News in Tel’aran’rhiod & A Visit from Verin Sedai - The Gathering Storm chapter 38 & 39 - EP535 - WoT Spoilers

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. As we
were saying before we turned recording on, this is a
lot of chapter and Seth is very caffeinated, so this
is going to be a very interesting episode. Buckle up.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
And by the way, that hood you're wearing is green?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Done done, it's we're going there, We are going there.
This is that chapter, This is those chapters. Rather, we
are going to attempt to get through the entire your
dress is Green sequence. We'll see how well it works.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I mean, it feels like one scene to me. I
know it's a very long scene, but there's also some
stuff that will invoke long conversations and some stuff that won't.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's there's just so much. I was having such a
good time reading it, reading it, I was highlighting so much.
There's just so much. I mean, it's the sander Lanche,
It's the Sanderland. This is what you would call the
sander Lanches. There's all of this plot resolution and character
development and still cliffhangers and just stuff is happening so fast.

(01:20):
I don't know, I don't know what we're going to
skip past really quick, and what's going to take us
forty five minutes to get through just a lot here,
and then we leave off on a cliffhanger, which Spodunkle
is trying to gaslight me into saying that I agreed
to do four chapters of we're not doing that, but
it's going to be just as much of a cliffhanger
at the end as it is in the middle.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Right because because next week we go right into the
battle for the White Tower and against the Seawan Jam.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, bam.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So it's just it's a four chapter arc and no,
we're not doing them all today because I have to
sleep at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's I mean, you might not with all the caffeine.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
You've got, you have finish the book today. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, we'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
We'll be backe Yeah. Fun. Not that it takes the
time to make notes or anything.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
No, not at all, not at all. Yeah. I don't
even know what else to say other than oh my god,
here we go, Here we go.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I guess I should prepare to do a read in
to chapter thirty eight News Intel Irenriod with the dream
Turangriol as the chapter logo.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Rob wrote this chapter fake news and tell Ronriod.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Igwayne see reason Swan said faintly translucent because of the
terranngrioll ring she had used to enter a tele irenriod.
What good can you do rotting in that cell? Elida
will see that you're never let free, not after what
you said you did at that dinner, Swan shook her head. Mother,
Sometimes you just have to face the truth. You can

(02:50):
only repair a net so many times before you need
to toss the thing aside and weave a new one.
Agwaine sat on a three legs stool in the corner
of the room, the front part of a cobbler's shop.
She had chosen the location at random, just in case
ischooing a location in the White Tower itself. The Forsaken
knew that Agwaine and the others walked the world of dreams.

(03:10):
With Swan, Agwaine could be more relaxed, more her real self.
The two of them both understood that Agwaine was now
the ombrelin and Swan her lesser, but at the same
time they shared a bond, a camaraderie due to the
station they had both filled. That bond strangely had turned
into something akin to friendship. At the moment, Igwin was
nearly ready to strangle her friend. I just had to

(03:34):
do that first sentence of the next paragraph because it's
so funny, and to me that really captures the dynamic.
Is like we are such good friends and I will
literally cut a bit right now.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's almost a sister relationship and sort of like the
sisters of being an Amerlin. Yeah, like this little club
that only they're really a part of.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a very rarefied club people who have been
amrelin and amor line. Like usually it turns over when
someone dies. There's usually only one person in that category
at all. For there to be two people sharing that.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Reality, I'm technically there's three.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
False omborline, but yeah, it's it's not normal for there
to be the ability for those two people to have any.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Kind of conversation, kind of like when all the living
presidents get together except Trump.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
God.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
The parallels between Alida and that man really coming through
in how the legal system treats them both in these chapters,
you know, or this chapter, I suppose, is where that
discussion happens.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
The way they just make declarations with no approval from
the governing bobby underneath them.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Just disregarding what the checks and balances are checking and balancing,
just completely disregarding it. Yeah, the ineffectiveness of systems if
the person being persecuted doesn't really care so much. Yeah,
that's in parallels.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Where's our Sean Chan?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I do not want to speculate on that. So, yeah,
Agwaine and Swan are talking about the fallout from the
dinner and is this time for Agwaine to bounce to
get rescued. And this is really the crux on which
the whole rescue of her at the end of the
Battle of the White Tower rests. Is Swan being very

(05:31):
afraid that Aguaine is going to get like rapid fire
executed and there won't be time to rescue her, and
Agwaine saying, no, I have to risk that potentially happening,
and I don't want to be gotten out. But fine,
I'll give you a big red button. If it really
looks bad, I'll let you get me out. And Swan
uses that to wiggle through her oaths and her loyalty

(05:53):
and all of that. That's how she gets Agwayne out
and makes a Guain very very mad at her. Is
because she extracts this minor concession that she widens into
a full blown hundred person rescue team.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
And they do a lot of speculation over how the
tower and Alida are going to interact, but like, we
get more facts about that later, exactly what's happening and
how Alia gets censored, and you know, Agwayin's like, could
she have me punished? And it's like, eh, she's lost
a lot of power already. She's not actually going to
be able to do whatever she wants with you at.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
This point, right, And at first she gets given a
bunch of I won't say fake information, but a very
spun set of information. They then Sarah and updates her
on like, oh no, this is what's really going on.
It's like literal propaganda layers to like pars here, and yeah,
a lot of it comes to nothing because by the
end of the day, Elida is going to be in

(06:47):
shaan Chan custody and it's all going to be completely
literally within the next twenty four hours by the time
the sun rises. Again, all of this is moot.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
I did notice here that when Suon is arguing to
get Agwayne out, she says, I know that you can
suddenly change your mind and just kill you. And you
might think you can get out, but you might not
in that circumstance, you might not have time to arrange
an escape, and Agwaine says, if that happens, my death
would be a victory. Elida would be the one who

(07:18):
gave up, not I, so sort of foreshadowing that she
is willing to die for victory.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
M Yeah, Yeah, the motivation in the end is different,
but yeah, her willingness to say, well, if my death
buys us the right prize, fuck it.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
I will die. Yeah. Sort of the mindset that she's
in going into this battle is like, I'm fighting that
battle and the cost is some people die, and if
I'm one of those people, then that's the cost.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah. I was thinking a lot in this chapter. Later
in this chapter when she's just walking around looking at
the tower in the dream and really like identifying with
it and thinking about it, and just how much is
that manifesting in her personality, that meshing of her and
the tower, right, that thing that she does to Massana
later just being the tower, Right, she spends so much

(08:07):
time until I run riod in and around the tower
thinking I am the tower. Like that's got to have
an effect on her psyche, Right, do you think she's
a powerfully minded person. She spends a lot of time
until I run Riod identifying as the tower, and the
Tower can make those sacrifices. So Sedichael is suggesting that
if Agween died Alida's hands, she would be forgotten, that

(08:31):
her read of the situation is wrong.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
I think she has enough supporters and enough defenders that
her death would be like they would basically say no, Alida,
you've gone too far, and they would bring her down.
I feel like that would be at least she thinks
it would be the uh straw that brings the camel's back.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I kind of feel like that's the well, obviously, once
the price of eggs doesn't go down, they'll turn on.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Him right right, right right.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Which is in our example, not what's happening. So perhaps
Gwayn is wrong.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Well, okay, you got to take our real world situation
right now with a grain of salt. It is so
rare for there not to be a line for people,
like most times, a line that when they cross, that's
the end for them, most politicians most of the time.
If not, you end up with an authoritarian dictator, right like,
And that's kind of what has happened with Alida.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Right, that's the knife edge that they're playing with right now.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Mm hmmmm hm. But for the first time, we're seeing
that they're starting to essentially stand up to her as
a group and be like, oh, no, we actually do
have the power. This has gone on too long, You've
had too many disasters, and like, you don't get to
keep doing whatever you want all the time.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, because I said
I have swept some wild shit under the rug. And
as Padrinkle is adding, like most of her own camp
doesn't even see her as Amberlin.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
So like I would disagree.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
With that, Yeah, would she be used as would she
be used as an effective martyr? Or would it just
be a tragic fallen soldier situation? And then moving on because.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
The only reason Lane is gaining power is because she's
declaring that she is in support of a Gwain as Amberlin, right,
like most of the people around there, some of the
leadership doesn't necessarily believe as Amberline, but most of the
camp does.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's kind of a
coin toss, like how the propaganda wrestling match goes between
all the factions and like, yeah, is it a ligne
for the Tower Eyes to Die almost matters more than
how it does or doesn't galvanize the.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Rebels, right right. I feel like this is like, yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Is that going to affect the Tower Eyes to Die
or not? I think is the question. And yeah, I
mean you're right, there's a lot of people she's impressed
and it would really scare them. It means worse than
schamerin right, m hm. So yeah, and if they were
to then be like, we don't like this, you can't
do this anymore. That that could put an interesting twist
on what the rebellion is even rebelling against. Right, if

(11:05):
they were rebelling against Alida, then maybe Agwain's death does
reconcile the Tower in a really weird way. But that's
a big question if that would happen anywhere.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
So yeah, let's see where.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Were So next thing I've got is the Gowan conversation.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, that is this Gawandra cant So she finds out
that he is in the rebels camp.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Right in, her and Swan have a little bit of
a cloak and dagger practice session with that information. Essentially,
it's because Swan, you know, sees how a GWayne reacts,
and then a Grain reacts pretty good but gets a
little critique on her performance. And then they get down
to the real meat of the discussion, which is what
the fuck is Goaman doing here? What are we thinking
about that? And unfortunately Agwaine doesn't say I denounced him

(11:56):
sent him away. And they also talk about a couple
of evil that happened, like off screen, they're just happening
so often we don't even see them every right.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
You know, the world's falling apart. So now instead of
bubbles of evil being like things that happened to the
main characters in our bigger events are just like, oh yeah,
the tents came alive last night and tried to strangle
a bunch of people. A couple of people died, Like
you're just living in a world that's falling apart now,
and so you hear stories about it.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Because we had almost that scene when Mogedion was in Saladar, right,
there was that thing where all the furniture attacked people
and clothing was attacking people. So it's like, oh, yeah,
that that scene just a subtle variation. It was the
tent specifically, Yeah, no, I like that phrasing. It used
to only happen to the main character. Then now it's

(12:42):
just happening to the absolute NPCs.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
And I do wish there was more unique forms of
bubble of evil. The fact that he kind of reuses
the insects coming out of somebody, He reuses the tents
coming alive. I think he reuses the weapons coming alive too.
It's just it's not necessarily like bad that these were
using those bubbles of evil. But I think it would
be more interesting if they'd all been unique.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Would have been a bigger creative challenge. I think you
would have had some very weird bubbles of evil by
the end. If you couldn't recycle any.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
It feels like they should all be like, is it's chaos,
You shouldn't have repeated bubbles of evil. The dark one
is the essence of chaos, in the essence of things
breaking down, right, So yeah, like if.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
It had only been spears that had been minted, that
had been assembled, like on the full moon, just like
a random sub selection of the spears all come alive
and you don't know why, like I don't.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Know well, and I like like the metal going soft.
I thought that was a clever one.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
That one was a good one. I liked that one
that was but again that was weird. That felt like
we were reaching into the weird part the creative part.
I mean, maybe it's just that the dark one doesn't
want to be too creative because that's sort of a
like creator thing, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I just make things fall apart in the same way always, Yeah, exactly.
I mean decay is it's pretty consistent.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, I could have done with a more loosening of
physical rules. Like you ever read Dies the Fire? Yes, yeah,
so it's just like, oh, steam power just doesn't work
now yeah, yeah, we have no explanation for why it
just simply doesn't. We're doing everything right and for some
reason it isn't working. Like that would have been cool,
like the metal thing, but I could have used more

(14:22):
of that.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
I read a Alistair Reynolds story sci fi where they've
colonized Mars and different areas have just based on your location,
you get different technological things, levels of possible function, right,
and like in some levels there's like the bad Lands
where like even biological function fails, so if you go
there you just die right like, And then there's other

(14:44):
places where it's just like Western and then like in
the city you get more like actual technology, like and
then laser guns and futuristic stuff, and then like people
living at the top of the city have like wings
and shit, you know, and so.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
An analogy for anything.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Nope, really I do like Alistair Reynolds as a sci
fi author. I've been enjoying his stuff. It's very, very dry, though,
so it's hard to recommend.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
All right, So then we move on from Gwan because
there's nothing really interesting there, and Swan warns a Gwaine
about burnout, which Agwaine thinks is both ironic and also like,
if there was ever someone to scold her about potentially
burning herself out, as omreline, it would be Swan because
Swann empirically did that.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
It's so much foreshadowing for a GWayne dying at the end, right, yes.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Just sprint because she's going so fast that she burns out,
like all of this stuff that she's like, don't do it,
or you're gonna burn out, and it's like, yeah, that's
that's exactly what happens, right.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
A GWayne literally goes deeper into the dream and says,
I'm gonna do it. I'm going to do exactly what
Swan said not to do. I'm gonna like manifest that
in my brain while I'm in the dream world. And yeah,
the foreshadowing is pretty thick. Like I remember the first
time reading this being like suddenly kind of concerned, like
for her, just like stop warning her about this. This

(16:02):
feels like you're gonna make it happen.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Right because it's always been Agwain's way to go above
and beyond when people put limits on her. She says,
fuck that, No, I'm gonna keep going right like and
sue on there is warning her they keep doing that,
there's gonna be consequences.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, yeah, Unfortunately she is correct.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
So yeah, she sympathized, sympathizes with Rand in the box,
only she explains like, yeah, it was way worse. I
do kind of I like that she's getting this trauma,
but I do think that with her, she should be
thinking about the trauma of being collared, not Rand's trauma.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she should have been thinking about her
own trauma. And also, like, I don't know she needed
to go through this to empathize with Rand, given that
she had that prior trauma exactly exactly didn't she have
used that to empathize with Rand, like long since.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Like that that is something I feel, like Brandon Sanderson
I forgot about, like is a little bit of that
trauma around Seawan Chan when they attack, but like now,
it would have been a perfect time to tap into it
and be like, oh my god, I feel like I'm
back in the collar. You know, the shawn chann are coming,
but I've overcome that fear right of the shawn Chan
and the collar. Like that would be a great way
to bring in that conversation while also foreshadowing the shawn

(17:20):
Chan attack. And he'll be like, oh, I know, I've
got I foreshadowed the attack, but surely it won't come
for many months now, you know, and then have it
come that day like that would be a perfect opportunity
to prove with characters wrong.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that Aguayne is thinking about
you know, oh, Rand and I have suffered the same
under alia. That is aod a good solidarity thing to have.
But yeah, the part where she could have been honoring
her own Shawn Chan trauma and foreshadowing the attack with
some great ironic timing major missed opportunity. Mm hmm. It's

(17:51):
also funny she thinks about how Rand didn't have anybody
to talk to in the box, and I'm like, well,
los there and did kind of become more of a
presence in Rand's life as a direct result of the box.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that's just practiced talking. I mean, whether he was
going crazy because of the stress or you know, of
being imprisoned, or he just found someone to talk to.
And that's why Lewis Thearren came out more. Either way,
Lewis Darren is out quite a bit more after his
time in the box, and that's when he started talking
back to Lewis thereon, because Lewis Theren had been talking

(18:28):
to him for a while, but he'd never talked back
to him until he got into the box. And then
all of a sudden, he's insane. I mean, that's insane.
You're talking to voices in your head right before that.
Maybe he's resisting. Yeah, he committed to it.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
He committed to the bit while he was in the
box because of the box, because the box was traumatizing.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
And always, as always, here's your reminder. It's only been
a few months since the box, right, Like I know,
a lot of time has passed in the real world,
and if you're reading it, it doesn't feel like it.
But like the there is very little time between the
end of Lord of Chaos and Do My as Wells

