EIII: ep 12 – The Acolyte S1-e7, pt 2 – "Choice" mailbag

[00:00:00] OK, David, this is where we are supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

[00:00:38] we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections.

[00:00:54] See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore,

[00:01:05] a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fired and led by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Hi, it's Alicia. And John, we're back for our part two of the Acolyte Episode 7 discussion.

[00:01:37] Since we made the choice to spin our feedback discussion off because there's so much of it. You guys are really enjoying talking about this show and we love it. We got theory updates, new theories.

[00:01:50] I'm going off on a lore dive into the Jedi code and especially its rules and attachments and more spoiler talk discussion, including from one of those mythical unicorn Star Wars fans somewhere worried didn't exist. I thought that was hilarious. Anyway, can we to hear it?

[00:02:05] Let's get into it all for the record. This was recorded July 13th, 2024. And before we get into the feedback, I wanted to also just mention a new interview with Leslie Hedlin. And I know you don't want her to stop talking about the series, but I love it.

[00:02:21] This one was with Collider. This is also about Episode 7. And there's just a few things she said in this interview that I wanted to pull out because I thought they were very interesting. And one was about the Strangers reveal about the facts that

[00:02:35] a lot of people were like, well, we knew who the stranger was. And so she said the Strangers reveal was one that we weren't hiding very much from the audience. It was very Wesley in the Princess Bride. It's more like she doesn't know what she's going to do.

[00:02:49] We know. John's holding up a Princess Bride DVD cover. I happened to be watching that with the family yesterday. So when you said that, I was like, oh, I have that next to me. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's one of my all time favorites.

[00:03:02] Well, it was on my it was on my essential Alicia list for the Nazis. Yeah, I think I picked it and then it didn't get that's OK. But then, yeah, Fifth Element got it, which is fair. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:13] But yeah, so did you have any thoughts about the Kymir reveal? I thought for me, I didn't want it to be Kymir as a stranger. And then when it happened, I was very happy. Yeah. Like I think I just think that Manage Ascente did a really great job

[00:03:33] embodying the character, embodying this chaotic. Sif. And that's really great. I keep wanting to call him Jason Mendoza because one day I'm just going to do it without correcting myself and everyone's going to have me.

[00:03:49] But Manage Ascente is really doing an excellent job, and it's great to see him have range here. Yeah, I think that that's also what she was saying when I quoted her last time. She was just basically like the reveal is not that he's a stranger.

[00:04:01] The reveal is how much you're going to love him as a stranger. You're going to feel like maybe you should take me. I think you use a special term for us. Y'all are. Oh, villain fuckers. I mean, guilty as charged.

[00:04:16] Let's talk about the Forsaken and the Wheel of Time. Oh boy. Well, on the other side of this scale, maybe we've got Saul and she said about Saul. How do you create a Jedi character that can do something so irrevocably wrong

[00:04:33] and still in his heart of hearts believe that he was atoning for that sin via his love for Oshah? And I think that mission accomplished there, I would say. Yeah, they did a great job. And again, doing an amazing job appearing young and just going down

[00:04:50] on those new male eggs. And so what she says is so contrasting, you know, we talked about the parallel between Saul and the stranger as Disney insists we call. And she said about Saul, what's interesting is that Saul offers her Oshah a ticket to an institution.

[00:05:08] It's the institution he's part of. It's the institution he believes in. It's an institution that many, many, many members of the galaxy believe in. So that's not a bad thing, but that's what he's offering her. He's saying, do you want to be part of this great legacy

[00:05:22] that you've already shown some interest in as a child and that I am living proof of success and happiness and contentment? And Oshah is like, absolutely, sign me up. I'm eight. Well, you know, it's funny because I think back to when I was in

[00:05:36] middle and high school and I was getting really into playing music. And, you know, what the music teachers tried to tell me to do is teach music. Oh, yeah. And it's so true, though, that I'm like, when you're a kid,

[00:05:50] how many other students are just like, yeah, I want to be a teacher. Yeah. And not not because they necessarily really do. And, you know, teaching as a noble profession, we love our love and support our teachers. I was raised by a kindergarten teacher for the record.

[00:06:04] But it's just the fact of it's really hard for someone so entrenched in something to recommend a different path. And so the Jedi, of course, are like, oh, you come over here. We know what we're doing here. It's it's a bit of self validation of your previous choices.

[00:06:23] Yeah. Yeah. And in contrast, she says, what the stranger offers her is, what if the reigning institution is wrong? Have you considered that in your adult life like a partner? The stranger says, I've experienced something and I think you would benefit from it.

[00:06:37] I have a similar history to you and in adulthood, I would lay it at your feet as a possible tool kit for you to pick up and forge your own life with. But yeah, you can see if if the previous institution

[00:06:52] that you were promised would be everything has failed you and let you go. And then someone says, well, I'm just going to give you the two tools to create your own path. Yeah, that would be attempting invitation to the dark side.

[00:07:04] Especially given by many since you're coming out of a pool. I know, I know. But but as an eight year old, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Let's know as an eight year old. She's hearing this as an adult. Yeah. OK, OK.

[00:07:15] I see what you're saying. I was like, I don't think he's using the same tactics on May when he finds her. But I hope I hope he's not using the same tactics. Yeah, we don't know how old May was when she met him. I'm curious. That's true.

[00:07:26] I hope you find out in the finale. I want I want her to have been living a feral life, you know, just cast away for a while and just alone on Brandoc. She like talks to her tattoo. You talk she's talks to her marking.

[00:07:40] She just has those jelly flies like pinned up all over her head. Wilson. Oh, God. She's like, oh, I used to talk to you all the time on Brandoc. Maybe that's how we find out that she sees the forced diet too.

[00:07:55] Although, I guess it's not technically a forced diet if they are like two halves of the same hole literally. That's not quite what a forced diet is. The power of point five. And speaking of that, so Hedlin also said,

[00:08:11] also part of the intrigue of them being a consciousness that split into two bodies, what that means to me is that they are patient zero of the attempt to use the force to create life. It worked and it failed.

[00:08:22] So they were only half as strong as our middlchlorian Jesus. They are fractured. So I yeah, I I hope that I know the thing is the people who need to hear that, the people who are crying

[00:08:35] like how dare you take away the thunder of, you know, a later character. They're the ones who need to hear that, but they're also the least likely to. So are we now explicitly explaining how? Well, they did it in the show. Middlchlorian Jesus is born.

[00:08:52] Oh, well, no, because she can't. Leslie Hedlin does not have the rights to. She does elsewhere in this say, like, you know, well, some people say that it was he was created by the Sith. Some people say that he was just created by the force.

[00:09:10] And so she doesn't have the answer to that. She can't answer that. But she's just saying in her mind, these girls, don't worry. They're not meant to be as strong as that character because they're split enough. OK. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm just curious if we're

[00:09:26] if we're doing some kind of because, you know, we did the whole prequel redemption arc with the Clone Wars cartoon or what do I what do I call it? The repair project. And now we're we're in the middle of the sequel trilogy repair project, rehabilitation project.

[00:09:41] And I wonder if this is just one one last tick box that they want. One last box that they want to take for the prequel trilogy rehabilitation arc. Because I know a lot of people did not like the fact that we got

[00:09:57] Midichlorian Jesus as the origin of that character. I mean, I think what we're seeing is it ties into that, but it also, I think, is part of the rehabilitation project for the sequel trilogy arc in terms of generating life and things like that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:15] So in the Jedi's favor, though, in their defense, she points out that they just like to study vergences while we see the witches and the Sith using vergences. And she says about the witches that it's not unheard of to utilize

[00:10:31] the force in a darker way, but again, having noble intentions. It's not unheard of. There are, I think, probably one million people online who will disagree with me on that. But I don't know what to say. I've watched Star Wars. That made me laugh when I read it.

[00:10:46] Yeah, I can think of characters later who are definitely dark side users who do decent things. Right. And in I'll even go in authorized timeline order. I've even I can recall some some situations in the books, I think,

[00:11:01] in the High Republic books where you see them go like, oh, but that's a dark side user. How do they heal? Right. Like clearly there is something that allows a dark side user to heal and do perhaps things that would normally be attributed to the light side.

[00:11:17] I mean, I just I think the difference is that in the sit would say this or a lot most dark side users, I think would say this is that the Jedi restrict themselves to only one half of the color palette.

[00:11:29] And they're like, we're going to paint with the full palette. Right. Right. Which fair enough. Yeah. So it's not that the dark side users restrict themselves from light side force usage. It's the other way around. It's at the light side users are like, no, we couldn't possibly.

[00:11:43] And they're like, well, then I guess you're not getting your dead kid back or whatever, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's not like they don't force push and pull, right? Like they do all the Jedi moves plus.

[00:11:54] So which is is kind of really terrifying to be a Jedi and be like, OK, I have to fight with one hand tied behind my back and I have to be so good that I can fight someone with both. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:06] And you know what the secret is? What's the secret? I'm not left handed either. I watch Princess Bride. Yes. Now to my head. It's such a good movie. Yeah, that's going to last the ages. Although, you know, sorry, just slide aside. A few years ago,

[00:12:22] Hjalti and I showed it to some younger friends of ours and they all none of them appreciated it. They were all like, this is cheesy. Why are you guys so obsessed with this movie? That's the point. Yeah. I, you know, this is my age now showing.

[00:12:38] I think I watched it for the first time on VHS on a coach bus going on a field trip. Mm hmm. That's that's how I saw it for the first time. I honestly do not remember how I saw it for the first time.

[00:12:51] Probably even still have TVs on coach buses, because I don't think I've been on ones in high school. Um, yeah, I mean, I don't know if they show like community like movies or something anymore, because I would definitely normally just bring my own tablet. Right, exactly.

[00:13:09] But like when we were when we were kids, that wasn't a thing. Right. No, yeah, there was definitely. Smartphones had started when I was in high school. But it wasn't like everybody had one. They would still put on all these, you know, movies for everybody.

[00:13:22] Yeah. No, I remember. I mean, oh, I didn't have smartphones. I had cell phones started when I was in high school, but my mom, she got me one and she was like, here, this is for emergencies and stuff.

[00:13:32] So it's like, OK, put it in my pocket, turned it off and then got a very upset mom one day. Like, why didn't you? Why is your phone off? Like you said it's for emergencies. She's like, leave it on. That's really funny. That's really funny.

[00:13:46] No, when I when I got one of those cell phones with a full keyboard, that that's what changed my life. Right. I could text all the ladies then. All right, anyway, go on. No, the ones that I'm talking about in this case are like the original Nokia bricks.

[00:14:03] OK, yeah, I have one of those too. That was that was my emergency phone. No. All right. Shall we jump into the feedback? I'm not done yet. I had a razor next. I'm just going to go ahead. Go ahead. The razors were cool flip phones. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:14:17] They can't come back. My mom has the Samsung one that folds in half. Is it good? Yeah, I mean, she likes it. So I should also say my mom used to work for Samsung. So she she always we all have some Samsung phones. Fair enough.

