The Wheel of Time - S03 Wrap-up Mailbag

[00:00:00] Lord Vader, Operation Andor is underway. Excellent. If we release three episodes per week, The Lorehounds will never be able to cover every episode. The Imperial forces will crush the Rebellion before it begins. Standby. We're picking up something on our scanners. Echo Squadron reporting in. Delta Squadron on your left. Tango Squadron on your 6. With Imperial forces coming in fast, we're calling all Rebels to join the fight this season.

[00:00:27] Starting after the April 22nd premiere, you'll hear three full breakdowns for each week's episodes of Andor Season 2. Each podcast will be led by one of our squadron leaders, Alicia, David, and Jon. We'll be bringing in new and familiar voices to fill out the roster. Search for The Lorehounds on any podcast platform to join us in a galaxy far, far away. And don't forget to check out our season pass for even more content like our Holocron bonus pods. It's good news for anyone, except Darth Vader.

[00:01:18] Welcome to the final episode in our Wheel of Time Season 2, Season 3 coverage. Time to look back on the season as a whole. And we're going to be sharing some final thoughts from the community and from us. And as far as who us is, we have a full house today. I'm Alicia and I'm joined, of course, by Jon. Hi, Jon. Hello. I'm back one more time. One last time. Mark from Nevermind the Music is back.

[00:01:45] Listeners of the full season will remember him from the mid-season mailbag and a couple musical lore casts. Welcome back, Mark. Hi, everybody. Happy to talk about the show a little bit before everybody forgets it existed for another three years. I don't know. Hopefully not. We'll see that. I'm hoping we get the back-to-back renewals. I hope that's what they're sorting out so that they can just like film back-to-back. Yeah. And Jon is back, repping the non-reader perspective.

[00:02:14] So, Jon, you're going to keep the three of us honest in terms of there will be no future book spoilers. But yes, of course, spoilers for all first three seasons. Thanks for having me back. You know, I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. This is very nice. So, Jon and I, we already shared all of our finale thoughts, but Jon, what did you think about the finale? Because we last heard from you after episode seven. Other than I'm sure you obviously missed Perrin. He was unfortunately not in the finale.

[00:02:46] No. Absolutely not. Perrin actually, fun fact, about the whole finale kicking rocks. Yes, he did. On his march to be judged. But yeah, I absolutely, I thought it was great. I thought it was great. I got everything that I wanted at the end. I saw Ran go full on Karakakarna, whatever they call him. He lifted up into the clouds and everything that I wanted to be spectacular, he did some spectacular shit.

[00:03:16] Made it rain in the desert. And that was cool. So I got exactly what I wanted from the series, the finale of this season. So yeah, I was very happy. Very happy. If nothing else, just for that moment of his coming into stepping into the next phase of his journey. Yeah. I was very appreciative of how he did it. For better or worse. Yeah. For better or for worse. And I totally enjoyed it. It was really great. Awesome. Awesome.

[00:03:45] And Mark, we haven't heard from you since episode six for subscribers. And I think it was episode five in the public feed. So what are your thoughts on the end of the season in general? Yeah, I like the season finale a lot. I actually, I guess, yeah, I was last on about the hills of Chanchico and all that. I liked the Golden Eyes episode plenty. I think I liked it a lot more than two of you at least.

[00:04:08] Um, but that it's also weird for me because the first time I read the books, Perrin was my favorite character and he's kind of gone down and down in the last few times I've read the series. And I think it had to do with like where I was in life or whatever I wanted to believe in simple minded goodness that, that has been broken down. But so I, I liked that episode though.

[00:04:31] I think it honestly, probably the main thing I, you know, RIP loyal, but, um, yes, what I like about it. And what I like about the Perrin arc right now is that I like Faiyil. Yeah. And I don't care. Spoilers for the book people. I've read through most of the book three times, most of the book, and I hate Faiyil every single time. So it's been, it's been awesome to like her.

[00:04:57] And so I'm like, oh, wow, this is kind of an interesting character that I mean, obviously she has redeemable aspects in the, in the books, but, and I know that I'm probably people are going to hate me for saying that, but like, I could never, I could never get into the character anytime I read it. And, and I like her character. She's got a lot of, yeah. The book version has a lot of haters. So you are definitely not alone in that. I, I definitely came to appreciate her more on rereads because you come to understand her more by the end of the books. And then I take that knowledge with me into a reread.

[00:05:27] But, um, the first time I remember saying to the person who gave me the books, like, oh, I want to strangle this woman. Like, so I've only read the full thing once. Right. So two of the rereads I'm stopping in the middle books that everybody hates, you know, that's as far as I got. Right. So not everybody hates, but you know what I mean? Like there are certain arcs with Faiyil that take a long time and I've stopped and put the series down for a decade after one of those, you know?

[00:05:52] So anyways, um, finale I liked, I, I, one thing I liked about the finale in general in this season is it, it's rushed through certain aspects of the books that maybe would be kind of tedious. Mm-hmm. They got through, you know, Nynaeve is all super powerful now and that's really cool. Though I kind of wanted to see her just disintegrate Leandrin right then and there.

[00:06:16] But, um, you know, I, I think unfortunately there's some plot lines like that are coming up that maybe are ones that I hope they also fast forward that you, you all have made allusions to, but. Sure. Not, not, not to focus on spoiler stuff or anything, but like, I, I liked all three of the arcs in that finale. I liked the whole stuff with Swan. I thought that was really emotional. Mm-hmm. Though, sort of like a certain scene in this week's The Last of Us, I'm kind of like, just say a few things, maybe just explain a few things. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:46] And they won't kill you or then you, they at least spare you some, some, some, you know, uh, heartache in this moment. But the Tanchico stuff was really cool. But Swan did say things in the end. In the end, she was like, yeah. She said things, but she did not, she did not, and I'm, I'm sure we'll talk about this with, with the audience feedback, but she did not say the kinds of things that Leanna wanted her to say.

[00:07:08] Like, explain, you can just, sure, speak your truth about love and defiance, but there's actually a pretty good explanation for some of this, especially since the whole allegation. This is, maybe we should talk about this later. The whole allegation of, you didn't do what you were supposed to by the Dragon Reborn, she tried and failed to do that. And that never got mentioned once the entire season. No, actually, uh, everybody, I tried to capture him and he escaped.

[00:07:36] Like, but that's not at least sort of exonerating, right? No, because actually at the beginning of the season, Leandrin was using that. She was throwing that in Swan's face as a reason why Swan should be deposed. So that would not work in her favor to say, to point that out. Deposed and executed. Like for trying and failing to do a thing is different than you lied to us and willfully did this thing that disobeys tower law. No, you, you tried to, she did last season and everybody was mad about her.

[00:08:04] She tried to follow tower law and capture the Dragon Reborn against Moraine's wishes and they're executing her for it, which is kind of wild. This is one of those, the Jedi are bad guys kind of arguments. Maybe the white tower law sort of sucks if that's why. Yes. But it's a great scene. Yeah. I look, I do think that the white tower sucks, like just like the Jedi in the prequels. But at the same time, actually, I'm going to defend Swan here.

[00:08:31] I think she came around to seeing it is not the right thing to do to cage ran. And to say that she tried to cage ran to may legitimize the act for future armor. So I do think that there's merit in being in not saying like, yeah, I tried to do it too, because I, that only adds to the argument that as you keep trying. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:54] And also there's, you know, her dignity and her like, her power there was not to acquiesce to their demand. Right. Yeah. Anyways, I thought it was a great scene. I think the Tanchico stuff was cool. The, the eel fin stuff is probably my favorite thing in the whole books, even though it's so weird. And so I'm just so happy it's happening. I'm super curious to hear if it confused the heck out of John or not.

[00:09:19] Um, but it's, yeah, it's just, I was glad to see that, uh, Balefire makes an appearance. Also super curious to hear if that confused the heck out of John. Um, and the Rand moments, I think it was bold to have us end with Egwene sort of chastising him a little bit.

[00:09:39] Such a, I know I, I, Egwene is a character that you, as a reader struggle with her conflicts with some of the characters and grow in my case to love by the end of the books. Like you love her and then you get frustrated and you love her again. And I think that moment was very real to that aspect of the character. Like I'm rooting for Rand and she's like, but, but, but, and like, she has a real good point, but it's also kind of deflating in that moment. Cause you're seeing this like maximalist moment.

[00:10:08] So I thought that was a great choice at the end, kind of, um, despite just the questions it raises kind of about the character relationships and things like that. And yeah, um, the Shido are really frustrating. So they are, they are refusing to play ball. And I hope we can move through that plot line in an economical way. That's very satisfying. I mean, okay.

[00:10:36] I, yeah, I can't respond to that without book spoilers, but, uh, no spoilers. Just they suck. And I, I hope, I hope they are portrayed in a sucky way that is enjoyable on screen and not a sucky way that makes me know, you know, I want to watch them. I don't want to hit, not want to watch them, you know? Right. No, no. I feel like no plot line is going to overstay its welcome in the show because there's just not room for it. It's always going to be the danger of the opposite where, you know, we're losing things too quickly. So, okay.

[00:11:03] Can I ask piggybacking on what you said, Jean, you were nodding vigorously when, uh, he asked if Balefire confused you. What did you, what did you take from that scene as a non reader? Uh, and this is in Tanchico in the palace when, uh, with Elaine and Tom and Gian RIP. I just thought there was, there's so many things that I don't know about this world that, you know, I wish that I did in that moment.

[00:11:29] Like, where did this come from? What does it mean? How does it, how do you harness it and things of that nature? So it was just really, it just made me want, cause I intend on reading the books right after the series is done. So it just gave me more of a, of a reason to dig into this world. So I didn't, it wasn't like, ah, what the hell is this? Where are they coming from with this, you know, whole thing.

[00:11:55] It was just more of like, oh shit, this is something else that I need to, you know, really dig into and learn about and see what exactly how it works and how it doesn't work and things of that nature. So I, I just, I kind of like not knowing, right. Because it's making me really want to be more inquisitive about this world. So I'm in a happy place when they present me with things that I have no knowledge about.

[00:12:22] Um, no warning that is coming, you know what I mean? Just drop me into it. And I'm like, oh, whether it's cool or not, I still want to find out more about it. So that's how I felt when watching those scenes and the scene with the, the, um, Elfin. Is that the Elfin? So I guess we'll talk about it more, but it was just like, for me, it wasn't weird. Like I wasn't taken out like, oh, the hell happened to Matt.

[00:12:52] It was just like, it's a fantasy show. It's all weird. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I'm just like, oh, and then as they're talking, I'm like, oh, this is like some sort of, you know, genie in a bottle almost situation. Not the same, but you know, there's always conditions with wishes. Right. So it's, you know, it, it just made sense. And it, it made sense for this world to have these, you know, this other thing involved in it.

[00:13:18] Like, so I was just totally on board. You know, you have creatures that we can never imagine seeing. So why not add more to it? Give me all of it. I want it. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. I don't know. I don't know if I could easily explain the Elfin to you, Jean, but I got you on Belfire already. Reverse! Reverse! That's how it works. Okay.

[00:13:42] I did. I liked at the Belfire what they did with the special effects, you know, how they showed her kind of an outline of her rewound and then the ceiling went back up. So it's just like the last few seconds of her life. Like, it didn't happen. It was just like this, this image of her in the, of a warrior type of thing in the background. Like, it. I think that was her rewinding. That was her rewinding. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:14:09] Yeah. But I think that's one of those things where if as a book reader, I'm like, I know exactly what just happened. Um, and as a show only watcher, I, I've, that's definitely what I've noticed that they've been doing with the lore in general is they'll kind of show a thing. And then explain it later. Like they showed tying off the weaves as early as the season one finale. And now they're just finally starting to explain what it is. So then later when people go back and rewatch, they'll be like, Oh yeah, the whole time I was doing that thing. They just, yeah.

[00:14:37] Yeah. It's interesting to me too. Cause these two sort of potentially out of left field, confusing things from this finale are treated very differently. Um, by the time you see bail fire in the books, you have heard people talk about it for probably three books. Right. So you're kind of ready. Now that doesn't mean you know what it is. You know what people think it is. Right. Right. Um, whereas we haven't seen that at all. It hasn't been mentioned really maybe until this season. Whereas in the, on the,

[00:15:07] on the other hand, the eel fin thing in the books does come out of left field. Whereas here you had, we've had little references because of what was going on with Elida. And sure. There's like mention of foxes and stuff like that in the books. But to me, that feels like a very out of left field thing. Whereas it's, it's actually a little less out of left field because of the men's vision. And because of, because of the, the Elida coming out of it, you're like, Oh, that's a gate door. She went in like, so it's kind of interesting.

[00:15:37] Sort of giving us on some level, an opposite experience in terms of preparing us for these kind of weird moment. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's get into, uh, we got a lot of thoughts and feedbacks about all of this and a bunch of other stuff from the community. We got a bunch of emails, a lot of chatter on the discord. Thank you as ever to Nancy, our keeper of the Chronicles. Uh, we hope you're enjoying your vacation right now and sipping lots of margaritas as we record.

[00:16:05] Um, but yeah, we're going to be going through basically arc by arc topic by topic. Um, if we don't get to yours, just know we read it. We really appreciate it. Um, we're going to be talking about the season as a whole, but mostly focusing on, of course, the last three episodes, episode six, a shadow of the night, episode seven, golden eyes and episode eight.

[00:16:29] He who comes with the dawn. And, um, since Nancy put this together, she did put in some stuff from the two of you. And I took most of that out since, uh, and I'm speaking to, uh, Sean and Mark, I took most of it out because you're here. But Mark, you said one thing that I'm going to pose this as a question to John. Um, me, the lower cast. What did I do? No, Mark's asking you a question via me. The lower cast question of whether talents are genetic or cultural.

[00:16:57] One question to ask that we can't really have an answer to is whether dreamwalking is a common talent amongst the two of them. Considering their shared lineage with Aiel. Do you think two of them can dreamwalk? This is because the Aiel have more dreamwalkers than everybody. Genetically or maybe. Yeah. Hmm. I don't know. See, here's the thing. I don't know if it's genetically that they do have more.