(19:06):
and the last battle. It's a matter of a few months,
six months, I think.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, which, like, under the best of circumstances would not
be enough time to really have healed from the trauma
of being put through something like that.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
And he's gone through so many more trauma in.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
The best of worlds. Yeah, this has not been the
best of forms for him.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
No, so she doesn't want to go back to She
and Suan sort of end their their meeting, right like
Souan being like, you may be the best Ambulin ever, including.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Me, right, so man also saying like I always believed
in your potential, but now I believe that you've achieved
that potential, or at least enough to make my socks
get knocked off as a former Amberlin. So you know,
maybe you've already peaked and you might as well just
die at this point. It's not what Swan says, but

(19:56):
like the foreshadowing, like you're gonna be so good, You're
gonna be the best honorine ever. You're gonna live for centuries.
Just like all this like stop saying that, just stops
saying it's.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
I plan on living for centuries. Yeah you plan on
it not gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, So it's a really lovely proud mom moment, proud
mentor moment. And yeah, then Agwain has to face the
serious trauma of going of going back into her waking body.
So she detours into some telerendriod tourism.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Okay, and this is where I need some help. I
have been looking and what the fuck is going on here?
Like this is really my Like she's she's traveling, she
starts going for need without really thinking about what she needs.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Right, Yeah, she's really letting her subconscious do this, which
is feels like the most dangerous way to go with need.
Of all the ways to go with need, letting your
sub just lead the way, it seems like the most
dangerous way.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
And she's not like closing her eyes and taking a walk.
She's just sort of I mean, maybe she's better at
it right that she doesn't have to close her eyes,
but like that doesn't feel like the wise ones were
like this whole thing is you have to close your
eyes and take the step blind. That's the whole point
of need, and she's not doing that.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well because she doesn't have a specific need in mind.
I don't think the rules are quite as strict when
you don't have like but the wise ones. They're like
I need a hold that is this far from water
and south facing, et cetera, et cetera. It Wan's just
like I need vibes, and so she's just following vibes.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
I hate it. I hate it.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
I don't like it either, like a very Sanderson way
of doing it and Jordanian way of doing it.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
It's such it softens the magic system so much by
just having her be like, I'm following need. What does
that even mean in this situation.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, she just feels that it's true she needs to
go places, and like I, as an analytical person, find
that very difficult to swallow. Just it's like, you feel
it's true. How do you feel that something is true?
That's that's called just being led around by whatever chemical
is uppermost in your brain, like vibes. Need to have

(22:13):
some supporting evidence. But no, she just sort of wanders
through a visual representation of the conversation that she just
had with Swan that's basically what she does, right, She
looks at the physical division of the space that reflects
the division of the allegiances that Swan had been describing,
and like she's just looking at the conversation in visual metaphor.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
So there's some people appearing and disappearing is land fear.
Possibly one of them a woman in white a woman
with stringy blonde hair, was far too old to be
a novice.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
I just figured that was a random novice.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Okay, I'm just saying women in white Land. We know
landfairs around.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
But we also know that these women all dress in white.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
You know, yeah, final, So yeah, I was trying to
make something out of that, but I couldn't. I couldn't.
Although the other woman is wearing a green gown, there's
a lot of green gowns in here. Agwayne wears a
green gown.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
I did not notice that.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know what, actually throw through me a little bit
because in tele Aronriod her dress is green.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, oh that's trippy. Varren just picks that color by
sheer coincidence. Now Varen knows. Varen knows that a guaen's
a green, That's why she shows that color. Yeah, it's
like I can see the green showing through, and that's
why GWayne tends to wear that color in Teleronriod as well.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
And she even has a whole thought in this chapter
about how she picked green because for reasons says she's
thinking about Gowin, which is that she's like, the blue
is too focused, the green is much more like flexible,
seems to be her her thought process.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Which like, I mean, I do kind of hear her
on that the blues are a little bit too tunnel
visioned for my taste, like I get hyper focus, but
like I need I need to be able to like
jump around in my topics. Also, so yeah, Gwaenn's thinking
about the division between the towers and wondering, you know,
do we set up a second tower? Like what what

(24:14):
are we gonna do? The last battle is coming. We
need some kind of resolution one way or another, Like
is that an option? She's just playing with it. She
decides like now I'm gonna keep powering through, but like
she's literally at the point of wondering, should we split
the tower? Is that the way forward?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
But then I think she comes to the thought that no,
that's not possible. She would bring a lighta down, right,
Like splitting the tower is just gonna lead to a
weaker tower, create all sorts of problems where people don't
know who to follow, create countries that are setting up
their own little white towers. She's like, no, I have
to bring down a lighter.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
But if not, then she'll do what she has to do.
And it's left open ended what she thinks about what
that is. I assume that that means she's thinking she
would just set up a rival tower or not set
up a revel tower, but just say, fine, you can
have the building, right, we're going to go to war
exactly the dark one, and yeah, like fine, you can
just have the building. Fuck it. I think that's what

(25:12):
she means, but I'm not totally sure, because it's better
than going to war, right, you don't want to kill
channelers on the side of the light, Like that's the
worst thing you could do, really well.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And that's the question is what she needs to do
include going to war. Would she go to war to
unite them if splitting the tower was going to be
too problematic for the last battle?

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, I mean that's that's what it is. It's splitting
or war. If they can't and like those are bad choices.
Those are really bad choices.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And that's why she's doing what she's doing, which is
trying to undermine the tower from inside. And I love
that Varren recognizes that right away.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah. I love Varren's commentary on like way to take
the battle to the next level, Like, good job leading
the charge.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
So she does need once again and travels to this
fire pit.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, what did she need to know? She's looking for
knowledge rather than a location or anything. And I don't
understand what the on wagons have to do with this.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
No, I don't either. If only just keep the peace
and eventually the strong channel take care of the problem
for you, right, Like, that's the best I can do.
But like, okay, here's my out there stuff. Right The
only other time I really think we see fire until
I run Riodd is when Avianda is speaking with Niakomi

(26:35):
and this is another dream world. There's a fire. What
does Agway need she needs to, you know, be inspired
by peace somehow? Perhaps Nikomi is creating this situation for
her with the fire. I don't know, I'm stretching right like,
but it doesn't appear that she takes a lesson from this.

(26:55):
It doesn't appear to affect your decision making, It doesn't
appear to be relevant. She doesn't do anything with the Tinkers.
Nothing about this prophecy seems to relate to the shan
Chin taking Alida and the Tower uniting. I have no
idea what's going on here. Nothing in my research came
up with anything. I don't see anything on the internet

(27:16):
that really gives me a compelling argument. Some people have arguments,
but nothing compelling. So yeah, if you have any idea,
what the fuck this tinker like? Because the first there's
the fire, right, and then she looks, and then the
tinker wagons appear. She thinks they weren't there initially. You know,
it takes me back to the woman in white maybe
something with like again. And and this is the reason

(27:40):
I'm bringing this up as well, is because of the
statement from the author, right Sanderson, that Landfair survived and
she was doing more. And I don't roll your eyes,
I get it, I agree, I agree. But you know,
as I'm going through this, part of what I'm looking
for is a woman in white and Telerod and Ria
doing stuff. And there's a mention of a woman in white,

(28:02):
and now there's this nonsensical scene where the wagons appear
like someone summoned them after the fact. I don't know,
I don't know. I'm really stretching here for anything.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, I the fire feels like it should be a clue.
I like the reaching for the Nacomi thing, But why
Nacomi would care about this random bitch? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Watch you care about a fiando? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, I know, right, I do think that, Like they're
important thoughts to have. It feels like it's a very
Sanderson thing to want to have these thoughts on the
page somewhere about the way that the tuatha on will
dance right up until the world burns, because that's actually
the point of living life, and you know, life is

(28:49):
for living all of that. Like those thoughts needed to
be on the page somewhere, and Sanderson felt like this
was a good place to put them. Like that's the
best I've got is that he wanted to to GWayne
to have the thought about how Mary and Godwin is
important and having a human life is important, but also
the fight for ultimate good is important, more important even,

(29:12):
Like I feel like Sanderson just really wanted her to
think that, and this was a space he could slot
that in also the bitter delicious irony of like where
are Rain and Island Aram? Surely they're safe and comfortable
and doing their tinker thing, and you know that they
are super not you know, the grandparents are broken up

(29:33):
over the grandson. The grandson is dead after a life
of violence. You know, like they are not happy. Where
where all of them are?

Speaker 2 (29:42):
A quick look, I didn't see anything on Rain and
Isla after look.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
For Oh, they're in the last Battle. Okay, there's a
scene where they are looking through the bodies of the
dead for anyone who's still alive. They're doing that, that's right,
crew that they're like marking people with exes to say,
don't bother checking this one. And they talk talk about
trying to forgive aarm for the choices that he made.
So they do get a moment.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yes, and they're still in Parents' crew, right, traveling with
that group is what I would assume.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
I don't think they're with parents crew. They haven't been.
I actually don't remember when they leave. But I didn't
think that they were still with him.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
I mean again, they're not mentioned from book four until
the Last Battle, so they're like in the two rivers
and then we don't really hear from them again for
a long long time.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
So I assume that there was a caravan that took
off from the two rivers as soon as it was
safe to do so, and that they high tailed it
out of there because of being around aarm But that's
just my head canon. But yeah, no, they have a
pretty interesting conversation during the last battle.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
And to answer your question, yes, Sindane does have silver hair.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
So the woman in white with white hair, you know,
that could be just her not being herself maybe, I
don't know, although I know later we see her as
she's pictures herself as land Fear.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, I don't know. I think this was just Sanderson
finding a spot that wasn't otherwise assigned to get to
put some beautiful thoughts on the page. I don't think
it serves much plot purpose because, yeah, it doesn't really
change anything about her other than it supports my head
canon that this is her just really molding her subconscious
to be the omrelin right the tower more than her

(31:29):
human self. I don't see much plot forwarding other than that,
but it all adds up to you know, again, allegorically
like you know, okay, Yeah, she's thinking about peace as
an alternative to war. And then she looks at the
tower and decides, I'm going to keep fighting for it
for a few more days. I'm not going to let
it fall just yet. So it all adds up to
a nice allegory of symbols for what she's doing. Best.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
I got no And there's the darkness on the tower.
I think that's you know, you got the blacknaw Jah
and Massana inside of it. There's nothing new about that.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, the tower is huge, it's casting a shadow on her.
The vibes are heavy, right, and she wakes up. She

(32:23):
chooses to wake up into a body that is on
fire with pain.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Because she's being still being beaten but also cramped in
a occasion.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
It's too small and not healed between beatings.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah, but she does have enough room to sort of
stretch her legs out right. That's the thing. Rand couldn't
move at all. She can sort of adjust, so different
aspects of her body can be stretched. Even if she
can't stretch out all at once, she can do her
legs and her arms and her back and like curl
up the rest of them so she's not totally in
you know, cramped pain the whole time.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, Rand was literally held in essentially a fetal position,
whereas yeah, she has the ability to stretch one limb
at a time. She's got that much more space than him.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And being held in a stress position is torture, right,
like some of the worst torture.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yes, yes, stress positions are considered a torture, like any
other thing you would consider a torture, which having done
yoga and pilates makes sense.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, the whole like holding yourself up or else, if
you relax, you're going to cause yourself pain and damage.
Is just like, oh my god, because at some point
you can't. Right, that's speaking of crucifixion, that's right, because
that's the whole thing with CRUs ficion is you can
hold yourself up for a certain period of time, but
if you let yourself relax, you're actually because crucifixion isn't

(33:40):
the nails through the hands and the feet right as
it's to pick that it's usually being. It can be,
but usually what it is you're tied up with a
rope around your your waist and you're hanging from that
rope and it slowly crushes your insides over time.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Specifically, it means you can't breathe. That's what it does.
Is it's if you're hanging from your arms either stretched
out to the side or straight overhead. Eventually you can't
inflate your chest and like breathe, so you suffocate. Yeah,
and yeah, it's it's a much If you don't nail
someone to a cross, it's much easier to use it
as an on again, off again punishment. We will crucify

(34:14):
you for a period of time or until you say sorry,
and then you can go back about your life because
it's you know, easy to recover from being temporarily suffocated,
whereas hands through you know, delicate bones and all of that. Also,
like the body weight tends to tear you apart, Like
we have to use robes just to hold someone up.
It's a whole thing. But people were crucified with nails historically,

(34:35):
and for some fucking reason, they still do it today
for weird religious reasons. There are people who like get
themselves crucified. It's a whole thing, very very weird. But uh, yeah,
it's it's suffocation is actually generally what kills you. I
also remember that was in part of the plot device
it freakin Matilda was like they got the kids got

(34:58):
like locked in the like uh closet, yes, razor blades
or whatever, and they had to hold perfectly still or
else they get cut.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Like yeah, speaking of actually speaking of Alistair Reynolds, I
think there's a scene like that. Also, like Canus Trilogy,
there's a there's a there's a box full of knives
that he shoves his immortal friend into and uses their
immortal healing power to power his devices, but it has
to cut them continuously for thousands of years.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Man, People in the real world are fucked up. People
with magic.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Are so fucked up. Well, I mean the whole Like,
that's the that's the terror of immortality. What happens if
you're immortal and you're put in a situation where you're
injured over and over again, or you know, you're let's
say you end up at the bottom of the ocean
and you can't escape, right, like if you just wake
up round die repeatedly, right, I feel like those are
those are the horrifying stories of immortality.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, immortality has a lot of body horror opportunities, for sure.
Gwain does not have immortality, new different kind of horror
from all of us. So Agwaine is just staving off
a panic attack by thinking about how I want to
be here. I asked to be here, this is what
I want, this is important. I could leave, this is
a choice. Like she's just staving off a panic attack

(36:14):
with those mantras, much like I deal with being at
the dentist.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
I think this. Also, she keeps talking thinking about Rand
and how it hadn't broken him either, And I think
there's a little bit of like sibling sibil links sibling
sibling rivalry, thank you going on there where She's like, well,
if he didn't break, I'm not going to break. I'm
tough as Rand. I can deal with it.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Which I'm like, girl, have you talked to Rand.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
He broke, He broke hard.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
He might have not shattered, but he got some real
serious fractures, like more than hairline fractures. With that box.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Katrine comes still basically pull agwayin out right because they've
changed due to all the stuff that's been going on
in the hall and with Alida. Aquayne's no longer going
to be imprisoned.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Right, she's getting yanked out. She thinks she's getting yanked
out for her beating, even her guards do. But then yeah,
Katerine shows up and it's like, psych she's cool, she's
free to go, everything's fine, no beating for you.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Katerine gives this whole thing about how like Sylvia's going
to be punished because of your failings, which just ends
up being kind not bullshit, but just like a real
twisting of the truth.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, it's cherry picked to the point of absurdity. It's
really spun hard.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
And Katherine being a dark friend, right, Like, I feel
like the dark friends they don't lie, but I feel
like they spin the truth harder because they can walk
closer to that line and they don't have to worry
about being yanked back over it.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Right right, Yeah, they can take sarcasm to a whole
other level, right right. And then she announces that she's
the new Mistress of Novices and so Agwain, we'll get
to deal with that. And then she gets marched on
out of there, feeling kind of victorious because she's like, oh,
even according to the spin that I got given, I
feel like I won.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Just getting out right, I mean, I imagine just the
U four you of getting out of your fucking box, right,
and then.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
There's that yeah, yeah, She's like I won. I'm not
crazy and I didn't say sorry, and yet I'm out
of the box Like that counts as a win for
the next ten minutes. And then as soon as she's out,
immediately the Whisper network or the Grapevine kicks into high
gear and all the eyes did I who care to
know are immediately notified that she's out, and Saren can

