Sealed to the Flame - The Gathering Storm chapter 43 - EP538 - WoT Spoilers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Wheel of Time spoilers podcast. In other
news of podcasts that I'm making, I just did a
great crossover episode with my mom's podcast used to Sew,
because she wanted to talk about Bernadette Banner, the YouTube

(00:33):
account who did a full reconstruction of Moraine's Season one
outfit from just screenshots of the show. She's a drafter
and costumer and she actually breaks the costume down, figures
out how to make it, sews it together by hand,
because that's what the late seventeenth century technology that Robert

(00:54):
Jordan picked for the books would have you use. Although
there are invisible zippers apparently, which is really funny. It
was a really cool video. So I got to rant
about Wheel of Time in the context of Sewing to
the Sewing audience. It got to be like, okay, guys,
so none of you know about Wheel of Time, So
just okay. Gandolf is a lady and Erragord is her

(01:16):
magic bodyguard and she wears blue because magic categories. It
was such a funny like crossover intersection thing. Yet again.
This that's what I was doing earlier today. So I'm
in a talkative move now.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Oh good, good, good good, because I I'll let you
carry this episode. Of course, whenever I say that, I
end up talking more than not talking. But whatever, every time,
every time, I'm so bad when I think i'm I'm like,
I don't have anything to say three hours away, we're
just saying.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
You have very dense notes on this chapter. There's a
lot to talk about in this chapter.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I have dnce highlights. I'm I'm sure I have as
much to say about it, right, Like, this is one
of those where a lot is happening, but it's uh,
I mean, it's pretty straightforward. And also I don't have
a lot of conclusions. I have a lot of notes
and stuff I looked up, and I didn't really conclude anything.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think this chapter is conclusion.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, because we are sander
lanching very hard towards the end. So it's just sort
of pure rush at this point. But also like the
rush of Shiriyan being unveiled in an incredibly dramatic way,
Like we as the audience have known she's black Auja.
Iguayne even told Swan that she was black Auja, but

(02:41):
this is unveiling her in front of the hall as
like a very dramatic set piece and yeah, yeah, it's
we've known this was coming and it is satisfying to see.
But how much are we going to have to say
about it? Check the run time, see absolutely, we're being
right now.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well, what's always amazing to me is, you know, I mean,
really solidifying her legacy of Oh, she's the ambulin who
came in and killed one fifth of us.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Like that is a very intense legacy.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Don't cross her.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
It's she's the ombrelin that presides over both rebuilding after
the worst attack ever and murdering their way to peer.
It's a lot, It's a lot. Yeah, she was Omelint
for a week and in that time, twenty percent of
them are killed. Ridiculous. Well, and then all the ones

(03:35):
that die in the last battle too, I mean, like,
if we're honest, hypothetical week. God, she also is the
ombolin for the last battle, which is really hard on
their numbers.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I would love to get some hard numbers on how
many isid I are alive at the beginning of the
series versus how many are alive at the end of
the series and not counting like all the new ones
and stuff that come up. But like, of the ones
that are alive at the beginning, and are I said
I at the beginning, how many of them make it
to the end?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Eleven? I mean probably right.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's not a lot. It's not a lot like this,
I mean, and certainly we're talking about twenty percent, but
like twenty percent of the rebels, I said, I. But
there's also twenty percent of the tower, I said, eye,
and a lot of them escape to fight in the
last battle, where they're then killed or sequestered into a
o gear setting for the rest of their lives.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, which is not most of them, especial of them
are crispy crunchy by the end.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
There's really not a lot of forces for the Dark
that survive this thing. They really the the sean Chan
are ruthless about rounding up the last survivors and just
going to town on them.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, the Dark Side doesn't have a lot of reasons
to preserve its numbers for after. You know, the good
guys do need people to be left at the end
to put the world back together, but the Dark doesn't
in the same way. Just make more trawl, yeah, exactly.
You've got like semi immortal forsaken and dread lords that
can easily be given a second life because of their

(05:08):
association with the Dark One, like you don't have to
worry about preserving them as you try to take over
the world.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, do you want to get into this chapter, read
us in and start talking to them.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Let's cut towards the end of Shirriam's tenure as keeper
all right, chapter forty three Sealed to the Flame, and
our symbol is the flame of Tarvalin. Igwaine sat quietly
in her tent, hands in her lap. She controlled her shock,
her burning anger, and her incredulity. Plump Pretty Chasa sat

(05:43):
silently on a cushion in the corner, sewing embroidery on
the hem of one of Agwaine's dresses, looking as content
as a person could be now that her mistress had returned.
The tent was secluded, set in its own grove within
the eyes to Dike camp. Igwain had allowed no attendance
beside Chasa this morning. She had even turned away Swan,
who had undoubtedly come to offer some kind of apology.

(06:05):
Agwaine needed time to think, to prepare, and to deal
with her failure, and it was a failure. Yes, it
had been forced on her by others, but those others
were her followers and friends. They would know her anger
for their part in the s fiasco. But first she
needed to look inward to judge what she should have
done better. She sat in her wooden chair, high backed

(06:28):
with scroll work patterns across the armrests. Her tent was
as she had left it, desk, orderly blankets, folded, pillows
stacked in the corner, obviously kept dusted by Chasa like
a museum used to instruct children of days past. I'll
cut it there. I thought I shouldride through that chair line,
cause we've been tracking Agwaine's chair this whole time. Right now,

(06:51):
she's got a wooden chair that's high backed rather than
a rickety folding camp stool.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Right, much more sturdy, much more. Yeah, her place in
the rebels is well established. However, she still doesn't have
the ambulance seat quite yet, the full one.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
It is still just a wooded chair. Yeah, but it is, yeah,
not a folding camp chair. It's not on the verge
of collapsing. She's got a back she can rest against
like it's a yeah, which you know, as we see
she's got a much firmer hold on these women than
when she left.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Still wish we had something on Chasa that was a
little more concrete, because she's not Like there's so many
there's so much evidence that she's not a dark friend, right,
she's clearly, And then there's this weirdness where Agwayne thinks
she was appointed by Surium. But then and the way

(07:44):
the other two are killed and she's left behind, it
seems like she's a spy for the forsaken, right.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean, she is the textbook definition of a red herring, right, right, Really,
there's absolutely nothing happening there, and yet she is so
abitious by circumstance.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I want her to be something, if nothing else. I
want her to be like, oh yeah, no, I was
sent by you know, God, like rand or something to
help you out.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
I don't know, like yeah, now. The absolute lack of
anything is amazing and.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
In a lot of ways is so appropriate. Like Ei,
there has to be in all this plotting and people
pulling strings and doing everything, Chasa just wants to be
a good servant to a GWayne, And there's got to
be those people in the mix too. It's just making
me pull my hair out.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Chat, Shirim ended up just being the red haired, red
haired fitzpant I ban I'm yeah, but yeah, I mean
it's a red hairing in recursion, right, because Shiriam seemed
so trustable and then she's so bad and so clearly

(08:58):
Chasa has to be bad too, and then know Chase's
actual it's just trustable, like hmm, but yeah, it feels
a little unsatisfying that there's no big reveal with Chasa,
but also like it does kind of make sense to
have not every character have a big reveal.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I guess, right, And I feel like, well, I was
gonna say in the beginning, it made sense if there
was some question over who Helima, which which character the
forsakend was, We're like, is it a Lima? Has it Chasa?
Except we get like a POV from he Lima right
away and we know it is immediately. It's never really
it's one of the things that's not.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
The slow burn.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah. So it's like you set up red Herring but
then told us the answer.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
So it's like one of those little kids like telling
you a secret, you know what I mean, Like I
have a secret. It's blah blah blah and you're like, well,
now it's not a secret.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
I'm not supposed to tell anyone. Well you did. Yeah,
she has the oath Rod. Although she doesn't say what
the oath rot is.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
It's pretty obvious though.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well, for a second I thought it was Vora's song. Real.
I was like, oh, I.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Guess yeah, Yeah, she's gonna absolutely annihilate any of your
enemies be gone.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
If you're if you're taking out the black a Jaw,
you might want the most powerful song we'll ever made.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right, Yeah, No, I feel like, yeah, no, you're right.
It does kind of leave it up to the last minute,
like what is she going to take out of her
sleeve pocket? Is it gonna be, yeah, a weapon of
total domination or is it just gonna.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Be the o throat or the tarn Real that makes
bail fire. That would be fun. Though, that's that's a
black one.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I think, yeah, that one's not around, so that one's
still in dark front hands. Do we think that Agwaine
is as to blame for all of this as she
thinks she is?

