
·S13 E17
Return to Bandar Eban & Parley - Towers of Midnight chapters 25-26 - EP560
Episode Transcript
This is the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
All right, recording is on, Recording is on on this honkin honkin set of pages, Like, not a lot happens, but god, there's a lot of pages.
Speaker 2And I guess I should say sorry for missing last week.
I was fairly ill, so I pulled the plug on recording.
I wasn't going to make it for two hours.
Speaker 1Yeah, sorry to hear that.
Glad that you are back, reconstituted, upright hydrated.
Yeah, really really glad that you're back with us.
That gap in our recording publishing schedule happened to fall perfectly onto Thanksgiving, So anyone who didn't notice we put out an episode on things Giving.
You probably didn't because you were Thanksgiving gyzing or whatever, unless you were boycotting the holiday, in which case you know, props to you.
But yeah, that's why that gap was there.
Speaker 2We're desperately looking for audio to distract you from your family holiday.
In that case, sorry we missed you.
Speaker 1Look, we've got five hundred plus episodes you can go back and listen to if you need to listen to us.
Speaker 2Have you heard our opinion on this?
Probably yeah, you probably put together.
Speaker 1Yeah, but yeah, today We've got some very Sandersonian chapters to get through.
Yes, we're both here.
I'm very very tired, so Seth might be carrying a lot of the conversation, but we are at least here.
Speaker 2So I have things to say about these chapters, for sure.
And there are good points.
As always, there's always good things in the chapters that Sanderson writes, right, there's always like a couple of moments that I really appreciate that he does.
There's also quite a bit to criticize in these chapters.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, there's one or two things.
I'm gonna have to get my soapbox out.
Speaker 2For all, right, But where does the term standing on your soapbox come from?
Speaker 1An era of demagoguery?
I think in like the twenties.
I think during the era of like populism becoming really a thing, people would literally get crates that soap would be shipped in, and they would stand on them, like in public spaces and yell about whatever the issue of the day was.
I'm pretty I read this several years ago, but I remember, like, no, like it's a literal like shipping crate that had like a soap brand, you know, stenciled on it.
And like people would stand on them because they were starred.
You have to hold a human and they would, yeah, be enough elevated and it's easy to carry around, right, like they're not heavy.
I could be wrong about a couple of the details, like when that was, but I believe it is literally a shipping crate for soap.
Speaker 2Just a way to get above your head, above the crowd.
Speaker 1And yeah, to stand high, higher and be able to project your voice and such as people like look who's shouting?
Oh that person, who's you know, eight feet tall instead of six feet tall or whatever.
Speaker 2I was supposed to jumping up on a statue to look after a woman with a plume.
Speaker 1Right, yeah, exactly exactly or needed like an actual stage right being on the back of a moving carriage, you know.
Speaker 2So we come into a city that has gotten dirty moucky, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're returning to band our Abon after Rand abandoned it and it's it shows signs of having been abandoned.
Also, this is chapter twenty five with the sea folk goals.
That's the chapter symbol.
Speaker 2Sure, yes, sorry, we jumped right into that one.
Speaker 1Yeah, because we go talk to ce folk because again the band our ebbond food situation right, right, sea folk component.
Speaker 2Even though they're kind of barely in this chapter but sort of at the end.
Speaker 1Well, but they're a big part of why the food situation right.
Speaker 2Is the way it is.
Yeah, And what's the expression, you're only three meals away from chaos?
Right?
So three meals was a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1Not is nine missed meals.
Speaker 2Nine missed meals three days worth of meals.
Speaker 1Yeah, Civic orders is nine missed meals away from unraveling.
Yus, If if you don't get to eat for three days, you will be looking for food very aggressively.
And bandor ebun has been long past that.
Speaker 2Because it's not even like, oh, they ate through their stores of food.
Their stores of food are all.
Speaker 1Bad, right, The food that they were gonna eat has spoiled every time you go to get the next bag of travel rations.
It's also moldy like this, it's different.
Speaker 2These are definitely Schrodinger's bags of wheat, right, Like, they're not spoiled or unspoiled until you open them, and then it depends on when you open them.
Right.
This is just something observing causes the possibilities to collapse into a single Yeah.
Speaker 1When Rand tells the dock master, dude like, no, you just didn't open enough, and the guy's like, excuse me, that's not how statistics work.
I am with the dock master.
I'm like, no, Rand, this was not a matter if he just didn't open enough.
As a matter of every bag he opened, he collapsed.
It's quantum state.
That's what happened.
It's different.
You're gaslighting him.
Rand, be nice, because.
Speaker 2It wouldn't have mattered at the time how many he opened.
They would have all been bad, exactly.
Speaker 1If he had opened one bag and called it a day, all the rest would be good.
If he'd opened every single bag and called it a day, none of it would have been good.
That's the fact.
Speaker 2And like, Rand is the thing that is able to change that chance, right, Like, that's the whole point.
He changes probabilities.
That's what he's able to do as the dragon reborn as a taverin right, This is he's getting extra severe in here.
His tvereness is turned up to a thousand because he can just fuck with odds in the same way that Matt's able to do with dice and luck.
Rand's just doing it with bags of grain and potatoes and clouds.
Speaker 1Right, That's part of the opening of the chapter is like, the clouds have done their eerily perfect circular melt away.
Speaker 2And what are the odds of that?
I mean, possible but unlikely, right, And so that I think that's the difference between tavereness and magic.
Right.
The taverness is always something that could happen but is highly unlikely, whereas with you know, the one power, you can do things that are not otherwise possible.
Speaker 1Right, people will never get lifted up and thrown spontaneously.
Cloud could melt away in a perfect in a perfect circle.
Speaker 2And I gotta say, this whole scene right where he comes in and he sort of goes to the people and says, hey, let's clean this place up and we can make this city better.
It's very much what Brandon Sanderson did in The Laundress, right.
His whole first novel is essentially this storyline in a in a series, right, people who are suffering, who have become dirty, who have become zombie, like, you know, just need the fact that if they cleaned themselves up and got to work and did some hard work, they could improve their lives and improve the city and why didn't they just think of that themselves?
And Arady's making a gagging face at me.
Speaker 1That's so disgusting.
We need a big, strong, clean, rich, well apportioned man to come in and tell us dirty stupid pores to just clean up our act, to get in line and and everything will be better.
I have self respect now that I've washed my hands.
Oh thank you, foreigner.
I wouldn't have known to wash my hands without your beneficence.
Like I just it's real gross.
Speaker 2Listen, get up and make your bed, and if you do that first thing in the morning, the rest of your day is gonna be perfect.
If you didn't know that, Like.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's really it's pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
It's white saviorism, it's classism.
It's oh yes, this woman who's cleaning people up, who didn't think of that until a man told her to do it, Like, I bet you fucking anything that this woman who's gonna be in isidye someday was already doing basic water hauling and hygiene and trying to control disease.
