The Pattern Groans & Writings - Towers of Midnight chapters 4 & 5 - EP548

Perrin has three Dream Visions, Aradia is wrong about the Whitecloaks, Seth has a conspiracy theory about the Blood Knives, Gawyn thinks with his other sword, and after much complaining we get some Dark Prophecies as a treat at the end.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the wheel of time, spoilers, bloodcast.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Software.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's fun speaking of things that are so so much fun.
We're doing some parent chapters today and then some Dollin chapters,
so there is a bit of dessert at the end. Right,
we do get Grendel Pov with Moridan and it's delicious.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh boy, I'm glad there's some dark prophecies at the
bottom of this pudding cup because uh, oh boy. I
struggled with these notes. Man, I just wanted to punch
everyone in sight and that at least there's dark prophecies
to look forward to.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I did keep bouncing off these chapters. I kept finding
myself like poking around my email or getting up for
a snack, and I was like, wait, you got to
sit down and actually read these. So there's there's some
stuff in there, right, They're not completely devoid, and I've
got some interesting facts I think that you'll enjoy that
might make these a little more fun. But like, oh
my god, do we need to go like the parent

(01:20):
wolf not wolf stuff and a Gala discovering his moral
compass and Gollin and Igwaine are who rough, So we're
going to try and like I think I want to
get through these relatively quickly, considering is a lot of pages,
and I don't think we have that much to say
about it until the grand Al Bob, and then I
think there's quite a bit to say.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, this is a track cond boy experience today. The
princelings all right, we'll do it. We're gonna do it.
We're gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
So the chapter is called a Radia groans and the
pattern growns and that's simile. That's the breaking lace of ages,
is what I'm assuming.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, I believe we agreed on that last time it
came up. It's the age lace unraveling.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
And is it more unraveled than it was last time.
I feel like that break goes like all the way
through it. That'd be cool, a little effect.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I have no idea if there's a series of breaking
pattern icons.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Probably not, but that would be cool if they did it. Yeah, yeah,
So this is at the end of the last chapter.
They said, hey, paren you gotta come take a look
at this, and so this is the thing that he's
going to go take a look at. And it turns
out to be, as far as I can tell, a
teleported blight village.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
It seems like, Yeah, my only other thought was Sharon,
But the fact that the blight is emanating from it
does tend me towards thinking that it's the blight.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I like it sort of the the idea that, like,
you know and I of the world who saw the blight,
is this wilderness that nothing can live in. But there's
all the trolls and the bad guys and everybody's up there.
So I feel Sanderson's trying to say, like there is
like places to live in the blight. There are things
in the blight that survive in that corruption and among
those dangers, because otherwise, how do you have all these

(03:12):
trolics and people who are gonna come flooding out of
the blight for my war?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, and it sets up the town for later exactly
the town can exist because it's not the first town
we've heard of.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
And so yeah, this is I think, you know, just
again a switching of locations. You have some of the
blight plopping down in the middle of gild On, right,
and then because it's like an infectious disease, it does
spread from there.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
But then why does the village itself not look blighted?
It's only blight next to it, but like it's like
the village itself doesn't seem affected.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, I guess that's.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
That was my only question about it, was just like,
why is the village itself not corrupted if it's at
the center of a spot of corruption and it came
from the blight.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
But okay, alternate alternate theory, the village was transported from
somewhere innocent, but the act of transporting it caused the blight.
Right that this like dislocation caused the corruption and the
blight spreading out from it because it was the fact
of the transitioning of places, which is the breakdown of

(04:16):
the pattern, and the blight is obviously also an effect
of the breakdown of the pattern around show gool I
like that.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Maybe it's like antipodal from like the Land of Madmen
or something weird like that. And yeah, it's the transportation
is what's causing the blight, not the village. The village
is relatively innocent of any blight behaviors because we have
no idea where it came from. All we know is
it's too foreign to be recognizable.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Uh Shara is not a bad idea because this everything's
made out of like grassy logs. Right, that's bamboo. Oh
yeah right, and isn't isn't Shara supposed to be the
land where they have you know, a very Asian equivalent or.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, because they have silk. That's where silk comes from
and that makes it shine in terms of biomes.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Right, but yeah, so very much like if you have
the silk, you would also have the bamboo.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well still it comes from mulberry bushes. But yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Well just in terms of climate like this, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, So I mean it's clearly from Suwher for our way,
so it could be Sharrah could be the London Madman.
I kind of am leaning against Blake now now that
you've proposed this alternative hypothesis. It's more complicated, but I'd
like it better, So we'll keep it.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Ruins the fore chat the village. But that's fine. I
was gonna say it kind of kind of doesn't work
because the village feels like a very unique place. Right.
There's the one villa they call the village because it's
the only one applied the town.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, yeah, I know, you're right, so many ways this
could go. I do think it's interesting that no people
got transported along with this, which makes me wonder if
there was a bunch of people that like woke up
one morning falling three feet out of their bed that
was no longer there, you know, just like wow, where'd
the house go? Like we're still here, but all of
our infrastructure just vanished, or you know, was it truly

(05:59):
a band or did they die in the INTRM or
get zapped into the finn world or something.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I imagine they woke up in a fields of very
odd plants to them.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Oh right, like the plants of this place got transported,
and yeah, they were like, why are we in a
patch of a foreign continent? We can just walk out
of it? This makes no sense?

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, it also you know, and when I think about that,
I can't help but thinking about the O Gear and
that maybe somehow the reason the O Gear are here
is because the Dark One started moving around patches, but
not just from different places in this world, but from
places in a different world. And that's how the O
Gear ended up in rand Land. Like it is basically
this exact thing, except the people come along with it,

(06:39):
and in this case O gear.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Right, and it's not inherently evil. When the Ogre do it.
Whereas the blight taint on this it seems to really
be indicative of some evil.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I mean, who know, we know nothing about why the
o gear groves are where they are, but it seems
to be a miss a translated piece of land from
another word.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, but through an agency like of technology of interdimensional
tree people rather than the devil. Right, right, I suppose,
I mean, the ogre don't seem evil. They seem pretty
good aligned on the whole.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Well, but the village isn't evil either, But the fact
that it's transported.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Was right, Yeah, that's true. The town sorry, yeah, unresolved
things will never learn the answer to.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
We got this. Navarreen is said die wise one, sorry,
channeling wise one. Just yeah. But she, as far as
I can tell, is just a normal one of the group. Right,
She never stands out or does anything unique.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, her and Sayona are talking, but we've Yeah, there's
nothing super interesting about either of them. We know who
Sayona is. Yeah, Navarren's standard issue wise one.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yep, she's just not She's just below the power level
to open a gateway, right, she just can't do that
on her own. And she does help with the making
of mahalanaar.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Right right, Yeah, it's that wise one is said, I
pack of general good people that only mildly annoys parent.
That's who we're dealing with here.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
And that's all happened till he goes to sleep.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, pretty much. The barreling gives us the title of
the chapter, the pattern groans, you know, pointing out what's happening,
and they all go.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow, and parents says, let's burn it all. Okay, time
to go to bed, which.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that was necessary,
but why not. We love a good I feel like.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
The blight is something to burn, right if you have
a small package all, let us.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Seem pretty border landery, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Just like and also just like, oh my god, like
you have if you had banana blight, you know, destroying
your cavendish bananas, maybe you should like burn it all
down to try and prevent the spread.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Right, sure, So yeah, he wields fire offensively, and then
we don't pov switch, but time jump with a gap
between paragraphs, and yeah, then we go to sleep with
him until I run red as.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
He's reading a copy of the Travels of Jane forest Rider.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
As he goes to bed, parents doing recreational reading for
one time.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Who books the only time? Right? Yeah? Usually he just
like I would have I would have liked to see
more of him, like meditating or something like that, right,
because it was just like remember when he like he
went into the inn and sat there and thought for
a long time, for like hours and hours and hours,
and then stood up and left and realized he hadn't
left a trace more of that, parent.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, paren reading just feels a little bit out of character.
Parent doesn't read, parent thinks parent, Bruce.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I mean, he doesn't read, not in the way like
he reads more than the way Matt reads exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
He read a book once. This is the once.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So we're in the world of dreams. The sky is stormy,
but a little more violent, and that that discrepancy becomes
more and more pronounced over time.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, I think it's interesting that the storm is stronger here. Normally,
the waking world is the real world and the dream
world is a reflection. But it seems like in this
particular instance, because of the interdimensional nature of Rand and
his cosmic straws with himself, the dream world is actually
the most real and the quote unquote real world is

(10:06):
an echo of what's happening at that more like metaphysical
center world of Telerondriod.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Also with my somewhat vague theory that Telerondriod is a
border between dark One's prison and the real world. Right like,
as he's breaking free, he's stirring it up more because
he's the disturbance is coming from that direction rather than
from our world.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Sure, sure, yeah, you're closer to the point of contact.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
M So he hangs out with a bunch of wolf spirits,
some which you're alive, some which you're dead.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Hopper shows up, one of which is human. Technically the
Boundless shows up here. This is the first instance of
him hanging out with the pack that includes Boundless, who
is no and yeah. They're like, hey, you want to
come play and run and do dream wolf things, and
parents spends an inordinate number of pages saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes,
And then he goes way too hard into an overcross,

(10:56):
too much into being a wolf and almost like actually
Perma kills the Elk and.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, and they do say. He sets up a couple
of places that he's gonna get some reveal about Gnome
Moraine had told Paren there was nothing human left and gno, okay,
well is Moraine wrong?

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh and by coincidence, we're right near where that happened exactly,
what a strange coincidence? Yeah, no, we're boundless and Gnome
get mentioned on the same page, and then oh there
are no coincidences with Tavera and.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, very clearly he's setting up what
I this I would call this is a fairly major
retcon and changing the whole like what Gnome is. I
don't because I.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Don't think such an eye of the world as Yeah,
his original Gnome is such an Eye of the world
flavored thing, but I.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Don't think in back when he was written, he was
written to be. He was written to be a genuine
fear that Paren could end up like that.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, yeah, this to me does feel like one of
the biggest, most expansive, load bearing retcons.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Right right, right, because it just sort of changes parents
whole journey as a wolf is be like, oh, no,
you were just seeing it wrong, right, not that you
had to really overcome this problem that you were dealing
with the whole time. You know, you have the solution
the whole time.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, it's very you were wearing the shoes that would
take you home the whole time, and you didn't have
to murder the witch. Totally sort of situation.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Totally, that's kind of how it feels to me, which,
when set upright, can be good.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, Like, I don't totally hate it, but yeah, I
hate a little bit of it. I hate it a
little bit, but I don't hate it entirely.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah. What I really hate about it is the way
it changes gnomes. I think uncle who's taking care of him,
from someone who was taking care of somebody who was
clearly not of the right mind, to an abuser who
drove him to it.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Oh we went. We had this discussion a while back
where I defended I don't think that it was his
brother Simmey and who was the abuser. I think it
was their father who was the abuser. And then Simeon
did what he could and got blamed for things he
did not do. We had this whole debate a while back.
But yeah, it just and on the one hand, again,
I have the world is so like reck is necessary

(13:01):
for all eye of the world.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Is it's on level?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yes, Yeah, And I don't I don't hate this being
his resolution even being like, hey, this person you met
before has a clue for you that like you have
to mature and like come back around, Like I don't
hate that, but yeah, the part where a paren lives
in fear of an ironclad truth given to him by
an eye to die and then it was all just
a red herring is like.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, yeah, and we understand marine can be wrong, Like
she wasn't right about everything that she told them because
it's just what she believed. So and you have to
take the difference between I said I cannot lie and
I said I only tells the truth. You know. I
saw a great skit where a teacher was trying to
catch his class at cheating and he's like, no matter