(38:30):
show up and start to impart less spun information to
her about what's going on, because everyone is, whether they
want to admit it or not, starting to realize that
this is in fact the homreline that matters.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
And remind me which s name Saren is.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
She's the leader of the black Auja hunters. She's a
brown brown sitter, and I believe is the head of
the black Auja hunting team.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
I think she kind of took it over right. She's
the one who walked in and was like, oh, you're
hunting black Auja, sweet mine, let's do this.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah. She's far more direct and aggressive than most browns,
and very competent and in my mind is sort of
the head of the s names like the point at
which the list gets diffuse. She's the last name before
the list is completely diffuse, right.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Right, right right. She has just enough character building and
personality and scenes to be like, oh, yeah, Saren, I
know who that one is.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah it's Swan Shiriam Saren, Who the fuck are you?
That's the order And yeah, Sarah like you know, cows
the reds just walks in like she owns the place
and then starts talking to a Gwain like she's Ombrelin
and a Gwen's like, oh, I am not fully aware
of the dynamics of what's happening with Alida right now,
like bring me up to date, and we get to

(39:42):
get into all of that political tomfoolery, which, like I said,
twenty four hours from now, none of it matters because
Alida is hundreds of miles away.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
No, but but this, this is the point where Sylviana
stands up and she hears about how Silvianna you know,
defended her and demanded her release and you know that
sort of deliberately contributes I'm sure to her being her.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Keeper big time. Yeah, Sylviana says, I'm the one that's
been enforcing the law on this woman. And I think
that she's actually the one in the right and we
need to depose Alida. And it's a rousing speech, even
told secondhand.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Especially from someone from someone of Alida's adja.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Right, And this is why a lot of us like
to like Sylviana is because she so spectacularly she demands
to denounce Elida in front of the full hall, not
just whoever was there, she demands the full hall and
then says Red Sister to Red Sister, you need to
be deposed, like right now. And that's I mean, it's

(40:44):
hard not to cheer for her as a Red.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Her.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Teslin and Pavara, I think, are the three Reds that
we all can get behind and cheer and sort of
we get why they ended up doing what they're doing.
And I'm find it interesting that a lot of that
is Sannason's writing. He does kind of trying to redeem
the Reds a little bit and be like they're not
all bad man hating people, right, Like that's not what
the addja is necessarily.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, Jordan started it with Teslain, yes, yes, and he
kind of got us started with Pavara. But yes, Sanderson
really takes that Patona and runs with it. In a
way that I think is really nice because they were
a bit of a caricature.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Yeah yeah, like Leandrin was like.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, he fleshes it out.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, It's why the Leandern character in the show has
gotten so much screen time. Just makes me go, oh
my god. She was such a chricature of a like
we have all these deep characters throughout the series, like Ktar,
I would think is a much more deep character in
the books, right, m hm, yeah, Leandron's pretty cartoonishly evil.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, No, that's definitely not to get into the
show much, but it's definitely one of the reasons I
love what's going on in the show, Like it was.
One of the changes that I love most is like
Leandrod was so two dimensional and now she is so
three dimensional. Like just that glow up is like gotta
be one of my top line items for the things
I like about the show specifically, but we will not

(42:05):
be getting into it more here. Those are for other episodes.
I just ugh her braids, her attitude. Kate Fleetwood, I
just Kate Fleetwood. I did not know about Kate Fleetwood.
Now I know about Kate Fleetwood. Kate Fleetwood rules all right,
so yeah, what happened with Alida and Sylviana is that
Elida said take up the dress of a novice, which

(42:25):
if there was ever a woman who was not going
to say yes to that command, it's Sylviana great because
of all the discussions that her and Agwayne had about
Agwayne's position and about what happened to Shamaren and like no,
like that was never gonna work. Yeah, Like Sylviana knows
how this goes, and she knows the answer to give.
So it goes badly for Elida.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Shamarn another s word s name, that she was the
one who accepted being demoted to novice yes.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
And ran away to the rebel camp and gives them
the clue about the Watergate. I know all the standyesid
I just everyone else that I'm really.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Proud of myself and I can remember one that's all.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Right. It's like such a like going through your mental
like okay, okay, do I have it? Do I have it?
Do I have it?

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yes? I have it?

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
So she uses this hole this news about the craziness
with the Red Aja and the fact that like Alida
is demanding Sylviana be executed, which is like, okay, way
to undercut your own power structure by executing one of
the most respected members of your own ADJA. Of course
they're going to turn on you and then and so
Agwayne's like, well, we can't let that happen. And Sarah's like,

(43:33):
I mean it would kind of accomplish our goal. And
She's like, not worth it. I need good quality people
too bad to let one die for the sake of
political expediency.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah. Yeah, And also like you can't just disband an
entire ADJA because of one bad member. We need all
the adjas. The tower is built of seven aujas. You
can't just you can't retaliate by disbanding and other odjas
because she disbanded one first. Like you know, Sarah's like,
we can tit for tat and agwainn you know, goes

(44:05):
with the high road of like ifriend I makes the
whole world blind. We need seven ajas, not five.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
But I could see her being like, now that the
power sources clean cleansed, we don't need the red AJA anymore.
You should distribute to one of the other purposes. Like
I can see that actually being the future of the tower.
Maybe a little bit better now I know they want
a different route and been like, go the reds will
deal with men by bonding them, right.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, no, I mean that's super fair. But it's not
a decision to make in a walk and talk down
the hallway, snap decision. That's a month's long, year's long
discussion to be, like what do we do now, Like
you can't just disband the Red because the Light is
being bad, Like that's if the Red gets disbanded, it's
going to be an after the last battle dust settles
kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
I mean, they really should go back to the old
definition of the AJA, which we're temporary gatherings more like committees.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
That would be my preference for sure, Like some people
will be career librarians for four hundred years, but other
people will just want to do it for a few decades.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
I know.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, I definitely find the concept of being locked into
a single ADJA philosophically distasteful, even though I'm pretty sure
I just stay brown forever, Like that's just me. I think,
like the human experience cannot be that easily binned.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
For me. It's not so much that like you'd be
it's brown so much is like the ad JA definition
is just bad. You should the ajos should be like, oh,
we're going to gather to research the prophecies of the dragon. Okay,
that gathers for fifteen years and then breaks up and
then you're not you don't identify with any adja. You're
just on a committee. You're on ADJA temporarily, Like I

(45:34):
feel like, you know, that's that's really where their origin was.
And over the years they shifted a lot and then
you know, almost like a political party, but less because
they have more of a purpose behind them. But you know,
say that the political parties have purposes. They have sort
of you know, the Conservative party is trying to keep
things the same, right, keep the status quo, right, the

(45:58):
purposes behind the parties right party Often there's some sort
of message behind the party where they want to do something,
you know. But people can join different political parties if
they want.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Right, the political parties don't get disabandoned though, which is
kind of what the aujas were. More like it's like, yeah,
maybe they should be I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. The
audo system as it currently stands could could use some reworking,
much like our political party system could use some reworking.
But maybe the middle of the apocalypse is the wrong

(46:28):
time to do that. Certainly the time is yeah, yeah,
maybe the apocalypse is a great time, but a walk
and talk with very few people down a hallway is
not the time.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
And so she gets rid of her guards by basically
sending saying, hey, you should probably go deal with this,
like you're probably needed yeah in your.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Adja yeah she's yeah. She turns to the guards and
is like, so do you have you know, aja preserving
thoughts about that? Maybe you want to go act on
rather than just guarding me, right, and one is Sadai
who's not even named, is like yeah, good point and
scurries off to do red Aja things, while the sister

(47:11):
who stays with her Embarrasscene is like, you're not going
to give me the slip so easy, I see what
you're doing and stays with her until she can get
herself dosed on forkroot, which ends up coming into play
with how she feels. So this dose of fork group
comes into play with the shaun Chan battle. This is
why she needs massive rings of novices and why she

(47:36):
has to get voras Sauungreolas because she has none of
her own power to work with barely because of this
specific dose of fork grouit.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Now she does sometimes does pass, and she does gain
back the ability to embrace the source, right because she
sleeps for a while, right like, there's this isn't like
she takes forekroot and immediately there's the attack. She takes
the fork root and several hours pass.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yes, yes, she can only handle a trickle, but she
can at least handle that trickle.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
I don't And I seem to remember. And I don't
know if this was the case or not, But wasn't
it when Ninive embraced the source it helped burn away
the last vestiges of the grug.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
In her I think so.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Or she claims that it did, maybe just woke her up.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah, I sort of doubt her word on that. But
Agwayne's battle goes on for several hours also, so I
feel like the drugs are probably pretty worn off by
the time she collapses into an exhaustion puddle.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
And it can't be that strong of a dose because
it doesn't knock her out right away, so like, not
that strong of a dose many hours later after sleeping, right.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Like, but still she's terrified that she doesn't have any
power to work with until she figures out that she
can link with the other girls, and then she's like, Okay, good, No.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
All I'm saying is I think that the effective forkroot
is convenient to whatever the plot needs it to be.
Is what seems to be the answer.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, so much so I would agree with that.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
That that you you can channel exactly how much you
need to for the plot to work.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess that Forurkruit is very malleable to
the author's needs.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah. Yeah, let's try to find some consistency on time
and stuff like that. And I'm like, eh, if you're
gonna be if it's gonna be weak enough that she's
not going to pass out, it feels like it shouldn't
last long enough to prevent her from channeling many hours
from now after sleeping, especially when we consider how much
was he anyway.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, well, also adrenaline does wonders, But uh yeah, all
I have is the absolutely fantastic readout from here. Anything else, see.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Just that she's like she goes into talk to when
she goes into her room, it's like she's still in
this filthy dress she's been imprisoned in. She hasn't been
able to wash herself, right, she hasn't been healed, like
this is she is grunge like.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
And yeah, yeah, crawling out of a dumpster like yeah,
I hadn't really thought about that. That what Varren sees
when she walks in is just like the gnarliest, nastiest
version of agwayn just like hair's a mess, crusted blood
on the dress still, like wait.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Why is it bloody? Is it just from the beatings?

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, because her arms got cut by the glass of
Oh okay, pit sure that she was holding that because
they talked about it in earlier in the chapter, like
Elida did not actually break a Gwayne's skin, but the
glass that was the result of the beating broke her
skin and that so yeah, that's where the blood came from.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Mm hmm because really old blood, really old?

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (50:37):
The three days now like nasty, nasty, I did not
think about the stench that walked into the room to
greet Varren as she's sipping her teeth.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Is that the the length of time was only three
days inside that room, You know, I'm.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Not actually sure. She talks about how it's significantly less
than what Rand went through, and a few more days
sounds impossible, So I assume it's only a few days,
but I don't actually know.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Well, you do the readout, I'll see if I can
look at it.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
That okay? Beriscene turned and hurried away, leaving Aguaine alone
in the hallway. Not just alone, but alone enable to
do exactly as she wished. She didn't get many of
these opportunities. Well, she'd have to see what she could
do with that, but first she'd need to change out
of this filthy, bloodstained dress and wash herself too. She

(51:27):
pushed open the door to her quarters and found someone
sitting inside. Hello, Agwayne, Varin said, taking a sip from
a steaming cup of tea. My I was beginning to
wonder if I'd have to break into that cell of
yours in order to speak with you. Agwaine shook off
her shock. Varn When had the woman returned to the

(51:48):
White Tower? How long had it been since Agwaine had
seen her? There isn't time right now, Varin, she said,
quickly opening the small locker that contained her extra dress.
I have work to be about. Hmmm, yes, Varren said,
taking a calm sip of her tea. I suspect that
you do. By the way that dress you were wearing?

(52:10):
Is green? A green? Frowned at the nonsense sentence, glancing
down at her dress. Of course it wasn't green. What
was Varen saying? Had the woman become she froze, glancing
at Varren. That had been a lie. Varren could speak lies. Yes,
I thought that might get your attention, Varren said, smiling.

(52:34):
You should sit down. We have much to discuss and
little time in which to do it.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Fuckar such a good drop, right, Like? Oh, I got
chills the first time I read that, for sure?

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I like dropped the rake I
was wielding at the time, Like you what you wouldn Ah,
it's so good.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
And I know she's sitting there with the tea in
her hand. As soon as the door opens. I think
she takes that first sip.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yep, agreed. She was just waiting. She was just waiting
for the door to open and to see Agwayne's face.
And then she immediately I literally tracked how many times
she so, she SIPs several times before she starts actually
unloading any of the information. She makes sure that she's consumed.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
She really puts the cup down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, more
than enough to kill her. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
That's part of why she does the preamble is it's
partially it's just to get the conversation going. In partially
it's to make sure that the hour has well and
truly started, that the dose has been well and truly ingested, and.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
That she's going to be able to do this without
being limited by the oaths.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Exactly. She has to wait until she's sure that she's
at minute fifty five, you know, and just oh, it's
so good, it's so good. So did you get an
answer to the question.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Not? It couldn't have been very long, because basically, like
they brought Alida up on trial right away and then
the result of that is Sylviana being in prison and
right like a couple of days. But I did not
get a not get a very specific answer.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
Because the time it is bendy, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
So yeah, I mean that's we were just going to
go right into the next chapter, right, because that's yeah,
that's the exciting part. And then, oh my god, the
number of times that she SIPs her tea. Yeah, I
highlighted every single one. It's long.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Yep, all right. Chapter thirty nine, a visit from varn
Sadai and our symbol is the black Auja faces. You
never held the oath rod, Agwayne accused her. Still standing
by the closet, Varren remained on the side of the bed,
sipping her tea. The stout woman wore a simple brown
dress with a matron they cut through the bosom, and

(54:58):
a thick leather belt at the waist. The skirts were divided, and,
judging from the dirty boots peeking out from under the hem,
she had only just arrived back in the White Tower.
Don't be silly, Varin brushed back a lock of hair
that had escaped from her bun. The brown was marked
with a pronounced streak of gray. Child, I held the
oath rod and soar upon it before your grandmother was born.

(55:21):
Then you've had the oaths removed. Agwaine said it was
possible with the oath rod, after all, Eukyri, Saarin and
the others had removed their oaths and replaced them. Well, yes,
Varen said, in a motherly way. I don't trust you.
Agwaine found herself blurting. I don't think I ever have,
very wise, Varren said, sipping her tea. It was not

(55:44):
a scent. Agwayne recognized, I am after all, of the
Black Aja.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
It's so bad. Yeah no, And you finally get someone
of the Black Aja talking right about the process and
what happens, and it's like, so many mysteries get peeled back.
I really this is one of those moments where I
really love that the mysteries are getting peeled back. Sometimes
I get a little upset when I'm like, you're revealing
them too soon. But the reveal here is so good.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
It's been building since book two, right, literally since early
book two. Yeah, ever since ever since book two, like
single digit chapters of book two.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
No, this this is not a reveal too soon. This
is a reveal like the better part of two decades
into making.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
This has simmered nicely. It's a nice tender meal that
went down easy and was delicious.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Ah, oh my god. All right, So Agwayne decides that
there's no point in fighting the situation, so she sits
down and allows Varon to talk to her, not realizing
that she's about to be very, very interested. She just
thinks like, well, there's no point in dragging anyone else
into these clutches, this trap that I'm in. I'll save

(57:05):
everyone else. And that's not what Varen wants, but that's
why it. Gwen sits down, and then Varen says some
really interesting things about Laras, thank her for helping me
with the tea, and also, you'd sooner find a white
cloak marrying an eyes to die than find Laras swearing
to the Great Lord extraordinary woman.

Speaker 5 (57:25):
What so much backstory fodder? Why does Varren have such
a strong read on Laras's good evil alignment?