And Sanderson slash Rand is just like, oh yeah, I inspired her to start doing that.
Speaker 3Mm hmm.
Speaker 1Sure, buddy, sure, buddy, that woman really needed your help.
Mm hmmm, mm hmmm.
I love the rand it's really annoying.
Speaker 2Yeah, but he does have the one thing right that they don't, which is the ability to open sacks of grain and go, look, it was good all along.
Speaker 1Well, and he also does the you know, reasonably astute thing of saying, let's bring resources up to the gate and let these people access them and distribute them and like have some agency.
Like he does a little bit of like top down white saviorism of coming in and saving people.
But then like he pulls back and he's like, no, no, no, let's mostly give them agency.
I'm still going to take all the gold stars, but like let's pretend that they have agency, which is, you know, nice.
I guess it's a little bit better than fucking Denaris striking off all the chains and getting crowdsurfed around like the one white girl that's there.
I guess it's better.
But it's also so like magical story convenience, Like and then he has a squad of people who just immediately have the skills because isn't that convenient.
It's like, Okay, now we're back into familiar tavern just making everything smooth for Plym.
Speaker 2I mean if this is and in a way, I get it right because he's becoming super diverent.
As the Dark One enters the world, the Dark One is pushing his finger down on the bad bad things happen balance And now that Rand has his moment of epiphany, he has the ability to push down the other way and make good things happen randomly right, and make things just magically work out for him.
He is balancing that the evil the Dark One is doing by locally creating these coincidences.
So I understand that, like from a plot sense, it kind of makes sense for everything to just be working out for him locally.
Yeah, No, for sure, And if that's what he's trying to do, I think he's doing a wonderful job.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And he also thinks about the shan Chan aspect of like, you know, when I was here, I contrasting his rulership with the shawan Cha.
You know, this is a level of reiteration.
It's like, okay, fine, we got a come full circle.
You're allowed to reiterate this once.
He does reiterate it several times, not just once, but it is a point worth remembering.
And then we get to like one of my least favorite men's sections, like ever, I love men, y'all know I love men.
But first of all, in the audiobook, Michael and Kate have decided that Min's canonically deep voice is now not deep, which drives me crazy in and of itself from a perspective, from just a performance perspective, but Min here is just the most sexy lamp she's ever been.
Speaker 4Rand, I see sunlight around you.
You're gonna see everyone.
I believe in you.
You're such a big, strong savior.
Speaker 1I just it's so not her so much.
I get that Rand thinks he needs it, but I didn't need it.
Speaker 3Oh.
Speaker 2I want to write a book with that character as the main character and make you read it just enough.
That was impressively creepy.
Yeah no, but but actually have that person be like an evil mastermind of the death of a bunch of men.
That's how I get you to read it.
Speaker 1Yeah no, I mean doing that as like a maniacal, insane creeping boys could be fun, but doing it as the this is a critique of my favorite character being the worst.
Speaker 2Yeah yeah, not men do this to men, And like I almost even don't want to go into these viewings because they're so badly generic.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, this is yes, there's nothing here.
Oh there's sunshine, there's people that will follow you.
Everything's gonna be all right in the end.
Speaker 2Okay, great, Like where's the mention of the fireflies, like the let's keep track of those and the void and that sort of thing.
Instead, it's just this, like I see the two rivers, ran, I've seen in with the mark of the dragon's fang inlaid on the door, no longer a symbol of darkness or hate, a sign of victory and hope.
Speaker 1Also, I think she's lying because she didn't fucking see that.
She just said she saw that like this bullshit.
That is a bullshit vision.
She never fucking saw that garbage.
Speaker 2She hesitated, Yeah, she hesitated to make that shit up.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Like, the text does not describe what she sees.
It does not describe her internal experience.
It's just her saying the words that Rand needs to hear out of her perfect Betty Boop face.
Like, I just she is a sexy lamp.
Right now, all of these people are gonna fight.
I can see it.
Yeah, it's the last battle and everyone with like three working limbs is gonna be fighting.
And then Rand's like, could you maybe not insult me so much?
And she's like, no, this is the one thing I get as a treat, just like, Okay, it's very juvenile, but all right, I guess if that's what makes you happy, keep calling him woolhead like whatever.
Speaker 2And then she turns, so she gets some viewings of the people in the city who basically are like, these people will fight in the last battle, right like that, they don't give up hope on them.
You're gonna save the city.
The city is going to pull itself together enough to fight in the last battle.
Is essentially the message she is able to give him, which.
Speaker 1Is just like, we didn't need a prophet to tell us that.
That's how books work, That's how the End of the World hero marching through the city works.
You don't need a profit to make that happen.
Speaker 2And this is this where she sees all the viewings among all these people all at once, when she almost never sees viewings you know, over non channelers.
Speaker 1Rant Tevere and Maxing is really even affecting her visions right right totally.
Speaker 2We get the sort of confrontation where she's like, he's like, you see me as a killer, and she's like, no, I don't, like just because you're strang and you really strangled me.
I know that, wasn't you right?
Like yeah, And they finally have that conversation, right, and she's.
Speaker 1Like, do you feel that in the bond.
He's like no, and all of us in the audience are like, yeah, and have you been feeling that in the bond for the past several weeks?
No, No, this is such an old conversation.
Stop it.
Oh yeah, we also had that.
There was a maiden earlier that I'm assuming is one of those donor names.
And then there's these two soldiers that are some I'm assuming donor names.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me I can go through them.
Speaker 1It's a cool name.
Heida Heida Heidia, h e I d I A.
And then the other two names are three names actually, vote Beck, red Board, and Durnham Durnham.
Speaker 2I didn't find anything for Durnham appears to yes, just be here.
Sorry.
The Encyclopedia Watt is down, so I'm sort of pulling from a couple of different sources, though not my usual source.
Oh Lane, sorry, Lane, I don't have anything about him.
Being but okay, so I'm sorry, that'll be fun to go together.
I'm sorry.
So there's a couple of characters that I don't have anything for.
But what I can say is like, I don't have anything for Lane.
He appears to just be the leader.
But voter Beck is named for Nicholas voltro Beck, red Board is named for David Redboard.
Haidia is named for Heidi soderqwist Quist.
Later we get two river man named Rob Sulter.
He is named after Rob Saltier.
And that was all of the references that I had that I was able to find for these for this chapter.
Oh Leerin Learin was the one who I was saying is in Lord of Chaos.
She's a maiden of the Spear, so she's takes Paren and Fayel to see Rand in Lord of Chaos, So she's just sort of a one off name there, and then she's brought back in the Gathering Storm and then here in Towers of Midnight, so she's been sort of mentioned a few times.
But I gotta say, having said that, you pointed out this pattern where the names are said once and then for the rest of the paragraph.
He constantly says one of them, the other the man's his companion.