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Oh my god, I'm so this. I don't like this
part of the chapter, this.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Whole like, okay, good, good, excellent.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
This section of the chapter is part of what drives
people nuts about Agwayne. The rationalization the I don't know
just this like do I deserve Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Don't like this part either. I find this very much
not the s I can't tell if this is always
been a part of a GWayne that's just coming out
more strongly under Sanderson's writing, or if this is really
a bad interpretation of who she is. I'm not sure,

(11:27):
but yeah, this whole I am responsible for other people's
actions thing is like I am personally prone to taking
on so much responsibility for other people's actions that I
should not. And I've been really these past two days,
really just being like, I apologize for things that are
not my fucking fault that no one asked me to

(11:47):
apologize for, and like to have her be like, you
know what, I should do, apologize for things that aren't
my fault. It's like a Gwain, I've been looking up
to you for so long. This is not the lesson
I want to be learning from you right now. I'm
trying to learn the opposite from this, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
But I think also what bugs me is that she
cannot admit that other people might have that she might
not know everything right, that her plan wasn't perfect, and
that maybe getting pulled out at that time was something
that needed to happen. She's like, you have ruined everything.
Everything's going crazy, and maybe I just didn't communicate well
enough to let you know. And it's like, maybe you didn't,

(12:24):
but also like maybe they use their own judgment to
pull you out when things got really bad, and that's okay.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
And in her defense, she is nineteen, and I did
have that sort of all or nothing approach to everything
that everyone did when I was nineteen, Like, you didn't
do what I wanted to have happened, Therefore my life
is ruined. Is like a very nineteen year old way
to look at things. But also she's like, I am
the omorline. I've been trained by all these wise women,

(12:51):
and the amalgamation of their wisdom is to take all
the responsibility on myself, and I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
And the other thing that I don't want to say
like about this is all this angst kind of goes
away because they end up accepting her as Ammeline anyway,
So all this like back and forth angs about who
to blame, where it's like, eh, you're gonna be amelin
here in a second anyway, because because she doesn't know
that the light is gone, right, she says, she doesn't
know if light is still in charge. She's gonna act
like a light is still in charge when it's like, no,
you don't need to because she's gone, she's been kidnapped,

(13:20):
she's gone, like well.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
But she doesn't know that. She has no way of
knowing that. Like, she has every reason to think that
the Tower is gonna only take this as a minor setback.
She has no idea that they're inside deciding to give up.
I mean that to me is the tension of this
is like will the Tower get their decision out in
time to not be attacked? I just, yeah, I just

(13:43):
I'm really conflicted about how Agwaine approaches the Gobwin and
Swan of.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
It, all right, right, right.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I just I don't I don't even know how I
feel about it. I know that I don't want her
to model this behavior for me, but I don't know
if that's a good thing or a bad thing, what
that says about me. I just know that it makes
me uncomfortable, right.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
And yeah, it's just the whole reasoning that goes on
in her head. It's like it doesn't. It just doesn't
feel like the Agwayne that I know, you know, the
Igwayne that George that gets written in these last three
books does not care about her friends in the way
the Agwayne before these books did. And I know everyone's
going to tell you say, she's always been that way.
She's always been ambitious, she's always been willing to run

(14:25):
away from people, but she always cared about her friends,
and she cared about Agwayne. She cared about Rand even
if she was like trying to get powers so she
could support him. Right, But now there's just this lack
of giving a shit about her friends. It's all about
being the powerful being the Amberlin.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Which I think might be true to the Amberlin's Seat.
I think that that might be something she tried to
do to herself because she thinks that that's what the
seat demands. So I don't know if it's untrue to
her character because she doesn't ever do anything half fast.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, but where's the loyalty back to the two rivers?

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Right, Like, Yeah, it's kind of gone.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
It's kind of gone. It's kind of gone. And that
to me is like it's not that this is out
of character. It's that there was another layer to the
character that I feel like is gone, is stripped away.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, which again I do kind of feel like she
does speed run Swan Swan's career Aslan, which is losing herself,
losing important parts of herself, missing out on having a
well rounded human existence. Like in a way, this is
very true to that, this is her hollowing herself out
to serve the institution until she literally goes out in

(15:42):
a blaze of glory. And I mean she sounds more
and more like Swan in these last three books. Her
and Swan have a much more similar voice, particularly the
Swan of a few books ago. Like she again awayne
half ass is nothing. She takes on the Swan that
earned sworn out and mimics that, but again on a

(16:03):
speed run. And thus we get the end. We get
so like.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Talking about the end, just very briefly, I don't understand
why the sacrifice was necessary, why she had to use
that much power. It was not clear to me in
the text that she couldn't have used that same weave
to do the same thing, just on a slightly smaller
scale and not burn herself out. Yeah, and don't tell

(16:31):
me it's because Godwin, because fuck that all we do.
There's an I said, I hear who's like, oh yeah,
I'm sad, but I'm going on anyway.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Right Again, She's doesn't barely even get to turn twenty.
Like Adam, Lorna is probably in her sixties, if not older.
She's got that much more life experience. So GWayne acts
like she can just absorb the lived experience of every
single elderly woman she's ever met. But like the fact
of them is, she's not even twenty five. She's not

(17:04):
even old enough to drink in our society.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
But I get it. Like the warders have the whole
suicide thing, but it m it just doesn't shouldn't affect
the isid eye in the same way. It makes them
feel pain, yes, and sad and like mourning, but not
the suicidal tendencies that she clearly embraced.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
But having your husband die can make a lot of
people feel very suicidal. She blended the two. She did
not go through the GREENAJA five year advanced course on
how to have your spouse be your ward. She just
did it impulsively without going through all the prerecs, and
like it destroyed her psyche I think.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
She's a stronger character than that.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I don't know. I do know that I don't like
Gawan and I really like the part where she says
I don't know how I feel about you and we
need to talk later.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
And then they never do you like that part two?

Speaker 1 (18:00):
No, I don't like that part. I don't. I don't
like that. I don't like the part where she says
I need to talk later and he forces her to talk. Now,
I'm like, shut the fuck up. She's wearing her headphones
and she has some classes on. She does not want
to talk to you, even though you're both waiting for
the same bus. The fuck out.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
No, and I see the mirror with the Queen L dream.
I guess my my problem was that it just it
didn't seem like she needed to pull in that much
power to seal the cracks.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
But she wanted to pull a Queen L dream. She
specifically wanted to imitate her ancient for bear spiritually speaking
Queen al dream.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Anyway, anyway, I don't like it. I don't want I
don't think she should have been killed. I don't. I
don't think the stakes were high enough for her, for
her to sacrifice herself, I think the stakes could have
been set up better. I understand why the parallel was there,
but I think the stakes should have been higher for
her to sacrifice herself.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well, we'll rant about that when we get there. Now,
I want to rant about how she will not let
herself fit physically move because she had to be reserved
at all times lest she unwittingly fall into bad habits.
And as someone who's going on their autism on masking journey,
which involves not masking your physical movements and physical expression,

(19:16):
I'm just like again, Agwayin, I have looked up to
you for so many years of my life. Please stop
modeling toxic behaviors that I'm actively trying to root out
of my psyche. Please stop saying that this is a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, but here's the thing. She's in the boardroom. She's
at a board meeting. She has to mask.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
She's literally not she's literally at a room with Chasah.
She's literally saying I have to behave like I'm in
a boardroom twenty four to seven. And as I have
learned on my own masking journey, that is the path
to burn out. You have to have time where you
can be yourself and be unmasked and be relaxed around
people who care about you. Being alone in a tent
with Chasa is perfect.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Perfect, And that's what I'm saying. Like she used to
be that way around Soon, She used to be that
way around Chasa. She's I have this relaxed moment, and
now she's coming back and it's not there's that loss
of humanity somehow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
I think she spent too much time in the dream
thinking of herself as the Amorline and not enough time
sleeping like a nineteen year old.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
But somehow she reshaped herself with all those night quests. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, she's too much time in the dream shaping her
psyche around delusions of grandeur, and not enough just sleeping
like you're nineteen, you're barely done growing sleep more. Oh no,
I got to push myself harder. I can't afford to
give in to sleep. I know that you physically can,
but it's not good for you.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh see. My head canon is that she was kind
of like she was dream sleeping at night and then
sleep sleeping during the day.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
When was she doing all her plot stuff and traveling
and building up her power base and taking lessons.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Oh I was thinking when she was like just in
the prison itself.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right, Oh no, I'm talking about like her entire art.
Oh yeah, No, I just spent so much time being
like I don't need to sleep, so I'll just be
in the dream world. I'll just be actively taking notes
on my dreams. Like she just never just zonks the
fuck out like a nineteen year old as supposed to.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I guess she wasn't actually in that prison. We
went back and figured out it was not that many days.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Three days, like three days, it's like three days.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, she got a little bit of well rest, a
little bit of rest in the prison.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And I feel like if she'd had wise ones observing
her during her arc in the rebel camp, they would
have been scolding her intensely for the way that she
was not sleeping properly. I mean, the way she hid
headaches from them after the land fear attack. Right, She's
been disobeying the safety protocols of the dream walkers more
or less since she learned how to dream walk, like