[00:14:33] All right. So let's start off with first. We had E hope who wrote in or E hope, I guess I should say. Who wrote in with John, you called it some wild theories last time. So we got some theories after episode six,

[00:14:48] and then we got an updated theory just after this week. OK, so I'll read after episode six and I'll leave the next one to you. So after episode six, E hope said, OK, I'm no longer convinced. Vernestra is the stranger's boss.

[00:15:03] How about what we're seeing is actually a schism between dark side users, Vern and Darth biceps are estranged. Vern is still a big bad, but she's using her position in the order to hunt her rivals. My Oshia idea becomes less convincing with each episode.

[00:15:22] Also, Star Wars wouldn't do that. Oh, also, yeah, responding to us saying that Star Wars wouldn't do the mother daughter sexual tension. It's two game of thrones. E hope says I'm less than 100 percent convinced and inserted a gift of a famous kiss between brothers and sisters.

[00:15:41] OK, all right. You know what, George says it's not a spotless record of not fishing in the family pond. But that's not George Lucas being an incest lover. He just is an inconsistent writer who didn't who probably didn't decide that that was his sister first. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:59] And it is a rather chased, you know, this is not like brother, sister in a tower going at it like the first episode of Game of Thrones. Right. Nobody's getting pushed out of windows here. Right. Right. Well, yeah, not for that reason, at least. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:14] Things we do for love. Right. You want to read E hoops, episode seven theories? I like to think E hoop just like, I don't know, had a jog and an energy drink and then just slap this on the keyboard.

[00:16:27] All right. So here's my new theory for Nestor and Coral are cult leaders who will cause a mass Jedi fall season two will essentially be following the exploits of fallen Jedi light whip gangs murdering, marauding the galaxy. More light whip now, E hoop.

[00:16:44] I support your more like my more light whip now movement. Yeah, that would be cool. I would I would love to see more of that. Yeah, I love the theories, E hoop. Please keep them coming. There's a light fall.

[00:16:59] I'm going to be picturing the marauding light whip gangs. And now I need to know are they riding those? What are the vehicles that we saw in Boba Fett? I don't remember. I don't remember. I walked up the show for my memory.

[00:17:13] People were complaining that there was a group of people who are riding on what do you call them Vespas kind of basically. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't one of the yellow jackets people in that?

[00:17:27] Yes. I didn't dislike it as much as other people, but I need to know. That whole series was a mess. That's, you know, I'm I'm notably very positive on most of Star Wars and even I couldn't defend that season.

[00:17:40] I mean, for me, for me, that it was the weakest one. And of course we should save to anyone who hasn't seen it yet that this was the covid product. So there were strange things they had to do in the finale. Like in the finale, you see

[00:17:56] instead of having like everyone meet together, they all just have little face offs in groups of two because you know, covid restrictions basically. So it just it makes it play out a little weird. And it's the Wheel of Time pile. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:10] I think I think Book of Boba Fat got hit even harder by the covid stick. Yeah, seems like it. No. All right. Well, we actually we have a voicemail. I asked Sebastian Zavala, who's a movie critic and you know, writer, editor, blah, blah, blah in Peru.

[00:18:26] I asked him for his thoughts on this episode. Should we give it a listen? Yes. OK, so the Ecolite episode seven. I'm not a hater of the show, by the way. I've enjoyed quite a bit. I think like most people I enjoyed episode five the most.

[00:18:40] It was pretty impactful and visually spectacular. And the fights were awesome. Episode six, I thought was dramatically very interesting, like a like a smaller respite between all the action. Episode seven on the other hand, I'm not so sure about it. There were things I liked, of course,

[00:18:58] all the small references to the lore and the prequels. The fact that they mentioned the word Virgins was pretty amazing for a prequel fan or an episode one fan, especially the M Count, of course, which is midi-chlorians. Apparently, they're not willing to say the word midi-chlorians,

[00:19:13] but we know what an M Count is. Say it, you can't work. And, you know, the whole flashback thing. I think that in theory was pretty cool. I mean, I liked seeing Colnack in action, even though he was possessed or whatever.

[00:19:29] He was being controlled by the magic of the witches. But overall, I thought this flashback came a little bit late. It was too late to be fair. I thought it should have been shown earlier, much earlier, to be honest. I think that if they showed it earlier,

[00:19:49] we would feel a little bit more for the characters, especially So and the other Jedi. And it felt a little bit repetitive considering we already had like one flashback to these events, obviously, not the whole event. Obviously, not the same perspective,

[00:20:07] but it did feel a little bit repetitive, which I didn't like, to be honest. I think the acting is really good. I think Master Soul continues to be a highlight. It's a tad disappointing that he's more or less the one to blame for everything that happened.

[00:20:25] Which is interesting. I thought it was interesting, too, that Indara was pretty much, I mean, not completely blameless, but she was a little bit more less to blame, so to speak, for everything that happened. Colnack, I still is a disappointment to me as a character.

[00:20:41] I think that a Wookie Jedi was so filled with potential that the fact that he wasn't very well handled by the show is disappointing. But I thought, as always, that lightsaber choreography was awesome. I think that all the moves that are being

[00:20:56] I mean, that involve the fights are pretty amazing. I think that they're dramatically potent and they look really nice, which is obviously much better than what happens to in other Star Wars shows, which is amazing.

[00:21:08] But once again, I think that even though there's a lot of deep cuts and the, you know, Leslie Headland and the rest of the script writers clearly know their lore and know everything that happens in the pre-colore, especially and stuff like that.

[00:21:23] And they know how to use it and they know how to include all these Easter eggs without them calling too much attention to themselves. I do think that once again, this came a little too late. I mean, I think for it to have been dramatically and emotionally potent,

[00:21:39] it should have come earlier, you know, and it's really weird also the fact that it comes as the penultimate episode of the show or of the season by this moment, we should be going forwards. We should not have to.

[00:21:55] We shouldn't need this kind of obstacle like in the in the narrative, like going back once again, independent episode does feel like an obstacle. It does feel like a stop and instead of us going forwards.

[00:22:07] So I do think that they're going to have to solve a lot of stuff in the final episode, especially in the present, you know, with Kimi and the rest. So I am not sure how they're going to be doing that,

[00:22:20] which is interesting because they could have used this, you know, the next to last episode to do that, but they didn't because they did a flashback. So we will see. So for me, it's a mix bag.

[00:22:31] I do think it's my least favorite episode of the show so far. I hope the last one doesn't end up replacing it. It wouldn't be ideal, of course. I don't think it's horrible. I think the acting is really great. I think the lightsaber combat is amazing.

[00:22:47] I think there are some really good ideas. Definitely. I like the whole gray morality of the Jedi, the fact that they're presented not necessarily as the bad guys, but deeply flawed, as deeply flawed people. And, you know, I think it's very consequent or coherent to the way

[00:23:03] they are presenting the prequels, which is amazing. But I do think that this came definitely too late and it didn't feel less emotionally potent as it could have been. So yeah, that's my opinion. Let's see what you think, what the rest of your listeners think or your guests.

[00:23:22] And yeah, thanks again for the invite. All right. So what do you think about the placement of this flashback episode? I thought it was good. I have seen this sentiment on our Discord too. And may I add, this is the kind of disagreement that I want to have

[00:23:38] right on a show like this, not like we shouldn't have black women leading shows. Right. So I appreciate that take. And I think that's just going to be a preference thing, right?

[00:23:50] I think for me, if they the the sin would be to bring this night into next season to make me see another flashback next season, that would be too much for me. OK. But I think you wrap that night out, you wrap that night up this season

[00:24:06] and then let me move on to the next mystery. I'm happy. I mean, I wouldn't hate getting more perspective next season, but I think the mystery elements of it shouldn't necessarily hang, but we can get it colored out more later in the future.

[00:24:19] But I think that the placement of this episode was necessary because I think that if this had been earlier, like, because all of the stuff in the, you know, in the in the Kamiyya reveal episode, would it have necessarily would it have hit as hard

[00:24:39] if we were already thinking like, oh, we'll solve you did something questionable, you know, would I think we need to settle into that comfort of, you know, seeing Saul as the good guy, as the, you know, the Jedi with the best

[00:24:56] of the Jedi and things like that so that we get this kind of nasty surprise toward the end like this. And then yeah, I just think that the reveals of the episodes before this and the reveals in this episode would have undermined each other

[00:25:09] had it been shown in a different order. OK, I'm with you on that. I again, I do not really mind the placement of this episode. I think that you're right. I think that this was intentionally structured for a reason. And I think it's working.

[00:25:24] I think it's working. Yeah. Yeah. But Sebastian, I really appreciate your thoughts and insights. And also, yeah, I know a lot of people, as you said, John, are feeling the same way. Yeah. And again, this is the reasonable discourse, guys. We've done it.

[00:25:38] We've defeated the fandom menace on this podcast. Yeah. All right, shall we take turns with the rest of these? Sure. You give me an easy one. Read or read? Oh, I was going to take. I was going to take. Oh, I see. All right, go ahead.

[00:25:52] You go read a little. I can be Marilyn. Hello. I'm Marilyn Arpochila. No, go ahead and read a little. Small thing, but I think May survives the bridge and OSHA survives the prison ship crash because they probably unconsciously turn into the black smoke. I like this.

[00:26:10] I like this a lot when I saw this, I was like, oh, that's good. That's good stuff. I hope so. Yeah, I mean, we did see May involuntarily become some black. Right. But that's my question is can they?

[00:26:21] I mean, of course, yeah, they they he's saying that they can't control it. But my question is then like, can they even do it involuntarily? Or was that only happening to May because she had already forged

[00:26:36] the link with Anasea in terms of getting that spiral on her head? It's a good question. I don't I don't think we necessarily need OSHA to have survived in some magical way either. I know that we did have that.

[00:26:49] I just I would be fine if they were just like, ah, she lucked out, right? Yeah, the right way. I mean, I think not even looking out like she was smart about it. She's like, OK, I'm going down. What am I going to do?

[00:26:59] She's like, well, I can do is strap in and we did see they showed when the when that ship came into the planet. It's it didn't crash as much as skidded, so that definitely saved her. Yeah, yeah. And what was the other thing? What was her job?

[00:27:15] Tec mech or something? Mech mech mech mech mech mech. I can't I can't get straight. But I think the fact that she ran a high risk in space job probably had something to do with it too. Right. Right. Yeah. You saw her assess the situation.

[00:27:27] She's like, I'm going down. What's my best chance? Right. Yeah. She knows what happens when you run out of oxygen. Yeah. OK, so Marilyn says, hello, Alicia and John, I'm afraid I have to object to the showrunner's notions about attraction.

[00:27:43] Jackie was definitely one of my favorites and Chimera is definitely not. I have time. I have no time for the quote evil sexual domination as attraction trope. It's done too much harm over time. I can, of course, appreciate his physical attributes.

[00:27:58] But at the end of the day, he is a violent me first. Screw you if you disagree with me, whiny dude. His kymier side is also part of him, not just his supposedly sexy dark side, Scythe persona. And he blames the Jedi for who he currently is.