The names are never mentioned again, it's never specified which one is which, And it's so obvious that he wrote that chapter and left two blank spaces for the names to bed, and there's no other effort to it.
There's no mention of like bringing those names back once or twice, or having those characters appear later on in the chapter, or you know, even even here one of them has a couple of lines, but you don't know which one's talking because he just says one of them said to his companion.
And it's just it's almost, since you pointed that out, it is taking me out of the moment.
It is this moment, this moment where I'm like, Okay, here's two names people don't care about.
They're clearly named after fans, and you're gonna do this song and dance to avoid just retyping their names once slightly later on.
Speaker 1Well, I imagine he wrote it and was like, I've got fifty names here, I got thirty names there, like you know, we'll do it as part of the like last round of copy edits or something like right, I don't know, some weird order of operations Shenanigan's.
Speaker 2Yeah, it really feels like they were dropped, Like those were black spaces left until like the day before printing, and they're like dropping the names, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, I have no idea how things work, but that's what it feels like.
It Like you said, low effort, it feels low effort.
I'm not sure it wasn't no effort, but low effort.
Speaker 2Because again it's she's like, just say the name a second time, or specify which of the two guys is talking.
Speaker 1No, we need to reiterate that paren doesn't understand the difference between an axe and a hammer for the seventh time.
That's what we need to spend our page count on.
Speaker 2And so within an hour he had a group of soldiers five hundred strong, Okay, Tavarin, that's called a mob.
And so they approach the docks.
Speaker 1Oh they've even got a leper that comes up to the group, so that way Rand can pass off his Jesus responsibilities to the eyes to die who are going to come behind him.
And then yeah, they head off down to the dock to confront Schrodinger's wheat.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, there's just a bunch of ships there.
Speaker 1Yeah, so they get down there, and the dock master has essentially barricaded the docks against people and forbidden the ships to unload because he can see that when people eat the grain, they die.
So he's like, I'd rather watch you all slowly starve in the hopes that food will come tomorrow than let you all like poison yourselves today.
He's been stuck between literally a rock and a hard place, and Rand just kind of waltzes in and it's like, you, silly man, you didn't have to do that.
The power was in you the whole time.
Just click your heels three times and it'll all go away.
Speaker 2He's like, did you check all the sacks?
I checked enough, But did you check the sacks?
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3What?
Speaker 2Like, yeah, it's it's this.
Speaker 1And then you know what Rand does.
He spills the food on the floor to make a point, like bitch, please.
Speaker 2I mean, I know it's not very much food and like whatever, but people are starving, right Like yeah.
Speaker 1Like that was enough food for a small child to get their first solid meal in a week and not throw it up, Like you just let that fall on the floor for the cinematic cinematography, Like I just whatever, I mean, sure, athlon, but it's still low effort.
Speaker 2Yeah.
So I like that idea that he didn't want to give any fans particular treatment by putting their names in twice, but like, fuck, then don't use their names right, Like, yeah, I I'll know.
The whole thing feels.
It feels very compromisy.
Like if you're writing a book based on art, why this feels?
Did you really need the fundraiser?
Speaker 1Bob Sanderson likes to gamify every aspect of his books, right, I'm going to release this chapter by chapter and get your feedback before I write the next chapter.
Like what, I don't pay that close attention.
Do't if that's exactly how it works.
But I've been inundated with enough Kickstarter updates that I didn't ask for to have that impression.
Speaker 2No, the other thing, Okay, think about this grain.
It's been killing the rats.
Every time the rats bite into a sack and chew through it, it's killing them.
Speaker 1Yeah, Rand, stop gaslighting this poor dog master.
Speaker 2His response, what happened?
We happen to open the exact number of bad sacks without reaching one of the good ones.
That's ridiculous, Not ridiculous, simply implausible.
Okay, Sherlock elms.
Speaker 1Like bitch please.
Yeah, Like he apparently understands that apologizing to Irland's not going to be good enough, but gaslighting him is apparently fine.
Speaker 2It's totally fine.
Speaker 1Yeah, And I do like Ireline being like, you know, like, what have I been doing.
I've been trying to keep people from starving themselves?
What have you been doing that?
Speaker 2Dragon?
Speaker 1It's like when Morell just like totally goes off on him after like the c Folk bargain and she's like, you left in the middle of the argument.
You can't be mad that the bargain didn't go to the way you want.
It's the same energy, and I'm like, I need more characters to unload on rant like that this is necessary.
Like I am glad that he's getting yelled at, even though he is zen now so it doesn't have quite the same impression on him, but like whatever, it's still satisfying.
Speaker 2So he appoints a Realian steward of the city and Dernham as the commander because they're the.
Speaker 1Only ones that didn't leave, right.
He like appointed the merchant councils, like you have to do an election and make it all legal and every single one of those rats just bailed and like here's the people who stayed.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that was a whole big thing.
He spent forever, fucking he spelt like half a book assembling that merchants council.
That was the whole thing.
Speaker 1And according to Ireland, they left in a day, twenty four hours they were gone.
Speaker 2And Sanderson also likes to do that.
He likes to set up goals for the characters to spend like half a book working on and be like, Oh, that didn't matter anyway, We're going to do this other thing over here.
Yeah, he does that.
Speaker 1A lot, Like I'm all for red herrings and killing off important characters so that way you don't feel secure about who's left.
Speaker 2But like there's a limit, and I feel like he hit that there.
Speaker 1I really like also Ireland's complaint we won't reach the last battle, right, He's like, we're starving to the point that we aren't even gonna make it to the last battle, And that to me is just like that's the bleakest thing.
As the world is ending and you know this massive cataclysm, it's like what if you literally can't even get to participating, Like that's the bleakest outcome of.
Speaker 2All And I read something online.
I don't know how true this is, but I'm spreading rumors that part of Jordan's original plan to end the Last Battle relatively quickly was basically this, that Rand was going to come to a realization very quickly that the Dark One was destroying the world and we weren't going to make it the last battle, and that's why he would break the seals prematurely to start the last Battle, because otherwise we'd all be dead before it even started.
And that's then you were going to sort of have this like premature start to the last battle.
Speaker 1I mean, that would have been a good like breaking break glass in case of fire kind of emergency escape patch on his writing process, right like at any any book, he can just be like, oh, and now starvations making the lines cross, we got a last battle right now.
Speaker 2Because he certainly foreshadowed starvation quite a bit, and with the food spoiling, which is happening before Sanderson, right, that was that was very much going on for a while.
So yeah, I can really see that being the the oh my god, we just need to fight this now, like because otherwise we're going to be dead and we're gonna lose our strength, because he even sort of talks about it a couple of times in these books where he does mention like, oh my god, we can't delay any longer.
We are starving, we are having these problems.
Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, And it's a big part of why Parent is gathering in armies because there's a bunch of people being like I would fight in the last battle tomorrow than starve today.
That's a big part of what why Parent has such an army to bring in.
