trying to whip this together from scratch.
The shawn chain are moving in with the institutional momentum
of the imperial Chinese that they are also drawn from
as much as the Americans. Right, they have the just
massive momentum of China as they just are like, no,
we'll just be shan chen at you in a way
that Rand could never Rand is trying to be like, hey,

(24:40):
quit having feudalism, right, Not having feudalism anymore was a
big messy process. Everywhere that they've gotten rid of feudalism,
it has been a lot harder than one tyrant popping
in for a week and saying I'll kill you if
you don't and then leaving again.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
And then I would argue that in Kyrie in they
haven't really gotten rid of feudalism.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's what I'm saying. He was try to in many
many places, and yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot.
And he's judging himself against a different kind of feudalism, Like,
come on, dude, it's not fair. Yeah, tankers are safe here,
RAN's and feather isn't safe from him. Fuck thinking about that.
We are not here to think, we are here to destroy.

(25:21):
We must destroy. He just he gets too caught up
in his own conscience and then just switches to murder mode,
just like on a dime. Again, so insane.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
And here he asked the question if he drew that
much power basically started fighting and destroying the sean Chan,
how many lives would end? Would it simply not light
a beacon for the forsaken as he had in cleansing Sideine?
And I think, you know? And that made me wonder, like, oh,
why don't they come for him? And I think he
just doesn't embrace the power long enough.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, I also don't know that any of them have
the inclination to chase him around while he's doing whatever
the fuck he's doing, right, Like he holds a lot
of the power up on top of Dragon Mount. But
like they might all just be like, you know what,
we're going to let this play out. We're good, We're
actually we're fine. He'll just annihilate us and then go
back to thinking about the Dark One like it's it's cool.

(26:09):
He's usually one of his legendary actions to be untouchable.
Is what's happening?

Speaker 1 (26:13):
There's that also, this is kind of what the Dark
One wants to happen. Right. He's hoping that Rand won't
have the epiphany and will do the thing where he
goes further.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Where he fire bombs the city to cover his retreat. Right, yeah,
that kind of of thing.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Oh no, I mean like when he's up on the
mountain and drawing power. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like
no one, you know, why don't the foresaken come attack
him when they feel him hold as much power as
he holds when he cleanses the sores? Right, I think
two reasons. One, I think he only holds it for
a few minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
It says ours, it.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Does say ours. Okay, well he's up there for hours,
but he's not he's not pulling in all that power.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
I assumed he was holding the power the whole Oh
I thought he was. Oh no, yeah, you're right. He
does escalate at the end. Yeah, he's holding the power
to some extent the whole time. But you're right, he
does escalate pretty dramatically after Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, sorry.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
And so in that moment, yeah, in that moment, I
think there's not a lot of time for them to come.
But also, like the dark one wants him to draw
in all that power and use it to end.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
The pattern, right, the dark ones like at this point
we're we have we're letting him cook. Were at this
point we're just letting him cook? Yeah that makes sense.
But yeah, Rand goes murder mode and then pauses. It's
like he's just flip flopping so hard, right, He's like,
I need to destroy them. And then he tosses his
side his staff but doesn't quite decide to embrace the

(27:37):
power yet and keeps walking. Right. It's like the tension
here is real. There's a lot of tension. What is
he going to do? He literally keeps changing his mind
lining to line about what he's going to do.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
This is a crazy man with a gun to your
head and his finger on the trigger, arguing with himself
about whether to blow your head off.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
This is giving me fight club, right, yeah, a little bit,
a little bit, but yeah, exactly talk to someone who's
not there, but you are in line of a real
gun that is there. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
And then I think that this is a really telling
line here. It will be a mercy. Lewis, theren whispered
death is always a mercy. The mad man didn't sound
as crazy as he once had, which we've heard a
couple of times, but this next part is unique. He
says in fact, his voice had started to sound an
awful lot like Rand's own voice. And I think that's

(28:28):
the moment, right when Rand is like, yeah, Lewis Theron's me,
I'm Lewis theren like he is the madman.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
I am the mad man, right, like a revelation that
the book readers have come across as of book.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Four, sure there four to three.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Read Like Rand is finally getting it.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
And so he walks over. He's sort of like, because
I think part of his plan, he said, he threw
away his staff, but he was going He's going to
a strategic place to start his attack, right. His walk
was to take out the Daughter of the Nine Moons, right,
cut the head off the snake first and then work
your way down. And so he's like, this is the
beginning of his attack, but he's walking to the most

(29:09):
strategic place. So he looks down at the place where
the Daughter of the Nine Moons, where Tuon is staying,
and it's like, how pissed would have Matt been? I Like,
Matt Randon's like, oh, yeah, I took out the other
of the nine Moons, and Matt was like, that was
my wife. Can you imagine the blood feud between them.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
That would be bitter. But yeah, he has the very
like weird serial killer he thought of, like I'm gonna
give these walls of purity they've never had. It'll actually
make them more complete, they won't be truly complete, and
to destroyed them, I'm just like you are so in
the wrong kind of dark place right now, Like that
is some serial killer shit, and give you your perfection

(29:48):
as you die, Like no, no, you stop thinking like that.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
And then there's like two paragraphs of him planning out
exactly how he's gonna murder everybody. It's like beat by beat,
like I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna you know, it's
it's that very Sherlock, right.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
He's just gonna rain fire on the city, a more
mundane thing, just fire bombing a whole city for his convenience,
like you're gonna kill some mmmm.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
And then he's like and then I'll move on to
Amador and then ten Chico and then bah boom ba
boom ba boom, take out city after city. You know,
He's like he's basically planning out fire bombing every major
shan Chan city in one night by.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Himself, and like honestly It's kind of an amazing moment
of revealing how strong he is powerfully, that he could
be never remaining in one place long enough to be
caught like a flickering light of death, like a burning
ember flaring to life. Here than they're like, it takes
you have to be like level nineteen to do that
kind of shit.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
You know, Well, it's him plus the children call, right,
that's the the children call essentially gives him unlimited power. Right,
It's not just rand power. It's the most powerful channeler
in all of history, using the most powerful channeling artifact
of all time. And it's like, well, he's already used
it to undo something the dark One, did you know,
Like he has that kind of power to challenge the

(31:04):
gods who existed before the creation of.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
The pattern, right right, right, And it's like this is
this is why everyone's so afraid of chandelers, is because
this is the ultimate expression of what it means to
be able to blow shit up with your mind. This
is the logical extreme of where that's going to end up.
Is mister god Man with the ultimate.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Nuke, which, like, as you know, this moment really makes
you kind of sympathize with the Red, right, because like, oh,
how many men is it worth killing to prevent someone
having the power to wipe the pattern the planet off
the face of the earth. Yeah, but you.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Know, right to annihilate the planet, to remove continence, to
shatter us down to the core, to blow up the sun,
like who the fuck knows? Right, Like, yeah, it's it
is not a normal amount of power for a man
to have. But the concept of one man being able
to travel from place to place to place just raining
fire down and then vanishing, You could do that with

(32:04):
a lot less power than this man has. This is
something that any madman over the course of centuries could
have done. Yeah, a lot of sympathy for the Red.
Their purpose is not entirely without merit. Their purpose has
a core nugget of a very real hazard prevention. Have
they gone completely bonkers with it?

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
No, But like the validity of the mission statement very valid.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
You know, all of the colors of the Ajas rainbow
have a little bit of black mixed in with them.
So it's made their purpose a little money, shall we say.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, exactly. Any tool can be used badly, Any ideology
can be warped in a bad direction. That doesn't mean
that every tool and idea ever is bad.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
So he grabs Sidine.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
And Sidine grabs him.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah. So I had a loose theory about this, right,
so we know the sickness of him grabbing Sideine is
relayed to him sort of crossing streams with Mordon.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Like Mordon's also channeling at the same time, kind of
just in.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Terms of timing, right, this this occurred after he crossed
streams with Mordon. This started occurring after that event, right,
so they are most likely related. Okay, sure, yeah, sure,
right now, that's sort of my thesis here. And so
the reason why this affects him more than it ever
has is because he is so far into Mordon's philosophy.