(21:42):
she's I just I don't believe that she's been taking
good enough care of her psyche, Like, no, wonder she's
bending out of shape and just becoming an archetype of
annoying power structure things rather than a human being.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, she's becoming fragile, right, she'd be getting harder in
the parlance of ram.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Right, she's the way that she's Randing harder than rand
ever could right in some ways.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
From the trauma, from the responsibility, from the masking, Like
he's kind of breaking and come and building himself back up.
She just breaks and dies.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
It's being bendable versus brittle, right, I mean this is
kind of the difference between her and Alida, right, Like
she can bend better than Alida.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
And yeah, which she says right here, if Agwayne looked
like a statue unaffected by the winds, it was actually
because she saw how to bend with those winds. She
gave the illusion of control. Right. She talks about how
she's bendable here, but it's like, you're really not really not.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
She's bending her own humanity to fit the role. She's
not bending the world to adapt to her humanity.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
She is sacrificing her very free will to the institution.
Rather than saying I have boundaries, I will work nine
to five five days a week, and you cannot call
me on weekends. Right, She's on call twenty four to.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Seven, literally, because in her sleep she's still working.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Literally literally. It's her and Paren and Rand really all
do double duty with their sleep time. And I'm amazed
Paren is as well rested and psychically sound as he
is given how much time he spends not truly sleeping.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
He's spent a huge chunk trying to blot out the
wolf dream. He's only now jumping back into it.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Right, true, True, He's had very fleeting contact up until now.
It's been intense, but it's been broken up with large
swaths of not doing that. Yeah. Yeah, And maybe it's
fine to sacrifice yourself to an institution because the last
battle is coming. Maybe that's a reasonable choice. But again,

(23:46):
I look up to Agwayne and it's hard to see
her choosing to do things that I'm like. But that's
so bad for you, that's so unhealthy for your nervous system.
I need to not follow you into this behavior, as
much as I admire you.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Out Yeah, I've never really found the Gwain to be
a role model, right, It's not never someone I've decided
I want to follow her example.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
It's specifically the cleaning the floor, clean the patch of
floor in front of you scene, like that's been so like,
I hang so much of my like dealing with the
existential anks of the world on that scene. She carries
that scene, so I've got.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
More of the paren work the piece you're working on.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
The same lesson to any character.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Totally Okay. Then there's this sentence, which, again it feels
very Sanderson. I don't think Jordan would ever lay out
the features of the odd Jaws this clearly. But she
had to be as logical as white, as thoughtful as
a brown, as passionate as a blue, as decisive as
a green, as merciful as a yellow, as diplomatic as
a gray, and vengeful as a red. And it really

(24:47):
sort of gives you this like an adjective to go
with every single odd job that sort of describes it
in one word. And I don't think Jordan would have
ever broken it down that way.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
I kind of wish he had, though, particularly vengeful as
a red.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
I really was like, oh, that's the that's the positive
value neutral thing that is the rec because they've been
so the villain this whole time.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
But like clearly they have a function and when this
line vengeful, because vengeance is not necessarily always negative.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Right right, right, if you're wrong, Judgment and.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Justice and like there's these things that can be weaponized
or can be really powerful. And I kind of wish
Jordan had been just slightly more uh direct once about this.
I felt this was against Sanderlanchi in like he's putting
a bow on it, right, right, So I kind of

(25:44):
liked it because I was like, we are in put
a bow on it part of the book. But yeah,
Jordan would never be this direct, and I kind of.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
No, because I feel like it breaks them down into
you know, houses, right, potterhouses and stuff like that. Right,
there's these very simplistic, single adjective discres where he's like, no,
they have these different meaning like the green is all
about loving people but also battle and passion and like
passions in there, but here, you know, decisive as a

(26:13):
green and passion is blue. I don't know, it's just
there's there's Jordan is always going to have a nebulous,
fuzzy definition and Sanderson's always going to put that in
very stark, hard lines in black and white.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, it's it's a very Sanderson line. I agree, it
felt very like, oh okay, I can tell Sanderson. But
also it's kind of cool because you're like, so, this
is how Sanderson sees them. Yes, this is the one
word summary of how Sanderson is going to approach writing
them as a character class. And it's a it's an
appropriate time to put that in there. It felt right
in terms of the way that she's thinking about stuff

(26:48):
from a bird's eye view. But yeah, it's Jordan would
never be so direct, never ever.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Never ever, And what do you think about? Is like white, logical, sure,
thoughtful brown as opposed to like research.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I mean, I would say that being thoughtful is part
of research, like really sitting back and considering something from
all angles and not leaping to conclusions but actually like
playing out each hypothesis and then making a choice is
very brown.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Passionate for blues.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Causes, right, People who are really into a cause tend
to be really passionate about that cause. Decisive for a Greens.
I was a little perplexed by, Like, I guess that's
the attribute of being a general, just being decisive.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, And I feel like if you're in a battle,
you have to basically make decisions and stick with them
because you don't get to have a chance to second
guess your decisions. So that's where decisive would come from
the battle part of the adjaw, Like you have to
make decisive decisions in a battle. Also, you know, you
can't unfuck somebody, so you got to be pretty decisive
about it.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
True, true, merciful as a yellow makes.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
A lot of sense sure for mercy, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, sometimes, you know, I mean the concept of a
mercy killing, you know, the concept of putting someone down humanly,
like with pets. You know, like that fits with medicine, triage,
and you know, care for the living and abandon the
dead like palliative care. All that feels very yellow.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Ideally yellow, like these are all the ideals of what
we think the addjas should be.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
But again, this is a GWayne thinking about the institution
in its highest, most rarefied ideal. This is her saying,
in an ideal world in omrelin is the highlight reel
of the best qualities of the adjas. That's the context
this paragraph comes about. And she's not describing the women.
She's describing the archetypes, and.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
It kind of goes well with her being asked by
every oddja to join them.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Exactly later in this chapter, they look around and say,
you know who encompasses all of our interests is Agwain.
So it makes sense to have her thinking about them
as an institutional summary just before that POV switch.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
So she's basically the next big chunk is her thinking
about strategy. Strategy, right, She's like, I can't go back
in as an novice, right, I can't reconstruct the situation
that was working so well for me now that I've
been pulled out. Going back in would seem you know,
stupid or arrogant, which agree, yeah, yeah, totally. And it's
taking her down the thought path of Okay, I need

(29:21):
to stop messing around. I can't bring it down from
the inside. I'm going to have to bring it down
from the outside. I'm going to have to invade with
my soldiers, and I'm going to have to attack the
White Tower. Sort of that thought process that she goes through.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
And that there's a time limit on when that attack
will work, right, Because part of the reason why they
did the siege was because a frontal assault would be
so expensive, it would be so deadly, and because of
the Shawn Han attack she now has an imbalanced set
of forces, right, She now has a fresh army while
the tower is bloodied, and that hasn't been the case

(29:54):
up until now. And she only has two or three
days before they go back to the impass and before
she was captured. So she has to be as decisive
as her idea of what agreen is to figure this out,
because there has been before it's been well, we'll figure
this out eventually. Now there's a ticking time club.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's eventually, you know, eventually is here.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
We're here now.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
And so she heads out right basically to make an announcement,
and there's Gowin to interrupt her. This is such a
like I want to deal with you now later Gowin
and he's like, no, deal with me now, and she's
like it's not a good time, and he forces her
to deal with him anyway, and of course he doesn't
get the answer that he wants.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
And he's like, well, I've sacrificed so much, I've waited
so long. And it's like, sir, I have a career
that lives depend on can we please talk about this later.
He's like, eh, but my fiefees. It's like, sir, do
you want to be a supportive partner to a powerful
woman who's got like nations level control, or do you

(31:02):
want to be taken care of constantly? Like make up
your mind.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
This has all the feeling of some shitty boyfriend trying
to get his like print t shirt business off the
ground and preventing his surgeon wife from going in and
like saving lives while there's like there's an organ on
the table that has a timeline that needs to get
into a new person before it dies. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
I need to me help with my T shirt business,

(31:28):
you know, And she's like not right now. Now's not
a good time, right.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Like yeah, basically just oh.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
This shittiest boyfriend who thinks that his things, whatever he's
thinking about, is more important than whatever she's doing, even
though she's a far more important person in this society.
And he's like no, no, no, stop doing what you're
doing and talk to me.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, And he's like, I've waited for a month. She
didn't know you were waiting for a month. She assumed
that you went off to help support your sister, like
a smart person would have like a halfway holding to
their oaths person, what have she assumed that you had
a job and you were doing it and you'd managed
to connect later. She didn't know that you were waiting
for months. She has no obligation to you, Leake. Yeah,

(32:10):
it's ugh, it's such shitty, And I mean again, he's young,
he's a dumbass. He's the age when most people are
shitty boyfriends. But like, oh my god, it's so she
is like, I'm gonna have to order a group of
people I care about to kill another group of people
I care about. But on the way, I have to
show that some of my closest advisors were actually working