Speaker 2It's a big part of why the US has such an army.
Speaker 1Yeah, we'll feed you right up until you get blown up.
Speaker 2But that's pretty much the end of the chapter for me.
I don't have anything else to say about it.
Speaker 1Yeah, rand says everyone who I've touched today, and all of the grain I've looked at today, all of that is going to be good and perfect.
I'll stay for twenty four hours to make the spell magic cement lock and then on to the next thing.
And then Min does more weird sexy lampshit.
It's like I'm surprised by him every day.
All look at my crossed stitch with it inspirational quote.
Here's my kitten picture that says just hang in there.
Wow, and then the chapter ends wow, Like I did not sleep very well last night.
You guys, my filter is low.
Speaker 2I think we should have you not sleep more often.
Speaker 1This is great, I love men, But that means I'm going to fiercely defend her when she gets written badly.
Speaker 2Yeah.
There's nothing worse than your favorite character being poorly portrayed or doing something that you think goes against their core you know, beliefs or the tenets that make them make them who they are.
Speaker 1Yeah, so with less than half an hour on the clock, you want to go to the next chap.
Jesus all that bitching and whining for me, and we didn't even get to half an hour.
Speaker 2Wow.
I did my fair amount of bitching and whining about the name characters.
Speaker 3Hm.
Speaker 1Like I said at the top, we got a lot of pages to get through, but not a lot of content probably.
So now we're going to go into the peakiest of peaks Anderson that we could possibly have.
Speaker 2Shall we have another meeting between the White Cloaks and parent to rehash about the ideas all over again.
Speaker 1About but this time we identify Gallot right and more gaze time, everyone is aware of whom Galad is up to and including more Gaze, and she.
Speaker 2Gets called out.
So that's that's that is something that has been foreshadowed for a long time, right, more Gaze coming out of the closet and basically being recognized as the queen instead of parent servant, Like that's been set up by Jordan a long long time ago, and that there is payoff to that for me.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean and even to an extent, like I feel like Jordan's set up a strong potential that Gallad would find More Gaze.
I feel like that the breadcrumbs for that were there before Sanderson.
Speaker 2Right right, But the rest of it, oh oh boy.
Speaker 1And I do love the intensity of feeling between Goalad and more Gaze, Like as someone with two step parents with whom I have, you know, very like strong intense familial relationships with it's I really like that And she's like, oh yeah, I know, like stepparent child relations are just as strong.
Like if there is a parental bond, there's a parental bond.
It does not have to do with biology, It has to do with your emotional relationship.
And I don't know, it's kind of like not the characters I would have thought would bring that through, like Gallad being like, yeah, stepparents are cool, but like it works, it works for me.
Speaker 2They're not always evil stepparents.
They're not.
Speaker 1They're really not.
Sometimes they're doing their best and they don't fuck it up horribly in the process.
Speaker 2It's just parents usually fuck it up in the process.
Stepparents are not.
Yeah, a little bit bit right.
It turns out being a parent's hard.
So I've been told, yeah, but you.
Speaker 1Know more Gaze talks about how she loves him as much as the children she actually had.
Gallaud like doesn't ever talk about feeling like distant or held back from her, Like he lost his mom really early and she stepped in with a wholly open heart and like the relationship's good.
M So I like that part of this, but everything else is like, yes, parent, we know you don't understand how acts in Hammer's work.
Congratulations.
I mean literally, remember the last time we were with parent and he like used a wood axe to like chop wood without thinking about the conflict once and then he's up here being the Yeah, the acts and the hammer different.
I just thought of that for the first time.
This chapter right.
Speaker 2Right, right, not the whole book that was all based around him cutting off someone's hand and throwing the axe away, because he's never you know, I mean, I would say he's trying to reflect on that moment.
But yeah, so it starts off with the Ashman basically saying we can't make gateways or skim which I do like that he threw in skimming as well, right, that was that was nice, But essentially that means we know the dome is up, don't The dream spike has been activated.
Speaker 1In its final location for purposes of this conflict of the trap.
Yes, yes, the trap is now positioned.
Speaker 2Right right, And essentially it would have sprung if the White Cloaks weren't there because they're kind of in the way, and the shadow Spawn don't want to attack both at once.
They want to surprise Paren and his soldiers as they troop through there, So they're waiting for this conflict end to attack, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're assuming that the White Cloaks and Paren will sort of soften each other up and then the trap proper can spring.
Speaker 2Right right, But in the meantime, nobody's traveling anywhere, right.
Speaker 1The ausmorn like, yeah, we just haven't practiced enough.
And I'm like, guys, I need you to take the oath against lying because that was a lie like we've seen you make.
So this is not an issue.
A practice like this is something different than a lack of experience.
Like a parent thinks about his army with a bunch of very classic metaphors.
They're like boulders, like sapling, oaks like adders.
He's you know, looking at his troops being like, yeah, analogy montage, I'm so literate, so literary.
Speaker 2And how he's letting all he's letting the women train, he's letting people if they want to fight, and he has this moment of he's like, if they want to fight in the last battle, who wanted to stop them?
And then goes and I need to send them home.
Speaker 1Look, he's protective of everyone and he lets fail be anywhere near him at all.
Very beneficent, very you know.
Love love to just see him letting his wife make choices really great, awesome.
Speaker 2By shoving her in the back with all the isid ion channelers, whether she's away from everybody, Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, very respectful, super you know, caring about her agency.
Yep, Yeah, love that.
Love that.
Speaker 2Listen to understanding thing.
You have to understand its parts and its purpose.
Speaker 1But the hammer was different.
Speaker 2The acts only kills, but the hammer can either create or kill.
That is the difference.
Thank you Sanderson for spelling that out.
Speaker 1Yeah, you can choose not to kill.
I'm able to choose choice.
Wow, it's like the power of friendship going to carry us through too, Like come.
Speaker 2On, classic tale instead of show.
Yeah.
No, this is again the showing that we saw when he cut off the man's hand and threw away the axe.
That was the moment.
He didn't need to really ever think about it ever again.
Speaker 1But then we have this, this lovely little piece of hip hopocracy.
The Shidow needed killing, but I don't know if the White Cloaks do.
Let's not spend eighteen pages pondering the hypocrisy of that statement, because I would argue that the White Cloks need killing more than the Shadow, because they've been doing what they've been doing for generations.
The Shadow have been running rampant over the countryside for the past six months.
The White Cloaks have existed for I don't know how many centuries, but more than one, to judge by the way they talk about their founder, like They're way more of an established hate group that causes problems than the Shadow running rampant.
Like, maybe they both need to be killed, but like, I don't know if the White Cloaks need they need killed.
They are a hate group, They're an avowed hate group.
Their entire goal in life is to torture and kill people.
Kill them all, please and thank you.
At least if you're going to just throw all million Shadow under the bus, I think we can also throw the KKK under.