[00:28:14] However badly the Jedi have behaved at the end of the day, he's responsible for his own choices. I have compassion for his suffering and I loathe his choices. Nothing attractive there for me. He's a gaslighter. I got to say.

[00:28:28] Marilyn comes in going, I'm not going to let some podcaster named Alicia tell me fucker. Marilyn, you are exonerated. I am not. No, but I mean, of course, all of this is true. She continues. He's a gaslighter, a manipulator and an abuser.

[00:28:46] And he holds no attraction for me. That doesn't mean that he is not, quote unquote, redeemable, but it would have to be a whale of a character arc, given what they've given us so far. And I really don't think they have any intentions of redeeming him,

[00:28:59] but I could be surprised. I think that they're yeah, I don't think they're planning to redeem him. And I kind of don't want him to. No, I think it there's a difference between explaining someone's, you know, explaining and redeeming how they are. Excuse me. There you go.

[00:29:14] Yeah, I want the exploration. We're not going to get this season his full backstory or anything. But I look forward to that. That's one of the things that will keep me hooked for next season. Right. See, that's that's the thing.

[00:29:27] That's why I'm saying I want to let go of that night is that I want more of that, right? Like I do want flashbacks to something, not that. I think this night is getting a little overplayed here, you know, right? Maybe play a different song on the album.

[00:29:40] Yeah, maybe it'll be the meeting between him and May from different perspectives next season or something like that. Yeah, 10 years into it. So introduces her to her her OSHA tree. She like cargo space on a tree. Like I call it Wilson. I mean, oh, she.

[00:30:00] Maryland says fun to be reminded of a shot. Shadrock, Meshach and a big. Sorry, I'm going to say Shadrock, Meshach, Mesh, Meshach. You got it. You got it. Mesh, Meshach and a bednego. So the thing is, it's early for both of us now.

[00:30:23] Oh, yeah. See, I fooled you into doing an early podcast. If any listeners don't know this is because I said, why don't we just record at 3 a.m. my time? Yeah, so it's 9 a.m.

[00:30:36] My time, which is like a normal first thing in the morning time for me. I don't know how John does it. Um, I just woke up at like 2 45 and I'm like, you want to knock this out? Yeah. All right.

[00:30:48] So she says it's fun to be reminded of these three who survived the fiery furnace in the Hebrew story. In your discussion of what Chimeer's name might actually mean, my first thought was some might call me Tim. Thanks, Montefython.

[00:31:03] This concept of distracting and confusing the Jedi with pain, their own or others was exactly what a certain Sith Lord did to a certain hero to lure him into a face-to-face confrontation in the second ever Star Wars movie. Hope that's sufficiently non-spoilery. Perfect, Merle.

[00:31:18] And finally, speaking of spoilers, I entirely agree with John. While I often get lost in the confusion of new names and places and details that wash over me in the Star Wars Ken and Timeline podcast, it's your podcast and you can not spoil if you want to.

[00:31:31] And as a certain Lord Hound's co-host would say, always to my delight, anyone who doesn't like it can kick rocks. May the Force be with you, with them and with everyone. Yeah. OK, I was like, I'm used to the Davidisms now.

[00:31:43] I'm like, oh wait, wait, who said that? All the best, Merle. Or was I cranky one day? No, no. David's the one who likes to say kick rocks. Fair enough. And if that is a very Gen Z coded sentence, we didn't kick rocks in the 90s.

[00:31:57] We only, you know, they kicked rocks in the 70s and 80s. Yeah, we kicked cell phones that were dead. I don't know. We still play with sticks, though, for the record. Did you have hate clips? Can I ask you that?

[00:32:11] It's 3 a.m., so I can talk about anything now. What does it have? What did you have? Hate clips as a kid or did you? Oh, yeah. OK, so this is like the peak of American consumerism. Let's let's let's take a step back. OK, OK.

[00:32:24] Hate clips were designed for kids. They were essentially a tiny cassette player that had proprietary tiny cassettes that only played like the chorus of hit songs. And they were hit clips. They cost a lot of money.

[00:32:42] They had 30 seconds of a song and they had a million ads on TV all the time. I do not remember this at all. Was there two thousands? This was I mean, so I was in college in the early 2000s,

[00:32:55] but still you would think I would see the commercials. There was a special little player for them. You had a special little player and then the hit clips themselves were designed to be on a key chain because they were they were like these tiny little

[00:33:11] like checks size cartridges that you put in. And then there was video now, which was the music video version of this again, 30 seconds. That's ring about because I can see like the video now logo in my head. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's adventures in consumerism.

[00:33:32] When I think back, I thought I'm like, no, that's that's capitalism. Yeah, at its core, right? Because that is just you are getting a you're breathing an air of the product without actually getting it, but paying more money for it.

[00:33:46] Right. I mean, this also this is like plays into the NFTs of today. Or I remember before that in my time, there was the Beanie Baby craze. You know, we love to just invest value in something that we can collect. We just love it.

[00:34:02] Yeah. Yeah. Look, I were raccoons. I'm not against collecting, but let's not do it with hit clips. There's TikToks on it. You should you should look it up now. People are just like, was this a fever dream?

[00:34:15] This is yeah. I mean, this is like a whole new world to me. Is this am I Mandela affecting this? All right. Now that I've derailed your entire podcast. No, yes. With my 3 AM thoughts. No, the people need to know about hit clips.

[00:34:32] I needed to know about it. I hope somebody writes in about hip clips. I hope I have awakened. I hope I've like awakened a dormant memory in someone. That's someone has a drawer somewhere and they're like, oh, my God.

[00:34:44] So Marilyn concludes this first part with PS regarding Chimeer's possible whale of a redemption arc. I suppose he could always be the father of the twins or even the brother. What do you think? Yeah, boo. I don't I just don't want it.

[00:34:57] I want I want them to be related to this virgins. I think they yeah, I think I don't think they have a father because I do think that they're thinking of like the birth of our midichlorian Jesus who notably well, I mean, as you pointed out

[00:35:09] at the beginning, we still don't quite know what happened there. So apparently we're getting I am super excited for the explanation this week to find out what we find out. Do you want to take so Marilyn sent another email in last night

[00:35:23] responding to our first half of this episode podcast? Do you want to take that? Sure. Hello, John. Hello. Hello, John and Alicia. Good pod episode. As always, I found myself suddenly thinking in terms of soul as a social worker.

[00:35:39] I'm sure that you've heard cases both good and bad of social workers taking children away from homes because the homes are deemed to be dangerous. Of course, so much depends on the values that one bases one's decisions on.

[00:35:55] When the home is an unfamiliar culture with a seemingly strange practice with seemingly strange practices, it is difficult to make a judgment that honors the values of the home community in question. What is abusive to one culture may not be deemed so in another.

[00:36:10] And yet I have to think that violence is violence, whatever culture one is dealing with. That is just to pause there. That is a great nuanced point, Marilyn. Yeah. Right. Yeah, we cannot be excusing violence based on culture at the same time.

[00:36:27] I think this is why we want things like community policing, right? Like is bringing people from the community to be the social workers and the police officers and whatnot of that community so that they have a better understanding of the norms and what's going on.

[00:36:41] And they can read situations appropriately and not make bad assumptions. So, yeah, right. So we need we needed policemen. Yeah, we needed Saul to talk to someone. Well, I mean, it's like I said, you know, we need him to knock on the door instead of scaling the mountain.

[00:36:56] Right. Like talk to people like, hey, what's what's going on in here? You got a virgins? We're looking for virgins. You got some kids? What's the virgins vibe? Social workers have codes and boards to guide them and advise them.

[00:37:09] But at the end of the day, for the one making the decision, it has to be a profoundly difficult one in many cases. And you don't always have time to consult the board. A particular challenge are the situations in which the social worker

[00:37:23] is a member of a dominant culture. They're dealing with a family who are more who are members of a subordinate culture, much harm maybe caused even with the best of intentions. Such good may also come. If there are any social workers among listeners, I would love to hear

[00:37:40] your insights on this particular framework. This whole paragraph reminds me of the first nation issues in Canada. Right. Yes, which actually I have to say so I responded to Marilyn's email and I said I especially liked the social worker point and she responded

[00:37:56] and she actually specifically brought up the first nations issues where she lives. And yeah, about kidnapping for anyone who doesn't know about kidnapping children and taking them away from their families and forcing them to go to boarding schools where their language and cultural practices were forbidden.

[00:38:16] And yeah, this happened to my own great grandfather in Oklahoma. Yeah, it's interesting. She did specifically bring that up in her response. And if we're going to talk about something happening today, the Uyghurs in China right now. You know, right? Some more situation.

[00:38:30] Yeah, although they're doing that to adults too. They're luring adults back from Europe and then putting them in these internment camps. But anyway, that's pretty crazy. It's awful. All right. Everybody go Google the Uyghurs. Yeah. It's not it's not how you think. Yeah, U-I-G-H-U-R I think yeah.

[00:38:46] When I first learned about that, I said to my wife. I want you to guess how you spell Uyghur. And she's like, wait, why? I said it starts with an O. Well, it's also I mean, because this is a Chinese word,

[00:39:02] so we're just translating it into Roman letters. You know, right? We're transliterating in a terrible way. Yeah. Anyway, the point is speaking of frameworks, Maryland says, it seems to me that George Lucas was borrowing freely but superficially from several without a complete understanding of their meanings.

[00:39:22] Other than zero astralism, I know of no religion that claims there is a need for evil to exist free choice. Yes, evil. No. Unless one thinks of the mannequin, I might be saying that wrong. But anyway, splinter group who were declared heretical or non-canon,

[00:39:38] if you like Christians, if you have a founder who preaches humility, you can't blame them or their message if their followers don't follow that teaching even if they keep the name. In a discussion about how the witches were influencing Kalnaka,

[00:39:53] I don't think that their mind control included body control. How could it when they were neither Wukit or Jedi? I think they were controlling motivation and emotion and that they died from the backlash of the release of their power by Indara.

[00:40:08] I'd also like to note that I don't think we know who killed Kalnaka yet. Do we? Or are we to assume that it was Chimera? And finally, I wonder if May's survival depended in part on the presumed fact that her sisters are in fact the same being.

[00:40:24] If Osha survives, so does May. What do you think? Looking forward to the final episode of the season, all the best, Marilyn. Well, first of all, just about the mind control, including body control, I think so I always I know people are like, stop talking about science

[00:40:39] with Star Wars, but I can't help myself because Star Wars actually doesn't contradict science as much as people would think fires in space aside. But so in this case, what I saw it as, you know, if you control someone's mind, if control the neuro functioning in their brains,

[00:40:58] then you are controlling their physical movements. You're basically playing them like a puppet. Yeah, I would agree with that. I guess my question on the podcast was, do they have access to his expertise, to his training? Right. And I think you're right.

[00:41:12] And I think you're right in saying probably not. I don't know that, although we see like they could theoretically, like we saw Anasea, she knew things about Torben what he wanted his desires. Right. So theoretically, they have that. They do have that same access with Kill Naka.