(13:46):
what question I asked, you seem to have the answer.
And then he starts asking them things like what are
the lot of numbers? And they know, what should I
do with my life? You know, how do I feel?
But they always have the answer because they're quote unquote cheating,
but they're cheating reality, right, So yeah, that's the difference
between you know, and I said I who would always
tell the truth, she'd be able to cheat reality by

(14:08):
Oh well, if I can't lie, I can I can
you know? And I said, I couldn't predict lotto numbers right,
And in this, in this that there's an overhead god
who will always make sure they can't lie. If they
say the wrong lotto numbers, they can't speak. So you
just go through until that they get the right lot
of numbers. You can write them out and you can
win the lotto. Right, But that's not how it works.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I literally yesterday was recording an episode of Autistic Stuff
for Autistic People where we were talking about this myth
exactly with the autistic community of like, oh, autistic people
can't lie, or the parallel one like autistic people have
a strong sense of justice, And it's like, are you
saying that that we just inherently know the morality of

(14:50):
things like a litheometer. No, like that's not that's not
actually what's what's happening. Oh, people in chat are not
hearing this. Yeah, No, this is a real, real thing.
Like all tested people are just so honest, they're so
blunt they can't lie. Like this is a major myth
and it's completely false obviously because I tested people super
can lie. But it's the same logic of just like

(15:12):
so if we follow this logic to it's extreme. This
means that I can tell you ultimate truths about physics
because you can just ask me stuff and I can't.
I know the truth or like in any given morally
confusing situation, I'm gonna know the right answer. I have
such a strong sense of justice, I'll always do the
right thing, like a lot of autisted people don't do
the right thing. So it's the same kind of thing

(15:34):
here where it's like can't lie and knows the truth.
Not synonyms, No, not synonyms at all. And I don't
mind Maureen being wrong. I just wish that her wrongness
hadn't been parens like number one motivating factor for books
and books and books and books and books, right, Like,
that's what's frustrating is that this is entirely nonsense and

(15:54):
it has been his soul motivating fear.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
I think I have to get meta here and be like,
it's so frustrating because to us it feels like that
was a struggle he had to overcome, and instead of
him overcoming it, it's like, oh, no, that wasn't even
a problem in the first place.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Exactly, I want him to overcome, not learn that he
was in a tizzy about a figment of his imagination
that that's not the overcoming I want him right, and.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Just from a story beat, like it just doesn't feel good.
And I think there's a couple of good lines in here,
you know, paren being like I can't ignore my problems
and Hopper being like you do all the time. Oh god,
oh my god.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
That just Hopper just savage him, left him bleeding off
the floor. It's so funny. I can't ignore my problems.
Then explain to me all of your past behavior. Mm hmm,
Like here's the receipts of what you look and he
like shows in the picture, like, yeah, this is how
you looked, basically like gnome like you became the thing

(16:51):
you're so afraid of, just so you know, like that's
within you, regardless of your wolfe engagement.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
And then there's there's also this reference to these three
chunks of metal he forged in his earlier dream. They
sort of pop up and then disappear again. I think
we're building up the Mahalinar honestly, Like I think he
like he knows he needs to forge Molinar, and he
does make it out of three pieces, right, the head,
the shaft, and the piece that joins them.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Right, yeah, no, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
And these are three pieces of metal, one of the
and they like they kind of the rod which is
the handle, the thin rectangle, and the large lump. Right.
The large lump is the two fists, that's the head,
the rectangle is the part that he wraps around the
shaft to join them together, and the shaft is the
flattened rod. It has to be, like, I can't think
of anything else that would.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah. I was trying to be like, is this some
sort of like, you know, land fear trying to get
in there? Like is this her like attempting to get
into his dream? But yeah, no, it the way that
he builds ma all in your Later does feel like
it builds logically from this little snap of a vision.
It's not even a proper vision. He has proper visions.
This is like the barest whiff of a premonition.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
It's almost he's ruminating on it. It's like he knows
he needs to build it, and he's kind of thinking
about it, but he's not really sure how or what
he needs at this point. But he's like, my hammer's
not good enough. I need something more powerful to fight
these trolocks.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I have often feel like that about projects like that,
I can there's a subconscious part of me that's just
like working on like, well, there's something that's off, and
eventually it's going to be worth bringing to my conscious
mind's attention and then I can start to do something
about it.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
For me, it's the area between when I know I
have to do something, and I do a bunch of
reading and research and YouTube videos, and then I usually
take a break and then I can come or I
might work on it for a little while and be
frustrated right and not be able to get much done,
And then I take a break and I know that
my brain is ruminating on it and thinking about it,
and I may have some ideas, and often I come
back to it and I'm like, oh yeah, boom boom
boom boom boom, you say you know, and you're like,

(18:47):
I'm done.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, Absolutely being able to come back to a project
after a week or two and be like, aha, there,
all of the dust has settled in the workspace of
learning this stuff and now I can do it and
it makes sense and yeah. So I totally empathize with
parent in that regard.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
And so then we have Parent's visions, which even in
the book, they're like, yeah, he'd almost forgotten, he'd almost
begun to think they would stop coming.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
I like that. Men of mine like Sanderson being like, yeah,
I remember those really cool visions in this Guy that we
thought were never coming back. They're coming back because I
thought those were cool too.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
And we can say, oh, you know, Parent has been
avoiding the Wolf's Dream. He's been shutting himself out of there.
He's been obsessed with Fayeel. We can also say it
hasn't really been that long without the Wolf dreams. We
just again, just because of the way time passes. It's
been a lot of books, but not that much actual time.
And most of that time he's been obsessed with finding Fayelle,
not sleeping well, definitely not entering the Wolf's Dream.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, and every time he touches the Wolf Dream he
shies away from it.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
So the first one I'm gonna read, Yeah, we didn't
do a read in in this That's how much we
were just like, fuck, it's good reading.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
I looked at it and I was like, oh, if
you want to just blaze basket, I'm not going to
point anything out.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
So I'm just gonna read the prophecies, because that's I
think the best we got. Matt stood there. He was
fighting against himself, a dozen different men wearing his face,
all dressed in different types of clothing. Matt spun his
spear and never saw the shadowy figure creeping behind him
bearing a bloody knife. Matt parent cried, but he knew
it was meaningless. This thing he was seeing. It was

(20:34):
some kind of dream or vision of the future.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
This is the one I get the least, because we
already had the mirror bubble of vivil with Random book
three four. So I'm confused about Matt fighting against himself
because he's fighting the Golom. His memories aren't the problem.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
He's not fighting himself. He's dressed men who kind of
look like him. So I think it's honestly him fighting
and getting stabbed in the last battle right by Fain
seeking out behind him, right the shadowy figure who stabs him. Okay,
because doesn't he get cut and then he falls down
and then he pretends like we're just not seeing him
get back up.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
I just don't see the dozen different men all wearing
his face. I just I'm not connecting that to any
that's not a Faine thing. Yeah, I don't know that
one confuses me, but I do agree that the shadowy
figure with the knife has got to be Fain because
of how that all ends. Right, the knife isn't described
as being ruby hilted, but it is bloody, so I'm

(21:31):
gonna go with it.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
The goal certainly fits as well, you know, if you
want to try and make an argument for that. But
I don't see the again, who are these people who
are wearing his masks?

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah, that's the part where I'm just like, that's the
allegory has lost me on that one. Whatever's going on there,
I'm not following the thread. But there are multiple shadowy
figures coming at him with knives, so you know that
all works.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
But yeah, if you have a better something that fits better,
or some some take on that that works better, I'd
love to hear it, because it's one of those those
visions that's vague enough that it could apply to a
lot of situations, and so it's hard to really nail
it down to one particular one. You know. It's like
saying Lord Dragon has threats in the shadows, and it's like, well, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
If Matt was struggling with his memories. If he was
really struggling to hold on to himself through his memories,
I would get it. If the Golomb could do like
face changing, I would get it. But neither of those
things are really true, so I'm confused. Or if Matt
was dealing with like a lot of assassins who weren't
just the Golomb over and over and over again, you know,
but like he's not really.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
The only thing can think of is those people are
warriors like him, so they're wearing his face, right, But
that doesn't that's such a stretch.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
There are no warriors like him. He's a singular kind
of warrior. It's just that I don't enough. Or it's
foreshadowing his time at the Shan Jhen Royal Court. I
mean maybe maybe fourth age Sean Chan Shenanigan's I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
He turned away and another darkness opened in the sky.
He saw sheep suddenly running in a flock toward the woods,
wolves chasing them, and a terrible beast waited in the
woods unseen. He was there in that dream, he sensed,
But who was he chasing? And why something looked wrong
with those wolves? A third darkness to the side. Fayl
Grady Elias gall All walked towards a cliff, followed by

(23:23):
thousands of others.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
I appreciate that you blended those two because they feel
like the same one.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
It is the same one, right, It's.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Two different pieces of the same situation. Right.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
The flock is the children of the light and they're
being chased by the trolks. But also you have the
foreshadowing of all the people who are you're following. There's
then once you clear them out, there's like this trap,
right that you could fall into. Well, now I'm giving
back a part of the trap, but whack cloaks are well,
the white cloaks are a distraction from the trap, right, like.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Part of the trap. They're the treat dangling under the
box in the claws. But yeah, something wrong with the sheep.
I do think has got to be the white cloaks
because parents, he's focused on the white cloaks, right, Like
that's what allows him to be herded m because he
assumes because there's sheep, he assumes that means he's the
one chasing them because he's a wolf. Right, But it's
like no, no, no, no, no, you are being chased by

(24:13):
the sheep.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Actually right, and something looked wrong with the wolves because
these aren't wolves like he's. These aren't his wolves. These
are the trolks. These are this is more of it
an analog for.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Oh, the sheep don't look wrong, the wolves look wrong. Yeah,
either way, the thing that looks wrong is the white cloaks.
And it's not him He's Oh you think, I think so,
because that's the threat that is driving him to make choices,
is the white cloaks.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
I see. I think this is the foreshadowing the Grendl's trap,
especially since we get the Grandal POV at the end
of these two.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, but isn't the white cloaks being in the way
part of Grandal's trap?

Speaker 1 (24:48):
No, not at all. It's totally a distraction. They fuck
it up, right, Like she only pulls the trap on
them after the trap completely fails on parent.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
So the white cloaks being in the way wasn't her No.
I thought that that they were directed into the white
Cloak's path. I thought we talked about that like an
episode ago.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
No, into the trap, right into the path of the trap.
Because the trap is the portal stone. The trap is
the portal stone where you can get a bunch of
and so she's diverting Paren's group up into that area.
And I think, and later he goes through his logic
where he's like, we were supposed to fall into the trap.
It was only they were waiting for the White Cloaks

(25:31):
to move off so they could come after me. Like
that's the whole thing that he talks about.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
So Galade is almost like Teverein by proxy here by
getting the way Galat is almost taverning with the White
Cloaks pose.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Being pulled on by Parent, right, He's he's.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Being pulled always that the White Cloaks were part of
Grandall's plot to like get Parent in just the right
position to get smashed by the by the trollocks.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
I know. This is the whole logic back to why
is Parent involved in the White Cloaks in the first place.
He needs to recruit them, he needs them on his side,
he needs to convert them.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
But she does have buyr as an asset.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes he's pison yeah, no, not wrong about that. He
is the poison package that she plants in the white Cloaks.
But she didn't put them in the way. She just
happened to have buyar And yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
So the white cloaks are a good thing.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yes, but you're trying to tell that's what I'm trying
to tell you for Parent. For Parent, the white cloaks
are actually there. Them being there, them getting in the
way of the trap, prevents the trap from being sprung,
gives them, gives him the time to figure it out
to then save the white cloaks, which then recruit the
white cloaks to his side. Right, that is the taverin
giving him the white cloaks as troops for the last battle.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
See here. I always thought it was grandall had two
different adversarial forces pointed at Parent, so that way the
one could you know, the human force could get wiped out,
taking it a bunch of Parent, and then the trolks
could come clean up, and then she would have taken
so many swords out of the last battle. That was
what my brain went.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
I mean, don't get me wrong, Like I'm sure she
was encouraging, like once the two groups were there, she
was hoping they would fight, right, Like, I'm sure she
was doing things.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
That was the point.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
I don't think it is. I don't think it is
all I don't, and I don't think she did anything
to influence their travel there.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
I mean, now that you're laying that out and making
me think about it consciously, I'm like, yeah, that does
make way more sense. It's just totally blowing apart my
interpretation of what was happening here. Oh subconscious, why are
you like this?