Speaker 2The bus, right, because don't forget, the Shadow is also a clan of men, women.
Speaker 1Children, people who joined their society because their clan was doing things that didn't agree with.
Like, it's so the Shidow needed killing because they're scary foreigners.
Speaker 2The brotherless joined the shidow because they didn't believe in your white savior, uh huhh.
Speaker 1And therefore they're all just equally culpable.
And in the fact that your wife, your single white woman prize, had taken off of its pedestal, and so you just get to do a fucking scorched earth policy on an entire population of displaced foreigners to get your one precious pussy back.
I love Fayo but like, come the fuck on, parently, I'm allowed to just kill thousands of people to get my wife back, Like she's a grown ass adult person, Please be reasonable.
Speaker 2That's why I really would have liked it if he had taken down if the Brotherless had gotten her out, gotten her to him in the course of the battle.
He took down the Shadow, but then recruits all the Brotherless to fight for him underneath Rand indirectly where he's like, well, you're not fighting for Rand, but you're fighting for me, and that's how you get to toticipate in the last battle, and he brings this whole cohort of ideal back into the fold and into the fight kind of.
Speaker 1Like how a lot of the ideeld that get hit with the the emptiness, the bleakness.
Yeah, how a lot of them end up joining up with the Tuatha on and then end up essentially being part of the like medical triage in the back.
Sure it's like coming through and like dealing with who's wounded at the end, and like they are essentially helping They've been looped back around through some means that would have been.
Speaker 2Great, and some of them wake up.
I think they do say that some of them come out of their stupor meaner and angrier and ready to fight, right Like, some of them are like coming out of that stupor that they've been in for like two years, ready to fight in the last battle.
Speaker 1I mean, when you've got pair and pointing you at a wall of trolls, it's hard to hold onto despondency, right right, like those golden eyes, those slavering jaws, Like, yeah, I think pick it up a spear again is about the move for me?
Speaker 2Right, Yeah, this is the end of the world.
There's a little bit of like, Okay, it's the end of the world.
Sure, personal like honor maybe needs to be put aside for a moment.
Speaker 1I also really would have liked it if Paren had done his dream level up sooner to get putt Fayeel out, you know, if he had done his whole montage training with Hopper and like snuck Fyel and the others out through the dream and been wafled up on the dream before and just left the Shadow to stew in their own juices.
Speaker 2No, right, yeah, because if he had his teleport skills, he could have just teleported in, gotten her out, teleported out, Like.
Speaker 1Yeah, he could have taken all of the guys shine out in the course of like three nights.
That could have just vanished into literal thin air because Paren has like dimension hopping brain.
But alas we have to go with kill foreigners foreigner's bed.
Also, the KKK is redeemable, right.
Speaker 2I think that's that's what's so hard about the white cloaks is just like they just don't have any redeemable qualities and they're not even good troops, Like, what do you what's the point of rescuing them.
It's not like they're they're they're even crappy cannon fodder.
Speaker 1To prove that white men on horses in white robes who think that they're right about everything can be redeemed if you talk to them real nice and smile real pretty.
They just have to be nice to them and they will solve the male loneliness epidemic.
Speaker 2The whole point of this chapter is how easily it would be for Paren to wipe them out because they're so ineffective as troops.
Speaker 1I know, I don't think Sanderson understands a lot of the things that we are critiquing a right, all right, So Paren does his big flash bang booming voice thing.
Oh, that would be really dumb if we showed all of our hand right at the very opening thing.
But also now we've proven that we could kill you.
Also, do you want to meet now?
Speaker 2Yeah?
And don't get me wrong, I like this move.
I really this is a moment that sticks with me the whole like just flexing to be like, Okay, you want to attack, let's show you what you can do.
Because it doesn't They can still use the Auschman to attack if they charge, they can still use their bows.
And they wasted some arrows, but not that many.
They presumably have an infinite number because you know.
Speaker 1D and D rules.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, DND rules, Right, it'll actually count those things anymore.
They're just they're just always there when you reach form.
Speaker 1Not until the final battle, when the last five seconds are going to take the last fifteen minutes of the movie to get through, right.
Speaker 2Right right then everything else you have enough cut scenes to reclaim your rows or make more or whatever.
Yeah, but yeah, you gave away our advantage.
I'm like, well, yeah, they gave it away, But like, what else are the White Cloaks going to do except charge?
Right?
They have no choice?
Speaker 1Well, in fairness, Arganda is a charging is the strategy kind of guy.
He doesn't know how to operate with more than charge as an option.
So in fairness, he is well matched to the white cloaks.
Speaker 2And one would assume gallad Has could do more if he had, But yet all he has is people on horseback against channelers and bowmen.
Like what else is he going to do?
Speaker 1Yeah, he doesn't have archers, no at all.
So yeah, and which is why he capitulates, right, he has his decisions, his mind's been made up.
But then he's told like face slaughter or talk to me again, and he's like, fine, I'll talk.
Speaker 2Or the archers he does have, you know, don't have the two rivers length, so they can be attacked for quite some time before they can return fire, before they get close enough.
Speaker 1Right like horse bows, right, So they're not good in a distance fight.
Speaker 2No, So it's like, yeah, they can essentially be white out on the on approach, and the ones that do make it through, I'm sure will be easily taken down.
Speaker 1Horses are large targets.
Speaker 2Yeah, and if you fuck up the ground, the horse's charges doesn't work.
Speaker 1Yeah, horses are running around on their middle finger.
They're very easy to screw up.
Speaker 2So true, isn't that creepy?
Speaker 1It is?
It is those anatomical drugs where it's like, oh, yeah, they're just rocking around on this like they're like saying fuck you, but in a really like.
Speaker 2On way, like ballerinas telling you to go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1Yeah.
So it's it's easy to see when you see a human arm and a horse's leg, it is easy to understand why they get broken so easily.
Like, oh, that's a lot of animal to have balanced on the tip of one finger.
You're a big horse.
Speaker 2Yeah, imagine like an horses get to what six pounds, eight hundred pounds.
Speaker 1Something like that.
They can crush your foot without meaning to.
They're that heavy, and.
Speaker 2They're doing that all on one toe on.
Speaker 1One on the middle finger.
It's so bent back, and then their ankle is like halfway up the leg.
It's ridiculous.
Anyway, courses in war are amazing until they're not, and they're a major liability.
So rolls up and is like, wow, you're so different, so decisive, and parents like, I'm literally being the most indecisive I could possibly be right now.
But sure, great.
Speaker 2There was this line where she says, something's changed about you.
I'm trying to figure out what, and I honestly, I'm not sure what she's talking about.
Right.
Is this the moment when he decides not to kill them like he has Is she referring to the moment when he realizes then axe is not for killing.
Is that supposed to be a major epiphany that something has changed in in this moment because he finally realized because he said it out loud to himself instead of when he threw away the axe.