(33:30):
He's so far out of his body, this idea that
everything should die. There's no purpose that takes him out
of his body and in the Mordon's because that's Mordan's philosophy.
And the further out of his body he is, the
more this there's this reverberation of him snapping back into
his body when he needs to channel. And so the

(33:52):
reason it's so bad now is he's so far into
that negative attitude, negative philosophy. And the reason why it
goes away is because he's again at peace with himself.
He's centered in who he is, and so he no
longer has that effect.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I like it. I mean that's really like out there
head cannon, but I like it. It captures so many
little bits and puts them into a constellation that makes
sense because he is so fucking a shawmeo, like not
even Mordan, Like this is like pre breaking as shameo,
kind of like I've just discovered nihilism for the first

(34:29):
time in the fight years, right, just the level of
there is no point. It's like, dude, I was thinking
this when I was a depressed fourteen year old. Okay,
like this is nihilism, one oh one. This is you
breathe and like drink some fucking water once in your
life and you will get through this and like figure
out that love is the answer.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
He's some shrooms man. The loyal has them.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
I'm sure I mean that that helps too, but I'm
definitely loyal has them. Loyal definitely.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
They grow all the trees. It's but yeah, I was
trying to put together the fact that that the vibration,
the channeling sickness, whatever we call it, is linked to
the crossing of the streams, but seems to be getting
worse and then fixes itself at the end. So like,
what's going on here? Because he doesn't undo the crossing
of the streams, he doesn't undo his link to Morid

(35:21):
and that still.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Exists, right right, right, Yeah, yeah, there's still quite linked.
He uses that link over time and it doesn't cause
him nausea anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Now.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I really like that.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
That he's basically stretched out because he's so out of
his own head, and that every time he seizes the source,
he gets plucked like a string and that's that's causing
the vibration, and so you know, when he's back in
his own body, there's no tension anymore.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah. Yeah, a string will not make a sound if
it's not under tension. That's kind of how stringed instruments work. Yeah.
I think that makes a lot of sense because the nausea,
we've really been on our own to figure out a
metaphysical head canon for why the nausea is happening. There
is no good book canon, and this this continue this, yes,
adds that, this continues that in a very productive way.

(36:10):
So I like it. I like it when you when
you get too nihilistic and out of your body then
seizing the source. It's not a good chord.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
It's not harmony, right right, So yeah, it's sort of
the sickness. Is this double effect the crossing of the
streams and his nihilism.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so like literally fix your brain to fix your
body is literally what we're getting here. Like fix your
thoughts and fix your physical health is literally what this
is saying. No, no, that's not what this is saying. No,
don't think that, don't think that. But it is interesting
that his mental state and his ability to handle the

(36:48):
power are so linked in that way. I mean, I've
always been linked. It's it's you know, it's a mental
trick to seize the source, but to have that thing
with more than ah, the crossing of the streams is
such a monkey wrench.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
It's one of my favorite moments in the series. And
I love when he gets metaphysical with it.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's really there's nothing like that in any other fantasy
series I've read. It's so uniquely real of time. Like
I'm sure there's examples that someone can come up with,
but it just feels like and this is one of
the things that sets weel the time apart from its peers.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
So the people he was about to wipe out show
concern from him when he falls down sick, which completely
overwhelms him, and he skins, Yeah, but I was gonna
murder all of you. I was gonna rain fire on
your heads. And you're trying to take care of me
and show concern and calling an ambulance and asking me
if I'm okay and giving me water, and he's like, fuck,

(37:40):
like this, it totally puts the nail on the coffin
of his ability to rain fire down on innocent people.
He walks among them for too long, he sees their lives,
and they show concern for him, and he's gonna repair
that with with death and fire. No, he can't, like
he physically can't.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
He still ran right because this was going to be
like possibly an impossible choice for him already. Now they've
just guaranteed that it's impossible. Just yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
No, And then he's in his head, why can't I
be strong enough? Why can't I do what I must?
And the whole him and Lewis Tharren are thinking the
same thing, right, and that like, I can't be strong enough.
You Quinn, you are it's not about being strong. You
have to be cruel, you have to be mean, Like
it's not the right thing to do.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
It's not about strength, right, He's he's realizing something that
you know, kad Swain and so re Leia have realized
for a couple of books that like he's trying to
be the wrong thing in order to face the last battle.
He has assigned the qualities he needs to the concept
of strong. But he's wrong. Strong isn't that you can
be as strong as you want, And that's not going

(38:45):
to let you do what needs to be done. And
for some reason, you seem to think what needs to
be done is being as bad as a forsaken So
like get your head.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Right, destruction, Yeah, this is really like and he's this
is the first time where I think he starts to
question if he really should be killing the dark one, right,
because he's like, what is my purpose? Right? I thought
I could avoid killing, and now I've found that to
be a necessary part. But is it, you know, is
I'm doing the right thing right?

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Right? And are you right to keep letting people live
so that they can die? And like it's just embracing
death fully the way to go or is getting rid
of death entirely the way to go. And then he
thinks about how he is necessary destruction, like why had
the pattern pushed him so hard? And I would say
first half of that, Yes, I don't know that the

(39:30):
pattern pushed you to be hard. I think you pushed
you to be hard. The pattern pushed you to have
to figure out how to deal with shit. You chose
hardness as a coping mechanism. But I do think that
destruction is necessary, right, This is a normal part of
all cycles. Right, You've even got like the whole goddess
Collie that's like all about sacred destruction. Like she's terrifying,

(39:50):
do not invoke her without good cause. But like, destruction
is a part of a cyclic universe. You can't have
things made out of the ash of the old unless
the old burns, right, Like it's sort of a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
I mean, Sanderson, his whole Misborn series is based on
the two gods of ruin and preservation, right one right,
Like it's destruction, destroyer and creator, right, And.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Like entropy is one of the you know, the things,
Like you know destruction is inherent to things, so you know,
rand didn't need to be a non violent zen person
who just walks through the world without ever causing armies
to clash. Right, Like, that is not that they some
amount of destruction was going to mark the end of
this age. Right as the plow breaks the ear, shall

(40:35):
he break the lives of men?

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Is a real prophecy, remnant of reminent right Like yeah, right,
Like these.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Are real things. But like you, being a cruel and
violent destroyer is an extension that we did not need.
This is not necessary. There's too little love in that destruction.
Destruction can have an element of love it And I
mean if you ever cleared out a garden in order
to prepare the ground for the next wave, like that
is destruction that is done as an act of creativity.

(41:03):
So destruction he is again just like with being strong,
he's he's not sure what he's trying to do here,
and he's figuring out that he's on a dead end.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, and so he's bouncing around to a couple of places.
He ends up in the field where he fought the
sean Chan with Calendor. Right, that's where he skims too.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Right, because he gets a gateway to get out of there,
but he has to go somewhere close by, right, because
he's just skimming, and then once he's done that, then
the skimming impulse is able to allow him to go
at a much wider range. I guess yes, Athlone Editing
podcast is creative destruction. This is a very.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Good way of putting.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
I destroy so many things and it makes the product better.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, carving editing and anytime you're cutting away from something
that exists to reveal something else within.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yep, yeah, very much so. And I do like how
his skimming platform he's like curled up in a fetal
position on the dragon or on the ancient seal of
ized to die, right. The visual of that is like,
I'm okay with it. That's a very good visual. He's
curled around the choadon call in the fetal position, on
the dividing line between white and black. It's just floating