(32:31):
for the literal dark side the whole time. No, I
don't care that you've been all up in your feelings
parked in a cowtown. Like, no, you weren't in the
calculus right now. And if you can't respect my need
to talk to you later, like why are we even
in a relationship? Like I wish she had dumped his
ass because he wouldn't let it go right here.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
God, yeah, this whole I was worried about you, and
that worry was what I was asking of you, Like
I wanted you to not rescue me. I was told
you not to rescue me, Suan said, not to rescue me,
but because you were just a little bit worried and
you didn't want to feel uncomfortable. You had to come
in there, and you didn't want to have anxiety about
what might happen to me. Like you pulled me out

(33:14):
of a situation that I now have to figure out
that may now cause me to attack the other half
of the tower and turn the one thing she doesn't
want to do, turn two halves of the tower against
each other, I said, I shedding each other's blood like
before the last battle. It is the worst possible outcome.
And here Godwin is the one who kind of caused
that to happen because he didn't listen to her orders, because.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
He didn't trust her enough to do the thing. And yeah,
they're not even really in a relationship. They're in a
sort of we're going to talk about it later and
he's like, I need to talk about it right now.
It's like, no, sir, by your own admission, you've waited
for months. You can wait until this evening when I
have him in it and then.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
This whole like listen, I love you, but like as
of the Ambulin, I'm pissed at you like, you violated
my order and he's like, yeah, but you know you're
not really the Amerlin.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Oh my god again drop his ass.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah that should have been the first. Like even fucking
Matt respected her as amrelin more than Gotlin.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Does, truly truly, a man from her hometown that she
has a deeply antagonistic relationship with respects her more than
her literal wanna be boyfriend husband and him being.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Like, but when we left, you were just an accepted.
It's like, how can you love this man? How can
this man claim to love you when he has not
seen any of the growth or any of the things
that have happened since you two left when you were
quote unquote just and accepted. Yeah, all the trauma, all.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
The so handsome, he's just so handsome. He's he's not
pretty like his brother. He's a better kind of handsome.
I literally don't care. Stop thinking with your nineteen year
old brain.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
His flaws make him real, His flaws make him flawed.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, it's like you were just throwing all of your
friends under the bus for the sake of an institution,
but now you're all a flutter for this for his
jaw line, Like you can't trust your you can't care
about your friends who just made mistakes because they were
worried about you. But you can forgive this band because
he's got a cute jaw line like ugh ugh.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
And also when you left, you weren't accepted. Now you're Ammelin.
He was the leader of the younglings. Now he's just
an unemployed soldier. He's like, I want to come work
for you, so I quit my job. It's like, oh God,
all right, fine, you should have kept your job. Now
you're just unemployed.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, POV switch Ready for POV switch, Like
she finishes her conversation with Godwin and then heads off
to the hall, to the hall's pavilion tent, and then
we pov switch to the literal well, not the literal hall,
but the tower where the hall is.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
The only thing. The only thing I will say is
him point where he says, I don't care about Tarbalan,
but I know what it would do to you to
attack it. It's like yeah, and you're the one forcing
her into that.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those like that's a
good point, but not from you. You don't get to
make that point. It is a good point, but not
not from you, not from you. For now, we're going

(36:33):
to go to this POV where I confuse it with
it's not from Ada Lorna. It just starts with Adam
Lorna talking. She's very present in this scene. But we
are actually in the head of the head of the
Brown Aja Jesse Belah Jesse. And yeah, it's the five
heads of the Ajas that are still relevant, right, because

(36:55):
Blue has been banished and Red is currently laying as
low as it possibly can. So the five of remaining Ajas,
their heads are together talking about what they're going to
do in the aftermath of the attack because they know
that the Lada is gone. They know that Igwayn is gone. Right.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
The other reason the Red is not invited is because
the Red head, who was part of this is gone. Right,
They've got a new head of right, the Red. Which
how do they know who's the head of the Red Adjar.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
I'm guessing they don't. Actually, I'm guessing that the Red
is currently figuring that out and they know they're not
invited to this meeting anyway, So it's not relevant because yeah,
because that's part of what also binds them together, is
not just that they're heads at the Ajas, but that
they all conspired to send the two young sitters to
do haul things in both the rebels and the tower camps,

(37:51):
and they kind of are the architects of that whole conspiracy,
So it really doesn't make sense to bring in someone
who wasn't part of that conspiracy as they sort out
what to do in the Appa aftermath.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
And this is the answer to the Suan's two young
Sitters thing that we've seen in both both the Tower
and in the rebels, Like what was going on? How
did that happen? They lay it all out here, which
is basically they elected young sitters so that when they
thought that the rebels would be easily cowed and they'd
be able to bring them back together and those young
sitters would just go back to being sisters again with

(38:23):
no fuss, musts or issues.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, they literally thought that they could end the rebellion
quietly with no more damage than a few bruised egos.
And now after all this, we're like, maybe we shouldn't
have allowed Alida to disband. The boy could have been
a step too far, And it's like, yeah, there are
lines in the sand, and you need to be very
unequivocal about when those lines get crossed, right, Like, when

(38:48):
you do a thing that is empirically illegal, immoral and
against the long term stability of the system that you
claim to support, you need to call it out then
and there, not six months later.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
But it's all black Auja, right. Why was the blue banished?
I mean some of that was Alida, but some of
that was the Black Aja really going out and about
making sure.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
That they proposed it. But non Black Goja sitters and
Aja heads and other people all supported it because, oh,
we got to not rock the boat. We got to compromise.
We gotta play nice, We gotta not be absolutist. We
got to compromise. Just one little concent It's just a
symbolic concession. It won't actually like lead to the complete
and total power of dictators taking over everything, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
But I'm wondering how how much would they have been
able to actually talk the rebels back into the fold
and do it quietly if it weren't for the Black
Adja and the Forsaken on either side trying to keep
them apart.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
No, I mean, definitely the Black Oujua and the Forsaken
are huge that to blame. But these women are not
black Auja, and they are very responsible for allowing Alida
to disband the Blue Like Jesse thinks we shouldn't have
let her do that, Like, yeah, you should have stood
up when the bad things were happening, and you should
have been loud and unequivocal and brave about calling out

(40:07):
bullshit when it happened the first time instead of waiting
until everything's on fire to go.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oops.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
I guess we shouldn't have done that.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I mean, I can't think of any modern world realistic
parallels where a group of congressional powerful body should be
taking steps to stop a powerful figurehead from doing terrible things,
and then when they don't and shit goes bad, they say, oh,
maybe we should have done something earlier, but it's too

(40:34):
late now, so we're still not going to do anything. Yeah. No,
no modern examples come to mind.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yep, definitely definitely not to quote Jesse. Don't be mad
at us. We're just the messengers, which is often the
role of the Brown. We're the librarians. We read a lot,
that's all. We're just communicating information.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Ay ay, this rhymes with that history thing, and if
it keeps going, the same way we predict this, this
and this. Oh my god, we were right. Just the messengers.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
It's just pattern recognition, that's all.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, I'm talking about Canada. Yep, definitely.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
And then here's one of the best lenes. And what
good will it do to blame one another? Are we
so childish that we will spend this meeting election period
of time of your choosing squabbling about which one of
us will hang in a useless attempt to evade our responsibility.
Just take the fucking responsibility and actually act on it.

(41:42):
Evading responsibility is not the fucking point. It's way past
the time to worry about who's responsible in a nitpicky way,
and time to just do the thing that you are
responsible for fixing. Again, no parallels, just the books.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Books, just books. So Alida has been taken by the
Sean Chan and they were deciding we are not going
to try and attempt to rescue one because it's just
not feasible and two we don't really.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Want to, which yeah, yeah, again, if Agwayne had been taken,
they would have gone, oh no, we have all the
will in the world and not the resources. But Alida,
there's there's no will. Even they're not even going to
feel bad about moving on from that decision.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
It's like when Galina was like, there is surely I
will be rescued. They're gonna send lots and lots of
people after me, and nobody gives a shit. Nobody even
knows has taken.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Right, Like the black Auja doesn't care, the Red Auja
doesn't care. Nobody cares. Yeah, it's very parallel, very parallel.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
So then we decide to pick. They throw out a
couple of s names for Amrelin because why not, I.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Mean, none of them are gonna get taken. Seriously, why
not go.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
To the states? Right? Seane Saren? I mean we've we've
gone over these names a million times. Suana.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, they basically throw out some names they consider what
if it's one of.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Us, Santa. There's a lot of s names in.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
This Yeah, Sarancha, who I always am, just like Siracha?
What like, why is there a sauce as an isid?
I mean I don't have a problem with it. It's
a fine sauce.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
But like, I mean, you pick enough names, eventually you're
going to get some overlap with some real words, right.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Right, And they talk about how it should be possible
to resolve the rebellion now that Alighta's out of the picture,
because the rebellion was against Alida. Right, so if a
light is not around, then maybe we have a reason
to stop with this staring match. Maybe we can back away.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
It was right, they declared war on Alida, specifically right
on a person, not on.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
The false Omberlin Alida doavriny E Royha, not on the tower,
not on the Omberlin seat as an institution or an office,
but specifically on the woman.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Legally, Agwain doesn't have a foot to stand on with
Alida being gone to attack the tower.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Right right, Yeah, exactly, there's every reason for the people
who want this conflict to be over to finally get
what they want. Elighta really was the sticking point in
a lot of ways. And yeah, they're like, we don't
know who to pick except for the one person who's
super super obvious. Okay, yeah, we should do the obvious one. Sure.
They really don't debate about it. Once they realize that

(44:21):
there's only one choice, they're like, well, she has done
the work to be the only choice.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
The fourth their own, like I want my add Jaws
leader to be the person, and they all pick someone
from their own add jah and go oh crap, Like,
no one is going to let us gain power by
either picking someone in this room or someone from one
of the ad jaws. We have to pick someone from
no odd jaws and someone who's done the job before.