Speaker 3 (57:37):
What?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Because she was there when Lauras did the thing where
it got her almost to a hanging, remember that line.
And she's a normal person, so that was, you know
what forty fifty years ago max?

Speaker 1 (57:50):
For her, maybe near to hanging was the time she
almost accidentally signed up to be a dark friend and
then like noped out in a way that very admired
because she had faced a very similar situation and not
been able to note about and she actually witnessed Lars like, yeah,
the surface level was a hanging, but like Varren knows that,

(58:12):
uh yeah, let's tie those together. Let's tie those head
cannas together.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
I've always wanted to tie Laris more to the kin
because I think because the whole sneaking them out like
I think she was ooth, fair.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Fair, she had an adventuresome life. She could have gotten
into multiple interesting things. No, she's definitely kin involved. I
mean that to me feels basically canon. That's not even
head canon.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
And I love the way Varin is constantly like, oh,
I don't think you'd like a sip of my tea?

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Like, yes, I would offer you some tea. You don't
want this tea. This is not to you want I would.
It is good tea. I just poisoned it, so so
you know I'm not going to say that yet though. No.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
No, I love the slow reveal to roll out of
her just like casually. Oh, yes, I'm a dark friend,
but no, i'm I'm actually a double agent.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Yeah, I'm a dark friend for business reasons.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Oh. Here the room was still in quiet, cold and sterile,
as it had been unoccupied for four days. So that's
how long she was in prison for four days, so
we do have an answer in this chapter.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Excellent.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, No, I love this this part from Baron talking
about rand I'm not sure he understands how the Great
Lord works, not as not all evil is as obvious
as the chosen, the foresaken, you'd call them.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
This whole digression about the forsaked and the dark onod
is just like you're getting a little peak behind the curtain.
It's so cool.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
It's so cool and just the Yeah, and how does
the dark one work? Like this person who studied him
for that long, right, has no idea what he actually wants.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Yeah, he knows what he She knows what he wants
from his subordinates. Or he wants selfishness. He raises selfish
people to the top, But what does he want above
and beyond that? To what end does he want all
that selfishness? That's still a mischie after she's been doing
this for what seventy years?

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Sure? Yeah, because that mistake she made was about seventy
years ago, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Yeah, So like that's two normal mortal careers worth of time.
That's a normal human lifetime packed into studying this problem.
And she still doesn't know, like to talk about essence
of chaos.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
And he really is metaphysical, right, hard for us to
understand what his end goals are.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
We call him a hymn because it's easy to break down.
It's easier to grapple with an elemental force if you
make it sound like a person but he's not a person.
He's kind of to reach over to broken Earth. This
is like Nastun trying to understand Father Earth, like you
can try, you can try, but well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
And I come back to the fact that he wants
Rand to end the pattern, right, that I think that's
his goal, right, And that's I don't think Varren fully
understands that Rand is the only one who can destroy
the pattern. And so there's a lot of things that
are nonsense because it's like, I don't understand why he's
defending Ran sometimes and attacking him others, and it's like, well,
he just wants to torture him. He just wants to give
him misery and pain.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
And yeah, because all of the prophecies that relate to
that feel much more mundane than that inner realization that
he finally has. All the prophecies that we can see
lead to that realization he has all have much more obvious,
mundane regular things that tie to them, always going to
stand on his own grave and weep like, Okay, that

(01:01:28):
doesn't mean he has this massive inner revelation, right that
isn't included in the prophecies. So yeah, it's sort of
a missing data point in her model. The mental health
of the savior is important. It's not something those people
think about, but apparently it is.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
But in the uh immortal words of Varn, I'm afraid
I've let myself get sidetracked.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
You and us both whoops too, because she's letting her
brown aja routine run one last time. She's just really
like doing her last moment of being like the fluffy
brown facade before she gets down to the real business
of being Varn the double agent.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
This is still important information, right, Like it's like, oh yeah,
but basically understanding your enemy. But you're right, it's not
tactical in the way that the book is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Yeah, it's pleasant for Varn to just talk shop a
little bit before she gets down to the actual point.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
No, and this is where we get this thing where
she says, imagine my amazement finding you've not only infiltrated
Alive's regime, but it apparently turned half the hall against
itself against her. You've certainly riled some of my associates.
I can tell you that this whole like she is
successfully undercutting a lighter from the inside.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Right, And Varen knows more than most that the Dark
is trying to keep the division going right. She knows
that more than anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Right, So they're trying to keep a light of propped up,
but she's just proven to be on probable.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Yeah, She's like, it's just like with the ring, you know,
she says later, I gave you the ring on my
own agency. I was not told to give you the
Turran grill ring. And you did amazing with that. Like, yeah,
you really you know how to yes and the opportunities
given to you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
So there's this point where she she takes another sip
of tea, and then suddenly something about her seemed to change.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Let me read it, let me read it. Yeah, I
gotta read this section no time, I'm afraid, Varren said,
leaning forward. Suddenly something about her seems to change. Though
she was still the aged and at times a motherly woman,
her expression grew more determined. She caught Agwayne's eyes, and
the intensity within that gaze shocked Agwayne. Was this the

(01:03:45):
same woman? Thank you for humoring a woman's rambles, Varren said,
voice more soft. It was so very nice to have
a quiet chat over tea at least once more. Now,
there are some things you need to know a number
of years ago, I faced a decision. I found myself
in a position where I could either take the o's

(01:04:05):
to the dark one, or I could reveal that I
had never actually wanted or intended to do so, whereupon
I would have been executed. Perhaps another would have found
a way around the situation. Many would have simply opted
for death. I, however, saw this as an opportunity. You see,
one rarely has such a chance as this, to study
a beast from inside its heart, to see what really

(01:04:28):
makes the blood flow, to discover where all the little
veins and vessels lead. Quite an extraordinary experience. Wait, Egwayne said,
you joined the blackaja to study them. I joined them
to keep my skin intact, Varence said, smiling. I am
rather fond of it. Though Tamas did go on about

(01:04:49):
these white hairs anyway, after joining them, The chance to
study them was my making the best of the situation. Fantastic,
fantastic reveal, fantast plastic explanation, just piece the resistance, cherries
on top, sprinkles air horns, so good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
She's black, but she's not. She's a double agent right
for the good guys. And she even says like they
had enough people doing double agent stuff I think it
was time for our side, and that's when you're like,
oh yeah, our side is definitely the side of good
to have a double.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Agent, right, and also further foreshadowing to a GWayne, Yeah,
sometimes you just got to die for the cause, right,
Sometimes your death is how the cause is advanced, and
that's okay, sucks. Yeah, yeah, Gwen's getting a lot of
reinforcement on the idea that her death can buy the
light what they.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Need to win. And we get that Tomas was a
dark friend too, but he's also looking for a way out.
So again, this is the redeemable dark friend that we
got with the promise of Inktar. Right. This is why
I kind of brought up Intar earlier, is like he
really is kind of the prototypical dark friend who was
able to redeem themselves on their deathbed or.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Several decades before his deathbed in this case, because Thomas
has been working with Varn for less than seventy years.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Yeaheah, I mean just but the whole I think back to, like,
how was Intar able to aid them? Well, it was
the hour of his death.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Right Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying Thomas has been helping
for decades, Like he's just dying as collateral damage to
what Varn's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Sure, yeah, well, and this is the thing, is like,
but they were doing active dark Friends stuff. They weren't
able to betray the Dark One until this hour. He
wasn't either, I mean, not as unbreakable as the oath
that Varren took, but still he was pledged to the
Dark One. And I'm sure they did lots of terrible things, right,
that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, Like they weren't being good guys this whole time.
They were mostly being bad guys, just studying them from
the inside.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
I'm just saying Thomas has been on his redemption quest
for decades.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Sure, sure, yeah, he wanted out a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Yeah, because Varren clearly found him after he'd made that decision,
you know, and she was already you know who she was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
So you gotta wonder how you broach that subject. So
do you really hate the Dark One too?

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Like, yeah, did that conversation happen the first time?

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
She must have witnessed him doing something that was allowable
technically by the odes, but is not in line with
the selfishness that should be getting cultivated and was like,
huh worth a risk. I can always kill him if
this goes badly, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Going to head canon the Varen knows that she figured
out that he was trying to get out and didn't
want to be part of it, and that's then she
approached him and I was like, so, I noticed you
suck at being a dark friend, right, Like, one, I
know's you're dark friend. Two I knowsed you suck at it?
Three do you want to get out with me?

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Yeah? Oh my god, that would be an amazing, amazing story.
How did Varren figure out that Tomas was gonna be
the worder she needed for this mission? Mm hmmm mmmm
someone write that?

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Please? Anyway more good stories that we would have loved
to have?

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
Oh my god? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
And like, how is that when you're Tomas, right, you
think you're being so sneaky and like you're never gonna
find a way out and you believed it, like that
whole saying about there's no man so lost to this shadow,
we can't come back to the light as bullshit. He's
tried everything, it isn't working. And then this kind of
little brown sister shows up and is like, Hey, I've

(01:08:36):
got to work around. You just have to be a
dark friend for me and help me and know that
someday I might have to kill myself just to get
the information out. I mean, I guess you didn't figure
that out until flicker flicker, but you know whatever, whatever
that conversation was.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Well that that is a good question. Yeah, flicker flicker
did that? Is that what told her this was her
only choice? That this or the oath Rod were her
only choices.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
I mean, I've kind of been convinced of that for
like a year or so now, mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
It makes sense. It's just it's funny. We don't see
a lot of characters referring to that moment and being
like I do this thing because of flicker flicker, right
like it was this. I do wish we had a
few more moments where because so many characters went through
that and it kind of affected them in the moment,
But it doesn't feel like they kept up with it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Much like a Gwayne's shawan Chan trauma. We don't see Rand,
Matt and paren reflecting on how flicker Flicker affected them.
It should have, but it it should get it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
At least with a Gwaine we see her anger towards
the shan Chin, and we can say that is an
effect of the torture, Like she frequently is like those bastards,
like I'm not going to deal with them, right, Like
that's that's something that I can certainly be like, yeah,
that's that's the effect of a gwayn Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
But like Paren doesn't think about it once, Matt never
reflects on it. Yeah, we never even get like a
soldier like Uno or someone commenting, I'm like that portal
stone shit, I don't want to know anything else about
my future, right right. It's really partially, I think because
the portal stones just never got used again, so it
was good reasons. Hey everyone just forget about that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
About all those lives you live. Yeah, yeah, because you know,
like I feel like with uh, it's the same thing
that the rings do for the wise ones.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Right, it feels like it's the same, except with the
wise Ones, it feels like it's more true. The portal
stones seemed like there was some absolute chaos in there
that wasn't in the rings. But I don't know, I
don't know if.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
It feels to me like you're living a bunch of
alternate lives and I want those to be the exact
same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Yeah, I want it too. We can head canon that.
There's enough room to head canon that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
And that's why I think, you know, you they should
have more of their future actions dictated by like, well,
I know I can and can't do that. I don't
remember everything, but I do remember that, Like this is
a really bad idea, right, like.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
The way that that the way that paren says some
things you just can't change, Like that's his comment after
flicker flicker, and you know, he's talking about being a
wolf brother like every single like.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Every single time, Like, right, that's just who he is.
He can never escape it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
And rand experience is the same thing with channeling, Like
he says some lives he lives and dies never knowing,
but the vast majority of them heat channels at some
point in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Right, And just because he doesn't know it doesn't mean
it's not affecting his life, right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Right, exactly exactly, So yeah, let's let's I don't know
why the rings and the portal stones would have a
similar effect, but they do in our head canon.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Well, and again the rings, that was something that went
wrong with the rings, right, and it so happened to
have this effect the portalstone. Sorry, that's but that's what
the rings are designed to do, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
The Portalstone sort of accidentally errored into the same.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Right right, right, because it's because it's really not supposed
to expose you to different lives. It's supposed to just
take you from place to place. So that was clearly
a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
But also different times. Yeah, yeah, there's the whole thing
about you can visit alternate realities and alternate timelines, and
so there is a whole discussion of how you could
maybe go to another world and meet yourself, Like I
think Loyal says that in book two, in the first
in the first him and Hurin and Brand are in
the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Right right right, because the portal stones are yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
So yeah, I guess yeah they are. They are alternate
world world's valid alternate worlds the way that the rings are.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Yeah, but what's a dream and what's you know, what's
Telerondriald and what's the wheel and from which we right
right right, Robert Jordan's dream?

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Yes, well, you know, in Norse mythology, we're all kind
of the dream of a giant role in the in
the head.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Of the right so you know, I mean, Robert Jordan
was pretty big.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
It's very true.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
That man. It's always people always like why does he
make all the main characters so tall because he was six.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Eight Because he didn't want to feel like he would
be towering over his heroes if you got to have
a drink with them. Yeah. Varren explains the loophole.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Right and speculates some one of the Dark One knows
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
The o's are specific, very specific.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
And then the whole like, well, yeah, show this loophole.
No true dark friend would ever take it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
If you are selecting for selfishness, then this is not
a viable loophole. Like if if everyone who is signing
up is doing it for selfish reasons, they would never
take that loophole. It's sort of like a catch twenty two, right.
But Varn is chaos into chaos as plans. She's a

(01:13:44):
monkey wrench in chaos.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
But I also I feel like in a lot of
ways it has this like element of free will in
it that the Dark One cannot fully take away the
free will of his agents and by because they can
always make the choice to kill themselves and betray him,
and so in that way they are constantly making the
choice to stay loyal at the cost of their own

(01:14:06):
life to the Dark One.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Oh, that's a very interesting way of looking at it,
that there's an element of you are choosing this. Every
act that you take is a choice. Every house you
burn down, every father you betray, all of that is
a choice that you that you made. I didn't make
you do that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
You chose to do that because because at any time
you could drink some poison and betray your oaths and
go back to the light. And that seems to be
like almost a pact with the creator where the creators,
like you can have followers, but they have to be
able to make the choice.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
And also this gives validity to there's no man is
so lost to this shadow that he can't come back, right.
This is the actual, like true factual validity to that,
like no, there is an escape patch. Actually, you are
actually able to betray everything, all the Dark One, everything
that you're doing there, you can betray it if you

(01:15:07):
are willing to pay the ultimate price, and you if
you aren't willing to do that, then that will just
twist the knife of your own self hatred and smallness
and cowardice deeper and keep you more sucked into this
toxic relationship that is being evil. Oh I never thought
about that, but I think you're super duper right. That's
that's cosmically correct to have that loophole there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Well, because she speculates, why wouldn't he close that loophole?
I wonder if he knows about it, and I think
I think because it gives his followers it locks them
in harder.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
M Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
To always had the subconscious like I could leave, I
just have to kill myself. Fuck, I'm not going to
do that. Okay, I'm going to do this evil thing, right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
I could save this person I care about. I just
have to kill myself. I guess I'll kill this person
because I don't want to kill myself right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
Ooh, Because if you think about it, that's sort of
we always have that choice of like, oh, do this
evil thing or kill myself, right, But like nobody makes
that choice because they're like, well, I could just not
do the thing right like some people do. Well, Yeah,
we'll talk about that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
It's a whole podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool
Stuff full of these types of people just.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Saying who do cool stuff and then kill themselves?