(42:11):
in blackness.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Beautiful, beautiful a Arry Sanderson image.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Though, Yeah, not mad about it, not even mad about it.
I'm like, you know what, dude, you are riding some
real difficult shit. Please put a little of your own
flare on it. That's perfectly acceptable.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
And the sight inside are like imagery is just sitting
there to be used, right, because.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, that was Jordan's fault.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yeah. So he forms a gateway to the mountaintop and
that's sort of the end of this chapter. Right.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Oh yeah, I guess he doesn't even skim, He just
gateways through.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah, because I'm assuming he knows that meadow well enough
to just gateway out from there, right, because he's been
the yeah you're right, well that too, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Well, and he did that whole calendar thing there. Yeah,
so it's an easy place for him to gateway out of.
And yeah, he takes himself right to the tip top
of Dragon Mountain. He does exactly zero hiking to earn
that someone and to as someone who thinks mountain climbers
are really cool to read about. Rude.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
You know, he took the chopper to the top, you know, rude.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I don't count that.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
He didn't go up there for the climb. He went
up there for the view.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Rude.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
And you could argue that his whole life has been
a climb to the top of the literal pill top, right,
all his suffering, all his you know, he's been climbing
and climbing and climbing against all of that for the
last two years.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
I guess we can allow that. I guess that's allegorically correct.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
And now he's at the tip of his effort, right
the end of his struggle to face the last battle.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Plus it would probably like literally take a rand Land
week for him to hike up the thing from the foothills,
so we don't got that kind of time at this point.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
No one's walking dough with the here.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, and I bet it's a hard climb. I mean,
this is a very artificial isn't quite the right word,
but it.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Is not magically mountain.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
It's magically induced and it has not been eroded for
that long. This would be probably an impossible mountain to
scale without some hardcore rock climbing scales and equipment.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
I always imagine because he punctured such a perfect hole
out of the crust that the Earth's crust was super
solid around it, which kept the lava going vertical for
a really long time and made a really high peak.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
I would agree with that because it was almost definitely
the middle of a continent, which is where the continental
crust is going to be very thick and deep and
go super far down into the mantle and be made
of much more melt resistant material than ocean floor. So
I totally agreed that this was a borehole that more
or less just held steady until the mountain on top

(44:49):
was literally heavy enough to hold the subsequent pressure down.
And I mean, you've even got a lava lake at
the top of this thing. I mean not literally at
the top, but like visible from the top like below
in the caldera. Yeah, like high up, like high up
the slopes of the mountain. And that's why there's been
smoke coming out forever. But like, lava lakes are very rare.
There's like five or six in the world. There's really

(45:13):
not that many, and because it conditions to make them
are very specific. And I think that a borehole that
runs straight down to the mantle definitely would have a
lava lake on top. That seems correct. I really want
to see one someday.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I kind of always imagine across between Mount Saint Helen
and Crater Lake, like Crater Lake made out of lava
in Mount Saint Helen, because it's got that sort of
big sheer on one side, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, like
a big face of like half of the the mountain
face is sheered off, right, Like we get a really
detailed description of the mountain in this chapter. It's pretty pretty,

(45:48):
very pretty.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, yeah, just yeah, your vision. But then stick all
that on a much much taller mountain, much much higher
up in the air. But yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
And normally clouds are below the peak of the Dragon
mount in this chapter, they're above, right, the unnaturalness of
that because they're so high. There real separation between heaven
and Earth.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, and like the rules of engagement are really being
bent by the dark One, as evidenced by the cloud
cover covering even the mountain that normally pierces the clouds.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
I'm just going to read from a gateway opened, Yeah,
do it. A gateway opened, and he stumbled to his feet,
clutching the access key. He stepped from the skimming platform
and out onto an empty meadow, the place where he'd
fought the shan Chan once with calendor and failed. He
stared at this place for a long time, breathing in
and out, and then spun another gateway. This one opened

(46:39):
onto a field of snow, and icy wind blasted at him.
He stepped through, feet crunching into the snow, and let
the gateway close. Here the world spread before him. Why
have we come here, Rand thought, because Rand replied, we
made this. This is where we died. He stood on
the very point of Dragon mount the lone peak that

(47:02):
had erupted where Lewis Thearren had killed himself three thousand
years before. To one side, he could see down hundreds
of feet to where the side of the mountain opened
into a blasted out chasm. The opening was enormous, larger
than looked in profile, a wide oval of red, blazing,
churning rock. It was as if a chunk of the
mountain were simply missing, torn away, leaving the peak to

(47:24):
rise into the air, but the entire side of the
mountain gone. Ran stared down into that seething chasm. It
was like the maw of a beast. Heat burned from below,
and flakes of ash twisted into the sky. The dun
sky was clouded above him. The ground seemed equally distant,
barely visible, like a quilt marked with patterns. Here a
patch of green that was a forest, There a stitch

(47:47):
that was a river. To the east, he saw a
small speck in the river, like a floating leaf caught
in the tiny current. Tarbollan. Rand sat down the snow
crunching beneath his weight. He set the access key into
the bank before him and woke air and fire to
keep himself warm. Then he rested his elbows on his
knees and his head on his hand, staring at the
diminutive statue of the man with the globe. To think

(48:23):
that takes us right into veins of gold.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah, just there it is. A couple hours later, a
due chapter starts.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
How long does it say how long he's been there? Oh?
He had been there for hours? Yeah, yeah, so we.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Don't be hours ambiguous number of hours, but we know
that he started out the day early in the day.
He started out the chapter early in the day in
Abu Dhar, and he has now traveled many miles to
the east of Abu Dhar, which means it is later
in the day than it was, So we're like mid

(49:00):
afternoon to evening is probably about where we're at, given
his geographic shift. On top of the hours being a
very open ended term.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
He does the thing where he makes himself warm, and
he also compresses the air so he has enough air
to breathe, because otherwise there wouldn't be because he's above
plain height.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
He's in the death Zone. Yeah, and you can go
to the death zone without supplemental gas for brief periods
of time to do epic feats of mountaineering if you
condition yourself really hardcore for it. He has jumped from
sea level to in the death Zone in the course
of a single day. He probably would have gotten the

(49:36):
cerebral edema within the minutes it took him to figure
out that he needed to come up with that weave,
if we're being realistic.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
But I think the point of the weave is that
he's doing it naturally, even though it's something that Asmodian
couldn't teach him. Right, he's fully accessing his memories and
his skills of Lewis theren there's very little barrier between
barrier between them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Yeah, it's no longer body sometimes here, sometimes not. Now
he's just intuitively has the waves. Every time he reaches
for them. It's like, oh, I need a thing, and
loose there and it's like here you go, here's the thing.
And he still has been holding the source. He says
he has not let go of the source, specifically because
he's afraid of the nausea of seizing it again. So
he might be blazing.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
But he is channeling right, right, he's holding the source
the whole time. But he might not even be channeling, right,
he's just holding the source.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Well, he is channeling to make the warmth and the air.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Oh that's right, the weaves. Yeah yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
He's got a nice low simmer, but it's nothing that
would be visible across continents.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Yeah, TC traveler. I was going to point that out
that in the conversation Rand thinks, and Rand replied, it's
not Lewis Thearren replying to Rand anymore, it's just Rand
applying to him.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Yeahs is sort of is gone. Yeah, the knowledge is
from loose Theren tell him on, but the LTT intermediary
is no longer in the picture.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Well, and I think we're again because there's two things
going on here. There's the access to the memories and
then there's the crazy personality that is basically and both
have merged with Rand and is like, dude, no, you
need to realize that you don't have to be insane.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
I mean it's kind of a hint of what is
to come after Vans of Gold, right, where he just
can comfortably access both of his lives, like he's comfortably
accessing a subset of both of his lives, and that
is channeling knowledge, which also makes sense because he's blending
with Morgan, who is an Age of Legends person right, Like, yeah, sure,
the Age of Legends channeling ability. Let's have that just

(51:29):
be one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Now, Yeah, I think he's one hundred percent like the Yeah,
I don't know how to how to describe how I
feel about this in terms of like he's both he's
integrated fully with Lewis there and the memories, but he
later has to like pull the personality out but keep
the memories because the personality isn't real.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, the personality was a coping mechanism to help him
deal with the fact that all these other things were happening.
And you know, we're in the process of getting over that,
voices out and yeah, he's contemplating his purpose basically.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Right, Yeah, And this is one of those things where
it's I really have a hard time talking about this
the way he feels, right, this this angry at the world,
angry at the pattern, angry at the creator. Right, it's
one of those things where I've certainly felt that anger
where it just feels like no matter what you do,
everything goes against you, and you're just angry at the world.