[00:41:29] I doubt his desire is to kill Torben unless Torben was really annoying for the last few weeks. But also I think we don't really know how effective of a Jedi Kill Naka was in terms of lightsaber.

[00:41:43] Is right, like not every Jedi is going to be the best fighter. Right. In terms of lightsabers, perhaps he is really good at hand to hand combat and he is really good at, you know, we saw him really elegantly grab

[00:41:54] the blessures from people and then break them in half. Maybe that's his strength with lightsaber fighting because of the lack of agility of Wookiees is not his strength. And that's OK. Maybe that's why the others are able to hold him off. Except soul.

[00:42:09] Soul goes mono we mono, which shocked me. I was like, you're on mono we mono with a Wookiee. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess what was he going to do? And then thankfully, Indara comes in at that moment.

[00:42:21] Yeah, because it did take two and a half of them to take. I'm sorry, I'm calling Torben a half because he's on the ground at this point. One of my favorite impressively held him off. Yeah. One of my favorite lines in all of Star Wars.

[00:42:33] I'd sooner kiss a Wookiee. That can be arranged. Yeah. So the Konaka comic is going to be set before all of this. And that's coming out in September. We're going to see how quickly I can get my hands on it.

[00:42:48] But when I yeah, when I do get to read it, I'll definitely do a little mini episode to just let people know what of interest you might take from it. There you go. There you go. And then also, yeah.

[00:43:03] So about the sisters being linked and if one survives both do, I think there could be something there to that. Yeah, I think that's right. Maybe as long as one remains alive, the other can live.

[00:43:16] So you have to kill them both at the same time, which seems weird. Yeah. Hmm. OK, so actually, I'm going to ask you to read the next one too, because then this is the one that's triggering my lower dive. OK, all right. Let's do it.

[00:43:32] Darth Kenshin writes in says hi all. So I don't know if I could trust Darth Kenshin because they're there. You know, you can't trust a Sith. Hi all, I really enjoy your coverage of the acolyte and just had one goes and compliments us. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:46] Thank you, Darth Kenshin. I think you're lying, though. You hate the coverage and just had one quick point and two quick questions regarding the force leaving someone after a while that was actually canon in a movie. You can't quite figure out your swear of the policy,

[00:43:59] but you'll know what I mean. A character who went away from the force for a long time and tried to use it and did so successfully, creating a force projection of himself, but ended up dying.

[00:44:09] The director of the film likened it to a drug user who kicks the habit, then goes back. It puts such a strain on your body and you're not used to it anymore so it can be damaging, even fatal. So it's not like Osha can't access the force anymore,

[00:44:22] but it's probably just too much of a strain on her body to be able to do it without any severe consequences. All right. All right. You want to chat about that for a second? I mean, yeah, I'll go with that.

[00:44:34] Like, I think we also see, you know, other characters who willingly step away from the force, stop using it. And then it's not that they put themselves in danger by re-accessing it per se, but it's just it's hard, you know, it's like when you

[00:44:49] like any skill, you stop exercising it and you get a bit rusty. And then in their case, it might take some effort to even connect to the force at all again, which is what we seem to have been seeing with Osha. Right.

[00:45:03] Darth Kenshin continues saying, my question is about the Jedi code of no attachments. First off, what's the actual depth of that? When we see Jedi die on screen in film or on TV, their Padawan or Master always has an emotional response. Is that against the Jedi code?

[00:45:22] Where do they draw the line? Lastly, who actually made the Jedi code? I just also wanted to say the Jedi do not practice what they preach literally ever. So I mean, humans are hypocrites in general. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we love cognitive dissonance.

[00:45:39] We're always like, you're being cognitively dissonant. And like that's what like half of our society is built on. Right. I've noticed several times on your coverage that there are similarities to modern religious being inflexible and alienating. People like the Jedi do with their harsh rules.

[00:45:56] However, in the case of modern religions, those beliefs are typically based on an ancient text believed to be the word of a supreme being. So whether or not you agree with it, I would argue the inflexible nature

[00:46:06] makes sense to adherence of the religion and is justified by being the word of God. Do the Jedi believe in a singular deity who set these rules? Or are they all purely manmade? Thanks again. You know, that's interesting because I've done quite a bit of reading

[00:46:22] on several religions. I don't think that's a universal belief that scripture is, you know, the literal word of God. And I don't think that it's it's a universal belief that it has to be inflexible. I think that many religions, many more modernized religions

[00:46:41] believe that the rules can evolve with society. You know, we can have a better understanding of how to interpret those writings that were by humans, humans. Perhaps, you know, some people will say they different religions believe in divine inspiration of the text rather than, you know, divine words.

[00:47:02] Right. And so I don't I don't want to lump all religions together. That's that's my one by one thing I want to clarify. I'm not saying let's all get our pitchforks and go for people who are practicing religions. No, no, no, no, of course not.

[00:47:17] Yeah. And of course, if the Jedi, it's not a monotheism. It's not a monotheistic religion, I would say. George Lucas does call it a religion. If they have any gods, I would say they are. I mean, the God is basically the force itself.

[00:47:34] So no, the force is not transcribing information. You could say maybe the Celestials, the father, daughter and son, maybe they are their gods in a certain way. But the Jedi code itself is it was written by humans, we think.

[00:47:50] So basically it's a set of rules that evolved through the centuries. And maybe we'll see its creation in the Jedi Prime movie that's being planned for 25,000 years before this point in the timeline, which is about the founding of the Jedi, the dawn of the Jedi.

[00:48:08] There is a I have to bring up. There is a canon source book for a role playing game called Forces of Destiny and this source book is called Nexus of Power. And it says that the modern code was revised, so not originally created,

[00:48:25] but the version that we hear about was revised by a Jedi master named O'Don Ur. And that does come from from legends, but this is what brought it into canon. O'Don Ur, by the way, is a Drathos who I encourage you to look up the species

[00:48:42] D-R-A-E-T-H-O-S and he was a Jedi, but they are a scary looking species. They kind of look like their heads look like horses skulls with just like this protruding mouth with his teeth on top. But anyway, so he was basically and he wasn't doing this alone.

[00:49:01] He was working with others revising this code. So like they were kind of not so much transcribing from God, but then like. Yeah, I called him maybe the Moses of Star Wars, but it's not. Yeah, it's not like he's taking it down from God.

[00:49:13] He's looking at what's there and is like, how do we turn this into what become the sacred Jedi text? So O'Don Ur, he did live more than like he lived for more than a thousand years between about like 4,000 and 5,000 BBY so long before this.

[00:49:32] OK. And then we see those sacred Jedi texts they get added to over the centuries and they're passed down and they do turn up in the sequel trilogy. But the interesting thing about this Nexus of Power book that I cited is that it's also especially about virgins.

[00:49:48] It's one of the best sources of information on verges, virgins in canon. Animism. That's where I'm going with with this. With the more I think about this, the more I think about what you're describing and how the Jedi describe the force and whatnot.

[00:50:06] I think that the closest analog and animism isn't really like a religion. It's more of like a it's more of like a. Type of belief, right? I think the force animates everything. You know, it's throughout everything.

[00:50:21] I'm like, I think that's kind of animism as far as a belief system. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess it's true. I mean, I guess I was thinking like talking about what are Jedi gods in some ways, it's the midi-chlorians, although a lot of Star Wars fans

[00:50:34] would hate that so disregard if you do. Oh gosh. I also want to say so I when I cited the Jedi code a few episodes ago, but I actually was specifically reciting one part of it, which is called the mantra of the Jedi code.

[00:50:50] So the mantra again was the one that I cited was there is no emotion. There is peace. There is no ignorance. There is knowledge. There is no passion. There's serenity. There is no chaos. There is harmony. There is no death. There is the force.

[00:51:04] And this version of it, it does come from legends. And it was brought into canon by my favorite Star Wars novel featuring a certain night sister. But what's interesting is that released, so I think that was released

[00:51:18] in like 2016 and that same year they released a Canaan comic set around the same time. So Canaan's a character, a Jedi character will show up later, set around the same time. And but the Canaan comic has a different version of this, which I think kind of contradicts it.

[00:51:36] So the Canaan version of it is emotion, yet peace, ignorance, yet knowledge, passion, yet serenity, chaos, yet harmony, death, yet the force. So like that version to me is saying that there the other one is saying, you know, you must suppress the dark side so that

[00:51:56] you know, you can be this good Jedi monk, which we've been talking about being dangerous. And this other version seems like, well, we allow your targeting serenity and peace. Yeah. But we acknowledge passion and emotion as well. More passion, more energy.

[00:52:11] Something as you're residing that, that I'm thinking of is the Jedi are really good at being in denial. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think that the fatal flaw with Jedi ideology is that the Jedi they rather than embrace and guide human emotion

[00:52:33] and human the human experience, they kind of deny it. Yeah. No attachment, not healthy attachments. Right. There is no death, not we become one with the force and that's part of death. Well, they do say that. They do.

[00:52:46] Well, like Jackie said that in this show, she says, lovely to watch someone become part of the force and then she becomes part of the force. I don't believe her. I don't believe her. Well, then she became part of the force. So to the. Yeah.

[00:52:59] So what is specifically said about attachment in the Jedi code is that you can't marry, but romantic and familiar love is not expressly forbidden. Obi-Wan, an important Jedi character says this at one point, but giving into attachment is basically considered giving up being a Jedi.

[00:53:16] So compassion is deeply encouraged though. And we know that George Lucas, he is a practicing Buddhist and he based a lot of these concepts on Buddhism. So in Buddhism, you have the four noble truths are kind of a central tenet of Buddhism.

[00:53:36] So basically to paraphrase the four noble truths, one, suffering is pervasive and inescapable. Two, we cause suffering by clinging to people, to things, to concepts about ourselves. Three, suffering can end Nirvana as possible. Four, the path there is wisdom, spiritual practice

[00:53:58] and living ethically, otherwise the eight fold path. So does that sound like the Jedi dogma doctrine to you? Yeah, I mean, it's it's somewhere in there. I think it's I think that they're. To accept death as a natural part of life is a different

[00:54:18] thing than there is no death, right? And I think that's where I get into issues with the Jedi. Like I think that the Buddhist teachings are more about accepting what you cannot change. And the Jedi's teaching teachings are no, we're going to

[00:54:33] reject some things that we cannot change. So I have to say, I got into the Buddhist philosophy at some point in my adult life because it actually I have an anxiety disorder and it really helped me with it because it just

[00:54:44] the concept of not clinging to things, you know, just kind of letting it's things. Nothing lasts forever. You never you're not going to keep that pair of earrings forever, you're going to lose it. You know, you're not every friendship is going to last forever, things like that.