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
No, people who are willing to go into situations that
they will not survive for the greater good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Mmmm.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Okay, not necessarily directly committing suicide, but being like, well,
I'm clearly not getting out, but because of the larger mission,
I'm willing to go in and do the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
But the assumption is, once you've sworn to the dark one,
you would not be the kind of person who would
make that sacrifice.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Those people are quite rare. They do exist because a
lot of people have made these bargains, and statistics are statistics,
but right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Because because in a lot of ways, like Varren made
that choice, she's turning her back on the choice of like, oh,
I betrayed the light to survive, right, and now I'm
backing off that decision, right, Like I've accomplished what I
needed to in my life and I'm willing to die
now to get out when I wasn't then, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
I mean she made that she figured out some sort
of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean Varren ultimately
made the decision initially out of self preservation, right. She
says that that was her making the best of a
bad situation. So cowardice was the initial reaction and then
she sat down and thought about it and figured out
her path.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Yeah, and you could argue that the selfishness of wanting
to stay alive was her initial reaction, but what allowed
her to then sacrifice herself later was a lack of
selfishness and a desire to do good and take what
she was forced to do and redeem herself.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
It reminds me of I cannot remember her name, but
the kinswoman, the leader of the knitting circle police. No, no, no,
the ah she wanted to be green.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Mm okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
She has an internal thought at one point about how
her fear that she would run away from the testing
again is now stronger than the fear that had her
run away from the testing, and like she doesn't like
the narrative, says, like she doesn't realize that she would
absolutely walk back into that testing now, like she has

(01:18:27):
grown and evolved that, Like, no, the terror that gripped
her and made her unable to finish the testing, she's
actually grown past that and now she would be able
to do that because she's now the fear of doing
that again is greater, you know, And like she evolved
through that so like Varren has gone through something similar,
where like her desire to not die, now she would

(01:18:49):
rather that the light not die, right, Like, there's the
whole thing has transmuted and cycled around, and now she's yeah,
able to make very different choices. Yeah, it's it's a
while to know that she she did this initially because
she couldn't fathom killing herself or allowing someone to kill her.
And now she is freely choosing that that's God, barin

(01:19:11):
you rule so much.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
So at this point she puts the tea aside, Right,
she's done drinking, and she says, you should be, you know,
very careful to make sure that's disposed of. So a
lot of this has been just sort of general history
what happened to her? I think at this point she
really can start betraying the dark one. Right, she's drunk
the whole tea, all the tea she's going to drink.

(01:19:48):
She is sure she's poisoned.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Well, I mean, you think about it too, Like at
any point this doesn't count as a betrayal if she
immediately kills a Gwin. Right, she can tell a lot
of information and then kill the person she tells, right, right, right, right,
once she's starting to get weakened from the poisoned and
she hands over the books. Now that betrayal is much
much bigger. And once she hands over the books, I mean,
even if she kills a guaint, the books exists.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
That's why I think she doesn't hand over the books
till the tea is completely drunk. Right, that's sort of
the moment where she's like betraying the dark one.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Right, She's like, while the poison takes effect, I'm going
to give you some preamble and some context, but like, yeah, yeah,
she's not able to fully do the betrayal until she's
drunk enough tea that she can put it down, set
it aside, hand over the books.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
I really like this summary of the Brown If we
are distracted, it's because we look forward to those who
will come, and the information, the knowledge we gather, we
leave it for them. The other Aja is worrying about
making today better. We yearn to make tomorrow better.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
I mean, if I wasn't already completely sold on being
Brown Naja when this speech came around, I was like, Okay,
I can't do it. I can be a scientist forever.
I can do whatever my chosen thing is I'm gonna
do it like Varren because like damn, yes, make tomorrow better. Yeah,
and yeah, everyone in the Brown seeks to produce something

(01:21:14):
lasting research or study that will be meaningful. You accuse
us of ignoring the world around us, but no, we're
just focused on a bigger picture. Like that's so relatable. Like, yes,
I'm buried in the wheel of time and way too
saturated in that. But also it is the skeleton key
that helps me unlock the real world and make it
make sense. Like we yes, sometimes we're a bit distracted,

(01:21:37):
but the point, the real point that is motivating us
is we want to make tomorrow better somehow, and sometimes
you need a really big view pattern, mission timeline.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
And to me, that's like especially PhDs and stuff like that,
it's focusing on expanding the realm of human knowledge. And
you know, you can conflate expanding the realm of human
with making the future better, right, because.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
I mean, you never know, you never know what that
information is going to be useful for. It might be
decades from now that your random research project saves lives,
but it's still gonna save lives eventually, Like yeah, yeah, absolutely,
this is part of the problem with academia now is
there's so much emphasis on you need to have so

(01:22:24):
many results in such period of time, And it's like,
that's not how this works. You follow your heart, you
follow the dopamine, you follow best practices, and you trust
that it all is going to collectively add up to
something someday. Maybe you don't see it. You can't put
a timeline on results. It's just not how it works.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
And here she's like, I don't know how you're going
to use this information. Right, I'm giving you information about
the block ADJA, including a list of all its members.
Are you going to spy on them? Are you going
to use just the information to take them all at once?
Are you gonna, you know, take the important people. Are
you going to question them? Like, I don't know how
you're going to use this information. All I know is

(01:23:05):
that this information is useful.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
Yeah, I'm too deep in the work of the actual
research to tell you what this means or what to
do with it. All I know is that it is thorough.
This data set is so thorough. That's what I was
able to do with my entire life's energy was make
sure this data is the highest quality. You have to
make a decision about how to synthesize it. That's that's

(01:23:29):
up to someone else.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
And then we get that cool book on Greole, which
we all wish we had for our journals. Of course
I just end up losing that book too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Well, then you got to put an air attack on it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
Where did I put that thing? Damn it?

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
I hear the beating somewhere? Is it under the couch
in the couch on the couch? Yeah? No, I remember
for a last the last spoiler con auction we did.
I tried to like make this, got some like cool
books from Etsy and like sewed like a bookmark thing.
It was nonsense. I hope whoever got it forgave my
poor effort.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they were very happy
with what you did, because I remember that, and it
was neat. It was obviously what you were trying to
do with it, and it was a good little tribute.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
So yeah, but what's described here is much cooler than
what I made, like the little things like locked together
and like. And also I noticed we were talking last
time about how Varren had to have just made the cipher.
But she describes both the books as being about equally worn.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
I know, I know, trust me.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Is that just wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
I think that's just wrong. I highlighted that and underline it,
and I was like, well, it's gotta be the both
statements can't be true. She can't have just created the
cipher and written it down and also have it be
worn out.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Yeah, I mean unless she just that book got a
lot more wear and tear as she was making sure
that it was correct. I mean maybe, but yeah, no,
I found that strange because we have proper I mean,
like she said she had not written the cipher down
in book six, and now it's written down here. So yeah,
the fact that they have equal wear and tear, like
unless she like, yeah, no, it just doesn't make sense.

(01:25:09):
Let's just assume that's wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
No, And then the fact that Agwayne's like, oh, the
cipher's so complicated, I couldn't memorize it because it takes
up the whole book and explanation, and it's like, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
Well, she says she can't memorize it overnight. She specifically
says she can't memorize it before tomorrow, which is fair.
I do think it probably took varin the better part
of a year to put that together. So yeah, Varren
considers this to be as treasure as great as the
Horn of Vulier. I would agree. This is the one
and only dissertation on the Black Aja and all associated

(01:25:39):
organization's dark friendery in general.

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
It assumes the White Tower is extremely important to the
last battle, which it is.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
Yeah, I'm not sure it's as important as the Horn.
Maybe that's a tough call. That's a tough call because
the horn is the pivot on which the last battle turn. Right,
they are losing the last battle until the horn is blown.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
Right, But also the horn would I mean a lot
of things would go badly if the black Auja didn't
get decapitated before the thing, Like who knows where the
horn would have ended up if all those black Auja
had not been identified.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
And I guess it is fair for the iceid Eye
to think the White Tower is important to the last battle.
That's yeah, okay, fine.

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
Well, and as shaw may, you'll set up the Black Aja. Clearly,
the dark side thinks that the White Tower will be
important in the last battle. So you know, at a
certain point the facts are immaterial. Everyone agrees on a hallucination.
That's what's real. So yeah, Farren then talks about how
the poison was a backup plan and she was looking
for the oath rod, but it appears to have gone missing,

(01:26:44):
which I clearly that was for the whole Nicola thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
I guess it's just the rebels, the people who are
looking for the black Auja.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
I have it, yeah, which like they're like they and
they talk about like it's hard to get away sometimes,
but because like they're putting it back and then taking it,
and then putting it back and then taking it, and
like Varren just happened to show up when they happened
to be using it. I find that all very unsatisfying
and janky sounding.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
Also, I want a Gwain to be like, Okay, let
me heal you and let's get you that oath rod
because I know where it is.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
I know, right, Like if if you try to kill
yourself but then someone else saves you, like what can
the dark One really do about that? Like it's not
like bail fire. It's not like it's going to rewind
the information out of Agwayne's head just because she got saved, right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
Yeah, I honestly don't know how that would work, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
Which she gets struck by a bolt of lightning, Like,
I mean, what would have happened.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
I mean in the in the show, if they betray
those o's, they are killed.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
I'm not talking about the show.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
But in the books, it's just the oth Rod, right,
like it's now. She does say the process of making
these o's to the Great Lord was distinctive, and I
feel like there's a lot that word of distinctive, So
I feel like there's something a little bit more. She's like,
I'm not even sure getting the oaths taken off by
the oath Rod would work because there's something more to it.

(01:28:10):
I'm guessing there's a sacrifice of some kind, some kind
of binding to the dark One, maybe using the True Power.
Maybe the One Power cannot sever that link entirely.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
It seems to work on Telene. They have her used
the oath throw to take her oaths off and then
she admits she's a dark friend. So right, I don't know,
maybe it would work because it seems to have worked.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
On Toulene, right, right, Yeah, I got nothing. I don't know.
It's a good point. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
Fuji has a good point though, that uh Igwain probably
wouldn't have the strength to heal her in time because
of the Fork group, because we are she is deep
in the Fork root right now.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
So this brings up a question that was asked recently
on the I Think Reddit, and I saw it. Could
you heal a member of your own circle if you
are leading the channeling or.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Would the prohibition against or the rule against healing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
Yourself healing yourself take place because that person's contributing power
to that circle and so would technically be healing themselves,
but the circle is being led by someone else who's
doing the healing.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Oh that's a good tangle.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Could Varren and Agwayne have joined a circle and then
Agwayne used Varrein's own power to heal her.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
I mean, we're not talking about the show, but if
we're going by show rules then.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Yes, yes, we're not sure rules don't make sense? Yeah,
talk about show no. So that's it's an interesting moment puzzle.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
It's like when Elaine has the her circles being taken
out one by one, could she have maybe stormed in
there and healed them with their own power?

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
It feels like too much of it breaking the conservation
of energy, right, use your own strength to heal yourself,
even if someone else is holding the hose.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
If you are the water, and to me, the way
they embrace the source, the way it sort of wraps
around all of them who's embracing it at the same
time without one feels like that's one one. Could you know,
just flow. It feels like that would prevent you from
healing anybody who was in your circle.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Yeah, the fact that the glow includes everyone, Yeah, it's
one person.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):
That to me rules it out.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
But that's a good puzzle to think about. It's yeah,
I'm gonna fall on the side of no, which kind
of sucks, but yeah, interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
It would be a cool hack right in the same
way that like opening a gateway a short gateway and
then opening a long gateway, you know, hack that around
that rule. This would be a cool, cool way to
hack around the healing. If you don't have enough power,
but there's still two of you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Right, well, because then if you traveled in a pair,
you would be basically unkillable. Right If you're always circled
up with someone and you can achieal each other, then
like you could walk through a battlefield and just be like,
come at me.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Bro as long as you don't get hit at the same.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Time, that would never happen.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
Yeah, and also you got to use the kind of
healing that doesn't drain the person who's being healed.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
All right, fine whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
Yeah, no, I'm green with you. I think it would
be possible. I think it would be like a pretty
op at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Yeah. And then at that point, why we would you
even need warders. Just bond your fellow sisters or like
bond a man who can channel, and like, good to
go for it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
I mean that that is one of the benefits of
Bavara and Andral right is a super powerful couple that
can do things because they have bond at each other
that like nobody else can do because male and females
working together are way more powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think that you could even with male
on male or female on female, I think this could
be very powerful. You don't need the powerless sword wielder.
You can just have magic on magic.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
And especially since you can pass past the who's controlling
the flows back and forth, right, like, oh, I get injured,
I give you control the flows. You heal me. You
get injured, you pass the flows back to me. I
heal you right, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So we're getting into Varren's final little
bit here. She drops the bombshell that she's sure Masana
is in the tower, but she can't figure out who
she's disguised as she knows which forsaken it is, just
not which alias she's using. That's all she's missing. So
that hangs over the Then that really muddies the whole

(01:32:12):
thing with the Blood Knives, right, Agwayne is looking for Massana.
The Blood Knives are trying to kill her, and she's
assigning their motivation. She's assigning their actions to Massana's motivations,
and it's totally screwing up all of the traps that
she's laying, all the strategies she's got. That's the one
reason why I give Gwin a little bit of credit.
He knows that there's something missing. He keeps trying to

(01:32:35):
fix it. He fixes it terribly, but like he's like,
something isn't adding up, and he is correct, something isn't
adding up. She's put conflagrating things.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
Yeah, but I would argue that's a really bad writing
that her. She's just unable to come up with like,
oh yeah, there might be another threat other than this
one forsaken just because I know this forsaken, like I
don't I don't want.

Speaker 1 (01:32:55):
The tunnel vision there is hard to swaow.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
It's one of the reasons why I think Agwaine is
hard to like this part of the books, because she
is just so unwilling to listen to anybody who advises her.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
Yeah, agwaya as the institutional amrelin is harder, but at
this point that's not a problem. But this information from
Varn is part of what muddies that assessment later totally.
And then she talks about how she was not supposed
to give Agwayne that dreamed to her Ungrell, and like,
can you even imagine how she would never have met
the iyeal if not for being given that dream to Ngriell.

(01:33:28):
Like everything about who Agwayne is now hinges on the
possibilities that opened up because Varren thought, you know, I'm
gonna just go a little off script here, just to scoshofscript.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Also, I think it's a nice nod to one of
the other few clues we had that Varren was black,
which is she gave her the onngreo all but kept
all the notes that told her how to use it,
and we're like, why would she keep those if she's
on the side of good. It's like, because she wasn't
even supposed to give her the onre all and she
was kind of violating her oath by doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
I don't know that that how that would have been
a direct betrayal of the dark one. Though I feel
like the notes were fine. I don't quite see why
she had to hold the notes back.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Maybe maybe she was told you can't give her information,
and so she gave her the device itself. You can
give her the information associated with it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
That would make sense. You can't tell her anything, right,
but you can give her a random lecture on cosmology
and an artifact and let her draw her own conclusions.
That's fine, because she does tell her about till I
run riodd and then hand the ring over. But yeah,
she the lack of it. No, that makes sense, that
makes sense. You can't give her any clues, but Weena

(01:34:37):
said nothing about objects, and Varen's like, I'm clever, and
I see this girl's going to go somewhere, So let's
take this Koreanne into deal thing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
And oooh yeah, and I forget exactly what it was
that inspired her to like realize that agwayn had access
to the dreams.

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):
Because Anaya was all obsessed with proving that her dreams
and she was like doing like dream journaling like that.
But it was a Naya that started that for reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
But Varren figured it out or knew about it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
Varren was just like, this is a possibility. Anaya thinks
that you might be a dreamer. So let's see what
happens if I give you this Korean and Nadel artifact.
If it doesn't work, no harm, no foul. If you
get killed, oh well, the dark will be happy with that.
If you figure it out, it might be a book altering,
plot altering, massively important change. So let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
Fouji's pointing out, that's kind of like the way Moray
knew Samuel and Bell all and we never really get
an explanation of She's like, and I know there's a
forsake and in Cameron, I think, right, or an alien
and we never really find out why, Like how did
you figure that out? Like she just figured it out
through research?