(52:26):
And I feel like there's a lot of like men's
mental health wrapped up in this these couple of paragraphs. Sure,
that's just like really hard to talk about in a
way that is going to do it justice, especially around
like anger and acceptance and losing people and loneliness, and

(52:47):
like there's just so much here that is pain on
the page that I feel like Sanderson is doing a
pretty good job of tapping into.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah, and it's so Sanderson flavored too. Yes, one of
those parts where I'm just like Jordan would never have
phrased it like this, or reiterated it this many times,
or been this direct, or there's just like I don't
think it's invalid, because like it certainly seems like Sanderson

(53:17):
is writing about a thing that resonates with a lot
of people and echoes a lot of people's lived experience.
But it just does not feel like how Jordan would
have done this, And it almost doesn't even feel like
the Rand I'm used to. I'm like, is this what
Rand is mad about? I'm not. I don't know. It's

(53:38):
it's so Sanderson. It's just that that to me is
always what stands out is like this is how Sanderson
sees this stuff. But I don't know if this is
what Jordan was trying to get across here, I don't know.
I do like that it points out that like rand is,
you know, protecting a very sensitive person inside himself, right that,
like he is just a fuzzy little farm boy that

(53:59):
just wants everyone to be happy, and like it's you know,
it reiterates that, but it's just the voice of it
is so strange.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Fair Yeah. Yeah. A couple of points, he sort of
talks about how everything began to go wrong at Moraine's death,
right that that's really the moment when he which agree, yeah, yeah, yeah,
which is why I really would have loved to see
Moraine come back and break the cycle.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
That's where the Moraine let down comes through. Right is
He accurately says Moraine's death between the end of Fires
of Heaven and the end of Lord of Chaos, between
Moraine's death and do my I as well as the
box all of that, Like, those are the two points
when the when the curve changes and everything is absolutely clusterfucked.
Moraine coming back needs to have an equal and opposite

(54:45):
reaction to her loss.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
And it doesn't. It's like, oh, cool, you're not dead.
Kiss kiss, because.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
He's over it now. I guess he's already over it
by the time she comes.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Back exactly exactly, you know. And and then there's the
whole moment in the Last Battle when he releases the
list right, he's like, oh, I don't need to I
can let go of the list entirely, And it's like,
you should have let go of it when Moraine came back.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yes, Moraine should have been the dude, I release you,
and everyone between me and the end of the list
also releases you, like come on, come on now.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, yeah, I think you know. As
much as I think Rand was robbed of some of
his moments in the TV show, I think Moraine was
robbed of her some of her moments in the book Big.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Time, Big Big, big Time. I don't mind I don't
mind Matt getting the glory of rescuing here, I don't
even mind Tom coming along for the ride, but she
needs to have an equivalent amount of impact afterwards in
order for those first two statements to be true. Come
on yeah, well yeah, so Rand just basically like I
failed to kill my feelings, and that is why I'm

(55:54):
a bad person, because I can't stop feeling.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
And it's like that might not have been a good
strategy rand because it turns out we're a person and
you have feelings no matter what you think or say or.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Do, Like, feelings are intrinsic to the human experience and
that is the only thing worth preserving in this metaphysical
battle that you are crafted to fight.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah, and here's where we find out that voice that
was in his head the last remnant, that was basically
knew about right and wrong right, and wasn't just means
to an end. That's the finally lost his little Jimney cricket,
his little voice, yea, do what was good and right
and wrong. And that's I think now why he's really
crashing out, because he's like, he's like, I'm gonna kill
all the shan Chan and there's no voice in his

(56:35):
head saying don't do that, don't and he knows it's wrong,
and he's like, oh crap, I don't have a moral
compass anymore. Like that's bad going into the last battle.
I think part of him knows that's bad.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yeah, for sure, that's how he knew he still had
a scrap to protect. Oh and it says here that
it's midday right now, it's not evening, it's like noon,
so ours is a very He was there for like
two hours technically hours, but not like the seven hours
I was sort of mentally imagining because.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
That it would be sunset.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
So he goes on for a while about how nothing
means anything because it just repeats over and over and
over again, and even if you accomplish great things, eventually
it'll just fade to a legend and become a myth,
and referencing the original paragraph, and that's you know why
even bother if even great deeds, you know, fade away,
and and all we do is suffer over and over

(57:30):
and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
And this is when he starts to channel in a
more noticeable way. This is when he starts the process
of powering up the Chowdon call to full capacity.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Being like basically, what if it's but what if I
should end this right?

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Like what if I don't want to win? What if
I don't want the pattern to continue? What if I
think it's all bullshit?

Speaker 1 (57:49):
What if all caps round of this matters, you know.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Cats, Yeah, he literally is switching to all caps, like
the dark One or.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
The Creator or the Creator, right, because we do get
at least two creator statements that we know of that's true,
the World and Memory of Light.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
I also think there's an insufficient number of exclamation points
on none of this matters. There should be more than one.
I'm sorry, but if you speak in all caps at
the conclusion of all those statements, you need at least
four exclamation points. Yes, Fuji, the nothing matters. Staring at
the wall being sad and nothing matters, staring at the
view being happy. Absolutely nothing matters is one of the

(58:31):
most freeing things you can internalize if you do it
the right way, and Rand has not.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, he definitely is in the opposite, the bad way.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah, he's he's the staring at the wall being sad
where you know, the enlightened version of himself is like,
if nothing matters, then everything matters, and I can choose stuff, and.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Like, then what does matter? Love and gluttony and what
makes you happy? Sleeping and puppies and yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Like dopamine, seratotin and oxytocin.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
The only three things I ever liked yes, exactly. Yeah,
and Sanderson's just name dropping the wheel of time kept turning, rotating,
like we're just really he's thinking about these big concepts
about how the wheel of time turns and legends will
be forgotten and myths will fade, and I mean really

(59:25):
sort of the meta concepts are being brought up here
around the series, which, like, if you want to be like, oh,
what is the story about? Right, this is kind of
you could say like, oh, it's about this turning of
the wheel and the things repeating and mythsfading, the legend
but being able to do it over and over and

(59:46):
over again.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Yeah, which I mean is a question that Robert Jordan
basically begs. By writing a story where all of human
existence is a cycle that repeats over and over again,
it does beg the question, So then what the fuck
is the point? Yes, what is the point if we
just repeat over and over again? He's been begging that
question since paragraph one of book one. So you know,

(01:00:11):
on the one hand, do I think Sanderson is connecting
the docil little aggressively to ask the questions? Yes, But
also the question did need to be asked directly, Someone
needed to ask the creator of this universe directly what
the hell is going on? And his response to asking
the question is to begin to pull in more power

(01:00:32):
than loose therein did to make dragon mount, which is
how you know that we are not just coming full
circle to chapter one of book one. We're coming full
circle to the prologue of book one. We basically never
full circle the story back that far, but this time
we are. Now he's drawing more and this is the

(01:00:53):
line fury that had been building in him for two
years finally boiled free. He never thinks about the fact
that it's only been two years. Rand never thinks about
how little time it's sped. And granted he's not putting
anything like only in front of that statement, but still
it's one of the few times that Rand acknowledges it
has been two years for all of this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
I think it's really funny how closely Robert Jordan tracked
the dates on which things were happening, and how consistent
he was, even down to the getting the moon phases
correctly that that's how we can track it, right like,
and yet his characters never mention it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yeah, yeah, totally in the back, back, back back background.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
That's the kind of stuff when I'm like when I say, oh, yeah,
Jordan's weaving with a different thread count, right, Like that's
the kind of thing that's just like, oh yeah, there's
some threads in there that are real deep. As part
of that, he's like, Oh, I've already I've already failed,
I've already killed Iliana.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
He's in this headspace where he's like as much Lewis
theren as he is Rand al Thor.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
He's living in his trauma. He's reliving all the true
at once, so time has become a flat circle and
every tragedy is all happening at the same time. And yeah,
he Rand slash Louse thinks he should have he should
have killed the whole world, right like he full Morden,
He's full of Moridon. This is what the dark One
needs in order to win. This is the moment that