[00:17:24] I, I, or if it's the, the culture of the Aiel being like, yeah, dreamwalking is a thing. And so more people will try it. Like, is it selection bias? Hmm. Okay. That's fair. And I don't think that the two of them are even interested. Like if you told them they could do that, they'd be like, okay, seems dangerous. Does it involve burying our dead and moving on? Um, but if it is genetic. Yeah. I don't see why they wouldn't.

[00:17:52] I mean, well, actually I do see why they wouldn't because the Aiel are much more enclosed society. Whereas the Tuathon are constantly taking in people, right? They are descended, not just biologically, but, but sort of, they're more of a cultural people than they are biological people. Right. Uh, the, the Tuathon are constantly like picking up new followers. And so there's a lot more. Genetic mix. With different peoples. Whereas the Aiel have been like all in the desert and not, yeah.

[00:18:20] And, and, and more, you know, less interbreeding between different peoples. All right. Yeah. That makes sense. Um, Sean, can I ask you as the book reader was, what did you think of the whole dreamwalking aspect of the season? And, and did you feel like you were following that? Were you interested in that story? Yeah.

[00:18:41] Um, because, you know, in, in my parents' culture and a lot of cultures that of people that I, you know, grew up around, you know, people interpreted dreams. You know what I mean? So it's always been something that has had, I've had interest in. So to see people who can go into dreams and actually do things in other people's dreams, that's not a foreign concept to me in real life.

[00:19:10] You know what I mean? So watching it unfolding on screen was just cool for me to have this different aspect of something that I'm already familiar with. Yeah. Yeah. On, on the topic of, uh, the cultural aspect, we, and the influences, we got, uh, two messages. The first one's from Marilyn. From your descriptions, the Aiel culture sounds remarkably similar to the pre-Abrahamic Semite culture, which were a desert people. They were matrilineal and matrifocal, according to some researchers.

[00:19:39] I also get vibes from the Iroquois nation in which, if I understand correctly, men are the warriors, but the women are the ones who decide whether or not to go to war. And Aya Sedai said, I believe Robert Jordan said that he based the Aiel culture on the Cheyenne. So, yeah, it's, it's, I, this is what, this is what I wish Robert Jordan were around. I do actually think he would love the show personally.

[00:20:04] That's my opinion, but I would love for there to be interviews with Robert Jordan about all of these aspects now. Yeah. You know, I, I want to add, I, Marilyn brought up a pre-Abrahamic Semite culture, but I, I actually think it reminds me a lot of like the exile in the desert of the Hebrews, right? Like God says, Hey, y'all need to do some learning. So you are not going to see the promised land. You're not going to go there. Maybe your descendants will.

[00:20:34] I'd be like, I'll bring your descendants for sure. That's my promise to you, but you're going to have to wait a while. And that's a lot of like what the Aiel are, right? This is the threefold land. This is their, their test. This is their, their proving ground. This is, so I, I think that there definitely is, even if Robert Jordan is basing the, the cultural aspects on, uh, more, more indigenous American cultures, I think there definitely is a plot aspect in parallel. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:21:02] I was just going to ask, do the three of you in general, like in fiction, whether it's TV or movies or books, dream sequences and profit? Do you like them in general or do you not like them in general? I mean, we were talking about the prophecies because we did, uh, the Carathon cycle, the prophecies of the dragon as the last lore cast. And yeah, I love a good prophecy, right?

[00:21:27] Because I mean, because of the way I suppose, like look at men's visions because of the way it plays with the question of what is inevitable. Um, what does inevitability even mean? And yeah, just our, um, messes with our expectations and, and reminds us that we should not think that we know what's coming ever, even if we literally have prophecies. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:56] I, I too am a prophecy fan. I, but it has to be not like straightforward, right? It has to be, there has to be a twist to it. Like we don't know exactly how it's going to happen or it's going to be like sort of turned on its head a little bit at the end. The wheel of time is really good at that. Uh, I'm, I just finished the first book of the stormlight archive. That's really good at that. I think I there's, and it makes sense. Brandon Sanderson wrote the last three wheel of time books. Right. So I, I think that there are very good ways to use prophecies. It can also be done really poorly.

[00:22:26] I'm pretty much in general. I am fine with any trope if it's executed well, and I don't like the trope when it's executed poorly. It's fair. It's fair. It's fair.

[00:22:35] I'm, I'm, I don't have a problem with the prophecy chosen one, you know, themes because quite honestly, that's the majority of the things that I've ever written, read or seen on screen had some sort of, you know, parallels to someone being chosen or way back when. And then we're waiting for this person to come and save us from whatever they're going to save us from.

[00:23:02] So that's been part of everything that I've ever consumed. So I'm, yeah, I don't even think I could say that prophecy is not a part of my sci-fi journey. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's just ingrained in it. Sounds like dream sequences you might, you might be a fan of too. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I love dream stuff too. Yeah. As long as it's not like, and it was all a dream in the end. Yeah, exactly. These, these tropes are not good or bad.

[00:23:31] They are just palette. They're just colors on your palette to paint with as a creator. Right. And, and they could be, you know, Mark, are parallel fives bad sometimes? And sometimes they're not. Right. I know. I really listened to your whole thing about parallel fives on your podcast. That's why I'm poking fun at you. So, uh, Mark, you, you clearly, you had an agenda when you asked this question. So why don't you tell us? Right. That's right. Every question I ask has an agenda. That's right. Intellectual dishonesty coming your way. No, I, I struggle with them.

[00:24:01] Um, not, not because of any like polemic, like, oh, well, this is derivative or whatever. It, it actually, especially with books, it's, it causes me to struggle to pay attention to what's happening. It, it's almost like when I see that Tolkien is writing a song or has a song, I, I have to not, I, I have to not pay attention to it.

[00:24:26] There's something about my brain that there's a, some iconic Tellar and Riyadh, uh, this is, I'll say this, this series of books handles dreams and prophecy better than pretty much anything else in my opinion. Like, but I find myself struggling when I'm reading in particular fantasy, but also sometimes watching a movie or whatever, processing it as not almost, it's hard for me not to just almost think of it like my dream.

[00:24:55] Well, it's a thing that happened and it's just garbage. And like, I find myself zoning out when I'm reading and it's really an interesting thing. Um, and this book conquers that a little bit because there's like a tangible reality to the dreams. I mean, a prophetic dream in fantasy, forget about it. Like my brain's like, I, I find myself wanting to skip. It's so, so strange. And I don't, I can't defend it. It's almost an involuntary thing. Like, like my glazing over with a, with a, uh, uh, epic poem in, in Tolkien.

[00:25:22] Like, obviously I like music and I like, you know, I just, it's, it's tough. And, um, prophecy can be like that a little bit, like the sort of the exalted speech of the way, like a chosen one prophecy would be written. My brain just knows, like, you're not going to be able to figure it out. So don't even, it's, it becomes word salad for me. And it's a really, okay. I do the opposite. I'm not defending it. It's just kind of a weird thing.

[00:25:51] That's kind of always been there with me. It's, uh, probably diagnosable. I'm not sure. Um, yeah, I, I wanted to know if I think I'm probably alone in fantasy because I think there are probably people who feel that way and those people are repelled by fantasy and sci-fi and they just don't consume. Whereas I still like, I still like this style of, of storytelling. So, um. I'm sure you're not alone. Listeners right in. I mean, yeah, I, I turn into, I get puzzle brain when I hear prophecy. I'm like, Ooh, what could this mean?

[00:26:22] Well, as, as, uh, someone who just came back from watching return of the, of revenge of the Sith on theater screen, doing the 20th anniversary, I ate up that, those seeds of Anakin drew me about Pan-Bay's death. Ate it up. The way that they handle that, you know, there's a lot of bad things you can say about that movie, but that's not one of them. Yeah. Well, on the topic of prophecy, we got a question and a comment from Dopamini.

[00:26:47] Uh, she said, when Rand channels at the end of the rain comes and the rain comes down is the rain fulfilling part of the prophecy. And I'll come back to that in a sec. I loved learning that he will destroy the Aiel, not by killing them or something like this, but by revealing the truth of their lineage as oath breakers in this way, the illusion of who they are and have always been has been destroyed. But now that they know this, they can move forward and perhaps get past some prejudices, which I guess will make them stronger in the end.

[00:27:14] And so you said something similar to that second part, Jean, in, uh, in the discourse. Yeah, I did because I was, I was fully expecting, you know, the breaking of the Aiel be to be literal at this point. Like they're going to go, he's going to either cause some sort of massive earthquake that's going to swallow them all up, you know, and literally like kill off the nation period. Right.

[00:27:42] And then I'm watching it and as I'm watching the season and especially in the season, when he goes back, the episode, when he goes back in time to read into his past lives, it's like, okay, I kind of got it. Like he's not, it's not a literal death of the Aiel.

[00:28:03] It's more of what they know now is going to be destroyed to give them something else. Right. But that something else is also going to destroy them because he's going to take them to war. Sure. Right. And it is both a literal and a figurative death of the Aiel.

[00:28:26] So I was very, you know, happy that it wasn't the literal death that I expected at first, but in my mind, I know it's still going to happen. Like I don't expect many of these people to survive to the end of this story. Right. I think the faceless, nameless, you know, folks are going to go, you know, maybe a handful- I mean, we're losing big characters, so yeah. Right.

[00:28:54] So maybe a handful of Aiel will survive the final battle and they may not even make it to the final battle, you know? Mm-hmm.

[00:29:33] When Rand channels at the end and the rain comes down, is the rain fulfilling part of the prophecy? And since John and I just did an episode on the prophecies, we would say that the short answer is we don't know what's in the entire fat book we see them looking at sometimes in the show. But from what we do know through the books, they don't specifically mention rain, but one thing that does say in the prophecies that we know of is the shadow shall rise across the

[00:30:00] world and darken every land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither light nor safety. And we saw- this is a bit different from the books, but I know why they're- I have a feeling I know why they're doing this. We saw dark clouds creeping across the entire continent, across even the sea on the other side of the continent and everywhere our characters are in between.

[00:30:25] John and Mark, do you think this is going to be a permanent weather effect they'll have to deal with next season? Spoilers. You can't set me up like that. I'm just asking, do you think it's- Maybe. It's speculation. It's speculation. Is it? It's not- it's different from the books. People should read the titles of some of the books. Right, well-

[00:30:53] If they want spoilers that still don't make sense, but kind of spoil, read the titles of the books. Um, I wanted to say to this, we don't know the whole Carathon cycle, but what we really don't know is any of the verbiage of the prophecy of he who comes with the dawn, right? The question should be, does the Aiel prophecy of the Karakarn have anything to do with rain? Because that sure seemed to be meaningful to some of the Aiel in that moment.

[00:31:21] And their prophecy is obviously related to the prophecies of the dragon, but it's probably a heck of a lot more specific about that. And if it's like, there might be a passage there about, you know, the rains tumbling in the middle of July or whatever, right? So I don't know. Right. I mean, it's a deep desert, so it's not like- rain in general, that's- it's- yeah, weird. And I don't think we know really anything about their prophecies in any specificity, because we at least get the epigraphs. Is that the right word?

[00:31:48] Like the beginning of certain books, we get like chunks of the prophecies of the dragon. We don't ever get that, I don't think, for the he who comes with the dawn prophecy. No, I don't think so. So, you know, I think that part of it is just the, like, the fact that it is water. Like, they're always so amazed by water. And I just want to say I would watch a spinoff where we follow the missionary of Protectiva spreading to all these cultures, the prophecies of the dragon. But, you know, I don't think we're going to get that one.

[00:32:18] But I also thought in that moment when the rain, when it started to rain, it was just like, all right, now he just totally subverted everything that this culture is about because now they're all wetlanders. You know what I mean? It was almost like a slur to be like, oh, look at this wetlander, you know, coming here. And now, yeah, it's raining on your ass. We're all wetlanders right now. This is what's up. This is what's going on. Who's the wetlander now?

[00:32:47] Now, exactly, right? I'm really here to change everything about you, even to how you describe yourselves and other people, right? And that's what Ran did. It's amazing. That's a real good take. And it's also just kind of like, how do they react afterwards? To that, yes. Part of it is like they make comments in the books. I'm sorry, I don't remember if it happens in the show where they're amazed by the fact that they take baths. Do they say something about that when they're in the sweat tents?

[00:33:17] Like, you're wasting water by putting your dirty butt in that water and washing it? So is this rain wasted, so to speak, or does stuff start growing, right? So do they see this rain as Rand is kind of almost – because he didn't generate water, probably. He probably called water from the moisture, that kind of thing. Like a lot of their – the one power usage seems to be based on things that are around in the environment.

[00:33:47] So is this just like runoff now and it's just polluted and it's kind of ruined the landscape with erosion? Or is it – is there – did spring come early or something, right? So, I mean, it's – we don't see that and we probably won't see that except that Alicia wants us to talk about spoilers related to the weather. I wasn't. You know, they're going to be a lake in the desert.

[00:34:09] I thought that they were going to skip any weather-related plot lines and now I won – because they showed this in the finale, I'm like, well, I think maybe next season we're going to be talking about the weather in a different way than the books. I defer all speculation to John for now. Well, because I'm – you know, I'm looking up the titles right now. So I went straight to the titles.

[00:34:36] So I'll be looking at these titles for the rest of the show, making my own type of formulations in my mind. So, yeah. So, okay. So one thing that they did well differently in the show is the whole Alcera story. Sub-Zero says, Yoshi did an amazing job in that end scene with Alcera. The tortured laugh, tears streaming down his face really hit the mark. I like that they laid the groundwork with Rand and Alcera. It wasn't just some Rando child.

[00:35:02] This was someone he had a deep connection with and it is going to do lasting emotional damage. So when Rand's psyche takes a darker turn, we can understand where it's coming from. And just also about Rand, Ken W says, Our little Rand is all grown up and ready to destroy the world. With the Aiel bending the knee, who will stop him now? What a buildup in episode eight to a fantastic climax. And what I have to ask you guys is,

[00:35:30] would you rather be Rand, bow to Rand, or watch Kuladin break before Rand? I'm sorry. Repeat this choices because that's a lot. That was a lot to take in. Would you rather be Rand, bow to Rand, or watch Kuladin break before Rand? Number three. What is this, a competition? No, I don't want to be Rand. He's going crazy.