[00:55:01] And just being able to say, OK, am I just causing myself more harm by clinging to whatever it is that's giving me anxiety at the moment? Yeah, and I think that this idea of, you know, letting go of attachments in in a more healthy way is

[00:55:25] something that you see across religions too. I mean, the Moussar movement of Judaism, I forgot which movement of Christianity is very similar in in tenants to Buddhism. I want to say Francis again, but I could be wrong. But but my point is I think this is something that

[00:55:44] like people around the world have yearned for. Right. The ability to let go and and Buddhism is most known, I think because Buddhism as a as a macro religion, and I know it's debate is Buddhism or religion would Buddhist consider themselves part of a religion or if it,

[00:56:01] you know, anyway, I explain to me that there is a religion, there's a philosophical element. And then there are people who have like a real religious practice of it. Yeah. Although the then that because they would consider it a religion in, you know, those who practice

[00:56:15] it in a religious way, consider it their religion. Yeah, but also that begs the question, do you need a deity to have a religion? Anyway, anyway, I'm not going to get into theology tonight. But my whole point is. I think that this is something.

[00:56:29] But anyway, no, I'm saying if you don't consider your religion, do you need it? Do you need a deity to consider it a religion? Yeah, anyway, anyway, my point is. Because there's a debate whether the Buddha was holy or not, you know, a God or not, or just

[00:56:44] in line person anyway within within Buddhism. Anyway, I'm again, you're pulling me into this the theological discussion that I would love to have. I think that's super fascinating, but this is not that show. Right. But my point is my point is I do think that the

[00:57:01] reason that the Jedi code resonates with people when they watch Star Wars is because it feels like that yearning that people have in the real world that manifests in all these different ways. And I like that. I think that's good writing.

[00:57:16] I just think that the Jedi take it one step too far. Yeah, well, I would counter to what you said before that Star Wars is always an opportunity to talk about Buddhism because George Lucas wants it that way. But I did pull out some some quotes and examples

[00:57:32] from Star Wars history about this idea of attachment to give us a better idea of how different because it does definitely we do see the different characters, you know, they take their own interpretations of it. Right. So during the High Republic era, so set like about

[00:57:48] 100 years before this and actually there's the book The Rising Storm is actually set right after the great hyperspace disaster we talked about this week. I'm reading it right now, actually. Oh, OK, great. Yeah. So I don't know if you got to this part, but Jedi

[00:58:01] Indira Stokes says love experiencing an embracing joy, affection and even grief is part of the light side. However, a Jedi couldn't be a slave of those emotions. See, I like that. That's that's a lot more reasonable than what you just read.

[00:58:21] Well, I mean, but there is like other different people interpreted differently. So in Master and Apprentice, which is a book that's set at the beginning of the fourth era, which is especially about Qui-Gon Jinn, somebody, another Jedi says to Qui-Gon casual sex is not forbidden.

[00:58:37] It's basically like, no, like it's it's OK that I'm sleeping with so and so because, you know, it's casual. It's not like I'm not breaking my attachment. My God. We're really going to do. No strings attached. Well, Qui-Gon is like, no, that's not how it works.

[00:58:57] It's just funny. Like I think of like that wave of early 2000s rom-coms about where like, oh my God, we can finally talk about one night stands in Hollywood. And it just feels like what what Qui-Gon's looking at. He's like, no. Yeah. This is a bad. Yeah.

[00:59:13] But then you have another Jedi given the permission to to have sex and to basically have a family because of the threat of extinction to his species, right? So it is all subjective. Yeah. Yeah, it is Yoda. Yeah. And we have another very prominent character

[00:59:31] says in the prequel trilogy. So someone, his love interest asks him, are you allowed to love? I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi. What does he say? Attachment is forbidden. Wait, I have to put on my best voice. Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden.

[00:59:49] Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love is central to a Jedi's life. So you might say that we are encouraged to love. That is definitely someone looking for a loophole. But dude was trying so hard to get into those chambers, those royal chambers. Yeah.

[01:00:11] I think that Wikipedia has a nice summary on this. They here's one paragraph from there. They say attachment was the inability to accept change as a fundamental characteristic of life, to accept death as a natural part of life, the inability to let go, feeding into fear

[01:00:27] of loss and greed, leading to jealousy. Attachment was selfish, a shadow of greed and thus a path of the dark side of the force. Therefore attachment was forbidden for a Jedi who had to train themselves to let go of everything they were afraid to lose,

[01:00:41] to renounce all attachments. Thus they could be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things, trying to keep them frozen in time, accepting the transitional nature of life. This allowed them to love the totality of life unconditionally without selectively

[01:00:59] choosing individual life forms to become selfishly attached to. This sounds like a lot of explaining away, guys. My counter is that it's hard not to form a parent-child relationship or a sibling relationship given the structure of the master-padawan relationship in the Jedi Order.

[01:01:21] So we see our favorite Jedi failing this particular attachment test over and over again. And Saul is part of that process. And Saul is part of that proud tradition now. And we kind of glazed over before when Marilyn brought up attachment and more brought up attraction, right?

[01:01:40] Attraction in relation to dominance. And to me, I don't think that the show is saying that dominance is attraction. I think Chimere is pulling on lust, which is different from love, right? Chimere is trying to play with lust, whereas the Jedi are OK with love,

[01:02:05] even though they have concerns about attachment. And again, we've talked now ad nauseam about how it's all kind of messed up. Like, it just doesn't make sense. Their whole idea of what attachment does not make sense in practice. And every single generation,

[01:02:21] there are Jedi who struggle with this and kind of disprove that it's a real thing. I mean, yeah, for me, it comes back to I am notoriously religious skeptic. And it comes this for me is always the issue with religions for me, is that, you know,

[01:02:38] there are these absolute rules in a lot of cases that just if you're not flexible about them, they just don't make sense a lot of the time to me. Like you're creating. Because sometimes the Jedi are like that, right? Like sometimes the Jedi are flexible. The wayfinders, right?

[01:02:53] They're not wayfinders. The pathfinders are what they're called. Yeah, the ones who are allowed to go off on their own. Right. Yeah, the way finders. Yeah, sorry, wayfarers are the people who help navigate. Yes, wayfarers. Yeah, all right. You know, get it together, Lucasfilm's books.

[01:03:06] But my point is like sometimes they are really flexible and then other times they're just completely rigid and it does not make sense to me. Yeah, I mean, but I think that that is just how institutions are and how people are.

[01:03:18] And that is exactly what they've been exploring. Well, shall we take a quick break and then come back and dive into the rest of the feedback? Yeah. All right. OK, and we're back. So diving back in, wondering not lost says,

[01:03:56] just watched that was the best episode of Star Wars. I think I've seen my 10 year old disagreed and said it was good, but not that good. He said Ahsoka's storyline and Clone Wars was better. You both have stellar taste. That's all I'll say.

[01:04:11] Yeah. Yeah, that's a great one. Look forward to Ahsoka. Are you going to do Davy Mack? Davy Mack, I love Davy Mack. Great guy all around good guy, Davy Mack. I love how this episode really complicates all parties involved.

[01:04:27] I have no problem believing Torban would be as torn up as he is and even kill himself all these years later. Dude was bored and wanted to go back to Coruscant. And that led him that led to him acting rash and running back to the coven,

[01:04:42] which resulted in the entire coven dying, plus who knows what kind of residual effects Aniseas being in his mind left on him. Kelnaka certainly had become obsessed with spirals after being possessed by the whole coven, or maybe he just read Usamaki.

[01:04:56] I don't know what this is to you. Usamaki? No, I don't know Usamaki. Right in Davy Mack. Yeah, let us know. Davy Mack, by the way, lives in Japan, so. Right, right. But no one comes out of this clean. I guess Kelnaka did the least amount of harm

[01:05:14] and the harm he did do was not of his own volition, though maybe he felt guilty about a whole bunch of people being killed in order for him to live. I also loved the start of this episode and having the Jedi just doing a mundane surveying mission.

[01:05:30] Yeah, yeah, I agree. I loved that. I did like that, that they were just like, yeah, what did the Jedi do when they're not, you know, fighting in battles or whatever, saving the galaxy? They're just out surveying, like, oh, let's let's document this force virgins thing. Right, yeah.

[01:05:48] And what's really sad about Torben especially is that Torben wanted to go back to Coruscant for his relationships, right? To be around people he knew and not isolated anymore. Yeah. And because of his actions, he ends up in a barrage vow and completely isolated from

[01:06:09] other humans or not other humanoids, I should say, this world. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but he isolated. But then like I said before, he picks like a heavily populated place. Like, I would rather do it, Kelnaka style.

[01:06:23] Like, let's just go live in the woods, make some mystery stew and like study animals or whatever. We record the podcast from the woods now. Yes. If I could. OK, Rocky Zinn says, I liked Mother Anisea. Her power seems pretty cool.

[01:06:42] She wanted to let Oshia choose and that is a good thing to do. The Jedi definitely are being exposed for their morals and ways of the order that are not so righteous. Interesting how Saul was so determined to have Oshia as a Padawan. Talman, Talman being Torben,

[01:06:58] was so set to on going back to Coruscant and was manipulated in a way, I think. Yeah, definitely. Not so much by Anisea, but from his perspective on things. I agree. Just weird that Saul was drawn to Oshia so much.

[01:07:12] Was it the force of their that world or their virgins that was driving Saul that way? Also makes sense as to why the four Jedi would be conflicted with their emotions about what happened, trying to move on, covering up a lie that killed so many people.

[01:07:26] I don't think Indira and Dara meant to kill the witches. She was trying to save Kelnaka and the rest was the deaths of those witches. And the result was the deaths of those witches. That fight was great, though, with Kelnaka. Seeing a Wookie Jedi fight was awesome.

[01:07:42] Maybe we can get Biryaga on a live action show or movie with him fighting. So Biryaga is a Wookie Jedi character from the Hyberpublic books. That would be terrifying. A Wookiee who can already rip your arms off with force powers. A Sith Wookiee would be even scarier. Yeah.

[01:08:01] Yeah, I said. I said there's there's a Wookiee who shows up later in the timeline called Chrysanthem, and he's really intimidating. He's not force sensitive, but I would love to see a Sith version like him, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's we don't get enough variety in this.

[01:08:18] I mean, one thing I'll say that this show has let me down a little bit on. OK. Is that. They said it was from a Sith perspective, and I don't know if we've gotten that fully. I don't know if it lived up to that promise.

[01:08:33] OK. Yeah, I know that that's something that Bob has been saying. So Dead Eye Jedi Bob has been doing also weekly breakdowns on his YouTube channel. And that's the one thing he said is that he hoped for more dark side perspective in this show. Yeah.

[01:08:49] I'm going to say there, but it's not prominent. I don't have a problem with that. I'm going to see what happens in the finale. OK. Yeah. Fair enough. You want to take Sub Zero? Sub Zero writes in and says, I really love this episode.

[01:09:05] It filled in a lot of the gaps. I heard some say that they would have preferred episodes three slash seven back to back. But I kind of like the placement, but let's not have any more Eps without Chimera. He was missed. Agreed.

[01:09:23] I don't think any of the four Jedi were evil by any means. I think on balance, they were still more on the good side to varying degrees. History is littered with people who thought they were doing the right thing, but end up causing great harm.