(01:02:18):
Dark One has been building towards for all this time,
is for him to realize that he hadn't gone far
enough last time. That's the whole point of all the pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Rand raised his arms high, a conduit of power and energy,
an incarnation of death and destruction. He would end it,
end it all, and let men rest finally from their suffering,
you know, I mean this, that's the moment. That's what
the Dark One wants him to do. Is he's entropy,
He's the end. It's eventually I will win, and the
dragon reborn is his instrument. Like I do think that

(01:02:53):
if the pattern would ever end, this is how it
would end, right in all of its turnings, when it
finally wears now on the wheel becomes ragged and tattery
or you know who knows, right? Is there is there
ever an end of the wheel.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
This would be it if it were to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
And because this doesn't, you know, I fully believe that
when you touch the Dark One, there's only one battle,
right that Rand always wins the last battle. Always the
wheel always continues to turn. This is not that right,
Everyone's like, oh, because the Dark One for me exists
at the axis the spoke. So when Rand goes in

(01:03:31):
and does the last battle, and you have all the
overlapping last battles, those are all the last battles happening
across all the turnings of the wheel, all at the
same time. And Rand always wins because he wins this time,
so he wins every time. That cycle always has to
happen However, at every turning of the wheel, there's a
point in which Rand has to make the choice. And
this is very matrix like the one. You know. You

(01:03:52):
have to choose either to just shut it all down
or keep it going. And this is where the choice
can actually end the and end the pattern. And it's
why the dark One can never do it, because he
lost the last battle once, which means he will always
lose it, so he can never be the one to
destroy the pattern.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
And then, yeah, Rand just does the four year old
thing of just asking why or two year old thing why,
just over and over and over again. And so suddenly
the universe finally gets tired of his whining and gives
him an answer.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
It's his own head, he answers himself.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
As I said, the universe he's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Thinking, he's thinking. But yeah, so lewis theren right, the
voice of Lewis Tharn, who is now the same voice
in his said right, he has been taken over by
the mad voice in his head. The mad voice is Rand,
the same voice. The voice that's left, whatever's left is
Lewis Theron. That's a voice from outside of himself, you know,
And for once that voice basically says he wants a

(01:04:49):
second chance, right at all of this time, all of
this this idea that Rand is reborn as the dragon
reborn and gets to reborn. Right, maybe you get to
try again, maybe you can do better now. I think
the flaw in that is no one can remember what
they used to do, so how can you know to
do better? Right? But Rand has that rare opportunity of

(01:05:10):
getting his previous life memories.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
I mean, if there was ever a person who was
being given the opportunity to try again, it is Rand
because of the memories, like that explicitly gives him that.
But I mean, I think it works metaphorically to be
like make the world better then you like leave the
world better than you found it, Campsite rules, and then
when your time comes around again, in theory, it'll be better.

(01:05:33):
Like you know, maybe everyone is having a second chance
or a third chance, like maybe you know, there's a
lot of nice ways to extend that. But yeah, the
literally only Rand actually has access to specific memories that
allow him to specifically have a second chance.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
But whatever, But you know, heavily heavily in the myth
of reincarnation, right, which is, but this story is heavily
based in that, right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
We Oh, that's a du x makino you just have
to accept in order for the books to make any sense.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
And I think it's at this moment he becomes the
dragon reborn, right, because he saw the entire world in
his mind's eye, lit by the glow in his hand.
He remembered lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching
to infinity. He remembered love and peace and joy and hope.
And within that moment, something suddenly occurred to him, if

(01:06:25):
I live again, then she might as well. And I
think oftentimes I always remember that, oh, if I live again,
she might as well, right, But I always kind of
forget about the first half of that, where he remembers
all of his lives stretching back to infinity, not just LTT.
He becomes a fully embodied dragon reborn, And I think

(01:06:48):
that's the moment when he essentially coats the corruption with
the golden memories.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Because this is the corruption of one lifetime and he
is all the lifetimes.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Yeah, and that's where the golden coating comes from. The
nine Eve sees later.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I hadn't really thought about how important that
first half is that he integrates with the entirety of
what it means to be the dragon Reborn across all
the turnings of the ages, not just the dragon reborn
of the current Turning's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Lore, hm, not just loose there and tell him on
right right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
And in that regard, I think, you know, to the
second half of the sentence, who is the she? I
think the she is Illiana because the pain that the
dragon reborn myth and lore has been carrying through the
last three thousand years is the murder of Illana Sunhair.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Everyone knows that he killed her. Rant has been terrified
that he would repeat that trauma and his children. Hey,
that's my point, is like there is only one victim
that he has been fixated on of all the people
he killed, like that, that has to be the only she.
Like again, he thinks about all the pain and trauma,
and I'm like, you literally never thought about your children.

(01:08:00):
We know you had multiple children, so many children, and
like no, none of those kids ever get named, not once.
So like, I just I can't see anyone else being
the she other than Ilana. And I think it's kind
of cool that Rand has three love interests because it
means that none of them can be the soul that
is Iliyena, because that would be weird because the three

(01:08:22):
of them are non hierarchical, like there is no clear
way of saying which one's like better than the others,
Like Elaine looks more like her superficially, but like I
like the idea that Eleana's soul is just off, live
in its best life. Like, it's not the point that
the two star Cross lovers come back together. The point
is just that reincarnation is a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
I do like the idea. I don't know there's something
to it because like Elaine and Iliana, like Elaine's basically
part of that name. They both have golden hair, right,
they're both queens. There seems to be a lot there
to relate those two. I don't believe she is, and
I think it's stated explicitly she's not Illiana reborn. But

(01:09:01):
part of me likes to think that maybe all three women,
Like it took three women to embody the soul that
was iliena right that like part of hers in a Lane,
part of hers in Avianda, and part of hers and men.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
She's just a person. I don't think she needs to
be split up into three.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
I agree, Well, she's not the Trinity. Come on, let's
go with the.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Oh why does she need to be fragmented for a
man's romantic pleasure? That no, just let her go live
her own life and not be married into like one
of the biggest douche canoes in all of history. So yeah,
Rand has the beautiful moment of even within the tempest
and the winds and the crashes of thunder, all is
still because each time we live, we get to love again.

(01:09:47):
And then he moves to the corollary of that, I
want to do it right this time. Not only do
we have the opportunity to do it again, we he
is making the choice. This is the choice part, right,
you were saying before, you know, all fantasy revolves around
choice or love. Right. He first realizes that love is

(01:10:07):
an option, and then he chooses it, and it's there
are two very distinct parts of his thought process. The
choice comes second, and that is so critical to his
engagement with the dark one at the end that I
like that it's separate.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
He has to know he can make a choice. He
can't make the choice until he knows about the choice,
and he has to realize there is a choice.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
You can't make a choice you don't know about. You
literally can't. It's like in the logic rules.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
I mean, you can fail to make a choice, is
still kind of making a choice.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
But sure, but you cannot be said to have made
an informed choice.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
No decision. Yeah, and yeah, the blatant oh my god,
the like, oh my god, Elena will get reborn. I
feel like everyone slapped their foreheads when he said that.
Was like, yeah, everybody gets reborn, including Ileena.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Yeah she's not actually specially denied the rebirth cycle, right right,
because you killed her. She's not like cursed to never
be reborn, Like come on now, right, Yeah, it does
feel a little bit like yeah, just like I mean, again.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
Have you not read your own Bible? But there is
some of that, just like did you not follow the
basic logic of the religion that you believe in? Right that, Like, yeah,
reincarnation is a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
It's like what yeah, yeah, it's it's a little silly.
But also it's like, wait, that was all that we
needed to fix you this whole time, was walking through
a simple logic problem.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
It does ridiculous. Yeah, oh you needed is to remember
the basics of how reincarnation works in your belief system,
of which you have more evidence than anybody else because
you actually remember previous lives.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Yeah. First of all, there's not competing systems of schools
of thought in your world. There's one belief system, and
you have more empirical evidence than literally anybody else. Even Matt,
with all of his memories, has a very explicit, weird
artificial Finn workaround that is not reincarnation.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Yeah, because he doesn't have memories of his past lives.
I mean, some of his early ones might be before
he goes through the gateway. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Oh, he's got a little Menetharine weirdness in there, and
I think he's got some Finn memories that are also
Menetharine memories. So there's some weird statistical overlap there. But yeah,
he's not remembering his lineage, whereas Rand is remembering not
a physical lineage, but like a distinct soul lineage. It's
not a grab bag like with the Finn.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
And so with the decision that he wants to do
right this time, he destroys the Chidren call.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
The only way that he knows how, which is with itself. Right.
It's too powerful to be destroyed. Except by using it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
And you know, it's an interesting like is that it's
sort of nuclear deem armament self fulfilled.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
That's I interpret it. Yeah, like whatever, how, whatever we're
going to settle this war is going to be with
more conventional weapons. We're not going to irradiate the atmosphere.
Through the course of.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
This and then at the end of this chapter you
sort of have the moment where you have zen Rand
opening his eyes. Right, we've had Darth Rand and then
Forsaken Rand, and this is now the beginning of zen Rand.
And Rand opened his eyes for the first time in