[00:35:58] I don't want to bow to Rand because he's going to destroy as many people around him as he saves. And I would love to see Rand beat up Kuladin. Budget Khal Drogo. I won't stand to call him anything else. Mark, what did you think of Kuladin from the book to screen? I like him more on screen because we haven't seen much of him.

[00:36:26] He's like, so I'll say like the fact that the Forsaken give him the fake sort of dragon tattoos, right? Was not immediately clear to me when reading this book series. It took a while before I figured that out. I don't know if it's because I'm skipping through the dream sequences or if it's because I missed something or if it is subtly explained.

[00:36:54] But it comes off as just this huge, in the books, this huge affront that he's, what do you mean? You didn't go to ruin him. We know you didn't. And so it makes it a little bit more appreciable and like understanding that understandable that he knows it's fake, but also he hates this. Like, I think they're setting up good stuff. I think they need to explain him a little more as a villain or as an antagonist because what did they?

[00:37:22] I feel like in one sentence, Savannah rushed through like the most complicated family dynamic ever. It's like my husband was the chief and he died. And so his son or like, did she marry his son or something? And then his brother is now here. Like, and you're like, what? Like that was, that's a complicated little thing. And they sort of just went right through it. And now we have these, this sort of angsty young man there and we don't really know what he is, but now we know what he means in the story. And so I like that. I think it's cool.

[00:37:52] I also want to see him get it beaten, beaten up by Rand. And I, I don't think being Rand, I think being Rand right now doesn't look so bad, but remember the Loghain stuff in season one, everybody, when he's got like black spirit people whispering in his ear, like he is headed towards madness. Right. And that's not a secret, right? Like we know that this is the fate of all men who channel. It's a certainty in the, in the sort of cosmology.

[00:38:22] Right. And, and whether those, whether those whispers are madness or those whispers are, you know, your past life and, and lose there. And then all these things is an open question that causes people to probably declare themselves to be drag the right dragon reborn in most cases falsely. But that's not a cool state of being that nobody should want to be Rand, at least not, not six months from now in the timeline. Right. So John, let me get, put this question your way.

[00:38:51] What do you think is the biggest Rand glow up this season? His power set, his quickie masters and I.O. Culture or his relationship with Moraine? His relationship with Moraine. I think it's the, that the entire season was, was worth it for that as well. You know, I'm glad that he, he's getting to be more in control of himself, of his powers and all of that stuff. I'm, I'm happy for that, but it's the personal growth that I've seen from him.

[00:39:22] Um, outside of that and his relationship with Moraine, where he's like, you know, I understand what, what you had to do, but I got to do some things too. You know what I mean? Um, you just read something that said, you know, our little boy Rand has all grown and it feels like that. It feels like he's, he's, he's grown.

[00:39:43] And I attribute it to specifically going through the past, experiencing that and understanding the weight that is currently on his shoulders and what it all means. I think that helped him to grow into what we're seeing at the end of the episode of the end of the season.

[00:40:09] So yeah, his relationship with Moraine is, is much more, um, unequal footing. I don't know if it's, you know, I want to say it's 50, 50, you know, she still has, you know, I don't know how many hundred, a hundred years of life worth experience more than he does. Um, but yeah, I really liked that their relationship has come into more of a equal footing than it was in the past two seasons.

[00:40:37] Okay. Okay. And, and Mark, who do you think Moraine had a closer relationship to this season? Rand, Lan, or her hat? The hat. The hat. Yeah. I actually think the, it's weird because the, I agree with everything Jean just said, like the way that relationship kind of climaxed at the end is, is great.

[00:40:59] Like it showed a lot of maturity from both of them, not just Rand, I think that she kind of grew to a place where she could release some amount of trust to him. Um, I feel like the Rand, excuse me, the Lan and Moraine thing was a little underused this season. And that's too bad because last season they were overused in a frustrating way, maybe with sort of the, the extended period where they were fighting, so to speak.

[00:41:26] Um, I kind of wanted a little more of their interactions this season. Um, we got the, I think the hat has already been made fun of plenty. I think the hats in Tanchico are cooler. I like the Tanchico hats. I like the Elaine singing hat. I like some of that. I think, doesn't Lanfear have a really preposterous looking thing on her head or something in the last year? Maybe that's just like a, like a cape, like a vampire cape kind of thing. It's actually, if you zoom in on it, it's, um, it's a moon.

[00:41:56] It's like a moon on and it has the moon pattern on the side, you know, like with the craters and stuff. Oh, it's just amazing that in this, you know, a little bit dystopian world, they have a hot topic. I mean, that was a whole couture in the age of legends. Like for the one who swore themselves to the dark. Um, okay. John, do you have any final thoughts on rent or, uh, before we take a break? Brand is my son and he's done nothing.

[00:42:25] Okay. Fair enough. Let's take a break. Okay. We got an email today from a new listener, Gina R, who just literally like two hours before we recorded.

[00:42:55] Um, so we're going to hear some general thoughts from her later, but she especially was excited to talk about episode four. So here's what she said about that. Just wow. Did you notice that the grandfather who expelled Rand's ancestor Lewin for committing violence was Adon, who along with his grandfather, Jonai remained faithful to their oaths and struggled across the spine together when the others returned to cities after the wagons were attacked. Um, that's how that group of Tuathon have the sapling, Avan de Sora.

[00:43:24] So yeah, the, we see in one, we see an old man in, uh, one of Rand's visions. And then in the next vision, we see him as a child, basically. When the Tuathon or, you know, split, split off. Um, the older Adon is still wearing the cap and vest you see him in as a child. I'm not there in the books yet, so I don't know if this is true in the timeline, but my thoughts as a show only watcher and parent,

[00:43:48] I struggled with the idea of a mother turning away her own son for rescuing her other child. But her father presumably would have been deeply committed to the way of the leaf, thereby, therefore making the banishing more believable. This might be a stretch, uh, okay. Okay. So we'll pause there. And Sean, I, we know you want everyone who practices the way of the leaf to kick rocks. Yeah, they gotta go. They gotta go. The leaf is not, it's not cool. It's not good.

[00:44:17] It's, I, I, I understand, um, people wanting to live in peace, wanting to bring that about into the world that they inhabit. I get that, but the extremes that they go to, to ensure that this happens and that each generation is fulfilling this ideal that they don't even know why they swore by the time I'm watching the series is ridiculous.

[00:44:47] Like, seeing those moments where they banish others for not allowing horrific acts to happen to others, right? For being selfless in that way. And still it's like, ah, yeah, yeah, you saved that baby. But you know what? You can't, you can't be down anymore. You gotta go.

[00:45:16] You gotta go. Nobody wants to be around. You saved the baby. Nobody wants you around. Like, what is that? Like, how, how do you, how, how does one, I can't, I can't wrap my head around that. I can't get over it. And I can't just say, this is their culture. This is their way. Update your shit. Like, cultures, things need updating, right? I was raised Catholic. Too dogmatic. Yes, I was raised Catholic, you know? Catholicism needed some updating. You know what I mean?

[00:45:45] There's like things that need to change from the way that you did something 3,000 years ago. So I'm not down with the way of the leaf. And I just cannot understand how it's just like ho-hum. Oh, well, there's another person who, you know, won't be, you know, traveling with us anymore. This is- They have updated. They've updated kind of in the opposite direction.

[00:46:14] They became vegetarian. Like, back in the day, they're like, a spear is better than a sword. Yes. Because- But wait, who became vegetarian? Because I thought that just the Aiel gave up being- Or, oh, you're saying that because- The whole reason why thousands of years ago, so the movie told us, the movie that Rand watched, told us that like they thought the spear was cool because you could feed yourself with a spear. Yes. Later generations, the Aiel clearly kept that, right?

[00:46:44] They kept the idea. But those of them that stayed pacifist eventually eschewed the idea of hunting your food in general, right? So they actually added to their dogma. And I'm not saying anything negative about vegetarianism, but- I think it's more that the other group gave up that, probably because it was hard to grow plants in the waste or something like that. But I assume that the Tuothan, or that the Daishan Aiel were vegetarians until they- I thought the spears were just like skewers, basically.

[00:47:13] No, but they said like- You know, you're holding it to the plate. For the squashes. For the squashes. For the squashes. For the squashes. A spear can get you your dinner. They said something like a spear can get you your dinner. That means they're killing a creature. But that's after- Yeah, that's after they separated from the ones who kept the way of the original. The ones who said, we're separating because we don't want to guard the Aesirai shit anymore or go into the desert. They're the ones who stayed vegetarians, is my interpretation. Because it was easier for them.

[00:47:40] Do you understand that in between those two things, they started hunting and killing animals? It seems more likely that they just- Like, we weren't shown that. So why would I assume they were- Like, I don't know. Like, we know that the Tuothan are vegetarian. We know that those people weren't. So- Eventually, yeah. But I mean, for me, I guess we are free to both make our opposite assumptions. But my assumption is definitely that anthropologically, I think it makes more sense that they just maintain their vegetarianism and it would have been easier for them to do so

[00:48:10] in the wetlands. You know, I agree with whichever one of you spoke last. I think we should- Look, sometimes you got to kick some rocks to build a quarry. You do. You do. And you know what? This is- Like, I really- It really bothers me. Like, this is part of the story. This is part of the mythology of this series that really grates on me. And I'm not saying grates on me like I hate it.

[00:48:35] Like, but it's really something that I think about and I really don't like, right? And I guess it's broader for me in that sense because I think, you know, in real life, in my real life, I tried not to be as dogmatic as they are, right? And I tend to shy away from traditions that are that way.

[00:49:03] So to have it on screen just, you know, so stark and just so- They don't make a distinction. It's like, I don't care. There's no room for interpretation. There's no room for, you know, leeway. And that's sort of terrible. No matter if it's peaceful or not, it is still terrible. Too dogmatic. Okay.

[00:49:32] At least people can go. And the listener is mentioning the mother disowning, but like, there's also the daughter. Like, as a parent, I have a son and a daughter. The last time I disowned my son for saving the life of my daughter, she at least didn't put him out on blast. She at least was on his side. And so I was like, really? You sold him out? He saved your life? You knew you were going to be tortured and killed probably or something.

[00:50:00] The fact that the daughter is so like brainwashed, so to speak. Yeah. She's like, she knows he's done. They're not going to kill him, but that he's out of their family. And she still feels the need to rat him out. Yeah. And like I said, last time I disowned my son, like my seven-year-old daughter, she stuck up for him, you know? And, you know, and now he's back in the house, you know? It's just crazy to me. I'm with you. And you know what? It is interesting.

[00:50:29] Um, I feel like it hits harder in this show because in the book, you see the Twatha on many more times and yeah, they're frustrating, but there's like more, there's more internal struggle about the, the virtues of their life. I think you see some, some characters really struggle with it and actually find the beauty in that life and wish they could live in that world sort of. Whereas here you're just faced with like, he saved a baby, bro. And you're freaking him out.

[00:50:57] Like it feels more like, I guess put it this way. The showrunners have put their thumb on the scale in a way that maybe Jordan wasn't. I think Jordan actually wanted us to really wonder if wouldn't, wouldn't it maybe be better if Perrin and Egwene did just stay with these people? Right. Um, I don't know. I mean, Perrin can go wherever he wants to go. John is illa a villain. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Were you asking me? Cause I thought you were asking you. Yes. I'm asking you. See, this is the problem.

[00:51:26] We got two close names here. Um, I, I said this on the podcast and I think you disagreed with me, Alicia, but I said, if your personal philosophy requires you to let a baby die, your philosophy is evil. Like, I don't care what the rules are that you have. If, if your philosophy lets you watch a infant in arms, just be slaughtered. Then, then I think that your philosophy is fucked up. Okay.

[00:51:56] All right. Well, speaking of things that are fucked up, Sub-Zero said sending Samuel to the waist was a win-win for Lanfear. It pushed Ran closer to embracing his powers and the darkness at the same time and eliminated a bitter adversary and to top it all off, Rand and Egwene broke up a banner episode for Lanfear. Oh gosh. Are, are we going to talk about betraying Dark Oath later in the feedback? Yes, we are. Okay. Yeah. Right.

[00:52:26] Then, yeah, sure. Win-win for Lanfear. Um, do you guys think it was the best death or do you think Eamon Valda burning or Ispan Shefar's, uh, fingers through the face? What, what, what do you think is the best death of this season? Oh, fingers to the face. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I kind of like the, the blood strands, uh, web. That was, that was the most creative one for sure. Yeah. I kind of think that the showrunners need some therapy.

[00:52:56] Fingers to the face for me. I, I thought that was just like spectacular. Maybe that says something about me, but you know, it was just, it was just gorgeously done. I love it. Even, uh, we were, you know, we were talking about the flashbacks, the visions, um, when they, you know, when, when they go to get the girls and they commit the violence, they've, it was a total face-off situation. I did not expect that. Hmm. There's some good deaths this season. Um, there are also some sad deaths this season.

[00:53:25] We have two comments about Melindra's death. First from Alex L. He says, um, and this is going to be about the oaths. We do not look, I did not read forward one sentence. Sorry. Um, so we have Sub-Zero, by the way, who's also a reader. I loved Melindra's sacrifice. Her allegiance to Malkir was even stronger than her dark oath and it will have a strong impact on land. I hope in season four, we see the golden crane flying again. It was cool to see Melindra with that red mark on her forehead.

[00:53:55] I think that's a Malkiri thing. And yeah, we talked about that. It's a key song. And, um, the fact that it was red means she's married, I guess, to the spheres. Um, so Sub-Zero likes the change they made to the dark oath. Alex L. Is questioning it. He says, we do have an example of breaking your dark oaths in the books. And then, uh, yeah, there's a book spoiler in which someone mentions the color green. Book readers know what we're talking about. This is a classic exception that proves the rule.