Speaker 1 (01:35:46):
I said, die know things.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
Yeah, it's like what did you know? How did you know?
It's that is one of those pieces of information that
we never get a source for.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Yeah, I'm assuming Varren had concrete context clues to put
together over time.

Speaker 2 (01:36:01):
But right Varren, I would I would say more so
than Yeah, that Marine statement, Now, now that Fooji's pointing
out like that really did seem to come out of
left field.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
Maybe they were just being a lot more obvious about it,
like I'm gonna use all the Samuel logos and just
not call myself Samol, but I'm gonna use all of
his quintessential letterhead branding and Marine's Like I studied history.

Speaker 2 (01:36:21):
I know that I think it had. Yeah, I would
just say more likely she interviewed Eyes and Ears who
told her about what was going on, and somehow she
put together that this is what Samule does, this is
what Blall does.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
Like I don't know, Well, it was the dream thing
with everyone having dreams of Rand taking Colin door because
of the fact that Samuel was or Ballall was obsessed
with that happening, Like, yeah, I had to have been
in Eyes and Ears something something strange, dreams, strange rumors,
like she figured it out, but Varn had a lot

(01:36:55):
longer to do that, and so it's easier to imagine
how she did it than how Maureen did it. Moraine
was just like I have staff. No, I don't like
it's fuck kind of eye of the world. How she
just knew things. When Varren knows things, it's correct because
Varren knows.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
And then we get I love this line about her
soul's not brown.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
I disagree so much. There is a white AJA, so
do not fucking correct Varren on her deathbed about the
color of her soul. Varren says her soul is brown,
capitalized brown. Don't fucking interrupt her and tell her that
she's wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
She's dying.

Speaker 1 (01:37:36):
What the fuck is wrong with you? Agwayne.

Speaker 5 (01:37:39):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Also, there's a literal white AJA. So the fact that
you said it without the capitol not doing it for me.
Let her soul be brown. Fuck always hated this line
go anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
I can see why. But what she's trying to say
is it's not black, it's white. Right that it's one
of the reasons why the white AJA is such a
terrible color the AJA, because you have the black AJA
and the opposing adjac to that you would think would
be the white ADJA, that would be everybody, but it's
not the white Is this weird logic? It. Yeah, I
agree that the fact that we have a white Aja

(01:38:13):
does make this line less impactful. However, yeah, she says
like the light itself. And I think that's where it's like,
you're not white like the white adjaw, You're luminescent like
the sun.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
And yeah, if if the white Aja had been named
something logical other than the white Auja, yeah I would,
I would not have an issue. Yeah, then I would.
Then it would land for me. I'd be fine with it.
But yeah, just say pure light first instead of as
an asterisk qualifier would have been better.

Speaker 2 (01:38:47):
And that's why the white isn't capitalized. She's not saying
your soul is white like the white Aja. It's white
like just pureness.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
I just feel like Varn knows that that's what she meant.
You don't need to correct her in her literal deathbed
statements like please do not correct the heroic woman as
she's dying and making her last statements like God. But yeah, fundamentally,
the white Aja should have a different name or be
just entirely binned. Otherwise, like the concept of a white

(01:39:17):
Auja when there is in fact a black Auja is
just yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:21):
No, no, no, And so what Agwayne is trying to
say to the Varon in her last moments, is your
soul is pure white, as in it doesn't have a
spot of black on it, Like you are not black, Aja,
you were never corrupted even though you worked for them,
and I'm sure you did horrible things. You did it
too for the right reasons and it's worth it, and

(01:39:41):
your soul is not corrupted.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
Yeah, I get that's what she's saying. I just disagree
with her verbiage and her worldview because also Varen said earlier, Oh,
I need a pretty special kind of redemption. I have
done some war crimes. And then Agwan's like, I absolve you,
I redeem you, and it's like Varren already said that
she needs more than your eighteen year old benediction. Like
I don't know, I just find a Gwain's entire approach

(01:40:05):
to this moment really grating. I just just let Verrett
have her fucking moment. Okay, Varen knows what she means.
We know what we don't need you fucking like definition rookie,
or definition of refereeing, like in the middle of this,
like just let your elder die in.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Dignity and what is try and she's reacting to when
she says the word black may brand my name forever, right,
and Gwen's like, no, it won't.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
Yeah, let my sisters know that my soul is brown.
N Uh, it's not actually actually it's not brown, it's
white like the light. Like I am a well actually person,
and this drives me fucking insane.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
Vers last, the last thing she hears is a well actually.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
Literally, I'm like, as the most well actually person in
the world, I am deeply offended.

Speaker 2 (01:40:57):
I'm dying when my soul's brown. Well actually, shut the fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:41:02):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
And I love this sentiment of like, I get that
it maybe will never be a pr thing to say, well,
actually she was not a true black Auja, but can
you at least let like the brown Aujia know that
in the inner history of the Aja. I was cool,
Like that's a good sentiment. I don't mean you're well actual,
but yeah, no, I get it. It's like this is

(01:41:22):
this was worth it, This was worth all the war crimes,
Like I get the Omrelin is the person who can
offer that absolution if anyone can, I get it. I
just I love most of this chapter, but this one's
spot It just feels like biting on a lemon.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
I didn't know you hated it that much because like that,
that's the kind of line that like in the audiobooks.
When I heard it for the first time, literally made
me tear up, Like that's how much I like that line,
Like it really is a good line for me of
just that like, no, your soul is white. I'm just like,
oh my God, Like that to me was such a
good line.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
No, when she said my soul is brown, I teared
up and then Agwayne will Actually I just was like,
what now?

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
Because for me, that was about the forgiveness right and
the redemption, and that the person who successfully came back
to the light after being in the dark for such
a long.

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
Time, lemons, lemons all the way down. I'm done yelling
about it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
Well, lemons in your eyes would make you cry too.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
So there we go, and with that final squawking indignity,
we lay arin to rest.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
The end of varin just so epic. Are you okay?

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
I'm not okay, I will never be okay. Varren killing
herself to pass off information. It's just I mean, it's
it's like, oh, I'm so embarrassed. I can't remember his
name right now, but Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it, Like
I'm not Saint Helen's. He saw it coming, Yeah, he
saw it coming. He was out there, John Johnson, Ron Johnson,

(01:43:03):
he was out there and he was able to radio
in it's happening. Like he didn't even try to run,
like it just there's just something epic about being like,
I see it coming. I died doing what I love
because he wasn't supposed to be He was supposed to
be there. He meant to be there. He shouldn't have
been there, right. He knew he was in a desperately
dangerous place and that if it went off, he was

(01:43:25):
not getting out. Like he knew that and went there
anyway because science, and his last words were Vancouver, Vancouver,
this is it. And then he watched it happen and
like veryin to me, it's just like she knew this
was gonna kill her. She knew that if she did
a threat this needle just right, she was going to die.
And she said, fuck it, I'm doing it anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
And in a lot of ways, seven years ago the
explosion went off, and it just took that long to
get to her.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
Seventy years ago, that's what I said. Oh I heard
seven she was supposed to dropped the plosive.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
Sorry, or I may have mumbled it, but yeah, seventy
years ago she that eruption went off, and she's like,
you know Amberlin, Ameerlin here comes right.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
Yeah, She's like, Okay, so ultimately I'm gonna have to
pass off a book of information to whoever is Amberline.
Somehow I'm gonna have to figure out that patrol. I
don't know how I'll cross that bridge when I come
to it. And then when it finally came, it was, Yeah,
the last thing in the world she would have expected,
would have expected, and and I mean especially once the

(01:44:28):
Dragon Reborn enters the pictures. She knew that her time
was limited. Right then She's like, oh, oh, this is
like I have limited I mean, you know, she says
here she was looking for the oath rod. She was
hoping to make it work because she is a survivor,
but her mission is stronger than her survival instinct. Like
that that is the heart of being a freaking brown

(01:44:50):
right when your survival instinct is less important than your
need for the information.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
M hmmm.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
I always find it a little amusing that Rand is like,
I've got the prophecies that say I'm gonna die, but
so many any complaints and complains and complains, and so
many people, though know they're not gonna stribe for that long.
There's so many people who are like, yeah, I'm pretty
much on the end of my life span or I've
done things that are gonna end me pretty soon, but
they don't complain out of the way Rand does. This

(01:45:18):
situation is a little different, but still, I think about
how many characters die in the series before Rand does.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
Yeah, I assume Varns had longer to process those feelings
than Rantesse. But yeah, there's a lot of people who
move through the plot like, I'm clearly not making it
out of this alive, but I'll continue to act fine.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Agwayne checks to make sure Varon's dead and make sure
she's not faking it. There's a line here where she
says she wished varn had come to see her a
week earlier, but was done. Was done. Why would a
week earlier make a difference? Was that before she got imprisoned?
Like why would that?

Speaker 1 (01:46:06):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:46:07):
Why would knowing about the dark friends and stuff a
week ago have made a difference? I couldn't figure that
one out.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
Yeah, I couldn't either. I don't know that that would
have made it easier for her to get the oath
raud or get out of it. Yeah, I'm not really
sure what that was about. Maybe just that she might
have made different choices with respect to that disastrous dinner
with Alida if she'd had this information. I don't know.

(01:46:34):
I'm confused about that as well.

Speaker 3 (01:46:36):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
She was just as forkrooted up before.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
And this is a little bit about before about how
her freedom is gone. But that's just because she didn't
have any Red sitters watching her for that brief period
of time, so it's not referring to a week earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:46:52):
Maybe she would have had access to the oath Trod.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):
I don't see how, But I don't see how, y go. Yeah,
she would have been just as unable to heal her
from poison.

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
Yeah, I got nothing. Nothing that really changed over this week. Right,
No related to the Black aw Jah Right. I mean
there was some stuff related to her imprisonment in Alida,
but not much.

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:47:13):
Maybe she's just like then, I wouldn't have had to
be beaten. I don't But I don't see how that
would have changed anything about her interaction with Liida. Yeah,
maybe she wouldn't have called her a dark friend.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
I mean, yeah, that's the best I can think is
she would have handled the dinner differently if she'd had
this information. But I'm not sure exactly what she's thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):
So the red Minder's poke in on her, and she
lies pretty well or misdirects pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
Yeah, she does her eyes to die misdirection like a pro.
When she has to negotiate the fact that there is
a dead Varien in the room.

Speaker 2 (01:47:46):
I wish she chosen some other bed to lie down in.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
I'm not sure what to do with her now, like
very true, And she even says similar things to what's
her name who comes in later, like oh, Varren was
poisoned by a dark friend and came to give me
information before she died, right, not revealing that Varn was
the dark friend. She negotiates these loopholes with everyone who

(01:48:09):
comes into the room for this time.

Speaker 2 (01:48:11):
So it's Nicola initially, but then Madonnie, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:15):
Me, Donnie, Yeah, yeah, Yes, she did say I would
accuse you of being a dark friend, but I think
he would be ashamed to associate you, or embarrassed to
associate with you or something like that. True, true, but
that was just her venting. So yeah, she plays off
Varin as having fallen asleep in the bed, and then
Laura's basically is like, okay, I got to get someone

(01:48:35):
up in there. So she sends Nikola with a little
note that says weight.

Speaker 2 (01:48:39):
And then well, in the meantime, she's been deciphering all.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
The names, right, right, yes, yes, she gets because the
rid closes the door and is like, okay, well she's snappy,
you gotta leave her alone. So yeah, Agwayne just sits
quietly and.

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
Reads, and in a lot of ways, we get a
chunk of that list, right, we get the numbers of
all the black odd Jaws in all the like twenty
one in the blue, twenty eight in the brown, thirty
in the gray, thirty eight in the green, seventeen in
the light, twenty one in the yellow, and forty eight
in the red. I mean that's just a list of
all the numbers of black Aja sisters and all of them.
Now she missed a couple, right, isn't there like three

(01:49:15):
or four that get captured on the oath rod? So
the numbers aren't perfect, but like that's basically, you know,
two hundred out of the thousand I said Eye that
started the series were Black Auja.

Speaker 1 (01:49:26):
Yeah, she had like a one percent failure rate. It's
pretty damn good.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
M hmm. We get to note that the Black Auja
does not recruit from any except I said Eye, which
I think we've been told before.

Speaker 1 (01:49:38):
It's been implied before, I think, But yeah, this is
where we get again. We get to see under the
hood of how the Black Auja works, Like if there's
any accepted or novices who are dark friends, that's something
they chose on their own, has nothing to do with
being recruited by the Black Auja.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Were then given lists of Black Auja. I went, I
researched some of them. Some of them we already knew
some of them, didn't, you know, Like Delana's just got
bail fired by Rand right as a penfell we know
about right, although I think she do a better job
of informing Rand about that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:11):
Yeah, that would have been good.

Speaker 2 (01:50:13):
And then we get more listens about who's not black,
like not Romayne isn't black, none of the Rebel Hunters
are black, or none of the Ferrets are Black now
the people who are hunting the Black a jar a
Black like, it's more like, here's a couple of safe enclaves.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
Right, And also the confirmation that she had rationally come to,
which is that Elida.

Speaker 2 (01:50:32):
Is not Black's, right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
It actually makes more sense for her to not be
a dark friend given everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:50:41):
Just an unstable woman who was sometimes as frustrating to
the Black as she was to the rest of the tower.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):
Yeah, which you know parallels to the current moment. We
can let you draw those on your own, but yeah,
figureheads versus movements not always the most connected of allegiances.

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):
And she's sort of she talks about how you've got
most of the time they have put an Ambulin who's
not a dark friend, as the head, and then put
like the Keeper as a dark friend. I think I
found another example of that too, I forget which I
was looking up one of these dark friends and it
was like, oh, yeah, she was the Keeper in New Spring.
Oh shit, really yeah, yeah, I think it was oh
man who I forget because I looked up, looked them

(01:51:24):
all up. Uh, Marion is athlon saying.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Like, not the one that got stabbed.

Speaker 2 (01:51:30):
Oh I know that wasn't the keeper.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
That was, yeah, Miaron Redhill or Myron Mary.

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
No, No, it wasn't that. I think keeper in new.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
Mistress of Novices, Yeah she was. Yeah, she wass novices. Yeah,
she and she got killed. So she can't be on
the list now because she's twenty years in the grave, right,
I mean she might have been on the list, but
she got scratched off because you know, dead.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
So there's a lot of names on here, and it's
what sucks. So I didn't keep that tab open so
I could remember. Yeah, duharaa Bashin after being raised to
the Amberlin Sierra Vayu makes a slight break with custom,
appointing Duhara as her Keeper of the Chronicles.

Speaker 1 (01:52:12):
Oh interesting, both.

Speaker 2 (01:52:15):
Are red and Emira as her mistress of the novice is.
Both are red. So she was Amberlin from nineteen seventy
nine to nineteen eighty four, nine seventy nine to nine eighty.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
Four, and she is black Gauja and still alive and
doing stuff a former keeper. Yes, huh, yes, yeah, I
guess that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
She's the Amberlyn right after Tamara died.

Speaker 1 (01:52:38):
From the right, right, right right, that was what the
gray with more than a touch of red I think.

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
Yes, yeah, she's raised from the gray.

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
Yeah. And yeah, she she had a red as a keeper, and.

Speaker 2 (01:52:49):
A she begins a rule with an iron fist.

Speaker 1 (01:52:52):
Yeah, she's much. She's a gray red. She's very much both.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
She's a gray red. And her keeper was Blackaja, which
explains a lot of why she was.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
So Oh that would have been the vileness that would
have been the era of the vileness that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
She was kepre for. Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (01:53:07):
That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
And it makes sense that her Yeah, her keeper was
black for all that time.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
Yeah, no, it totally makes sense that you keep the
institution is riddled with black Aujia. But you can have
the front facing, you know, lead singer of the band
not understand all the sleazy shit that's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:53:24):
And Duhara was the I said, I who Elidah sent
to Elane to become her new advisor. Yes, fuck you.