(01:13:27):
a very long while. He knew somehow he would never
hear Lewis Therenud's voice in his head, for they were
not two men and never had been. And I think
that that, right there is such an important line for
what's going on in Rand's head and never had been

(01:13:50):
and never had been. They were not two men and
they never had been, and so much around like everything
about how we frame Rand's madness, about the fact that
he's not communicating with Lewis theren through time and they're
both going mad at the same time and hearing each other.
The fact that he's not a dead lewis Theren who's

(01:14:12):
then reincarnated and remembers everything because he's a separate person
who exists in Rand's head. Rand has to integrate with, right,
this idea that no, no, no, no, all you got
was some memories of an old life that you have
always been Rand, You have always been you. The voice
in your head was just the craziness, was just the insanity.

(01:14:35):
And that clarity really helped up recontextualize decades of books. Yeah,
that line was so important to me when it came out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Yeah, one place where Sanderson clarity is very appreciated. Yeah,
and also remember Paren is watching all of this, Yes,
this whole last little bit. There's a dream Paren watching
this go down in Telrenriod.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
Yeah, Parent, Paren is experiencing this incredible storm and like
he's barely able to survive it, and like there's this
whole metaphysical thing going on at the same time that
we could see this from another POV, whereas to us
from the outside, it looks like him just sitting on
a hilltop.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
There's no storm in the real world. There's no storm,
but yeah, Paren is standing there a few feet away
in the dream world, just getting buffeted. By hurricane force
winds and barely holding on and like screaming at rand
to like hold on, and then he vanishes into this
dark pit, and then this beam of light comes out

(01:15:42):
and the storm vanishes, and then ran like smiles beatifically
and fades away, and like all of that, we're gonna
need a whole other book before we get back to
this moment, and paren watching what this looks like metaphysically
from the outside, And I love the parent watching this scene.

(01:16:02):
Like after I it wasn't like I'd forgotten this scene,
but you get through a whole book, it's not like
it's top of mind right to see this scene again
with almost as much intensity and tension, and even though
you know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
I would say even more so, I would say it's
better written from parents POV than it is from RMS,
because from RAMS there's a lot of introspection and philosophy
and stuff like that. From Parents POV, it's just about
power and storm and danger and holy fuck, what is
going on? Like why is this affecting Telerondriod to this amount?
And you're like, well, the dragon's won with the land,

(01:16:36):
and in a lot of ways, you know, tele around Riod,
you know, still can't convince me that Teleron Riod isn't
the layer between us and the Dark ones prison or
is the dark One's prison in a lot of ways, right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Right, Also, Sanderson got to rewrite the scene, right, he
got to write this really really cool scene. And then
with Parent he was able to like come back with
a whole nother book of experience under his and like
do it again but better this time, which is pretty neat.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
And I think with Rand he was probably a little
more pinned down. There were probably per sure certain statements
he had to do, certain ideas was paren was totally undone.
He's like, I'm just going to tell this from a
metaphysical point of view and see what happens and have
fun with him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
And he'd already written it once, he'd like essentially rough
drafted it, and then he got to write it with
way less constraints, way less need to be in Jordan's
style of metaphysics, and more just like action sequence.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Right. I would have loved a little more about like
Rand's brain and him like feeling like something changed in
his head.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
But amazing Athalon Sanderson writing about people doing better a
second time, but better the second time, very very better. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
you know Sanderson likes his nested, rushing dolls of plot stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
So the sun comes out because again the dragon is
one with land and he's tappy again. So the sun's
out and that's very pacific northwest.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
The suns out, everyone go worship.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Yeah, and he looks up and laughs and it's like
ran laughing again, right, And this whole the whole quest
of cod Swain to make him laugh again and you know,
feel joy in his heart is finally fulfilled.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
He has to discover laughter and tears, and he's going
to discover laughter here, and then I think tears when
he goes to hug Tam, which is like in forty
eight hours, so close enough. Yeah, And then this sun

(01:18:41):
radiates outward. You know, the clouds open up in a
perfect circle. It's very strange, it's very eerie. And those
beams of light go shooting down to that tidy little
speck off on the little ribbon, which is Tarvallen, and
that's where we go for the epilogue.

Speaker 1 (01:18:59):
Yes, bathed in light because the light rays are hitting
Turbolin and are symbol is the uh snake in the
wheel because it's momentous. I suppose I just.

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Noticed the chapter title is bathed in light, and the
very first line of the sentence is or very first
sentence of the chapters Agwain worked by the light of
two lamps. Like we're gonna end with this like bathed
in like the glorious solar light. But we start out
with her just like in a dark room with little
little lamps, just contentedly being in our cozy little room

(01:19:31):
where she makes her own light. And it's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
Cool ass lamps though, by the way, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
They are cool lamps. They are shaped like women holding
their hands into the air, a burst of flame appearing
in each set of palms, the calm yellow light reflected
on the curves of their hands, arms and faces. They
sound very cool. I want those lamps.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Stat Yeah, a lamp that looks like someone tossing power.
I do have a lamp that looks like a dragon
breathing fire, which is pretty cool. It's got its head
back and like the wit comes out of as its tongue,
and then it's an oil lamp.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Oh, that's cool. That's neat, that's good. That's very comparable
to this in terms of like this fits the cannon
of the character that the lamp is shaped as.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
And I noticed she has a proper desk with a
proper chair to sit upon.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Process chair.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Yeah, it's not gonna fold underneath her.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
I noticed that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Also. Did we talk about how much like by spanking
her in the tower? They were literally beating the amberline seat?

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Do you think you made that joke once and I
shut you down so you never make it again?

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
So gotcha? Gotcha? Gotcha?

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Okay, yeah, that's terrible, But I mean, you're not wrong,
You're not wrong. I'm just mad about it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
They're beating the amberline seat in more than one way.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
So Agwayne is thinking about all of the Alida stuff,
how she's got all of her stuff under lock and key.
She's gonna look through it for patterns about other plots
that will come back to bite her in future years.
Who knows what years Eliah's plots are going to come
back to bite a GWayne in the ass if only.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
If yeah, you know. And while she's dealing with those,
she's gonna deal with Romanda and l Lane for years
because they're such a pain in the ass because neither
of them were dark friends, and neither one of them,
like they both wanted to be here keeper, and neither
one got to be, So now they're both kind of
working against her. They've kind of turned on her together.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Yeah, it'll take years to resolve that, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Years. It's a funny thing about death. Some suddenly things
just aren't your problem anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
So Sylviana is a good keeper.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
We get some numbers on the Black Auja.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Yeah, the black Auja stuff is. I don't remember it
being this bleak. I guess I don't read these books enough.
It's so much worse than I remembered. Like almost all
the black auDA in the tower got away. I thought
it was a half. No, no, almost all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Ah, And she says the number goes up to eighty
if you count the other ones who got away.

Speaker 2 (01:22:04):
Rough that's a lot of dread lords.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
And I don't even know if they addressed the third
of the isid I who were just neither in the tower,
because like remember that when the breakup happens, there's like
a third independent. A third goes with the rebels and
a third stays in the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
I think most of the third of the independents are
kads swainified.