[01:09:35] Intent only takes you so far. Consequences are what truly matters. Soul was definitely flirting with the dark side. He seemed barely in control of his emotions. And the creeper vibe was 100 percent intentional, even down to the way he was skulking around and going

[01:09:51] down on those on those new moat like I'm there's nothing suspicious about that. Yeah, I respect someone with a good appetite. No, I just I just think it's funny because I think you're right. I think you said this. It's like it's like a college vibe.

[01:10:05] Right? Yeah, I'm at the dining hall. This is an all you can do. Muleg buffet. He's like, I got Wookie cooking for me. Yeah, my meal pass is yeah. All right. Great physical acting by LJJ. Soul wanted slash needed a Padawan so bad it was cluttering his judgment.

[01:10:22] I couldn't believe it when he lit his saber after telling Torbin to exercise restraint and just straight up murdered Mother Anisea. He was the most guilty of the bunch. I mean, I see why he at the moment it was like a panic reaction.

[01:10:36] You know, like, I'm going to kill her. It was just like what's going on? Stab and then fear is the past of the dark side. Anyway, yeah. I was wrong about Indara. I thought she would have been the one who tried to rip the kids away,

[01:10:48] but she wanted nothing to do with it. She was in damage control mode the entire episode. That move she made on Killnaka with Street out of the Matrix, so dope. Her telepathy powers were so strong that it broke the bond held by 40 plus witches. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:11:04] So that proves Vernestra that moves Vernestra up the board in terms of who might be Chimera's master and also Mother Coral, who was MIA at the end. Although I never got the vibe that Coral was strong enough or devious enough to be a Sith master.

[01:11:19] She seemed like more of a linear A to B kind of gal. Yeah. Then, oh, sorry. Yeah, you are a respond to that first. Yeah. So I. So it sounds like we're not going to find out what happened with Coral this season.

[01:11:34] That's going to be a season two thing. And I'm wondering if we're not going to. Maybe we should like temper our expectations about finding out who Chimera's master is in the finale because keep again, Chimera wasn't as supposed to be as prominent this season until the undeniable power

[01:11:51] of Manning Jacinto on screen, basically. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I mean, I'm fine with, you know, we all just want like somebody to show up and be like, hey, I'm Tenebrous. But I think we should not expect that in the finale this season.

[01:12:05] Yeah. And then some silly commentaries from Sub Zero. John Lorhound is going to have to revise his song to make did start the fire. Although I have questions about how small a fire like that could make a whole complex blow up.

[01:12:19] Whatever was in that lamp was arson grade accelerant. Yeah. This is why I want another revisit, because I want like more clarity on that. Made it. Thanks. There's a lot to do next week to land this plane. I really hope Leslie and Co know what they're doing.

[01:12:36] The succession with six or eight episodes is baffling to me. I completely agree. You know what? We were at 22. I've recently been like revisiting old shows at 22 episodes. Twenty two is too much. I agree with that. Twenty two is too much. Twelve is good.

[01:12:54] Twelve is good. Ten is good. Eight is too few. I don't know why we went to eight. Yeah, it's a budgeting thing, basically. They're like, OK, well, because this was an super expensive series. I think it costs like 180 million to produce and that wouldn't include

[01:13:09] then marketing costs and all that. So yeah, it's very expensive in there. Basically like, OK, you can that divide that up into eight short episodes. That's where it comes from. It's not like I don't think it's it's definitely not that Leslie Headlin's

[01:13:23] like I don't have more story to tell or I want the episodes to be short and few. It's just the reality of production. And this is this is how now studios plan and budget their shows. Yeah. Yeah. But we get better.

[01:13:40] We get we get better like special effects now. We get more on site location and yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's got an answer, don't they? All right. So Abby says I'm going to say something deeply unpopular, as I know people like him for some reason.

[01:13:58] My soul's visions were correct, but even I didn't think that it's that it was him all along the main culprit, the very bad juju, all the creeping around. So he is so set on wanting a patebon that immediately assumes

[01:14:12] the worst of this family just to justify himself in his actions, not listening to the voice of reason of Indara seems she is only culpable of the hushing up part and maybe the losing control of her colleagues part.

[01:14:24] It would be him in need of feeling a lot of guilt, not Torban, who got roped into going along and basically just tried to stay alive after Saul just shot first without asking any questions, without understanding anything, only jumping to conclusions.

[01:14:38] Mother Coral was another who was all too ready to go on the offense and who manipulated May to do so, too, but wasn't that just their way to protect the Coven? Misguided, sure. And we saw the consequences yet it all goes back to creepy uncle Saul.

[01:14:54] They should have ended up, they should have ended each other and maybe everyone else would have been OK. Damn. Isn't it just good writing though, the tragedy of it all? Kind of everyone is to blame in one way or another.

[01:15:07] They are all reacting according to their personalities and beliefs. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I think Mother Anu Sayak could have communicated better. However, I think that Saul probably is the main culprit. I think that's probably right. I mean, I think that that's what this episode is communicating.

[01:15:31] But it doesn't mean that like he's a bad person for it. He just was he, you know, obviously he wanted a Padawan. And for some reason, you know, he just he saw Oshah and he's like this little girl. She needs me to rescue her.

[01:15:45] Yeah, everything else came secondary to the story he created in his own head, the second he saw her and saw Coral yelling at her. I wonder if he created them in his own head or did someone put it there? Hmm. Hmm.

[01:16:00] Yeah, I mean, so we saw him looking in on he saw the interaction by the Bunta Tree with Oshah and May and he saw Oshah say to May to like basically not torture the jelly fly

[01:16:13] even though Oshah had done it a second before he didn't see that part. So I wonder if that's the moment where he was like, OK, this one who said be nice to the jelly fly. She's my she's my new daughter. May didn't start the fire.

[01:16:30] At least not on purpose. Yeah, Jean. Member of the pod. I almost have a friend of the pod, but member of the pod says, no matter how powerful they were like eight years old when May called out for her mama after the fire was completely out of control.

[01:16:46] That hit me. Children is pawns in the games of adults when Oshah called out for her mom, mama, that hit me. Soul is to blame. Torben got violated and he was still a Padawan. So I understood his actions. But soul, soul was just so nasty.

[01:17:01] Was that a good rendition of? Yeah. Or is it wookie? Is it? Yeah. I still can't do the wookie thing well. The whole. Oh, and that wasn't a good book. Yeah, I'm going to go back. All right, that's a little better. The whole they might be in danger.

[01:17:25] Like, dude, who are you to make such declarations? Who are you to decide that soul? Who gave you the right to question things like you have no understanding of soul? So do we all now still believe that Indara was really killed by May?

[01:17:40] Listening to the pod and I remain staunchly in favor of a rendition of made in start the fire. I think that's what I'm going to go with. I still want didn't because I don't think she started the fire. Right. Made in start the fire.

[01:17:57] I'm just going to say the fire because it's not going to flow off the tongue. Roll off the tongue a little bit. Can I just also say, I think part of the reason that and look soul had confirmation bias from the beginning, but there were some concerning things

[01:18:11] that may said when they were interviewing her for, you know, the Jedi enrollment. And that was largely because she's a kid and she sometimes kids have trouble understanding nuance and statements, right? Like in and she kind of, oh, you sacrifice yourself. Right. Right.

[01:18:30] You have to sacrifice a part of yourself. Yeah. Right. Right. And and that's I could see a Jedi saying something like that, right? Like sacrifice part of yourself to the Jedi order. But this is this is just a case of he hears something and he's like,

[01:18:46] Oh, I see a giant pit and I see a girl saying she's going to sacrifice herself. Right. She might be in danger. I don't think that that's a completely unreasonable conclusion to come to. I don't think the reaction should be climb a fucking wall.

[01:18:58] A mountain and break in. Yeah. Yeah. I think he like you said, Alicia, he should have just knocked on the door and been like, all right, look, she says she wants to sacrifice herself for peace of mind.

[01:19:08] Can we just observe the ceremony to make sure you're not about to like kill these kids? Right. Or even just before that, before they broke in in the first place, just be like, Hey, so we're just like around here doing some work.

[01:19:20] Can we come in and talk to you? Can we talk to you about our savior, the midichlorians? Right. It's a problem. Yeah. So yeah, Marilyn also this is not in response to Jean specifically, but Marilyn said on the

[01:19:36] on the discord and I thought that this was a good one. How about no one is to blame though everyone is responsible? Everyone started the fire. Everyone started the fire. Doesn't roll off the tongue either. Yeah. We're going to have to go with May.

[01:19:52] All right. So Paradis says, I'm not ready to just chuck Saul and the rest of the Jedi into terrible, awful people pot. And I think people would do well to remember this show is trying to show the gray of it all.

[01:20:05] So Saul did think the children were in danger and perhaps rightfully so. We still don't know what exactly was going to happen. The actual Jedi Council said, nah, leave them alone before finding out about the quote unquote twins origin.

[01:20:19] If it wasn't for realizing they are part of or possibly origin of the virgins and Torben rushing off to the coven, Saul may have been reigned in. He didn't look ready to rush into it until he was told to chase after Torben.

[01:20:33] I do wonder if he's gone with Kalnaka instead of I do wonder if he had gone with Kalnaka instead instead, how things would have turned out. So just pausing there for a second. I. Yeah, so we did get clarity and I think that this was properly conveyed to

[01:20:49] that they are not the origin of the virgins. The origin of the virgins is like whatever that whole is that the witches are praying for, right? Right. A giant hole. Yeah. But they're definitely they were their creation was definitely enhanced by the power of that virgins. Yeah.

[01:21:07] Yeah, I agree, though, that Torben it's all wouldn't assault already crossed some lines, but the final lines that were crossed for they were started by Torben rushing off to be like, oh, I can solve the problem right now and go home.

[01:21:22] But I also think that Mother Anasea she kind of what she did to Torben by possessing him before that and like playing on his desires, his homesickness, she kind of set that up by accident. Yeah, she did help goad the situation to existence.

[01:21:40] Yeah. So Parody says, don't think the final confrontation happens if soul didn't have to chase down Torben. Torben also ignited his saber first, if I recall correctly. To be honest, couldn't tell 100 percent what happened between soul and Mother Anasea.

[01:21:54] He seemed confused himself with how he killed her once she turned into the smoke monster still left with a lot of questions and not a lot of solid answers. Yeah. Yeah, I hope more I hope more answers are coming. Not through flashback. I could I could get look.

[01:22:09] Bring all the flashbacks. You can you can have well flashback to like flashback to the pregnancy in the middle of the episode. Yeah, you can have one more flashback of that night, though. You're permitted one more. I love it.

[01:22:22] You can have as many as you need to tell the story you want to tell. No, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think I write the show now. Do you want to do moisture? Farmer says, mind transference, creating life using the force of virgins,

[01:22:36] all things that track very closely with Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, or at least their interest in it. Maybe the Sith become entangled because they're also studying virginses. Find out about the coven and what they can do and pursue it themselves. De Plague funny.

[01:22:55] Darth Plagueis friends call him. That's yeah. Yeah. Hey, De Plague. He figures out midichlorian manipulation. Sid figures out. Sid. This is funny. Sid figures out. OK, we have to edit some of this. You bleep that right out.