[00:54:22] One simply cannot willingly break a dark oath just as one cannot break an Aes Sedai oath. So what were you, Mark? You, uh, wanted to talk about oaths. What do you have? Is this playing into it what, uh, these two have said at all? Yeah. So it's, it's really about that dark oath and the fact that breaking it causes Melinda to die.

[00:54:44] And I'm wondering what is that supposed to, if anything, tell us, not talking spoilers here, but based on what they're presenting, what does that tell us about Lanfear and her attesting to Rand, I'm going to kill the dark one. Like at what point, like, does, does that tell us that she has in fact, that she is in fact lying to Rand, that she does have no intention of that?

[00:55:11] Or the moment she took an action in that direction, would she die? Right. It's an interesting kind of thing. And, and noting that there are certain characters in season two that died, that didn't, that we didn't get to see this kind of thing happen with, which is interesting. And I'm just wondering kind of what, what the implications of this are.

[00:55:33] Like, do we just, are we supposed to interpret any time, let's say next season, Lanfear, the will they, won't they about Rand and Lanfear comes back and makes her claims? Or did the showrunners program us to always assume any dark friend is always lying?

[00:55:52] Or because if they say that they automatically die, like what's the threshold at which, when did Melinda, it wasn't when she decided, was it when she decided to spare Lan that she started to die? Was it when she put voice to it? Like, it's just sort of an interesting thing. And I don't know if we're supposed to be unpacking it like I am or what, but thoughts on that? John, do you have thoughts on that as a reader? I do think this might be an inconsistency that Mark has discovered here.

[00:56:20] And I have no defense for it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess we have to see, because Lanfear's, even as book readers, we don't really completely know what Lanfear thinks or feels or, you know, how much is bullshit. But, you know, so it's really hard to say. I don't even, I don't know if she even always knows what she thinks and feels, really. Yeah, she's just... In the middle of all of our games.

[00:56:47] Look, she's just looking hot and causing problems. That's her whole thing. She's thinking about her next look. Exactly. I would say from a storyteller perspective... Sorry, have we... I think you two said that this is a book change, right? A show change? Yeah, about the Dark Oats. About the fact that you just insta-die. Yeah, yeah. They've... I feel like they've given themselves a new limitation.

[00:57:17] They've kind of... They've taken away a dramatic tool, which is, are the Dark Friends liars if they say something good? Like, if they seem like they're about to help you, even if the characters don't know that from the audience perspective, have they... Is it almost an unforced error that now they might one day want to go, well, we want Pad and Fane to, like, save a baby one day or whatever. And then, like, they can't now because we're expecting him to die instantly.

[00:57:45] They didn't take an oath ever. Like, I mean, yeah. Pad and Fane saving a baby, yeah, we'll see. But it's not like Pad and Fane took an oath that said, I will never save a baby. You know, that's too specific. There's wiggle room within the oaths. Well, did Melindra take an oath that said she will kill... Yes. ...Land? I mean, they take an oath that they will obey a direct order, and she got a direct order from Landfair. Yeah. I think that's right.

[00:58:13] Because part of what's baked into being a dark friend is this subterfuge, right? Is this idea that you have to blend in, and sometimes you got to be nice so that people don't suspect you. That's why you have the green and yellow Asha members just running around like, do-do-do-do-do. Oh, I'm evil. Yeah. By the way. Right. After probably being good most of the time in their daily duties, right? Right. So you would say then, Landfair did not make an oath, I will not kill you, Dark One. And so she hasn't... Yeah.

[00:58:43] If she didn't make that direct... I mean, look at the Aes Sedai. That's how their oaths work. Maybe the Dark One is like, I can't be killed. Like, maybe the Dark One is... It's hubris, right? Like, I don't need to make you swear an oath to not kill me. I can just kill you before you get to me. Hmm. Right. Hmm. All right. Well, sliding into the Forsaken and other villainy, um, Ford Slash Tim says, I appreciate the quote-unquote bad guys having backstories and believable motivations.

[00:59:08] So much of fantasy is riddled with, um, evil just because, or this entire race is evil because they're evil. It's refreshing to have the story humanize an otherwise one-dimensional character. I have to say, it came up on the server, especially a few times with Leandrin, how they humanized her, but then also people say, and then she did Leandrin stuff. So it's also a favorite of mine, um, is, is the way that they humanize in the story. And I think they're doing a great job on the TV show.

[00:59:38] And just to add a couple more to that, Abby says, Moggy really comes in to show how young, experienced, and helpless all our heroes slash heroines are, chilling. And Dopamini says, it was cool to see how unique Moggetian style of villainy is when she used her magic on Elaine and Nineve. So childlike and happy, which made it extra creepy. I loved that scene. Is it still called a weave for the forsaken? And, and yes, although John was the, um, I, I feel like we need to define for people again, the difference between the one power and the true power.

[01:00:09] Mark, you, you've, you've got your, your, your, your, your red, all are talking about that. I, you, that is a late book spoiler. I think they showed it in the finale, but they didn't, but yeah, they're not telling us yet. I do agree with you, Mark. Okay. But she says she bored through to get to. She's like, there might be a true power, lowercase T, lowercase P that might be. And you all are like, yeah, she's got black flecks in her eye. It's called saw.

[01:00:38] It means she's drawing the power of the dark one. It was like, yeah, that's like book 12 when you learn that. So audience, if you've listened, like, no, it's fine. But like, so there are people who complain all the time about having different definitions of spoilers. It's a really difficult line to walk because then other people will complain both ways. It doesn't matter. It's not a big reveal, but we're not supposed to know the difference, I guess, between the one power and the true power. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

[01:01:07] So the one power is not the true power and the true power is not the one power. The one power is also called the true source, but it is not the true power, which is very confusing and Robert Jordan should be embarrassed about it. The one source. Now, don't get me started on the one. Okay. Well, we'll just say we saw Lanfear having this inky black stuff she's channeling rather than like what we see other Aes Sedai channeling.

[01:01:39] Look, there's something else you could use. I don't, you know, we haven't talked about where it comes from exactly about, maybe we have talked about where it comes from. You have. That's why I'm surprised. Like, it's not like you're noting, like, because she did drop the name true power, but it's a long time in the books where this stuff is being done with power and none of the people that channel who can presumably detect the power being used notice it, right? They don't know what's going on.

[01:02:07] And you find out longer in the book that, okay, there's this other thing called the true power that, that yeah, like old, like regular person Lanfear, Miren or whatever said the words, oh, we're looking for a true power, but we don't know that. And then you saw her channeling different from everybody else. Doesn't that mean anything? Yeah, but they haven't put it together yet. I see Mark's point and I see Alicia's point. I think they're both valid. Okay. I'm not even saying, I'm just saying I'm surprised you did it because you generally are very, very picky about it. Yeah, I don't consider it a spoiler.

[01:02:37] I really don't consider it a spoiler because I think it's been, and there's a lot of things that they tell on screen, but then they will repeat it. And it's the same as the books. They lay the groundwork. Like if you list in the first book, there's a section where Rand and Matt are falling to sleep in a, uh, in a wagon and they have the entire, like someone lists the entire lineage of Kyrie and, and Andor, which is full of spoilers.

[01:03:05] And you just don't pick it up on your first time, you know, reading. And then you go back and you're like, holy shit. Um, and I, the show does the same thing. And I just, I do take the standpoint that I think people want us to not tell like, oh, that character actually is a secret dark friend or something like that. Um, stick around for the white tower for that, not this episode, but previously. But, um, I think that people do want us to point out, you know, oh, that, that Tavirin

[01:03:32] word they keep saying, here's what it means, even though they haven't really explained it yet. I do think that there is a distinction between like world building quote unquote spoilers and plot point spoilers. So I, I see what you're saying there, Alicia. Yeah. I don't even think people would have thought about it if Mark hadn't just taken us to task. So, uh, I welcome, I'm going to send every single review and email that we get right to Mark's inbox. I'll take some fan mail.

[01:03:58] So I will say in, in the defense of you talking about it, the major, major, major difference in the way the story is being told versus the books is that we see the weaves with the exception of when they're trying to hide that Rand is channeling in the first season. We're seeing male channelers. We're seeing female channelers. Whereas in the books, if you don't have Rand there and a man is channeling, we would have no idea it's happening.

[01:04:24] We don't see, there's no reason like the characters aren't seeing the black, like, uh, venom costume symbiote stuff coming out over. We, I don't think they're seeing it. We are seeing it. And that is the showrunner saying, this is something weird going on. Look at how she looks kind of like she's tainted, like Rand, but not quite the same.

[01:04:47] So it is being treated much less as this secret here because they've just painted it in black, right? In a way that you don't have secret channelers in this show, except for whatever they did in the season one. And maybe that's an inconsistency in storytelling, but they kind of, I feel like that's over now. If they have a secret ice to die, like channeling in a scene now, I feel like we would be kind of robbed by that. Okay. All right.

[01:05:16] I have an important, more important question for all of you. I'm going to start with you, Mark, since you're talking, um, dream blunt rotation, bad guy edition. Everyone pick three of the villains from this series who you would want as your dream blunt for villain rotation and one who is never invited. What would you say, Mark? My options are any. Yeah. Any villain. I listed some in the notes here just for reference, but.

[01:05:44] So Mogetian is never invited. I'm sorry. Like she's the worst. She's, she's, she's well-crafted villain. Like she's hateable, but she's not, not at all. Yeah. Um, I'm going is Shamayel land fear.

[01:06:06] And, um, God, Naomi, maybe. Okay. Okay. What about you, John? For my herbal tea rotation and nothing else. Oh, sure. Um, I will say, uh, yeah. All right. Mo, Mo Gideon. No, no. Is she's the never? Land fear for sure.

[01:06:36] She's pretty chill. Oh, this is so tough. They all suck. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. I feel like a light. It would bring, would bring gossip. So. Yeah. Good one. All right. I'll, I'll go with her and, um, good additions. And there's people that I want, but they're not, but they're not revealed yet. Oh yeah. Sorry. All right. All right.

[01:07:05] All right. We do have to stick with what's revealed. All right. I, I do think Ishmael would be, Ishmael would be like, let's put on planet earth and, uh, just chill out for a while. Yeah, that's true. So let's, let's have him as a third. All right. Uh, John, what about you? Three yes, four never one never. Okay. Uh, I would say Ishmael. Raven.

[01:07:35] And I chill with the Elfin dude. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I'm also going to go with Robin because he's charming, you know, he's terrible person, but he's super charming. I also feel like Ishmael would be chill. And, um, I don't know. It was the last, I don't know. I mean, the Elfin would be fun for like five minutes, but I'm going to go with, uh,

[01:08:04] the Elfin goes, you were wise to ask for me to pass, but unwise to not specify a cost. I can't do the boxing. I feel like he got stories though. He got stories. He has stories. Hey, I wonder if that, and he's done. Yeah, he got stories. He's got stories. He's got stories. He's got stories. He's got stories. He's got stories to tell. All right. Yeah. No, that's fair. That's fair. Okay. And so for my third, I'm going to go with Savannah, but she has to wear the hat that she's wearing the first time. All right. All right.

[01:08:32] Um, my never, I don't know, like cool it in would be so unchill, but I feel like I have to go with Valda. He burns witches. Valda is not invited. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. He's pretty bad. Yeah. Pretty terrible. All right. So rank from least to most vile food tasting with Mogetti and Inteleron Riyadh.

[01:08:59] Robin moves into your house, quote unquote, for a week. Valda chats up your mom or you become parts of the eel fins human skewt suits after your death, which you need therapy to Alicia, not just the show runners. Are you asking, are we supposed to be legitimately considering whether being skinned alive or dead is dead? No, not dead. I said dead, dead, dead.

[01:09:31] After my death. Oh, that's fair. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. I'm just kidding. I think it's Rob. The truth is like Robin maybe is trying to take over the world or whatever, but it's not, it's not clear that would be unpleasant for the person he's crashing with. Right. Or gays might actually be having a good old time for the few months he's been there. Right.

[01:09:57] I'm sure her power base is decomposing around her as, as he does all sorts of machinations, but I would see that's the least vile of those. Okay. All right. Even less vile than food tasting with Mogadians? Oh God, no. Who'd want to do that? I would rather do that than let Valda chat up my mom. But I agree. I don't want to become a skin suit. So there we go. I think that's the order. Yeah. Um, okay.

[01:10:25] Speaking of the eel fin, I do have toe. Um, I said something about the eel fin CGI and it's actually all practical makeup. They actually invented a new way of doing it. They basically put this like black glue all over his skin and then they blew these individual hairs into it and use like a magnet to line them all up so they could make it look like a pelt. Wow. Huh? That's awesome. Wow. Wow.

[01:10:52] I, I wasn't forced to say my opinion on a podcast. So, but I would have completely, I actually was two things that was critical in that episode was the CG of the chain that pulls Nynaeve down onto the, into the water felt very fake to me. And I was going to criticize the CG of the eel fin. It looked a little too shimmery, but the fact that that's a, it's like, that makes it cool that it's a practical effect.

[01:11:18] Like if they could create such a surreal effect without CG, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. I got up at three in the morning and you know, that was like a terrible thing. Absolutely. Seven hours. Well, so this is, um, oh, what's his name? Robert, uh, sorry, I'm forgetting his last name. But, um. Strange, right? Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Robert Strange. Great name. Yeah. It's a great name for it. But he, he says like, they approached me for this part. He was also glug in rings of power. Right.

[01:11:47] And, uh, he says, you know, they approached him for this part because he has developed a reputation as being, he can act, but he also doesn't mind sitting in a makeup chair for seven hours. Wow. Does he not mind it? Or is that just people are like, he's done it before. So he's fine. I mean, I think he just, he seems like I've seen a bunch of interviews with him now and he seems like he is a chill enough personality that he's just like, yeah, sure. It's a meditation time. He's like, I get to look awesome afterwards. So podcast. Yeah.

[01:12:15] Um, but another thing I only learned about afterwards is the fact that, yeah, the eel skin, the, the eel fin. You're just trying to skin everybody. Well, they are wearing skins. It is that, um, Sharon Gillum, the, the make custom designer, she made it like a bunch of faces that are woven together in his vest. And, uh, Dopamini said about that fin in the face vest.