(44:46):
Even if it's illegitimate, everyone already knows. Yeah, and you know,
unspoken is she spent the last however many weeks impressing
all of these people giving them advice. Like we've seen
her in in the rooms with these women and they've
taken advice from her, and it's like, yeah, they probably

(45:07):
think she is a legitimate amberline. And then they say
that do the job. She's been doing the job. They're like,
if we raise this person, this is not a puppet.
This is not someone we're trying to control. This is
someone we're going to enable to be the best ambrelin
she can be.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah. I mean she's already been proving it from like
the way that the rebellion. You know, she's managed that great.
She came in and has just been doing the job,
even though we keep denying her the ability to like
what if what if she actually had us all behind
her and had the power, like we wouldn't be able
to stop her, but we wouldn't want to either, so

(45:40):
you know.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
And also just like how badly the plan failed of like, oh,
we tried to get a bunch of women we could control.
Instead it was like trying to herd cats and we
failed miserably.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, and here's someone who has empirically proven she can
herd cats, like she's been hurting us.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
The cats and the with Alida more effectively than us and.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Will be acceptable to the other half. Right, that's the
thing too, is not just acceptable within any given camp,
but acceptable to both camps. Like that's a unicorn, that's
a literal unicorn.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
And it essentially fixes the schism because it's like, oh,
we've all we've elected the same leader, right, Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
It truly was Alida the whole time. Alida was the
entire problem. She's the one that deposed the old Omerlind.
She's the one that created an irreconcilable rift. And once
she's gone, it's possible to reconcile. It's possible to reinstate
the blue, to formally apologize for all wrongs done, to
wipe the slate clean. Like it's unlike in the real world,

(46:46):
Alida truly is a one woman problem. I mean, yes,
she has ALVR and and all of that backing her up,
but like, it's such a narrower conspiracy in these books
than it is in the real world with the parallels
that we aren't making, and.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
We've seen both in the real world. In in these books,
declarations made by a leader don't necessarily have staying power
because the next leader can come in and just turn
those arounds. So you really need the legislative body to
enact those changes in order to keep them in place,
even though it's a lot harder, right.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
So, yeah, if you can get the legislative bodies to
be pointed in the same direction, shit can go fast.
You can go really fast. You can get a lot done.
You can take a giant schism and put it back
together in relatively short order once everyone's pointed in the
same direction. But if they're not, then yeah, you can
grind to a halt while still technically moving forward. I
mean we saw that in the rebel camp. Like you

(47:39):
need people to want it.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
That's the big difference between a leader and someone who's
just the head of something, right, because a leader will say, hey,
I want this thing to happen, will go to the
legislative body, work with them, make sure it happens, make
sure that it gets past, and make sure that it
has longevity. Someone who's just in charge will say, I
want to make this happen. I declare bankruptcy, you know,

(48:05):
or I declar whatever, you know, makes a declaration. It
might last while they're in charge, but the second they're
out or the people they chose are out, it just
reverts back to the way it was before.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
So, yeah, the Tower agrees that they want to GWayne,
but they don't seem to have any urgency on getting
the message to her. They don't have any I they
don't seem to have any idea that the other side
is gearing up to punch them in the face while
they're down.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
They seem to think they have all the type of
the world to get this message to the rebels. Meanwhile,
Igwaine is just holding back the attack as long as
she can, just on sheer hunch, reluctance. It's I wish
that they were more urgent.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
You know, Well, what's the first thing you think of
when a rebel army shows up your gates? The audacity.
How dare they like seriously? Yeah, they don't even think
about like, oh, maybe we should ourselves. It's like, oh,
they're not even gonna bother. No one can stand up
to the White Tower. You just got your butt kicked
by the Sean Chan.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
I know, right, Like you are still smoking, ma'am. Your
skirts are still literally smoldering, Like people are not taking
you quite as seriously as they were for the next
little bit.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
So then POV switch back to uh, Swan right.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yes, POV switch over to Swan doing upsettingly heterosexual things
romantic things.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
In the books, she's straight, Okay, in the book she's
bye bye. That's fair.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Well, yeah, she's bye.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
She used to be by. I'm not sure she still is.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
No, she is by. No, you don't lose your bisexuality
by being bisexual. Being bisexual means you can be with
men and women. It's just not do bisexual erasuate. The
fact that she's doing upsettingly hetero things does not erase
her bisexuality. It's just upsetting the hetero because Bryn is
very heterol. Brynn is not queer. I don't think at all.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I'm just saying the way the author wrote them, wrote this,
the character that is currently being written is no longer
bisexual or not the character.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Which is bisexual erasure. So I disagree. No, it in
a world where there isn't an unresolved girlhood crush that
was just a phase in college with Mauraine. I do
actually think that this courtship is very sweet. I do
like how Brynn approaches his romantic relationships. He seems like

(50:33):
a very nice guy. It's just the weird it was
just a phase in college thing. That's just like, ah,
but no, I do love Brynn in this whole interaction.
It's a very sweet thing if we set aside all
the head canon and all the fandom anks that I've
picked up along the way.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
So we open with Suwan watching Cherium basically, which is
what her orders.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Were, Sherium's last few moments as a free.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Woman, Yes, as an alive woman.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, because she steals herself into that tent and she
doesn't come out except under heavy guard, Like, yeah, that's Shiri.
I'm sealing herself into her final meeting as caper. But
Swan doesn't get to go in because she's not a
sitter and it's a sealed as the title of the
chapter says, it is a sealed to the Flame meeting,

(51:23):
so Swan doesn't get to go in, right because.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
This is the first opening move on taking down the
Dark Friends, so she wants to keep that as tight
as possible so it doesn't leak out.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
And technically, Swan already knows more or less what's happening, right,
she knows about Shiriam. It's not going to be a
surprise to her when this reveal starts. She's going to
figure it out sooner than everyone sure.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
But that's why it's sealed to the flame, though, is
to keep anyone else who's not part of that in
inner circle from finding out. Yes, yes, so kind of
what follows is her basically saying, I know I'm going
to get paid for last night. I didn't realize how
secure her place in the tower was, but I did
what I felt like I should based on the information

(52:04):
I knew at the time.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, which, you know, we can disagree all we like,
but the fact is that she does correctly articulate this
is the decision I made based on the information I had. Like,
She's not wrong, she did make that decision based on
that information, and she can see that she was wrong.
She stands by it. We can disagree, but like whatever,
reasonable people can disagree.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Which is different than Gowin's approach, which is he's like, no,
I did the right thing, you should thank me for it,
Like he has a totally different opinion.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, Swan's like, I did the right thing in my opinion,
but I can see where GWayne disagrees, Like, I still
would make the same decision, but you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
It's what's the do what you have to and pay
for it later.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, exactly exactly. Gowin does not understand that. He does
not get that if you fuck around you we'll find out,
whereas Swan gets it. Swan's like, yeah, I fucked around,
and I probably would fuck around exactly the same way again.
But yeah, this is what the find out phase looks like.
I guess I'll just deal with it instead of being
a whiny little brat.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Then she thinks a little bit about the Bond and
Gareth Brynn. I thought an interesting quote was there was
a helpful clarity to his way of reasoning, not that
he was simple, just less inclined to regret decisions he'd
already made. I thought that was an interesting little quote
to categorize him, and it's a way she sort of
says men in general, but I think Gareth Brnn in
particular in this case when he's a general.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Right, we were just talking about like decisive as a
green and the greens are the battle and the captain
general of the Green. So for him a general to
just be very decisive, very confident in like once I've
made a decision, I don't second guess. It is like, okay,
internal consistency on the martial attitude. Yeah, it's I don't
like framing it as a men versus women, but I

(53:47):
do like framing it as a This is what makes
a Gareth Brynn such a uniquely good general and helpful
right hand man in dealing with stuff like this is
a really good way. These are people you should seek out,
people who can make a decision and not tie themselves
into pretzels second guessing it are worth having in your
circles gets you a Gareth Brynn.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
And then what follows is probably the most casual proposal
I think.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
It really is, and yet it feels perfectly in line
with her relationship and.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Go it's like, what are you going to demand? Me,
I'm going to demand that you marry me. Well, I fine,
wait was that a proposal and an acceptance?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
It's cute, but no, because he says, I'm planning to
demand that you marry me, but only once you're ready.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Oh okay, yeah right.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
That's the thing. That's the whole thing where she's like
really feels soft and sweet towards him, is because he's
not going to demand that she marry him until she
is confident that the world has been saved. He's like,
you're not gonna say yes until you feel like all
of these last battle responsibilities are done, and you will.
I know you'll say no at this point, So I