Speaker 1That's the best I got is that paren had a moment of revelation, and I fail instantly clocks it again.
I think he just kind of made a decision, and she was like, oh, you've you've gotten down off the fence.
I can tell that you're no longer hovering on the fence.
You've now picked a side.
But I just I don't buy it.
I think that's what's I think that's what Sanderson's selling, but I'm not buying fair enough.
Speaker 2Yeah, I agree that there is a moment there where we're supposed to see this as a major revelation that he's finally figured out the axe and the hammer thing, and it just doesn't.
It's it's not earned exactly.
Speaker 1And Fayil doesn't he even have the ability to smell his emotions, so you know, as Athlone said and chuck, she could smell self revelation obviously.
Speaker 2Which takes me to the Glod pov switch.
Speaker 1All right, Yeah, let's go over to an almost equally frustrating character in this scene.
Speaker 2So Glode is all like, oh, I was prepared for ice at I channeling because you can just give them a polite nod and say I will not kill you and they're not going to attack back.
Speaker 1In the middle of a battle, just g nod politely and walk away.
That's a super realistic way that battle works.
Speaker 2Catch totally totally.
But he's sort of saying, oh, they've got channelers that aren't tied by the oaths, and I'm that's making him rethink because he's you know, got half a brain on like the rest of the white Cloaks that have no brain where he's like, oh, maybe a charge at channelers isn't such a good idea.
Speaker 1Maybe a run uphill at archers and channelers is not gonna go well for me.
Hmmm yeah, real orange cat energy right here, He's getting his one day with the brain cell.
Speaker 2And so he sort of is like, fine, well, Parlay, Bornhauled and Buyer are really pissed off about it because well Bayer at least has been brain thrilled by Grendall.
Right, Yeah, I was kind of looking for like moments of by our compulsion evidence.
I really only found like one, like his eyes burned with a wild zeal that match Borne holds Anger, And I'm like, okay, fine, the zeal could be the compulsion, the hate, but.
Speaker 1That's also the white Cloaks.
It's the same thing that like.
Speaker 2Was all followers.
Speaker 1Yeah, like it's it's one of those things that the human brain can throw up.
I mean, honestly, if I couldn't, like, I can barely remember which one of them is compulsed because they are such a match set.
Like I know that like Bornhold because he's the younger Bornhold, he's the one that like isn't as corrupted and like does the ultimate status friend in the back.
Like I can remember that logically, but they behave in ways that are so identical that yeah, I don't really think you can tell the difference between the compulsion and the naturally came by it honest hate, you know, like Bornhold is working from incorrect information, but his hate is at least organically generated.
He thinks that Peri killed his father, and that's that's you don't need magic for that.
And Bayer, you know, they can psyke each other up just fine without magic.
Speaker 2Well, and if we go back, Bayer was the one who like took him captive and had the acts, and.
Speaker 1Like the younger Bornhold wasn't there in that whole first interaction.
It was only the elder Bornhold.
Speaker 2And and Buyer who likes y.
Yeah.
Speaker 1Buyer was just a bad guy from from the.
Speaker 2Yep by our God.
Yeah, and that's yeah.
In this the thing is like there seems to be some attempt to redeem him a little bit here and be like, oh, he's not as that bad.
Speaker 1But he was bad before Grandell ever got her clause into him, like he was let me help you escape so that I can kill you while running away in book one, like yeah, no, he's not redeemable.
Speaker 2That's right.
He threw the rock down and was like try and escape, yes, and then yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it's too inconvenient for us to take because we can't stalk the princess and we can't stalk the andoran noble kids if we're slowed down by taking you into custody as a as a murderer.
So we're just gonna have to kill you.
And like they're just the way they do the extra judicial killing situation is so yeah, No, there is no redeeming this guy.
I like that Bornhold the younger is redeemable because he is misled and there is something to redeem there.
But like Bayer gets way too much, Oh is he redeemable screen time given that?
No, now he's a two dimensional villain.
Speaker 2Bayer definitely gives some like sprinkle some crack on him Johnson, right, like shoot him down, plant some evidence, and call it a day, and then you don't have to worry about it anymore.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly, exactly.
This is a cop who does not hesitate to plant drugs on people.
That's who Buyer is.
I Er did not have to be convinced.
Bornhold had to be convinced.
Bornhold had to be lied to that this is what your dad really wanted.
And then once he realizes that his dad didn't want that, he's like, excuse me, friend, I need to stab you in the back.
Now you lied to me.
Speaker 2M hm.
Speaker 1Buyer was always very okay with the lion.
Speaker 2And that is the moment where they like they try and redeem Bornhold's by having him stab by her in the back.
Speaker 1Which I mean, stabbing your closest buddy who's been psyching you up into a hate frenzy for the past three years in the back because he's going to kill the guy you hate.
Is a pretty big mark in the redeeming call him like, that's a big act.
It's a very big act.
Anyway, We're not there yet.
For now, we are at Gallude having his second impression of parent and going, wow, I can really read this man very specifically.
He's a He's a simple countryman who's noble enough to have elevated himself to Lord.
How perfect.
So what is that hot chick doing next to him?
Speaker 2Holy shit, she's so hot.
I want to like play Strangers in the Night in the background while we do the segment right like strangers and the seeing each other very much like slow motion eyes meeting.
Speaker 1He's instantly like, why would this beautiful woman be following a creature?
Like he knows her, He knows her soul, he knows everything there is to know by her she's so fucking hot.
Speaker 2But at the same moment we later get from her POV, she's doing the same thing, like who's that hunk of a man white cloak?
And please don't attack him.
He's just so gorgeous.
He can't be in a battle.
That would be such a waste.
No.
Speaker 1Yeah, both of their hair is like blowing back in a fan that no one else can see, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, sparkles and lens flair.
Speaker 1And yeah, yeah exactly.
Everyone else is just like, why are they looking at each other like that?
Speaker 2Totally people their friends are like snapping in their ear, like hey, barely, barely.
Speaker 1Barely, right exactly exactly.
Speaker 2Glode thinks he's being cool, but his like jaws just like dropped open.
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1He's like, my name is dallad Galla meant, why.
Speaker 2Is everybody whispering in slow motion?
Oh?
We just do that.
When she walks in, it's fine.
Speaker 1M and yeah, so now Paren finally gets a name or Glad.
This is technically before more Gaze walks in, which is I guess why her gasp of recognition is later is because she doesn't walk in until after the introductions are right.
Speaker 2Right, they bring in the tea later.
She's part of the You know, they don't have the tea set up beforehand for some reason, even though they have the pavillion set up.
You think they set up to tea too, but I guess it's all so fast they didn't need time to boil the water or something, right, Yeah, whatever, So yeah, we spend pages doing proper introductions between all the queens behind Parent.
Speaker 1And the really funny thing though, was Goalad and Barely and are clearly having like their meat cute moment, and Parent just keeps interjecting like into it, like he has no idea.