[01:12:40] This reminds me of a Japanese folk story about a wolfish monster that takes children's belly buttons during thunderstorms. It's called the Raiju. So it's interesting. And also made me think of, um, there's native American, uh, myths about the skinwalkers, which are basically people who put on animal skins and turn into animals. And I'm like, oh, it's just kind of like a reversed skin Walker.

[01:13:02] But also one more thing I have to about is the, um, there is when Matt comes out of the eel fin space, he is hanging. And I didn't notice that he is hanging from something that looks like a pole arm, like a naginata, uh, an ashandari, a spear with a long, uh, sword, like half sword, half spear kind of situation going on. I thought it was a spear.

[01:13:30] So that, um, the Eyal spears have been kind of looking like this, but it's called something different in the books, but we didn't think that he got it. And then it was pointed out that actually that's what he's hanging from when he comes out of the door. Totally missed it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So hopefully, yeah, they'll draw more attention next season, but, uh, I wonder if they'll go back. Is that like an important thing? Yeah. In the books? That's, that's his whole thing. Yeah.

[01:13:59] It's, we expect, it's something we expected him to come out, to have when he came out of this encounter. It's not super important. It's like a vibe thing though. It's his personal look. Yeah. It's part of the, I know it has story significance, but even if it, even if they cut that whole arc, it's just sort of like Matt has that and he has a hat and he kind of always has those two things and he doesn't have the hat, at least not yet, but like, um, more rain

[01:14:25] jokes aside, like that she still, there's a couple of things that he still needs, but I mean, you know, you don't have cap without the shield. You don't have Matt without the, without the Ashandari. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Is it a magical hat? No, no. It's just a, it's just a look. He just has a look. Yeah. It's just vibes. It's vibes. It's, it's, it's his look. He rocks. Uh, okay. So we got some feedback on this topic. Uh, Kat said Matt walking through each arch just made me mad.

[01:14:54] I think that's why I don't care for this character. Like, did he not hear men? Does he have no awareness of his surroundings? You live in a world with magic. Why not be wary of weird things? And yeah, I get it. But also I kind of love that about Matt, that he's the one who just like blunders into things. Look, are you all there's, there's people who like walk into sinkholes because they're just not looking right. Like that's, this is not uncommon in the real world either.

[01:15:19] But, you know, to, to that point, I had a problem with Matt in the first two seasons. Like I, I didn't particularly care for his character. And I thought that this season is when I, I kind of like, was like, all right, this, is I want to see more of him being rational and being not, uh, you know, floundering and

[01:15:47] not just walking through the world, like head in the clouds always, which I thought was what his deal was in the first two seasons, you know, being of course plagued by these voices in his head or whatever. Um, but yeah, I think this season, especially when he had the fight with the princes, I really relished that.

[01:16:14] I thought that was a great moment for him, for me to kind of be like, all right, this guy is started. He's starting to take this whole thing a little bit more seriously. And I appreciated that. Um, so I can understand where, you know, the email is coming from saying that, you know, they couldn't, they can't stand Matt. Like, what are you doing? Just walking into archways. Yeah. I get that.

[01:16:44] Yeah. I felt that way for the first two seasons. Yeah. I, it is his character, but it is as, you know, as Swan pointed out this season, he is both, he is, um, you know, the, the, the party boy who seems like he's not really there until it really comes down to it. And then he does things. Um, I feel like, can I just say on that? Yeah.

[01:17:07] I feel like this show is clarifying in this season, a lot of different takes on the reluctant hero sort of archetype. Like Matt is the reluctant hero, like Han Solo. He's like, fine, I'll risk my life to save everybody. But really I'd rather just be gambling or whatever. Right. Perrin is the reluctant hero. Who's like too humble. Like I don't want this kind of stuff. Right. Rand is the reluctant hero for it. So right. Right. John Snow. Rand is the reluctant hero.

[01:17:37] Like I'm kind, I'm sick of people using me. Like everybody has an angle. Like, I don't want this. We're starting to see that. Like he, he feels sort of like pulled at by too many people and even Nynaeve. It's like, she's afraid of her power or at least that's, that's what seems to be implied by, by some of, you know, and then like Egwene doesn't seem to be all that reluctant. Egwene and Elaine feel like they more want to like use what they have, tackle a problem.

[01:18:03] So I don't know to what extent, you know, Tom Marilyn even kind of reluctant hero. There's a lot of takes on this archetype in this story and they're all subtly different. And Matt's might frustrate certain types of people sometimes because he's part of that archetype is he's kind of haphazard and yeah, you really hate magical items. Why aren't you looking where you're going then? Right. Like I'm sick of this blasted bloody magic or whatever. Well, act differently, but that's kind of who he is, I guess.

[01:18:33] A good point. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. And by the way, just to give a different interpretation to Jean, you said you really liked the weirdness of the, of the Finn. I hope I'm saying this correctly. Sorry if I'm not. Angua Lupin said the only real complaint I have about the finale is that the Finn really felt like it came out of left field. I think the showrunner should have done a bit more of a buildup throughout the season. So they weren't just dropping these alternate reality aliens on us and then breezing on by

[01:19:01] because it's a finale and the story has got other places to be. Hey, dude, there are these wish granting aliens. You can visit if you want. Don't worry about it. Let's go talk about rant. And you kind of already said this earlier, Mark, but I do have to say that that's how it happened in the book. It's also just like really sudden where Matt wanders through a door randomly and fights them. So it is. But they've given us parallel universes and stuff like that in book two that they cut from the show. Right? So that's true.

[01:19:29] But this is not like those parallel universes. We see some of that with, with Moraine's visions, but this is something different. Yeah. Okay. John, do you want to read Marilyn's feedback? Wait, which John? John or John? You, you. Me? Me? Okay. The eel fin. Anyway, since I've heard nothing about the eel fin, sound like a combination of Sir

[01:19:57] Terry Pratchett's elves, pretty horrible creatures who I can easily see making leather wear out of human faces and leprechauns with their three wishes. I think leprechauns were supposed to be more tricky than anything else, but Pratchett's elves were real evil. You would never see them granting wishes. I promise you that as for iron musical instruments and light makers. The iron is simple. Iron has been known as extremely bad for all the different kinds of fair folk in the Irish

[01:20:25] and other stories for as far back as anyone can remember. The theory that it's a reflection of the indigenous people on these islands who lived during the bronze age being bested by invaders with iron weapons and so driven out or underground. Uh, this is why the blacksmith was considered such a potent magician. His making steel out of dirt was considered to be a masterpiece of alchemy.

[01:20:50] And since they always had things like horseshoes to hand, uh, they were very good at warding off unwanted visits from the gentry as the Siddha. The she, yeah. What? Excuse me? It's Irish. Irish. Okay. The Irish are always making up sounds, uh, where some, uh, where sometimes referred to, I don't know. Have you, John, have you seen Gaelic written out? I mean, they make up their sound. They just make it up.

[01:21:18] I think it's people make up spellings in, in Latin languages. No, I think they make up the sounds. Okay. As for musical instruments, they were some elves and fairies tool, favorite tools for enchanting humans. Perhaps the fear was that a human magician would come in with greater musical power than theirs and wreak havoc on their kingdoms. There are one or two stories like that. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Tom, the gleeman had entered wheel of times version of the she.

[01:21:47] Oh, so, so Marilyn actually gives the pronunciation the second time, uh, the she mound that bested that and bested them and escaped unharmed. The she mounds were the entrances to the kingdoms of the fair folk considered as portals to another world. So that tracks with doors to all into alternate realms. Tolkien's elves in the Silmarillion mostly built their kingdoms underground or very carefully

[01:22:12] hidden such as Gondolin, which seems to me to be his representation of what the Irish would call the she mounds. I'm not sure why they'd be afraid of light makers unless I am understanding, misunderstanding that something about bringing the light of one world into another. Perhaps elves are famously associated with starlight and moonlight. So perhaps the form of light from a different universe does their harm. I think that's a lot of really interesting insight, but John, you're the one who would

[01:22:39] be able to respond best to the comparisons with Tolkien and Pratchett. Pratchett? I've never, I don't think I've ever read any of his books that have elves in them. Surprisingly, which is interesting because I've read like 10 disc world novels, I think, but none of them had elves in them. Uh, I, I guess that's just the series that I've been hanging around, but the Tolkien one I could speak more to. I mean, I see what she's saying. Like, that's like a whole thing in the first stage where like we have like the girdle of Melian guarding Doriath.

[01:23:08] We have Gondolin hidden very carefully in these paths. We have Nargothran being this tunnel, you know, these, these cave, this cave kingdom so that it's hidden from Morgoth. Uh, but also like, it's not just the evil you keep out, right? It's just the regular men too. Like they can't enter, enter your kingdom. And if they do, then they can't leave. Okay. Well, there's definitely some similarities there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's no, there's no wish granting in those. So I, yeah, that's the other thing.

[01:23:38] Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's this, that's very Robert Jordan to just like a sample from here and there and recombine it, which is, it makes sense in, you know, the way the world is always what's old is new and comes again in the next age and all that. Yeah. Right. Um, so we're veering into the Tanchico plotline. And do 71 said the Hills of Tanchico episode has blown up my socials. Those thirsty wheel of timer sure.

[01:24:05] Enjoy Tanchico and the whole moggy simping over nine Eve. After listening to the mid season mailbag, I checked back with Shelly, uh, his wife to see how she as a non book reader is getting on the season. She really is enjoying it every now and then she'll just ask a question to, uh, establish a minor bit of lore or plot points. But apart from that, she's on board for the ride, um, people are loving the song and, um, yeah.

[01:24:32] So I have to say the, the composer, Nikhil Koparkar, sorry if I, uh, put the accents on the wrong syllables, but, um, he's been doing like AMAs and stuff online. That's cool. We love, we love a transparent person. I was going to say King, but then I didn't know if it was a man or a woman or not. No, it's a, it's a him. It's a him. Okay. We love a transparent King. Here we go. But yeah, Hills of Tanchico just got that song out of my head.

[01:25:03] So because another one got stuck there. It's a good song. All right. Should we take a quick break here and then come back and talk more to Tanchico?

[01:25:29] So, um, let's check back in with Dopamine who wanted to talk about how, uh, about nine Eve. And she says, it's intriguing to me how nine Eve keeps seeing the child from her vision through the arches in, uh, in her dreams. And again, when Leandrin has bound her and thrown her into the water to die, I'm beginning to think this is a real daughter from her future. She and Leand are going to have this baby. I don't know if we'll see it, but I'm placing internet points on it. She will become real.

[01:25:57] Uh, I hope her block and channeling is finally over with this experience of surviving Leandrin. This problem has lasted more than enough time for me. If she's the most powerful channeler in a thousand years, it's time to wrap up her inability to use that power, get her out there using it, building reputation based on what she's doing and not what she could possibly eventually do. And yes, I am all for nine Eve being done with her block.

[01:26:25] Dopamine, look, we suffered much longer in the books. It's true. The 90s, having a block is like one of the most drawn out plot lines I have ever read in this series. It is forever. It's a book like seven or eight that she breaks it. Oh, that's terrible. And it was like this. It was a little bit different circumstances, but it was like this. So I think we're good in the show. Yeah, she could, in the books, there was a time when she could occasionally like break through it with a strong emotion. And I think we did see that.

[01:26:55] That's how, you know, we saw it when she saved Lynn. And we saw it, yeah, a couple of times when it really was needed. But I hope this is that look on her face afterwards where she seemed satisfied. And, you know, I'm going to take that. I'm going to take it as her. I hated it. That look drove me insane. It drove me insane. Yes. It drove me insane. No, we love a competent queen.

[01:27:30] Lasts longer in the books. Second of all, Nynaeve is mean in the books, even meaner. And three, Nynaeve is really insecure. And so she's really mean about the block in the book. Like she's always yelling at people about her own emotional, like sticking points. And so it does in the books when it finally breaks, you're like, oh, thank God. We can start tolerating this character more. And I know I'm being harsh. No, yeah. I mean, but it is also true that as far as her having that look of pleasure on her face,

[01:28:00] it is about finally breaking through something where she was watching horrible things happen to the people around her and she couldn't help. And now she's finally breaking through. But it is also, as they were making clear with like Moraine playing with her new Sarkonnen toy, whatever it's called, that it feels very leisurable to embrace the power like that.

[01:28:23] So she was literally having like, she just got, well, she just got a huge dopamine, like ultra blast through her body by embracing the power like that. See, dopamine understands. Uh-huh, exactly. That's why I use that version. That's fine. So why do you hate it? Why do you, that moment? Because I know you have, you didn't like the block, Jean, but like that moment.

[01:28:44] No, that moment for me felt almost, I just felt in the whole episode was about finding this thing, right? And she found the thing. And when they found the thing, she's cradling it. And they had decided whoever found it, just go.

[01:29:12] No, we can't let her have this. We just got to go, right? And then Leandrin tells her, oh, you could have just left. You're sticking around. What you sticking around for? You should have just left. Boom, takes it away from her. God knows what's going to happen next. And she's under the water, chained up. And now she's feeling the power.

[01:29:41] Let me, let me, you know, it's starting to tingle. She's starting to say, yeah, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. You should have did this last season. Like, you could have done this at the beginning of this season. But I had no reason to celebrate her block, given that it happened, the breaking of her blockage of accessing the power, right?

[01:30:07] Given that it happened after she let Leandrin get the, what is it called? The Adnan? Or I think they're showing Adom on the show, actually. Adom? Adom, right? Like an Adam. Yeah. Adom. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's right. You let her get it. And now that she has it, but you have, you know, unleashed the force, I'm supposed to feel good that you unleashed the force. I didn't.

[01:30:36] I didn't feel happy for you in this moment, in this context. I felt like you failed. You did something for yourself. Bravo. But in the grander scheme of things, you failed. Ah. And that really- Yeah. I didn't feel- You don't like the sense of self-satisfaction. I didn't feel, I just, it didn't sit well. It didn't sit.