[01:23:22] So basically, we're talking about the line of Sith that continues from here. If so, we've already talked about Plagueis might be a Sith that's Plagueis is a Sith that emerges in exactly this era, an important one

[01:23:35] and then takes on later Darth Sidious, who is the main Sith of the next era. And then, yeah, we've talked about the fact that there are there's a forced dyad storyline. Right. I think the Jedi, just as Torben said, thought they were doing the right thing.

[01:23:54] I can see the hater internet going on all week about the Jedi being evil and soul being horrible, blah, blah, blah. I think they all seem to be doing what they thought was right at the time.

[01:24:03] Soul was a little too emotional for a Jedi, especially a fully trained one. Wookiee P.D. says that a virgin's in the force can sometimes warp force sensitive people's connections to the force and their abilities.

[01:24:15] So I wonder if that's an ingredient in this bowl of fubar stool, stew, stool, stew. Also, I thought it was kind of ironic that Torben wanted to go home because he was so bored and then ended up taking the barrage vow

[01:24:30] in silent meditation for 10 plus years or whatever it was. Yeah, that's exactly what I said before. That's maturity, I guess. And then you kill yourself. No, that's not maturity. Open questions for finale. How did May survive the fall? What happened to Mother Coral?

[01:24:46] When, how and why does Chimere become involved? Vrnestra, how does she know? When did she find out? I'm sorry, what does she know? When did she find out? Was she keeping helping keep it from the council? Is she secret sith, et cetera? How were the twins created?

[01:25:03] Why are they one consciousness in two bodies? How does that work? Witch Coven, more info, please. Why were they exiled? What is their name? Where are they from, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? What is unknown planet and why keep the name a secret from viewers?

[01:25:23] Well, I can already tell you that we're not going to get the answers to some of these questions. We are definitely, we are promised the answers to how the twins were created and what is the nature of their creation.

[01:25:35] But we already know, yes, it's one consciousness in two bodies. They clarified that this episode, how that works and how they're created. That's been promised in the finale. I hope there's more information about the witch Coven. Would be great to see how May survived the fall.

[01:25:49] But some of this is definitely waiting for next season. Like, I don't think we're going to find out what happened to Mother Coral until next season. I don't know if we're going to see May and Chimere meet this season. That might be one for next season.

[01:26:02] So, I mean, yeah, just we have to keep in mind that they have a particular mystery that they're setting up for this season, which is pretty much what happened that night and like who were these twins? What is the nature of these twins?

[01:26:17] And then I think stuff like who Chimere's master is, like I said, I think that that's going to be a season two thing. Fair enough. Fair enough. And that's just off the top of my head. I don't think they can answer all those in a single finale episode.

[01:26:30] And if they answer only one, which ones are most pressing? I'm concerned there's going to be too much unresolved. Headlin has said she doesn't like to keep big mysteries hanging between seasons. I'm less optimistic this week than last

[01:26:43] that they'll be able to wrap this up in a satisfactory way. I really hope they do. I like the show and I want non-Skywalker saga content to continue getting made. I want a strong series.

[01:26:52] Plus, I want to know exactly how old Monday is to this to the day. Otherwise, I'm going to buy it. I mean, we don't even exactly know how old Vardesta is. I guess we do actually. No, we do know that because we know when she was born.

[01:27:08] Yeah, I mean, Keaadi. Yeah, let's see how long the Syrians live. Tell us next season. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. So we the rest of it is about spoiler gates. So I hope that this is a discussion that people are finding interesting.

[01:27:27] I'm finding it an interesting discussion because, you know, it's just a good reminder that, you know, there's a diversity of opinions in this audience, even though we're all here because we want to know more about Star Wars and explore this.

[01:27:41] We see that there's a variety of perspectives and experiences. So yeah, I find this very interesting. So, OK. The first is from. So this was on Twitter from a tech funk dub and tech funk dub says,

[01:27:56] just my two cents, I do feel the spoiler rules on Acolyte are a bit draconian. However, as you seem to love just about every IP I do and you do such a good coverage when you get into the lower,

[01:28:06] I am not at all concerned and won't stop listening. OK, well, thank you for that feedback and for the compliment. I like that it almost went to only a sit deals in absolute. But it really really got into some more nuance there.

[01:28:19] So thank you. Oh, it's my turn. Yeah. Hubert, firstly, I feel horrible. I left a three star review out of spoiler free frustration. I do however appreciate you addressing my feedback and you're absolutely right. You cover Acolyte the same way as hot D.

[01:28:36] But when John mentions things and then gets believed, I feel like I am OSHA and Master Soul is never going to tell me what's going on. Anyhow, I get the format and I appreciate the work that you put into coverage.

[01:28:48] Yeah, so I said that I would I wrote back and said that I would reveal the bleeps as much as I can that I could think of. And so I'm thinking I can remember four. I don't know if you have any to add to this pile.

[01:29:00] The first one was one of our was maybe the very first episode. And the bleep was I don't even remember what it was about. I remember at the time thinking like this is not such a important thing.

[01:29:10] Like it's not such a huge spoiler, but it was funny to do the bleep just to kind of introduce the concept. So sorry about that. If that frustrated anyone, like I said, I don't remember exactly what it was about.

[01:29:20] But I do remember that you said Obi-Wan and I remember that because that's what you call your son on the podcast. Yeah. The second one. I can't remember if I bleep this or just took it out.

[01:29:31] But it was actually it wasn't even a Star Wars spoiler at all. It was a Wheel of Time spoiler. And you were comparing a character from the Wheel of Time to, you know, a dogmatic character who might not be Darkseid. In this show.

[01:29:46] And I didn't I took it out because it's a character who's going to play a prominent role in season three, and I didn't want of Wheel of Time. And so I didn't want to have a lot of Wheel of Time listeners.

[01:29:56] So the third bleep I remember is last week when you said something about a blind Jedi, you said their name and I bleep the name and then said afterwards that was about a blind Jedi.

[01:30:08] And I think I was actually protecting most of the audience listening on that one because I will be straightforward about that. That is not from a live action thing, the character you're referring to. So if you don't know who the blind Jedi is and know we're not talking

[01:30:23] about the monk who appears in live action, who is a guardian of the wheel, not a Jedi, then if you don't know that, then that is that is part of one of the most satisfying story character arcs in all of Star Wars.

[01:30:37] And I think because it's not live action, a lot of people don't know it yet. So I am if you don't know who it is already, then you are who I'm protecting on that. Just as for.

[01:30:51] I did it really long so that you could do a nice long bleep on me. And lots of lightsaber sounds. And then I also this week, I bleeps myself for saying the name of a character in a soca and someone who listens to punk music.

[01:31:06] If you don't know who that is, don't worry about it. But I basically like when it comes to titles like a soca or there's another TV show called Obi-Wan, like I'm not going. There's an inherent spoiler in that.

[01:31:16] I'm not going to pretend that a soca is not in a soco. Or maybe it's all about her force ghost. But I will try to protect like the identities of other characters that show up because I don't want you to know who does or doesn't die

[01:31:29] in stories before that things like that. Yeah. And so those are the four that I remember. I don't know. Do you remember any others? I don't remember. Well, I don't I rarely listen to podcasts that I've recorded

[01:31:41] because then I have to listen to my own voice and I have to cringe. Yeah, OK. But yeah, I hope that the flashback episode, this was written before the flashback episode. I hope that that scratched the itch for you in getting the answer from Saul finally.

[01:31:57] And and, Hubert, thank you for the self-reflection. And, you know, your opinions are valid and valued no matter how many stars they come with. Yeah, no. Like I said, last time I do really appreciate the weighing in. I appreciate the diversity of opinions.

[01:32:12] I also want to thank NVMCB, Puck Gremlin and Mark A, who left really nice reviews this week. I've read them. I really appreciate them. Not quoting them because they didn't specifically bring up the spoiler policy. But yeah, that really helps when when people leave

[01:32:31] reviews saying that they're enjoying it and it helps other listeners to find it. So yeah, it's lame, I know, for podcasters to be like, please don't leave negative reviews. But it is appreciated when you email the negative feedback just because

[01:32:45] I'll be perfectly honest. I'm trying to build an audience. So yeah, and there there is something about Star Wars that brings up the negative reviews. Right. Like I've said this for a while, like our Star Wars podcast has our Star Wars specific feeds on the warhounds

[01:33:01] has by far the lowest average rating. And I don't think that we cover Star Wars any worse than any other shows. And I just think that it's it's so funny that we Star Wars is so great on a curve.

[01:33:14] Well, I know that I mean there was there were people who were like just leaving one stars for anything that said acolyte and that happened to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast as well. Like I noticed it says acolyte in the title for SDR reasons.

[01:33:26] And yeah, there were just like there was just a really a bad on the on the warhounds. You know, I'll say that. OK, on this case, yeah, there was suddenly there was like a batch of one star ratings.

[01:33:37] I'm like, well, I have a feeling I know what that's about. I'm not going to take it personally. There was people didn't leave reviews. Yeah, it's really weird. Like even on the warhounds YouTube channel, because we just auto post all our

[01:33:47] podcast as you know, basically just thumbnail videos on YouTube. And it's just funny, like somebody comment, they were like, this Star Wars is terrible. And I was like, I don't make it, buddy. If we just talk about it. Yeah. What do you what do you think?

[01:34:05] You think Leslie Headlin is browsing the reviews of this podcast? Yeah, exactly. Bob Iger is going to suddenly be like, you know, what, you know, the warhounds podcast is doing poorly in the ranking. So I just have to cancel. I'm going to stop making Star Wars.

[01:34:19] Yeah. Make Star Wars more white because the warhounds they're going down in their rankings. So I just I'm going to shout out to the two other reviews that were left. And they said did say something about the spoiler policy.

[01:34:36] So first John G four, that's a five star review. Thank you so much. Said I love this podcast, especially how the spoiler rules almost make it its own story. Keep it up. So just for the balance of things.

[01:34:46] And then Ryuko 098 left a four star review and ended it with PS. I don't feel strongly either way about the unique spoiler policy, but it's a cool concept to see the stories from their perspectives without rehashing all the more well known stories from the imperial era

[01:35:04] and gives us an interesting perspective. So cool, smiley face. Now, nice range of opinions. You want to take the next one? Sure. Matthew F says, I didn't want to leave a negative review that would impact your search rankings.

[01:35:17] But I have to say I think that per the negative review, the strict spoiler policy really does a disservice to an otherwise very enjoyable podcast. I would strongly suggest that you allow knowledge of the main line movies to be discussed.

[01:35:29] It's just so awkward to maintain the conceit that the viewers don't know the basic core plot. It really distracts from otherwise fantastic content in my experience. Of course, tastes can vary. So this is just one data point. Thanks for producing fun content and being a positive voice

[01:35:44] in the fan community. I mean, yeah. So the spoiler policy, I think no one was complaining about this until we did the Lorhounds crossover. And I think that that is the main thing is it's mostly people. I mean, someone, you know, correct me if I'm misrepresenting you.