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Gallad's choice to go to and or right wasn't influenced
by any It was like, oh, yeah, that's where I'm
going to go to, Like that's just the path they
were on.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Because that's that was entirely a hymn. It was a
very logical decision for him. He's like, I have property
there and people who won't throw me out, so I'm
going there. Oh wow. So it's just so hard for
me to imagine white cloaks being like sand in the
gears of the bad guys. So when are you accidentally
being helpful? That's not since became in charge.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
That Listen, even the most broken wrench, when thrown into
the gears, will still stop the machine.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know, It's true. It's true. Sometimes you just need
literally anything. Okay, all right, today I.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Learned and then like we had this whole thing where
he's like, has to relearn how to teleport quickly from
place to place, even though we've seen him doing that
a million times. We have to figure out how to
run like a wolf again, even though we've seen him
doing that before.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I mean, I think it has more to do with
he's never tried to hold himself back so hard. He's
trying to have all the attributes without going wolfie, and
it's like, you can't walk unless you move your legs.
That's not gonna work. You're gonna need to do the
wolfy thing. Just yeah, it's it's really annoying to see
him retreading it. Like I get it in the sense

(28:49):
that he's like, oh no, this thing that I want
is actually bad for me, so now I have to
make it complicated. But it's also just like, it's so
evident it's not bad for you. It's so evident it's
not bad for you.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Is this the first time that paren goes to kill
a stag and is stopped by Hopper or is this
the second time? Because I thought there was another time
where he was hunting and had to stop him. Didn't
that happen once before?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
There was another time where he tried to take the
lead of the pack, and he wasn't supposed to take
the lead of the pack, I think, because yet it
was a lot earlier. He does not behave like a
junior wolf. He tries to take over the alpha position
and he gets snapped at for that. This time they
give him the leader position in the chase, and he
has to be held back from killing the stag too much.

(29:34):
But yes, I do believe this happened before, and he
gets barked at for usurping the wolf hierarchy because.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I think he attacks Hopper in that moment.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
He attacks Hopper both times. That's kind of his go
to reaction to all of Hopper's lessons is to attack him.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
So again, this is where I kind of look at
this and go like, it feels like you're just restating
a scene we've already seen.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, yeah, rehashing it and hoping we won't notice the
barely obscured serial numbers from last time Jordan did this.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
You know, if it dies here, it dies the last
death this hunt is done, young Bull, which is foreshadowing,
you know, the fact that Hopper will die here. Right,
That's sort of the whole point. Is he trying to say,
like when something dies here die yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, And just Paren just spends so much time
being reluctant and getting teased by the wolves and being
obstinate and being teased by the wolves, and we don't
have to go through it lane by line. We just don't.
Aside from that one line from Hopper that was so
funny that we pointed out earlier, oh yeah, and then
Hopper points out like you say you're afraid, but you're
you're you're objectively not afraid. Again, Like Paren is just

(30:34):
so and it's like part of my unmasking journey these
past couple of years has been like if it feels good,
investigate it and find what makes it feel good. Paren
is doing the absolute opposite here. He's like, oh, this
feels really good. I should shut it down so hard,
Like this feels like a complete wholeness of my being.

(30:55):
I feel alive, I feel balanced. I had better never
do that again. I gotta cut that part out of me.
He wants to bottomize himself. Essentially, It's like I need
to reject the wolf. It's part of who you are
and you feel the wholeness and that somehow is a
bad thing. Like I just I find that so frustrating

(31:15):
as someone who's trying to learn how to like seek
out the wholeness in my.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Life to live in the now, right, And something the
wolves do very easily that the parent struggles with because
he's a warrior. He's a constant warrior. And I think
that's almost like there's the balance, right, It's like you
have this constant ory going on, but that means that
sometimes you have to like give it up and just
live in the moment. And that's I think one of
the reasons he's having such a hard time, you know.
And we talk about this from a more of a

(31:40):
mental health situation, right, like ignore the wolf part of it.
This idea that like you are constantly full of worry
and you need to put that down and live in
the moment. That's not a terrible message to carry through
from parents POV.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, I mean, Hopper's really right that like it's a
thing of men to worry about the future and to
get lost in the future. And it's like, yeah, the
past and the future are not things you can control.
You can you can be here now, that's it. And yeah,
paren is defined by worrying about the future. That's kind
of where he puts all of his energy hoppers like,
maybe don't Yeah, that's a good lesson for all of us.

(32:15):
If you worry constantly, maybe try running after a deer
or something.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
I can't imagine why I ampathize with paren.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
No, he doesn't seem anything like you. So Gallad all right,
The actual POV switch over to Gallad and we're in
the White Cloak camp, looking around White Cloak things and
locating ourselves on the Johanna Road and running into his

(32:43):
parents baggage train, you know, setting up the meeting. And
I think the most interesting thing about this opening part
is what he did with the questioners. He's got like
the camp layout right, and it's a very specific layout,
and there's a hole because he ordered the questioners to
like inter into all the other units. And he's like, yeah,
we have to rearrange the camp in order to fix that.

(33:05):
And I think it's a really good call because he's like, oh,
maybe the police should live in the communities that they're patrolling,
so that way they feel connected to the people that
they are serving.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
This is more about spreading the troublemakers out in the
classroom so they're not all clustered together. Helping each other.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, i'll call them a little call a lot is
a fair and idealistic and pragmatic persons. He contains multitudes.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
We are learning and then there's a line here that
reminds me a lot of parent. Gareth Brindan once said,
most of the time at General's most important function was
not to make decisions, but to remind men that someone
would make decisions. And I think that that's so much
of like when people are coming up to parent and
asking him things and he's like, why you already know
the answer, why are you asking me? And they're like,
we just want to make sure it's done right or
the way you want it, and like that's what. It's

(33:52):
not so much that he's making these decisions so much
is like he has made the decision, he's put his
stamp on it, and therefore that's the way we're going forward, right.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, And you know that the decisions have all been
run through the same filter right across an organization. You're like, well,
the guy at the top did sign off on this,
so I can trust the interoperability of different pieces of this.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
And I'm not pulling against somebody else who's trying to
pull in a different way, because that's that I find
very frustrating at bigger organizations is when you're working really
hard on something and someone else is working on the
opposite and like like, well, which of these should be
we be doing, you know, and it's like when no
one's made the decision yet, so both but yeah, that's
a problem.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, having a clear and coherent chain of custody on
decision making is important for organizational cohesion because.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Again, otherwise you have chaos where everyone's trying to do
something different, or just uncertainty where you don't know what
direction everyone should be pulling.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Again, this is proof that Galad and paren need to
like sit down and talk shop about leadership. This is like, ah,
you guys need to talk parent. You need to learn
a few things from Galat about why leadership is the
way it is.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
And so Gold's writing a letter basically to the children
who are under the purview of the shan Chan, basically
saying come back, you know, baby, come back.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, saying you know, disobey the violent masters you're currently
serving under who are reading over your shoulder, defy them,
and come back to our little renegade group.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Kay.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Thanks Baye of.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Twenty thousand soldiers who aren't that well trained and have
no channelers.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, just just dessert the current violent overlords. You've sworn
an oath to obey real quick, Okay? Cool? And you
know his cohort is like, that's a really dumb letter descent.
He's like, yes, but it's the right thing to do
because I'm lawful, good And.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Then they argue, hey, did we hear correct? You want
us to work with these Isidi witches And he's like,
there might be evil, but they're less evil than the
dark One. Everyone else around him's kind of like.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, maybe, I think it's so interesting how he has
actually gone towards the White Cloaks in terms of thinking
that the Isidi might not be all good. M h,
it's what what is it? Once he might have denied that,
but listening to the other children and considering what those
at Tarvon had done to his sister, it was making
him think he might be too soft on the isidie.

(36:19):
And I'm just like, dude, you were doing so good.
I was having so much respect for you and your
growth arc And then you're like, well, these crazy conspiracy
theorists have one good question about how our government operates,
so I guess they must be right about everything, just
like ah.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Also, he's not the one who's ever concerned with how
they were treating his sister. That's always been gotwe Gollad
is never like what is he doesn't know?

Speaker 2 (36:44):
He backed to got one up on that. That was it.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I I find that slide of his interesting and frustrating,
but it's interesting, like his growth is not entirely linear,
which is correct to reality. Growth is not linear. People
make really weird choices even as they're moving in the
right direction overall.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
And it's very hard to hang out with a bunch
of cops and lead a bunch of cops without taking
on some of their attitudes towards minorities.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Right, exactly exactly like it's And he had one bad
experience that one time, so you know, maybe all of
their ranting and raving actually is pointing at the real reality,
right right, But you know, he's still being practical, and
he's like, yeah, even if they are evil, even if
this conspiracy theory is true, still doesn't matter in the
face of the larger scheme of things, which is you know,

(37:34):
he's being weird, but he's also being practical while he's weird,
so okay, and.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
So then Galad dispenses a bunch of wisdom from Queen
Morgasee by first saying, my mommy says, and then which
I know how my mother regarded the children, right, And
so he's like, they're paying the ass. Basically, they're they're fanatics.
There's no there's no point in dealing with them, and
we can't keep being fanatics questioners, And I think this

(37:59):
should have to everybody, all of the white Cloaks, but
the question is especially often could not tell the difference
between a hard and dark friend, a person who's being
influenced by a dark friend, and a person who simply
disagreed with the children.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's a really astute observation of the whole org not
just the questioners, right.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
And I think that's where he's trying to bring a
little bit of nuance. But at the same time, his
mission still has to take on dark friends, you know,
and like he still has a little bit of that
white cloak belief that anybody could be a dark friend.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
It's a worldview that's very dark and paranoid. Everyone is
a potential dark friend. Any given person could be out
to get you, Like this is a kind of paranoia
that feels a lot of conspiracy minded brain worms, Like
it's have more hope in humanity than to assume that
everyone is probably a dark friend who's going to knife
you in the back at the first opportunity. Like that's

(38:56):
not actually most people, And that is the fundamental world
view of the White Cloaks is that everyone's a dark
friend until proven innocent, and dark friends are people who
will just violently murder you for no reason.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Like it's so simple, and I feel like God, it's
trying to set the White Cloaks up to be what
the Iel later become, which is this police force that's
respected among all nations, who knows what's right and can
go in and moderate disagreements and crimes inside of different countries.
Like that's what his vision of what he wants the