[01:31:05] And I watched her. And what you just said, Alicia, about the sense of euphoria that she's getting this from accessing the power, that maybe gives me a different take on it. That it wasn't like this whole, you know, self-building up that she's doing in that moment. That maybe the emotion has overtaken her.

[01:31:34] This, the dopamine levels have risen. And that is why she feels and looks as though she's accomplished. Yeah. And in my, because the first time I watched it, I'm like, why do you have this look on your face? All right. The thing- I'm so far away from you now, Jean. I mean, look, I'll give you this. That's okay. I'll give you this, that. It's all right. While she was on the ocean floor, she did a lot of kicking. I'm sure there were some rocks there.

[01:31:59] But, you know, for me, I'm just like, this is someone who's been told for the last couple years, like, you are the most powerful channeler in the last thousand years. And yet, every time her friends are in danger, she's helpless. And she's felt, you know, she went from somebody who was in, like, total control of her life as the wisdom of this village to someone who's completely helpless in a new environment and who feels like a failure this whole time. And now, all of a sudden, she is not only free, but she has agency again.

[01:32:28] She has agency in her life to help and protect the people that she wants to protect. And so, yes, she failed in one mission. But I would argue that it's- She's more likely to go get that thing back and get the rest of the pieces if she is completely unlocked. And I think for the last battle, for the side of the light, it's more important to have Nynaeve fully powered than it is to keep a toy away from these people.

[01:32:57] Well, unless they can collar the dragon, then that's- But that's a big unless, right? Like, that's another step. That's true. That's true. And I have to say, Rocky Zim, and a lot of people agree, including me, believes that Leandrin threw Nynaeve into the water kind of to help her, encourage her to break her block. And I have to say, you know, because Leandrin, she pauses and she looks back and, like, she's waiting for a second. Hmm.

[01:33:26] I don't know, man. Shouldn't she die and have her soul disappear, though? Like, ah. She- You know what? She didn't make an oath. She kind of wants the light side lady to get her. She didn't make an oath. To that effect. You're being- You're making the oaths, like, as we see with the Aes Sedai, they're allowed to wiggle around as long as they're following the letter of their oaths. Like, the exact wording of their oaths. Yeah. Um, okay.

[01:33:50] So, I liked all the Wonder Girl stuff in Tinchiko overall, and yes, I'm calling Matt a Wonder Girl. I'm assuming next season we might get another Wonder Girl pairing. Um, what two characters would each of you, which, uh, want to be in your own Wonder Girl team up? Like, I'm a Wonder Girl and I need to- You're a Wonder Girl and you have two other Wonder Girls. They don't have to actually be girls. Uh, Nynaeve because she's OP. Okay.

[01:34:18] And, uh, Elaine because of reasons I can't say yet. That's not fair. I definitely want Elaine because she's, well, she's smart and she, like, does her research, but also she's fun. So, I definitely want- I want to know what you can't say. I can't tell you, man. I want to know. Do you need me to pull up River Star again? Here we go. I think I know why. Because of- They all develop various skills, but yeah.

[01:34:48] Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I want- It's like Taken, you know? I have a very specific set of skills. Yeah. You know. I want Elaine for her brain and for her personality. And, I mean, part of me just wants to hang out with Matt because- But, uh, maybe, like, Egwene, she's, like, already- She's collecting a lot of skills. Egwene's a useful one, too. But then maybe she overlaps with Elaine and I need, like, someone who's more, you know, physically powerful or something.

[01:35:18] Hmm. All right. I'm going to think about my second. What about you, Mark? Um, Elaine and Min. Okay. Um, they just seem the coolest ones just to hang out with. Like, Nynaeve is super powerful, but Nynaeve has some insufferable aspects of her personality, unfortunately. And Egwene, I do think that Ran's a little right. Like, Egwene does have ambition, which is really helpful when you're trying to save the world. But what if I'm on the other side of that? I don't know. That's scary.

[01:35:48] Like, I don't know. Like, I feel like Elaine and Min have an honesty that if you have to be in a trio, like, you need that, I think. So they would be mine, too, I think. I'm going to go with Alana. Maybe they're not as powerful, but what are we doing, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Quest. But Egwene has hyperfixation ADHD like the rest of us. We get it. I'm going to go with Alana because she's, um, yeah, she's going to be the muscle. What about you, Joe?

[01:36:17] Um, Moraine and Min. Not Perrin? No, I'm just kidding. I think the guys here are answering the wrong question. You're answering the blunt question again. I'm answering who do I want to be part of a superhero team with? Yes. I want Moraine and Min. All right. Min's got the guy. I'm answering, yeah. I think Moraine has... I considered Moraine, yeah.

[01:36:47] ...skills that the other ones... She knows how to wield the power that they don't have. And she's also good in diplomatic situations, yeah. And she's powerful. And she has years of experience wielding the power. And Min has this power of foresight, and I just think that would be indispensable. All right. And she's cool, so... Okay.

[01:37:09] Shifting focus to the two rivers, we have Ken W, who says episode seven is the best episode by far. This was obviously sent before the finale, so we don't know if he liked the finale better or not.

[01:37:23] But from Bane, Chiad, and Loyal, the Waygate fight, the Bane and Chiad smile before their last battle, we all thought, to the Cawthon sister having some white cloak barbecue after a hard day's work, more rousing battle songs, will Loyal return as Loyal the White. So much more. I've never cried or screamed at it out in an episode of TV as I did this morning, and I've watched it three times. My Neighbors Must Think I'm Mad, Fantasy TV at its Finest, Best Show by Country Mile.

[01:37:53] And yeah, since we were a bit hard on episode seven, I'm really glad, because I know a lot of people did find it their favorite. So I'm really glad to hear from Ken his perspective on this. Yeah, I think it was just a book reader problem. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm holding my breath for Loyal the White. Well, we'll see. Kiefer N says, Hey, Laura Hounds, I'm show only.

[01:38:18] Watching this episode, all I could think about is how much this mirrors the motif of the battle at Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings. A group of people who aren't soldiers fighting all night against insurmountable odds definitely echoed that battle. I suppose you could say it's a spiritual successor. The way you talk about how it's different in the books, it may be divergent, but the episode certainly felt the same in spirit. What do you think, John? It has Helm's Deep vibes. I get that.

[01:38:49] I do appreciate that. I'll actually say, it's more like Helm's Deep in the movies, because in the movies, the elves come to help, and in the books, they don't. And here we have this extra help coming from the white cloaks. But actually, I think in the books, we don't get that either. So it's actually... You get extra help, though. They do get extra help, yeah. Can I say? I think we could say, right? We already said the wolves, right? Yeah, yeah. The wolves come.

[01:39:18] So yeah, I think it's the show and the movies of the Lord of the Rings are pretty close in that vibe. Yeah. I have to say, this is not the last battle. There's another one coming up in the not-so-distant future before the last battle that people are really excited about. So more battles, stay tuned. Abby says, I'm still in denial over Loyal. Loyal fell through the way gate and then rolled away when it crashed.

[01:39:45] Then he went to another way gate and then went home to a steading. If we don't see him later in the series, this is the explanation I am going with. If Alana can survive being stabbed with a hundred knives and a huge spear, Loyal can survive a little fall. Loyal is alive in my heart. Yeah. I do think Loyal being gone, you know, I don't know what they're doing. Assuming he is dead, let's say, which I don't want him to be.

[01:40:10] I do think despite him maybe kind of being periphery, not to spoil anything really, but he's not in and of himself the most important of our side characters, right? So you could excise him from the plot and it would survive, but it's really his perspective and his presence that's super important. Because what he is is like, he's kind of the perennial outsider in most, almost all the cases in the, you know, they don't, there aren't a lot of other Ogear. So he's kind of always outside looking in and he's a storyteller, history guy.

[01:40:38] So he feels sort of like an author surrogate and an audience surrogate at the same time. And he, he's loyal, right? Like what he is, is like sort of. It's in the name. Not, yeah, right. Not our moral judge, but he kind of is like, he stands by some of these characters in moments that you don't know if they should.

[01:41:03] And he's sort of, he's like a marker of kind of, I don't know, some of the goodness of a cause at times. And I do feel like they lose the purity of that. He's not, he doesn't have sort of the ambition and the overwhelming power of some of these other characters that as they go through these massive glow ups, you can, you can almost look to Loyal and see what does he think about this scenario?

[01:41:29] And that's kind of, you trust when he's like, ah, I don't like this Yogi. Like then you kind of believe that. And then the times when he takes, stands behind Perrin and says, I believe in you, then you kind of, it's a cue that we get as book readers. And if he is gone, we, we, and I'm not saying whether he survives the whole book series, but to the extent that he's in the book series, he serves a useful role for the readers. And he's, he's gone. We lose that. And that sucks. Yeah. To veer in. Hmm.

[01:41:58] I mean, he's going to be, he's going to be missed. It does seem like there's a few factors at play. Um, but I don't know. I think the door is not completely closed for him to come back. Should there be more seasons and we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Um, Maureen D says, since there's been so much discussion on the pot about gratuitous versus non gratuitous racy scenes, I want to praise the Alana slip subplot.

[01:42:22] I thought the threesomes with her warders were gratuitous at first, but they've really given those relationships more depth this season. Uh, but it was too much to have Alana almost die a second time. And at the same time I was relieved. She wasn't leaving, especially since I just started liking her character. If they decide to kill her off for real, it will have to be a dramatic death. I was glad when Perrin asked, uh, oh yeah. And then also I was glad when Perrin asked why the two rivers is being attacked. I kept wondering about that myself. And it was distracting for me.

[01:42:52] It would have helped if a character at least asked the question earlier. And yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't have a problem with Alana's pot in the beginning. I actually quite liked her the whole time in this show, but, um, I, my biggest problem indeed is like too many near deaths for her, uh, as much as I love her as a character. So please stop with that. Yeah. I totally agree with that. I mean, why are we doing this constantly? You do it so many times. It just gets cheap, right? It just makes you think like, well, no death matters now.

[01:43:23] Yeah. Yeah. But on the other hand, uh, about what we said on the pod about, uh, the kids fast channeling to heal her. Rocky Zim says my head cannon for learning how to channel quickly is when you are in a fight or flight, you can channel to save yourself out of anger. So the girls channeling to kill that piece of garbage was anger and rage days who channeled the shields was doing it like she was having an adrenaline rush to protect the one she loves. And I completely agree with that take Rocky Zim.

[01:43:55] They don't seem to be differentiating in the show between there's sort of in the books. There's sort of three levels of your relationship with the one power, right? You either can't do anything. You just start doing it. You know, like Egwene. You can't not do it. Naturally just starts channeling. You don't know why. But then there's people that could be taught. Like you've got potential. You don't speak this language yet. But if someone teaches you, it seems like people that can channel just channel.

[01:44:22] And whether they know every weave or not isn't the point. But like, I think there's just sort of baseline like a cantrip that just a level zero spell that any of them can do. And basic fireball and basic healing and basic like shield seems to be that. This is very D&D. Healing is a bit more complicated. The weaves that they have to use, they talk about that in the books. The healing is a bit more complicated.

[01:44:48] But fireball and shield, I think, is just like the first instinctual thing that you would learn. Agree. I know something else you agree with, Jean, is a lot of people think that Perrin should have killed Fane. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. And whoever doesn't think that, they should come out. Oh, I don't know. That's fair. They're bad people. Yeah.

[01:45:15] It turns out if you have a different opinion than Jean in fantasy, you are a bad person. How that's for dogmatic, I tell you. Jean has become a white cloak, apparently. No, no, no, no, no. He's still dark friend everywhere. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess if he had killed Fane, yeah, that's the thing. It would have ended the battle or not. I don't know.

[01:45:42] But it would have ended what Perrin thinks of himself, I think. Even though he just killed a bunch of other people. It's different. What does he think of himself? He thinks he's a good person who's flirting with the way of the leaf, even while killing people. Then Illa is like, my boy, you're not going to kill the guy who killed all of us. You're amazing. Even better than my grandson who just saved a baby.

[01:46:07] Okay, so one thing about Perrin, the way they've treated his refusal to kill Fane or whatever. Somebody accused him. I think it was Bornhold or Valda. One of the white cloaks said he killed. I think it was Valda said to Dane, he killed your father in cold blood. And I was like, nobody there would think that. That was the middle of a battle. Like, yes, he killed him. That's not cold blood.

[01:46:36] And what I think this is different is that Perrin isn't his whatever moral code that maybe is too precious for a world like this. He doesn't kill in cold blood. He seems to be fine with, like, hacking up fools with his axe and hammer on the battlefield. But if he's sitting there and Fane's on the ground, I kind of do buy that he wouldn't feel comfortable killing him. Even though that probably saves a lot of lives.

[01:47:03] But you can see as much hemming and hawing with the way of the leaf that Perrin's doing. A guy who's submitting himself and sort of, like, begging his life. I buy that Perrin wouldn't kill it. That doesn't mean it's smart. It's definitely not smart. Clearly, this guy probably deserves to die. But, you know, it's like my earlier, earlier, earlier comment about how, why didn't Swan just say a few more things about why she did what she did?

[01:47:30] You know, maybe Perrin could say, look, he was killing people. It was the heat of battle. I did kill, you know. So, I don't know. It's just his weird moral code. But anyways. Okay. Well. Some minor justification of his idiotic sparing of his life. So, Abby's disappointed with Perrin for another reason. She says, Lord, Perrin GoldenEyes didn't live up to my expectations as the showrunners teased hard the wolf thing. Trollocs being afraid of wolves.

[01:48:00] They even hung a wolf flag. But on the other hand, Kat says, I'm a non-book reader. And I thought there would be wolves at the battle. But I'm glad that there weren't. In my rewatches, I skip over Hopper dying. Oh, my heart just can't take it. And I don't want to see any more dying. I hate that some people didn't like the episode. It's right up there with episode five for me. So, apparently, Kat, I guess you especially liked the... Because episode five is another big Two Rivers episode. So, I was just so invested in the fate of these people.