He's third wheeling on to meet cute, like they are trying to oh small talk about things, and he's like, news update anyway, news update, I can offer clarification.
They're trying to flirt, sir.
Speaker 2Actually, you know, it ruinds me a lot of the night I met Never and Travis was there and he kept trying to talk to us, and we're like, excuse us, we're flirting over here, and so are flirting.
No, The difference is I was I would say, Travis got the hint very quickly and was like, you know, I'm gonna head out and you too should stay, and he definitely kept us.
Yeah, he didn't miss the hints of my parent, who's where it's going right over his head?
Speaker 1Yeah, which in parents' case, it's definitely the autism.
It's definitely is.
He is tunnel vision focused on getting this meeting done and he is not going to notice spur of the moment dynamics between people.
Speaker 2And even if he did, he does not give a shit.
Speaker 1Well, also that also.
Speaker 2That he's like, that's not important, but he never picks.
Speaker 3Up on it.
Speaker 1He is shocked when Berlin starts hooking up with or starts hanging out with a lot, He's like, why did that happen?
That makes no sense.
It's like you can't smell a rousal.
You can smell jealousy, but you can't.
Speaker 2Smell a rousal.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, but that woman needs now underwear as of right now.
I'm sure you can tell.
I don't know what horning and smells like voujie, but if he can smell indecision with a touch of defiance, he can definitely smell horniness.
No, we know what he takes horniness smells it because he says, oh, that special extra fial smell that she always gets.
It's extra strong when she's extra passionate, and it's like, Okay.
Speaker 2Maybe it smells different on different people.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly, it's just more them.
Whatever their smell is, it gets stronger.
That's what Horning in the smells like.
Canonically, Yeah, doctor pants, That's that's correct.
I'm just saying like that is one of the most like physiologically apparent quote unquote emotions that you're gonna find.
So with the amount of reading people's minds with his nose that he's been doing, like that level of a whoa should be pretty clear.
Speaker 2That in fear, I feel like, are the two that are really going to like make you know that your heart's gonna race and you're gonna start sweating right sweating?
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, totally.
Your eyes are going to like change their dilation status.
Speaker 2The casual racism Abara's wife regartt a goal out with suspicion.
Yes, she was obviously obviously Saldean by that nose anyway, a Jewish princess.
Speaker 1What Also, like how he he hears this news about Elaine and rand probably hooking up and he's like, yeah, that tracks I'm not even gonna address totally apparent potential insult to my sister because that's actually probably true.
Speaker 2I know her, that is, and she's like, I do remember the way he she like looked at him in the fucking garden, right.
Speaker 1Like him exactly.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Then they they iterate the debate, you did a murder, I did a self defense wolves.
Aren't people fuck you that?
Speaker 2Oh my god, because that we're gonna go through that argument so many times.
Yeah.
Speaker 1And then the other name that's relevant here is Galad.
Apparently, in the course of all this has learned that a GWayne was there.
This is news to him, but he's like, what a GWayne was there in that moment?
Speaker 2Mm hmm.
Speaker 1Obviously she can't be a character witness because now she's you know, mad pope.
Speaker 2But uh, you know, magic Pope.
Speaker 1I've been describing we have time to a lot of non readers over the past few months, so I've gotten really used to using like my euphemisms to describe it to people who are not up on the lore.
Speaker 2Female magic pope.
Yep, excuse me, T went down the wrong pipe.
Speaker 1That's not for breathing.
Don't breathe that.
Speaker 2I know I'm not supposed to breathe tea.
You think it was the smoking that would make me cough, But nope, it's the tea.
Speaker 1At least the smoke is meant to go in your lungs.
Speaker 2No, it's really not.
But we'll stick over that more so than the tea.
Speaker 1More than you intended to put it in your lungs.
Let's put it this way.
Speaker 2Fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 1Whether or not your lungs agreed to that, its a separate issue.
Yeah, exactly.
Matriarchal Vatican is the White Tower.
Speaker 2Magic, matriarchical that matriarchal Vatican.
Speaker 1Everyone knows the Vatican's magic.
That's a given.
Speaker 2Well, no it's not.
It's blessed.
Listen.
Monks and sorcerers are two very different classes.
We've discussed this.
You can't overlap this.
This is actually true.
Speaker 1Yeah you should, though.
Speaker 2So income the tea right incomes more gaze right tea at.
Speaker 1A war party, these are uncultured swine who serves tea and a war party people who need you to meet your stepmother again for plot reasons, that's who.
Speaker 2And so they discuss a trial and they're like, a trial would be great, but we don't have anyone to trust to actually judge the trial, because there we have my people and your people, and I don't trust your people and you don't trust my people.
Yeah, And so then more gaze pops out, and it turns out she could be the perfect judge because apparently if he vouches for her, everyone will trust her.
It seems odd to me, but okay.
Speaker 1Look, it's a cult, and if you can co opt the leader of the cult, then the rest will follow.
They're like horses.
If you contame the stallion, the rest of the herd will follow.
Speaker 2No worry about his influence over her, having you know, been her boss the past, you know, six months.
No worry about favoritism.
Speaker 1Look, queens are a different level of person.
They are noble, They are correct, They can do no wrong.
Look at how white and patrician her faces.
Look at the angle of that knows can she possibly be anything other than a paragon of virtue.
Speaker 2No objections over the fact that she trained in the White Tower, and these don't men don't trust anyone who trained in the White Tower.
Speaker 1She's pretty and she was powerful Rago, She's good.
Speaker 2No mention of the fact that his whole point of killing Valda is because he killed this woman and they all support him because of that.
And then this woman is alive and they're not going to worry about that and be like, oh, hey, you killed our master and you were wrong.
Speaker 1Yeah, Like does she not have prejudice against your entire organization?
That's like way more valid than helping you destroy the man who's been like keeping her alive and safe for months.
Speaker 2But I mean, just her presence undermines God's claim to lead the White Cloaks.
Speaker 1Right, Well, he killed Walda on basis of assault and murder.
The assault still happened, Like that's still a fact.
Speaker 2But if the murder didn't, wouldn't you then question if the assault even happened and if he wasn't working together with his mother to set up Valda to take leadership over the White Cloaks in an illegitimate way in order to.
Speaker 1The White Cloaks are very happy to handwave that, Yeah.
Speaker 2To then turn around and completely change their mission completely ally with Channelers when it's being manipulated, Like these are conspiracy minded theorists.
They're not going to be like, oh, Golaude's connection to the White Tower doesn't make sense, you know, Like, yeah.
Speaker 1It does feel like he should get stabbed in the back by Traum at this point.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't like the change of loyalty of the White Cloaks.
Just doesn't they should They should be need to be wiped out.
Speaker 1It's not earned, it's not earned.