(39:28):
White Cloaks to be is, right, He's like, think of
what we could achieve inside of nation's boundaries if we
could act without needing an entire legion to imitate that
nation's ruler. Right, So he's thinking about operating as a
lawful entity inside of the countries, not using military force,
but using the strength of being right.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, but also with this underlying assumption that like, well,
we have the right to force them to obey if
they won't obey otherwise, like obviously we would like we
have the right to go in and do that if
we have to, but I'd rather not because it doesn't
look good. And it's like cop brain, that's cop brain.
But yeah, I mean, you're right, he is identifying a
need in the world some kind of unifying police force

(40:10):
that nations can rely on to be a third party
arbiter who's neutral. Is a need that this world has.
Someone with a military force can easily look at this
world and see that that's a hole that someone could fill,
And yeah, kind of does foreshadow the ideal thing later.
I'm skeptical of the whole concept, but I can see
where the characters are coming from.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
So in comes by our Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, incomes cadaverous.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
By our compelled by our completely annoying by our which
I get why, Like it feels like because by ar
took these people prisoner who you know, ends up being
babasil Gill and the whole troop that supported the army.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Right, and you kind of look at and go, oh,
charle Byr is under the influence of compulsion, and he's
the one who brings them in. He must be part
of the trap. But I think it's just him being
over zealous and him being thinking anybody who will put again,
anyone who disagrees with the children must be a dark friend.
And these people are clearly lying right like this. It's
a very legit suspicion, right, They're like, we're merchants, and

(41:07):
it's like, no, you're not, Like you're very clearly not.
You're can't faultowers. So where's your where's your army? Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (41:13):
And for once, Brandon Sanderson is conserving characters and making
sure to not invent someone new when there's a perfectly
good character with backstory already established. For once, he's doing that.
I like that Bayer is the one doing this just
messenger boys stuff, because he's been around for a long
time and it would be nice to continue to see
him before his untimely demise.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Uh. I want to ask about this line. There was
these sort of talking about rumors as he walks away
and says there was talk of a gigantic stone from
the sky having struck the earth far to the north.
And and Or destroying an entire city and leaving a crater.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I know, like, what what I have.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
To assume it's just shot our logoth. I think it's
just shot ow of logoth, right, because where else there's
a crater in the ground? Yeah, city know what?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I completely agree. I was so confused, like what crater
because all I could think was the town that PAREN
just saw. And I'm like, but we know that they
would have recognized indoor and architecture, so an endoran plan.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
And is in the north of Andor.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
But yeah, I was like, there's no craters, there's no
craters anywhere. This is such a randomly shot our logo
as a giant crater, And how do you explain a
giant hole in the ground like a rock from space
makes a lot more sense than the dragon Reborn cleansed
the tank.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Right, it just does. So that's I highlighted that with
no idea what it is, and then I just had that.
I was like, oh, giant crater, that's that's shot out logo.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, completely nodding. So yeah, Glad takes it upon himself
to assume he can take the resources from this baggage
cart to from this baggage train, and he's allowed to
just separate these people and interrogate them and do whatever
he wants to with them after he decides what their
stories are, like, yes, we'll be lawful, good about it.
But also he just assumes that right because cop brain.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Well, and there are no rights, you know, this is yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's true. There are no rights. There are the rights
that people decide to give you.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
We might and he's very much in this mite makes right.
I just I think it's so funny how not mighty
the White Cloaks actually are. They think they're these big
strong He's like, we're gonna change the course of the
final battle. And then you know later when they're finding
the Traulx and Paren's doing his thing with the arrows
and the channeling, and he's like, wha, we ain't shit,

(43:27):
Like we are a relatively small body of not that
well trained troops who are not battle hardened and have
no channelers whatsoever. Like and then so then part of
me is like, I'm always the pattern needs to give
the White Cloaks to Para. And yet why they're useless,
They're pointless, they don't make a difference. Is it just

(43:47):
to get that rock out of his shoe.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
No they do. It's twenty thousand people to throw into
the meat grinder, like the last battle is a war
of attrition, so every scrap counts. It's dumb, it's stupid,
doesn't create good stuff on the page, but it is
the rules of the game as set up by the author.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
So Basil Gil lies out of his teeth poorly because
he's obviously a Camp follower.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
He does the thing where he tries to tell the
parts of the truth that work right. He says he's
Basil Gil, he's from and or he's you know, trying
to get back to and or all of that's true.
You know, he's trying to build a good lie. He's
learned a couple of things, but unfortunately he's a terrible liar,
and everything he's learned does not do him any good
in the face of Golod.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
And so he tries to sell Glad. He's like, I'll
tell you anything about my food, and Glad's like, the
food's the only thing we care about, because that's all
anybody cares about anymore.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
It was a good feint by Gil to be like, well,
what if I just tell you all this stuff that's
making you suspicious? Then can I get your suspicion off
my back? And then paren would have had no gear
for his camp followers, but he would have had his
camp followers. It's a pretty good last minute hail Mary,
but it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Meanwhile, during this question, and it doesn't matter because born
haled somebody else has talked, and Bornhold has all the
relevant information anyway, So don't even know why I'm talking
Bassel Gil because Bornholder runs up and says, yeah, there's
an army. It's led by this guy named Parana Bara
and parent golden eyes, parent golden eyes.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Sorry, very important that we call him golden eyes a gold.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
And Bornhold is like, yeah, that's the guy who killed
my father.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, I do have a problem with this guy. You
should know and he and Gold's like should I know him?
Bornholl's like yes, part of my like entire personality, right,
my entire personality is the parent golden Eyes killed my father.
How do you not know this part of my lore?

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Literally, what I was doing for years was chasing this
guy down for like a year and a half. That's
why I was in the Two Rivers to begin with. Yeah,
it's like have not told you the story.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
It's really funny how there's no communication in my wale
of time.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
I wanted to assume he'd like written reports and shit on that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Right, yeah, exactly. It's kind of like how Paren's secretary
dude not knowing God's personal sigil. It is just such
a weird plot hole. It's like, pretty sure Balwer would
know Goalot's personal sigil, given that he's, you know, the
essentially hostage stepson of more Gaze only like a year ago.

(46:05):
I feel like he would have known that same thing here.
I feel like if Golad is hanging out with these
guys and spending a lot of time with them, he
would know like the highlights of their personal stories, especially
if one of that stories includes a fellow child of
the Light being murdered.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
You know. And when I do like that Basil Gil
here recognizes Galad, right, He's like, oh, yeah, I know
who this guy is because he's been traveling with his mother.
That's the other thing.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
That like Andy's Basilgil from andor like he knows Gollad.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Just because as king sure, but like part of me
wants to be like, Glad, your mother's alive let's go
get her. Come on, you know, like that level, Come
on Gil, right, like give him if.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Gil doesn't take initiative. No, Gil has like a negative
twenty to his initiative role. Like he never takes the initiative.
He always waits for other people in the plot to
come to him and prompt him to do something. And
he is reluctant to take any action without being prompted
by like multiple other characters. But yeah, you would think
that he'd be like, oh my god, it's a lot,
I have to tell you the most incredible thing. You'd

(47:09):
think he would have have just blurted it out or something.
But no, yeah, that's all I have for that chapter.

(47:29):
So we can just quote unquote POV switch into the
next chapter.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
And this is writing. This is the name of this chapter. Yeah,
I read it as writhing when I first opened the chapter.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
What is the snake? The four panel snake? So I
can see that.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, And it's also me as I'm reading this, just
writhing in pain because it's a goin chapter. Ye, and
like this is this is some of the worst GO
one and some really bad a Gwaine too, right, Like
I don't like a Guayne in this chapter at all. No, No,
her stubbornness and refused to look from another POV. It

(48:08):
makes her feel dumb in a way that Agwayne's not
supposed to be dumb.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, it feels so not like the Agwainne that I'm expecting, like,
which I mean, in fairness, this is how teenagers in
love behave in fairness, like, this is the level of
dumb assory that one would expect.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
But and it's Colin's POV, so maybe he's like sort
of interpreting. Maybe we're getting like his POV of Wow,
she's like when in reality she's acting differently, but uh,
you know.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
And she's like trying to lock down because she's feeling
upset and uncertain, so her defense mechanism is to be
really stiff and formal and like again, like very human
to be stupid and dumb in this way.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
But yeah, not enjoyable to read though, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Too too realistic, not enough beautiful fantasy growth arc where
people are better than they are in real life. Yeah,
it's frustrating. It's even Sleet honestly comes off as annoying
in this. I don't know why Sleet's here, Like, I
know he's a great character. But all I see is
Gwaen like boy crushing on everything in pants and then
Sleet just kind of like grunting to the side, like

(49:12):
right here.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, narratively, I don't see why he's following Gwen around.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
I think it's just so that way we can be
like Gowen is in love with every handsome man he
sees like every man in this he's like, well, that
guy's cute, that guy's handsome, that guy's rugged, just like nice. Okay, Goen,
sure be a bisexual disaster. That's very on brand.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
So he's investigating the murder of the fourth dead sister
since the shawn Chan attack. Since the shawn Chan attack, Gee,
I wonder if they're connected.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
That's also since the reunification, also since the purge of
the Black Aja.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Okay, okay, fair enough, they did all kind of happen
at the same time.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, which, like, honestly, I'm wondering about the timeline because
I thought that the Blood Knives had all, you know,
activated their rings during the attack and they're only supposed
to last for a few days, and apparently there's been
a murder a day, but also a bunch of other
stuff has happened, So I'm confused about Like, I guess
some of the Bloodknives must have just not activated their
rings because the timeline just isn't isn't working.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Sorry, I have a conspiracy theory about that.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
The rings don't kill you, but every Blood Knife ends
up dead, so they assume the rings kill you because
the Blood Knives go on suicide missions and.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Then they behave as dead men walking.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
So hmmm, No, that doesn't work because Gowan gets us
like I think he gets like weakness and like he
gets weaker while he's got the rings on.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
But yeah, and there's a whole thing about them taking
the rings off and on to slow the process.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Oh okay, I guess then if you take the ring
off when you're not using it, But then like where
what are they just like finding a dark closet to
like crouching in the meantime while they take the rings off,
And like.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I guess that's what assassins do. They find broom closets
to hide in.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
So I'm knocking on the stall. We're in here, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I I's I don't know. I feel like the Blood
Knives are a little bit shoehorned in and maybe don't
fit perfectly at all corners.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yeah, the tower is pretty empty, athlon saying, you know,
there's there's lots of dark corners to hide in because
it is. But you know, you got all these apprentices
and stuff, and there's a lot of movement and a
lot of chaos.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
They've got dining halls full of dust, so there's probably
broom closets in those dining halls that really don't get
checked on. But yeah, he is investigating the murdercing because
he's not convinced that everything he's trying to do gumshoe
detective work basically.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
And the ice that I killed is Katerry Nephew. This
is one of the first of many I would call
fan helper inserts. So often I think people who helped
him the first one I've spotted. There may be others,
but I do think people who helped with the especially
from like tour dot com or Dragonmount dot com who

(51:56):
helped Sanderson with these books. A lot of them do
get named in Towers of Midnight and a Memory of
Light and are often killed in really horrific ways.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Right, So such love from the author let me carry you.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah, So that's basically like you, because he's like, Oh,
I need to kill somebody, so I'm going to make
up a new I said, Ah, I kill them off.
They're not important. It's it's just I just need a body.
And so these people who help support him in the
first book and later on I think ended up giving
mentions as dead people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I remember hearing this lore. But it's good to actually
have an The only one I know is in Keeper
Hatch at the Dusty Wheel. It's the only one that
I know.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
But this the name of the character comes from Kate Nephew,
who wrote Lord of the Rings reread from tour dot
Com around the time Towers of Midnight was being written,
So she was involved in toar dot com and I
only assume in some other way was involved with these
books and the creation of them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Sure, but tour dot com is the broad provenance and
that totally makes sense.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Cool neat So he just basically added an e R
because it's Kate, so it's Kate Ree and then her
actual last name.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
The other thing that I find weird about these murders
is that somehow they're like spread out across allegiances and
adjas and I'm like, how are the blood knives picking
up on all of that intrigue and drama for their assassinations?
Like aren't they just kind of picking off whoever they
can find?