[01:48:29] Tears through too much of the episode. So many scenes just had me in my feels. Perrin has slowly become one of my favorite characters. This episode, we really got to see the man he's become. I only... The only hate I have is Fahil's accent. It feels forced. I'm going to feel crappy if that's her actual accent. Which is not. She's Australian. She could join the Thunderbolts with that accent. And just to add to two more brief things. Caroline says, I really loved episode seven in development.

[01:48:57] A Perrin's character is fast becoming one of my favorites. I particularly like how he didn't give a big, showy, rousing speech. Instead, he chooses a meaningful but understated song. Reminding people where they've come from. Which, Alicia, I have to say, is very Perrin. And for Elisa says, non-book reader here. I enjoy seeing Perrin's growth and felt emotionally connected to the Two Rivers and the people's fate. There were real stakes for me. Well done. So, for all the people who love the episode, you are definitely not alone.

[01:49:25] Lots of lovers of this episode and Perrin. And I don't dislike... I think Jean's the only one who dislikes Perrin. Yeah. Yes. I'm the only one on the panel that dislikes Perrin. Perrin's neutral. It's me. It's me. I'm Perrin neutral leaning. If Perrin has one hater, it's going to be me. I think you'll come back, Jean. You're a perennial. Oh, wait. Perennials don't come back. They don't come back. Well, never mind then. Just like the white cloaks, Jean does not like Perrin.

[01:49:51] So, can I say one more thing on the fame thing that just struck me? Going back to the overthinking I was doing about the Dark Oath thing. Like, is it commonly known? Land said, oh my God, but you'll break your Dark Oath and then your soul will die. Like, that's commonly known. Apparently Land knows. That if your Dark Friend... Do we think it's... Because if it is commonly known, then it has to be the case, I would think, that your society is...

[01:50:21] It's not just the white cloaks, but like the penalty for being a Dark Friend if you're discovered has to be death. Because what we're talking about is a scenario in which you have... This was very Tolkien relevant, right? A truly irredeemable person. This person can only cause harm. This person is actually physically, magically unable to ever not be bad. They have to follow the orders of the Dark One. So, Pat and Fane must be killed because you could free him now.

[01:50:51] There is no chance he would ever turn a new leaf. And that is very interesting implications that I've just... I've never thought of because this isn't really in the books this way. And like, we think of the white cloaks as so ridiculous. And obviously, like, they're accusing people willy-nilly of being Dark Friend. But I would assume even just the Two Rivers law is if you're caught as a Dark Friend and proven as a Dark Friend or whatever, you must be put to death.

[01:51:17] Unless what Lan said is not common knowledge, and that's just like Warder, like... You know? Well, certainly... I don't know, like... Lan knows a lot more than Perrin does, for sure. Right. Lan has been out and seen the whole world. And he's been around longer. Yeah, Perrin has been swinging a hammer for 20 years. He's been in a small town his whole life. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. No, you're right. I agree. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I don't know. I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't know.

[01:51:47] I don't believe in the death penalty, but I would, like, give people... Even knowing that they... That breaking their oath would kill them, I would give them a chance to do that. Interesting. To let their... Because also, if you do that, then you can't be reborn into the wheel and lead a good life. Oh, I see. So you're saying it's kinder to kill them. Right. Hmm, good point. Someone breaking their Dark Oath erases the possibility that a future version of themselves

[01:52:12] could ever, presumably, according to what we saw on screen, it seems, could ever be a good person, right? Right. It says that your soul is just gone. And unless you think that someone who's a dark friend in one world, one life, has to always be a dark friend in any following. Like, I think it's different from the death penalty because the death penalty you're taking away... Like, a death penalty in our world, like, humans do have the capacity for redemption, I would think, right? So, and whether...

[01:52:42] You could argue about whether, like, people... Well, everybody has that equally, but, like, people change their minds and change who they are as humans, whereas this almost presumes that it's impossible to do that. And... You cannot do it. And it seems also... God, I feel like I'm complaining about this, but it feels... Who would... Who would ever be a dark friend if that was the risk? Because if you actually... It seems that everybody, like, takes it as a matter of faith or just understanding that the Wheel of Time exists.

[01:53:10] And I don't understand how they know that with certainty, but we will come back as another life. And I might be starving to death. I might have a baby that, like, I have to feed, like, Leandrin. But if I die and this baby dies, I will come back again in another age and be able to try this again. But if I sign up with the dark one and I make a mistake and I change my mind, I have pulled myself out of the wheel. And that seems like... Who would agree to do that? I don't know. I feel like I'm poking holes in something.

[01:53:40] Leandrin, how desperate was Leandrin at the moment that she swore to a Shumayo? Desperate enough to... If you had certainty, essential certainty, and maybe a 13-year-old girl didn't, that, like, you had multiple shots at this thing we call life, right? That, like, you're going to have literally infinite chances potentially to do this and to get it right.

[01:54:04] And if I save my baby in this moment, who will also have infinite chances at life, and then I change my mind later in life, my eternal soul will lose its shot. Like, we're all wanting as an audience to see a Leandrin redemption story. I feel like they're setting that up. And we've been told that if that happens, her soul is erased and can never be redeemed. Well, I think that makes a stronger storytelling there.

[01:54:34] Because, yeah, if we like Leandrin as a character, of course we want to see her redeemed. But now we know if she does, it costs everything to... And that's a major, major change in terms of the moral implications of the book. I think the book... We are supposed to think that maybe Landfear could change. Maybe these people can change. We see a dark friend change in one of the first two books.

[01:55:01] So, you know, that's just a different take. And it's interesting because I've almost all of the... And I know I'm hijacking the conversation here. Almost all of the changes they've made seem to fit the modern era well, right? They've changed a lot of their gender dynamics. And I just wonder if they've back-paleled into more of a black and white, good versus evil kind of view.

[01:55:27] See, I think it does exactly the opposite because it makes it more... It's not like, oh, we just want her to redeem herself because now we know what a sacrifice it would be for her to actually redeem herself. I think that makes it more complex. I'm just going to say, I think that the Dark One's contract with this probably looks a lot like Willy Wonka's when you go into his factory where you can't really read the bottom of it. I don't know how clear the terms are here. Right.

[01:55:55] Or if it's just like, swear these oaths and then I'll take care of you. That's true. But I don't want Leandrin to redeem herself. What I want Leandrin to do is to meet justice and be killed probably and then be reborn in the next age and have a chance at not an abusive husband that lets her grow up and just be a normal lady. Sure. Like I want her to not... Well, hopefully she grows up before the husband in the next one. Right. Strike that, reverse it. You know what I mean?

[01:56:24] Like, I don't want the redemption anymore because I know the redemption is a damnation. Whereas they have a chance again the next time they're reborn. Right. And I think that makes it more complex. But yeah. Okay. But speaking of complex characters, Abby defends Elida. She says, I think everyone realizes why Shovar Agdashlu was cast as Elida. Detractors can shush. There's no other actress who can rock these costumes and jewelries like her. And yeah.

[01:56:55] It's not really a defense of the character, but she sure does have a style. Look, I wanted her as Katsuade, but if we're not going to get her as Katsuade, this is a great second. Right? Yeah. I'm glad she's in the show. Yes. I agree. I agree. I still think she would have been a better Katsuade, but we're not going to get it. So I'm going to praise her for this. All right. And then the rest of our Tower talk is around another certain death.

[01:57:20] So Alex L, I'm avoiding some spoilers on Alex L's email, but how was this not a violation of the three oaths, the killing of Swan, in particular, the third oath? And then from the Gathering Storm, I vow that I will never use the one power as a weapon, except against dark friends and shadow spawn, or in the last extreme of defending my life or that of my warder or another sister. And Alex asks, is it enough if they believed Swan to be a dark friend?

[01:57:49] And yes, I would say the answer to that is yes. Yeah. The three oaths are subjective, right? They are based on your belief. If I believe this thing is true and I say it, then I can say it. Yeah. I don't think Alida thinks she's a dark friend. Oh, I do. I absolutely think Alida is convinced that Swan is a dark friend. Really? The winks and nods to Moraine, the secret meeting with the dragon. I think she is convinced that she's a dark friend. But Alida didn't kill her, did she?

[01:58:19] No. No, that's true. Albi Arun was the one who... But yeah, I think that they also, they showed us that Alida is most likely not a dark friend herself because of that whole thing, that whole intrigue with the Black Aja sisters they had locked up. Um, so, uh, yeah, I think that this means that in order to not have violated her oaths, she must have genuinely believed that. Yes.

[01:58:46] It is kind of weird though because they talk about in the books and the history like people get deposed and they, or just sisters get commit crimes and they get stilled and executed. I just assume they probably are executing them with a weapon. Like they have someone cut their head off or whatever. Because what if you needed to still and execute a, a Amarlin who did something terrible but who nobody thinks is a dark friend? Like their rituals wouldn't work, right?

[01:59:14] Like because, well, if we always have to use the power, like it's so, I don't know, I know they wanted dramatic effect and all that, but, um, probably they'd have a warder killer or something, right? Yeah. Because that's what, it doesn't matter if you're a dark friend. If you're, if you've been sentenced to death, why do you have to rely on the one power? Kind of a strange, but it's all dramatic. I don't think they needed to though. I think this was, this was, you know, we're tired, we're tired of listening to you. We're accusing you of being a dark friend anyway. Slash. Yeah.

[01:59:42] And maybe, maybe if she didn't fully think she was a dark friend, then LVR and would have tried to channel and be like, oopsie, can't do it. But like, I, I do think that we can just take away from this, that, that what the show is telling us is that these women believe that Swan was a dark friend. Mm-hmm. Right. I felt the first part of what you just said, we're tired of listening to you.

[02:00:10] We're tired of, of you leading us down this path that one, maybe it is the path of this, this, the, the force that we have all sworn to oppose. It just felt more personal than that to me. It didn't feel, watching it, I didn't feel like they were just out because they really felt that she was a dark friend.

[02:00:38] Like, she had this connection and she was doing everything that she could do to bring the downfall of our society. It just felt more personal. They got the 11 people who wanted her out. Right. To make quorum. Right.

[02:00:53] And I have to say, they need to get a copy of Robert's Rules of Order or like some other parliamentary procedure because to have an unplanned meeting that you don't send notification and you only need 50% of your total membership to, like, like when they voted Swan in, there were no Red Aja members present. Like, that can't be cool the, the way they did that. Like, I don't know, that, shady.

[02:01:16] But I also, I'm glad they don't, I'm glad they don't do the swearing of the Amaralyn like the books where they have to, like, inspect the women's genitals and stuff. That's, yeah. Oh, I, I, I forgot about that. I, I, Alicia, I was thinking about, we were just watching the Doctor Who episode that dropped yesterday, the day before we recorded, where you can literally change the commander if you have two votes in your entire squad, you can just mutiny. Yeah. And we were both like, that doesn't seem like good governance.

[02:01:46] And, uh, and here we are, here we are. Mark would have a field day with that one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least this is a majority. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, Alida just, she may believe that Suan is a dark friend. She may believe that, right? I, I'm not saying that she doesn't, but for her, this was so much more than that. But, but the, but the O's are not nuanced, right? They are just black and white.

[02:02:16] I can turn my power on or I can't. Yeah. But 10 years of malice could have led her to be convinced she was a dark friend. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I, that's, and it's not just as simple as they believe she's a dark friend for me. Like I watched that entire scene unfold and that I was at, and I just sat there and I'm like, don't the rest of them see what I'm seeing in her? Yeah.

[02:02:42] Don't they see like this joy that she's having at assuming power? Don't she, don't they see like the way that she's moving?

[02:02:54] Don't they see like the way that she's moving?

[02:03:25] And she was passed. And we didn't see it on camera, but they beat her stuff too. Yeah. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's complicated. Um, related to this sequel, we didn't ask for, right? Right. Related to this, um, Angualupin. Sorry if I, again, if I'm saying that incorrectly, I know a lot of people were upset about Swan's death. However, it was, if not narratively necessary, certainly narratively justified.

[02:03:49] I would have loved to see Swan and Moraine retire to the river and forget all this world saving nonsense, but that's not the story they're in. There is no version of this story as it is being told where they get their happy ending. Instead, Swan got a glorious speech and narratively meaningful death. I will miss her, but I'm glad she got the story treatment she did.

[02:04:10] And, uh, just to point out that they, um, the showrunner did come out afterwards and say, you know, that this was something that he and Sophie Okonedo discussed from the beginning because, uh, she could either go out at this point or she could be, you know, her story, her story from here on out. There's one part of it. They definitely are going to give to another character and the rest of it. They're like, we're not asking this actress to do that part of that story.

[02:04:35] So it was, uh, her decision. Yeah. Oh, fun thing. Uh, um, that flashback back to the 10 years ago to Swan's coronation, there was a blue keeper of the Chronicles played by Rebecca Root. It turns out it's confirmed apparently that she is, and this is, sorry, John, this is not someone, you know, yet, but you will next season. She's Lilane. Okay. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. So that makes me, yeah.

[02:05:06] And, and just also a lot of people were, uh, had questions about the fact that Rebecca Root is, is a trans woman and whether or not the character is trans, I'll just say that there is in the books, there is a prominent trans character. Um, I think the show will definitely not do that the same way because it was not especially well handled, but it is established that the, in the lore, because of this character, it is established that, um, whether you use the female half or the male half of the power.

[02:05:34] It's linked to your soul, not to your soul, not to your body. I think also the word trans to be used with that character in particular may not be. It's, it's not a, it's not a good portrayal of that. And I don't think they'll do it in the show.

[02:05:51] Like, I don't even know that trans is even the right word to use, but, but to this, to this, to this actor, I wonder, I, I assume we're just supposed to think this is a, take this as a, a trans woman playing a, what the universe would just have be a cis woman. Like, I don't think we're supposed to be thinking about. I don't think it matters either way, but just, but just saying, regardless, it is established lore like that.

[02:06:18] Um, but let's, let's move on to some final thoughts. I know John or John, who wants to read Jordan's? I'm going to do it. You know what? I'm going to be brave. Tradition. It's tradition. I'm truly saddened by episode six. Uh, but episode six will be my last of this wondrous wheel of time TV journey as good old Amazon account has officially expired though.