(55:01):
won't be demanding that until I know that you'll be
able to say yes. And she feels very soft and
sweet about that because he's willing to wait for her
and that's really what she needs at this point. And
you know, they're engaged to get that exactly. They're promised,
they're going steady, they're exclusive, they're whatever euphemistic thing they

(55:23):
need to put on it, but it's engaged. It's engaged.
They're just yeah, engaged to be engaged. And you know,
but they don't get married because the books suck, but
you know it's still it's it's almost part of how
you know they're going to die, right because they're like, well,

(55:45):
we're just one week for retirement, so we'll be good
once we retire.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
You know. It's like that's kind of work. And I mean,
and Gareth Brent sucked at retirement in the first place. True, true, true,
both of them sucked at retirement.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
It's literally they're like, I've been retired for five minutes.
I'm getting hives, cannot deal.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Zuan was forced free retired and she figured out how
to get her old job back, basically be the advisor
to her old job.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Yeah, they're going to have an amazing not retired retirement.
They're going to go into the sunset working together just great,
never actually retiring.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
We're retired, then what's this business? You run our retirement business? Okay?
You know that.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
I mean, like literally, my grandfather, well but both my
grandfather and my grandmother both still work. They still have
jobs in the sense that they have responsibilities to other
people in an institutional context, but they do it entirely
for fun, not for pay. The way they phrase it
is they're no longer working for economic gain right, they're

(56:46):
doing what they want to do.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
They're rich old people, and they are not just sitting
back and watching TV or taking a cruise. They are
like writing papers and running workshop and like they're doing things.
They travel a whole bunch, Like.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Hey, leave some work for the rest of us.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Eh naw, they're doing some very niche things. There'll be
plenty of stuff for the rest of us. But yeah,
it's they are not retired in the sense that they
have a full schedule. They have people they're responsible to,
they have stuff to turn in, like they are working
in the world and they're very happy doing it and
will not be stopping until Like they're just gonna keep

(57:27):
going little energizer bunnies forever, Like they're just gonna run forever.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
God, I can't wait to retire.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
They're not getting paid nantalk, They're not deflating your salaries.
It's just like my grandfather still teaches classes sometimes because
people want to learn from him.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
But working from free does devalue salaries.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
I'm just saying they're not working at things that are
getting paid, Like my grandmother works as an administrator for
a nonprofit. Like no one was gonna get paid for
that job.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Yeah. No, it's again fucking ruins everything.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Yeah, exactly. They're doing things that capitalism would not support
because they have enough money that they can pay for
it themselves, right, they can pay to do the jobs
that they're doing. But they have very fit, busy schedules
as a result, which is cool. What else about Swan
and Brynn, that's basically it. Brynn does get her. He

(58:22):
talks about how she has such high standards for herself
that no one else can set them higher, which like relatable.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
It's really short POV because we switched right back to
Agwain pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Yeah. Yeah, And this is the good part of the chapter.
This is the part I've been eagerly anticipating, is this
scene where Agwayne just absolutely slams the hall with revelation.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
We open with the Ajaws had all sent one sitter
with the envoy to the Black Tower. So all the
Adjaws are missing one sitter, so usually there's three, and
you know, this is six Ajaws. There's no red Adja
right with the rebels, so they're missing six of the sitters.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yeah, very diminished tall, don't really know who they all
end up being.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
I'm going to read directly from Encyclopedia Watt. Here, we
can only be certain that Lyrel was one of the delegates.
If we make an assumption that the five sitters who
were violently opposed to the delegation were not sent, then
we have the following Blue Lyrel, Brown, Janya or s Carle, Escaralda, Escaralda,

(59:48):
thank you, Gray, Nori.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Sima Nasura.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
No, that's not right, Norissa, Norrissa. That looks right, Green,
melind or Melin wow Cemelin White, Aldrin, Yellow, Salita. I
don't think there's anything to be gained from figuring out
who those people are. Just that, like, that's who went

(01:00:14):
to the delegation. We also find out Myrel, Niasso, Phalen
and Theodrin are there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
So yeah, there's the one black Aja that Agwaine knows
about that's in the thing other than Shiiam. But yeah,
we've gone over this hall so many times, and yeah,
most of them are just filler. Yep, they're just filler
because only the one of them is black Oge. It
really doesn't matter, right, there's just the they are as

(01:00:43):
a body responding to the revelations that Agwaine is giving them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
She's keeping an eye on Shurium, and Surium is missing
a finger.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yes, because she didn't get all of the turanngrial for
getting into the dream.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
She missed one because she was supposed to get twenty, right, Yeah,
and she got nineteen. My assumption is the one. It's
the one that Suan has, because later Suan is tasked
with teaching somebody I forget who how to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
I think the classes of tele iron Riod using eyes
to die like they're just trying to bring all of
them up up to speed, and Swan is I believe no,
I think that was earlier she was teaching. I don't
think she's allowed to teach in the second iteration because
the hall is so mad that she kept that one
dreamed to on Gril, but they're also happy she kept

(01:01:36):
it because Shiriam had stolen the other nineteen mm hm
or call it. Elaine is really pissed about that because
she was the one that made most of them and
now she can't because she's too pregnant to channel consistently.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Yeah, and it's interesting. In chapter forty five, they say
they're all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Missing well, right, because one of them was missing quote
unquote with Leanna okay, they thought that that would have
gotten lost with Leanna, but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
It's actually was with Suan. So Suan has that the
whole time, right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Okay, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, and then yeah, Shiyan tells
Missana she's they've got that. They have nineteen, so she
must have managed to only get eighteen of them because
oh right, they had already known that Leanna's had gotten
missing by the time that Shiryam is tasked with stealing
all of them. So I'm not totally sure. I kind
of forget the specifics of how that all went down.

(01:02:29):
It doesn't end up mattering because she gets fucking killed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Yeah, but my assumption is that somewhere there's a missing Tehran.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Real Yeah, definitely, I just but where it felt sure why.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
I don't think it ever pops back up as far
as I can tell me some.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Other eyes that I was sneaking off with one and
we just never saw it happening, or he.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Thought that that was worth he thought that it was
the one that Suan had, and he didn't realize that
the nineteen didn't include that one, and so then it's
just a bottle.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
I'm confused. I'm confused.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
I think it's I think it might be a bit
of a hole on the counting of the town real
or they just cut off her finger and broke it
just because like she didn't do it fast enough for something.
Who knows, I.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Don't know, but yeah, Shariam is Agwainne is watching her
and being made very nervous by Shiiam. Existing she doesn't
think about Maria as being someone to keep an eye on,
even though she also is black Auja and will be
captured in this confrontation, and she.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Knew about her ahead of time, right, she notified people
that she was going to be a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
So no, she didn't notify anyone. No, she only told
Swan about Shiiam. And then in this whole scene where
she's thinking about how she's anxious about Shiriam, she doesn't
want to think about being anxious about Maria, which I
think is kind of strange.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
But I think it's just how close Shariam was to her.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Yeah, maybe, or just the fact that like close, like
emotionally or like physically.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Both, but emotionally really yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Sure that makes sense. So yeah, uh, Romayne is being Romayne.
Romanda's feeling one way, Lelane's feeling the opposite way. Agwayne
thinks the whole thing is super petty and ridiculous after
all the much more intense stuff she's been dealing with
at the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Well, it's yeah, because Romayne was, like Romanda I think,
was gaining power because Gwaine was gone. So now she's
all sulky because Agwayin's back and now she's back on
equal footing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
No, no, Romanda's happy because Lelaine was finally winning.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Uh right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Elaine is the because her power was built on claiming
authority from Agwain's absence and Romanda was losing. And now
that Agwain's back, Lilaane has to give all that power
back to Agwin and she's souking hard about it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
But if Agwain had died in the assault, she would
have taken over.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Basically, yeah, right, right, Romanda has a chance to get
some power back now that Lilaane is no longer the
air Apparent. So yeah, they settled down to the meeting
and Agwaine immediately goes for the oath rod. She does
not have vora'saangrial. She has the oath rod tucked in
her sleeve, and she swears the three o's and then

(01:04:58):
swears that she is not a dark end, and everyone's
brain starts processing, processing, processing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Like, wait a minute, okay, why did you say that again?
This is the one, This is the white Tower oath
rod that has the three, the number three on the
bottom of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Yeah, and the other one that is given one hundred eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
There's one hundred and eleven, so because it's it would
also be three in urals. But I'm willing to go
with one hundred and eleven because I think there are
that many, because we also find out that later that
there's that. I think Morgan has some oth rods that
he found in the stasis box. So and because they
were they were used as a punishment device. My assumption

(01:05:40):
is there like one in every jail.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Right. We went with a naming system that was like
maybe that was like by jurisdiction or something. I always
thought it was just like, oh, yes, three versus one
hundred eleven, but like that makes no sense either way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
It's two different onre all right, So the one in
this chapter is the one with the three on it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
And then Agwayne tells Varren's story without naming Varn, right.
She explains it as obliquely as she can. A sister
came to be and confessed she was a dark friend,
not saying the whole like deliberately did all the note
taking and all that just right, confessed for reasons that
we don't need to go into.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Well, she doesn't want anyone looking for that book.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Absolutely absolutely, I completely understand playing that close to the chest.
And then yeah, she kind of goes through the whole
spiel waiting for the inevitable Scheriam embraces the source right,
like it it's just a game of chicken, right, like
who's going to blink first?