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Like I think that's what they're trying to say, is
they're just in random places all across the tower.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Okay, but I.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Feel like there's either too many deaths or not enough.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Well, also, there's multiple blood knives. These might not all
be being killed by the same knife. They might be
taking different floors or whatever.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
And then so what I'm saying days have been going
by and there's only four deaths. That means each blood
knife is killed like one person. What happened to them
like tearing through the ranks of the Iyesid eye and
committing murder? And it's like, just I don't understand. It
doesn't feel like there's enough death.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
My hypothesis for this has always been that they're trying
to figure out which death will cause the most chaos Slash.
They're trying to get to a gwain and they're just
like nibbling at the edges while they gather intel on
various systems so that way they can make a much
more concerted push to like take out a whole haul
at once or something like that. That's been my plug
for that hole, because yeah, it's kind of weird. The

(54:07):
only reason I can think of for so few deaths
is that they're doing intel gathering rather than trying to
actually kill a significant amount of people.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
So then do they then only kill these people because
they are discovered? And if so, then how are they
just picking ice tod Eye who don't have orders.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I figured they're testing various hypotheses about how to get
to is to die and how to kill them and
what defenses do they have. I think that's what's happening
is these are all test cases for how easy is
it to stabinize to die?

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Got it? And the answer quite easy?

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Unfortunately quite easy. But again, this is what feeds into
his whole ward discussion, I mean, the whole warter thing.
None of them have warders, and Going makes the pretty
logical argument that adding more words into the mix would
be a practical safety measure on the eve of the
last battle.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Oh my god, Okay, reading that through again, what a
dumb fucking Okay, orders are a risk and if you send,
because if a warder dies, you incapacitate in iid, I,
And if you're sending these wards into battle, a lot
of them are gonna die, and all of a sudden,
you have a bunch of incapacitated I said, I who

(55:12):
can't function because they're magically grieving warders.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Yeah, because he's because he's extending this situation to a battlefield,
which is a complete apples to oranges.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Like one percent. But he's also saying like, yeah, yeah,
on the battlefield, it just doesn't make sense to me,
because like you are going to essentially risk an isid
eye to have one slightly better warrior on the field.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
And his other argument is that isaid, I will be
safer if they have warders protecting them, But I'm like,
if the warder dies protecting them, it's it's It totally
makes sense in the context of working in your office
in the White Tower. It absolutely makes sense to have
all of your tower guards and and your personal bodyguards
and your your assets be all bonded and shit. But
it makes no sense when you're talking about like writing

(55:59):
a cavalry charge into a machine gun nest. It just
doesn't scale right. But it makes sense in the lead
of in the tower. It does make sense.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
So and it's like, yes, if you could give this
to every single warrior without risking you know, maybe one
sacrifice one iid eye and have them bond all of
them or something like that. Right, Like, but saying as
many sisters should take as many warders as they can,
you're just increasing the chances that one of those warders'
deaths is going to incapacitate the Iidye.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Maybe go and doesn't know about what happens to Isidye.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
But then I want a GWayne to push back and
be like that, you're just wrong, Like it just doesn't
make sense for these reasons. She just she's like, oh,
I'll consider that and I'll argue for it in the hall.
Like she doesn't push back at all on that.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
It's weird that she doesn't. Like I get if he's
ignorant of that cost. I get him saying that, but yeah, her,
she's not. Her counter argument should be, no, I don't
know if we want to if we want to make
the glass cannons that fragile, and he should know because
he's in training to be a warder and he's gonna
be a warder. So if he doesn't know that, Igwaine

(57:04):
should be cluing him into that, like, now that is
important stuff to know about before you sign the contract.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
And he knows he's raised around all that stuff. He understands,
like the warders don't keep that a secret.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Right Yea, he knows a lot of warders, so he
does know. So, yeah, it's Igwain and Gounder frustrating.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Us in they're frustrating, Yeah, very frustrating in these chapters.
So he's investigating, and he's obviously like finding evidence that
these are not you know, these very much are murders
by someone who probably doesn't have access to the power.
There are no slits of the gateway. They're using knives,
they're breaking down doors, Like, none of that makes sense
if you have the one power. None of it. And
the iceid Eye aren't finding any residues. There's no channeling residues.

(57:43):
We know they can look for that. So just again
and again and again, I get so frustrated that Agwayinne
through this entire chapter insists it must be a Massana
because she knows Massana's in the tower. Therefore Masana must
be killing people with knives.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
I in what piece of lore is Massana a knife girl?
She's an administrator, not a fighter. She was never into
athletics or parkour, Like, why are you assuming she has
to be the one with the knife.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
So here's I found a little bit of evidence for
my off the wall wacky theory that Gowain may have
been compelled. Right during the battle for the White Tower,
Gowan found himself wondering how his mother would have handled
demands such as this. Gowin didn't often think of her,
as doing so brought his mind back to ail Thor,

(58:30):
that murder had been allowed to walk away from the
White Tower itself awayne had held him in her hand
and had released them. True, Althor was the dragon reborn,
but in his heart, Gowin wanted to meet al Thor
with a sword in his hand and ram steel through him,
dragon reborn or not. And I think that just insane
obsession was part of the compulsion. That insane You know,

(58:51):
also that like I don't think of my mother often, really.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Seems like you think about her a lot. First of all, Yeah,
I also read that line of was just like that
feels so aggressive, aggressively, like out of nowhere, just like
I don't care if he's a dragon reborn. In my
heart of hearts, I gotta kill him. Like, that doesn't
seem very I mean, I know we hate on Gowan
a lot, but that doesn't seem like a rational, duty

(59:17):
driven reaction. Yeah, that fury just feels really misplaced. And
he talks about how he really needs to pull himself
back from the brink that he's been spilling over ever
since the Battle for the White Tower. He's like, yeah,
this last period of my life has really sucked, and
I got to figure out something different, like something changed.
And yes there was a lot of trauma, but maybe

(59:37):
also you got a weird seed of rage put in
your head that's burning your subconscious at all times.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
And one of the reasons he believed the rumors with
no actual evidence is because he's just seeking out validation
for something he's already being forced to believe, which is
randal for the bad person who killed my.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Mother being compelled into being your own gaslighting abuser. And
that is so grand.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
All.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Wait, are we saying that Grant Massana did this?

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Massana?

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
I'm saying Masana, Yeah, that would be very grand, all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Which is why it's not the best compulsion, right, It's
not this like air tight compulsion that makes him absolutely
you know, it's Massana doing it. She's not a fantastic compeller, right,
there's holes in this thing. He has to find his
own motivation. It's closer to what Varren did than what
Grendall does.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah. Yeah, Massana is an administrator and a teacher and
a trainer. But she's not a compeller so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Yeah, which is not to say only Grandall can compel
people like Robin did it, you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Know, but only very well. She only she can do
it super super well. Everyone else has cracks. I guess
Robbin was pretty good, but uh yeah, it's it's easier
to accept gen being so unreasonable if we allow Massana
some some hand in the equation.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
I just otherwise he doesn't make sense to me as
a character, which is fine. I only it makes sense
to a lot of people as a character. But I'm
willing to headcanon that and sort of just accept that
as Like. The reason why he sucks so much is
that he's struggling with this compulsion and fighting against it
and never really breaks free of some of the things
that makes him do. So this whole thing about Cubane,

(01:01:20):
where Cubane thinks Gowin's trying to take his position as
I don't even remember what the.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Positions first captain of the tower guard.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yes, high Tower, the captain Yard, and Gowain has to
like pull aside and be like, listen, I just want
to fuck I mean bond A GWayne like that's all
I'm here for.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Right, And schu Ban is like, oh, you're thinking with
the small head.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Right, Okay, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Okay, child, okay, because you know it's a reasonable concern.
He's new to the job. He hasn't had a great
track record because of forces outside of his control, like
Gareth Brynn and Gawan Cher can both seem like good
candidates to replace him, like of course he's defensive, and
then as soon as Godwin's like I'm just besotted with

(01:02:04):
the ombreline, He's like, oh, oh never mind, never mind,
got Gareth Brynn already off the roster, and now this
little yeah, thinking with the other sword. You're thinking with
your little sword, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
But he's on the right path with the detective work
at least, right He's like, I think this is some
kind of assassin, someone who uses knives, someone who and
then they find the scrap of black silk. So he's like,
you know, a forsaken, wouldn't wear necessarily black silk, because
then you'd be like, you know, and I said, I
wearing black silk is like a big no no, right,
especially with all the black sister is just being you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Executed, right, Yeah, no, proclaiming yourself with black not gonna happen,
but very traditional for assassins, right, it's for reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And so that's where he's and he's reading it quickly
where he's like, I don't think any sister would be
caught dead if we found black cloth. That's not coming
off a sister, especially not one who's moving around the
night trying to kill people. Right, this is the he's
I cant understand why wouldn't use the power? I don't
understand why they're wearing black. And it's like, well, because
they're not. Yeah, he's right, you know, his detective work
is good.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
These three men, with their non magical material based investigation
skills are doing a lot more actual discovery than Agwayne
and her assumptions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Oh you know what, line pissed me off, going and
half a mind let her tory bond him. It's like, well,
if you won't fuck me, maybe I'll just go have
sex with somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
I just, I just and he's like, no, no, no,
I do, I do love her. It's and then, oh,
this is the line that pissed me to pissed me off.
Uh huh oh in red, it had not been easy
to decide to give up and Or not to mention
the young wings for her, yet she still refused to

(01:03:46):
bond him. You gave up your other I am sorry.
What the actual fuck? She never asked for a check.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
He never gave up and Or.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
First of all, you can't give that shit up. You
have never formal gon through steps to give it up.
She never asked you to give it up. You never
talked about giving it up. And she doesn't. Oh you
shit well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
And he didn't even give it up for her. He
gave up and Or long before he was fucking trying
to be her order or whatever like he was being
the young lings. He gave up the and Or for
the young lings, first of all. And he only gave
up the younglings when he was like trying to be
assassinated as a leader, right like that was done anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
He gave up the young lings too, but when he
betrayed them to go and steal her out of what
she wanted to do. Oh but she won't bond me
after all, I've sacrificed fuck all the way off. Yep,
just h the self centered, spoiled, privileged entitlement. Yeah, exactly,
Voujie Sleep would have set that boy right. Hat Torre