[02:06:44] I will still, though I still will happily be following along with you both. It just wasn't groundbreaking enough of a show for me to overlook present day geopolitics and continue with our Amazon account. I do not wish to bring politics in here, but I'm curious if said recent politics may not be boating well for this amazing show. The timing seems to suck. I'm also curious as to how fellow fantasy geeks and nerds are squaring away all of these issues. I eat.

[02:07:10] I desperately want to support the show, but can't abide by supporting the likes of Bezos and Musk. I've also been putting out the feelers with my friends and many varied colleagues, all nerdified certified for the most part. Of course. Ha ha. And I'm sad to report most are not watching after season one, truly their loss or also fall along in the current atmosphere where a large, a very large amount of Quebecois. Canadians have canceled their Amazon memberships.

[02:07:39] I sadly fear this will be a common theme internationally as though. I'm not sure how much those numbers affect these things. Alicia, do you find this is the same on your side of the pond? And all the ties. Two guys. That wasn't good. Two guys. And two guys. What? Yeah.

[02:07:58] I hope it isn't the case, but I am extremely worried for the future of the show if it can't seem to connect with the nerdverse whilst also being subject to the woes of silly politics. I am saddened that I will never discover Nynaeve flower into the powerful and competent person I hope she is meant to be. She does, right? Because if not, worst character ever. Hello. But we'll continue to follow your amazing coverage with glee. Sending good vibes for voodoo.

[02:08:28] And of course, the show's future. In the meantime, I just bought book two, so at least there's that. Sunday. Jordan. I have to say the Canadians seem to have gone especially hard on the boycotts of like, like I've been hearing things about. I wonder why. I mean, I understand and I respect them for it, but also like things about like buying nuts from America and things like that. I do think they've gone harder than other places. And you know, you gotta respect that.

[02:08:58] But that's a bummer. Just say, of course, there's other ways. Anyway. I just hope the wrong lessons aren't taken by the, uh. Right. Like management of these companies. This is where they go. Well, this show was too this way as opposed to. No, there are the reasons viewership and subscriptions of Amazon dot or Amazon Prime went was not because there was a trans actor in the show, but because of all the political stuff.

[02:09:26] Like, I just worry that they once again take the wrong lesson and some of these shows will sort of take the blame maybe for any of the financial hits associated with this geopolitical stuff, you know? Right. Right. Right. And that's why I know there are a lot of people who just want to show the show support. So they get apparently in the US you can have a prime that's not shipping just the show and then they and then they cancel at the end of the season.

[02:09:56] I did that. I had my prime expire and I and I subscribed for prime video for a little bit. Right. I did the same thing. But, you know, as far as that question is concerned, you know, it's always fascinating to me because I'm being black and in this space, I've always encountered those sorts of feelings. Right.

[02:10:23] But I could not escape those sorts of feelings and be in this space. Mm hmm. Right. I was I was often had to find myself in characters and in stories that did not portray black people well or did not include us at all.

[02:10:39] So being in a space that is hostile to my own personal beliefs, you know, creator wise and sometimes story wise, I don't feel the need like to divest from Amazon in order to enjoy. As protest. Right. because there are other ways that I know that I can protest.

[02:11:06] I'm constantly, constantly trying to find myself in these shows. And now I have an eight-year-old and trying to find my eight-year-old in these shows as well. You know what I mean? Trying to make space for my eight-year-old to see themselves in these shows. So it's a complicated question about, you know, should we, how do we boycott? How do we protest if that's what you want to do? That's your intention.

[02:11:34] But I would say from my perspective, sci-fi fantasy, as long as I've been, you know, watching and reading, it has not always been a welcoming space, right? So I take that question and say that to folks out there, that there is a whole slew of us who have had to find ourselves in spaces that were not welcoming.

[02:12:01] And so in that way, I still enjoyed, you know, I still enjoy these shows, but it's always in the back of your mind, you know, especially when I was growing up, how I'm not present on screen or on page. So yeah, take that for me. And just anecdotally, you know, I was, as the show was airing, I was paying a lot of obsessive attention to how is it being received by new people on social media?

[02:12:28] And it seems like the two communities where it made the biggest inroads, where I was seeing lots of new people coming on board and loving it, was the blurred community and the queer community. Which is, I think, feeling more represented. I think that makes sense. That took me so long to figure out what blurred meant just now. It took me a while. And I'm not ashamed of it. Like the Britpop band? Oh, boy. We've been going a while. We got to wrap this thing up.

[02:12:57] Yeah, we got to wrap this up. So, all right. So just saying there's a lot of demand for season four in the Discord. Obviously, Gina, we mentioned earlier, says, I'm a first-time podcast listener and found your accounts after watching, you guessed it, season three, episode four. I'm a fan of lore-rich fantasy, but after watching that episode, I knew I needed to learn more about this world. I am praying to the creator that we have more seasons to cover together. Since listening to your podcast, I've re-watched seasons one and two, as well as starting listening to the books on Audible, currently on book three.

[02:13:27] My appreciation from what has gone from passively interested to fully invested. So, yay, one of us, one of us. Yeah, and then Fred says, I'm stunned how all the showrunners have pulled off this season. So many things from at least three books get taken care of, and not in a rushed way, but in a, wow, this shit is speeding down the tracks toward Tarman Gaidon, so they better get ready now. So I think those are good notes to end on.

[02:13:56] Yeah, so what do you guys think is the most satisfying plot arc that's come to an end this season? Valda, Loyal, or Swan, or someone else? Satisfying Swan. I think so, too. I think so, too. I mean, I wish I could say Loyal as well, but it's definitely Swan. No, they botched that. I got the whole arc. I don't know if I would say botched. No, they botched it. I'm going to say they botched it. Okay.

[02:14:23] All three of those are so different from the books, right? And all three of those end earlier than in the books, but Swan's feels like it meant something, you know? And it contributed in a way that the other one's a little bit like- Fair. Felt like being tossed aside. Okay, and Mark, what character would you most like to see head off into the afterlife in season four?

[02:14:53] To die? Oh, my God. Jean, Jean. Mostly to die in season four? I'm getting it. Yep. Yeah. I'm getting it. It needs to be up and leave. Not my spider queen? Yeah, I think Bogey got to go. You're here. We got to get Bogey. I don't know. I'm like, well, I want more from Fane's story, but I also want him to go. I could do it with less Robin, too. I could do it with less Robin, too. I could do it with less Robin, too.

[02:15:23] But that's Robin? Dane. The thing about Fane and Kuladine and even Elida, these hateable people, like Mogedian is hateable and is crazy unfairly powerful. So she's got to go. Yes. You know? Yeah. But she's not. She's just smart. She hides in there. She's the least powerful in terms of, like, channeling. She's the least powerful of the, like, the ten most powerful channeling. Right, right, right, right. Powerful people. She's the worst person at the Olympics. Like, she's still at Olympia. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair.

[02:15:53] All right. John, if you were an Aes Sedai, which character would be your warder? And if you were a warder, which character would be your Aes Sedai? Jesus. Not Jesus. That wasn't my answer. Sorry. Who would be my warder? Yeah. You're springing these things on me, Alicia. I don't know. I'm going to go with the land. The start would be my warder. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. And I'm going to interview with a vampire.

[02:16:22] And my Aes Sedai would be not Moraine. She's, like, awful to land. Anybody but Moraine. She's the worst to her warders. For sure. No. I have no other answer. All right. My Aes Sedai would be Elaine. My warder would be Avienda. Jean or Mark, do you have thoughts on that one? I was going to say either Bane or Chiad as my warder. Okay. Or land. Okay.

[02:16:51] And you get two for one because she goes where she goes. Yeah, two for one. That's right. One will just follow along. Yeah. And then Aes Sedai. Yeah. Probably. If I were a warder. Yeah, I'll go with Elaine. Probably. Elaine or Alana, maybe. All right. And Jean, you said before that you would most want to join the Seafolk culture. What about Mark and Jean? What culture would you most want to join?

[02:17:19] And what cultures would you assign the other hosts to? Oh, gosh. Because Jean, I could see you as a borderlander for sure, if not a Seafolk person. Really? Yeah, you're the protection witch. Okay. Man, I'm trying to think of exactly where I'd want to be. I want to be able to be in like a scholarly area. You know what I mean? I want my knowledge around me. If I'm not going to have Google, I want my books. I guess I'd want to live in Cabana.

[02:17:49] You want to be a brown Aja? Okay. Yeah. I'm going to name a group and I'm not going to explain it because they've not been introduced. I'm just going to say the name. I would want to be a Kinfolk. Okay. Oh, yeah. They're pretty chill. So that's Ibu Dar or whatever. Yeah. Shoot. Can I? I want to say there's a certain, I would be a certain tower. Okay. Gotcha.

[02:18:19] Gotcha. A certain tower. Not Tarvalon. We don't know yet. But a different one. Gotcha. Yeah, I can see that. That's where I would put you to. Yeah. Oh, okay. Uh-oh. What does that say? Oh, boy. That's not anything bad. One of my favorite characters is there. Well, yeah. Yeah. And gosh, who hasn't been accounted for? I think, I don't know. Who should we insult by saying they should live in Kyrian? Like, I don't know. Who's conniving and scheming? No one here.

[02:18:49] We're sending David to Kyrian because he wouldn't watch the show. And he's not going to listen to this. So we'll send him to Kyrian. Oh, yeah. He can play the game of houses. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God. Kyrian, for anyone who doesn't remember, is where Moraine's from when we saw it last season and that they like to play political games a lot. Yes, they do. All right. We've been talking about this enough. Is there any final thoughts anyone wants to throw out there before we close this down?

[02:19:19] We talked for three hours. I have no more thoughts in my head. I see. Just give me season four. All right. Yeah. I think we're all on that same page. I'll say we have Thunderbolts coming soon. Sean and I have to discuss. What's the accent? Thunderbolts are coming soon. There you go. You see, you do the accent. I have the word sinners down here with the side eye emoji. We got to do it. We got to do it.

[02:19:48] And we, of course, yeah. And the reason why there's even any question about us doing sinners is because we're doing weekly The Last of Us, brief Doctor Who episodes, and we have our Andor squadrons. So, John, do you want to tell people about the season pass for Andor? There's a season pass. You can get bonus episodes like we did the Lorecast on The Wheel of Time, but we're calling them Holocron episodes on Andor because I'm all about branding with Andor. I call it Brandor this season.

[02:20:19] And we're going all in with our squadron. So, we're doing each episode individually. Each one of us, you, Alicia, me, and David are all taking an episode a week, and we are splitting it up but still doing full coverage of everything, which is a lot of fun. And you and John are together this week, right? That's right. That's right. Yes, we are. John and I were together last week. The fourth week. Yeah, and there's one last Wheel of Time extra little mini extra coming your way, the dramatic reading of the Caratheon cycle with Soundscape.

[02:20:50] And subscribers, of course, get all the season pass stuff for both Wheel of Time and Andor and everything else, plus the extra stuff like Second Breakfast and Elevensees. This month's topics are pizza and A Real Pain and other extras. Just like, I don't know, we're eventually going to do more Marvel stuff when things calm down. What's going on, Mark, with Nevermind the Music? Yeah, so we're talking about TLC a lot.

[02:21:18] So last week's episode was about a TLC tune. This week's sidetrack is also about TLC. Nicole has a lot she wants to say about that band, that group. It was iconic for me, too. And then actually, what's that? It was an iconic band for me, too, group for me, too. Yeah, for sure. And then we've got one more regular episode, and then we're doing a mailbag. So if people can send in their thoughts, either on Discord or NeverMusicPod at gmail.com, send us your questions.

[02:21:46] We would love to talk about them for not two and a half hours, but for a nice, robust conversation between Nicole and I. So send them in in the next week or two, and we'll for sure talk about it. All right, well, you'll find the link to Nevermind the Music in the link tree in the show notes. And, of course, also the email address in the show notes linked to the Discord where we're chatting about everything and links to the other affiliates.

[02:22:12] Radioactive Ramblings, Properly Howard, Rings and Rituals, Will Shift Dust, and the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast. And, yeah, just thank you, everyone, for listening and for enjoying the show with us. And if you feel free or you are warmly encouraged to share this episode with anyone else who enjoys Wheel of Time and wants to hear a bunch of people bullshit about it. And feel free to leave especially positive reviews wherever you're listening.

[02:22:40] John, do you want to give the final thank yous? Our Discord server boosters, Aaron K, Taylor the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Doove71, Athena A, Tina Lestu, Nancy M, Ghost of Bardition, and Radioactive Richard. And our Lore Masters on Supercast and Patreon, Samartian, Michael G, Michelle E, Brian P, SC, Peter OH, Adam S, Nancy M, Doove71, Brian8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Matthew M, Sarah M,

[02:23:09] Andra B, Kwong Yu, Kwong, oh my god, I'm saying Kwong Yu twice, you get two thank yous today. Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Sub Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Mothership61, Gnarles, Kathy W, Basu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F, Stephen N, Julia F, Kali S, Ilmario, forward slash Tim and Adrian. Thank you all for all your support.

[02:23:34] So it makes us be able to do these three-hour, you know, podcast fests for feedback. Thank you. In the light with you all who listened this far. Take care. Thank you. The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds. You can send questions, feedback, and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all our episodes at patreon.com slash thelorehounds.

[02:23:59] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. It's underway. Excellent. If we release three episodes per week, the Lorehounds will never be able to cover every episode. The Imperial forces will crush the rebellion before it begins. Stand by. We're picking up something on our scanners. Echo Squadron reporting in.

[02:24:28] Delta Squadron on your left. Jango Squadron on your six. With Imperial forces coming in fast, we're calling all Rebels to join the fight this season. Starting after the April 22nd premiere, you'll hear three full breakdowns for each week's episodes of Andor Season 2. Each podcast will be led by one of our squadron leaders, Alicia, David, and John. We'll be bringing in new and familiar voices to fill out the roster. Search for The Lorehounds on any podcast platform to join us in a galaxy far, far away.

[02:24:57] And don't forget to check out our season pass for even more content like our Holocron bonus pods. It's good news for anyone except Darth Vader.