Speaker 1 (01:53:31):
No, yes, that's the one.

Speaker 2 (01:53:34):
And then she disappears. We never see her again as
far as I can tell.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
Probably shows up on the fringes of some Black Towers.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
Last battle, Sofiah, let me google her. She faced to
get off against Avianda in with heslam.

Speaker 1 (01:53:48):
Okay, yeah, dplast.

Speaker 2 (01:53:50):
Battle Avianda torture, Yes, barbecue, Yeah, excellent, So that's what
happens to her, so and so like, yeah, we there's
a couple of the and a couple other black Aja
who have interesting stories.

Speaker 1 (01:54:03):
But we've gone over them all so many times. But
this is one of those places where we get our canonical,
factual evidence for yes, they are black Auja, and thus
you can look at their actions in the light of
knowing their black Auja. But I'd say that the whole
point of this podcast is, you know, leaning on the
fact that we get chunks like this. So I don't
know that we need to go through every single one
of them here, because listen to the back catalog.

Speaker 2 (01:54:26):
Right right, Yeah, because they've been involved and we've done
the black Aja you know alerts whenever they come on screen.

Speaker 1 (01:54:32):
I like that we spend a little time thinking, oh,
none of our main casts are on the list. I
think not because we needed to confirm that they're not
black Auja, but because it's nice to know that Varren
was very accurate and Varon is not throwing anyone under
the bus who shouldn't be on the list. Because none
of the people we know are good guys are on
the list so we know Varren isn't giving false positives.

Speaker 2 (01:54:52):
For example, I'm just going through all the black Aja
Nayceell developed the wead that can detect Sidine. She demonstrates
demonstrates it on Narishma m So trying to find any
other things. Well, a lot of these are just oh,
they're in the background with a bunch of other eyesid.

Speaker 1 (01:55:08):
Eye Miasi, the one who likes the whole nutmeats. I
always found that one to be a little like, Oh,
she was such a fun little side character. Why does
she have to be a.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
Black Oja Nalen has sworn to Rand. Some of these
are just literally only named in this section and nowhere.

Speaker 1 (01:55:25):
Else, just to give a sense of the fact that
there are eyes to die that we've never interacted with,
Like the tower is bigger than the named cast.

Speaker 2 (01:55:33):
Yeah, Chai Melvara Berlin. Those are all just the only
place they're mentioned is here. So many of these anyway, Yeah,
I don't think I need to go through any more
of those. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:55:48):
I like the part where Agwayin thinks to herself that
it's ridiculous to wish that people she didn't like were
black Aja, and to wish that people she did like
weren't like she thinks about it earlier too, like, which
is like Varon like always thought Black Aja would look different.

Speaker 5 (01:56:02):
Like.

Speaker 1 (01:56:02):
It's good to be reminded that bad people can look
any number of ways, and bad people can have any
number of temperaments and personalities and can treat you very
nicely and be awesome and great to work with, And
being an awesome, great to work with Parson doesn't guarantee
that someone's not actually like literally evil, Like you think
evil looks one way, but it doesn't. It just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):
And also, being hard to work with doesn't mean they're evil, and.

Speaker 1 (01:56:29):
That and good doesn't look one way. Being easy to
work with is by no means.

Speaker 2 (01:56:35):
Yeah, like Romaane really feels like they should be evil,
they're not. They're just incompetent.

Speaker 1 (01:56:41):
Yeah. Yeah, your ease of working with is not an
indicative of of your moral alignment. It's just your personality.
It's easy to assume that people are going to look
a certain way and behave a certain way because of things,
and no, no, Shiiam is super petty terrible Black Gaja
and Romayne is super petty terrible, regular person.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
So we're allies sneak in Nicola with some food for
Varren and the note in the food.

Speaker 1 (01:57:11):
Right, it was mostly the guys to get the note
to Agwain to say sit still, we're coming. Don't do anything.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
Well, she's only good until the attack.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
Well, but it's so they can get may Donnie in there, right.
I assume that they're worried that in the time it
takes may Donnie to get there, Agwaine's going to take
some agency, and so they're like, just hold still. Made
Donnie's on her way. We're getting a nice to die in.
Just just hold hold and then may Donnie shows up.

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):
I was like her, I will not eat the food
unless it turns out she has no use for it,
and it's like, well, she's dead, so she has no
use for it. So Agwainne's like, I could eat the food.

Speaker 1 (01:57:44):
Gwain doesn't actually eat it, though, doesn't she She just no,
she just takes the note out and then never it
never mentions her eating it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
Oh, I thought it did. Hold on, I don't think so, No,
you're right. Doesn't No, you don't know, you're right. I
thought she ate it once May Donny left the body,
But nope.

Speaker 1 (01:58:00):
She picks up the spoon to get the little note out.

Speaker 2 (01:58:03):
The note out, but no, she doesn't need.

Speaker 1 (01:58:05):
It keed up to eat. But I mean, honestly, she
should be eating given what she's been you know, fed
the last four days, Like she really should be inhaling
that soup while.

Speaker 2 (01:58:14):
She That's kind of why I assumed she w'd eat it,
because they mentioned how little she's been eating gruel and
stuff like that, and she does the whole line if
I won't touch it unless she like, okay, yeah, it's
set up for her to eat it, that's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:58:26):
Well, Nicholas says, I'm instructed to warn you not to
touch it yourself. I won't do so unless it turns
out she has no need of it. She does touch it,
not euphemistically for eating it, but like literally like interacts
with it in a mechanical sense. I don't know. I
think she should have eaten the soup.

Speaker 2 (01:58:43):
Agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:58:43):
Yeah, we're just gonna head Cannon that she ate it.
And Brandon forgot to include that line, because like, what
the hell.

Speaker 2 (01:58:48):
Right, right, right, She's got plenty of time. It's good food,
and she can tell the Red Sisters, Oh she ate
it and went back to sleep.

Speaker 3 (01:58:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:58:54):
Yeah, so yeah, may Donnie comes in and realizes that
Verah is dead, and then Agwayne does the eyes that
I thing of letting her know exactly what happened while
obfuscating the most important part of the information, which is
that Varen was a dark friend.

Speaker 2 (01:59:09):
Yeah, Varon was poisoned by a dark friend herself.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
It's not untrue. And the point is that she came
to give a GWayne important information I mean, and that
is relevant to the situation.

Speaker 2 (01:59:21):
One of those is that well, she claims that the
relevant information was just that one person was a dark friend,
but it turns out it's like that everybody, all the
dark friends.

Speaker 1 (01:59:31):
No, she says, she just came to pass some important
information on. She doesn't even say about one person or
multiple peoples.

Speaker 2 (01:59:36):
She just later she's like, that's that's she says, alvi Aren, Alviren,
that's right. She says, Oh, take Alvirn, that's the information
that Varn came to me to pervey. And it's like, yes,
that is one piece of information that she came to convey,
but it's also a subset of the information she conveyed.
Alviren's black also a lot of other people.

Speaker 1 (01:59:58):
Yeah, don't. I don't think Very would have killed herself
just to reveal that there was one black Aja. You know,
I think she wanted to get you know, hundreds of
people thrown under the bus.

Speaker 2 (02:00:08):
If she was going to die, pull it out by
the roots.

Speaker 1 (02:00:10):
Yeah, exactly, like I'm not dying to get rid of
one person. That doesn't fix the problem. I'm going to
get rid of the whole damn system.

Speaker 2 (02:00:17):
And so then may Donnie sort of catches up a
GWayne on what's been happening in the tower. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00:23):
Yeah, Alida is still omorline that Hall has censured her formally,
they informed Alida that the Omlam was not an absolute
ruler and that she couldn't continue to make decrees and
demands without consulting them. The Supreme Court said, you're not
supposed to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:00:40):
And there actually is penance.

Speaker 1 (02:00:42):
Wow, what a lovely concept. If we could send the
president to do penance.

Speaker 2 (02:00:48):
Three months of penance, that would be great.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
Yeah, just you have to wash dishes and eat unsalted food.

Speaker 2 (02:00:54):
And work in a farm.

Speaker 1 (02:00:56):
Oh God, Our presidents would be a lot better if
we could send them to penance on a farm. No kidding,
I don't think that's good for normal people, But if
you want to be president of the United States, I
think that's an appropriate stick to keep in the arsenal. So, yeah,
the punishment is only three months.

Speaker 2 (02:01:14):
And here's the line where I was researching Duhara Duhara Black,
where were they up to? What is she up to
and the other two others or the three together? And
if so, she could the other two be black as well?
And it's like, no, Duhara's just went to go advise Elaine,
or was sent to go advise.

Speaker 1 (02:01:29):
Elaine, right, which was done on the down low because
and Or in the tower.

Speaker 2 (02:01:33):
Is complicated, So she's not like missing, she's just on
DL orders.

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):
But it was just weird that it never really got revealed,
like it's like, oh, where is she? Like she's just
off doing this stuff for the ambulm.

Speaker 1 (02:01:46):
Red herrings make finding the real plot all the more satisfying.

Speaker 2 (02:01:50):
And you have to wonder if getting rid of the
sitters was for a reason.

Speaker 1 (02:01:54):
Could have been diffuse the power outward.

Speaker 2 (02:01:57):
Because it's Duhara and then Pavara and Javindra, and Pavara
and Javindra were at the Black Tower on that mission
too from Alida, So Elida sent all the sitters out
on missions of the Red ad Ja.

Speaker 1 (02:02:10):
Well, this is the thing about being, you know, an
evil person, is that you are doing your regular cover
job at the same time. You aren't only doing evil things,
you are also doing whatever your cover story is. I
like the comment about how Elida didn't really say much
in the hearing, and may Donnie's like kind of surprised
that she didn't start ranting, Like, yeah, it's always surprising

(02:02:32):
when the person who makes a ranting their entire deal
doesn't rant. It's always, you know, someone behind the scenes
is just like holding them by the scruff of the neck.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
Yeah, and again, same thing. When when Trump gets all
sulky and doesn't say anything and he lets people talk
for him, it's when usually when his party tells him
to shut up. And now it hasn't done that this
term much, but like, same thing, right, the party, the
Republican Party is the only person who can really rain
in Trump at all.

Speaker 1 (02:02:56):
Yeah, but yeah, whenever they're not ranting, you're like, oh,
someone behind the scenes is poo. Someone by the scenes
has clamped down and is scolding the front man.

Speaker 2 (02:03:06):
And then this compromise about how Sylviana is going to
be punished.

Speaker 1 (02:03:10):
Yeah, it indicated that Elida was on shaky ground, but
that she could still make demands. This is less of
a total victory than it could be, despite the fact
that this should have been a knock out of the
park victory. This was such an egregious abuse of power.
This should be so obvious to everyone. This is completely
unacceptable and we need to fix our shit right now.
This should be cut and dried. Who could possibly argue

(02:03:32):
with it? And yet we've got some sort of mealy
mouthed overton windows sliding ever farther towards fascism compromise. It's
I hate how much I could be talking about the
book or real life right now. I just mister Jordan,
could you please study history slightly less so that your
books do not rhyme with current events? Please?

Speaker 2 (02:03:57):
That always people like, oh my god, these books are
I'm like, nope, They're just well informed looking at history
and history repeats itself and that has always been true.

(02:04:20):
So yeah, again, Gwayne's sort of like, I can't take
the black a jab. I've got to work on doing
the tower first. I'll think about the black a jaw later,
but except for Alvarn, right, she may send somebody after
Alvi Aarn.

Speaker 1 (02:04:31):
Yeah, she decides to go for one and let the
rest go free for the time being, which is a
very measured decision. It is not the emotional decision of
just like fuck all these paypals. She's like, mm timing
order of operations. Got to deal with the tower first,
then purge it, which, like, I don't know if that's
the call I would make, but I admire her for

(02:04:53):
looking at it from all sides. I'd just be like,
burn it to the ground, but whatever, that's me.

Speaker 2 (02:04:59):
And then here's where we find out that they have
the oath Rod because they wanted to detest Nicola, which
is why Varn couldn't get it.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
Which I'd find the timing of that just deeply unsatisfying,
because they didn't need to send Nikola until Varren didn't
come back out. So like what, I don't understand why
that timeline makes sense.

Speaker 2 (02:05:19):
I don't think it's related to that. She just says
we needed to prove her trustworthiness, and the others wanted
to bring in some accepted novices. They can run messages
where sisters cannot go, so they wanted to have some
helpers who were novices, and so they had them swear
on the oath rod. That's why they had it. Unrelated
to all right sending Nicola in. They just wanted some

(02:05:42):
more allies and they and it's interesting because they kind
of swear they swear the oath rod, right, they kind
of become I said I briefly by swearing on the
oath rod.

Speaker 1 (02:05:52):
Only one oath though, and then it gets taken off
right away, and.

Speaker 2 (02:05:56):
It gets removed right away. Yeah, so one will assume
it has no long term effect.

Speaker 1 (02:06:00):
And then here again is another instance of no the
oath bred works on black sisters, like because Agwayne says
right here, like they would be advisable to have the
others removed and replace all via Yaran's oaths and ask
her she's black. Every woman should be given that chance
to prove herself.

Speaker 2 (02:06:14):
That's an assumption on her part.

Speaker 1 (02:06:15):
But they know that from Telene that's true. Like it
just the question over Varn is like, what was Varn
a special level of sworn to the dark. I don't
see that evidence.

Speaker 2 (02:06:27):
That's just Varren's ignorance then, is what we have to say.

Speaker 1 (02:06:30):
Yeah, Varren didn't know.

Speaker 2 (02:06:33):
I know in that case, and that's why she died
one time she didn't know killed.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):
Her Well, it didn't, it's not really it mattered because
the oath pard wasn't there, so she didn't get a
chance to find out.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):
But yeah, and then here's the one bit of logic
that I wish other people applied. Skim use a gateway,
skim if you don't know the area well enough, Like
that should totally be standard operating procedure. So many people
are like, well, I guess I'm just gonna wait around
for a while until I can make a gateway. And
it's like, no, just skim skimmings. It takes a little
bit longer, but no longer than waiting around for half

(02:07:07):
a day to learn the place. Yeah, right, Skimming definitely
became once traveling became popular. I feel like skimming got
was like almost not.

Speaker 1 (02:07:18):
It was never used again. It was never used again.
Traveling should have been hard enough that skimming was required
as the usual mode of fast travel.

Speaker 2 (02:07:26):
A bunch of times, right, right, it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:27):
Should have been really hard to actually just gate away
from one place to another. Skimming should have been way
easier and like.

Speaker 2 (02:07:33):
And also, yeah, how widespread is skimming, Right, Agwayne is
acting like everybody knows how to skim, but traveling is
really the only thing that's been like disseminated.

Speaker 1 (02:07:41):
Skimming has been disseminated at the same rate. As far
as I know, neither thing existed.

Speaker 2 (02:07:46):
Before, right, I guess I just I thought that the
girls because Agwayne figures out how to open a gateway,
I'm not even sure she figures out how to skim.

Speaker 1 (02:07:54):
Yeah, I don't know. It's very soft and fuzzy world building. Oh,
we're gonna like introduce traveling slowly and then forget about
all the novice levels, all the all the tutorial levels.
It's like skimming was the tutorial level, right, and then
we just why would you play the tutorial level? Again?
That's not the same athalon.

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
Is she skimming on Bella when doing the whole No,
that's going in Teleroon red in the Flesh, which is
well in some ways.

Speaker 1 (02:08:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:08:23):
We talked about how that Teleron Riod the blackness which
is nowhere of Teleron Riod and versus skimming. We talked
about that a little bit and how they're related.