(01:04:45):
should have bonded him because the Sleep could have sat
him in the corner and just hit him with a
book until he stopped spouting nonsense. Yeah, please Sleep, take
him away and give him to toy. Please.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
So he tries to interrupt Agwayne, and Sylviana properly says
the fuck no, she's on a call. Sits fuck down,
and wait for her to get off the call.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, she's literally the CEO of a giant corporation closing
a huge business deal. You don't get to walk in
with a bouquet of flowers because you're sorry. Like take
a number.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Reference to Alida's foundation for her palace, which I think
is all that ever got built.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, she paved over the old water training ground, so
they have to build new water training grounds. But like, yeah,
there's this half built beginnings of a palace. Like, what
are you doing with that? I'm assuming kentri into some
sort of weird museum or something.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
So I'm half convinced Trump has read this books and
is taking Alida as his like ideal, like he paved
over the rose garden, which is exactly like the parallels there,
Just like, okay, you literally this is paving over the garden.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Elida would never pave over a rose garden.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
But yeah, no, just literally bulldozing really important stuff for
your vanity. We were making that comparison to blow off steam,
not as a suggestion.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Trump li was to this podcast. He's like, oh, yeah,
that's a good idea. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
He reads Weekly Wheel News. It comes as small enough
bites for I Love you, rub It's just you know, pictures. Yeah.
So Godwin looks out the window and thinks sad thoughts
until Agwayne has time for him, and then he is annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Yeah, and we get the younglings have just basically gone
back into the fold as warders and training, which is
weird considering they're trying to kill each other two days ago,
but fine.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
That happens with militaries all the time. There is later
a cool scene where a group of them who don't
want to be wards for exactly that reason, go to
him and are like, we would like something else to do, please,
and he gets them like into they turned into a
unit of the tower Guard rather than warters, and that's
a whole thing that happens later. But yeah, for the
most part, the young Wings are dispersing back to their

(01:06:55):
original mission, which is, yeah, it's whatever soldiers do. Weird
shit in war with their allegiances, it's complicated.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I kind of like this little detail that Agwainne's books
are all ornamental because she hasn't actually read any of them.
It's just like they're ranged by color and size because
they're just like there to occupy space. Well because they've
moved a light of stuff out. But Agwaine doesn't have
anything of her own to put in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Its place, right, She's like a twenty year old who
showed up last week. Like she doesn't have a large
library accumulated. That's the work of at least a few
decades to accumulate a proper library, as an eyes todye.
So yeah, but it's nice that her room isn't bare
and echoing they're like, no, no, no, we can find some
books from the backbins, the backstock of the library. We
could just bring some stuff up just to fill in

(01:07:38):
the walls.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
And then there's one good line from mcgwain that I
really like, where a Gollan's complaining that like, ah, well,
you always show me the Ambulin. I want to hang
out with Agwaine and she's like, I show you the
Amberlin because you refuse to accept her. Once you do,
perhaps we can move beyond that. And that's something that
I think Matt was able to demonstrate with a single bow. Yeah,

(01:08:00):
that Gowain still has not been able to do.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
Yeah, yeah, she says later, you weren't ready yet, Gowa,
like you have work to do. There is a thing
in your brain that yeah, he needs to go talk
to Matt. Because Matt was perfectly able to like disrespect
her behind the scenes and then respect her in front
of where it matters, Like he got that right away,

(01:08:23):
even though he was utterly disrespectful behind closed doors. And yeah,
Gowa is just like, you have to always be Agwain
to me, You have to like talk out of both
sides of your face at all times. And GWayne very
reasonably is like, no, I need my husband to understand.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
That, and he doesn't have the excuse of being a
childhood friend. Yeah, you know, and he's just he he should.
It's it's I've seen it in relationships where the guy
just infantilizes his significant other and is just like, oh,
you can't do anything. I have to be there for everything,
and I'll take care of you because you're helpless. And
it's like Wayne is the opposite of that person.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Yeah, and God is just like, let me help you
understand how the world works, sweetie, Like, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Meanwhile, Gowen has not like Gowin living in his parents'
basement literally you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Uh, he's literally man explaining how to be in Isidaie
to the Omberlin seat from Yeah, he's been like couch
surfing with his friends.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
He's like, oh, this is how you're a CEO, babe.
She's like, I know I have the job. You don't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah, you could have gone to and or you had
a job waiting for you. Your daddy had a job
there for you, but you didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Yeah. Instead you are mooching on your college professor's couch
for some reason.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
And so yeah, he suggests the bonds because the bond,
does you know the person killing the is said, I
is not killing Isidi with warders, I guess. I mean,
I think that's more just opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Yeah, I mean I think it's because they don't have
warders is what gives the opportunity. But like they're gonna
kill someone anyway, it's it's yeah. And the only good
line I like from Gowan in this is when Agwaine says, well,
taking a warder is a very personal and intimate decision.
He says, yes, so I was going to war, which

(01:10:11):
I'm like, okay, fair, rebuttle, fair, rebuttle. It is a
very personal intimate decision to decide to put your body
on the line in a war, like her putting the
eyes to die at a different level than the common
plubs is something that should be called out. And I
like Gawen being like, nah, we're all human here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
But they are at a different level. They are way
more And I said, I as we're the hundred soldiers
in battle at least, right, But it's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
A personal and intimate decision, Like it's just you're different weapons,
but you're still people. It's a personal and intimate decision
to go to war. These aren't just toy soldiers you
can line up and knock down because you live for
three hundred years, like these are people. I don't agree
with his overall thesis. I just like that particular exchange.
I'm like, yeah, fair point.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Yeah yeah. So then Agwayne sort of tries to talk
around the fact that Massana is in the tower and
then eventually just comes out with it the killers access
to the one power and perhaps they are not using gateways,
basically saying they're in the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Yeah, we know exactly who they are. We just don't
know who they are what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Except you're totally wrong, right, yeah, so wrong not saying
Massan is not there, but that's not the person committing
these murders.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Here's another line from going back to the warder. A
sister not bonding a warder is an active selfishness. Eh no, no,
that is the core of why he's wrong. Just right, No,
it's not an active selfishness. Like sisters get to choose
what they want to do, soldiers get to choose what
they want to do. Like, don't be calling people's choices
selfish either direction, please thank you anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
And then you have to go to all the soldiers
and be like all of you who don't want to
get bonded, suck it up and make yourself available, right,
because it's not you don't get that choice anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Yeah, No, we need a more open conversation with no forcing.
That's what we actually need is we need a much
more open conversation between the soldiers and the eyes that
die about options and then people can make their own
damnae choices instead of enforcing it either way. Anyway, back
to the Massana clearly stabs people thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Right, right, and so as part of that Agwayne wants
Gala to stop guarding her door because how else can
you can't because if she's gonna tempt her to come in,
she either has to remove goalid or God's gonna get
killed in that infiltration, right, Like, stop guding my door.
I'm setting a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Trap, right, And he's like, how dare you ask me
to do this thing for you? That's part of your
larger plan. She literally says, we do one thing for me.
He says anything. She says, stop putting yourself literally in
the way of a train that I know is coming.
And he says, absolutely not. I will stand in the
way of the train. No, dude, what what what? I

(01:12:45):
just like? And this is why we don't trust you, Gawin.
This is why Agwain doesn't trust you. This is why
the audience doesn't trust you. Is because you cannot trust
anyone else or follow through with your own word for
more than five seconds. And he's like, well, I'm basically
your order and she has to say, no, you're not.
You're literally not my word yet, like that's actually really important.
We're not water And I said, I that's important, and

(01:13:09):
you have.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
To prove to me that you can be my ward
before I'm giving you that role.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
He's like, but I love you. Isn't that proof enough? No, No, Actually,
it's a really weird thing for you to assume.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Because most warders aren't in love with their ey said
I yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
And doing something just because your horny is like not
great when you're in charge of lots of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
So then we he leaves and we stick with A
Gwaine and Poe switch to her and get her thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
A Gwaine is being such a dumb teenager in love
and it's realistic and I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
It's also I feel like it's also not realistic in
that like she doesn't She's like, oh, I don't understand
how bonding would work. It's like, come on, you've talked
to enough, I said, I you know how bonding works.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Well, But there's knowing how it works academically, and there's
knowing how you'll react to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
It sure, and how it feels.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
I suppose, Yeah, these are different things. You can read
about taking LSD all you want, but it doesn't mean
you actually are prepared for it. But yeah, she's just
horny for him.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Basically.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
It feels like that is going to complicate her ability
to be the Omborlin seat as an institutional solid person.
And I mean, I would say that fear is kind
of not unfounded because certainly it's realistic. But she doesn't
really make a lot of bad decisions about Goblin until
the very last one, you know, Like he doesn't super

(01:14:29):
get in the way before that last thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Yeah, I mean is helpful almost by accident.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
But yeah, like she's so concerned about this and it's
like it's not really an issue until he actually dies,
Like that's when it becomes an issue. But like being
bonded to him up until then doesn't really make her life.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Worse, doesn't make it better though.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
No, But she's concerned it's going to make it worse.
It doesn't actually, but yeah, then she goes back to
her more important business of gathering all of Rand's allies
for the fields of marylor that's the other that's the
letter she was writing in the earlier POV is telling Darlin, Hey,
here's the time and place where we all got to
meet up. And you know, Darlin comes to support Rand,

(01:15:12):
but Agwayne does all the secretarial legwork of telling him
where and when, even if it's in the guise of
come oppose Rand.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
And that's where we get the Marylora for from is
that's where they urge you. Yeah, And honestly, this is
sort of a weird POV because it's super short and
I don't really have anything to say about it other
than her being like Gollin tracnned is annoying and the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Tea isn't spoiling as much lately.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Well, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
There's a lingering echo of Rand's presence on the food stores.
We weren't sure about that when we talked about it before,
but it appears that there is some lasting effect from
his visit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
It does fade over time, though, right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
But it's not quite as acute as just being in
a radius of him, And then yeah, it's hack. Can
we get to our dessert now? Please? I just want

(01:16:08):
the dessert. Granddad to rejoin.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Granda Air warns, do you want to read us in
on this one?

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
The first time this episode, Grandall anticipated the messenger's arrival
even here in her most secret of hiding places. Because
arrival was not unexpected, the chosen could not hide from
the Great Lord. The hiding place was not a palace,
a fine lodge, or an ancient fortress. It was a
cavern on an island nobody cared about, in an area

(01:16:39):
of the arth Ocean that nobody ever visited. So far
as she knew, there was nothing of note or interest
anywhere near. The accommodations were downright dreadful. Six of her
lesser pets cared for the place, which was merely three chambers.
She'd covered over the entrance with stone if the only
way in or out was by gateway. Fresh water came

(01:17:01):
from a natural spring, food from stores she'd brought in previously,
and air through cracks. It was dank, and it was lowly.
In other words, it was precisely the sort of place
where nobody would expect to find her. Everyone knew that
Grandall could not stand a lack of luxury. That was true,
But the best part about being predictable was that it

(01:17:23):
allowed you to do the unexpected. I just love her.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
She's so fun, so much good stuff. And this is
very much like where Matt hides the cannons in the
Last Battle, where he finds a cavern that sealed and
puts them in there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, and then they just opened the wall
to a different angle on the battlefield fire and then
close the gateway again, which is super clever. I mean,
the ultimate gunner nest.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
That is clever because the gateway doesn't have to face
the same way in and out.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Yeah, this is a really cool idea from Grendall. It's
just like, yeah, it's it's a Heidi hole that no
one would suspect her of having or maintaining.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
Yes, it's an island apocalypse bunker is what it is
with only six of her lesser pets. I love her
idea of roughag it is still to have six servants.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Well, someone's got to maintain it, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
Do you think that she just had the same six
there all the time, or did she like rotate them
to keep them fresh, like the food.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Mmmm, probably just the same six.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Right, Yeah, they don't need to be refreshed at the
same rate as like fruit. So they've just been hanging
out there for like a year or whatever, however long
it's been since she built this bolt hole. They've just
been hanging out there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Well. And I have to assume that she only covered
it up with stone after she started using it. Before then,
the six people were coming and going and like bringing supplies.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
How they're in the middle of the ocean. I assumed
that she was like gatewayhing stuff in periodically and just
having them like eat it down and then she'd bring
in another load.