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
And you're also trying to out anyone else who might
be scared and grab the source, right, So you're anyone
at that point who grabs the source you're going to
say is a dark friend?

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Yeah, Yeah, and she knows who the dark friends are
in the room, so she knows. She just watch she
thinks she knows at least.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Too, at least too She's I'm worried that Varon. At
this point, we don't know how accurate Varon is, right, right, true,
So it's possible that Varon missed a bunch of them.
Now we know that's not the case, but Igwayin doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Yeah, and she doesn't know for a fact that any
of the ones I mean, aside from the ones that
the Black Aja Hunters caught. But like she does go
through the routine with shi 'ama and then think to herself, Damn,
Varren really was right about you, Like there is a
small part of her that was hoping Varn was wrong, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
And getting her to incriminate herself on multiple levels in
front of I mean, it's a brilliant way of showing
that this person's actually a dark friend and one because
seizing the power looks suspicious, but it is circumstantial. But
then she gets her in a series of questions and
gets her to basically gish gallop over her oath right, right, right,

(01:07:51):
do you con start with the forsagan? No? Do you
serve the dark One? No? Have you been released from
your owthes? No? Do you have red hair? No? Wait? Yes? Shit?

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Right? Which, Like I am curious if the o's really
can't operate faster than thought.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Yeah, because like the whole point of you can't lie
if you think you're telling the truth. So if you're
just responding really quickly to questions like that, you think
you're telling the truth because you think that's a legitimate answer.
I don't necessarily think that's a lie. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
On the other hand, everything she said before that was
a lie. So you know, in that regard, keeping with
the theme of lying, right, because all the other questions
she was lying some then you throw in one true
question and then she let But like, yeah, it's just like,
wouldn't actually work to catch someone? Do the o's operate
faster than conscious thought? I don't know. Feels a little tricksy,

(01:08:44):
but it works for the sake of plot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
We don't need to write, right, would someone actually choke
on that? Not if they had sworn then the oaths
or would they be able to get it out because
they hadn't really thought about the question? Right? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Yeah, you know the scene with the phara, it's where
there the woman was choking up. Was not a case
of thinking too fast. It was a case of being
told to do contradictory things. There was plenty of time
to think about it. But also then the way Shariam reacts,
like the whole rest of this interaction like proves that
that was a fine Oh, it was a fine catch.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
It was catch, and whether or not that would have
caught somebody else the fact that she's like, oh you
got me, it's like yeah, okay, then we definitely got you, right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Then she hands over the the oath throd and says, look,
I've got an extraordinary claim. Would you like to supply
extraordinary counter evidence? Because I you know, I got a
pretty strong a mountain of evidence for this claim. You
wanted to defend yourself. And then Shiriam, being the you know,
spineless coward that she is, collapses under the weight of

(01:09:50):
that and says, yeah, you got me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Cars on the table, yeah, which I mean and a
queen was like, yeah, the person who came to me
said you were.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
A leader, right, I know everything.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I know everything, and we're gonna make you swear on
the oath rod. So you know, if you're not great,
swear on the oath rod, we'll keep going. But if
you are, then I'm got you. And she's like, yeah,
you got me. It's very CSI at the end of
the episode when they're like here's the evidence and they're like, okay,
you got me. Let me tell you what's like everything.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Right, which I don't think is necessarily realistic, but it
very much fits Shchiyam's Yeah, spineless yes, ambitious way of
approaching things. I believe it of Shiriam, just not of
people in general. And yeah, then she says, so who
told you that? And Agwayne just says Varren, Like I
kind of would have thought she would have kept Varin's

(01:10:40):
name out of it entirely, at least for a little longer,
But in this context she's just like, nah, it's Varren.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
That's a good point because she's like, oh, yeah, your
soul's brown. And here she's like, oh, by the way,
Varren was black. Everybody like she definitely says that in
front of all of the important people that Varin's the
one who told her, because she does. She walks around
it in the beginning, but then here she says it
out loud for everyone to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yeah, I don't, but no, but Varren said, my name
will be forever associated with the black Aja, but can
you let the brown know what my actual mission was? So,
but it's funny how she walks around it at first
and then blows it like I don't quite know what.
Maybe she just likes the dramatic reveal. Maybe it was

(01:11:26):
just for the drama. Maybe a Grain's more of a
showoman than we realize.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Maybe she didn't want the name, just not to trick,
because if they knew Varren was black, then it would
give them. They'd be like, oh, we are caught. But
I think in the beginning they're like, oh, maybe maybe
she doesn't know us, right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Agwayne deposits Shiray, I'm off
to the side. I'll bound up, and then Lelane's like,
so are there others and Aguen says yeah, there sure
are some in this very room, and Maria immediately tries
to bounce. But at that point, the rest of the hall,
basically body tackles are all at once.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
They're like, oh, okay, you absolutely not. Honestly, I would
think nobody should embrace the source. Anyone embracing the source
at that point is like a risk.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Well, Maria leaps to her feet and runs for the exit,
and then all the other women channel to catch her,
and then Romanda tries to be like, really, they're both
from the blue. Does that mean something? And Igwen says
it means that statistics are real.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Ye, it means supporting me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
So yes, they're all here, so the odds are yeah,
we're gonna have more blues in this camp come out
as black than all the other adjas. Once we emerge
with the Tower, it should get down into normal proportion.
But yeah, more or less math is reel right, because.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
You have twice as many blues there, so you're gonna
have twice as many blue dark friends.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Yeah, the other ajas are split, so you've got half
the dark front potential per AJA for everyone else. And
then she offers Romayne in order the chance to be
the first and second women to reswear the oaths. She
you know, they can't both go at the same time,
but she does give them the honor of being number
one and number two on proving that they are in

(01:13:10):
fact just ambitious people on the side of the light
rather than actual dark friends. And then Agwen says, now
we can stop bickering about bullshit. We can just cleanse
ourselves and get on with the business of defeating Satan,
which starts with merging the tower. First we purge ourselves,
then we merge with the tower. Then we purge the tower,
then we figure out what the hell to do with
a dragon reborn. It's more or less the plan.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Yeah, two hundred some from each odd jaw seventy among
us here in this camp.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
Yeah, so roughly half here and half in the tower
in a vanishing margin that's elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
It's about it's about a third to third to third, right,
she has over two hundred seventy seventy seventy makes the
third to third to third Yeah yeah, yeah, so which
is the split of the sisters in the tower, in
the hall and out elsewhere. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Being a dark friend does not dictate how you're going
to split on other things. It just means that you
are everywhere. Dark friends are everywhere in every group, with
the exception of the Kin for some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Yeah, that's always okay, they just yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
I don't buy that, but whatever, it's canonical.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Well it makes sense that there's no black odd Ja
sure in the Kin, but no dark friends.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Yeah yeah, I don't buy that, but whatever. Author's choice.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
More like a plot hole he fixed by being like,
they just weren't any dark friends in there, because otherwise
the Black cot Cha would have known about them, and
then the whole White Tower would have known about them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, the sisters all seem very daunted
by the task, but a Gwen already has a plan.
We're gonna call in the aujas one at a time
and make them all go through the same PowerPoint presentation
and reswearing process, and we should be able to catch
everyone who's a dark friend. I haven't list of names
to check it against, but we'll also catch anyone who's

(01:14:56):
not on the list, which I think she says they
do catch one or two that Varren had missed.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
A couple, Yeah, a couple and some slip away. She
doesn't get them all and some slip away. Yes, But
think about it, per ad Jaw. That's like twelve sisters
per a jaw that they're trying to capture. Like, if
they's seventy in the tower, divide up by six, right,
that's twelve. So there's twelve dark friends per ad Jaw,
Like you need the whole hall to take them prisoner.
That's actually yeah, you need all these sisters to do

(01:15:25):
the work of taking I mean, hopefully, I think your
hall is going to be a more powerful channelers in.

Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
General, but sure, sure, but still it's a big ass
to'd be like, we're going to bring several dozen women
in here at a time and pick out the dozen
dark friends from that group.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
And I hope nothing goes bad.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
There's no chaos We're going to do that five times
over for the day. That's just what we do today.
For five times. We go through this whole process over
and over with a large group of women looking for
a not insignificant fraction of them who are actually like
murderers and double worshippers and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Yeah, the fact that like that group doesn't get out
and goes talks to the other ones and like, oh
what just happened? Oh well they got the dark friends
at like, it's kind of remarkable that that goes up.
It's off screen, right, so we assume it goes smoothly.
We're told it's goes smoothly. But that's one of those
things that I think about the logistics of how you
would actually do that. Smooth is not the word I'm
thinking of there.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
No, you just go whole lot of sealed to the
flame and intimidation and move too fast for people to
lose their adherence to their promise to be quiet. It's
it's risky. But yeah, it's all off screen, so we
don't get the drama of all the close calls that
inevitably happened during that process. And we do know that
a few people get away and Agwain doesn't know how

(01:16:43):
one assumes it's that lack of smoothness that you're pointing at.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
That that's how they talk about how dealing, how to
deal with the warders because some of them are dark friends,
some of them aren't.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
They're all going to respond badly to their eyes, the
diving and prison.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
They're all going to be suicidal. Yeah, so I think
they say, like the legitimate one, They tell them, you
have an opportunity to throw yourself into the last battle
and basically commit suicide by attacking the dark one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
I believe they do put together a sort of like
a blood knife team essentially, like if you can just
hold on, if you can hold off your suicidality for
a few more days, we will throw you into the
thick of it and you can die doing something useful.
And I think a lot of them must do that
because they are warders, right, they do care about the
tower well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
And can you imagine being a for the light warder
finding out your odd your sitter sister that you were
dedicated your whole life to was black.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Audja and now her lying ass has you suicidal because
she had to be executed. Like, Yeah, the levels of
betrayal there, like that would really make you question your purpose.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
M hm and everything you've ever done, everything you've ever
done for your whole life to support that sister you
realize was actually supporting the Dark One.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
Right, I mean like that might drive an honorable soldier
man to suicidality without the loss right bond. Right, So yeah,
go throw yourself into the fight where the good guys
are losing and get them out with your last breath
would probably be very appealing to those guys feeling like, yeah,
their entire career protecting this woman was in defense of

(01:18:15):
the Dark One God.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
That would suck. But then what do you do with
the ones who are dark friends and don't want to
throw their lives away?

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
Like now you just kill them?

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
But how do you how do you sort them out?
How do you sort them out? O? Yeah, because they
all say I'm on the side of good. I had
no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Oh man, Yeah, we never get a scene that articulates
those troubles. But that would be difficult. That would be difficult.
I don't know. I don't know how they deal with that.
And then I think the readout, Yeah, yeah, the readout
is them deciding we're going to assault the tower by tonight.

(01:18:55):
We're going to spend the day purging ourselves, and then
we will this evening initiate the assault. And uh, yeah,
that's what the readout is. So I'm gonna do that.
Once we have cleansed ourselves, Agwayne said, then we can
do what must be done to reunify the eyes to die.

(01:19:16):
You mean, yes, Lelane, Agwayne said, I mean to begin
an assault on Tarvalent by this evening. Pass the word
and tell Lord Brynn to prepare his men. The news
will serve to distract the black members among us and
will make them less likely to notice what we are doing.
Ramanda glanced at Shiyam Andmoria, hanging in the air at
the side of the tent, both weeping openly, mouths bound

(01:19:38):
with gags of air. It must be done. I put
forth a motion before the hall to take the action
that the Omerlin has suggested. The tent grew still, then
slowly each woman rose to give consensus. It was unanimous.
Light preserve us, Lane whispered, and forgive us for what
we are about to do. My thoughts exactly again, added mentally,

(01:20:02):
I might add, those were in italic snot quotes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
M h yeah, there we go pretty dramatic. This is

(01:20:52):
this is the consequences of Varren's quest, right, this is
where where we get to see all the hard work
that Varn did pay off. And so I think that's
that's what I really like about this scene is this,
like we are taking down the Black Adjah, We're taking
down Shariam, We're taking down Moria, and then you know,
when we come back to it, it's done. But that

(01:21:12):
is very satisfying to be like, Okay, we can finally
trust the White Tower again to not be full of
evildoers or backstabbers. Like everyone actually wants to win the
last battle going into the last battle, and that was
so key forever for the Lights, for the side of Light.
Can you imagine if they go in the last battle
and in the middle of it, half the ice that

(01:21:33):
eye turned on the other ones, right like at the
same time that the Sharin's popped in, Like that would
be the end of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
Yeah, I love how present Varren is in this scene.
You know, away and thinking about Varon. I wish you
could have had the oth Rod, and Varren told me
this about you. Shariam and Varren told me that about
how they're organized, and it's just yeah, Varien is so
present being like this is what I did, this is
what I wanted, this is what I intended. This is
how Agwayne is choosing to use my information. You can

(01:22:02):
just feel verver it and being like, yes, continue And this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Was one of the suggestions, right, you try and seize
them all at once, like, and that's basically what she's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
Yeah, yeah, and it's you know, the sitters know that
Varin is what is allowing this to all be unraveled.
You know, we hear about how Agwayne snuck back into
the tower to get the riel and the books. She
has the books. Now, she didn't let those stay in
the town.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
No, mmm, no, she had the books the onrel does
do we know she has u vorn saw Riel?

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
I feel like she would have. No, Swan has it.
Swan used it to get them out, so it's in
the camp.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Already, that's right. Swan took it off of her, That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
So yeah, that was a really exciting conclusion chapter. We
are sander lanching fully at this point. I think we're
sander lanching the rest of the book.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Yep, I think we've we've got one more single chapter
with Rand, and then we've got a couple of double
headers that I think pretty much bring us right to
the end. Yeah yeah, let me look at where we
are in this book. Yeah, a Rand and then we
sort of we go back to Agwayne and do the
reunification of the tower as a double header, and then

(01:23:18):
just a couple of a lot of standalone veins of gold.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Basically, I'm so excited. This has been an interesting and
rough book to get through in a lot of ways,
but man, the good stuff has been really good.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Mm hmmmm hmm. Yeah, it's it's the weirdly inconsistent in quality, right,
Like it feels it feels like two authors in a
way that I didn't notice before.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Because it feels like a handoff that NDS off is
shaky and trembling and the new author is not sure
what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Yet and like yeah yeah, and there's like bits of
brilliance in there, but yeah, it's still not as polished
as I remember it being. I think is the way
I would I would just describe this book.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
Yeah, this is what is. My opinion has always been
that this book is significantly rougher than the next two Mmm,
Like by the time you get to Memory of Light,
the handoff is smooth and connect right better good, next
book is so much better than this book, just in
terms of that shakiness, Like he's he's trembling in these
ginormous boots that Robert Jordan left behind in this book,

(01:24:22):
and he is much more confident once he has one
book behind him and he gets to book two.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Yeah, rattling around a little bit inside those big footsteps. Yeah,
they're big boots.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Robert Jordan was a very tall bad like Sanderson's tall too,
but like when he got brought into this, he was
very early on in his career.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
And the other thing to realize is like there's a
lot of parent going on in the background too, that's
happening at the same time as all of this is
going on, right, all parents, Like we go back to
his story and move up to Veins of Gold again.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Right, and that is because it's all Sanderson. There's a
lot less hand off energy and a lot more just
Sanderson being in his element in his groove writing essentially
fan fic right because he had so It's like he
can just do his best thing without any input in Yeah, yeah,
so it's I'm looking forward to it. I've been enjoying

(01:25:16):
this book, but I am looking forward to getting out
of the turbulence that is the beginning of the Handoff
and into the more just Sanderson is finishing these books
portion and the.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
Last Battle is just good on itself by itself for
other reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
You know, it's so good the last you could just
read the first book and the last book and just
skip the whole rest of the day, just be like,
just imagine a lot of plot happens in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
Between Good to Go the World the Memory of Light,
and that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
I mean, I feel like someone should do it. I
think I think someone should do it. Someone should throw
themselves on that experimental sword and see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Get a new reader podcast where it's like, okay, you
can read Out of the World and then and then
we're not really going to podcast through either world. So
we've done that a bunch, so read Eye the World,
but we are going to podcast through Memory of Light
for the first time with having only read Memory of
Eye of the World, and see what can you figure
out what's happened to these characters in the meantime in
the twelve books.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
You didn't read right, Like, how would Moraine's return make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
You didn't know that she vanished. The whole concept of
the list is hint content. Just that would be I
don't know. It's the last battle is a really really
amazing There's so much going on there. Anyway, this has
been a fun recording. Definitely probably power down and move on.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
And thank you once again to everybody who is working
with us through these last three Sanderson books and have
been with us through the oh gosh, eleven Jordan books
that we've talked that we've covered.

Speaker 1 (01:26:51):
You all are quite awesome, quite real. We appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
We'll see you next week. Bye, Thank you. Thank you
for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast. Please
rate and review us on your podcast app, and consider
supporting us on Patreon for ad free episodes. Watt Spoilers
is a production of Fox and Raven Media. For more
podcasts from Fox and Raven Media, visit our website at

(01:27:16):
Foxendravenmedia dot com.

All Episodes

Sealed to the Flame - The Gathering Storm chapter 43 - EP538

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sealed to the Flame - The Gathering Storm chapter 43 - EP538