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
Now yeah, or have gone to one side or the other.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
They're in Rand's orbit, like yeah, like there's very few
that are not with one of the Isidi camps or
with Rand slash Caatswain.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
But I was just doing the math, and I was like, okay,
so let's say you've got got We know we had
about one thousand Isid I going into the start of
the series. We know about a third of them were
left in the tower. That brings us down to three
hundred and thirty three. We know fifty of them were
sent off to the Black Tower by Elaida, so that
brings us down to the like high two hundreds. Then

(01:22:52):
you've got sixty Black Sisters who sneak away.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Well, also fifteen went to Rand.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
Yeah, fifteen went to Rand, to that delegation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
And like one of those made it back, Like the
rest are all with Rand now or dead.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
That's two hundred tops left and then the forty the
forty that got captured by the shawn Chan. So now
you're talking at most one hundred and sixty sisters left
in the tower at most.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Jesus, that is so few channels, especially if you're talking
about going up against one hundred and eighty or are
going up against eighty dread lords. That means you have
only a two to one advantage against the dread.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
Lords of the sisters left in the tower, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
I mean then you bring yeah, the rebels back in
and that that changes. But still, but still that is
there's just not a lot of eyes to die on
the table. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Wow, No, the White Tower is empty. I mean that
place is deserted right now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Yeah, Like, I mean she talks about how there's kitchens
that haven't been opened up in centuries, but like it's
echoing even for the level of power down there, it is,
it's echoingly empty. And then yeah, some of the tread
lords aren't even end up really being the issue. The
Sharans are on much bigger issue, right, Really, that's a
fucking wild card.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
Yeah, yeah, we don't know what's coming in. But I
mean tread lords aren't helpful. For sure. They do some
bad stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
They kill a lot of troops, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
well they take up a lot of the planning power
of the Eyes to die too.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
And just think about how much that cripples them though, right,
Like they've lost so many now and some of those
ice tod I are now coupled up with Aushamon, and
we'll still be fighting in the last battle.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Right right. Again, not really in the plans for the
Eyes to die in the tower, but what we know
of the light sized total resources, they still exist, and.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
You could in some of the shan Chan I said,
I probably fight in the last battle.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
Yeah, no, definitely. Some of the Suldom Demani pairs go
into the last battle proper and do last battle things,
and one assumes that the Demani are less reluctant to
fight in that battle than any other battle because it's
literally the last.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
Battle and they can actually take down Shadow Spawn and
he's powers weapon against them and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:03):
So, oh, you mean the I said, I take him
by the shan shan are actually able to Oh yeah, yeah.
They would be like, no, no, no, this is actually
our o's allow us to do that. That's fine. Yeah, yeah.
I hope someone gets the memo to to the that. Well,
I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
I still would have loved it. I would have loved
the scene where a GWayne is fighting the Sharens and
incomes the fucking Tuon with Elaida as her demane to
save her life.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
That would be spicy, and that would and fucking Ali
to be like help me, I'm a prisoner, and he'd
be like, I can't right now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Sorry, I literally can't right now. I'll get back to
you later.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Go fight in the last battle in your own way.
You'll at least be useful, right, How hardcore would that
have been?

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
I don't think we could all handle that much spicy.
I think we would all implode trying to handle that
much spicy.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
But those three women, two On, Alida, and Aguaye all
in the same place after like fucking Tuon comes in
and say saves Agwaine's bacon from the Sharons and.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
A GWayne allows a woman to stay on leash because
that's what the world needs right now. And also fuck Alida.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
Just meanwhile, Matt's there trying to like moderate everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
No one is listening to him, is like looking on
his hand, like you got to come away, dude, Like
come with me, run away.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
There there's so much good potential for stuff, man, because
like Tuon would totally use Alia because Alight is super powerful, right,
is one of the more powerful, you know, stronger tower.
I said, I yeah, yeah, a moment where Tuon's I said,
I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
All right, So we returned to considering Varren's thoroughness, and
they'd captured only three more Black sisters who hadn't been
on her list. Only three what accuracy? Again, we're talking
like a one percent fe rate against timany she did
positively identify, incredible because.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
There were what two that she didn't identify in the rebel.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Camp something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
Yeah, and so like three more and then you know,
we're not absolutely sure that everybody who was out of
the tower, Like, it's still possible that a couple of
people who are out of the tower who didn't have
to reswear the o's and didn't make it onto Varen's
list could still be dark friends.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
There are still a handful, Yeah that could be so.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
But probably aren't just because they weren't on Varn's list
and like you'd think they would be around major events.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
Yeah, but yeah, don't know. There could be one like
got signed up to be a dark friend last week
and then all this shit goes down and she's just
kind of like hanging out like only legally inducted, but
not really like confident in her dark friendly skills just
like I guess never mind.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
They but they have that list. They're like, if you
come into camp and you're this is a very short
list of like ten sisters who could potentially be you know,
And so she's like, if you come into the camp,
like I know, these were all non dark friends, so
they're going to test you, and we know who to
look out for, right, right, right. The only thing that
they don't have is we know Massana's still in the
camp and she somehow circumvented the three Oaths.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Right, which is something that I was very surprised when
I came across reading this right the first time. I
was like, oh, so that method is beatable. Like I
thought that that was going to catch Massana and resolve
that somehow she was going to be one of the
sisters that had vanished or something, but no, no, we're
actually leaving her as a lingering threat for next book.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
Oh shit, And kind of one of the big plot
threat for GWayne, right is between Assassin's the lud Knives,
thank You, and then you've got Massana, oh long recording
session and you have those two threats and she's confusing them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
Yeah, and we don't know exactly how Masana outsmarts the
oth Rod. We know that sayerin I think, comes up
with three different methods by which the oath Rod could
be beaten, and then says, by that logic, there are
methods I haven't thought of. So it's safe to assume
that Masana figured out one of these three or one

(01:29:08):
of the infinity that we can presume exist if these
three could be found.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
And the Word of Brandon basically says at one point
he was asked that, and he said she used one
of the three, and process of elimination basically says she
hit her voice said one thing, and everybody heard something else.
And she's basically said I will do whatever I want,
and soar that on the oath.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
That honestly makes the most sense to me. Like, when
those three pathways get laid out, that does seem like
the least number of failable moving parts.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Yeah, Or you know, the other theory I like is
she could swear not to be a dark friend. She
doesn't worship shaw Mayl, She's not a dark friend. She
could swear not to be of the Black Aja. She's
a foresaken, she's not part of that pathetic organization of
the Black Aja, right, Like she could swear that valid,
totally true and not. You know, she could totally say

(01:29:56):
that and then that's fine. They didn't ask are you
a forsaken?

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
That's true, that's true. I still think she went with
the voice changer one because it's the most solid because
then she's not magically bound to tell the truth period,
which why would she want that? So yeah, Sylviana comes
in at this point, after all this thinking about dark
friends and oath rods and stuff, Silviana comes in to
be like, I think there's an event that you should see.

(01:30:22):
We should do a walk with no talk and go
look at this, and they do. They go to this
construction site where Agwayne is having the hole in the
wall retrofitted into an actual intentional window. So there's Stonemasons
being like, why is the homorline here? This is so awkward.
I'm just trying to have a lunch break, Like, and.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
That's the window that like the hole that looks at
directly out of Dragon Mount, because before there was no
view of dragon in the.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Hall the tower. Yeah yeah, yeah, so when ever you're
in the Hall of the Tower you can look at
Dragon Mount, which seems very appropriate given the White Tower's
relative position to the whole dragon thing why Tarbaland is
positioned there literally, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
There's a lot of symbolism in terms of like turning
your back on Dragon mount and ignoring it and building
a wall where you can't see it, and then having
that open up and all of a sudden, the Dragon
Mountain is part of your daily existence and the dragon
and you have to deal with that and its existence
and the fact that he this is the last battle, right,
and you have a lighta who's turned her back on
the last battle and the dragon reborn.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
And you're literally letting the light in. Yeah, right, that's
what Rand is doing in this moment. That's what the
event is, right, letting the light in. She's letting the
light in in general. And now the light that Rand
is letting in can pass through into the tower and
allow her to see something has happened, and you know,

(01:31:41):
it sets her up well to allow him into the
tower later. Right, it's like, well, something's different, and.