Speaker 1 (02:08:32):
They're not the same thing though, And Queen does skim
land to Abudar. She does straight ahead skimming to get
land to Ebudar. But like, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (02:08:41):
Would argue that skimming is in a way entering Teleronriod
in the.

Speaker 1 (02:08:44):
Flesh, aside from the part where it's an endless void
you can fall through, which is not true until I
run Reod.

Speaker 2 (02:08:50):
I would argue that's still part of tellrun Riod that
in between world space. Mm hmm. This is where I
you know, I sort of have head canon that Teleron
Riod is the Dark One's prison or the real world
like the layers of the Dark ones prison, right that
you have like the center which is dark One's prison
wrapped around that is still runner Odd and then wrapped
around that is all the real worlds that relate to it.

(02:09:10):
And because it's at the center of the wheel is
why you can have reflections of all the different worlds,
which are all the different spokes.

Speaker 1 (02:09:16):
And I just feel like it's the subfloor as opposed
to the regular floor. It's like, I mean, yes, you're
on the sub floor, but you're sure in the room,
Like it's different than being in the crawl space under
the house, even though technically you're in the house in
both cases. So Agwayne very cleverly has made Donnie not
give traveling to the Red Guard at the door. Doesn't

(02:09:41):
really matter because Alight has already got traveling and is
sharing it with everyone anyway. But you know mcgwuaene's trying
to keep opset going.

Speaker 2 (02:09:49):
Well, she doesn't want them to know about the traveling
right away. She doesn't want them to see that. You know,
if they saw them walking through the gateway, the Red
Odjah could literally stop them using like weeps right right.

Speaker 1 (02:10:01):
But it's also again just that moment of like, Agwayine,
you could just leave, You could just have her make
you a gateway to leave.

Speaker 2 (02:10:08):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (02:10:09):
I mean that's that revelation that she has with the
head of the Green later where she's like, wait, you
could have left this whole time and you didn't. Agwaine says,
I couldn't have left. I'm omreline, and it's like a
great moment.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
That is a good moment. Yeah, And that sort of
comes back to here where it's like, yeah, obviously she
could have had made Nannie say okay, now make me
a gateway out to the rebel camp.

Speaker 1 (02:10:28):
Yeah, she truly is choosing to stay and then yeah,
may Donnie is given the unenviable task of having to
skim away with Varren's corpse and figure out something appropriate
to do with the body. I assume she goes. No,
I assume she goes to like a remote location and
uses the power to like cremate her. That would be
the simplest way to deal with that, I think. But no,

(02:10:51):
we never learn, which I think is a shame.

Speaker 2 (02:10:54):
So and then basically Agwaine has to make her meeting
with Suan in the dream world.

Speaker 1 (02:10:58):
Yeah, she uh does not eat the soup. No, she
does eat the soup her head cannon and she eats
the soup as part of because she like washes her
face and changes her dress, and like we're just going
to head canon that she also inhales that soup so
fast in between all those other tasks.

Speaker 2 (02:11:12):
Because she tells her to take the tea, but she
doesn't take the whole tray, like just the tea.

Speaker 1 (02:11:17):
And then she lays down on her bed very carefully,
not thinking about how Varn just died in it, and
goes to til I run Riod, which is where we
started this episode with her and Swan. Until I run Riod,
GWayne opens her eyes until I run Riod and we
get some nice scenery descriptions about how even shady little
corners of Tarval and get gardens, which is nice.

Speaker 2 (02:11:38):
M hm. Reflecting again more just like looking back at
all the time was thinking about Shariam as a dark friend?
Was she the one behind the attack of the Gray
Man so long ago? Yes, we're getting basically confirmation of.

Speaker 1 (02:11:50):
That here, right. It makes you remember that line from
Nineve Shariam never asked who stabbed the gray Man? Yeah,
Nineve was onto something because it was Shariam. Yeah, Shiim
is the most relevant dark friend in terms of Agwayne's
own plot and her rise to power and her interactions.
Like everyone else is relatively distant, Shiiam has been up
close and personal since book two.

Speaker 2 (02:12:12):
And she thinking about all the people who supported or
rise to power, and how many of them were Dark friends. Right,
I mean it's just like, good God, I can't think
about all the stuff that may have been influenced by
the Dark One, because clearly the breaking of the tower
was his desire.

Speaker 1 (02:12:26):
Yeah, at this great line, how the Dark One must
have laughed to say, two rival ambulins, each with his
loyal minions at her side, pitting them against one.

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
Another, and so like, it doesn't really matter what the
minions are doing. The result is obviously the breaking of
the White Tower.

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
Yeah and yeah, and it's also like a weird exercise
in futility to sit to second guess every single thing
you've ever done. Oh, how much of this is the
dark one? How much am I just a dark one puppet? Like,
on the one hand, yes, it's an exercise in futility,
but also it's not wrong to look for the fault
lines and the chain of custody of various decisions like

(02:13:04):
it does. I mean she even makes the argument later,
right that like if you know that there was a
dark friend who raised an omerelin, then it was an
illegal In Elida's case, because she did the minimum number,
it was like illegal, right, and so like it's not
always an exercise and futility to run the clock backwards,
but it also is like the road to madness because

(02:13:25):
it's the dark one.

Speaker 2 (02:13:26):
No, and that's why I like Elida's raising. It's like
you can claim it was irrelevant, but then you really
have to claim like every decision by every Amerland supported
by any black aja was irrelevant. So and then that
is the exception because it was the minimum number, right,
Because then you're saying, well, there's even one.

Speaker 1 (02:13:43):
Black a ja yeah, which is like, I mean, but.

Speaker 2 (02:13:47):
The problem is you have one fifth of the fucking
White Tower is black. So every decision one fifth of
the people on there, Like what are they voting for?
Like what's are they being influenced by the dark right?
Like then I'm assuming for the most part the decisions
being made are being made according to their day job,
as you were saying earlier, right, like mostly their voting

(02:14:10):
with who they claimed to be. But just like money
in politics, right, the dark one in the White Tower,
sometimes they make a vote that doesn't make any sense
and you realize, oh, it's because they were trying to
make some money or trying to accomplish a goal for
the dark one. And people make votes all the time
for reasons that you don't understand, So you can't be
like that vote was because of the dark one. But

(02:14:32):
the trend is there.

Speaker 1 (02:14:34):
It's almost like climate change. It's really hard to prove
anyone given storm was the result of climate change, but
the overall increase in storms is clearly climate change. It's
kind of like that, And what I.

Speaker 2 (02:14:45):
Can say is the intensity of every storm is probably
greater due to climate change. And so what would have
been like a breeze becomes a storm. What would have
been a storm becomes a hurricane, What would have been
a hurricane becomes a super hurricane. Right, And because you
always have things that are more common in the lower categories,
everything gets bumped up, and so everything more intensity happens

(02:15:06):
more often.

Speaker 1 (02:15:07):
Right, And you know, one assumes that that's a lot
of what the Dark One and the Black Ajar are
leaning on.

Speaker 3 (02:15:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:15:13):
You take a fine plan and you just make it
a little worse. You just drag it down a little bit,
and then the cumulative effect is that the tower is
just weirdly ineffective at doing everything it tries to do.

Speaker 2 (02:15:25):
It's like, what's the how do you prevent anyone from
doing work? Will you make everything be decided by committee?
You make it pass through a lot of hoops. You
just you make everything as in if you follow orders
to the tea, even if they don't necessarily make sense
in the situation. Right, Like, there's a lot of ways
in which following orders can make things more incompetent.

Speaker 1 (02:15:47):
Malicious compliance is a good way to fuck with a system,
yes or yes, stochastic sabotage.

Speaker 2 (02:15:54):
Right, And I feel like the Black Ajaw is great
at those things, especially in the White Tower.

Speaker 1 (02:15:59):
Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, it's the easiest way to mess
with the system is just to pull an Amelia Badilia
on it.

Speaker 3 (02:16:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:16:08):
I am always amazed though that those when I see
those descriptions of how to fuck up a system, that's
exactly how corporations are run.

Speaker 1 (02:16:15):
Yeah, yeah, maybe there's something to that.

Speaker 2 (02:16:21):
It's almost like corporations aren't actually accomplish anything and are
just providing a space where people can spin their wheels
and keep busy.

Speaker 1 (02:16:28):
How dare you? Corporations are people? They have feelings.

Speaker 2 (02:16:33):
I'd like to feel them die.

Speaker 1 (02:16:35):
Yeah, I'd like to feel them get stuck in a
minimum wage job in a single bitch in the apartment
and not be able to move out. All right. So
Agwaine and Swan are talking until I run Riod and
she's giving Swan a bit more of a download than
she gave to May.

Speaker 2 (02:16:51):
Donnie says Shiriam and Maria are Black aja right, and
then says, I've got a bunch more. But I'm certain
about these two and they need to be watched.

Speaker 1 (02:17:00):
Why Maria is she's a blue object who's been around forever, right,
like she's in New Spring.

Speaker 2 (02:17:08):
I'm pretty sure not as far as I can tell.

Speaker 1 (02:17:11):
She's not not one of the young people. She's not
one of the young people that make up most of
the plot. She's been around for centuries. Oh, she's not
in the she's not in New Spring, never mind.

Speaker 2 (02:17:21):
But she did was one of the ones who voted
in Agwayne. She's initially in Lord of Chaos. It looks
like electing a GWayne as amberline.

Speaker 1 (02:17:29):
Okay, yeah, Because she's a blue, right, she's very dedicated
to the cause of the rebellion in terms of the
actions that she can take publicly. She is leading the
charge on we got to do this rebellion thing and
supporting Agwayne and all that, much like Sheiria.

Speaker 3 (02:17:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:17:44):
Yeah, it's it really does seem to be. She's mostly
just a blue who has supported a GWayne a lot
in the rebel camp. But for the most part, her
chronology is being in groups with all the sisters, So
I don't see a lot of her doing anything. She voted,
she voted yes for the war power. She just looks
like she was she's been in the council and has
stood for a bunch of important votes as a sitter

(02:18:06):
of the hall. So I think she just just because
she's a sitter, that's my assumption.

Speaker 1 (02:18:10):
Okay, she's been a sitter for like longer than most
of our cast has been alive.

Speaker 2 (02:18:14):
It's cool.

Speaker 1 (02:18:15):
So yeah, she gets to communicate that information, and Swan's like, okay,
I hope you know what you're doing, and Igwinn says, no,
I totally know what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (02:18:24):
It's cool.

Speaker 1 (02:18:25):
Sorry, I'm getting a call what and then gets sucked
out of till Irene Regutt Like they don't have much
of a conversation before she gets pulled out.

Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
No, yeah, it's it's really basic and that and that
being pulled out is Nikola waking her up because the
White Tower is being attacked.

Speaker 1 (02:18:41):
Right, because she's not in like a drugged or a
magic sleep to get to tell Irren reout. She's just
in the ideal dream walker sleep. But you know you
can be woken up out of with relative ease, and yeah,
so Swan sees her looks startled and then vanished. She
assumes that Alida has decided because she had just asked
a GWayne, are you still imprisoned? And Agwaine says not

(02:19:02):
exactly and then vanishes. So Swan makes the logical leap
that thing I said in the last chapter, where Alida
can turn on you faster than a you know, summer storm,
that's happening. She assumes that that is a GWayne getting
given a moment of reprieve and then getting yoinked to
the headsman's block, and that, in her mind justifies getting

(02:19:22):
Gowin and Gareth Brann and a hundred soldiers to go
on an incursion boo. Also the attack on the White
Tower helps her justify it. But like this is the
fear that motivates her to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:19:32):
It's like she is in danger. She got yanked out
of the dream in an uncontrolled way, and there's an
attack clearly going on at.

Speaker 1 (02:19:38):
The White Tower, which I'm like, don't you think that
if there's an attack going on at the White Tower,
Alida probably isn't going to take the time to execute
a GWayne midway through being attacked. Don't you think that
maybe the execution would have been put on ice until tomorrow?
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:19:52):
Nope?

Speaker 1 (02:19:53):
But whatever Swan is looking for an excuse, and she's
not held by the Oaths, so logic does not have
to hold up as well as we might think.

Speaker 2 (02:20:02):
It does as well as it should.

Speaker 1 (02:20:04):
Yeah, yeah, I don't think the Oths would have let
her make this level of betrayal because she is stretching
hard for her justification for this. And the only reason
that Gawain goes along with is because he's dumb. And
the only reason that Garin Gareth Bring goes along with
it is because he's in love with Swan. Like, the
logic of this is not here. No one is checking
this logic properly and holding it to a real standard, and.

Speaker 2 (02:20:25):
That do you want to read us out?

Speaker 1 (02:20:27):
Yeah, this is what I was saying at the beginning. Guys,
this is a cliffhanger as bad as your dress is green.
But there are only so many brain cells in a
day for us to record with. So we're gonna have
to leave you on this fantastic cliffhanger and we'll do
another double header chapter next time for the Battle of
the White Tower. Yeah, something was pulling on her mind,

(02:20:49):
clouding it. Something was pulling her back Telerenriade winked away
and Agwayne opened her eyes back in her room and
anxious Nicholas shaking her arm. Mother, she was saying, Mother,
the girl had a bloody gash in her cheek. Agwaine
sat up sharply, and at that moment, the entire tower shook,
as if from an explosion. Nikola grabbed her arm yelping

(02:21:10):
in fright, what is going on? Agwayne demanded, Shadows spawn?
Nikola cried in the air, serpents that throw flame and
weaves of the one power. They're destroying us. Oh, mother,
it's Tarman Guidan. Agwaine felt a moment of primal near
the uncontrollable panic Tarman Guidan. The last battle. She heard

(02:21:31):
screams in the distance, followed by the shouts of soldiers
or warders. No, no, she needed to focus Serpents in
the air, serpents that wielded the One Power, or with
riders that wielded the one Power. Agwayne threw off the
blanket and leaped to her feet. It wasn't Tarman Guarden,
but it was nearly as bad. The shan Chin had

(02:21:51):
finally attacked the White Tower, just as Agwaine had dreamed,
and she couldn't channel enough power to light a candle,
let alone fight back.

Speaker 2 (02:22:01):
And next time the Battle of the White Tower.

Speaker 1 (02:22:04):
Come back next week. Yeah, a big old action scene.
We're gonna be screaming and throwing things. It's gonna be great.
I'm super excited.

Speaker 2 (02:22:13):
If these were like the ultimate Varren chapters, I feel
like the next ones are ultimate Agwuayne chapters.

Speaker 1 (02:22:19):
Yes, yes, Well, because Varren comes to her as Omorlin,
she says, my mission as a Brown is to arm
the Omrelind with knowledge. Here you go, and Awayne turns
right the fuck around, and just Ombrelin's at the Shan
channel so hard.

Speaker 2 (02:22:35):
Oh right, so good, so good, even more so than
her moments in the Last Battle.

Speaker 1 (02:22:41):
The last battle is just a slow rolling train wreck
for Aguayinne. This is her in her power, in her victory.
She didn't need no damn ward.

Speaker 2 (02:22:51):
Well, let's talk about that next week, all.

Speaker 1 (02:22:53):
Right, see you guys next week. Thank you so much.
Figures up for it.

Speaker 3 (02:22:56):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (02:23:41):
Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
Please rate and review us on your podcast app and
consider supporting us on Patreon for ad free episodes. Watts
Spoilers is a production of Fox and Raven Media. For
more podcasts from Fox and Raven Media. Visit our website
at Fox and raven media dot com

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News in Tel’aran’rhiod & A Visit from Verin Sedai - The Gathering Storm chapter 38 & 39 - EP535

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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;}News in Tel’aran’rhiod & A Visit from Verin Sedai - The Gathering Storm chapter 38 & 39 - EP535