[01:36:01] But for a lot of people, I think it was a surprise that something was being covered in the Lorhounds feed that way. Whereas in the Star Wars, Ken and Timeline podcast is just inherent to the structure of the podcast, to like the point of why I'm

[01:36:16] doing this podcast this way. Yeah, I get you. Well, I also think it's the first like on screen thing that you're talking about on this too, right? Right. Well, yeah, like young Jedi adventures, nobody is watching. Yeah. Mm hmm.

[01:36:28] So right. So, you know, when you when people are excited to talk about a new thing, they're like, oh, I want to talk about all the things I know. Right. And so that might be the reason that suddenly it came out of the woodwork.

[01:36:38] But, you know, to compare it, you know, hot D is one thing. But to compare it to something that I think is even a closer analog is rings of power. Like we know what happens in that whole second story.

[01:36:48] And if you go back to our rings of power coverage, which I kind of want to reduce season one because I didn't know how to podcast back then. But even even on season two, I know my plan is I know a lot about

[01:36:59] what's going to happen and I'll talk about what happened in the Lord of the Rings. But I'm not going to talk about the other stuff that happened in the second age. I don't want to talk. I don't want to spoil things that might happen in the show.

[01:37:08] Right. Yeah. And that's yeah, that's that's kind of the idea. And I think it's going to get a lot easier too. Once we get into the next era and we're talking about Anakin, I said the name

[01:37:17] Anakin and some people are going to be less eager about like, why aren't you talking about Anakin? Which we are. We're talking about Anakin's Midichlorian Jesus. That's yeah, I told you that's how he enters the story. I acknowledge the existence of this important character.

[01:37:34] We're going to talk a lot about I'm not going to bring up what happens with him until we get there because I just think it's more fun to like take a moment and look at the current place we are.

[01:37:47] I think you can get Matt Lanner for an interview. I believe in you. That would be cool. All right. So Moisture Farmer says listening to the new Epnau and the discussion of feedback about not mentioning characters, events, etc., that haven't happened yet.

[01:38:03] I was mixed on that initially, but likening it to book reader versus viewer for things like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings makes a ton of sense to me. I think my resistance was primarily who doesn't know who Luke, Ryoto or Vader are.

[01:38:17] These things are so pervasive in pop culture. If you're listening to this, you have a passing familiarity. Stop being coy, laughing emoji, goofy face emoji. But I am not a reader of George R. Martin or Robert Jordan and immensely enjoy those shows.

[01:38:33] So Robert Jordan is is a wheel of time and George R. Martin obviously Game of Thrones, Dance of Dragons House of the Dragons. Groom and I support his right to say how many legs a dragon has in his books. Anyway, recent blog post.

[01:38:50] Moisture Farmer says my enjoyment has been enhanced considerably for the House of the Dragon and Wheel of Time podcast, especially by Lorehounds with Wheel of Time for what it's worth. And it might not have been if it was full of open acknowledgement of plot

[01:39:04] and character moments yet to come. Just wanted to say I appreciated both the listener's feedback and your openness to it with the discussion. It helped me better understand my own point of view with a reminder about the importance of diversity of opinion and how it can further

[01:39:18] our understanding and enjoyment of all this great content, kudos. And then T-A-T-M-A-I-T-M. There are too many acronyms in this message, LOL. Initialisms. Yeah, for the record, by the way, we have talked about Yoda a lot. He's already 700, more than 700 by the time of the Acolyte. So he's around.

[01:39:42] Yeah. Anyone who wants to know more about Yoda species, we go into that, especially in the Young Jedi Adventures episodes. And we're definitely going to be talking about Yoda and Yaddle in the episodes, which you may have already listened to if you're listening to this later,

[01:39:55] where we break down the different phases of the hyper public books. But yeah, Luke and Vader aren't alive yet at this point. So we can say those names. Those are characters people might have heard of, but we won't spoil their stories yet.

[01:40:08] And yeah. And thank you for the Wheel of Time love. Yay. Next season, you actually get to hear me. I'm being released from the White Tower dungeon. I think David is from what I've heard from him. I don't think he's interested in covering season three,

[01:40:23] but I'll let him I'll let him decide as we get closer. Yeah. In 2026. All right. You want to take the last one? Oh, no, I scrolled up. I've made a huge mistake. All right. Here we go. Caitlin. Hi, Alicia and John.

[01:40:40] I am a newish Lorhounds fan and I am an even newer Star Wars fan. I found the Lorhounds while looking for Wheel of Time content and have been a listener ever since. Well, thank you, Caitlin. It's so nice to see people coming in for Wheel of Time.

[01:40:53] It's a smaller community, but it is a hearty one. It is a passionate community. Yeah. I'm emailing in response to some of the spoiler feedback you've gotten in particular, in particular, the feedback that said, do you really think people are watching Acolyte

[01:41:09] without having watched the rest of Star Wars or something to that effect? Well, I am here to say that I am literally that person after dating a Star Wars super fan for four years. I have finally just watched all nine main movies.

[01:41:21] I started May 4th, 2024 and finished June 30th, 2024. I have seen zero other Star Wars content until now. Acolyte is my first live watch and it was released on June 4th, 2024. So yes, I was in fact watching Acolyte without having seen all the main movies.

[01:41:39] I realized that I'm probably an extremely small minority and that most people have already seen Star Wars by the year 2024. Either way, I really appreciate the spoiler restrictions as someone who hasn't seen most of the franchise. I love the amount of lore provided and I find it digestible

[01:41:53] and interesting even as a new fan. I tried to listen to other podcasts that felt a bit careless and even elitist in a way, though I do not expect other podcasts to cater to us very few newbies. I really appreciate the way you structure your structure helps those

[01:42:09] who are just starting our journey. Best, Caitlin. Vindication. Yes, that certainly take your victory lap elitia before I continue. Well, no, I mean, I just want to say that I know it might be a minority, but I know other people who are in the same boats as Caitlin.

[01:42:29] And I've been surprised by people who I'm like, wait, you don't even know the major twist in like the original trilogy, you know? And I'm surprised how many people that is true for. And I find myself feeling almost jealous of that perspective.

[01:42:46] Like what would it be like to experience this story from a fresh perspective from the beginning even? And that's one of the main reasons why I really wanted to do this podcast. And this is one of the things that inspired this policy

[01:43:01] is because I know that these these people do exist, although this is not like I said, it's not the only reason why I want to look at things from this present timeline. I know, Caitlin, you're not alone. Several thousand people downloaded our last accolade episode.

[01:43:18] And when I think about this, you can't assume that all of those people are super fans like you, you know, like, you know, the people I'm talking to the people who are writing and saying like, well, everybody knows this.

[01:43:31] I just think that you can't assume that everyone's as committed a fan as you. And, you know, there's a lot. There's a whole generation that saw the sequel trilogy and nothing else, right? Because they went and they went, oh, this sounds like a cool franchise

[01:43:45] when they went in, but maybe they didn't go back, maybe because they were disappointed by the last movie. And but maybe they didn't go back and they didn't watch the original trilogy. Guys, it was in 1977. How many other movies from 1977 have you watched recently?

[01:43:58] Yeah. That's all I'm saying is I do think that there's a bit of original trilogy centrism. That is not necessarily true for everybody. It is true for a lot of the fandom, but I don't think that you can say it's universal.

[01:44:13] And so I appreciate this take that, you know, it's not not everybody has already seen everything, especially the animated stuff. My God, I mean, so many people have not watched the animated stuff where most of the lore is on screen. Exactly. Yeah.

[01:44:27] And some of the greatest story arcs. So we got a reference to, I mean, I said, I did say openly, Ahsoka has a good reference story arc in the Clone Wars. I think that's fine to say, but I'm not going to tell you

[01:44:37] right goes blind in a different series, you know, because that's a spoiler. Yeah. Right. Just is for. All right, I won't do it again. I won't make you believe it again. But yeah, if you've skipped the books, if you've skipped the animated series, then you are also missing

[01:44:53] some really cool lore, but we're going to fix that together. If for those of you who are listening to the Stowers, Ken and Timeline podcast. Yeah, maybe if I if I can elbow my way into this phase to higher public books. Well, yeah, no, that's something actually

[01:45:07] that is something I want to set up for the near future. It's going to be an upcoming flashback episode. So are you going to do phase two first? Yes. OK. All right. Because that chronologically happens first. Fair enough. Yeah.

[01:45:19] OK, well, we'll keep the outro short since not much has changed since a few days ago. So get your full House of the Dragon cover done the Lorehounds and prepped for Ring to Power on rings and rituals.

[01:45:31] And it sounds like we're getting a season wrap up of the boys on Radio Act of Ramling soon. Yep. Yeah. On the Stowers, Ken and Timeline podcast. Do check out the Canon Ancient Myths episode. Oh, and I did get feedback today from Adam.

[01:45:47] Thank you. So he said that he did is not get notifications on podcast addict either, which is the app that I use. And just I don't know. You might have to turn it on a podcast addict. I have mine set up to auto refresh every eight hours.

[01:46:00] And so when it does that, I get a notification that says all the episodes that have been released in the past eight hours, even if they're backdated. So I don't know. OK. But that's yeah, that's just one thing. So I but I've decided that, like I said,

[01:46:13] that is clearly not how this works on most podcast players. So I'm going to try it a different way this week at the before the next episode of the Akalai comes out. Watch out for a Star Wars Visions,

[01:46:28] Sith Legends episode where I'm joined by two of my besties. One is a professional animator and the other is a Sith lover. And we're going to talk about we're actually going to talk about three of the episodes from that International Animated Anthology

[01:46:41] series that are set in the Old Republic. And then we're also doing a separate episode. We're going to record them at the same time, but we're going to separate them into two episodes. But we're talking about two more that are set during the High Republic era.

[01:46:54] And these are legends, of course, but there's some cool stuff to pick out of them. And yeah, see the show notes for information about which episodes are being covered. And then we'll see everyone next week for the finale. May be many minutes long. I'm sure it will be.

[01:47:10] Well, maybe not the episode, but our coverage will be. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for all of you who are listening through to this point. It's been some great discussion. Thank you to everyone whose weight in positive or negative about about the spoiler policy about the episode.

[01:47:27] We really like John said earlier, this is the type of Star Wars discourse that we want, you know? Yeah, and only a Sith deals in absolutes. You can you can have nuanced feedback too. It's OK. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[01:47:39] And thank you to this awesome community for showing us that. Absolutely. All right. Well, we will see you all. I mean, I guess I'll see you on the Star Wars Ken and Timeline podcast in just a few days with that Star Wars Visions episode.

[01:47:53] And then we'll see you back in all the feeds for the finale wrap up just one more episode. All right. See you on the other side. See you. OK, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black?

[01:48:31] John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting. I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod.

[01:48:49] But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons.

[01:49:04] And with the season pass option and Supercast, listeners can get early, ad free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week

[01:49:17] for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of Dragon Lore, a heart and conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire

[01:49:29] and blood by George R. R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.