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
It's the light that he's almost creating, right, because he's
one with the land. This is the light of his
soul shining out more than anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:31:55):
It's almost like he is the sun, because that's the
only place that sunlight is coming through like him and
the sun one and the same from where Taballa is sitting.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Yeah, I always think of it more of just like
he parts the clouds and allows that. He's the land
accepting the sun, because I always think the sun is
something external, like the sun's the creator in a lot
of ways. Yeah, and he's you know, accepting the power,
accepting the energy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Yeah, but he's allowing it to pass through for the world. Right,
He's saying, the world may have the Sun. I will,
I will bring it into your reality. And GWayne recognizes
that that is not something that the omorland Seat shouldn't
put in the chronicles, so she literally turns to her
keeper of the chronicles and says, put pull star on
that day. We'll figure out what happened later. Something happened,

(01:32:39):
we need to know the day.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Leave room to say, on this day the dragon reborn
had an epiphany and didn't destroy the.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
World exactly exactly. We're gonna have celebrations on this date
at some point in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:32:53):
It's really like the day we didn't die yay.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, we very nearly were catastrophe, a catastrophe,
like the world almost blinked out, but.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
It didn't and so yeah, there's just it's a beautiful light.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
Yeah, and they stand there and look at it and
are just like wow. And I guess I could read
that out. We've also got a prophecy at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
I feel like, just read the prophecy, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
The ending of the book itself is like whatever, but
the prophecy is very cool, and I think it's worth
pointing out this is a shawn Chan prophecy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
If you look at that where it's from cycle, Yeah, yeah,
from the House of Shondar. This is a shann Chan prophecy.
And I think that's it's interesting because this is Sanderson's
first book, right, and it's also the first time we've
gotten a shan Chan prophecy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
I feel like we've gotten one more from a shan
Chan mouth, but not like at the end of a book.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
Yeah right, yeah, that's what I meant, like in this
position in the book structure.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
Yeah, and you can always tell because usually from the
Corinthian cycle, and this is from the Senac cycle, which
is the sean Chan shall we say, the ishaan Al
version of the Koreathon cycle.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
Yeah, yeah, this is the King James cycle. All right,
so I guess with that, I'm ready to read us
out of this entire ass book.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
We finished the Sanderson book.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Wow, we finished the Sanderson book. Okay. At the end
of time, when the many become one, the last storm
shall gather its angry winds to destroy a land already dying,
And at its center the blind man shall stand upon
his own grave. There he shall see again and weep

(01:34:40):
for what has been wrought from the prophecies of the
dragon Issanic cycle Malavesh official translation Imperial Record, House of Shondar,
fourth Circle of Elevation.

Speaker 1 (01:34:51):
But it will walk me through that prophecy.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
So at the end of an age, right, they say
at the end of time, But I assume that means
more like the end of an age.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
I mean the last battle, right, I mean? And again
this is this also adds in my feeling that the
end of time is this moment when rand could end.
Oh that too, right, like this is the moment when
time could end.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Yeah, and many become one might be like all the
different dragons coming together.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
I think that's him, Like, yeah, going back that integration
that happened.

Speaker 2 (01:35:24):
Yeah, yeah, the last storm shall gather its angry winds
to destroy a land already dying, ran powering up the
Chodon call from the top of Dragon Mount, prepared to
you know, finish it. And at its center, a blind
man shall stand upon his own grave.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Literally Dragon Mount.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
Yeah, and he shall see again and weep for what
has been rot right, see again in terms of that reintegration,
understanding all of those cycles. And he doesn't actually weep
for what has been rot He laughs instead. And there's
I'm not sure if that's a tweak on the Ashamel

(01:36:03):
side of things, or if.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
That's what I was going to assume.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Yeah, because if he destroys everything, then he will weep
for what has been wrought in the moments before he
destroys everything. But he laughed. What he actually did was laugh.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
I would bet that that word is the only thing
this Shamel changed.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
Yeah, because a shameo didn't change much because people would
not accept a radical, massive overhaul. It had to be subtle,
in subtle errors that would drift into bigger errors. And also,
I mean, it could just be an innocent translation error,
because we know laughter and tears are paired as being
very important for this. So maybe one word got you know,
eaten off by a mouse or something.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
But again, if if you look at the Missborn saga
and spoilers from the Missborn Saga, the whole plot of
that series turns on the evil god going back to
prophecy and changing words to make it fit whatever hero
he wanted to do things so he could motivate people.

(01:37:07):
So the whole like the main character is driven by prophecies,
but those prophecies are being rewritten by.

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
The bad guy, right right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
To get to get himself free, to get So it's
this whole like you have to take the power. It's
like this whole thing where it's like and I always
get it backwards. But like he changes the prophecies to say,
the selfless thing to do is give up the power
and give And what that actually means is giving it
up to the bad guy, whereas the original prophecies say
use it to keep the bad guy imprisoned.

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
Subtle twist, profound difference.

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):
Yeah, exactly exactly to know that he does that, and like,
through individual word changes and stuff like that, I can
very much see him writing a prophecy saying, hey, here's
a little wink in a nod. This is from the
corrupted prophecy, and guess what, he didn't weep, he laughed.
And if you notice that, that's where the change is,
because it's different from what really happened.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
I'd never thought of that before, but I really like that.
I think that is. It ties up loose ends that
I didn't even know were loose. So I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
You know, it's it's the whole thing. Where shall my cells?
I is? Shamael says, I sowed the seeds of destruction
down by the seashore. I sowed the seeds of destruction
by you know, seeding the sean Chan and their return. Right.
He set up their return as well, and timed it

(01:38:32):
through the prophecies.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
And sealed two dooms, one of this empire and one
yet to come. Yeah. He's a devious one.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
I mean yeah. And he existed the whole coming out
every thousand years for forty years. Kind of a cool
little plot, right that he's able to kind of he's
not there the whole time, but every time society gets going,
he's there to knock it back down again and reset
it and keep thinking from progressing by starting the Trollic Wars,
by starting the Battle of ard hawk Wing, and then

(01:39:07):
by you know, essentially what he's doing now, which is
the Last Battle? Right? Are the three big wars of
the past thousand I mean, for if you want to count,
you know, the War of the Power sure, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Shawmele's involved in that. And then you've got you know,
the Trollic War A thousand years later, you've got Alectra
hawk Wing A thousand years later, you have the Last
Battle and the Shawn Mayel's a key figure in all

(01:39:29):
of those. A lot of battle, a lot of battle. Well,
thank you for joining me for this book.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
That was fun, That was really fun. It was a
wild experience doing our first Sanderson book.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
Isn't Sanderson a completely different experience than Jordan's?

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
So different? Wildly different. Yeah, absolutely, Bonker's Ride. I'm glad
you were able to wrap this up before Waltcon. As
a reminder to our audience, we will be taking next
week off of recording to prepare for wat Con. The
subsequent week we'll be recovering from Walk and then the
third week we will come back for Tangents, where we

(01:40:04):
will probably talk a lot about WALKCN I might put
some rewinds up in the feed in the meantime, but
we're not going to be here recording for two weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Yeah, i'd say walk on and probably also like what
it's like to podcast through Sanderson. I can't imagine that's
not going to come up to like sort of a
retrospective on that whole book we just covered, because we
always kind of talk about the whole book, right for sure?

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
For sure, And so yeah, that'll be that'll be the
rest of July. In August we will be starting on
the next book wild right, But yeah, thank you everyone
for joining us here in live. I really do appreciate
all of you. Looking forward to seeing some of you
at lock Con. Yeah, this is a wild journey to
be on.

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
Yeah, two and a half books left right, like.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Two in a prolog?

Speaker 1 (01:40:53):
Really yeah great that the prolog is my half.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's wild. This is a bonker's day.
I didn't forget here. Here we are so thank you
everyone for being along for the journey. Thank you for

(01:41:33):
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Just Another Man & Veins of Gold & Bathed in Light - The Gathering Storm chapters 49, 50, & epilogue - EP542

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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;}Just Another Man & Veins of Gold & Bathed in Light - The Gathering Storm chapters 49, 50, & epilogue - EP542