No, it would be fine if Gollad decided to abandon the White and join up with Paren, and a few of his most loyal people were like, yeah, fuck it, we're going with Galad over the order, Like I could buy that, you know.
Fifteen of them come over and they're you know, incorporated, slowly but just they all fall into lockstep as the White Cloaks.
Nah, not earned.
Speaker 2No, I'd rather see him with a contingent of brotherless and wiping the White Cloaks out than the other way around.
Speaker 1And Galad, yeah, just kind of hiding there with his tail between his legs, being like I fucked up.
I fucked up so much, I fucked up so bad.
Speaker 2And they have them turn on him and have Paren rescue Galad from the White Cloaks.
Speaker 1Paren rescues Galad.
That would have been fun, right, Goalad thinks his needs defending.
Yeah, that would have been good.
That would have been real fun and we could have gotten rid of all but the one good white cloak.
Speaker 2But alas instead we get a trial.
Speaker 1A bullshit trial.
Yeah, I mean not in the sense it is like legally bad, but just in thestense that there's way too many pages spent on relitigating things that never needed litigated, and.
Speaker 2Not to mention like skipping over all the white cloaks you murdered when you rescued Gaul like, I'm just not gonna mention that.
Speaker 1I never gonna mention that skipping over all of the villages that those people wiped out, skipping over the part where anyway, we're litigating this to the point that we could write a whole other Sanderson chapter about it.
So let's get to more gaze, more gaze and glad eye contact, gasp, hug, holy shit, wow, great moment.
Speaker 2M hm.
Speaker 1And they don't.
She doesn't even say anything hardly.
She's just like, yes, I will transition immediately to more gaze, no problem anyway, Yeah, I am more gaze.
Speaker 2That's not going to blow out my life at all.
Reiterates that she renounce the crown so she's not a threat to a lane and then kind of and I do like the one thing where she's like, I fear more from the White Cloaks than I do from paren Right she was.
Speaker 1That's a good line.
That's a good damn line.
Speaker 2I have far more to fear from your associates than from par and A.
Bara.
Yes, she did have reason to distress the children, good reason.
Yeah, you think that's the whole point of you killing Valda is she was captured, manipulated, raped, and assumed murdered.
Speaker 1Yeah.
I think the idea is that the assault is that everyone knew she was being tortured because she was literal again like you know, like needles under the fingernails, kind of tortured, like they that everyone knew that, and then they kind of assumed that she got killed.
So like him attacking the man for assaulting his mom is like, yeah, I mean she was being tortured.
Everyone knows that this is going on for a while.
It's not like it was a secret to the White Cloaks.
Speaker 2And this is also why it's so unbelievable that the spymaster didn't know who she was, uh.
Speaker 1Huh, or didn't know Yeah, ball were not connecting the Galad thing.
It's just nope.
And then and then Galad has his very parent esque moment.
I'm beginning to see child byer.
Speaker 3We must prove.
Speaker 1Our claims, otherwise we're no better than us.
Nawah Wow.
Man who decided to become part of a paramilitary force that does extra judicial murder, you've discovered the concept that the law matters.
Princeling, who has a black and white approach to morality and justice and has been a rules lawyer since he was old enough to talk in complete sentences, You've just discovered the concept that doing things without proper legal justification is absolute fucking horse pucky.
Okay, all right, sure you hadn't.
Does it never cred you before?
I?
Speaker 2Sure, fine, I'm sure more Gase never lected him on something.
Speaker 1Like that, not once, not once, but once, but sure, grown man explain that to another grown man who also is old enough and scary enough to have killed several people because he thinks that he understands the law already.
Speaker 2I think what pisses me off so much about these chapters, in these sections is just how much it infantilizes the characters and makes them feel like they don't know what they should know and that they don't exist in a world where they like are smart people who have agency.
It feels like they're just like forgetting things that they should know, and it leaves weird holes in these characters.
Speaker 1It makes stuff feel not earned, It makes stuff get reiterated that shouldn't be reiterated.
It's funky.
But Parent does manage to get all of his people in supplies released as sort of collateral on doing the trial, which is good leadership negotiation, I guess.
And then they set a date for three days and we get to close the chapter.
Speaker 2Yeah, I guess.
The only other thing I think I forgot to say is in the previous chapter when Rand was doing his whole like let's unite and fight back, it felt very much like Terry Goodkind in one of his books where the hero goes and do basically a communist society and shows them the wonders of capitalism and they all unite together and start building shit.
And I just wanted to say that and be like, there's a book like that that Terry Goodkind wrote, and there's a reason Terry Goodkind is trash.
But Terry Goodkind has a little more of the political implications, I think.
But again, it does feel just weird in that chapter it's got.
Speaker 1A very eurocentric, top down, patriarchal this is the pyramid we've all been living under kind of vibe were it's just like, you don't got any fun plot twists, no interesting twelve year old girls who are actually running the most effective street gang that can hand you the city on a silver platter.
Already, none of that.
A big strong man with a chest of gold shows up and starts telling people what to do, and everyone yes, sirs their way into a neat, orderly formation.
Speaker 2That's what we do.
Speaker 1Anyway.
I'm glad that some people in the audience apparently like what we have to say, because God, that was a lot of bitching.
Speaker 2Yeah it was.
It was, you know what, And I'm sorry, but sometimes it's just not good.
And I hate to be the one to say that, but like, it's just there's parts of it that are not good.
Speaker 1There's parts of it that are good, though I do hope that we're giving oxygen to the parts that we like.
Speaker 2There are parts of it that are very good.
They're parts of that are amazing.
Yes, and I love that it got finished, and I, by no means expect every chapter to be perfect.
When someone else is writing, taking over for someone else and writing in a different style.
However, as you're going through it solely chapter by chapter and not looking at it as a whole, there are peaks in, there are valleys.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's why today's episode was an hour long.
Speaker 2Hey, at least we didn't do that one chapter where we skipped it and everyone got really angry at us.
Speaker 1You get one of those per fourteen book series.
Speaker 2We really had nothing to say about it.
We were like, I don't know, man, there's nothing going on.
Speaker 1When I was putting together the compiled episodes for the Patreon I got to that one and I was so confused when the download just snapped by, and then I loaded it into the end of my dow to put it together, and I'm like, no, that file has to be broken.
They're not supposed to be that short.
As I listened to, I was like, oh, oh right, But I never make three minute episodes.
It's accept that one time I did, except that one.
Speaker 2Time you did.
Speaker 1All right, well, are you able to be done with this and go do the other project?
Speaker 2Yeah?
I think so.
Thanks for joining us once again.
I kind of want to do patreons, but I hate to do them in front of such a depressing episode.
Speaker 1We'll find another chapter.
Speaker 2We'll find another chapter for pat.
Yeah.
Yeah, Thank you so much for everyone who's been donating and contributing.
Speaker 3Really appreciate it all right, bye bye.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Wheel of Time Spoilers podcast.
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