Speaker 1 (01:18:51):
And like it does say food stores, she'd brought in previously.
So yeah, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
I mean that's what you want to do with survival food,
is you don't want to just store it forever. You
do need to rotate through it. So she could have
had the servants rotating through the food. Yeah, Granda is
a glamper. Yes, I figured that this is like hundreds
of miles from anything, like completely impossible to sail to
and from unless you know exactly where you're going. And
her pets probably don't have the skills because they're all

(01:19:17):
pampered nobles. Plus, it would, you know, allow people to
find her if there was shipments going in and out.
But if it's all gateway based, then it's completely secret.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Just secret enough for the dark One to find her.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Well, the dark One's got a GPS tracker into her ear.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
So right, so this messenger shows up, No idea who
flat features in, deeply tanned skin, wearing black and red.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
Some guy, some guy doesn't say anything, doesn't show up again.
He's just the message and the means of transportation all
at once. And yeah, she gets summoned to Mordon. So
she goes from a cold, dank cave in the ocean
to the blistering heat of the Blight in one step.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Rough reading a book called A Light in the Snow.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
No idea what that means In the audiobook, I always
thought it was a light in the snow, but in
the text I can see it is a light as
in the bird, a lit upon a branch, a light
in the snow. I guess you get some sort of
weird esoteric sex poetry, because that seems like what Grandall
would do to try to pass the time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Yeah, I mean I have to assume it maybe about
not making an impression, and yeah, I've got nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
Just a spot for the second age.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
So they end up in Mordan's Blackstone Palace, which I
still think is in the world of dreams. Sure, I
think this is always in the world of dreams. I
don't think this palace ever exists in the real world.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
I mean, she does say that she tries to not sweat,
she tries to do the concentration thing and it doesn't work,
which she's like, ah, something's wrong, And being in the
dream world where Mordon controls everything would qualify.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Right, So that's my theory as to why she ends
up sweating. Sure, either that they're right by shale Ghoul
and somehow the sweating is tied to the channeling, and
because she can't well, she doesn't mention she can't channel
or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
So yeah, and I do feel like she would have
noticed if she was in the dream world, but maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Not not necessarily if it's in one of his bubble
universe streams, right, because he has control over those in
a way that like is more set than in the
general world's dreams. It's a separate, little miniature world that
you miniature world that you have total control over.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
I'm just surprised she doesn't note the flavor and comment
to herself. But I guess she's also got a lot
on her mind, so maybe it just kind of slides
on by, And so.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
Then what follows is her spinning what happened with getting
bail fired.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Right, which I find so interesting because I'm like, surely
the Great Lord himself does know the truth, which means
he's keeping it from Morden.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
I think the Dark Lord doesn't necessarily know the truth.
I think there is a matter of he is not omnipotent.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Okay, I kind of figured he was to some extent,
But I guess she's the only witness to what she did,
and if she's not divulging that information, then how else
would the Dark Lord get it?

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
That's that's fair, because he doesn't have the direct mind
to mind communication, right. We saw that with the birds
and the murd Drawl, and like they have to report
back to him, and.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
We've seen this forsake and say that, like they know
that the Dark Lord can't like read their.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Their minds, Yeah, exactly, or else they would be screwed, you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Know, well, he's but they didn't die though they got
bail fired, so there's no chance for a status report
as they go.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Out, right, I mean he's aware they're dead, right, He's like.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
You know, yeah, but the exact means.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Grendall's like, oh, yeah, she didn't go when I told
her to, when reality she tied her up in weaves
and prevented her from doing anything, right, but no one
was witnessed. All he knows is that she was bailfired,
not that she was tied up. Right, they can believe
the oh she failed to flee when I told her
to little white lie that Grendall tells.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
Yeah, so Mordon's pissed, but she's able to spend this
as a mistake rather than a choice, and he actually
buys it. She actually manages to get one by him.
He's still mad at her, but like he can't be
as mad as he would be because she's able to
successfully hide that she is the reason they are dead.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
And I feel like Lanfeard does a bunch of similar
stuff where she's like helping Ran but saying she's trying
to hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Him right the whole Well, I have to lead, I
have to help him, so that my betrayal will hurt
all the worse, right I have, And Grandall's argument is
I had to induce him to kill hundreds of people
at a time because that will cause him spiritual anguish.
I had to let him find me, right, She like
passes off as like like I obviously lose there and

(01:23:42):
had to be led by the nose to find me.
It was like super hard for him to figure it
out on his own. I had to help so much.
It was all on purpose to get him to kill
these people because we know that will be the thing
that hurts him worst, which I mean it does kind
of push him over the edge, but also like he
was tipping over that edge without the fortress, So if
Mordan was really paying attention, he'd be like, m well,

(01:24:04):
was that the only way? I don't know, Sammarrock seemed
to do pretty good with just almost killing men.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
So making him kill men.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
Yeah, yeah, interesting forsaken thought here. Yeah, when she's she's
thinking about, you know, playing the Mordan loose there in game,
and then yeah, she could vaguely remember what it had
been like taking those first few steps towards the shadow.
Had she ever felt that foolish pain?

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
Yes, unfortunately that is a huge admission.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Yeah, I know, the idea that like she actually felt
bad at one point in a way that Semarog never did.
Like that contrast right there is like okay, yeah, so
the Forsaken really are three dimensional villains. They're thirteen different
people with thirteen different motivations.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
And it makes Samarov all that much scarier because she's
the one who doesn't who always was evil, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Like she came that way stuck.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
Everybody else is scared of her, but I the and man,
just the way she the floor Beans really made her
less threatening in a way that makes me like, oh yeah,
she was not that scary. She got captured easily and
she broke easily. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
I wonder if there's something in that where like because
she didn't choose to be evil, it's like easier to
get into her head or something because she just was
that way already, Like she didn't rationalize her way into it, right,
Like a shawmele like has reasons capital are, you know,
And that's what Grandal's thinking about. It's like a shamele
has memories and rationales and maybe that makes it I

(01:25:33):
don't know. I still disagree with floor Beans I just
don't think that was correct a Semaro's character or Katsman's
character for that matter.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
I was talking about how everyone needs to report back
to the Dark One. It appears that Moradon no longer
does that. Yeh has the direct mind connection, that the
Dark One has broken enough into the world, and that
he's elevated Mordan as napeless, and that he has that
ability to communicate direct mind to mind.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Which is wild like, and I like that she points
out that this is new because it's like, wait, was
this always possible? No, no, no, no, no, this is a thing
that even a forsaken is surprised by.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
And so as an alternative too, she's like, well, since
I know I'm I'm hidden right, Althoor doesn't know him alive,
and so I can do something that you've been trying
to do for a while, which is killed Parene Barrow
right right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
Mordon says, you're in the doghouse. You have one last chance,
and she says, parent, parent, I can get paren, I
can get the wolf, And then Mordon says, you're not
gonna be able to get him on your own. Let
me give you a toy. Also, let me give you
the contract for Slayers, So you actually have two toys.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Right, and that toy is the dream spike.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Yes, which it does exist in the real world. In
this moment, he taps it and then it vanishes, presumably
to exist entirely in the dream world for her to find,
which also would imply that this is not the regular
dream world. Yeah, yeah, because it can't vantaged into the
dream world if it's already in the dream world. That
wouldn't make sense. This has to be a dream shard
or the real world can't be regular.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
Telleronriod and we see that he has many, many objects.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
Of power, so many more than ever get brought into play.
Why is he not throwing all of these into the fight?
What's going on here?

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
I wonder if they're fakes, decoys, decoys, that this is
all just he pulls the one reel tell the turn
real out of his storage, and everything else is just
a distraction that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
Would be really easy to do in a dream chard,
very affordable and efficient and if you just control everything
with your mind.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
But I prefer the idea that he's just been in cumulated.
Like anytime anything gets discovered by the dark Side, it
goes off the chain to him, and he's stashing it
away in his little custom dream chard, thinking he's gonna
You know, it's like when you say potions for the
final boss and then you never end up using.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
Him, right, Like yeah, yeah, and I just don't.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
Feel like he can trust a lot of his minions
with the objects of power. They'll try and challenge him.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
Yeah, but it also would have been cool if suddenly
a bunch of objects of power we're like powering up
all the dreadlords, like kind of like the Sharans. Just like, wait,
this wasn't supposed to happen, Like what if suddenly there's
like multiple oath rods or a shock glance is suddenly
in the picture. That would have been cool. But no,
they just yeah, sit in his inventory unused, like.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
A whole group of like, Oh, I have a shock glance,
let's copy it and distribute that, so we have an
army armed with shock lancees lances and how you have
to adapt to those that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
It would have made a cavalry unit like the White
Cloaks a lot more effective if shot glances had been
in the picture.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
All I'm saying they mentioned something called a Rema car
no idea. Could not find any information on no idea,
no information on there, not even like old tongue references
to those two parts of the word, couldn't find anything
like that. He references that he's got two spikes.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
Where's the other one?

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
Black tower?

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
Right right, I'm like, I know that, I know this,
but I'm not it's not coming to my black tower. Yes,
it's being put to good use holding down gateways out
of the Black Tower.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Mm hmm. So that's where is going to discover that,
and Androl are gonna be like, oh, I can't make gateways? Yeah,
useful in so many different ways, right, This is you
can protect your palace, prevent people from gatewaying into your
private structure, capture other people. Right, there's just a Gateways
are such a useful thing anytime you can prevent them. Also,
if you like, you can prevent people from freely traveling

(01:29:18):
in the world of dreams into your special place.

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Right, So real handy.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
And I do like that. Mordan's like, and I have
the key for this one. So they're complicated, right, If
you have the key, you can disable it, you know.
So I thought that was going to come into to
play with paren trying to disable the other one. Instead
of him just tossing it into dream lava, Paren.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Did a two rivers and just punched it right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
It just broke it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
He's like, you don't have to unlock it if you
destroy it with lava. It's one of those that can't
be stuck if it's liquid kind of situations.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
I melt it. And Mordan also promises Grendel if she
does kill Paren, she'll get much more access to the
true power, which is very much like, oh you want
the real drug.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
Yeah, he says, you're at the edge of losing favor,
but here have some toys and the promise of much
more access to the true power. If you don't pull
this off, then you're useless to me, Like, I'm giving
you all the advantages. I'm giving you assistance, I'm giving
you incentive like do it or die, And.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
I think there's a little bit of here's some rope
to hang yourself with as well.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
Why not both? Why not? But if you pull this off,
it'll be spectacular And if you don't, you will have
hung yourself for me.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
Thank you, and you get to be Haslam, which is
does that mean last? No, it's Sindane's last chance.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):
What's Haslam beautiful one or something. It's a reference to
her appearance because she gets made ugly, because the dark
One has a very juvenile sense of punishment.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
We'll talk about that later.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
Without forgiveness, that's what it is, Thank you Vouji, because
she is very much without forgiveness. Grandall's not a forgiving person.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
Well, I thought she wasn't forgiven for her mistakes. That
that's why she made mistakes, and so she's brought back
with forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Oh, that actually makes a lot more sense. That actually
makes a lot more sense. Good call.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
The next thing I have is the prophecy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
Yeah, we've got a human skin bound book of dark
prophecy to look at, which we've seen this before, I
believe once, or we're gonna it feel like there's two
instances of us seeing this the book.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
I mean, we've seen dark prophecies before, certainly, I don't
think I've ever seen the book before.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Oh was the book not in that scene?

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):
I think it was in the morgen Blight Palace situation,
So I guess I'm assuming it's from the same book
either way. But yeah, anyway, We've got a human skin
bound book of dark prophecy which is creepy as hell.
And yeah, we talk about what is in it, which
I believe is referencing the thing that we heard earlier
in a dark Prophecy. It's referencing the same thing, right,

(01:31:51):
the same passage.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
So this prophecy is actually in it's full at the
end of the book in the epilogue.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Oh okay, that's where we see its end of this book.
We haven't seen it yet, but we will see it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
We haven't seen it yet, so I was going to read.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
It, okay, because we've talked.

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
We've talked about it, and you'll see the line that
comes up. But I don't think it refers to parent.
I think is the problem is they're misinterpreting the prophecy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
Well apparent clearly doesn't die. So something arise somewhere lo.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
It shall come upon the world that the prison of
the Greatest One shall grow weak, like the limbs of
those who crafted it. Once again, his glorious cloak shall
smother the pattern of all things, and the Great Lord
shall stretch forth his hand to claim what is his.
The rebellious nations shall be laid barn and their children
cause to weep. There shall be none but him and

(01:32:40):
those who turn their eye to his majesty. In that
day when the one eyed fool travels the halls of morning,
and the first among vermin lifts his hand to bring
freedom to him, who will destroy the last days of
the fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come yeay, and the broken Wolf,
the one whom death has known, shall fall and be

(01:33:03):
consumed by the midnight towers. And his destruction shall bring
fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall
shake their very will itself. And then shall the Lord
of the Evening come, And he shall take our eyes,
for our souls shall bow before him, and he shall
take our skin, for our flesh shall serve him, and

(01:33:24):
he shall take our lips. For only him will we praise.
And the Lord of the Evening shall face the broken Champion,
and shall spill his blood and bring us the darkness
so beautiful. Let the screams begin, Oh, followers of the Shadow,
beg for your destruction. It's pretty long prophecy, it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
Is it is there's I mean, the last one is
mostly just flourish. That last paragraph is mostly just cape twirling.

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
Yeah, and there's a lot of flourish in there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
Yeah, that middle paragraph is really where the meat of
what we've got to talk.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
About, because the beginning is just the gnashing and wailing
of children. He shall come, he shall destroy, he shall
claim what's his right. But yeah, the one eyed fool
travels the halls of morning, right, that's Matt going to
the Finn.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Oh yeah, it is, isn't it. It's not blinded, that's
one eyed. That's a different sort of oracular damage. I
sort of was like, oh, yeah, it's Rand because there's
eye damage. But no, no, no, you're totally right. It's Matt
having had his eyeball plucked out dull.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
And I think the halls are morning Halls of mourning
is what those halls are called. That he runs down
in the world of the Fin.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
I could see that being the name. Yeah, it's not capitalized,
but yeah, the Finn cause a lot of mourning in general,
so that seems appropriate.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):
And the first among vermin lifts his hand to bring
freedom to he who will destroy first among vermin.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
Rand right, no Faine, no.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Who Gordon lifts his hand to bring freedom to the
dark one who breaks the seals of the Dark One's
prison low game. He's the first among the vermin in
this case are.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
The Schaman, the Black Tower. Yeah, okay, okay, it's Logane, Okay, yeah,
all right, Logan is first young verman. I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
The last days of the fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come.

Speaker 2 (01:35:13):
Yeah, okay, all right, this is where they think they're
talking about parent Yes, but you think it's.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
Not well, I think this is the last day. He's
no longer a blacksmith, right, So he's no longer prideful.
He is humble, and so these are the last days
of his pride. Right, that's when he throws away his acts, and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
When he throws away denying the leadership mantle that is
clearly already affixed to his shoulders, because it does take
a lot of pride to deny they you're the leader,
and takes humility to accept the responsibility.

Speaker 1 (01:35:46):
Okay, yay. And the broken Wolf, the one whom death
has known.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
That's going to be Hopper, right, because he's already dead.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Yes, and he will die again and fall and be
consumed by the Midnight Towers, which.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
The Midnight Towers in this case, I take it as
allegorical for just the final death of things.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
Or it's not Hopper, because I think the Midnight This
is hard, right, because the Midnight Towers one that could
be the Sean Cham It could be the Forsaken. We've
heard the Forsaken referred to as the Midnight Towers, right,
or it could be I think in the Midnight Towers
is the Towers of the Finn again, right, And so
the broken Wolf could be null and death has known more.

(01:36:28):
He's been under the care of Morden.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
But how does his destruction bring fear and sorrow to
the hearts of men?

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
That's why it doesn't work very well.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
Because I feel like with Hopper it kind of does.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
It works better.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
Hopper's loss really does affect paren and that affects a
lot of the hearts of men. I just consumed by
the Midnight Towers, is like, but he was just consumed
by regular perma death. He was not eaten by a
nightmare or stolen by a forsaken. You know, he just died.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
But isn't he killed by Slayer?

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
He is killed by Slayer. He gets stabbed super hard.

Speaker 1 (01:37:03):
That's right, So you know Slayer as a tool of
the forsaken Midnight towers right.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
Like, yeah, the whole shake their very will itself. I
like it's so obviously red Herring pointed at Paren because
he's right. So it's like, but who actually else fits
the bill?

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
Who does? Right? Yeah, if this is not Paren, because
we I think we agree that it's not Paren.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Well, he's not a broken wolf, for why he's got
a broken crown and he's a wolf, but he's not
a broken wolf. Boundless doesn't die. He's kind of a
broken wolf, but he doesn't die. Hopper literally is broken
by physical damage, but like nobody except Paren knows about him,
so his fall can't. I mean, he does become the
like avatar of Malinear, but that brings heart and will

(01:37:52):
to men. It doesn't really break their will. It kind
of adds to their will.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
And it is looking like Sanderson says, the broken wolf
is Hopper.

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
Well, I mean the hammer does definitely impress a lot
of people, for sure. The magic hammer definitely strikes a
lot of emotions into various hearts.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
I'm just doing some research see if I can find
anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
Because the one whom death has known really points at Hopper,
like who else has known death? Especially capital D death.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Well, and that's where what is death right because Mordan
his name is death.

Speaker 2 (01:38:24):
Martin's name is literally death, and.

Speaker 1 (01:38:25):
He was literally compelling nol Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
Also, okay, here's another hypothesis, Acelda, because he's literally called
the little wolf and then he gets broken and compelled
right to sabotage the plans and yeah, then Elias comes
and knocks him over.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Oh my god, that is such a better interpretation than
the little wolf who's broken because of compulsion. Death has known.
I mean, he's fought so much, he's killed so many,
he's falled consumed by the Midnight Towers, which is the compulsion,
and his distraction shall bring about fear and sorrow, right
because the four generals are being compelled.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):
And he really did no death because he because he
has survived Maldon at that point, not Maldon. He has survived.
Uh but what's that town? Yeah, I don't remember the city,
but that that city that Rand goes and staves at
the very end like he has he has he has
known death by the time that he gets to that point.
So I think is I Toalda. I think I think that, Yeah,

(01:39:22):
I think we've discovered that I'm okay with that, because
his destruction does shake what's left of the army, like
losing the generals one after another, like it is a problem.
The only difference is that he no and he is
consumed by the Midnight Towers. If the Midnight Towers are forsaken,
that is, being consumed by the Midnight Towers like a
forsaken literally did take him out of the fight, even

(01:39:42):
if he didn't literally die.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
I don't know if that's what was intended, but that's
my favorite interpretation so far.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
Yes, I will I would agree with that. This may
be more of a head cannon, but sometimes head cannon
is more correct because sometimes the author is wrong. We
have decided this on this podcast. Sometimes the author is
simply wrong, like this headcanon better than Hopper, but your
mileage may vary. Dear audience, please yell at us and discord.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
But yeah, I believe canonically it's supposed to be Hopper.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
Still sure, I could totally see Sanderson thinking that this
was a good reference to Hopper. I just I like
guys are all the better.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
This is one of the only times we actually see
someone using the true power from someone else's perspective because
Grendall sees more than open a portal. Yeah, she calls
it a portal, not a gateway. The twisted weaves stab
the air and rend it ripping a hole in the
fabric of the pattern. Like that great description, but because

(01:40:37):
you have to, but it is. It's an interesting piece
of lore because it means that if you have the
ability to touch the true power, you can sense and
see somebody else using it, which in all of the
cases you.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
Can't, right, right, and like actually for people to see
it across the gender line, because this is the non gender.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Power in right as a woman for the first time
seeing a man channeling right, like literally seeing it right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
The only other time we've had that has been with
the Bowl of the wind, like shaping itself around a
void that you can kind of infer the shape of
the weave from the shape of the void, but like
it's not the same. She actually just sees this because yeah,
the Dark Lord didn't take away the ability for her
to use the true power, Like she's in the doghouse,
but she's still.

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
Still just a trickle, but yeah, not completely.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
Kicked out at the club. And yeah, Morden is very
wrong about this prophecy. He says this for telling promises
that a bar will die by our hand, and yeah,
no he doesn't. So the prophecy might be true, but
your interpretation is dead wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
Which agrees with also Agwayne's interpretation of her prophecy, right. Like,
I think that's definitely a theme in the books, is
like you might have something that's true in retrospect, but
you're going to interpret it wrong, And there's really no
point in basing your actions on how you interpret the prophecies.
Rand might be the exception.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
Yeah, but he's the acception of so many things that
it's like almost par for the course for it to
be an exception for him at ways.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
I think the Koreathon cycle was written for him to read, Yeah,
guide his footsteps.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Yeah, it's it's written for him. It's speaking to him.
Everyone else is not meant to be in that conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
Because he always interprets things correctly, Like he figures out
what the iel are that they're mentioned in the prophecies
and he goes and seeks them out right. Yeah, And
like I feel like Elida does it gets it wrong,
Min gets it wrong all the time, Agwayne gets it wrong,
Paren gets it wrong right all these people, especially people
who interpret their own visions. I think you have a
better chance of interpreting somebody else's. I think your owner

(01:42:31):
almost unless you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:32):
Know no, right, yeah, with the extra layer that can't
be logiced. Yeah, so yeah, that's all I got.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
Yep, he teleports out of there and she has her
final chance, which sets up all of Paren's arc with
Gallaude going forward. And uh yeah, I like the way
we handled that. I think we went through it in
enough detail without hitting every single point on two very
long chapters.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
We probably hit too many points. I'm interested how many
minutes I'm going to whack out of this? Fine, you
know when you've done, because right now we're over two
hours and there's some shit I am taking out.

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
Definitely, definitely, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
But yeah, I'm glad we combined these two so we
could just swallow that bitter pill all at once. I
really didn't enjoy most of that, Sorry, audience.

Speaker 1 (01:43:17):
That was rough. That was rough. Yeah, that was there again.
There was points in there that I liked, but it
was a hard It was a lot of pages of
that with a lot of cutting, I should say, like
we glossed over huge chunks of text without saying much
about them where it's just stuff that parents repeating that

(01:43:38):
we've read many times before.

Speaker 2 (01:43:40):
Thank you all for powering through with us. We do
appreciate it, Yes, we appreciate it. Continue to engage with us,
share the content, Engage with my other podcasts, drink water,
appreciate August weather or not as the case. Maybe it's
a bunch of places for its sucks, but it might
be nice where you are.

Speaker 1 (01:44:00):
Joy us next week for a lot more parent stuff
and a little bit of land.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
No fun land. Get that to look forward to.

Speaker 1 (01:44:06):
Yeah, we've got parent figures out, circles and forget bigger
gateways and tries to make more but Gase get married.
I'm sure we'll have lots of fun things to say
about that. And then parent and Gallad encounter each other
for the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
All right, awesome, looking forward to getting through that. Come
back next week for more of us complaining about our
favorite books.

Speaker 1 (01:44:29):
It's really what we should rename the podcast complaining about
our favorite books.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Truly, truly, thank you for listening to the Wheel of

(01:45:05):
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